R. Salvatore - Echoes of the Fourth Magic

“The Silver Mage,” Del replied easily, no longer afraid of the intentions of the noble Eldar.

“Of course.” Arien laughed. “For his condition.”

“Could you tell me where to find him?” Del asked.

Arien walked over to a window on the northern wall and pointed to a crack high up on the cliff face.

“Beyond that break in the mountain wall lies Brisen-ballas, the tower of the Silver Mage,” he said. “You will find him there, I expect.”

“How do I get way up there?” Del asked, scanning the unscalable mountainside.

“There is a stair,” Arien replied with a chuckle. “But you must search it out carefully, for it is invisible to the eyes of all but Ardaz.”

Del’s expression reflected his obvious doubts.

“I do not jest with you,” Arien insisted. “The stair is truly there. And fear it not, for it runs solid straight and without a break, without a devilish trap built in. You must hurry, though, for the shadows grow long and you mustn’t miss Luminas ey-n’ abraieken.”

“What’s that?”

“You shall see tonight,” Arien answered, smiling. “Go now, and quickly.”

Del glanced all around, then bowed awkwardly. “See you,” he said, finding no appropriate words, and feeling stupid the moment he spoke. He bowed again and rushed for the door, but stopped when he reached it and turned back to regard Arien, who was still at the window. “One more thing,” he announced.

Arien turned to acknowledge, and Del was rendered speechless for a moment. Half of the elf-king’s face shone in the last rays of the day, streaming through the window, while the other half lay darkened in shadow. A fitting image of the paradox of the elves, Del thought. The same unresolvable conflict he saw within the eyes of Erinel, a mixture of the light sparkle of joyous innocence and the dark shadows of profound sadness.

“Why did Erinel get so upset when I called him elf?” Del asked. From within the depths of the twilight shadows, Arien’s eyes glowered and Del quickly qualified the term. “It’s not an insult.”

Arien seemed satisfied that Del meant no harm. “Elf,” he said with a great sigh, his voice mellow, almost subdued. “It is an old word; a name branded upon the firstborn of my race by the Calvans of Pallendara who sought our destruction.”

Del noted how the Eldar’s jaw clenched with the undeniable pain of the legacy of his people, and Del, too, felt the sincere sorrow of his new friend. He mumbled an apology quietly and opened the door to leave.

“Wait!” Arien called. Del turned back to find that the anger and sadness had cleared from Arien’s face. “Elf,” Arien said again, in a louder, more affirmative voice. “From your not unkind lips, it is not such a bad word. You, DelGiudice, may call me elf, and my people elves,” he declared with a broad smile. “So say I, and so shall it be done.”

“I am honored, Lord Arien Silverleaf, Eldar of Lochsilinilume!” returned Del with due respect. He bowed low and slipped from the room, setting out to find the hidden tower of the Silver Mage.

Del wove his way through the curious glances of many elves to the base of the northern wall, noting with relief that almost all of the looks he received were friendly. Ryell’s angry comments had made him unsure of the elves’ feelings toward him and his companions, but any worries were dispelled by the time he neared the wall. Half doubting, but filled with anticipation, he worked along the stone in search of the invisible path. His shin cracked into something hard, something very tangible.

“No kidding,” he gasped as he eagerly felt along the unseen object. Indeed, it seemed to be a staircase.

He started up, cautiously testing each subsequent step before trusting his full weight to it, and hugging the visible mountain wall. He had to climb less than seventy feet, but it took him a long time to ascend that unnerving stair. Normally Del wasn’t afraid of heights, but he couldn’t escape the logic that overruled his heartfelt desire to believe in the magic. His eyes told him that he was standing in midair and should be falling.

He was relieved when he reached the entrance to Ardaz’s home. It had seemed no more than a split in the stone from below, but now Del saw that the left wall was actually a few feet back from the ledge, and overlapped behind the right to form a corridor. The passage went just a short distance and turned a sharp corner, and Del found himself in a small, circular glade carpeted with the same thick grass as the valley floor. High stone walls surrounded it, keeping it ever in shadowy dimness though it was open to the sky. In the west end stood a small telvensil, and carved into the north wall, like a gigantic bas relief, was a singular mica-strewn tower with two thin windows flickering from the firelight within like the watching eyes of a dragon.

The tower’s great wooden door was banded by silver and decorated with the carvings of many arcane runes. Even as Del admired its craftsmanship, it banged open and out hopped a wiry old man in a dark blue robe and a broad silver belt. A great and pointed wizard’s cap-much too large for him-kept flopping forward over his hairless face, leaving only his long nose and his mouth, which was constantly in motion, uncovered. He kept thrusting his hands into the countless pockets of his garment, and he grew ever more flustered as his searches brought forth roots and herbs, frogs and snakes, even an occasional bat, all of which he tossed aside with a frustrated stamp of his booted foot. He seemed to be addressing the silver tree with his unbroken stream of words, and his volume increased with his excitement.

“Desdemona, Desdemona, where is it? Oh, where? Oh, where? I know I had it-I did, I know I did, but where has it got to? Did you take it? I bet you did, you silly puss. Love to tease me, don’t you?”

“Rrow, meow,” came a reply from the tree. Following the sound, Del discovered a smiling black cat relaxing on a branch, licking its paws.

“Oh, don’t tell me that!” the old man rambled. “You beastly tease! I know you did it. I should, you know I might, turn your tail into a mouse, ha-ha, and watch you chase it in circles forever and ever and ever. Wouldn’t like that a bit, would you, Desdemona? No, no, not a bit, I dare say! Ha-ha!”

“That’s Shakespeare,” Del interrupted.

The old man froze in his tracks and grasped the brim of his hat in both hands. Slowly he slid it back over his pale blue eyes and gaped at Del. “What?” he asked.

“Shakespeare,” Del repeated. The old man’s face remained twisted in astonishment. “The name, I mean. Desdemona was a character in Shakespeare.”

“Shakespeare?” the old man mumbled, scratching his chin and rolling his eyes as if trying to recall something. Del remembered then that Shakespeare was a writer of a different age, a long-forgotten time. He tried to think of a way he could explain it to the old man without totally confusing him, but it was the old man’s turn to surprise Del.

“Shakespeare!” he exclaimed. “Oh, yes! Oh, yes, the Bard, the Bard! A jolly old chap, don’t you agree? Why, yes, yes, Othello actually, and a strange bird-”

The cat growled.

“Sorry, Des,” the old man said. “And a strange cat she was, you know. Don’t you agree?”

Del stood dumbfounded.

“Well, don’t you? A strange cat, eh?”

“Who?” Del asked.

“Why, Desdemona… yes, yes, we were talking about her, weren’t we? She was a strange cat, she was, she was, but then, ha-ha, they all are, I daresay, I do daresay!

“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter, no, no. But where, oh, where did I put it? You don’t have it, do you? No, of course you don’t! I don’t even know you, how could you-” He stopped short and bounded over to Del, the jerky movements again dropping his hat down to the tip of his nose. He didn’t bother to lift it; he just tilted his head back and peeked at the stranger from under the brim. “Who are you?”