Ephemeral Boundary (T'Quel Magic 1)

by Candy Rae

  “I am, I meant later, like this. I’d like to hear you talking more about my mother.”

  “I would like that. I will tell you about the lodge we used to go to up in the forest, in the summer,” he agreed with a sad smile, “and Aranel?”

  “Yes?”

  “Remember, not a word about what we talk about here to anyone.”

  “I understand,” she said as she closed the door behind her.

  I’d better get to sleep, she was thinking as she prepared for bed. She knew that Rohir, her father’s chief hunts-elf, would be sending someone to wake her at dawn. Rohir especially liked the early mornings, the earlier the better.

  Despite this intention however, she found it difficult to empty her mind. She had an older sister! She couldn’t help wondering what she was like and where she was.

  * * * * *

  The next morning Aranel and Rohir were stalking a ghrandhir buck when he suddenly stopped in his tracks – so fast that she almost ran into him.

  He stilled her incipient comment with his free arm.

  “Listen,” he whispered.

  “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Precisely. Listen again, properly this time.”

  Aranel looked around.

  “Silence,” she said at last, “absolutely nothing.”

  She turned a worried face to Rohir.

  “What’s happened?” she mouthed.

  The hunts-elf shrugged his shoulders. The worry on his face mirrored that on Aranel’s.

  There was a sense of menace in the air and Aranel shivered. Rohir did not shiver but Aranel could see that he was tense.

  He sniffed at the air.

  “Burning,” he announced, “some distance away.”

  “Where?” mouthed back Aranel.

  Looking grim, Rohir pointed in the direction of Lord Arovan’s castle, at Tanquelameir.

  Aranel went white and made to turn back towards the hunting path they had come from. At that moment, she fully intended to run as fast as she could back to the castle and Rohir knew this. It was, after all, what he wanted to do too, but he was wise; it would be foolhardy to jump into they knew not what. He stopped her with a strong arm, grabbing hold of her tunic and shaking his head with resolute determination.

  “Let me go!’ screamed Aranel.

  “No!” he shouted back and held on even more tightly to her. Aranel thought her ribs might crack. She felt her feet being lifted off the ground and her legs flailed in the air.

  He held her until he felt her body relax then released her back on to the ground.

  “We must wait,” he told her in a low voice, “wait and see.”

  “But we have to go back to the castle and help,” Aranel protested, pointing. “Look! I can see the smoke spiralling! Tanquelameir is on fire!”

  “I think it is more than that,” growled Rohir who had an innate, though minor magical talent of sensing rightness and wrongness. Most hunts-elves did. His talent wasn’t nearly strong enough for him to be a Wielder but it had got him out of some tight scrapes during his long life and he had learnt to pay heed to what it told him. “This isn’t right,” he continued. “It is more than a fire.” His senses were telling him that to blindly run in the direction of the castle would mean death to them both.

  “What do we do?” she asked in an anguished voice. “What is happening to my father? To my friends? To my sisters?”

  Aranel wasn’t that fond of her stepmother but she loved the two little, blond-haired bundles of mischief that were her stepsisters.

  “I know somewhere we can hide,” said Rohir and half-dragged Aranel through the forest growth, back towards the castle but at a tangent that would lead them to an area some three miles north-east of it.

  Aranel allowed herself to be dragged along.

  They reached Rohir’s target spot at last. The forest was still as silent as a gravesite in winter and as they got nearer to the castle, the acrid smell of smoke grew.

  Rohir half-pushed Aranel towards a thick, prickly hollywais tree.

  “It’s a canopy. We’ll be able to hide under the thick branches in the centre,” he told her. “Go.”

  She dropped to her knees and crawled under the low hanging branches, gathering a few pricks and burrs in the process.

  Rohir followed her in, carefully re-arranging the leaves and branches as he went.

  “So?”

  “We wait,” he told her.

  “Here? But there’s nothing here!”

  “Wait,” he reiterated.

  They waited for what seemed to Aranel a lifetime worried as she was about what dire deeds were happening.

  Rohir appeared quite unconcerned but Aranel knew he would be as agitatedly worried as she.

  But he doesn’t have a family back there, Aranel was thinking crossly.

  My duty is to Lady Aranel, make sure she is safe, he was thinking. It is what My Lord Arovan would wish me to do.

  At last Rohir tensed and beckoning Aranel to follow, began to crawl out of the hollywais canopy.

  “What is it?” she whispered.

  “Shhh, I’m trying to listen.”

  Aranel strained her ears to hear what it was but try as she might, she could hear nothing.

  “Someone’s coming,” whispered Rohir, kneeling down as he prepared his bow. Aranel followed suit.

  “From where?” she asked.

  “From the tunnel,” he answered, pointing. “Look! Where the dark bushes are.”

  Aranel looked to where he was pointing and to her surprise, if she screwed up her eyes and concentrated hard, she could make out what appeared to be an opening. There was a different hue to the leaves; they were blurred. Some kind of magic, she decided, to make passers-by not notice it.

  She could hear sounds now, scuffling noises, and the occasional curse, as if some elf was finding the tunnel difficult going. She concentrated hard on the tunnel entrance, arrow notched and ready to fly.

  Then, staggering out of the tunnel came three elves, two carrying another, who was bloodstained and inert. The one being carried appeared to be either dead or unconscious.

  As they emerged, Aranel’s blood ran cold. The one being carried was her father, Lord Arovan. After an initial start of surprise the two elves carrying their lord recognised Aranel and Rohir.

  She rushed to her father’s side.

  The two members of Lord Arovan’s Karl, his cadre of warrior retainers, and Rohir carried him to the covered area under the hollywais tree so they would all be hidden from above. From the sky they heard the raucous cries of gryphwens. Aranel glanced at Rohir.

  “Gryphwens,” she mouthed. “Here?”

  The old hunter shrugged, shook his head and then bent down to assess her father’s injuries.

  “He is alive,” he pronounced, examining him as Aranel watched anxiously, biting her lips with nervous expectation, “if only just. Aranel, get my pack. I’ve got bandages in it.”

  “There was no warning,” said the taller of the two elves that had helped Aranel’s father escape. His name was Quisil and Aranel had known him since she was little. The smaller of the two was called Fideln. “The attack came not long after you both left for the hunt. The burning came later,” he added this last in a bitter, tearful voice. “We were taken by surprise, completely. There were no Magic Wielders at the castle to set up wards. The killers and despoilers came in too fast, too fast even for the long-eyed guards in the upper tower and on the battlements.”

  “The gryphwens were being ridden,” added Fideln, helping to tie a bandage tightly to the wound on Lord Arovan’s arm. “Black clothes and hoods covering their faces. No allegiance emblems. I’d hazard bandits or renegades but I’ve never heard of the gryphwens allying themselves with such elves, and in such numbers.”

  “What were they after?” asked Rohir, busy cleaning a deep gash in Lord Arovan’s side.

  The smaller elf shook his head.

  “I have no idea. All they seemed to want to do was kill. Lo
rd Arovan was wounded trying to rescue Lady Afnan and the children; they were in the family apartments. There were fires in the village too. The screams were terrible.” He shuddered and his face clouded over as he remembered.

  “My stepsisters?” faltered Aranel.

  He couldn’t meet her eyes. “Lord Arovan tried, he really did. He reached the outer doorway to the main apartments but the building was on fire. The rafters were falling in and he was wounded. I know some of the unicorns got away, and the non-horned mare. I saw the unicorns lead her out but I think the gryphwens were diving at them from above. I don’t know if any escaped into the forest. Your father was desperate. He was like an elf possessed. I myself saw him killing two of the dark riders but he couldn’t get up the stairs. It was like the very stone was melting, and the heat, it was terrible, beyond any imagining.”

  “Are you sure no elf got away?” asked Rohir.

  I doubt more than a few if any and that may just be my wishful thinking. I knew about the secret passage that leads from the side cellar. We picked up your father, who had collapsed, and went down the steps. Lord Arovan managed to tell us how to open the passage door. I flipped the lever and uttered the words and it creaked open. We hurried inside and the door shut after us, all by itself.”

  “Old magic,” agreed the taller elf, Quisil.

  “Do the attackers know you managed to get away?” asked Aranel.

  “Don’t know,” Quisil answered. “There was so much smoke and all. The village was afire. As we struggled along the underground passageway we could hear the crackling and feel the heat from above.”

  “I’m sure they were killing every animal and elf alive, why I do not know,” added the smaller of the two.

  “They mean no elf to be left alive to tell the tale,” said Aranel, “and if they believe even one has escaped, they will hunt them down until they are dead. We must leave. They might know of the passage.”

  “There is a cave where we should be safe from pursuit,” said Rohir, “but it is a considerable distance away. We won’t reach it before nightfall.”

  “Then what will we do?” asked Aranel in a panic. “Father needs somewhere warm and safe.”

  “We all need somewhere warm and safe,” said Rohir in a dry voice. He turned suddenly, one hand on his bow and drew an arrow from its quiver. He hunched his body down behind a bush. Aranel and the two Karl-elves found similar concealment under the thickest branches. They waited, all senses alert.

  Behind them Lord Arovan lay unconscious, his breathing short and sharp.

  * * * * *

  There were some prolonged rustles from the undergrowth and four unicorns appeared as if out of thin air.

  Rohir and Aranel un-notched their arrows and the other two elves relaxed, sheathing their swords.

  All four of the unicorns appeared to be nervous and the largest, the male, had blood on his horn. Rohir saw it and approached him to see if he or any of the unicorn mares accompanying him were injured. He rightly assumed that they had escaped from their living quarters at the castle.

  However, Aranel’s attention was focused on the unicorn mare at the rear of the four-hooved quartet. It was Urieline, an old friend from her younger days and one who was devoted to her youngest stepsister, Chlaricvia.

  “Are you all right little one?” she asked and Urieline answered. “I am not hurt. We came as fast as we could but it was difficult. We had to come the long way, through the deep gorge. The skies above are full of gryphwens.”

  The unicorn male was telling the others the same story.

  The unicorns spoke in a mixture of sounds, neighs, harrumphs and high-pitched squeals, but Aranel and the two karl-elves, being of higher birth than those who tilled the fields, mined the ores, and served their lords and ladies, wore torcs round their necks of ancient elfish make, which enabled them to understand. Quisil translated what the unicorns were saying to the torc-less Rohir.

  “We should go now, while we still have the chance,” opined Urien, the large, black male unicorn.

  “My Lord Arovan is wounded,” said Rohir. “I doubt he can ride.”

  “We shall manage if we take it slow, but we have to go. This area is too near to the castle and too exposed.”

  “We should wait until dusk,” advised Rohir. “The gryphwens do not see as well at night.” The gryphwens were not as eagle-eyed as their distant cousins the gryphons.

  So it was agreed. As dusk fell, and very quietly, they prepared to depart. Aranel rode Urien, the big male unicorn and, because she was the lightest, her father was belted tight to her, round her waist. There was another reason. Urien was bigger and faster and the other three unicorns were resolved that if they were seen, Urien would have the best chance of outrunning their enemies.

  “We make for the cave,” ordered the grim Rohir. “It is a place of concealment and few know of it.”

  They rode, reaching the cave before dawn’s first light. Their journey had been slow yet steady, the unicorns picking their way with care through the trees, being very careful to keep out of sight from above.

  “Thank you,” said Aranel to the unicorns and bowed with respect. Unicorns were not tame animals; they didn’t belong to the elves. The unicorns lived and worked with elves because they chose to, not because they had to. Not all of them did. Most lived with each other in the depths of the abundant forest trees and had very little interaction with elves.

  Urien bowed in his turn and the others nodded.

  “We shall return in seven sunsets time,” he pronounced. “Lord Arovan should, by then, have recovered sufficiently to ride. We shall take you where you need to go. Until then, we hide under the trees.” With a flick of his tail, he proceeded to lead his small group away. Urieline whinnied once as she bounded round on her rear legs and followed him.

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER 9

  ‘The journey is the thing.’

  (Homer (BC c.850))

  ARANEL’S JOURNEY

  The five elves spent the next five days and nights in the cave, out of sight of those who were undoubtedly hunting for them. Aranel’s father developed a fever as a result of his wounds and, with the limited medical supplies available, the other four despaired for his life. He was delirious most of the time and rambled on about Aranel’s dead mother, her two little stepsisters and her stepmother. He also kept muttering about his inability to save them.

  Eventually Rohir ventured out and procured some sweetmoss, famed for its medicinal properties against fever and infection and once that was applied to Lord Arovan’s many wounds, his fever started to abate and the plentiful signs of infection to disappear.

  As their Lord recovered, with Aranel in almost constant attendance, the other three discussed (over and over again) the events that had transpired and what they were going to do next. It was abundantly clear that they couldn’t stay in the cave for much longer. They were running out of food and other necessities, although water wasn’t a problem because a small underground stream had its egress at the back of the cave.

  “They can’t find us here,” argued Quisil.

  “We need to leave as soon as Lord Arovan is ready to ride,” insisted Rohir. “The unicorns will be returning in two days and we must be ready. Luckily most of the unicorns at the castle managed to escape into the trees, and with them, I believe, is one of the young stable workers, at least that’s what Urieline said as we journeyed here. The only one, apart from you three, to have escaped.”

  “That we know of,” said the taller elf.

  “There may yet be more who survived the massacre,” agreed Rohir, “but we have to assume that no others have survived. We must report what has happened to King Huor. He will already know that the castle has been attacked and destroyed, but he will not know that Lord Arovan has survived and he will need a full account.”

  “Prince Amras must be informed too,” added the smaller elf. “He will be at Nossequel, Aranel says.”

  “The unicorns will send word to him,” R
ohir answered, “but they will not wish to venture into the flatlands so it is our duty to report to the king all that we know of the attack.”

  “Have the gryphwens and the hooded elves gone?” asked Aranel, leaving her sleeping father and squatting down beside them.

  “I do not know,” said Rohir, “so we must be cautious still. We leave when the unicorns return.”

  He handed Aranel a sparse looking meal made from nuts and berries, gathered from the area close to the cave.

  “It is not much,” he said to her, “but it is all there is. I daren’t go hunting further out until we can be sure that the gryphwens are no longer searching for escapees from the massacre. The unicorns will know where the gryphwens fly.”

  Aranel winced. She didn’t like thinking about the fact that her small stepsisters had been amongst those massacred. Although there was little love lost between her and her stepmother, the same was not the case between her and the two little ones.

  Aranel had just finished her meal (wishing that her bowl had been a lot fuller) when a sound came from the back of the cave.

  From his pallet, Lord Arovan had awoken from his dream-filled sleep.

  “Aranel!” he called out, his voice rasping through lack of use. “Take my ring. Magic. Old Magic. Secrets. Ring will help. Your sisters. Nosta. The Tathar. Bring them together.” The words were interspersed with many wheezes, stops and starts.

  “Father!” Aranel rushed to his side and knelt down.

  “Your ring?” she queried, not understanding and gazing at his right hand where the familiar round-stoned sapphire ring sat on his little finger. “I cannot.”

  Lord Arovan’s eyes, bright with fever, were fixed upon her face.

  “You must.” His voice shook with the intensity of his insistence. “Remember our talk.”

  He lifted his shaking hand to her face, and rubbed her cheek with his finger.

  “Take the ring,” he commanded. “I give it to you. Remember what I said last night at Tanquelameir. Go now. Leave me. Hidden behind panel. Message. Ring is the key.”

  His face broke out in a sweat and his eyes began to glaze over. His words had begun to grow more and more indistinct and Aranel was struggling to catch what he said. Lord Arovan’s head began to move from side to side as if he was trying to force his weakening body to say the words.