Mortalis

Chapter 7

She edged closer, closer, and the biggest challenge to her, it seemed, was trying hard not to giggle. For though this was considered one of the prime tests of her training, to Brynn Dharielle it was just a game, and an easy one! She blew a strand of her long black hair-hair so dark that it seemed to show all the colors of the rainbow within its depths-from in front of her equally dark eyes and chewed her lip, again to prevent the giggle.

She saw the white-tailed deer, and it saw her, and it believed her no enemy. As long as she made no sudden movements, no sudden sounds..

As long as she continued the quiet humming, the song of grazing that she had learned as a very little child, before she had ever come to the land of the Touel'alfar…

The young girl crouched lower, slowly and deliberately placing one foot ahead and twisting it gently into the moist grass, shifting her weight forward, slowly, slowly.

Another step. The deer seemed frozen in place now, staring at her intently, and so the girl likewise stopped all movement, even keeping her jaw set, though she continued to hum that coaxing, calming song. The moment of tension passed, and Brynn began to lift her hand, opening it palm up to reveal the sweet, crushed pulossa cane.

The deer caught the scent, its ears popping straight up, its nose twitching.

Brynn Dharielle took a slow deep breath, holding her patience, though she wanted to run right up to the beautiful animal. She continued to move delicately and unthreateningly, her hand out. And then, almost anticlimactically, she was there, beside the deer, letting it lap the pulossa cane from her hand while she lovingly stroked its sleek, strong neck and rubbed it behind the ears.

She knew that she was being watched, monitored, and measured, but she didn't care at that moment. All that mattered was the deer, this beautiful creature, this new friend she had just made. What a wonderful spring day in the most wonderful place in all the world.

Over in the thicket not so far to the side, Belli'mar Juraviel put his head in his hands and groaned. Did this spirited young lady do anything by the rules? Ever?

But Juraviel was chuckling, too-and not out of helpless anger, not even out of frustration-but out of sheer surrender. Brynn Dharielle had charmed him, he had to admit. Never had the elf encountered a human female quite like her. She seemed possessed of two spirits: the warrior intensity of the To-gai-ru-the fierce nomadic riders of the steppe region of western Behren-combined with a level of playfulness and impertinence beyond anything Juraviel had ever seen, even in an elf! Her given name was Dharielle Tsochuk, but Lady Dasslerond had quickly added the name Brynn, in honor of the ancient elven heroine credited with aiding in the creation of Andur'Blough Inninness by relinquishing her life and soul to the spirit of a tree that became the heart of the enchanted valley. In the tongue of the Touel'alfar, brynn meant "butterfly," and ironically, there was an elven word very similar to dharielle which meant a bee stinger. So Brynn Dharielle could be translated into "butterfly with a bee stinger," and how appropriate a description Juraviel thought that to be for this little one!

"You were supposed to be hunting the deer, not befriending it," Juraviel scolded, walking up to Brynn and her newfound pet-and the creature seemed quite relaxed, licking the last remnants of the pulossa cane from the girl's hand.

"You instructed me to touch the deer," the kneeling Brynn Dharielle replied, looking up at Juraviel, her smile gleaming brightly against her brown skin.

She was indeed a paradox, Juraviel recognized, both physically and emotionally. Her eyes were so bright, yet her irises so black. Her skin, typical of the To-gai-ru, was much darker than that of the people of Honce-theBear, and certainly darker than the smooth and delicate golden-hued skin of the Touel'alfar; and yet on Brynn Dharielle it seemed as if possessed of an inner glow. Inside she was the gentle huntress, the friend of deer and rabbit, and yet she was also a savage warrior, able to turn on primal instincts for survival when the elves brought her out for training in bi'nelle dasada.

So complex and yet so simple, and so possessed of the finer qualities of both human and elf. This one would do well, Juraviel knew, and he was glad that Lady Dasslerond had given him this task.

"The point of the lesson was for you to move up to the deer unnoticed," Juraviel tried to explain. "The silent hunter."

"Is it not better to befriend your enemies or your prey?" Brynn asked innocently. "An easy kill," she said, looking into the deer's huge eyes. Juraviel doubted that claim, doubted if he could ever get Brynn to actually kill a deer unless-or perhaps even if-she was starving.

"That is not the way we intended the lesson," Juraviel tried to explain.

"And did you not tell me that I should develop my own style?" Brynn asked without hesitation. Surely Juraviel wanted to drop his head into his hands yet again. The deer turned and started to wander away, and Brynn slapped it on the rump to get it moving more quickly. "Am I to be the imitation of every other ranger, then?" the girl asked, wiping her hands and standing up-and she was almost as tall as Juraviel. "Am I to be Andacanavar the strong, cleaving goblins with my great sword, or Nightbird, perhaps-the great Nightbird who went to Mount Aida to wage battle against the greatest enemy of all?" Her voice trailed away and she looked down.

For a cloud had crossed over Juraviel's fair face.

"I am sorry," Brynn offered.

Juraviel held up his hand, then lifted his face and managed a smile. "No," he said. "No need for any apology; and no, you are not to be an imitation of any other ranger. In the case of the two you just named, though, I assure you that some imitation would not be a bad thing."

"Mostly of Nightbird, right?" Brynn asked. "Tell me about him again."

"There is so much to tell," Juraviel replied.

"And we have all the day!" Brynn said happily. "You thought it would take me all day to pat the deer and yet it is still not midmorning and I have passed the test."

Juraviel wanted to dispute that, but he found, against the girl's disarming smile, that he could not. He suspected that Brynn had asked him about Elbryan the Nightbird only to heal any wounds she might have caused by her mentioning the dead ranger, but when he saw the joy and eagerness on her face and that dazzling and innocent-and yet he knew not so innocent! smile, he could not resist.

And so he led her to a mossy bank, sat her down, and told her of Elbryan, the lost boy who had watched his town of Dundalis sacked by goblins; of Elbryan, the impetuous youngster, headstrong and prideful, who had so frustrated Tuntun of the Touel'alfar. And he told her of Nightbird, the man Elbryan had become, as mighty a ranger as Andur'Blough Inninness had ever produced; of Nightbird, who had gone to Aida to battle the demon dactyl and who had traveled back to the civilized lands to continue the battle against the demon's eternal spirit. With tears filling his eyes Belli'mar Juraviel told her of Nightbird, who had given his life to save thi world.

Juraviel closed his eyes and described how Nightbird's caisson wa pulled by the centaur and then by Symphony, the most wondrous horse i: all the world, through the streets of the great city of Palmaris, through th farmlands, and to the north to the town that had been his home. When he finished, Juraviel opened his eyes, to find Brynn standing right before him, her expression full of sympathy and sadness. "Thank you," she said and she gave her elven mentor a hug.

Juraviel led the girl away, along the spring-blossoming slopes and wooded thickets of the elven valley of Andur'Blough Inninness, back toward the heart of the enclave, the deepest part of the forest, sprinkled with tree houses and low, unobtrusive cottages. This was Caer'alfar, the home of the people, a place of song and of dance, of poetry and philosophy, and the spouting of wisdom gained in centuries of living. This was the very heart of the Touel'alfar, now as it had been for millennia, a place that many of the elven folk had believed eternal. But in the day of the dactyl, Lady Dasslerond had gone out to save Juraviel and some human refugees he had gathered together. The demon dactyl had come upon them and would have destroyed them all, but Dasslerond had used her potent magic, a powerful emerald gemstone, to transport herself, Juraviel, the humans, and, unintentionally, Bestesbulzibar, back to the elven valley; and there, before he ran away in defeat, Bestesbulzibar had left his lingering scar, a rot that infested the very ground and was slowly spreading.

On their way to Caer'alfar, Juraviel and Brynn passed that region of disease, and though a couple of years had passed the infection had not spread very far at all, only to a single tree, and that tree was still alive, though not blooming as vibrantly as in years past. To a human, the disease would not have seemed such a threat, but to the elves, who measured time so differently-who viewed the passing of a year as a human might view a monthit seemed as if Bestesbulzibar had begun a fire.

Juraviel winced at the sight, as he always did, for he could clearly see the illness within the tree, and he knew that it had come about because of his own choices. Perhaps he should have left the human refugees and continued on his quest for Aida with Nightbird and Jilseponie and Brother Avelyn. Lady Dasslerond had only gone out to face Bestesbulzibar, after all, because one of her own, one of the people, was out there. If Juraviel had been true to the tenets that guided the Touel'alfar, then the refugees would have been slain; but to the elven way of thinking, a few human lives were not worth the price of the rot within Andur'Blough Inninness. To the true elven way of thinking, the rot was too high a price to pay, even to save all the humans in the world.

More than a few of Juraviel's brethren had reminded him of that fact these last months, this springtime bloom of illness. None had openly accused him, of course, but their songs reflected a melancholy, a wistfulness for what had been and what could never be again; and every reference shot a dart of pain into Belli'mar Juraviel's heart.

His bright spot now was Brynn Dharielle, the butterfly with a bee stinger, the spirited lass who reminded Juraviel of why he had come to love Nightbird and Pony, even Avelyn and Roger Lockless. To Juraviel, Brynn embodied the best qualities of humanity, and he did not doubt that she would become one of the finest rangers, that her reputation would rise high among the ranks that included Terranen Dinoniel, half elf; Elbryan and Mather Wyndon; mighty Andacanavar of Alpinador; and the legendary heroes, Bimriel the wise and A'juge, who led Brother AUabarnet of the Abellican Church throughout the Wilderlands, seeding the inhospitable forest with bountiful fruit trees.

Brynn Dharielle, who had such trials ahead of her when she returned to her enslaved people of To-gai-ru, would take her rightful place, Juraviel believed, and he was thrilled that Lady Dasslerond had placed the girl in his care. Except…

"When will I get to see him again? " Brynn asked innocently, and Juraviel knew of whom she was speaking.

He shrugged and wanted to let it go at that. But the girl, true to her spirit, persisted. "Tell me, please," she said, rushing about Juraviel and intercepting him, forcing him to look at her directly. "The child-have you even named him yet? — when will I see him again? I would love to hold him and rock him to sleep, as my own mother used to do."

Juraviel had no answer for her-none that she would want to hear, at least. Lady Dasslerond had made it quite clear to him that neither he nor Brynn was to have any contact at all with the child of Nightbird and Jilseponie. As great as that pain was for Juraviel, he knew that it was stronger for young Brynn. She wanted to see another human being; what could be more instinctual? Juraviel understood his own longing whenever he ventured out of Andur'Blough Inninness for too long. Humans needed the company of humans as much as the Touel'alfar needed others of their own kind. True, almost every one of the other rangers had gone through training without human contact, Nightbird included. But in this rare case, the elves had taken two humans in at the same time, and that knowledge of proximity, of possibility, made the girl's heart long all the more for human companionship.

Even more than that, Brynn repeatedly told Juraviel that she could help care for the child, and promised with all her heart that she would do a good job; and Juraviel understood the truth of her claim even better than she. Both Brynn and the child would greatly benefit, he knew.

"If I pass your test the way you intended?" Brynn asked, her smile ever hopeful. "If I sneak up on the deer and slap it hard on the rump instead of letting it know me as a friend? "

Belli'mar Juraviel took a long, deep breath, changing his focus from the girl's beaming face to the image of rot within the valley, the disease that had come from the actions of Touel'alfar who bent the rules-even as Juraviel had done by transforming duty to friendship with n'Touel'alfar, by Dasslerond in bringing both Juraviel and the humans back to the valley, thus opening the way for Bestesbulzibar; by Nightbird for teaching Pony bi'nelle dasada, the most secretive elven fighting technique. So many of their guiding principles had been temporarily abandoned, and Juraviel had to admit the truth: had the true elven tenets been followed, though the human world might be a darker place, Andur'Blough Inninness would remain healthy and the threat that valuable elven secrets would soon be in the hands of humans would be nonexistent. He pictured the rot and reminded himself of all of that, and so his words came out more sternly than poor Brynn could ever have expected.

"The child is not your concern," he declared flatly. "I doubt that the babe even remains within Caer'alfar, and if he does, then Brynn Dharielle would do well to stay far away from him, on pain of great punishment."

"But I-"

"No buts," Juraviel interrupted. "This is not a matter for discussion. You are in training here-you would do well to remind yourself of that. And to remind yourself of the plight of your people, of the death of your parents. Find your heart, Brynn Dharielle, and your focus, for all our sakes."

The girl appeared confused, which Juraviel understood, given his sudden mood shift and the barrage of overwhelming responsibilities he had just placed upon her. She stared at him for a few moments, blinking her eyes, then wiping her sleeve across one. Then she turned and sprinted away.

Juraviel nodded. He had done his proper duty to the Touel'alfar.

He was still looking down the path she had run when he saw another figure step into view, moving his way.

"The memory still pains her," Lady Dasslerond remarked, glancing back at the trail where Brynn had disappeared. "Thus it still inspires her. That is a good thing."

Juraviel nodded, but he was staring at Dasslerond and not at the trail, wondering how much of his last conversation the lady had heard and wondering how much she had been paying attention to him and Brynn, in more quiet ways, over the last days. Juraviel understood that his position with Dasslerond was somewhat tentative these days. When he thought about it-again, forcing himself to stay fully within the Touel'alfar view of the world and tenets of behavior-he really couldn't blame her.

He told her, then, of Brynn Dharielle's remarkable achievement that morning with the deer. Not even Andacanavar had been so close to a deer at this young age; and, in this test at least, Andacanavar of Alpinador had previously held the benchmark. "Her fighting progresses," Juraviel finished, "but her understanding of the natural world is truly amazing-more akin to the Touel'alfar than to the humans." He knew as soon as he finished, as soon as he heard the words and then saw Lady Dasslerond's scowl, that his choice of phrasing hadn't been particularly diplomatic. "She is human," Lady Dasslerond was quick to remind him, "n'Touel'alfar. Never forget that."

Belli'mar Juraviel lowered his gaze submissively.

"But she is also To-gai-ru," the lady went on. "And as such, she is a horsewoman, first and foremost. Her people are as close to the land as any humans in all the world, even more so than the Alpinadorans. Before we took her to Caer'alfar, before her clan was overrun by fanatical Behrenese soldiers, her parents murdered, and her village burned to the ground, she was already an accomplished rider, though she had not yet seen her ninth winter. If her legs were longer and stronger, as they will become, our Brynn could outride the finest Allheart knights."

An image of the budding ranger upon Symphony flashed in Juraviel's mind, but he let it go quickly, too pained to imagine anyone but Nightbird atop the magnificent stallion. He closed his eyes and saw again Symphony pulling the caisson bearing Nightbird's body to the north.

"What will her years with us do to diminish that riding ability?" Lady Dasslerond asked.

Juraviel looked into his lady's eyes, at first wondering if she was being sarcastic, but then understanding the sincerity of her question. What indeed? The Touel'alfar could ride horses, and ride them well, but their riding style-often using their wings for balance-was not adaptable to humans. Also, the Touel'alfar preferred to use their legs and their wings rather than ride, for they could travel great distances, and swiftly, on their own. Given that, there were no fine riding horses in Andur'Blough Inninness, certainly none "broken" in the manner that any human would be able to ride.

"We cannot take that away from her," Lady Dasslerond went on. "Above all else, Brynn will need to perfect her riding skills to the very highest level if she is to return to her people with any manner of stature."

It was true enough, Juraviel knew. The To-gai-ru valued their pinto ponies above their children and measured themselves mostly based on how well they could ride one of those tough and strong beasts. Any To-gai-ru aspiring to a position of leadership would have to outride his or her competitors.

"Many of her lessons must soon center around riding," Lady Dasslerond explained. "Perhaps you and she can find a way to adapt the To-gai-ru riding style with bi'nelle dasada."

"We can catch a horse this day," Juraviel replied, and he chuckled, imagining Brynn Dharielle walking right up to one of the wild horses in Andur'Blough Inninness and coaxing it back to Caer'alfar. "And begin the training process, on horse first and then with Brynn."

Lady Dasslerond was shaking her head before he finished. "There are no horses in Andur'Blough Inninness suitable for the girl," she explained. "This will be her greatest challenge, her chance to bring our gifts to her to their pinnacle, and as such, we must give her the proper tools."

Juraviel narrowed his gaze, hardly believing what his lady was saying. "You wish me to go to To-gai?" he asked doubtfully.

"That is not possible," Lady Dasslerond was quick to answer. "No, my eyes look in a different direction, to call in the favor of a friend."

"Bradwarden," Juraviel stated, finally catching on, but then his expression turned to one of doubt. "Are you thinking that Brynn Dharielle should ride Symphony? "

Lady Dasslerond rocked back at the notion, apparently caught off guard but also apparently intrigued.

"She could not begin to handle that one," Juraviel said. The thought of anyone other than Elbryan or Jilseponie riding Symphony didn't sit well with the elf. "She is not nearly large enough to control the horse," he went on. "Her legs would not reach around Symphony's considerable girth, and never would Symphony even feel the press of her skinny limbs."

"Tuntun rode him," Lady Dasslerond reminded him; for indeed, Tuntun had ridden Symphony all the way to the Barbacan in pursuit of Avelyn's party. "She was no larger than Brynn."

"But she was stronger," said Juraviel, "with muscles honed by years and years of training."

"You do not wish to see Symphony given to Brynn," Lady Dasslerond noted slyly.

"I do not believe that Symphony can be given to anyone," Juraviel answered. "By Nightbird's own description to me-supported by BradwardenSymphony chose him as much as he chose the horse."

"And if Symphony accepted her? "

Juraviel didn't reply, just stood there staring at the lady.

"You do not believe her worthy of Nightbird's mount," Dasslerond went on, easily gaining the upper hand now, "as Tuntun did not believe Nightbird worthy of Mather's sword."

"Nightbird taught her differently."

"As Brynn will teach you," Lady Dasslerond said. "Go out this week, Belli'mar Juraviel. Find Bradwarden, the centaur, and discover his feelings on this matter. You will enjoy the visit with your old friend, I believe, and with Roger Lockless, who is rumored to be in Dundalis with the centaur."

Juraviel didn't begin to disagree.

"Return with a horse for Brynn Dharielle," the lady instructed, "Remember that she will carry on the responsibilities of a ranger, as did Nightbird, and that her road will be no less fraught with danger. And remember, Belli'mar Juraviel, that much of the power Brynn Dharielle will find will come as a result of her horsemanship.

"Choose well," she continued, her tone friendly but stern. "When you are with Bradwarden you will learn if that horse is to be Symphony, and if you see the way dear, do not let your personal jealousies defeat our cause." Juraviel straightened, recognizing clearly that he had just been put in his place, in no uncertain terms. Lady Dasslerond was placing her trust in him; she could have sent any of the others to Bradwarden with instructions to retrieve Symphony. No, this was a test, Juraviel understood, a way for the lady to measure whether or not he intended to repeat the same errors he had made with Elbryan and Jilseponie. At that moment, Belli'mar Juraviel realized that he would return with mighty Symphony, if the centaur and the horse would agree to it.

"There is one other matter for you to investigate while you are in the lands of the humans," the lady added. "Our scouts have reported that the gemstones Jilseponie used were never recovered after the battle in Chasewind Manor."

"The Touel'alfar have never been concerned with the magical gemstones," Juraviel replied, "except for the emerald given to you. They are the domain of the humans, by your own words."

"And I mean them for a human," Lady Dasslerond interrupted. "Have we not discussed this? The child will be all that his father was and all that his mother once was. We will teach him the sword and the magic."

Juraviel thought back to that fateful day. Brother Francis had been the first one into the room, he remembered; but if Francis had found the stones, he would have turned them over to the Church immediately and so they would not still be missing. But there was another in the area of the battle, according to the version of the tale Juraviel had heard, another human with a reputation for light fingers. He looked at Dasslerond, and she nodded and walked away. She had a pretty good idea that he could locate the missing gemstones, Juraviel knew.

Yes, Juraviel had a good idea who had the stones.

Eager to see his old friends again, the elf was out of Andur'Blough Inninness that very night.