The Silvern Mountains

Forgotten Goddess

Alynn made Eeny, meeny, miny, moe and pointed to the left corridor: "We should go that way."

Valtor and Celeste took the time to look blank at her. After that, the feeling of tension took over again. The soldiers tried to join them again. They had to choose. There was no time for Celeste's magic, which is why she said: "Valtor, you make up your mind."

The fire wizard stared even more tense at the three passages and finally decided on the middle corridor. He had a feeling that only this one could be the right one. After just a few minutes they heard the echo from the soldiers who had created a passage again. But they did not yet know that the bad guys had created another blockade for them. Again, the passages only led in one direction.

After several hours of going down the corridor, they came to another large opening in the cave - no, it was more of a hall. The floor was sanded smooth. The walls were hung with banners and burning torches. A huge chandelier hung in the middle of the hall - also made of torches. In the middle there was a kind of fountain that carried lava instead of water.

"Are we there?" Valtor asked, approaching the lava fountain. He felt a strange force pulling him closer to it. He took off his left glove and held his hand close over the lava. It felt so good that he wanted to dip his hand in it.

"No", Celeste answered now and came closer with interest, "But I wonder what kind of place this is." She wiped the sweat from her forehead and Alynn also asked from behind: "Isn't that too hot for you?"

Valtor looked at the two women. His sister left again. Didn't he feel the heat? He took a test and put his hand in the lava. It felt like the perfect bath temperature, but it wasn't hot at all.

"Are you crazy?" Celeste asked first, but then saw that her brother didn't mind.

Suddenly they heard an unfamiliar voice: "I feel the power of the dragon flame. Who are you, strangers?" An old woman appeared. Her skin was wrinkled and sunken. Her eyes were completely white as her hair. She wore a floor-length white dress that had worn out over the years and hung limply from her thin body. With a stick she looked for the way to the well.

She didn't seem to mind the heat either.

"Who are you?" Celeste asked rather than answering.

The woman grabbed Valtor by the shoulder: "You, tell the outsiders that I am only talking to the bearer of the dragon flame."

Valtor glanced at the other two and said, "They've heard that themselves."

The woman looked at Valtor through her blind eyes: "You are not the keeper of the dragon flame. Yet you have it. You have a dark heart, but the Dragon Flame was created for being good. It is your destiny."

Valtor felt that the others was confused like him and shook off the hand of the old woman: "Who are you?"

"I am the eldest of the elders of the magical dimension," she said calmly, "I saw the great dragon with my own eyes. The royal council brought me here to protect me from the ancestral witches. But with the fight against darkness, the information about my existence got lost. Now I am waiting here for the dragon flame to come to me. And today you came to me, child of the fire."

She took out a bottle of glass and poured some lava into it, then handed it to Valtor: "You are not the Keeper, but the prophecy says that someone will come to me and I should give that person a dram from the golden spring of the great dragon."

"Why?" Valtor asked, "I'm not good. I have a dark heart. I am evil through and through. And I don't intend to change that either."

"Look me in the eyes," she said and Valtor suddenly recognized her as the goddess who had warned him in a dream last night.

Then she said: "As dark as hearts may be, the light of good can still shine in them. And isn't it the darkness in which the light shines most strongly?"

The fire wizard was confused. It would not come to his mind voluntarily to be good. That was not what he was made for. The ancestral witches had created him to destroy. Just like his sister. And then he noticed that she had already chosen her own path in life.

"You are a free being," the old woman whispered, then she got louder, "Go. Your pursuers will be here soon."

In a moment the torches, the banners and the fountain - everything went away. Valtor was confused, but not so much that he forgot his surroundings. He created a flame in his hand. In the other he was still holding the glass of lava. Alynn and Celeste came running.

"What the hell was that?" the young witch asked. Celeste urged to get out of this place. Valtor chose one corridor and Celeste collapsed another to mislead the soldiers who were slowly approaching. Then they ran. No doubt each of the tunnels belonged to the snow snakes. They all just led straight ahead.

After several hours, the travelers arrived outside again. They gasped for the fresh air and realized they had reached the other side of the mountain. The sun was just rising and long shadows were drawn over the valley that lay in the middle of the round silver mountains. A single mountain that almost resembled a cube stood in the middle of the valley.

"Yes!" Celeste grinned, "The heart of the silver crown."