“Everything is—what is everything?” Gifford asked. “Eshim? What is eshim?”
“Eshim is eshim,” Alberich said, slapping his own chest. “You don’t have that word in Rhunic?”
They all shook their heads.
Alberich scowled. “Stupid language you have, then. Eshim is—is heart, is understanding, is belief.”
“Confidence?” Moya asked. She had strung Audrey but no arrow had appeared.
Alberich shrugged. “Sort of, only more so. More from ’ere.” Again, he hit his chest. “Understand?”
Brin nodded along with the rest, but honestly, she wasn’t sure.
“You pulled your sword because it gave you more eshim—made you feel stronger, safer, bolder, aye? The armor I will make will do better than a sword. My armor will give a boost to your eshim that will make you strong.”
“So, the armor isn’t metal; it’s reassurance?” Gifford asked.
“It helps increase your sense of willpower,” Beatrice said. “Makes it harder for others to impose their will on you.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Gifford said. He started to slide his sword back into its scabbard.
“Wait, wait, wait.” Alberich held out a hand, opening and closing it. “Let me see this thing you have ’ere.”
Gifford hesitated. Beatrice mouthed, Give it to him! and Moya nodded. He handed it over.
The dwarf brought it closer to the light, rapped on it with his knuckles, then licked it. He swished his lips back and forth contemplating the taste. “This is formed from your eshim, but you didn’t make it. This is a memory. You used it in life. From whence came the original?”
Gifford glanced at Roan. “She made it.”
“Roan,” Alberich said, eyeing her with a new intensity.
Roan still had her arms out, but they were starting to droop.
“She calls it steel,” Gifford said.
Alberich looked at Beatrice with suspicious eyes. The princess showed no reaction but held his gaze. Her awestruck respect for Est Berling had vanished, and her face became an unassailable wall. The glaring continued for several awkward minutes until finally Alberich slammed the flat of the blade hard on the desk, making them all jump. Roan had had enough of standing out with her arms up, and she retreated to Gifford, who grabbed her.
“The impression the original made on you is strong,” Alberich said, looking at the blade. “Must have been good metal.” To Roan, he said, “Good . . . steel, Roan.” He laughed a bit like a madman. “Ha-ha! She is me!” He handed the sword back to Gifford. “And for you, for all o’ you, I will make my best armor. Aye, the very best.”
With the measurements completed, Beatrice offered to show them the view from the top of the Bulwark, but Tressa, Roan, and Rain remained in Alberich’s workshop to watch “the show,” as they called it. That Roan and Rain wanted to observe a master craftsman was understandable, but Tressa was the surprise. Despite feeling better within Mideon’s walls, it was obvious the woman still wasn’t up for a lengthy climb. As a result, only Moya, Brin, and Gifford followed Beatrice up the long stairway to the high tower. Upon reaching the pinnacle, they were rewarded with a view that Brin wanted to memorize because she knew she’d never see anything like it again. Below were the colossal walls of the Bulwark, made small by the height of the tower. Flashes of firelight sparked all along the fortification in perfect timing as the defenses of Mideon’s fortress continued to send forth flaming missiles that flew out and exploded in the midst of the attacking armies surrounding the fortress.
An ant war.
That’s how it looked—if ants fired flaming projectiles.
Brin saw ladders and rams. Great creatures with giant hammers beat against the Bulwark’s walls while rocks, spears, and boiling liquid were thrown down from the ramparts. So high were they that the sound of war was muffled—made small. The thunderous explosions were pops, the drums taps, and the cries of pain and cheers of victory a soft hum.
“Out there is the White Tower,” Beatrice said, pointing at a singular column. At such a distance, Brin could have hidden it with her outstretched hand. “The home of the Queen of Nifrel.”
The tower looked like a tree with a massive root system but not a single branch. From its base, hundreds of tangled white lines spread for miles in all directions. This vast white web of roads, walls, outposts, and fortresses seemed to be made from the same pale dull material: stone or possibly the salt and sun-bleached wood that drifted onto the beaches of Tirre. The network of white created a large circle, but other fortresses infringed on it, most notably the Bulwark itself.
The fortresses, towers, outposts, and roads were not, however, the dominant feature of the land. Nor were the mountains, hills, valleys, or plateaus, of which there were many. The most abundant characteristic of the landscape was the fissures. Dark zigzagging scars broke the land with unnerving cracks that reminded Brin of a dry lakebed. They ran everywhere, necessitating numerous bridges, which required battlements and towers to control each of them.
“Over there”—Beatrice pointed to the far left where the largest of the cracks formed a great canyon that was spanned by a lone and narrow bridge—“is the Mouth of the Abyss. And that bridge leads to the Alysin Door. As you can see, it’s on the top of that slender pinnacle of rock that rises out of the center of Nifrel. Some call it the Needle; others refer to it as the Tongue of the Abyss. Most just call it the Alysin Pillar.”
“How far away is that?” Gifford asked.
To Brin, it looked like it was days away.
“In Phyre, distances are deceiving. Although, it might feel like an eternity to reach it.”
Moya looked down at the raging siege. “How can we get past the armies?”
“This is King Mideon’s castle, a Belgriclungreian citadel.” Beatrice smiled. “You may be aware that we have a bit of an obsession when it comes to digging. Beneath this fortress is a labyrinth of tunnels—roadways to all corners of this realm. The queen knows many of our routes, but not all. You’ll be going by the flyway, one of our most secret paths. It will pop you out over there by that roundish hill.”
“That’s more than halfway,” Moya said excitedly. “We could run for it from there.”
“You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” Beatrice shook her head and frowned. “But you don’t know the queen like we do. She is the oldest in this realm—well, the oldest up here, at least. Her older brother Trilos and their uncles, the Typhons, are supposed to be below us in the Abyss, but no one has heard from them in eons. So up here, Ferrol reigns. She’s one of the Five, and their powers are beyond imagining.”
“What are the Five?” Brin asked.
“The Aesira.” Beatrice looked confused when she failed to see recognition. “You don’t know about them? But you were sent here by—” She stopped and again looked puzzled. Then a smile came to her face. “He didn’t tell you anything, did he?”
“He?” Moya asked.
Beatrice narrowed her eyes in thought, considering her words. “The one who sent you.”
“You mean Malcolm.”