Elthwen hunched low to the ground until her face was but inches from the tiny sprig poking through the forest floor. Leaves crackled under her knees as she carefully brushed away the cover of crumbled debris and pungent earth to reveal a number of similar shoots. Even as the sun had sunk to just above the line of distant trees, its fading light meshing with lengthening shadows of massive oak, the find was unmistakable. Pale yellow and green striped stems drooped under the weight of tight, yellow buds on the verge of opening. She widened her eyes and gasped in surprise.
“Gamba…?” Her voice burst out in a startled half-whisper. “Gamba!” Her grandfather would explain.
With shaking fingers, she fumbled with the gold brooch securing her cloak at the shoulder and wriggled free of the heavy woolen garment. On hands and knees in the patch of moss at the gnarled roots of the giant oak, she cleared away the detritus to reveal yet another cluster of similar shoots…and then another, and yet another. She pushed up the close-fitting sleeves of her kirtle and, bending lower still, savored their scent of honey and burnt beeswax.
Scarcely able to contain her growing excitement, she glanced back toward the small clearing only yards away where her grandfather had set about prying a dead sapling from the ground. Gently wiggling it to and fro in an effort to extract it with roots intact, he coaxed and cajoled in a soft voice.
“Gamba!”
Without a pause from his struggle, he turned to her, an addled look in his eyes. “Did you speak?”
Elthwen scrambled to her feet. “You must see what I’ve found.”
With one last tug, the sapling gave up its hold. The old man staggered backwards, prize firmly in hand. Elthwen raced to his side, but with flailing arms and a nimble cross-step, he quickly regained his balance.
“Stubborn to the end!” He shook his head, a wry sparkle in his pale blue eyes. “It’s their way, you know, to cling to the earth, even in death. See how the roots resemble fingers? Quite clever, eh?”
She took his arm in both hands. “You might have fallen!”
“Yet, here I stand here before you.” He winked and flashed her a smile.
“For that I am grateful.” She slipped her arms through his and, pressing her head to his chest, added in a playful tone, “I’m grateful not to have to carry you home on my back.”
He planted a kiss on the top of her head. “No fear of that, my sweet.”
“Gamba, you must look at this.” She stepped away and motioned him to follow, but her grandfather, knife in hand, had turned his attention fully on the dead sapling.
He flipped it upside down and flicked at the clumps of earth still clinging to its roots. “It appears perfect!”
“It’s mortrilian! I’m certain.”
“No, no, my dear, it is brackletorne…and a fine staff she will make.” He shook more earth from the tangle of roots. “Perfect circumference from top to bottom. She merely needs some pruning and polishing.” He cast a glance at the sack hanging from the belt at her waist and pointed at it with his knife. “What of those mushrooms I sent you after?” He began paring away the tiny dead branches and flaking white bark.
Elthwen pulled open the sack. “More than enough, and in good variety.”
“Hmmph! Are you certain they are all edible?”
She let out an impatient sigh. “I was schooled in your teachings, Gamba. For both our sakes, I hope they are.”
“Then you had best commence to getting them ready. I am quite famished.”
“Do you not wish to see?”
“See what, Ellath?”
Rolling her eyes, she thought she’d die before he paid her any mind. “The mortrilian.”
He turned his gaze upon her as if he had been startled from a dream. “Mortrilian, you say?”
“I’ve been trying to tell you.” She snatched his hand and hauled him to the spot. “I noticed a cluster of unusually plump sprendel mushrooms here between the roots of this oak, so I dug them up and then I noticed this….” Elthwen dropped to her knees and ran her hands over the nodding buds poking through a nest of tender fronds.
Her grandfather knelt beside her. “I have never had much use for mortrilian,” he said softly, reverently fingering one of the tightly furled blossoms. “It is rare, yes, but one needs only the tiniest drop of its extracted juice to bring on utter forgetfulness. And you can never be too careful, or it will prove deadly. It does, however, have some redeeming qualities….” He rubbed the top of his shiny head, as if doing so would help him remember. “But I am hard pressed to think of one at the moment.” He breathed deeply of its scent. “Ah, yes! Peculiar smell to be certain. How it causes my thoughts to journey….”
He sank into a brief reverie, eyes focused on his thoughts. Then he blinked three times. “But to find it in such numbers!” Taking in the sight, he settled back on his haunches. “Only rarely can you find one or two in one place, let alone…six, seven…eleven…!”
“I counted sixteen of them…and see how orderly the rows….” A tickle of excitement fluttered in the pit of Elthwen’s stomach. “Someone must have planted them here. Is that not so?”
Again he rubbed the top of his head with his fingertips. “An educated assumption.”
She scanned the perimeter of the clearing for telltale shadows darting through the thicket in the settling twilight. “Would that not also indicate the presence of Milith people nearby?”
“Highly plausible.”
She sought his gaze. “Gamba, you said that by coming this way through the forest, we would see the Milithos.”
“Perhaps we will see them another time.”
Since before she could remember, her grandfather had told tales of the people who, long ago, had been banished to the deepest wood for abusing their gifts for selfish gain. The Milithos or Hintervolk, as her father’s people referred to them, had a reputation as tricksters with the ability to render themselves invisible.
She slumped her shoulders. “I was hoping to see them this day.”
He glanced around. “Apparently, they have no wish to be seen.”
Elthwen fixed her gaze on the settling shadows of the forest. “Do you think they are nearby? Do you think they are watching us?”
“Possibly….” He sniffled at the air for a whiff of cabanium, a sweet blend of flowers, seeds, and herbs, which served as the basis for Milith potions and was ever-present in their blood and sweat. “Then again, possibly not. One can never be certain. Some are so cunning, their tincture is nearly scentless.”
She shrugged and sighed. “I suppose if they wished to do us mischief, they would have done so by now. Is that not so, Gamba?”
“There’s no telling with the Milithos.” He hauled himself to his feet and resumed paring the staff. “Have I ever told you about that Milith woman who put such a stuporous spell on me?”
She had heard the tale countless times, yet never tired of it.
Continuing on as if speaking to himself, he did not wait for her reply. “To this day I have no recollection of how long that temptress kept me under her spell. Kaylwen was her name…flawless skin white as alabaster, eyes the color of the palest skystone….” He harrumphed and slowly shook his head. “Not to be trusted, not a single one. But never have I beheld a fairer race of people, Ellath. Men and women of uncommon comeliness.” He added with a snort, “As comely as they are guileful.”
His voice faded into the sounds of falling night. Wind stirred in the treetops setting off a distant squeal followed by a low groan and the tapping of branches. Somewhere in the forest an owl hooted.
Elthwen pushed herself up beside her grandfather and gathered her cloak around her. “It grows late…and cold. Should we not start back?” She shivered.
“Did you speak?” Without looking up, he scraped at the peeling bark of his brackletorne staff with his knife.
Even as a small child, Elthwen sensed when her grandfather was being evasive or chose not to discuss of matters he feared she would not understand. But for a man of advancing years, his hearing remained unsurpassed. That very day he remarked on the minutest of sounds, differentiating the notes of one forest bird from another, or the particular timbre of a hawk circling overhead, whether it was hunting or crying for a mate.
In thinking back over the events of the long day spent traipsing through the forest, signs presented themselves everywhere. The stealth with which Gamba had awakened her before dawn and urged her to dress quickly while Ildra, her maid, was off attending to a matter for the queen. Of their clandestine departure through darkened halls and back stairways, she thought nothing at the time. Anticipating an adventure with her grandfather in the wood on a fine spring day after a long, hard winter, she went along with his peculiar behavior as if it was just another of his larks. Gamba’s joy at escaping the suffocating air of her father’s hall infected her with the same sense of release.
Now she shuddered, as much from cold as uncertainty. “Soon it will be dark.”
He lowered his hands and turned to her, his face in shadow. “Elthwen….”
Rarely did he address her by her given name. To him she was Ellath, a pet name derived from his favorite flower, sweet ellathanea, and he was Gamba since she was but a babe. Childish names in her younger days never failed to keep the outside world at bay. Childish games maintained the pretense that everything was as it appeared.
But having already passed her eighteenth birthday, she was no longer a child.
“We will not be going home,” he said.
She sensed it all along, and still the gravity with which he met her gaze sent a creeping numbness through her brain. Her knees buckled. Elthwen closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath. In looking back over the events of the day…and the preceding days…she recounted the many times in which she had ignored signs or simply refused to acknowledge that her world tottered on the brink of a great disruption.
She was not unaware of the whispering in the corridors after the emissary from Aldain of Elyndrus, “the old king-in-hiding,” came and left without fanfare. Then, following her brother’s and uncle’s return from that bleak and barren region, an envoy from the Imperon of all of Nortlunde arrived only days before her father’s departure on his “peace mission” to the north. Not to mention her mother’s reticence and her father’s grim countenance.
But she had learned that premonitions and signs often needed to backed up by more tangible evidence and were not to be relied upon. Besides, this night would not be the first they spent in the forest after a day of taking delight in the mysteries of its flora and fauna.
“I suppose I should prepare the mushrooms if we are to eat tonight.”
“An excellent suggestion” he said with a broad smile. “We will need fire…and water.”
* * *
Shivering from cold, Elthwen huddled deep in the folds of her cloak. Lying on her back she stared at the moonlit sky through a tangle of budding branches. Pale stars glittered amid the glow. The damp forest floor penetrated even the heavy woolen fabric of her garments, and her body ached from its unyielding hardness. The bed of leaves offered no relief. If not for the cushion of moss under her head, the remotest thought of comfort would have evaded her. Exhausted as she was, sleep would not come, as her mind raced with unsettling thoughts.
Heaving an impatient sigh, she rolled onto her side.
Across the fire pit, seated on a fallen tree trunk, his back to her, Gamba remained engrossed in his work. Bands of moonbeams outlined his form against smoldering embers, his closely cropped hair sparkling like a snowy crown, his bald pate shining in the silver light. Hunched over the gnarled root of the brackletorne shaft, her grandfather continued to whittle away. Save for his scraping and paring, he had barely moved and made no sound for hours.
When the moon reached its apex, he pulled a dark cloth from his haversack. He unwrapped an object in his lap, regarded it for a moment then held it up to the light. A multifaceted crystal the size of a toddling child’s fist flickered with a milky glow. He mumbled something in an ancient tongue and slipped the jewel into the roots of his brackletorne rod, which closed one by one, like fingers, around it. The stone’s glimmer brightened.
She sat, hugging her knees to her chest. “Gamba,” she said quietly.
After a short while, her grandfather turned, his features masked by the lengthening shadows of trees in the moonlight. He set down the knife and raised his staff to peer through the swath of murky light it cut through the darkness. “I thought you were asleep.”
She shielded her eyes with a hand to ward off unexpected intensity. “Is that a corrath?”
“I have not had a suitable staff for it since before you were born.” She sensed his smile in the soft tone of his voice.
Elthwen scrambled to her feet, and barely suppressing her eagerness, entered the pool of soft yellow light now spilling around him.
“Bracklethorne…not too green, not too dry. It is perfect, actually.” He let out a short, muffled laugh. “This was an auspicious find.”
She dropped beside him on the log. Enveloped by the crystal’s light, she basked in its warmth spreading through her aching bones. Like a weight, her head defied all attempts to keep it upright. She rested it on his shoulder and settled her gaze on the stone’s growing radiance. “How does it do that?”
As he slowly rotated the staff between his palms, the crystal’s pulsing light changed from yellow to pink and back to yellow. “I am a ghalthrach,” he said simply. “The staff is but a conduit. It connects us—the corrath and me, and the two of us—to the earth. By the grace of Nirmanath, we are now one with the current of life.” The light sputtered, nearly going out. “Ach! Perhaps I should have said, ‘We soon shall be one.’ We are both old and woefully out of practice. It will take us a bit of time to…. ” Focusing full attention on his task, he rolled the staff between his hands until the stone flickered back into luminescence. “Aha! Do you hear that, Ellath?”
She willed herself to focus on the sounds of the night. “I hear nothing but the wind in the branches and the song of tree frogs.”
“She hums to us!”
Elthwen concentrated with all her fading faculties. “I’m afraid it hums not to me, Gamba.”
“To some…those born with the calling…the sound is sweet music to the soul, a summoning. Irresistible.”
Fighting the soporific weight spreading over her mind and limbs, she made a vain attempt to stifle a yawn. “I thought the keeping of corraths was outlawed.”
The corrath made fizzling sound and flickered with a rapid energy before settling back into its gentle transformations.
“Outlawed…?” He continued to work the staff, concentrating on the crystal as it changed to pale stuttering blue, then red and back again to yellow.
Her eyelids grew heavy. “After that mad ghalthrach…what was his name?…killed my father’s grandfather. Under the reign of the first Nortlunde kings of Lothria, all corraths were destroyed.”
The corrath crackled as if from an affront.
“Did you speak?” He blinked at her with a befuddled expression. “Destroyed? Oh, no, no, Ellath. This is Glaer, as you can see, alive and well. She’s been with me all these many years. Of course, she needs some reminding now before she awakens fully. Glaer, I would like you to meet Ella…er…Elthwen, Lysienthe’s daughter. You do remember Lysienthe, don’t you?”
The stone appeared to wink at her.
Her head an onerous weight, Elthwen glanced with a start at the luminous crystal. “Has it a mind?”
“Ahh…that remains to be seen.” He turned his gaze fully on her and continued to ply the staff between his hands. “No doubt you are referring to King Gorod’s infamous decree.”
A tragic story. She’d been told how Rarweth Rhanthir, an aged ghalthrach unhinged after years of wandering in the north and incensed to madness over Gorod’s cruel reign, traveled to the fair in celebration of the night of The Summer Radiance at Eithennor in the border lands. Along with Muli, his corrath, he plotted to murder the king. By a stroke of luck, Gorad and his queen had decided to forego the procession into the town that evening. In his stead, young Prince Gorthar, Wolthar’s grandfather, and his wife rode in the royal coach and were mistakenly killed in the storm of fire the old ghalthrach unleashed. Muli, in a fit of remorse and guilt then destroyed herself and Rarweth in a great blinding light, turning them both to dust, which scattered on the wind.
“Yes, the keeping of a corrath was punishable by death in those days,” Gamba continued, his face taut from the recollection. “I was but a lad then, just beginning my training. Those of us who weren’t rounded up went into hiding in the deep wood among the Milith and wild Skaddock. There we bided our time until Aldain’s uprising. So, no, Ellath. No, not all corraths were destroyed.”
“Gamba…what…what prompted you to—?”
“Now let me think…. Ah! If my memory can be trusted, there is Belida, Agard Rhanthir’s stone…and the corrath of old Rew Rhanthir….” He scratched at his head. “…whose name escapes me at present, although we were well acquainted at one time. And of course, Thenyd, Faenil, and Beldasta, the three stones of Tachlanad. There are more, most definitely, but those are the ones that come readily to mind.”
“Tachlanad…? Do you mean the Sword of Names?”
“Indeed.”
“That’s…just an old story.”
“Simply because Melthir’s sword has been lost since a time before anyone can remember doesn’t mean it is ‘just an old story.’”
She forced herself to stand on wobbly legs and move away lest she further succumb to Glaer’s power to dull her senses. “But what compelled you to awaken—?”
“Who knows…?” Immersed in the act of rotating his staff, Gamba followed his own train of thought, paying no heed to her question. “It has been foretold that one day Tachlanad will come again and assemble the three corraths that were lost. One day peace and unity will return to our land.” He harrumphed softly, a mirthless sound that sent a shiver through her veins. “A lifetime I’ve waited. A lifetime my brinnad waited, before he crossed over into Glothras. How many lifetimes will it take?”
Elthwen shook off the last of her lethargy. Her grandfather’s words unnerved her. “My father wishes nothing more than peace and unity in Lothria.”
“Yes…yes…. Wolthar is a good man…a good king. But it appears he rules by the grace of the Imperon, who everyone knows is a greedy little pup, who….” Glaer dimmed for an instant, and then burst into a clear bright light before settling into a warm, steady glow. “Ah! Thanks be to Nirmanath, she lives!” He stood suddenly, a befuddled expression on his face. “What was I saying?”
“The Imperon…. You were—”
“Ah, yes. Greedy, spiteful little runt of a mongrel whelp! Like his father before him…only this one was brought up to think the entire known world owes him its undying obedience.” Animated with a sudden burst of energy, he raised his staff as if in triumph. “But he has bitten off more than he can chew, hasn’t he? I’d say his are hands full. Slave rebellion in the Ice Mountains, Isenia up in arms, his own armies suffering defeat after defeat in the East….”
“Gamba,” she began slowly, uncertain, “Is that why you awakened Glaer? To help put an end to all this—”
“Is that why I…?” He fixed on her fully with a pale smile and lowered the bracklethorne rod. “Must an old man have a reason?”
His evasiveness was plain. Hard as it was to force her mind from the subject, she chose a different tactic. “Elthric seems in good health.”
He nodded, strolling toward her, using the staff for balance. “Your brother has grown since last we saw him.”
“He has prospered under Uncle Othreld’s tutelage.”
The old man cleared his throat. “That’s quite an admission, coming from one who shares her mother’s views on Elthric’s education.”
“Elthric is a prince of Lothria. His ‘tutelage’ has gone on long enough.”
Gamba emitted a barely suppressed laugh. “Now you even sound like your mother.”
The farther she wandered from the reach of his light, the clearer her thoughts became. “Mother doesn’t trust Othreld. She fears he is a pawn of the Imperon.”
“Your mother worries far too much over things she has no power to change.”
No longer able to keep her anxious thoughts in check, she whirled around to face him. “Gamba, how do you think my mother fares this night?” From the darkness beyond his circle of light, she watched as he sank into thought.
His breath made a soft, hissing sound. “I expect she sleeps not.”
“She charged you with taking me away today, didn’t she?”
“I was not averse to the idea,” he said with a shrug. “And we had some amusement, did we not?”
“I always enjoy larking with you, Gamba.” She swallowed hard, her mind swirling with images of her father in doleful introspection during those days before his departure. “And my father…?”
Her grandfather hung his head. “I cannot say with any certainty.”
“My father sailed this morning for the land of the Ice Mountains. My mother begged him to stay. He told her that his was a mission of peace, to prevent the war that everyone says is coming.” She strode back into his light and stood before him. “Is this true, Gamba?”
He laid his hand on her arm and squeezed. “I do not involve myself in matters of war and peace. That is best left to kings and their armies.”
“I do not care for my father’s brother.”
Gamba emitted a snort. “Othreld is but a servant of Nortlunde…and his own ambition.”
“Mother says he has twisted Elthric.”
“Your mother is not always right.”
A chill settled over her as his thoughts grew distant. “Gamba…? Are we in danger?”
The light of his corrath cooled with a shushing sound. “So long as we remain circumspect, there is no danger.” Her grandfather moved ponderously with the aid of his staff. “Now you must sleep!” He pointed to the bed of leaves. “Dawn is not far off and we must leave before first light.”
“Where are you taking me?” She clutched at his arm. “Why all the secrecy? Why do we travel where there is no road and no path?”
“We go to Morolath Island,” he said plainly.
The news settled over her like a crushing weight. “To Nirmanath’s Shrine?” She spun away. “But you promised me….” He said nothing. Slowly, she turned back to him. “Gamba…?”
“Your mother’s sister, the high priestess, will provide for your hospitality.” His voice had a preoccupied sound.
Once again, she whirled away, rage battling her best effort to remain calm. “For how long?” The thought of abiding in such a place squeezed at her chest, depriving her of breath. “Surely this cannot mean….” It was no secret that, should she not marry by her nineteenth year, she would enter into the service of Nirmanath, the fate of many of her mother’s people in the old days. Elthwen drew a quick, shallow breath. “Why were we not sent to Elyndrus?”
“Why would we be welcome there?”
“Because I have been promised to Kierath, King Aldain’s son.”
Gamba smiled as if he were in the presence of a precocious child. “Who has been filling your head with such nonsense?”
“It’s true! Before Elthric and our uncle returned from the Ice Mountains, I overheard my mother and father talking with Aldain’s messenger. They spoke of an alliance. They spoke of uniting the land under a common king.”
He furrowed his brow. “How is this supposed to happen?”
“Once I am married to Prince Kierath, those who follow Aldain and those who follow my father will unite under one banner. Once the treaty is made public—”
Glaer flashed hot red. “There is no treaty with Elyndrus,” her grandfather said slowly, forcefully. “And there will be no treaty with Elyndrus as long as your father persists in pursuing peace with that monster, Clenmoc and his rebel slaves.” His hand quivered in its hold on the staff, and then he spoke softly with a note of reassurance, “At least for now, we go to Morolath.”
Though her mind clouded with uncertainty, Elthwen had no reason to doubt her grandfather’s words. Many a time, claiming she was too young to understand—or some other equally sapless excuse—Gamba withheld from her a portion of the truth. But in her entire life he had never lied to her.
* * *
Early morning mist hung heavy and cool over still water, as the ferryman poled his leather-clad boat across Morolath Lake. Only the occasional splash of fish breaking the smooth surface and the almost imperceptible sound of their passage broke the silence. The boat seemed to glide on air, so smooth was its motion. Somewhere in the unseen distance, three blasts of a horn sounded, announcing their approach.
Sitting beside her grandfather on the plank seat, her hand idly trailing in the cool water in their wake, Elthwen lifted her head and listened to the rise and fall of the trumpet’s call. She peered through the mist. The Isle of Morolath, its softly sloping hillside shimmering with the deep green luster of a jewel, appeared like a vision through the haze, its summit plumed in fragile light. The veil began to lift as the sun’s first rays radiated like spokes of a wheel around the top, illuminating the standing stones, gleaming white against the cerulean sky. She had forgotten the heart-stopping beauty of the place at first sight, how it appeared from its shroud of haze as if by the wave of a ghalthrach’s hand.
“Look, Gamba…. ” She pointed to a spot midway up the hill. Five ghalthwena, last of a line of great warrior priestesses, resplendent in gleaming golden breastplates, descended in procession astride white Lothrian mountain horses, their manes and tails woven with golden ribbons.
“All appears well.” Her grandfather rose stiffly from the bench and lifted his staff. Glaer glowed like the sun. The riders paused in their descent, their leader raising a hand high above her head, and the others released white doves from golden cages. They spiraled up over the lake, soaring higher and higher, until they disappeared into the clouds.