“HE IS AWAKE. It is all right, Nathaniel. You are safe.”
He lifted his head. It hurt, and he lay back again. Opening his eyes, he saw Naliv and Kilan. Others stood there, their faces so familiar to him now.
“How?” he said. The explosion filled his mind, the devastated plain as Calum’s blind rage shattered the ruins. How much time had passed?
“We did it together. It was the only way,” Naliv said, lifting his head a little and giving him a drink of a green liquid. It made him feel more alert and he sat up.
“We gathered together and used our energy to bring you back to us, across the abyss.”
“Calum?” Nathan said.
“We do not know where he is.”
Nathan looked around. “What about Marn?”
Naliv hesitated and then spoke slowly, keeping her voice steady.
“Marn was killed in the storm, like Soran.”
Nathan saw the grief on her face. He thought of his first visit, the first dream, the light and joy she had shown to him.
“And Elaimat?” he asked, afraid of the answer.
“It is gone. Calum’s ruins were, in his mind, a mirror image of Elaimat. When Calum destroyed the ruins he had created, he destroyed the city.”
Nathan stood up with Kilan’s help. They were in the cave. He looked at the symbols on the walls and columns.
“Because of me, you’ve lost everything.”
“No. Nothing ends. It is transformed. As we will be.”
Nathan shook his head. “The other world, Jinsaih’s world. Is that gone, too?”
“You are our conduit into that world, Nathan,” Naliv said. “It exists in you. It is still there. We did not find out how to change its course in time. Whatever happened there began what happened here in Elaimat. It is over now for us. It is not your fault. None of this is. You must understand that. What has happened . . . we could not change it.”
“What will you do?” Nathan felt a sense of loss sweep over him that almost sent him to his knees. Something was changing. He wasn’t ready.
“We have the Harec still. You brought that back to us, remember? We will build Elaimat somewhere else. We will project into another place. It may take us a thousand years in your time, but we will have our city again,” Naliv said.
“What if I go back there again, to the shaman? What if somehow I can ask her to help us? If she is so powerful, she already knows this outcome for Elaimat. She sees other worlds. She could do something.”
Naliv looked at Kilan and the others in the room.
“You are welcome to do that. Just know we have valued you. At no time has that not been so. You were willing to enter the chaos for us. I would have wished we could share again a time in the courtyard. The walls there would sing for you.”
“I want to try. You talk as if you think I won’t come back.”
“Oh, yes, you will return from Jinsaih’s world. There is no question of that,” Naliv said.
He went to a column he hadn’t noticed before. The symbol was one large spiral that went counterclockwise. He looked back at Naliv. She raised her hand in a brief gesture to him.
“You have been a most endearing friend to us, Nathaniel.”
As he traced the lines he felt the vibration of them accelerate. The feeling that flowed into him was like his journey with Soran, racing forms and shapes of light, the speed of it all circling him. The room disappeared, and there was neither dark nor light.
YOU ARE READING
The Magic Hour
Mystery / Thriller"It was not exactly dark, but a kind of twilight or gloaming. There were neither windows nor candles, and he could not make out where the twilight came from, if not through the walls and roof." -Childe Rowland "T...
