Authors: R.A. Salvatore
It was pleasant enough, though, and surely interesting. For Brynn, this was yet another new world, widening her already wide horizons; and for Belli’mar Juraviel, this was a glimpse into a different branch of his own history. Many of the Doc’alfar customs were familiar to him, the notes of their communal songs so similar to those of Caer’alfar that at times he was able to join in. But so much else was different, and strangely fascinating! His own people worked with the living, with great trees and flowers, blending into the harmony of the flora and fauna of Andur’Blough Inninness. The Doc’alfar, though, worked with the dead, with cut
logs and zombie slaves. Their artisans carved masterwork pieces on the walls of every structure. Their armorers turned slabs of wood into fantastic shields and body pieces, backing them with thick mosslike blankets the gatherers brought in. Their culture seemed somewhat coarser to Juraviel, as much a matter of destruction as creation, but in truth, it seemed strangely beautiful to him, and equally harmonious with the ways of nature, if in a more severe manner.
Their guides through all of those days were again Lozan Duk and, surprisingly, Cazzira. The female Doc’alfar seemed much different to Juraviel and Brynn after the proclamation of King Eltiraaz, almost as if she now wanted to learn all that she could of the strangers, though whether that was out of any desire for friendship, or for the information to give her the edge over an enemy, neither Juraviel nor Brynn could tell. While Cazzira constantly peppered the pair with questions, Lozan Duk took the lead in pointing out landmarks and particularly interesting artworks. But it was Cazzira, and not Lozan Duk, who called Brynn aside into a building where the females of Tymwyvenne used paints and oils to highlight their beauty, to style their hair.
By the end of the week, Cazzira and Brynn were spending much time together, with Cazzira listening to Brynn’s tale over and over again, leaning forward eagerly as the young ranger recounted it each time. Juraviel watched the pair curiously and closely, fearing that Cazzira was trying to pry valuable information from Brynn, but he did nothing to warn Brynn away from speaking too openly. The Doc’alfar were in complete command, and Juraviel and Brynn had no choice but to trust them and simply go along.
Still, Belli’mar Juraviel had a feeling, or perhaps it was just a desperate hope, that something good would come of the unexpected encounter.
“B
elli’mar Juraviel was correct in telling us that this ranger is not akin to humans,” Cazzira reported to King Eltiraaz one evening after hearing Brynn’s tale yet again, from beginning to end. “If humans have such potential, then perhaps we should not be so quick—”
Eltiraaz held up his hand, stopping the uncomfortable thought short. “Our ways were created for prudence and survival,” he explained. “They will not change quickly, whatever exception we might make for this unusual pair.”
Cazzira sat back and considered the grim reality of Eltiraaz’s words. She could be among the most hardened and callous of the Tylwyn Doc, but only through putting up an emotional wall, a barricade against guilt. Cazzira, however tough she might talk, did not enjoy the killings, even of inferior beings such as humans, though she surely held no love for the big and bumbling creatures.
“It may be time for some of our ways and tenets to change,” King Eltiraaz admitted, catching his subject by surprise.
Cazzira looked at him curiously, blinking her blue eyes repeatedly.
“It may be time for us to explore beyond the boundaries of Tymwyvenne,” the king went on after Cazzira had recovered.
“To the north or south?” Cazzira asked, her blue eyes narrowing as she scrutinized Eltiraaz, trying to discern his meaning. Did he want someone to head out to the north in search of Caer’alfar? Or was he suggesting that one of the Tylwyn Doc accompany the two strangers to the south, through the Path of Starless Night and onto the southern steppes?
“I think we would be ill-advised to approach this land, Andur’Blough Inninness, that Belli’mar Juraviel has told us about, without Belli’mar Juraviel to serve as our guide,” Eltiraaz clarified. “Or to offer a formal introduction to his Lady Dasslerond, that she will take the time and effort to better learn of us before making any rash judgments.”
“Are you asking me to walk the Path of Starless Night?”
“I am suggesting that perhaps one of the Tylwyn Doc should accompany Belli’mar Juraviel and Brynn Dharielle,” Eltiraaz replied, somewhat defensively, sitting back in his throne and holding his hands up as if to fend off the legendary explosive wrath of Cazzira. “Am I asking you? No, not asking, Cazzira, not if you mean that I am somehow imploring you or commanding you to go. I am asking only in the sense that I am offering it to you first, as the first to make contact with these intriguing strangers.”
Cazzira sat back, trying to hide the surprise from her fair features. It wasn’t often that King Eltiraaz asked, truly asked, instead of commanded, for that was his place in Tylwyn Doc society. He was the king, bound to make those decisions that he thought most beneficial to the Tylwyn Doc people as a whole, whatever sacrifices any individual might have to make. Yet, here he was,
offering
the duty of accompanying Juraviel and Brynn to Cazzira. That told Cazzira exactly how important, and dangerous, that duty might prove to be. They were going to walk the Path of Starless Night, after all, and while Tylwyn Doc individuals and parties had sometimes ventured through the lightless tunnels, and To-gai-ru humans had exited them on the northern side of the mountains, most who entered those dark ways had never been heard from again.
“Do you think it wise that one of us accompany them?” King Eltiraaz asked, again surprising Cazzira.
“I do,” she blurted before she could even sort through a more thorough and informative response.
Eltiraaz settled back, allowing her to collect her thoughts.
“This is an opportunity that we must explore,” Cazzira went on after a while. “I did not wish to believe Belli’mar Juraviel when first I encountered and spoke with him. I thought him even worse, even more dangerous, than the human intruders who sometimes cross our lands. Here was a creature above those humans, a kin of ours, who perhaps held the power to destroy us utterly. We cannot let him walk away unobserved.”
“And yet, I have come to understand that there is no such malice in Belli’mar Juraviel’s heart, and if the rest of his people are of similar feelings toward the
Doc’alfar
”—King Eltiraaz stumbled over that Touel’alfar word, mimicking Juraviel’s
voice inflections as closely as possible—“then I believe we would be wise to make contact with our lost kin.”
“It may be no more than wishful thinking.”
King Eltiraaz gave a great sigh. “Perhaps. I feel that there is sincerity in Belli’mar Juraviel’s words of friendship, but I am afraid,” King Eltiraaz admitted. “In making such a choice to let him and Brynn Dharielle go, I am putting all of Tymwyvenne in danger.”
“In allowing Belli’mar Juraviel and Brynn Dharielle to live, you are doing that,” Cazzira replied. “Yet I do not, nor does anyone else, suggest that you kill them now. Indeed, if you chose to give Brynn to the bog and execute or imprison Juraviel, you would find opposition to that course, silent if not overt.”
“From you?”
“No.”
King Eltiraaz laughed at the honesty of those words. Cazzira was speaking plainly, and it seemed to Eltiraaz that she, too, preferred their present course toward the strangers. But fierce Cazzira never let compassion get in the way of prudence. “Yet I am not ready boldly to approach Lady Dasslerond,” he admitted. “I am not ready to confront the past of Tylwyn Doc and Tylwyn Tou. I know my intuition toward Belli’mar Juraviel and his ranger companion, but it is just that, intuition. I will need more than that to attempt to bring the alfar together again.”
Cazzira nodded with every word, understanding completely. “Then you need not ask me,” she said. “It is right that one of us accompany Belli’mar Juraviel, to the south and then back again, if this way he comes. And it is right that I am the one. I first saw the pair.”
“But it was Lozan Duk who suggested that Belli’mar Juraviel and Brynn Dharielle be captured and not killed,” Eltiraaz reasoned.
“Qui’mielle Duk is with child,” Cazzira replied without the slightest hesitation, referring to Lozan Duk’s wife, who was indeed pregnant—the first pregnancy in Tymwyvenne in nearly forty years. “Lozan Duk should not leave.”
King Eltiraaz stared long and hard into Cazzira’s icy blue eyes, measuring her resolve.
J
uraviel and Brynn removed their hoods on Cazzira’s command, blinking their eyes against the brilliant late-summer sunlight. Despite Juraviel’s original decision against a long delay, they had spent several weeks in Tymwyvenne, where the sun did not shine, and now the brilliant warmth felt good indeed!
So good that it took Juraviel a long while to realize that he and Cazzira and Brynn were apparently alone, with no sign of the contingent of more than a dozen other Doc’alfar who had accompanied them out of the city.
They were in the foothills of the giant mountains, so close that Juraviel understood that this area just north of the divide would be bathed in shadow at this time of day in a few weeks, when the sun lowered in the sky farther to the south.
“Where are we?” Brynn asked. “And where are your kinfolk?”
“We are where you said you wanted to be,” Cazzira answered. “Close to it, at least. And why would the Tylwyn Doc wish to accompany you to the Path of Starless Night, a place where we do not often choose to go?”
“Then why are you here?”
Juraviel was sharing a stare with Cazzira as Brynn asked the question, reading her thoughts. “You intend to come with us,” he reasoned, and when there came no immediate argument, he went on, “This is our road, one chosen by fate and by need. There is no reason—”
“My king believes that there is a reason,” Cazzira interrupted. “You have wandered onto our lands, Belli’mar Juraviel. Do not pretend that your presence in Tymwyvenne means nothing to Tylwyn Doc, or to Tylwyn Tou. Perhaps it means nothing immediately significant, but now the races know of each other once more, and that is a door that, once opened, cannot be closed, for good or for ill.”
“Unless I die in the southland, or on my way to the southland.”
“Yet we still know of you, of Caer’alfar and Andur’Blough Inninness. And so King Eltiraaz would learn more. Slowly and in proper time. He would like to keep you in Tymwyvenne for many months, years perhaps, that he might truly learn your heart and your thoughts. But he cannot in good conscience, of course—and despite my counsel—because of your need to be away to the south.”
“We are grateful for King Eltiraaz’s understanding of our situation.”
“And he wishes your response to be the gratitude of a friend,” Cazzira said. “He hopes that more will come of our chance meeting—much more. Thus, he must continue his exploration of Belli’mar Juraviel’s heart, through Cazzira, who serves as his eyes and ears.”
“And what of me?” Brynn asked, her tone showing that she felt a bit left out.
“You are still alive, and on your way,” Cazzira replied, never taking her stare from Juraviel. “Be pleased, Brynn Dharielle, for that is more than most humans who wander onto the land of Tylwyn Doc can ever say!”
Brynn sighed and did not press the point.
“And so you will serve as King Eltiraaz’s eyes and ears all the way to the entrance to the Path of Starless Night?” Juraviel asked.
Cazzira gave a little laugh and swept around, waving her arm out toward a dark shadow at the base of a nearby jag of stone. “We are at the entrance,” she explained, pulling off her pack as she spoke. She untied and opened the pack, producing three of the blue-white glowing torches, tossing one to each of her companions while keeping the third for herself. “The continuation of your road, the beginning of my own.”
Cazzira started toward the shadowy opening, but Juraviel grabbed her arm to stop her. She turned about and the two locked stares again. “This is not your business,” Juraviel said. “Is it yours?”
“It is because Lady Dasslerond decided that it was.”
“As it is mine because King Eltiraaz decided that it was,” Cazzira answered.
“Perhaps the Tylwyn Doc have no place in the affairs of the Tylwyn Tou, or in the affairs of the To-gai-ru or any humans at all. Or perhaps we simply do not trust you enough to let you walk out freely. That is what we intend to discover. Consider my company the price of your freedom, if you must: a return favor from Belli’mar Juraviel and Brynn Dharielle.”
Juraviel continued to stare at Cazzira for a long, long while, and then he blinked and gave a helpless, defeated laugh. How could he refuse her companionship after the amazing trust the Doc’alfar had placed in him and in Brynn?
Another part of Belli’mar Juraviel wondered why he would
want
to refuse her, as well. Would it not be more pleasant for him to have another along who understood his perspective of the world, the elven viewpoint? Brynn was a fine companion, but she was a human, and would soon be among her own kind, heavily involved in their politics and ways, and during that transition, Juraviel knew that he would be little more than a distant observer. Perhaps those days would be brighter indeed with the companionship of one more akin to him.
Besides, there was something about Cazzira that Juraviel found quite appealing, despite her stern face—or possibly, because of it. Her often fiery and volatile remarks reminded him of another he had once known, a Touel’alfar named Tuntun who had been his dearest friend. Cazzira even looked a bit like Tuntun.
“Lead on,” he said, and so she did, and so Cazzira and Juraviel and Brynn entered a narrow tunnel that widened into a large and airy cave. Two exits ran off the back of the cave, deeper into the mountains, and Cazzira considered each for a few moments, then nodded and went into the one to the left.
Soon all daylight was left behind, the trio entering a darkness so profound that, without the strange torches, they would not have been able to see a hand flapping an inch from their faces.