Del thought it was the sun that stole his troubled dreams, but it was not. Calae stood before him, bright and glorious as the dawn itself.
“You expect much of us,” Del said to the Colonnae prince.
“We expect nothing and ask nothing,” Calae replied.
“And give nothing,” Del quipped sharply. He wanted to retract the insult as soon as he heard it spoken. Certainly the Colonnae, who had given salvation to his race in its darkest hour, did not deserve such words.
He felt even more ridiculous when Calae laughed softly, accepting the sarcasm with good-natured understanding of the frustration behind it.
“Can’t you help me?” Del pleaded. “Can’t you stop them and show them what they’re doing?”
“What would be the gain?” Calae replied. “The destiny of mankind lies in the hands of men. If it were otherwise, there would be no meaning. Your race is free, Jeffrey DelGiudice, and you would have it no other way. Mankind must bear its own burdens and accept the responsibilities of self-reliance.”
Del’s gaze dropped as the weight of salvation fell with heavy finality onto his shoulders.
“You may find that you have the strength to win your fight,” Calae comforted. “There are stirrings in Avalon that offer hope.” His words trailed away.
Del looked back at him, but had to shield his eyes as the light intensified, blurring the image of the Colonnae prince. The first rays of the new dawn had found their way over the Crystals, and by the time Del was able to sort through the glare, Calae was gone.
Del considered the words and looked to the field far below. Shadowed by the high cliff along its eastern border, Mountaingate had not yet seen the dawnslight. The fires burned low and most of the elves slept, their celebration interrupted by physical and emotional exhaustion.
Del rushed down the mountain paths, spurred by the undeniable truth of Calae’s observations and determined to face his responsibilities bravely, to bear the weight of his duties with his back stubbornly straight.
“You have become a pitiful sight, Arien Silverleaf,” Ryell taunted a short while later, the mob behind him, nearly all of Illuma, agreeing with his every word. “Sworn to the service of your people, yet you stand against them. What form of consistency is this?”
“We gave our promise to the ranger that we would wait for word from Bellerian,” Arien reminded.
“We agreed to wait until morning,” Ryell retorted. “The dawn is come; I have heard no messages from the cursed wood.”
“I hold for the just course,” Arien stated.
“You are alone in your folly.”
“Not true. I stand alone before you because the others who are able to perceive the evil that has befallen our people fear to oppose you. You feed upon the sorrow of many, Ryell. They follow you that they might shield their grief in anger and hatred, black thoughts easily sated by vengeance. Is it not the same for you and your loss of Erinel?”
“You should have stayed away longer,” Billy said grimly when he saw Del approach from beneath the shadows of the telvensils. “Ryell has just announced the decision of the council.”
“Innocence will not defend the prisoners from his unmerciful blade,” Sylvia stuttered, and turned away, obviously ashamed at that moment to be numbered among the people of Lochsilinilume. “He is going to kill them all.”
“The hell he is,” Del growled as he started forward.
Billy grabbed him by the arm.
“You can’t,” he said.
“Let go,” Del ordered, his eyes unyielding as he stared down at his friend. “A few days ago you convinced me that we were brought here to help the right side win. That battle isn’t over.”
“Get out of our way, Arien,” Ryell threatened, regaining his composure against Arien’s stinging reference to Erinel. “Or we shall cut you down as a traitor.”
Appalled that the demon possessing his onetime friend had gained such control, Arien’s hand went for his sword hilt. But Del stepped in front of him, face-to-face with Ryell.
“This is none of your affair, human,” Ryell spat at him.
“Oh, it is,” Del retorted. “I won’t stand by and let you murder innocent people.”
“Innocent?” Ryell balked. “They marched against our homes! Had they won, would they have shown mercy?”
“I don’t know,” Del answered sincerely. “But that doesn’t give you the right to do this. Can’t you see that these men came here honestly believing in their cause? They were misinformed by evil, and we can only guess what magical persuasions Thalasi exerted over them.
“The Black Warlock is dead, Ryell,” Del went on. “Ungden is gone and can harm your people no more. Do you really believe that these men here remain a threat to you? Or do you just want revenge?”
Ryell spoke now to the crowd as much as to Del. “I want to teach a lesson to Calva that the humans will not forget.”
“All you’ll breed is hatred!” Del shouted back at him. “You cannot know the horrors of the world before Aielle.” He stepped out to the side, that all the crowd might see him. “Hear me well!” he cried. “For my purpose in returning from that past age is upon me now.” He looked Ryell straight in the eye. “Wars breed war; killing breeds killing. Once you begin that cycle, there can be only one ending.
“When my world burned, Ryell,” he said quietly. “Five billion people died with it. Five billion. Can you even comprehend that number?
“Five billion hopes, five billion hearts.” Truly Del hated speaking his next words, but he understood that shock might be his only weapon. “Five billion Erinels. There will be no reprieve from the horror you begin this day.”
Flames simmered in Ryell’s eyes, and he slid his sword from its sheath. “Move aside, human,” he snarled. “Or my blade shall find your heart.”
Del’s smile bore the serenity of truth. He held his arms outstretched, a posture purely defenseless. “Then do it,” he said impassively. “My faith in your people is undaunted, and apparently greater than your own. When your venom has played itself out, they will look upon their bloodstained hands with horror. They will remember this moment, Ryell. What will become of you when they realize the truth of the path you led them down?”
Ryell’s sword tip dipped. He thought of Del’s fight with Mitchell the previous night. How could this man so willingly accept death?
Before he could find an answer, a cry of alarm rang out. “Look to the south!” yelled one of the elves, and the others soon understood his panic.
Streaming out of Avalon and northward across Mountaingate, spear tips and helms glistening in the early sun, came the regrouped remnants of the Calvan army, even now more than a thousand strong. All the elves realized at once that they had been caught unawares, never imagining that the scattered and leaderless army could be turned back on them so quickly.
“Deceiver!” Ryell cried in hopeless rage, and he spun back and launched his sword in a deadly arc for Del’s throat.
Ardaz was quicker, though, throwing a spell with a wave of his hand that stayed the blade and held Ryell motionless in mid-swing.
“Hold calm!” Arien commanded his people as the Calvans, still walking their mounts and showing no signs of breaking into a charge, passed the midpoint of the field. “The Rangers of Avalon are among their ranks.”
The army stopped a short distance from the stunned elves and three men rode out from their ranks. In the middle a fair-haired young man, dressed like a king in a flowing white robe with golden trimmings, rode a great roan stallion. Belexus, upon Calamus the Pegasus, flanked him on his right, and on his left rode the Ranger Lord Bellerian. In his arm Bellerian cradled a coral crown, pinkish white and inlaid with dozens of lustrous pearls.
Following closely came a line of eleven, ten Warders of the White Walls centered by Andovar, who bore a furled standard.
Arien grew more at ease when he noted the sincerity of the fair-haired young man’s keen, dark eyes. There was noble blood in the lad; he was not diminished by the mighty rangers flanking him.
He eyed Arien for a long moment, then raised his clenched fist above his head.
The Calvans had come too close if they meant to charge, but still Arien started defensively when the lad dropped his arm in a quick movement.
And to the utter amazement of the elves, the entire Calvan army, and the rangers riding with them, threw their weapons to the ground and remained at silent attention. At the same time, Andovar unfurled the standard-four white bridges and four pearls set against a blue field.
The banner of Pallendara before the reign of Ungden.
“I am Benador,” the young man announced in a strong, clear voice befitting his station. “Heir to the line of Ben-rin and rightful Lord of Pallendara. I was but an infant when Ben-galen, my father, and Darwinia, my mother, were murdered by Ungden the Usurper, and I owe my life to venerable Bellerian and the wizard you call Ardaz.”
Ardaz blushed and lowered his eyes from the many glances that came his way.
“For they hid me away from Ungden’s fell knife,” Benador continued. “And for lo these thirty years I have lived as a farmer’s son.
“Several months ago I came north to the fair wood of Avalon, that Bellerian might prepare me for the day when I would claim the throne that is rightfully mine. That day is come,” he proclaimed sternly, his arms outstretched and his eyes raised skyward. “Be it known here and now, and let the word go out throughout all Aielle, that the line of Ben-rin is restored to the throne of Pallendara!”
When he looked back at Arien, his friendly and unpretentious smile had returned. “And in the true spirit of my ancestor Ben-rin,” he said softly to the Eldar, “it is my first act to surrender my army to the night dancers.”
The astounded elves didn’t even know how to react.
“My people have committed many sins against you and yours, Lord Eldar Arien Silverleaf, the worst being the battle that was fought yestermorn,” Benador went on. “I cannot undo those wrongs, but I desire that the feud between Calva and Illuma end now.” He dropped his arms and, humbly, his gaze. “We trust in your mercy.”
At once, all eyes focused on Ryell.
“Let him go, Ardaz,” Del insisted. Released from the wizard’s spell, the confused Ryell hesitated.
“Here is the chance of your world,” Del said quietly to him. “Peace is yours if you will only reach out and grab it.”
He put his hand on Ryell’s shoulder. “Erinel is dead; the price has been high-too high. But if this doesn’t end now, then Erinel’s death means nothing. Then all of this will happen all over again.”
Ryell looked to Benador and the Calvan army, which was waiting patiently for his decision.
Unarmed.
“No tricks,” Del assured him. “I promise.”
“What say you, Ryell?” Arien asked. “I know my answer to the rightful Lord of Pallendara. It is an answer that I give willingly, with all of my heart. Yet many of our people have come to value your words above mine, and it is important that our stand in this matter be undivided. So what say you?”
“The whole future of Aielle rests with your decision,” Del added. “Will your world start down the same bloody path that led my world to its destruction? Or are you going to rise above this stupid violence?”
Ryell dropped his gaze, trying to sort through the sudden confusion this day had brought. How could he be expected to accept peace with the hated Calvans with an Illuman victory at hand?
His eye strayed to the funeral pyres of his dead comrades, the pyre of Erinel, joy of his life.
He glanced at the bodies of the fallen Calvans, some black with carrion birds, lying scattered about the field, and thought of the children back in Calva, standing in their doorways and crying for fathers who would never return.
Such were the horrors of war.
Humbled and embarrassed, Ryell faced Arien, tears flowing freely down his cheeks. “Too much blood has been spilled already,” he said softly.
He threw his sword to the ground.
“We do not accept your surrender, Lord of Caer Tuatha,” Arien said to Benador. “Only your friendship.”
Benador dismounted and extended his hand to the Eldar, and as Arien moved to accept it, he undid the clasp holding his scabbard and let Fahwayn fall to the earth beside the sword Benador had cast down. At that moment of friendship between the Eldar of Lochsilinilume and the Overlord of Pallendara, many elves and men alike came to know and share Del’s hopes for the future of Ynis Aielle.
“You’re free now,” Del said softly to Ryell. “Free of the hate that’s darkened your life for so long.”
Ryell could not manage a smile on his tear-streaked face.
But he offered a handshake to Del.
The funeral fires brightened the evening sky once again on Mountaingate. But this night, the grief of the survivors was not masked under cries of hatred or false glory. Both human and elf accepted their losses as a tragic lesson and vowed never to repeat the grievous error they had made.
In an act of the highest faith and trust, Arien, without opposition from any of his people, laid open the once-secret paths and led his human guests to the Silver City. There, a great feast was prepared and many bonds were made and oaths were spoken. The solemn celebration lasted a full week, its high point an invitation by Benador to the elves and rangers to share in the ceremony of his coronation in Pallendara in the spring of the next year.
On the morning the Calvans were to depart, Del went early to Billy’s room to rouse his friend.
“We did it,” Del said happily, his enthusiasm born of pride. “We were brought here to straighten things out, and damn it, we really did it.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Billy replied as he rolled out of bed and stretched. “You’ve forgotten your own world. Hundreds of years of prejudice and hatred don’t disappear overnight.”
Looking at his black friend, Del could only agree. He moved to the window and threw the curtains aside.
And then he fell entranced as he looked out over the magical valley at the sight of elves and humans bidding fond farewells and trading sincere handshakes and hugs. Serenity flooded over Del; every care and worry seemed to fly from him at that moment, for somehow he knew these to be honest glimpses of Aielle’s future.
“It’ll take time,” he said through a hopeful smile, turning to face Billy. “But they’re on the right path.”
Billy cocked his head curiously at his friend’s sudden and overwhelming visage of calm.
Yet another summer passed into autumn, but he could not know that. He had forsaken all hope; it could bring only torment in a timeless dilemma that knew no cure.
Salvation lay only in meditation, and thus he had grasped at one spell available and turned inward, suspending all but his thoughts in time. How many years had passed? How many yet would?
He knew not, and cared not. As physical suspension eliminated his needs and preserved his body, contemplation of deeper universal truths preserved his mind.
But what had disrupted his spell? What physical change had occurred in the constant to disturb his enchanted sleep?
The latch clanked again and the tiny cell door swung in. Most of the light from the corridor was blocked by the silhouette of a figure stooping to enter, though it still seemed painfully bright to this man who had known only the darkness of dungeons for three decades.
“The blessings of the Colonnae forever upon the head of Ardaz!” Benador cried when he viewed the prisoner. “True was his guess, and Istaahl the White is returned to the side of Pallendara’s throne!”