The Crystal Chalice (Book 1)

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Authors: R.J. Grieve
banishing. Now, come with me downstairs and we
will begin in the main hall.”
     
     As Dorgan guided her around, she soon discovered
that he had an almost inexhaustible flow of pleasant but inane conversation.
However, there appeared to be certain subjects upon which he was reluctant to be
drawn. He was strangely loyal to Celedorn, often attempting to excuse the
inexcusable but would give little information about him. In reply to some
probing question, he would invariably reply that if Celedorn wanted her to
know, no doubt he would tell her himself.
      After trailing round many long, gloomy corridors
and inspecting empty rooms where the dust lay as thick as grey flour, the
highlight of the tour for Elorin was the kitchen. It was reached by a narrow
flight of steps leading down from the great hall. Another door accessed the
kitchen from the courtyard. It was by far the most cheerful, and somehow human,
room she had yet seen. The empty halls she had seen earlier were beginning to
make her feel the castle had only brigands and ghosts to offer. But here was a
room as cheerful as her companion.
      He held open the door for her. “This is my domain.
Do you like it?”
     A huge fire glowed in the hearth, reflecting its
flickering light off rows of gleaming copper saucepans, glass jars full of
bottled fruits and herbs and a huge scrubbed table, neatly stacked with dinner
plates. Herbs hung in aromatic bunches from the ceiling and strings of onions
cascaded lumpily from hooks on the wall.
     Elorin’s face lit with enthusiasm. “Dorgan this is
wonderful - it’s just so unexpected. How I should love to have a kitchen like
this?”
     “You like cooking?”
     But the smile faded as swiftly as it had appeared.
“I....I don’t know. I can’t remember doing any cooking but....but I have a sort
of feeling that I once liked it. During the last few months this has happened
sometimes. When I’m not really trying to remember, a shadow of something comes
to me. For instance, one day in Addania, I just sat down without thinking and
played chess with Relisar. How did I know how to play? Who taught me? I
couldn’t remember and the more I tried the less certain I became, but the fact
remains that somehow I knew how to play.”
     He was watching her understandingly, all his usual
mischief missing from his eyes and at that moment she knew they would be
friends for whatever duration Celedorn decreed her existence would continue.
     “Come,” he said, lifting a cloth cover off a bowl,
“the dough has rested and now we must shape the loaves.”
     The dark and dreary day outside passed unnoticed.
The snow, which had shown an inclination to turn to slush, froze again, setting
footprints as hard as stone. Icicles that had been weeping miserably from the
eaves, suddenly froze solid, forming a brittle, uneven fringe. Secretively, it
began to snow again, tiny flakes here and there, almost invisible, that soon
increased to a silent, feathery blanket. Elorin looked up from her task and
glanced out of the tiny window.
     “When I was a child, I used to pretend that the
clouds were huge feather quilts which had burst apart and were shedding their
contents on the world below.”
     Dorgan smiled significantly at her. She smiled back
but also shook her head. “It’s no use, Dorgan, if I try to grasp it, it will
disappear.”
     Instead, she told him much of her life in Addania
and found him a surprisingly good listener - for someone who talked so much.
The bread baked in the oven, filling the kitchen with its warm scent. The glow
of the fire grew richer and deeper as the day diminished.
     However, the peace was not to last. As darkness fell,
a clatter of hooves on the cobbles outside signalled the return of one of the
mounted patrols that seemed to come and go constantly. After a moment, the door
to the kitchen was flung back with such force that it slammed back against the
wall. Hydar strode in, scattering snowflakes from his

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