by Dragon Lance
“They are good elves,” Mackeli said when he returned. “They only want to live in peace with the forest, as they have for centuries. But most humans treat them like savages.” The green eyes that looked up at Kith-Kanan were hard. “And from what you’ve told me about your people, the Silvanesti do no better.”
*
Several more weeks went by. The episode of the Kagonesti stayed with Kith-Kanan, and he continued to think on Mackeli’s words. However, he was growing more and more worried about Anaya. He questioned Mackeli, but the boy remained unconcerned. Though Kith-Kanan knew she could take care of herself, he still fretted. At night, he began to dream of her deep in the woods, calling to him, saying his name over and over. He would then follow her voice through the black forest, but just when he thought he’d found her, he would wake up. It was frustrating.
After a time Anaya began to monopolize his waking thoughts as well. The prince had told her he was her friend. Was it more than that? What Kith-Kanan felt for the Kagonesti woman was certainly different from what he felt for Mackeli. Could he be in love with her? They had barely gotten to know each other before she’d disappeared. But still the prince worried about her, and dreamed about her, and missed her.
Kith-Kanan and Mackeli were sleeping outside the tree one pleasant night. The prince slept deeply and, for once, dreamlessly – until something unseen tugged at his mind. He opened his eyes and sat bolt-upright, turning his head from side to side. It was as if a sudden clap of thunder had wakened him. Yet Mackeli slept on beside him. Night creatures chirped and whirred softly in the forest, also undisturbed.
Kith-Kanan straightened his tunic – for he slept fully clothed – and lay back down. He was completely awake when the nameless something called to him once more. Drawn by something he couldn’t see, the prince got up and crossed the clearing. The going was not easy, since the silver moon had set and the red moon was almost down. It was an eerie crimson orb just barely visible through the trees.
Kith-Kanan followed the path to the spring. Whatever was pulling him brought him to that place, but when he arrived, there seemed to be no one around. He dipped a hand in the cold water and threw it on his face.
As the Silvanesti prince stared at his reflection in the pool, a second dark image appeared in the water next to it. Kith-Kanan leaped back and turned, his hand on his dagger hilt. It was Anaya, standing a few feet away.
“Anaya!” he uttered with relief. “You’re all right. Where have you been?”
“You called me,” she said evenly. Her eyes seemed to have a light of their own. “Your call was very strong. I couldn’t stay away, no matter how I tried.”
Kith-Kanan shook his head. “I don’t understand,” he said truthfully.
She stepped closer and looked up into his eyes. Her unpainted face was beautiful in the red moonlight. “Your heart spoke to mine, Kith, and I could not refuse to come. We were drawn together.”
At that moment, Kith-Kanan thought he did understand. The idea that hearts could speak to each other was something he had heard about. His people were said to be able to perform a mysterious summons known as “the Call.” It was said to work over great distances and was reputed to be irresistible. Yet Kith-Kanan had never known anyone who had actually done it.
He stepped closer and put a hand to her cheek. Anaya was trembling.
“Are you afraid?” he asked quietly.
“I have never felt like this before,” she whispered.
“How do you feel?”
“I want to run!” she declared loudly. But she didn’t move an inch.
“You called to me too, you know. I was asleep in the clearing just now and something woke me, something drew me down here to the spring. I couldn’t resist it.” Her cheek was warm, despite the coolness of the night. He cupped it in his hand. “Anaya, I have been so worried about you. When you didn’t come back, I thought something might have happened to you.”
“Something did,” she replied softly. “All these weeks, I have been meditating and thinking of you. So many feelings were tumbling inside of me.”
“I have been troubled also,” the prince confessed. “I’ve lain awake at night trying to sort out my feelings.” He smiled at her. “You’ve even intruded on my dreams, Anaya.”
Her face twisted in pain. “It isn’t right.”
“Why not? Am I so unappealing?”
“I am born of the forest! For ten times the length of your life I have lived in the Wildwood, on my own and of my own. I did not take Mackeli until a short time ago.”
“Take Mackeli? Then, he is not your brother by blood, is he?”
Anaya looked at Kith-Kanan desperately. “No. I took him from a farmer’s house. I was lonely. I needed someone to talk to....”
The emptiness in her eyes, the pain in her voice, touched Kith-Kanan’s heart. He gripped Anaya’s shoulders with both hands. In return, she put her arms around his waist and embraced him passionately.
After a moment, Anaya pulled back and said softly, “I want to show you something.” She stepped into the pool.
“Where are we going?” he asked as he joined her in the cool spring.
“To my secret place.” She took his hand and warned, “Don’t let go.”
They slid under the water’s surface. It was as cold and as black as Takhisis’s heart in the pool, but Anaya swam down, kicking with her feet. Something hard brushed Kith-Kanan’s shoulder; he put a hand out and felt solid rock. They were in a tunnel. After a moment, Anaya planted her feet on the bottom and thrust upward. Kith-Kanan let himself be pulled along. Suddenly their heads broke the surface.
Treading water, Kith-Kanan looked around in wonder. A soft, white light illuminated a vaulted ceiling that rose some fifteen feet above the pool’s surface. The ceiling was smooth and pure white. All around the edge of the vault were painted the most beautiful murals Kith-Kanan had ever seen. They showed a variety of woodland scenes: misty glens, roaring waterfalls, and deep, dark forests.
“Come,” Anaya said, drawing him along by the hand. He kicked forward until his toes bumped rock. It was not the sloping bottom of a natural pool. Kith-Kanan felt round-nosed steps cut into the rock as he and Anaya climbed out of the water.
The steps and floor of the cave were made of the same stone as the ceiling, a glassy white rock Kith-Kanan couldn’t identify.
The cave itself was divided down the center by a row of graceful columns, deeply fluted and tapering to their tops. They appeared to be joined solidly into the floor and ceiling.
Anaya let go of his hand and let him wander forward on his own. He went to the source of the gentle white light, the third column in from the water’s edge. A subtle glow and warmth emanated from the column.
Hesitantly Kith-Kanan put out a hand to touch the translucent stone.
He turned to the Kagonesti, smiling. “It feels alive!”
“It is,” she beamed.
The walls to the right of the colonnade were decorated with remarkable bas-reliefs, raised carvings that depicted elven women. There were four of them, life-sized, and between each relief was a carving of a different type of tree.
Anaya stood close beside the prince, and he put an arm around her waist. “What do these mean?” he said, gesturing at the reliefs.
“These were the Keepers of the Forest,” she said proudly “Those that came before me. They lived as I live now, guarding the Wildwood from harm.” Anaya went to the image farthest from the pool. “This was Camirene. She was Keeper of the Forest before me.” Anaya moved to the right, to the next figure. “This was Ulyante.” She slipped sideways to the third figure. “Here is Delarin. She died driving a dragon from the wild-wood.” Anaya touched the warm stone relief lightly with her fingertips. Kith-Kanan regarded the carved image with awe.
“And this,” Anaya said, facing the figure nearest the pool, “is Ziatia, first guardian of the wildwood.” She put her hands together and bowed to the image. Kith-Kanan looked from one relief to the next.
/> “It is a beautiful place,” he said with awe.
“When I am troubled, I come here to rest and think,” Anaya said, gesturing around her.
“Is this where you’ve been these past weeks?” he asked.
“Yes. Here, and in the wildwood. IM watched you sleep many nights.” She looked deep into his eyes.
Kith-Kanan could hardly take it all in. This beautiful cave, the many answers it provided and the mysteries it held. It was like the beautiful elf woman before him. She had provided him with answers this night, but in her deep eyes were even more mysteries and questions unanswered. For now, he gave himself up to the joy he felt, the joy at finding someone who cared for him, someone that he cared for. And he did care for her.
“I think I love you, Anaya,” Kith-Kanan said tenderly, caressing her cheek.
She laid her head on his chest. “I begged the Forestmaster to send you away, but she would not. ‘You must make the decision’ she said.” She clasped Kith-Kanan with frightening strength.
He tilted her face up to his and bent down to kiss her. Anaya was no soft and timid elf maiden. The hard life of the wildwood had made her tough and strong, but as they kissed, Kith-Kanan could feel the tremors echoing through her body.
She broke the kiss. “I will not be a casual love,” she vowed, and her eyes bored into his. “If we are to be together, you must swear to be mine always.”
Kith-Kanan remembered how he had searched for her in his dreams, how frightened and alone he’d felt when he couldn’t find her. “Yes, Anaya. Always. I wish I still had my starjewel, but Voltorno took it with my other belongings. I wish I could give it to you.” She did not understand, and he explained the significance of the starjewel.
She nodded. “We have no jewels to give in the wildwood. We make our most sacred vows in blood.” She took his hand and knelt by the pool, drawing him down beside her. Laying her palm against the sharp edge of the rock, she pressed down hard. When she pulled her hand back, it was bleeding. Kith-Kanan hesitated a moment, then he too cut his hand on the hard, glassy rock. They joined hands once more, pressing the wounds together. The blood of the Silvanesti House Royal flowed together with that of the forest-born Kagonesti.
Anaya plunged their joined hands into the water. “By blood and water, by soil and sky, by leaf and limb, I swear to love and keep you, Kith, for as long as I walk, for as long as I breathe.”
“By Astarin and E’li, I swear to love and keep you, Anaya, for all my life.” Kith-Kanan felt lightheaded, as if a great weight had been taken from him. Perhaps it was the weight of his anger, laid across his shoulders when he’d left Silvanost in a rage.
Anaya drew their hands out of the water, and the cuts were healed. While he marveled at this, she said, “Come.”
Together they moved to the rear of the cave, away from the pool. There, the glassy stone walls ended. In their place was a solid wall of tree roots, great twining masses of them. A sunken place in the floor, oval-shaped, was lined with soft furs.
Slowly, very slowly, she sank into the furs, looking up at him with eyes full of love. Kith-Kanan felt his heart beat faster as he sat beside his love and took her hands into his. Raising them to his lips, he whispered, “I didn’t know.”
“What?”
“I didn’t know that this is what love truly feels like.” He smiled and leaned closer to her. Her breath was warm in his face. “And,” he added gently, “didn’t know that you were anything but a wild maiden, one who liked to live in the woods.”
“That’s exactly what I am,” said Anaya.
*
She and Kith-Kanan talked of many things in the night and day they spent in the secret cave. He told her of Hermathya and of Sithas, and he felt his heart lighten as he confessed all. The anger and frustration were gone as if they’d never existed. The youthful passion he’d felt for Hermathya was completely unlike the deep love he now felt for Anaya. He knew there were those in Silvanost who would not understand his love for a Kagonesti. Even his own family would be shocked, he was sure.
But he didn’t dwell on that. He filled his mind with only good thoughts, happy thoughts.
One thing Kith-Kanan insisted upon, and to which Anaya eventually agreed, was that she tell Mackeli of his true origins. When they left the cave and returned to the oak tree, they found the boy sitting on a low branch, eating his evening meal.
When he saw the couple, he jumped from the branch and landed lightly in front of them. He took in their happy faces and the fact that they walked hand-in-hand, and demanded, “Are you two finally friends?”
Anaya and Kith-Kanan looked at each other, and a rare thing happened. Anaya smiled. “We are much more than friends,” she said sweetly.
The three of them sat down with their backs to the broad oak’s trunk. As Anaya told Mackeli the truth about his past, the sun dodged in and out of the clouds and red autumn leaves fell around them.
“I’m not your brother?” Mackeli asked when she had finished.
“You are my brother,” Anaya replied firmly, “but we are not of the same blood.”
“And if I was taken from my parents,” he went on slowly, “who were you taken from, Ny?”
“I don’t know, and I never shall. Camirene took me from my mother and father, just as I took you.” She looked to the ground, embarrassed. “I needed a girl child to be the next Keeper of the Forest. I moved so hastily, I didn’t take time to notice that you were a boy.”
Kith-Kanan put an arm on Mackeli’s shoulder. “You won’t be too angry?”
Mackeli stood up and walked slowly away from them. His ever-present hood slipped down, revealing his white, Silvanesti hair. “It’s all so strange,” he said, confused. “I’ve never known any other life than the one I’ve had in the wildwood.” He looked at Anaya. “I guess I’m not angry. I’m... stunned. I wonder what I would have been if I – if Anaya —”
“A farmer,” said Anaya. ‘Your parents were farmers. They grew vegetables.”
She went on to explain that once she realized she’d taken a boy-child instead of a girl, she tried to return the infant Mackeli to his parents, but their house was abandoned when she went back. So she had raised Mackeli as her brother.
Mackeli still seemed dazed by the tale of his abduction, Finally he asked, rather hesitantly, “Will you have to find a girl to raise to be keeper after you?”
Anaya looked beyond him to Kith-Kanan. “No. This time the Keeper of the Forest will give birth to her successor.” Kith-Kanan held out a hand to her. When she took it, Mackeli quietly clasped his small hands around both of theirs.
Chapter 15
THREE MOONS’ DAY,
YEAR OF THE HAWK
The ambassador from Thorbardin arrived in Silvanost on Three-Moons’ Day, midway between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice. The dwarf’s name was Dunbarth, but he was called Ironthumb by most who knew him. In his youth he had been a champion wrestler. Now, in old age, he was esteemed as the most level-headed of all the counselors to the king of Thorbardin.
Dunbarth traveled with a small entourage: his secretary, four scribes, four dispatch riders, a crate of carrier pigeons, and sixteen warrior dwarves as his personal guard. The ambassador rode in a tall, closed coach made entirely of metal. Even though the brass, iron, and bronze panels were hammered quite thin, with all the skill characteristic of the dwarven race, the coach was still enormously heavy. A team of eight horses drew the conveyance, which held not only Dunbarth, but his staff. The warrior escort rode sturdy, short-legged horses, not swift but blessed with phenomenal endurance. The dwarven party was met on the western bank of the Thon-Thalas by Sithas and an honor guard of twelve warriors.
“Good morrow to you, Lord Dunbarth!” Sithas said heartily. The ambassador stood on one of the steps hanging below the coach door. From there he was high enough to clasp arms with Sithas without the embarrassment of making the far taller elf bend over.
“Life and health to you, speaker’s son,” Dunbarth rumb
led. His leggings and tunic were brown cloth and leather, but he sported a short purple cape and broad-brimmed light brown hat. A short feather plumed out from his hatband and matched in color the wide, bright blue belt at his waist. His attire offered a striking contrast to the elegant simplicity of Sithas’s robe and sandals.
The prince smiled. “We have arranged ferries for your company.” With a sweep of his hand he indicated the two large barges moored at the river’s edge.
“Will you ride with me, son of Sithel?” asked Dunbarth importantly.
“I would be honored.”
The dwarf climbed back into his coach, then Sithas grasped the handrail and stepped up into the metal wagon. The top was high enough for him to stand erect in. Nevertheless, Dunbarth ordered his secretary, a swarthy young dwarf, to surrender his seat to Sithas. The elf prince sat. The escort filed in behind the coach, pennants whipping from the tips of their gilded pikes.
“A remarkable thing, this coach,” Sithas said politely. “Is it made entirely of metal?”
“Indeed, noble prince. Not one speck of wood or cloth in the whole contraption!”
Sithas felt the silver curtains that hung in front of the side windows. The dwarves had woven them of metal so fine it felt like cloth.
“Why build it so?” he asked. “Wouldn’t wood be lighter?”
Dunbarth folded his hands across his broad, round belly. “It would indeed, but this is an official coach for Thorbardin ambassadors traveling abroad, so it was made to show off the skills of my people in metal-working,” he replied proudly.
With much shouting and cracking of whips, the ponderous coach rolled onto a barge. The team of horses was cut loose and brought alongside it. Finally, the coach and the warrior escorts were distributed on board.
Dunbarth leaned forward to the coach window. “I would like to see the elves who are going to row this ferry!”
“We have no need for such crude methods,” Sithas said smoothly. “But watch, if it pleases your lordship.”