Terry Brooks - The Elves of Cintra

Then he started forward, the blue Elfstones held out before him like a talisman.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT caught Kirisin Belloruus completely by surprise. As he stepped onto the dragon's tongue, across the front row of teeth and into the mouth itself, everything behind him disappeared. Simralin, the cavern cham–ber with its stalactites and layers of ice, and even the smallest hint of light vanished as if they had never been.

The boy stopped where he was, barely across the threshold of the great mouth, and looked back in disbelief He swung his solar torch in a wide arc, seeking to penetrate the darkness, but he might as well have been pointing it at a blank wall. The powerful beam failed to reveal anything beyond the inside of the mouth. He shone it ahead, into the dragon's throat, and was surprised all over again. Unlike before, when Simralin had tried unsuccessfully with hers, his solar torch shone down a darkened corridor, deep into the interior of the dragon. The corridor was ridged and cored out like an animal's throat, but he could not de–termine where it led.

Presumably, into the beast's stomach, he thought. Where he might end up as dinner.

But he preferred to think that this was where he would find the Loden. He considered briefly stepping back across the dragon's teeth, but the idea of going back at this point seemed wrong. What if he couldn't get back inside again? Now that he was here, he should con–tinue on and see what would happen.

He started ahead, walking carefully, making sure he was on solid footing. He need not have worried. The tunnel or throat was as solid as the rock of the caves outside. But he noticed that it wasn't as cold in here, as if the dragon was alive and kept warm by its body heat. That prospect was too troublesome for him to consider for long, and so he pushed ahead into the blackness.

He walked for a long time–much longer than should have been possible. The corridor twisted and turned, and that didn't seem possi–ble, either. Now and again he could hear a rumbling sound, the sort that a big animal makes. He tried not to think about it. He tried not to think about anything but what he was trying to do, putting one foot in front of the other, keeping an eye out for what might be wait–ing ahead.

He also tried not to think about the fact that he didn't seem to be getting anywhere. Despite all his walking, everything around him looked exactly the same.

Then abruptly, his torch went out, and he was left standing in com–plete blackness.

For a moment, he just stood there, not quite believing what had happened. He worked the power switch back and forth a few times and slapped the light's casing with the palm of his hand. Nothing. He experienced a moment of sheer panic, but quickly fought it down. He hung the solar torch back on his belt and was starting to reach for one of his flares when he suddenly had an idea. Impulsively, he held out the blue Elfstones; using what he had learned from the other times he had done so, he called up their magic.

Blue light flared in his fist and filled the corridor ahead. To his sur–prise, it didn't seek out the Loden as he had thought it would. Instead, it simply brightened the corridor enough for him to continue on. He did so, following its steadily advancing wash into the ice dragon's throat.

The minutes clicked by, too many to count, time an intangible he could not measure.

Then without warning the tunnel ended and he was standing in a chamber that might have been a cave or the dragon's stomach or an–other world entirely. It didn't look quite like anything he had ever seen or even imagined. The moment he stepped into it, light exploded all around him, coming from the floor, the ceiling, and the walls, envelop–ing everything in its white luminescence. It felt as if he were standing at the very center of the light; he could see nothing of anything else.

Except for the stone pedestal that appeared suddenly right in front of him and the Loden Elfstone resting upon it.

It wasn't difficult to know what he was looking at. He had already seen it in the visions shown him by the blue Elfstones. But even beyond that, he would have known. It was so distinctive that it couldn't have been anything else. It rested in the cradle of a tripod formed entirely of white fire, its facets gleaming. The fire snaked about the Stone in rip–pling bands, licking at it with flames that shone as bright as bursts of sunlight, their look smooth and unblemished, clear evidence of the magic that generated them.

Kirisin walked forward tentatively, got to within a few feet of the pedestal, and stopped. He had come to take the Loden back with him. But what would happen when he tried to do that? The Gotrin witches had placed the Stone within the dragon to keep it safe. Would the magic that they had created to ward it permit him to interfere? The blue Elfstones had allowed him to find the Loden, but he could not be certain they were meant to give him possession, as well. It might be that something more was required, some other demonstration of his right to claim it.

He had no idea what that something might be.

He stood there for a long time, trying to decide what to do, aware of time slipping away. He watched the white fire twist about the Stone protectively, and he didn't think it would be a good idea to put his hand in that fire. He didn't think anyone was meant to do that. He needed to find a way to block the fire, to make it go away long enough for him to snatch up the Stone. He wondered suddenly if the blue Elfstones were the key to this as they had been the key to finding his way here. He took a steadying breath, held the Elfstones out in front of him, toward the pedestal, and envisioned the flames guarding the Loden fading away.

Nothing happened. Not only did the flames not disappear, but the magic of the Elfstones failed to respond to his summons.

Disappointed, he lowered his arm again, thinking it over. Maybe he was approaching this in the wrong way. The blue Stones were seeking-Stones. They were meant to find what was hidden. What if he used them to seek out a way to make the flames disappear? Would the magic respond to him then?

It was worth a try. He stepped back, clearing some space between himself and the pedestal. The light from the chamber surfaces glim–mered brightly all around him, a shimmering cushion. He tried to ig–nore the feeling of displacement it created, the sense that he was disconnected. Instead he fixed his gaze on the flames surrounding the Loden and imagined them vanishing, snuffed out completely so that the Elfstone sat atop the pedestal unprotected.

This time the magic flared to life, a bright blue ball of light about his fist, chasing back the glow of the room. The light brightened, stead–ied, and then shot forward to a place midway down the pedestal on the side he was facing. In the raw glare of the magic's light, he caught a glimpse of markings that were little more than faint smudges. As the light faded, he rushed forward, not wanting to chance losing sight of what he had been shown. Shoving the Elfstones into his pocket, he knelt down, his fingers searching the stone surface of the pedestal, try–ing to ignore the nagging feeling that at any moment he might sink through the room's strange glow to whatever lay beneath.

He found what he was looking for right away. A small indentation, not large enough for more than the tip of a single finger. Then he found another, and another, until he had located a place for all five fingertips of one hand. Carefully, he filled all the indentations and pressed.

Instantly the bands of fire atop the pedestal disappeared. When he climbed to his feet, the Loden lay on its side, unprotected. Cautiously, he reached out, hesitated, and then scooped up the Elfstone and lifted it clear. No fire appeared to stop him; no magic surfaced to punish his intrusion.