Seeking only a peaceful encounter!” He then waited a moment for a reply. Hearing none, he walked several more paces and stepped around the corner into a moon-ish light beaming dimly from an open doorway atop a wide staircase. Childheart ascended the dozen stairs and stopped just before the doorway. Then, with head lowered, and with gentle, but resolute steps, he crossed the threshold and halted once again.
In the dim light he saw what appeared to be a large library with a high beamed ceiling and smooth stone walls on three sides covered floor to ceiling with polished wooden bookcases, all of them, as before, entirely empty. Straight ahead, as well as off to the left, there was a large, leaded glass window on each of the two walls, revealing only blackness behind the panes, as if someone had piled dirt against them. But off to the right there was a fireplace the size of a foundry furnace, its low flames of little utility except to provide a soft, velvety gleam to the black granite floor and to silhouette the presence of a figure standing in front of the fire, his back to Childheart.
The figure pivoted on one foot to face Childheart, but accomplished the maneuver so efficiently that the unicorn was unable to get a glimpse of the person’s face in the firelight. “Childheart, it is so good to see you! Please!” the person said effusively, as whoever it was stepped lightly toward the unicorn. “Please come in and warm yourself. There is also food and drink for your comfort.”
“Kahner!” Childheart said, making no movement.
“Childheart, please, come and rest yourself,” Kahner said, extending his arms, “and let me both hear news from you and tell you what has happened to me. The news is both good and bad, but I trust that our stories together will render circumstances more favorable.”
As Childheart approached Kahner, not yet able to see his face or how he was dressed, he noted the voice of someone who seemed much older than the Kahner he assumed was just lost in the recent battle, alerting Childheart to the distinct possibility that he was approaching a phantasm formed by dark powers or perhaps an imposter. So little of the Bairnmoor under the control of Sutante Bliss was real or true any longer that very little could be trusted at face value. The person who seemed to be the one in whom Beatríz had invested a vast store of affection stopped, turned into the light, and gestured welcomingly toward the fire. Childheart was relieved to see that it was, indeed, Kahner. Kahner reached out a hand and touched Childheart on his forehead. Childheart nodded a warm greeting in return.
“Please,” Kahner said again, “lay yourself down by the fire and let me tell you what has happened—and then please tell me how it goes with you and the others.”
“But first, Kahner, I must attend to Thorn and Starnee, whom I left in the entry hall. Thorn is injured and both require nourishment.”
“Childheart, I will return with you and do what I can to assist them, but, please, let us talk first, if only for a few minutes.”
Hesitantly, Childheart folded his legs and lay down on the rug next to the hearth, while Kahner seated himself in one of the three leather chairs that were grouped between the fireplace and a large desk. Kahner poured two drafts of fermented cider—one in a cup for himself and the other in a shallow bowl for Childheart—and pointed Childheart to a tray of various things to eat, including fresh-baked bread and roasted vegetables. How it was that they had come very recently into being wasn’t at all obvious, and Childheart trusted that clarifying other more important matters would at the same time explain the origin of the food and drink.
“Childheart,” Kahner said quickly, “I was so glad to learn only hours ago from this vantage point that at least three others of our mission party are still alive. But,” he said with a sigh before continuing, “I’m afraid to say that I do not have good news about two others from the group.” Childheart’s ears flickered distress reflecting the torture of being forced to wonder which of the four absent children were, it seemed from Kahner’s tone, no longer alive. Involuntarily and plagued with guilt, the unicorn wrestled over which children he hoped most would still be alive. “Which two of them, Kahner?” asked Childheart, his voice thick with consternation.
“Beatríz and Elli,” said Kahner, sounding sadly reticent.
“Are they dead?”
“Yes.”
Childheart exhaled heavily through his mouth. “How do you know?”
“Because . . . because I was there.”
“How did they die? Who killed them?”
“I need to start from the beginning, Childheart, or it won’t make sense.”
“It will never make sense to me, Kahner, never, even if a provident Good is to blame—never. But first tell me how they were killed and who killed them.”
“They died when the earthquake struck—in the tomb.”
“In the tomb?” said Childheart, with a nearly despairing incredulity, his body tensing, as if about to erupt in rage. Childheart glared at Kahner, forcing the boy—dressed in an adult uniform evident of some authority—to look away. Childheart exhaled again, ejaculating a shrill whistle that caused Kahner to grimace. “Go on,” he said.
Kahner took a drink from his cup and then rose and stood by the fire, alternating between looking at Childheart and gazing at the flames as he spoke. “In The Mountains, only a day or so ago, but who can say for sure given this incessant twilight: the five of us were pressing ourselves as fast as possible through the narrow break in the tunnel wall you ordered us to enter while you and Thorn dealt with the enemy forces heading toward us in the main passageway. It wasn’t long after the noise of your battle stopped when we reached the end of the tunnel—or so stated Jamie, who was in the lead; I couldn’t see, because we were in single file, on a zigzagging path, and I was last.” Kahner put both hands in the side pockets of his long purple military coat that displayed several bars and stars on the shoulders, and then continued.
“An encounter between Jamie and a creature of some sort—I couldn’t see what it was—was about to occur when I was grabbed by several arms from behind, the hand of one of them immediately pulling a thick bag over my head while another clasped itself tightly over my nose and mouth. In an instant I was no longer in the tunnel with the others, but was being carried through another, much larger, passageway, with enemy troops—I could make out by hearing—in front and back and off to the sides as we proceeded.”
“So, you and the others passed this larger tunnel just as you were reaching the end of the narrow passageway, but decided not to take it?” said Childheart, his voice rising slightly as he repeated a statement of apparent fact that puzzled him.
“No, Childheart. It wasn’t there. It opened suddenly behind me, and I wasn’t aware of it until they had dragged me into the passageway and I heard the opening just as quickly close. I don’t think any of the others knew at that point that anything had happened to me. It’s called a portal, and I can explain it for you in just a bit if you like.
“Anyway, as I was saying, I was being carried away from the portal through this large tunnel that must have stretched for some miles, perhaps meanderingly so. I couldn’t say. In any event, Childheart, it was it seemed a long time—an hour maybe?—before we stopped and I was brought into a large hall. It was underground, but it had a high ceiling and pillars framing the sides, as I would soon learn.
“I was pushed to my knees, and I waited—I knew not what for! I heard a large door open and close, and someone’s steps entering the hall; all were commanded to stand at attention. I heard the boots of a hundred warriors or more execute the maneuver as I was pulled back to my feet.
