Chapter Eight:
I do not know how long I wallowed in my gloom, weeping at my own foolishness and wishing that I could completely redo the past half hour. If I had danced in spirit form, I could have just returned to my body once the stream grew too aroused. But no, I had to imagine myself as skilled as a Teuton priest, the master of all the elements around me as well as my own.
Hans is going to chew me out over this, I knew, for there was no way I could keep it from him. He was the bearer of all of my Teuton secrets. And now he’ll think I’m still a ridiculous child, or worse, a naïve woman, just like Der Weg implies. One who needs a priestly husband to control her, but not him, no, never him.
“Zoubaraera . . . Teutona . . . .” The two words entered my mind like a wispy swath of silk, prompting my body to jerk upright; I had embraced the elm’s trunk while indulging my misery. I endeavored to blink the tears—all of simple water—out of my eyes, invoking my ice to enhance my vision, to reveal who had encroached upon my failure. I wondered whether I had imagined the voice and its words, for its tenor had sounded like how Hans had described the voices of the Eihalbae. And there was no way such an entity would stoop to acknowledge me now.
Der Weg revealed little about the Eihalbae save that they embodied the spirits of the silver oaks, the most sacred tree to the Teuton people. They were said to possess ancient knowledge and sagacity, and they deigned only rarely to speak to human beings. Visible only to those who could enhance their eyesight with their elements, they generally inhabited the world unseen and unheard, considered mere myth by many of my people. But Hans had formally introduced me to the one who occupied the single silver oak on the Thaden grounds, a meeting that I would never forget. The Eihalbe had hidden itself amid a thick batch of silvery leaves and stared at me in silence, its almond-shaped eyes aglow with a prism of colors.
Now, to my astonishment, I found myself blinking at an Eihalbe hovering within arm’s reach, its silvery body nearly blending in with the weathered wall of the gorge. A chill crept up my spine as I looked over the one who had intruded upon my anguish—the fairy was about the size of a squirrel, humanoid in form but with swiftly beating wings and a casually swaying tail. Its wavy hair shimmered around its body like mercury, making it appear female, though I knew that Eihalbae were genderless creatures. They did not reproduce like humans or animals; they came into being whenever a silver oak first produced acorns. They usually did not travel far from their own tree, but this one was here, hovering above an elm tree growing from the bluff of an Austrian gorge. And it had called me a Teuton witch.
I shuddered a little, gripping the bark beneath me more tightly as I pulled out all of the Teutonica I knew to properly greet my unexpected company. “Noble Eihalbe . . . .” I began haltingly, meeting its mesmerizing gaze, “Please, I . . . I’m not . . . worthy to call myself a witch . . . not after . . . after . . . .” My voice broke, and I gestured wordlessly toward the river below, which still flowed more roughly than it should.
“Sorcery always exacts a price.” Its kaleidoscope eyes bored seriously into mine, its lips curving strangely around the words. I noticed that its teeth were that of an herbivore; it had flat canines.
“True. Good advice,” I murmured, nodding, my curiosity beginning to grow about my companion. I remembered all that Hans had told me. Be respectful. Never ask any questions. Offer gratitude for any counsel. “Thank you,” I added belatedly, my eyes shifting downward again.
The waters appeared to be calming at long last, so maybe I could safely ride the Leutascher Ache back to the glade where I had started my dance. What I really wanted to do was find out whether my companion had a name, what tree it inhabited, whether it had followed me in my dance, why it had decided to speak with me now, of all times. But when I raised my face to the fairy once more, it simply looked back at me in silence, its fingers slowly weaving a blade of grass that I had not seen before. Maybe it had pulled it from somewhere on the gorge wall. There were enough tufts of grass sticking out here and there.
“Looks like the river is calming,” I mentioned, the fairy’s silence rendering me uneasy. “I guess I should try to convince its waters to carry me back.”
“The Teuton witch should climb.” The Eihalbe looked over its right shoulder toward the top of the cliff, some thirty meters overhead.
I followed its gaze, the earthen wall seeming to tower over me. Really? Is that what I should do? I suddenly began to doubt the Eihalbe’s wisdom. My element was ice, not earth, and the fairy certainly knew that. It would be easier to just let the river take me back—but then again, with an upstream course, I may run out of energy to direct its waters properly before I got there. My dance and subsequent scramble had exhausted me already. “It was hard to climb this far, noble Eihalbe,” I pointed out as respectfully as possible.
“The Teuton witch seeks the abstruse. She is familiar with the Leutascher Ache.” My companion looked upward toward the edge of the cliff again, but this time I realized that its radiant eyes focused on something else, something below the edge. In the starlight I could see a crevice in a shadowy boulder about halfway between where I sat upon the elm and the top of the gorge. I squinted toward the cleft and sensed a strange tingle in my blood, an aura that made my Teuton spirit take notice.
“There’s something up there. And I won’t get it if I just commit my fate to the Leutascher Ache.” I looked back at my companion, whose expression appeared pleased, as far as I could tell. It threaded the woven blade of grass into its hair and flitted away from the weathered wall, as if to give me space to start my climb. So I rose to my feet and placed my hands against the cliff before me, lifting my gaze to the crevice and the surrounding area one final time.
There appeared to be enough clumps of grass and rocky indents to use as foot- and handholds on my way there. I bit my lip and summoned a courage I did not feel, awakening my ice more fully yet again, letting it protrude from my fingers and toes, solidifying it with all of my power. I felt my hair freeze into spikes as I twisted my face to the right to regard the Eihalbe one final time. “Thank you for your counsel, worthy Eihalbe.”
“Respect the price, Zoubaraera Teutona.” The fairy whizzed away before I could press the subject, quickly vanishing over the upper edge of the gorge. Apparently its tree was somewhere in the forest. No point in dawdling any longer. It had grown late, and Vreni had likely begun to wonder what had become of me. I shoved my hesitation aside and thrust my ice-coated fingers into the wall in a course for the mystery above.
I reached my goal after some struggle. The higher I ascended, the sparser the patches of earth and grass became, forcing me to push my ice back so that I could properly grip the multiplying crags of rock. At last, I balanced my toes on a thin ledge of stone, pulling my body into a standing position, my left hand precariously clutching a scrawny tree branch, rendering my face level with the dark crevice. There, deep in the shadows of the stone, I saw a small glimmer of crimson.
For a protracted moment, I stared at the reddish glow in silent confusion, wondering whether I dared to reach my right hand into the crevice to take hold of it, whether it might be enchanted somehow, whether it might burn me. What in the world has that Eihalbe gotten me into? Some hidden ember? I tried to think back to everything I had read in Der Weg, to recall if there existed some glowing amulet that harbored Teutonic magic. I did not think so, but then something else snared my concentration, something powerful, something atrocious, something very, very dark . . . .
And everything happened at once. My heart began to race, knives of horror prickling upon my flesh, and I plunged my right hand into the crevice, snatching that crimson curiosity and bringing it out into the night air before shoving it deep into the pocket of my jean shorts. My rash motions cost me my grip on the ledge beneath my feet, and I cried out in terror, my left hand tightening its grasp on the branch while my right hand scrabbled to clutch something, anything on the rock before me. My icy toes scraped desperately upon the cliff below, unable to find purchase on a more solid element, and I screamed, swinging my right hand over to the branch in desperation. I just barely managed to wrap my fingers around it, my arms taking the entirety of my weight, prompting their muscles to tremble with strain. Did that fairy know that this would happen? Did it want me to die?
The tree branch was truly bending now, and I caught a glimpse of the water far, far below, so shallow, not enough to cushion a fall from this height. I lifted my head to the top of the chasm, an impossible distance away . . . and there I saw the dark presence that had seized hold of my thoughts mere seconds before. Someone stood at the very edge of the gorge, wrapped in a blackness my eyesight could not pierce, its shadowed face turned downward, to me. In spite of the terror that enveloped me at the sight—so unexpected to see a human in an undeveloped ravine—I choked out a cry to whoever it was: “Help me!”
The branch bent further, accompanied by a creaking sound, and I knew that I had only seconds before I would die, tumbling to the rocky river below. The figure above me showed no signs of interest in my plight; in fact, it began to drift away. In hopelessness I shouted, “Wait!” My fingers had begun to slip from the branch.
The cloaked figure paused, and suddenly a sardonic male voice broke upon my ears, speaking a harsh indictment in Bayerisch. “Time and tide wait for none but the dead.”
And a power tore me from my grip with a tenacity that I could neither match nor fight, sweeping me into an elemental storm that seemed a mix of deadly energy, a roaring gale, and an intense hurricane. It cast me down, down toward the rocks and water below, then swept me upstream, carrying me through the air centimeters above the river. I could not move my body as it hurtled out of the gorge and along the path of the Leutascher Ache, though my ice had erupted with an intensity that I had rarely experienced in my mortal form, possibly in defense, crystallizing my eyes, freezing my hair into a sheet upon my shoulders. My mouth was open in a soundless scream, and even my teeth had sharpened into razor icicles.
With an abruptness that could very well have caused my heart to leap out of my chest, the whirlwind ride had ceased, depositing me onto the very bank from which my adventure had begun. I found myself crouched upon the grass, panting, my heart still racing, my ice yet holding prominence over my body. I blinked my eyes several times, shook my head back and forth, and calmed my element, noticing my discarded sandals lying near a bush about a meter to my left. Lifting my head to the trees before me and the incline beyond, I saw the glimmering lights of the bed-and-breakfast piercing the darkness, inviting me to return to reality.
What . . . just . . . happened?
Now was not the time to consider it. I pushed myself to my feet and yanked my sandals from the grass, then sprinted away from that stream, from that specter, from that gorge, from those mad Teutonic whims. I yanked on the back door first before remembering that I had to use my key to get in from the front. I harrumphed in frustration and paused just long enough to stuff my sandals back onto my feet before running more slowly around the side of the building farthest from the gorge that had plunged my life into insanity. I dug around in my left hand pocket while crossing the parking lot, finding my contact case first, then the key. I pulled it out and held it to my chest like a lifeline, my sole connection to reality.
After gaining access to the lobby, I fairly fled up the stairs to the suite I had rented with my friends, locking its door firmly behind me, as though that could keep out the demons that now stalked my memories. Erika lay passed out on the daybed, not having changed her clothes. Vreni was curled up beneath the blanket on her side of our shared bed, soft snores exiting her open mouth. Both seemed to be sleeping soundly, not having noticed my prolonged absence.
And here I was, having danced like a naiad far down a stream, scaled a gorge without the aid of ropes or a harness, taken the unsolicited advice of a cryptic fairy, discovered something that had been hidden in the rock face for who knew how long, met a wraith with a power so strong, so noxious that it seemed impossible to exist.
So what was this thing I had found, this thing that had called to both my ice and my blood? Now that I had made it safely back to this room, to the company of my friends, it was high time to find out the truth. I moved to sit down upon my side of the bed, switching on the small light that shone above my pillow. I dug my contact case from my pocket first, seeing that it had cracked somehow in the fray, likely damaging the lenses inside. I sighed a little but laid the case down onto the bedside table in front of my glasses; I could wear those for the rest of our vacation, as usual. Then I stretched myself out upon the bed, relaxing my muscles, closing my eyes for a moment before reaching into the right pocket of my shorts to bring my new possession into the light.
It appeared to be a small, misshapen stone, about two centimeters in diameter and a deep dark red in color. It did not seem to give off any light, so how I had noticed its glow inside the crevice remained an enigma. Its color made me think of dark blood, perhaps from an artery, mingled with earth. What was more, the stone felt rather unlike a regular old stone, as I held it. It felt too smooth and somehow malleable, arcane. It felt like it could possibly be used for something.
A story arose in my mind, one I had read several times before in Der Weg, one of many tales in that historical text that most people believed to be legend. In the eleventh century, at the height of the Teuton era, many Teutons still practiced the ancient traditions and studied the ancient arts, within the bounds of mysticism permitted by the Catholic Church. Some Teuton priests showed great interest in history, desiring not only to read what the chroniclers had written down, but to experience the events for themselves. One of them, at his death, created the Teutonic Torstein with his own blood . . . the gateway stone . . . the stone that could take a person back in time to observe, to become a part of history.
The Torstein, according to Der Weg, was supposedly a dark red in color and about the size of the rock I now held in my hand. It had disappeared sometime in the fifteenth century, and no one, not any of the Teuton scholars, knew where it had gone. It was thought to be lost forever.
It was not lost forever. The certainty had begun to grow in my mind. I had found the Torstein at the direction of an Eihalbe, deep in a crevice in the Leutasch Gorge. I was almost positive. But how could I know for sure?
I felt a shiver run up my spine as I answered my own question. Hans would know. Of course he’d know. But we’re not going home for another three days.
My eyes drifted to my right to where Vreni lay asleep, then toward the opposite end of the room where Erika sprawled stoned upon the daybed. I certainly could not tell either of them, not until I knew for sure whether this stone was the real deal or not. Maybe I could convince them to go to breakfast together in the morning, act like I needed to sleep longer. Somehow I had to evict them from the room so I could call my father’s house in peace.
I shook my head at myself and placed the rock back into my pocket before getting to my feet and heading for the bathroom. I knew that I would get zero sleep that night, even though my adventure had exhausted my body. My brain swirled with ideas on how to use a power over time travel and all of the potential dangers involved, the stone lying heavily against my thigh. Respect the price.