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Zelda couldn’t believe it, but she was standing in the city of her childhood. It was Perth, which was not far south of Alleren. She was standing outside the hovel she had shared with her uncle in the mud-stained slums, and she could see herself, a little girl of maybe four, sitting on the front steps and poking a stick in the mud. Her child-self wasn’t alone either. Another little girl with wild brown hair was sitting beside her, also poking the mud with a stick.
“Sian,” said Zelda happily, her blue eyes staring with soft affection at the little brown-haired girl.
Both little girls were wearing torn, filthy tunics with no hose and no shoes because they could not afford them. Instead, their feet were bare and stained with mud, as were their faces.
Zelda remembered Sian had always been rather boyish. She had a filthy rag tied back in her hair and sat beside Child Zelda on the step with her knees wide open. She freely scratched herself, so that Child Zelda giggled.
Zelda and Sian had always been inseparable. Zelda’s uncle had often mocked them, asking sarcastically if they were betrothed when he caught them holding hands.
“One day I shall be a knight,” said Sian confidently.
“But how?” said Child Zelda hopelessly. “Your parents have to take you. They don’t take runaways, and your mother would never allow . . .”
“Then I shall slay my mother!” cried Sian, leaping to her feet and pointing her stick triumphantly at the sky.
Child Zelda giggled. “You wouldn’t do that!”
“I would!” said Sian, lifting her chin. “I shall slay her, and then my father shall take me to Falcon Isle to be a knight.” She glanced at Child Zelda apprehensively and asked almost coyly, “Would thou love me if I did?”
Child Zelda blushed a little. “But I dost love thee now!”
“Dost thou?” said Sian with round blue eyes. She sat on the step again, staring at Child Zelda eagerly. “And would you wear my favor?”
Child Zelda shyly fanned her lashes down and blushed as she said, “Of course, my knight!”
“Then you are my lady,” said Sian, removing the filthy rag from her hair and draping it across Child Zelda’s waiting hand.
Child Zelda was suddenly overcome with a burst of giggles, and she leaned over and pecked Sian on the lips. Sian seemed very pleased by this, but before she could speak, the door behind them burst open, and Zelda’s drunken uncle staggered out, golden strings of greasy hair hanging in his face, cheeks flaming from wine.
Child Zelda and Sian froze in terror.
“So you fancy other girls, eh?” slurred Zelda’s uncle with a leering smile. He grabbed a rough fistful of Child Zelda’s hair, and the little girl screamed, tears springing to her eyes. “Perchance I’ll sell you to a whorehouse, put you to work entertaining some men!”
Child Zelda twisted and shrieked as her uncle tried to pull her inside the hovel by her hair. A furious Sian leapt to her feet and launched herself at Zelda’s uncle. Zelda’s uncle lifted his boot – and adult Zelda turned away just in time to avoid reliving the sight of Sian being kicked in the face. Sian screamed from the blow and sobbed. Zelda could still hear her child-self screaming and crying as she closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she started to find herself face to face with a woman she didn’t know.
The woman didn’t belong in the memory any more than Zelda did. The memory was dull, almost colorless, while Zelda and the stranger stood out from it, full of color and life and wearing fine clothes compared to the people of the slums, who were draped in rags.
The stranger was a young elven woman with long white hair. She was quite short, reminding Zelda of Wick as she stood there in her pale lavender gown, which curiously had no sleeves.
The elven woman, arms folded, uttered a word in a strange language, and the memory vanished, so that they were standing on the dark stair again, surrounded by books. Zelda had the big tome Zelda’s Memory Vol. LIII: Sian in her arms.
The stranger took the tome from Zelda and placed it back on the shelf. “I needn’t tell you how reckless that was,” she said. “If I hadn’t been here, you may have become stuck in your own memory, watching it on an endless loop for all eternity.”
Zelda swallowed hard, silently agreeing that being trapped in that memory would indeed have been horrific. “But what is this place?” she asked, glancing around.
The elven woman turned from the bookshelf and appraised Zelda in surprise. “If you braved the dangers of Eido Loth while knowing so little about it, one is left to assume you are one of the queen’s lackeys?”
Zelda stiffened indignantly. “So you must be Lythara,” she said coolly.
“I am. And you are Zelda the Queen-slayer? Or was that your knight?” Without waiting for an answer, Lythara turned and started down the stair. As she went, a trail of wisp-lights blossomed from her gracefully-lifted hand.
“You know me?” said Zelda, following.
“All of Alleren knows you. The queen was furious when you slew her sister. Demanded the Order of Vira send a description of you and the knights who fled with you, and of course they had to obey.”
“And she chose you to replace Alarien?”
“Obviously.”
“But you’re an elf,” said Zelda. She didn’t wish to be rude, but she was baffled.
“Should I be anything other? A dragon perchance? Or a unicorn?”
“No, it’s just . . . The elven rebellion and . . .”
“Not all elves care to restore the days of former glory,” said Lythara, who had paused to glance over the titles of a few books. She kept going, the wisp-lights trailing behind. “The queen knows she has my fealty.”
“She sent me in here to rescue you.”
“Ha. Does she have so little faith in me?”
“She wants you to return.”
“Obviously, but I’m in the middle of something, as you can very well see.”
“What if I aided you? Then you could return, the queen could pardon me, and everyone would be happy.” Zelda smiled a little sardonically. She was surprised when Lythara halted on the stair, gave her a sideways glance, and smiled quite sincerely.
“All right,” said the elven woman, turning to face Zelda. “It seems I’ve been a bit rude. I . . . apologize. It’s just that I’ve been here for three weeks and I’m so close!”
Zelda frowned. “So close to what? What is this place?” she asked for the second time.
Lythara turned away again. “Come. If you are to aid me, then I suppose a history lesson is in order.”
Zelda followed Lythara down the stairs, through the cold and eerie gloom. There were no Wyre torches here, and she realized that if not for Lythara’s light, they would have been stumbling through pitch darkness.
Of course, Zelda could have conjured a wisp-light herself, but Lythara’s light was different. It didn’t just function to push back the darkness but also to repel dark creatures, which likely would have swarmed inside the building otherwise. Zelda knew it must’ve been because Lythara was an elf. Elven magick was stronger by far than human magick. That humans had ever taken the realms from the elves was a mystery for the ages, Zelda thought.
“There is a place where all thoughts, memories, and dreams gather,” said Lythara, descending the stair, still trailing light from her hand. “This isn’t it, of course. The dimension is called Edolel and is believed to be the mind of, well, a goddess. A long time ago, there was a sorceress named Ithrel who decided to steal the thoughts and dreams of Edolel. This library is her collection.”
Zelda glanced at the books on the walls in wonder, and she might have been skeptical if she hadn’t just tumbled accidentally into one of her own memories. Seeing Sian again had been wonderful . . . and terrible.
“Ithrel created a device that would farm – for lack of a better word—the thoughts and dreams and memories of Edolel,” went on Lythara, quite businesslike. “The device is still here and still functioning after thousands of years. I wanted to bring it with me back to our world, but it would be too much fuss, dragging the thing back while constantly battling monsters.”
“But the dark creatures fear your light,” said Zelda. “I saw them flee.”
“The lesser ones, yes. So you didn’t encounter any demons? That was lucky.”
They came to the bottom of the stair at last. Lythara lifted her hand, sending a stream of light toward the ceiling, where it split into spheres and hovered, illuminating the large room below.
Zelda took a step forward. It was a great circular room. The walls were covered in yet more old books, and tattered pages littered the floor like a mosaic. There were reading podiums with books open upon them, and torches with green flames of Wyre Light had been fastened to them. Archways opened in the bookshelves at intervals, leading to other rooms, the contents of which were dark, devoid as they were of Lythara’s light. Only one of the side rooms had been lit by the sorceress, and it was full of piles of books that had been pulled from the shelves and left on the floor.
There were even more book piles in the room where they stood. Zelda accidentally tripped over one of the piles, sending books sliding every which way, and was scolded by Lythara, who complained she had just set her work back six hours.
At the center of the main room stood a machine, black and narrow. It looked like a birdbath with gears nailed to the sides. Attached to it was a lever, and on the floor beside the machine, more piles of discarded books.
“What I’m about to tell you is strictly confidential,” said Lythara. “It cannot be repeated on pain of death.”
“My life is already in the hands of the queen. What’s one more danger?” said Zelda tiredly.
“I have spent three weeks here looking for information on dragons.”
“Dragons?”
“Yes. Where have they gone? Why have they disappeared? Did they perchance leave nests behind? Etcetera.”
“That’s what you braved the perils of this land for?” said Zelda incredulously. “Who the devil cares if the dragons are gone so long as they’re gone?”
Lythara scoffed impatiently. “Do humans know so little of their own history? The only reason your people were able to overthrow the elven empire was your taming of the dragons! Then the dragons grew weary of being used like mere beasts and they disappeared! The elven resistance is trying to find them—"
“But if the queen finds them first, she can curtail the resistance,” finished Zelda.
“Exactly,” said Lythara. “The only trouble is, there isn’t a single book here about them, not a memory, not a thought! It is as if the dragons wiped themselves from the mind of the goddess and from existence itself.”
“Or,” suggested Zelda, “the elven resistance found this place first and took all the books on dragons.”
“A possibility I was loath to consider,” said Lythara. She looked at Zelda with sudden interest, as if she had never quite looked at her before. “But you are human. You carry the genetic memory of your ancestors. You could use the machine to try to recall the dragons.”
“If it gets me forth from here and back to my baby,” sighed Zelda unenthusiastically.
“Excellent. Step over here,” said Lythara, stepping aside, “and think of the dragons, and pull the lever. Think very hard of the dragons.”
Zelda tried “very hard” to think of the dragons, but when she pulled the lever, she was blinded by white light and suddenly found herself in a memory that had nothing to do with dragons whatsoever.
Zelda was standing in a training yard. Muscular adolescent girls with ponytails were standing in a row, firing arrows at targets, as an older woman instructed them with her hands behind her back.
Other girls were sparring with wooden training swords inside a fenced area. Zelda paused when she noticed two girls in particular: a red-head with a voluminous ponytail and a girl with dark black hair pulled back in a single plait. They must’ve been twelve years old at least. The redhead was going at it a little too enthusiastically with her wooden sword and was getting careless. The dark-haired girl got in a good strike that disarmed her.
“Ouch!” cried the redhead, sucking her hand. And then, to everyone’s horror, she tackled the dark-haired girl to the dirt and started beating her. Everyone in the training yard stood transfixed to watch. The dark-haired girl fought back, and they went rolling through clouds of dirt, screaming and shouting.
Zelda stood staring. It couldn’t be!
“Calain! Selene! Cease this insanity at once!” shouted the dark-haired woman who’d been instructing them. She lunged forward, reached into the fray, and yanked both girls out by their collars. She was about to scold the pouting girls further when the redhead shouted, “Pa!” and broke free, taking off at a mad dash across the yard.
Zelda watched fondly as Child Calain threw herself into the arms of a middle-aged man with shaggy brown hair. The man chuckled as he caught Calain in a hug and rested his cheek with a smile on her wild hair.
Smiling, Zelda drew near to listen with interest.
The man pulled back and looked down at Calain, who was tousled, sweaty, and smeared in dirt. He laughed. “Look at you! You’re nearly as tall as your pa!”
“Where is Ma?” asked Calain, eagerly glancing around.
The smile on Arthur’s face faltered. “Calain . . .” He cleared his throat. “Your ma is a good woman who loves you very much, but she left to seek her fortune elsewhere.”
Calain looked crestfallen. “Is she coming back?”
“No, child,” said Arthur gently.
Calain’s lip trembled. “B-But I need her. She said she’d always be there!”
Before her father could answer, Calain tore free of his arms and ran from the fortress, out the gate and through the grass.
“Calain!” Arthur called miserably.
Looking concerned, Selene ran after her.
“You’re doing this on purpose,” said a peeved voice.
Zelda started to find Lythara beside her, arms folded, looking irritable, and what she was supposed to be doing – finding memories of dragons – came rushing back to her.
Lythara uttered a strange word, and they were pulled from the memory. Zelda looked around to find herself back in the bizarre library, standing beside the black machine, on the pedestal of which was a book that’s title page named it: Calain’s Memory Vol. XXVI: Lowri.
Zelda looked up from the book to find Lythara glowering at her from the other side of it. The elven woman snapped the book shut, her eyes still fixed rather angrily on Zelda.
Zelda frowned. “I haven’t done anything.”
Lythara lifted her white brows. “Oh? You have done nothing except distract and sabotage since you’ve been here! You are trying to stop me finding the dragons!”
Zelda stared in disbelief. At last, she said, “You’re mad! You’ve been here too long.”
“Am I mad? Am I?” went on Lythara, a crazed sort of light in her eyes. “You aren’t the first spy to come here, trying to protect Hidden Dragon—”
“Hidden Dragon?”
“Though they must be desperate if they’re recruiting humans now. Is your knight a part of this as well? Is that why she slew Ellanara? She left holes in half the castle and took one of those Hidden Dragon lunatics with her when she fled. I saw it when I scryed the castle! Is she waiting somewhere for you? Perhaps I’ll send you back to your elven friends together!” Her crazed, paranoid eyes grew wider. “Yes, you are Bound, so it's possible! To Menosea!”
Before Zelda could protest, she was blasted full force in her face by Lythara’s white light, which the elf cast from both her hands.