Soldier Undaunted -- Chapter 6.1

Six

At a signal from Jalonn, Arden and Evénn mounted their horses. Three of the Rangers then approached the troopers’ horses, which kept shying away from the strangers until Evénn came over and spoke to them, taking each by the bridle and whispering softly into their ears. At this they were soothed and submitted to the Rangers, who looked upon Evénn with even greater admiration. Now the Ranger who had handled the hawk emerged from the trees again, riding his own horse and leading Jalonn’s, a tall bay called Touchstone, by the reins. As soon as Jalonn swung himself up into the saddle, the seven of them headed south into the forest. The last Ranger stood gazing after them until long after they were gone.

The woods, so crowded with Guardians of the Forest only a few minutes ago, now seemed empty. They rode abreast over a broad front, and their course wandered much. At times thickets barred their way, or brambles plucked at their clothes as they passed, but the floor of the forest was mostly open and it was possible to see a long way in the autumn light beneath the trees. Nor was there any trace of a path that could lead the enemy to the Valley. Evénn carefully scanned the ground they rode over, but even his sharp eyes could not pick one out. The Forest of Tasar looked much the same as it did the last time he had come this way, in the company of a young Ranger named Raynall. The trees were slightly older. That was all.

They crossed many streams, some deep, some shallow, all cold and dashing noisily downhill towards the Plains of Reith, first of all the Swift, which Arden had called the Seaborne when they met it on the high slopes yesterday. Here below it ran broad, loud, and swift as its name, beneath a broad-leafed canopy of oak and beech and walnut. The day grew sleepy and warm. For here, east of the mountains, the summer lingered on the wind and in green leaves just edged in red and gold.

Through the long afternoon Evénn and the Rangers rode dappled with sunlight and shadow, wading more often through pools of golden sun among the trees than across streams and brooks. Then clouds sodden with rain overtopped the mountains to the west, and a light but steady drizzle began to fall. By evening the rain had grown heavier. With their hoods pulled up and cloaks gathered about them, they settled down for the night beneath an old oak, and thought their fire could be larger.

In the gray dawn they set off again. The downpour muted their spirits and stopped what little conversation the Master would allow. After noon they came to a lively river, turbulent with the rainwater which lesser streams were feeding it. It would have barred their way had they needed to cross it, but this was the River of the Stars. It leaped down glittering from the mountain of the same name, then raced across the isolated valley which the Rangers called home. Jalonn turned west at the river bank and led them back towards the mountains. On either side of the river the land rose quickly and steeply, and soon became a dim gorge, its rocky cliffs looming two hundred feet above their heads. The air roared with the echo of rushing water, which grew louder as the gorge narrowed. Near the end there was scarcely enough room for man or horse to walk beside the river.

Then suddenly they exited the gorge and the Valley of the Rangers opened before them, nearly four miles across at its widest point, and hedged on all sides by granite walls that dwarfed the cliffs at the mouth of the gorge, the Valley’s one connection to the forest beyond. At the far end rose the loftiest of all the Gray Mountains, called the Mountain of the Stars because its summit seemed to pierce the very heavens. The first men to dwell here – it was so long ago now that few remembered them – were sages sent by the kings of the wide land of Narinen to study the stars. On the mountain’s upper slopes where no tree grew, amid snows never known to melt, they built a watchtower. There the hottest summer afternoon was like a cool evening of autumn, and a winter’s night more bitter than regret.

When the Rangers came to make this vale their home and their fortress during the first war against the spirit dragons thirteen centuries ago, the star-masters remained, counting and naming the stars, tracking their movements and striving to understand them, but as old age and death took them one by one, the king sent none to replace them. For the Valley of the Rangers was to be the most secret of all Narinen’s hidden places, a last haven of strength and in time of learning also. And so it was still. For thirty years the red dragon and his men had sought it in vain.

None but the Rangers knew where the fortress lay. Few outsiders ever visited, three or four perhaps in a hundred years, and they had been brought there on meandering, invisible paths through the broad forests. Fewer still could have found their way back alone, even if they had been able to escape the Guardians’ lethal vigilance. No one ever had. Today was the first day in centuries that anyone but a Ranger had entered here without first securing the permission of the Masters.

The fortress itself was carved into the living rock at the foot of the mountain. Even one standing in the open middle of the Valley would have missed its entrance if he did not know where to look for it, hidden beneath the two hundred foot tall pines which stood guard at the base of the granite cliff at the Valley’s western end. What few windows there were lay concealed behind those pines. Centuries of delving and building within the mountain had expanded the fortress within to hold many rooms and galleries and armories on several levels as well as the great library commanded by the seer king. There were stables, too, and forges and kitchens cunningly vented to disperse the smoke of their fires through many winding chimneys, so it seemed no more than the mists that cloaked the broad and lofty shoulders of the Mountain of the Stars.

Arden, Evénn, and the Rangers entered the valley as the second day of their journey verged on evening. The wolf, unsure of himself for once, kept close beside Evénn when Argos raced ahead to be met by his kin, the many other hounds that followed the Rangers into the perils of the lands outside. The rain still fell steadily as they neared the pines by the gates. There they came upon more than a hundred Rangers clad like Arden, Master Jalonn, and the others, some seated cross-legged on the turf, others down on one knee, but all with bowed heads. Facing them and kneeling on a platform which sat like a porch outside the gates of the citadel was an old man, his white hair long, his beard cropped close, his face wrinkled and tan, his eyes closed; and he was leading the Rangers in what they called the Time of Reflection. Jalonn and the other Rangers dismounted to join them, but not Arden. Evénn eyed him, half amused, half curious. Arden ignored him.

“Isn’t that Raynall?” Evénn leaned close to Arden and whispered.

Arden nodded.

For the present Raynall and the rest of the Rangers did not heed them, intent as they were on their meditation. All that could be heard was the rain falling and the dogs yelping and barking across the Valley. Most kept their distance, but a few came to join their masters, as Argos did after fifteen minutes or so. It was the solemn moment when sunset approached and the Rangers reflected on what and who they were, as Rangers, as mortals, as part of a long line of parents and children and lives and deaths. Finally Master Raynall spoke in a calm and thoughtful voice. Evénn smiled. The sound of that voice brought many memories of his time here back to him.

“Look upon the sun and the stars,” Raynall said.

“Know that god made them,” the gathering responded.

“Look upon the sky and the clouds.”

“Know that god made them.”

“Look upon the mountains and the seas.”

“Know that god made them.”

“Look upon the flowers and the trees.”

“Know that god made them.”

“Look upon the creatures of land and sea and sky.”

“Know that god made them.”

“Look upon yourself.”

“Know that god made you.”

“Be still.”

“Be still.”

“Know that you are a finite part of an infinite whole that heeds not your cares or your hurry,” Raynall said after a longer pause.

“But know that god does,” they replied with one voice.

“Be still. Be still. Be still.”

“And know that you are not god.”

For several minutes more they stayed as they were. Then a young boy at the front of the crowd stood up and approached Raynall. He held out his hand to help the old man to his feet, but it was clear to Evénn this evening, just as it had been decades earlier with a different Master, that this was more a ritual of respect for the Master and his years than it was a necessity. Raynall took the boy’s hand, but got up easily himself. He then bowed deeply to the Rangers. The Time of Reflection was at an end. The others, too, now got to their feet, and some turned to look at Arden and Evénn. Raynall gazed over their heads at Evénn as if he were gazing across time itself. He smiled in recognition and nodded to him, then to Arden. Both bowed in return, and Raynall beckoned to them.

They dismounted and began leading their horses forward through the crowd of Rangers, who stepped aside as they came, some talking quietly in small groups, others preferring to be alone as if in continued meditation. But the eyes of all were upon the two. As they passed, many nodded and welcomed them, bowing or extending a hand and a smile to Arden. Most were men, but there were several dozen women present, clad in gray or green and wearing a sword and dagger.

“You’ve been away too long, Arden,” said one of the men. Evénn guessed he was several years older than Arden.

“Perhaps I have, Niall. I often think so when I return,” Arden replied.

“Then you should return more often,” added a much younger woman standing at Niall’s shoulder. “Your friends have missed you these last three years.”

“And I have missed them, Agarwen," Arden smiled in answer, clasping their hands quickly and moving on. “We’ll speak more later. Evénn and I must greet the Master.”

Evénn nodded to Niall and Agarwen, and followed Arden towards the platform where Raynall stood. Jalonn was already at Raynall’s side, speaking very quietly. Nor were they alone. Five others stood around them in a circle, listening. As Jalonn spoke, Raynall’s eyes sought out Evénn’s and never left them. Evénn could just make out Jalonn’s words. He was quickly recounting all that happened yesterday morning and giving his assessment of it.

At that moment two young Rangers stepped up to Arden and Evénn. They bowed deeply, respectfully, and offered to tend to their horses for them, but as they did so they eyed the wolf at Evénn’s side with some care.

“Don’t concern yourself about him,” Evénn said to them. “Never yet has he harmed a friend. He is no kin to the wolves you know. He has never served or done evil.”

“We have no doubt of that, sir, since he comes here with you,” one of them said courteously, “but our long enmity with the wolves we know has taught us caution.”

“And so it should, but I have learned better in his company,” the elf said. “He has proven a faithful friend to me, and Argos here has the wisdom to know friend from foe. They have become fast friends in but a short time.”

“Then we shall not let it be said that we are less wise than our hounds,” the youth replied.

“Nor should you,” said Evénn.

With that Evénn withdrew the roll of cloth from Moonglow’s saddle, and let the two young men lead him and Arden’s horse away to be stabled, groomed, and fed. Then he looked down at Argos and the wolf. They were looking at him expectantly, then glancing at a group of wolfhounds some distance away. A plea was in their eyes.

“Arden,” he said, drawing his attention to them, “Argos wishes to introduce my wolf to his kin.”

“Go on, then, Argos,” Arden said to the hound, and, Evénn signaling his agreement to the wolf, both wolf and dog bolted off towards the waiting hounds, who met them as dogs will, with inquisitive noses. After the necessary introductions they all dashed off together.

Arden and Evénn now came up to the platform at the gates. Turf grew thick upon its roof, and vines hung down on all sides. Seen from above, it would have blended into the ground. When Evénn first arrived here on a sunlit morning some sixty years ago there had been neither vines nor turf, but those were other days. Men did not fear the heavens then. It seemed fitting to him, and grimly amusing, that he came this time amid the gloom of rain and dusk.

At the edge of the platform Raynall, Jalonn, and the others who had heard Jalonn’s report, stood silently waiting for them. Evénn had no doubt he was looking at all seven of the Masters. Their ages varied. The eldest, Raynall, hale into his ninth decade, could have been grandfather to Falimar, the new Master of the Bow, who was six years younger than Arden. The rest were Jalonn’s age or older. Beside him on Raynall’s left were Falimar and Marak, the Master of Hounds. On the other side stood Keral, the Master of Books, then Orom, the Master of Horses, and lastly Indushan, the Master of the Valley, to whose care were entrusted all matters touching upon the safety and provisioning of the Valley.

Reflected in their eyes Evénn saw both kindness and caution, but in different proportions according to their natures. The doubts of several were quite plain. He did not blame them. After all these years his own people might look at him in just this way – welcoming but uncertain, their hopes poised warily against their expectations – if he were to appear suddenly, bearing with him the suggestion of hope. Countless leagues of land and sea, and twenty five years of the sun, divided him from the last of his own people. They were hidden deep in their own final sanctuary, or so he prayed, and they, too, were waiting for a sign.

“Greetings, Evénn, and welcome,” said Master Raynall. “I did not think to see you again in this life.”

“Greetings to you, too, old friend,” Evénn answered with a fading smile. His voice took on a more sober, urgent tone. “I wish we had met sooner. Much has changed with the years, and many things have returned that we did not expect to see.”

“But your return at least is welcome.”

“Masters, the night has gone on too long. I bring a sign,” he said, and hesitated for the right words, “of the coming dawn.”

As he said these words he raised the silk wrapped bundle in his right hand ever so slightly, and subtly shifted his eyes to it, then back to the Masters again. Raynall’s expression scarcely changed, but the elf could see light of speculation, then wonder briefly kindle in his eyes. He stepped forward and extended his hand to his guest, who grasped it quickly and firmly.

“May your words prove true, Evénn,” Raynall said. “Welcome again. I regret that we serve but simple fare here. We can offer no feast to honor you and your ancient deeds as they deserve, but perhaps the past will light the way to the future. “

“It always has,” Evénn answered.

“Just so,” Raynall said. “For now, my friend, we must leave you, but Master Indushan will return presently to escort you to the room we have prepared for you. You will remember it, I think, from your last visit. Arden, son of Tyr, we will await your report in the Council Chamber. No doubt you have much to tell us.”

“That I do, Master,” Arden replied.

As the Masters entered the citadel, Arden noticed Jalonn and Keral exchange a brief look.

“So, Evénn, may I ask what that bundle is now?” Arden said. “The Masters looked at it closely, but their expressions were guarded.”

“Do not keep the Masters waiting, Arden,” Evénn said, chiding his impatience with a kindly smile.

“Very well,” Arden chuckled.

When the Master of the Valley reappeared a moment later, Evénn stepped up onto the platform to greet her and shake her hand before entering the citadel together. Arden lingered briefly, looking back across the rainy valley. Not one of the Rangers present upon their arrival had left yet. They had stayed to observe the meeting of Evénn and the Masters.

“Small wonder,” he thought, and set out for the Council Chamber.

_________________________

Chapter 6.2

Soldier Undaunted -- Chapter 5.2

So the two rode down through the woods, saying nothing at all for several miles. Ahead of them Argos and the wolf flitted between the sunlight and shadow beneath the trees. Evénn was watching them appearing and disappearing when Arden unexpectedly glanced back and beckoned him to follow. They moved south off the path until they came to a precipitous slope of broken stone where the horses could not go. At first, as they carefully picked their way across the scree on foot, all they could hear was the wind hissing down the slope and the patter of tumbling stones. Then suddenly the sound of water reached their ears, and all at once before their feet was a stream rushing headlong down a channel worn deep and smooth through the ages. For a little while they stopped there just listening to its music and watching the sun glitter off its clear waters. As the minutes passed, Evénn noticed an expression that was almost peace briefly touch the Ranger’s face.

“Here is another place,” said Arden quietly without turning around, “where there is no time as men or elves measure it. It is not the sea to be sure, but for many years I have found great pleasure in this stream and the sound of its waters. Every time I come this way, no matter my hurry, I always pause here.”

“It’s beautiful, as the sound of water always is. Nothing more so. Though I have walked this mountain path before, long, long ago, I was not aware of this place. And if it is not the sea, the voice of the sea can be heard deep within it, for it leads there in the end.”

“That it does.”

“What is it called?”

“Down in the plain men name it the River Swift, but I call it the Seaborne. It joins the Rheith many miles to the east on its long journey to the sea. I have never followed it for its whole course, nor have I been back to the sea since I left it as a boy.”

“Why not, since you clearly love it so?”

“My duty has never called me there.”

“Is duty needed to go where your heart tends?”

“For me it would. But soon enough it may do so. Come, Evénn. I wished to show you this place, but it’s time we were on our way.”

With that they turned away again and returned to their horses, winding ever downward through the forest. Evénn continued to listen closely to see if he could still hear the stream, but the woods soon grew thick about them, and only occasionally could he catch its sound, now closer to them, now farther away, now more loudly as it plunged over some sudden drop to dash itself upon the rocks below, now more quietly as it ran on and on in its smooth, old channel.

Late in the afternoon, when the sun was gone from the eastern face of the mountain and the chill in the air began to grow, Evénn turned to Arden once more with questions.

“Raynall taught you history, you say, as well as the sword. Did you have many books at the fortress?”

“Oh, yes,” Arden replied, with evident satisfaction. “There is a great library, with many thousands of volumes. Once it could rival any school in the land.”

“Truly? I didn’t know that. I always knew that the Rangers trained the mind and spirit as well as the body, but this library is news to me.”

“Well, I am glad we have a few secrets you have not learned,” Arden laughed. “The library of the Rangers is older than the Republic. Our penultimate king, Aléthen, was also a seer, and one night towards the end of his days he dreamed a dream in which a disaster befell the world, and all learning and knowledge of the past were lost. When he awoke, the dread of this vision so burdened his heart that, although the dawn was still hours away, he sent at once for his son, Stochas, and commanded him to found a library in some safe and secret place. Stochas chose the hidden depths of our mountain stronghold, and entrusted this labor to us.

“In all the centuries that have come and gone since Aléthen’s day – and even you must call it a long time – never have we neglected this trust. For the task was worthy in itself, and the king was a true seer. All he saw came to pass. And so, through the flowing years we have copied the books in our care again and again, slowly, precisely, faithfully, lest our memory of what was be corrupted. Not only that. Rangers have often been sent abroad to gather more volumes, to the cities and scholars’ towns of our own land, or across the sea to Elashandra, and to the kingdom of Seraal before they warred on us.

“Once a pair even traveled to Pa Davil and the Mountains of the Dawn to copy a book we could find nowhere else in all the world. While there they crossed into the Valley of Encounter and saw the Tower of Memory, which none of our people had ever done before. The two of them were gone for so many years that even the Masters despaired of their return. But beyond all expectation they came back at last, with the book and tales of the strange lands they had seen. The account they wrote of their journey is preserved in the library, and every apprentice Ranger must read it.

“Even now that the disaster Aléthen foresaw has finally come upon us, Rangers still go seeking books. We sneak like thieves into the ruined cities of our own land to glean what we can from the rubble of the libraries and schools destroyed by the dragons. A few have ventured even into the remains of the king’s library at Narinen. Nor have all returned. So, you see, Evénn, we were – and are – as much the guardians of that knowledge as of our people’s liberty. In one respect at least we did not fail.”

“It is not failure, my friend,” Evénn argued, “when all your strength and will do not suffice. Or at least it is not a failure that merits blame. No one would accuse the Rangers of giving less than their best to carry out their stewardship.”

“You speak kindly, Evénn, and I thank you for it, but I am not sure you are correct.”

A sidelong look was the elf’s only comment.

“Do you recall my saying that at first Rangers were sent to try to slay the dragons?”

Evénn nodded.

“After those attempts failed,” Arden went on, “the Masters would not sanction another. Even though all the other dragons departed within two years and left the red dragon to rule this land alone, the Masters still refused to try again. This decision is our doom. As long as the dragons live, we will never be free. While we do nothing, they grow stronger. Time is on their side.”

“Time is on no one’s side, Arden,” Evénn answered, “and you have no weapons that can harm the red dragon. Have the Masters explained their decision?”

“No. I have asked. I have protested. ‘It is not yet time,’ they say. ‘We must be patient,’ they say. Not yet, not yet, not yet. I question their courage. It is easier for them to hide in their stronghold and pretend to be Rangers than for them to risk all and prove that they are.”

“You speak in the bitterness of your heart. For you measure all things by it. Your refusal to accept their decision does not make it wrong; their refusal to act does not make them cowards. It may be they are waiting –”

“For what?” Arden asked. “Each year the enemy grows stronger; each year our people become more estranged from us. And why should our people believe in us? All they see are bedraggled wanderers who haunt the wild lands and forests. Most of them will not even look at us. The few who do are full of doubt. I saw it that day at Kinabra. I see it all the time. The dragon’s men tell them we are nothing but outlaws, and they are coming to believe it. All the while, we take counsel. We bide our time. For what?”

“I know what you have seen. I’ve seen it, too. But, as I began to say, perhaps the Masters are waiting for something to happen, a sign that the right time has come.”

Arden did not respond, and for a time Evénn allowed him his silence. But his eyes never left him. The Ranger’s face was impassive, his gaze so deeply withdrawn that Evénn wondered at his ability to stay on the trail. Bit by bit the set of Arden’s jaw grew harder, and his lips half pursed, half taut, like a man facing a truth he did not wish to express.

“Don’t you think so?” Evénn asked him at last.

Arden turned to him suddenly, and Evénn could tell that he had been aware of every moment of his scrutiny. Still Arden did not speak. Instead he glared at him and cocked an eyebrow.

“There, you see,” Evénn said, with a hint of a smile. “I thought as much. Beneath all bitterness and grief a place remains within us where all the lies we tell ourselves ring hollow. You know the Masters are right.”

“You spoke of a sign.”

“Yes, like the two of us, man and elf, riding in together, with this,” Evénn went on, and bent down to pat the object wrapped in blue silk, which was tied to the saddle beneath his right leg.

“I have wondered what that was.”

“But you did not ask.”

“Not all of our conversations have gone well,” Arden said wryly. “I guessed you would tell me in your own time.”

“And so I shall,” Evénn replied. “Soon enough.”

“Then for now I shall let it be.”

“Well done, Arden. You may yet grow wise.”

“Yes, the next thing you know, I’ll start speaking of god and in riddles as you do.”

“Stranger things have happened,” Evénn said with a laugh.

“Yes, like me, of all people, riding into the Rangers’ camp with the dragonslayer, and that being taken for a sign.”

As night was falling they made camp in a glade surrounded by ancient black walnuts. There they built a large fire and ate their evening meal in silence. When they were done, Evénn asked Arden to tell him more about the library. To pass the time and allay the suspicions of the watchers he was sure were already encircling them, Arden agreed.

Every young Ranger spent a part of his apprenticeship there. The few who wrote a fair hand – “not me,” Arden added with a quick laugh and a shake of his head, “my efforts won me only sad looks” – learned old scripts and copied books in the scriptorium. Of these the best were chosen for further training when their apprenticeships were over, and their duties were divided between the library and the world outside the Valley. Those who wrote like Arden studied the binding and preservation of books, and the art of making good, black ink that did not fade. And so generation by generation the collection had grown, with new books and fresh copies of old books joining the volumes which already lined the shelves. Nothing was lost, nothing neglected, nothing destroyed. The library now took up many different rooms and chambers scattered throughout the keep; and only the Master of Books and his priors knew where everything was.

While Evénn and Arden spoke of these matters, Argos and the wolf were staring intently into the gloom of the woods around them, but made no sound or move. Every now and then Argos would raise his head, sniff the breeze, and wag his tail slightly, as at the presence of a friend, then look to Arden, who would shake his head and beckon the dog to lie down. The wolf followed Argos’ lead and, without a word from Evénn, lay down beside the hound. But their eyes never left the woods, and their ears swiveled this way and that, catching sounds that Arden at least could not hear. If Evénn heard anything, he gave no sign; and if Arden signaled the watchers that all was well, Evénn did not see it. In time he bade Evénn good night, threw more wood upon the fire, and stretched out beneath his cloak.

For their part the watchers took this all in as they tightened their cordon around the camp. They listened to Arden, who spoke loudly enough for them to hear, and they heard his companion’s soft replies. The bright fire made all in the camp clear: Arden and the stranger, Argos and the rather surprising wolf – they seemed to be friends – and the stranger’s tall horse standing among the others with the brand of the dragon on their haunches. As the watchers’ numbers grew, they sent parties up the mountain, to scout out the way Arden and the stranger had come and make sure they had not been followed.

Thus Arden, Evénn, and the watchers passed the night. Arden, sleepless himself, noticed that for the first time since they had met the elf stayed sitting by the fire. He did not leave the camp at all.

At first light Arden got up. Shreds of mist drifted through the grove. Evénn looked to him for a sign, and the Ranger gestured for him to remain by the fire, now burning low in the morning dim. Beside him in plain sight lay his sword, bow, and the silken bundle. Arden packed up their gear and saddled the horses. He smothered the fire and scattered the ashes. At last he signaled to Evénn to rise.

“Leave your weapons on the ground,” he said.

Evénn got up and stood next to him. Arden called Argos and the wolf over to them.

“We are surrounded by many men,” Evénn murmured, as he gazed up at a half dozen hawks drifting in slow circles high above them. He could see their pinion feathers making the smallest adjustments to the trim of their wings. They were not here by chance, he thought.

“Yes, any who pass this way are closely watched, Ranger or not. Twenty years ago at another of our encampments in the southwest more than a hundred Rangers died because of a lapse in vigilance. Since then the Guardians have been merciless to any they deem a threat.”

“What do we do now? It was not like this the last time I was here.”

“Those were days of peace, and you had permission to come. Now things are different. If we simply begin moving south, the guardians will kill us.”

“So then?”

“Watch,” said Arden, with a flicker of a grin. “If they kill me, you’ll know we’re in trouble.”

Arden turned to face south. The moment he took a step forward, Evénn could hear bows beginning to bend. Arden stopped, and held his hands low at his sides, palms open and empty. Then he called out in a loud voice.

“Guardians of the Forest, you know me. I am Arden, son of Tyr. Despite the ban, I have not come alone. I bring a friend to the Rangers, a mighty warrior, and an ally to our cause. We have left no living enemy behind us to discover our secret ways. Slay us if you will, since we have broken the law. But, if you do, you will slay something our people have long needed.”

Arden waited, motionless. Evénn looked about him, moving nothing but his eyes, and listened closely. Time would tell now whether they would live or die, as the leader of the Guardians weighed the trust he put in Arden’s character against the commands imposed by broken law. The sky brightened. A bird sang. Another answered. The breeze stirred. A thick patch of mist hurried past them. Suddenly a tall man, lean and broad shouldered, was standing before them. All gray he seemed, his dark cloak, his short, grizzled beard, his braided hair; and he regarded them with eyes as gray and clear as winter twilight. Evénn gazed back, impressed. He had not heard him coming.

“Our people are much in need these days, Arden, son of Tyr,” he said calmly. His gloved hands were folded before him, not far from the hilt of his sword. “What is it you bring that I should set aside the law?”

Arden bowed slowly to this man and straightened.

“I bring hope, Master Jalonn,” Arden said respectfully.

The man inclined his head slightly, and looked at Arden with an eyebrow raised. His lip curled for a moment, as if he were about to laugh.

“And where would you, of all people, find that?” he asked. “You are right. We know you, quite well, and you are not much given to hope.”

“True enough, Master, but I bring hope for our people nevertheless.”

“But none for yourself?”

“Hope for our people is all I may have. What else is there?”

“There is much, Arden,” Jalonn answered. In his tone Evénn caught the hint of long acquaintance. This was not the first time he had said words like these to Arden. “What hope do you bring, then?”

“I bring the dragonslayer.”

The gray man now cocked an eyebrow at Evénn and looked him up and down. He seemed neither surprised nor impressed. The elf returned his gaze. A whisper ran through the woods as the news of the dragonslayer spread from Ranger to Ranger. Jalonn looked back to Arden.

“Silence,” he commanded without raising his voice. The whispering ceased. The Master frowned, dubious, and folded his arms across his chest. Long he looked at Arden and many thoughts and emotions flitted subtly across his face. Evénn could see him wonder if this could be true, if Arden were a fool, and if he would be more of a fool for believing him. Finally the Master spoke again.

“If he is indeed Evénn the dragonslayer, there may be something to what you say, Arden. But Evénn disappeared a thousand years ago and has seldom been heard of since. That he should reappear to us in our time of need would be glad news indeed. But this fellow doesn’t look like a dragonslayer to me. If he is Evénn, then I am the king of Talor.”

Evénn laughed out loud.

“But that would make you my father,” Evénn said, “and he has been dead these thirty years.”

The gray man still regarded him doubtfully, but in his eyes was the glint of laughter.

“And what does a dragonslayer look like, Master Jalonn?” Arden asked.

The Master ignored this question, and spoke to Evénn directly.

“What say you, elf? Are you truly Evénn, the son of Halar?”

“If you do not believe that I am, bid your bowmen shoot. I offer you my life here and now,” replied Evénn.

“And I mine, Master Jalonn,” Arden added.

For several moments the Master reflected, his arms still folded across his chest.

“Your life would already be mine, elf, if I wished it,” he said and paused again. “But that would prove nothing. Very well, I shall let the law sleep for a day, and you will come with us to the fortress. Wait by your horses and make ready to follow. Arden, I do this, for I know that you are no liar and less of a fool than you once were, but my heart misgives me. I fear we shall pay dearly for the hope you bring.”

“The cost to your people has already been high,” said Evénn. “It will only grow higher.”

“That is the only thing I have heard today of which I am not unsure. And that is why I let you pass. The time has come for us to risk everything or be scattered to the four winds.”

“Like ashes,” said Evénn, as he and Arden walked over to their horses.

“Like ashes,” answered Jalonn, his eyes on their backs.

The Master then waved his hand, and Evénn could hear the slow unbending of many bows, which he had heard bend and unbend in sequence many times already, as one set of bowmen succeeded another at the ready. Presently several dozen men and women clad in green or gray quietly filtered out of the woods all around them. Many dogs accompanied them, two or three for every Ranger. Most were wolfhounds like Argos, huge and shaggy, gray or black, the dogs of war; a few were smaller, with a pied coat of black and white fur, and in their pale eyes was an intelligence that took in everything around them and did not rest. Evénn and the wolf had all their attention.

The Rangers said nothing to Evénn or Arden, nor much even to each other, but watched them closely, pondering what they had heard and its meaning. Their ages varied, Evénn saw. Many were in their twenties or thirties, but more of them looked to be Arden’s age or older, like Jalonn. Regardless of their age, all had the weathered appearance of those who spend years of days and nights beneath the sky, summer and winter alike; and all shared the same countenance of hardship and pain. They had seen much, suffered much, and did not care for the memory of it all. Though he had never seen them before, Evénn knew them well.

Jalonn called several of them over to him, and with a few quiet words gave them their orders. In groups of four or six they departed into the forest. Several raised a hand of greeting and farewell to Arden as they went, a brief smile coming to faces that wore them seldom. Arden did likewise, then looked to Jalonn and the five Rangers standing near him. One of them glanced up at the sky and whistled. A hawk plummeted from above, alighting on the Ranger’s heavily gloved right hand. With his left the Ranger tucked a small note Jalonn wrote out into a leather sheath on the bird’s leg. He hurled the hawk into the air, and walked quickly off into the trees. The hawk beat its wings, rapidly gaining height and speed, and passed swiftly out of sight to the south.

“You have told them of our coming?” Arden asked Master Jalonn.

“Yes.”

“What did you say?”

“A word,” Jalonn answered with a wry look.

“What word?”

“Evénn.”

_________________________________

Chapter 6.1

Soldier Undaunted -- Chapter 5.1

Five

Far taller than the hills Arden had climbed in his flight from the dragons’ men, the wide, granite shoulders and soaring peaks of the Gray Mountains rose high and sharp against the blue of the eastern sky. Up above the hardiest of the dark pines, beyond bare, hard slopes of stone, was the pass towards which Arden and Evénn were climbing. With luck, just before nightfall of the second day they would stand in the pass itself, and look back on the sun as it vanished into the west. Ahead of them to the east, the vast central plains of Arden’s land, the Plains of Rheith, which stretched eastward for seven hundred miles from the Gray Mountains, and twice as far north and south, would already be shadowed deep in night.

A generation ago these plains had been well peopled with farmers who raised the food that fed the wide Land of Narinen, and shipped it in barges down the Rheith to the eastern ocean. Now the settlements were fewer, the farmsteads lonelier. Wilderness was returning. Of the farmers who remained, some had grown fat through courting the volatile favor of the dragon and his men; and many who had once tilled the earth and raised herds for their own benefit now did so for his. Others had dwindled, struggling to sustain a meager life, their wealth gone to pack the dragon’s vaults, the price of a submission that was not quite eager enough.

Many towns, too, had taken root there in the centuries before the dragons came, and cities had grown up, alive with the bustle of trade, and the more serene pursuits of art and learning. Roads, broad, well paved, and straight as far as the eye could see linked them, bringing news of the wider world on the lips of merchants and scholars, travelers and Rangers, as they journeyed from town to city, or stopped along the way to water their horses and pass the time of day with a farmer in his field. But the roads between the abandoned fields were now long untended. Grass sprouted from their cracked stones. The cities lay mostly in ruins, their wealth plundered, their books burned, their mansions of art, their halls of learning, reduced to heaps of fallen stones. The people in the towns did not stir from them, and did not welcome the few strangers who entered their small, guarded world.

To the east of the Plains of Rheith another chain of mountains rose. Though in recent times they had become known as the Coastal Range, of old they were called as the Green Hills, a name that lived still among those dwelling in their gentle shade. No man, no elf, could say if the Green Hills were in truth older than the Gray Mountains, but to all who laid eyes upon them they seemed ancient, worn low by wind and rain, bent beneath the weight of unreckoned years. Their eastern face looked over the coastal plain to the great ocean and to the City of Narinen, the Republic’s fallen capital and Arden’s true home.

Silence was again their companion as Arden and Evénn labored up the winding trail to the pass. Aside from a few words at breakfast they said nothing at all the first day. In the evening when they stopped for the night they were high up among the pines and firs. The air was cold and thin. It left them little enough breath for thought, and almost none for conversation. The next day they left the trees behind before the morning was half gone, and soon the slope became too steep for riding. So they dismounted and led their horses. Or rather, Arden led his; Moonglow and the other troopers’ horses simply did as Evénn wished with scarcely more than a murmur from him.

At length they were approaching the gap between the mountains’ shoulders where the pass lay. With a shock Arden realized that he was lightheaded, and as bone weary as only the cold and tired can be. Though over the years he had made this journey many times, it always surprised him that he, who forgot nothing, could forget – until the next time – the near giddy exhaustion of the hard climb’s end. All he remembered was the sense that on this mad height his eyes beheld a true vision of the world. Arden could not put what he saw into words that satisfied him; he knew he could not, because a part of it eluded his understanding, like the memory of a well-known thing that hovers just out of reach.

Raising his eyes from the stones before his feet, he saw that Evénn had drawn some distance ahead. Arden watched him for a moment, then muttered to himself with half a grin.

“Not bad for a five thousand year old man.”

“But I am not a man,” Evénn said over his shoulder, and paused to let him catch up.

“No, of course not. I did not mean it that way.”

“I know.”

“But you are the first elf I’ve ever met.”

“Am I?” Evénn answered, quietly amused. “Once your people and mine met more often, but that was long ago before you crossed the sea. Oddly enough, the men who remained behind in the eastern lands saw us more frequently, yet it was you who proved more faithful when the dragons returned. Most of them submitted and fought against us.” He paused to consider what he had said, then went on. “But none who resisted survived for long. The dragons destroyed them utterly. Fear can make hearts faithless.”

“Many of my people did – do – the same,” Arden replied. “The terror of what happened at Narinen, which we had thought so mighty, led them to submit, but some did more than that.”

“Do you hate them?”

Arden did not answer at first. He thought back to the fierce passion, so like love, that had blazed within him in the first years after the Fall. He shook his head.

“No,” he replied, “not as I once did. Mostly I pity them. They are men as I am. Not all are as evil as their deeds. Some went seeking a way to protect their families, and became entangled in their choices. Still, they are all the enemy. For myself, I had nothing left to protect. My choices had all been made.”

Arden’s last words came after the briefest hesitation, like a familiar but unwelcome reflection.

“Just so,” Evénn said.

They began climbing again. Presently the path bent round a large outcropping of granite, and the pass came into sight not two hundred yards away. The sun hung low in the sky behind them. At these heights it lent only a pale golden light that did little to warm them against the sharp breeze blowing from the west. The air rasped in and out of Arden’s lungs. For a moment his head swam. Talking in this air had not helped his breathing. He looked up at the elf just ahead of him and, for all his shortness of breath, he laughed with a lightness of heart he had not felt for a long time.

Evénn stopped again to look back. His smile and the golden sunlight made his face shine.

“Why are laughing?”

“I am laughing at myself.”

“But why do you amuse yourself so? Is the thin air making you lightheaded?”

“Do not be offended, but I had always thought that elves had pointed ears. As I said, you are the first I have actually met.”

Evénn, his smile broadening, said, “I don’t know where that story comes from.” He burst out laughing himself, and laughing together they came to the high point of the pass: the wind and sunlight streamed from behind them, and ahead all the Plains of Rheith slept in the darkness. They stood there on the margin of night, looking out across the world, eastward and then back westward, where the red sun broke the horizon.

“In this place,” said Arden, “I can almost imagine that none of it ever happened, that all below is still as it was, and our people and families await our homecoming, wondering where we are and when we shall rejoin them. If only that were true.”

“That is because nothing has changed here,” Evénn answered. “This place is just as it was. It is much the same far out to sea, where the land is barely a memory. There, just as here, there is no evil or change. Days and nights succeed each other but do not mark time.”

Arden grasped what had eluded him so long about this place. It reminded him of the great sea by which he was born, and the sight of which he had so long denied himself.

“It is long since I have been at sea, but you are right. Time does not pass there, or its meaning is different. The present at sea is everlasting, in a way that it is not among men on the land. Nor among elves either from what you say.”

“Among the elves, too,” Evénn agreed. “We should take heart from that. It is a sign of hope.”

“It is?” said Arden surprised.

“Yes,” Evénn said as the sun plunged beneath the horizon. He looked over his shoulder at the rising twilight. “It means that there are some things the dragons cannot touch. But it is night and it will grow cold quickly at this height. As I recall, there is a cave not far below us where we may take shelter until the dawn.”

“There is. The Rangers keep it stocked with firewood and provisions. I was just thinking of it not long ago. After the climb it is always a welcome place to rest.”

“Let us go then, and warm ourselves and rest.”

They started down the eastern slope into the darkness. After about half a mile they found the cave, sheltered from the wind in a recess of the mountain. While Evénn tended to their horses, Arden kindled a fire. Beneath his skilled hands it soon glowed warm and bright. Argos and the wolf immediately lay down as close to it as they dared. Evénn and Arden sat in peace, sharing their supper with the wolf and the dog, while the wind whirled outside in the icy darkness.

As Arden and Evénn rode down the eastern slope the next morning, they welcomed the growing warmth of the sun on their faces. Not far ahead now a great wall of trees marked the upper boundary of the Forest of Tasar. Arden led the way, but he was not watching the trail before them. His gaze was cast ever outward, to the east, the sea, and his home. No eyes of man or elf were so keen, even from this lofty height on so clear a morning, as to see that far across the wide land of Narinen. The Green Hills themselves were too far beyond the curve of the earth to be seen. Not the least part of what Arden looked for was visible to him, but ever since the rising of the sun a vision of the shores of his home and the high walls of his City had appeared within him. He felt he could almost hear the sea and smell its salt on the air. It was all impossible, he knew, but the memory was strong upon him. For a time he disregarded all the reasons why it could not be and reveled in it.

For the first time in many years he also found himself strangely eager to return to the last free remnant of his people. He felt he had important news to tell them, that now it was time again to try the strength of the dragon. What Evénn had said three nights ago made clear that this was why he had come. Surely with the dragonslayer’s help they might at last succeed. Last night as they stood in the pass Evénn had offered up the timelessness of the earth and the sea as a sign of hope. Perhaps the evils of the world were not eternal.

“Perhaps,” Arden whispered to himself.

Yet, though Arden felt his spirits rise within him along with the sun and his memories of home, he kept a close watch upon his emotions and reined them tightly in, as a rider does a spirited horse that cannot be given its head. With every step they took down the mountainside, the tension between Arden’s eagerness to bring Evénn to the Rangers and his need to control it mounted. But for all that, his hope was for his people alone. His heart lay buried in the past.

“That would be too much to hope for,” he murmured again as he checked himself.

“What would be too much to hope for?” asked Evénn from close behind him.

“Victory,” Arden lied. Pointed or not, the elf’s ears were sharp.

“Nonetheless we must try.”

“Yes, but we may try alone.”

“Then that is what we shall do,” he paused. “Tell me, when do you think the scouts of the Rangers will meet us?

“The Rangers who guard the forest keep a close watch on this pass,” Arden responded. “So it’s likely we’ve already been seen, and that word of us is on its way to the Masters. But no one will approach until the Masters reply. That will take time. For now the Guardians of the Forest will watch us to see which way we choose to go, and to see if I give them some sign.”

“And if you do?”

“That depends on the sign. I could tell them to kill or capture you. Even if I signal that all is well, it is forbidden to bring anyone to the fortress without the Masters’ leave. By nightfall we shall be surrounded. But if we suddenly find ourselves in a ring of bowmen, make no move unless I do. Remain still. They are no more likely to recognize you as an elf than I was. It is a long time since your folk and mine have met on this side of the sea. And none returned from the war in your land.”

“Tell me,” Evénn asked, “does Raynall live still? He would be very old by now.”

“Raynall, son of Daglor? Yes, he lives, and he was well the last time I was here three years ago. What do you know of him?”

“It was he who brought me here the last time, some sixty years of the sun ago. But we came from the east, from Narinen, and we had leave to come. He was a young man then, twenty years or more younger than you are now.”

“Raynall was on of my teachers when I came here after the City fell. He seemed old to me then, but I was just a boy. Everyone seemed old to me.”

“What did he teach you?”

“He taught me the sword. He was the Master of Swords by then. Now he is the Master of Rangers.”

“That does not surprise me. Even then it was clear that he was well thought of. And I thought your fighting technique looked familiar. Raynall and I often practiced together in the months I was among the Rangers. He was a better swordsman than you are.”

“So he has always told me. And proved it. I have never defeated him in a match.”

“That is also no surprise, and no shame either. Few could match him. Did he teach you anything else?”

“When he learned of my interest in history – that I had been about to go to the scholar’s town of Prisca to study when the war came upon us – he taught me much of our land and the world in general. You know, I asked him once when we were studying the history of Talor whether he had ever met an elf. He said he had not. Actually, now that I think of it, he was the one who told me that elves had pointed ears.”

Evénn laughed and said smiling, “He always did have a sense of humor. He knows very well that we do not.”

“Did he know who you were?”

“Not at first. When I came, I did so under a different name. The point of my journey was to renew and reinforce the bonds between our people. Who I am did not matter. The message is more important than the messenger. But eventually, as friendship grew between us, I told him my name.”

“How did he react?” Arden asked.

“He laughed. We both did.”

“Of course. I guess his telling me that elves have pointed ears was his revenge on me for ceaselessly plying him with questions about everything beneath the sun.”

“It may be indeed. You are still quite inquisitive, you know. I can only imagine what you were like as a boy,” said Evénn, still laughing.

“I am sorry. I know that I have asked you many things and not always liked the answers –”

“No, you have not,” Evénn laughed again.

“ – but meeting you has raised many questions that no other has ever been able, or willing, to answer.”

“I see. It’s quite all right. No harm was done, and there were things you had to know if we were to walk the path god has laid before us. But today perhaps you will allow me to ask the questions.”

“Of course.”

“Then why,” asked Evénn, “did you so devote yourself to studying history if hope seemed futile? Such despair would have made many see no point to it.”

“My father was a member of the Council of the Republic and always sought to imbue my brother, Alairan, and me with a sense of the importance of remembering the past. Without memory, he said, we were little better than the beasts, and would remain children forever. Then, too, the stories and songs of the past had fascinated me ever since I was a child. I could also hide myself in imagining those days and people. That was true even before it all ended.”

“And what, Arden, did you have to hide from before the dragons came? In those days the Republic was rich in wisdom and strength.”

“Not much. For the most part my youth was blessed, a time of joy and good fortune, but even so,” Arden paused like a man unwilling to say more, “not everything was to my liking. The forest may flourish while one tree withers.”

“I see.”

Evénn let the conversation end, as Arden plainly wished it to do. There was some deeper frustration, some sharper point to Arden’s bitterness, than even the horror of watching his world overthrown could explain. For he was not reticent about the war itself. What had Arden lost that so affected him that he would not speak of it thirty years later? Then Evénn remembered how Arden had winced at his mention of the first love of youth.

Arden, he now saw, had lost someone before the long night fell. The look he saw in the Ranger’s eyes when he spoke of the perils of trying to restore what had been lost was quite eloquent. It was not the fallen world Arden had thought of in that moment, but the girl he had loved and never forgotten. And she, too, was dead. No wonder his temptation. For him the twilight had begun before the dragons came. For him the memory of the past was both a solace and a curse. Even if they overthrew the dragons, the day would never fully come for Arden. The wound was deeper than Evénn had guessed, but Evénn understood it.

____________________________________

Chapter 5.2

Soldier Undaunted -- Chapter 4.2

In the forest far beyond the fire’s glow Arden sat upon a rock with Argos beside him. His anger slowly cooled, but the better part of an hour went by before he was calm enough to think clearly. It had been many years since the rage that nearly destroyed him after the Fall had burned so fiercely. Tonight he had to leave the camp to contain it. Now Arden began rehearsing what Evénn had said about the dragons. He turned the information over and over in his mind: how the dragons had first appeared long ago; how they had been defeated; how the same dragons had returned thirty years ago, stronger in unison than ever they had been alone; and how the truth of their nature had been concealed, lest they return once more.

“Wait. What did he mean by that?” he said aloud. “What were his words? ‘Lest the misguided or evil later seek to bring them back?’ What does that mean? That they can be summoned into this world, by us? But who would do that? And why?”

The thought of it made Arden feel sick. He sat there rigidly, fists clenched and arms folded tightly across his chest.

“The consequences of our actions,” he said at last as he stood up. “Our actions.”

Arden’s wrath blazed up within him once more. These were questions that Evénn must answer without riddling or evasion. When the Ranger reached the camp, he found Evénn sitting much as he had left him an hour ago.

“Are you calmer now?” the elf asked softly without looking up.

Arden ignored this, and proceeded.

“You said that the true nature of the dragons was concealed, so that no one would seek to bring them back.”

“Yes.”

“So they can be summoned from the world of the spirits?”

“Yes.”

“And we are now paying the price because someone did so?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

When the elf finally looked up, graven on his face was the saddest look Arden had ever seen, rife with pain and regret for a secret that had caused untold harm. If Arden had not been so consumed by anger, it would have broken his heart. Yet a sickening dread of the answer crawled within him. For all that, he had to know.

“Who?” he snarled, impatient of even a moment’s respite.

“We did,” Evénn responded.

“You? The elves?”

“Yes.”

The pain of thirty years of mourning came roaring up from the darkness within Arden, and filled the heart that he thought could hold only bitterness. It blinded him to everything but hatred and vengeance. All Arden’s broken childhood faith in god, in the songs, in their hero, all his grief for friends lost, family lost, country lost – all this long despair – all his wonder at meeting Evénn, and all the tender hope that had flickered within him against his will, burst from him in a desperate howl of fury.

His sword swept from its sheath in a great arc. Its blade glittered red in the firelight, seeming to glow with the flame of Arden’s passion to slay this elf, this hero of a people who had betrayed the age old trust and loyalty of his own and murdered them. In this madness all Arden knew was that Evénn must die.

He leaped across the fire, and swung his sword at Evénn, who rolled out of the way and sprang to his feet, drawing his own sword in time to deflect Arden’s next stroke. Without word or cry, Arden pressed his attack, his sword slashing and thrusting at the elf. Evénn parried and moved aside again and again, always giving ground. Throughout Evénn was calm and in control, circling backwards around the clearing, his feet always sure beneath him, his swordplay quick and deft. Arden attacked and Evénn defended. Their blades rang constantly. Their feet scuffled in the dirt. The dog and wolf lowered their heads and looked on, uncertain.

At length Arden’s body could no longer sustain the fury of his onslaught. His breathing became labored. His sword weighed heavily in his hands. Though nearly staggering with exhaustion, he kept up the attack, but now Evénn stopped and held his ground. Now he began to drive Arden back. In four blows he disarmed the Ranger; his fifth slashed the dull edge of his curved sword across Arden’s ribs, driving the wind from his lungs even as he turned to reach for the blade that Evénn had just struck from his hand. Then the elf was upon him and threw him to the ground. His sword caressed Arden’s throat.

Arden eyed the hilt of his sword, which lay only inches from his outstretched hand.

“It’s no use,” Evénn warned. The pressure of his blade increased.

Arden glared up at him, his eyes burning with tears that never fell. For several minutes they remained still, neither moving. A passerby would have thought them statues, but not even Haldor of Talor could have rendered the regret in Evénn’s countenance or the fury in Arden’s. The mad light in the Ranger’s eye slowly dimmed. The elf put up his sword and walked away.

“Why?” Arden sat up and asked, his voice still thick with passion.

“Why indeed?” Evénn said, with a flash of bitterness. “I wish you had asked before you tried to kill me. Why? Folly and error. You recall I spoke of the temptations of the elves?”

“Yes.”

“In the tale of our years the world seemed to grow old. We mistook change for decline, and thought the world better and more beautiful long ago. We saw suffering and wished to right it. We saw illness and wished to cure it. We wearied of watching all but ourselves wither. We wanted to restore the way we thought things had been. Perhaps if so many of our friends and kin had not died in the first war, we would have been wiser. In the end we forgot that the world was as the creator allowed it to be, for reasons we did not need to understand.”

“But how could the dragons fix all that?” Arden asked wearily. “Good cannot come from evil.”

“Perhaps not. But the evil dragons were not the ones the elves wished to summon.”

“There are others?”

“Nine in all,” Evénn replied.

“Nine?” Arden said. “My teachers never – ”

“Your teachers did not know of them,” Evénn murmured. “The tale is told only in our most ancient writings.”

“And the elves saw fit to withhold this knowledge from us,” Arden said in disgust, “as if we were children.”

“But to us you are as children, my friend,” Evénn said, but with such kindness that the anger which glimmered in Arden’s eyes faded until it could scarcely be told from the flicker of the campfire. “Even among my own people there were never many who possessed this knowledge, and by the time the dragons came again only a few remained who could have read the tale if they had known where to find it.”

“Perhaps if more had known these secrets, the folly of the elves might have been checked.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. The many can be as unwise as the few, Arden, and just as arrogant.”

“Tell me of these dragons, Evénn.”

“God’s first children were the one and the eight: the great dragon, the mightiest of all, through whom god made the world; and the eight who labored with him to carry out the creator’s designs as he made them known to the one. But when they had done so, and creation unfolded in splendor before them, four of the eight mistook for their own the power they wielded by god’s sufferance. They smiled to think that this realm of the dawn was theirs to do with as they chose. When the other four chastised them for their presumption, they would not repent. Then the great dragon appeared, but still they would not submit. He cast out the four, out beyond the three worlds, where even the starlight does not go.

“But from the wastes of their exile they sent whispering dreams of power to elves and men. All these fools needed to do to invite them from the darkness to the light was sing the words of a great incantation. Dominion over all things would be theirs. All lies. But one listened and brought evil upon the world.”

“You mean Talinar, I suppose,” Arden said. “Yet another truth you hid from us. Tell me, did you slay him as the songs say, or is that another lie?”

“Yes, I slew him,” Evénn answered, “but even so the dragons remained, and many brave men and elves perished to destroy them.”

“What happened this time?” Arden asked.

“Many of our people felt that, if we could but summon the good dragons, the world might be restored with their help to what it was before the others had come.”

“But even then there was sickness and death and injustice.”

“True, even then the world was so, but my people forgot that. Some of us tried to remind them. They would not listen. They remembered the world as they preferred to remember it. Perhaps they, too, heard the whispers of the evil ones in their dreams, more cunning now than of old, this time promising the power to heal and restore instead of the power to dominate and control. As I said, time changes us, too, and we can deceive ourselves as well as any man.”

“How then did the evil ones come when the elves summoned the good? Surely even foolish elves would have recognized what the song of enchantment meant.”

“That is where error complements folly. It was the same enchantment. Only the name of the spirits they wished to summon was different, but the difference between the names was quite subtle, amounting to the slightest distinction in the intonation of a vowel and the aspiration of a consonant. Only a great loremaster of our ancient language could hear and pronounce it. But the one who did so erred. With a slip of the tongue, he named the wrong beings, and in naming called them.”

“What makes you so sure it was a mistake?”

“The loremaster was my father.”

“Your father! But he was a wise king, or so the songs tell us.”

“Yes, he was wise. But the last of the songs was composed eleven hundred years ago, before even your last king put off his crown and established the Republic. Did I not say that even we change? In longing for what he thought had been before the dragons first came, and in desiring to cure the ills of this world, his wisdom failed. He was not alone in this. Nearly all of the elf lords felt as he did, but the imperfection of their vision betrayed the good they intended. Blaming the evil dragons for the wrongs of the world, they concluded that the good dragons would restore the balance. And maybe they would have, had they come. Those elves were fools, my father included, but honest fools. The misspoken word was a mistake, terrible and fateful, but a mistake nonetheless.

“The moment my father erred, he knew what was to come; he knew his folly for what it was. He put forth all his powers of enchantment to attempt to prevent the barrier between this world and that of the spirits from opening. He fought to stop the dragons even as they entered and became incarnate. All the elf lords fought beside him, but their strength was too little, just as their wisdom had been too late. They are all dead now.”

“How did you survive?”

“I was not there. They were all far to the east in the Valley of Encounter, where your people and mine first met long ago. Only atop the Tower of Memory could the spell be cast. My brother told me what happened. Of all those present, he alone escaped. The dragons let him live. They wanted him to bear witness. For that I pity him. My father and the elf lords did not live to witness the darkness they brought upon us. My brother was not so fortunate. He perished in our homeland, in the last battle, the same as your brother.”

“It sounds to me,” Arden said, “as if your father and the others justly paid for the ill they caused. It is the innocent who were unfortunate.”

“I cannot dispute that.”

“Good. So where were you when this happened? Why did you not try to stop it?”

“I did. I tried to dissuade them, I and the few who felt as I did. We told them there was no need, that the world was as it should be, that it was too dangerous, that even the wise made mistakes and that the wise should know that and be guided by us. Until the moment they set sail from Elashandra for the east we kept trying. Whether they were deceived by the dragons, or merely by themselves, they were deaf to all we said. I remained behind and prayed that I was wrong. Yet the instant my father misspoke the name of the beasts, a shadow fell upon my heart, and I knew that we were lost.”

“You should have stopped them, fought them, not let them go.”

“Was I to raise my sword against my father, then? And my brother? And all those we held wise for thousands of years? That’s easy to say, Arden.” Evénn paused and sighed heavily. “But often in the night, when the dead seem as innumerable as the stars themselves, I have thought it would have been better.”

“Yes,” Arden responded, “it would have. For thousands of years we thought you wise, and we have become slaves, or outlaws, or corpses because of it.”

“As have my people,” said Evénn.

“But your people, not mine, brought this upon us all. And the battle you fought outside Elashandra was not the last battle, Evénn. That was fought at Narinen. We had no warning the dragons were coming. We didn’t know you had already betrayed us. For all your good intentions, you loosed this plague upon us. You speak of folly, but it was pride that led your people to it. You thought you could do anything. You forgot, as you said a little while ago, that it is better not to meddle in some affairs at all.

“I fought in that last battle, a boy believing in all that I had been taught of the elves, and god, and justice, and you, Evénn. And you. The fields before Narinen, my city, the shattered gates and houses, the streets choked with the dead and the dying, the smoking rubble of nearly two thousand years of history – those were the last battlefield. Not many survived. I have often wished I didn’t. All love, all faith perished that day, on the altar of elvish pride. But still I would not conjure dragons, good or evil, not even to win back all who died that day.”

“That,” Evénn said, “is not what I saw in your eyes when I first mentioned the possibility of such things to you. I liked that look even less than the madness I saw there a little while ago. Your fury I understand. I can’t blame you for it. But that look in your eyes? I have seen it before and no good came of it.”

“Then I did not know what had happened. Now I do.”

“Yes, now you do. And so do the elves.”

“We have learned too late then,” said Arden.

“That is the way of things.”

Throughout their talk, Arden had remained seated on the ground. Now he climbed to his feet, his side aching. Bending to pick up his sword, he winced.

“That was quite a heavy blow, Evénn,” Arden grunted.

“You aimed heavier at me, my friend. You left me little choice.”

“No, I suppose I didn’t. Forgive me for attacking you. None of this was your fault. And you’re right. I could not ask anyone to raise his sword against his father. I could not have done so either.”

“I know,” Evénn replied. “Now if you mix up some of the herbs I gathered for the horses, you will find yourself quickly healed.”

“But I have only watched you do it. I have not the skill.”

“You have enough for bruised ribs, and you heard the words I pronounced over them.”

“Very well,” Arden said and went to prepare the herbs, but before he had gotten far, Evénn called his name. There was a question in his tone.

“Yes, Evénn?”

“What do you want?”

“What do I want?”

“Yes, what do you want?”

“I want the world as it was when I was young of course,” he quietly answered.

“You can’t have that.”

“Then I would say I want to slay the dragons or die trying.”

“Why have you not tried before?”

“I was alone. When I was a boy, before I even came to the Rangers, they sent out two parties to kill the dragons. They failed and the price the dragons made our people pay for the attempt was horrible. Since then the Masters have said that it is not yet time to try again.”

“You are no longer alone,” Evénn said. “Would you try now?”

“Without hesitation.”

“Then perhaps I have found a part of what I have long sought.”

“Me?”

“One who is willing.”

“I am.”

“We shall speak more of this when we see the Masters. Now let us rest. Tomorrow the road grows steeper.”

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Chapter 5.1