by Dragon Lance
The elf boy laughed, a pleasant sound in the still air. “Yes, I heard there was an outlander blundering about in these parts. The corvae told me about you.”
“Corvae?”
Mackeli pointed to the crows, still watching from the nearby hillside. “They know everything that happens in the forest. Sometimes, when something strange occurs, they tell me and Ny about it.”
Kith-Kanan remembered the unnerving attention the crows had paid him. “Do you truly speak with birds?”
“Not only birds.” Mackeli held up a hand and made a shrill cawing sound. One of the black birds flew over and alighted on his arm, like a falcon returning to its master.
“What do you think?” the boy asked the bird. “Can I trust him?” The crow cocked its head and uttered a single sharp screech. Mackeli frowned. The whorls above his eyes contracted as he knitted his brow together.
“He says you carry an object of power. He says you cut the trees with it.”
Kith-Kanan looked down at his mud-caked scabbard. “My sword is not magical,” he said. “It’s just an ordinary blade. Here, you can hold it.” He reversed his grip and held the pommel out to Mackeli. The elf boy reached out tentatively. The crows chorused as if in warning, but Mackeli ignored them. His small hand closed over the diamond-shaped pommel.
“There is power here,” he said, snatching his hand back. “It smells like death!”
“Take it in your hands,” Kith-Kanan urged. “It won’t hurt you.”
Mackeli grasped the handle in both hands and lifted it out of the prince’s hand. “So heavy! What is it made of?” he grunted.
“Iron and brass.” Mackeli’s face showed that he did not know iron or brass, gold or silver. “Do you know what metals are, Mackeli?”
“No.” He tried to swing Kith-Kanan’s sword, but it was too heavy for him to control. The point dropped to the ground.
“I thought as much.” Gently the prince took the sword back and slid it into its sheath. “Are you satisfied I’m not dangerous?”
Mackeli sniffed his hands and made a face. “I never said you were dangerous,” he said airily. “Except maybe to yourself.”
He set off and kept up a brisk pace, slipping in and out of the big trees. Mackeli never walked straight more than a few yards. He pushed off from the massive trunks, hopped over fallen limbs, and scampered like a squirrel. Kith-Kanan trudged along, weighed down by hunger and several pounds of stinking mud. Several times Mackeli had to double back to find the prince and guide him along. Kith-Kanan watched the boy’s progress through the forest and felt like a tired old man. He’d thought he was such a fine ranger. This boy, who could be no more than sixty years old, made the foresters of Silvanost look like blundering drunkards.
The trek lasted hours and followed no discernible path. Kith-Kanan got the strong impression Mackeli didn’t want him to know where they were going.
There were elves who dwelt entirely in the wilderness, the Kagonesti. They were given to the practice of painting their skin with strange patterns, as Mackeli did. But they were dark-skinned and dark-haired; this boy’s features were pure Silvanesti. Kith-Kanan asked himself why a boy of the pure blood should be out here in the deep forest. Runaway? Member of a lost tribe? He finally imagined a secret forest hideaway, inhabited by outlaws driven from Silvanesti by his grandfather Silvanos’s wars of unification. Not everyone had followed the great leader to peace and unity.
Suddenly Kith-Kanan realized that he no longer heard Mackeli’s light tread in the carpet of fallen leaves. Halting, he looked ahead, then spied the boy a score of yards away, on his right. Mackeli was kneeling, his head bowed low. A hush had fallen over the already quiet forest.
As he observed the boy, wonderingly, a feeling of utter peace flowed over Kith-Kanan, a peace he’d never known before. All the troubles of recent days were washed away. Then Kith-Kanan turned and saw what had brought this tranquility, what had brought Mackeli to his knees.
Framed by ferns and tree trunks wrapped in flowering vines was a magnificent animal with a single white horn spiraling from its head. A unicorn – rarest of the rare, more scarce than the gods themselves. The unicorn was snowy white from her small, cloven hooves to the tips of her foaming mane. She radiated a soft light that seemed the essence of peace. Standing on a slight rise of ground, fifteen yards away, her eyes met Kith--Kanan’s and touched his soul.
The elf prince sank to his knees. He knew he was being granted a rare privilege, a glimpse of a creature thought by many to be only legend.
“Rise, noble warrior.” Kith-Kanan raised his head. “Rise, son of Sithel.” The voice was deep and melodic. Mackeli, still bowed, gave no sign that he had heard.
Kith-Kanan stood slowly. “You know me, great one?”
“I heard of your coming.” So enticing was the majestic creature, he wanted very badly to approach her, to see her more closely, to touch her. Before he could put the thought into action, she said sharply, “Stand where you are! It is not permitted for you to come too near.” Kith-Kanan involuntarily took a step back. “Son of Sithel, you have been chosen for an important task. I brought you and the boy Mackeli together, so he could be your guide in the forest. He is a good boy, much skilled in the ways of beast and bird. He will serve you well!”
“What do you wish me to do?” Kith-Kanan asked with sudden humility.
The unicorn tossed her head, sending pearly waves of mane cascading along her neck. “This deep forest is the oldest in the land. It was here that leaf and limb, animal and bird first lived. The spirits of the land are strong here, but they are vulnerable, too. For five thousand risings of the sun special ones have lived in the forest, protecting it from despoilers. Now a band of interlopers has come to this land, bringing fire and death with them. The spirits of the old forest cry out for help to me, and I have found you as the answer. You are the fated one, the one who carries iron. You must drive the despoilers out, son of Sithel.”
At that moment, Kith-Kanan would have fought armies of dragons had the unicorn but asked. “Where will I find these interlopers?” he said, his hand coming to the pommel of his sword.
The unicorn took a step backward. “There is another, who lives with the boy. Together, you three shall cleanse the forest.”
The unicorn took another step backward, and the forest itself seemed to close around her. Her alabaster aura shone briefly, and then she was gone, vanished into the secret depths of the greenwood.
After a few seconds Kith-Kanan recovered himself and ran to Mackeli. When he touched the boy’s shoulder, Mackeli shook himself as if coming out of a trance.
“Where is the Forestmaster?” he whispered.
“Gone,” said Kith-Kanan regretfully. “She spoke to me!”
A look of awe spread over Mackeli’s sharp face. “You are greatly favored, outlander! What did the Forestmaster say?”
“You didn’t hear?” Mackeli shook his head. Apparently the unicorn’s message was for him alone.
He wondered how much to tell the boy and finally decided to keep his own counsel.
“You are to take me to your camp,” he said firmly. “I will need to learn everything you know about living in the woods.”
“That I will gladly teach you,” Mackeli said. He shivered with excitement. “In all my life, I have never seen the Forestmaster! There were times I sensed her passing, but never have I been so close!” He grasped Kith-Kanan’s hand. “Come! Let’s hurry. I can’t wait to tell Ny about this!”
Kith-Kanan glanced at the spot where the Forestmaster had stood. Flowers had burst up where her hooves had touched the ground. Before he could react, Mackeli had jerked him into motion. At breakneck speed, the sure-footed boy drew Kith-Kanan deeper into the forest. The undergrowth got thicker, the trees larger and closer together, yet Mackeli never faltered. At times he and Kith-Kanan had to wriggle through gaps in the trees so tight and low they had to go on hands and knees.
Just before sunset, when the crickets had begun to sing,
Mackeli reached a large clearing and stopped.
“We are home,” said the boy.
Kith-Kanan went to the center of the open space, more than forty paces across, and turned a circle on one heel. “What home?” he asked.
Mackeli grinned, the effect weirdly emphasized by the red lines of paint dabbed on his cheeks. Jauntily he walked forward to the base of a truly massive oak. He grasped at a patch of relatively smooth bark and pulled. A door opened in the trunk of the tree, a door made from a curving section of oak bark. Beyond the open door was a dark space. Mackeli waved to Kith-Kanan.
“Come in. This is home,” the boy said as he stepped into the hollow tree.
Kith-Kanan had to duck to clear the low opening. It smelled like wood and spice inside, pleasant but strange to his city-bred nose. It was so black he could barely make out the dim curve of the wooden walls. Of Mackeli he could see nothing.
And then the boy’s hand touched his, and Kith-Kanan flinched like a frightened child. “Light a candle or a lamp, will you?” he said, embarrassed.
“Do what?”
“Light a – never mind. Can you make a fire, Mackeli? I can’t see a thing in here.”
“Only Ny can make fire.”
“Is Ny here?”
“No. Gone hunting, I think.”
Kith-Kanan groped his way along the wall. ‘Where does Ny build his fires?” he asked.
“Here.” Mackeli led him to the center of the room. Kith-Kanan’s foot bumped a low hearth made of rocks plastered together with mud. He squatted down and felt the ashes. Stone cold. No one had used it in quite a while.
“If you get me some kindling, I’ll make a fire,” he offered.
“Only Ny can make fire,” Mackeli repeated doubtfully.
“Well, I may not be the stealthiest tracker or the best forester, but, by Astarin, I can make fire!”
They went back out and gathered armfuls of windblown twigs and small, dead branches. A weak bit of light cut into the hollow tree through the open door as Kith-Kanan arranged the dry sticks in a cone over a heap of bark and shavings he had whittled off with his dagger. He took out his flint and striker from the pouch at his waist. Leaning on his knees on the stone hearth, he nicked the flint against the roughened iron striker. Sparks fell on the tinder, and he blew gently on them. In a few minutes he had a weak flicker of flame and not long after that, a crackling fire.
“Well, boy, what do you think of that?” the prince asked Mackeli.
Instead of being impressed, Mackeli shook his head. “Ny’s not going to like this.”
Lightened by the fire, the interior of the hollow tree was finally visible to Kith-Kanan. The room was quite large, five paces wide, and a ladder led up through a hole to the upper branches and the outside of the tree. Smoke from the fire also went out through this hole. The walls were decorated with the skulls of animals – rabbit, squirrel, a fierce-looking boar with upthrust tusks, a magnificent eight-point buck, plus a host of bird skulls Kith-Kanan could not identify. Mackeli explained that whenever Ny killed an animal not killed before, the skull was cleaned and mounted on a peg on the wall. That way the spirit of the dead beast was propitiated and the god of the forest, the Blue Phoenix, would grant success to future hunts.
“Which of these did you kill?” Kith-Kanan asked.
“It is not permitted for me to shed the blood of animals. That’s Ny’s work.” The elf boy slipped back his hood. “I talk to the animals and listen to what they say. I do not shed their blood.”
Kith-Kanan sat down on a pallet filled with moss. He was weary and dirty and very hungry.
Mackeli fidgeted about, giving the prince frequent looks of displeasure. Eventually, Kith-Kanan asked Mackeli what was wrong.
“That’s Ny’s place. You must not sit there,” the boy said irritatedly.
Kith-Kanan heaved himself off. “This Ny has more privileges than the Speaker of the Stars,” he said, exasperation clearing his voice. “May I sit here?” He indicated the floor of the hollow tree, which was covered with pine needles. Mackeli nodded.
Soon after that exchange, Kith-Kanan asked for something to eat. The elf boy scampered up the ladder and, leaning out to the center of the hollow space, pushed aside various gourds and skin bags that hung by thongs from the ceiling. He found the one he wanted and brought it down. Sitting cross-legged beside Kith-Kanan, Mackeli bade the prince hold out his hands. He did, and the boy filled them with roasted wild chestnuts, neatly peeled.
“Do you have any meat?” Kith-Kanan asked.
“Only Ny eats meat.”
The prince was getting tired of the litany of things only Ny could do. Too tired, in fact, to dispute with the boy, Kith-Kanan ate chestnuts in silence. He was grateful for whatever he could get.
“Do you know,” he said at last, “you’ve never asked me my name?”
Mackeli shrugged. “I didn’t think you had one.”
“Of course I have a name!” The elf boy rubbed his nose, getting yellow paint on his fingers. “My name is Kith,” the prince said, since Mackeli obviously wasn’t going to ask.
Mackeli shook more chestnuts into his paint-stained palm. “That’s a funny name,” he noted and popped a chestnut into his mouth.
Chapter 5
FIVE WEEKS LATER
“Lady Nerakina, wife of the Speaker,” announced the maidservant. Hermathya looked up from her mirror and nodded. The servant opened the door.
“Time is short, Lady,” Nirakina cautioned as she entered.
“I know.” Hermathya stood motionless in the center of a maelstrom of activity. Servants, dressmakers, and perfumers dodged and weaved around her, each trying to make final, finishing touches before the wedding ceremony began.
“You look beautiful,” Nirakina said, and she was not merely being polite to her daughter-to-be. The finest creators of beauty in Silvanost had labored for weeks to make Hermathya’s wedding gown and to compound the special oils and perfumes that would be hers alone.
The gown was in two parts. The first was an overdress in sheerest linen, too light to be worn alone and maintain modesty. Beneath this, Hermathya was wrapped in a single swath of golden cloth, many yards long. Six members of the Seamstress Guild had begun the winding Hermathya wore at her neck. A huge drum of gold was slowly wound around her, closely over her breasts and torso, more loosely over hips and legs. She had been forced to stand with her arms raised for two hours while the elf women worked.
Her feet were covered by sandals made from a single sheet of gold, beaten so thin it felt and flexed like the most supple leather. Golden laces crisscrossed her legs from ankle to knee, securing the sandals.
The elf’s hair and face had been worked over, too. Gone were the maidenly braids framing her face. Her coppery hair was waved, then spread around her shoulders. In the elven custom, it was the husband who gave his new wife the first of the clasps with which she would ever after bind her tresses.
The bride’s skin was smoothed of every roughness or blemish with aromatic oils and bone-thin soapstone. Her nails were polished and gilded, and her lips were painted golden. As befitted her noble rank and wealthy family, Hermathya wore sixteen bracelets – ten on her right arm and six on her left. These were all gifts from her parents, her siblings, and her female friends.
“That’s enough,” Nirakina said to the agitated servants. “Leave us.” With much bowing and flourishing, the mob funneled out the doors of the Hall of Balif. “All of you,” said the speaker’s wife. The regular palace servants withdrew, closing the doors behind them.
“So much work for such a brief ceremony,” Hermathya said. She turned ever so slowly, so as not to disturb her hair or gown. “Is this as great as your wedding, Lady?”
“Greater. Sithel and I were married during the Second Dragon War, when there was no time or gold to spare on fancy things. We didn’t know then if we’d be alive in a year, much less know if we’d have an heir to see married.”
“I have heard stories of those times
. It must have been terrible.”
“The times make those who live in them,” Nirakina said evenly. Her own dress, as the speaker’s wife and mother of the groom, was quite conservative – white silk embroidered in silver and gold with the arms of House Royal. But with her honey-brown hair and liquid eyes she had a serene beauty all her own.
There was a loud, very masculine knock at the door. Nirakina said calmly, “Come in.”
A splendidly attired warrior entered the hall. His armor was burnished until it was almost painful to look at. Scarlet plumes rose from his helmet. His scabbard was empty – the ceremony was one of peace, so no weapons were allowed – but his fierce martial splendor was no less imposing.
“My ladies,” announced the warrior, “I am Kencathedrus, chosen by Lord Sithas to escort you to the Tower of the Stars.”
“I know you, Kencathedrus,” replied Nirakina. “You trained Prince Kith-Kanan in the warrior arts, did you not?”
“I did, my lady.”
Hermathya was glad she was facing away. Mention of Kith-Kanan brought a rush of color to her powdered face. It wasn’t so much that she still loved him, she decided. No, she was over that, if she ever did truly love him. But she knew that Kencathedrus, a mere soldier, was performing the duty Kith-Kanan should be doing. To escort the bride was a duty brother owed to brother.
Hermathya composed herself. This was the moment. She turned. “I am ready.”
In the corridor outside the Hall of Balif an honor guard of twenty warriors was drawn up, and farther down the hall twenty young elf girls chosen from the families of the guild masters stood ready to precede the honor guard. And beyond them, filling the other end of the corridor, were twenty elf boys dressed in long, trailing white robes and carrying sistrums. The size of the escort took Hermathya back for a moment. She looked out at the sea of expectant faces. It was rather overwhelming. All these people, and thousands more outside, awaited her. She called upon the core of strength that had carried her through troubles before, put on her most serene expression, and held out her hand. Kencathedrus rested her hand on his armored forearm, and the procession to the Tower of the Stars began.