Delilah came to.
Only a moment later, she was on her feet, spinning around, looking everywhere for Terevalde and Alice.
She remembered. Remembered the storm, the misty hands that grabbed Terevalde, and how she and Alice had grabbed hold of him, too, and been swept away…
She remembered Terevalde smiling. The first, the only, time she’d ever seen him smile.
“Relax,” came Alice’s voice, and relief flooded through Delilah. “We’re all present and accounted for.”
Alice stood behind her, steadying a dizzy Terevalde. Delilah came to the man’s other side, helping him get his bearings.
“Are you all right?” she asked, looking up at Terevalde’s face. She didn’t see a smile, or even evidence that it had been there.
“Truly, I wish you had not come with me,” Terevalde said. “At least, that is what a responsible adult should say.” Steady, he stepped away from the girls. “But… well. Alone here, I wonder if I would be able to find my way back to you.”
“Everyone else faced their test together,” Alice said, hands on her hips. “You shouldn’t have to face yours alone, you know? Or are you just selfish like that? A bit masochistic? Looking to get hurt all by yourself, to not share your pain with others?”
Delilah was about to reprimand Alice for her rudeness, but Terevalde spoke first. “I suppose you may be onto something there.” He fidgeted absently with the monocle that hung unused from his waistcoat. “Guilt has a way of worming into your heart, of diverting your mind and thoughts so that you seek out punishment. Left alone… I do believe, in this place, I would be easily tempted to abandon this quest. And I mustn’t do that. I know that you need my help. And I… I do want to lay the last lingering piece of Gio rest, to end the threat that the Lingering Will poses to you.”
“Then let’s hustle our way through this test,” Alice said with a smirk.
Delilah stepped forward into the swirling mist, but she had no sense of where to go. She stopped, looking back at Terevalde. “I think the first steps are up to you,” she said.
Terevalde nodded, somewhat shakily. He took one step forward, then paused, peering through the mist. “Nothing feels like I remember,” he said softly, almost to himself. “It’s all so very… elusive.”
He took another step. Then another. Alice and Delilah walked on either side of him, staying close, both of them keeping a wary eye out.
And… they kept going. Nothing happened, the mists didn’t reveal memories for so long, that they started to let down their guard. Terevalde walked faster, more confidently. There were no sounds save their footsteps, and even the strange smells that varied from person to person were gone — the air, the whole world, was odorless, silent, all sight obscured by thick, constant mists. The mists swished and swirled, coiled and spread, like a living thing, very much reminding Delilah of the Lingering Will, with its grasping, mist-like hands. She still remembered how these mists of the Corridors of Memory had grasped Terevalde like ghostly hands when they’d reached the Wayfarer’s Roost.
But it wasn’t the Lingering Will. Somehow, Delilah could feel it, knew it in her core.
But…
But this would be a very effective place for the Lingering Will to hide.
She tried not to worry, but it was difficult not to. And she needed to worry, in a sense — she needed to be aware, to be ready for whatever might come.
But there was a line between alertness and worry. Delilah was trying to stay alert and prepared, not to let worry and concern — and possibly fear — overcome her. She didn’t want to see things that weren’t there — she wanted to see what was, not what could be.
Terevalde suddenly stopped. Delilah gripped her keychain Talisman tight, eyes flicking this way and that, searching, ears alert for the slightest sound.
And she heard it. Off in the distance, faint but growing closer —
Laughter.
Three voices, the voices of children — two boys and a girl. Not just their laughter, either, but footsteps, footsteps dancing and running through grassy fields.
Terevalde stood stock-still, staring, waiting. The mists slowly lowered, vanishing into the flat, slate-like ground. In that corridor within the mists, three children appeared, grass blooming at their feet, vanishing behind them as they raced and danced forward.
Delilah didn’t recognize these children. She assumed one of them must be Terevalde, but these were children even younger than her, closer to Isabelle’s age, and people changed so much from young childhood to middle adulthood. At the front of the trio raced the girl, dark hair streaming behind her, brown eyes bright with joy, a wide grin on her face. Behind her raced the boys, both with dark hair and dark eyes, little distinguishing one from the other. They certainly weren’t twins — their stature and facial structures were different enough to see that — but it was hard to tell which of them would have been Terevalde.
The boys were running, too, laughing and chasing after the girl. Eventually, one of the boys caught her, tackling her to the ground, and the second boy leapt on top of them, and the trio rolled and rolled in the grass like they were tumbling downhill. They eventually came to a stop, momentum untangling them until they all lay on their backs, breathless with laughter, staring at the sky.
“I will never tire of this,” said the girl, raising one hand towards the sky. “I will never tire of you.” She looked over at the boys, smiling.
The boy in the middle stretched his hand skyward, too. “Let us always be together,” he said softly, as if it were a prayer.
“Hey,” Alice said, glaring slightly. “Didn’t you say you guys spoke in the funky dialect in the past?”
“The memory must be matching my present way of speaking,” Terevalde said, softly at first, as if hesitant to speak. But the question seemed to pull him out of a strange reverie, and slowly his voice steadied. “Although perhaps as children we spoke more simply. I do not know, to be quite honest. The Corridors of Memory are a mystery to even those who live in closest proximity and have studied them extensively.”
“I wanted to hear the complicated dialect,” Alice said, pouting.
“I thought you didn’t like it,” Delilah said, eyeing Alice teasingly.
“Yeah, but it’s different,” Alice said, sticking her tongue out. “Besides, it’s kinda boring hearing kids from, like, a billion years ago talking almost like kids today. That’s just not right.”
“Language changes,” Delilah said, smiling. “The way we talk changes. Maybe…” She watched as the memory of the children slowly faded, mist filling in the corridor. “Maybe memories change, too. Or the way we perceive our memories changes? I mean… aside from Shana and Shias, most people can’t remember every single detail of their lives. And I know there are plenty of times I’ve remembered something, and I’ve been so sure that was how it went, only to find out that I didn’t remember it correctly. But in my head, it was right. I don’t… I don’t really know, but memories aren’t like storing data on a computer, are they?”
“Computers can only store specific types of data,” Terevalde said, his voice somewhat distant, thoughtful, like he was working out the problem just like Delilah was. “They have the advantage of rigidity, of constancy. Data stored on a computer doesn’t change unless user input modifies it, or a bug or virus or corruption enters — due to either user input or user neglect. And while that kind of data has that advantage… computers cannot store or read emotions. And a computer does not change like a person does. If the way we change impacts how we remember our past… interesting.” He fiddled with his unused monocle, nodding once, then again. “Very interesting.”
“Sure, sure, it’s interesting,” Alice said, eyeing Terevalde suspiciously. “Interesting that you know this kind of stuff. If you’ve been trapped at the End of the World for so long, how the heck do you know about computers?”
“I had some time at the Library of Solitude, when we were resting and preparing for this journey,” Terevalde said. “I decided to catch up on all that I’d missed.”
Alice raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You learned that much in that short amount of time?”
“I am a rather swift reader,” Terevalde said, a smile in his voice that didn’t show on his face. “Let us continue on. I… would like to reach the end of this sooner rather than later. No matter how this place will test me.” He started forward, and Delilah and Alice followed.
“If you’ve been trapped at the End of the World,” Alice said, “how come the way you talked changed?”
“You’re really intent on his speech,” Delilah said, laughing softly.
“Because it’s weird. How often do you meet someone who speaks the same language as you, but in such a different dialect that you can’t understand a word they say? It’s kinda neat.”
“I thought you thought it was a stupid way of speaking,” Delilah said.
“I… did,” Alice said, frowning. “Whatever. Terevalde, what’s the answer?”
“I do not know,” Terevalde said. “In fact, the End of the World, the Event Horizon, No One within… they may all be to blame for how I have changed, and how even my memories may differ from how they actually happened. That is a place — and No One a person — so strange and inexplicable that there was no way to emerge from that place unchanged. There was so much there that I had never known, never seen, never imagined. My time with her… and my time alone… well. I have changed greatly from who I was.”
“Okay, new question,” Alice said, moving right along. “How old are you compared to Kodoka? She’s the Prime Paladin, but she was still young when the Tragedy happened, right? I mean, how long have you been alive, anyway? How come you aren’t all wrinkled and falling apart?”
Delilah bowed her head, pulling up her hood. She often found Alice’s idiosyncrasies amusing, but when she pushed the bounds of rudeness to someone so much older than them, Delilah couldn’t help but recoil. After all Terevalde had been through, how wise he was, and how generous he was to help them, he deserved their respect.
Of course, “respect” likely had a very different definition in Alice’s dictionary.
“Enchanted don’t age in a linear fashion like Humans,” Terevalde said. “It’s all very… complicated. Time is not what ages us, nor is time what defines our age. Little Isabelle has lived far longer than any Human ever could, yet she is still very much a child, for instance.”
“Well yeah, of course she is,” Alice said, but she seemed hesitant. After a pause, she continued. “Oh. Oh, that’s weird. She’s old enough by human terms to be, like, my great-great-great-great-something grandma! But she’s literally a kid! Not just figuratively, not just looks and acts like one, she really is still a kid, isn’t she? But then there are other Enchanted who haven’t lived as long as her but are actually older? Like Gwen, right? She wasn’t born as long ago as Isabelle, but she’s a proper young adult! Oh, gosh, this is nuts. Enchanted are weird.”
“By Human standards, certainly,” Terevalde said, a smile in his voice.
“But hang on, like I asked, how long ago were you born?” Alice asked. “Have you seen the birth of the universe or anything crazy like that?”
“Oh, no, no mortal has,” Terevalde said. “But I… and the Author… and Gio, too… we have seen most of the oldest events in the Enchanted Dominion. We were children when the first Prime Bastion was established — originally, the Bastions were all equal. We were born quite some time before the first Princess of Solitude. I know you desire dates, but time is not something measured as rigorously in the Enchanted Dominion as in the Human Realm. But, by nature of my own self-imposed exile, I have missed a great deal of modern history. It’s quite paradoxical — I know the distant, ancient past so well, from personal experience, but I only know the last… oh, several millennia by Human reckoning, from reading, and only broadly, with little depth of understanding.”
“Pretty happy your ancient knowledge is useful to us now, aren’t ya?” Alice asked, grinning.
“The knowledge of mine that you need comes from great pain and tragedy,” Terevalde said. “But despite that… yes. Or, perhaps because of that. I am pleased that I can be of use to the Keybearer. Ah. I do believe the next part is starting.”
He said that with such a matter-of-fact tone that Delilah was taken off-guard when the mists lowered, forming a new corridor. Faintly, she heard the middle boy’s voice: “Let us always be together.”
And then a new memory appeared. The three from earlier, who must be Terevalde, the Author, and Gioracchi. But they were no longer children. They were young adults, and Terevalde could be singled out now; dressed in a waistcoat beneath a long tailed coat, he had his golden unused monocle dangling, a bit less haphazardly, at his waistcoat. He wore his hair long back then, tied back in a loose, low ponytail. There was the Author, a thin, startling streak of silver through her dark hair, made even more noticeable because she tied all of her hair up in a braided bun except for that single silver streak, which hung long and free down the right side. She was short and slim, with a thin face and small, round nose, her eyes bright with intelligence and curiosity.
And there with the two of them…
Was Gioracchi.
As soon as she laid eyes on him, a jolt of dread shot through Delilah. She’d seen him as a child, but hadn’t been able to tell him apart from Terevalde. Now she realized that she was looking at the man who would become one of the worst villains of history, the man who would cause an event so terrible that it would come to simply be known as the Tragedy.
And laying eyes on him, Delilah couldn’t see it. He was a tall man, handsome, with broad shoulders and, to Delilah’s surprise, an easy, reassuring smile. His hair was cropped short, his bangs a little long in the front, his eyes keen, intent, and glittering with amusement. He dressed elegantly, contrasting the somewhat more haphazard formal-casual wear that Terevalde and the Author wore. It felt like he was from a higher class than them, wealthy and well-mannered, the kind of man who would be popular both in social engagements and scholarly ones, intelligent and sociable. Terevalde and the Author, by contrast, came off as introverted, introspected, studious types, enjoying their few close friendships and working hard and alone on their own personal projects, not caring much for society and popularity.
Delilah could relate.
The trio sat around a table in some kind of library, but the details on the edges of the corridor were fuzzy, not giving Delilah enough to go off of to perhaps identify their location. Books were strewn along the table, and the Author was hard at work on…
A book. The Book. Delilah would know those wooden tablet-pages anywhere, as well as the handwriting and artistic style.
“See, here,” Terevalde said, turning one of the books around and sliding it towards the Author, so she could read the page he was open to. “There are four Bell Towers. The three that are tied together, and then the fourth, which is set apart.”
“Well done!” Gioracchi said, his baritone voice friendly and confident. “You see, ____? The pieces are coming together.”
Delilah was taken aback by the strange silence at the end of his question, addressed to the Author. His lips moved, but no sounds came out, for a single syllable. Was the Author’s name kept secret even in Terevalde’s private memories?
“Yes,” the Author said, a smile on her lips as she wrote, notes on regular paper beneath the wooden pages of the Book. She had the kind of calm, soft voice that put Delilah’s mind at ease with just a single word. “Of course, there are things here that we cannot prove without the Key itself. But we have learned so much.”
“Perhaps we should find the Key, then,” Gioracchi said.
Knowing who he would become and what he would do, that simple phrase, spoken so casually and easily, with the friendliest of smiles, had a much greater impact on Delilah than it did on Gio’s friends.
“The Key goes to the Keybearer,” the memory-Terevalde said. “It has not come to us. So we leave it.”
“But we would never misuse it, or take it for our own,” Gio said, leaning forward slightly. It was so hard to see — even knowing the future, Delilah struggled to see it — but there was the faintest, hungry glimmer in those dark eyes. It was barely there for half a second, then passed, and Delilah even questioned whether she’d seen it at all, or just seen what she’d expected to see, what she was watching for. “Surely there could be exceptions for using the Key for research? How else would we know the full extent of its abilities, and be able to record it for all Keybearers to come?”
“Technically, the information already is available,” Terevalde said, gesturing casually to the mountain of books around them. “It’s simply scattered and ciphered, taking a great deal of time to organize and compile in a way that makes sense.”
“Which is no matter for us,” the Author said, “but if there were ever a Human Keybearer —”
“As if the Key would ever choose a Human,” Gio said with a snort of derision. To Delilah’s surprise, that got a bit of a chuckle out of the younger Terevalde. The Author looked at them both with a half-lidded stare of disappointment.
“Do not be so dismissive,” she said. “Humans will one day comingle with Enchanted. Our worlds will one day be closer than you think. I fervently believe that we will one day share our cultures and communicate freely. And I truly hope this one day happens.”
“Time and age provide profound complications to that dream,” Terevalde said, but he at least listened closely, taking the Author seriously. Gio sat back, scoffing. But before he could respond, Terevalde held up a hand. “Regardless, you raise a good point. I, too, would like to hold the Key in my hands, if possible. The Book will not be complete without actual experience.” The Terevalde of the present shuddered noticeably as his younger self in the memory said those words.
“Or we simply speak with the Bellkeepers and see what we can learn of previous Keybearers,” the Author said, a hint of warning in her voice and eyes. “I do not think we should use the Key, even if we did come in possession of it. We have no reason to use it, save to satisfy our own desire for knowledge. Whatever you say, Gio, that is, in essence, a selfish goal.”
“It is not merely to slake our own thirst for knowledge,” Gio said, leaning forward, earnest. “Knowledge is to better society, to better everyone. We do this for the world, not for ourselves.”
“Not only for ourselves,” the Author said. “But there is an element of personal desire involved, is there not? We must be very cautious when researching such incredible power as the Key possesses. For my part, I pray that the Key never comes into our possession. It is not only because of you — I do not trust myself with such power, either.” She bowed her head, back to writing, giving off a distinct aura of finality.
Surprisingly, both Terevalde and Gio left the matter at that. They went back to reading, occasionally sharing things they found with each other, as the mists slowly rose, closing the corridor and dissolving the memory.
“I don’t understand this test,” Terevalde said, his brow furrowing slightly. “I know that I failed to see Gio as a threat until it was too late. I know that I was all too willing to make use of the Key’s power for the sake of research. Why show me this?”
“Maybe it’s just a timed test,” Alice said with a shrug. “Just deal with enough memories until the mists finally spit us back out at the Roost. Easy.”
“And ‘easy’ is very unlike the Corridors of Memory,” Terevalde said. “If it deems me resilient to the lure of the past, then it will simply let me go, as it did Delilah, Marcus, and Isabelle.”
“You’ve got a ton more memory than us,” Alice said.
Delilah nodded. “Maybe it’s taking it longer to work through all of your memories and thoroughly test you,” she said. “I don’t think we should let our guard down. It is strange how it’s going about things, though. What was your test like the first time you came here?”
“It was swift,” Terevalde said. “We each relived a few memories, and then it was over. None of us were tempted.”
“Not even Gio, huh?” Alice asked.
“What were your pasts like?” Delilah asked. “Before the Tragedy, I mean.”
“The Author and I lived quite comfortable lives,” Terevalde said. “There was little to tempt us. But Gio…” He bowed his head, walking slowly. “He had two brothers. Younger than him. He always boasted, very amicably, about how important it was to protect them, to serve as a proper example for them. He was so proud of them — and proud of being a big brother. But then one day… there was an accident. While he was with the Author and I, studying something entirely different far off on the Silent Peak… his brothers both died. Under very mysterious circumstances. It seemed like an accident, but such an improbable accident that we even considered what is, well, very nearly unheard of among Enchanted.”
“You guys don’t murder each other very often?” Alice asked. She whistled. “That’s impressive.”
“It shouldn’t be,” Terevalde said, a faint flicker of hurt in his eyes. “Regardless, it consumed Gio’s whole world for a long time. When he returned to us… well, you saw in that memory. He was as amicable as always. As if nothing had changed. In the Corridors, there were flickers of memories, moments during that dark period when he was away from us, but somehow, he shut them down so quickly. I never got to see them clearly. And then it was over.”
“Whatever he did during that time, it helped him overcome it,” Delilah said. “Or… at least, when he came back, he wasn’t consumed by it. This is a test, all about…”
But just as she was about to continue that thought, just as the final pieces fell into place, a new sound pierced the air.
Fire. Not the pleasant crackling of a cozy hearth, but the violent roar of a raging inferno. Accompanied by startling, earth-shaking booms that Delilah felt more than heard, causing her to stagger and stumble, clutching to Alice and Terevalde both for support and to ensure they weren’t separated. An acrid odor filled her nose, but not just of burning, but of…
Delilah couldn’t even think it. The scent sickened her, twisted her stomach in knots. Screams pierced the air, screams of such abject terror that Delilah couldn’t even imagine it, she couldn’t grasp it, it was impossible for someone to be so terrified, in such agony.
What was happening? Why was this —?
The mists lowered, revealing a new corridor, and in it was a nightmarish warscape beyond Delilah’s worst imaginings. Fire, smoke, the air choked by ash and fouler, darker things. The ground breaking apart, not just the crust of the earth but deeper, down to magma, through magma out into a startling void of unfathomable emptiness. Whole worlds being torn apart, yet never impersonal, distant. Always, everywhere, the individual cost. Husbands wrenched from wives. Parents ripped from children. And worse — husbands turning on wives, parents turning on children, and vise versa. The world was ending in the most violent, horrifying way, but in the midst of that calamity and catastrophe there was so much hatred, so much cruelty, people lashing out at one another in the most vicious, despicable ways.
It wasn’t a world ending in a physical sense. It was society fracturing, bonds and relationships and culture coming to violent, self-destructive end.
And in the midst of it all, frantic and clamorous…
Bells. Bells, ringing, ringing, ringing.
And suddenly, Delilah knew. This wasn’t a self-destructive end, a catastrophe, a calamity caused by people.
It was caused by one person. One person, abusing ultimate power, for…
This? This apocalypse, this war, this destruction, this depravity, this calamity, this…
Tragedy.
“Why…?” Delilah asked in a small voice. Only then did she realize she was crying, and the tears wouldn’t stop, couldn’t stop. Alice was silent, but she had hold of one of Delilah’s hands, and she gripped it tight.
The corridor suddenly, dramatically, closed itself shut. The mists rose up like a solid wall, blocking out the horrors, and the sounds vanished.
But still, Delilah thought she could hear, in the far distance…
Bells.
“So you see a glimpse,” Terevalde said in a soft, shaky voice. “I still do not know the answer to your question. Why? Why use such a power to simply destroy? I do not know. I never got to ask him. He was —”
And a new corridor opened up, suddenly, ripping through the silence with a sudden burst of sound. The Bells, the fires, the explosions, the screams, and those unearthly, impossible sounds of worlds breaking apart into nothingness, of destruction of a cosmic scale that even the most terrifying weapons couldn’t hope to cause…
But all of these sounds were more distant than before. There was a veil, a veil that muffled the sounds of death and tragedy all around the people in the corridor.
Standing in a spacious yet intimate chamber, on opposite sides of a stone pedestal in which was inserted a gleaming white Key…
Gio and Terevalde.
Gio was strangely similar to the elegant, upper-class gentleman of the second memory. His eyes were the most startling element, because while there was a slight hungry gleam in them, even now they seemed so… normal. Even with clothes torn and scorched in places, soot staining his face, and a leg injury that caused him to stand tilted to one side, Gio seemed at ease, comfortable, steady.
“Why, Gio?” Terevalde asked, gasping for breath. He was injured too, in many places, his clothes a blood-stained, mud-stained, soot-stained mess.
In his hands he held a gleaming silver sword.
Gio held no weapons at all.
“Why?” Gio asked, cocking his head to one side. He smiled. And it was such a simple, such an easy smile. So ordinary. He spread his hands. “If you’re going to use that sword, then use it. My work is complete.”
Terevalde stared at him, and then down at the sword in his hands.
And he dropped it.
Slumping to his knees, Terevalde gazed desperately, wide-eyed at Gio. “Stop this! You have the Key, you are the one who Activated it — you are the only one who can bring this to an end!”
“I refuse,” Gio said in that easygoing way of his. But there was a slight undertone, a strange sense of…
Haunting.
It was faint, and overpowered by Gio’s easygoing air, but it was there. And it was so much, Delilah thought, like the haunting, hollow voice of the Lingering Will.
“Please!” Terevalde cried. “Stop this n—”
The Terevalde of the memory cut off just as Delilah and even Alice gasped at what happened next. A curving, silver blade protruded from Gio’s chest. For a moment he stood there in shock. The shock turned to despair, and his lips moved wordlessly for several moments.
The blade was wrenched free, and Gio fell, twisting as he did, landing on his back to stare at the cracked, fracturing ceiling. His lips kept moving, and tears rolled slowly from his eyes.
“The… Key…” he whispered, gaunt and desperate, in the voice Delilah knew so well.
Standing over Gio as he lay dying…
Was the Author. She held a silver spear with a curved blade, now dripping with blood. She had a wild look in her eyes, fear and anger mingled together.
And then it passed. To horror — at herself. Terevalde stared in horror, too, and then he cried out, lips moving without sound — the Author’s name.
But the Author didn’t respond. She dropped the spear and turned, fleeing without a word.
The world continued to fall apart, to die, to end. Terevalde slumped down until his head touched the floor of the chamber. Totally distraught, totally despairing.
And then, through the door strode a woman, clad in a white dress beneath a long blue coat, her hands glimmering with white light, her apple-red hair tied back in a braid. Her feet were bare. She was so much younger than Delilah had ever seen her, but she knew right away…
This was Lady Kodoka.
“Terevalde!” Kodoka called in a younger, clearer version of the voice Delilah knew. “Rise. We can still stop this — and perhaps undo some of the horrors Gioracchi has wrought.”
Terevalde fought to his feet — fought against despair, against horror, against guilt — and crossed the chamber as far as the Key’s pedestal. He didn’t dare pass it, as if some line was there, a line between him and where Gio lay dead.
Kodoka joined him at the pedestal and placed shining hands on the Key itself. “I do not know if this will work — or how it will work. But it is our only hope.”
And then… there was light. White light, bright and perfect and endless. And silence, accompanying it.
The corridor closed, mists rising up slowly to sweep it away.
“He… never said,” Terevalde said, shaking his head. “He never said why. I never knew, never understood… and he seemed so at peace. So ready to die. Until he did. And then, only then… such despair. As if, in death, he had failed. As if he only then knew that what he’d done could be undone. Not entirely, but enough. Enough to save the world.”
“So his will remained,” Alice said. “And we still don’t know why he wants the Key, why he destroyed everything.”
Delilah was hugging herself, she realized. Shaking, trembling gently with the fear of what she’d seen. She’d never be able to erase it from her mind, and she couldn’t stand it, couldn’t believe it. How? Such violence, such destruction, such…
“Hey,” Alice said. And she did the unexpected. She didn’t poke Delilah, or play some prank on her, or nudge her or bump her.
She hugged her. Wrapped her arms right around her and hugged her tight.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Alice said softly. “We’re not gonna let anything like that happen. We’re gonna save the world, not destroy it.”
Delilah nodded, leaning into Alice’s embrace, finding comfort and healing in her arms.
Brought out of her fear, out of those unspeakable horrors, the pieces that Delilah had found and fit together returned to her mind. She turned to Terevalde.
“Stand forth,” she said. “That’s how you get through this. You’re not consumed by your past, but… you aren’t fully focused on your current objective. I don’t know your mind, but I think, if you frame it that way, you’ll be able to figure out what you’re missing, and why this test continues. Even seeing those horrible memories didn’t pull you away from us. So?” She fixed him with a meaningful look. “What’s keeping you from standing forth?”
“Are you gonna adopt that phrase into your regular speech?” Alice asked in a murmur.
Delilah nodded, smiling. “I like it.”
Alice gave her a smirk, but said, “Yeah. It suits you.”
Terevalde was silent for some time, clearly thinking long and hard about Delilah’s conclusion. He gazed out into the mists, in some silent contemplation of which he revealed no clues. He didn’t emote much in general, and now he was as still and placid as could be. All Delilah could do now was wait for him to sort out his heart. She took his hand again, continuing to hold onto Alice as well — to ensure they wouldn’t be separated, and to reassure them both.
A decision seemed to be reached, as Terevalde’s hand twitched slightly, his grip strengthening. “I see,” he said softly, nodding to himself. “Yes. I was fixed on the goal of aiding you… but I was also in the past, fixated on my guilt and on how I failed my dearest friend. A part of me was focusing on the past, as if I was still in the past, as if I was dealing with the same people and the same world. But, no. I must focus on you, Delilah. On the here and now. The world has changed. And I, though I have been gone from it for so long, have changed with it.” He looked ahead, and Delilah thought, for a moment, she saw a small smile crease his lips. “I will stand forth. Fully and completely in the present.”
He strode forward, leading the way, Delilah and Alice sticking right with him. And in moments…
They left the mist behind. Before them rose the Wayfarer’s Roost, the beautiful, inviting, ancient checkpoint. And standing right there before them were Marcus, Maribelle, and Isabelle.
“You’re back!” Isabelle cried out, racing to them, wrapping Delilah up in a tight hug. “We couldn’t get to you, no matter how we tried. The mists wouldn’t let us back in.”
“I apologize for worrying all of you,” Terevalde said. “My test, it seems, was incomplete. But it is over now.”
“Shall we rest?” Marcus asked, looking to Delilah. “Or shall we continue on?”
Delilah hesitated, just for a moment. But soon she smiled, looking up at the Roost. “I think a very brief rest is in order.”
They headed inside, where food was already laid out, a lavish feast on lovely tables. Signs were posted encouraging guests to eat if hungry, to sleep if weary, to bathe if in need of cleansing.
But there was no one here. No secretary at the welcome desk, no waitstaff or cooks in the dining rooms or kitchens… no one. No other guests, either, though that wasn’t such a surprise, given how distant and hidden this Location was, and how difficult it was just to get through the Corridors to the Wayfarer’s Roost.
“Okay, creepy,” Alice said, eyeing everything in sight with a skeptical eyebrow-raise.
“Oh, this is how it always is,” Terevalde said.
“Ooh, are the helpers ghosts?” Isabelle asked with innocent, childish delight.
“Not precisely,” Terevalde said, sitting at one of the tables. “Come, let us eat. There is nothing to fear here. The food is quite delicious.”
“Well, you’re the one who’s been here,” Alice said, sitting beside Terevalde but eyeing him closely. “But if you die from your food, you can bet I’m not eating any of it.”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” Delilah said, taking a seat as well. Marcus, Isabelle, and Maribelle joined them, and after Terevalde had taken a few bites, the rest of them dug in. Alice started last, waiting until every single bit of food and drink had been tried by someone else — and she also held up Delilah from eating right away, insisting on protecting her, too.
But in the end, all was well. They ate, and drank, but didn’t bathe or sleep. Delilah had just needed a chance — to sit, to eat, to recover. It had been a long journey in, out, in, and out again of the mists. But more than physically, she was emotionally exhausted. This peaceful, joyful time with friends was just what she needed after the terrifying visions of the Tragedy.
It was over too soon — but at the same time, right on time. Delilah was ready to move forward. To see the city of the Lost Bell, and the Bell itself, and decipher what the two different types of rings really meant, and what their purpose was.
If the Keys are sealed, then ring once. But if not, ring twice… only we don’t know fully what the double-ring does. Until we know for sure how it works — or at least, as sure as we can know — then we can’t go ringing Bells however we like. Hopefully there’s a Bellkeeper here to help make sense of things like for the first three Bells.
They went past the Wayfarer’s Roost, where a great slope led down to the city of the Lost Bell.
Once they started their descent, and Delilah could see the city properly, she was stunned. It didn’t look at all like the beautiful lakeside city in the Book. For one, the sky here was like it had been at the entrance to the Corridors of Memory, all soft, lovely twilight. But in the Book, it had been a blue, clear sky of daylight. More than that…
Terevalde had spoken of how the city was destroyed, and was no longer what it once was. Delilah could see it… and feel it. Each step down to the city spoke of a deep, distant ache. And the city itself was, while not ruined — people had had plenty of time to rebuild and restore — lacking the lovely low skyline it had in the Author’s illustration. All of the buildings were now only one or two stories in height, and they were spread widely, the city constructed as a series of plazas with wide stone lanes running between them. There was a lot of open space, but much of that space struggled to be claimed by nature, with shrubs, grass, trees, and flowers struggling to grow healthy and lively in the reddish, dry soil.
The biggest change of all was the center of the city — more like a town now.
The Bell.
The Lost Bell no longer rested within the beautiful, ornate, spiraling tower in the Book’s illustration. Instead it was exposed, up on a hill in the center, hanging at a slight angle from a stone monument. Even from far away, Delilah could see a prominent crack running up the silver Bell’s side.
She’d thought they would go straight to the Bell and inquire after the Bellkeeper. But when they entered the first plaza, a door to a two-story home swung wide, and out stepped…
Delilah stared, shocked. But not as shocked as Terevalde.
The woman was older, certainly, but there was no mistaking her. Staring back at them from the porch steps… was the Author. Her dark hair, now flecked with grey, was tied back save for the single prominent silver streak, left to hang long and free on the right. She was still short and slim, with an angular face and small, round nose. Her eyes were the largest difference, lacking much of the curious, intelligent light they’d once held.
“Terevalde,” the Author said, and though her voice had lost some of the clarity of youth, it was still unmistakably her voice. She strode swiftly towards them, her eyes fixed on Terevalde. “You’re here. Thank goodness. I’m… not too late.”
“You…” Terevalde started, finding his voice. “How… why… are you here?”
“I —” the Author started, and then laid eyes on Delilah. Her eyes slowly widened — and there was a tiny spark of her younger self’s curiosity. “You… yes, you are different, but you… are Fae’s sister, aren’t you?”
Delilah’s breath caught in her throat. Slowly, haltingly, she asked, “Fae? You… you met Fae?”
“Yes,” the Author said. “I… well, I can tell you the story. But this means that… you are the Keybearer, are you not?”
Delilah nodded, pulling out the Key of the World on its chain. The Author’s eyes widened, flickering with something Delilah couldn’t read. And then, slowly, the Author bowed.
“I have come to aid you, Keybearer, in whatever way I can,” she said. “Let me introduce myself. My name is Emmeryn.”