by P. M. Biswas
Maybe this bond’s good for something, Tam thought. Let’s see how much we can irritate him through it, shall we?
But that wasn’t the diplomatic mindset Tam ought to be in, so she vowed to test the limits of the bond later and to concentrate on diplomacy for now. If she could.
“King Eras.” Nala bowed and gestured at the human ministers who’d been following her like lost ducklings through the woods, trembling and fearful. “The human delegation is here.”
Eras stood, as did his companions. He smiled at Tam with a gladness that bemused Tam somewhat. Had she made such a positive impression on him that he would rejoice at their reunion? Or was it just a show he was putting on for Emeraude?
“Tam, human of the humans,” said Eras, and Tam shrank into herself in embarrassment when Emeraude raised an eyebrow at the title. “We welcome you back into the Wanderwood with your delegation. Please, introduce us to your queen.”
Tam, who hadn’t had a horse to ride after being forced to leave Maple behind, didn’t have to dismount before beginning her introductions. She only went to Emeraude’s horse and assisted Emeraude in dismounting. “This is Queen Emeraude,” Tam said, imbuing her voice with all the deference she could muster. “Queen of Astaris.”
“I am only the queen of the human kingdom in Astaris,” Emeraude said humbly. “I do not rule the elven kingdom of the Wanderwood, nor would I ever seek to.”
“Please, sit.” Eras motioned at the cushion-strewn carpet and reclaimed his own seat, his advisors sitting with him. “We are overjoyed to hear that you have no interest in conquest, as so many humans do.”
Was that a stab at human aggression? Surely not.
“Indeed,” Emeraude said, dripping with sincerity, as she and her ministers took their seats upon the tasseled cushions. Tam just hovered awkwardly in the background, acutely aware that she didn’t belong on the carpet with the ministers. “Conquest was never my ambition, nor an ambition of my citizens. All we have ever wanted is to subsist in peace. A peace now endangered by the wicked King Danis.”
“Who is also a human, I take it?”
“He is also a human,” Emeraude agreed.
Eras placed his hands on his knees, palms up and open, receptive. His body subtly conveyed his openness to negotiation even though his words did not—those open palms were a promise of forthcoming compromises. It occurred to Tam that Eras, much like Emeraude, was an expert negotiator. “Queen Emeraude, forgive my candor, but… my people are concerned that if we involve ourselves in the conflicts of humans, we will never be able to extricate ourselves.”
“That may be true,” Emeraude replied, a reply that plainly discomfited some of her ministers, who must’ve expected her to mouth pleasing platitudes about how the elven and human races would soon resume their mutually indifferent coexistence, with no further demands being placed on the elves after this war was over. “Out of respect for your candor, I will offer you my own. If you do ally yourselves with us, you will make formal enemies of Danis and the kingdom of Norvald, which may lead to further conflicts with them that may be undesirable to you and your people. However, if you do not ally yourselves with us, it is inevitable that Danis will make himself a formal enemy of yours when he invades Astaris and thereafter the Wanderwood. You will have enemies regardless; the only difference is that in the former case, you will have allies against those enemies, while in the latter, you will not.”
“If I may speak, King Eras?” asked a craggy, cadaverous-looking elf at Eras’s left, whose elfin prettiness seemed strangely askew. The symmetry of his features was ever-so-slightly off, the features themselves too narrow and angular, like a fox’s. There was a meanness and a coldness in his eyes that made Tam shudder.
“Of course, Alfernas. In this court, you have as much of a right to speak as I do.”
Emeraude’s expression grew alert at that statement from Eras—a declaration of equality that was unusual from a monarch—and Tam could’ve kicked herself for forgetting to inform Emeraude that the elves had a democracy. Sort of. It was crucial intelligence that Tam hadn’t passed on to her queen. Some herald she was.
“Thank you, my king,” said Alfernas. “Why should we ally ourselves with the humans even if this Danis will invade their nation? Astaris is their nation, not ours. We are of the Wanderwood—we were here at the beginning of time itself, and so will we be at its end. The Wanderwood existed before Astaris did, and will exist long after Astaris is gone. The affairs of humans have not touched us for millennia, nor should they now.” Alfernas flicked a contemptuous glance at Emeraude and her delegation. “These humans have left us undisturbed for centuries because they fear our magic, and rightly so. Why would this Danis do otherwise? It may be that this peaceful delegation”—Alfernas emphasized the phrase with sarcasm—“is only here to beg us to lend our magic to them for their own gain, and is misleading us when it comes to Danis. Even if Danis invades and conquers the human kingdom of Astaris, he may very well leave ours alone, just as Emeraude and her predecessors have always done. Why should we take what these humans say to be true? And why should we alter generations of policy for a transient human kingdom’s unavoidable destruction?”
The ministers seated behind Eras murmured in assent, while the ministers behind Emeraude wrung their hands and shot their queen panicked glances. Even Zameen looked as though she would like to interject, but the human kingdom was not a democracy. If the queen did not permit Zameen to say her piece, then Zameen could not do so.
Emeraude herself was unperturbed. Tam had no idea how she did it; she must have nerves of steel. Tam was sweating like a pig.
But Emeraude’s gaze was fixed not on Alfernas… or even on Eras. It was fixed on the elderly elf who sat between the two parties, in the middle of the carpet, still meditating and still emanating those pulses of silent, tranquil power.
“The observations Lord Alfernas makes are cogent and justifiable,” Emeraude said, drawing shocked exclamations from her own ministers, “but those are the observations of reason, and the truth often defies reason. Only one who perceives the truth, without the veil of either logic or illogic, can predict the great events that change the world. Which is why I must ask… what has your priestess to say about this?”
Eras smiled again, this smile both secretive and vaguely congratulatory. “Well-spotted, Queen Emeraude. Our Seer, Soma, is a reader of both hearts and minds, and she is connected more strongly to the earth than any of us. Soma, what do you See?”
Soma opened her eyes. And it was—
It was as though a lotus had unfurled, a lotus with an effulgent light at its core. That light washed over the assemblage of gathered diplomats like a wave gently washing over the feet of one standing on a vast, glimmering shore. It was not a physical light—not blinding to the eyes—but a luminosity that reached only the mind, a touch that brushed softly over all their thoughts.
It was magnificent. It was terrifying.
It was by far the most complete experience Tam had ever had, although why or how it was complete, she could not explain. She knew no language that could describe its fullness.
The human delegates swayed backward, as if a wave truly had rocked them, gentle though it may have been. The elves seemed similarly afflicted, although they must have been exposed to this before.
Even Emeraude was, for once in her life, speechless. Minister Zameen discreetly wiped tears from her sunken cheeks.
It was only then that Tam noticed the Seer’s eyes. They were a blank, milky white, unseeing and utterly devoid of pupils. Their milkiness was not inert but alive, and drifted across the twin surfaces of her eyes like clouds drifting across a pale predawn sky.
So it was not with the eyes that Soma saw. It was with the spirit.
“My people,” said Soma, and there was such an all-encompassing love in her voice that it was clear she was addressing not only the elves but the humans. There seemed to be no boundaries when it came to Soma, not in how she perceived others and not in how
others perceived her. Despite her tremendous power and how she had just wielded it to read all their thoughts, none of the humans looked upon her with fear.
That, Tam reflected, was the most fearsome trait of all.
“I have read the stories you tell yourselves in your minds,” Soma went on, “and while there is much discord in them, there is a common thread that may connect your two worlds.”
“What thread is that, Soma?” asked Eras.
“The thread of survival.”
“Does that mean you see some truth in the humans’ concerns about Danis?”
Soma’s cloudy eyes shifted to Tam, of all people; Tam tried not to squirm under that omniscient scrutiny. “I do.”
Even though Soma’s voice was soft—softer than the stirring of leaves in a breeze—there was a telltale deepness to it that drew Tam’s attention to the Adam’s apple in Soma’s throat, and to the contours of Soma’s form, which lacked any curves though it was clad in a skirted gown. Soma must be twice-born, like Maryada’s new deputy, Feng, who was born into a body not suited to the soul. Regardless of her Adam’s apple, Soma was clearly not a man. She was a woman and a prophetess.
Alfernas, who had collected himself after Soma’s revelation, resumed his argument. “Respectfully, our beloved Seer Soma, the truthfulness of the humans’ account does not necessitate our joining them. Even if Danis strikes terror into them, fragile mortals that they are, why should he do the same to us, who are ancient and powerful? If Danis does conquer Astaris and then presents himself at the entrance of the Wanderwood, can we not defeat him here, ourselves, without ever having to ally ourselves with this human queen?”
“If ‘this human queen’ may respond directly to Lord Alfernas,” Emeraude said, earning a wince from Eras at the tactlessness of Alfernas’s phrasing, “Danis will grow in strength once he conquers us and absorbs our armed forces into his own, which are multiplying rapidly as his military campaign progresses across the continent. If you wait for him to reach your doorstep, he may be undefeatable by then. Even if he isn’t, he will cause considerable damage to the Wanderwood if you make it your chosen battlefield. Yes, you may vanquish him here, but the Wanderwood or parts of it may be forfeit. However, if you ally with us and fight Danis off at the Astarian border, the Wanderwood will remain whole and untouched, its sanctity preserved for your future generations. What do you deem wiser—keeping your resources, your families, and your children unharmed, or maintaining your pride even if it leads to the destruction of your home?”
The elven ministers conferred amongst themselves, taken in by Emeraude’s unique brand of common sense, but Alfernas was not to be dissuaded. Did he really hate humans that much?
“How could a human like Danis conceivably cause damage to the Wanderwood?” Alfernas mocked. “It is magical and he is not. He cannot possibly harm us if we stay within its boundaries.”
“Ah, but he is not without magic.” Emeraude gesticulated at Tam. “My herald may have mentioned this before, but Danis cannot be slain—and now it appears that his soldiers cannot be slain either. There is necromantic sorcery at Danis’s disposal. Recently, we encountered border scouts from Axenborg that has thus far been our ally, but those scouts turned on us. They were not themselves but merely reanimated versions of themselves, corpses without personalities that we could not stop unless their limbs were hacked off to prevent them from rising again.”
“What…?” Alfernas laughed cynically. “What nonsense is this?”
“It is not nonsense,” Emeraude said evenly. “As Axenborg has not responded to our messages to justify the incident, we can only assume that Axenborg has fallen to Danis, and that King Korbyn of Axenborg is no more. If that is so, then the army of Axenborg—including the scouting patrol we met at the border—is now under Danis’s control, a control that has gone beyond the political and has become magical. Those scouts from Axenborg rose from the dead. Save for their faces, they bore no resemblance to the people they had been before, people who we had once befriended. Rather, it was as if they were mere puppets and that their puppet master was elsewhere. We can only infer that the puppet master was Danis.”
The elves broke out in nervous whispers.
Emeraude watched them solemnly. “Do you still believe that Danis will be so easily driven away, as if he were a middling conqueror? If he can magically enlist the soldiers of all the foreign states that he conquers, will his army not grow exponentially until it is unstoppable?”
Eras intervened at last, placing a quelling hand on Alfernas’s knee. The king’s other ministers were conspicuously unsettled too. “What is disturbing to us is not only the prospect of the dead rising, but how familiar that prospect is to us from our own legends. Soma,” Eras addressed his Seer, “is this related to the Stones, or am I mistaken?”
“First,” said Soma, “I would like to ask the queen a question. I could of course read the answer from you, Emeraude.” Soma eschewed the queen’s title as if it were meaningless—which, for a being of Soma’s power, it must be. “But I would fain hear how you put your answer, and the elvenfolk should hear it from you as well. When I opened my eyes and Saw you, what did you see in me?”
“I witnessed the light of Astar,” Emeraude said with conviction, although whether that conviction was a skilled performance or was genuine, Tam couldn’t guess. It must be genuine, given that in the presence of Soma’s mind reading, prevarication was useless.
“Astar is a human god, Queen Emeraude,” Eras corrected the queen cordially.
Emeraude shook her head. “Astar is all that is divine. You may call Him the earth that you worship, and we may call Him the god that we sing praises of in temples, and other religions and races may have different names for Him, but I know what I saw. I saw the light that suffuses the darkness, that animates the flesh. I saw Astar.”
“There you have it,” said Soma. “That which animates the flesh. It was not my own magic but the magic of the earth, of creation itself, that Emeraude glimpsed through me. Now,” Soma said patiently to the human delegation, as a teacher would to a brood of young students, “imagine if that magic—that power to reanimate, the power of life itself—were transferred to a corpse. Would the corpse not rise?”
Emeraude’s eyes widened slightly, with her ministers sucking in breaths of surprise. “Are you…? Holy Seer, are you implying that the magic King Danis uses is elven? But he is human.”
“A human may yet wield an elven weapon,” said Soma, “if he stole it. What you have recounted is comparable to the effects of the Firestone, an elven artifact belonging not to us, the Earth Elves, but to the Fire Elves of Ashfall, far beyond the Mountains of Mordeth.”
“Wait,” Tam blurted, forgetting her place. “Other elves? There are other elves? That can’t be!”
Soma smiled at her. “And why not? Are there no humans besides the humans of Astaris?”
Tam floundered. “There are, but—but! There couldn’t be that many elves, could there? There’ve been myths about elves from other countries, but it’s all just the mythology of those cultures!”
“Were the elves not part of your mythos before you saw us for yourself?”
“Y-yes, but—”
Soma’s smile became even kinder. “Do you believe that no mythology but your own is true?”
Well, put like that, it sounded downright daft.
“You are the only witness present who has seen the undead,” Soma said, “and in your memories lies the key to discerning whether those undead were reanimated by the Firestone or whether there is another explanation for the events at your border.”
Eras looked deeply troubled. “If it is the Firestone, then….” He exchanged somber looks with his advisors. “Then our involvement in the conflict will be mandatory. All debate from that point onward will be moot. Our laws on the containment of the Stones are absolute. Should a Stone fall into the wrong hands, it is the responsibility of all elves, of all alignments, to do everything they can to get it back—or to dest
roy it.”
“Your Majesty!” Alfernas objected. “To destroy a sacred Stone…!”
“Alfernas, I do not often ask much of you, but as a citizen to a fellow citizen, I ask that you allow Soma to verify whether it is the Firestone we are dealing with. If not, then your concerns will stand and will be voted on as is tradition.”
“But,” Alfernas persevered, even though his colleagues were not displaying as much sympathy to him as before. “But how can our magic be used for such evil purposes?”
“Is life itself good or evil?” Soma lifted her hand, her fingers loosely cupped, as if she was sifting sand through them. “No. Life is neither good nor bad. It is what you do with it that defines it. Magic is naught but the essence of life itself. It, too, is primeval and is neither good nor evil. It can be misused, even though there were checks and balances put in place eons ago to prevent the misuse of the Stones. If King Danis has the Firestone, he may have circumvented those conditions.” Soma beckoned Tam to her. “My dear, would you be offended if I took a deeper look into your mind?”
Tam edged toward Soma after Emeraude nodded at her. “Um. D-didn’t you—didn’t you already—?”
“That was but a breeze ruffling the surface of a pond.”
“So my mind’s just a tiny pond? Not a river or a lake? Thanks.”
Soma let out a startled laugh. “I haven’t had someone speak to me like that since I was a child. Since before I was Seer. I didn’t realize how much I missed it.” Soma patted the spot beside her on the carpet, like a grandmother inviting a grandchild to cuddle with her for a bedtime story.
Tam sat down cross-legged, just like Soma. “You… can miss things?”
“Of course I can. I channel the earth, but I am not the earth itself, immense and unconquerable as it is. I am a finite being, like any of you.”
“I doubt you’re like any of us,” Tam said, giving Alfernas the evil eye. “But, er. I get your point. Yes, you may read me more deeply. I’m not that deep to begin with—just a pond, right?—so there won’t be much to see. It’s not like I have grand secrets.”
