Elu did not sleep for a long time that night. Her room had had a fire already prepared in it, and a jug of warm milk was standing by the hearth along with a pot of warm water. She had no time to sample any of it. A great tiredness swept over her. She threw herself down on the freshly made bed, and rose slowly only to blow out the candle by her bedside. In a trice the room was enveloped in darkness.
Elu lay back down and closed her
eyes, only for them to open again as soon as she did so. Why had she agreed to this? Why had any of this happened to her
anyway? She shouldn’t have been here;
she should have been in Welle, with Mirulas, with Eldeen and his wife… She checked herself quickly, remembering
what Grinda had said: your appearance
here today has changed many things, and set many a new course that was not open
before. And what did that
mean? That all this had happened to her
for a purpose? To get her out of
Welle? To stop her from marrying
Mirulas? A coldness spread over her,
from her heart to the extremities of her body.
She drew her blankets closer to her.
She knew now that her tiredness would not give way easily to sleep.
She tried to think on something
else. The shapeshifters. She tried to recall all the tales she had
ever heard of them. It was no
good. She could remember very little
that made sense to her. She remembered
Eldeen once saying that they had been a noble race, now extinct. They had been the champions of the Light,
doing the bidding of the Master of Light.
The aging ostler of Welle had once told stories of the shapeshifters,
saying that the blood that ran through them was half divine, and that they had
an unusually long span of life. They
served the gods in all that they did. But
anything more than that she could not remember. The minstrels and bards had sung little of them. Probably because much of the lore that had
previously existed on them had been lost.
She turned slowly onto her back, stared up at the ceiling. A patch of it was shining in a milky beam of
moonlight. She traced a line around its
edges absently. It seemed absurd to
claim that Grinda was such a person and presumptuous to point out her as being
one. Yet both Brinda and Lairin had
accepted it as calmly as she herself could not. She had no reason to believe she was even a noblewoman, let alone
a shapeshifter.
But there was something about her that she did not understand. Her past.
Her lost memories. The darkness
of her dreams, and the strange man with a sword. Those memories spoke nothing of shapeshifters. But they spoke everything of an event, a
strange one, a terrible one. She almost
felt it again, the horror of the man who was coming to murder her, penetrating
her like a wave crashing against her body so that she felt it like a physical
thing. Who was he, she wondered? Who had wanted to kill her, and why?
With that question hanging lightly
upon the edge of her mind, she fell into a deep slumber.
Her dreams had changed. What she dreamt now was almost a mirror
image of the scene the Oak Tree had shown her that day she had connected with
it’s subconscious of her own free will.
The burning, charcoaled plains spread out before her, the charred,
bloodied bodies of soldiers lying humped up where they had fallen from their
wounds. The sky had blackened on a
single, looming cloud that had stretched forth over the lands like the grasping
talons of a wizened hand. But where the
Tree’s memory had ended, her dream now carried on. The sweet sickliness of death rode on the stifling air, along
with the choking odour of burning flesh and metallic blood. Even in her dream, Elu felt herself want to
gag at the foulness of its stench. It
was as though she could feel this dream physically, in the very bones of her
being. Was it simply a dream? Or a subconscious memory of this event,
burned into the lands of Éadan itself?
Her thoughts were interrupted by the
soft winging of a bird nearby. She
looked up, seeking it out. A bright dot
was flying in on the dark horizon. It
grew as it neared her, circled above her, yet did not seem aware of her
presence. Once, twice, thrice it danced
above her head, covering her in the shadow of its enormous wingspan. It was then that she realised what it
was. A dragon. One of those fabled creatures, a mythical
beast of legend, actually there, before her very eyes, as real even as a horse
or a cow. She gaped up at it, her heart
full in her mouth. It was beautiful, so
beautiful…It shimmered gold in the blind darkness, almost like a single ray of
hope…She found herself reaching out for it, wanting it to take her, to wing her
away from this place, from this chaos, this carnage, this terror…
The dragon swooped down, and landed
on a small hillock opposite her. It
seemed to notice her then, and regarded her with a short, small sidelong
glance. Its eyes were as gold as it’s
rippling skin and scales. It gazed upon
her almost hungrily, greedily. Slowly,
its jaw opened and for a moment she thought it would devour her. But instead, it turned its head away from
her, and a cloud of flame and smoke bellowed from its mouth. Suddenly, she understood. It was this dragon that had set the plains
alight, that had burned the green trees and the soft grass, that had laid waste
to the villages and toppled the towns, that had burnt to a cinder that great
army that now littered the fields. So
many killed, so much destroyed and extirpated from this world. A spark of rage ignited within her, one so
red hot that she felt it physically sear within her chest like a firewall. She stood before the dragon and screamed her
fury out at it, her fury and more than that – the very pain that consumed her
being. It was a strange feeling. It was as though she had grown ten times
bigger with that scream, with that physical, bodily recognition of her pain and
anguish. But even as the golden dragon
turned its hulking head towards to her, she knew that that scream had broken
off the thin line that comprised the dream.
She felt it audibly snap, and in an instant she was in her own bed,
sitting up, and it was morning. Where
the frosty winter light shone upon her pale skin, she saw the glistening
dewdrops of her sweat.
As soon as she had dressed she was
interrupted by a knock on her door. A
maidservant bustled in, a tray of bread, cheese and fruit in her hands, as well
as a kettle of water. She set these
down upon the nearby table.
“Begging your pardon, miss,” spoke
the girl pleasantly. Her voice and eyes
were bright. She was only about
thirteen years of age, small, wiry and energetic. “But I have had orders from
the Lord Brinda to bid you visit him in his personal gardens.”
Elu thanked the girl and she
scuttled off silently. So, Elu thought,
Grinda had been as good as his word.
Her ‘training’ was going to start that very morning. She sighed as she poured herself some tea,
trying to keep the vision of her dream out of her mind. It had terrified her as well as it had
puzzled her. Had it been a memory of
her own? No, that was impossible. This war could only have been the War of the
Sundering, and that had taken place thousands of years ago. Maybe it had been the memory of someone
else, a remnant of someone else’s subconscious, reaching out to her. Was it the residue of the imprint the Oak
tree had left in her mind?
Possibly. Maybe the dream was
just that – a dream. She tried not to
think about it. Instead she drew her
mind to Grinda and his strange words of the night before. Where was he now? Already on his journey, she supposed. Going where, and with what intent in mind? She shook her head. It was almost as good thinking about that as
it was thinking about her dreams.
It took her a while to find someone
who was suitably unoccupied to tell her the way to the personal gardens of the
Lord and his family, and an even longer time to eventually arrive there. It was a pleasant place, walled away from
the rest of the stronghold’s grounds in order to protect the Lord’s
privacy. The stone walls were hidden
under vast trails of green ivy, and the beds were filled now with rows and rows
of winter flowers – bright alpines, grasses, purple heathers and kales lent a
considerable amount of colour to the cold, frosty garden. There were ferns, conifers and evergreens too,
and a lightly sprinkling fountain in one corner. It seemed strange, for a militant place such as a stronghold to
house such an agreeable garden as this one.
In an opening behind a row of
conifers were standing Lairin and a young man that Elu did not know. She recognised him from the night before,
where he had been sitting beside Lairin.
He was a sallow-faced youth, blond-haired and pale-skinned, tall and
lean as the bare and spindly birch he stood next to. He was probably not much older than Lairin herself, but he was
taller than most of the Grimhabim men she had seen. He was not unattractive, but his heavy-lidded eyes gave the
impression that he was either always tired or very slow-witted. Elu wasn’t sure which one was the case. He was dressed in heavy furs against the
cold, but his doublet still held an amount of richness that could not be
hidden. It was a dark burgundy, the
colour so favoured by the Grimhabim aristocracy, and decorated with swirls of
gold thread. Lairin, on the other hand,
seemed to be dressed simply for comfort.
She was swathed in bear fur, and wore only brown. As Elu approached them, she realised that
they had been having some sort of discussion, and that as soon as they had
noticed her they had trailed off quickly.
She wasn’t sure whether it had been an argument, but Lairin’s face
looked petulant. The young man was
saying nothing, but there was a miserable look on his face.
“Elu.” Lairin smiled at Elu in
greeting. It was a genuine enough
smile, and she thought that the younger girl was trying to make up for her
rudeness the day before. She held out a
hand to point out the young man beside her. “This is Lord Herand. He is here to teach you how to use a sword. He is one of the best swordsmen in
Grimhabim. My father taught him how to
use a sword himself.”
Elu smiled to him, but he did not
look as if he approved of her very much.
“Where is your father…the Lord
Brinda, I mean?” Elu asked Lairin.
“My father has some urgent matters
to attend you, and was not able to come this morning. He sent Lord Herand instead.
He sends you his apologies.” Elu caught the mocking note with which
Lairin spoke the word ‘Lord’ every time she referred to Herand. It made her uncomfortable and she pretended
not to notice, but couldn’t help but be aware of the acid looks Lairin passed
the frowning young man.
“She is too small,” Lord Herand
spoke up bluntly. “I can’t teach her.
It’s impossible.”
“It’s only impossible because you
don’t want to do it,” Lairin shot at him heatedly.
“Look at her hands!” he objected,
“They’re almost smaller than yours are.
She’ll never get a grip on a hilt.”
“Well then, we’ll have a smaller
sword made for her,” Lairin brushed aside his complaint as easily as she would
have tossed aside a fly. “Don’t make me cross, otherwise my father will hear
about this.”
Elu knew Herand was getting
embarrassed. She hoped Lairin wouldn’t
make him too angry. After all, she was
the one who’d have to bear the brunt of his attacks if he was to be her
swordsmanship tutor.
Herand sighed and gave in. He went to a nearby bench and when he came
back there was a sheathed sword in his hand.
He held it out in his two hands towards Elu, offering it to her and
saying nothing. Elu took it uncertainly,
not sure what he wanted her to do with it.
“Unsheathe it,” he said.
She did so, grabbing onto the hilt
and drawing the blade out slowly. It
was a freshly made sword, newly struck and tempered. She was half amazed and not a little flattered that they had
fashioned a sword just for her. It was
not a remarkable sword, for it was not as decorated and jewelled as the blade
that was sheathed at Herand’s belt. But
it was light and serviceable. “You had this made just for me?” she asked in
surprise.
“Grinda asked that it be made for
you,” Lairin said with a smile, as though she enjoyed the astonishment it had
given Elu. “He knew that you did not have one yourself, and was adamant that
you should. Father ordered it to be
made as soon as possible.” She paused. “Why don’t you test it out and see how
it feels.”
Elu looked down on it and swished it
about a little, trying to get a feel for it.
It shimmered in the pale sunlight, playing zigzags of bright gold down
the cold metal. But after a while, her
wrist tired, and she could tell her movements were awkward.
“She’s going to need weeks of
practice,” Herand noted sourly when Elu had played with it a bit.
“Stop being so pessimistic!” Lairin
hissed, sticking out her tongue at him like a child. He looked more affronted at that than if she had slapped him
across the face.
“It’s lighter than I thought it
would be,” Elu commented, hoping to distract them from their obvious
quarreling. “But it’s still quite hard to wield.”
“That’s because you’re holding it
all wrong,” Herand observed cuttingly, then relented at a spiky look from
Lairin. He sighed and walked towards
Elu, then rearranged the grip she had set on the hilt. “There, hold it like
that. That way, even if you need to
move your wrist about, your swing won’t feel so awkward. That’s right, you’ve got it already.” He let
her swing the blade again, just to let her feel the difference. The change was definitely there. She was able to alter the swing of the blade
without making any stress on her wrist.
It didn’t feel exactly natural, but easier than it had before.
“All right,” Herand nodded when he
was sure she had understood how to grasp the weapon. “Let’s see how you do at
following my moves. We’ll start out
slowly, then pick up pace once you get the feel for it. Don’t worry, we won’t do anything tricky.”
He unsheathed his sword. It was longer
than her own, and obviously heavier, but he held it as though it were a feather
in his hand. He did not show off with
it though. It was obvious that he had a
great respect for his sword and for his skill.
Elu swallowed hard. She was
beginning to feel very nervous.
Herand took her through some light
exercises, ones she knew were rudimentary.
Nevertheless, she found it difficult to follow him without focusing all
her concentration entirely on his actions.
Her movements too were far more awkward and stilted than the effortless
way with which he handled his blade.
After a while, her wrist began to hurt, and then her arm and
shoulder. Herand noted all, yet said nothing. She wished he would stop and at least let
her have a rest, for her breathing was coming hard, and her fingers were
beginning to go numb with the cold. But
he continued relentlessly until she was finally forced to drop the sword and
give up. Dropping her hands onto her
knees she inhaled deeply, her breath unfolding out of her mouth like
steam. She wanted to kick herself with
embarrassment. Such light exercises,
and already she was out of breath!
When she stood up again Herand was
looking at her, and there was something between disappointment and contempt on
his face. She turned away from that
look, ashamed. It wasn’t her fault, she
wanted to say, she was only a peasant girl and had no idea of fighting; and
anyway, it wasn’t her idea to do any of this.
Lairin was standing nearby, an inscrutable look on her face, as though
she was thinking hard.
“Well,” Herand addressed Elu after a
moment of uncomfortable silence, “What do you think?”
She wanted to say that none of this
was her fault, that she’d go back inside and forget this whole mission and
wouldn’t waste anymore of his time.
Instead she looked at him and said: “I was terrible. I couldn’t hold the sword right. I couldn’t follow your actions quickly enough. I tired out too soon. I was useless.”
He nodded, but not as unkindly as
she thought he would have. “Now, I want you to go back for today and think on
all those points. Why couldn’t you keep
up with me? Why did you run out of
stamina so quickly? And why weren’t you
holding your sword right? When you’ve
thought about these things we can come back here tomorrow morning, same time,
and begin again.” He stopped to re-sheath his sword once more.
“What, is that all we’re doing
today!” Lairin looked outraged.
“There’s nothing left to teach her
today,” Herand replied stiffly, “She can’t even hold the thing properly, even
after I taught her how. There’s nothing
else to be done about it until she thinks things over a little. Until one understands his sword, one cannot
even begin to learn to master it.”
“You’re incorrigible!” Lairin
actually stamped her foot at him, but he ignored her. Elu stood there, her cheeks burning half from the cold wind and
half from the humiliation his criticism had lent her. She wished Lairin would stop making a case of it. She just wanted to get back to her room, lie
down by her fire, and drink something hot.
She didn’t care about stupid old swords. All she wanted to do was go back and cook meals with Mistress
Eldeen, or weave by the fire. Gone, she
reminded herself cruelly. All gone.
Herand stalked off without even a
word of goodbye. Elu didn’t blame
him. Obviously he had had as much as he
could take of Lairin’s sharp tongue, as well as suffering a task he considered
pointless.
“I’m sorry,” Lairin apologised once
he had disappeared round a corner. “He’s just such a difficult young man. I can’t get him to do anything right, and
he’s so rude and moody and frightfully gloomy all the time.” She sounded in
danger of becoming like his mother.
“It’s all right,” Elu spoke in a low
voice. “I don’t blame him for getting angry.
I was pretty awful after all.”
“Well, I thought you were
wonderful,” Lairin said, just a bit too enthusiastically, and took Elu by the
arm. “But if he says it’s over for today, then I for one, don’t care a
jot. It’s getting far too cold out here. Would you accompany me back to my rooms for
some tea? It would please me greatly.”
Elu was not sure whether she just
wanted to make up for her tactlessness the previous day, or whether she
actually wanted to be friendly to her.
Still, she could not refuse the offer of a Lady, so she nodded.
“I shall show you my chambers,”
Lairin grinned widely, and led her very firmly back into the stronghold. Elu held an inward sigh. This was going to be a long day.
She had expected Lairin’s quarters
to be as grey and cold as the rest of the fortress, but was pleasantly
surprised to see that it was not.
Lairin had taken great pains to cover every inch of the great stone
walls with a plethora of tapestries and paintings, many of them done by Lairin
herself in a grand display of mismatching colours. There were pots and vases of flowers on every sill and every
table, and old toys and puppets were left strewn about the garishly carpeted
ground. This seemed the home of a young
child, rather than a young Lady. Still,
Elu was envious as she took it all in.
It seemed such a comfortable and insular world, so far away from the
many troubles Elu herself had witnessed.
And it was so like Lairin to live in that world. She contrasted it to the simplicity of
Ifith’s hut in the Rillon Forest and thought of how the comfortable plainness
of it all had reflected the sephira’s kind but thrifty nature. Suddenly she missed Ifith with an ache she
had not expected. They had grown close
during Elu’s convalescence, and now Elu had no one else that mattered to her.
“Sit down,” Lairin spoke,
interrupting her train of thought. Elu
obediently lowered herself onto a nearby wooden chair near a window. From there she had an excellent view of the
grounds and beyond that, the town of Grimhabim sprawled out before her, its
people coming and going like ants from an anthill. They seemed so small, out there below her.
“I like to watch them,” Lairin said,
coming over and looking out of the window as well. Her eyes were yearningly bright as she passed Elu a steaming cup
of tea. “It’s a funny feeling you know, to think that those are all your people
out there. Watching them reminds me of
the responsibility I have towards them.” She smiled when Elu looked up at her
questioningly. It seemed such an odd
quality for a flighty young girl like Lairin to have. “One day I’m to be Lady
of Grimhabim,” explained the younger girl slowly, “and father always brought me
up telling me to respect and cherish my people. When I look out of that window, I don’t just see normal people
going about their business. I see my
folk, people that will someday look up to me and trust me as their leader. If the tûrkals ever attack Grimhabim, I
shall do everything in my power to protect them, even if it means sacrificing
my life. I want to go to battle for
them,” her eyes were shining bright now, “but father forbids it. He says there are other ways for a Lady to
serve her people. I haven’t worked out
what they are yet though.”
Elu was silent. She wasn’t sure that she knew what it was
like to feel such strong feelings of responsibility towards one’s people. But she understood now that that was what
Mirulas had felt for the people of Welle and towards her. He had been unable to leave his people when
they had been dying. He had felt a deep
sense of responsibility and devotion towards their lives and their safety. It made her heart burn to think of it. He had died out of that responsibility, that
devotion. Could she ever accept the
feelings that Lairin was so proud of?
“Mirulas felt the same as you,” she
said softly, looking down at her reddening hands as they soaked up the warmth
of her cup. “He would have understood all that you have told me. Oh, Mirulas,” she sighed suddenly.
“Mirulas?” Lairin spoke, as though
awakening from a reverie. “The man you were handfasted to?”
“Yes,” Elu nodded miserably. “When
the Aksees attacked our village, he told me the same things you just said
now. I didn’t understand him. I wanted him to escape with me. But he wouldn’t. He wanted to die protecting the villagers, if he must.” She
halted, trying not to choke at the knot in her throat. Lairin was silent for a moment as she sat
down next to Elu, her face pensive.
“It is a hard thing,” she spoke at
last slowly, “to know that one day you might have to sacrifice yourself for
your people. But it is not a noble
thing. Sometimes, you just have to do
it because you have to. Because you love
those people.” She turned to look at Elu. “I am sorry for what I said to you
yesterday, it was horribly insensitive of me.
I hope we can still be friends.”
Elu caught the hopeful, earnest note
in her voice. How could she refuse one
so young, so innocent. She nodded. A smile broke onto Lairin’s face and she
took her hand.
“I know Mirulas must have loved you
very much to have done what he did,” she said wistfully. “He was a brave man.”
“Yes, he was,” Elu nodded. He really had been brave. She had never thought of it quite like that
before.
“I wish I had a man like that,”
Lairin spoke half to herself, her eyes far away. “Someone I could love, and who
I knew loved me in return.”
“You are handfasted, are you not?”
Elu questioned, remembering that the woman she had sat next to at dinner
yesterday had said as much.
“Yes,” Lairin’s face was puckered
into a frown, but then she laughed after a moment. “To Herand. I was promised to him when we were not more
than children. In fact, I was still in
my cradle when the contract was made.”
“And you do not care for him.” It
was not a question. Elu had already
seen as much herself that morning.
“I do not care for him at all,”
Lairin pouted. “He is an impossible creature, always stubborn, always
disagreeable. And he is the most
weak-willed man I ever knew. He always gives
into anything I say, and never looks at me when I speak to him. Who could suffer a man such as that? I for one could not!”
Elu ruminated on it a moment. She was not sure that Herand was
weak-willed. He had seemed very sure of
himself when he had attempted to tutor her that morning, almost brutally
so. But it had been true that he had
listened to everything Lairin had said, and had refused to look her in the eyes
when he had spoken to her. She
remembered too his miserable looks every time Lairin unleashed her razor sharp
tongue on him. She suspected his unhappiness
was down to something else, but she did not feel it her place to mention it.
“But a man who loved me,” Lairin
continued dreamily, “a man who would protect me and support me in everything I
did, that would be a blessing. He would
help me to leave my mark on Grimhabim’s history. I am to be the last Avrens ruler of Grimhabim, so I must do
something to make my people remember me by.”
“What do you mean, ‘last’?” Elu
asked her, puzzled.
“Oh,” Lairin seemed to shake herself
from her thoughts. “It’s just an old tradition of Grimhabim. You see, there are many ruling families in
Grimhabim, and only one of them can rule at a time. So, to avoid any conflicts between the various Houses, a system
was devised in ancient times called the Kirkilia system.”
“Kirkilia?” Elu repeated slowly.
“Yes,” Lairin nodded. “During each
Kirkilia one House reigns for five generations. When the five generations have ruled, a different House will
reign the next Kirkilia. My father is
the fourth ruler of the House of Avrens, and we are now in the reign of the
forty-eighth Kirkilia. I will be the
last ruler of the forty-eighth Kirkilia.” She sighed. “Herand is of the House
of Mayanell, who are next in succession for the forty-ninth Kirkilia. My father wanted to strengthen our ties so
that our family would still have power during the reign of the House of
Mayanell. It is a custom of the
Grimhabim aristocracy to make such political marriages. But such things to not interest me.” Her
eyes wandered to the window again, to the town down below. “I wish to make my
mark on history, to make the House of Avrens the greatest House known to the
people of Grimhabim. We have always
been a minor House. But most of all, I
want to prove myself to my people. I
want them to remember me as the greatest Lady of Grimhabim that ever lived.”
She fell silent and Elu did not
speak. She was half surprised at the
fire and the will in the young girl’s voice, at the strength and potency of all
that she envisioned. Somehow, when she
spoke of it, it did not seem the futile dreaming of a child. It seemed feasible, tangible, coming from
the spirited Lairin. Elu did not doubt
that she was a character, and that her people would remember her for that if
nothing else.
“I would speak of you now,” Lairin
changed the subject eagerly. “What is it like to be a shapeshifter? I have always wanted to know such
people. Grinda never acts like one
though. But you are different somehow.”
“I’m afraid I did not know I was a
shapeshifter until Grinda said so yesterday,” Elu chose her words carefully.
“And even now I have my doubts that I am truly what he says I am.” She paused,
following with a question of her own. “How is it that you seem so acquainted
with all this talk of shapeshifters? I
have never heard much tell of them before.”
“Really?” Lairin looked a bit
surprised. “There are many tales about them here. Well, in scrolls at least.
They’ve never been popular in songs or ballads. That’s because in the old days, the
shapeshifters were hated.”
“Hated?” It was Elu’s turn to be
surprised. “But I thought they had promised to save the world from the
Dark! Or so Grinda told me.”
“That was their original intention,”
Lairin nodded. “But after a while they became tempted by the Dark, and
eventually they fell to it. They were
too powerful to be left to continue the ways of evil that they now
embraced. The followers of the Light
resolved to stop them, and they formed a group named the Henidil. The Henidil were fanatical haters of the
shapeshifters. They slaughtered them
all, and it is said that every last one of the shapeshifters was hunted down
and exterminated.”
“Then how could I ever be a
shapeshifter?” Elu exclaimed.
“I don't know,” Lairin shrugged.
“Grinda seems to imply that not all the shapeshifters were caught. Perhaps some went into hiding, I don’t
know. Anyway, there are some scrolls in
our libraries, very old scrolls, that tell of a prophecy. They say that one day the shapeshifters will save the world, that the Spheres of Harmony will be restored
by their hand, and that the two opposing Fates of Light and Dark will be joined
once more with their return. It is a
prophecy that all the people of Grimhabim believe in. The prophecy brings us hope, that one day peace will be restored
to the lands, and that the Spheres of Harmony shall shine above our world once more.”
Elu listened in silence and
amazement. She had never heard of such
a prophecy, but something about it troubled her, stirred something deep within
her, she couldn’t tell what or why. She
shifted uncomfortably, waiting to hear more.
“That is why my father trusts
Grinda,” Lairin continued. “Grinda has told my father that the time now comes,
that one will come to do away with the Prophecy of Dark, and restore the Light
to the world. He told my father that he
knows of a likely candidate for the fulfilling of the prophecy told in the
ancient scrolls.” She paused and looked up at Elu with wide eyes. “Perhaps he
thinks that candidate is you.”
“No,” Elu spoke, her voice taut. “He
wanted me to stay in Welle and be married, or at least he implied that. He never expected me to leave that place,
and when he saw me in Grimhabim, he said…he said that things had changed. That new courses had been set.” She stopped,
wondering what he had meant by that.
Had it something to do with the prophecy? Were there different prophecies, different predictions of the
future? And which one did she fit
into? She suddenly wanted to go to the
library and find out all she could about this strange matter.
“Oh well, perhaps he just thinks you
can find this elusive candidate,” Lairin shrugged. “Perhaps there are many
shapeshifters, still alive and walking around in this world. Maybe there are many candidates to choose
from, and you are one of them. I don't
know much about it. But if something does happen, I want to be there when it
begins.”
Elu shivered instinctively. What if it had all already begun? She didn’t like any of this talk. It made her uneasy. Lairin seemed to sense that and quickly
changed to another subject. The rest of
their time together was spent in idle chatter, but when Elu retired to her own
room her mind was still oddly restless.
Over the next few weeks Elu spent
her mornings under the intense and gruelling training Herand had set her. He was always a bad-tempered instructor,
surly when Lairin was there, and irritable when she was not. Elu soon came to chafe under his
tutelage. She began to realise that she
had no natural talent for swordsmanship, which made her lessons with Herand
worse. His irritability was often added
with impatience, and the growing cold of the winter did nothing to soothe
this. Many days he would cut the
lessons short with an abruptness that exasperated her.
“Don’t concentrate on what I’m
doing!” he said to her irritably one day. “Concentrate on your own sword! Why do you think you can’t keep up with
me! Because you’re not focusing on your
own movements but on mine! Why do you
think I haven’t even started you on duelling yet? Because you’d fall apart if I attacked you! I can’t do anything with you until you learn
the fundamental basics. Nothing at
all!” He re-sheathed his sword vigorously. “I suggest we take a few days rest. See if you can at least think over what I’ve
said. We’ll meet here again in three days
time. I expect to see some
improvement.”
He stalked off again without a
goodbye. Elu suddenly found she had the
intense desire to stick out her tongue at him even as Lairin had, and was only
able to stop herself with great effort.
There was nothing left to do that
morning. Usually she and Lairin would
keep company, but the young girl had been summoned to her mother’s chambers for
some reason or another, so Elu was by herself.
She decided it was time to go to the Grimhabim libraries and finally
have a look at the so-called prophecies.
She had put it off for some time, feeling too tired after Herand’s
lessons and Lairin’s chatting to do anything during the later hours of the day. Now was as good a time as any to seek them,
while she had a free afternoon.
The Grimhabim library was held
within a building separate to the stronghold.
The stronghold itself had never housed great books or scrolls, since it
had been solely used as a tool for the military defenses of the city. However, the library was near the
stronghold, so that if the city were ever under attack the rescue of the more
important scrolls could be made more effective. It was, as all other buildings were in Grimhabim, made of great
slabs of grey stone, but they were shorter and wider buildings, without the
towers, turrets and battlements of the stronghold itself. It had windows of finely coloured expensive
glass and ornate buttresses lined the smooth walls, and was surrounded by tall
pines, being situated as it was in the heart of the gardens. So, a structure built solely for
decoration. It was a pleasant change
from the stark, cheerless stronghold.
Inside it was silent. There were few people there, but those that
were browsing through the dusty tomes and parchments seemed engrossed in their
readings and paid her no attention. She
walked about the various aisles for several minutes, holding her breath as she
did so. Never had she seen so many
books, stacked one on top of the other, of all different lengths and colours,
copied in so many contrasting hands, some so old they were crumbling and
yellowed, some newer, with crisp white pages.
She had no idea of where to start.
There must be thousands of prophecies housed here, let alone the one she
was searching for.
“May I help you?”
Elu swivelled to see a fur garbed
librarian standing behind her, a candle held in his hand. She smiled at him.
“I would be grateful, sir, if you
could point me to the prophecy scrolls.
I was told they could be found here.”
“By whom?” the librarian asked suspiciously,
then he smiled as he saw Elu’s injured look. “Forgive me, miss, but rarely does
one such as yourself come to this place asking to see the prophecies. Usually it is only the scholars of the city
that wish to do so.”
“The Lady Lairin spoke of them,” Elu
explained when she was sure that he was not hostile to her request. “There was
one she spoke of that particularly interests me – one about the shapeshifters
restoring the world to Light. I have
always been interested in the shapeshifters, you see,” she added quickly, “and
I’ve decided to write a treatise on them.
I’ve travelled far from Éadan to come here, and risked many dangers just
to seek this prophecy of yours. I hear
that Grimhabim houses the only copy of this prophecy still in existence today.”
She wondered whether he would
believe her. After a moment he smiled
and turned, raising his candle high. “Follow me,” he said.
He led her away from the main body
of the library and down some steps into a dark basement. He was a chatty fellow, far more eloquent
than she expected a librarian to be.
“Indeed, the parchment you seek is
the only one left in existence,” he explained to her as he pushed open a creaky
door that lead into a musty-smelling underground section of the library. “But
it is extremely old, and very precious to us.
There are many chapters of it that are completely illegible. So you may not be able to glean much from
it.” The room was dark, and there was the overpowering smell of moth
repellent. The librarian went about the
room, lighting torches with his candle as he did so. Slowly the room became visible under a dim and flickering
light. The man lifted his heavy robes
and climbed up a short ladder, looking through several stone niches as he did
so. After a moment a puzzled expression
crossed his face and he frowned.
“That’s strange,” he muttered, “Whoever last looked
at these did not put them away properly.
I shall have to complain to the Master Librarian about this.”
He spent a long time rearranging the various
scrolls, during which Elu shuffled nervously; then he stopped and suddenly made
an exclamation.
“Ah, here it is!” He clambered back
down the ladder, holding a small scroll in his hand. Despite its size it had been carefully rolled up in dark red
velvet, and bound together with white silk strips. The man laid it on a lectern in the middle of the room, and
carefully undid the silk ribbons and unrolled the velvet, tutting all the while
at the carelessness with which it had been tied. The parchment was crackled and torn in many places, yellowed and
dog-eared, with many of its letters faded almost to illegibility. Elu felt her heart flop. How was she ever to read anything on this
scroll at all? There seemed to be
nothing discernable left of it.
“It is badly deteriorated,” she
noted in dismay.
“Most of it, yes,” the man agreed,
“But the end part of it is mostly intact.” He unraveled it right down to the
end. While most of the scroll had sadly
decayed, a patch of it at the bottom was still mostly undiminished. The ink had faded, that was true, but it was
still readable.
“Shall I leave you, miss?” he asked.
“No thank you,” she replied. She didn't think there was much point in
trying to decipher what she could not.
There was little left that was readable anyway. “I shall not be more
than a few minutes.”
“As you wish.” The man stepped back,
letting her bend over to peruse the faded script. It was difficult to read it, even with the light from the torches
illuminating the writing. The writer
had been careful, meticulous. The
script was neat and straight, each character finely formed. It seemed a shame that so little of it could
be read now. The beginning of the
scroll was practically impossible to decipher.
Further down the page, however, several sentences were clear. Elu read them avariciously.
‘…The Emperor and his Empress
shalt love one another, and beget a line of greatness…Yet though Temperance shalt remain to aid the High Priestess, Justice shalt abandon her…And she shall believe herself deceived by
the Hermit, and thus shall her
downfall come about.’
Elu shook her head. It made no sense. It was but a list of characters whose names were vague at
best. But perhaps they were symbols, signs
to watch out for? She didn’t know. There was no point in puzzling it out with
so little else to go on. She skipped
the next few lines, for they were faded to nothingness. At last she came to the end of the
parchment, where the closing lines could clearly be read.
‘…And the Sun and the Moon shall be
the keys…The Dragon and the Owl shall battle one last time to no avail. The Dark One shall bring them down, and
their lives shall end. But Strength, the great Val-Sontûr, shall be
with the shifters of the form of man, and by them it will become the Sword of
Balance, and only by its shining blade shalt Death be cut down.’
Elu stopped, puzzled. She had come to the end of the page, and it
seemed as if there was more to be said, so abruptly was the scroll cut short –
yet there was nothing more, just a ragged edge of vellum. It seemed as though someone had torn the
last part of the parchment off.
“Sir,” she called to the librarian,
her voice stammering, “Please, come and look at this.”
He came, alarmed, and she showed him
the frayed end of the parchment. His
face first went deathly pale, then red.
Fear, guilt and embarrassment crossed over his eyes in quick succession.
“But this is impossible!” he
blustered, “Whoever comes into this room is kept under strict
surveillance! No one could have done
this without anyone else seeing! I must
tell the Master Librarian! Oh, he will
be so angry with me, but I must tell him…”
He scuttled out of the room,
clucking to himself like a disapproving old hen. Elu left the room quickly, not wanting to be in the midst of the
fray when the Master Librarian arrived.
It seemed evident enough to her that someone, or something, had for some
reason destroyed the final passage of the prophecy.
Elu made her way back to her room,
shivering deep inside her fur cloak, wondering on everything that she had read,
and not a little disappointed. Her
nature told her that normally she would be dubious of anything that did not
seem rational to her, and prophecies were certainly one of those things that
did not seem rational to her. Yet
someone had thought this prophecy important enough to tear of the ending. For what reason? To keep the conclusion to the prophecy all to himself? Or to stop others from seeing it
themselves? The latter was definitely
the more troubling.
And what about the prophecy itself? It seemed too vague, too incoherent to mean
anything. What was the significance of
the Owl and the Dragon, and all those other strangely named characters? They were all mere symbols, symbols that Elu
supposed could mean anything as long as you could find a suitable connection,
however tenuous. As she travelled back
to her room, she became more and more disappointed, and more and more
disdainful of the whole thing. Here was
one prophecy amongst many, and here Brinda and Lairin were, staking the future
of their whole city on it. There seemed
little reliable evidence of shapeshifters in it. She now doubted that anything Grinda had said was true.
That night was cold, and Elu had
difficulty in sleeping. But as soon as
she did, the darkness greeted her, and somewhere in the back of her mind she
knew the dreams would begin. Once again
she was on the burning battlefields of Éadan, surrounded by pain and
death. Almost immediately she faced the
shining dragon once more, and this time its face was close, horribly so. She smelt the metallic odour of blood mixed
with smoke. Like a crack of lightning
she lashed out, and she realised there was a sword in her hand. The blade smote the dragon on the throat,
but hardly a scratch was made upon its tough, scaly skin. Again and again she swung her blade at it,
hating it with a loathing she could not fathom.
You killed them, she cried – was she shouting it, or
thinking it? You killed my people!
She had never known she could wield a blade so
easily. Swipe after swipe rung out into
the heavy air, her rage and grief spilled into every swing of her sword; her
arm moved with an ease and grace that spoke of a warrior who had used a blade
since boyhood. But every time she connected
with the dragon, its scaly flanks merely resisted her attack. At last she could fight no longer. Despite all the rage, all the agony and pain
inside of her, she was too tired to lift the blade any longer. She fell to her knees, the hilt dropping
from her hand. She found that tears were
already streaking across her cheeks.
It was then that she felt it, the dragon’s warm
breath, close to hers. She raised her
head, fearful, trembling with abhorrence.
There was a stillness in its face, almost a placidity as it looked upon
her prostrate body. It perused her as
it would a book, and she felt its consciousness stretch out towards her with a
calm softness that repulsed her. In
horror and disgust she repelled it, refusing to let it privy to her
thoughts. The repulsion was like
breaking a taut cable. She reeled back
and into wakefulness. Already she was
sitting, her breathing heavy, her heart pounding.
The Dragon, was all she could
think. There was a sudden kind of
understanding inside her. Something had
awakened in the vaults of her mind. The
Dragon and the Owl.
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Nine