by Lisa Smedman
One of the other windriders caught Lord Kierin’s eye, glanced in Valatta’s direction, and raised his eyebrows in a silent question. Lord Kierin gave a slight shake of his head.
“Continue the tests,” he ordered.
As Valatta’s mount lay sleeping on the ground, a second griffon was fitted with the ring. This one displayed none of the high spirits that Elsanna had, instead accepting the ring without fuss. It crouched quietly, wings folded, until the ring was removed again. The windrider whose mount it was beamed proudly and passed the ring to the next.
Then came an interruption. “Lord Kierin, someone approaches,” one of the elves said. He pointed to the southeast.
The sun had sunk below the horizon, painting the western sky a vivid red, but there was still enough light to clearly see the figure that winged its way toward Moonrise Hill. It had an unusual shape, and it took Leifander several moments to figure out that the creature was a winged elf—very rare, even in the lands to the north—supporting another, who clung to her chest.
As the avariel elf drew closer still, a second, smaller shape became visible in the air beside it, one that winged its way along strongly and without hindrance. It looked like a large bird, but with a body that had a strange silhouette, almost like that of a griffon.
With a sinking heart, Leifander recognized it as a tressym. It was the one he’d seen more than once in the past few days. He’d suspected that it was following him and had taken great pains to lose it, but now the creature had found him again, and it had brought company. If word of the windriders’ ability to render themselves and their mounts invisible became common knowledge …
Lord Kieran glanced at Leifander and asked, “Were you expecting someone else to meet us here today?”
Leifander shook his head.
Lord Keirin gave a brisk, decisive nod. “Riders!” he shouted. “To your mounts!”
He strode toward the man who held the ring, thrusting the open box at him. With a slight bow, the fellow popped the magical ring back inside. The others swung up into their saddles—all except Valatta, who stared in frustration at her sleeping mount.
Lord Kieran snapped the box shut and tucked it into a bag at his hip. He mounted his own griffon and jerked the lance free from its holder.
“I want that avariel forced down,” he ordered. “I would prefer we cause no wounds, but if arrows are the only thing that will convince the elf to land, so be it.”
He glanced at Valatta, who was tugging at the reins of her mount in a futile effort to wake it. He flicked a hand in the sleeping griffon’s direction and spoke a word to awaken it. An instant later, the griffon was on its feet, head twisting as it scanned the windriders all around it, who were rising into the air on their mounts.
As the winged elf drew closer to Moonrise Hill, Leifander’s mouth gaped open as he saw who the person she was carrying was.
“By the Trickster’s ears,” Leifander swore, “what is she doing here?”
A moment later, he realized Larajin’s danger. Half-elf his twin sister might be, but she looked fully human. As soon as the windriders got a close look at her, they’d assume she was an enemy spy and feather her with arrows.
“Lord Kierin, wait!” he cried, running toward the griffon as it leaped into the air. “The woman being carried by the winged elf is my sister. Call off your riders!”
For a terrible moment, Leifander didn’t think Lord Kierin had heard. His griffon continued to soar upward after the others, then Lord Kierin’s voice rang out, “Riders! Hold your arrows.”
Leifander craned his head, watching anxiously as the windriders caught up to the winged elf, wheeled their mounts in a tight circle, and fell in on either side of her as she continued toward Moonrise Hill. Belatedly Leifander realized his arms were out to the side, his fingers splayed. So tense was the moment that he’d nearly skinwalked and launched himself into the air. Lowering his arms, he watched as the winged elf landed, depositing Larajin on the grassy hilltop. The tressym settled gracefully atop one of the stones behind them.
As the windriders landed their mounts on the hill, Larajin’s first action was to place both hands upon her heart and bow deeply in the winged elf’s direction. It was obviously a gesture of thanks. Her eyes ranged over the windriders, and she repeated the bow, this time for Lord Kierin.
Beside her, the winged elf was panting, bent over with hands on thighs. Her wings were only half folded. Their tips drooped against the ground.
“Leifander,” Larajin said, turning to him. “Thanks be to the goddess that I’ve caught up with you at last. Hopefully this time you’ll listen to me.”
Lord Kierin, having dismounted from his griffon, strode up to where Larajin and Leifander stood. He spoke the common tongue fluently and had understood what Larajin said. He stared at her for a long moment, then glanced pointedly at Leifander.
“Your ‘sister’?” he asked quietly.
Instantly, Leifander regretted his loose tongue. “She’s only a half-elf,” he answered quickly. “Her father was human.”
At Lord Kierin’s sharp look, Leifander realized that he had just compounded his error. Trisdea had given birth only twice in her lifetime. Not knowing that the second birth had produced twins, Lord Kierin would assume some other woman had borne Larajin, and would conclude that she and Leifander therefore had a father in common—and Leifander had just blurted out that this father was human.
“That’s odd,” Lord Kierin said in a soft voice, staring at Leifander. “You don’t look—” He closed his lips abruptly, as if thinking better of what he’d been about to say.
Leifander noticed that Lord Kierin was staring at his ears, and he felt them flush to their very tips.
“I…” Leifander fumbled. “She …”
“I full sister to Leifander,” Larajin blurted out in halting forest Elvish. “Trisdea birth us twins.”
A mutter swept through the windriders who had gathered around them. They obviously knew enough of the forest elf tongue to understand her simple words.
“Is it true?” one of them whispered to another.
Afraid to look up, Leifander kept his eyes focused firmly on the ground. “It’s true.”
A callused hand—Lord Kierin’s—reached out and caught Leifander under the chin, forcing his head up. Leifander expected to see hatred and disgust in Lord Kierin’s eyes, but instead they glowed with compassion.
“Even I did not know this,” he told his riders, “and I am one of his father’s closest friends. Dalbrannil always maintained there was something special about his boy and hinted that the druids were keeping a deep secret about his birth. I had heard rumors in recent days, but I didn’t believe them. Now I realize the whispers that were flying through the forest were true. Half-elves this pair of younglings might be, but they will be our salvation.”
He gestured at Larajin, who stood frowning in confusion, obviously unable to follow Elvish when it was spoken at full speed.
“You see?” Lord Kierin continued. “She appears fully human, but elf blood flows true in her veins. She has come to join our side of the conflict. Look at her hazel eyes, and remember that she and Leifander are twins. With them marching beside our troops, lending us the blessing of the gods, we might yet win this war!”
As a cheer went up among the riders, Leifander frowned.
“Might win?” he whispered, shaking his head at Lord Kierin’s choice of words. “Of course we’ll win it.”
Larajin, meanwhile, seemed to have grasped the general content of Lord Kierin’s words. She rounded on him, berating him in Common.
“You’ve got it all wrong!” she cried. “Leifander and I aren’t meant to win the war; we’re meant to stop it. Rylith told me that this was Somnilthra’s prophecy. She said we would heal a great rift and end a great strife. Elves and humans aren’t meant to be going to war with one another. It’s contrary to the will of the gods.”
The riders—all of whom spoke the common tongue, at least in part—glance
d at one another, clearly uneasy. Lord Kierin, however, appeared thoughtful.
“I do not share these heresies,” Leifander told the riders in a nervous voice. “I am a warrior—a scout for the patrols of the Tangled Trees. My commander, Doriantha, can vouch for my loyalty. I want to fight in this war, not engage in some futile effort to stop it. I want revenge against the humans as much as anyone. I—”
Lord Kierin’s hand upon his arm startled him into abrupt silence.
“As a warrior,” Kierin told the other windriders, “I am as ready to fight as any of you, but as an elf who has lived many years and seen many good elves die in battle, I know the value of peace. A war averted is always better than a war fought—especially when it is doubtful that it can be fought to victory.”
Leifander’s mouth gaped at what he’d just heard. Could it be true? He’d expected Lord Kierin to be confident, as certain of victory as Leifander himself was. If so magnificent a warrior had doubts …
Lord Kierin turned to his riders with a grave look. “Somnilthra was a great seer. If what this girl says is correct—if Somnilthra herself prophesied that these two are to heal the rift between elf and human and stop this war, then we must accept that as their role.” His eyes sought out Leifander’s and he added, “And so must they.”
Leifander started to shake his head, then looked around at those who stood on the hilltop. Some of the windriders looked hopeful, others, skeptical. Valatta was shaking her head in disgust.
But both Larajin and Kierin were looking at Leifander expectantly, as if waiting for him to say something. Even the winged elf was listening, her wings now folded and her head cocked to one side. Only the griffons and the tressym were oblivious to the tableaux, the latter having curled itself in a ball atop one of the standing stones and fallen soundly asleep.
“All right!” Leifander exploded at last. “I’ll do it.” He shook his head and added, in a low mutter, “But by the Winged Mother’s mercy, I just wish someone would tell me what it is I’m supposed to do.”
Later that night, Leifander was aroused from Reverie by the sound of beating wings. Sitting up, he saw the avariel elf—Kith, her name was—climbing into the sky. She hovered for a moment, waving farewell to someone below, then she turned and headed north.
Leifander sighed, wishing Kith had tarried longer before winging her way home. Avariel elves also worshiped the Winged Mother. He and Kith could have found much to talk about.
All around him on the hilltop were the seated forms of eight windriders, their heads bowed in Reverie. Their griffons slept nearby, with heads tucked under their wings. A shadow passed across the hilltop, though no other form, save Kith’s, was visible in the moonlit sky above. It was the ninth windrider keeping watch above, cloaked by the invisibility of a pair of rings.
Moonrise Hill was living up to its name. The standing stones cast long shadows that met at its central point: a moondial on which one could read the season. The moon was just short of full, a glowing white orb that filled the air with a soft blue-white light.
A figure that had been standing at the edge of the hill detached itself from the shadow of a stone and walked back in his direction. It was Larajin. She must have been the one who had bade Kith farewell. Halfway back to the spot where she’d spread her blanket, she noticed Leifander staring at her. She hesitated, then joined him.
“Thank you for agreeing to help me,” she said. “I’m glad you finally changed your mind.”
Leifander grunted and nodded in Lord Kierin’s direction. “I do as I am bid.”
“I’ve been lying awake most of the night, trying to think what we could do,” she continued, “but I can’t come up with any answers. I just wish Somnilthra was still alive so we could ask her what she meant.”
Leifander stared at Larajin, confused. “You’re speaking as though she was dead.”
Larajin blinked. “Isn’t she? Doriantha said she had passed on to Arvanaith.”
“Elves do not ‘die,’” he explained, “unless they are the victims of violence or accident. When they have reached a venerable age and are in decline, as Somnilthra was, they travel to Arvanaith.”
“You mean Arvanaith is a place, here on Toril?” Larajin asked. “Like Evermeet?”
Leifander sighed, feeling as if he was talking to a very young child. “Their bodies remain here on the world of Toril but their souls journey to Arvanaith, where they await rebirth.”
“So Somnilthra is dead,” Larajin said, a twinge of uncertainty in her voice.
Leifander shook his head, trying to remain patient. “No, she is—” he nodded at the windriders—“in a kind of Reverie.”
“They buried her alive?”
“What?”
“Isn’t that what forest elves do with their dead? Bury them in the Vale of Lost Voices, under the trunks of trees?”
“Somnilthra was a seer,” Leifander reminded her, hoping that at last Larajin would understand.
Her blank look told him she didn’t.
“Seers are laid to rest in the crystalline towers under Lake Sember.”
“Oh!” Larajin exclaimed. “I’ve heard of them.”
Now it was Leifander’s turn to look skeptical. “You have?”
How could a human—no, a half-elf raised in Sembia, he reminded himself—know of the crystalline towers? The woods around Lake Sember were forbidden to humans. Any found there were killed without question or mercy.
Larajin nodded eagerly. “Several months ago, a priest from Selgaunt—Diurgo Karn is his name—set out on a pilgrimage. The goddess Sune bid him travel to Lake Sember, a lake whose sacred waters she shares with the elf goddess Hanali Celanil. He had heard that crystalline towers within the lake rose to the surface on the night of the full moon and that their beauty surpassed all other—”
“How did he know of this?” Leifander asked harshly.
Larajin shrugged. “Diurgo didn’t tell me. Nor did he make it to the lake. He abandoned his pilgrimage before he even got close.”
Leifander shook his head in silent wonder, amazed that humans would know so much about a secret the elves had striven so diligently to preserve.
Larajin continued to prattle on. It seemed her foolish questions weren’t finished yet.
“If Somnilthra is in Reverie, could we awaken her?”
“Only if the gods will it.”
Larajin glanced up at the moon. “How far is it from here to Lake Sember?”
Leifander could see where this was headed, but he answered. “On foot, it would be a full day’s journey to the southern shore of the lake.”
“Could we see the crystalline towers from there?” Larajin asked.
Leifander decided to nip this idea in the bud. “Lake Sember is sacred. Only elves may look upon its waters. Any humans found on its shores are slain—and half-elves are just as unwelcome. We would be killed on sight.”
That, of course, was a partial lie. Leifander could easily pass for a full-blooded elf, but he doubted if the gods would be so easily fooled, and he had no wish to anger them.
“Besides,” he added, “even if we somehow avoided the elf patrols and managed to see the crystalline towers rise, they are in the middle of the lake. There would be no way to reach them.”
Larajin sat a moment, thinking. “How are the bodies transported to the towers?”
“By the pallbearers—the clerics who lay them to rest.” Leifander answered. “The gods give them the ability to walk upon the lake’s surface.”
“Ah.”
“Do you know a spell that would allow you to do that?” he prodded.
Larajin shook her head. “I don’t—and I know what you’re going to say—that learning a new spell without a more experienced cleric to guide you in your prayers is impossible—but I’ve been doing a lot of impossible things these last few days.”
Leifander gave a long, heavy sigh. “Why do you care so much about stopping the war? You’re not a soldier.”
“No, I’m not, but
Tal is. If this war continues, he will die. I saw his death in a vision. He’ll be shot…” Her voice caught, but she steeled herself. “He’ll be killed by an elven arrow. Your curse has condemned him.”
“My curse?” It took Leifander a moment to realize what she was talking about, but then he remembered the angry words he’d uttered shortly after their escape through the sewers. “‘Black Archer pierce you’ is a common expression,” he protested. “Everyone uses it. It doesn’t mean the god will actually listen.”
Larajin’s eyes blazed. “Then why wouldn’t you take it back?”
“I will,” he assured her. “Right now.” He touched a forefinger to his lips, then smacked it against his open palm, withdrawing the curse. “There. It is done.”
Larajin stared at him a moment, as if gauging his sincerity, then she nodded.
“Thank you, but even if the gods are placated, the elves aren’t. Nor are the humans. More lives than just Tal’s hang in the balance—thousands more. Once again, will you help me try to stop this war?”
Leifander glanced at the form of Lord Kierin in Reverie. He knew how the windrider would answer his protests. A soldier did his duty, no matter how hopeless the battle seemed.
“We should get some rest, if we’re going to set out in the morning,” Leifander said at last. “We’ll need our wits about us to make it as far as the lakeshore.”
Larajin’s smile was as bright as the moonlight.
“Thanks,” she whispered, and squeezed Leifander’s hand.
Leifander squatted, studying the faint footprint on the rock beside the stream. It had been made by a bare foot, like his own and was fresh. The faint smudge of mud was still drying in the hot sun. Considering the way the person had been careful to step around the ferns, leaving them unbent, the print was no doubt left by a forest elf—part of a patrol, probably, and moving fast through the forest. That was fortunate, since it meant the patrol was well ahead of them and rapidly increasing the distance.
Larajin finished drinking from the stream and splashed noisily through the water, stumbling on a stone and overturning it, leaving an obvious sign of her passage. For the hundredth time that day, Leifander winced in silent annoyance. Did the Sembians teach their people nothing about stealth? She was as noisy as a moose shouldering its way through the woods.
