Chapter Thirty-Seven Elvine #2
“Welcome to the Veyinmihr, dear heart,” she said.
Her voice, unlike Ilvar’s, had lost none of its vibrancy, or the warm affection Elvine remembered from their hours together in the queen’s tower.
The way the surrounding ice growths loomed over her reminded Elvine that, for all the death and misery this woman had caused, she had always been a small person.
The notion stirred the deep well of anger Elvine had nurtured for months that felt like years.
So much slaughter in such a short time, she thought, hefting the spear and advancing towards the Traitor Queen. It ends here.
“So determined to kill me, dear heart,” Lore observed, exhibiting not even a twitch of concern as Elvine drew closer.
Her voice wasn’t the only thing that distinguished her from Ilvar.
Her face lacked the same hollowness, her skin as flawless as ever, her eyes the same keen, bright shade of blue.
The rest of them starved to feed her, Elvine realised, the notion quickening her step.
“Don’t you want to see?” Lore asked, arching an eyebrow. “For I would very much like to show you.”
“For the bookseller,” Elvine said, drawing the spear back for a thrust. “And all the many others…”
Before she could strike, Lore pressed her hands to one of the distorted columns of ice and the world shattered.
For the first instant, Elvine thought that the surrounding cavern had exploded, for her vision was filled with spinning fragments.
She closed her eyes, expecting the pain of a thousand ice shards lacerating her flesh, instead she felt only a gut-lurching sense of disorientation.
Forcing her eyes open, she saw that the fragments were drifting past her in languid, spiralling clouds, slowly enough for her to realise they were not in fact formed of ice.
She saw reflections in each one, of her, of Lore and the chamber they stood in.
It was as if the moment of their meeting had been ripped apart, leaving them both drifting in a void.
“How wonderful!” Lore floated nearby, long flaxen hair trailing, features vibrant with joy.
“To think I truly found it.” Turning to Elvine, she laughed at the mix of confusion and fury on her face.
“You should rejoice, dear heart. For this is the apex of our search. This is where The Map of Veils has led us. You have spent your life in the search for knowledge. This…” Lore spread her arms wide, exultant in the glittering stream of fragmented reality. “This is knowledge!”
“I don’t care,” Elvine growled, lashing out with the spear. Its leaf-shaped blade passed through Lore’s neck without leaving a mark.
“Foolish,” Lore chided, laughing again. “We are beyond the mundanities of form here. This is a place above our world…”
“I don’t care!” Elvine lunged, trying to drive the spear through Lore’s chest. It was like stabbing air.
Shouting in disappointment, Elvine drew the spear back for another thrust, then realised that the object she held was dead in her grasp.
The spirit within had no words for her and Elvine could feel no vestige of its presence as her hands explored the weapon from end to end.
“Apparently, whatever lurked in that thing isn’t welcome here,” Lore observed, pursing her lips. “Am I wrong, or were you in communion with it ever since you brought it back from the Vaults?”
Elvine ignored her, gripping the spear’s haft tighter, willing its inhabitant to speak. Nothing came.
“I suppose I owe it a debt of gratitude,” Lore continued. “It was thanks to that thing you were able to once again join me. Your place was always at my side…”
“I came to kill you!” Elvine spat, trying to accomplish with words what this place would not allow with actions. “For the murders you have committed! For your disgusting betrayal! You are a creature of vilest treachery and purest malice! And I never wanted to be at your side!”
“Oh, but you did.” Lore’s tone was one of pitying superiority, Elvine’s words having no more effect than if she had cast a handful of fine dust in that flawless face.
“I could tell. Lesser minds bore you, as they bore me. Even those we love. My brother, your mother. They stand tall among the herd, but even then they are small when set against us. There is always the divide, is there not, dearest? The inescapable truth that they will never ascend to our heights. Even the Vortigurn. A being who has walked this earth for centuries, and I found him small, a petty mind plotting destruction. But he had his uses. Thanks to him, I could escape the dreary cage of his kingdom and come in search of this. I’ll admit I strove to fulfil his will, but it was always secondary, a sop to prior obligation.
This, Elvine. This was what I sought in every book, every ancient scribbling I could find.
I thought you might find it when I sent you in search of the Vaults of the Altvar.
But no, it was only when I fully explored The Map of Veils that I found it. ”
Elvine could only growl in impotent rage before casting around this impossible place for something, anything, that might allow her to do harm to this woman.
She saw then that the fragments were changing.
The spiralling shards had begun to coalesce, swirling into tighter vortices and glowing brighter as they did so.
“What is this?” Elvine demanded of Lore. It was a question driven as much by fear as curiosity, for she sensed danger here where Lore clearly did not.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Lore’s smile became a gentle taunt. “I assume you know that the word ‘veil’ in Ishtan has several meanings.”
Elvine’s thoughts raced to her conversation with Colvyn when they had discussed The Map of Veils. There is, however, another word to which the term “veil” could be ascribed. “Guhlsta”… beloved of magicians who will draw them away to reveal the jewel they have conjured from thin air.
“Something is hidden here,” Elvine said, her gaze shifting from one vortex to another. “You seek to steal it.”
“No, I seek to learn from it. Can’t you see that’s all I’ve ever wanted?” Lore held out her hands to Elvine. “Learn with me. Imagine the knowledge we can unlock here.”
“You don’t even know what this place is. But I know you cannot be trusted with whatever you take from here.”
She saw a hardening in Lore’s gaze, her need giving way to disappointment.
She began to speak again but her words were forever lost when one of the vortices let out a bright pulse of light.
Elvine reeled from it, vision flooded with a glow of such intensity she suffered a jolt of pain.
When it cleared, she saw the vortex expanding, its many facets glittering as it formed a vast plain.
The shimmering fragments began to fashion themselves into recognisable shapes upon the expanse.
Elvine saw a city rise, a sprawling port where a thousand or more ships thronged its docks and buildings of unfeasible height and stature ascended to the sky.
In its centre stood a tower, taller than all the others.
The image shifted, bringing them closer to reveal two figures standing atop the great spire.
Two women of roughly equal height and golden hair. Both wore crowns.
“I knew…” Lore breathed, Elvine turning to see tears streaming down the Traitor Queen’s cheeks.
“I knew I was right. It’s us, Elvine. Our future.
We will be sister queens. Not just wardens of some frost-bound gaggle of savages, but the world entire.
Think of it. A world no longer mired in myth and false legend.
A world free of war and greed. A world guided by the purity of unbridled knowledge.
Is that not worth all I have done? Our kingdom will be my redemption, and your glory… ”
Her words faded when another vortex blasted out a second flare of light.
This one was different, possessed of a roiling, fiery red glow rather than untarnished white.
This too unfolded to reveal a city, but in place of a bustling port of gleaming towers, it revealed a scene of destruction.
Flames blazed along every street, choking the air with ash, the roar of the inferno not quite loud enough to smother the screams of those caught in its grasp.
Once again, they were swept towards a tall tower, this one incomplete.
Upon its half-constructed summit two figures stood, both men.
They appeared to be locked in some form of struggle.
Elvine could make out their faces, both set in the hateful grimace of combat, but she recognised neither.
However, looking again at the burning city, Elvine was struck by a painful rush of recognition.
My dream, she remembered. I dreamed this in Olversahl…
“The culmination of the Vortigurn’s plan, I assume,” Lore said, voice laden with caustic disdain. “It matters not. He is incidental, even if he succeeds.”
“Then why are we being shown this?” Elvine asked her. “Do you not know? Is your mighty intellect at fault, perhaps?”
“A mere distraction.” Lore cast a dismissive hand over the burning city. “What care we if the Citadel burns? Whatever mischief the Vortigurn has conjured can take all of Nihlvar and be welcome to it.”
Elvine looked from the burning city to the two queens atop their tower.
She could recognise her own face now, finding the beauty of it idealised to an absurd degree, a statue given life.
If this place was truly created by the Altvar, was this how they saw her?
Or was it that this is how they imagined she saw herself?
The Cavern of Truth, she thought. Yet I see only illusion.
Unless… She turned back to the burning city, a horror last seen in a nightmare.
Her nightmare. The screams of those souls burning in the raging fires felt so much more real than the impossibly beauteous queens looking out on a world-spanning empire forged from reason.