Emily Rodda - Deltora Quest #7 - The Valley of the Lost

At one end of the room was a long table draped in a white cloth and gleaming with silver and crystal. Long white candles burned in exquisite candlesticks among dishes full of steaming, fragrant food.

Five places had been laid. Two on each side of the table, one at the head.

The Guardian rubbed his hands with a dry, rasping sound. “So — now we are alone,” he said. “Now we can enjoy each other’s company. Fine food and drink. Music. Conversation. And, later, perhaps, the game.”

The food looked and smelled delicious, but to the companions it tasted like dust and ashes, and they ate little. They spoke little, too, for it was clear from the beginning that what their host wanted was not a conversation, but an audience.

His voice flowed on as he sat at the head of the table, his hideous pets squatting behind his chair. The leads, Lief saw, were attached to his wrists, no doubt by bands hidden under his sleeves. This way, his hands could be free while the beasts remained under his control.

“I was born to great riches, but through the wickedness and envy of others I lost everything,” he said, pouring golden wine into a crystal goblet. “I was driven out of my home. No one would raise a hand to help me. Alone, grieving, despairing, and despised, I took refuge in this valley. My only companions at first were the birds and other small creatures. But —”

“There are no birds or small creatures in this valley,” Jasmine broke in. “Or none that I have seen.”

The Guardian glanced at her under his eyebrows, plainly annoyed by the interruption. “They have gone,” he snapped. “They had no place here once I was transformed, and the valley became the Valley of the Lost.”

He leaned forward, his red eyes gleaming hotly in the candlelight. “Do you not want to know how this miracle occurred?” he demanded. “Do you not want to know how I, an outcast, gained new wealth, a new kingdom, and powers a thousand times greater than those I had lost?”

He did not wait for them to answer, but continued as though there had been no interruption.

“A voice spoke to me as I sat grieving. It whispered to me night and day. It reminded me of how I had been wronged. Of how I had been betrayed. Of what I had lost. I thought at first that it would make me mad. But then — then …”

The gleaming eyes grew glazed. And when he spoke again, it was as if he had forgotten the visitors were with him. It was as if he was telling himself the story — a story he had told many, many times before.

“Then I saw the answer,” he muttered. “I saw that light had betrayed me, but darkness would give me strength. I saw that all through my life I had been following the wrong path. I saw that evil would succeed where good had failed. And then I accepted evil. I welcomed it into my heart. And so I was reborn — as the Guardian.”

Abruptly, his eyes lost their glazed look and focused on the strangers around his table. He noted the rigid and unsmiling faces, the almost untouched plates.

“Why do you not eat?” he snapped. “Do you mean to insult me?”

Lief looked through the wall nearest the table. Half hidden by mist, a mass of longing, haggard faces pressed against the glass.

“Do not mind them,” smiled the Guardian, waving a casual hand at the crowd. “My subjects do not eat or drink. They are beyond such ordinary concerns of the flesh. It is your warm life they long for.”

Jasmine, Barda, and Neridah stiffened even further. Lief wet his lips, shuddering inwardly as he remembered the dry, grey fingers stroking him. “Do you mean — they are the spirits of the dead?” he choked.

The Guardian seemed to bristle with indignation, and behind him the monsters stirred and growled. “Spirits of the dead?” he snorted. “Would I rule a kingdom of the dead? My subjects are very much alive, oh yes, and will be till the end of time. They waste away, they fade, but they do not age or die. They will live here, in my domain, forever. That is their reward.”

“Their reward ?” Neridah burst out. Her hands were trembling as she pushed away her plate.

The Guardian nodded, smoothing his beard thoughtfully. “A rich reward indeed, is it not?” he murmured. “Though I fear they are ungrateful. They do not appreciate their good fortune.”

Lief forced himself to speak. “How did they earn their reward?” he asked.

“Ah …” The Guardian stretched with satisfaction. Plainly, this was the question he had been waiting for.

“The first of my subjects, the largest number, came to me in a great wind, the pride that had caused their fall still fresh within them,” he murmured. “Others, like you, filled with envy and greed, have come since. To seek to win from me my most precious treasure. The symbol of my power. The great diamond, from the Belt of Deltora.”

Lief did not dare look at his friends, or at Neridah. He gripped the arms of his chair till his knuckles grew white, in the effort not to show what he was feeling.

But clearly the Guardian was not deceived. He smiled around the table, his red eyes greedily drinking in the expressions on the faces of his guests. Then he took the last few scraps from his plate and carelessly tossed them to the floor. The four monsters scrambled after the food, each fighting savagely for a share. He watched with a smile.

“Envy once nearly killed the greedy one at a dinner such as this,” he commented idly, as the tumult at last died down. “Ah well.”

Slowly, he pushed back his chair and stood up, the misshapen creatures shuffling and drooling behind him. “And now it is time for the game,” he said. “The time I love the best. Come with me.”

He had no need to ask them. Their feet followed him, whether they wished it or not, as he swept through one gleaming space after another, the monsters following him closely.

At last they reached a room that was plainly where he spent most of his time. Deep red curtains covered the walls, screening out the mist and the other rooms. Fine drawings and paintings, and a huge mirror in a carved frame, hung from the fabric.

On the floor was a rug rich in flowers, fruits, and birds, with a picture of a humble hermit repeated at each end. One of the Guardian’s little jokes, thought Lief. Nowhere else in this valley would simple, beautiful living things be found. Upon the rug, in front of a couch heaped with cushions, stood a low table scattered with books. Hundreds more books packed shelves towering around the walls.

The Guardian did not pause, but walked straight across the room and pulled aside the curtain to reveal a glass door set into one wall. He did not open the door, but stepped aside and, with a wave of his arm, invited the companions to look through to the space beyond.

It was a small room that contained only a glass table set exactly in its center. On the table was a golden casket.

“The gem you seek is in that casket,” said the Guardian. His voice trembled. Plainly, he could hardly contain his gleeful excitement. “Whoever matches wits with me and wins can enter the room and take the prize.”

Lief pressed himself against the glass of the door. The Belt of Deltora warmed faintly against his skin, proof that the Guardian spoke the truth. The great diamond was in that room. The Belt could feel it.

Barda pushed at the door with his shoulder, but it did not move.

Again the Guardian cackled. “No force can unlock this door. It is sealed by magic, and so it will remain, until you have won the right to open it. So — will you play?”