The Elven (83 page)

Nuramon had not expected that. “You remember your past lives, too?”

“Yes. I used to be called Aileen,” Noroelle said. “Like so many others, I died in the troll wars at the Shalyn Falah. Dolgrim, a prince of the trolls, struck me down.”

Farodin avoided Noroelle’s gaze. The woman he loved remembered her earlier life. Then she had to remember him.

Noroelle stroked Farodin’s cheek. “Why didn’t you ever tell me? Why didn’t you say that I have Aileen’s soul in me?”

“I didn’t want you to love me because of an old obligation.”

“Then you said nothing for the right reason. I promised to love you eternally back then. But I was Aileen, and as Noroelle, I made new promises to both of you. I told you I would make my decision when you returned from the elfhunt. And then I left it undecided after all, because I thought I would never see you again. I wish I could choose both of you. And now that we are the only Albenkin in this world, that would certainly be a wise path to follow. But it is clear to me to whom my heart belongs, and also what will happen when I declare myself to him.”

Farodin felt uneasy. They had worried about Noroelle for so long that her decision for one or the other of them had become unimportant, but now they were going back to where they had been at the start of the elfhunt. Only this time, there were no more secrets between them. Now it would be decided, now he would discover whether his search for Aileen, then for Noroelle, indeed his whole life, would succeed.

Nuramon was still getting over his surprise that Farodin had known Noroelle as Aileen. His mind returned to the day they had quarreled in Iskendria, when he had berated Farodin for taking so long to open up to Noroelle. Now he knew why Farodin had waited.

“I can see what my words are doing to you, how they tear at you,” Noroelle said. “Both of you deserve the fulfillment of love. Would any other elf have gone as far as you two have? What woman courted ever received the gift of such loyalty? But I cannot love you out of gratitude.” She took Farodin’s hand. “You are the man I once loved, when I was Aileen. You were everything I ever wanted. But I have been Noroelle for a very long time, and Noroelle is much more than Aileen was then. Look at me, and you see a woman who has changed over the centuries, one who has not stayed as she was. Even you have changed since we said good-bye before the elfhunt. You don’t hide your feelings anymore.” Now she took Nuramon by the hand. “And you have grown, as I always wished you would. Like me, you are so much more than you once were. I can understand how you felt when your memory returned. Now the question is whether Farodin and I were destined for each other back then. Or have we had our time? And was Aileen Farodin’s lover, and is Noroelle Nuramon’s? I know the answer. After all the years that have passed for me, you should hear it.”

She looked around in the clearing. “Here, the queen revealed to me that one of you was my destiny. She said to me, ‘Whichever one you would have chosen, you would have gone into the moonlight with him. But now this will never happen.’ I don’t know if the queen knew then how all of this would end. But now you are here, and what I thought was closed to me can now happen. I have made my difficult choice. You are the one.”

She looked at Farodin, and he did not know if that was good or bad.
I am the one.
Was he the one she had chosen or the one she was turning down? His heart thundered.

“We were meant for each other from the first day,” Noroelle went on. “We will go into the moonlight hand in hand.”

A heavy burden was lifted from Farodin. This was the moment he had waited for his entire life. Tears welled in his eyes. Then he looked to Nuramon and saw his companion’s empty gaze.

Noroelle’s words echoed in Nuramon’s mind. She would go into the moonlight with Farodin? And he would stay here, alone, forever separated from Albenmark? He would be a prisoner in a huge world. His feelings overwhelmed him. Despair and fear brought tears to his eyes.

Noroelle went to him and rested a hand on his shoulder. “I am sorry, Nuramon.”

It was hard for him to look at her, but when he did look up, and when he looked into her blue eyes, all his memories of the days beside her lake returned. He had lived with her affection for twenty years, and together with Farodin, he had rescued the woman he loved from her prison.

Noroelle wiped away his tears. “I am not your destiny, Nuramon. I am not your way into the moonlight. I love you as I love Farodin. But I am not meant to be yours. It hurts me to know that you have undertaken so much and come so far, only to be left alone in the end. You told me about Obilee. And I am grateful for the moment you gave her and for the sweet words you found for her. And it is like a dagger in my heart to know how much she loves and misses you. Now you are separated by worlds that will never be reunited. And all because of me. I can never make up for that.”

Nuramon ran his fingers through her hair. “You already have. Just to be able to see you one more time was worth everything that I have been through.”

“You have to follow the path of your destiny, and yours alone. Look inside yourself. You will see that it is your fate to wander through the centuries. We three are not the last of the Albenkin in this world. You alone will be.”

She kissed him and stroked his cheek. Then she whispered, “Soon I will be just a memory, like everything else.” She kissed him again. “I love you. Never forget that, Nuramon.”

Her hand slipped from his shoulder and she went to Farodin. “You have waited for me so long,” she said. “And now I have awakened again and remember everything that once was.” She looked up. “There. The end is close now. The moon is shining brightly. And I feel it calling to us, Farodin. It is time to say farewell.” She took him by the hands and pulled him to his feet.

Nuramon also stood. Now he knew how Obilee had felt when he told her that she was not his destiny. She had let him go. Now he had to do the same.

Farodin, struggling with a sense of guilt, went to Nuramon. He had reached the goal of his life, but it pained him to see his friend so sad and lonely. “I wish it did not have to end here and now. I wish we had a century for the three of us to explore that land out there.”

“Look at Noroelle,” Nuramon replied, “and then tell me that you wish for anything other than what lies ahead.”

“You are right. But I will miss you.”

Nuramon reached out his hand to Farodin, and Farodin took it in a warrior’s grip. “Farewell, Nuramon. Remember what bound us together.”

“I will never forget it.”

“One day we will meet again in the moonlight. Noroelle and I will wait there for you. And I hope that Mandred is already there.”

Nuramon smiled. “If he is, tell him that what he did made Albenkin of the Firnstayners.”

They embraced. Then Noroelle came and put her arms around Nuramon. “One journey ends here. A new one begins. For all of us. Farewell, Nuramon.”

Noroelle and Farodin kissed, and Nuramon saw a change come over them. He took a step back and watched his friend with the woman they both loved. They held each other and kissed, and as Nuramon watched them, it became clear to him that Noroelle was right. Farodin was the one she had to choose. It felt to him almost like waking from a long, lovely dream.

The scent of flowers wafted through the clearing. Nuramon saw silverlight spreading and enveloping Farodin and Noroelle. They smiled over at him, looking now like figures of light, like beings of some higher order, like Alben. And then they went, with everything that they wore. They simply faded out of this world, just as Albenmark had faded away in front of him. Only he remained behind.

He was alone now, yet he could not weep. Noroelle had taken away his sadness. Knowing that she had found her destiny calmed him. The fact that she had chosen Farodin over him now hurt much less than it had.

Nuramon gazed up at the full moon. Was that really the moonlight? Did the dead really live up there?

He stood there until morning, watching the glowing disk as it made its way across the sky. “I will always remember the moonlight,” he said quietly to himself. When dawn broke, he took his few things and went to the stone where Noroelle had smashed the hourglass. The tide had come in during their storytelling the night before and washed away the sand and shards of glass. Low tide was approaching again.

He thought of Noroelle’s words. “One journey ends here. A new one begins.” It was true. For him, something truly new was beginning. He was the last one, the last elf in this world, the last of the Albenkin. Over there, beyond this narrow strait, lay a strange land waiting to be explored. There was no odor of brimstone there, not yet. And maybe the Tjured faith would never make it there. New paths awaited him, new experiences and new memories. Eternity lay before him, but he would forever remember Noroelle and Farodin, Obilee and Yulivee, Mandred and Alwerich, Emerelle and all the others. And he would never forget Albenmark.

When the tide was at its lowest, he made his way across the rippled sand to the mainland. He looked at the landscape as if he had never seen it before. This world would never cease to fascinate him.

Acknowledgments

L
ike many fantasy novels, the story told in this book began one stormy autumn night with an invitation to take part in a quest. It was just before my friend James Sullivan was to face his final exams in medieval epic poetry, and my call pushed him to the brink of a nervous breakdown. I asked him if he had the time and interest to take part in an adventure: to write a book together. It was the kind of question that, between the
Prose
Lancelot
and Wolfram’s
Parzival
, one does not really want to hear. An hour later, we started our conversation again from the beginning, and James pointed out that any true knight could not refuse when Lady Adventure reached out her hand. Thus began our search for the elves.

No other figures in fantasy literature have inspired so many different interpretations as the elves. They are the fair figures of light in J. R. R. Tolkien’s
The Lord of the Rings
, the soulless creatures from Poul Anderson’s
The Broken Sword
, and the fairy tale beings in Lord Dunsany’s
The King of Elfland’s Daughter
—and much more besides. And we, too, set about consciously creating our own image of the elves. As in the classics of fantasy literature, our creation is a mixture of the familiar and the new.

But no quest can succeed without companions along the way. Helping us bring the adventure in this book to its happy end were Martina Vogl, Angela Kuepper, Natalja Schmidt, and Bernd Kronsbein, as well as Menekse Deprem, Heike Knopp, Elke Kasper, Stefan Knopp, and Sven Wichert.

Bernhard Hennen

July 2004

About the Authors

B
ernhard Hennen was born in Krefeld, Germany. He studied archaeology, history, and German studies at Cologne University, and he traveled extensively while working as a journalist. With Wolfgang Hohlbein, Hennen published his first novel,
Das Jahr des Greifen
,
in 1994. Since then, his name has appeared on dozens of historical and fantasy novels as well as numerous short stories. Hennen has also developed the storyline for a computer game, and he has worked as a swordsman for hire in medieval shows and as a Santa Claus mercenary. In 2000, the author returned to the city of his birth and lives there with his wife and children.

J
ames A. Sullivan was born in 1974 in West Point, New York, and grew up in Germany. During his studies in Cologne, he, together with Bernhard Hennen, became involved in the adventure of writing
The Elven
. He continues this work, following Nuramon in a novel focused on the tragic fate of one of the most popular figures of German fantasy.

About the Translator

Photo © 2012 Ronald Biallas

B
orn in Australia, Edwin Miles has been working as a translator, primarily in film and television, for more than twelve years. After undergraduate studies in his hometown of Perth, he received an MFA in fiction writing at the University of Oregon in 1995. While there, he spent a year working as fiction editor on the literary magazine
Northwest Review
. In 1996, he was short-listed for the prestigious Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award for young writers for a collection of short stories. After many years living and working in Australia, Japan, and the United States, he currently resides in his “second home” in Cologne, Germany, with his wife, Dagmar, and two very clever children.