The Dragonstone

CHAPTER 7

In a green glade in Darda Erynian, Arin sat staring deeply into the flames. She did not hear the remote belling of the stag horns nor the thudding of distant hooves as Rissa and Vanidar and the others reveled in the hunt. Nay, she heard them not, nor was she among them, for her own bow lay beside her-unstrung, unnocked with arrows, unnoticed in her mystic abstraction-for she was attempting to ‹see›.

For days she had felt the pull of the flames, as if the very essence of fire were calling out to her to seek within and find. And so when the others at the campsite had mounted up, she had waved them on. Now in the solitude of the glade under wheeling stars above, and below the gliding moon, she fed tiny twigs to the small blaze and looked deeply into the flames as a far-off stag ran desperately for its life and belling hunters ahorse plunged behind.

But as to the seer alone by the fire, she was a rarity among Elves, was Arin, for at times she glimpsed events-at hand and afar, past, present, and future- events known and unknown. And for those who are not of Magekind, any exercise of what common folk call magic is very rare indeed. But Arin's glances across seasons and spans seemed random and sporadic and very obscure, and they came only when she peered into flames, and even then but seldom.

Arin had heard of only one other Elf who could ‹see›: Rael, a Lian who currently resided in Darda Galion, the great Eldwood to the south and west. She, too, could glimpse events beyond perception, though it is said she used a crystal as a focus instead of fire as did Arin.

Females, two females among all of Elvenkind, two females who could ‹see›. Was it that males of her Kind had not the power? Or was it instead that only females among the Elves had the patience? Arin did not know.

She shook her head to clear it of these vagaries, to empty her mind and give it over wholly unto the flames. Yet the vision would not come… and not come… and not come… though the fire beat deeply within her soul.

Arin did not know how long she had been staring into the modest blaze, but she was brought out of her transfixion by the ringing of bugles across the clearing and the drum of approaching hooves. "Hai roi!" called a voice as Arin got to her feet, and an Elf rode into the light of the fire-it was Vanidar, known as Silverleaf, one of the Lian. Perin and Biren followed behind with the others coming after. And across the withers of Silverleaf s horse was draped a stag, slain no doubt by an arrow loosed from Vanidar's white-bone bow, for it is given to the successful hunter the right to bear the kill.

Stopping his lathered mount with nought but a word, Silverleaf swung his leg up and across the buck and sprang to the ground, landing with the grace of a cat. As with all of immortal Elvenkind, Vanidar appeared to be no more than a lean-limbed youth, though his actual age could have been one millennium or ten or more. He had golden hair cropped at the shoulder and tied back with a simple leather headband, as was the fashion among most Lian and Dylvana. He was clad in grey-green and wore a golden belt which held a long-knife. His feet were shod in soft leather and he stood perhaps five feet nine or ten- more than a full head taller than Arin. In fact, compared to all the Dylvana, Silverleaf outstripped them in height, for Dylvana males typically range from four feet eleven to five feet five, while females span four to six inches less.

Behind Vanidar the others dismounted as well-Rissa and Perin and Biren and Ruar and Melor-their horses sweat-foamed and blowing. The Dylvana were dressed much the same as Silverleaf in their loose-fitting jerkins and close-fitting breeks, though for the most part they favored earth tones-brown and russet and umber-all but beautiful, dark-eyed Rissa, who wore a deep blue, nearly black.

As he turned to haul down the stag, Vanidar glanced over his shoulder at Arin and flashed her a smile, his pale grey eyes atwinkle. "Thou shouldst have been with us, Ring. 'Twas a glorious chase. We almost lost him in the grove, but Rissa"-Silverleaf gestured toward the black-haired Dylvana loosening her cinch and pulling off her saddle-"jumped him up and the chase was on again."

Arin smiled. "Tend the buck, Silverleaf; I will tend thy horse."

Vanidar hefted the stag 'cross his shoulders and strode to a nearby oak. He laid the buck down and fetched two lengths of rope. "We didn't dress him in the field; I'll bleed him out here." He stepped back to the stag and squatted, tying the lines 'round the buck's rear shanks just above the hooves.

By this time Arin had the saddle off Vanidar's mount and was using twisted grass sheaves to rub the animal down. "Do I need walk him?" she called as she stroked along its left flank.

"I think not," said Ruar nearby. "We rode at a walk most of the way back… until we reached the clearing."

Rissa strode past, heading for Vanidar as he looped the lines over a sturdy low limb. "Let me give thee a hand with that, chieran."

Together the two of them haled the stag by its hind legs up off the ground, and it hung there upside down, its rack of antlers swinging just above the grassy loam.

As Arin worked her way 'round to the other side of Silverleaf's horse, Vanidar unsheathed his razor-sharp long-knife and slit the dead buck's throat.

Blood gushed out, staining the earth.

Arin glanced over at the scarlet pour, free-flowing blood runneling down neck and chin and onto the sward and into the soil below.

She glanced away from this sanguine sight and looked into the fire at hand.

Her eyes flew wide and she gasped in distress, and harsh breath hissed 'tween clenched teeth. Horse, stag, Elven companions: all were forgotten as the vision took her.

Tears flooded her eyes and streamed down her cheeks and she cried out in torment, but she couldn't tear her gaze away from the Seeing.

And then her mind fled from her and she fell senseless to the ground.