Emissary

by Thomas Locke

  At midafternoon when he started back toward the trail, a movement flitted across the ridgeline to his right. He glanced at Dama, who seemed to notice nothing out of the ordinary. But something about the fleeting image had set Hyam’s heart to racing. He merged with the shadows and signaled for the dog to join him. Together they stood motionless, Hyam scarcely breathing, the dog panting softly and glancing about, utterly calm. Just as he was about to dismiss the image as a fragment of unwanted memory, he saw it again.

  This time Dama saw it as well, and her only response was to glance up at Hyam. Which only added to his astonishment. For there upon the ridgeline walked a stag of monumental proportions. The beast looked straight at him, as though inviting Hyam to join him. Willing him forward.

  Hyam stalked slowly, checking each footstep, moving with silent stealth. Dama continued to watch Hyam more than the prey.

  The stag did not move. Finally Hyam reached the last stand of trees. When he hesitated, the stag lowered its head and snorted gently. Then Dama nudged his thigh. Pushing him forward. Alone.

  This made no sense at all. A stag of this size would have had ample experience fleeing hunters. And Dama was a beast made for bringing down such prey. Hyam knew the stag could smell them both. Yet the animal did not take flight. Instead, it raised its head. And in that moment, Hyam felt a chill course through him.

  The same antlers cut the sky as had last scripted against starlight and moon when he had been a child, sleeping with his arms wrapped around the fawn. Standing before him now was the same proud head. The same august bearing.

  “Stay, Dama,” he murmured, and bent over to deposit his bow and quiver on the earth. The dog panted softly and went prone.

  Hyam climbed the final rise and stepped onto the ridge. The stag did not move.

  Hyam had no idea what to do. The deer snorted softly. Hyam raised his arms and spoke the words in Elven. “I greet you, noble stag.”

  The deer snorted again and closed the distance between them. Only then did Hyam realize the stag was lame.

  He dropped to his knees. The stag responded by lifting its injured limb. The foreleg had been gashed to the bone, and now it festered. The gash ran from hoof to knee. The flow from the wound was yellow, the stench soft and strong at the same time.

  Hyam found it difficult to deliver such news to such a noble beast. “There is nothing I can do.”

  The deer lowered its head and licked him across his cheek, then on the same ear he had touched before departing with the fawn.

  The stag waited, snorting softly, as Hyam rose to his feet and drew his knife. He stroked the beast for a long moment, then wrapped his arms around the stag’s neck. “I am sorry. And I thank you.”

  Hyam sliced the vein where it pulsed in the stag’s strong neck. And then held him as the animal bled out.

  13

  Hyam did not rise until Aiyana crested the ridge. The stag’s blood coated his entire front and most of his back, and it had dried and hardened while he had knelt beside the fallen animal. He stood, awkward in his stained clothes and blood-smeared face. Dama walked alongside the Elf, who looked at the stag and then at him. Aiyana’s expression carried the same sense of calm tragedy that he felt. She addressed him directly for the very first time. “Come.”

  He started to ask if they shouldn’t dress the deer first, then decided that an invitation spoken by a silent Elf demanded obedience. She led him down the slope and deeper into the forest. He followed her through a thicket that seemed to lean away from them both, then spring back afterward. They passed through a wooded gorge that grew narrower the farther they proceeded. Somewhere far above, a sun shone, but here all was emerald shadows. They reached a point where Hyam could have touched both sides of the gorge at the same time, and Dama was forced to follow a pace behind. Abruptly the walls fell back, revealing a forest pool. A spring bubbled constantly at its center.

  Aiyana pointed to the water and said, “Disrobe and wash. I will return.”

  She stepped through a crevice and disappeared. Hyam found the pool to be one degree off scalding, obviously fed from an underground spring. He scoured himself with sand, washed, and scoured again. As he doused himself a second time, Aiyana appeared carrying a robe the color of forest mist. She set it and a broadcloth down on a rock and turned her back. Waiting.

  Hyam dried himself with the cloth, then slipped the robe over his head. The garment was small in the shoulders and short in the sleeves. But it did not matter. Hyam left his bloodied clothes and boots there by the pool and followed her barefoot through the crevice. On the other side, the ridge fell away, revealing more forest. Only there was an unmistakable difference to this woodland. The silence was not as it had been. Everything listened. Each blade of grass, every bird, all the trees—they were aware.

  Aiyana lifted her hands and began to chant. If her speech had sounded musical before, this was wondrous. Hyam was left breathless from the simple spectacle. Her words flowed together into a single long utterance. He thought he could probably have dissected it and drawn out the individual words. And yet he was too immersed in the experience of listening to care. As she stopped speaking, he realized that for the first time since leaving his field, he was joined again with the forest and the earth. By the simple act of listening.

  Aiyana went silent. In response, the trees directly before her parted. There was no tearing of the earth nor bending of trunks. This was something else entirely. Hyam’s vision seemed to stretch, allowing more space between impenetrable trunks. A new lane was revealed, narrow as the gorge, and lined on both sides by trees as old as time. The boughs intertwined overhead, so thick the sun was utterly blocked. Aiyana motioned him forward.

  The light was cathedral soft, and the ground underneath was covered by a supple blanket of moss. After a few steps Hyam realized he walked alone. He turned back and saw that Dama sat beside Aiyana, who said, “It is forbidden for me or your friend to enter. Go. We will await your return.”

  The lane was long, miles perhaps. At its end rose two stone sentinels, set to either side of a towering iron gate. The statues were giant Elves, armed with staves that ended in circular orbs. They stared in stern vigilance in the direction from which Hyam had come. As he approached, he felt as though he passed through a veil of awareness, one that carried a deadly force. It held him for a brief moment, then parted, gentle as an assembly of fairy wings. He passed through the gates and entered the kingdom that was no more.

  The city of the Elves was a poem of natural beauty. Several, in fact. Many different lyrical forms joined together like pages of a lovely tome. The Elven kingdom spanned a great valley, covered a forest, surrounded a lake, and rose up the ridges that framed the valley and the woods and the waters. In each area, the Elves took the natural features and converted them into their dwellings. They sculpted woodland havens high in the trees. They made crystal islands in the lake’s midst. They carved sculptures of delicate grace from the rock. They lined the shore with sandcastles. And all were bound together by bridges and carvings where form met form in lissome charm.

  Hyam was led to the palace at the lake’s center. To his awestruck mind, it seemed as though the waters had been crafted into structure, and perhaps they were, but without the chill of ice. The palace was clear and blue like the waters from which it rose. All the surroundings shimmered and glowed, as though the walls and ceilings had managed to catch the sunlight and hold it in safekeeping. For that was one of the most powerful impressions Hyam had as he stepped into the crystal audience hall—that he was safe.

  The other impression was that everything here had significance. The meeting was here because there were no shadows, nowhere to hide or be hidden. Through transparent and light-flecked walls, he saw a multitude of Elves gather and watch and listen as the regal figure upon the throne greeted him.

  “Welcome to the Hidden World. I am Darwain, ruler of the Elves. Your name?”

  “Hyam, sire. Of the Three Valleys.”

  To Darwain’s ri
ght was a second throne, this one occupied by a regal lady whose brow held a crystal diadem. Darwain took hold of her hand as he said, “Tell us why you are here.”

  “The Elf called Aiyana, she brought me to the path. I came.”

  “No. That is how you came to be the first stranger to enter our gates in ten centuries. I wish to know why.”

  Hyam pondered that a long moment. The crowded audience hall and all the Elves who observed waited with him. Finally he said, “The statues that guard your gates. They hold staffs that are topped by stone orbs. I have seen another. Only this one was not stone. It was made from glass or crystal or gemstone.”

  A ripple passed through the multitude. The Elven king asked, “Its color?”

  “Red. The shade of living blood. It glowed like fire.” With each word the current of consternation and anxiety grew louder, and Hyam knew he had spoken rightly. “The one who held it was dressed in a crimson robe that kept the rider’s face in constant shadow. I know not whether I confronted a man or woman.”

  “It may have been neither,” Darwain replied. “Tell us how you came to witness the orb. Leave out nothing. For all our sakes.”

  Hyam did as he was commanded. He began with his mother’s death and the unwanted revelation from the Mistress of Long Hall. The dreams. The spade. The warriors. The trek to the Ashanta village. He described falling asleep beside the offering stone, the rising up and traveling to the Assembly. He recounted his appointment as emissary. He told of meeting the crone there where the creeks joined and her assurance of safety. He described confronting the king’s brother, the crimson rider, the battle, his near defeat, the tinker, the Elf, the stag. There was a great release in telling them everything, even his doubts over his heritage, even his fears that he might be Milantian, one of the race blamed for the Elves’ demise. The act of confession left him both weightless and ready for whatever came next.

  The ruler and his queen neither spoke nor moved during the telling. When Hyam went silent, Darwain said to an attendant, “Go to the entryway where Aiyana waits. Inform her that Hyam must remain with us awhile longer. Wish our daughter and the mage every joy. Thank them for bringing us the Ashanta emissary. Tell them they did rightly.”

  Hyam was uncertain he had heard rightly. “What mage?”

  Darwain and his wife showed quiet humor. “You thought we would permit a child of the hidden realm to marry a simple tinker?”

  “I don’t know what I thought, sire.”

  “Or that a common tradesman would know the potions to heal your spirit from such an attack?” He shared soft laughter with the woman seated to his right. “Aiyana is not the only one who sacrificed everything for love. Yagel was destined to become Master of the Havering Long Hall. All senior mages are required to spend a year at some craft within the human realm. He chose to travel. He met our daughter, who loved to wander farther than we would have liked from our gates. They fell in love. Yagel asked and received our blessing. In return, he has spent his years binding the forest trails, keeping them safe, and ensuring that the hated ones do not hide among our woodlands.”

  Hyam cringed at the prospect that he might be one so named. “I have not thanked him for saving my life.”

  “You survived. You came. You delivered news we have dreaded ever hearing but needed to know. Yagel will call this thanks enough.” He motioned to an attendant, who moved to stand beside Hyam. “Now you will rest, and our healers will ensure you are fully restored. We will meet again.”

  14

  At some point in the distant shadows of time, our sworn enemies found the first orb,” the Elven ruler told him. “The first we knew of this was when the Milantians attacked, and we were unable to repulse them. We feared they had created the crystal globes, but we since learned they never held this ability. Perhaps none do. We still don’t know where the orbs originated. Perhaps they are natural, grown from the earth itself, fashioned over eons by the tides of energy that they mark. But our most ancient records speak of a fifth race, one that either died away or simply departed long before either Elf or Man or Ashanta came to walk upon this earth. We think they created the orbs and then planted them in order to heighten the flow of power. What we know for certain is this. The earth is rimmed by lines of force.”

  They were seated in the great audience hall, where long tables of crystal were laid out beneath a moonlit night. The light creasing the walls danced and flowed, mimicking the torches that rimmed both the hall and the lakeshore, where more tables had been raised. The ruler spoke in a voice that was comfortable to Hyam’s ear. And yet he was certain even the farthest Elf could hear their ruler clearly.

  “I have seen these lines,” Hyam said, wondering if he was wrong to interrupt. “In a dream.”

  A quiet murmur drifted through the chamber. Darwain glanced at his silent queen, then went on, “Where these lines of power come together, the orbs were found. In the years that followed the Milantians’ first assault, we learned much about them. They are so light as to be almost weightless. They cannot be duplicated. Nor do they hold a particular kind of power. Each globe is a receptacle. The user determines how this force is applied. And for those who desire the orbs for the purpose of destruction, they take on the color . . .”

  “Red,” Hyam supplied. “Like crystal flames.”

  Hyam had been given a sandstone villa on the lake’s broad shore. Healers had come and prescribed baths and unguents and potions. Their ministrations complete, they gave him a mint-green shirt that laced up the front, and trousers and boots cut in the human fashion. All were made from a fabric soft as clouds, yet the boots protected his feet from the sharpest rocks. He had tried to go for a walk, but two dozen paces from his doorway, he had turned back. Nothing had been said, but it was evident that the Elves were distressed by his walking among them. They had survived by being invisible. Clearly his appearance made many fearful of greater changes to come.

  “The Ashanta entered the war too late to save most of our people. Why they waited, we do not know. They have always been a race apart. But we held no enmity, then or now. In the days following the Milantians’ defeat, they helped bring our remnants together. They have held the secret of our existence for ten centuries.”

  The ruler’s manner of speech shamed him. For Hyam spoke their tongue as a carpenter might wield a hammer. Darwain gave each utterance a mystical beauty, in keeping with wind and chimes and waterfalls and birdsong. His every word carried the magic of woodlands and nature. That they listened to Hyam without wincing or disgust, he took as a measure of their kind nature.

  Darwain continued, “After the Milantian hordes were crushed, their remaining orbs were taken and destroyed. Most of the others we could locate were demolished as well, to keep the Milantian remnants from ever wielding such dread power again. Only a few remain, and those were carefully locked away and guarded. We have no idea how many orbs originally existed. We have four, used to protect our kingdom and keep it hidden. These too were gifts of contrition from the Ashanta. Each of the Long Halls was established to safeguard an orb and study its force. Learning the orb’s true functions and potential is the responsibility of each Master or Mistress. Whether the Ashanta hold orbs of their own, we do not know. Unlike humans, their magic does not seem to be either drawn from or magnified by orbs. Which is what saved us.”

  The meal had been as magnificent as it had been mysterious. Hyam had dined upon dishes concocted from fruit and fish and fowl and root and vine. And yet he could not name anything. Nor could Hyam say how long he had been a guest here. It was clear to him now how Yagel had refused to discuss the counting of hours or days. In the Elves’ presence, time’s passage was a distant memory.

  “There is much more we could tell you,” Darwain finished, “but all that must wait until this peril is met and vanquished.”

  Hyam replied, “First I want to discover what I can about my heritage.”

  Darwain’s displeasure was a fearsome spectacle. “You dare delay our quest for such pett
y issues as your heritage?”

  “It’s not petty to me.”

  “The last time we confronted Milantian mages, they crushed our armies and almost wiped our race off the earth. Your past is of no importance here. None!”

  Hyam knew a farmer’s stubborn resistance, even when faced with what he knew to be the truth. “I just want—”

  “You want, you want. What about any of this is the way we want? Heed my words, young human. You must rise up to the challenge of living now. You must ask the questions that deserve answers now. You must heed the clarion call of this present crisis and grow into the role you yourself accepted. Now.”

  Hyam disagreed with the king. And utterly disliked Darwain’s assumption that he could proclaim edicts over Hyam’s life. But he also knew there was nothing to be gained from arguing. “What would you have me do?”

  The Elven ruler subsided. “Continue your duties to the Ashanta. Tell them what you have learned. They will be as distressed as we to hear that a dark mage uses an orb to wreak havoc. Seek their wisdom.”

  “I will do as you say.”

  “Discover if you can the purpose of this crimson rider. Who among the humans serve him, and why. That too we must determine. When you are ready, report back to us.” He passed over a sliver of carved crystal, the length and breadth of Hyam’s little finger, hung from a slender chain. “Enter any forest glade alone. Blow on this. A gate will appear. Speak to the one who arrives. He will come to you in my name and with my authority.”