A muscle in the guard’s cheek twitched a little. “Yes,” he said, his lips barely parted.
“I don’t know what kind of man my heir was, Beorn. All I can tell you is what I would have done in his place. I would have chosen my bravest and most loyal soldier to take my wife to safety. And should I ever hear that anyone calls you a coward because you’re not lying there for the crows beside your king in the Hawk Pass, then I will beat him until he recognizes the truth. Ride tomorrow at my left. You should know that I hate to carry a shield. Be a shield for me.”
The warrior’s eyes gleamed. “No shield could protect you as I will.”
“I know it,” Mandred said and smiled. “May I see the queen now?”
Beorn disappeared for a moment into the tent, then came the voice of a woman. “Come in, Mandred Torgridson, ancestor of my clan.”
The walls of the tent reduced the sunshine to a green twilight. The furnishings of the tent were spartan. There was a narrow cot, a small table, two iron-studded chests, and a beautifully carved reclining chair with a high footstool, the only luxury in there. Gishild was a young woman. Mandred guessed she was in her mid-twenties, no older. Her features were fine, but her skin uncommonly pale. Red hair, unfastened, fell to her shoulders. She wore a dark-green vest tightly belted over a white shirt. Gishild was sitting in the chair, her feet on the footstool. She had wrapped a thin blanket around her legs. On the table at her side, within easy reach, lay a thin dagger.
Gishild made no move to stand when Mandred entered. She dismissed Beorn with the slightest of gestures. “So now you come after all, Ancestor,” she said bitterly. “We hoped so much that you would come when they first breached Firnstayn’s walls. Or perhaps on the night my husband led a sortie against the knights’ camp in a snowstorm so that the survivors in the city could flee into the mountains. I even prayed to Luth when we were in the Hawk Pass, hoping that you would come at last. But you have arrived now, and now is too late. There is no land left for your people to fight for. We are refugees, beggars among strangers, dependent on Emerelle’s alms. And the way things look, not even the elves are able to break the power of the priests. The burned oak casts its shadow even into the heartland now.”
Mandred took a deep breath. What was he supposed to say to her? How hard it had been to have to stand in the Devanthar’s lair and watch helplessly as his own people fought a desperate war? “I can’t make what has happened go away. And there will be no way for us to return to our homeland, but Emerelle has promised that she will allow us our own kingdom in Albenmark. We will only have to fight one more time, and the Tjured priests will be repelled once and for all. Emerelle is going to seal all of the gates to Albenmark, and no priest will ever get through again to torture and murder even a single Fjordlander for staying true to the old gods.”
Gishild looked at him with tired eyes. “I have heard of too many final battles, Ancestor.” She pointed to the entrance of the tent. “You can see for yourself what has become of your people. They have lost all hope. All of the defeats have destroyed their pride.”
“We will give them courage again. This afternoon, I will bury Liodred. Then I want to speak to the people. Please stand beside me. I am sure they still look up to you, Gishild.”
“I will never stand beside anyone again.” Gishild threw back the blanket, and Mandred saw two inflamed stumps smeared with black pitch. Both her feet had been amputated just above her ankles.
“Not a word of sympathy. This is nothing,” she hissed. “My son froze to death in my arms in the Hawk Pass. I could not give him enough warmth . . .” She faltered. “A pair of frozen feet are nothing compared to that pain. I . . . I don’t want to look into an open grave ever again, Ancestor. I am an open grave. And in that, I am a mirror of your people.”
Mandred stared in bewilderment at her mutilated legs. “You could have asked the elves for help. Their magic is powerful. They would have—”
“Was I supposed to call one of their healers from the bed of a sick child? We brought more misery with us than their magical powers could deal with.”
Mandred felt utterly powerless. What could he possibly say to this embittered woman? Words of hope must ring like mockery in her ears. If only he had returned earlier. He bowed to her. “With your permission, I will withdraw and prepare King Liodred’s grave.”
“Wait, Ancestor.” She signaled to him to step closer. “Kneel down beside me.”
Surprised, he obeyed.
Gishild lowered her voice to a whisper. “I heard how you spoke to Beorn. Since that day on the Hawk Pass, he has been a broken man. You have given him back his courage. Take Alfadas’s armor and wear it when you speak to your people at the grave of Liodred. Perhaps you will manage after all to stir up a spark of courage among the ashes of our sadness. I don’t have that strength, Mandred Torgridson. But I know there are some still hoping for the return of the living ancestor. Talk to them. You are right . . . it cannot be that after all these centuries of friendship, the banner of Firnstayn does not fly at the side of the elves in the final battle. Spare our people that shame.”
Two Swords and Memories
Nuramon stood in the chamber of Gaomee. The queen had allowed him to use it one last time. He had been more than surprised to find an image of himself on the wall. Any man or woman who spent the night before the elfhunt in this chamber also had a scene dedicated to them in the frieze covering the room’s interior, but Nuramon was not prepared to see his own face on the wall. What amazed him most of all was the way that he had been depicted. He was standing, holding his two swords in his hands and threatening a shadow that enclosed a golden stone: the Devanthar with its Albenstone. Either the painting had been completed sometime after the sea battle or the queen could indeed see very far into the future.
Nuramon scrutinized the lines of his own face in the image. He saw the visage of a courageous elf, capable of facing any danger, but still with something grim in his expression. The elf pictured there was no doubt a good leader. The only question was whether Nuramon would be able to do justice to the image the next day. The day not yet over would not necessarily lead anyone to that conclusion. It had been a hard day, not least because his memory was still confused.
He had passed on a great deal of responsibility to Nomja, and in so doing, he had not even met with her in person, instead communicating with her via messenger. She was in the camp on the right flank, a good five-hour march from the palace. She and Wengalf had discussed the deployment of the troops, and Nuramon had put everything into her hands.
Instead of commanding, he sat in this chamber and tried to think. His clan had visited him, to help equip him for the battle ahead. At his wish, they had given him a suit of plate armor, fashioned after Gaomee’s dragon armor. A short time later, he had said his farewells to them, not least because there was no one among them whom he knew from earlier times. Old Elemon had gone into the moonlight many, many years before, and even the younger of his relatives, like Diama, were long gone. Among her descendants, Nuramon had become a legend. What disappointment they would feel the next day if the great Nuramon—the Nuramon who, with his companions, had defeated a Devanthar—rode into battle like any other elf and nothing happened to elevate him above the rest.
He had to smile. Back then, the first time he had been in this chamber, his clan’s antipathy toward him had hurt. Now he found it uncomfortable that they should meet him with awe and recognition. That could not be true. His returning memory told him that he was no stranger to such recognition. He had experienced it before, especially among the dwarves, but that had all been in another life.
Slowly, slowly, his memories rearranged themselves. It would not be much longer before he could reassemble the individual stones of the mosaic. Right now, there was simply too much that he had to try to understand. He could recall, once, being in love with an elf woman named Ulema. From their love had come a child, and they had named
the child Weldaron. This was the name of the founder of their clan. Was he, Nuramon, then the father of Weldaron? He could not believe that was true.
He was also confused by all the feelings he had once held for Emerelle, feelings she had never been able to return. No doubt there were many elves who saw Emerelle and dreamed secretly of her love. There was no woman for whom more love poems or songs of courting had been composed than for the queen of the elves.
The sound of footsteps outside the door provoked a memory of the night before the elfhunt rode out. Nuramon turned around. He had an idea who was coming to visit him. As the door opened and he saw Emerelle, he knew that he had not been mistaken. The queen had come to him, as she had the night that everything had begun for him. And as she had then, she wore the gray robe of a sorceress, and her dark blond hair swelled gently over her shoulders. He looked into her pale-brown eyes and found there the same shine as on that night so long ago.
She closed the door behind her and smiled at him, as if waiting for some stirring of emotion in him.
“Emerelle,” he said and looked at her for a long time. “It is no accident that you come to me now, is it?”
“No. Nothing that we say or do happens by accident. This is where the circle closes, Nuramon, father of Weldaron and son of Valimee and Deramon.”
As the queen spoke the names of his first parents, his memory of them returned. His father had been a soldier, his mother a sorceress. They had gone into the moonlight when they were still young, but they had loved him as only the first of the Albenkin had loved their sons and daughters. “Am I that old?” he asked.
The queen nodded. “I have known for a long time that a momentous fate would be yours one day. At that time, you were one of my companions in arms. We met for the first time in Ischemon, in battle against the sun dragons. There was no queen then. I was still searching for my own destiny, and we went to the Oracle of Telmareen together. And you know what she said.”
Nuramon remembered everything the queen talked about. Her words were like a magic formula, restoring his memory chapter by chapter, bringing back everything he had ever felt. He suddenly saw the illuminated form of the oracle again, and her voice rang in his ears still: “Choose your kinfolk for yourself. Pay no heed to your reputation. Everything you are is within you.”
The queen now stood directly in front of him, and her gaze shifted back and forth between his eyes. “In those days, there were few rules. We had to make them for ourselves, and that is why, your whole life, you have always found it hard to live by the rules of others. Do you remember what I said to you before you took your last breath?”
He had been wounded, then, by the burning light of a sun dragon. Now he recalled Emerelle’s words and spoke them: “‘At the oracle, I saw you and the mighty child.’ Yulivee. You saw Yulivee back then?”
“Yes. And ever since, I knew that you would lead her to me one day, but I did not know when. So I learned to be patient. I had to wait so long and do things and say things that did not come from the heart, but everything I said the night before the elfhunt was the truth. I had to keep some things to myself, of course, as the oracles tend to do. But now you should hear the truth as you have not heard it before. Come.” She took him by the hand and led him across to the stone bench, where they sat down. “I cannot feel what you now feel, for I have never died. My memories are those of a single long life, but I know that it is not easy to come to terms with everything you are experiencing. To be able to comprehend it all, you have to grow. And that is one of your strengths.” She let go of his hand and pointed up to the ceiling, to the image of Gaomee. “Before the elfhunt, when I chose to give you the great Gaomee’s room, I chose with care. I was aware that you had a long journey ahead of you. It was the right time to give you her sword, but I did not tell you everything about the weapon.” Emerelle stood up and moved across to Nuramon’s bed, where she picked up his two swords. Then she returned to his side and slid Gaomee’s short sword from its sheath. “The dwarves must have told you something about this blade.”
“They told me it had been forged by a dwarf named Teludem for an elf.” A suspicion rose within Nuramon and he asked, “Was the sword perhaps given to me at one time?”
“No. The dwarves gave it to me. They said they would go into the Other World to search for a realm in which Wengalf could remain king. It was a time in which I was not able to tolerate anyone beside me, so that what will now happen would be able to. We separated in anger, but Wengalf is no fool. He presented me with the sword and said that I should send it to him when I was ready to respect him as king.”
“The dwarves did not tell me anything about that,” Nuramon replied.
“I gave the sword to Gaomee because she came from the family line whose destiny it was to reconcile with the dwarves.” The queen seemed to be waiting for Nuramon to speak.
Suddenly, it was clear to Nuramon what she was saying. “Gaomee came from my clan?”
“She not only came from your clan. She was your daughter.”
The revelation hit Nuramon like a sudden blow. Gaomee was his daughter. “I don’t remember her.”
“You had been dead for quite some time when Diyomee gave birth.”
“Diyomee,” Nuramon breathed to himself. It had been an unfortunate love affair. Her father had hated him, and Nuramon’s rival had killed him in a duel.
“The family cast Diyomee out. So I decided to take her in with me. She gave birth to the child, gave her the name Gaomee, then went into the moonlight. I raised the newborn child. When I called her to the elfhunt, I sensed that it was right to entrust her with the short sword. I told her everything about her father, and she admired you for the things you did in Ischemon. Only like that could she defeat the dragon Duanoc.”
“But I was reborn. Why didn’t she come to me?”
“She didn’t dare. She was afraid you might reject her. But before she found her own love and went into the moonlight, she returned the sword to me and told me that I should look after it for you and give it to you when the time was ripe. And I did that.” She returned Gaomee’s blade to its sheath. “You took the sword to the dwarves, and they soon realized how this age would end. They found out from Dareen when they would have to return to their ancient halls.” Emerelle now drew the long sword, Nuramon’s old weapon. “Thorwis and Wengalf were wise. They gave you your old sword, and when I saw that you had it, I knew that you had been among the dwarves. You were fate’s messenger, and with this weapon, you told me that the dwarves would come, and you reminded me of where this weapon came from.”
“You know that?” Nuramon asked in surprise.
“Don’t you remember?”
Nuramon pondered the sword. It had been at his side through a number of lives. His companions in arms had always taken it to his clan, where it had waited for him to be reborn. But where did it come from?
“Don’t worry,” said Emerelle, and she sheathed the sword again. “It was a gift from me. I once gave all of my companions a weapon.”
Nuramon could not remember receiving it, and it angered him that he could not.
The queen laid one hand on his shoulder. “Your memory will return. You will need time to rediscover everything. It is a very special journey you are on, very different from the one you have experienced so far. Approach it like the dwarves do. Remember my words until you remember yourself.”
Nuramon gazed at the weapon that lay beside the queen. “Then the magic in this sword is your magic.”
Emerelle laughed. “I was a different person then, in the same way that Yulivee used to be someone else. Even the Devanthar would not have recognized the magic of your sword.”
Nuramon looked down at the floor. The things the queen was telling him were opening a thousand gateways in his memory, and he did not know through which of them he was supposed to step first. Emerelle was right; it was a journey. She was leading him in
to forgotten realms. “Where do I go from here?” he asked. “I feel lost, like I’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere along my long path.”
“My words should provide you with at least a little solid ground,” she replied. “They are meant to show you that you are more than you believe yourself to be and that you can be so much more than you have ever dreamed.”
The queen was speaking as if he faced no dangers, as if the way ahead were free of stumbling blocks. “Will I die tomorrow?” he asked.
Emerelle raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Nuramon, you know I would not tell you that even if I knew. The outcome of a battle is never clear, even for me. Fate can change too often in something like that. Too many swords, too many arrows, too many movements make it impossible to see the end of everything. I cannot even be sure that we will save Albenmark. All I know is what should be. And that I have to keep to myself, because otherwise it cannot happen. But I know why you ask. You fear that you and Farodin might both die.”
“Yes. And then Noroelle would be lost and I would be born into a new life in which I would remember her bitter fate without ever being able to do anything for her. Why are you unable to overturn your verdict? Why must the spell to separate Albenmark from the Other World be cast straight after the first spell?”
“Because I saw my own death if we only cut off the land beyond the Shalyn Falah,” Emerelle said. She turned away and stared into nothing. “An arrow finds me, and then the spell can never again be cast. But the Tjured priests will open other gates into Albenmark if we don’t separate our world from theirs.” She blinked and turned back to Nuramon. “Noroelle has to stay where she is so that I can live, but don’t think I am acting out of selfishness. For me, all that matters is Albenmark. Even the queen knows sympathy, and suffers when she has to say and do things that contradict the wishes of her heart.” Emerelle laid her hand on his shoulder. “And my heart tells me that there has to be hope for Noroelle.” Her eyes shone. “And I promise you this. If Farodin and you should die tomorrow, I will entrust my throne to Yulivee and turn my back on Albenmark in your place.”
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