Hoil conferred briefly with Birch before replying.
“Perhaps if someone could relate to us the exact circumstances of his death and everything known or suspected thus far, that would provide a starting place for our investigation,” he said.
“I will tell them myself, grandfather,” Rill offered, bowing to the king before he turned back to the two humans. “If you will both dine with me this evening.”
The elven prince had enough poise and presence that what otherwise would have been a question was instead a polite command without being demanding or objectionable.
“It would be our honor, your highness,” Hoil answered, bowing. “And now, if you please, your majesty, I was asked by a friend of mine to tell you a story, a fabolen.”[20]
“Indeed?” Vareille asked curiously. “It has been years since someone stood in this hall to tell a fabolen, and never in my life has a human done so.” He gestured his permission.
“Yes, your majesty. Ahem,” Hoil said, clearing his throat. Hoil felt silly, but apparently this sort of thing was not unheard of in the elven court. Maran had indicated it was an ancient tradition that had mostly died out centuries ago, but it was still honored in most houses, including the palace. Hoil was just glad the elven court had been dismissed. “Many years ago, there was a nobleman of Talla who was well-loved and respected, particularly by his family. He was proud of his sons, especially the eldest, who excelled in the family dealings and showed immense promise in one day filling his father’s role. Then one day some of the nobleman’s associates discovered that the eldest son had been dabbling with fey matters, and the son was shamed and banished.”
The king had gone abruptly stiff and was staring at Hoil with a tight gaze. Birch’s brother continued gently but relentlessly.
“For many years, the son stayed away and mourned his fallen state. Then one day a crisis arose in his home, and he knew he had to return,” Hoil said, and now Vareille looked at him with wild eyes. “He returned in disguise and wore a magic cloak so no one would know him. The son wished to go before his father, hoping to find some way of speaking with him again, to at least have his father acknowledge him and to know whether he was still loved.”
Hoil fell silent.
“How does your story end?” the king asked, his voice quavering. Rill looked at his grandfather worriedly, but stayed silent and still.
“My friend never finished the story,” Hoil replied. “He said you would know and might tell me.”
The king drew a careful breath, his eyes closed tightly, then stared at Hoil.
“The Tallans are human like you, and no doubt your nobleman’s son spoke to his father and the father welcomed his prodigal son with loving arms and all ended happily and well,” the king said, recovering his composure. “Had it been an elven family, however, such public acceptance could never have been possible. Our society is more rigid than yours, I fear, so I can give you no clear answer. For your story I would suggest, however, that the son should have found a quiet spot to speak with his father rather than trying to confront him openly. Such a thing is unseemly, and there are undoubtedly places in your society just as there are here where grief and acceptance might meet. And if, as I can only guess from your story, the father was aging, such a meeting would be doubly important before the seventh hour chimes.”[21]
Hoil nodded. “I’ll tell my friend, who will undoubtedly be pleased to duly finish his story.”
Silent and forgotten, wrapped in inscrutability more protective than his purple robe, the elf known as El’Decein heard the meaning of the story and his eyes narrowed in speculation. But even as he observed in silence, so he was in turn observed, and his every reaction was noted and scrutinized by one present but invisible and unknown. Someone who did not exist.
- 2 -
Moreen stepped into the daylight, focusing her attention on moving as gracefully as possible while making it look effortless. She had often admired elves their casual grace and had even enlisted an elven maiden in Demar to work with her to improve her dancing. In exchange for room and board, Li’Sierenna worked with Moreen for more than two months, teaching her the steps to a dozen elven dances and showing her techniques she could use to more closely emulate the elven grace required to perform them well. By the time Sierenna left her, she had gained financial stability and Moreen had gained a new confidence and aptitude.
Years later, Moreen still remembered the skills Sierenna had taught her, and she employed them to blend in with their surroundings. She judged herself successful when no one gave her a second look, although that could have been partially due to her companions.
Nuse and Perklet did not have the benefit of an elven dance instructor, and indeed Nuse looked as though his feet had never done something so elegant in his life that didn’t involve a sword in his hand. Perklet was marginally better, but neither man was comfortable in his cross-species role. To solve their dilemma, Nuse expediently twisted his foot to an odd and painful-looking angle and adopted a limp. He leaned heavily on Perklet, and now rather than two awkward elves, they appeared as old soldiers supporting each other in their infirmity. Moreen played the part of Nuse’s daughter, though since they never actually spoke aloud, she wasn’t sure how her role really mattered.
After leaving the caves of Maran’s acquaintances, they were taken to a large tree with a single branch sticking out a foot or so above the forest floor. The smaller branches coming off the main limb had obviously been crafted by a Woodweaver, because they bent back and were interlaced intricately to create a flat, almost solid platform approximately five feet around. The tree was somewhat removed from any others nearby, and it stretched like a giant, living pole up into the canopy without so much as a twig to mar the limbless trunk. Moreen would later be informed that only the uppermost section of the tree had any foliage, but at the moment, that was far above her and beyond her limited vision. Trees like this were apparently spaced throughout elven cities and manned by minor Woodweavers at all times.
“Step on, please,” their guide, Do’Yier, instructed them as he stood at the farthest edge from the tree trunk.
The three pseudo elves followed suit and stood in the middle of the woven branch. Another elf appeared and Moreen nearly jumped in surprise. He ignored his passengers and stood at the edge nearest the trunk. He held both hands toward the tree and closed his eyes in concentration.
“Hold on to each other,” he warned, and suddenly the platform began to move up the tree. The bark around their mobile tree limb warped and flowed like water as the limb rose effortlessly up the otherwise empty tree. Moreen gasped in delight and ignored Nuse’s warning hand-squeeze as she leaned forward to see the ground rapidly falling away beneath them.
Moreen had only twice been on a dwarven-make elevator, but the sensation of having her stomach drop several inches in her chest was the same. Fortunately, the motion didn’t set off the same motion sickness that plagued her on seafaring vessels. As long as the ground beneath her feet was stable, she was fine – even if that ground happened to be an artificially woven tree branch rising magically above the ground.
The limb rotated slightly around the trunk to avoid an overhanging branch from a nearby tree, then moved again to avoid a branch higher up. All the while their escort looked up, his eyes alert, and the elf controlling the branch looked inward at the tree, his eyes closed.
A few minutes later the limb shifted one final time to slot itself neatly between two arms of a walkway that had obviously been prepared for the elevator-like transport. Moreen looked at the tree trunk they'd ridden up and saw the mobile limb now appeared like it had been growing in that spot for decades. There was nothing to indicate it was anything other than an oddly shaped tree limb.
“Marvelous,” she whispered in delight.
“Come quickly,” Yier said, stepping from the platform and leading them down a secluded path made from what appeared to be more interlaced branches. Moreen turned to look back at their transport, but it had alr
eady disappeared from view back to the forest floor below.
Doing her best to wordlessly portray a loving daughter escorting her father and elder brother (Perklet’s role in their silent drama), Moreen followed after Yier as their guide led them to an inn. The common room there was a popular thoroughfare in the city and would see citizens from all lots coming in and staying for drinks throughout the day.
A short time later they were seated in an out-of-the-way spot in the inn where they could nevertheless observe the majority of the patrons without being obvious about it. Two elves were already sitting there when they arrived, but they stood to clear the spot and disappeared without a word. Once they were seated, Yier likewise left them, but he and the other two elves returned seconds later as disembodied voices.
“We will relate to you any conversation you overhear,” their now-invisible guide informed them. “I will devote myself to your ears, Moreen an’Beatriz, and my associates will pair with your paladin protectors.”
“Will you be picking through the conversations to start me off, or should I just point to someone at random?” she asked, slightly unnerved at his unseen presence. The elf’s voice was soft and sounded like he was perched on her shoulder like a parrot, or a lover sharing a pillow. She shivered at the thought, instinctively picturing Birch and longing for his presence.
“With your permission, I will provide a sample of various nearby conversations, so simply let me know which catches your interest and we can focus on that,” he replied.
She nodded, feeling foolish, but then, he could see her.
“The two men seated at the table immediately to your left,” Yier began. “They are discussing crop prices.”
“Skip for now,” she murmured into her water glass.
“Proceeding left, the next table with two women and one harried looking man,” he said. “He appears to be explaining why he cannot choose between them, but he will gladly take them both back to his house together.”
“Skip,” she said a bit hurriedly. It was hard to tell with Yier invisible, but she could have sworn he was smiling and hiding laughter beneath his voice. Or maybe she was just projecting her own discomfort on him.
“What about the two men there?” she asked, lowering an arm to the table to subtly indicate the direction. “Their heads are awfully close together.”
“A moment.” There was a pause of silence. “Fans of dramatic arts, it seems,” he said, and Moreen heard a tone of disdain in his voice. “They’re discussing a play.”
Moreen nodded and indicated he should move on.
“The two young elves and the one older at the next table appear to be an artisan instructing his pupils in the Way of their craft,” Yier said. “In this case, pottery.”
“The Way?” Moreen asked.
“The Way of the craftsman is to become proficient with his tools, then work according to his design to the utmost of his skill in all things,” Yier replied.
Moreen blinked.
“I’m sorry?”
“The Way,” Yier said patiently. “It is an elven concept, a path to enlightenment and divine peace through devotion to one’s role in life. There are many Ways in the world, and it is every true elven son’s duty to discover his role and devote himself utterly to it in life. We believe that those who truly achieve harmony with the Way may proceed to divine peace, while those who fall short are returned through the cycle of death to try again in their next life.”
Moreen struggled to grasp what was obviously an intricate and deeply ingrained belief for the elven society, yet was so alien to her own worldview. She knew elves believed in some form of reincarnation somehow, but this was something beyond that simplistic idea.
Unfortunately, it also probably had nothing to do with their purpose there, and she reluctantly decided to let the topic lie. She sighed. It was going to be a long, frustrating day.
“Next.”
- 3 -
The rest of their audience passed swiftly and somewhat awkwardly, but they managed to avoid any undue reference to Hoil’s bizarre story and its effect on the king. No one asked why he’d told the story, and no one commented on the king’s added ending. If anyone was curious, he wisely kept it to himself.
They passed the intervening hours until dinner touring the palace and asking questions about elven life. Siran was their constant companion, but he never answered their queries himself. Another elf named Li’Docent accompanied them and answered their questions in fluent human. Maran sometimes supplied whispered answers that were more telling than the responses they received from their guide, but for the most part the invisible elf remained wrapped in a silence of thought.
Finally the seventh hour approached, and Birch and Hoil left to prepare themselves for dinner with the elven prince, Rill.[22] Maran left them, confident in Hoil’s abilities and Birch’s tempering presence to see them through the meal and conversation without his help. Instead, Maran slipped through secret passages and made his way swiftly through the palace until he arrived at a shadowy chamber deep in the recesses of the massive complex.
The royal crypt.
Maran stepped into the dark room and summoned a glowing ball of light that burned with a purple-white radiance. The light allowed him to see almost as if it were daylight, but anyone not trained in its use would notice almost no difference in the illumination of the room unless they were wearing certain white materials or other colors and fabrics that reacted to the abnormal lighting. Because of this, Shadowweavers were always very careful when and how they used such lights.
The sarcophaguses were arranged in neat, even rows stretching far back into the shadows. Thousands of years of elven rulers were buried here, from all different dynasties and ruling families. Elves were normally cremated and buried in the earth so their remains would rejoin the cycle of life, but for the rulers of the nation, a small portion of their ashes was withheld and stored here in sarcophaguses, often along with a few choice possessions of the elf. The stone boxes were shallow with thick lids, but full length as though a true body lay within. The names of each denizen were written in the stone of the sarcophagus lid above a raised relief of their facial features. Some of the older sarcophaguses bore life-like, three-dimensional representations of the occupant, but that practice had fallen out of use long before Maran’s family had assumed the throne. All the deceased were from the El sect, of course, with only one exception: an elf from the Li sect had, through some mad twist of fate, been named king two thousand years ago and ruled wisely for more than a century, but he had died childless.[23]
A soft breath ─ less than a whisper ─ behind Maran made him turn, and his already impassive face tightened even further. A woman stood beside the most recent of tombs, her slender fingers resting gently on the carved stone surface. She traced the outline of the visage, her own face sad.
Maran’s breath caught in his throat, and she jerked her head upright and stared right through him.
“Is someone there?” she asked.
“No, Jethyra,” Maran replied in his soft voice. She gasped and took a step backward.
“It can’t be you,” she said breathlessly. “Maran?”
“So you remember your brother,” he said, moving aside so she was no longer looking at him. It was an old game of his from his youth, and he knew it unsettled his sister, who had never grown accustomed to Maran’s habit of disappearing from sight at will. Of course, then he’d only been using his Lightweaving skills openly. Now he used Shadowweaving to accomplish the same purpose, and even in his mind, it lent a more sinister air to his invisibility.
“Why y…” she began, then she stopped and her face grew cold. “My only brother lies within the earth and here before me.” She indicated the sarcophagus she’d been touching. “I have no other siblings.”
“You can deny me all you like, but that will not make me cease to exist, my sister,” Maran said with regret in his voice. Then his voice firmed and he glared as he slowly circled her. “I will always be a
member of this family.”
“This family has existed much better without you,” Jethyra hissed, looking about to try and pinpoint the source of his voice. “You are nothing. You never were. I had only one brother, Rowin, and he lies dead.”
“And his son?”
Here Jethyra stopped, and her face was visibly troubled.
“His son is a shining example of what an elven prince should be,” she said haughtily, but Maran heard a quaver in her voice. She looked about with slightly wild eyes, still unable to sense his location. “His son will be a testament to him.”
“An odd sentiment from someone who used to pray nightly her brother would remain wrapped in sorrow and never remarry,” Maran sneered.
Jethyra was silent.
“Childless yourself, I know you secretly hoped our brother would remain widowed while you searched for some poor soul to curse with your hand in marriage. I heard you. All those years, watching him mourn. No wife. No heir,” Maran said, deliberately needling her. The antagonism between the two siblings had not faded with the years of separation, and Maran’s distaste for his sister’s attitude smoldered even now.
“He didn’t need a wife of his own, he had Isael,” Jethyra said spitefully.
Maran suppressed a surge of bitterness and anguish he’d long since accepted as the price for his son’s life. His wife and brother had feigned an affair, allowing her to divorce Maran with some semblance of legitimacy in avoiding his fate in exile. They all knew she was pregnant, and it was for the sake of their unborn son, Rill, that Rowin and Isael shamed themselves and Maran left alone. While Rowin had vowed to never lay a hand on her in private, Maran had tortured nightmares picturing the two of them together for years until he received word of Isael’s death.
“I assumed you were smarter than that, sister,” Maran said, his voice a frigid wind preceding the storm. “Ambitious and cold, yes. Conniving and envious, always. But you were never stupid, Jethyra, and I know you know the truth.
“Our dead brother had no son of his own, and my wife was faithful to me until the day twilight and disease took her from the world,” Maran said with absolute certainty. “Our dear, deceased brother adopted the unborn son of his own brother. Me. No matter how much you resented your lot, no matter how much you resented my being the child of our father chosen to inherit his mantle, still the crown will pass to a child of my flesh, and not to you or a child of yours. You will never wear the crown, nor will your offspring.”
The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War) Page 20