Limits of Power (45 page)

Kieri determined to find Amrothlin and ask him about the western elves—perhaps he knew something about the magelords in their cave or whatever it was.

I
f that pirate could sail up the river,” Arian said, “could he not march inland across Prealíth or even come over the mountains here—you said there were other passes—instead of at Valdaire? Without the Lady—without the elvenhome—who will watch the borders east and south?”

Kieri scratched his head, sweaty from an extra session in the salle. “He could indeed. I've been thinking about that, too. We need more rangers; I can take some from the north and west, since Pargun and Tsaia aren't a problem now, but not all of them.”

“I've always wondered what it was like, the deep elvenhome we couldn't enter. The elves claimed it was the most beautiful, but the forest near here is beautiful.”

“We should go look,” Kieri said. “I don't even know where the border with Fintha is or what kind of border watch the Sea-Prince keeps. I wish I'd had more time to talk with him when he came for the wedding.”

“He didn't seem eager for that,” Arian said. “He left the very next day after the wedding, you recall.”

“Yes, but I thought that was because his elven escort wanted to get him back through the Ladysforest.” He sighed. “I just can't believe it's gone, after all the ages the elves lived there and nourished it. The taig here feels no different. We should go look, Arian. I want to preserve as much as possible, and I can't do that if I don't know what it is.”

“I agree,” she said. “But we can't both leave; if trouble comes to Tsaia, one of us must be here. You should go; I had my long trip earlier, and I'd just as soon stay here.” She set her hands over the bulge of her pregnancy, now clear to see.

T
he transition from the forest open to humans to the formerly closed Ladysforest was immediately obvious as Kieri crossed that line. Though Kieri had thought the Lyonyan forest astonishing when he first saw it, the Ladysforest, even without the Lady, had a magical quality. The taig here had additional layers of complexity, a rich confidence, that he had not felt before.

As he rode on, the enchantment grew. Here was beauty such as he had never imagined let alone seen. Nothing at all like the clipped and tended gardens of men … no obvious design … except that everywhere he looked the forest seemed both completely natural and artfully designed, every detail perfect. The trees rose around him, boles as heavy as the inner ring of the King's Grove but even taller. Sunlight pierced the canopy in flickering shafts, each picking out a detail: a leaf here, a flower there, a tiny perfect mushroom growing from the bole of a great tree, a frond of fern poised gracefully at the verge of a tiny waterfall. He felt the immensity of its age and the freshness of each leaf and flower. Everything made a pattern … patterns in patterns, and all the patterns made beauty. Yet he saw no sign of artifice. Nothing needed trimming; there was never too much of this or too little of that.

It came to him that this had been achieved not by the tools of men, by steel or stone … but by song alone. This was the work of the Sinyi, their proper work. Every living thing here throve, fully healthy; every living thing achieved its full beauty. Surely this was still the elvenhome as it had been. He wondered why the elves didn't recognize it.

Ahead, through the trees, he could see more light and rode toward it, noticing as he did how the trees formed a colonnade and framed a view as he came near enough to see it. A glade, open to the sky, spangled with flowers, the air alive with wings—butterflies, orange and red and gold and white. In the center, a small pool reflected the sky, fed—he saw as he neared it—by a spring below. A single flowering tree arched over it, fragrant white blossoms glowing in the sun. One petal, then another drifted down to the water and sailed slowly across and then along the rivulet that ran out the other side.

Kieri's throat felt tight. The beauty was overwhelming, as the Lady's had been when he first saw her. Beyond mortal … and yet surely the trees died, and the ferns … or had the elves sung them into immortality? He did not know … He felt he wanted to breathe in forever, taking the beauty into himself, and then exhale a song to sustain it.

He rode on across the glade and into the forest again … the forest ever changing with the rise and fall of the ground, the different trees, the variation in the lower growth. He came upon streams gurgling gently over gravel or rushing loudly down rapids. Sorrow came upon him after a time, that his mother and grandmother were not there so he could thank them for this beauty.

When the light faded, he stopped; his Squires, respecting his mood, made their simple camp in silence. When they would have lit a fire, he shook his head. They ate cold rations. He dreaded the need to dig … but found that the ground opened a little of itself to receive their waste and then closed over again. He wondered at that—if the elvenhome was truly gone, how could that happen?

They were several days into the journey when he stopped suddenly. His throat closed; his sight dimmed; pain tightened his chest. He struggled to see past the darkness … The way here descended gently through trees more widely spaced. Ahead was another glade. He dragged a breath in, and as his sight cleared, he knew.

“It was here,” he said aloud, startling himself with his voice.

“Sir king?”

He could not answer. He could not move. Memory rushed over him, powerful as a river. As if in a dream, he was that child again, delighted in the beauty they rode through, unaware of danger—until his mother cried out. He had turned in the saddle to look at her—she had snatched him from his mount to hers. That instant's delay in drawing her sword … his adult self saw what his child self could not, that he had hindered her even after she dragged him over the saddle bow.

But she had drawn her sword—only the attackers were many. As a child, he had not seen them all before he was yanked away, before he fell … He did not remember striking his head, but he remembered the waking. Rough hands, harsh voices, cords binding him, too tight.

He had never thought to be here again, in this dire place—he looked again at the peaceful trees, the empty dell with the little outcrop of rock to one side, as beautiful as the rest, except for his memories. He knew tears were running down his face.

“Sir king—is there aught—”

“It happened here,” he was able to say after a few moments. “We were riding, just down there. They rose up from the ground, men in dull clothes. She cried out—I did not know why. She grabbed me from my mount, but that hindered her—”

“Sir king—” Their faces around him now were as strained as those he remembered, but not in cruelty or anger. He saw love and compassion instead, mingled with amazement that he remembered.

“I must … stop here awhile,” he said. He dismounted. His knees nearly failed him, but he stiffened his legs and managed to walk down the gentle slope. Walking helped: he was not a terrified child on a horse now. He was aware of the Squires behind him, but he ignored them; they did not press closer, leaving him space. His memory called up details he had long forgotten—the sound of his mother's breathing, her horse's squeals as swords struck, the smell of her blood as she took wound after wound. He had been facedown over her saddle bow, clinging with his hands to the horse's harness, unable to help. He could not have helped by being upright; he knew that, but …

It was as if he could see the course of the fight still marked on the ground. Here exactly she had cried out and snatched at him, tried to wheel her mount away … but more had risen from concealment, hemming the horse in, grabbing its reins, striking at it, finally slicing deep into its legs, crippling it. He had a last remembered glimpse of her—a memory that had lain deep-buried all these years—her face turning to him as he fell and then … nothing.

Mother … I lived. I am here.
She had been full elf; he could not hope that in some afterlife she knew that. Elves died, when they died, without any spirit to survive. But he said it again anyway, this time aloud. “Mother, I lived. In spite of all. And I am trying to be what you and my father wanted, a good king for all in this realm.”

He heard nothing, felt nothing, but when his tears ceased, he felt easier. He still did not know who had plotted against his mother and against him, but he was alive. He breathed in the fragrance of the violets that now carpeted the ground, rose from his knees to walk the circuit of the glade, touching trees, rocks, bending to touch the violets.

“We will camp here tonight,” he said.

“Here?” asked Berne. “Is this not a cursed place?”

“No,” Kieri said. “These trees, these flowers, even these rocks had no part in the evil done here. I know elves make no memorials to their dead, but I am only half-elf, and I would make one for my mother. Pitch the tent up there—” He pointed back up the slope. Unbidden, a wisp of melody came to mind, and he found himself humming it as he walked across the glade to the rock outcrop. He picked a few violets and laid them there.

After a few moments, the silence deepened; he felt enclosed in a space apart, though when he glanced back, he could see his Squires setting up camp. Was this leftover elven enchantment … or something else?

He waited, resting in that bubble of silence, of peace, until it slowly faded. Whatever it had been, he felt it was proof that the glade was not cursed, that he was right to be here.

Nothing disturbed them that night. Kieri woke a little before dawn, as usual, and as the first rays of sun filtered into the glade, he saw what he first thought was a vision. Where only violets had been the day before, a royal purple carpet, now a scatter of objects lay, glinting in the early light. And the rough rock on which he had laid his bouquet was now smoothed and shaped into the very shape he'd thought of having carved. The violets he had placed, still unwilted, lay on a polished shelf under an arch.

He walked over to the objects. He'd thought any jewels had been stripped from his mother's body, but here lay a ring and a twist of ruddy gold. He'd been told her body had been laid straight in the way of elves; nothing had been said of these things the earth had now returned to him, baubles less precious than herself.

Or
you.
Kieri shivered. It was his own mind, he was sure … and yet he had heard the voices of the bones, of his father and sister and the others. He picked up the ring, the gold torc he now recalled his mother wearing around her neck, the enameled fitting with the leaping hound and stag entwined that he recalled from her belt. They were all bright and clean as if they had just come from a jewel case. A little enameled box that rattled softly as he picked it up … His fingers found the catch easily, and there were the tiles he remembered, blue and green and red, with the runes on them in gold and silver. It had been a selani set, a game he had just been learning … and what had he been told about it? A game we play? He'd not seen it anywhere since. He'd played with the tiles, stacking them, arranging them in patterns, and then his mother had put them back in the box and said, “Your grandmother will teach you.” Teach him what? Was it an elven game?

He looked at the tiles more closely, sighed, and poured them back into the box, latching it again. Selani … how could he have forgotten that name? But in the years of slavery, he hadn't known his own name for a long time.

What should he do with these things? Did they belong here or …
Not
here.
He shivered again. It must be Falk … he touched his ruby and murmured a prayer. When he had gathered all that lay in the grass, he took them back to the camp and showed his Squires.

“I didn't see those yesterday,” Berne said.

“Nor I,” Kieri said. “They were here when the sun came … and did you see the rock?”

They looked at the rock, then at him. “Did you carve that last night, sir king?”