“A metal armband, a sword. Now, how did they get there?” mused Sharlario. His blue eyes suddenly went wide, as if the answer had struck him like a blow. With one quick, fluid movement, he rose and whirled to face the others.
“You, priestess—gather those children together,” he snapped, his voice crisp with urgency. “All of you, head down the mountain as fast as you dare. Find shelter—small caves if you can, thick trees if there’s nothing else. Help the wounded. Hurry!”
Durothil caught the elf’s arm. “By what authority do you command here?” he asked indignantly.
Shaking off Durothil’s restraining hand, the pale elf brandished the charred metal band. “Think, boy! An elf wore this bracer, held that sword. She died in a blast of heat that turned her into dust and melted rock and soil into soup. What do you know of that can do that?”
Despite the speed of Sharlario’s words and the urgency of his tone, Durothil regarded him silently for a moment. Elven kings did not speak or act in haste, and the young prince desired to comport himself with appropriate dignity. He also found himself wondering, incongruously, how Sharlario had decided that the bracer’s former owner had been female.
“Are you utterly ignorant of magic?” Durothil retorted in due time. “In a spell battle between mages of sufficient power, it is—”
Sharlario cut him off with a curt, exasperated oath. “Stop dithering, boy—there’s a dragon about. You give the command to flee, then, but do it while your people yet live!”
Durothil’s eyes widened as the truth came to him. “Dragonfire,” he murmured, eyeing the glasslike stone and understanding at last the danger into which they had stumbled.
“Do as the pirate said, and hurry!” he shouted to the watchful elves, ignoring Sharlario’s insulted glare.
As the elves rushed to do his bidding, Durothil shielded his eyes with one hand and squinted into the west.
There lay the most rugged mountains. Dragons made their lairs in the mountains, or so the old tales said. There were no dragons upon the island that had been Durothil’s only home, but legends were plentiful. By all accounts, dragons were creatures of enormous power and magic. It was likely that the creature who had razed this site could sense the spell that had brought the elves to this place. Even now, it might be coming to investigate the intrusion.
Sure enough, a tiny spot against the fading gold of the sky quickly took ominous shape. A dragon, red scales flaming in the dying light, swept toward them.
Durothil thrust aside sudden, paralyzing fear and tried to assess how long it would be before the dragon was upon them. Too soon, he concluded grimly. Before the fleeing elves could descend down past the tree line, the dragon would come, and it would easily pick them off.
The young prince drew his blade. Planting his feet wide, he brandished the sword and shouted a challenge into the rising wind.
No quick burst of flame could melt rock, Durothil reasoned. The blast of dragonfire that had transformed this mountaintop must have lasted a long time. It was his task to ensure that the next blast lasted long enough to drain the dragon’s strength and allow the elves time to escape. He would purchase this time for the elves by drawing the dragon’s fire upon himself.
It did not occur to the young prince to do otherwise. To die for his People was the final duty of any elven king.
To his surprise, Sharlario Moonflower stood with him, his own sword at the ready. But the older elf’s cold blue eyes were fixed not upon the approaching dragon, but on a more immediate threat.
Seven elflike beings flew toward the scarred mountain, borne on wings like those of gigantic eagles. Two of them held a net stretched between them, and they swooped down toward the pair of elven defenders with grim intent.
Before Durothil could react to this second attack, Sharlario shouldered him roughly out of harm’s way. The younger elf went reeling and stumbled over the edge of the precipice. He rolled down the steep incline, hands flailing wildly as he sought a hold. But the slope was slick and smooth from the molten stone that had spilled down the mountain after the dragon’s last attack.
Down he tumbled, as swiftly as if he were sliding down one of Tintageer’s waterfalls. But no soft spray and warm water awaited him at the bottom. When at last the smooth stone gave way, Durothil bounced and rolled over the bruisingly rough terrain. He saw the pile of boulders approaching him in a spinning gray blur, but could not veer away in time.
There was no sensation of stopping, but pain exploded through him like a sudden blinding light. Gradually the brightness dimmed into the gray void of oblivion. The last image Durothil’s dazed eyes gathered before he slipped into the haze was that of Sharlario, entangled in nets and struggling like a hooked fish as he was carried away by the winged elves.
The wheel of the seasons turned many times before the young prince was at last restored to his people.
A band of Gold elf hunters came upon Durothil in the deep forest, found him studying the plants that grew in hidden places with a concentration that suggested he had no other thought or care. Though the hunters pressed him with many questions, Durothil could not tell them where he had been those many years. He simply did not remember; the years that had slipped away from him were meaningless to Durothil, who in his heart and mind was the same young prince who had led his people away from dying Tintageer.
Although he was happy to be among the elves once again, Durothil did not like the changes that had taken place in his absence, nor was he entirely comfortable with the new place the People had found for themselves.
The magic that his people had cast on distant Tintageer had been a true Seeking. It had found a place of power, a dancing hill similar to the sacred site on their homeland. For many hundreds of years, a clan of forest-dwelling elves had gathered starlight and magic on the mountaintop plateau. Many of these fey People had perished one midsummer in the fiery breath of the red dragon who called himself Master of the Mountains. Those that remained welcomed the newcomers to their forest home. And the elves of Tintageer, the proud, golden people from the ancient southlands of Faerie, had mingled with these wild folk.
To Durothil’s relief, not all took to native ways. Some of the elves kept proudly to themselves and strove to plant the seeds of their magic, arts, and culture in the forest soil. Amazingly enough, one of these elves was Sharlario Moonflower.
The red-headed warrior had survived and had wed a Faerie woman—a devout priestess of Sehanine Moonbow. Between them they had produced a roisterous brood of young elves, most of whom had inherited their father’s pale skin and flaming hair. Almost without exception, members of the burgeoning new clan followed their mother in the veneration of the Goddess of Moonlight. Already the others were referring to them as “Moon elves.”
As for Sharlario, he often spoke of the avariel, the winged elves who had rescued him, and the wonders of the Aerie, the magical, hidden mountaintop realm to which they had spirited him. He told of the service he had lent the avariel in fighting the red dragon and banishing him from the northern mountains. The avariel were but one of many races of elves in this new land, Sharlario claimed, and they had told him of other clans that peopled the land. There were many elves, scattered throughout the forest, or living in the hot southlands, and even abiding in the depths of the distant sea.
This experience had shaped Sharlario’s destiny—or, perhaps, confirmed it. On his native Faerie he had been a merchant who sailed the seas, gathering news and bringing goods to distant elven lands. He was a wanderer still, for the tales told him by the avariel had set his imagination aflame. Nothing would satisfy him until he could see with his own eyes all of Faerûn. He and his children often left to explore their new world, searching for adventure, and seeking out others of their kind. The stories they brought back with them were wondrous tales of the sort that would be passed down from parent to child like titles or treasure.
The elves enjoyed Sharlario’s stories, but few believed his account of the avariel. None of the forest folk
had ever encountered such beings, and the concept of winged elves seemed too fanciful to credit. Not even Sharlario ever again caught sight of one, except in the remembered dreams of his revery. This did not keep him from claiming that the avariel continued to watch over him.
Of all the elves, only Durothil did not tease the Moon elf adventurer about his fancies. He, too, had seen the winged elves. But by unspoken agreement, he and Sharlario never spoke of that day—or of little else, for that matter.
When Durothil returned after his long and unexplained absence, he found that his people had absorbed the ways of the land and no longer needed or wanted a king to rule them. There was no crown for which to contend; nevertheless, Durothil could never rid himself of the feeling that of all the elves of the forest, Sharlario could have been his most formidable challenger for kingship. This he could never forget.
There was also the matter of his own lost years. Durothil understood the Moon elf’s fancies far better than he liked. He never saw Sharlario’s guardian avariel, but throughout the seasons that followed, Durothil often caught fleeting glimpses of silvery wolves, unnaturally large in size, following him through the forest like elusive shadows. And for all the years of his life, his revery was haunted by the night song of wolves, and vague memories of the kindliness of the shapeshifting elves who called themselves the lythari. Those fleeting dreams, and the deep scar that, although hidden by his thick golden hair, stretched across the crown of his skull, were the only things that remained to him from his early years upon Faerûn.
As the years went by, Durothil schooled himself to put the shadows of his past behind him. Since he was not called upon to reign, the elf turned his efforts to the pursuit of Art. Despite fierce headaches that continued to plague him, he excelled in magic. The Weave that he sensed that first day in Faerûn came easily to his call, and he grew swiftly in skill and power. He also had a vast, and seemingly instinctual, knowledge of herbs and potions—perhaps a legacy of his lost years—that served him well in this pursuit. Within a few decades, Durothil was accounted the most powerful mage in the northland forests.
Sharlario Moonflower continued to wander, and he often returned to the forest with word of other elves he had encountered. Some of them were refugees from Faerie or from other worlds. Others were strange, primordial beings who inhabited the trees and the waters and who seemed to have sprung from the land itself. But though many of these wild clans were wary of newcomers, they offered no threat.
That was well, for war of a different kind was brewing in Faerûn.
In this land of rich magic and vast wild spaces, dragons ruled the skies and contended with each other for ownership of the forests and mountains. Some of these regarded elves as cattle or vermin, to be eaten or destroyed at whim. Many an elven settlement had been lost to their appetites, destroyed as completely as that long-ago midsummer celebration on the dancing hill. The dragon known to the Green elves only as Master of the Mountain was among the most rapacious. Other dragons were more benign lords, though few gave much thought to the smaller creatures who dwelt upon their hard-won lands. They had other, graver concerns: battle with their own kind.
Fierce and bitter were these wars of conquest, and each spring fewer dragons made the flight to the cool northlands. Determined to achieve supremacy—or perhaps desperate for survival—some of these dragons began to consider the wisdom of seeking new ways.
As he came to understand this conflict, Durothil glimpsed a path by which he himself might regain the power that was his lost birthright. He began to spend more and more time on the mountaintop where he and Sharlario had encountered the dreaded Master of the Mountains in that distant past. The red dragon had been vanquished and exiled, that was true—but his time would come again. He would rule these mountains as he had once before, and the combined efforts of the elves and Sharlario’s avariel would not prevent his return.
And when that day came, he, Durothil, would climb to power on the wings of a dragonlord.
7
Brother Against Brother
here were some things, Sharlario Moonflower mused, of which one could never tire. The many-colored flames of a driftwood campfire, the pleasure of hearing his firstborn son sing ballads that had been ancient when his ancestors walked upon Faerie, the lure of places not yet seen—such things as these Sharlario counted as blessings from the gods. But though the night was warm and bright with all these blessings, the Moon elf was hard-pressed to keep his mind upon the song that spilled from his son’s silver lyre.
Nearly three centuries had passed since Sharlario had been torn from Faerie and cast upon this distant shore. This was a long time, even as elves reckon such things, and yet the years had passed far too swiftly. Sharlario sighed and tossed another twisted gray stick of driftwood onto the fire.
His son, Cornaith, glanced up at the sound. The expression on Sharlario’s face stole the song from the young elf’s throat. His fingers instinctively muted the strings of his lyre.
“You seem weary, father,” Cornaith said. “Shall I stop, that you may seek revery?”
The Moon elf managed a smile. “Weary enough, lad, but I doubt that revery would bring me restful dreams this night. Time grows short—there is too much left undone.”
“Yet we have accomplished much this trip,” the young elf said earnestly. “We have been gone from the mountains not quite two years, yet we have established diplomatic ties with no fewer than ten Green elven settlements. This is remarkable, even by your standards. Surely we have allies enough to meet any challenge that lies ahead.”
“You have never fought a dragon,” Sharlario said simply. “I would pray that you never need do so, but that would be akin to praying that winter might not come. Time follows its own course, and the years of the dragon’s banishment are nearly spent. The creature will return, of that I have little doubt.”
“And we will turn it back, as you did before,” his son said confidently.
Sharlario did not answer. He seldom spoke of that long-ago battle, other than to assure the other elves that the red dragon had been ousted and would not soon return. Few of them credited his story of the avariel, so there was little reason to speak in depth and detail of his service to the winged elves. Nor would he, for any reason. The price for that victory had been enormous, and the debt was coming due.
“What credence do you give the tales told of the Ilythiiri?” Cornaith asked as he idly plucked a tune on his lyre. “For my part, I cannot believe that the southern elves are quite as powerful or as ambitious as we’ve heard tell. Nor can I believe the stories of their supposed atrocities.”
“Believe,” proclaimed a female voice from the shadows beyond the campfire.
Both elves jolted at the sound. Sharlario’s hand went instinctively to the dagger at his belt. As he rose cautiously to his feet, he noted the rapt expression in his son’s eyes, and understood it well.
There was nothing that Cornaith loved so well as music, and there was more melody in that single spoken word than in many an air or ballad. Like all elves, Sharlario had a keen love for beauty, and he himself was instinctively drawn to the unseen speaker. Even so, he called to mind a spell that would turn aside magical attack, and he kept his hand at the hilt of his dagger.
“If you come in peace, you are welcome at our fire,” he said.
The shadows stirred, and an elven female stepped into the circle of firelight. Despite his centuries-long career as a diplomat, Sharlario felt his jaw go slack with astonishment.
Their visitor was without doubt the most beautiful creature he had ever beheld. Her face was elven, with its sharp angles and delicately molded features, but her skin was the color of a starless night. She stood taller than any elf he knew—well over six feet—and her long limbs were bare beneath the short, filmy black tunic that, other than a hooded black cloak, was her sole garment. But for the large, silvery eyes that regarded him solemnly, she was midnight in elven form. Sharlario had the oddest feeling that he beheld shadow made
substance.
“I thank you for your welcome, Sharlario Moonflower,” the female said in her low, musical voice. Before the Moon elf recovered from the shock of hearing himself addressed by name, the stranger shrugged back her cloak. Hair the color of starlight spilled over her naked black shoulders in gleaming waves. A silvery aura clung to her hair, a wondrous, magical light that could not be explained solely as reflected firelight.
Cornaith, who had risen with his father to greet their visitor, sank to one knee. His face was suffused with awe, and he gazed at the ebony goddess—for that she certainly was—as if she was the answer to that question which every soul felt, but no words could frame.
“My lady,” he said in deeply reverent tones. “What great thing have we done to be so blessed? How may we serve you? May we know your name?”
The goddess turned her gaze to the younger elf, and her somber expression softened. “Your song was lovely, Cornaith Moonflower. It drew me here and gladdened my exile. I will answer all your questions, but first, seat yourself.” An impish grin flashed onto her face. “That rock you are kneeling on cannot be comfortable.”
When Cornaith hesitated, the goddess sank to the ground and arranged her long limbs in the sort of cross-legged posture that a child might take. She patted the ground beside her in cozy invitation, then quirked a brow at the still-watchful Sharlario.
“I am known as Eilistraee, the Dark Maiden. I require from you neither reverence nor vigilance,” she said softly. “I come as a friend, and in need of friends. Put aside both your weapons and your wonder, and let us talk. There are things that you must know if you intend to confront the Ilythiiri.”
The sadness in her voice smote Sharlario’s heart, and he did as she bid. “You spoke of exile, lady,” he commented. “Forgive me, but I have never heard of such a thing. From whence are you exiled, and, if I might ask, why?”
“Most recently, from the southlands,” the goddess said. “Many of the elves there worship Vhaeraun. You may not have heard of him—he fell from the Seldarine when Faerie was still young, and few of the People know his name. His followers are like him: proud enough to believe themselves destined for power, and ruthless enough to seize it any way they can. As they grow in number, Vhaeraun grows in might. With each tribe the Ilythiiri enslave, with each city they destroy, Vhaeraun’s influence spreads like a bloodstain upon the land. Finally, he became strong enough to achieve that which he most desired.”
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