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Chapter 2. The Magic Valley
The abundance of light, colors and scents made Kiar dizzy. The immense valley bathed in golden sunlight stretched out before him. Fluffy white clouds slowly slid across the blue sky. Small streams singing like tiny golden bells ran from the rocks. They washed the flowering meadows where butterflies fluttered and cicadas cracked in the midday heat. They glided through the gorges and ravines, where majestic pines with heady scent grew. The streams murmured and sparkled, falling into a broad and deep river, carrying away its heavy waters. The fog was gone; it curled only at the sharp peaks of rocks, as if afraid to go down, recalling the other world.
Kiar’s heart was filled with unrestrained joy and delight. He looked and looked around, unable to move. Here in this Magic Valley, filled to the very brim with life, he wanted to live with Amalu. The thought of Amalu gave him energy and power, and he rushed back to awaken Amalu and to bring her here. But the rocks closed; the slot was gone. Only a solid mossy stone wall was before him. Kiar ran along the cliffs farther and farther away, but the rocks stood inexorably and the gentle streams murmured, as if trying to persuade the boy to stay. Kiar ran along, and it seemed as if the rocks were growing, as if they were getting higher and stretched farther. And the Valley grew with them, immense and infinite, and terribly beautiful. However Kiar was not scared: the farther he looked into the distance, the more intrigued he became; he did not feel any fatigue or frustration, but enthusiasm and curiosity instead. And gradually, he had forgotten why and to where he ran. He forgot about Amalu and Gray Kingdom. He ran and ran, listening to the rushing streams, birds singing, and soft murmur of the deep river. He admired the quiet backwaters with blooming lilies, the sun reflecting in the clear water; he admired the pebbles on the bottom, so reminiscent of the pebbles on the road in the Kingdom, although those pebbles were colored by the play of lights and shades. The taste of the water was different – sweet and slightly salty; it quenched his thirst and beckoned him to drink it again and again.
Kiar laid down close to the river with his hands behind his head. Tall grass surrounded him, rustling from the wind that was blowing from the south. The sound of the river calmed him and, almost asleep, Kiar thought that the mermaids, the beautiful and menacing mermaids, should definitely live in this river. But the elves from the wasteland just could not be here! Elves live only in the gray mist, and guarded this Valley in such a way that not a drop of color could seep through the rocks into the Kingdom. When Kiar woke up, the silver night fell upon him.
The moonlight and a soft soothing song, the most beautiful song he had ever heard, woke him up. He turned to the backwater and saw a mermaid drenched in the moonlight. She was sitting on a flat stone at the river bank, and her very long and straight, green hair filled the water, with a torrent sweeping it away. Thousands of white-blue fish brushed her hair with nacre, or was it the moonlight that sparkled and trembled on the water surface? Kiar came closer to the mermaid, the scales on her strong tail glittered and she beat the water with it, pouring a sheaf of silver spray over the boy. Her eyes, bright and filled with the moonlight, were as shiny as the luminous, enchanting stars in the sky. Kiar stretched out his hand to touch the mermaid, but she only laughed and disappeared into the air, and her voice, which resembled the murmur of fast-flowing streams, continued to laugh as her silver-green hair turned into river algae.
Kiar was astonished and enchanted, he stood there with his hand stretched out, when suddenly he felt a cool heaviness on his palm: there was a smooth white stone, still wet with water. It seemed that the stone was pulsing and murmuring something in an unknown language. Kiar put the stone close to his ear and listened to it: the dried stone became lifeless, only the light murmur continued to pray for something. Kiar dropped it into the water. Right in the place where the circles of dark troubled water were approaching the bank, there appeared a boat as white as the moon. He did not understand how he knew what to do, as if a soft mermaid voice whispered to him. The boy climbed into the boat and it rushed him with the torrent to the cool breeze and mysterious sighs of boundless seas. The song or laughter of the mermaid continued; it grew sadder and sadder.
Kiar awoke from the broaching calls of seagulls on the wet sand, and the boundless blue sea sighed noisily and muttered at his feet. The stars faded, the sky paled, the dawn was approaching. Kiar stood undecided at the very edge of the approaching waves. The sea was calling after him; and with every cell of his body, he wanted to become a part of it. Yet he was undecided. Somewhere deep inside, he felt the need to return. He tried to remember to where, to whom and why – but he could not. The first rays of the rising Sun shone on the white foam, and Kiar saw laughing mermaids. With their white hands outstretched, they were laughing and calling after him. He found himself running towards the foaming waves, where he was picked up by the sea mermaids and carried away in the underwater kingdom.
Long iridescent hair of sea mermaids sparkled even in the gloomy depths of the bottomless sea; their voices were giggly and happy. Mermaids whispered something funny to Kiar while they were rushing past the peculiar rocks, the lost cities and the sunken ships, all dotted with heaps of shells gnawing at their wooden flesh. There, where the sun’s rays penetrated the thick dense greenish water and reaching the sandy bottom, white corals grew, studded with variegated flowers with transparent fluttering petals.
Mermaids did not have any palaces or houses. They never sleep. They only rush through the water of the seas and oceans, sing beautiful songs under the full moon or during storms – causing ships to sink and brave sailors to forget about their life on earth. And so Kiar was rushing with them over the vast spaces, forgetting everything; he was happy and comfortable with the mermaids, the fish, the bizarre marine plants. And gradually, he began to feel as transparent as a drop of water, with the sun’s rays penetrating through him. So they continued to sail, surrendering to the will of the currents. They sang the sea songs, and during storms, they jumped into the rushing whirlpools from the foamy edges of waves. And Amalu was not in his thoughts anymore, there were no memories left of the elves from the wasteland or of a Magic Valley. Once, on a moonless night under the rushing clouds, the mermaids started singing. They sang about a girl who cried and her tears flooded the vast sea. Together with the girl, the skies cried with rain. The sun could not reach the seabed, and the flowers did not tremble anymore from the gusts of sea currents. And Kiar remembered: he remembered the Kingdom, he remembered Amalu, he remembered the gray rocks and the extinguished candle and sticky dense mist.
And at the same moment he was lying again on the soft grass in the Valley, full of colors, moonlit. Somewhere an invisible river mermaid was singing. And in his hand was a smooth mermaid́s stone. But Kiar knew he should not listen to its whisper and should not throw it in the water; otherwise, even the tears of Amalu would not save him from the sea. Only the magic of their love brought him back. He was unable to throw the stone away, so it could be lost with hundreds of the same stones on the river bank. Kiar stared at it, painfully trying to figure out what to do, how to act, and, in the end, with a bitter sigh, he put it in his pocket. So infinitely happy Kiar had never been before, and he wanted to go back there, to merge with the sea, to become part of it. But the time had not come yet. Amalu was waiting for him. Maybe someday he would use the mermaid stone – but not now. Not now. And as always, the thought of Amalu led him out of his stupor. He remembered that it was necessary to find a way out of the Valley, remembered how far he ran away from the mossy rocks.
But somewhere deep in his soul he knew that it was impossible to get away from them. They would stand there so inviolably and menacingly, on the border of the Valley and the Kingdom. They would look at him sternly from a distance, and at their very tops the gray mist would swirl treacherously. They would not call for him, as opposed to the sea, but Kiar had already made his choice and went toward them.
Going back was hard. He was so tired, his legs were leaden, and heavy sleep strove