Chapter X:
Fate
Dreams
When Meidi awoke in the morning she found, not for the first time, that Nihls was already awake.
'Did you not sleep, Nihls?' she asked him, seeing that he stood just outside their tent.
The Enthedu had started into the south almost as soon as they could after receiving the elf Rinin into their camp and gathering those relatives they could convince to go with them. The road they traveled had not been used in recent history, and everyone was weary from all the walking, riding and stumbling along their journey required.
Nihls entered the tent with the babe kicking unhappily in his arms. He did not answer Meidi at first. He took the child and laid it gently into her arms, saying, 'He can only be amused for so long before he realizes that it is all a ruse and that I have nothing to give. I have done all I can for him.'
Meidi could tell that he would have preferred to leave it at that, and to say nothing about his own lack of sleep. But she pressed him, 'Did you have more dreams, Nihls?'
'If you can call them such,' he said. 'I have never wanted visions. But wanting doesn't count for much in this world.'
His eyes were red and his hair disheveled and he could scarcely stand upright. 'It will do us no good for you to be like this. Complaining does not become you, Nihls. Get some sleep,' Meidi demanded. 'Before your grumpiness convinces me that you are a mere mortal like the rest of us.'
She gave him a smile to show that she jested, but there was hurt in his eyes nonetheless.
'I do not want to see her again,' Nihls said, on the verge of tears. 'If there was something that could be done for her, then I would do it. But as I am wanting in all other things, so also are my visions wanting. What I see are things past, and not things that can be helped. I see her pleading for her life in every vision. But she is gone.'
'Still, Nihls,' Meidi said, 'if they are not mere dreams, then they cannot be without purpose. And you yourself have said that nothing in this life is untrue - not even a lying tongue. We may be misled by things, but things as they are cannot lie to us.'
Nihls inhaled slowly, trying to find some way to continue his grumbling. But in this matter she was on the side of Teacher Abbon, and he had only his sour mood to support his objections.
'You are right, I suppose,' he said, taking a seat near their bedroll.
'What was your dream, Nihls?' Meidi asked. 'I ask not for curiosity's sake - let me know your thoughts, and perhaps I can counsel you.'
He began speaking, amazed that he would ever find himself discussing such things with Meidi, who for all the years of their youth was aloof and distant from him. He never thought he would be seeking her advice, and he certainly never thought that it would be as his wife that he sought it from her.
'I see them,' he began, omitting the names of Noro and Giretta, who Meidi already knew to be the subjects of his many visions. 'They are in peril as always. Sometimes drowning, sometimes being devoured by dragons or some other foul monsters. Always they cry out for help. But I can never reach them.' He paused for a moment and looked carefully at his wife's eyes. 'You are not there anymore,' he said as if he were realizing something unexpected.
'What do you mean?' she asked, passing the babe from one arm to the other.
'When I was younger, I saw everyone: Noro, Amarin, Ebbe and you, along with Giretta,' he almost wept at that name, but he struggled to retain his composure. 'But you are not there any longer.'
'Perhaps I no longer need to be saved,' she said, stroking the infant's hair.
Nihls sat for a while in thought. He gazed out the window and laid himself upon the bedroll. The words of Abbon resounded in his ears, 'Until each and every one of you faces the Dragon, he lives.'
He looked at Meidi and was startled to realize that his love for her had indeed grown beyond the duty that originally drove him to marry her. He smiled weakly as his exhaustion overtook him. The despair that had once ruled her was gone, and she was full of life. The Dragon could no longer touch her thoughts. How angry Giretta would have been about this troubled him only for a moment. Another saying of Abbon's suddenly made sense to him, 'The dead begrudge the living nothing, not because they are gone, but because they are at last truly present - and being present at last, they understand.'
He reached out and stroked the child's hair with his finger and then fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
The Enthedu had been traveling steadily westward since Rinin joined them. The elf was clearly amused by their strange ideas, but he utterly refused to hear any explanations for what they believed. If he was pressed he would grow despondent and begin to worry and weep over the family he had abandoned in Alwan. He would not, however, alter his course. 'We must get out of this land,' he insisted. 'To go back would be to risk losing ourselves as well as those we mean to save.'
This reasoning seemed good enough for most of them, but Nihls expressed his concerns about whether or not it was the right course. His sleep seemed to grow worse with each passing night, until at last he would lay down already dreading what would come in the night. Nihls felt quite sick with anxiety by the time they passed over the ridges beyond which Rinin assured them they would find the hidden harbor of Falruvis. As each man passed over the rise of the land and looked below they would first gasp and then sigh with relief. When Nihls finally guided Urian over the crest he understood the reason for this.
Stretching out before them was what once was a great city with a port built along the northern shores of the Great Lake. 'There is a path to the sea from here?' Nihls asked, though Rinin had answered the question many times to many of the Enthedu.
'I swear by every god,' he answered, 'Except for Pelas!'
'How many ships are there?' Nihls asked as his eyes passed over the city.
'As many as you want!' Rinin laughed. 'Every one of you could take your own if you wished!'
'Or every one of us could fit thrice over on just one of them!' Nihls said, his face draining of blood.'
'As long as we depart,' Rinin said. 'And as long as your people can listen to my commands - we will do well.'
Nihls clutched his chest, realizing too late that he had not been breathing. The world spun and he fell into blackness.
'Nihls,' the worried voice of Meidi spoke. 'Nihls!'
'I cannot leave her,' he said.
'What are you talking about?' she said, 'who?'
Nihls opened his eyes to see Meidi leaning over him with a damp cloth upon his brow. 'You are safe, but the others yet torment me.'
'You mean Noro and Amarin?' Meidi asked.
Nihls shut his eyes and nodded. He started to rise, but Meidi leaned firmly on his shoulders to keep him laying down. He gave up the struggle for a moment before looking around. He was in a tent, but by the light making its way through he could tell that it was still day - or that it was the following day.
'I cannot leave my promise unfulfilled,' Nihls said somberly as if to answer her unspoken questions. 'I promised her that I would look after Ilnoron, should anything befall her.'
Meidi said nothing, but her throat moved as she struggled with the thought.
'I cannot help her,' Nihls said. 'I could do nothing for her. And then she was gone. But she is not altogether gone. Her son - her flesh and blood and soul yet lives on.'
Meidi's face turned white, 'And what of me? What of the child I am to care for?'
Nihls swallowed hard and looked straight into her eyes, 'Just say the word, Meidi, and I will abandon her,' he spoke of Ilnoron, but he meant Giretta as she was now enshrined within the body of her son. 'I know that I am torn in two by duty. And you have a right to me; that I cannot deny you.'
She shivered. Looking into his eyes she could not refuse him, and she marveled at it. 'I do love you, Nihls,' she said quietly and as though she realized it for the first time. 'For if I did not then it would be easy for me to part with you. And it would be easy to make you stay and abandon them. But I
will not let your oaths tear you in two. However much I have come to depend upon you, who redeemed my shame, I know that half of you would perish if you abandoned your promise.'
'That is my choice,' he said, his voice choked with emotion. 'I must betray her or betray you if I am to save my own soul. But if I risk myself, I can keep my word. If I fail, however,' he swallowed hard, 'I will have failed utterly, both you and her.'
She took his head in her hands and brought his cheek down to her lips. 'May the King bless and keep you, Nihls. We will not depart until you have returned to us. I will not let them. Come back to these ships and we will be waiting for you. And for her,' she added.
'I cannot ask everyone to risk themselves for me,' he said.
'Those who remain among us are only those who have recognized the truth in your words; even as you have forsaken all and risked all for us, so also we must do the same.' She smiled, 'And if any man tries to abandon you I will cast them into the harbor myself.'
He paused as he considered her words.
'Think no more on the matter, Nihls,' Meidi said. 'I would not let you go if I did not have my own concerns in this matter.'
Meidi suddenly appeared as though she were going to weep. 'I betrayed her, Nihls. I killed her-' she shook her head to prevent him from rebuking her, 'I know what I am saying, Nihls. I killed her. Do not argue with me. So filled with my own desires and dreams was I that I treated her with disdain - and it,' she paused as she spoke of those days, fighting back tears. 'Save her,' she said, speaking of Ilnoron, 'save her for my sake as well as for your own promise. For whether I made a promise to her I owe her a debt greater than any could hope to repay. But whether I am able or not does not change my duty.'
Nihls lifted himself so that his face was level with hers. He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. Suddenly all the weakness and sickness that had vexed him during their journey seemed to vanish. 'I never knew there was such strength and courage in you, Meidi, daughter of Blest Candorian.'
'If there is such within me, it is because you have put it there,' she replied.
The Rescue of Pelas
In truth Pelas never truly could have accepted the truth that his reign had come to an end. He no longer saw any distinction between his own will and Fate itself. Whereas at first he thought that Fate had chosen him, now what he had chosen was, in his eyes, Fate. He accepted the counsel of his fellows that their plight was without hope, but in every case the question they were called to answer was, 'Is there any way to save Alwan?' There was not. And Pelas accepted as much with surprising ease. He would not accept, however, that there was no way to save himself. Thus he found himself slipping from the palace in the midst of all the horrors his traps unleashed by passing through the canals that fed water into the city. Only he and a few of his most faithful servants escaped, one by one passing into the waters and making their way under the cover of darkness into the north, beyond the armies of the Blest, which now swelled with every mortal man who had grievances against Pelas. Falruvis escaped last, and when he appeared his face was grave. He spoke for a time to Pelas, who nodded silent agreement before commanding the elves to take up their burdens and flee into the west.
Daruvis made as if to protest the command, but his father stopped him.
'We must wait for Malia!' he insisted. But the look on his father's told him that something dreadful had happened.
'She and your son will not be here. I told you that I would escape last; were they able to they would have preceded me. Howbeit the men of Anatheda have cut them down. I could not aid them.'
Daruvis would have returned to perish in the city were he not withheld by his brothers, who insisted that he would serve their memory better by living than by dying in vain.
As later ages would reveal, Falruvis had, in fact, locked the pair in one of the towers before he made his own escape, thus hoping to end the line of the Lord of Morarta, who, as lord of the godhunters, had been his chief rival for nearly an age. Falruvis seemed to have understood before any of the other high elves that the time had come for the immortals to recreate themselves. He had learned well from his master, who in turn learned from his father Parganas, how keeping a firm hand upon the recording of history could by itself give a ruler great power.
It is my own belief that had not fate intervened, Lord Falruvis would not have suffered Pelas to escape. Indeed, by all that can be known, Lord Falruvis' own false histories were already beginning to take form in his mind, and I see no reason to believe that they included the fact that the high elves had, to a man, been servants of a childish king named Pelas. Better for Pelas to be a god than a ruler of flesh and blood. And so the gods of Weldera were born in the mind of he who would be for more than two and a half thousand years the lord of the elves in Tel Arie.
As fate would have it, Falruvis' hand was spared the blood of Pelas.
An hour into their flight they were attacked by untrained brigands who had, in name only, united themselves with the Blest of Anatheda. They cut down women and men alike with no hesitation, so fierce was their hatred of the elves. The immortals remember their wounds long, and their revenge can be cruel and calculated. But for mortals the injuries, often belonging to ages unseen by their own eyes, are never fully in view. Thus when they at last release their anger, it is all the wilder for being born partly of blindness. In that hour thousands of years of wisdom and skill were lost - and no man mourned their passing.
Pelas and a few of the high lords and their families alone escaped, but not by their own power. A fierce creature appeared - a man with hands dripping red with blood. 'Follow me!' he ordered, and soon the elves found themselves fleeing into a tunnel that they had not known of, and which seemed to expand and stretch out in front of them even as they ran. The red-handed man led the way, walking calmly as though he were strolling in a city market. But the elves had to run just to keep within sight of him. Before they knew it they emerged onto an open plain by the banks of a great river.
'This is the Esse,' Dalta said, 'or I am no elf.'
The others looked around, and those who knew the lay of the land agreed with nods of assent. Every eye was utterly bewildered. Their amazement at their sudden appearance so many leagues from Alwan was interrupted by yet another surprise.
'It is the lord Agonas,' Bralohi said flatly, noticing the survivors of Sunlan standing not far from them. One of the sons of the high lords ran forward, drawing his sword. But the red-handed man pointed his finger and the elf seemed to burst out of his skin. By the time he hit the ground he was naught but white bone.
'Do everything I command, and you will reign over all this world, both the North and the South,' he said. Between the horrid death they just witnessed and the coldness of his voice they knew that there would be no discussion. 'I did not suffer in the pits of this world for two ages to be disobeyed.'
Daryas the Great
The land seemed to unfold before them as they followed the red-handed man. The river whipped and flailed as if it were serpent in its death throes.
The elves of Sunlan seemed to know little better where their strange guide had come from. They did not waste any speech in commiseration, however. Agonas acted as though the others were not present. Zefru followed his example. Gheshtick, however, looked at the others sheepishly, but without saying anything. He did not want to displease either his master or this stranger who could make a man melt with a glance.
Xan looked at the other elves with hatred, but he too held his tongue, except for asking news of his daughter. The elves of Alwan, though they greatly outnumbered the others, were likewise unable to say aught either to or against the others.
Before they knew it they found themselves standing on the edge of the continent before a great ship, the like of which they had not seen in an age.
'The Fatewind!' Pelas exclaimed. 'It looks untouched!'
He could not help but smile, even when he looked at his brother, Agonas, whose scowl
was washed away by his amazement.
'How is this possible?' Gheshtick said, breaking the silence of the Sunlan elves.
Zefru shook his head with frustration. He was more cunning than any other elf, yet he was thoroughly perplexed by this strange turn of events. Before anyone else could speak, however, the red-handed man spoke again in a cold, commanding voice.
'Even I cannot do all things,' he said, sounding very disappointed at the admission. 'This ship was made present for you; take it, and if you can stand together you will together rule over all things.'
The fact that the man could do all that he had done seemed to indicate to Pelas, however, that they would not and could not ever rule over him.
But before any man could respond to him they were interrupted by another power.
The spirit Paley appeared before them, garbed in brown robes with a rope belt, identical in form but not color with the red-handed man. 'I don't know who you are, devil!' Paley snorted, taking the form of a Dragon as he approached them. 'but you cannot change what has been decreed, for in this case the decree and the fulfillment are one and the same.'
'We will see, Paley son of Ilwell,' the red-handed man said with a sneer.
The mention of his father's name seemed to strike the Dragon as if it were a fireball, and not mere sound. 'How?' Paley said, suddenly marveling to find himself in the form of a man once again.
Pelas and Agonas leaped at the opportunity to strike at the strange man who had at various times troubled them. As they charged the stunned man they by chance noticed one another, and accordingly they increased their mad dash to slay him as if all their rivalry had now come down to the question of who would be first to make an end of this man.
Pelas slashed out with his sword and cut open Paley's stomach, and Agonas, with his own blade, cut the man's head from his body. But as they turned they gasped. There stood another, garbed in the same plain robes, lifting him from the earth as though he had but tripped.
'I am sorry,' Paley said, turning to face the man with the dripping red hands. 'I was not ready.'
'You will need to be, when the time comes,' the other man said. 'This is my last dream. I was here at the very beginning, and I have had a glimpse of all things. You,' he emphasized, 'will need to bring this dream to a close - but not yet. I will give you time. But you must consider the meaning of all that you do.'
Lightning flashed and in an instant the man became an enormous dragon.
'Master Daryas!' Paley shouted through tears. 'Who will teach me, that I may be ready for that day?'
'Just as there is but one Blood,' his eyes flashed toward the red-handed man when he said that last word, 'so also is there but one Teacher. Know this, understand this, and you will know all that you need to know.'
Paley knelt on the ground and clutched his head in his hands. If it were not for the terror that made them feint, the sons of Parganas would have been glad to see him thus humiliated. But nothing was humorous to them at that moment, and even less was comprehensible to their minds.
Cheru and Oblis rushed to their master's side, bravely but foolishly. Daryas grew larger, inhaling a gale and swallowing a thousand rainstorms as he rose up into the clouds. His form was like unto the form of all three great beasts, the Beast of the Earth, the Thunder Snake and the Fire Bird together. He towered over the elves and with a blast of his nostril water poured forth and washed over the shivering and weeping forms of Agonas and Pelas, along with the latter's fool servants. In an instant they were stripped of their flesh and washed into the sea to roll and tumble until time saw fit to bring them to shore. Their memories were likewise washed of all order and sense, and their knowledge itself was battered against the rocks of the sea until only the form and shadow of their wisdom was retained to them.
Daryas turned and lumbered northward, spilling water in rivers from his mouth as he made his way up the Esse, his great legs sinking deep into the river, undaunted by the mightiest of that mighty rivers currents. His head was in the clouds, and great wings stretched from his back, sending whirlwinds and storms in every direction.
The red-handed man sighed, and turned toward the others. Most of the elves he regarded as if they were no longer worth considering. But he paused when his eyes passed over Bralohi and his brother. 'I will see you again,' he said coldly. 'Be sure that you are worthy of me when I return.' As soon as he had spoken it he was gone.
The Fatewind, however, remained before them, and the remaining elves hurriedly boarded. With a nod from Falruvis the elves of Alwan drew their blades to slay the remnant of the elves of Sunlan. Zefru and Gheshtick escaped the blades by diving into the waters, but in the end they were washed away in that unearthly torrent that streamed from the mouth of the immeasurable Daryas. And so they, like their master, began to live that living death of the spirits. Maru also, and several others with him, were lost in that struggle, being cast into the stream by Gheshtick's strong arms. This was the beginning of the fall of the immortals of Bel Albor, but it was the rise of the gods.
Survivors
The list of all those who escaped in that day cannot be known entirely, but the records of the elves agree with the following:
Falruvis escaped with his wife Indra the daughter of King Ijjan of Sunlan, who in Tel Arie was renamed Gladia. Along with them escaped their sons Daruvis, Telruvis and Marruvis, the latter of whom perished with their father when Dadron fell by the betrayal of the former. Also with them were their two daughters Samua and Kalrua, whose names were highly regarded in Ilmaria, but who perished along with the others in the fall of that city.
Sol and his wife Silan escaped with their sons Duesol and Lorsol and their daughter Milan. It is unknown to the scholars of Lapulia which of these sons came to be known as Lorvis; according to the records of the elves, Lorvis was treated as Solruvis' heir, which should mean that it was Duesol, but the name as it has come to us is so similar to Lorsol that it is hard to accept that it was any other but he. The elves changed many names in those days, however, and no man can truly be certain. Sol himself became known as Solruvis, which in Bel Albor would have meant that he was Falruvis' brother and son to Ruvis, who was slain by Agonas in the old kingdom of Ilvas.
A similar trick of naming was used to create the appearance that Morta and Dalta were brothers, though they could hardly be more distantly related one to the other. Morta of his family escaped alone, his wife being mortal and long dead, and his daughter betrayed and abandoned by the scheming Falruvis, who seemed to think he had inherited the authority of Pelas himself. Were it not for the protection of his son in law, Falruvis almost certainly would have slain him that very hour.
Of Ele, the kinswoman of Amro and Ghastin, the records do not speak. It is clear that by the time the elvish records begin to appear, Dalta was alone in his city on the shores of western Olgrost. It is likely that she, like so many others, did not escape the waters that overtook the northern world. Dalia and her beloved Thuruvis escaped, though the latter of these is not mentioned in any official record. If the elves could have made their histories without the scribes of Lapulia to gainsay them, they would have let the mortals believe that there had never been a northern kingdom at all. Their earliest histories - those written in Ilmaria before the Foreign Wars and the Albori Wars - claim that they had always dwelt in Tel Arie, and had, rather than being born like any other man, simply 'awakened'.
The 'brothers' Falruvis and Solruvis and their wives became the founders of the Argent or Silver elves. The true brothers Kolohi and Bralohi were not sons of Lohi, the hero who fought alongside Parganas against the Immortals of Mount Vitiai. They, too, 'awoke' along with their brides, to be the fathers of all the Verdant or 'wood' elves who, like them, had brown hair. So also the Malent or 'dark elves' were descended from Morta and Dalta, two 'brothers' who, like the others, simply 'woke' in Ilmaria. There is no hint, in the elvish histories, of the Kharkan blood that flowed in Xan of Thure's veins.
All of th
is, of course, took place long before the rise of the mortals.
But there is enough fable mixed with the history of Bel Albor that we need not introduce any more into the history of Tel Arie.
Dalta had a son also, whose name was Daltanse, which accurately enough can be understood as we have known it: Dalta II.
Kolohi and Bralohi escaped with their entire families. Kolohi escaped with his hateful wife Wellin and his two sons, Kollorn and Kuxni. Bralohi and his wife Viran escaped the waters with their sons Aebral, Edbral, Cadbral, Ilbral and Urbral, all of whom perished in Ilmaria when Xanthur laid siege to the city of Luma. There were undoubtedly many daughters who have not found their names written or recorded, since men, even our own otherwise careful historians, seem to think that telling half of the story is sufficient for a history.
All that now remains to be told is how the teachings of Theodysus, for whom in truth the whole northern Kingdom had its existence, made their way into the south, and, in recent times, into our own dark city.