Lauren stammered his surprised thanks. Jase was giving up his turn for the most special of tasks, obviously in an effort to cheer him.
He stepped forward under the spreading branches to lay his hands upon the smooth-skinned trunk, the others gathering about a few paces back to recite the morning greeting. He glanced upward expectantly, searching for the first beam of sunlight that would fall upon her form.
Then abruptly he drew back. The leaves directly above him were dark with patches of wilt. His heart fell. There was spotting elsewhere as well, scattered throughout the tree. It was not a trick of light and shadow. It was real.
He motioned frantically for Jase, then pointed as the other came forward. As was their custom at this time, they did not speak, but Jase gasped as he saw the extent of the damage already done. Slowly the two walked around the tree, discovering spots everywhere, some barely visible, others already darkening the leaves so badly that their blood-red color seemed drained away.
Whatever his professed beliefs concerning the tree, Jase was badly shaken, and his face reflected his dismay as he went back to confer in whispers with the others. Lauren moved to join them, but Jase quickly shook his head, motioning to the top of the tree, where the dawn’s light had almost reached the uppermost branches.
Lauren knew his duty and he turned back again to the tree. Whatever else was to happen, the Chosen must greet the Ellcrys this day as they had greeted her each day since the beginning of their Order.
He placed his hands gently on the silver bark and the words of greeting were forming on his lips when a slender branch from the ancient tree dipped slightly to brush his shoulder.
—Lauren—
The young Elf jumped at the sound of his name. But no one had spoken. The sound had been in his mind, the voice little more than an image of his own face.
It was the Ellcrys!
He caught his breath, twisting his head to glimpse briefly the branch that rested on his shoulder before turning quickly back again. Confusion swept through him. Only once before had she spoken to him—on the day of his choosing. She had spoken his name then; she had spoken all their names. It had been the last time. She had never spoken to any of them after that. Never—except to Amberle, of course, and Amberle was no longer one of them.
He looked hurriedly at the others. They were staring at him, curious as to why he had stopped. Then the branch that rested upon his shoulder slipped down to wrap about him loosely, and he flinched involuntarily with its touch.
—Lauren. Call the Chosen to me—
The images appeared quickly and were gone. Hesitantly, Lauren beckoned to his comrades. They came forward, questions forming on their lips as they stared upward at the silver-limbed tree. Branches lowered to clasp each, and the voice of the Ellcrys whispered softly.
—Hear me. Remember what I tell you. Do not fail me—
A chill swept over them, and the Gardens of Life were shrouded in deep, hollow silence, as if in all the world only they were alive. Images filled their minds, flowing one after the other in rapid succession. There was horror contained in those images. Had they been able, the Chosen would have turned away, to flee and hide until the nightmare that possessed them had passed and been forgotten. But the tree held them fast, and the images continued to flow and the horror to mount, until they felt they could stand no more.
Then at last it was finished, and the Ellcrys was silent once more, her limbs lifting from their shoulders and stretching wide to catch the warmth of the morning sun.
Lauren stood frozen, tears streaming down his cheeks. Shattered, the six Chosen faced one another, and in each mind the truth whispered soundlessly.
The legend was not legend. The legend was life. Evil did indeed lie beyond a Forbidding that the Ellcrys maintained. Only she kept the Elven people safe.
And now she was dying.
2
Far to the west of Arborlon, beyond the Breakline, there was a stirring in the air. Something blacker than the darkness of the early dawn appeared, writhing and shuddering with the force of some blow that appeared to strike it. Momentarily, the veil of blackness held firm. Then it split wide, rent by the force from within it. Howls and shrieks of glee spilled forth from the impenetrable blackness beyond, as dozens of clawed limbs ripped and tore at the sudden breach, straining toward the light. Then red fire exploded all about and the hands fell away, twisted and burned.
The Dagda Mor appeared out of the dark, hissing with rage. His Staff of Power steamed hotly as he brushed aside the impatient ones and stepped boldly through the opening. An instant later, the dark forms of the Reaper and the Changeling followed him. Other bodies pushed forward in desperation, but the edges of the rent came together quickly, closing off the blackness and the things that lived within it. In moments, the opening had disappeared entirely and the strange trio stood alone.
The Dagda Mor looked about warily. They stood in the shadow of the Breakline, the dawn which had already shattered the peace of the Chosen little more than a faint light in the eastern sky beyond the monstrous wall of mountains. The great, towering peaks knifed into the sky, casting pillars of darkness far out into the desolation of the Hoare Flats. The Flats themselves stretched westward from the line of the mountains into emptiness—a hard, barren wasteland in which life spans were measured in minutes and hours. Nothing moved on its surface. No sound broke the stillness of the morning air.
The Dagda Mor smiled, his hooked teeth gleaming. His coming had gone unnoticed. After all these years, he was free. He was loose once more among those who had imprisoned him.
At a distance, he might have passed for one of them. He was basically manlike in appearance. He walked upright on two legs, and his arms were only slightly longer than those of a man. He carried himself stooped over, his movements hampered by a peculiar hunching motion—but the dark robes that cloaked him made it difficult to tell the cause. It was only when close that one could see clearly the massive hump that crooked his spine almost double at the shoulders. Or the great tufts of greenish hair that protruded from all parts of his body like patches of saw grass. Or the scales that coated his forearms and lower legs. Or the hands and feet that ended in claws. Or the vaguely catlike muzzle that was his face. Or the eyes, black and shining, deceptively placid on their surface, like twin pools of water that hid something evil and destructive.
Once these were seen, there was no longer any question as to the Dagda Mor’s identity. What was revealed then was not man, but Demon.
And the Demon hated. He hated with an intensity that bordered on madness. Hundreds of years of imprisonment within the black hold that lay beyond the wall of the Forbidding had given his hatred more than sufficient time to fester and grow. Now it consumed him. It was everything to him. It gave him his power, and he would use that power to crush the creatures who had caused him so much misery. The Elves! All of the Elves. And even that would not be enough to satisfy him now—not now, not after centuries of being shut from this world that had once been his—shut into that formless, insentient limbo of endless dark and slow, wretched stagnation. No, the destruction of the Elves would not be enough to salve the indignity that he had suffered. The others must be destroyed as well. Men, Dwarves, Trolls, Gnomes—all those who were a part of the humanity that he so detested, the races of humanity that lived upon his world and claimed it for their own.
His vengeance would come, he thought. Just as his freedom had come. He could feel it. He had waited centuries, posted at the wall of the Forbidding, testing its strength, probing for weakness—all the time knowing that it must, one day, begin to fail. And now that day was here. The Ellcrys was dying. Ah, sweet words! He wanted to shout them aloud! She was dying! She was dying and she could no longer maintain the Forbidding!
The Staff of Power glowed redly in his hands as the hatred flowed through him. The earth beneath its tip charred to ash. With an effort he calmed himself and the Staff grew cool again.
For a time, of course, the Forbidding would
still hold firm. Complete erosion would not take place overnight nor, quite possibly, for several weeks. Even the small breach that he had managed had required enormous power. But the Dagda Mor possessed enormous power, more power than any of those still trapped behind the Forbidding. He was chief among them; his word ruled them. A few had defied that word during the long years of banishment—only a few. He had broken them. He had made unpleasant examples of them. Now all obeyed him. They feared him. But they shared his hatred of what had been done to them. They, too, fed on that hatred. It had driven them into a frenzied need for revenge, and when at last they were set free again, that need would take a long, long time to be satisfied.
But for now, they must wait. For now, they must be patient. It would not be long. The Forbidding would weaken a little more each day, decaying as the Ellcrys slowly failed. Only one thing could prevent this—a rebirth.
The Dagda Mor nodded to himself. He knew well the history of the Ellcrys. Had he not been present when she had first seen life, when she had shut his brethren and himself from their world of light into their prison of dark? Had he not seen the nature of the sorcery that had defeated them—a sorcery so powerful that it could transcend even death? And he knew that this freedom could still be taken from him. If one of the Chosen were permitted to carry a seed of the tree to the source of her power, the Ellcrys might be reborn and the Forbidding invoked again. He knew this, and it was because of this knowledge that he was here now. He had by no means been certain that he could breach the wall of the Forbidding. It had been a dangerous gamble to expend so much power in the attempt, for, had he failed, he might have been left badly weakened. There were some behind the wall almost as powerful as he; they would have seized the opportunity to destroy him. But the gamble had been necessary. The Elves did not realize the extent of their danger yet. For the moment, they believed themselves safe. They did not think that any within the confines of the Forbidding possessed sufficient power to break through. They would discover their error too late. By then, he would have made certain that the Ellcrys could never be reborn nor the Forbidding restored.
It was for that reason that he had brought the other two.
He glanced about for them now. He found the Changeling immediately, his body undergoing a steady transition of colors and shapes as he practiced duplicating the life he found here—in the sky, a searching hawk and a small raven; on the earth, a groundhog, then a snake, a multilegged insect with pincers, then on to something new, almost as quickly as the eye could follow. For the Changeling could be anything. Shut away in the darkness with only his brethren to model after, he had been denied the full use of his powers. There, they had been virtually wasted. But here, in this world, the possibilities were endless. All things, whether human or animal, fish or fowl, no matter their size, shape, color or abilities—he could be any of them. He could assimilate their characteristics perfectly. Even the Dagda Mor was not certain of the Changeling’s true appearance; the creature was so prone to adapt to other life forms that he spent virtually all of his time being something or someone other than what he really was.
It was an extraordinary gift, but it was possessed by a creature whose capacity for evil was very nearly as great as that of the Dagda Mor. The Changeling, too, was of Demon spawn. He was selfish and hateful. He enjoyed duplicity; he enjoyed hurting others. He had always been the enemy of the Elven people and their allies, detesting them for their pious concern for the welfare of the lesser life forms that inhabited their world. Lesser creatures meant nothing to the Changeling. They were weak, vulnerable; they were meant to be used by more powerful beings—beings such as himself. The Elves were no better than the creatures they sought to protect. They either could not or would not deceive as he did. All of them were trapped by what they were; they could be nothing else. He could be whatever he wished. He despised them all. The Changeling had no friends. He wanted none. None but the Dagda Mor, that was, for the Dagda Mor possessed the one thing he respected—power greater than his own. It was for that reason and for that reason alone that the Changeling had come to serve him.
It took the Dagda Mor several moments longer to locate the Reaper. He found it finally, not more than ten feet away, perfectly motionless, little more than a shadow in the pale light of early dawn, another bit of fading night hunched down against the gray of the Flats. Cloaked head to foot in robes the color of damp ashes, the Reaper was almost invisible, its face carefully concealed within the shadow of a broad hood. No one ever looked upon that face more than once. The Reaper permitted only its victims to see that much of it, and its victims were all dead.
If the Changeling were to be judged dangerous, then the Reaper was ten times more so. The Reaper was a killer. Killing was the sole function of its existence. It was a massive creature, heavily muscled, almost seven feet tall when it rose to its full height. Yet its size was misleading, for it was by no means ponderous. It moved with the ease and grace of the best Elven Hunter—smooth, fluid, quick, and noiseless. Once it had begun a hunt, it never gave up. Nothing it went after ever escaped. Even the Dagda Mor was wary of the Reaper, though the Reaper did not possess his power. He was wary because the Reaper served him out of whim and not out of fear or respect as did all the others. The Reaper feared nothing. It was a monster who cared nothing for life, even its own. It did not even kill because it enjoyed killing, though in truth it did enjoy killing. It killed because killing was instinctive. It killed because it found killing necessary. At times, within the darkness of the Forbidding, shut away from every form of life but its own brethren, it had been almost unmanageable. The Dagda Mor had been forced to give it lesser Demons to kill, keeping it under his control with a promise. Once they were free of the Forbidding—and they would, one day, be free—the Reaper would be given an entire world of creatures that it might prey upon. For as long as it wished, it might hunt them. In the end, it might kill them all.
The Changeling and the Reaper. The Dagda Mor had chosen well. One would be his eyes, the other his hands, eyes and hands that would go deep into the heart of the Elven people and end forever the chance that the Ellcrys might be reborn.
He glanced sharply to the east where the rim of the morning sun was rising rapidly above the crest of the Breakline. It was time to go. By tonight, they must be in Arborlon. This, too, he had planned with care. Time was precious to him; he had little to waste if he expected to catch the Elves napping. They must not know of his presence until it was too late to do anything about it.
With a quick motion to his companions, the Dagda Mor turned and slouched heavily toward the shelter of the Breakline. His black eyes lidded with pleasure as he tasted in his mind the success tonight would bring him. After tonight, the Elves would be doomed. After tonight, they would be forced to watch their beloved Ellcrys decay without even the faintest hope for any rebirth.
Indeed. Because after tonight, the Chosen would all be dead.
Several hundred yards from the mountains, deep within their concealing shadow, the Dagda Mor stopped. With both hands gripping the Staff of Power, he placed it upright, one end planted firmly in the dry, cracked earth. His head lowered slightly, and his hands tightened about the Staff. For long moments, he stood without moving. Behind him, the other two watched curiously, their dark forms huddled down, their eyes bits of yellow light.
Then abruptly, the Staff of Power began to glow faintly, a pale reddish color that silhouetted the hulking form of the Demon against the darkness. A moment later, the glow intensified sharply and began to pulsate. It ran from the Staff into the arms of the Dagda Mor, turning the greenish skin to blood. The Demon’s head came up and fire shot skyward from the Staff in a thin, brilliant arc that flew into the dawn like some frightened, living thing. It was gone in seconds. The glow that lit the Staff of Power flared once and died.
The Dagda Mor stepped back a pace, the Staff lowering. The earth about him was charred and black, and the damp air smelled of burning ash. The whole of the surrounding Flats had gone de
athly still. The Demon seated himself, opaque eyes lidding contentedly. He did not move again, nor did the creatures with him. Together, they waited—half an hour, one hour, two. Still they waited.
And finally, down from the vast emptiness of the Northland, swept the monstrous, winged nightmare the Demon had summoned to carry them east to Arborlon.
“Now shall we see,” the Dagda Mor whispered.
3
The sun was barely above the horizon when Ander Elessedil stepped through the front door of his small house and moved up the walkway toward the iron gates that fronted the palace grounds. As second son of Eventine, King of the Elves, he could have had his rooms in the royal quarters; but years before, he had moved himself and his books to his present residence and thereby gained a privacy that he would have lacked within the palace. Or so he had thought at the time. Now he was less certain; with his older brother Arion receiving most of their father’s attention, Ander would probably have found himself largely undisturbed wherever he chose to live.
He sniffed the cleanness and early warmth of the morning air and smiled briefly. A good day for a ride. Both he and his favorite horse could use the exercise.
At forty, he was no longer a young man. His lean Elven face was lined at the corners of the narrow eyes and the furrow of his sharply angled brow; but his step was quick and easy, and his face was almost boyish when he smiled—though that was seldom these days.
As he neared the gates, he saw that Went, the old groundskeeper, was already at work, tending the flower beds with a hand hoe, his thin frame bent over his work. As he heard Ander approach, Went straightened slowly, one hand going to his back.
“Good morning, Prince. Nice day, eh?”
Ander nodded. “Splendid, Went. Back still bothering you?”