The Nightbird
"'The snows will be soon in coming this year," Lady Dasslerond remarked, staring out of her high tree house at the gray clouds that loomed on the horizon just north of the enchanted valley.
"A difficult winter would be consistent," Tuntun replied, her expression even more grave than usual.
Lady Dasslerond turned back to the pair and considered the words. The raid on Dundalis, the sightings of goblins and even giants, the evidence of many, earthquakes to the north of Andur'Blough Inninness — all pointed to the resurgence of the dactyl. There were even reports of a smoke cloud rising lazily over the Barbacan, streaming from a solitary mountain known as Aida.
It made sense; the dactyl could — and indeed, likely would awaken a long
— dormant volcano, using the magma to strengthen its underworld magic.
"How long is he?" Lady Dasslerond asked as her gaze returned to the west and north.
"He has just passed his sixth year with us," Juraviel answered without hesitation. "He was rescued from the goblins in the harvest season of the year the humans call 816. Their reckoning shows the turn of 823 approaching."
Lady Dasslerond turned to Juraviel, her expression showing that his answer was not acceptable. "But how long is he?" she asked again.
Juraviel sighed and rested back against the wide trunk of the maple.
Measuring such things was never easy for the elf, especially since he feared he viewed Elbryan with favorable eyes.
"He is ready," Tuntun unexpectedly put in. "The blood of Mather runs thick in his veins. In a half century, we will be telling our next would-be ranger that he is of the blood of Elbryan."
Juraviel couldn't suppress a small laugh, even given the gravity of this meeting. To hear Tuntun speaking so well of Elbryan seemed to him the ultimate irony. "Tuntun speaks the truth," he confirmed as soon as the shock wore off.
"Elbryan has trained hard and well. He fights with grace and power, runs silent and wary, and has visited the Oracle many times, almost always with success."
"He found a kindred spirit?" asked Lady Dasslerond.
"Only that of Mather," Juraviel replied, beaming as the smile widened across his lady's fair face.
"But he is not yet ready," Juraviel added quickly. "There is more for him to learn of himself and of the woodland arts. He has a year remaining, and then, he will indeed walk as a ranger."
Lady Dasslerond was shaking her head before the elf even finished his proclamation. "The winter will be difficult," she said firmly. "And the humans have settled several communities along the edge of the Wilderlands, have even resettled that place which was, and is again, known as Dundalis. If what we fear is true, then Elbryan will be needed, before the next season of harvest."
"Even if our fears of the dactyl prove false," Tuntun added, "many of the humans are unprepared for the Wilderlands. The presence of a ranger would do them well."
"The turn of spring?" Juraviel asked.
"You will have the boy prepared for his walk," Lady Dasslerond agreed.
"And what of Joycenevial?" Juraviel asked.
"The bowyer is ready for him," Lady Dasslerond replied. "And the darkfern is tall this season."
Juraviel nodded. He knew that Joycenevial, the finest bowyer in all of Caer'alfar, in all of the world, had been cultivating a special darkfern all these six years since Elbryan had been brought to Andur'Blough Inninness. This would be Joycenevial's first human task since Mather, and, since the bowyer was aged even by elven standards, most likely his last.
This one would-be special.
Elbryan thought that he knew every trail and grove in the enchanted valley, and so he was indeed confused on that day when Juraviel led him down, a particularly twisting path, often branching and crisscrossing a stream more than a dozen times. Their destination must be important indeed, Elbryan realized, for this trail was even more difficult to follow than the winding ways that hid Caer'alfar itself!
Finally, after hours of backtracking, the pair came to a short descent down a steep, sandy bank. At the bottom of the ravine, past a blocking wall of low evergreen bushes, they came to a bed of ferns, bluish green in color. Most were about waist high to Elbryan, shoulder high to Juraviel. Elbryan understood immediately that this was their destination, that there was something unusual about these plants; they were growing in neat rows, evenly spaced, and the ground around them was bare. He wouldn't have expected much undergrowth, for the ferns cast shade, but this area was too clean, as if caring hands regularly weeded it.
"These are the darkfern," Juraviel said, his tone full of reverence. He led Elbryan to the nearest plant and bent low, bidding the young man to inspect the fern's stem.
The plant was thick and smooth, and the stem didn't seem to narrow at all as it came up high and spread, three-pronged, to the leafy fronds. Elbryan peered closer, and his green eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed again quickly as he moved even closer to inspect the stem.
Silvery lines wove gracefully about the dark green stem; they seemed to Elbryan consistent with the fishing lines and the bowstrings the elves used.
"The darkfern is one with the metal," Juraviel explained as soon as he realized that Elbryan had found the key. "This ravine was chosen for the planting because we learned that it is rich in minerals, particularly silverel, which the plant prefers above all."
"The plant brings the metal lines up with it?" Elbryan asked. Many implications came to him then, as if the fog veiling one of the mysteries of elven life had suddenly lifted. The elves used many metal implements — shields and swords mostly — and Elbryan had sometimes wondered where they got the material, since, to his knowledge, there were no working mines in Andur'Blough Inninness. He had assumed that they traded for the metal, but then he had come to realize that elven metal was unlike anything he had seen outside the enchanted valley. He remembered his father's sword, bulky and dark, but that hardly compared to the fine elvish blades, shining bright and holding so keen an edge.
"They are as one," Juraviel confirmed. "The darkfern is the lone source of silverel."
Elbryan stared hard at the lines of gleaming metal. He felt as if he had seen this same pattern before, though where that might have been, he could not remember.
"Treated and cured properly, the stems are incredibly strong and resilient," Juraviel explained; "and pliable."
"Even after you take the metal from them?"
"We do not always take the silverel from the harvested stem," the elf replied.
Elbryan thought on that for a moment, particularly on Juraviel's last claim that the plants were pliable. Then it came to him where he had seen this same design. "Elvish bows," he breathed as the fog flew from yet another mystery. Now he knew how the elvish bows, so small and frail, could launch an arrow a hundred yards on a straight line.
He looked up from the plant to see Juraviel nodding.
"There is no composite, not bone and wood, even when blended with sinew, that is stronger," the elf said. He motioned to the man. "Come with me," he bade.
They walked carefully past the cultivated rows to the tallest fern of —
all, one whose broad fronds were above Elbryan's head. Unexpectedly, Juraviel handed Elbryan his sword, then motioned the young man back a few paces.
Elbryan watched, mesmerized, as the elf closed his eyes and began to chant in the elvish tongue, using many words so arcane that Elbryan didn't recognize them. The song came louder, faster, and Juraviel began to dance delicate, spinning circles wrapped in a larger circle that encompassed the plants. Elbryan concentrated, looking for the root sounds that made up the elf's song, but still he could not decipher many of the ancient words. He did understand that Juraviel was praising the plant and thanking it for the gift it would soon give. This did not surprise Elbryan; the elves always showed respect for other living creatures, always prayed and danced over the bodies of animals they had hunted, and sang countless songs to the fruits and berries of Andur'Blough Inninness.
The twirling elf tossed several puffs of powder upon the plant, then bent low and with some reddish gel painted a stripe around the base of the stem just an inch or two from the ground. He finished with a leaping flourish and landed pointing to the stripe. "One clean strike!" he commanded.
Elbryan rolled to one knee quickly and brought the sword flashing across, severing the plant at exactly the stripe. The darkfern landed upright and held for a moment, then slowly tumbled to the side into Juraviel's waiting hands.
"Follow quickly," the elf bade, and ran off.
Elbryan had to work hard to keep up. Juraviel ran all the way back to Caer'alfar, to the side of the glen, to a tall tree that housed only a single elf.
"Joycenevial is as old as the oldest tree in Andur'Blough Inninness,"
Juraviel explained as the aged elf came out of his home and slowly descended.
Without saying a word, he dropped between the pair, took the cut fern from Juraviel, and held it up near Elbryan. He turned it over and nodded, apparently pleased by the fine and clean cut, then started back up his tree, fern in hand.
"No markings?" Juraviel asked.
Joycenevial only shook his head, not even bothering to look back at the pair.
Juraviel praised him once, then started away, Elbryan in tow. The young man had a million questions stirring around in his head. "The red gel?" he dared to ask, trying to start a conversation, trying to unravel this most extraordinary day.
"Without it, you would never have cut through the darkfern," Juraviel replied.
Elbryan noted the curtness of the answer, the elf's crisp, almost sharp tone, and he understood that further questioning would be unwelcome, that he would learn what he must when the elves decided to tell him.
Juraviel sent Elbryan off to his duties then, but interrupted the young man again that afternoon, two bows, including one that was fairly large by elvish standards, in hand.
"We haven't much time," Juraviel explained, handing the large bow to his student.
Elbryan took it and, ignoring the multitude of questions that again swirled in his thoughts, silently followed. He studied the bow as he walked, and concluded at once that this was not formed of the darkfern such as he had cut, but from a smaller plant.
The old elf took up a curious-looking knife, bent upward on both sides and with its cutting edge on one side of a slit running down its middle. He grasped it firmly in his left hand and cradled the fern stem — now stripped of its fronds — in his right. He tucked the long shaft of the plant under his right shoulder, then gently, very gently, scraped the blade along the stem.
A tiny strip peeled away, so thin as to be nearly translucent. Joycenevial nodded solemnly; he had treated the fern stem perfectly for the carving.
The old elf closed his eyes and began a chant. He pictured Elbryan at the moment when the young human held the stem, envisioned the size of his hand, the length of his arms. Other bowyers would have marked the stem appropriately, but Joycenevial was far beyond such crude necessities. His was an act of the purest creation and not a mere crafting; his art was bound by magic and by the sheer skill that seven hundred years had honed. And so it was with eyes closed that the old elf went to work on the stem, singing softly, using the music of his voice to pace his cuts in depth and intensity. He would spend the better part of half a year on this one, he knew, scraping and treating, notching and weaving spells of strength. Twice a week during the carving, he would coat the stem with special oils to add to its resilience. And when at last the bow had taken shape, he would hang it over an ever-smoking pit, a secret, enchanted place where the magic was strong indeed, so strong that it continually filtered up from the ground.
Half a year — not so long a time as measured by the elves of Caer'alfar, a mere moment in the long history of Belli'mar Joycenevial, father of Juraviel.
He closed his eyes and considered the final ceremony, for the bow and the boy: the naming. He had no idea what title he would give the bow; that would come to him as the weapon took on its own personality, its own nuances.
The name would have to be correct, for this bow would be the epitome of his crafting, Joycenevial determined, the highest achievement in a career so often marked by perfection. Every elf in the valley carried a bow crafted by Joycenevial, as did every ranger that had gone out from Andur'Blough Inninness in the last half millennium. Not one of them would hold their weapon up against this bow, however, for Belli'mar Joycenevial, as old as the oldest tree in Andur'Blough Inninness, knew that it would be his last.
This one was special.
At least this time he had hit the tree that held the target! Elbryan looked at Juraviel hopefully, but the elf just stood, shaking his head. In one swift movement, Juraviel put up his bow and let fly an arrow, then another, then a third in rapid succession.
It had come so fluidly, so fast, that Elbryan was still staring at the elf when he heard the third arrow hit. He was almost afraid to look up at the mark and wasn't surprised to find all three embedded squarely in the target, one in the bull'seye, the other two right beside it.
"I will never shoot as well as you," Elbryan lamented, in as close to a whine as Juraviel had heard from the young man in years. "Or as well as any elf in the valley."
"True enough," retorted the elf, and he smiled as Elbryan's green eyes widened. That apparently was not the response the young man wanted to hear.
With a growl, proud Elbryan put up his bow and let fly, missing everything this time.
"You are aiming at the target," Juraviel remarked.
Elbryan looked at him curiously; of course he was aiming at the target!