The Colorless Land

Chapter 10: Four is a Crowd

They stopped in a small glade in the middle of the woods, far from any human settling. Dawn was beginning to light up the distant horizon, though it was dim and faded, gray as the heavy clouds blocking out the moon and stars above.

"This is as far as we're going tonight," Aithal said as he dismounted and helped down Jolette. "The horses should still find their way home from here."

Jolette stared at him. "I thought we were keeping the horses!"

"We shouldn't steal." He ran a hand along his horse's neck. "Taking the horses at all was technically a wrong, but it was an acute emergency. We shouldn't bring them any further than we absolutely need."

"But what if we get chased again?"

Aithal sighed. "We should avoid that situation," he simply said. "Besides, we don't want to be wanted as horse-thieves on top of everything."

"We shouldn't be in any more danger anytime soon," Saryana piped in as she lifted a half-sleeping Edmian off her horse. "That place was close to the border, the people didn't act normal. It's not like we're wanted nationwide or anything."

Jolette turned around, all signs of drowsiness forgotten. "They were acting weird!" she exclaimed. "You noticed it too?"

"Mhm...like they were drugged or hypnotized. Or put under a spell." Saryana scratched her horse between the ears. "Maybe that's why they backed off when that...that blue light happened."

Her eyes rested on Edmian, and Jolette, too, fixed him with her gaze. "Right!" she said. "That blue thing, what was that?"

Edmian blinked in confusion, as if he had only been half aware of the conversation. His hand moved up to his collar as he lowered his head, his voice soft and almost ashamed. "I...don't know."

"Unfortunately, I don't either."

Whispering to the horses, Aithal sent them off with a pat and sat down on the roots of a tree. "The things I know about these pendants are very few, and almost all second-hand," he said. "Of mine I know only that it holds courage, and that it grants it to its bearer. Of yours I suspect that it does the same with free will. But what other power they have, and how it is used, or why they are so important, the Colorless alone fully know."

Edmian glanced up at him in disappointment. "You don't?"

Aithal shook his head. "No one told me, and there are no records. All I know is that it was entrusted to me for safekeeping, and those who stole it were taken captive for it by the Colorless."

His family? Jolette wondered, though she said nothing out loud. Then his family had to be very reckless, or very powerful and important. No ordinary person would attempt such a thing. No ordinary person would have found out about the existence of the pendants in the first place.

And if they had all been taken, how was Aithal still free? How had he escaped when his family had not?

"We shall ask the elves about it," Aithal said after a pause, in a tone as if he was brushing off the topic. "They're ancient, and they know more about magic than anyone else left on earth. If anyone knows, it has to be them."

Jolette wanted to ask him more, about the elves and about their journey, where they lived, how far it was, if they were friendly. There were so few stories about elves left in Firland. It was said that they had lived there once until humans populated the land, but soon after they had disappeared, becoming estranged from the humans until few now knew where they had gone.

But before she could ask any questions, she yawned very loudly, and her empty stomach gave an accompanying growl. Saryana crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at her and Edmian, her expression stern and scrutinizing.