The festivities lasted long into the night. There was table upon table laden with food and drink, and many of the men of the village were drunk. Merry tunes were being played by the minstrels, and many were dancing. Handfastings were always seen as opportune times for matches to be made, and there was a lot of flirting going on between the young men and women of the village. All was noisy and boisterous. It was not completely to Elu’s liking, but it was her day, she was happy, and was glad to see everyone enjoying themselves. Her mind wasn’t really on them anyway. Mirulas had insisted on the two of them stealing every dance. She was tired, but contented to listen to anything he put to her. She herself had indulged in a few cups of deepberry wine, and was feeling a little heady. It had made her a bit too enthusiastic where dancing was concerned.
“Now I know I made the right choice,” Mirulas commented once they were on the dance floor.
“What do you mean?” she asked him testily.
“That first night I returned to Welle, and I saw you dancing, I knew at that very moment that I had to make you mine.”
“Really?” She was rather pleased about that.
“You dance like a princess. How could I resist you?”
He had meant it as a light-hearted remark, but something about it made her stomach turn. Or maybe it was the wine.
Needless to say she was ready to retire before many of her guests were. She made her goodnights very publicly – almost too publicly for her usual disposition – but somehow the light-heartedness made it all seem so good. Before she left there was a general toast to her and several cheers. She left the general revelry in a tired but jovial mood. It was as she was journeying back to her rooms that she passed a group of mainly women and younger children who were gathered round the storyteller that had come to provide entertainment that evening. They were all staring up at him, enraptured looks on their faces. The storyteller was a foreigner. He was not dressed as most of the peasantry of Éadan were. He was dressed in a cowl of grey wool, one that had once been rich and warm, but was now battered by the ravages of travel and bad weather. The hood of the robe had been pulled up over the man’s head, and Elu could only just make out the gleam of his eyes and the wrinkles of his chin. Strange, Elu thought. Was it only her imagination that his eyes appeared unnaturally bright…? Unable to help herself, she stopped a moment to listen.
“…Yes, evil days those were. There was a war between the two great kings who were brothers, Mildar and Mithdar – and in the end the Mithlonei were angered, and they withdrew their powers from the land. So were the Spheres of Harmony destroyed. Thereafter followed the Age of Dark, which lasts unto this very day. But before that it was the Age of Light, and all the races had lived in peace. They were like even unto kin. Everyone helped one another when his neighbour was in trouble. It was the way of things.”
“Even the tûrkals?” one scrawny boy asked incredulously.
“Yes, even the tûrkals,” the storyteller nodded gravely. “In those days even they were friends to us. They knew not the slavery of the Dark, until their hearts were ensnared by it. It came upon them before they even knew of it. It came with the Princess Tolminäre. It was she who darkened their minds.”
“Princess Tolminäre! I’ve heard about her!” a girl exclaimed excitedly, “There’s a rhyme about her that we learnt from our mothers.”
“Is there now?” There was a humorous looking grimace on the storyteller’s face.
“Yes,” answered the girl. She was eager to show off in front of this foreigner. “It goes like this:
There was a pretty princess,
Her name was Tolminäre;
And of all the ladies of the land,
‘Twas she they count most fair.
She was a wicked woman,
And slaughtered all her kin;
She sold herself unto the Dark,
And filled the lands with sin.
But then there came along a man,
Brave Lord of Day, Fortuminar,
He thrust his sword into her breast,
And now she is no more.”
She finished on a breath, looked about with a proud smile on her face. At the same moment a breeze swept up. Elu shivered. She knew it was more than just the wind that caused her to do so. But the storyteller was smiling down at the young girl indulgently.
“What a pretty voice you have, child. And such a lovely tale! One day you might be a storyteller too, I fancy.”
The girl beamed, but another boy interrupted her.
“Is it true?” he asked eagerly, “About Tolminäre, I mean? They say that one day the Age of Dark will end, when the evil is destroyed again, and that the Age of Twilight will remain. Mother tells me it is all silly tales. But I don’t believe it! I think they all really happened!”
The storyteller laughed. “Perhaps they did, perhaps they did not. I am only an old man. Who am I to say?” At that moment he looked up, and espied Elu at the edge of the group. He smiled at her through the folds of his hood. “I’m sure this young lady would agree with your mother, lad.” He grinned. “Such tales are for children, are they not, miss?”
For a moment, Elu found herself tongue-tied at the directness of his question. Then she quickly found her voice. “I myself have never truly believed them. But I think it is the good fortune of children to have some faith in them.”
“You speak truly.” There was an odd look on the man’s face. It was as though something in the conversation made him think of a matter that troubled him. Then suddenly he smiled down at the company.
“Well, let us speak of happier tales and happier times. Let us speak of Tilmary and the Thousand Walkers.”
“Yes!” cried the children in the group as one voice. This was a childhood favourite. As the storyteller began his tale, Elu slipped away with a smile on her face. When she turned to look back once, she saw to her surprise and consternation that the storytellers eyes were not on his company. They were on her.
Elu slept uneasily that night. It was not the deepberry wine. No. Her dreams once more were the cause. Darkness flooded her, drowned her. She recalled clawing at it in fear. Every time she did so a rent of light appeared in the blackness, but just as swiftly it was reclaimed by the darkness. She was aware of trying to run, but her legs were stuck as though in tar. She awoke with a jolt, sweating hard. She wiped hard at her face. It was then that she realised she had been crying in her sleep.
She spent another hour trying to sleep, but was unable to relax. Knowing it was no use to try, she got out of bed and trod down the stairs quietly. She had no fear of bumping into Mirulas. Since they were required to have limited contact until their wedding day, he had moved into the house of one his friends. Besides, it was late. Everyone, even the most drunken of the revelers, had retired to bed. It would be empty outside.
Throwing on a cloak for modesty she ventured outside. Being midsummer, it was as warm as day. The grass was pleasant underfoot, cool but not cold. She paused and stared up at the moon. It shone down on her, full and bright, like a single eye, all seeing and all-knowing, as though it watched her. It was often said that Erdé, the goddess of the moon, sent visions and dreams of prophecy to those mortals she wished to know her silent messages. Not for the first time Elu wondered if her dreams were strange portents. If they were, they did not bode well. It would not surprise her if they were indeed omens of what was to come. From many of the travellers that had stopped in Welle recently, it had been known that many more monsters had been haunting the plains of Éadan than before. Trolls, goblins, Aksees, werewolves – all were apparently increasing their numbers. Why? Who knew? To Elu it all seemed so far away and irrelevant. Maybe it was not to stay that way.
With a sigh she walked down the grassy path that led from Eldeen’s house and onto the dirt track that was Welle’s only road. A familiar feeling brushed against her. She turned her head reluctantly. The Oak Tree.
She was surprised to see the thin trail of smoke rising from under the tree. Curiously, she drew closer to the tree on the hill. A figure came into sight, someone hooded and cloaked, with a pipe clutched between his lips. There was something of a pleading feeling coming from the Tree. As she drew closer, Elu realised what it was it was objecting to. It didn’t like the smoke. It reminded the tree of fire.
“It doesn’t like that, you know,” she spoke to the figure under the Tree. The storyteller looked up at her.
“I know. It’s been moaning at me since I got here. But I’m used to such things. Trees are objectionable creatures.”
Somehow she was not surprised that he knew. Feeling a little cold, she shivered and ducked under the canopy of the tree to sit beside him.
“How long have you been able to feel them?” she asked him, not knowing what else to say.
“Oh, a long time. I can’t remember.” He shrugged. Then he looked at her, straight in the eye. She was surprised then to see that his eyes were bright, even in the darkness. In fact, they were the colour of gold corn. She held her breath involuntarily. “So you’re the girl who’s going to get married,” he continued, a wry smile on his face. “And does such a plight please you?”
“Plight?” She was annoyed. “It is not a plight. I am very happy to be pledged to Mirulas. Why should I not be?” She sighed. “It seems as though everyone opposes our marriage.”
“As far as I can see, everyone is thrilled about your pledge,” the old man said, “apart from the Tree that is.”
Elu stared at him. She suddenly realised that it was only the Tree that had raised any objections. Somehow, it had felt as though the whole world was opposed to it. “Why does it not want me to be married?” she finally asked.
“Maybe that is not the question you should be asking,” spoke the storyteller off-handly, “Maybe it has no objection to you getting married at all. Maybe it just doesn’t want you to marry Mirulas.”
“That’s ridiculous!” she scoffed, “Why would a tree not want me to marry Mirulas?”
But why should I not?
Elu shivered and pushed the voice out of her mind.
“I don’t know,” the storyteller grinned. He took a puff of smoke, then stretched. “I happen to think it’s a great match. I’ve travelled a fair way in my life, and have never seen a more fitting one.” He passed her a short, sidelong glance.
“You are a very strange man,” she said on an impulse.
“Am I?” He seemed tickled by the thought. “Some have called me that. Most have not. They have rarely seen me as I am now.” He seemed to fall into a reverie. Elu did not understand a word of what he had said. She decided to ask him something that had been troubling her since her first encounter with him that evening.
“Sir, may I ask you a question?”
He caught the serious note in her voice and looked up sharply. “Yes, of course. What is it?”
“Why did you ask me whether I believed in those tales you were telling the children? Was it so important to you?”
“Was it not a fair question?” he asked her, wide-eyed.
“It’s not that,” she shook her head, “It’s just that…Well, it was as though you expected me to believe them.”
“Do you?” he queried, his eyes intent upon her.
“I don’t know.” She gathered her knees to her chest, clasped her arms about them. “I’ve never really thought about it before, until tonight. I always thought those tales were nothing more than that. Tales. But so much recently has made me question it all. All the travellers that come here say there is evil afoot in the world. The dark creatures of the land are increasing. They prey upon the villages of Éadan, plundering and looting. They say it’s down to the black magic of the tûrkals. Then there’s the Tree, talking to me. I’d always felt it was…alive. But it never spoke to me, until now. And then there’s my dreams…”
“Dreams?” the storyteller’s voice was a little too casual as he said it.
“Dreams of darkness, enveloping me. Enveloping everything. They frighten me.” She held her knees closer to her, trying to dispel the fearful images. The storyteller looked upon her, and for a moment, his bright eyes were kind yet sad.
“My child, already these are dark times, for the world has become very dim, and there is much unhappiness and uncertainty.” He paused and passed a long sigh. “I myself have witnessed this sorrow, for I have travelled much of the world, and seen a great many sad and troubling things. Men look to stories and songs to give a name to their fears and their sorrows; it is in their nature to do so. This is what I have learnt.” He stopped momentarily, and sat back against the Tree; and when next he spoke it almost as if to himself. “Yet the darkness is here, and that cannot be denied. Men have forgotten the Spheres, and there will come a time when the other races of the world will also come to forget. Yes – the darkness is here.”
“Yes,” Elu spoke sadly, “Somehow I have felt it, though I have never left this village, not once in my whole life long. Yet I see that the world has become dark, for often the people that travel this way are bitter and careworn, and wish to be freed from the world and all its worries.”
“You are indeed a very perceptive young girl,” remarked the storyteller, leaning forward and perusing her eyes carefully. “And do you see too the shadows that gather over our lands – the promise of the Age of Twilight? It does not seem a very unlikely possibility does it, when so many men’s hearts are shrouded in greyness.”
Elu shuddered then, and for a moment she felt very scared and alone, as though the words had cut through her with a blade of ice.
“Tell me of the Twilight,” she asked in a whisper, “For it frightens me, though I know not what it portends.”
“The Twilight portends the end of the age of wonder, when the elves and the sephira and the tûrkals shall all fade away, and men shall rule,” answered the storyteller darkly, never taking his eyes from Elu’s. “For in the War of the Sundering was the Light blotted out, and Darkness permeated ever the fabric of the Light. The pure light, the light of the Spheres, can never again be restored. Only the light of Ranya the Sun Youth may fill this world now, and compared to that of the Spheres it is dull and insipid. Soon men will forget the Spheres of Harmony, and the twilight will reign. Their minds will turn to matters insipid even as is the light of the sun.”
And he ended, but Elu stared up at him still, and her grey eyes were wide and timorous in the flickering light of his pipe.
“Such terrible predictions, such lonely portents this world possesses,” she spoke on a murmur. “For the world to be devoid of elves would be as like to the world as being devoid of grass. Or trees.” She felt the Oak Tree then, it’s consciousness almost reeling at her suggestion. Again, she blocked it. “Surely such sad tellings cannot be true. Surely there shall be a light again in this world. It is always the way of the tales, is it not? Light always triumphs over dark, evil always falls to good. Is it not so?”
“Perhaps,” he answered darkly, “But it is not always the way of the world. The War of the Sundering did not end the darkness, did it? In the end, what the armies of the Light strove for only served to destroy the Spheres and plunge the world into deeper darkness. And so it has remained, to this very day.” Then he checked himself, and the morose look on his face was gone as he smiled upon her broadly. “But what are these but myths and legends? And who may say that they tell the truth?” He reached out a wrinkled hand and placed it upon her shoulder, patted it gently. “My dear child,” he spoke softly, “you are soon to be married, and in time who will be raising and caring for a family of your own. Such worries and cares are not for you now, are they? Think not on them. Welle is small and peaceful – yes, my child, I think that here you shall be safe.”
The words, said to comfort her, only send a chill of foreboding into her bones. It was the Tree again.
Safe?
Hah! Nowhere is safe! Not with that fat pipe in his mouth! Let us run and hide while the fires burn our
roots! Trees have no legs. Where shall they run?
Somehow, Elu could not find it in her to block out those words.