Stuart nodded and continued. “This beast flew through the Rift and fell upon the nations. Tomeria was disintegrated; the plains of the south were ravaged—but with the help of Caedus, an elf mage of Caimbrand’s house, and his son, Caiath, the wizards’ council quickly tracked down the stellar dragon and cast it into a deep illusion using the Stone, which since then has caused it to lay dormant in the snowy northern plains.”
“And yet it lives!” Piachras exclaimed.
“Not even the wizards had the power to kill it,” Stuart replied. “In its dormant state, believing it is floating through the stars, it has not one single vulnerability, but is like an impenetrable mountain of iron.”
“And if it were to breed...,” murmured Eathril, censoring himself.
“Fortunately,” Stuart said, “it cannot be revived except by the wizards’ jewel, the Stone, and that was shattered in the year six hundred thirty-eight when the council was dissolved.”
“Wait, wait; you go too fast,” Ciarthan said. “How did the council...the wizards...dissolve?”
“Pride and ambition devoured them from within,” Stuart scowled. “But I must first tell you of the wizards themselves. Five came originally: Allisarion and Andaria, a husband and wife; Kirion and Morin I, to whom was attributed cooperatively the development of the Stone—that is, their magical jewel—and finally Metaea, their scribe. From the beginning there was always a rivalry between Kirion and Morin, which would have disintegrated the group earlier had either been allowed to lead. Therefore Andaria was the leader. The wizards took a few apprentices whom they thought likely to learn their ways, and for the most part, they did. After Caedus and his son Caiath helped the wizards hunt down the stellar dragon, for instance, Kirion took Caiath’s son, Pollis, as an apprentice, and this boy is said to have shown great potential. At the same time, Morin took an apprentice named Thaurim, a depraved but cunning wretch whom I mention mainly because he is still alive and serving Morin’s son....”
“Alive!” exclaimed Eathril. He paused to compute. “But he would have to be almost three hundred years old!”
“Almost four hundred,” Stuart answered. “That is one example of the Stone’s power, which I must yet describe. I told you that the Stone was shattered; its magic did not drain out of it at that, but rather was divided and weakened. Morin seized two shards, Solaris and Zoris, which control the spirits of fire and of animals, and with them he formed deadly shadowserpents with which he attacked Kirion and all the other remaining wizards who opposed him. Kirion knew he could not face the augmented power of his foes for long, but he managed to hold them off long enough for the rest of the shards of the Stone to be captured by his colleagues and carried away into hiding. One of these, Aeris, which controls the spirit of the air, was recaptured by Morin’s servant, Thaurim. Its power is such that Morin is now able to summon weather itself: storms, winds, fogs, all to his evil ends. The other shards were Hydris, which controls water; Floris, which controls plant life; Terris, which controls the earth; and Couris, which controls the heart and mind.”
“Are we to understand that Morin also still lives?” Ciarthan put in.
“That would be little miracle,” Stuart said, “but no: he was slain by Kirion’s son, Travvis I at the Battle of Sandria in six hundred sixty. That battle ended the first war of conquest fought by Morin I to reunite the shards of the Stone, though it cost Travvis his life. It is his son, Morin II, who now rules the north and is once more trying to capture the shards.”
“’Is once more trying?’” Ctele repeated.
“Before I was chased into your land I was trying to broker a peace agreement between the Anthirian nations. Word reached me there that Morin had overthrown the government of the isle of the Raging Westward Sea, where the rumors say the shard Hydris was taken. A small party escaped the island, including a boy who speaks the wizards’ language and appears to have possession of the shard of water. But before the peace settlement could be ratified, Anthirion was attacked suddenly by Morin’s minions, led by his grand general, Krythar, with his army of drakes and rifters—rifters are those peoples who have come to our world through the Rift in the same way as the stellar dragon did once. Anthirion was leveled and its armies annihilated. I was myself chased south by a small detachment of Krythar’s drake army, a squad, while I was trying to track the wizard boy south from the refugee camps outside of Anthirion City.”
Eathril asked, “What, then, remains of the military situation in the north?”
Stuart sighed and replied, “Only Therion and Ristoria remain now to stay him from utter domination. Or rather, I hope they yet remain; but they have too few armies to oppose him in his force.”
“What do you expect?” Sianna asked.
“I expect the drake army will decimate Therion, and that Ristoria will follow soon,” Stuart replied.
“Bitter scourge,” spat Piachras temperedly.
“And what of the shards?” Sianna asked.
“They are hidden; no one knows where. It is said that Floris had been taken into the territories of Ladria before Morin destroyed that country in the First Stone War that ended in his death. After that, the land was transformed into dense jungle....”
“In heaven’s name!” Ciarthan exclaimed.
“...and the shard was lost. But it was near there that I ran into Krythar’s drakes while looking for the boy, and I fear they were on its trail.”
“Now you are going too fast again,” Cerregan said. “My head is spinning.”
“This boy, named Alik, was a survivor of Morin’s attack on the island I told you about. From the description I have of him from his mentor I understand that this boy is the bearer of the water shard, Hydris; and moreover is a powerful wizard himself even as a boy, possibly even an indirect heir of Kirion himself, the most powerful wizard of all.”
“Was Kirion the most powerful of all?” the minstrel Malaoenidea asked.
“It is said that the heir of the greatest of the wizards will be the one to one day reunite the shards and restore the Stone,” Stuart replied. “You have seen the power those shards possess from what examples I have shown. If Morin reunites the shards, all the world is lost.”
“And the boy?” asked Ciarthan.
“I nearly had caught up to him before I was attacked,” said Stuart. “He could not have been more than a hundred feet from me.”
“Then he may already be in the hands of the drake general,” Cerregan said. “By now your evil wizard may have possession of five shards. Or at least, he might have possession of them sooner than we could reach him by as long marches as we might make.”
“How long is that?” asked Stuart.
“By horseback we might make a hundred miles a day,” Cerregan estimated.
“But this is all speculation, and assumes we might consider intervening,” Eathril interrupted. “That is impossible. Our forefathers sequestered Emeria from the rest of the world to preserve it in the face of the menace of the dragons and goblins—because they felt it was the only way to keep the peace. The menace has changed perhaps but their rationale remains the same.”
“Not so fast, Eathril, son,” Ciarthan said. “We will judge this case upon its own merits, which we have yet to determine.
“The case is simple enough,” Sianna declared. “If there is no intervention the course of history and the fate of every elf nation will be certain to plummet into direst destruction.”
“Your point is noted, Sianna,” Ctele said, “but if any intervention really is called for, we must balance carefully what means may best preserve the interests of our people while still being effective aid. We must not blunder into even the most noble-hearted cause. I for my part would like to hear from the scribe what courses of action, whether military or otherwise, would prove effective in his educated opinion. And I would also like to hear from him his opinion of what will happen if the wizard Morin II accomplishes his goal. Take your time in answering, Sir.”
Stuart paused thoughtfully
, but not long. “This, then, is what will happen: first, assuming Morin has not yet captured the boy, he will do so, kill him, and take the shard. Once he has four shards, he will have enough of the Stone to locate the other shards, one by one, and he will send his drake army to devastate any populace that might be in the way. In the meantime he will hold back the rest of his armies to guard his lands, and especially the fortresses of Krytharion City and Labrion Plateau, where he keeps the three shards he already has. Ristoria and Therion will mount some sort of attack in retaliation to what has already occurred, and if I know the Therians aright, this will focus on Labrion Plateau, Thaurim’s seat, where the shard Zoris is kept. Such an attack is bound to fail disastrously, at which an invasion of the south is inevitable and will require either that Therion and Ristoria immediately surrender to slavery and destruction, or that they go into hiding. They will do the latter, and their warriors, or what is left of them, will join Taravon, the Guardian Prince, at his hidden haven and wait for the final blow to come. In the meantime, Morin will reunite the Stone, use it to hunt out any vestiges of rebellion, and with the power of the Stone will reawaken the stellar dragon to extinguish these. Taravon’s Haven will then be annihilated. Emeria will follow, then Essia and Lossia next, if they in fact exist. Then every other race and people of this world will follow suit. Then Morin will move on to another world, using the stellar dragon as his vehicle to jump from planet to planet until all life and existence are bent under his will. At the same time he will maintain an undying and absolute control over all that remains in this world, body and mind. For anyone left alive then, it will be too late even for suicide.”
He added, “There is one possible alternative, depending solely on Morin’s inclination. That is that, instead of seeking out absolute control over all souls everywhere, he will, once secured from any possible resistance, seek out absolute control over the nature of the world itself, using the shards to unite the energy of all things under and within himself, making himself into a kind of god. What is possible here is only speculation, and in the end it amounts to much the same as the first scenario. There are some who say that this effort would collapse the fabric of the world. Others say it would not collapse it, but transform it, likely wiping out all life in the process including Morin’s, after which it matters little what would devolve.”
No one responded. Stuart continued, “You also asked what courses of action might prevent this. I do not know, of course, that any can, but here is my advice. Send military aid to the attack against Labrion. If it is captured, so will one shard of the Stone. Send assassins to infiltrate Labrion Plateau and Krytharion City. They may help capture the shards and will at least cause confusion. Send your best scouts out to find the boy and all the missing shards. If we capture a few, and save that boy, he may be able to wield them against Morin and even to defeat him. If he cannot, then our only hope is to dispose of whatever shards we can capture permanently—which means sending them into the Rift and trusting them to fortune for perpetuity.”
Several of the Emerian counselors hung their heads in silence at Stuart’s sentences. Finally Ciarthan spoke. “Counsel is made of knowledge, and knowledge comes from inquisition. I would my counselors would openly ask whatever other knowledge they might need to form a counsel.”
The counselors looked from one to another. Then at last Eathril spoke up. “Scribe,” he said, “if it is granted that all this is possible, and that the fate of our nation must be decided one way or the other on its telling, you will not object to be proven by the fire, that your words are trustworthy?”
“I am unfamiliar with this custom,” Stuart replied, “but if it is not fatal to an honest elf, I am willing to undergo it.”
Sianna rose and unexpectedly turned on Stuart with a wicked smile. “The fire they will light upon the coals of the Mirror of Emeria, where the ashes mark the flow of waves and corsairs of the sky. You will be bound and stripped of all your ornaments, and then you will be led upon the flames. Then all will know, as the fire touches your veins, whether you be of an iron mettle, that sticks fast to the iron truth, or mixed of dung ‘pon which the beetles crawl and wood which grows and rots and ‘s gnawed by lice, that though be it the sternest spire ‘pon the ‘ill that waves its shaggy mane of feathers, yet in its decay ‘tis marrowed to a stump!”
“By heaven!” Stuart declared, standing abruptly in confusion.
“Nether your waywards now, fair night-beetle!” exclaimed Sianna, twisting about and wringing her hands nimbly in the air. “Helios and Luna in the gyre spin, in, in! The coals, they cut you? Oh, do the tongues slither through your veins, licking out what is dead, what is decay, what is the world of clay?” She laid her hands on Stuart’s shoulders and looked him straight in the eye. “The fire burns me, and I feel the fire. What the fire feels, I feel; what the fire sees, I see: behold!” She threw herself away from him in a flourish and spun to face Ciarthan, who remained seated with his laurel staff across his lap. “I see Ciarthan leading his valiant warriors through a haze, into the fire. Like wooden vessels we all burst in flames one by one, until the tinder of Emeria is fully consumed. Down they come, an avalanche of embers, to their death. My fellow counselors, are we to stand by idly as this chief leads all our people to the death? He and this foreigner are madmen, in league to wreck our glorious nation. My counsel is this: overthrow him now, and we will build boats and sail to sea, leaving this foreigner and all his deadly demons to himself!”
“This is madness,” declared Stuart. “I tell you the truth: you may flee over the seas, but no amount of waves will protect you when nature itself is fallen into your true enemy’s hands. The very waves will drown you, and if you should land, the very stones will swallow you up.”
“Be seated, Sianna,” spoke up Ciarthan. “It is our duty, long-neglected, to aid our fellow nations.”
“Enough nonsense have I heard, at least,” Cerregan suddenly said, rising. “I am with Sianna in this.”
“As am I,” seconded Eathril. “Let us slay Ciarthan now!”
“Anything for Emeria,” said Piachras. “Malaoenidea?”
To Stuart’s surprise, even the seemingly harmless minstreless drew a dagger from the folds of her many-colored dress, saying, “So let the salvific deed be sung.”
Sianna marched up to Ciarthan and Ctele, who were both still seated.
“You had better give up your scheming now, Sianna—and all the rest of you,” Ciarthan declared, sliding a knife out onto his lap. “I am in the right, though it may mean the destruction of us all.”
Sianna gave an ungraceful snort and drew one of her two swords. “Ctele?” she asked.
“I am his wife,” Ctele said. “I’m bound not to hurt him, even if he be my death.”
“Then move aside,” said Sianna, “and you others, come join me, that it may be said that by everyone’s strokes equally he met his death.”
The traitorous counselors closed around Ciarthan, and for a moment Stuart was forgotten. He eyed his sword hanging freely at his side and touched it with his fingers. The whole situation seemed unreal: all around the hall there were still spectators watching; even the lieutenants of Sianna and of Eathril remained seated, watching with intense interest. The counselors drew about Ciarthan: Sianna with her slender, silvery sword; Eathril with his curved war ax, Cerregan wielding a knife but with a sheath of arrows and a bow waiting beside; Piachras with his long, double-bladed falchion; and Malaoenidea with her own knife. He sized up the odds: five against one. Four. Three.
He moved quickly, drawing his sword and leaping at the circle of conspirators, hoping to catch Sianna and perhaps one other—Cerregan was the nearest—unawares. Sianna, however, saw him coming and hopped lightly out of the way, backhanding him as she did so with the flat of her blade. Cerregan moved more cumbrously and met Stuart head-on, body against body. Their blades passed, both missing, and Stuart brought his free hand down on the horseman’s knife-arm. They separated as quickly as they’d come together, Cerr
egan staggering back with his knife falling to the floor, Stuart wielding his sword in warning against the rest and facing them defiantly.
“We’ll not hesitate to kill you also if you continue your interfering,” Sianna said frankly, palming her sword. “Ceolle, Dain, join me!”
“Leave off now, Scribe,” Eathril added. “We have no quarrel with your honorable nation, should it not beset us. My followers: Kiuthan, Eathan, Trean, Plank—come! Bring a net and your swords and shields!”
“Your own traps shall trap you,” Stuart replied. “Should you succeed, it will be your death.”
“Enough!” cried Sianna. Like a dancer she somersaulted toward Stuart, her blade whirling dazzlingly toward him. He hefted his own blade into it, and at the impact both elves reverberated backward. Sianna recovered and showered him with a rain of blows so fast he could do nothing but barely block them. His eyes caught the glint of a hilt protruding from her belt, her second sword, but could do nothing. She lashed out into his legs with her foot and he stumbled, blocking two more blows of her sword as he fell and rolling free toward Ciarthan. None of the others were attacking. He caught a glimpse of Eathril’s followers bringing up their net. If only he had a net himself, he thought briefly...and then Sianna reached him again and he could only manage to deflect her attack. The net nearing...he threw himself at Sianna and she backed out of reach, battering him with more blows. He followed her, calculating he was safer even against her than against the net.
Quickly Sianna somersaulted away from him, however, and Eathril himself—not with his followers—charged with the net. Stuart dodged backwards, guarding Ciarthan still. The net was weighted at the ends by iron shots but Eathril flung it dextrously and hauled it back in with evident grace. As he was pulling it back in Stuart made his attack and managed to seize several of the iron weights. Eathril jerked the net around, carrying Stuart off his feet. Stuart lashed back vigorously and Eathril was forced either to fall or abandon the net. He fell, and Sianna came to his aid. Stuart could not deflect her attack with one hand and rolled onto the net to hold it down. Eathril drew his ax and struck for Stuart’s shoulders as Sianna struck for his body. He rolled away to the far point of the net and took the weight there, swung the net free from Eathril, and tangled Sianna’s legs, knocking her down. Finding his opportunity, he ran for her. She kicked out with her legs twined and met his sword with hers. By shear weight he deflected its point and fell on her. She smiled at him alluringly. His hand went for her spare sword and threw it wildly away from him. She wrenched her second hand free of his body and caught hold of his sword hand, pinching the nerve there so that his hand jerked open involuntarily, dropping his sword.
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