PELAIR. The Gems of the Golden Serpent.

23. The Getaway

"Follow me, my princess," signaled Balin to Aela, trying to instill confidence in the girl. "They're going to be fine. I assure you," he said, referring to their fellow adventurers.

They walked on all fours, groping through a low, narrow, and damp drainage channel that ran beneath the central nave of the Ardel's Palace, after sneaking from the throne room.

"It is very dark, Balin," wailed the girl. "I cannot see anything."

Balin rubbed his hand with a quick and continuous motion until they began to emit a glow.

"Balin!" the girl cried out. "How can you do that?"

"It's another of my many tricks," replied the dwarf pleased. Nothing filled Balin more with pride but seeing Aela's face of admiration when he did something that pleased and called her attention.

They continued crawling quietly and with some difficulty through a long stretch, during which they could only hear the splashing that caused their hands and feet to come in and out of the water. The shadows of their bodies reflected as ghosts on the stonewalls of the channel when illuminated by the diffuse glow emitted by Balin's hands. Aela marveled that his friend could dip his hands into the water and still keep alive the glow that lit the way.

"Touch it, my child," said the dwarf, raising his hand and drawing them closer to the girl. "It is not a glow caused by fire. It is a natural light that we can deliver without water affecting it. Remember in the forest when it rained and we did not get wet?"

"It's true!" replied Aela, her face brightening with the memory of that time.

"Over here, my lady," Aela heard a strangely husky voice that addressed her. They had reached a crossroads of channels, and they were not sure which one to follow.

"Did you talk to me, Balin?" asked Aela.

"No, my child," answered the dwarf. "I'm trying to figure out which way to go."

"Over here, my lady," she heard that voice again. This time she thought that it had come from her head. However, she turned her head around, unsure of the source of the voice. All she could make out in the distance by the diffuse dim light in the midst of one of those channels was a big rat that moved its whiskers while watching without taking her bright eyes off them.

"This way, my lady," she heard the voice inside her again.

"Is that you who speak to me?" she asked the rat, feeling strange to do this.

"I have not spoken, sweetie," answered Balin, believing the girl had addressed him.

"Yes, my lady," felt Aela shocked when the rat answered. She did not expect that. "The white hawk sent me to you."

Aela looked at the rat, and it, in turn, stared at her stirring its long whiskers.

"Am I going crazy?" she asked herself. "First, I can talk to Snowflake, and now with a rat?"

"You are not freaking out, my lady," she heard the inner voice responding to her. "You just opened your mind to the old language of nature, which humans forgot long ago. The training the good witch gave you and the gem that she confided to you opened in your inner self that forgotten understanding. What you need for the mission has been entrusted to you."

"Come this way," said the girl to the dwarf, turning without fear to where the rodent was, accepting, a matter of factly, the new skill that fate provided her. "The rat asked me to follow it."

"That way shall be," responded Balin without doubting the reason Aela expressed. The dwarves had a cunning understanding of the ways of Mother Nature, much more significant than their human counterparts had, and knew of the ancient language. Although none spoke it, intuitively, they understood the dictates of creation.