DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga)

by R. A. Salvatore

  “You will go back and patrol the tundra about a To-gai village,” Aydrian reasoned, “protecting the folk from dangerous animals and monsters … Are there any monsters in To-gai? Goblins or giants?” he added. His eyes sparkled, for the young warrior always liked to hear stories about the many monsters of the world and of the heroes, particularly the rangers, who dealt with them.

  “Many monsters,” Brynn replied, getting that faraway look that always came over her when she started talking about her beloved homeland. “Great mountain yetis and many goblins. Tundra giants with skin the color of the brown turf, who hide in covered holes and spring out upon unwary travelers!” She said the last quickly and excitedly, leaping at Aydrian; and the younger warrior jumped in surprise, though not very high, just enough to put himself into a defensive posture.

  Yes, he is a warrior, Brynn thought; calm and confident.

  “Many monsters,” she went on a moment later, “but none as plentiful or as dangerous as the Behrenese.”

  “The desert dwellers,” remarked Aydrian, who was not unversed in the religions and peoples of the human kingdoms. “The men who follow the yatol priests.”

  “The demons who call the Chezru chieftain their god-king,” Brynn clarified. “Far too long has their smell infected the clean air of To-gai!”

  Aydrian looked around nervously. “Beware that those same elven ears you say have heard my words now hear your own,” he said.

  “Beware?” Brynn asked with a chuckle. “Lady Dasslerond understands my intent completely. I have been trained to lead the revolution against the Behrenese, and that is my first and foremost duty.”

  Aydrian wore that confused expression once again. “In all that I have learned in Andur’Blough Inninness, I have come to know that the affairs of men and the affairs of the Touel’alfar are not usually one and the same,” he said. “You will be named, you say, and so you will become a full ranger. You will have been given a great gift by Lady Dasslerond, in her eyes. How, then, will the lady allow you to use that gift in the affairs of men? Does that not go against the very precepts of the Touel’alfar? I do not—”

  Brynn interrupted him with an upraised hand and a smile. “Most rangers are trained as guardians against the encroachment of the wilderness,” she agreed. “That was the way of your father, Nightbird, though his path led him to one of the greatest conflicts between the men of Honce-the-Bear in the history of the world. But my adoption by the Touel’alfar was not an ordinary thing; I was not taken to become a typical ranger. Lady Dasslerond rescued me from my captors, those devil yatols who murdered my parents and all my village, with the intent that one day I would return not only to avenge those deaths but also to lead my people from the slavery they have known since the cursed Behrenese came to us.”

  Aydrian leaned forward as he listened to every word, obviously engrossed in this twist in the tale. He knew some of Brynn’s history, but not until this very moment had he garnered any idea at all that Brynn Dharielle had some special purpose in life beyond becoming a typical ranger. She went on, then, speaking of the yatols and the former chieftains of the To-gai-ru, the proud men and women who led the nomadic steppe people in ways, spiritual and physical, older than either the yatol or the Abellican religions. She talked of the To-gai-ru spiritual rituals, and many sounded to Aydrian similar to the prayers that the Touel’alfar had been teaching him and Brynn. Indeed, the young man came to understand, as Brynn already understood, that much of To-gai culture bore a striking resemblance to the ways of the Touel’alfar.

  Brynn’s voice changed noticeably as she recounted again to Aydrian those horrible last days of her village, when she had witnessed the beheading of her father and the rape and murder of her mother. She came through that difficult recounting well, as she always did. The scars were lasting, but under the tutelage of the Touel’alfar, Brynn Dharielle explained, she had learned to channel her emotions into optimistic plans for the future.

  And what a future she envisioned and now described to Aydrian! Nothing less than a revolution to expel the Behrenese from the steppes of To-gai, to drive the invaders back to the desert sands of their own homeland, and to rid To-gai of the ever-deepening ties to the yatol religion.

  “Freeing my own people from the trap of lies that is yatol will perhaps prove my most difficult task,” Brynn explained, her tone somber and melancholy. “Many of my people have grown up knowing only the yatol prayers—they do not remember the old ways.”

  “But your parents held to those ways long after the Behrenese conquered the country,” Aydrian reasoned.

  “As did all of my tribe,” said Brynn, “and many other tribes, scattered throughout the steppes, praying in secret and meeting, all of us, at the ancient religious shrines to celebrate our holiest days. Someone told the Behrenese of my parents and their friends, I am sure. Someone told the yatol priests of our sacrilege, and so they came down upon us with a great force.” Despite all her disciplined training, despite channeling all that anger into grand plans, Brynn Dharielle betrayed her seething rage at that moment. Aydrian understood that if she ever learned the identity of the traitor, that man would be better off if he was already dead!

  The moment of anger passed quickly, as Brynn began talking again of restoring To-gai to what it once was, a place of many tribes, united in spirit and living in peace. How wonderful might that first To-gai winter festival be when all the peoples of the steppes gathered in the ancient city of Yoshun Magyek to join hands and sing the “Ber’quek Jheroic Suund,” the “Song of the Cold Night”!

  Aydrian’s interest grew as Brynn spoke of the revolution, of the great heights her people would ascend to overthrow their oppressors. It occurred to the young warrior that if she succeeded Brynn Dharielle’s name would live on in the history of the To-gai-ru for centuries to come. It occurred to Aydrian that Brynn Dharielle’s name would live on beyond the end of Lady Dasslerond’s days.…

  He didn’t know it then, but that thought, that notion of immortality through glory, sank very deeply into the heart of young Aydrian Wyndon.

  When Brynn finished, she sat perfectly still and quiet, staring ahead, though it was obvious to Aydrian that she was not seeing anything in front of her, that she was looking far away and far back in time and into the future all at once.

  “I still do not understand,” Aydrian remarked a short while later. “Always I hear Lady Dasslerond proclaim that the affairs of men are not the affairs of the Touel’alfar, and always she makes it obvious that you and I, as humans, are far below the Touel’alfar. Why would she care for To-gai and the To-gai-ru? Why are the problems of your people the problems of the Touel’alfar; and if they are not, then why would she want you to return and begin such a war?”

  “She fears the yatols,” Brynn answered. “Or rather, she considers the potential problems they might one day cause. Lady Dasslerond has had her eyes turned southward to the great mountain range known as the Belt-and-Buckle for many years now, though I know not why, and she would greatly prefer that the To-gai-ru—whose tales of the Jyok ton’Kutos, the Touel’alfar, speak of them whimsically or as beneficent spirits—ruled the southern slopes of the mountains. Always, my mother would tell me tales of the Jyok ton’Kutos or the Jynek ton’Kutos, the light elves and the dark elves, and she told those tales with a warm smile. We, of all the humans, are the most akin to the elven peoples. So my mother would always say; and now that I have come to know the Jyok ton’Kutos intimately, I believe that she was correct. Certainly the To-gai-ru are more akin to Lady Dasslerond’s people than are the Behrenese or the white-skinned folk of Honce-the-Bear. Your people, like the Behrenese, try to shape the land to fit their needs, while the To-gai-ru find pleasure in the land that is.”

  Aydrian looked at her as if he did not understand—which he did not, of course, since he had little idea of what “his” people of Honce-the-Bear might be like. The Touel’alfar had told him some of the history, of course, and had described the great cities to him—and how Aydrian
wanted to go and see those cities! But the only tales he knew of “his” people were those his elven teachers had told him, and Aydrian was developing a pretty good sense now that not everything the Touel’alfar told him was necessarily true.

  “If Lady Dasslerond has any ideas of traveling to that southern mountain range,” Brynn went on, “then better for her, or for any she chooses to send, that the yatols were long gone from the area.”

  “You know this?” Aydrian asked, his eyes narrowing with curiosity. “She will leave Andur’Blough Inninness? Or will send others to the south?”

  Brynn shrugged. “I merely assume it,” she admitted. “For why else would the leader of the Touel’alfar care for the plight of the To-gai-ru?”

  “Perhaps Lady Dasslerond would simply prefer that there were fewer humans in her world,” Aydrian replied bluntly. “What better way to bring about that than to start a war?”

  Brynn glanced around nervously, her horrified expression showing that she believed Aydrian had just stepped way over the bounds of propriety.

  He shrugged in response, somewhat nonchalantly. “I do not pretend to understand the desires of the Touel’alfar,” he said. “You do, it seems, but have you learned that much more of them in your few extra years of training?”

  Brynn looked at him hard.

  “Or do you just need to think the best of them?” Aydrian asked.

  “They are my family,” the young woman replied.

  “Your masters,” Aydrian was quick to correct. “And while you might consider them your family, they certainly do not think the same of you. Or of me, or of any other humans. Even my father, Nightbird. Yes, they speak of him reverently and say what a great ranger he was. But even his heroic deeds cannot elevate him to the status of the Touel’alfar—not in the eyes of the Touel’alfar, at least.”

  Brynn’s lips grew very thin—for she knew he was right, Aydrian realized, and it pleased him to be right.

  “They are the only family I have,” said Brynn again. “And the only family you have.”

  “Then I have no family,” said Aydrian. The words coming out of his mouth proved as much an epiphany for Aydrian as for Brynn.

  “How can you speak ill of those who saved your life?” Brynn scolded. “Of those who gave you life in every way except birth? Of those who are giving you skills that will elevate you above the masses of our race?”

  “But will never lift me to the very bottom ranks of their race,” Aydrian was quick to point out. “If I consider Lady Dasslerond my family, then it is a false hope for me, since she will never consider me the same.”

  “The Touel’alfar have great fondness for the rangers,” said Brynn.

  “As you have for Diredusk,” Aydrian countered.

  Brynn started to respond, but gave a great sigh and let it go. She couldn’t hope to convince Aydrian. From his perspective, his words were true enough. Brynn knew the reality of being a human among the Touel’alfar as surely as did her young counterpart. Indeed, the elves did consider themselves superior to humans or any other race. Even the words of Belli’mar Juraviel, Brynn’s mentor and the elf the Touel’alfar considered the friendliest toward humans, held an inescapable edge of racism, an inadvertent condescension.

  But Brynn still did not see things as Aydrian did. The Touel’alfar, for all their failings, were giving her something special, a great gift that she could use to better the lives of her people and to realize her ultimate potential.

  “Once I might have seen them as you do,” she said, though her words were a lie, for she had never viewed the Touel’alfar as anything other than first her saviors and then her friends. “But when you return …” Brynn paused at that word, for perhaps that was the key to the difference between her feelings and Aydrian’s toward Lady Dasslerond and her people. She would return to her own people, but Aydrian had never been among his own people! How strange that must be for the boy!

  “You will come to appreciate the gifts of the Touel’alfar,” she said instead, quietly with all respect. “You will change your heart concerning Lady Dasslerond and her haughty kin.”

  Now it was Aydrian’s turn to merely shrug as if it did not matter; and Brynn sat staring at him for a long time, wondering, fearing, how deep his anger toward their mentors ran. Aydrian wouldn’t even admit to that anger, she recognized. He was speaking words that he thought simply pragmatic and honest, but Brynn was perceptive enough to understand that there was some buried resentment behind his remarks.

  She wondered whether Lady Dasslerond had noted it as well, and she could not believe that the venerable lady of Caer’alfar and her sharp-eared kin had not. What ill might that bode for poor Aydrian?

  She left him then, with a pat on the shoulder as he sat staring into the boughs of the beautiful forest. She wished that there was some way she might mention this conversation to Lady Dasslerond, though of course she could not without getting Aydrian into terrible trouble. She wished that there was some way that she could show Aydrian the error of his thinking.

  Aydrian sat there for a long while after Brynn had gone, going over the conversation, particularly his own words, those last few comments that had revealed to him a deep and simmering anger. It was all starting to fall together for him, he believed, all the pieces of this great puzzle known as life lining up in orderly fashion.

  Aydrian didn’t like the picture those pieces formed at all. The unfairness of his situation upset him profoundly. Not only was he destined forever to be a lesser being in the eyes of the only group he could call a family but every member of that family, barring unforeseen circumstance, would outlive him by many of his life spans! Where was the justice in this miserable existence? To’el Dallia might train a dozen or more rangers after him, and would she even remember the one named Aydrian? Would his “family” recall his name even a century hence?

  But that was also the spark of hope that Aydrian had found this night in talking to Brynn Dharielle, the ranger destined to lead a revolution, the ranger whose name, it seemed to Aydrian, might be long imprinted on the memory of the world.

  Yes, he thought, perhaps there was a way for a mere human to garner a piece of elvenlike immortality.…

  It was another calm and quiet night—too quiet, Aydrian recognized, and he knew instinctively that something was afoot, some new test for Brynn, perhaps. With even To’el Dallia nowhere to be found, the young ranger-in-training made his way to the same field where Brynn had passed her previous test.

  The place was empty and quiet, not a night bird stirring, not a torch burning.

  Aydrian walked along the forest paths, rubbing his chin, trying to figure out where the elves might have brought Brynn. He didn’t know how many elves lived in Caer’alfar, but he knew that the number was over a hundred. Aydrian understood that if they were out in the forest, all of them together and with Brynn besides, he would never find them unless he happened upon them by chance. Aydrian had spent his entire life in Andur’Blough Inninness, had trained extensively in the ways of the elves, and all that experience and all that training only let him know better than anyone else in the world how stealthy the elven people could be in the forest night.

  He wandered the paths, making wider and wider circuits of Caer’alfar, the homeland proper, and growing angrier and angrier with each passing step because he would again be excluded from … from whatever the Touel’alfar were doing with Brynn this night.

  His frustration continued to mount but then washed away all of a sudden when Aydrian heard fair elven voices carried on the evening breeze. Immediately Aydrian went on the alert, crouching and slowly turning his head to get some direction from the sound. He knew, too, that the elves could hide their voices or could throw them to misdirect. He wondered as he at last located the heading and swiftly but quietly started in that direction whether the elves would have him running futilely through the night. Soon enough, though, the lights of torches came into view, lining another field, this one as wide as it was long and bordered on all four
sides by beautiful pine trees. The young ranger-in-training stopped and took a long while to consider where he was, to recall all that he could of the region about that field. He started off again a few minutes later, but not heading directly toward the field. Rather, he ran off down to the north, making his way to a dry, sunken streambed that ran along the field’s border.

  When he was even with the field, the elven song filling all the air about him, Aydrian crept up the bank, his belly low to the ground. He paused again just before he reached the crest, taking in the elf song, trying to discern the mood of the Touel’alfar.

  From that sound, the beautiful and reverent melody, it didn’t seem to him that this was another test, and certainly not one of Brynn’s warrior prowess. No, this seemed more solemn somehow, more ancient.

  With a deep and steadying breath, Aydrian crept up a bit more and peeked over the ridge, under the interlocking boughs of pines.

  There stood the Touel’alfar—all of them, it seemed—standing in ranks upon the field to Aydrian’s right, facing Lady Dasslerond. The boy lay there for a long, long time, not even realizing that he was breathing.

  At last the elven song stopped, though the last notes seemed to hang in the air. Not a bird, not a cricket, chirped in the quiet night.

  “Belli’mar Juraviel,” Lady Dasslerond said a moment later. “For the second time in a short span, you deliver to us a ranger prepared to go out into the wider world. Is she ready?”

  “She is, my lady,” said Juraviel, striding past the quiet elven ranks. “I give you Brynn Dharielle!” He stopped and turned, holding his arm out the way he had come, and in his wake walked Brynn.

  Aydrian could hardly breathe, or could not breathe, and didn’t care whether he did or not. Brynn walked with a grace and a pride befitting the evening. She was naked, except for a couple of large feathers that had been braided into her dark hair. Aydrian had seen her naked before many times, for he had often sneaked into the brush beside the small field where the young woman did her morning bi’nelle dasada routines, and always the sight of her smooth brown flesh had excited feelings in Aydrian that he could not quite comprehend.