One of the mercurial Sianna’s followers, the fiery red-haired huntress Alainn, dashed into the Hall of Emeria and abruptly stopped, her breath heaving, collecting her composure and solemnity. Ciarthan and a few of the counselors stood to recognize her. “Sianna says she’s a-coming,” she said, and, with Ciarthan’s nod, quickly departed.
Almost immediately on her heels entered the rough, wild-haired, enigmatic Bardach. He bowed superfluously and recited, “Sianna is returning soon; she was delayed to treat a wound.”
“She is injured then?” exclaimed Piachras the champion.
“No, not herself,” Bardach replied; “the victim is a foreign elf.” And with that, he turned and followed the first messenger out of the hall.
“A foreign elf,” mused Malaoenidea aloud. “What can it mean?”
“Trouble, I suspect,” said the architect, Eathril. “What say you, Ciarthan? The fire seemed portentous to my eyes.”
“Portentous,” Ciarthan spoke. He held up two fingers and fell into thought.
He had not long to think, for soon a third messenger arrived. This, a female elf of Sianna’s battalion who was well-known for her magnificent singing voice, and whom he knew to be named Ceolle, entered vivaciously and exhaled a three-quarters rest.
“You bear information of Sianna? About this rumored foreigner?” Ciarthan asked.
“’Tis a wonder; bold and strong he is,” Ceolle said. “It is a high sign, that in the ultimate year of this the Twelfth Age, on the eve of the Thirteenth Age and the traditional resurrection of the ancient evil, this lone warrior should seek out our lands, chased by a company of the wicked spawn.”
“Hold, rest awhile,” Ciarthan requested of her, seeing she was about to exit as well. “Sianna will be here soon?”
“In two beats,” Ceolle replied. “Thank you, Sire.”
“More riddles,” Eathril said. “Ceolle,” he asked her as she found a place near the entrance of the hall, “I think I understand by ‘the ancient evil’ you speak of the dragons, which breed their foul brood at the beginning of every nine-hundred year age. The elves of old fled from their ancestral lands because of these dragons, but in the Eleventh Age, before the Sequestering, we know they were brought hither by the goblin generals in their wars against us. What mean you, though, by this ‘company of the wicked spawn?’”
“Dragons?” asked Piachras. “Goblins? We’ll gather warriors and clear out their filthy brood once and for all.”
“You will see presently,” said Ceolle, “for otherwise I know not how to name them. Three of them we shot down by arrows, and two others escaped. One other creature—either a little goblin or a human child—fled with them.”
At that a fourth messenger entered, a young man by appearance but actually very old, his short white hair wrapped back in a ceremonial cap. He bowed with a regal air and a glimmer of his bright shining eyes, then spoke.
“Dear your royalness, and you who by your wisdom guide the vessel of Emeria: I am of the company of the fair Sianna, a humble artist named Dain. The aforesaid fair lady, hunting in the northern marches of our country, discovered an elf of Ristoria, marked so by his wearing of cyndan leaf bands and hawkish feathers, a scribe of high rank of his own land if his insignia be true. This foreign elf was fleeing from a company of six small dragon-like beasts lead by a small female humanoid; they had followed him over a long distance and were closing in for the kill when our elves intervened. We at once slew four of the dragon-beasts and wounded their leader. One other of the dragon beasts we slew in pursuit, but those remaining fled perforce and were undiscovered by our searching. Sianna comes behind me now with the foreigner and a specimen of the dragon beasts.” He bowed in conclusion. Ciarthan nodded and glanced at the prophetic fire now dying. And with that, Sianna finally arrived.
She was not short, not thin but far from heavy, not graceful of movement or air but neither clumsy nor even average, not stunningly beautiful but neither very easy to take one’s eyes from, not serene but neither excited: alert, alive, agile, and powerful might have described her best, but was a poor sketch at that. She entered, evaluated her surroundings instantly, drew forward Stuart, whose hands were bound by a simple cord and whose face was openly scarred down one cheek with a quickly-healing wound, and with her other hand threw forward before all those present a string upon which were hog-tied four cleaned and bloodless drakes.
All stood at once and came forward. Cerregan, the cavalry chief, reached the string of drakes first and knelt down to observe it. “Heavens,” he declared. Then he rose to face Stuart. Ciarthan observed the drakes next, and reached out his hand to touch them. They were cold, damp from being washed, and covered with scales. Then he stood and addressed Stuart.
“What are they?” he asked.
“Drakes,” said Stuart. “Creatures fashioned and given life by the wizard who ruled the north, Morin I, and whose son Morin II now rules in his stead.”
“These are strange developments,” Ciarthan replied. “It is apparent that some level of urgency is required, and perhaps response. Tell me, Sir, what is your name and tribe and whether the rank your badge indicates of you is true.”
“It is true, I am a scribe,” said Stuart, “the chief scribe of the elven nation of Ristoria, Stuart Channethoth by name.”
“Do you prefer your full name, heir of Channon, or some shorter derivative?” Ciarthan questioned him.
“Stuart suffices, Sir. And how shall I address you all?”
“Sianna is the name of she who brought you here. These followers of hers are Ceolle and Dain. Here is Cerregan, the chief of our horsemen, and here is Eathril, who you might call our general—or one of them, for Sianna is the other. Here is Piachras, who among us is a famous quester; here is our beautiful minstreless, Malaoenidea; this is my wife, Ctele, and I am Ciarthan, who am looked to with the guidance of our nation, Emeria.”
“Emeria?” Stuart queried.
“The same,” Ciarthan answered.
Stuart paused for a long time evaluating that. His expression changed from incredibility to confusion to recognition to revelation to hope to animation as he took in every detail of his place and surroundings.
“I was assured by Sianna I had not died,” he finally said. “If it be true, and all of this be likewise, too—I might hardly dare to dream—then there is yet hope for us.”
“Slowly, slowly,” Ciarthan reassured him. “Pray, tell us of yourself, and how you come here claiming to be a scribe of the Ristorians, whom we know were destroyed and scattered from existence nearly sixteen hundred years ago.”
“Sixteen hundred...ah, you refer to the flight of Ristoria of the year one hundred seventy-two of the Eleventh Age,” Stuart realized, drawing on his studies of history. “What strikes you as amazing is simply explained. At the end of the Draco-Goblin Elven Wars, our leaders gone, our brave warriors taken by the eternal flames, those who remained in Ristoria, feeling it better to surrender to the imperatives of an unyielding fate and to abandon the land of their fathers in search of a more peaceful land, built for themselves a great fleet of ships and set sail to the south, the land of our common origins. Having performed the duty of bravery to the point of death beyond their utmost strength, they turned their minds to the duty of compassion, and found that they could neither surrender their children and all their heritage to goblin desecration and servitude, nor withhold them from the pillaging of the dragons, for whose sake the elven nations many ages past had once before fled from their homelands hence in search of peace. Therefore, as you see, we did survive and flourish in the south. Our exile was for six hundred twenty years; then we returned to our old lands to hear from those men who then inhabited them that Emeria had at last fallen to the goblin hordes three hundred fifty years after our own exile.”
“Which mystery will be explained to you in due time by better voices than mine,” Ciarthan declared. “For now, let you be untied and follow us to nourishment and a more comfortable setting.”
Si
anna untied the cord binding Stuart’s hands, and Ciarthan guided Stuart by the arms out through the door, saying, “I have need of you, my friends and counselors.” The others present, however, had all started to follow him of their own volition, and no less vigorously continued to do so.
The House of the Mirror, as the building they had just left was called, was an amazing structure like a long and high basilica. The walls of this building—if it could be called a building at all—were formed from the living trunks of a kind of tall hardwood tree which Stuart had never seen before. The branches of these trees intertwined to form a thick, arching canopy, and trellises thick with flowering, fragrant vines completed the walls. The house sat upon a broad, crystalline spring, the Mirror of Emeria, which trickled out from there beneath the bridge entrance to vanish again not far away beneath another similar natural structure. This, the Great Hall of Emeria, was the goal toward which the chief of the Emerian elves led Stuart and his counselors. A dozen other elves were waiting outside the Great Hall to join them, and around both structures the people of the Emerald River Nation of Emeria came and went, carrying out the affairs of daily life amongst the countless smaller but comfortable-looking, vine-covered houses of the city and beneath the tall trees of the Emerald River Valley Forest.
In the Emerian Great Hall, Stuart was amazed, although accustomed to regal surroundings, to find the lavishness he found in such a seemingly primitive enclosure. The stream he had observed before flowed smoothly through the center of the hall, its banks smoothed and straightened, wide and high above the water level. Several little bridges of hardened clay crossed back and forth over it. The leaves of the vines inside were brightly dyed every color imaginable, and together formed an intricate, living tapestry. Elves, goblins, warriors, dragons, men, women, nature in abundance; all was depicted in such bright beauty that those who walked beneath them seemed shadows in comparison.
Ciarthan led Stuart to a dais where many brightly dyed couches were prepared and sat down with Ctele on two of the central ones. About them sat Sianna, Cerregan, and Malaoenidea. Ceolle and Dain, Sianna’s followers, arranged themselves near her, and opposite them sat Piachras alone and Eathril with a few of his followers who had joined him.
“Now,” said Ciarthan when all had settled comfortably, “you have told us, Stuart, of the resurrection of Ristoria among the nations, a fact which well pleases all of us to hear. Now tell us, we pray you, of your attackers, and what these drakes are, as you call them; for, as you gather, we receive little news from outside and many things have doubtless change.”
“Indeed they have, and continue to,” Stuart replied. “My story will be long, I think, but necessarily so. You will see by the end that I have little time to waste and thus reason to be conservative of your time.”
“Proceed,” Ciarthan directed him.
Stuart collected his thoughts briefly and began. “Dear honorable lords and ladies of Emeria: when your nation vanished from the face of the earth in that year, five hundred twenty-three of the Eleventh Age, you know that a new race of creatures called humans had just arrived on this continent and were beginning to establish settlements throughout the river valleys to the north. At the same time, the goblin empires, weakened by wars and by infighting, and having lost control over the dragons—which at that time went into hibernation to await the turning of the age—was suffering many severe losses to the humans who at first had suffered under them. By the seventh century the humans had established strong nations in the north and south and claimed an empire stretching from coast to coast, the Midrian Empire. In the north the Tomerian Principality was founded, and the Tomerians were able to go so far as to besiege the goblin capital at that time.”
Malaoenidea interrupted him at that. “Scribe,” she asked, “we remember in our history that the humans were adept at war and unfriendly to the elves, and thus we raise a voice of concern for our cousins, the elves of Siroe, whom we know had suffered greatly at the arrival of the humans in the year two hundred thirty-eight of the Eleventh Age. Can you say what was the fate of this poor nation?”
“I am sorry to say it is no more; it perished utterly,” Stuart sighed. “The last of its people served as guide and helper to my nation when we were returning from the south, but she died in the Battle of Assassin Bay when the humans treacherously attacked our returning people. That was the year seven hundred ninety-two. Ristoria attempted to ratify a treaty with the Midrian leaders, but they were betrayed there and divided, some fleeing by land to the south and others being scattered northward on the sea. We, having fled to the south, were forced to labor there many years, until at last at the beginning of the Twelfth Age the Midrian Empire began to collapse and we could move back to our homes.”
There were murmurs among the others, and finally Ctele, Ciarthan’s wife, asked, “What, Scribe, was the name of the new elven nation formed by those splintered away from Ristoria?”
“For a few years they were heard of as the Essian Nation,” Stuart said, “though they quickly collapsed beneath the persecution of the Midrian Empire.”
“Collapsed,” replied Eathril suddenly, “but did they perish?”
Something occurred to Stuart. “It would be remarkable, but possible, for them to have done something similar to your people. The lands they lived in are rugged and there are many ruins. However, having beheld Emeria revived in a day, I might hope even to see Essia rise up again.”
“We are also interested in learning of Lossia,” Ciarthan spoke.
Stuart nodded. “Since before your time the Lossian Nation has been shrouded by the snows of the north. Whether those snows cover their homes or their tombs no one but the snow elves know. We have only the goblins’ word that they were ever conquered, and goblin history we know is in large part, propaganda.”
Cerregan sighed, “Ah, what warriors were they.”
“And hunters,” Sianna added, “and how well versed in the wisdom of guiding nature and of perceiving the ways of life.”
“And yet,” spoke Malaoenidea, “there is a balance in this world, and where one tribe has died, somewhere else another mayhaps arises.”
“But proceed,” Ciarthan instructed Stuart.
“Very well,” said Stuart. “In the third century of the Twelfth Age the dragons returned at the bidding of their old lords, the goblins. However, a group of powerful elves of the lineage of Caimbrand, led by a half-elf Tomerian huntress named Alyxia and accompanied by several famed human warriors, slew or drove away six of those nine dragons. One other was killed by one of the human kings, and the last, a rogue named Craetus, turned on the goblins, ravaging their empire, north and south, so badly that it was finally crushed completely by the humans.”
“And the dragon?” asked Piachras.
“Fled,” said Stuart, “into hibernation. Somewhere to the north. He was not found.”
“Then once again we will have failed to end the tyranny of the dragons,” Piachras mourned, “for in but a few months the dragons will begin to rise again, and a new brood shall be born.”
“That is but the beginning of our woes,” answered Stuart. “The greater part and the more strange remains ahead, and I will describe it if you wish.”
“By all means do,” Ciarthan said.
“The goblins remain as a minion now of the northern power,” Stuart said. “The Tomerian Empire, which cast the final blow against it, soon broke up under a more terrible menace I will soon describe. In the south, where the Midrian Empire had been, there was now Ristoria in the east; upon the plains north of Ristoria, the human state of Theria; in the west, on the Aris River, a collection of states known as Anthirion; and south of there, in the Turus River Valley and surrounding lands, a remnant state of Midria, the Ladrian Empire. A new race, half-men, half-goblins, was now living in the lands of the old Southern Goblin Empire: Sûrthia. Finally, the rock elves were still occupying Narrissor, but by this time they had been so mixed of goblin and human blood that they were barely elf at all, and they c
ared little for the rise and fall of any foreign nation.”
“The shame will be upon them,” Cerregan put in—not particularly helpfully.
Stuart went on. “In the sixth century of this age, as though the sorrows of one world would not suffice to fill it, there arrived in the mountains to the north a council of powerful wizards who bore a jewel they called the Stone, which held power over all of nature in its matrix. They were at first a blessing, it is said, for they could work both with their magic and with their learning great works and wonders—healing the sick, advising farmers and herders on matters of their trades, providing counsel to kings and chiefs and helping to prevent wars. Then, in the year five hundred ten, because of their meddling with the flows of life and our own ignorance in failing to warn them, a great rift in space opened up in the snowy plains of the north. No one knew of this at first, and when they did learn of it, it was too late. In the year five hundred forty-eight, a dragon—the stellar dragon—a beast as long as a city, armored with impenetrable scales, of such weight that when it roared or when it moved upon the land, its reverberations were heard across the world as earthquakes. It is said—this was spoken by the wizards’ council—that the beast lived by floating through the stars from world to world, destroying any world it chanced upon before leaving it behind a waste.”
“We indeed have record of the fury of the earth of the year you speak of,” Ctele put in, “though at that time we did not understand it.”
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