Shadows on the Stars (7 page)

“What about you, Nuic?” asked Elli.

“Hmmmpff. Need you ask? I’ll stay with you.” He glanced up at the white-haired fellow holding him. “As will Shim.”

The little giant, seeming to hear his name, nodded.

“And you, Henni?”

The hoolah cocked his head playfully. “Me? Hoohoo, I’m staying with clumsy man here! Life’s much more entertaining that way.”

Tamwyn groaned, and not from the weight of Scree on his back.

Elli turned back to him. “Well then, what’s your decision?” Her hazel eyes studied his rugged features. Softly, she said, “I can help you face those fears, Tamwyn.”

He swallowed, glanced at Scree’s bloodstains on the snow, and sputtered, “Those fears—they, well, it’s . . . um, different now.” Then, gathering himself, he added, “And besides, Elli, they’re not what you think. I mean, they’re not about you.”

“Is that so?” she snarled. “No, I suppose not! They’re about
you.
As always! You’re just plain selfish, Tamwyn. Selfish! Why don’t you ever think of anyone besides yourself?”

He bit his lower lip. No doubt about it, he had to tell her about the harp—right now. Then she’d change her mind about him! He started to speak, but she cut him off.

“Go to the stars, then. See if I care!” She glanced over at the mutilated corpse of the Sapphire Unicorn, and her frown deepened. “Me, I’m going straight to Coerria.”

“Not the Lady?”

“No.”

“But the unicorn said—”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“I’m just—”

“You’re just impossible!” She punched him in the shoulder, so hard he stumbled and nearly dropped Scree.

Regaining his balance, he snapped, “And you’re a stubborn fool.”

“Better than a dead fool.” She glowered at him. “Oh, I wish I’d never met you!”

With that, she spun around and strode off through the snow, kicking angrily at the drifts. Tamwyn watched her go, feeling angry himself, as well as frustrated and hurt. The weight on his back now seemed far less than another weight he carried inside.

Slowly, he turned and trudged off in a different direction.

5
•
Friendship

Damn that man.” Elli threw a punch at the air to emphasize her point. But her stride never slowed as she neared the crest of the snow-dappled hillside.

Brionna, who was walking a few paces ahead, stopped. With her sharp eyes, she scanned the serrated ridges of the high peaks in the distance, including the windblown summit of Hallia’s Peak, now three days’ trek away. A long, curving plume of snow was blowing off the summit, and its shape, like a great white eagle’s feather arching over the horizon, reminded her of Scree. She gazed at the blowing snow, a touch of worry on her brow.

Hearing Elli come up behind, she turned—just in time to hear another angry outburst. “Who,” she asked, “are you cursing now?”

Elli scowled. “Not Rhita Gawr, this time—although I wager he’s to blame somehow for what happened to the Sapphire Unicorn. And maybe also for whatever danger is threatening Coerria.”

She blew a long breath. “No, this time I was just cursing Tamwyn.”

“Still?” asked Brionna gently. “After three days?”

Elli gave a grudging nod. “He makes me so mad! I don’t know how, but he does.”

Brionna’s deep green eyes twinkled. “The wood elves have a saying, you know:

“
Find the tree who spurns the vine,
Trying not to intertwine,
Fighting often, wrestling more,
Twisting hard till both are sore:
There you find eternal strife—
Leading to a mate for life
.”

Elli grimaced, her face taking on the same greenish hue as the pinnacle sprite who sat on her shoulder. “Mate? Him? Are you
crazy
?” Her eyes narrowed. “If that’s what fighting means, then it’s you and Scree who are just perfect for each other.”

“Wha—me? And that big, that oafish, that—”

“Yes,” agreed Elli with a grin.

“But I . . . never ever, well no! It’s not even poss-possible,” stammered Brionna, turning pink at the tips of her pointed ears.

Old Shim, who had ambled up, tugged on Elli’s Drumadian robe. Cocking his head of floppy white hair at the elf maiden, he said, “She talks confudoozedly, don’t she? But I still likes her.”

As Elli nodded, Brionna sputtered some more. Finally, the elf regained her composure. Changing the subject back to Tamwyn, she said, “Listen. Don’t let him get you so upset! He can’t help being stupid. He’s just a human.”

Elli arched an eyebrow, thoughtfully tapping the water gourd at her side. “I’m a human, too.”

“Yes, yes. But at least you’re a female one.”

Then, as if she’d felt a chill wind from the high peaks, Brionna shuddered. “Oaf that Scree is, I do hope he’s all right. That leg . . .”

“Should heal just fine,” finished Elli. “He’s an eagleman in his prime.”

“But he lost so much blood,” continued Brionna. “He passed out just as we were leaving them, did you see? Slumped on Tamwyn’s back, as limp as a broken willow branch.”

“You know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were really worried about him.”

Brionna’s cheeks reddened, but she said nothing.

“Anyway,” Elli went on, “they should have reached that clan of eaglefolk by day’s end. And surely there’s a healer there. By now Scree is probably strutting around like a young fledgling.” She paused. “Unless Tamwyn got lost on the way there. With him, that’s always a possibility.”

“A big possibility,” added Nuic grumpily from his seat on her shoulder. “Which is why I wouldn’t worry about him going to the stars if I were you. He’ll probably lose his way and wind up in Shadowroot instead.”

Elli stiffened. “Not Shadowroot, let’s hope. Nobody deserves to go there, not even him.”

Beside her, Brionna’s expression darkened. “I did go there once,” she whispered. “With Granda. And I almost died.”

She straightened her back, pinching the long scar that she’d received from a slave master’s whip. It still hurt—especially when she thought about Granda. For she couldn’t help blaming herself, at least in part, for his death.

Elli squeezed her friend’s forearm. “Why are we talking about Shadowroot? Even those two troll-headed brothers have enough sense to stay away from there.”

The elf maiden sighed. She kicked at a patch of snow on the hilltop; the icy crust broke off, revealing some frozen tufts of grass. “They certainly are troll-headed! But, to be fair, they were right about that evil flower. Both of them sensed it, remember? They tried to stop the unicorn, but she was just too stubborn to listen.”

Elli chewed on her lip. “Some creatures are like that. Even females.”

“
Especially
females,” corrected Nuic. He sidled closer to Elli’s ear. “And most especially ones that are priestesses.”

The last word seemed to freeze her blood. Her hand squeezed the torn strip of the High Priestess’ gown that was tied to her belt. Woven of ancient spider’s silk, it felt as smooth as an owlet’s wing. “I just hope that Coerria will be at the compound when we get there. And that we’re still in time to help.”

“She’ll be there, all right,” declared Nuic. “If I know her, that’s the place she’d most want to be in a time of danger.”

“Right,” Elli agreed, even as she started walking again, her feet crunching rapidly over the snow. Brionna, right at her side, gave an encouraging wave to Shim, to hurry him along. Then Elli, whose thoughts hadn’t left the compound, spoke again.

“Do you think,” she asked Nuic, “that the toppled pillar in our vision was from there? That could mean—”

“Trouble,” answered the sprite. “Serious trouble.”

“We’re now less than a day’s walk away.” Brionna took hold of her long, honey-colored braid and tossed it over her shoulder. “But Elli, I have a question.”

Elli turned to the elf maiden striding so gracefully beside her. “Sure. What is it?”

“It’s about High Priestess Coerria. What is she like? What makes her so special that you’d drop everything and walk all this way, just on the chance you could help her?”

Thoughtfully, Elli pursed her lips. “Where do I start?” she said, stepping over the frosted bank of a rivulet. “She’s . . . well, she’s—”

“Hmmmpff,” commented Nuic. “So articulate.”

“Just give me a moment,” snapped Elli. “It’s hard to describe.” She kept walking briskly, thinking hard, but the right words just wouldn’t come.

Suddenly she stopped. Bending low, she reached down to a mound of snow that rested among the roots of a gnarled old elm. There on the mound lay a small branch, thinner than a finger, which had fallen from the tree. Elli lifted the branch, shook the snow off its tattered leaves, and said simply, “Watch.”

Grasping the branch with both hands, she snapped it in two. Deep in its center, well beneath its hard brown surface, there was a slender ring of green. Looking just as vibrant as a newly sprouted leaf, the inner ring could have belonged to a sturdy young sapling.

“That’s Coerria,” she said softly. “Weathered on the outside, but still green within.”

Brionna ran her finger along the wood and smiled. “I understand.”

Then, quick as a shifting wind, her expression changed. Peering at Elli, she said, “Something still worries me, though. The Sapphire Unicorn didn’t want you to go straight to Coerria. She wanted you to see the Lady first.”

“But there might not be time! Coerria needs me—that’s all I need to know.” Elli gave the sprite on her shoulder an uncertain glance. “The Lady will understand, won’t she?”

Nuic’s color darkened to grayish purple. “No,” he answered flatly. “She won’t. After several centuries of being her faithful maryth—and several weeks of being yours—I can assure you that she’s just as stubborn as you are.”

The young priestess swallowed. “Well then, I’ll just have to hope she can understand that I’m doing this out of friendship.”

The sprite’s little mouth turned down in a scowl. “We’d better get going again.”

6
•
Never to Fly

Grasping the strip of Coerria’s gown, Elli started to stride, with Nuic holding tight to her shoulder. Her pace was even faster than before, since she wanted to reach the Drumadian compound—and Coerria—before nightfall. Brionna adjusted her longbow and followed, treading lightly over the patches of snow and dry grass. Behind them, running to keep up, came Shim.

Out of the hills they strode, and into the sprawling farms of central Stoneroot. Although the climate here was generally warmer than in the hills, drifts of snow lay in every furrow and in the shade of every fruit tree. The companions passed through fields where people had long planted barley for ale-making, as well as unfenced pasturelands where horses and sheep chose to winter.

More and more they heard the sound of bells: chiming from rooftops, barn doors, and weather vanes; clinking from the legs of ducks and geese who flew overhead; and clanging from the necks of goats and the hips of women, men, and children who lived in the flatrock homes that tilled every village. For this region was truly the land of bells, where bells made from stone or metal or wood sounded constantly.

Elli, stepping through a field where melting snow had turned everything to mud, stopped to shake a clump from her leather sandal. In the distance, she could hear the bell of a trotting colt; the sound reminded her of the small quartz bell that hung from Tamwyn’s hip, always clinking as he moved. Her jaw tightened.

As she started off again, her thoughts shifted to another bell, one she had grown to love in her short time at the Drumadian compound. The Buckle Bell—made from the belt buckle of a giant, melted down by the breath of a fire dragon, and crafted by dwarf metalworkers and faery artisans—dated back to Elen the Founder. For nearly a thousand years, as long as the Society of the Whole had existed, it had symbolized the Society’s highest ideal of harmony among all creatures. If that ideal was the heart of life in the compound—or perhaps, Elli wondered, of life in Avalon—no single object better signified it than the Buckle Bell.

And what a sound it made! She smiled to herself, remembering the first time she’d heard it toll. She had arrived only that morning, and decided to skip formal prayers—something she would come to do often. Hiding by a thick bush of ripe blackberries, she was eating a juicy handful when suddenly, right behind her, the great bell sounded—so loud that Elli had fallen over backward, scattering blackberries everywhere.

Onward they marched, through Stoneroot’s living quilt of pastures, cornfields, and wild meadows. With every step, it seemed, their shared sense of urgency increased. As did their speed, so that Shim often had to run to keep up.

Suddenly, as Elli topped the brim of a hill, she stopped—so abruptly that Nuic barely managed to cling to her shoulder. Brionna halted as well, and like Elli, stood as still as a sapling on a windless night. Until, that is, Shim charged into them both from behind.

“Well, I neverly!” he growled, rubbing the tip of his bulbous nose. “You shouldn’t stop like that, Elli. Nor you neither, Rowanna.”

The elf maiden growled, “Brionna. For the hundredth time, Brionna.”

“What dids you say, Rowanna?” he asked, cupping his ear.

But she didn’t respond. For, like Elli and Nuic, she was staring at the outer wall of the Drumadian compound. Or what should have been the outer wall. For a gargantuan hole had been torn in it, scattering slabs of flatrock and broken timbers in every direction. The wall now resembled a row of broken teeth, with a great gap in its center. From behind it, where the Society’s buildings, temples, gardens, and jeweled caverns had long rested, plumes of smoke curled skyward.

“Great Dagda,” muttered Nuic, changing to scarlet. “What could have happened?”

In answer, Elli and Brionna broke into a run. Shim followed, hobbling a bit from age but just as anxious to reach the compound. They ran past the scattered debris, through the broken wall—and then stopped once again.

There, lying on its side in the dirt, was the Buckle Bell. Its huge, flaring mouth had been crumpled by heavy blows. Several jagged cracks ran up its sides. One great chunk of metal had broken off completely and now lay on the ground. The intricate designwork on its rim had, in many places, been scraped away. And its ancient clapper, said to have been the gift of Elen herself, was nowhere to be seen.