did not know what to say as he stared down; it felt as if he were staring into her soul. She stood there in the silence, waiting until he was ready, and beside her, she could feel Krohn stiffening, equally on edge.
“Gwendolyn of the Western Kingdom of the Ring, daughter of King MacGil, last hope for the savior of her people – and ours,” he pronounced slowly, as if reading from some ancient script, his voice deeper than any she’d ever heard, sounding as if it had resonated from the stone itself. His eyes bore into hers, and his voice was hypnotic. As she stared into them, it made her lose all sense of space and time and place, and already, Gwen could feel herself getting sucked in by his cult of personality. She felt entranced, as if she could look nowhere else, even if she tried. She immediately felt as if he were the center of her world, and she understood at once how all of these people had come to worship and follow him.
Gwen stared back, momentarily at a loss for words, something that had rarely happened to her. She had never felt so star-struck – she, who had been before many Kings and Queens; she, who was Queen herself; she, the daughter of a King. This man had a quality to him, something she could not quite describe; for a moment, she even forgot why she had come here.
Finally, she cleared her mind long enough to be able to speak.
“I have come,” she began, “because – ”
He laughed, interrupting her, a short, deep sound.
“I know why you have come,” he said. “I knew before you even did. I knew of your arrival in this place – indeed, I knew even before you crossed the Great Waste. I knew of your departure from the Ring, your travel to the Upper Isles, and of your travels across the sea. I know of your husband, Thorgrin, and of your son, Guwayne. I have watched you with great interest, Gwendolyn. For centuries, I have watched you.”
Gwen felt a chill at his words, at the familiarity of this person she didn’t know. She felt a tingling in her arms, up her spine, wondering how he knew all this. She felt that once she was in his orbit, she could not escape if she tried.
“How do you know all this?” she asked.
He smiled.
“I am Eldof. I am both the beginning and the end of knowledge.”
He stood, and she was shocked to see he was twice as tall as any man she’d met. He took a step closer, down the ramp, and with his eyes so mesmerizing, Gwen felt as if she could not move in his presence. It was so hard to concentrate before him, to think an independent thought for herself.
Gwen forced herself to clear her mind, to focus on the business at hand.
“Your King needs you,” she said. “The Ridge needs you.”
He laughed.
“My King?” he echoed with disdain.
Gwen forced herself to press on.
“He believes you know how to save the Ridge. He believes you are holding a secret from him, one that could save this place and all of these people.”
“I am,” he replied flatly.
Gwen was taken aback at his immediate, frank reply, and hardly knew what to say. She had expected him to deny it.
“You are?” she asked, flabbergasted.
He smiled but said nothing.
“But why?” she asked. “Why won’t you share this secret?”
“And why should I do that?” he asked.
“Why?” she asked, stumped. “Of course, to save this kingdom, to save his people.”
“And why would I want to do that?” he pressed.
Gwen narrowed her eyes, confused; she had no idea how to respond. Finally, he sighed.
“Your problem,” he said, “is that you believe everyone is meant to be saved. But that is where you are wrong. You look at time in the lens of mere decades; I view it in terms of centuries. You look at people as indispensable; I view them as mere cogs in the great wheel of destiny and time.”
He took a step closer, his eyes searing.
“Some people, Gwendolyn, are meant to die. Some people need to die.”
“Need to die?” she asked, horrified.
“Some must die to set others free,” he said. “Some must fall so that others may rise. What makes one person more important than another? One place more important than another?”
She pondered his words, increasingly confused.
“Without destruction, without waste, growth could not follow. Without the empty sands of the desert, there can be no foundation on which to build the great cities. What matters more: the destruction, or the growth to follow? Don’t you understand? What is destruction but a foundation?”
Gwen, confused, tried to understand, but his words only deepened her confusion.
“Then are you going to stand by and let the Ridge and its people die?” she asked. “Why? How would that benefit you?”
He laughed.
“Why should everything always be for a benefit?” he asked. “I won’t save them because they are not meant to be saved,” he said emphatically. “This place, this Ridge, it is not meant to survive. It is meant to be destroyed. This King is meant to be destroyed. All these people are meant to be destroyed. And it is not for me to stand in the way of destiny. I have been granted the gift to see the future – but that is a gift I shall not abuse. I shall not change what I see. Who am I to stand in the way of destiny?”
Gwendolyn could not help but think of Thorgrin, of Guwayne.
Eldof smiled wide.
“Ah yes,” he said, looking right at her. “Your husband. Your son.”
Gwen looked back, shocked, wondering how he’d read her mind.
“You want to help them so badly,” he added, then shook his head. “But sometimes you cannot change destiny.”
She reddened and shook off his words, determined.
“I will change destiny,” she said emphatically. “Whatever it takes. Even if I have to give up my very own soul.”
Eldof looked at her long and hard, studying her.
“Yes,” he said. “You will, won’t you? I can see that strength in you. A warrior’s spirit.”
He examined her, and for the first time she saw a bit of certainty in his expression.
“I did not expect to find this within you,” he continued, his voice humbled. “There are a select few, like yourself, who do have the power to change destiny. But the price you will pay is very great.”
He sighed, as if shaking off a vision.
“In any case,” he continued, “you will not change destiny here – not in the Ridge. Death is coming here. What they need is not a rescue – but an exodus. They need
