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History may forget my name, but it will never forget my son. Through me the Dreamers have entered the world, and may the Gods help us all.
-Tevarus, First Scholar to Archon Darinius
(found on a hastily scrawled note in his dead hand)
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A wolf of pure white drew to a halt on the cliff overlooking the vast expanse of the forest which concealed Arlathan from casual scrutiny. The wind ruffled the mane of fur, teasing it into loose strands and playing with the knots of neglect it found there as lupine eyes of lavender regarded the greenery and riotous color down below. So long had it been since her eyes had beheld this place she had considered home that it took a while to pick out the details. Slowly they returned: the Hall, looming large as the tallest building in the city; the First Tree, the only part of Arlathan which did not dwindle in the shadow of the Hall's bulk; the flowers and riotous colors of the Gardens throughout the metropolis... All these things were familiar, yet different. Or was it only herself that was so very different? She knew not the answer, nor particularly cared - that was not the thought she wished to pursue at the moment: not with her city before her, not with her mind still in its chaotic state.
Yet she had returned for one purpose: to go home.
After leaving the cave she had temporarily shared with Fen'Harel in a desperate attempt to escape the darkness both within and without, her path had wandered much farther afield than she had anticipated. Though her paws had originally intended to go directly to Arlathan, she had found herself meandering farther afield the closer her original destination had drawn, and each day had found her more reluctant than the last to actually set foot among her people. Somehow the knowledge that burned within her - that Fen'Harel had indeed been responsible for the loss of the Creators; that his actions had led to the formation of the Guardians and the requisite loss of her family; that, most damning of all, he had done so without trusting her to know the truth of the matter - had been at its hottest the moment she had first stood on this promontory after leaving the cave, looking down at the same city. She still remembered the sensation burning like a small volcano in her chest, still felt the righteous wrath of the moment... And still remembered the subdued but strong voice of sanity that had compelled her to turn around and return to the vast wilderness of Thedas.
It was better this way. Better than that madness that had consumed her, the darkness of her depression and the odd sensation that Geldauran actually... cared for her.
And so she had resumed her travels from so long ago. She had sought refuge in the world around her, in the abundance of life amidst the remote locales of Thedas, in the passage of time as it moved over her without effect, in the mountains and the deserts and the oceans. She sought out and spoke with the gods that had been long forgotten in the depths of the sea, in the winds that scoured the mountains, in the hideaways that dotted the endless reaches of the dusty plains that stretched far to the west of Arlathan, where even the Elvhen had not yet ventured and the dwarves only knew of in theory. She wasn't sure that she sought anything specifically save for, perhaps, surcease from the constant battle within as she fought the hooked barbs of the darkness that had enshrouded her since she had awoken with the knowledge that she bore in her womb a dead man's offspring.
It was a measure of her recovery that that particular thought no longer made her shudder and wish to crawl into a protective cave. Instead, she calmly acknowledged the occurrence and concentrated instead on the next reason that she had returned to the city: the very children she had not cared for one iota before. Though she was still uncertain how much time had passed while she had been away - for time was ever an indifferent method with which to mark the landmarks of her life - she yet hoped that Fen'Harel had seen fit to bring the twins to Arlathan, perhaps to the home of some of his cultists.
She could hope, anyway.
These thoughts and more ran through her mind like wildfire as she began the final descent down into the valley, her transition from four feet to two indiscernible unless one were specifically looking for it. Uncertain what the reception for her would be amongst her people and certain that she wasn't quite ready to introduce herself to her children, she took an unusual additional precaution and spelled her appearance with a glamour, as she knew Fen'Harel was wont to do. Rather than a silver-haired beauty with lavender eyes, a strong-featured woman with brown hair and the predominant green eyes, face free of vallaslin, began to walk among the People.
It did not take long for her to begin to see the notes of discord. She saw people hurrying through the streets, directing thinly veiled hostility towards anyone who interfered with whatever important business impelled them, and a basic lack of regard for courtesy that she had never before witnessed in Arlathan. Time had never been of import to the denizens of Arlathan, and refusing to stop and have a deep and thought-provoking conversation with even a casual acquaintance on the street if the request was made was almost tantamount to a blow on the face... but she saw this, not once but several times as she made her way to the Rose District where (she hoped) her house still stood.
Somewhere along the line, however, her feet turned from her abode to her second home within Arlathan, the Garden wherein rested her own Second Tree and the white-hoofed one she considered a true friend. A frown was on her lips as she suddenly realized that she didn't even know if Wind Over Still Waters would even be alive... Halla lived for a long time, but not forever, as the Elvhen who did not enter uthenera could do.
As she entered the Garden of Serenity, she discovered yet another note of wrongness. No flasks of bilberry wine awaited her. Flowers grew where they willed, but so did weeds and vermin. The air, which should have sounded with the sweet chirping of birds, was filled only with the rustling of branches allowed to grow beyond what was healthy. Worst of all, as her eyes penetrated the underbrush around her, she could not catch a single flash of white, nor the sound of a hoof, as if the halla had simply ceased to exist.
As she penetrated the thick, rampant overgrowth between the trees, fighting against chaotically protruding branches and dead bark that had fallen and killed the grass under the towering giants, she fought to hold her panic down. Surely there was an explanation. The Gardens were an integral aspect of Arlathan: they would only be left to ruin as this one for a reason... She gulped and took a deep breath to steady herself as she drew nearer to the tree, then pushed herself through the final barrier.
The tree was gone - hacked to pieces, it appeared, and surrounded by an invisible yet tangible wall simmering with fear and hate. Only the stump remained of the once great tree grown from a seed given freely at her request to the First Tree. Stumbling blindly forward, she dismissed the odd barrier with but a thought and put trembling hands on the stump, blinking rapidly as she felt the tears begin to form. Why? How? She knew not the answer, and was starting to believe that she didn't even know the right questions.
A sound behind her made her start, and she pivoted to face its source, instinctively meeting the eyes of the being who stood behind her. The halla stood timorously, not tall and proud, and seemed almost poised to flee. She gasped as she recognized the mark on this one's forehead: a wavy line over a flat line. Wind Over Still Waters. Raising a hand, she tried to reach out to her friend's mind as she had so many times before... and met nothing. Or rather, met the mute susurration of the mind of a dumb animal, driven by instinct and reaction and little more.
Gone was the wise and gentle mind that had been her constant spiritual companion in the last few spans. Gone was the patient and forbearing mother of a promising young Spirit Healer who had already shown as much promise as his dam. Gone was any remnant of what could be termed sentience or a soul. There was nothing but a dull emptiness that watched her carefully, wary of danger. Age was laced over her in a fine tracery of empty and sagging skin, indicating a lack of proper care at the hands of those who should have been caring for them. The bonds between our people have been broken, she realized, a shock akin to a bucket of cold water rippling over her. She has no knowledge, not of me, not of the Elvhen...
Hesitantly she tried again. *Wind?* she whispered into the other's mind. *What has happened?*
The halla hesitated. And for an instant - a minuscule moment of hope - she felt something respond, a flutter against a still backdrop. But then the halla started at a noise that Tallathian didn't even hear and bolted, leaving her to ponder the single image that Tallathian had been able to pull from the now-animal's mind: one of the Elvhen, shrouded in darkness, standing before the Tree and singing a melody that was all too insidiously familiar.
She turned back to the stump and received a further surprise. Arranged behind the shattered wood was an array of the heretofore disappeared halla, gathered in a semi-circle. Just as with Wind Over Still Waters, their eyes were empty of intelligence, and they stood poised precariously, obviously ready to flee. Her eyes moved over their markings, recognizing each and every one. All of them were noticeably older, as Wind Over Still Waters had been, and their eyes were just as empty. As one they lowered their head, an odd sort of obeisance - which hurt, for the halla were more friends than beasts of burden - and then, as one, they turned and leapt away, quickly disappearing into the undergrowth, somehow managing to disappear within a matter of seconds.
The image she had seen in Wind's mind lingered, however, impossible to forget. Though the hair had been black, it had been long, and she vaguely remembered standing in front of a mirror as another darkened her hair... Her hand stole to her tresses as her teeth worried at her lip. Could it be...?
A few minutes later, she left the Garden, her mission set: discover the extent of the damage, and how long it had been allowed to ferment and corrupt within Arlathan. Time was precious, especially if her fears proved to be true.
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"It is time."
Archon Salarius straightened as he heard the certainty in the Magister's voice when the man entered the ancient study that only the Archon and his chief Advisor were allowed to access. "You are certain?" he asked softly. "My predecessors were quite specific regarding the timing."
"Even Your Dreamer concurs, and, more importantly, has received confirmation from Dumat himself." The man grinned. Hespasian had, after all, been privy to the same knowledge as the Archon, following the tradition of the last two centuries following the death of Archon Darinius. Upon every new Archon's coronation, he and his chosen Advisor would consume a strange brew, one that filled them with a sense of power and darkness worthy of the Old Gods, complete with disturbing dreams that both intimidated and instructed. Since the time of the first Dreamer, the son of a mere Scholar who had risen to prominence to become Dariunius' own Advisor and, later, heir, this had been the tradition. It was the rite of conquest they dreamed, the soft siren of 'not yet' a constant frustration and ache for those told by the Gods to wait before taking the last prize of Thedas.
And now, the Court Dreamer had confirmed what Salarius had been dreaming of for weeks: the time for waiting had come to an end.
Salarius met the Magister's eyes, then moved to the wall upon which a map had been attached permanently, a map dating back to the first true Archon. The map had, in fact, been penned by the same Scholar who had fathered the first Deamer, though Salarius could not be bothered to remember the man's name. The map had been updated many times since the time of Darinius, naturally, since the Tevene did not believe in sitting on their laurels when it came time to spread their rule of law over the lands. However, although all the islands had been taken, and the vast majority of the land on the map shone with an Imperial red, there remained one expanse of green that had been a thorn in every Archon's side since Dumat had first demanded patience.
Elvhenan.
The green borders had changed over time, to be sure, shrinking as the Elvhen had withdrawn, step by step, before the expansion of the Imperium. They hadn't exchanged ambassador since the time of Darinius, and attrition had proven to be only mildly successful in absorbing their lands. But there, in the center of Elvhenan, indeed, in the center of Thedas itself, lay the last, the greatest of the prizes: Arlathan itself.
Salarius took a moment to silently thank each and every Old God and promise an appropriate sacrifice upon his turn from the upcoming war that he would be the one to finally spread the Tevene red to all corners of the map, then turned to Hespasian.
"Give word to the Magisters and the Dragon Knights. We leave Minrathous in two weeks." His eyes lingered on the map before he reached up and laid an almost possessive hand upon it. "We will follow the strategy laid out by Darinius, since he declared it was bestowed upon him by an agent of the Gods themselves. Have the Generals prepare the armies and march them straight to Arlathan, as it will take the most amount of time to move them. In the meantime, the Magisters and Knights can amuse themselves with those few towns and cities outside Arlathan that still elude Tevene control."
"Yes, Your Majesty," Hespasian said, the eager grin on his face a mirror for the one on the Archon's. "It shall be as you say."
"History shall mark this war, Hespasian: the war that finalized Tevene supremacy throughout the entirety of Thedas." He frowned, then reluctantly amended the statement. "The surface of Thedas, at any rate." A careless shrug of his shoulders demonstrated how little the distinction mattered at this point in time. The long-standing treaty with Kal Sharok had certainly proven to be boon more than bane in their history. "Oh, and please send the Dreamer in to see me when he awakens from his communion with Dumat."
"As you command, Sire," the Magister murmured, then bowed and left the room.
Salarius turned back to the map with satisfaction practically oozing through his pores. It was, indeed, time.
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Tallathian stumbled to a halt, shocked at what lay before her. Where once her lovely little house of ivy, rose, and willow had stood, only scorched ground remained. Everything was gone, and worse than gone: she sensed that the ground had been salted, the magic drained. Tears filled her eyes for a moment as she realized that her name, her history, everything she had been to her people was now dead. Worse than dead: anathema. She could count the number of times a citizen of Arlathan had been declared such on one hand, and never a Councilor, and certainly never a First Born, though there had been few enough that would have remembered that aspect of her past.
Quickly blinking the tears away, she made a desultory check of her surroundings to make sure that no one would see her actions, then called a see-me-not spell around her, obscuring the light about her form and afflicting passersby with a profound apathy if they should happen to glance in her direction. Firming her mouth into a thin line, she advanced into the ruins, pushing through the sense of wrongness to her goal, which before would have been the very back of the house.
Miraculously, and fortunately for Arlathan, the Eluvian was intact. Her magic had prevented anyone from seeing it, even when the surrounding hall and wood had been in flames. Though the wolves that had once decorated the frame were long gone, burned away by whatever conflagration had descended upon her abode, the silvery surface remained untouched and undamaged. She breathed a sigh of relief. With the odd corruption she felt in Arlathan, the added burden of a setheneran would have indicated even worse trouble than she had suspected.
She let out a sigh of profound relief, feeling as if a disaster - however small compared to the rest of the problems that awaited her - had been avoided. Once she determined the extent of the damage done to Arlathan while she had been under Geldauran's clutches, she would return to the Beyond. Perhaps she could find Fen'Harel there, to apologize... They could not be what they were before, but they could be more than they had been when last they met.
Turning with that faint hope trembling in her heart, she emerged from the blackened, burned remnants of the trees of her home and froze. Someone was watching.
After a few moments, she realized that the person, hooded and cloaked as they were, did not actually see her, and so she waited patiently, forced to trust to the efficacy of the see-me-not spell to prevent her detection. Her breath hitched as another person came, similarly shrouded, to stand next to the first one.
"You are certain no one will see us here?" she heard the newcomer say, his voice hissing in the thin air with its lack of vegetation to warm it.
"Quite certain," the other replied. "I've noticed that nobody visits the home of the Deceiver, not in all the time I've been here. You Arlathans seem to prefer to pretend that she never existed." A snort escaped the hood of the speaker, taller than the other one by almost a full head. "Now, what have you to report? Hespasian asked for a report weeks ago and has been wanting for a response ever since."
"It's not easy, you know," the shorter man grumbled. "I'm not privy to the actual meetings of the High Council, after all."
"You'll need to do better than that if you want to see your family unharmed again." The voice was soft, yet full of menace, and the shorter man stood to attention immediately.
"Yes, my lord. I'm sorry, my lord." The man seemed to look directly at Tallathian, who held her breath as his gaze swept over her, but eventually he looked away. "I have managed to arrange matters so that I could overhear the private conversations of the High Council. Not their actual meetings in the Hall, but their smaller, more private-"
The other man waved his hand impatiently. "The details, elf. I could care less for an explanation about how you obtained them."
Tallathian's eyes narrowed. Elf? Then the tall one was human, and here without sanction. No mage, as far as she could tell, but that was but a small comfort. Tevene, perhaps? Her eyes struggled to find the face beneath the hood, losing track of the words until she heard the phrase Fen'Harel's cult and snapped her attention back to the conversation.
"...caught the supposed leaders of the cult just a hand or so ago. Twins, if you can believe it, a brother and a sister a mere two spans old - children, by our standards, really." Their unknown listener paled and stilled. "The Council reprimanded them and marked them, but they didn't have quite enough evidence to execute them. At least with the wolf brand on their foreheads, they'll be easy to spot. 'Tis rumored Fen'Harel himself brought them here as infants. Those should be the first ones your agents seek to kill before the main invasion gets underway. They keep a low profile, but the High Councilors are convinced that they are capable of summoning their Master if they are truly pressed - another reason why they weren't executed - and as much as we despise his very name, Fen'Harel is a god, though outside our Pantheon."
"If I wanted your advice on the matter of divinity, elf, I would have asked for it." The human waved his hand in dismissal. "I have your report. Return and gather more information, including the current status of the so-called Guardians. We have been told they are inert, but some verification would be... appreciated by those who hold your wife's fate in their hands." Reaching into his cloak, he withdrew a long, blond cord with a ribbon tied on each end and threw it at the elf, who scrambled for it desperately, diving to his knees to make sure it didn't hit the ground.
As her fellow citizen let loose a choked sob and held it to his chest, she suddenly realized that it was the hair of a woman, and anger flickered deep within. "Th-there's blood on it."
The human chuckled as he turned away from the grieving elf. "She is quite the beauty. There are several uses we could put her to besides occasionally draining her blood. Hopefully you'll provide your information in a more timely manner next time, or it won't be just her hair that we modify next time."
The cruel laughter he left in his wake after his departure left the poor man standing in front her ruined house slumped in defeat and shaking in anger. While she was still pondering if she should approach him, he also stood and left, braid still clutched to his chest as if it were the most precious thing in the world.
Troubled, Tallathian emerged from behind her nominal hiding place and pondered her next destination. Invasion... She had been intending to go speak with the First Tree after checking the status of her Eluvian, but the mention of the Guardians worried her, and not only because they had for aeons stood as the best defense of Arlathan. A vague memory of standing in front of her brother's stone form came to her, the last memory before Fen'Harel's teeth had sunk into her flesh all those years ago. No... No, I can't possibly lose them. Not again...
Almost in a panic, she burst from her hiding place and ran back to the outskirts of Arlathan, suddenly desperate to see the light in the eyes of the Guardians. Ignoring the curious and suspicious glances of those she passed in her frantic flight, she ran without a thought in her mind other than to find the statues, to reassure herself that their eyes still shone a rainbow of protection and awareness from their places around the city. Please... tell me I didn't murder my own family...
She burst from the last of the hedges after several agonizing minutes of sprinting, coming to a halt before the first of the familiar statues. Holding her hand to her side to contain the pain of her stitch, she panted as she looked up into the eyes of her brother, remembering the first time she had seen the Guardians when she had returned to Arlathan after her first extended pilgrimage of penance following the War of the Gods...
.~^~.
*There was no other choice, sister.*
The words echoed in her head, one more reminder that he was... changed. When she had left Arlathan, she had left behind a number of brothers and sisters, all known as the First Born, the members of the proud club of Elvhen who bore the mark of original Creation as evidenced by their lack of navels. Peering up at the tall, stoic statue of the one who had once walked the plains of Thedas at her side, she blinked away her tears. "The First Born were to remain in the Council, to guide Arlathan through the aeons. How can you lead the Elvhen in a form that prevents you from moving among them?"
*The Creators can no longer protect us. The durgen'len tunnel their way to supremacy below the surface of Thedas, and these odd round-ears keep landing on the shores at the edges of Elvhenan. They are few now, and friendly, but what if more arrive and in greater numbers? No,* he said, and this time the obstinacy that had made his affiliation with Elgar'nan so obvious was clear in his tone. *We must act first to defend our sovereignty, or suffer the fate of the Minauri ourselves. Had you been in Arlathan when we accepted the transformation, you would have been offered a place as well, since you are among the First Born. You could still—*
"No." She stopped his thought with a shake of her head. "I will do what you should have done. I will walk among the Elvhen and guide them as best as I can. There are some other First Born that have not become stone, are there not? Others that wandered as I did?"
*Not many, and none for as long as you, sister.* The tone held a hint of reproach, but it was only a few years ago that the memory of the tiny, lifeless bodies in the broken shells had ceased to give her screaming nightmares. Of this, however, she told him nothing.
"At least I will be able to visit," she murmured. "Still, I will miss you, brother."
*And I you, sister.* The whisper of his voice died away, and there was only the towering statue with the brilliant golden eyes, like two miniature suns, boring into the forest that surrounded Arlathan, keenly watching for danger against his lands.
.~^~.
The memory faded, and the tiny suns of the past dwindled into blank, dull eyes that stared out into the forest of Arlathan, seeing nothing. Tears began to roll down her cheeks as her mind probed the stone before her, desperately searching for anything that would indicate a presence of a soul.
Nothing. Not a glimmer of light or life responded to her desperate plea. The stone was merely that: a stern-looking statue with no more purpose than to tower over the supplicants who approached Arlathan. Even the simple spell that the Council was supposed to maintain to prevent weathering of the granite was gone, allowing time to gain its revenge on the rock through masses of cracks and chips.
For the first time since returning to her home, she fell to her knees, then collapsed entirely, curling into a ball as the all-too-familiar weeping seized her once more. The last remnant of hope had been taken from her: no house, no halla, no children, no God, no lover, no family, no place, no people... She was alone, truly alone, and the absolute truth of that simple statement tore through her far more effectively than even the fangs of he who had once been the center of her life.
And she knew precisely at whose feet she should lay the blame.
She felt rather than saw the Darkness coalesce around her, free to do so before the empty eyes of the Guardians. The sensation of a hand fell on her shoulder as she felt his oppressive presence attempt to overwhelm her once more. *You are ready, now, for what needs to be done.*
It took her entire will not to wrench away from that touch, but at least she was able to keep herself to herself. Whatever weakness he had found in her armor before was no longer there, and though she felt him all around her, he could not penetrate within. It was her will, not his, that now spurred her forward, her true target dancing in her mind. After all, one did not go up against a god unprepared...
"I am ready." Quietly she rose to her feet, leaving her tears untouched. "I know what must be done."
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Elvish terminology:
setheneran - "land of waking dreams," a place where the Veil between Thedas and the Beyond is thin
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An explanation of Elven time as kept in Arlathan:
hand - five days
span - 100 years
aeon - 1000 years
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