Authors: R.A. Salvatore
“Before you continue, I demand to know what happened to Diredusk!” the young ranger demanded.
King Eltiraaz sat back, his expression turning stern, his eyes narrowing and focusing on Brynn. Juraviel put his hand on her arm, squeezing tightly in an attempt to silence her.
“Her horse, good King Eltiraaz,” he explained. “When we were taken, Brynn had her horse with her, a beautiful creature.”
Eltiraaz relaxed visibly, and so did Juraviel.
“What happened to him?” the stubborn Brynn demanded, and Juraviel squeezed even more tightly, thinking that his companion might be throwing it all away, pushing too hard when they were obviously in no position to demand anything.
But again, King Eltiraaz’s expression only softened. “You have enough concern for that creature—Diredusk, you name him—to speak in this manner to me?”
“I do.” There wasn’t a hint of anything other than grim determination in Brynn’s voice.
“And if your insolence costs you my patience?”
“If you have harmed Diredusk, then I want not your patience, King Eltiraaz. If you have harmed Diredusk, then—”
Eltiraaz held up his hand, but it was his smile that stopped her more than any hand gesture. “We of the Tylwyn Doc do no harm to our fellow creatures of Ga’na’Tyl. Your horse, Diredusk, is running free in the fields to the east, among his own kind. Free, I say, and where he belongs.”
Brynn breathed a huge sigh of relief, and so did Juraviel.
“You do not wish him recaptured?” Eltiraaz asked.
Brynn looked up at him, and it was obvious that the king was testing her here. “My concern was for Diredusk, not for myself,” she answered. “If he is running free and safe, then I am satisfied.”
King Eltiraaz smiled, warmly. “Once, many years ago, a man crossed through our lands, coming from the north, and it was the decision of King Tez’nezin that he not be hindered,” he went on with the tale he had been relating when Brynn had interrupted. “King Tez’nezin, my predecessor to the throne, was rumored to have gone out to the man for a secret meeting, though what he discerned that allowed him to change his policies—long-standing policies of the Tylwyn Doc against humans—I cannot say.
“That human was To-gai-ru, like Brynn Dharielle, seeking a way home, over the mountains or under them. Whether or not he succeeded in returning to the land south of the mountains, I cannot say.”
“What was his name?” a very curious Belli’mar Juraviel asked. “And when was this? A century ago?”
“His name I do not know, and it was much longer in the past. Three centuries, at least, perhaps four. The years, the decades, do all seem the same.”
Juraviel sat back and considered the words. A To-gai-ru coming through this region from the north would be a rare thing indeed, especially centuries before, when Honce-the-Bear and Behren were avowed enemies, and To-gai was not even known to the humans north of the mountains. But there had been other To-gai-ru rangers, several over the centuries, and none before Brynn had left Andur’Blough Inninness with an elvish escort, though all of them had been assigned back in their ancient homeland. Was it possible that the human Eltiraaz now spoke of had been one of the To-gai-ru rangers? Emhem Dal, perhaps? Or Salman Anick Zo?
Intrigued, Juraviel rubbed a hand over his chin.
“Did he find a way over the mountains, at least?” Brynn asked. “Or did he start on a path that he hoped would take him home?”
“No,” King Eltiraaz replied, and Brynn’s hopeful smile disappeared, though it brightened again as the King of Tymwyvenne continued. “Not over the mountains. That human was guided to a way known to the Tylwyn Doc as the Path of Starless Night.”
“Under the mountains,” Juraviel reasoned, and King Eltiraaz nodded.
“And will you take me and Juraviel to the entrance to this Path of Starless Night?” Brynn asked eagerly, seeming oblivious to the frown worn by the Doc’alfar King.
Juraviel caught that look, though, and he understood that this ominously named underground passageway likely lived up to some grim reputation!
“What say you, Belli’mar Juraviel?” King Eltiraaz asked. “Do you wish to head to this path, a dark road indeed?”
Juraviel looked to Brynn, and her eagerness prodded him into agreeing to a choice that he feared he would later regret. “We do. If this Path of Starless Night can save us a journey all the way to the sea to the east, then perhaps it is worth the try.”
King Eltiraaz sat back and nodded, his expression grave. “Perhaps, then, my people will have to worry less that you will betray us to the Tylwyn Tou.”
Juraviel looked to Brynn again, but she held her determined expression.
“And what will Belli’mar Juraviel tell his Lady Dasslerond about us?” King Eltiraaz went on. “When finally you walk the ways of your homeland again, what will you say?”
“I will say that I have found a legend come to life,” Juraviel answered. “Or I will say nothing at all. The choice is yours, King of Tymwyvenne, earned by your mercy and graciousness. I owe you this, at least, for my own life and for Brynn’s. If you wish this entire episode to retreat into the realm of Belli’mar Juraviel’s hopeful dreams, then so it shall.”
Eltiraaz spent a long while mulling that over. He looked to his Doc’alfar companions, Lozan Duk, Cazzira, and several others he had invited to the meeting that day, gauging their silent answers.
“No,” he said at length. “You will tell your Lady Dasslerond that you have looked upon Tymwyvenne and met your long-lost kin. You will tell her that she, upon the invitation of King Eltiraaz, is most welcome to visit us, that we might both learn if our peoples, Doc and Tou, should find their way together again.”
Juraviel could hardly believe what he was hearing, and in truth, he was terribly torn at that moment. His immediate duty was to Brynn and their journey to To-gai-ru. Or was it? Was this potential reunification more important? Should he abandon Brynn here and now and head back to the north with all speed? Or perhaps he could take Brynn back with him and delay her mission to her homeland. There was no pressing issue there, after all, nothing more than had been going on since before Brynn had been taken in by the Touel’alfar.
But then Eltiraaz settled it for him. “But that is in the future,” the king said. “For now, your road is, and must be, to the south. We will show you the Path of Starless Night and tell you more of what we know of the dangers that lie within the deep mountains. You may choose to enter, or choose to turn to the east. But not to the north, not now. My people are not ready for this meeting, and I’ll not force it upon them.”
Juraviel nodded his agreement.
“And what if Belli’mar Juraviel does not return from the southland?” Lozan Duk interjected. “What if Belli’mar Juraviel does not emerge again into the sunlight from the Path of Starless Night? Is this hope that we have just shared of reunion to die with him, then?”
As he finished, Lozan Duk looked to King Eltiraaz, and Juraviel recognized then that the question was not likely spontaneous.
“I would speak with you privately,” Juraviel bade the king, and with a wave of his hand, Eltiraaz cleared the room of all but himself and Juraviel.
“If you desire the meeting, and I cannot return, then send a trusted courier or two to the north, staying west of the human lands, to the mountain region three weeks’ journey from here. Once there, call out the name of Lady Dasslerond to the night wind, every hour every night. She will find your couriers, do not doubt, and the Touel’alfar will speak with them before passing swift judgment. Have them relay the tale of Belli’mar Juraviel and Brynn Dharielle, and tell of how they came to the lands of the Touel’alfar.”
“And they will not be harmed?”
Juraviel took a deep breath. “I cannot commit to anything,” he admitted. “My people are no less reclusive than are your own—it is part of our shared heritage, it would seem. The Lady of Caer’alfar is stern and strong, but she is blessed with the wisdom of the centuries. I trust she will choose correctly.”
“Though you have less to lose.”
“There is that,” Juraviel admitted. “It is the best I can offer, King Eltiraaz of Tymwyvenne, and more, I fear, than I should have said.”
“And nothing more than we could have discerned, in any case,” Eltiraaz answered with a chuckle, and he offered his hand to Juraviel, and the Touel’alfar took it in a firm shake.
“Stay with us a few weeks more,” Eltiraaz offered. “Enjoy the customs of my people, walking freely about Tymwyvenne.”
“And Brynn?”
“Likewise! Let her be the most blessed of humankind, to have looked upon both Caer’alfar and Tymwyvenne! When you are ready, we will take you to the Path of Starless Night, and you may choose your course. We will provide you with ever-burning light and with all the supplies you can carry.” He paused and assumed a pensive posture, his look quizzical. “And perhaps with more.”
Juraviel understood that he should not press for more than that cryptic statement at that time. Already he had been offered far more than he could ever have
hoped for, far more than he ever would have dared to ask for!
“The season means little in the Path of Starless Night,” Eltiraaz went on. “In truth, the closer you wait toward winter, the more passable will be the dark tunnels, for the spring melt will have flowed from them by then, and the new snows atop the mountains will be locked frozen in the days it will take you to cross under.”
It was an invitation that Belli’mar Juraviel could not refuse, and—given that last bit of logic, one that he knew would calm Brynn’s eagerness—he believed that his companion would readily agree. Perhaps if they stayed in Tymwyvenne, their trip to the south would prove no less time-consuming than the long journey around the mountains, but in truth, it was more than the loss of time that had Juraviel trying to avoid that circuitous route. He had little desire to cross the human lands of Honce-the-Bear, and even less to try to find his way through hostile Behren. There Brynn would be considered no more than a pig looking for a slave owner and he, if his true identity as a Touel’alfar was ever discovered, would likely be put to a swift death, a sacrifice to Yatol.
Yes, this would be a most-welcomed rest, not for weeks, perhaps, but for a short while.
“Do you believe him?” Brynn asked Juraviel that same night, the two spending some quiet time trying to sort through the momentous events of the day. How swiftly their fate had changed! And how unexpectedly!
“If King Eltiraaz meant us harm, then why would he go to all this trouble?” the elf replied. “He had garnered all of the information he will get from me, from us, concerning Andur’Blough Inninness, and he knows that. No, he is sincere.” As he finished, smiling, he noted that Brynn’s sour expression had not changed. He looked at her curiously, silently prompting her to elaborate.
“I meant about Diredusk.”
“They said he was running free with other horses.”
“But did they say that merely to calm me?” the young woman asked. “Are they merely telling us what we need to hear?”
Belli’mar Juraviel settled back. “No,” he answered with the calm of complete confidence. “Have you noticed the tables they set? The meals they have brought to us?”
Brynn tilted her head, staring at him intently, needing to find the same conclusions as he obviously already had.
“They eat the produce of the earth, the gifts of Ga’na’Tynne. They eat the fruits and vegetables, the fungi of the tunnels. But not the animals. King Eltiraaz spoke truly of his people when he said that they hold the creatures of Ga’na’Tyl in the highest reverence and would not harm them. Diredusk is running free and unharmed, I am sure.”
“They harm no creatures of Ga’na’Tyl,” Brynn echoed with a sarcastic chuckle. “Except for humans.”
“Whom they believe deserving of their wrath,” Juraviel was quick to point out.
“Consider those of your race with whom they have had contact. Trappers and hunters, loggers and rogues who have been chased from their own lands. Humans who clear-cut the trees and slaughter the animals, often merely for a pelt to sell in the east. Humans who set traps that cause excruciating pain to their prey, without regard for the animal. If the Doc’alfar feel a kinship to the living animals, then how could they not feel anger at some of the tactics that trappers and hunters of your race employ?”
Brynn merely shrugged and shook her head, hardly seeming convinced of the argument that the Doc’alfar were, in some way, justified in the horrible executions they routinely practiced on humans inadvertently walking onto their lands.
Juraviel didn’t try to convince her otherwise, didn’t believe that she would ever truly understand. For she was human, if Touel’alfar trained and To-gai-ru, and she understood there to be a redeeming side to her race. Juraviel recognized that as well, but, seeing the world as a Touel’alfar, he was much more sympathetic to the Doc’alfar view of things. In many ways, he saw these distant cousins as even more honorable than his own people, who hunted the deer, pigs, fowl, and rabbits of Andur’Blough Inninness. The Doc’alfar only did harm to living creatures they believed deserving of their wrath. It wouldn’t occur to Eltiraaz to have a great deer slaughtered to fill his own table with venison steaks. It wouldn’t occur to any of the Doc’alfar to kill foraging creatures that happened onto their gardens. No, but humans were not like the animals, for they were possessed of reason.
To the Doc’alfar way of thinking, then, that reason condemned them for actions against the precepts of Doc’alfar life.
When he thought of the horrid zombies, Juraviel shuddered and could not totally agree with the Doc’alfar ways. But neither could he deny that there was a consistent simplicity to that philosophy, and one that had more than a little justification.
He looked over at Brynn, who had settled back and seemed ready to sleep, and he did not press the point any further.
The pair felt the looks, most merely curious, but some truly suspicious, on them at all times as they walked the ways of Tymwyvenne over the next week. They were allowed practically free rein, except that they could not leave the city—King Eltiraaz didn’t want to give away too much of the exact location, after all—and could not enter anything other than public structures unless invited, which they were not.