The Coming Storm

by Valerie Douglas

  True-friend.

  She took a breath. His eyes met hers. Held.

  They would stand for each other here.

  She took a breath and smiled, a little unevenly, but she smiled. “Then let’s not keep them waiting.”

  At Colath’s knock, the guards opened the door and took the fore as the Alatheriann Hunters fell in behind them. There were few in the halls, most were gathered now outside the Council building. Those few they passed glanced quickly at them and then away.

  One of the guards at the main doors frowned and looked to say something but thought better of it when he met Colath’s warning glance.

  Colath held Ailith’s arm, for comfort and no other reason. No doubt the man thought Ailith should be bound, or even perhaps in chains.

  That thought brought back the dreadful memories of when Colath himself had worn chains, he and Elon both, and the trackers had brought her to them, with Ailith in chains as well.

  He wouldn’t do that to her. He knew how she loathed them, as much as any of Elven blood. Had he not seen it that day, when she came? That wild, despairing anger?

  There was no need in any case.

  If she would have fled, she would have done so before now and made herself outcast by her own actions. She hadn’t. She wouldn’t. In honor and in pride she wouldn’t. Never. Of that he had no doubt.

  The causeway was empty of traffic but below some folk still went about their business as if nothing had happened, as if nothing were happening. For them it didn’t and it wasn’t.

  He cautioned, “Stay close once we get beyond the walls.”

  For a moment she went still. Her eyes sought his.

  “Has it gotten that bad?”

  It had.

  The people needed an enemy, a target for their wrath.

  Whoever had begun this, they’d done their work well. What had started as whispers and rumblings among men had spread. Nor was it whispers any longer, some folk spoke of it openly and some shouted. There had been fights in the streets.

  Rumor had done its evil work well. Colath had heard all manner of talk and some of it had sent a chill through him.

  Otherling.

  There were some folk, though, who wouldn’t merely shudder at the notion. The mere idea of her triggered a revulsion so deep it seemed they could hardly bear it. The Dwarves particularly, Men, too, but even some of his own folk.

  It was worse yet in the streets where the rumors ran rampant and grew more fantastic with each telling.

  Colath was frightened for her.

  All he said, though, was, “There are rumors. Your arrest didn’t help.”

  No, instead it had given credence to the rumors and confirmed that the Council saw her as a threat, too.

  The whispers and shouts had grown in volume.

  Had they calculated it this way, Daran and the Three?

  A few they passed seemed startled to see Elves, for this was a city of men. Save for Council meetings his folk were seldom seen here, especially in the company of the King’s Guard. Some, though, noted their passage with averted faces or with darkling looks, a few with scowls or grim glares.

  They passed a narrow street and a voice called, “Otherling. Traitor.”

  Ailith glanced that way but couldn’t see the face to match the voice.

  “When did I become traitor?” she wondered aloud.

  That one wasn’t brave enough to face her with his accusations. She saw other looks as well, the turned heads, the glares. Few, very few, looked on her with sympathy.

  She took a deep breath to ease her sinking heart.

  “Don’t listen, Ailith,” Colath said. “Only a coward would shout from a crowd rather than say such to your face.”

  “They’re afraid,” she said. Of me, she thought, incredulously.

  What had she done to merit this? She knew, well enough. She’d known it when she’d done it but had done it all the same. What choice had there been, really? Elon. Trapped and helpless. With Colath, the same? To stand and do nothing, to wield her sword only and let hundreds die? When there had been a means to stop it?

  It had been a risk but she’d taken it in full knowledge of the consequences. She’d done it even so.

  Now she would pay the price for it.

  She’d so hoped to be wrong.

  The square block tower of gold-threaded white marble that was Council Building gleamed in the sunlight. Even from several streets away they could hear a low roar, the sound of the crowd that had gathered in the Council Square for her trial.

  It sounded somewhat like a hungry beast calling for its dinner but that might have been mere fancy.

  Still, the sound of it made Ailith shiver.

  Turning, Colath took them down a side street, away from the throngs in the Square.

  Here Guards turned those folks away who sought a better vantage point and thought they might find it through the back alleys around the Chamber. They didn’t turn Colath and his escort away. They waved them past and through a massive wrought-iron gate – like the marble, a gift from the Dwarves. Fanciful leaves and delicate embellishments decorated that gate. It was lovely yet strong, the work of the women of the Dwarves.

  With the Council Building their boot heels clicked on marble floors and it felt like sacrilege to walk on those beautiful, highly-polished stones with their thin veins of gold and silver.

  Another set of guards opened a door to an empty chamber.

  It seemed that as the once-Heir to a Kingdom they afforded her more privileges than the usual prisoner going to stand before the Council. Food and drink were set upon a table wrought so delicately from wood that it had to be the work of Elves. So, too, the tapestries on the walls and the carpet on the floor.

  Elven-silk, like Ailith’s mother and grandmother had once woven.

  It was beautiful work. Once upon a time she might have been thrilled to see it, to see this building, this place. She had never seen the Council Chambers either. No longer. She would soon now.

  The food—her last meal?—didn’t tempt her but her mouth was very dry.

  “I’ll pour,” she said.

  “My thanks,” Colath said, looking around the room.

  It was a cold place. Not like his own lands, not like the lands of his people. There wouldn’t be these enclosing walls of stone but pillars and galleries of highly-polished wood, open terraces that let in the light and living things. Flowering vines would drape to send showers of petals to scent the air. He longed to be home in Aerilann again, away from this cold place, from the harsh scent of men and the harsher, metallic tang of Dwarves. Away from this terrible pain and what they were about to do here. Hand him a hundred trolls and he would have taken them over this.

  Instead Ailith handed him a cup and lifted her own in salute.

  Ailith took a small sip. Juice, berries and peaches, perhaps. Sweet. She’d expected wine and was grateful it wasn’t. Her head was light enough as it was. Fear had her stomach fluttering.

  “This place is cold,” Colath said, abruptly and she couldn’t mistake the longing in his voice.

  Looking around the room she knew what he meant. It was impersonal and barren, stone walls and floor, relieved only by the tapestries and the tables.

  “I’ve never been in any Enclave but Talesin’s,” she said, with a sigh. “I so wanted to see Aerilann.”

  “You may yet and when you do, you’ll love it as I do. I was thinking how much gentler it is than this. There would be flowers everywhere and the perfume of them would fill the air. We live among the trees and living things, the sun and air and sky.”

  “You miss it,” she said, sympathetically.

  She knew he did. He and Elon both.

  So like her in that, too, facing what she did and yet she still cared about his homesickness.

  “Do you miss Riverford, Ailith?” Colath asked, carefully.

  She’d rarely spoken of it after her disinheritance.

  As he asked he looked in her eyes and he knew.
r />   Her smile was sweet, and wistful.

  For a moment Ailith looked away, then she sighed and nodded. “Not as you love Aerilann, Colath, that I know. Still. I did and do love it. The castle was cold and drafty in winter and too hot in summer but it was home and I miss it. The hills in the summer rolled green and gold and I could see the horses grazing upon them from my rooms. The foals would make me laugh as they scampered across the fields, all long gangly legs as they found their speed. We would swim in the river when the weather was warm. When the winter storms came you could see the snow wash across the hills, softly erasing all you saw. I would draw the shutters and the curtains and curl up in a chair by the fire with a cup of something warm.”

  Her breath caught at the enormity of her loss.

  “I doubt I can ever go back there again, however this goes. They won’t love me for what I’ve done, no matter the reason.”

  She’d gone against her father, or that which resembled him.

  The thought of leaving Aerilann never to return again… Never to go home again.

  Just the thought of it nearly broke Colath’s heart. He couldn’t bear to imagine it, nor imagine how she could, feeling what he did through the bond between them.

  “Time may yet be enough,” he said.

  It was unlikely and they both knew it.

  She looked at him with that calm gaze, her eyes too wise for such fancy.

  “Colath,” she chided, gently. “Don’t offer such false hope to me now.”

  “No,” he said, “I shouldn’t. I owe you my honesty if nothing else, though I sought only ease, not deception.”

  “I know. It’s all right.”

  A door opened, one she hadn’t noticed before and her heart went cold. Bright sunlight speared in the room.

  Looking in, the guard nodded. Behind him, more waited.

  “It’s time,” the guard said.

  Ailith looked at him, and then nodded.

  Colath started forward but Ailith touched his arm and shook her head.

  “No, Colath,” she said.

  Although it wrenched at her heart and she longed to fling herself against him as shelter against the storm of what came next, she couldn’t.

  “You’ve done all you should do, all you could do, Colath, true-friend,” she said, although her heart ached and the fear was almost more than she could bear. She raised a hand to his face, a touch she hadn’t dared in the past with others looking on. “In this, you cannot help me. No more. If all goes well, it won’t matter and I’ll always know you brought me this far. But if it goes badly…they’ll mark it and remember. I can’t allow you to be tarred with that brush. It’s not cowardice on your part but wisdom. This I must do alone.”

  Their eyes met.

  Resolution on her part, that she wouldn’t bring him harm.

  After a moment, he nodded.

  Ailith looked at him for what might be the last time. “Colath, my friend. You’ve been a true-friend of my heart. Even without the bond, I would have loved you, but with it…thank you, always.”

  “And I, you, true-friend,” he said and took her arm in a tight arm clasp. One last time, perhaps.

  To never do this again? It pained him so deeply. If she had been other…

  Exile, Eliade had said. Life of some kind, at least. In the borderlands. Alone.

  Ailith’s hand tightened on his, looked up again to meet his gaze. “True-friends, always. Watch him for me, Colath.”

  Elon.

  His breath caught as he looked down at her. “I will, Ailith.”

  Drawing herself up, remembering who she was and who she’d been, Ailith nodded to the guard and stepped past Colath with only a single glance back.

  “Remember, Colath, true-friend, I’ll be watching. Always.”

  Her words went through him like a knife. Her gift. That she would watch over him and them through the stars in her mind. As she watched over Elon and all of them.

  Always.

  “Ailith…”

  Her blue-gray eyes met his. She smiled.

  The Guard surrounded her.

  The door closed.

  Colath didn’t move.

  Elves didn’t weep as men did.

  For a moment he envied men the ability. It wasn’t that his people wouldn’t but that they couldn’t. There was no capacity in them for tears. Nor did Elves show their pain and sorrow except to their own kind. Many of their folk, knowing he knew Ailith, had kept their own counsel out of respect for him and a desire to avoid conflict. It pained him to be so separate from his own folk. Here there were few even among his own with whom he could share this. None save Jalila and he couldn’t reach her. For now, for this moment, as with Ailith, he would have to bear it alone.

  He wished Elon was here with him and the others with whom they’d fought. Jareth and Jalila. Olend and Itan. Where were they now? Had they heard? Or were they in Marakis and far from this news. They would have understood.

  Ailith.

  What now? Go down into the Square and watch the spectacle? Join his fellows, the Hunters and Woodsmen who’d fought alongside them, standing in grim protest with the Guards along the wide balconies? He supposed he should, if only to bear witness to this for her as she had in dreams for he and Elon when Tolan had held them.

  Colath left the room without a backward glance.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  The First of the Three, the ruling Council of the Kingdoms, watched as Ailith, once of Riverford, walked down the white marble steps from the Council Building with her head held high, her clear, dark-blue eyes looking forward. He wasn’t Daran High King here but the duly elected First, representative of the race of men and the deciding vote if the Three were split. Deciding what was best and necessary for his people and all the people of the Kingdoms, Men, Elves and Dwarves. On each side of him were the others of the Three, Goras of the Dwarves and Eliade of the Elves.

  All eyes were on the small figure that descended the steps, guards surrounding her.

  Goras made a small noise, a rumble of distaste.

  Eliade was silent, her counsel kept close as all Elves did.

  The young woman preceded the Guard, walked with strong, sure steps down the stairs from the Council Chambers as if the Guardsmen protected her, and not the other way around. There was no arrogance in her, simply a calm dignity, she was every inch the queen she might one day have been.

  The man within the King couldn’t help but admire it and regret the necessity of what was about to happen.

  Would she take his offer? he wondered. Or not?

  For the betterment of all she should but he wasn’t certain of it. Would the appeal he’d made to her, to protect Elon and Jareth, be enough to sway her? In truth his fellows on the council and the representatives ringed below them knew nothing of his offer. He’d sounded them out, though, and was confident of their wishes. It would go the way he wanted, if only she took his offer.

  At least a small part of him wished they could have dressed her better, presented her in a more seemly manner.

  She was dressed in basic trews, a simple shirt and a leather vest.

  Fighting clothes.

  Her belt hung loosely on her hips, bereft of her sword.

  No fillet of gold circled her brow to mark her as the daughter and Heir of one of the lesser Kings – which she was and had the right to claim, whatever her father’s perfidy and despite his disownment.

  No. The tousled, sun-kissed curls of her hair were bound back with the same plain leather thong she’d worn in battle.

  Had she have chosen to be dressed this way? He didn’t know.

  Above his head arched the great dome, the clear crystal in its center meant to be a symbol of the light of reason.

  Elon’s design, Elven symbolism. The four pillars were ringed around him, symbolic of knowledge, justice, compassion and wisdom, with their runes engraved on them they mocked him.

  For a moment Daran resented it.

  There was no reason here. Just
expediency. A bowing to tradition, customs and taboos. Nothing more. He could almost feel Goras’s rage and anger radiating beside him.

  Otherwise the Chamber was an open rotunda, to show that those virtues would be open and revealed to all who stood before it. Elon’s work, his plan.

  That mocked him, too.

  Her words. He’s served you well and you repay him like this?

  No, he’d repaid him by sending him away so he wouldn’t have to witness it.

  Or try to prevent it.

  And to remind the great and mighty Elon of Aerilann above all just who had the real power here, remind him who was High King and First of the Three.

  The crowd caught their first glimpse of her as she descended, just before she reached the floor of the Chamber. A sound escaped them that was much like the rush of the waves that glittered below.

  Somehow the Elves who’d helped build the chamber had set the dome and curled the wall behind it just so, so that those without could hear every word spoken as clearly as a bell.

  The Square was open, too, although awnings could be stretched out above them if the heat were too oppressive or in the rare case of rain. They weren’t unfurled now.

  As if she knew her place, she walked steadily to the landing provided, so that she was clearly visible to the Councilors and all in the Square, as intended.

  There she stopped, above and beyond the reach of those below and turned to face those who would judge her.

  If she was afraid, she gave no sign of it. In that she might have been an Elven.

  There was a murmur from those watching, condemnations, a whisper of admiration.

  Daran High King, First of the Three, nodded slightly and then glanced at his companions. They returned his gaze, Goras impatient and Eliade calm. Eliade inclined her head slightly.

  “Get on with it,” Goras muttered. “Too much ceremony.”

  An odd complaint from a Dwarf, whose folk thrived on ceremony and tradition, Laws, Contracts and Exceptions. No matter. He was right, it was time.

  “Ailith of Riverford,” Daran called, his voice echoing over the Square.

  Her eyes lifted to meet his. Steel-blue, steady, resolute and calm, her face nearly as serene as an Elf’s. Which, if what they had reason to believe was true, she was, at least somewhat.