Soon after, horse and rider came out of the copse, into the cooler night, and moved away, an exhausted and coughing Pony dropping the protective shield. “Oracle,” she said again and sighed again, glancing back at the blaze.
No goblins would emerge from that catastrophe, she knew.
When she got back to her camp, she found Elbryan standing on the edge, staring at the continuing fire nearly a mile away.
“Your doing,” he stated more than asked.
“Somebody had to see to the goblins,” Pony replied, slipping down from the still-agitated black horse. “And it should interest you to know that their numbers had swelled.”
Elbryan gave her a disarming grin. “I had confidence that you could handle whatever situation arose,” he said.
“While you played at Oracle?”
The smile left the ranger’s face and he shook his head slowly.
“No play,” he said gravely. “A search that might save all the world.”
“You are being very mysterious this night,” Pony remarked.
“If you took a moment from your insults and considered the tales I told you about my time away from Dundalis, you would begin to understand.”
Pony cocked her head and regarded the man, the ranger, the elven-trained ranger.
“Juraviel?” she asked suddenly, breathlessly, referring to an elf she had once known, friend and mentor to Elbryan.
“And his kin,” Elbryan said, nodding his chin toward the west. “I believe that I have remembered the road back to Andur’Blough Inninness.”
Andur’Blough Inninness, Pony echoed in her mind. The “Forest of Cloud” wherein lay Caer’alfar, home to the Touel’alfar, the slight, winged elves of Corona. Elbryan had told her many tales of the enchanted place, but always answered her pleas to go there with a frustrated reply that he could not recall the trail, that the elves desired their privacy even from him, the one they named Nightbird, a ranger trained in their home. If he was right now, if he could indeed find the trail back to the elven home, then his words about the unimportance of a couple of goblins suddenly rang with more conviction.
“We shall set off in the morning,” Elbryan promised into her eager expression. “Before the dawn.”
“Symphony will be packed and waiting,” Pony replied, her blue eyes twinkling with excitement.
Elbryan took her hand and led her to the small tent they shared. “Have you any enchantments which will repel insects?” he asked on a whim.
Pony considered the thought for a moment. “A fireball would give us a short reprieve,” she replied.
Elbryan glanced back to the east, to the still-burning, thoroughly decimated copse, then scrunched up his face and shook his head. He’d suffer the inconvenience of a few thousand gnats.
No goblins bothered them the rest of that night, nor the next day as they exited the Moorlands through the western border. Both rode atop Symphony as soon as the ground became more firm, and Elbryan pushed the horse at a swift pace. Joined telepathically through the turquoise, the ranger understood that Symphony wanted to run hard, had been born to run hard. And so they made their swift way, setting camps for only short hours in the darkest part of the night, and, on Elbryan’s insistence, avoiding any goblins or giants or powries, or any other distraction. His purpose was singular now, while the ever-elusive trail to Andur’Blough Inninness remained clear in his thoughts, and Pony didn’t argue with the wisdom of trying to enlist the elves in their continuing struggle.
And there was an added benefit for the woman. With all the enchanting tales Elbryan had told of his days training as a ranger, she dearly wanted to see the elven forest.
She used the reprieve from battle for another purpose, as well. “Are you ready to begin your new career?” she asked one bright morning, Elbryan breaking down the camp and grumbling that they had overslept and should have been on the trail before the dawn.
The ranger cocked his head curiously.
Pony held aloft the pouch of gemstones, and gave them a definitive shake when Elbryan’s expression soured. “You have seen their power,” she protested.
“I am a warrior, and no wizard,” Elbryan replied. “And certainly no monk!”
“And I am not a warrior?” Pony asked slyly. “How many times have I put you down to the ground?”
Elbryan couldn’t suppress a chuckle at that. When they were younger, children in Dundalis before the goblins came, he and Pony had wrestled several times, with Pony always emerging the victor. And once, after being caught by the hair by Elbryan, the girl had even laid the boy out cold with a punch to the face. The memories, even of the knockout, were the brightest of all for Elbryan, for then had come the dark time, the first goblin invasion, and he and Pony had been separated for so many years, each thinking the other dead.
Now he was Nightbird, among the finest warriors in all the world, and she was a wielder of magic, a wizard trained in the use of the sacred gemstones by Avelyn Desbris, who had been perhaps the most powerful magic-wielder in all the world.
“You must learn them,” Pony insisted. “At least a bit.”
“You seem to do well with them on your own,” Elbryan replied defiantly, though he was privately a bit intrigued by the prospects of using the powerful gemstones. “Would we not be weakened as a fighting team if some of the stones were in my possession?”
“That would depend on the situation,” Pony answered. “If you get wounded, I can use the soul stone to mend your injuries, but what if I get wounded? Who will heal me? Or would you just leave me sitting against a tree to die?”
The image conjured by that thought nearly buckled Elbryan’s knees. He couldn’t believe that neither he nor Pony had thought of that possibility beforeat least not enough to do anything about it. All objections gone, he said, “We must be on the trail.” He held his hand up as Pony began her expected protest. “But with every meal and every break, I will be tutored, particularly with the soul stone,” he explained. “All our waking hours will be filled, then, with traveling and learning.”
Pony considered that for just a moment, and nodded her agreement with the concession. Then, with a sudden wistful smile, she took a step closer to Elbryan, hooked her finger in the top of his tunic and pursed her sensual lips. “Every waking moment?” she asked coyly.
Elbryan couldn’t find the breath to reply. That was what he most loved about this woman: her ability to keep him always off-balance, to surprise him and entice him with the simplest statements, with movements subtly suggestive. Every time he thought he was planted firmly in the ground, Pony found a way to make him realize that the ground was as tentative as the shifting silt of the Moorlands.
They were late for the trail, the ranger knew, and he knew, too, that they wouldn’t be going anywhere for a little while.
What struck them most was the pure majesty of the mountains there was simply no other word for it. They walked along rocky trails, with Elbryan in the lead, checking the trail and watching for tracks. Pony, walking behind, held Symphony by the bridle, though with its telepathic connection to both these humans, the horse would have followed anyway. Neither Elbryan nor Pony spoke, for the sound of voices seemed out of place here, unless those voices were raised in glorious song.
All about them great mountains reached up their white caps of snow to touch the sky. Clouds drifted by, sometimes above them, sometimes below them, and often they walked right through the gray air. The wind blew constantly, but it only dulled the sound even more, making this majestic place utterly silent, utterly serene. So they walked and they looked, and were humbled by the sheer power and glory of nature.
Elbryan knew he was on the right trail, knew he was closing in on his intended destination. This place, so powerful, so overwhelming,felt like Andur’Blough Inninness.
The trail forked, going up and to the left, down and to the right, around an outcropping of stone. Elbryan started left and motioned for Pony to move on to the right, figuring the paths would cross again soon enough. He was still climbing, and still veering left, when he heard Pony cry out. Down he sprinted, cutting over the rough ground between the paths, leaping atop any boulders in his path and springing away, as surefooted as any mountain cat. How often Nightbird had run along such terrain during his years of training with the Touel’alfar!
He slowed his pace when he spotted Pony standing calmly with Symphony by her side. When he got up beside her and followed her gaze over the lip of a steep descent, he understood.
There was a valley below them, obviously, but it was hidden from view by a wall of thick fog, an unbroken blanket of gray.
“It cannot be natural,” Pony reasoned. “No cloud as I have ever seen.”
“Andur’Blough Inninness,” Elbryan replied breathlessly, and when he finished his statement, the corners of his mouth rose in a wide smile.
“The Forest of Cloud,” Pony added, the common translation of the elven words.
“There is a cloud above it all the day, every day” Elbryan started to explain.
“Not a cheery place,” the woman interrupted.
Elbryan gave her a sidelong glance. “But it is,” he replied. “When you want it to be.”
Now it was Pony’s turn to regard her companion curiously.
“I cannot even begin to explain it,” Elbryan stammered. “It seems so gray from up here, but it’s not like that underneath, not at all. The blanket is illusionary, and yet it is not.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Elbryan gave a great sigh and searched for a different approach. “It is gray down there, and melancholy, beautifully so,” he said. “But only if you want it to be. For those who prefer a day in the sun, there is plenty to be found.”
“The gray blanket looks solid,” Pony remarked doubtfully.
“Appearances are often far from the truth where the Touel’alfar are concerned.”
Pony couldn’t miss the reverence with which Elbryan spoke of the elves, and having met a couple of them, she could understand his respectthough she wasn’t so enamored of them, and in truth found them to be a bit arrogant and callous. Still, looking at Elbryan now, she noticed that he was beaming, as obviously delighted and charmed as she had ever seen him.
And the source of that charm, she knew, was right below them. She stopped her arguing then, taking the ranger at his word.
“It was not until this very moment that I realized how much I miss my days in Caer’alfar,” Elbryan said quietly. “Or how much I miss Belli’mar Juraviel, and even Tuntun, who made my life quite difficult in those years.”
Pony nodded grimly at the mention of Tuntun, the gallant elf maiden who had given her life in Aida saving Elbryan and her from one of the demon dactyl’s monstrous creations, the spirit of a man encased in magma.
Elbryan chuckled, stealing the somber mood.
“What is it?” Pony prompted.
“The milk stones,” the ranger replied.
Pony looked at him curiously; he had told her quite a bit about his days with the elves, but had only mentioned the milk stones in passing. Day after day, week after week, month after month, young Elbryan had spent his mornings with the stones. They were sponge-like, though harder and more solid. Each day they would be placed in a bog, where they would soak up the liquid. It was Elbryan’s job to fish them out and carry them to a trough, where he would squeeze the now-flavored water out of them, a concoction that the elves used to create a sweet and potent wine.
“The warmth of my meal would depend on how fast I could get those stones milked,” Elbryan went on. “I would gather a basket and run to the trough, then return again and again until I had collected my quota. Meanwhile, the elves would set out my meal, piping hot.”
“But you were not fast enough and had to eat it cold,” Pony teased.
“At first,” Elbryan admitted in all seriousness. “But soon enough I could complete my task fast enough to burn my tongue.”
“And so you ate many a hot meal.”
Elbryan shook his head and smiled wistfully. “No,” he replied. “For Tuntun was always there, setting traps, slowing me down. Sometimes I was the trickier, and got the meal hot. Many times I wound up sitting in the brush, my feet entangled by invisible elven cords, and often right in view of the meal, watching the steam go off the soup.” Elbryan could talk about it wistfully now, could remember with the wisdom of hindsight, with the knowledge of the great value of the often brutal lessons that the Touel’alfar had taught him. How strong his arms had become from squeezing those stones! And how resilient his spirit had become from dealing with Tuntun. He could laugh about it now, but the treatment had brought him near to blows with the elf many times, and had actually put him in a very real fight with her oncea fight that he lost badly. Despite the rough treatment, the humiliation and the pain, Elbryan had come to realize that Tuntun, in her heart, had only his best interests in mind. She was not his mother, not his sibling, and, at that time, not even his friend. She was his instructor, and her methods, however punishing, had been undeniably effective. Elbryan had come to love the elf maiden.
And now all that he had of Tuntun were his memories.
“Blood of Mather,” he said with a sneer.
“What?”
“That’s what she always used to call me,” Elbryan explained. “And, at first, she always edged it with heavy sarcasm. Blood of Mather.”
“But you soon proved to her that it was a true enough title,” came a melodious voice from within the shroud of fog, and not so far below the pair.
Elbryan knew that voice; so did Pony. “Belli’mar!” they called together.
Belli’mar Juraviel answered that call, emerging from the fog blanket, his gossamer wings beating to help him navigate the steep angle of the mountainous slope. The sheer beauty of the elf, his golden hair, his golden eyes, his angular features and lithe form, gave both humans pause and added to the already majestic aura of this place. Elbryan and Pony could almost hear music with every one of Juraviel’s short, hopping steps, with every beat of his nearly translucent wings. His movements were a dance of harmony, of perfect balance, a compliment to Nature itself.