The Coming Storm (7 page)

Dorcet had been Master then and he’d been a good one. He’d thought it good experience to send his young wizards with the marking parties, so they’d get to know the land better. Jareth had been one of them and counted himself lucky.

Wizards were fairly long lived, not quite as long as Elves or Dwarves but longer than most men. It was the magic. As men reckoned such things though, he hadn’t been  young, he’d been a wizard nearly ten years by then. He’d been a witness to the negotiations of those boundaries as part of Dorcet’s coterie. That was where he’d first seen Elon, negotiator for the Elves. That had been something to watch. It was on that boundary expedition that he, Elon and Colath had become friends.

They’d had a few adventures back then. And a few since.

Jareth said, in answer to the ferryman’s question, “Heard tell of a few odd things here and there. I thought I’d see if any such were hereabouts as well.”

The ferryman shrugged. “Such things happen. Like as not ‘twasn’t anything but them  nodding off. Dangerous thing to do when the river is high. Or a slip. They was great friends, them two. If one went in, the other woulda gone after. Like as not it was a fox or a wild dog got those geese, though neither one would’ve been apt to make such a mess or take so many. Such things happen.”

A touch of weariness washed through Jareth once the ferry had reached the other side and he could release the spell. Such was the price of magic, even for so small a thing as that. The river was quite high and the magical expense the greater for it.

With the ferryman’s words echoing in his ear, Jareth headed downriver for a bit, grateful for the speed of the horse beneath him. Not a cull from the Elven herds as some thought, Zo was a purebred but a little small for most Elves. Silvery gray, his name meant fog in Elven. Although Jareth was nearly as tall as most Elves and taller than most men, he and Zo suited each other well.

A gift from Elon and a welcome one. Still, Zo was a sore point with Avila. No Elven horse for her, nor would one be offered. She used spurs on horses the way she used words on people, too often and with too much point.

He smiled at the comparison and turned his thoughts to a different one.

As it happened he did run into Hunters, making speed themselves to answer a call from some Woodsmen. They’d chased a firbolg back up into the borderlands, although it had led them on a hard pursuit by all appearances. Firbolgs were nasty creatures, stood as like and as high as man but as quick and lithe like a cat. As furry as a cat and more canny. Not one of the Hunters didn’t look tired already, from days of tracking the thing around the hills with little chance of sleep.

They took a moment to stop to talk to him, a small break before continuing and he had a chance to tell them of the encounter with the kobolds. Without naming names.

In some ways, telling them the Elves were involved would’ve made more of an impression.

The reputation Elves had of being fearless and unmoved would lend the story more gravity for some. Not for all. There were those who envied, hated and feared Elves. The reasons were many. Some resented the Elves their long lives. Others saw them as cold, distant and superior.

Unfortunately, there were some Elves who were all of those things. Not all but a fair number. Those Elves felt that Men were a lesser race as shown by their lack of a true concept of Honor. The honor men held so highly was too fluid a thing for Elves. That long-lived people had seen too often and how easily men could deceive and dissemble, they’d paid for it and they remembered.

Others among men feared the Elves for their greater strength and speed, their skill with bow and sword, as well as their longevity. A tale that proved that Elves weren’t the invincible race some thought they were would go far to substantiate those beliefs.

The fact that kobolds didn’t hunt in pairs was an accepted truth. Jareth knew Elon and Colath hadn’t lied, they wouldn’t dishonor themselves that way. That wouldn’t be proof enough for his folk, though. Even among Hunters who benefited so much from training with the Elves.

Those thoughts chased him down through the highlands into more settled lands. He could find no way of reconciling his people and Elves. Or Dwarves for that matter. Though they needed the ores and metal tools Dwarves provided, his people hadn’t much love for them. Or the Dwarves for men for that matter.

Nor was there any love lost between Dwarves and Elves
. It was simply a difference in cultures.

Jareth did wish sometimes that each race would see more of what they had in common than where they were different. He smiled wryly to himself. Elon would chide him gently and call him a dreamer.

While dreaming the same dream.

These were more settled lands, yet still far from the heartland with its towns and villages nestled in valleys or spreading like skirts around the bend of a river. Above the bigger towns would stand the castles of the lesser Kings, perched on their hills with their rings of walls around them.

It would take some time to make the circuit south as far as Doncerric, the King’s city, the seat of the High King.

He wouldn’t stop there nor make report. That wasn’t his duty, that was for Elon to do. Daran was High King only among Men, not among Elves but he was First of the Three, the Three which sat over the Council that ruled over all.

The Alliance.

It was Daran’s highest glory but he hadn’t achieved it alone – though in truth, you wouldn’t know it if you spoke to him. The boundaries they’d set had helped but setting the Alliance hadn’t been Daran’s achievement alone. Some had favored it while others hadn’t but by force of will and expert negotiation, it had been achieved. Those negotiations and the treaties that resulted from them had been largely the work of Elon. Daran was too impatient and too volatile to have accomplished it. That drive had pushed the lesser Kings into bowing to his will but it was Elon who’d convinced the Elves and Dwarves to sign.

No, Jareth wouldn’t be speaking to Daran High King. He would gather information, collect the proof Elon would need to lay beneath his Foresight as foundation. It had to grate on Elon sometimes that he needed such. Among his own people, his word would be enough, his gifts accepted. For the High King, for Men, he must have proof.

Therefore, Jareth would help supply it. There would be little need for him to spend much time in the southwest in any case. It was too far away from the borderlands where the troubles were.

The stories Jareth heard as he traveled only increased his concern. Hunters and Woodsmen told much the same tales everywhere he went. Forays by all manner of fell creature, chases that went on for days. Quarry that disappeared back into the borderlands where no sane man would follow. Livestock going missing, dogs as well. A few times, people had gone missing, too. Those hardy folk who lived in the outer reaches were becoming frightened and edgy. Increasingly as he traveled, the Hunters and Woodsmen he met looked tired and worn. In only a few weeks.

Most Dwarves had little to do with men but there were one or two who would speak with him and they, too, spoke of things, odd little things.

The entrances to the caverns, caves and mines of Dwarves were warded by their Lore Masters with invisible magical Walls, like the Elven Veils, against intrusion by man or beast. Something tested those wards, but what it was not even the Lore Masters were certain. Some had grown uneasy in the deeper caverns, although none would speak of it openly. One or two, more daring or troubled, had spoken carefully of noises where none should be heard. Dwarves were masters in their domain, lords in their places of stone and rock. The idea they might not be unsettled them.

That was the problem, though, it was all little things, a veritable mountain of little things. The fishermen who disappeared, a solitary hunter and her pack of dogs, a hermit in his cave in the hills, a traveler who never reached his destination. More deaths in a few short months than were normally seen in a year but not so many as to seem too alarming. Everyone knew the borders were dangerous.

The longer he traveled the more the Hunters and Woodsmen spoke of exhaustion, of asking assistance and more recruiting from their local Kings, of seeking local hunters and villagers for aid.

All little things. No one thing, no one place where it was worse or better. Except that it was all along the borderlands.

Was it enough? Or Would Colath and his people have found that one convincing piece of evidence that, added to his observations, would be sufficient? He didn’t know.

He did know he traveled more carefully where the borderlands were close, frequently joining other travelers. He wasn’t the only one. Some made nervous jokes of it but others didn’t. If a group had to camp in the open, guards were set and folk slept uneasily where once they hadn’t. More than once, someone having a nightmare startled everyone awake.

Only briefly did Jareth take a detour down into the heartlands and it was a shock to see folk going about their business so cheerfully and calmly. It took that to make him realize how tense he’d been. It was only for a day or two but as he prepared to leave for the reaches he realized how much he dreaded going back.

It was with that heaviness weighing on him that he turned north and west. The last quadrant. Summer was just coming into full bloom, the leaves turning lushly green on all the trees, the crops growing taller in the fields. A spate of truly fine days with no rain and moderate temperatures should have raised his spirits but seeing the thin, drawn faces and watchful eyes of those around him took much of the pleasure from it. He longed for Aerilann and the peace he would find there.

Perched on a rock with her feet as a brace, Dorovan’s favorite student seemed more pensive than was her wont. The summer sun had drenched her brownish curls with streaks of burnished gold and red. In comparison to Elves as her race went Ailith was a little small but there was strength in those arms and endurance in her frame.

Otherwise she was well-formed, matured into a woman grown. Only a few short weeks shy of her majority as people measured such. It was his delight to have watched her grow in both stature and wisdom. Her people wouldn’t find her as comely as some, with her high-arched brows and firm mouth, the steady look in her blue-gray eyes. His own people measured by the character of the person, not the form they wore but she was of the race of men, not Elves. He sorrowed for that sometimes, for she was worthy of the regard of his people.

“Ala, Ailith,” he said and realized the depth of her reverie when she jumped nervously.

Startled, Ailith looked up.

The tall familiar Elf eyed her, one finely arched eyebrow raised in question, his dark brown hair bound back on each side, Elven-style. His pale blue-gray eyes were only a little reproving but reflected more his pleasure at seeing her. It wasn’t his expression that revealed that, like all Elves he kept his emotions restrained, it was something she’d learned to see in his eyes.

“Ala, Dorovan,” she responded with delight, a smile lighting her face.

Though his people weren’t known much for that expression, her pleasure at seeing him was such that he allowed himself a small smile in return.

Still, he chided her, gently.

“Ailith, how is it  you didn’t hear me approach until I was nearly upon you? That would be dangerous in some quarters.”

It was unlike her, this most attentive of students. Oh, she was no paragon, showing flashes of impatience or temper a time or two but not often. For the most part she was as diligent and hard-working as any Elven student he’d had, a credit and more to her race.

With a sigh and a look of embarrassment, she answered in his own tongue, “My apologies, teacher, I’m distracted. That’s no excuse, I know and I should have been more vigilant.”

It pleased him, the sound of his language spoken so well. Her accent was good, the lilting phrases falling easily. Only her distraction disturbed him.

In point of fact Ailith was horrified to have allowed such a lapse. That wouldn’t do.

“Is it something I can help with?” he asked.

Often they’d talked of the things she couldn’t speak of with others.

Ailith considered it. Should she? In the light of actually speaking her fears, though, it seemed silly and ill-considered. Was she making much out of nothing? Her uneasiness had no focus, save perhaps her dislike for a man she barely knew. She had no reason to dislike him, nothing she could put her finger on and say that’s it, that’s the reason.

It was her father’s new counselor, Tolan. She didn’t know where he’d come from or how he’d made her father’s acquaintance. He’d arrived that one day to speak with her father and he hadn’t left.

There was nothing about him to object to, really.