The events are at last set in motion which all have awaited and feared, expected and desired, hoped for and yet wished to avoid. As a stone on a precipice high in the mountains is loosed and falls with nothing to stop its descent, so now begin events which shall continue to their conclusion without stopping, whether for good or for ill. Eldárien and Elmáriyë gather what minimal belongings they shall need for their journey, and a great deal of provisions, simple and yet hearty, for they expect to find few sources of nourishment along the path that they now take nor at the destination which they seek. They dress in garb intended to provide as much warmth as possible to combat the bitterness of Telméric winter that descends upon the land with its full ferocity, and into which they walk all but unprotected. Eldárien wears over the other layers of his clothing the tunic that was a gift from Sílion and the tabard and cloak that were given to him by his grandparents in the forest of the Velási; and on his back he slings his bow and a quiver full of arrows, the lightbringer in its scabbard suspended upon its baldric, and a pack whose weight—considering the deep scars upon his flesh—is both uncomfortable and burdensome. Elmáriyë is attired and burdened similarly, though for armament she wears no armor and carries on her person only the bow and the dagger that she has brought from Ristfánd. She does not forget, nor could she, to bring the ring of her mother, adorned always upon her finger, as well as the crystalline lantern that was given to her by her grandparents, and which she expects she shall have cause to use in the darkness that awaits them.
Brýma insists that each of them is given a horse to speed their journey, and they gratefully accept this offer, though Eldárien also replies, “Know that it is likely that we shall find it necessary to release them into the wild when the terrain grows too steep and too treacherous.”
“I expected as much,” says Brýma kindly, “but perhaps the wild is indeed the safest place for them now to be, given the state into which our land has fallen. Accept them as a trust and an aid to give impetus to your journey for as long as they may be of assistance.”
“You have our thanks, Brýma,” Elmáriyë says, “for everything. Your hospitality and your support have been more than either of us could have either expected or desired.”
“For my part I did not expect to meet either of you, or to find in my own lifetime the incipient fulfillment of promises made so long past. Consider my aid but a meager effort to respond to such a gift and to stand in the line of my forefathers and their great and honorable deeds.”
“And may we do so as well,” remarks Eldárien. “May we all stand in the line of those who have gone before us, for if a similar darkness has returned as once did plague our ancestors, so too may a similar honor, fidelity, and courage live among us.”
As they lead their horses by the bridle to the main gate of the city, their three companions accompany them, the air around them hushed as well as dark, punctuated only by their soft footfalls upon the road and by the crackling of torches in their hands. At last the time comes to voice their farewells, and the two siblings turn and, in what little light they have, gaze into the faces of their companions, who look back with the same tenderness and heartfelt emotion.
“My companions and my friends,” Eldárien begins, “you have all become dear to me in the time that we have been granted to remain together. And I wish that we could have been granted many more days and years to walk together on the paths of this life. But now we go our separate ways, and yet both of us into darkness and the threat of death. Know, however, that you shall remain in my heart, alive within me always, and that in the thought of you I shall find both courage and strength.”
“I speak likewise, dearly beloved,” says Elmáriyë when Eldárien’s voice has fallen silent. “I shall remain always grateful that the fabric of our lives was woven together in this way. And never, I trust, shall it be torn, whatever in the future awaits us. I shall…I shall miss each one of you dearly.” With these words her voice breaks, and she is unable to contain the tears that spring to her eyes. “I want to thank each of you. I want to thank you…Cirien…Rórlain…Tilliána…for the person that you are and that you have been for me throughout our journey. I look forward in hope to the day when, by divine mercy, whether in this life or in the next, we shall see one another again, and embrace.”
Cirien now steps forward and draws Elmáriyë into his arms. She nestles her head against his shoulder and weeps in the security and comfort of his embrace. “Of all the people whom I have met and loved in the long years of my life,” he says, still holding Elmáriyë to his bosom, “the two of you have given me perhaps the greatest delight and the deepest hope. The light has touched you, yes, and has been entrusted to you. But even beyond the gift that you bear for others, what touches me most of all is the beauty and integrity of your hearts. This springs from a light even deeper and a gift even more fundamental. And I pray that it shall not be snuffed out before the end, and that even where human strength and courage fail the strength beyond all strength shall uphold you.”
“I have no words,” Rórlain says, stepping forward now and placing one hand upon Elmáriyë’s shoulder and extending the other to grasp Eldárien’s hand. They both look intently at him in response. “Never have I been adept at speech. Never, in fact, have I found it easy to express the voice of my heart either in emotion or in intent. Nor is there more I would say that has not already been said, and I have no wish to repeat such things. Know only that I consider the life-bond that has bound me to Eldárien, and through him also to his sister—to you, dear Elmáriyë—to be as nothing in comparison with the bond of love and friendship that now unites us.”
“We affirm wholeheartedly the truth of your words, Rórlain,” answers Eldárien, “and you need not worry at the difficulty of giving voice to what is hidden in the silence of your heart. We know it and hold it in reverence.”
With this the two men embrace one another, and in this embrace is held the recollection of all the trials and beauties through which they have together passed, and the bond that has so long joined them, and their fear and hope, borne in trust, for the paths of the future. When their embrace has been released and Rórlain has embraced Elmáriyë in turn, all eyes turn tenderly to Tilliána, not in expectation but in simple love. Tears already stain her cheeks and her shoulders are hunched as she suppresses sobs. Elmáriyë and Eldárien both spontaneously step toward her, extending their hands and each taking one of her hands within their own. With their simple touch, her tears are released freely, and she holds them back no longer. For a long moment whose span is accounted by none, she is simply allowed to express her grief and her pain, and all in the company receive and shelter it in their love.
And even though none expect her to speak, Tilliána now raises her eyes and looks directly at Eldárien and then at Elmáriyë. She says, in a voice that begins frail and weak and yet grows in confidence, “I fear that you shall never return from the place to which you now go, my friends. Elmáriyë, a sister beyond hope you have been to me. You have given me a yearning for life when I thought never again could I expect it, and you have given me a security that I have never known. You saved my life and gave it to me anew. And all that I can say which in any way expresses what I feel is this: that I belong to you. Your heart is mine, and mine is yours. I feel that we are indeed sisters more deeply even than in the flesh, than in the bond of blood. I grieve therefore that what is being asked of you, of us, is so soon tearing us apart. I try to drink in your beauty with my eyes, with my ears, with my touch, with my heart, fearing that I shall never be granted to behold you again, to feel your nearness or your presence. And…” Here her voice falters and she closes her eyes tightly, trying to gain enough composure to continue speaking and to say what she wishes to say. When she opens her eyes, she turns their gaze now upon Eldárien.
She says to him, “Eldárien, you are our true king; this I do not doubt. In my heart I have already long acknowledged you as such. But I know that you depart now not apart from your kingship, but in it. You depart now in order to exercise your kingship, and in a way that none of us could have expected. How I wish that you could have custodianship of us, that you could guide our people through the coming days and years toward a new life after this time of darkness, indeed after these centuries of loss and forgetfulness. But I begin to understand, though it grieves my heart, that kingship can be exercised also in another way. For a king remains with his people, watching over them, caring for them, and leading them along the paths of this world. But a true king is also willing to give even his own life for his people, to confront the deepest darkness in direct conflict, that his people may be free. But if your kingship cannot be both of these things, then I understand which of them it must be.” She pauses and sighs deeply before continuing, pushing herself to say the words that she wishes to say but which are so hard to express, for fear that she will not have another opportunity to voice them. “I only lament that what was but a seed of promise shall be taken away so soon. I had hoped to watch it blossom and grow into a great tree—indeed I had even begun to feel my heart, my own life and my own seed, opening to join together with this tree and its growth. But…but now I see that this seed must fall into other soil and bear fruit in another way. And the letting go…the letting go is difficult.”
“Dear Tilliána, your words and your heart are received completely and without reserve,” Eldárien replies, now himself unable to withhold the tears that spring to his eyes, few in number but heartfelt, and precious to Tilliána as she looks into his face and beholds them. He then embraces her and in silence they bid farewell, an act that is both a gesture of hope reaching out into the unknown and a gesture of surrender and letting-go. After this a similar embrace is shared with Elmáriyë, and then, with a tangible pain in the hearts of all—like the tearing apart of what was never meant to be separated—their farewells have concluded.
Elmáriyë and Eldárien mount their horses and, in the silence of grief that engulfs them all together, they offer a final gaze of gratitude and goodbye before turning away and passing through the gate and into the plains beyond.
† † †
After the heavy gates of the city are closed behind them, they turn their horses to the east and ride on through the darkness and the snow, retracing the same path that they first took on their approach to Onylándun, only in the opposite direction. There is no easy access to the heights of the Teldren Mountains, where lies their destination, and thus it shall be necessary for them to follow along the south and the eastern edges of the range all the way through the Téldyn Pass, along the Stïeka Mára, and past the hamlet of Criseä into the Galas Basin, where the ruined village of Fálstead lies, and the ancient barrow of Séra Galáptes. It feels uncanny to Eldárien that he intends already to return a second time to his childhood home—or even so soon to retrace the steps that he and his companions took not long before on their journey to the Velási Forest and to Onylándun. And yet now the path shall be much changed, not the least because the land now lies in a darkness deeper and more suffocating than the darkness of deepest night. This, combined with the unremitting cold and a landscape of unbroken snow, gives the path that they now ride a tangible sensation of foreignness, almost as if the world that they had left behind in entering the city has changed in their absence, and with their departure they now journey forth into a different world entirely.
And the path before them is long, and haste drives them. But they find hope in the fact that they are but two riders alone on horseback, unhindered by anything but the limitations of existence, while the army of Onylándun, among whom shall be their friends, will be encumbered both by their sheer numbers and by the slowness of human feet as opposed to the hooves of horses. And this is even apart from consideration of the need to make camp each night and to break it again in the morning, making accommodation thereby for the movement of such a great number of persons. Perhaps, then, the two lonely riders can hope to come to the abode of darkness before any further conflict even need occur, and thus may spare their people from further suffering and loss of life. But even as this hope is kindled within them they also feel a conflicting hope and desire: that the army that shall march from Onylándun will find the means to travel with speed in order to come soon to the walls of Minstead and to bring the fight to the enemy, both to rescue those there held captive as well as to offer the diversion that it is their intent to bring.
Their thoughts and wishes are thus conflicted, and they know not what outcomes shall be best, and therefore know not even for what to hope and to pray. But perhaps, after all, this is the manner in which hope is expressed when it has been weaned so thin by suffering and by darkness, by opposition and by pain, that it no longer has any concrete expectations to which to cling. It can only reach out, in the unknown and beyond it, to the liberation and salvation for which the heart thirsts but which, on its own, it can neither attain nor even conceive.
And so they ride, in darkness both exterior and interior, through the days and much of the nights—which are almost indistinguishable—through the heart of Téldyn Pass, in the wide basin of land that stretches between the Teldren Range to the north and the Yjind Mountains to the south, both of which are visible to the eyes of the body only as blacker bulks of shape against the surrounding blackness, but whose massive presence can be felt even more clearly hovering on the edge of consciousness.
For twelve days they ride, and at a grievously slow pace due to the thick snow that cloaks the ground and burdens the progress both of their horses and of themselves, during those times when they walk to give respite to their mounts. But then at last the bulk of the mountains north of them falls away and the slope of the land in that direction flattens out. They thus turn toward the north and direct their horses in that direction, though keeping the shape of the mountains close to their left for fear that if they stray too far from them all landmarks shall be lost and they will lose their way in the highlands and plains with no indications celestial or terrestrial to help them regain the path again. They therefore find themselves confronted with a frightening conundrum: keeping a straight course in the darkness shall be difficult and uncertain, and thus it is necessary always to have a landmark as a guide for their journey, and yet soon the mountains on which they rely shall give way to the Stïeka Mára, the vast chasm that opened so many centuries ago to shelter and protect the Velási Forest and its inhabitants. The conundrum is this: a hole in the earth is a landmark both unreliable and dangerous, and yet on it they must rely for many leagues, until the sheer walls of stone that bespeak the mountains again rise on its far side. And even though they once passed this way not long ago, memory alone is not enough to guide them surely, for the landscape has no other distinctive features that can direct them, and, regardless, it appears so different in the darkness that now accompanies their travel that it offers them no guidance or help even were they to know it well.
As they sit together after a long day of riding, the ruddy light of a campfire warming and dancing upon their faces, and their horses tethered to one of the sparse trees in the area, they converse with one another. They have spoken regularly since departing from Onylándun, and yet most of their exchanges have been short and simple, and their days have been held primarily by silence, a shared silence that respects the solitude of each even as it allows it to flow into the solitude of the other in wordless communion. Yet now, as the difficulty of their journey grows in the consciousness of each, and as they stand at their first real obstacle, they seek recourse in speech.
“Do you think the Stïeka Mára shall be enough to ensure our safe and direct passage?” Elmáriyë asks.
“I suspect that the horses shall be able to sense its presence and avoid any mishaps, even though it shall be rather difficult for our weak eyes to see,” replies Eldárien. “We can see the silhouettes of shapes around us, forms in the mysterious veiling of this blackness, however dark it may be. But there will be little or nothing to mark out the chasm other than a greater darkness in the blackness of the ground on which we tread, and perhaps not even that. Regardless, we must move forward. We must trust in our senses, in what we perceive, even as pressing beyond mere perception. For many more senses we have than that of sight—senses both of body and of spirit—as when, even with eyes closed, we can sense the size of the room in which we sit, or the wall directly behind us, or the person who walks past. So too do I hope that we can sense the true road before us, both now and henceforth.”
“And you do not trust enough in your sense of direction to keep to the north with such feeble aid given by our bodily senses?”
“I fear I am uncertain of even that much. And even if I were, it is not only a matter of direction, for the landscape is such that we could easily lose ourselves in its midst even as we progress in the right direction. It shall be difficult—for me I think impossible—to keep an exact course with no other guides.”
“Well, there is always the guidance given in the heart,” suggests Elmáriyë with a weak and yet sincere smile, her eyes glistening in the firelight. “You speak of the sense of space, of location, and of presence which we have through our other senses even when bereft of sight. This is certainly true. But there is also the guidance that the heart gives unto itself, or rather the deeper voice welling up from deep within its hidden recesses, which directs us surely in many areas of life where the journey is not one made with the flesh nor guided by the senses of the body.”
“The voice that is most authentically our own and yet also most vividly the voice of Another,” Eldárien replies, “here we are asked to listen most deeply, most vulnerably, to the voice that is beyond us. We may need to rely on this voice almost exclusively for long stretches of our journey, I am afraid.”
“It is a good thing, then, that it is the most sure and trustworthy guide of all,” Elmáriyë remarks softly.
“Indeed,” agrees Eldárien. “But our senses were also given as companions on the journey, as windows to welcome the voice that speaks through everything and guides us always. So whether it is a chasm, or mountains, or another landmark, or reliance on the hope that we shall not go astray even when all external landmarks fail us, I pray that our journey may not end in frustration and loss.”
Elmáriyë does not respond immediately to her brother’s words, but holds them in silence for a few long moments before at last giving the simple reply, “I pray for that as well.”
Both of them now sink into an even more prolonged silence as they listen to the crackling and popping of the fire, burning the wood that they have gathered from nearby trees and fallen branches. They are grateful that the snow that had cloaked the earth so heavily on their departure from Onylándun and for a good many leagues throughout the Téldyn Pass has now passed away. It seems that the region in which they travel at present was spared snow entirely, and the ground, though bitterly cold, is dry. But they know that in the morning they shall awaken to a thick layer of frost that covers everything from grass and trees to their own packs and blankets; such is the nature of Telméric winter, and rare is the night, from the month of Tíntas to the month of Quártas, when frost does not come in the deep nocturnal repose.
Of course, with the darkness that now envelops the daytime as well, the interplay of day and night has changed, as has the weather, and the warmth ordinarily brought by the full rays of the sun during daytime hours is limited to no more than a slight hint both of temperature and of light that is able to pierce through the massive and unwelcome cloud of blackness that cloaks everything. But amid all the losses that the darkness has brought, both of them feel with a special keenness the loss of the night sky and its countless stars, with its moon and its celestial aurora, and with the hint—seen more with the heart than with the eyes—of the light that shines behind the stars.
“Eldárien,” Elmáriyë says suddenly, breaking the silence. “Do you not think that we could channel the light entrusted to us in order to light our way?”
Raising his head he turns and looks at her, and then he replies kindly, “I have thought of such a possibility, but I do not think it is wise.”
“I have my doubts as well, but I wanted to ask nonetheless. Why do you not believe it wise?”
“I would like first to hear your reasons.”
“Very well,” she says. “First of all, I suspect that it would exhaust us, and our journey shall be arduous enough as it is.”
“That is correct,” says Eldárien. “Though it takes much less energy to channel the light only enough to illumine one’s surroundings than it does to smite the enemy, the strain would still be considerable, particularly when extended over any length of time.”
“I have done it so little that I was unsure,” Elmáriyë admits, “but I do understand that as much as I may from the little experience I have. Another reason that it would be unwise,” she continues, “is that it may reveal our presence to prying eyes.”
Eldárien nods without hesitation, and as he turns his gaze upon Elmáriyë the intensity in his eyes almost startles her. “I did not expect you to say that, but I should not have underestimated your intuition,” he says. “I have feared that we shall be hunted since before we left the walls of Onylándun, and the fear has only grown with every passing day. I would be surprised were our enemy not to know about our plan or to have in some vague manner guessed it. At the very least, when our foe learns that we have not accompanied the forces to Minstead, and that Rórlain alone wields the light in open combat, I suspect him to cast about looking for us.”
“But would this mysterious figure really wish to send his servants and minions to slay us in the wilderness?” Elmáriyë asks. “It seems to me that the way of the Draíon—at least the lesser ones whom we have encountered—is to relish the pain of their victims and to delight in the manner of their slaughter.”
Eldárien reflects on his sister’s words for a moment, running his fingers along his beard, which has grown thick and full with the passage of time. When he speaks, he says, “To be honest, this thought did not cross my mind. What you say seems reasonable enough to me, and in fact quite perceptive. Perhaps I am merely exercising excessive caution after all that has happened to us and to our people, and considering the importance and delicacy of our quest.”
“I in fact believe that the caution is called for a thousandfold, brother,” Elmáriyë says. “But we cannot be so cautious as to fail to progress toward our goal.”
“Aye, and whatever comes, even if we have no choice but to place ourselves into danger, we must press forward to the end that calls us,” Eldárien concludes. “So do not hesitate to harness the light if you ever feel that it is for any reason necessary.”
† † †
On the morning of the next day the snow begins. On their rising frost cloaks the earth as they had expected, but all around them flurries also begin to swirl, softly at first and then more vehemently as the wind picks up and blows strong from the north. As they set out and push their horses forward into the darkness speckled with countless gray flakes of fast-falling snow, they soon find themselves riding through a veritable storm. The bitter wind bites at their exposed faces and whips even through their many layers of clothing. Hunching over their horses and covering their faces with scarf and hood, they press on even as the snow becomes so thick that all is painted with its presence, falling through the air and accumulating quickly upon the earth and upon their figures moving through the gloom.
For a good ten or twelve hours they do not stop, knowing that idleness for themselves and their horses in this weather is dangerous; but all the while they remain alert to any hints of shelter that may provide some refuge in which to pass the intensity of the storm. But what they find instead is surprising: they find the Stïeka Mára. They recognize it first by the sound of a high-pitched whistling as the winter wind dances across the opening and plays upon the steep walls of stone that descend for an immeasurable distance into the earth below. In this respect, at least, the storm is fortunate, in that it has revealed the presence of the vast chasm to a sense that could actually perceive it, and thus has spared the two riders from the danger of a great tragedy. But as they continue cautiously forward, trying to guide their course in the same direction as the chasm and yet a good distance from it, they realize that the snow storm has also benefited them in yet another way as well: by painting the earth white, it has set the Stïeka Mára in stark relief and made it visible to their sight even in the all-encompassing darkness.
Relieved by this turn of events and by the danger that they have been spared, they now turn their minds more exclusively to the other danger now to be resisted, and which becomes more pressing with the passage of time and the full descent of night. They must find shelter soon. Reaching back into memory they are able to call to the mind’s eye a vague sense of the landscape that lies on this side of the Stïeka Mára, and they recall groves of trees growing within a hundred yards of the chasm, a meager shelter but the best that they can hope to find in their current circumstances.
An hour passes before they find what they seek, a small depression in the land cradled by three large conifers and two twisted oaks whose branches spread wide and low. Judging this sufficient to provide some shelter from the wind and the snow, they tie their horses to the trunks of the oaks and then gather what wood they can for a fire. Piling the snow beneath them in a circle and unveiling the grassy earth underneath, they create a haven of warmth—as much as they can—in this wilderness. When the fire is burning and their place of rest and sleep has been prepared, they sit together, wrapped tightly in their furs and gazing into the flickering flames, the weight of these terrible days weighing heavily upon each of their hearts.
And though they do not speak of it now, both of them know that since their absorption of the darkness of the dragon another darkness is growing and expanding within each of them—or rather in both of them together, in the meeting of their consciousnesses in a shared mystery. It is a frightening experience, and something both unexpected and painful, even if it is but an extension of the mystery of bearing that they have known, which carries the pain and darkness of human hearts in solidarity and compassion. For the darkness that they bear now has a different quality and texture, though neither of them can express its nature to themselves. If in human darkness there is a particular tenor of sorrow, of lament, and of longing—speaking even in its deepest loss and darkest darkness of the beauty that is hidden like a seed, oft betrayed and much forgotten, but never wholly lost—then this new darkness bears a tenor of horror, of absurdity, and a crushing weight that seems to blot out all the meaning of existence and to plunge it into nothingness. Perhaps this is the darkness proper to the Draíon and their minions, affixed forever in their sovereign choice of evil, become blackness itself in the wickedness that they have espoused and allowing no light to exist that does not come under the dominion of their own darkness.