by Ada Haynes
“The McLeans are in the city and they intend to participate in the ceremonies.”
Ekbeth groaned. He was starting to develop a serious headache. That was indeed bad news. And, in light of Shona’s theft, suspicious. He had not believed her when she said she hated the McLeans.
Ekbeth closed his eyes for a moment.
The McLeans had been avoiding the Valley for the past thirty years. The Na Duibhnes’ feud with the McLeans belonged to the past, as far as he was concerned. More than thirty years had passed since his brother’s fiancée had left him to marry the son of Duncan McLean. But his family thought differently. Of course.
“I suppose some of my uncles want to talk to me urgently?”
Kalem nodded.
Ekbeth was going to have to come down hard on some of his uncles’ attitude, before they did something stupid. He would probably have to use all the weight of his title on this.
And he was going to have to speak to Duncan McLean as well. He was aware that the man hated him just as much as some members of his own family—if not more, though for different reasons.
Great!
“Anything else?”
Kalem hesitated.
“Out with it, Kalem.”
“There are two more things, Akeneires’el. I did manage to speak to the Aramalinyia, though I now wish I hadn’t. She said she did not believe the story of her Oyyad falling in the stairs and that she won’t stand for her people being beaten again, no matter if it’s ordered by an Akeneires’el himself.”
Kalem bowed again after saying that. “I’m sorry for having put you in more trouble, Akeneires’el.”
Indeed. Admitting Kalem had acted without orders would put the bodyguard in even worse trouble, though. Ekbeth gritted his teeth.
“And? What’s the second bit?”
This time, Kalem really hesitated. Ekbeth waited.
“The Aramalinyia gave me a message for you, Akeneires’el. She told it to me because she knew you would probably pretend not to have seen it if she had written it. Her words, not mine.”
Kalem breathed in deeply.
“She said that if the Oyyad is accepted by the Ke’As’mirin, you are to marry her.”
Ekbeth ignored Matheson’s reaction, barely registering the man was on his feet again.
So, that was the reason Kalem was so upset by his latest visit to the Valley. Ekbeth was in shock but anger soon replaced it.
What was the Aramalinyia thinking? There was no way in hell he was going to marry Shona!
13
Shona was totally confused. One instant, she’d been drinking tea with the old woman who was the Aramalinyia and thinking the conversation was not going so badly. She had behaved well, drunk her tea politely and answered the questions as openly as she could, while thinking of what she would do to Keremli for that confrontation when she saw the other old woman again.
The next, she’d found herself alone, in a clearing, surrounded by trees so tall that she could not even see their tops.
What was happening to her?
She stood up. And realized her ribs were not hurting anymore. She looked at her hands carefully. If she held them in direct sunlight, she could actually see through them.
Impossible!
There was only one explanation to this. The old woman had drugged her! And that drug had somehow sent her spirit form here.
She did not panic. She had had worse trips before. And had always reconnected with her body.
Greetings, Oyyad!
This time she jumped from fright. She had never heard them approach her, but where there had only been trees an instant before, she was now encircled by beings of the strangest kind: abnormally tall, though full of grace and ethereally diaphanous, as if the sun’s rays shone through them.
Who were they?
A disembodied giggle answered that thought. We are the ghosts of your ancestors, Oyyad.
Ghosts? She did not believe in…
Oh my! She suddenly realized who they were. Her father had told stories about them when she was little. The Ke’As’mirin, the ghosts of the dead As’mirin, the protectors of the Valley.
Shona began to panic slightly. Her father’s stories about those beings were half forgotten, but she could well remember she had not liked them. What did she have to do to leave this nightmare? Before they harmed her.
Do not fear us, Oyyad! Welcome. I am Taralieni, the eldest of the elders.
Shona stifled a scream. From out of nowhere, a being had appeared in front of her. It was so near that she could clearly distinguish the being’s facial features, the almond-shaped eyes, the straight nose, the pointed ears and the full lips smiling ironically at her.
This had to be a dream, right? This being looked like…
Yes. We are elves, which is the name humans gave us. In our tongue, we call ourselves As’mirin, the children of Ara, the mother goddess of Earth.
The first moment of surprise had passed. So her father’s tales had been true, after all? She had some elf blood in her veins! She had never believed that part, despite her special talents! It was just too fantastic to be true!
But now, faced with this, she had to believe it.
Thousands of questions were coming to Shona’s mind. Weren’t elves supposed to be immortal? And if Ekbeth and the others from Kse’Annilis were those ghosts’ descendants, why did they not show the same features? Surely, their genes had to be purer than hers?
But, foremost, why had Shona been brought to them?
So many questions, Oyyad, to which you, who share our heritage, should know the answers.
Shona’s panic only grew when anger filled her mind and the circle of beings drew closer, as if to annihilate her, she thought.
The one facing her raised a hand.
Why so much surprise, friends? She was sent to us for a purpose. She’s an Oyyad. I shall answer your curiosity, woman of the Keh Niriel, before we start the Oyyads’erel.
A small room replaced the forest. Shona inhaled sharply. The change had been brutal. Again it changed. Now she was on the top floor of a skyscraper. Its walls were made of glass and the panorama was breathtakingly astonishing: a whole city of light was stretched limitlessly under her feet.
This was Annilis, our capital, our pride, the city of lights, built even before the first human civilizations. Here lived our people, granted long life and beauty, as well as clever minds. We thought ourselves the equals of Ara, and she punished us for it.
The city seemed to explode before Shona’s eyes, transforming now, in an instant, into a desert before shifting once more to a volcano crater filled with water.
So few of us survived. Only those who had expected the cataclysm and taken refuge in this place. In the years preceding our fall, we gathered as much knowledge as we could, in books and people. It was a lot. But still, our loss was terrible. Of the original hundred thousands of Families, a scant hundred survived. So many of the people have died—dear friends, sisters and brothers. We are still grieving for them.
For years we lived alone here, transmitting our knowledge to our children, trying to bring back our ancient splendor. Then the humans came.
Bitterness filled Shona’s mind. Once more, the being calling itself Taralieni raised its hand.
Pride, again, and arrogance were our doom. Humans found us in the woods, our favorite shelter. At first, we ignored them. We were far more advanced, why should we have bothered to interact? Until they started bringing down our trees and reducing our habitat. We then went to them and tried to forge alliances, promising knowledge in exchange for protection. How stupid of us. Humans accepted our gifts greedily, but soon discovered we knew much more than we gave them. They asked for more. When we refused, the wars began. And, for all our science and superiority, we lost.
Images rapidly flashed before Shona’s eyes. The barbarians, for such were the humans the elves had fought, must have been impressed by the sight of As’mirin in armor. Yet what could thousands of As’mirin do a
gainst five times their number?
Before all was lost, our people took a drastic decision. Understand, Oyyad, we are not immortals, as the human lore says. We were granted long lives, at least three times longer than a human’s. But when we are slain or when our mortal coil gets too old to sustain our spirit, we leave it behind.
Ara then presented us with a choice: to join her or to remain as a protector of our descendants on this Earth. I was one of the first who chose to protect. We were granted special gifts for our decision, such as the ability to temporarily disappear a being or an object from sight. But we were not skilled enough to hide a whole section of the land from human eyes. It took no less than three hundred sacrifices to accomplish this task. Ara was not pleased, but finally yielded to our decision. And, for a time, it seemed our descendants were at last protected against all harm.
The next vision was nauseating. Horribly mutilated corpses wherever Shona laid her eyes. She thought she was now witnessing the sacrifices of which the being had spoken, and then the shining armor of the assailants came to her attention. This was a much more recent event.
Twice, we had suffered huge losses. The third catastrophe of our history almost annihilated what remained of us. We, Ke’As’mirin, the protectors, could do nothing to prevent it and it is our shame, for we are responsible for it. Some of us were not vigilant enough in their watch and let humans find their way through the veil to our hidden land. We couldn’t send them back to the Other Side but were reluctant to kill them, because most of them had never been looking for us in the first place. They had just lost themselves through the Veil.
After much debating, we decided to grant them land outside of our Forest. Our descendants built impressive stone doors around the Valley as a reminder of a boundary the humans were forbidden to trespass without our leave, and we, the protectors, stretched our powers to increase the size of our land.
All were happy for some time. Trade took place, and soon enough marriages between humans and As’mirin. Those unions were blessed with children, for, though we are two different species, we are similar enough biologically.
Proud and arrogant are the As’mirin. Ambitious, jealous and greedy, the humans. One of the human community chiefs, or As’ran as they called themselves, wanted the power over the Valley for himself. He deceived us, learned too many secrets, and thus managed to enter Kse’Annilis with a strong army. He showed no pity: every single As’mir he or his men could find, they killed.
And, as if it had happened yesterday, Shona could feel the frustration and the rage of the beings surrounding her. So many dead!
We could not stop him, for this man had learned how to protect himself and his followers against us. We could not protect our descendants; such was our confusion at his acts. When we at last regained some strength, it was almost too late: only two, we could save, sending them to the Other Side, out of reach of the Murderer. One is your ancestor, Esul Keh Niriel. He married a local woman, took her name and founded the line of the McLeans on the Other Side. The other was a mere child, Nefer Keh Jariel, and she, as well, survived among the humans, grew up, found unsuspected allies, came back to the Valley, and after many more bloody battles, prevailed against the Murderer.
A last image, of a beautiful elfish woman, with hair black as the raven and eyes green as emeralds. Then Shona’s awareness was brought back to the forest clearing and the circle of ghosts.
Nefer Keh Jariel and Esul Keh Niriel were the last of our blood. Esul decided to stay outside of the Valley. Nefer wed an Irishman she’d brought back from the Other Side, and changed her name to Na Duibhne. Then she looked for the remnants of our race, the descendants of the human-As’mir unions. She found a few, and invited them to the Valley and Kse’Annilis. Those, and their children, we now protect.
For all the good it did to them, thought Shona too fast.
Curiously, her sarcasm was only met with resigned sighs.
We agree. Much was lost, and more will be lost if they do not change. Our descendants, diminished as they are, fear us and won’t listen to our advice. What can we do, Oyyad?
That word again. “What’s an Oyyad?”
One of us who has strayed out of our community, asked for forgiveness and returned to us. We, the Ke’As’mirin, are the ones who’ll decide to accept or reject your request.
The circle moved nearer to her.
“Request? I’ve never requested anything! I was tricked into this!”
Too late, Oyyad. We have lost enough time. Open your mind to us and fear not: we were living beings once, too. We understand.
It was the only warning she got. The forest around her dissolved and she found herself facing her oldest memory.
It was not long before she started screaming.
14
Going to Kse’Annilis was quite a simple operation.
You could do the transfer yourself, with a bit of training and a lot of concentration. It was just a lot more arduous than going through a wall. For one thing, you needed a firm vision of your destination in your head.
Most of the As’mirin would rather let someone else move them through the Veil separating their world from what they called the Other Side. The Caller was the second most important person of the community, their link to the rest of the world.
You only had to concentrate and summon the Caller with your mind, then think of your destination. You only felt the slightest dizziness and before you knew, you were somewhere else.
In the main hall of the Caller’s home, in that particular case.
The abrupt change of sight could play havoc with one’s brain, so much so that most people closed their eyes before summoning the Caller and only reopened them when the dizziness was gone. Ekbeth and Kalem, though, used this talent so often that they were not even standing still while going through the process.
“Welcome, Akeneires’el.”
Ekbeth returned the greeting to the older man facing him, the Caller, sitting in a comfortable chair in the middle of his hall.
“Same to you, Nukri na Liom. Are we late?”
The Caller shook his head.
“Not yet, but you are the last ones.”
Kalem left them immediately. He was to warn the servants the Akeneires’el had arrived, though Ekbeth was pretty sure the Caller had already taken care of this.
Ekbeth and Nukri na Liom exchanged a few particularly polite words before Ekbeth left and walked outside the Caller’s home, which probably had the best view of the Valley. At his feet was Kse’Annilis, the city of the As’mirin, and the Valley, the best-kept secret on the planet Earth, just a step away from what everyone would call the reality.
How this was done was beyond his knowledge. Night had fallen and it was pitch dark around him already, but Ekbeth did not need daylight to know what was surrounding him. He was born in this place, had spent many years here, but he still felt awe every time he came back.
The Valley was named in many of the As’mirin legends. It was said to be the place where everything had begun. The name of the place was, in fact, not correct. This was not a valley. It was an extinct volcano crater—extinct for so many millennia that it had filled with water and over time its sharp tall edges had eroded to almost nothing.
A deep forest of oaks, chestnuts, pines and other trees, for which he never had found the time to learn the names, covered both sides of the crater. The last city of the As’mirin had been built on the inside flank. It required good physical condition to be able to climb from the Lake to the Caller’s house on the ridge. And a good sense of orientation, too, as the houses were built one upon another and linked by small stairways that were deceptively similar.
Getting lost was really easy. Nowadays, most As’mirin just asked to be transferred from one point to the other.
There was no road through the forest. There used to be, their entrance marked by gigantic stone doors, but no one had used them in centuries. Visitors were just transferred into the city or out of it.
The v
ery limit of this secret place extended further than the Valley’s forest, though. Beyond the trees, you could make out the skyline of high snowy mountains. Between the edge of the forest and the mountains lived the Aiarz’in, a name designating all the people living on this Side, but outside of the Valley, beyond the Doors—mostly descendants of humans who had arrived in this place by accident, when that had still been possible. A few As’mirin descendants lived here as well, like his own cousin Lyrian Farrill—that is, before the idiot had tried to kill his wife and got himself banished.
The As’mirin considered themselves privileged to be able to live in the Valley. But the Aiarz’in life was not so bad. To Ekbeth’s point of view, it was far better. There was good farmland, space enough for everyone, and the liberty to do pretty much whatever they wanted.
They even had their own Callers, distant cousins of the Na Lioms’ family. They are not as good as the Valley Callers, the As’mirin tended to assert arrogantly, but it was mainly because the Aiarz’in were not misusing their Callers’ special abilities as much as the As’mirin. Less demand made them just a tad slower than Nukri, in Ekbeth’s experience. But Nukri had once told him he probably would not be able to cope with the job if not for the occasional support of those cousins.
What Ekbeth envied in the Aiarz’in the most was that they had been authorized to import almost all the technologies from the Other Side. Even cars.
Ekbeth looked once more around him.
Well, cars were not needed here, but any other piece of useful technology was not something that was going to happen in Kse’Annilis any time soon. To say that As’mirin were conservative did not even come close. “Human” (a word which was an insult among some of his people) innovations were simply forbidden within the Valley. The As’mirin had been a great civilization once, they had invented impressive technologies long before the humans could eat anything other than what they could kill or collect. What the As’mirin had not discovered, then, was simply not needed.
They imported their food from the Aiarz’in farms, as no one in the Valley would have dared cut down a tree to create farmland. But that was pretty much the extent of most As’mirin contact with the outside world.