Elfsong

by Elaine Cunningham

  “I notice you carry a crystal flute, of the sort that is grown in the caves of Evermeet’s wild elves,” he said quietly, pointing to the translucent green flute that hung from the minstrel’s belt. “Do you, by chance, know any of the sword dances famous on the north shore of the island? The Ghost of Elmtree, perhaps?”

  In response, Wyn took the gemlike flute from its protective bag and played a few notes. “Yes, that’s the one,” Elaith said, pleased.

  The elf turned to his men. “I’ll need your swords. Dirks and daggers as well, if you please.”

  Puzzled, the mercenaries handed over their weapons.

  “Considering the company I’m keeping these days, I prefer to keep both of my swords within reach,” Danilo said cheerfully. “If it’s all the same to you.”

  “By all means,” Elaith returned just as pleasantly. “Much good may they do you, of course.”

  Morgalla’s brown eyes narrowed at the insult to Danilo. “That elf is startin’ to wear a hole in the sole of my boot,” she muttered, watching as Elaith arranged the weapons in an intricate pattern of crosses and circles.

  When that was done, he nodded to the elven minstrel and took his place in the center of the design. Wyn began to play a slow, lyrical tune. The moon elf went into the dance, stepping lightly between the crossed swords, alternating heel and toe.

  As Danilo admired the elf’s fluid grace, he noted that Elaith had not added one of his own weapons to the arrangement. As did Danilo, the elf wore a sword at each hip. Something about Elaith’s second blade was familiar.

  The Harper’s eyes narrowed as he realized the nature of the weapon worn by the rogue elf. It was a moonblade, an ancient elven sword that was passed from one generation to the next. A moonblade could judge character, and it would become dormant rather than trust its magic to an unworthy heir. Danilo had known that Elaith owned such a sword, and that the sword’s rejection of the elf had been the seed that bore fruit in a life of treachery and evil. Why would the elf wear it now?

  Danilo puzzled over this question as the music moved faster and faster. A strange mixture of elegance and menace, the elven dance was compelling to watch. The moon elf’s pale face was rapt and intent as he whirled and leaped in time to the crystal flute’s song. His silver hair glinted in the firelight, and he himself seemed transformed into a beautiful and deadly weapon. Then the elf flicked one booted foot, sending a dagger high into the air. It spiraled down like a falling star, catching the firelight as it tumbled. Effortlessly he caught it and sent it spinning upward again. The pace became more frenzied now, and one by one Elaith kicked the weapons into flight Leaping and ducking, he avoided the falling blades, catching some and allowing others to land in an ever-shifting pattern before sending them up again with a deft flick of wrist or boot. It was an amazing display of artistry and agility, and Danilo found himself watching with bated breath and rapid heart Elaith was as sinuous and graceful as the serpent for which he was named, and as quick.

  The flute soared to a final, lingering note, and the dance stopped. Elaith stood in a perfect circle of blades, his arms raised to the stars, his silver hair gleaming and his angular face suffused with ecstasy. Magic lingered about the elf, and every blade seemed to gleam with an intensity that the fading firelight could not explain. With uncanny certainty, Danilo knew that the elf’s dance held the power of rite. Elaith himself was a conduit for some mystical link between stars and steel. The insight flickered in his mind, gone before he could grasp and examine it Danilo realized afresh how little he understood of the elves. With the knowledge came a stab of sadness and a longing he could not name.

  The company released its collective breath in a sigh of awe and relief. Hushed conversations sprang up between small groups, and no one made a move to reclaim his weapons. It was plain that no one else would perform this night.

  Elaith walked from the circle, his chest rising and falling quickly from the effort of his mystical elven dance. He picked up a waterskin and shook it. It was nearly empty. The elf drained it and looked around for another.

  Danilo reached into his bag and removed a small silver flask. “Elverquisst,” he said quietly, and handed it to the elf. Elaith looked sharply at the Harper, as if wondering how well the human understood his own gesture. The rare elven spirits formed a part of many an elven ritual and celebration, and the offer of it now, after the elven dance, was a tribute as well as a gift This Danilo had learned from Arilyn, for she had shared with him the ritual farewell to summer and described some of the other rites that made the elverquisst a celebration as well as a libation. Elaith accepted the flask with a nod. He poured a few drops onto the earth and then drank slowly, savoring the distilled essence of summer fruit and elven magic.

  “Fancy footwork, elf,” Morgalla complimented him.

  The dwarf’s words seemed to pop the aura of contentment and mystery that surrounded the moon elf. He sat down across from Morgalla and studied her as one would a strange animal that had mysteriously appeared in one’s back yard.

  “How does it happen that you venture so far from clan and hearth?” he asked. “With your numbers dwindling and dwarven females so few, I would think you’d be home doing your duty by breeding little miners.”

  “Have a care how you speak,” Danilo said in a low voice. “The lady dwarf is not some dairy animal.”

  Morgalla leveled her brown eyes at Elaith. “Elves don’t seem to be doing so good in that regard, neither. Lotta half-elves around, but I notice most of ’em got elf dames and human sires. Ain’t nothing wrong with your women, that much we know.” Something flickered in Elaith’s eyes in response to the insult, and the battle-savvy dwarf saw this and went in for the kill. “Yer a fine one to talk. I don’t see no pointy-eared brats followin’ you around.”

  “Actually,” Elaith said mildly, “the People keep their children away from dwarves and goblins until such time as they learn to tell these creatures apart. Elves being a highly intelligent race, we’re able to discern these minor differences after, say, twenty or thirty years of practice.”

  Morgalla rose slowly to her feet. Firelight gleamed off the two-edged blade and polished wood handle of the axe prominently displayed on her belt. “Yer pushin’ me, elf, and you shouldn’t ought to do that We who mine the earth have a saying: ‘Be careful what you take for granite.’ ”

  “Or ye shale regret it,” Danilo murmured, hoping to break the tension building between the two fighters. Neither Morgalla nor Elaith paid him any heed.

  “Very pretty,” Elaith said, nodding at Morgalla’s axe. His tone dismissed both the weapon and the wielder.

  The dwarf’s eyes hardened. “First and last pretty thing a lot o’ orcs ever seed, if’n you get my meaning.”

  “Actually, I find that dwarven subtlety usually eludes me,” the elf returned with knife-edged sarcasm.

  Danilo dropped a hand on the angry woman’s shoulder. “Chopping the elf into fish bait is a tempting notion—I’d be the first to admit that Here’s a better idea: draw his picture, instead.”

  Morgalla nodded slowly, staring at Elaith for a long moment A glint entered her brown eyes, and she reached for her other weapon: her charcoal pencils. The dwarf plunked herself down on a log several paces away and began to sketch.

  “Becoming quite the diplomat, aren’t you?” Elaith said coldly. “If you’re waiting for me to thank you for diverting a fight, you’re in for a long, quiet evening. I need no protection from a mere dwarf.”

  Danilo’s answering smile held a touch of irony. “Morgalla is more than mere, but we’ll let that slide for the moment. Your fighting prowess is legendary; I have too much regard for you to see you waste your talents against such an unworthy weapon as Morgalla’s axe.” After a few moments, the Harper walked over to Morgalla and extended his hand. She gave him the paper.

  On it was a quickly sketched design that suggested the art of an ancient Moonshae people, in which circles were entwined in such a way that no beginning or end could be
discerned. Morgalla’s design, however, was different from any Dan had ever seen in an illuminated text Intrinsically woven together in interlocking circles were two things: a long, slender serpent with elven ears and Elaith’s features, and a lifeless, flaccid sword with a dull moonstone in its hilt.

  The Harper lifted his eyes from the paper, gazing at the dwarf in pure astonishment. Once again, she had seen more than her eyes could possibly have told her. Danilo handed the sketch to Elaith without comment.

  The elf regarded it in silence, his expressionless face as pale as death.

  “As you can see,” Dan said quietly, “her art has a keener edge than her axe.”

  “Eh?” piped in Morgalla, clearly miffed at the suggestion. She pulled the maligned weapon from her belt and brandished it “You could shave with this axe, bard!”

  In response, Danilo stroked the nearly invisible red down on her cheek. “So could you, lady dwarf, so could you.”

  “Hee, hee,” she chortled, as pleased as any adolescent human lad contemplating his first beard.

  In the shared laughter that rippled through the company, no one but Danilo noticed Elaith slip away from the campfire. Although the Harper had won this round, his gray eyes held not triumph, but puzzlement

  * * * * *

  Stars sprinkled the sky above Lady Thione’s villa, and in the fully enclosed courtyard, rare, night-blooming flowers scented the warm summer night A fountain played softly in the center of the courtyard, the secluded arch of a grape arbor suggested a stolen kiss, and the soft-pillowed gazebo invited longer trysts. The music of a harp filled the air. Yet the woman bent over the strings had no room in her heart for romance. The one passion left to her was for justice.

  Pain cramped her hands, and Garnet broke off the song with a frustrated oath. Since the day she had acquired the Morninglark harp from the dragon, she had struggled to harness its powers. She was an accomplished mage, and she could wield magic through both spells and song. An artifact such as the elven harp possessed much magic of its own, and she had devised a spell that would grant her up to seven powers. So far, she had been able to gain only four, and those four she wielded with uncertainty. The fault was not in her sorcery, but in her faded musicianship.

  Once again she cursed the Harpers for what they had become, for what she had become in their service, and Khelben Arunsun for his part in both. No longer were the Heralds, the far-traveling keepers of history and tradition, part of the Harper organization. They had split away many years ago, not wishing to compromise their neutrality by pursuing the Harpers’ increasingly political objectives. Then the barding colleges, once bastions of excellence, had fallen into decline and faded into memory. The Harpers had done little to reverse this course. They were kept busy by Elminster and Khelben, fighting wars and guarding trade routes.

  Yes, many Harpers were bards still, but these bards were for the most part fighters and informants who happened to play or sing. The once-honored title of “bard” was given to any dolt who could warble a tavern song. The prestige and power of bardcraft had declined, and many people considered bards to be little more than traveling rogues. Bards, once counselors to kings and queens, were likely to be treated like servants who took their dinner in the kitchen between dance sets. This Garnet could not forgive.

  Nor could she forget it, not when her own hands had been stiffened by years of fighting and spellcasting in the name of the Harpers. Her final battle for the Harpers had been in the Harpstar Wars against creatures from another plane. Gravely wounded and left for dead in the confusion of battle, she’d been found and nursed to health by an elderly druid. When Garnet recovered and began once again to sing and play, the druid recognized her gift for spellsong and introduced her to a small band of wood elves. Even though she was a half-elf, the forest elves had taken her in and trained her gift. For almost two hundred years Garnet had lived among them, and as her power increased, so did her determination to prove to the Harpers that music was not a force to be lightly regarded.

  The whisper of silk interrupted the sorceress’s dark thoughts. Garnet looked up. Lady Thione was poised in the arch of a trellis. This evening the noblewoman was clad in a gown of clinging violet silk, covered with an overdress of quilted satin. Her hair was bound with a velvet snood, and her delicate aquiline features were composed and self-satisfied.

  “How does the city?” Garnet demanded, massaging her aching hands.

  “Poorly, thanks to you,” Lucia Thione responded cheerfully. “Your musically inclined monsters have been preying on farmerfolk and travelers. The merchants’ guilds have hired mercenary bands to go out against these monsters, as have the Lords of Waterdeep. Even with these precautions, a smaller crowd is expected for the Midsummer Faire. This is matter of much speculation and discontent among the tradespeople and merchants. The crop failures have created a hardship, but for those who can afford the high prices, produce and goods are coming in by sea”

  “A hardship?” the half-elf repeated. “What then would constitute a catastrophe?”

  Lucia hesitated. “A disruption of commerce.”

  “Ah, Waterdeep.” Garnet’s smile was hard. “Well then, see to it”

  “Have a care how you speak,” the noblewoman said in a tight voice. “I do not take orders like some serving wench.”

  “Of course you do. You serve the Knights of the Shield, and they have assured me that you will cooperate in my plan to remove Khelben Arunsun from power.”

  “So you have said. How do I know this to be true?” Lucia demanded.

  Garnet spoke a name, and the woman paled. The sorceress had named a Knight of high position and dark power, the man to whom Lucia herself reported. “He sends his regards,” Garnet added casually.

  “We will increase our activities against the city,” she continued. “I have some influence with the local merfolk—you’d be amazed at how much music and discontent lies under the sea. We will also remove more of the Lords of Waterdeep to increase the demands on Khelben Arunsun and his powerful associates. Give Lord Hhune the names of three lesser-known Lords. Although Hhune’s methods are crude, he has the resources needed to handle the matter quickly.”

  “Hhune is still in the city?” Lucia asked, unable to keep the concern from her voice. Hhune made no secret of his ambition, and nothing would please the Tethyrian merchant more than taking Lucia’s place in Waterdeep.

  Garnet shot a sidelong glance at the noblewoman. “What of it? Your superior said I might use any resources at his command. Hhune is a guildmaster in his native land, and he is adept at organizing and recruiting. I have him trying to establish local guilds for Waterdeep’s thieves and assassins. He is unlikely to succeed, but it gives the Lords of Waterdeep one more thing to worry about. Now, which Lords’ names are you giving to Hhune?”

  Without hesitation, Lucia Thione named three business rivals, not knowing or caring whether any of them sat among the Lords of Waterdeep.

  “Good.” Garnet nodded with satisfaction and rose from her seat. Her horse came cantering from a remote corner of Lucia’s garden, in response to a summons the noblewoman could not hear. The sorceress secured her harp to the saddle and hoisted herself onto the horse’s back. “I must travel north for a few days. There I will gain an additional power to use against Khelben Arunsun, and on the way I shall dispatch another of Waterdeep’s Lords. I leave the city in your capable hands, and expect to find all in order upon my return.”

  Lucia caught her breath as the white steed rose straight into the sky. Like a tiny comet, it streaked away toward the north. “An asperii,” she whispered, realizing anew the extent of the sorceress’s power. Suddenly Garnet’s last words to her seemed less a compliment than a warning.

  * * * * *

  The cookfire burned low, and one by one the members of Music and Mayhem drew away from the central fire, wrapping themselves in cloaks or travel blankets. Soon the only sounds were the crackle of the outer fires, the distant chirping of insects, and the rustle of leaves
as Orcsarmor climbed a nearby oak to take first watch. Morgalla, also on watch, slipped off into the shadows.

  Left alone, Danilo idly tossed acorn caps into the dying fire, trying not to remember other nights spent under the stars, his only companion a stubborn, unreasonable, taciturn half-elven assassin. Those, he mused with a wistful smile, were the best times he’d ever known.

  Never had the young man felt so alone as he did at this moment, surrounded as he was by snoring mercenaries. For the first time, he understood Khelben’s concern over the close partnership Danilo and Arilyn had forged. One way or another, Harpers usually ended up working alone.

  With a sigh, Danilo reached into the bag of holding at his belt and rummaged around for the spellbook his uncle had prepared for him. If all went as planned, they would face the dragon Grimnoshtadrano the following afternoon, and he wanted to be as prepared as possible. A green dragon’s breath weapon was a cloud of noxious gas. He hoped Khelben had armed him with a spell that could create protective spheres.

  Actually the book contained but one spell, and it was like none other he’d encountered. Danilo examined it with growing excitement. On the left side was a page of neatly written music: a simple, soaring melody and the basic notation for lute accompaniment On the right side were a few lines of explanation, then the words to the songs, written in arcane runes. This spell used music as the speech component, and the lute accompaniment formed the necessary hand gestures. The result was a charm spell, very much like the elven spellsong Wyn had used. Beyond its application in the morrow’s encounter, the spell fascinated Danilo, for it suggested a way to meld his training in the art of magic to his genuine love for music and lore, and his current role as bard.

  Like all his Harper assignments, the task of recovering the dragon’s scroll had been placed upon Danilo by his uncle. For more than two years, the young mage had worked closely with Arilyn, enjoying the challenges she offered and the knowledge that their disparate skills combined into a unique whole, but for the most part he had followed her lead and reacted to situations of her choosing. He would always treasure his time with the half-elf, and some part of him would continue to hope that it had not come to an end. For the first time, however, Danilo began to see a path that he might follow on his own, a path of his own devising. If this spell were not unique, perhaps he could learn the elfsong magic that Wyn had wielded!