Of course, much of the fault for what had happened lay squarely at their own doorstep, Kirisin thought darkly. It had been their decision to go into hiding centuries earlier when the human population had begun to proliferate and the Elven to decline. Coexistence seemed a better possibility if the former knew nothing of the latter. Elves had always known how to disappear in plain sight. It was not so difficult for them to fade into the forests that had served as their homes since the beginning of time. It was the wiser choice, the elders of that time had believed.
So they settled for surviving in a human world and did so mostly by keeping hidden. The humans called the Cintra the Willamette, and the land surrounding was called Oregon. It was remote and sparsely settled, and the Elves had little trouble staying out of sight. When humans came too close, they were turned aside. A slight distraction was usually enough—a small noise here, a little movement there. When that failed, intruders often woke from an unexpected fall or unexplained bump on the head. It didn’t happen often; there was nothing in the deep woods that appealed to most humans. The Elves warded their homelands against the encroachments fostered by human neglect and poor stewardship, but their efforts of late were proving insufficient. Soon, something would have to be done. The matter was already under discussion in the Elven High Council, but opinion was divided and solutions scarce.
As the Elves were beginning to find out, absenting yourself from the affairs of the world was an invitation for disaster.
Ahead, the crimson canopy of the Ellcrys appeared through the trees, bright and shining even in the pale moonlight, a beacon that never failed to make the boy smile. She was so beautiful, he thought. How could anything be too wrong in a world that had given her life?
He stepped into the clearing where the Ellcrys grew and stood staring at her. He came here almost every morning before the others woke, a private time in which he sat and talked with her alone. She never responded, of course, because she never responded to anyone. But that didn’t matter to Kirisin. He was there because he understood somehow that this was where he belonged. His time as a Chosen didn’t start at sunrise and end at sunset. For the year that he had given himself over to her service, he owed her whatever time he could give her. That meant he could do as he pleased, so long as he carried out his assigned duties.
It was this lack of recognizable structure that drove Erisha to regard him as undependable. She believed in doing things in settled ways, on an organized and carefully regulated schedule. She did not like what she viewed as his undisciplined habits. But then she was not him and he was not her, something she seemed to have trouble understanding.
He spent these early-morning hours working on small projects of his own devising. Sometimes he worked at smoothing out and cleaning the earth in which she was rooted. Sometimes he fed her organic supplements of his own creation, both of food and antitoxins; that one would really drive Erisha wild if she knew about it. Sometimes he just sat with her. Sometimes, although not too often, he touched her to let her know he was there. He couldn’t say why he found this so pleasing, why he actually looked forward to rising early and in secret spending time with a creature that gave nothing back. He just did. His connection with her was visceral, and it felt wrong not to respond to it. He had only one year to do what he could for her, and then it would be someone else’s turn. He didn’t want to waste a minute.
It helped that he was particularly good at the nurturing and care of living things. He possessed a special gift for such work; he enjoyed making things grow and keeping them healthy. He could sense what was wrong with them and act on his instincts. His sister said it ran in the family. His mother possessed unusual healing skills, and Simralin was uncanny at deciphering the secrets of the wilderness and the behavior of the creatures that lived within it. Trained as a Tracker, she had opportunities to use her gift in her work as an Elven Hunter, just as he had his opportunities here.
Which he had better get busy and make use of, he thought. The other Chosen would be coming along soon. He could picture their faces as they ringed the tree, their hands joined. He could see the familiar mix of expressions—eager and bored, determined and distracted, bright and clouded—that mirrored the feelings of each. So predictable that he didn’t have to think twice on it. He kept hoping one of them would surprise him. Shouldn’t there be a measurable transformation in the character of each Chosen during the course of his or her service? Shouldn’t that be an integral part of the experience?
He thought so, but he hadn’t seen any evidence of it as yet. Nor had he himself undergone much of a change. You couldn’t very well start throwing stones if you lived in a glass house, although that hadn’t stopped him before.
He walked around the Ellcrys for a time, studying the ground, looking for signs of invasive pests or damaging sicknesses in the smaller plants surrounding her. Such things manifested themselves in these indicators first; it was one of the reasons they were planted—to serve as a warning of possible threats to her.
Not that much of anything got that far, given the attention the Chosen gave to the tree and every square inch of dirt and plant life surrounding her. Not that there was any real…
Something touched his shoulder lightly.
–Kirisin–
The voice came out of nowhere, sudden and compelling. Kirisin jumped a foot when he heard it. A slender branch was resting lightly on his shoulder. The branch did not grip or entwine, but held him bound as surely as with chains.
–My beloved–
Kirisin felt the hair on the back of his neck rise, and he shivered as if chilled through, although the morning was warm and windless.
The Ellcrys was speaking to him. The tree was communicating.
–Why am I forsaken–
Forsaken? He cringed at the rebuke, not understanding the reason for it. What had he failed to do?
–Pay heed to me. I have not lied. A change is coming to the land. The change will be devastating and inexorable and no one will be spared. All that you know will pass away. If you are to survive, I must survive. If I am to survive, you must help me. Though she chooses not to hear me, you must listen–
The voice was coming from everywhere—from outside Kirisin but from inside, as well. Then he realized that it wasn’t an audible voice he was hearing; it was unspoken thoughts projected into his mind, lending those thoughts the weight and substance of spoken words.
Wait a minute. She? Who was she?
–Your order has served me long and well, my beloved, my Chosen. You have stayed at my side since the time of my birthing, since the moment of my inception. I have never wanted. I have never needed. But I want and need now, and you must heed me. You must do as I ask–
Kirisin was listening intently, even as he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe that it was real. The Ellcrys never spoke to anyone save the Chosen, and she only spoke to them once—on the day of their choosing, when she called them by name. That she was communicating with him was mind boggling. What was it she had said? A change in the world? The end of everything they knew?
“What is this change?” he whispered, almost without realizing he had spoken the words.
–Humans and their demons are at war. It is a war that neither will win. It is a war that will destroy them both. But you and I will be destroyed, as well. If we are to survive, we must leave the Cintra. We must travel to a new land, to a new life, where we will find shelter and rebirth–
Was the tree answering him? Had it heard his question? Kirisin tried to decide, and then simply quit thinking about it and said what was on his mind. “What can we do to help?”
–Take me from the Cintra. Do not uproot me, but carry me away still rooted in my soil. Place me inside a Loden Elfstone, and I will be protected. Use the seeking-Elfstones to find it, the three to find the one. Read your histories. The secret is written down–
Kirisin had no idea how to respond. He knew of Elfstones, for they were a part of Elven history. But the Elves had not possessed one
for hundreds of years. No one knew what had become of them. No one even knew for certain what it was they were supposed to do. They were magic, but their magic was a mystery.
He wanted to ask more. He wanted to know all about the Elfstones and everything else he had just heard the tree reveal. Mostly, he wanted to hear the tree speak to him again. But he couldn’t think what to ask, and before he could his chance was gone.
–Do not fail me, Kirisin Belloruus. Do not fail the Elves. Do what I have asked of you–
The branch lifted away and the voice went still. Kirisin waited, but nothing further happened. The Ellcrys was silent. He exhaled slowly, his mouth dry and his face hot. Everything that had just happened felt surreal, as if he had been lost in a dream.
“What am I going to do?” he whispered to the air.
HE WAITED UNTIL dawn, until after the greeting, until the rituals were satisfied, then gathered the Chosen together at the edge of the clearing and told them what had happened. They sat close, listening, their eyes skittering from face to face. When he finished, they stared at him as if he had lost his mind. The doubt on their faces was unmistakable.
“Don’t you believe me?” he demanded angrily. He clenched his fists. “I know what I heard!”
“I know what you think you heard,” Biat said, skepticism clear in his tone. “But maybe you imagined it.”
A few of the others nodded in agreement. They wanted him to have imagined it. Kirisin shook his head angrily. “I didn’t imagine anything! She spoke to me. She told me some sort of change is coming, and it’s going to destroy everything. She told me we have to go somewhere else and take her with us. She talked about Elfstones and magic and histories and secrets. I heard her clearly enough.”
“Sometimes whole groups of people think they see or hear something that never happened,” Giln said quietly.
“The Ellcrys never speaks to anyone,” added Raya. She shifted her dark eyes toward Kirisin. “Never.”
“Never before, maybe,” Kirisin said. “But she spoke today. You can pretend anything you want, but it doesn’t change things. Stop talking about hallucinations and dreams. What are we going to do?”
“Erisha,” Biat said suddenly. “What do you think we should do?”
Erisha didn’t seem to hear him. But when everyone grew silent, waiting on her, she said, “Nothing.”
“Nothing!” Kirisin repeated in disbelief. “Don’t be ridiculous! You have to go to your father and tell him what has happened!”
Erisha shook her head. “My father won’t believe any of this. I don’t even know if I do!” She was suddenly angry. “I am the leader of the Chosen, Kirisin. I say what we do and don’t do. We need to wait on this, to make certain about it. We need to see if she speaks to any of the rest of us. Then we can decide.”
“That sounds sensible to me,” Biat agreed, giving Kirisin a look that said, Be reasonable.
Kirisin couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “What do you mean, wait to see if she speaks to the rest of you? What sort of advice is that? She told me she depends on us for help! What sort of help are we giving her by waiting?”
“You don’t really know what you heard!” Erisha snapped. “You just think you know! You daydream all the time! You probably hear voices all the time. You would be the first one to imagine something that never happened! So don’t lecture the rest of us about what we should do in this matter!”
Kirisin stared at her, and then looked at the others. “Does everyone else think the tree didn’t speak to me, that I imagined it?”
He waited for a response. There was none. Everyone looked somewhere else. He couldn’t tell whether they were on his side or Erisha’s. In truth, it didn’t matter. They could sit around talking about this until the cows came home, but it wouldn’t help. What they had to do was to find out if there really were Elfstones. They had to discover if anyone had ever heard of a Stone called a Loden. Mostly, they had to do something besides bury their heads in the sand.
He refused the possibility that he might have imagined the Ellcrys talking to him. His mind was made up on that point. The humans and demons had found a way to destroy everything, and the Ellcrys was warning them that they had to do something about it. It was their job to protect and preserve her. She depended on them for that. Unless they were intending to abrogate their responsibilities toward her, they had no choice. They had to do what she asked.
Kirisin stood up. “The rest of you can do what you want. But I’m going to speak to the King!”
W ITHOUT GIVING THEM another glance, Kirisin stalked out of the clearing. The other Chosen shouted after him, telling him to come back, warning him that he was acting too quickly, not thinking things through. He was making a mistake, he heard Erisha shout. He ignored her, ignored them all, furious at their refusal to do more than find reasons to delay doing anything. Even Biat, his best friend. He had expected better of him. But then he always expected better of everyone except himself.
He was the one who always prevaricated. He was the one who should have been questioning this whole business.
But he wasn’t doing so here. Why was that?
The question almost stopped him in his tracks because he had no answer. He experienced a momentary sense of stepping over a line, of making a decision that he would look back on for a long time to come. But his anger and his forward momentum kept him going when common sense and second thoughts might have turned him around. He had stomped away with such finality that going back now would be the same as crawling back, and he wasn’t about to do that. Stopping to debate his reasons for accepting on faith what the Ellcrys had told him was pointless. He couldn’t explain it because his commitment to the Ellcrys transcended reason or argument and went to the heart of his service as a Chosen. He couldn’t speak for the others, but that was the way it was for him. What the Ellcrys had told him this morning had only strengthened his determination to fulfill his obligations to serve and protect.
Why am I forsaken?
The words chilled him. It was an accusation he could not ignore.
What he couldn’t understand was Erisha’s failure to act. Why hadn’t she agreed to talk to her father? It was almost as if she was afraid to approach him about it. He couldn’t think of any reason for that, but he didn’t pretend to know everything about their relationship, either. He supposed being the daughter of the King carried with it a set of built-in problems, the kinds that were always hidden from the general public. His father and mother had certainly had their share of troubles with Arissen Belloruus. It shouldn’t seem strange that his daughter might have a few, as well.
Still, she had been adamant about not speaking to him.
Again, he almost stopped and turned around, a small whisper warning him to watch out. But his mind was made up.
He passed from the gardens into the surrounding trees and walked uphill through homes that might easily have been mistaken as part of the forest if you were looking at them from a little farther off. Elven cottages and huts burrowed into the earth, formed extensions of the forest old growth, and sat like nests in the trees. They were like spiders in their webs—you had to be close and you had to be looking to spot them. Even the trails Kirisin followed were virtually undetectable, reworked and rerouted on a regular basis to avoid giving them away. Elves had learned long ago to walk lightly in the world.
Of course, walking lightly didn’t solve all the problems of the world, especially in these times. Not everyone shared the sensibilities of Elves. Sickness and decay had penetrated even here, a direct consequence of the poisons injected into earth, air, and water by humans everywhere. The fallout from their wars had spilled over into Elven homelands, as well. The Elves knew about healing, but there was only so much anyone could do. Until now, the Elves had fought back using skills mastered over countless centuries, but their efforts were beginning to fall short. The poisoning was too pervasive; it had penetrated too deep. Without the use of the magic that had sustained them in the time of Faerie, t
hey were fighting a losing battle.
Even Arissen Belloruus, famous for his optimism and insistence on Elven ingenuity as a solution for all things, must know this.
The Belloruus home sat astride a heavily forested hilltop; its rooms and passageways were worked deep into the earth so that virtually the whole of the rise was wormholed. There were numerous entrances and exits, dozens of light shafts and windows, but none that were visible until you got close. All were heavily guarded. He was still fifty yards away, coming up the incline toward the main entry, when the first of the Home Guards intercepted him. The Home Guards were the King’s personal defenders, an elite unit formed of Elven Hunters whose specific duty was to protect the royal family. He was known to the pair who challenged him, and so he was allowed to pass. He went in through the main entrance, announced himself to the personal aide on duty, and was directed to take a seat along with several others who had come in ahead of him.
There he sat, waiting.
He passed the time by trying to dredge up from memory what little he knew about the Elven histories. Look there for your answers, the Ellcrys had told him, so that was what he must suggest to the King. The histories were old, so old they could be traced back all the way to the beginning of the ancient wars between good and evil. It was then that the Elves and their Faerie allies created the Forbidding out of magic and shut away the dark creatures that had plagued them since the Word and the Void had begun their battle for control of all life. It had been a long, bitter struggle, but in the end the Elves had prevailed and the demons and their like were defeated and imprisoned. It was the creation of the Ellcrys that made victory possible and allowed for the confinement of the evil ones. Everyone knew that story, even those who had never read a word of the histories.