Chapter 17: Arinella

Arinella was able to overcome the Ashkinurkhat desert, accepting her own pain. Loneliness ate her up from the inside. But she had to keep going. Sometimes sandstorms forced her to walk, completely covering her face, and, spitting out the sand, Arinella cursed herself, her life and the whole world. Sometimes it rained… Arinella missed her dwarf friend, but all she felt was the taste of wet sand, which she would feel on her lips for a long time, as well as the feeling of emptiness inside... Finally, a long road brought her to the mountains.

The Belt of Twilight. A majestic mountain chain was here since the planet creation. At the foot it seemed that the mountains cut through the space and poke their spear-shaped tops right into the stars as if they were mischievous children...

Arinella looked around. It became cold. The snow at the foot turned into puddles, but a little higher, closer to the caves, it wasn’t melting. Several gorges and caves stretched out before her eyes. The elf-woman chose one gorge, which seemed to her less sinister and intimidating than the others.

Preparing her hands for the spell, she walked slowly. She felt how the cold enveloped her, how the goosebumps crawled up her body. She moved slowly because she did not know what could be waiting for her. Suddenly she heard some sounds.

“Arinella?” A voice sounded so familiar, slightly husky.

“Edelmer?” the arqilunian said in surprise.

“What are you doing here?” the bearded snunorf asked.

“I’m looking for you,” Arinella said frankly.

“Why?”

“What have you been doing here for twenty years?” Arinella ignored his question.

“I was asleep, I was held captive by some ghost. As I understand him, I should have become his vessel, but something went wrong.”

“Something always goes wrong with you,” Arinella rolled her eyes and smiled, and got a smile back from Edelmer.

“We must find a way to the other side of the mountains,” the snunorf decided to say.

“What? Are you out of your mind?” Arinella was furious. “Why are you so obsessed with these mountains? We must get out of here; death is on the other side. And then there’s the war–”

“War? Has it really started?” Edelmer didn’t have time to wait for an answer, as he rushed to the exit from the gorge.

“Where are you going? Have you lost your mind?”

“If you’re talking about war, then I need to find my wife... and a daughter!” He didn’t want to believe that he had missed twenty years of his daughter’s life. “What a fool I am, why did I need all the secrets of the world, why did I believe that I would find the northerners?”

Arinella at that moment recalled how she had once told him that he needed to go beyond the Belt of Twilight... Why had he chosen Lanialis over her?

“Are you coming?” Edelmer halted abruptly and shouted to the Arinella, who had been frozen in thought.

“Yes,” the elf-woman responded.

“Wait, I can hear the sounds of the argiphone,” Edelmer said.

“I can hear it too! But we don’t know if they’re enemies or friends,” Arinella said.

Argiphone had landed somewhere at the foot of the mountains, but to the east from the arqilunian and snunorf. Peering out of the gorge and looking to the east, Edelmer saw only an argiphone flying away. The ermirians he had landed were not visible, the ledge of the mountain blocked the view…