Chapter Four –
A Meeting in the Library
The lords of the White Realm were not without some great cunning on their own part when it came to the activities of their evil archenemies in the Dark Realm. After several instances in which it was found that the darkness was still very much alive and functioning, and that traitors could still be made, a decision of potentially disastrous proportions had been made.
Although no one in the Dark Realm knew it, there were spies among them.
* * *
The very morning after Elowyn had given her two handmaids the slip from her tower-room, a dark-garbed, silent, and grim figure made its way across the huge, dazzling white limestone courtyard that was before the castle of Avalennon, with a wide stairway leading up to its doors. The other beings present in the place that bright morning greeted him – some familiarly, some respectfully – but he did not pause a moment to acknowledge them.
But they did not take offense at this: they knew that this was the way of the Lord Brendan, brother of the Lord Orandor.
Brendan was a tall, proud faery nobleman with a noble and stoic bearing. His wayfaring nature was made apparent in his appearance: thick, longish, sandy blond, and windswept hair that he only just kept off of his forehead by an irritated swipe of the hand every once in a while, piercing gray eyes narrowed sharp and perceptive, skin tanned and weathered by many hours spent out in the elements. His clothing was dark and commonplace next to the brighter and more ethereal robes of his faery counterparts: his being the garb of a seasoned traveler. He was known throughout the Sentient circles as a grim and slightly cynical figure, whose sarcasm was only matched by his keen intellect and espionage skills.
This particular morning, he seemed in a bit more of a hurry than he was usually wont to be – it was not often that he visited Avalennon, for his duties were of such a nature that he could not take himself away from them for very long, with any safety.
No one, however, gave this much of a thought as he quickly and silently made his way across the courtyard.
He mounted the broad, sweeping white steps with a determined stride and disappeared beneath the shadows of the pillars that fronted that part of the castle. Everyone else went about his and her own ways, forgetting that he had been there the moment that he had gone.
Meanwhile, Brendan went into the large, open room that was just beyond the pillars, pausing fifty yards in and taking a moment to bow deferentially.
"I pray that the Three keep you well, brother."
"And you also," was the reply from the red-and-gold robed ruler of Avalennon, who rose from his chair to greet his brother in the formal faery fashion. When this had been done, Brendan stepped back and told him, "I've some news for you – but I think it would be best if it was not brought to light here."
Orandor nodded, his gray eyes as serious and dark as Brendan's.
"I had thought as much. Come – to the library."
* * *
Elowyn climbed off of Orpheus' back, onto the marble window ledge, and gave the Pegasus a pat on the shoulder, signaling for him to leave her there and return to his stall in the stables. He snorted softly in reply and bucked his head, causing his sea-foam mane to glint and toss in the morning breeze, and then with a powerful swipe of his wings, he flew off. Elowyn watched him go, until he rounded a corner made by a stand of tall, spreading cedar trees, and disappeared. Only then did she re-enter her room.
Today was a fine, warm spring day, and the sun was just coming up. Leaning forward, the young faery princess rested both of her elbows on the windowsill, her chin cupped in her hands, and gazed out, lying there in a half curled-up position on her bed.
The sky was a pastel canvas awash with the soft taints of morning: pale blue, a blushing apricot-pink, and the most tentative but increasingly bold tinges of pure, liquid gold – the herald of the coming sun. Far off in the distance, beyond the spiky dark-green treetops and the mist-enshrouded mountains even further away, she could see the dawning light.
A cool, playful breeze was caught up on the air, and it slipped in through the wide-open window to riffle briskly, almost mischievously through the loose papers that she had left out, and touch on the leather-bound covers of her books, shoot through the dark blue curtains on the bed and toy with the tasseled-fringes, and lastly run its fingers through her tousled, pale blonde hair.
Elowyn let her green eyes slip halfway closed, and she sighed.
Another perfectly lovely day.
It was with an air of half-reluctance and half-contentment that she turned to survey the familiar surroundings of her room. This place, the tower-room, had always been her personal sanctuary, much as the Tower of Lore had been her father's, and the Eastern Sea-Wall her mother's. Here, after she had mounted the flights of winding stairs, she could close the door and separate herself from everyone else – but not the world as a whole. There were seven gabled windows that made up a good part of the walls, all of which looked out onto the scenery of Avalennon, and the lands that surrounded it. From here, she could look out at the realm that she knew as her home and see all of its pure, flawless beauty.
Her room, however, was not so flawless itself.
Being not only a princess and an adventurer, she was also a scholar, and normally, her room was kept in what had become known as 'concentrated chaos'. It could be clean – at times. Usually when Vahlada threatened her with a midday cotillion with several of the more preposterous faery countesses and duchesses at court, the young princess's room underwent a dramatic change of appearance.
Within the space was kept any number of things. Her canopied four-poster bed of warm and glossy mahogany wood was the largest and therefore most obvious resident, and was covered and hung in sleek, understatedly-elegant dark hues, such as that midnight blue and evergreen, along with a snowy white for the sheets and pillows, and gold detailing on all. Then there were her rows of shelves in the spaces where the windows weren't, completely filled with her favorite books, and a desk with plenty of room for papers, quill-pens, inkwells, and other scholarly odds-and-ends. A plumply cushioned, bowl-shaped chair was there as well, heaped with several inviting pillows, and an ottoman for the feet to rest upon after a long day of horseback riding, or studying.
Elowyn had always insisted that, as she did not wear gowns, she had no need of a dressing room, but one had been installed recently, despite her protests. It was rather empty looking, and she kept the door perpetually closed, as the blank and echoing space made her feel oddly dreary – as did the prospects of the entire court's expectations for her.
This room was the residence of a scholar princess, who only wished to be left to her books, to her adventuring, and to life with her parents, and not an early marriage at the age of seventeen to some Prince Something-Or-Other. This room was kept in an order halfway between tidy and comfortably cluttered, and she loved to dwell within it.
Just then, turning around, she noticed that something hung on the dressing screen that had been set up directly beside the fireplace. Crossing the room with a frown of growing, dawning knowledge ebbing onto her features, she picked off the note that had been left pinned to the simple, unassuming cream-white gown before her.
'Magister Feyderon is awaiting you in the Lavender Ballroom,' it read, in elegant bronze script, 'Please, I beg you, Elowyn, behave. And wear the dress.'
The last four words had been written distinctly larger than the rest, as had 'behave'.
Elowyn set the note down on the conveniently placed little table that stood near the dressing screen, her upper lip twisting a bit in scorn. Obviously, pompous and grandiose Magister Feyderon had been lying in wait for her ever since her escape the night before, and he'd had a word or two with her mother. She glared at the dress for a moment, which seemed to shrink and cower back at her fulminating sea-green gaze.
As a child, she had very often managed to insinuate herself into the company, however covertly, of her father, brothers, and other male relatives, and after the course of so many hunts, casual visits, and other informal functions, she had picked up quite a bit of what Vahlada despised as less than 'appropriate language' for a young princess. Right now she deployed quite a string of just that, muttering under her breath savagely about certain portly, self-assured, holier-than-thou-and-don't-you-know-it court dancing instructors. She didn't care if Feyderon happened to be the count of Talier: he was going to get a bad time of it this morning from his young pupil.
And so, glowering, Elowyn removed her breeches, tunic, and boots, replaced them with the scoop neck, ankle-length gown, and slipped on yet another pair of the incredibly irritating, pointy-toed and bejeweled slippers that everyone insisted she wear to lessons. She ran her brush through her hair crossly and then twisted, pinned, and plaited it back in an informal princess's style.
Before she left her room to face the drudgery of lessons, however, she paused to step over to her bedside table. There was a candelabra set there, upon which hung a lovely necklace: it had a thin, almost thread-like chain of gold, which slid like liquid over her collarbones, and a single pendant of a glowing, milky crystal of white opal, cut and melded into the shape of a teardrop. This had been her present from her mother and father at birth – her birth parents, who had died when she was but a few days old in a horrific battle between the Dark Realm and the White – and she always felt as if she could at least somewhat touch their memory, their spirit in her life, when she wore it.
Then, placing her hand briefly over the glowing pendant, she set her shoulders back and inhaled, resolution in her air, and passed through the doorway, going on her way to the often deplored dancing lessons with Magister Feyderon.
* * *
The dancing master was not there when she arrived, however, and after two minutes of foot tapping waiting, Elowyn nonchalantly gave up and skipped out of the room, as carefree and blissful as a butterfly. If her dancing teacher was not present at the agreed time, then she had no obligations to wait on him.
And she was only too glad to make an escape.
Through the halls of Avalennon she wandered, examining and scrutinizing the walls of the castle that never seemed to be the same twice. It was incomparably lovely, she well knew, to live in such a place. Magic and enchantment fairly shimmered on the air.
Eventually, she came to the library. The way that she had taken led into the library from down a long, wide hall, which was lined on either side with pillars of creamy marble, set with brilliant lapis lazuli and jade along the tops and bottoms. Elowyn suddenly became very aware of the heavy presence of the shadows, but by this time, it was already too late.
"Hmm…now what could this be? Isn't the young princess supposed to be in lessons with the other members of her generation? It surely looks as if she ought to be," came a mercilessly teasing voice set somewhere in the less deep baritone register, ringing like gold.
"Well now, don't pass judgment so quickly," came another voice: velvety, and clear as crystal, or ice, more tenor than anything else.
And then her older brother – Gavin – and four other people stepped out of the shadows that were underneath the pillars. Elowyn found herself forced to stop, as he had stepped in front of her, casually leaning against one of the gigantic stone works, looking down on her with an air of amusement written all over his handsome face.
Elowyn muttered under her breath in faery, glaring at the floor momentarily.
"He ratted on me – didn't he."
There was no question of who 'he' was.
But one of the two other men who stood behind her shook his head, a knowing half-smile curving his lips, and replied gravely, "Oh – don't think of it as ratting. Think of it as: we asked, and he told us. We are his parents, you know."
"And you are under the obligation of both your tutors—" the third man began to remind her gravely, although the sparkle in his sapphire blue eyes betrayed his true outtake on the situation, and Elowyn cut him off by a roll of her eyes and an irritated wave of one hand.
"Yes, yes – and the compulsion of a prophecy made thousands of years before I was ever born. You just find it absolutely necessary to hang that over my head without ceasing, don't you?"
So saying, she turned on the group who stood behind her. The five exchanged glances, varying emotions flying through the air. Elowyn's arms went akimbo as she placed her hands on her slender hips.
"What do you all want to keep me from now?" she questioned, without preamble.
Gavin, Arin, and Orlando all managed to look convincingly innocent, if not slightly poker-faced, while Arielle and Elladine smiled ruefully at her. Finally, from Elladine, "We're not trying to keep you from anything, sweetness – Gavin just likes to speak as if he's never committed a wrong worthy of censure in his life."
"Ella." Exasperated, from the accused.
His sister shot him a thoroughly unconvinced, unrelenting look. "It's true, Gav, and don't you make to worm your way out of this one. You skipped classes enough when you were her age."
"Elladine, that was at least a thousand years ago!" Gavin shot back, but before the two could banter on any further in this exchange, Arin stepped forward, to Elowyn's side and spoke to her in a lowered voice. She looked up at him with both trust and confusion in her eyes; always, always, had her brother-in-law – who had once led quite a tormented existence himself, and well understood the feelings of his fellow beings – been the one whom she could trust to explain things to her, who she could rely on for both answers and security. He was the one whom she could turn to for empathy in the midst of living an already insane adolescent life, with the addition of the weight of a crown and an ancient prophecy crushing down on her head.
"We're glad you all enjoyed yourselves out yesterday," he said, smiling at her knowingly. His son was Robbie, and Arin well knew of what close camaraderie Elowyn shared with both Robbie and their cousin Sala. "Feyderon caught both your mother and your father last night, and I think that he was so long at persisting that you be reined in for this morning's lessons that your mother couldn't stand it – or him – any longer, and so she relented. She told Ella and me, when we got here earlier, to apologize for the dress."
"Apology accepted." Elowyn grumbled. "Now why is Gavin not allowing me to go into the library?"
Arin merely grinned again.
"Why is Gavin not allowing you to go in? Why should it matter? In fact, why should anything that we do matter as to what you choose to do – it never has before."
Elowyn's eyes sparkled with truly Spryte-like mirth.
"Too true."
Her brother-in-law turned her about and then gave her a gentle push towards the doors to the library. "Go on," he told her, gesturing that she ought to run while she could.
Orlando – her, Gavin, and Elladine's cousin – winked at her.
"We won't tell on you."
"Won't tell on her for what?" Elowyn heard Gavin query, too late, as she gathered her skirts in both of her hands and darted towards the library doors, leaving them behind.
The door had closed behind her, grating heavily on its hinges, by the time that Gavin realized that his companions had gone behind his back in order to assist the young princess to further escape. Turning to the four of them – as Elladine and Arielle smirked, with glee in their eyes, and Orlando and Arin tried very hard to stifle their snickers and chortling behind their hands – he shot them all a look of through-and-through, huffy resentment.
"All right, perhaps you all don't realize that I'm the one who is going to have to undergo a luncheon with the nobles at court this afternoon, and that one Magister Feyderon will certainly be present, and is sure to badger me without abatement until I tell him just how his elusive quarry managed to escape me? Because I'm sure that if you did know it, you wouldn't have just done something as incredibly nasty and underhanded to me as, perchance – shall we say – letting her go?"
"Please, do keep reminding yourself that!" was Arin's choked reply as he, Orlando, Arielle, and Elladine turned tail and dashed away down the hall.
Gavin narrowed his eyes and went after them.
"You can have an invite as well, Master Arin!"
* * *
As soon as she had closed the library door behind herself, Elowyn knew that she was not at all alone in the place. Instantly, she heard two very familiar voices – one was the measured, resonant baritone of her father, and the other was the dry, husky bass of her Uncle Brendan. This made her ears perk up a bit.
She knew as well as the rest of her siblings and her parents that Brendan was Orandor's elected spy to the Dark Realm, and that he moved easily and without notice through the deepest circles of evil, never once suspected, going in and out of the realm of darkness as easily as he might go in and out of a doorway.
But why was he here? His visits were quite seldom.
Elowyn didn't like the thought of being caught eavesdropping, by either her father or her uncle, but she was curious enough to forego this apprehension. So she tiptoed down an aisle made by two shelves of books, and edged to the corner of one, peering around it carefully.
Her father and her uncle were quite apparently in deep conversation, speaking of something that seemed rather serious.
"You know of the rumors that are beginning to spread about the mortal lands," she heard Brendan's voice saying. "Rumors that tell of a legend among legends of evil – of a darkness growing in the furthest reaches of the lands, drawing ever nearer to the mortals and overtaking the skies. Vile creatures have started to appear again: trolls and ogres in the North, Esflaron wolves in the East and the West, and ghouls in the South. Witches and sorcerers are coming out of the woodwork by scores, and the hostile realms have already begun to build their armies – Torians, Zekflagors, and the Dvastir. There have even been mentions of the dreaded Antari…and you know Whom they serve, Who alone. Orandor, they're all preparing for something – they're waiting for Him."
"They've called Him."
Elowyn felt her heart harden into ice. Never had she heard such a note in her father's voice. It sounded as if he was tired and world-weary, despairing and utterly drained of all strength and emotion. What was this Darkness that they spoke of, which seemed to strike so much fear into every living being?
"They have called Him." Brendan's voice again, even more deadly serious. "They have called Him, and He has heard their call – undead as He is. It will not be long before He will make His return."
"We should have done more."
"We thought that He had passed from existence!" Now Brendan seemed exasperated, upset, but not at her father. "On that day on the battle field, we thought that we had utterly destroyed Him – what more could we have done? For these hundreds of thousands of years, His body has lain in waiting, hidden, all the while as He inhabited the form of a wraith – yes, Orandor, I saw Him. I saw the wraith of the Ebony Queen, who has now set herself up as the head of the dark captains. She is the reason why the Dark Realm has rallied its forces once more. You remember her. She wouldn't have given up, she wouldn't have surrendered – not when the Darkness remained. So she somehow managed to save Him, to gather up what last, dying traces of His life remained after we thought that we had destroyed Him…and since that day, He has lived as a shadow, His life-force sapped of all of its power, with only His dark soul to remain on this earth."
"A wraith…hidden for centuries, millenniums. And now His power has returned?"
"That is what I have come to tell you – she summoned Him from the shadows and told Him, before the entire dark court, that His time had come at last."
"They've restored Him to His body."
Silence.
"Do you know what this means?"
"It means that we ought to chose our meeting places with a bit more care, I'm afraid, Brendan. It's all right now, Elowyn – you may come out and stop skulking behind that shelf."
Elowyn felt her face crumple up, and she let out an incredulous, disbelieving "What?" before she could stop herself. Then, realizing what she had done, she clapped one hand over her mouth. In the next instant, both Orandor and a very amused-looking Brendan came around the corner of the shelf, looking down on her with gray eyes alit under quirked eyebrows. She attempted to make herself as small and unnoticeable as possible, quite self-effaced.
"Sorry?" she offered.
But Orandor brushed this off. "Don't," he said, beckoning for her to come out and join them. Together, the three of them went out into the central square of the room, where four large couches has been arranged around a large table, before the enormous fireplace. When they had all seated themselves, Orandor sent her a look full of chagrin and apology, rueful.
"You needn't apologize for overhearing that conversation. I knew Magister Feyderon would most likely be late for your lesson, and in spite of that, I had Brendan give his rather intriguing news to me in this library, where of all places you are most likely to be found, and not a word can be uttered here that you won't be aware of."
But, light and almost humorous as her father's tone now was, Elowyn felt compelled to ask him of what they had been speaking. It had seemed so serious!
"Father, please," she said, earnestly and almost fearfully. "What is going on?"
Orandor glanced at Brendan, and then back at her, a shadow falling over his face and clouding his normally brilliant gray eyes.
"It is the prophecy, Elowyn," he told her, gravely. "It is the prophecy, and the past. Years ago, before you were ever born, there was a seer that foretold the coming of the One who would herald the doom of evil – you know this. It is you. But even before this, there was a Darkness on the lands that served a Queen of the most evil caliber: the Ebony Queen, who makes her throne in the Black City, far across the Sea from the Known World, at one of the Dark Gates. And this darkness, the one that served her, was the dread lord of Sytherria."
Orandor was silent for a long, horrible moment.
Then he uttered the name that had not been spoken inside of the walls of Avalennon, or in the White Realm in its entirety, for countless thousands of years.
"He was Jaedin: S'ríth-Anstarinaor n'et Sytherria, the Dark Lord of Sytherria…and now He has returned."
"War is coming." Brendan murmured.
Yes indeed – war is coming…
A great thing indeed that you now see it…
The Darkness lives again.
* * *
Author's Note: Sooo…what do you think? Please review and let me know – as for the moment, here's another addition to the cast list…
Brendan: Alan Rickman
The Queen: Lara Flynn Boyle
Jaedin, the Dark Lord of Sytherria: That, my dear friends, is my own secret. You will simply have to wait to find out!
Orlando: Jude Law
Arielle: Alicia Silverstone