Element. Flame of Elisar. Marie K. JETH

that had happened I could still enjoy its warm and peaceful crackle. Apparently, it was because the fire in the fireplace was different from the magic fire on my hands.

      Meanwhile, the conversation in the living room went on – the men were arguing again about what to do next, leave or stay.

      Elcha was sitting next to me, looking into the fireplace, too, and biting her lower lip silently.

      She already knew about everything.

      Awakened with the fuss downstairs, she jumped out exactly the moment I had just been put in the chair. For a while, my sister sat beside me squeezing silently my fingers until the elixir took its effect. Her hand was bandaged up to the shoulder and rested in a sling on her chest. Her face was pale, eyes sunken and shining of some tough determination. She was no longer that very noisy and fussy girl that would chatter incessantly a day before. Now she had her lips tightly pressed, and her gaze totally focused. She seemed to have grown a couple of years over a night. Then, as if making a decision, she got up and addressed everyone sitting in the living room.

      “Well, why don’t you start telling us something at least? I still believe you do know much more than we do,” she curved her eyebrows and pierced everyone with one of her most inquisitive looks.

      “What is it you wanna know?” Nargara asked and moved her tired glance onto me.

      “First,” Elcha started, “who were the beasts? Second, why is it us they wanted to get? Third, how did they find us?” she was walking as if measuring the room as she darted the questions. “And fourth, if it was so dangerous, then what the he… Mammy, why did you ban us from using magic?!” she turned sharply to face Nargara while her eyes were beaming with so

      much ferocity that even Yoos, so gloomy a minute ago, started smiling as he looked at the witch expecting her to respond. But she remained silent.

      “And another, just one more thing to ask,” she stopped for an instant thinking over something and then went on with the interrogation, “Who of you were there, on the northern slope, the night before last. I could hear and see two of you, and now, after all that happened, I guess it was us you were talking about.”

      Mammy’s eyes narrowed as she stared at Elcha, and her confusion was so manifest she couldn’t have hidden it even if had tried. The moment was so ripe that I jumped right in concluding my sister’s shower of questions, “Enough of your secrets. Looks like they may cost us too much.”

      The men looked at each other, puzzled, both moving their eyes at Nargara thus giving her a free hand making the decision.

      She exhaled trying to pluck up her courage.

      “If we answered your questions now, that would bring around even more of them, and we cannot explain everything…”

      “Why?” Elcha immediately asked in the most assertive manner.

      “Because we are all bound by the oath of Erion,” Mammy replied quietly.

      Now it was our turn to exchange glances.

      “Any level to it?” I tried to clarify once I managed my shock.

      “First,” Nargara answered in even a lower voice, and fixed her gaze on the fireplace.

      We were perfectly aware what it meant; read about it in the Book of Elements.

      Erion was a sacred oath with three levels and a great conquering power. It was somewhat different for each of the Elements, yet the point was always the same.

      The third level oath was an oath given in words, and if broken it would inflict physical cripple on the guilty party. For life.

      The second level oath – magic; if broken, would cut off all the sources taking away the magic powers.

      The first level – and the most dangerous – oath on blood. It would kill if violated.

      Elcha’s emotions ceased immediately and she sat on the bench at the wall, with some absent-minded expression on her face.

      “Any time constraints?” unless expressed that question would have blown my mind.

      “Seventeen years… Over in a year’s time” Truvle answered, at the same time answering my next question even before I could ask it.

      Silence fell on the room, except the fire cracking monotonously. Nargara broke it first.

      “The oath was taken in a small circle of folks, and you weren’t there with us then.”

      “So we can’t tell anyone else, that’s the worst part,” Yoos added.

      “You mean there are some secrets that concern us, yet we are the ones who won’t learn them, right?”

      Yoos nodded.

      “That’s the paradox,” Elcha frowned.

      “Yes, that’s the side effect we couldn’t have predicted. And there was no need to do so, actually,” Truvle said while stroking the scrub on his chin.

      “But there is at least something you can tell, right?” even though the things took quite an unexpected turn Elcha was still not going to give up meekly and unconditionally.

      “I can tell you everything in a year, no earlier. But I think I’ll try to explain something…” Mammy said after some thinking, still featuring her typical confidence in the voice. And then slowly, as if tasting every word first, she began it.

      “Those creatures… They are called Goortans. They are very dangerous. They’re bloodhounds, and they feel magic with their manes, much like dogs smell with the nose. But they do not act on their own, there serve forces much stronger, and they…” her voice fell silent for a moment.

      “I can’t,” she stammered, and a painful expression covered her face.

      Truvle came up to her chair, sat down on the floor and took her hand silently thus offering her support.

      “Goortans don’t hunt you both, just Ricka. They need the older one.”

      “As long as the first is alive, they don’t need the other one…” my sister said, and everyone looked at her in surprise. She smiled shyly and spread her arms.

      “There, on the northern slope, it was me, and I want to know now what exactly you could hear from that conversation,” Nargara gave her a look of reprimand.

      That made Elcha blush a little, yet she still could give quite a smooth account of what she had managed to eavesdrop.

      “Yeah, that’s definitely not that little,” Truvle hemmed.

      “Well, it may even be all for the better,” Yoos added.

      “The man you spoke to, who was he?” Elcha asked showing the same inquisitiveness as earlier.

      “He plays on our side,” Mammy replied evasively and, waiting a little, she added, “A friend, a good’n old friend.”

      But there was so much sadness and pain in her voice it was clear immediately that the man was anyone but a friend… They usually talk like that about someone so dear yet lost forever.

      Besides, I could see Truvle frown, as if even the mention of that man was too much of a trouble to him. However, he could quickly pull himself up and put some mask of indifference on his face.

      “And you, there, you talked something about a gift… Was it about me?” I asked carefully. I don’t know why but that was the part that caught my attention most in Elcha’s story.

      “Yes, it was about you. I blocked your gift then, when you were still a child. Not because I was afraid of it, Ricka, no. But because for them it was like a beacon, so that could make us an easy prey to them, in any of the four Worlds. They know the trace your magic leaves.”

      “How come?!” my question escaped my lips even before I could know it.

      Nargara tried to say something again, but stopped and waved her hand slightly through the air, so making it clear I would get no answer to that one. It was all about their oath.

      A moment later she continued, “I hope