“My friends,” the elf greeted them warmly, though there was also an edge to his voice that rang unfamiliar to Elbryan. Juraviel had started with them on the quest to Aida, as the sole representative of the elven race, but sacrificed his place in the journey to serve as a guide for a band of haggard refugees.
Elbryan walked over and clasped hands with the elf, but the ranger’s smile did not hold. He would have to tell Juraviel of the fate of his friend, for the elves had not known that Tuntun was following the band. The ranger glanced back to his companion, his expression revealing his distress to Pony.
“You know that the demon dactyl has been defeated?” Pony asked, to get things moving.
Juraviel nodded. “Though the world remains a dangerous place,” he answered. “The dactyl has been thrown down, but the fiend’s legacy lives on, in the form of a monstrous army rampaging through the civilized lands of your human kin.”
“Perhaps we should talk about these dark matters down in the valley,” Elbryan put in. “Hope is ever-present under the fair boughs of Caer’alfar.” He started moving down the slope, but Juraviel put out a hand to stop him, and the elf’s suddenly grim expression showed that there was no possibility of debate on this subject.
“We will speak here,” the elf said quietly.
Elbryan stood straight and studied his friend for a long moment, trying to decipher the emotions behind the unexpected declaration. He saw pain there, and a bit of anger, but not much else. Like all the elves, Juraviel’s eyes possessed that strange and paradoxical combination of innocence and wisdom, of youth and great age. Elbryan would learn nothing more until Juraviel offered it openly.
“We have killed many goblins and powries, even giants, on our passage back to the south,” the ranger remarked. “Yet it seems as if we have made little progress against the hordes.”
“The defeat of the dactyl was no small thing,” Juraviel offered, a hint of his smile returning. ” ‘Twas Bestesbulzibar who bound the three races together. Our … your enemies are not so well organized now, and fight with each other as much as they battle the humans.”
Elbryan hardly heard the rest of the sentence after the elf had shifted possession of the enemies solely to Elbryan’s people. The Touel’alfar had stepped out of the fight, he realized then, and that was something the world could ill afford.
“What of the refugees you escorted?” Pony asked.
“I delivered them to Andur’Blough Inninness safely,” Juraviel replied. “Though we were accosted by the demon dactyl itselfa meeting in which I never would have survived had not Lady Dasslerond personally come forward from the elven home to stand beside me. We did get through to safety, and those beleaguered people have been delivered back to the southland with their kin,safe.” Juraviel managed a chuckle as he finished the thought. “Though they returned south lacking quite a few of their more recent memories.”
Elbryan nodded, understanding that the elves could work a bit of their own magic, including some to erase directions, as they had enacted that magic on him. Lady Dasslerond meant to keep the location of her valley secret at any costs. Perhaps that was why Juraviel was upset at his appearance here; perhaps, by returning, he had violated some elven code.
“As safe as any can be in these times,” Pony remarked.
“Indeed,” said the elf. “But safer now than before, due to the efforts of Elbryan and Jilseponie, and to the sacrifices of Bradwarden the centaur and Avelyn Desbris.” He paused and took a deep breath, then looked Elbryan squarely in the eye. “And of Tuntun of Caer’alfar,” he finished.
“You know?” the ranger asked.
Juraviel nodded, his expression grave. “We are not numerous. My people and our community are joined in many ways which humans cannot begin to understand. We learned of Tuntun’s death as Tuntun realized it. I trust that she died valiantly.”
“Saving us both,” Elbryan was quick to say. “And saving the quest. Were it not for Tuntun, Pony and I would have perished before we ever reached the lair of the dactyl.”
Juraviel nodded and seemed satisfied with that answer, a great peace washing over his fair features. “Then Tuntun will live on in song forever,” he said.
Elbryan nodded his agreement with the sentiment, then closed his eyes and imagined the elves, gathered in a field in the valley, under a starry sky, singing of Tuntun.
“You should tell me the details of her death,” Juraviel said. “But later,” he added quickly, holding up his hand before Elbryan could begin. “For now, I fear, the business is more pressing. Why have you come here?”
The bluntness of his question, the almost accusing tone, set Elbryan back on his heels. Why had he come? Why wouldn’t he, once he had remembered the way? It had never occurred to Elbryan that he might not be welcomed in Andur’Blough Inninness, a place he considered as much his home as any he had ever known.
“This is not your place, Nightbird,” Juraviel explained, trying to sound friendly, sympathetic even, though the mere words he spoke could not help but wound Elbryan. “And to bring her here without the permission of Lady Dasslerond”
“Permission?” the ranger balked. “After all that we have shared? After all that I have given to your people?”
“It was we who gave to you,” Juraviel promptly corrected.
Elbryan paused and thought it over. Indeed, the Touel’alfar had given him much, had raised him from a boy, had trained him as a ranger. But the generosity had been reciprocal, the young ranger now realized, as he considered the relationship in the sober tones of Juraviel’s attitude. The elves had given him much, that was true, but in return he had given to them the very course of his life. “Why do you treat me so?” he asked bluntly. “I had thought we were friends. Tuntun gave her life for me, for my quest, and did not the success of that quest benefit the Touel’alfar as well as the humans?”
Juraviel’s stern expression, exaggerated by his angular features, softened somewhat.
“I wield Tempest,” Elbryan went on, drawing forth the shining blade, a weapon forged of the secret silverel by the elves. “And Hawkwing,” he added, pulling the bow from his shoulder. Hawkwing was fashioned from the darkfern, a plant the elves cultivated and which leached the silverel from the ground. “Weapons of the Touel’alfar both,” the ranger went on. “Your own father crafted this bow for me, for the human friend and student of his son. And Tempest I rightfully carry, having passed the challenge of my uncle Mather’s ghost”
Juraviel held up his hand to stop the speech. “Enough,” he begged. “Your words are true to me. All of them. But that does not change the details of this moment. Why have you come, my friend, unbidden, to this place which must remain secret?”
“I came to find out if your people will lend aid to mine in this time of great darkness,” Elbryan replied.
A great sadness washed over the face of Belli’mar Juraviel. “We have suffered,” he explained.
“As have the humans,” Elbryan replied. “Many more humans have died than Touel’alfar, if all the elves of Andur’Blough Inninness had perished!”
“Not many of my people have perished,” Juraviel admitted. “But death is only one measure of suffering. The demon dactyl came to our valley. Indeed, Lady Dasslerond had to take the foul fiend there to defeat it when it came upon me in my quest to rescue the refugees. The demon was sent away, but Bestesbulzibar, curse his name; left a scar upon our land, a wound in the earth itself that will never heal and that continues to expand despite all our efforts.”
Elbryan looked to Pony, and her expression was grave. He did not need to explain the implications.
“There is no place in all the world for us save Andur’Blough Inninness,” Juraviel went on somberly. “And the rot has begun. Our time will pass, my friend, and the Touel’alfar will be gone from this world, a children’s fireside tale to most, a memory for those descendants of the few, like Nightbird, who knew us well.”
“There is always hope,” Elbryan replied past the lump in his throat. “There is always a way.”
“And so we shall seek one,” Juraviel agreed. “But for now, our borders are closed to any who isn’Touel’alfar. If I had not come out to you, if you had descended into the mist that veils our home, it would have choked you and left you dead on the mountainside.”
Pony gave a surprised gasp. “That cannot be,” she said. “You would not kill Nightbird.”
Elbryan knew better. The Touel’alfar lived by a different code than did humans, one that few people could understand. To them, any who was not of their race, even those few selected to be trained as rangers, was considered inferior. The Touel’alfar could be among the greatest allies in all the world, would fight to the death to save a friend, would risk everything, as Juraviel had done with the refugees, out of compassion. But when threatened, the elves were unbending, and it didn’t surprise Elbryan in the least to learn that such a deadly trap had been set up to keep strangers from their land in this time of peril.
“Am In’Touel’alfar ?“the ranger asked boldly, looking Juraviel right in the eye. He saw the pain there, a profound disappointment within his elven friend.
“It does not matter,” Juraviel offered halfheartedly. “The mist distinguishes only physical form. To it, you are human, and nothing more. To it, you are indeedn’Touel’alfar.”
Elbryan wanted to press that point, wanted to hear how his friend felt about the situation. This was not the time, he decided. “If there was any way in which I might have asked permission to come, and to bring Pony, I would have,” he said sincerely. “I remembered the path, and so I came, that is all.”
Juraviel nodded, satisfied, then managed a sudden and warm smile. “And I am glad that you have,” he said cheerily. “It is good to see you again, good to know that youand you,” he added, looking to Pony, “survived the ordeal at Aida.”
“You know of Avelyn and Bradwarden?”
Juraviel nodded. “We have ways of gathering information,” he said. “That is how I knew that two too-curious humans were approaching the warded borders of Andur’Blough Inninness. By all reports, only two forms, Nightbird and Pony, left the blasted Barbacan.”
“Alas for Avelyn,” Elbryan said somberly. “Alas for Bradwarden.”
“A good man was Avelyn Desbris,” Juraviel agreed. “And all the forest will mourn the passing of Bradwarden. Gentle was his song, and fierce his spirit. Often I would sit and listen to his piping, a melody so fitting to the forest.”
Both Elbryan and Pony nodded at that notion. When they were children in Dundalis, in better, more innocent times, they had sometimes heard the melodious drift of Bradwarden’s piping, though at that time they had no idea who the piper might be. The people of the two Timberland towns, Dundalis and Weedy Meadowfor End-o’-the-World was not in existence thencalled the unknown piper the Forest Ghost and did not fear him, for they understood that no creature capable of making such hauntingly beautiful music would pose any threat to them.
“But enough of this,” Juraviel said suddenly, pulling the small pack from his back. “I have brought foodgood food!andQuestel ni’Touel.”
“Boggle,” Elbryan translated, forQuestel ni’Touel was the elvish wine made from the water filtered through the milk stones. It was sometimes traded through secret channels to humans under the name of boggle, an elvish joke signifying both the bog from which the liquid originally came, and from the state of mind it readily produced in the humans.
“Let us go and set a camp,” Juraviel offered. “Out of this wind and sheltered from the chill of the approaching night. Then we might eat and talk in a more comfortable manner.”
The two friends readily agreed, and both realized then that their previous agitation had only been due to the search for the magical valley. Now that the issue of Andur’Blough Inninness was decided, they could both relax, for neither feared any goblin or powrie, or even giant-inspired trouble, this close to the borders of the elven home.
When they sat down to eat, Elbryan and Pony found that Juraviel wasn’t exaggerating in the least concerning the quality of the food, he had brought: berries, plump and sweet, fruit fattened under the gentle boughs of Caer’alfar, and bread flavored with just a touch ofQuestel ni’Touel. Juraviel hadn’t brought much with him, but it was immensely satisfying, and truly this was the finest meal that either of the weary travelers had enjoyed for many, many months.
The wine helped, too, taking the edge off the uncomfortable nature of their meeting, allowing Elbryan and Pony, and the elf, as well, to put aside the dangers of the continuing battle for just a while, to sit and relax and forget that their world was full of goblins and powries and giants. They spoke of times long past, of Elbryan’s training in the elvish valley, of Pony’s life in Palmaris and her time serving in the army of Honce-the-Bear’s King. They kept their chatter lighthearted, mostly relating amusing anecdotes, and many of Juraviel’s tales concerned Tuntun.
“Yes, I will find quite a bit of material for the song I plan for her,” the elf said quietly.
“A rousing war song?” Elbryan asked. “Or a song for a gentle soul?”
The notion of Tuntun being described as a gentle soul brought laughter bubbling to Juraviel’s lips. “Oh, Tuntun!” he cried dramatically, leaping to his feet, throwing his arms heavenward and taking up an impromptu song:
Oh gentle elf, what poems hast thee written
To best describe thyself?
What lyrics spring from thy lips to Nightbird’s waiting ears?
But since you hold his head in the trough, ‘tis doubtful he can hear!
Pony howled with laughter over that one, but Elbryan fixed a nasty stare over his friend.
“What troubles you, my friend?” Juraviel prompted.
“If I remember correctly, it was not Tuntun, but Belli’mar Juraviel, who put my head in the trough,” the ranger replied grimly.
The elf shrugged and smiled. “I will have to write another song, I fear,” he said calmly.