This chapter is likely to bewilder those who have read the other, more official chronicles of my life. My first experience with the elves is many leagues and years from the eventual enmity between myself and their people. Yet, though none involved had eyes to see it, the seeds for that vendetta were sown here. I certainly had no conception, as I held a foolish fascination with elves common to the young.
Since Rhadoviel mentioned we would be visiting Iarveiros, I had been buzzing with excitement. I asked nothing, because the old man wouldn't have stood for it. I simply waited until he, with typical puckish cruelty, woke me when it was still dark to tell me we'd be leaving at sunrise. I dutifully gathered my things and prepared to go. Out of pride, I took Spire, which was what I named my ironwood staff. I set my last and most precious possession on the table: the lamp of Zhahllaia.
"Zhahllaia the Enlightened," I said into the stillness of the room.
The smoke billowed forth and Zhahllaia stepped from the cloud. It was still incredible, and yet my routine had made it somewhat mundane. Still, her lovely form clad only in the minute golden chains, was enough to momentarily rob me of breath. She cocked her head, regarding the full pack next to my bed. "You are traveling."
"To Iarveiros," I said. "Have you ever been to any of the elven nations?"
"There was no love lost between the elves and Qammuz."
"I was going to ask if you wanted to accompany me. If you choose to stay, I can leave you free of your lamp. You would have the run of Thunderhead while Rhadoviel and I were gone."
"I want to go," she said quickly, lifting herself up on the balls of her feet. "Being confined to the lamp has lost its power to trouble me, Master Wizard."
I ran the back of my hand down her cheek, relishing the shimmer that trilled from my fingertips up my arm and down my spine. She leaned into the touch, smiling at me, her gold-flecked eyes bright. "I'm pleased you feel that way. Being without you would feel wrong. Please return to your lamp for now."
She faded into the smoke, returning to the lamp. I wrapped it in a robe and secured it safely in my pack. Her decision made, I packed the Alishum board and pieces I had assembled under Zhahllaia's exacting supervision. The board was painstakingly drawn on a scroll, the one I carried the sixth such effort and the first to be judged worthy. The pieces I had sculpted, one side from coral, the other from driftwood. These went into a box I found forgotten in one of Thunderhead's many subterranean storerooms.
I shouldered my pack and met Rhadoviel on the muddy road that terminated at our doorstep. He rode his swaybacked nag, his familiar Ephlin sullenly staring from a water-filled bottle secured to the saddle. I was left leading Hob, our mule, now laden with provisions. Oddrin wrapped about my neck like a scarf. We walked a short distance inland from Thunderhead, climbing a low hill topped with a henge made of horse-sized blocks of coral.
Rhadoviel was already casting his spell as we climbed the well-worn path. By the time we reached the henge, the air within was shimmering, a riot of colors just outside my conscious vision. I perceived the magic in all five of my senses: the halo of light wreathing Rhadoviel's restless hands, the scent of lightning in the air, the sound of distant singing on the wind, the feel of cold inside hot, the taste of flowers. These told me not just that magic was being performed, but that it was a traveling spell.
We stepped into the henge, and the world subtly changed. All I could see took on a flat aspect, like props on a stage, but all I could not see gave the impression of being too real, with too many angles, too many sides. I would look at a tree, and be certain that just behind it was a shape that I could not name or even understand. It was seeing without seeing, a knowledge of paradox. It was, in short, magic.
With each step, the scenery changed, as though we'd traveled a league down the road. At the end of the day, we stepped back into the mundane from the Hinterlands through a henge fashioned of stones of granite, making camp by the side of the road at the base of a mountain range. Judging by the exposed stone on those peaks, the granite of the henge was local. Rhadoviel used his power to create a tent out of nothing, and when he opened the flap, I saw a vast room littered with sumptuous pillows and furs. I was made to sleep on the cold ground, under Rhadoviel's logic I would never learn this power unless I experienced the discomfort of being without it. I woke up a nest of aches. We stepped through the henge once again to make our way through the Hinterlands.
We traveled like this for five days, each one worse than that last with aches and boredom my most constant companions. I wished I could have taken Zhahllaia from her lamp, but she could not go undetected. I was stuck with no conversation but the old man's rants.
On the sixth day we didn't step back into the henge we exited the previous evening. Instead, we walked along the path as mundane travelers. The forest stretched across the eastern horizon as far as I could see in either direction. Iarveiros was at the terminus of the path, emerging from the ancient wood like a jewel at the center of a diadem. The trees of this elven city literally shined in the sunlight.
As we approached, details grew clearer. The trees that formed the jewel were silvery, the boughs gold, standing among but apart from the other trees with their red-brown bark and green needles. Graceful staircases spiraled up the silver trunks to walkways and structures built in the canopy. Shapes moved about up there, tall and slender and shining like slivers of spun silver. To my eyes, this was a place for gods.
That, of course, is precisely the impression the elves wish to impart.
"Close your flycatcher, boy. You look like a damn fool," the old man growled.
At the base of the staircase of the nearest tree stood two young men. At the time, I assumed them to be elves. Their ears came to delicate points, their hair was ash blond, and their complexions carried a subtle lavender tint. They were clad in silvery mail, and were armed with bows and swords of incredible craftsmanship and beauty. I would learn later that these were actually half-elves, the product of unions between human and elf.
They bowed to Rhadoviel as the old man slid from his saddle, retrieving Ephlin and his pack. Two more half-elves, dressed in tunics and breeches that looked casual next to everything else but were still finer than any garment I had ever seen, stepped into the dappled light. I marveled at their stealth, accomplished without the appearance of trying.
Rhadoviel handed the reins of his horse to the new arrivals. "Go on, boy," he said to me. "They'll tend to Hob." I obeyed, giving the reins to the other of these porters, who led our animals out into the cool dark of the woods. I wouldn't see either animal until we left a week later, and both were in better health and appearance than they had ever been. The guards then stepped aside, allowing us access to the stairs.
We mounted the staircases, ascending the massive tree. I ran my hand over the bark. It wasn't merely silver-colored, but some wood and metal alloy, smooth as silver, but with the give of wood. Magic, used so casually as to overawe, is the elvish way. It certainly worked on me, the rube who thought of the old tower of Thunderhead as grand, or the fishing village of Burley Shoal as populous.
When we were three-quarters of the way up, we had a commanding view of the gentle slope leading up into this forest. Other shapes approached from the west, always traveling in twos, some with pack animals or horses, some without.
"More wizards?" I asked.
"You didn't think this was only us, hmm?"
"Of course not."
"I need to remind you not to lie to me, boy?"
"Apologies, Master."
"Don't you worry, boy. You're in for the night of your life." He cackled to himself.
"How many wizards? All of those in Rhandonia?"
"All in Chassudor, I expect. I remember my first symposium. You'll thank me later, you will."
The stairs opened onto a terrace. The light here was twilight, shielded from the sky by the highest boughs of the tree. Golden bulbs hung at irregular intervals, spilling a gentle glow over the area. The railing at the edge was intricately scalloped, shaped by a master craftsman.
The elves awaited us, and now I could see the difference between these and the ones below. Every one of them was taller than I, their bodies graceful and slender, calling to mind the proportions of herons. Their ears were tall, the points almost stretching to the crowns of their heads. Their hair was platinum blond, long and straight without a single tangle. Their features were subtly inhuman as well, their eyes large, noses and mouths delicate. Their skin was pale, with strong lavender undertones, especially in places my own flesh would show red.
