“The water doesn’t look too cold,” he said, to which Forfolyn twitched his ears and gave an argumentative snort.
Serenthel scratched the elk’s cheek, adjusted his own pack’s shoulder straps and set one foot on the downward slope. That first step slipped forward on loose gravel from the broken stones surrounding them, but after his first fall within just hours of leaving the Mother’s Grove, he’d smartened up and procured a suitable walking stick. The stout silverwood branch stuck firmly in the ground, giving Serenthel the anchor he needed to not end up rolling head first down the embankment and into a river he was certain was much colder than it looked. Forfolyn, for his part, snorted in amusement but stamped a foot in request for better caution.
After pausing a moment to catch his breath and silently thank the sturdy branch, Serenthel huffed lightly at Forfolyn and gestured towards the river. “You have the better vision in darkness, friend, so perhaps you would like to lead the way?”
Forfolyn snorted once more then gingerly picked a path between the fallen rubble and unstable soil. Elk were smart; smarter than deer or horses or even mules, it was said, but Forfolyn had also been granted a gift from the Mother. Just how much the stag understood when Serenthel spoke, the elf remained unsure, except that it was likely Forfolyn understood more about the world than should be questioned. So, without further discussion, Serenthel carefully followed the path set by his faithful companion. Truly, whoever began the myth about superior Elvish eyesight in darkness had not thought to compare it to any living creature other than humans.
Humans. Serenthel had seen his first human three days ago after stepping foot on the Orynthian side of Lath’lemnier’s wall. A human trader had come to stand before the White Stag Gate, his own awe reflected in Serenthel’s wide eyes at his first sight of the two giant rearing elk stags, carved from white stone and facing one another to form an arch some eighty feet off the ground with their front hooves. The stags’ heads and antlers reached another twenty feet higher, but even they had been shadowed by the great sentinel trees and their Elvan archer towers. To his dying day, Serenthel swore he’d never forget the feeling of being so small in a world so big, and the human’s expression said he’d felt much the same.
The human had been told to wait with his oxcart of goods for a purveyor to hear his petition to trade and determine if the Elvan people had need of what he sought to sell. That could take days, or even weeks, but the human had sighed and pulled his oxcart off to a small camp of other humans who had also been told to wait. With weariness in their dim eyes, they’d all watched Serenthel as he passed by riding Forfolyn’s back. They seemed a ragged group of frail and harmless creatures, even though some were armed.
But, Serenthel had been told the stories; he had been shared the memories of those elders who had come before. Each tale held a similar lesson. Man’s strength had never been physical in nature, but a gift of the tongue and a creative spark that could lead to both wonder and ruin. The words they spun should always be trusted with a grain of salt and a river of caution.
Such caution was also warranted when crossing a cold river in darkness. As luck would have it, the spring melt had been mild and the river remained low enough in places that Serenthel could pick and choose a path across the larger stones with barely his boots getting wet. Forfolyn trudged through, not minding the water and eyeing Serenthel’s hopping, balancing figure as wasted energy. Serenthel gave him a dismissive look upon reaching the shore. Hooves were an easy thing to dry, after all. Boots, not so much without a campfire.
Staring up at the collapsed outer wall and its long ago looted iron gate, Serenthel thought perhaps a campfire wouldn’t be such a bad idea. He hadn’t eaten supper yet, and trail rations were becoming a stale, monotonous affair. The gathered field vegetables in Forfolyn’s pack would make for an excellent soup, even if Serenthel’s earlier effort to snare a rabbit had been unsuccessful. Hunting had never been his strength, and in truth he enjoyed watching the rabbit bound away through the field after expertly dodging a poorly timed bowshot. Forfolyn had enjoyed the entertainment as well, Serenthel was certain, by the way the elk’s antlers had swayed.
Tonight, the big elk stag stood motionless, his round brown eyes aimed at the empty stone gateway. Serenthel took a step forward, but the elk did not budge. Forfolyn’s ears twitched and he nervously raised one back hoof from the ground, as if he could smell a wolf and made ready to bolt for safety.
“Come now,” Serenthel admonished. “Not frightened of ghosts, are you?”
Forfolyn’s withers twitched, sending a sheen of moonlight cascading over his grey fur. The elk sniffed the air then gave a low rumbling snuffle. Slowly, his back hoof touched the ground, but his eyes looked no less leery.
Just as the elk seemed to settle, a bush nearby rustled. Startled, Serenthel bit down a gasp and turned to the sound. The shadow of something darted along the wall too quickly to determine its shape. Forfolyn shook his head and grunted, as if to say ‘see, I did smell something’.
“A rabbit perhaps,” Serenthel whispered, more to soothe his own nerves than the elk’s. “With any luck, my supper soup will become a stew.”
Serenthel retrieved his short bow and three arrows from Forfolyn’s harness then took silent steps into the ruins. Tentatively, and with another snorted argument, Forfolyn followed. Despite moonlight caressing the crumbling walls and a path of broken tiles, shadows lingered in every corner. Dense vegetation had used the past thousand years to reclaim its hold over the land. Tenacious vines crawled their way up long faded murals, and scraggly trees grew near walls that remained tall enough to protect their gnarled trunks from sea spray and ocean-driven storms.
Serenthel paused by one hunched tree whose bottom branches hung not a foot from the ground, its trunk twisted by a hard life of punching up through the stone floor only to be whipped endlessly by salted winds from the nearby sea. Behind it on a half fallen wall, thick vines clung to the bottom of a painting covering the remaining stones. The painting had been partially protected by its leafy destroyer and shielded by the stunted tree. Around its border, Elvish words told the middle of a story that the painting had once depicted, but the beginning and the end had long ago been lost to time.
Serenthel shifted his shadow out of the moonlight and peered at words written with a masterful brush stroke in ink that had survived nature’s reclamation. “‘Twas not the dragon but the raven,” he whispered into the night, giving voice to the painted letters.
He tried to put it in context, but he could remember no story to match. Dragons had become legend, even to his long lived people, and ravens were portents of chaos and change. There were tales involving each on their own, but none in which they played a part together.
Glancing over his shoulder with a furrowed brow, he thought aloud. “Perhaps some lost fable of our people?”
Forfolyn only stared back in silence. A chill skittered up Serenthel’s spine from a source unknown, and he let the vine droop back over the indiscernible imagery that accompanied the words. Rustling leaves nearby brought contemplation to an end, and Serenthel stood to refocus on a more discernable quarry.
He followed the sound around one broken corner only to have it echo from another. The passageway narrowed, leaving him in front and his faithful companion behind. The elk seemed in no hurry to find the rabbit, or rabbits if the quickly changing location of the sounds were to make any sense. A louder sound echoed, a stone falling and pebbles scattering across hard ground, and Serenthel came to a halt where one roofless passage met another. A breeze snaked its way through the corridor, and it carried with it a harsh whisper.
“Hurry it up!” The voice was male, but young.
“We shouldn’t be here,” muttered an equally male, equally young voice.
“‘Fraid of ghosts?” chided the first.
“Shhh!” hissed the second. “No sense tempting them by yelling.”
“Then hurry up. I’m cold. And hungry.”
The sound o
f metal clinking against stone followed. “Why don’t you dig, then?”
“I’m holding the lantern,” said the first.
“You sure this is the right spot?” A shovel dug into earth and hit stone again. “Don’t look like no gravesite.”
“Hashan said he found them silver pieces here,” the first encouraged his friend to keep digging.
Serenthel’s expression darkened in the moonlight. Grave robbers, come to plunder what remained of this Elvan ruin. Though his people believed that what was lost should not be dwelled upon, they also believed the past should be allowed to rest where it had fallen. Digging up the bones of what might be his great-great-great grandfather should not go unchallenged.
Serenthel took the passage right, heading for the source of the voices. Coming around a corner, he caught the first glimpse of lantern light and the two shadows it cast over a lowered section of the ruins. He peered through the darkness, getting a lay of the place then slipped back into shadow as the metal shovel clanked against something solid.
“What’s that?” the lantern bearer asked.
“Probably just another stone block,” muttered the digger. “Foundation and what not.”
“Oh, you a mason now, are you?” chided the lantern bearer.
“Might could be,” argued the digger, his voice raised with a touch of burning pride.
Pride. Another human trait to be mindful of, Serenthel reminded himself as he softly stepped around the pedestal of a statue whose face had long ago been weathered away. Forfolyn followed just as quietly, their practiced movements like one body silently dancing between stone and shadow.
“Mom says I can be anything I want,” the digger continued, his shovel held still. “Maybe I’ll go to Ka’veshi, join the Stonemaster’s guild.”
The lantern bearer let out a snide chuckle. “You’d end up a messenger hound, or maybe a Rose’s lapdog.”
“I’ll show you,” the digger muttered. The shovel dug in. Dirt scattered.
The lantern light faltered as its carrier gave a harassed shout. “Watch where you’re flinging the dirt, Kazim!”
Children, Serenthel huffed silently. The grave robbers were human children. Though they may look near the same age as Serenthel, they could not be beyond fifteen years old.
He held up his hand for Forfolyn to stop next to him where he crouched in the darkness beyond the lantern light’s reach. Threatening adults with a raised arrow was one thing, but to threaten children? Serenthel didn’t much care for the idea, especially given the scraggly appearance of the two boys. But, he couldn’t very well let them carry on with their digging.
“Hold up,” Kazim said after scooping his rusty shovel back into the dirt. He crouched down and plucked something from the ground. “Look at this, Yanishk! It’s a treasure box!”
“What?!” Yanishk nearly dropped the lantern in his excitement and grabbed the box from his brother’s fingers. “Give it here!”
The lantern light shimmered off the box’s silver, unblemished surface. Mithril, Serenthel suspected. A rare ore, and having the skill to work with it rarer still. Most of the mithril metalsmiths had been lost when D’nas Glas fell into shadow. None who knew its secrets remained within the Mother’s Grove. Only the one remaining metalsmith that Serenthel knew of, further south in the Painted Mountains, had the hands skillful enough to work with the delicate ore, and she neared her final years.
A treasure box, indeed. Serenthel inhaled deeply and stared at the silver box clutched in dirty, grubby human hands. Children or not, Serenthel could not let such an item become a trinket sold in some market to sit on a rich man’s fireplace mantel next to other prized possessions from histories that were not his own.
“How does it open?” Yanishk had set the lantern down and now struggled with a reddening face to open the box’s lid.
“Some Elvish trick, maybe?” Kazim offered. “Like them puzzle boxes sold at the summer bazaar.”
Serenthel stood up with the intention of buying the box from them before they could open it. He had coins in his pouch, gold and silver mined from the Painted Mountains. Worthless to his people, except for their artisan crafts, they kept the rich mines a secret lest they tempt the lust of man’s greed. It was one reason, besides the dreams, that the Elvan kept their contact with the world of men to a minimum. The last war had been brutal enough to leave a blood-tinged sour taste in the mouths of even his long removed generation.
But, these were children, Serenthel reasoned. A silver coin may be enough to trade for the mithril box, unless they knew what it was. He hesitated. Should he start with a gold coin?, he wondered. The true value of money eluded him, and bartering was not a skill he’d ever been necessitated to learn. No, he would start with a silver. Or, was that too much?
Before he could decide and leave his place in the shadows, a bush on the other side of the lowered courtyard rustled. A low growl drifted on the wind. The boys stopped in their bickering. What stepped into the light was no rabbit.
Serenthel reflexively stepped back as Forfolyn’s rear leg raised at the sight of the white wolf. The wolf kept its head low and its gaze focused on the two boys. Serenthel notched an arrow, making ready to distract the wolf so the boys could find safety. Forfolyn did not bolt, however, and slowly, against natural instinct, the leg lowered. Serenthel took in a shallow breath and lowed his bow as realization set in. The wolf that was not a rabbit was also not a wolf.
There, in their very midst, stood a spirit of nature.
“Gods have mercy!” Yanishk shouted.
“What?” Kazim glanced over his shoulder to see what had given his brother such a fright, only to turn pale himself and rush blindly forward. Kazim stumbled over the lantern and both boys fell to the rocky ground.
The lantern shattered, spilling its oil and casting a web of flame over the courtyard stones. Yanishk cried out as some of the oil splashed his pant leg, but Kazim had enough wits left to quickly cover it in dirt. The boys scuffled along the dirt then froze in fear, unsure what they should do. The wolf took a slow step towards them, its lips raising over sharp teeth.
“Run!” Yanishk yelled, and as one they both turned on their hands and knees just as Serenthel joined the wolf in the flame-lit courtyard.
“A ghost!” Kazim cried, tears in his eyes and his arms grabbing at his brother’s vest. “We shouldn’t have disturbed the graves!”
Pride gone, Yanisk joined his younger brother in his frightened weeping. “Please, don’t hurt us, we didn’t mean nothing by it!”
Serenthel thought to speak, to give the boys some comfort, but Forfolyn chose that moment to join the scene. Both of the boys’ eyes went wide as the moon, and together they crawled back a step as Forfolyn raised his antlers. The wolf, forgotten by the boys, let out a growl in warning.
Kazim looked from the wolf to the elk to the elf then grabbed the mithril box from his brother’s fingers. With trembling hands, he set the box on the ground as the oil driven flames sputtered. “We’re sorry,” he whispered.
The flames died. Darkness resumed its rein over the ruins. The two boys ran for their lives, leaving their shovel and the ghosts behind.
Serenthel watched their figures disappear into the dark field then side glanced the elk. “Did you have to frighten them so?”
Forfolyn snorted and shook his antlers before nodding towards the wolf. The wolf’s white fur seemed to glow in the moonlight, and its unnaturally white eyes watched them from across the courtyard. Serenthel and Forfolyn both bowed their heads to the wolf, and the wolf lowered its haunches, waiting to see what the pair did next.
Serenthel picked up the mithril box. It seemed undamaged and unopened. With an intention to put it back into the earth where the boys had found it, he walked into the courtyard past the remains of the lantern. The wolf rose up and came to stand between Serenthel and the hole.
Serenthel stopped. “Am I not to put it back? Surly, this is where it belongs, where you have been protecting it?”
&
nbsp; The wolf eyed the elf for a long moment then nudged its nose against Serenthel’s hand, as if urging further examination of the box. The rectangular box was the size of a small mud brick in Serenthel’s hand, and he could see no obvious mechanism to open its lid. The lid had been decorated with scrollwork and a waning crescent moon in its center. Turning the box over, Serenthel let out a gasp that made Forfolyn’s ears twitch.
“T’ethwyr,” he whispered then translated the Elvan word that had been etched into the silver surface with a skilled hand. “Traveler.”
When he looked up from the box in hopes for an explanation, the wolf spirit was gone.
20
Dnara floated upon the black sea for years stretching into eons before her. Soft spoken voices whispered over the waves with words she could not understand, then a flute’s gentle song beckoned her home. A hand upon her brow woke her. Her eyes opened to the stars, but she turned away from them. She didn’t want to go back to shore. She didn’t want to face what she had done.
The sun never rose, but the moon moved across the sky again and again, chased by Demroth’s shadow. The stars grew brighter until the moon was no more. For an eternity, she floated, letting the tide take her wherever it willed. The direction no longer mattered to her.
But then, from a far distant shore, there came a song, hummed by a gentle voice and carried on the wind. As the sound reached her ears and the wind joined her on the sea, the moon rose anew to begin its cycle once more. Dnara’s eyes opened with understanding. From the darkness, light can be reborn, and from death there can be life.
An ending is also a beginning.
The stars were replaced by wood beams and brown thatch, the sea becoming a soft bed and the endless horizon enclosed by stone walls. A tender breeze caressed her face then departed. From nearby, a woman hummed a lullaby.
When the Wind Speaks (Starstone Prophecies Book 1) Page 17
