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

“Do we have a choice?” Jasmine muttered.

The Guardian raised his eyebrows. “Why, of course!” he exclaimed. “If you so wish, you can leave here now, empty-handed. Turn your backs on the gem you came to find. Go back where you came from! I will not stop you.”

Lief, Barda, and Jasmine glanced at one another.

“If we win the game and enter the room, the diamond is ours to keep?” Lief wanted to make absolutely sure. “You will allow us to leave the valley, taking our prize with us? You swear this?”

“Certainly!” said the Guardian. “That is the rule. Your prize will be yours to keep.”

“And if we fail?” Barda asked abruptly. “What then?”

The Guardian spread his hands. The fleshy leads swung free from his wrists and the monsters stirred behind him. “Then — why, then, you are mine to keep. Then you will remain here, like all the others who have chosen to match wits with me. You will become part of the Valley of the Lost. Forever.”

The companions stood motionless beside the door. Outside the small room where the casket lay, despairing grey hands brushed the glass through billowing mist.

“Will you accept the challenge?” murmured the Guardian. His eyes burned like hot coals as he waited for their answer.

“We need to know more before we decide,” said Barda evenly.

But Neridah was shaking her head. “ I do not need to know more!” she exclaimed. “ I have already decided. These three can do what they wish, but I will play no game!”

The Guardian bowed, though the corner of his mouth twitched with scorn. “Then you may go, lady,” he said, carelessly waving his arm.

Neridah staggered as the spell that had bound her was broken. She backed away, then turned and ran from the room without looking back.

The Guardian sighed. “A pity,” he muttered. “I thought she, of all of you, would find the diamond’s lure impossible to resist. Perhaps, even now, she will change her mind and return. The smell of greed and envy is strong on her.”

He turned to the creatures at his heels and petted them, one by one. “ You sensed it keenly, did you not, my sweets?” he crooned. The monsters grunted and snuffled agreement, rubbing their bloated faces adoringly against his hands.

Without bothering to turn around, he flicked a finger in the companions’ direction. With relief they felt their invisible bonds relax. Suddenly they could move freely.

The Guardian strolled to the mirror and began looking at himself with appreciation, smoothing his beard and smiling. Lief’s fingers itched to reach for his sword, to attack. But he knew, as Barda and Jasmine did, that it would be no use. Hate, Greed, Pride, and Envy were facing them, jagged teeth bared. At a single warning sound the Guardian would turn and cast another spell — a spell even more powerful, perhaps, than the last.

“It is time for me to sleep,” he said at last, turning away from the mirror with a yawn. “Unlike my subjects, I still have these needs of the flesh. What more do you wish to know?”

He is sure that we long for the diamond, Lief thought. He felt our need, as we looked at the casket. Still — his need is great, too. He pretends he does not care, but he dearly wants us to play his game. His pride drives him to prove himself more powerful and clever than we are, to crush and defeat us. That is his weakness.

“We cannot make up our minds to play unless we know more about the game,” Jasmine said loudly. “What is it? How is it played?”

The Guardian frowned, hesitating.

“You want us to play, do you not?” Lief urged. “And we — we want the diamond, I confess. But we would be fools to endanger our freedom blindly. We need to know that it is possible to win.”

The Guardian’s eyes narrowed. “Of course it is possible!” he snapped. “Do you accuse me of cheating?”

“No,” said Lief. “But some games are matters of chance, and luck. Your game may be one of these. And if so —”

“Mine is not a game of chance!” shouted the Guardian. “It is a battle of wits!”

“Then prove it,” Barda said quietly. “Tell us what we must do.”

The Guardian thought for a moment. Then he smiled. “It seems that you are to be worthy players,” he said. “Very well. I will tell you. All you must do is find out one word. The word that will unlock the door. And that word is — my true name.”

The companions stared at him in silence. Of all the things they might have expected, this was the last.

The Guardian nodded with satisfaction, well pleased by their surprise. “The clues to the riddle are in this palace,” he added teasingly. “And the first, hidden in this very room!”

Barda straightened his shoulders. “We would be grateful for some time alone to discuss our decision, sir,” he said, using his most polite and formal voice.

“Certainly!” The Guardian bowed. “I am a very reasonable man, and will allow you that courtesy. But I pray you, do not try my patience. I will return in a short time, and then I must have your answer.”

Gathering his creatures’ leads in his hands, he turned and left them.

As soon as they were alone, Jasmine ran to the glass door and stared through it once more. “There is another door in there!” she whispered. “A door that leads to the outside. See? In the corner.”

“And so? What is your plan?” asked Barda warily.

Jasmine’s eyes were sparkling fiercely. “It is simple. We will tell the Guardian that we will play his stupid game. Then, when he is asleep, we will find a way of breaking into this room. We can steal the gem, leave by the other door, and be out of this valley before he wakes.”

“No!” Lief exclaimed impulsively.

Jasmine glanced at him in annoyance. “Are you afraid?” she demanded. “Afraid of his magic?”

Lief hesitated. It was not quite that. It was something else. That niggling memory at the corner of his mind. A warning. Something about the diamond …

“We would be foolish not to be afraid, Jasmine,” said Barda. “The man’s powers are great, and he is plainly mad. Whoever he once was, the Shadow Lord has possessed him body and soul.”

He was bending over the low table, sorting quickly through the books that lay there. Lief realized that Barda, practical as ever, was checking to see if the Guardian’s name, or part of it, was scribbled in the front of one of the volumes. He moved to help him.

“You will never find out his name that way!” Jasmine hissed furiously. “If it were that simple those poor souls outside the windows would have —”

Lief’s gasp of surprise interrupted her. At the bottom of one of the piles of books he had seen something familiar. A small, faded blue volume. He snatched it up and opened it.

As he had half-hoped, half-feared, it was The Belt of Deltora. The book he had so often studied, at home in Del. The book he had last seen in the dungeon where his father lay chained and helpless.

And now it was here. Here, in the Valley of the Lost! His heart pounding, he held up the book for Barda and Jasmine to see. Barda frowned.

“That the Guardian has a copy of this book means nothing,” he said. “For surely there were many copies made, not just one. They must lie in many forgotten places, all over the kingdom.”

“The Guardian is a servant of the Shadow Lord — that much is certain, from what he told us,” argued Lief. “And if he has been studying this book, it is because the Shadow Lord has told him to do so. The Guardian pretends to think that we are ordinary strangers, seeking the diamond out of simple greed. But perhaps he has known all along that we are not.”