Darkin: The Prophecy of the Key (The Darkin Saga Book 2) (7 page)

“Come on. This is no short trek,” Calan said, pulling him.

“Where are we going?”

“That’s for you to discover once you start moving!”

Together they jogged toward the edge of the village, passing the last tree houses of Rainside Run. Adacon couldn’t see very well through the darkness, as the canopy blocked out most of the starlight, but he quickly withdrew a tiny orb from his pocket.

“I must ask Slowin where he found that,” Calan remarked. Adacon held up the iridescent orb and a bright glow illuminated the foliage surrounding them. In a moment, the path was lit up as if  midday.

“I wouldn’t mind getting you one of these, if there’s more. But Slowin’s peculiar—I don’t know if he’d even let on about where he got it from.”

“I’ve been waiting to show you this,” she said, bounding ahead. Adacon tried his best to keep up, but soon she disappeared from sight. He ran along the jungle path, covered by dense jungle vine and low-lying shrubs. The jungle had come alive since leaving Rainside Run—hooting calls echoed from behind him, and shrieking birds seemed to sing out randomly from every direction.

“Calan?” Adacon called, wondering in which direction she had run.

“This way!” came her voice to his left.

He looked ahead to see a small clearing that led to a tiny path through an outcropping of rose-colored bushes. He rushed through them, barreling toward her voice. To his shock, the path ended; it came to a wide thatch of ivy, tall and directly at the end of the trail. The ivy and bramble wall left no other path; he would have to turn back. Only a tiny sliver of black broke the uniformity of the vine wall, and he wondered if a person could slip into it.

“Are you in there?”

“Come on, you’re too slow!”

Adacon ducked, and then waddled, barely fitting through the opening. Inside, he refocused the Orb of Light so that it concentrated directly in front of him. Standing up, he peered down a tight spiral staircase, elegantly carved from wood; this must be a giant tree, he thought. He breathed in the deep moist scent of decomposition. Touching the walls, Adacon felt the wood to be soft and moldy, and at spots he saw slime dripping. Slowly, he made his way down the stairs, feeling them depress a little with each step, his feet sinking into the pliable wood. There were matted cobwebs underneath the stairs he’d descended past, and looking up, he could see odd creatures sleeping as well—Adacon couldn’t make out what they were, but he decided it would be best to leave the furry dwellers alone.

After over twelve trips around the circle and down the trunk, Adacon noticed a change in odor: suddenly, the great decaying trunk smelled instead like fresh living wood, and the cobwebs disappeared. Adacon descended faster, hoping she was ahead of him, and that he hadn’t been left alone inside some forsaken hole.

The mold and slime disappeared, and in their place were sets of softly glowing rosy circles. For a moment, Adacon stopped to peer in close at the trunk wall, at a pair of the glowing spots: he touched the edge of one, and upon his closer inspection, he decided they were some kind of flower. He continued down, and eventually there were so many of the glowing flowers that he decided to shut off the Orb. He put it back into his pocket and continued his descent. A soft scarlet glow guided his footsteps. The red staircase spiraled down interminably, and Adacon wondered just how deep they had already come.

“You still down there?” Adacon called. No answer came. “Calan?!”

Adacon felt a rush of anxiety and traveled down faster, as the red flowers continued to grow in number, magic plants that didn’t seem to need sunlight. Finally the stairs broke their circular pattern. He stepped onto a long flat surface of the tree trunk, aglow with the luminescent flora. The stairs descended deeper in one direction, he saw, but a new path was opened before him, a straight tubular hallway, leading away from the center of the trunk. The floor, walls, and ceiling of the hall were covered in the glowing plants. Orange and pink ones fought to grow between the red now, and the long hall appeared as if a lit rainbow. Several of the flowers near his feet were no longer glowing, and he realized that each footprint he left trampled the glowing flowers, and they ceased to emit their hue. Peering down the hall he rejoiced at what he beheld: there, all the way down and nearly out of sight, were a set of footprints—Calan’s—stretching away through the sea of flowers.

“Hah, found you!” Adacon reveled. He quickly raced down the vibrant hall, dewy with moisture, leaving dark sets of footprints where the plants had been. This must be a root coming off the trunk, Adacon decided of the circular hall. What an enormous tree, he thought, and in he sped up in excitement. The hallway twisted and turned, dipped and rose, until finally the scenery changed: before Adacon was Calan, smiling warmly, wading up to her stomach in rainbow-colored water that rolled steam off its top, wafting up to the ceiling of glowing plant life. Adacon was speechless—the whole hall had widened out into an oval room filled with radiant color. The roothall continued out of sight, past the oval room by way of a hole at the opposite side, but squat in the middle of the widened section was the steaming pool, softly lit by the magnificent pink, magenta, red, orange and yellow flowers that reflected down on the water from the ceiling; even the inside of the pool itself was lined with the wavy glow of submerged flowers that coated its walls and floor.

“Come in.”

Adacon wondered for a moment if the water itself was glowing, but decided it was an effect of the plants. He stepped over Calan’s clothes, which lay strewn about on the flowers near the edge of the piping bath.

“How hot is it?” he asked.

“Hot enough,” she laughed. Adacon got out of his sleeping clothes and held his breath, momentarily forgetting his old fear of not being able to swim. He closed his eyes and jumped in. A great warmth overtook his entire body, and he rushed up to the surface, exhilarated. Coming up he splashed her face. His feet gently pressed into the soft ground of the pool, allowing him to stand; he felt the tickle of hot springs shooting up between flowers at his feet. She splashed him back, hitting his eyes, and he rubbed them furiously. Finally they squinted open: the room wasn’t overbright, lit with just enough ambience of flower-light to create a dreamlike awe. Adacon felt a sense of peace in the glow and he wrapped himself around Calan.

“What is this place?” he asked.

“We call it the Blossoming Spring,” she answered from his embrace.

“Why didn’t you show this to me before? We could have come here all the time!”

“The entrance is sealed during the day, the path only revealed at night—and I decided you could use a surprise before your journey north.”

“I am surprised, I completely forgot I leave tomorrow. My whole body feels as if it’s melted!”

“The water here is channeled up from deep within the earth. It has restorative properties—some say there’s Vapour in the spring, others say it’s Gaigas’s spirit flowing up from the core of the world,” she explained.

Adacon thought about the mystery of the water he was bathing in, tranquilized by soft colors and warmth, and how it had traveled all the way from Gaigas to reach this very spring—like himself, a Welsprin.

“This water and I are very much alike,” he thought aloud.

“Huh?”

“I’m not supposed to say anything to anyone, but I trust you, so I’ll break my word. I don’t know what will happen, and I don’t want to think it, but maybe I won’t see you again.”

“Don’t think like that!” Calan said, and she splashed him once more.

“Well, if what Flaer told me is true, I am exactly like this spring—my special power, the nature of it, I haven’t told you…”

“Adacon, I know you possess something special. If you’ve sworn not to tell, don’t.”

“I know it will be safe with you, and you may understand it better than me. Flaer said I am something called a
Welsprin,
a—” before Adacon could finish his explanation, Calan gasped, and her face contorted with shock and bewilderment.

“A Welsprin?”

“You know the word?”

“I know it,” she said. The look of shock left her face, and she hugged Adacon tightly.

“But how? I was told I am one of two that are alive.”

“It is the story of my race—that we were born long ago from a first elf, a Welsprin,” she told. “In our history, the first of our race was this Welsprin, and from that elf and her mate were the elves created.”

“So the Welsprin elf is dead now?” Adacon asked.

“Our lore doesn’t explain how she died, only that she was our originator, many thousands of years ago. And you…” she stared at him with curious fascination.

“I’m sorry,” he replied, unsure how to react.

“Do not be! You
are
like this spring! And from your spirit’s energy are there streamers, shooting down into Gaigas, anchoring you to her spirit! You are Gaigas manifest!” she rejoiced.

“I hadn’t thought of it like that.”

“Don’t be solemn; Gaigas is the
good
in all things, and you as such are that goodness!”

“But, how can there be so much evil then? And the dark magic that destroys our races, how can Gaigas allow that?”

“It is not Gaigas that those dark conjurers draw from as their source—no, they draw from a different energy,” she replied, “a collective spirit of evil.”

“You mean, there’s another great spirit of Darkin, besides Gaigas? One of pure evil?”

“No, it’s not a mirror of Gaigas—Gaigas is the originator of our planet, the one and only true spirit from which Darkin’s energy is come. Those who would do evil with magic, they draw on a power that stems from Gaigas, but is then corrupted by the evil in their hearts.” 

“You mean, Gaigas
allows
people to use her energy for harm?”

“No, Gaigas doesn’t allow anything—Gaigas is inert, of herself—the innate disposition of her energy is good, of common kinship with life. She cannot thwart her own energy’s occurrence—when any person has an evil thought, or an evil intention, they add their own bit of darkness to the collective of corrupted energy in the world.”

“Collective?”

“Yes, we elves understand it that way. Every spirit that harbors malice in its heart, toward itself or another part of creation, living or not, contributes to the collective reserve of evil energy, the source from which wizards such as Vesleathren draw their strength.”

“So whoever has evil in their hearts can use the energy of the collective?”

“No—and be glad that is not so. Whoever has evil in their hearts simply produces a stream of darkness, flowing naturally from Gaigas to the collective energy of evil. Only those with knowledge of Vapoury can
use
that power, and tap into it for their own malevolent designs.”

“You mean, all the evil wizards of the world were, once Vapours?”

“Yes, to put it very simply. But it can be much more complicated than that. The man who harbors evil intentions in some remote part of Darkin knows not that he contributes to the powerwell of dark wizards far away—think of your country’s oppressor…”

“Grelion.”

“With his evil, he has contributed an immeasurable stock of dark energy to the very being he fought so valiantly to destroy—in turn allowing Vesleathren the strength he needed to return to life from the brink of death.”

“I think this is too much, too much for tonight—I need to forget about this all,” Adacon said, feeling frustration and fear seep back in.

“I’m sorry, it wasn’t my intention to burden you further.”

“It’s alright; it’s difficult to feel any negative thought in this place,” Adacon said. He forgot the foreboding talk of evil, and gazed once more at the flower-lit ceiling, splaying its dim spectrum of color, radiating gently, enveloping the whole room.

“At least know your secret will stay with me,” she said, smiling.

“Do you think very differently of me?”

“Well,” she chuckled. Adacon’s face began to droop with despair. “I thought you had a special power—but I didn’t realize you were this powerful.” Calan said, winking. She slipped underneath the water.

“Hey, where’re you going?”

VI:  OMEN OF THE STAR

Circular roofs atop massive stems blocked out the stars, and hanging from a long thin vine, dangling close to the ground, was a slimy, clear tube—a hardened carapace, in which sat a slowly awakening gnome. Remtall opened his eyes and recoiled in disgust at the slime he felt oozing all around him; it dripped from the roof of the small sack. He was imprisoned—Remtall knew it at once, and he looked around to see anything at all. His tiny sack, swaying slightly, was clear and he could see through it with ease, but night still blanketed the Endless Forest, and it was hard to make anything out.

“Hello! Vile Fiends! Let me out!” Remtall screamed, thrashing at the hardened inner wall of his cell. The inside of the shell was transparent, but Remtall saw veins running vertically down its length, appearing as an oversized leaf. He panicked, then calmed himself. He knew if he was to get out of this trap, he would need to collect his wits. He felt his inner thigh and realized his captors hadn’t searched him—at least not thoroughly. Remtall didn’t know they’d made the same mistake with Ulpo, who’d almost escaped, only to be caught again while running aimlessly in circles through the maze of the forest.

Remtall wiggled out his tiny diamond-shaped dagger. After a brief struggle to change position that left his pod swaying, he held the blade in his hand.

“This ought to do it,” he muttered to himself, his senses yet to recover from the gaseous slumber his captors had induced. Powerfully, he thrust repeatedly at the pod wall, stabbing again and again, but to his agony, the hardened shell did not break—it did not even tear.

“Blast this,” Remtall cried, his voice muffled by the damp pod. He reached instinctively for his liquor, but found it empty. “This is exactly what I planned,” he grunted sarcastically. In his frustration he thought of Ulpo, and he wondered if his dwarven friend could still be alive.

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