The Phoenix Unchained (51 page)

THE unfamiliar Elven clothing reminded him very much of something he might wear to a Festival masquerade back in Armethalieh, and he was a little surprised that Harrier hadn’t insisted on putting his own clothes back on, but Harrier wasn’t an idiot, and both of them had heard Farabiael’s remarks about “suitable” clothing. Obviously the Elves didn’t consider their own clothes suitable. But certainly nobody had dressed like this in Armethalieh for hundreds of years.

The belt gave him the most trouble. It was a long piece of fabric, obviously meant to go around the waist several times, but there was no way to fasten it. He settled for wrapping it around his waist, tying the ends into a knot, and then tucking the free ends into the wrapped fabric. That would have to do.

When he walked back out into the other room again, Harrier was staring at Rilphanifel, who was standing in the open doorway. Rilphanifel had changed his plain green outfit—hunting clothes, Tiercel now realized—for a far more elaborate costume in grey, silver, and blue, with an ankle-length vest and trailing sleeves. It should have made him look ridiculous—he was even wearing earrings—but it didn’t.

“It would make good hearing to know that all here was to your liking, and that I arrive to find you rested and refreshed,” Rilphanifel said, regarding them.

“Well, I don’t think Tiercel slept,” Harrier said cautiously. “But we’re fine. Would you like to come in?”

Tiercel wasn’t sure, but he thought Rilphanifel winced slightly at Harrier’s question.

“If it should please you to do so at this time, it would be my pleasure to conduct you to my Greatfather’s solar, where you and he could drink tea together,” the Elf answered at last.

Harrier looked baffled, and darted a hopeful look at Tiercel. “Sure,” Tiercel said. “We can do that. We’d, ah,
like
to do that. Maybe we could ask him some questions.”

Now Rilphanifel really did look upset. Tiercel was sure of it,
though he didn’t actually change expression. “It is our custom to drink tea at this time,” he finally said, as if he simply couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Then we’ll come and drink tea,” Tiercel said, wondering what he’d just done wrong.

The two of them followed Rilphanifel through the house again, this time ascending a broad curving flight of stairs that led to the second floor. By now Tiercel had seen enough of House Malkirinath to be able to start thinking about the ways in which Elven houses differed from human ones. Where, back in Armethalieh, the walls would be hung with paintings, here, the walls themselves were ornamented, either painted, or carved, or simply inlaid. Though the floors were often covered with beautifully-woven patterned carpets—Tiercel hadn’t seen an all-of-a-color one yet—the floor beneath was almost always patterned as well, whether it was parquet, or mosaic, or tile. He got the chance to glance into a few rooms as they were led past, and each room, like the bedrooms and sitting room they had just vacated, was decorated as a harmonious whole. Each item seemed to belong in that room and nowhere else.

At last they reached what Rilphanifel had called the “solar,” and as Tiercel had expected, the walls were made of glass. He just hadn’t expected
all
the walls to be made of glass.

He didn’t know how they could have come up another flight of stairs without his noticing it, but this room was obviously on the roof of the house. Aside from the door they’d come in through, every wall was transparent.

“Wuh,” Harrier said, coming in behind him and stopping dead.

The chamber was large, and could have been glaringly bright—though the roof was not glass, but wood—save for the fact that the walls were edged with ornamental jars of varying sizes containing live plants in which the light filtered pleasantly. The floor was tiled,
and covered with several small rugs whose purpose seemed to be more to decorate the floor than to cover it. In one corner of the room, a fountain splashed and bubbled, and at the opposite corner stood a large stove, unused at this season, obviously designed to mimic the shape of the fountain.

There were four Elves already in the room: Elunyerin, Farabiael, and two others the boys had not met yet. They were all sitting—or lying, in the case of the man—on the chairs and divans grouped facing the door in a loose semi-circle.

“Enter and be welcome,” the man said, raising his hand. “We shall drink tea together—and then, perhaps, Tiercel, you shall tell me how you have at last come to this place.”

The speaker was truly ancient, and Tiercel—who had heard all his life that Elves lived for centuries—hardly dared to imagine how old he must be. His hair no longer retained even the faintest trace of black; it was as white as new milk, and lay coiled over his chest in a thin braid. His skin had the soft pallidness of age, and there were deep lines around his eyes, as if he had spent much of his long life staring into the sun.

The woman who sat beside him was nearly as old as he, though her hair had a faint bluish tinge, as if a few strands of black still remained mixed among the white. Despite her age, her back was straight and she carried herself with as much grace as Elunyerin did. She smiled at the ancient Elf’s words, and then glanced up at Tiercel, and when she met his eyes he blinked in surprise, for the ancient Elven woman’s eyes were a deep vivid violet.

“Come,” she said, patting the empty space on the divan beside her. “Jermayan has been eagerly awaiting your arrival for nearly twenty turns of the seasons, Tiercel, but I told him you could not be rushed, for first you must be born, and then you must grow. For myself, I am surprised that we see you so soon. I think you are very young yet.”

“He is—if I have my years at all correct—only so young as
Kellen was when he arrived in the Wildwood, Idalia,” the ancient Elf said, a faint note of chiding in his voice.

“No. Wait,” Harrier said. “Excuse me, I don’t want to be rude, and I know that Tiercel’s the one you’ve been waiting for and not me, but, er, you, we don’t really know who you are, and, you’re talking like you’re the Blessed Saint Idalia and Jermayan Dragon-rider. And you can’t be. Right?”

The woman with the violet eyes blinked, and the ancient Elf actually laughed.

“Sit before you never have to worry about such matters again,” Tiercel heard Rilphanifel whisper in Harrier’s ear. Tiercel took Harrier’s arm and led him forward to the seats that the woman—it couldn’t be the
real
Idalia—had indicated.

“It has been a very long time since I have dealt with humans, and I had forgotten what they were like. I beg your indulgence for ways that must seem strange to you, and let questions be asked and answered here, as on the battlefield. I am Jermayan, son of Malkirinath, once, long ago by your reckoning, an Elven Knight, and still Ancaladar’s Bondmate, though never have I heard myself named ‘Jermayan Dragon-rider.’ This is my wife, Idalia, whose spirit was once clothed in the flesh of Men, reborn among the Elves by the grace of Leaf and Star.”

Tiercel blinked owlishly at the two ancient Elves, trying to make the words make sense. The man couldn’t be saying what Tier-cel thought he was. Could he?

Yes, he could. But . . . wasn’t Jermayan Dragon-rider the King of the Elves?

Tiercel was determined not to ask that question, and he vowed he’d kill Harrier—on the spot—if
he
did.

“Well, now that you have bound up their tongues, my love, to explain matters to them would make good hearing, I do believe, for neither Rilphanifel nor Elunyerin know the whole of this tale, and it has been two score generations and more beyond the Veil since
you last drew sword against the Shadow, and nearly as long as that since the last High Mage chanted out his spells in the Council House at Armethalieh. Human memory is a fragile thing. Though we have long suspected this day must come, they have not, and they are children still. But first, there shall be tea.”

At Idalia’s words, Farabiael got to her feet and went to the corner of the room, returning with a large footed tray which she set before Idalia. It contained a large teapot with a deep iridescent brown-green glaze, seven matching handleless teacups, and a large plate of little iced cakes as bright as flowers.

“They are not so very much younger than you were when I saw you for the first time,” Jermayan said fondly. “And far older than you were when I beheld you for the first time in the flesh you now wear.”

Idalia—despite what Jermayan had said, Tiercel could still hardly believe it was her—poured the tea and passed the cups around. He raised his cup and inhaled cautiously. It didn’t smell like tea, and he lowered it again without drinking. When she offered him the plate of cakes, he shook his head. How could she be the Blessed Saint Idalia? She was an Elf, just to begin with. And the Blessed Saint Idalia was someone to whom he had prayed every time he’d recited the Litany of the Light for as long as he could remember. . . .

“Um?” Harrier said, balancing his teacup and a cake awkwardly. “Could we . . . Could we, um . . .?”

“I’m not sure we’re supposed to ask any questions,” Tiercel said quickly, remembering how upset Rilphanifel had seemed to be at the thought.

“Indeed, questions are permitted here today, though normally, as Tiercel has guessed, they are not customary among us,” Idalia said. “But I am certain you have as many as Kellen once did, so if you will permit, I will begin with a story that may answer some of them, and afterward, ask what you will.”

“I read a book back in our rooms,” Tiercel offered. “I mean, I started to, but—”

Harrier kicked him.

“I do not think that you will find all that I have to say set down in any book,” Idalia said kindly. “Though some of the tale is told there, even in the lands of Men, much has been forgotten there, and much was never known. Even here, in a land where even a short tale is long, this is the longest tale of all. The first time the Light faced the Darkness, the battle was fought before there were any Men at all, in a time when the Elves were a savage warlike race and neither the High Magick nor the Wild Magic as they later came to be existed. Great Queen Vieliessar Farcarinon united the Elven tribes and learned the secret of bonding with the Dragons, but to win that war, Elvenkind had to surrender its immortality and much of its magic to the Gods of the Wild Magic, for that was the price of victory. The payment of that price won the races of the Light ten thousand years of peace.

“When the Endarkened struck again, Men walked the land, wielders of the Wild Magic and beloved of dragons. In that age, all the forces of the Light rallied together to fight in a war they nearly lost, for the Endarkened had been cunning and patient, and it took Men far too long to believe in the existence of an Enemy they had never seen. Most of the races of the Light perished in that conflict, and most of the land itself was reduced to barren desert. The Second Endarkened War lasted over a century, and from its battles came the War Magic, which humans later called High Magick. Used in concert with the Wild Magic, it could slay the Endarkened, and its spells were impervious to Their influence, for they were wholly mechanical in origin and design.

“But if the magick itself was untouchable, its wielders were human men and women, and as fallible and corruptible as any other. That war, too, was won by the Light, though at great cost, and everyone thought the Endarkened had been destroyed, this time forever. But in the course of that war, many wielders of the Wild Magic had been perverted to serve the Endarkened, and so
the War Mages chose to withdraw fromall who accepted the Wild Magic as good—other Men, and all the other races of the Light—and to found a city where they could be safe from all threats, even those that existed only in their own minds.”

“Armethalieh,” Tiercel said. He felt a thrill of excitement. She was telling him the same story—in a different way—that he’d read in the
Compendium of Ancient Myth and Legend
. Of the Time of Mages, and just before it, and of how—and why—the City had come to be.

“But why would they bother, if they thought the Endarkened were all dead?” Harrier asked.

Elunyerin made an exasperated noise at the question, and Jermayan smiled.

“People who have been badly hurt are not always logical,” Idalia answered kindly. “The Second War was won at only the greatest of costs, and went on for the lives of many generations of Men. The Elves and those possessed of the Wild Magic were certain of their victory—and, as it happens, wrong to think so—but others only looked to their losses and betrayals. And if Armethalieh had not been built, certainly those who were needed in the dark times to come would not have been born at all. The Wild Magic goes as it wills, and it is not always easy for us to understand. Despite the pain the High Magick caused to so many, if Armethalieh had not done precisely as it had, all would have been lost.

“Armethalieh endured for a thousand years, becoming
very
set in its ways. And when the Endarkened struck again, They chose stealth, and not great armies. It took a very long time for anyone to realize that Light and Shadow were at war once more, and without my brother Kellen, we would not have known until it was too late. But we
did
have Kellen, and once again the Endarkened were defeated—and this time, all the land which They had blighted and destroyed was made green and fertile once more.”

“Which means they were gone forever this time,” Harrier said insistently. “The Great Flowering proves it.”

“No,” Tiercel said slowly, his voice troubled. “They’re coming back, aren’t they? Somehow.”

“The Wild Magic is a magic of balance,” Jermayan said reluctantly. “It transforms, but it does not destroy. To destroy something outright would be anathema to everything that the Wild Magic does and is.”

“So Idalia didn’t kill the Queen of the Endarkened?” Harrier asked. “I mean—” He stopped in confusion, realizing who he was talking to.

Idalia laughed. “The Demon Queen is certainly dead, Harrier, though it was Jermayan who killed her, not I. No. It is that there can be no Light without Darkness . . . or at least, the freedom to choose Darkness. Or create it.”