Chapter 4

The Borderwold, Armach-nesti

There was no boundary, no monument or wall, not even a milestone declaring the border of the elf-realm. No roads led into it; only thick woods of spruce and poplar clinging to every inch of soil that touched the rocky hills. The air was clean and crisp with the last vestiges of winter, and did not smell of fish, sweat, or offal—a welcome relief from the stenches of the cities. Birdsong went on without end, and in the distance a wolf voiced its low, mournful howl. Through the branches came tantalizing glimpses of water, sparkling in the morning light. This was a land of brooks and splashing waterfalls, cold and clean and pure, lined with banks of willows, sweet-scented grass, and riots of wildflowers.

Home… .

Had she been human, Shedara knew, she would already be dead. The rim-watchers had been tracking her for a league, arrows on their strings, waiting. She hadn't seen any sign of them, nor would she without the aid of magic. The elves who ranged their kingdom's boundaries were masters of the forest, capable of vanishing completely among the trees so that not even the animals marked their passing. But they were there all the same. No one came to Armach-nesti without being watched. And only elves were allowed to live.

It had been this way for twenty generations of her people—about two thousand years. Like the minotaurs of the League, they had not always lived in Taladas, though they had dwelt there much longer than the horned folk. Indeed, in the long-lost days they had lived close to the minotaur lands, on the continent of Ansalon. Their home had been a realm called Silvanesti, the eldest elf-home of that land, and they had left it by choice—not to come here, but to follow the great lord Kith-Kanan to found a new land, Qualinesti. As their armada sailed north around Ansalon, however, a storm had arisen and blown some of the ships off course. These vessels wandered the seas for many weeks, first trying to find home, then looking for land of any kind, and they had come at last to these shores. They dubbed this land Armach-nesti, which meant "dry land" in their tongue, took the name Silvanaes, and settled down, driving out the human barbarians who had lived there before. They sent ships to seek a passage back to their lost home, but none ever returned, and so they lost hope of ever seeing their kin again.

One of the first things the Silvanaes did after settling in Taladas was to establish the laws of their new land, the First Edicts that would guarantee the purity of their realm and their blood. Since that time, if a single human, dwarf, minotaur or other heerikil—those not of elven descent—had seen these lands and lived, it was not recorded in history or memory.

Despite the arrows surely trained on her, ready to pierce her heart should she prove not to be what she appeared, Shedara felt safe. For the first time since that night in Blood Eye, she did not look over her shoulder, or imagine the footfalls of unseen beings creeping up behind her. She had no reason to believe the things that had murdered Ruskal Eight-Fingers knew of her, but still she felt cold whenever she passed a deep shadow or heard a stone fall in the stillness. Only now did she walk without a hand on her dagger. It was a good feeling.

She walked past thickets and brush, over moss-bearded logs sunk deep into the soil, and through brakes of ferns glistening with the morning's dew. In these lands, a human would quickly become lost, but Shedara had passed through this forest many times in her hundred and thirty years. Every tree, stock, and stone was familiar to her. At last, she came to a break in the foliage, a meadow of clover riddled with tiny blue flowers. Fat bees hummed from bloom to bloom, and not ten paces away a doe and two fawns stood watching her. They did not bolt, did not fear her as they might a human hunter—only stared as she paused briefly in the trees' shade. At the glade's far side was a pool girdled with tall stones, rough-hewn slabs arranged in a ring and carved with crude spiral patterns, nearly lost under cloaks of ivy. The stones predated the Silvanaes, harkening back to the tribes who had lived on the land before the elves came. It had been a place of sacrifice, the histories said. A hallowed place where they had spilled the blood of captured enemies, to pray for a bountiful hunt. A waterfall fed the pond, tumbling noisily down from cliffs that loomed above.

She and the deer were not alone. Another elf sat on a stone by the pool, reed-thin, with hair the gold of young willow-bark tumbling over his shoulders. Glittering, silvery mail peeked past his green-dyed hunting leathers, and he had a gray cloak flung over his shoulder, revealing a long, slender blade on his hip. Slung over his back, unstrung, was a bow as long as he was tall—and he stood nearly six and a half feet—with a quiver of white-fletched arrows. He rose, feathery eyebrows lifting, as Shedara stepped out of the woods.

"You," he declared, "are late."

"Don't you have duties to attend to, Shalindi?" she replied.

The elflord shrugged. "Only when you are here, sister. Otherwise I bide, awaiting your return."

Despite herself, Shedara laughed. "You don't need that blade, Quivris," she said. "Your tongue's sharp enough."

He came forward, embracing her. Their foreheads touched, then their lips, in greeting. When they parted again, Shedara sensed that her unseen watchers were gone. No sound, no motion to signal it—just a feeling of no longer being watched. Quivris was the Lord-Protector of the realm. If he welcomed her, they needed no more reassurance.

"Has all been well, my brother?" she asked.

"Well enough," he said, spreading his hands. The answer had to be more complicated than that, but not in any important way. "Your task? Did you succeed?"

"I did." Shedara tried to keep her face calm, but her eyes must have darkened, for a thin line appeared in her brother's brow. "There was trouble. Lord Ruskal is dead."

"By your hand?"

She shook her head. "I must say no more, until I am in the presence of the Voice."

"Ah." Quivris eyed her a moment longer, then gestured behind him. "Let us waste no more time, then."

At his signal, a pair of creatures appeared atop the cliff, near the waterfall's source. They were strange mixes of animals, with the heads, foreclaws, and wings of golden eagles, and the hindquarters of horses—one sorrel, the other white. Hippogriffs, humans called them—the Silvanaes preferred the name sky-steeds. Both wore saddles, leather chased with gold and silver in patterns reminiscent of twining vines. One raised its head and skirled, the sound ripping through the silence. Unfurling their wings, they leaped from the precipice and glided down to alight beside the pool.

"Falasta," Shedara said, holding out a hand. The white hippogriff came forward and nuzzled it with its head. The feathers were soft to the touch, the movements surprisingly gentle. "I missed you too, Lady."

Quivris had already climbed into his saddle. The hippogriffs had no reins. Proud beasts, they would not wear bridles. Fortunately, they were smart too, and could be trained in the elven tongue. The Silvanesti had done the same thing, with griffins, back in the homeland.

"Come on," Quivris said. "Her Highness awaits."

Stroking the hippogriff’s neck, Shedara swung herself lightly onto its back. As soon as she was settled in, the beast let out a cry, then vaulted into the air, spreading its wings to catch the wind. Quivris rose beside her, and in moments the meadow and the waterfall had dropped away. The two of them wheeled, then swept away north.

The forest skimmed by beneath them, a carpet of green and gold laced with threads of silver. It seemed to go on without end, stretching from horizon on her right to the rocky seashore on her left, with no sign of the cities of man and minotaur in any direction. From above, Armach-nesti looked almost completely wild. The only signs that anyone inhabited it were the spires of New Silvanost, almost lost in the haze to the west. The fluted needles of white stone glittered in the sunlight, with gossamer arches of silver threading from one to the next. The elves had built the spires with hopes of recapturing the glory of their old homeland across the sea. The memories had brought them grief rather than joy, however, and the city had stood empty for centuries, slowly being reclaimed by the forest. Beneath the treetops, the towers' foundations were long lost among shrub and creeper and drifting leaves. The Silvanaes dwelt elsewhere now, hidden from all eyes save their own.

They flew for nearly an hour, and at first Shedara delighted in the tug of the wind. She had been riding sky-steeds for longer than many humans or minotaurs had lived, and the experience was beyond compare, a thrill that seemed greater each time she did it. Eventually, though, her feeling of freedom began to yield to foreboding. She had come home, but ill news had come with her.

At last the hippogriffs began to descend, swinging about in lazy arcs until they came down on a promontory overlooking a broad valley, down the middle of which a river foamed through gorges of stone. Several servants, in robes of gray silk, hurried forward to see to the steeds. Quivris and Shedara left them behind and followed a narrow path that wended its way down from the height.

The trail leading down into the forest was narrow and treacherous to anyone who didn't possess wood-craft. It leveled off, at last, upon reaching the valley floor. Statues of polished green jade flanked the path here, half-overgrown with vines. These were the Voices, seventeen in all, who had ruled Armach-nesti since its birth. The eighteenth pedestal was empty, representing the current Voice. The Silvanaes did not paint or sculpt living elves.

The path ended at the edge of the ravine, at a dais of living rock overlooking the raging rapids. Atop this platform, perched to view the river, was a hazelwood tree, sculpted to look like the petals of an orchid. In the midst of this bloom sat a small, ancient figure.

Lady Thalaniya had been Voice of the Stars for more than two hundred years, and she was one of the oldest elves in the realm. Her hair, once shimmering gold, had turned to silver, and lines of care were etched around her mouth. Her eyes, however, remained clear and sharp, the hue of amethysts. Nor did her movements betray her age as she rose from the throne and strode across the dais to greet Shedara. Her ivory-white robes billowed as she walked. Her crown, a circlet of silver set with pearls and green dragon teeth, glistened in the sun.

"Highness," said Shedara, touching foreheads with the queen of Armach-nesti. "It is good to see you again."

"And you, child," Thalaniya replied. "Oft have I thought of you, these past weeks. So too has the Lord Protector. When the scouts reported you had returned, he barely remembered to ask my leave before he rushed to meet you."

Quivris flushed, and the Voice laughed. Shedara smiled, but again she couldn't keep the worry from her eyes. Thalaniya's brow furrowed.

"Something is wrong. What is it?" the Voice asked. "Did you not gain the painting?"

Shedara shook her head, reaching beneath her cloak to produce a tube of nightwood. Within was a canvas bearing the image of Silvanos, the first king of her people, father to Kith-Kanan himself. "I have it, Highness," she said. "But there was trouble."

"How, trouble? Tell me." Thalaniya raised a hand, staying Shedara before she could speak. "No, you must do more, child. You must show me."

Shedara lay back wearily and plucked a violet from a bowl of candied flowers. She placed it on her tongue and let it melt there, the fragile flavor of the bloom dancing in her mouth. Then, from a blue crystal goblet, she took a sip of golden wine. Its sweet warmth suffused her, restoring some of her strength as she looked out across the Voice's vale. The forests were shadowed now, the sky above burning red with twilight. The roar of the river soothed her as the first stars kindled among the clouds. Solis peered over the horizon, a sliver from full and on the wax.

It had been a trial, road-weary as she was, showing Thalaniya what had happened in Blood Eye. At the Voice's bidding, they had gone to the Seeing-pool, a spring-fed pond from which a stream spilled down to the rushing water below, and there they had used magic to conjure images upon its waters. Together, she and Thalaniya had drawn in the silver moon's power, shaped it with their will, and released it into the water. The pool, a perfectly round bowl of stone that manifested no reflections on its surface, had burst into sudden, heatless white flame. Those tongues of misty fire had spread across its surface, flickering high, then slowly coalescing as the Voice urged Shedara to open her mind and memory.

Shedara had relived that night, from her arrival at the wharf to her flight from Ruskal's bloodstained tower. When the dying man breathed his final words, Thalaniya's eyes had widened, her alabaster skin turning ashen. After the spell ended, the Voice had stood silent for a time, still staring at the water while the flames dimmed, then died.

"I must consider this," the old elf murmured. "We will meet again this eve."

Then she had withdrawn to walk the paths of the forest as she often did when thinking. Shedara had remained for a long moment, then wandered down a trail and a hill and sat down on a bench carved from the rock of the ravine. There was nothing around her but forest, no sign that anyone lived there. She knew better—there were hundreds of elves in that part of the forest, the most thickly populated area of Armach-nesti. The Silvanaes disguised their homes so well, they seemed to vanish among the trees only a few paces away.

Shedara sighed, nursing her wine. She didn't look forward to working the magic again, even less to discovering what troubled Thalaniya so. But if the Voice willed it, she had no choice.

Quivris leaned against the trunk of an old larch, nibbling a golden pear. He had no wizardly training, but had intently watched the scrying. "I have the feeling," he said, "that you won't be long in Armach-nesti, sister."

I never am, Shedara thought. Her jobs sent her all over—to the League, the dark realm of Thenol, the Marak Valleys where the kender lived… even across the Tiderun Straight to the northern grasslands where barbarians still ruled. Whenever she returned home, another mission was always already awaiting her. There was always someone in need of a moon-thief's skills. Once she had counted, and she guessed that of the sixty years that had passed since she came of age she had spent a total of eight at home. It would have tormented most elves, to be away from their beloved woods for so long, but Shedara longed to see the wide world. It made coming home all the sweeter.

Still, she had hoped to spend a few weeks in Armach-nesti this time, rather than leaving at once. She knew Quivris was right, though. Something in Thalaniya's eyes when they parted had told her she would not be staying for very long.

They sat in silence a while longer. She ate rose-petals and finished her wine, and was about to call for a servant to bring her more when a boy, tall and slight, appeared out of the trees and beckoned to her. "Her Highness awaits, Shalindi," he declared.

With a look at her brother, Shedara rose from the bench, and with another sigh followed the boy up a flight of stairs carved into the hillside. Quivris pitched the core of his pear over the cliff and followed.

The stairs led to a trail, and the trail back to the pool. The Seeing-pool was half a dozen paces across, its surface dark and still except for faint ripples, painted silver by Solis's rising light. Thalaniya stood on the far side, staring into the depths. She was still pale, the lines around her mouth had deepened. In her hands was a violet orchid, each petal marked with a flash of orange. A tall, dark-haired elflord stood beside her, clad in white robes: a pure wizard, who still dressed as his forebears had when the Silvanaes dwelt across the sea, following the tenets of High Sorcery. His name was Nalaran, and he was the greatest mage in Taladas.

Shedara raised an eyebrow. "He wasn't here before," she murmured to her brother.

"That," the Voice replied, looking up, "is because we need stronger magic than before. We must look further back, and the River of Time flows strong."

"How far back?" Quivris asked, concern deepening his voice. "The last spell was hard on Shedara."

"On both of us," Thalaniya said.

"I will bear most of the burden," said Nalaran, lacing his fingers before him. He spoke softly, his eyes glinting in the moonlight. "Her Highness wishes to know more about this Hooded One. She fears—"

The Voice held up a hand. "Never mind what I fear," she said, and the wizard fell silent, his cheeks reddening. "We shall see it for ourselves."

Bending down, she laid the orchid upon the pool's surface and pushed it away. It spun slowly, moving out to the midst of the water. Already Shedara felt the pool's power begin to grow, a faint but insistent tingling in her scalp. She took a deep breath and slowly let it out.

Nalaran began the spell. His hands traced complicated patterns through the air and, in a strong, clear voice, he spoke spidery words that seemed to slip through Shedara's mind, devoid of meaning and eluding her memory. With each movement and sound he drew in more of the silver moon's power, until the air seemed to shine around him, making his eyes gleam like mirrors. At the end, he held his hands out over the pool, and white flames poured down, skimming across the water until it was all a ghostly blaze again. The orchid vanished in a tongue of purple fire, and sorcery thickened the air, making it warm and sultry.

"Show us," the Voice bade, waving a slender hand. "Show us what we seek. Show us the Hooded One."

Nalaran moved his hands, and the flames parted, clearing a window in the pool's midst. The water was bright with light, though the moon was low in the sky. Slowly, like molten wax cooling, an image began to form: a vast city of golden-hued stone straddling a river that snaked among sandy hills. Green fields surrounded it, and mighty walls girded it, tipped with spikes of iron. Spires and domes of silver gleamed in the red light of dusk, as if stained with blood. A rocky pinnacle rose on the city's north side, looking down upon it, and at its peak was a sprawling palace, with blue pennants fluttering on its rooftops. One could see for a hundred miles and more from its tallest balconies, out to blue mountains in the north and the glistening arc of the sea to the south.

Shedara bit her lip. She knew this place, though it had vanished from the world before even the Voice had been born: Old Aurim, the City of Songs, center of the greatest empire Taladas had ever seen. It had been obliterated in the Destruction, when the gods' fist had come thundering down and shattered the land. That empire was long dead, killed by fire, plague, and war. A boiling sea of lava was all that remained, according to the tales. Shedara had never seen this place, nor did she want to. She shuddered at the vision.

A lone figure stood atop the palace's central tower, looking down upon the city. At Nalaran's command the view shifted, focusing on this man—a human, robed and cloaked in blue satin and cloth-of-gold—great, draping sheets of it, shimmering as it ruffled in the wind. A deep hood covered the man's head, obscuring all within in shadow. Shedara's skin prickled at the sight of him, though she didn't know why. Across the pool Thalaniya's hands clenched into fists.

"It is as I feared," the Voice murmured. "It is him."

"Who?" asked Quivris. "Who is it?"

No one answered. Again the images shifted, and now the pool showed a dark chamber, filled with ranks upon ranks of gray stone statues—soldiers, clad in the antique, banded armor of the Aurish regiments. At their head loomed an icon of black rock, which seemed to swallow what little light there was in the cavern. The statue was hooded and cloaked, as the man on the tower had been—then the same man entered the vault and walked up to his stony likeness, raising his head to stare at it. As he did, the hood fell back, slipping off his head.

Shedara screamed, and the world grew dim around her. She heard Quivris call out in surprise, and felt him catch her as her knees buckled. She shut her eyes and collapsed against him.

When the sun crested the mountains the next morning, it found Shedara on her sky-steed's back, soaring once more over the treetops of Armach-nesti. With her she bore all she had taken with her to Thalaniya's court, except for the painting—but she also carried two objects that were new to her: a message, which she hadn't yet read, scribed on a sealed roll of vellum; and a silver necklace whose central charm was a large, white pearl. It lay heavy against her breast, pulsing with a warmth she knew well. Magic…

"Take it with you," the Voice had bidden at dawn, when Shedara prepared to climb astride her steed. "I will need to speak with you more about what we have seen. Look to the pearl."

Maddeningly, she had not said anything more about the horrible sight they had beheld in the Seeing-pool. Instead, Thalaniya insisted the message would tell all there was to know. She had departed, and Shedara and Quivris had taken to the sky. He had flown with her for an hour, then reached across to touch her arm in farewell before turning back for home.

Once more, she was alone. As she flew, heading back toward the border of Armach-nesti, Shedara wondered. She would read the message when she was safely on the ground, beyond Armach-nesti. Perhaps then she would understand better what she had seen in the waters. For now, though, all she could think of was the last image that had flickered in the pool before weariness and dread had robbed her of her senses. In her mind, she saw the hooded man, staring at the statue that was his likeness. She saw the hood slide back and drop, and felt a fresh spike of horror at the memory of what lay beneath.

The thing in the hood hadn't had a face.