The Elven (17 page)

The Abandoned Valley

H
olding the child in her arms, Noroelle made her way through the forest. It was the first night of the boy’s life, and a soft wind was blowing. Her son had his hand wrapped around her little finger. He made no sound, as if he sensed the presence of the elven soldiers close by, searching for them.

There. A young red-haired soldier was coming right toward them. He wore a long coat of mail. The wind tugged at his gray hooded cloak. The fighter stopped and looked in their direction. He had beautiful green eyes. Puzzled, he rumpled his brow. He might have sensed something, but Noroelle was certain he could not see through her blinding spell. Finally, he moved past them, only to turn around sharply after a few steps. He was now so close that he could almost have touched them if he had reached out. He did not see them, though, and instead shook his head, mumbled something, then marched away.

It was a simple matter for Noroelle to evade the soldiers. She passed straight through their ranks without being seen. They may have been good fighters and even good trackers, but they were not sorcerers. Deceiving them was easy.

When Noroelle came to the leader of the troop, she paused and looked at him. Like the others, he wore a gray hooded cloak that hid his face but allowed a glimpse of the shining armor he wore underneath.

“Are you sure you understood the queen right?” asked the redheaded soldier. “It’s just that . . . I cannot believe it.”

The troop leader stood impassively, apparently unimpressed. “If you had seen her wrath, you would not ask that question.” The leader’s voice sounded familiar to her.

“But why did she send us? Noroelle is a enchantress almost without peer. And we have no one with us who could find her here. Why didn’t the queen send a sorcerer with us?”

“Probably because she did not count on Noroelle resisting her like this, not even knowing our orders.”

“I don’t know if this is an order I can carry out.”

“You should have thought of that before you swore your allegiance to her.”

“But to kill a child . . .”

Noroelle shied away from the soldiers. What she had just heard was beyond her comprehension. Had she built up a false impression of Emerelle all these years? She would have never dared believe that the queen would send soldiers to kill a helpless child. Capture was the worst that Noroelle had feared. What had happened to make Emerelle issue such orders? Or had the queen always been like this and Noroelle had simply never realized it?

The queen had not only issued the outrageous order to murder Noroelle’s child, but she had also lost her trust in Noroelle. She could have waited for Noroelle to appear in the Royal Hall with her baby, as she had demanded, and Noroelle would have obeyed if the queen had not dispatched her soldiers to Noroelle’s home.

But there was something Noroelle didn’t understand. Why had she only sent swordsmen? The troop leader’s answer was not enough. Because if Emerelle could not imagine Noroelle opposing her order, why had she sent her soldiers at all? There was more going on here, but whatever it was, Noroelle now knew what she had to do.

She would never hand over her baby to the queen and her bailiffs. She would take him to a safe place. And there was only one place that Emerelle could not easily detect the child: the human realm.

Noroelle left the forest and made her way slowly across the broad meadows. She thought of Farodin and Nuramon. Since the two of them had set off a year before to hunt a beast in the human world, her life had changed. One of the elfhunt’s wolves had returned injured to the queen’s court, a mute emissary of a terrible fate. A short time later, her lovers’ horses also came home.

Back then, when the horses returned, Noroelle remembered her dream. Her lovers’ bodies had never been found. Those who had gone out to search for them reported that Mandred’s village had not been molested. If she had not dreamed this dream of Nuramon and given birth to her son, she would never have believed that he and Farodin were dead.

Noroelle spent the entire night walking, crossing the heartland, seen by nobody. When the morning sun rose over the mountains, she came to a remote valley. She carried her son close to her body in a wrap that wound behind her back and over her shoulders. He had not made a sound the whole time and had even slept a little. “Good child,” she said softly and stroked his head. Then she sat down on the grass and lifted the boy to her breast. When he had had enough, she laid the boy down beside her and looked at him. It would be painful, but it was the only way to save her son.

Noroelle rose to her feet. The Other World. She would cross the border. It was true that she knew a lot about the Albenpaths that passed through the three worlds and connected them to each other, but she had never applied this knowledge. The established gates, like the one her lovers had passed through, were not for her. Emerelle would have posted guards at all of them, and it would be too easy to follow the path she had taken if she escaped through such a gate. In places of great power, like Atta Aikhjarto’s stone circle, up to seven invisible paths came together, tying the three worlds together with bands of magic. If you stepped through such a powerful gate, you always came out the other side at the same place. But the fewer Albenpaths that crossed, the more unreliable the door to the Other World. If you tried to pass through such a smaller Albenstar, no one could say where in the human world you would end up. If anyone attempted such a crossing without great magical skill, they might find themselves a victim of time. Noroelle knew she had to protect herself from such a fate. One mistake, and stepping through a gate could mean stepping through hundreds of years.

She also had to be careful to choose a path that led to the human world. She had no desire to go to the Shattered World. That place was no more than the ruins of a world, the remains of the battlefield on which the Alben had fought their enemies, a desolate place now, between Albenmark and the Other World, made up only of barren islands surrounded by emptiness. Those islands, today, served as places of exile or as a kind of refuge for hermits and outsiders. She would never take her son to a prison like that, which was why she had come to this valley.

Noroelle felt the presence of an Albenstar with just two intersecting paths. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the power. Even if Emerelle managed to track her this far, it would be impossible to pick up her tracks again in the Other World, Noroelle thought. She could go through this star a hundred times and come out in a hundred different places in the human world. The band between the worlds here was weak. The faun oak had explained to her that a band like this one broke free with every heartbeat and reconnected to another place. Noroelle saw this as a sign that the fabric between the human world and Albenmark had once been so severely shaken, long ago, that the two worlds had nearly broken apart completely.

Noroelle looked into the sun. It would give her the strength she needed. It would not be the magic of the water, the magic of her lake, but the magic of the light that helped her open the gate. She thought of the light that penetrated to the bed of her lake. Then she thought of the spell, and the transformation followed its course. There was no turning back.

The sun began to shrink. Noroelle looked around. Everything was changing. The colors grew murkier and everything looked coarse and blurred. Trees paled and were replaced by shadows of trees. Spring turned into winter, a meadow became a snow-covered field. The mountains gave way to rolling hills. Soon every similarity to the world she knew had disappeared.

So this was the Other World.

It was indeed very strange. Noroelle wondered what Nuramon thought of this realm the first time he saw it. No doubt he had been as astounded as she was now.

Noroelle’s magic warmed her against the chill of winter. She could walk barefoot on the snow without feeling its chill. Without her warmth, though, her son would quickly freeze to death, so she went in search of humans.

She wandered aimlessly for a long time through the snowy wasteland and saw not a single animal. Winter here seemed to allow no room for life. But finally, she saw the footprints of a rabbit. The sight reassured her, and she continued on. For where there was life, there was also hope for her son.

She spent a long time looking for signs of humans until, finally, she saw a thin column of smoke rising beyond a line of hills. She followed the sign and found a house, as plain as any house could be. At least, it seemed that way to her. She had to acknowledge, though, that she had no experience whatsoever of human houses. This one was small and made of timber. Its beams were warped, its roof askew.

Slowly, Noroelle moved closer to the hut. With every step, she feared a human might suddenly open the door and step outside. She did not know if the magic that still made her invisible would work on human eyes. She had to be ready for anything.

When she reached the door, she listened and heard furniture being moved across wooden planks. A clear voice chirped a merry tune. The song itself was unfamiliar, but she liked the sound of it.

Noroelle kissed her son and whispered softly, “Nuramon . . . I hope I am doing what is right. This is the only chance. Live well, my son.” She released the infant from the invisibility spell and set him down in front of the door. The child stayed quiet but did not take his large eyes off her.

Only when Noroelle turned and began to walk away did he begin to cry. Tears welled in her own eyes. But she had to go. This was for him, to keep him safe.

Noroelle hid behind a tree not far away. The child’s crying was so heartbreaking that for a moment, she considered going to him, picking him up, and staying forever in this world with him. But the queen would find them. Noroelle knew that she would have to use her magic if she wanted to survive in the human world, and magic caused tremors in the Albenpaths. The queen’s bailiffs would soon use these to locate her. But her son was still too little to use the power that Noroelle sensed in him. And because, in the human world, there were no mentors to teach him, his talent would probably remain dormant forever, and he himself would be safe from the queen’s wrath.

From her hiding place, Noroelle saw the house door open and someone step out. It was a human woman. Curious but apprehensive, Noroelle watched the woman who would be a new mother for her baby, Nuramon. The woman wore heavy garments against the cold but looked as if she were wide of hip and shoulder even underneath her clothes. Noroelle thought of Mandred. It seemed that stoutness was a characteristic of humans.

The woman’s eyes grew wide with amazement when she saw the baby. She looked around suspiciously, no doubt wondering who would lay a child at her door and then disappear without a trace. Hesitantly, she bent down above Noroelle’s son. The woman’s face looked hard. She had a lump of a nose and small eyes. But as she leaned over the child, she smiled, and Noroelle could see the warmth of her heart reflected on her face. The woman consoled the child in a language Noroelle did not know, but the words sounded so loving that the child grew calm again. The woman looked around one more time to see if anybody was near, then she took the boy into the house.

The instant the door closed behind the woman, Noroelle flitted back to eavesdrop. She wanted to be as sure as could be that she had not made a mistake with this woman, even though she knew she could not stay long enough to be truly certain.

Noroelle heard the woman speaking, and her voice was one of pure joy.

There was a man in there, too. He seemed less thrilled. Noroelle could hear that his voice was full of doubt. But after looking upon the child for a while, he seemed to change his mind. Even if the humans’ words sounded coarse to her ears, she felt that her son would be safe here. Now all she had to do was make sure the queen never found him.

She retreated to the cover of the trees. Originally, she had planned to return to the same place she had entered the Other World, but now she decided against it. She wanted to make it as difficult as she could for the queen. She would travel for a day and a night as far as she could from this crooked hut, and only then, with the aid of her sun spell, would she make the return passage to Albenmark. There she would follow the Albenpaths to the heartland and surrender to the queen.

The Queen’s Verdict

T
he soldiers found Noroelle beside the faun oak. She surrendered herself to them without resistance but did not betray the whereabouts of the child.

The swordsmen led her to the queen’s palace, their troop leader riding at the front. His name was Dijelon, a soldier so loyal that he was ready at any time to sacrifice himself for his queen. He had uncommonly broad shoulders for an elf, a characteristic not hidden by the blue cloak he wore nor by his long black hair. When the door to the Royal Hall opened in front of them, Dijelon paused in his stride.

Master Alvias was standing in front of him. The elderly elf did not so much as dignify Noroelle with a glance. “Follow me,” he said to Dijelon. “The rest of you are to wait here.”

Noroelle was not surprised at Alvias’s reaction. She was obviously being treated as an enemy. She stopped beneath the arch of the doorway and gazed into the hall. Nearly all of the queen’s court was present. They all wanted to be there to see the arrival of the fallen sorceress for themselves. Until the moment her child was born, Noroelle’s standing at court had steadily grown. But now, in a stroke, all of that was gone. Only the trees had held themselves aloof from the queen’s wrath. The faun oak had made her feel that everything had happened too fast for events to be seen in their true light.

Noroelle looked at the water that tumbled from the walls in foaming cascades. The queen clearly wanted to make sure that Noroelle knew the power waiting for her in the Royal Hall. The show of force was hardly necessary. Noroelle knew only too well that no one in Albenmark could stand up to the queen.

“We found her at the faun oak,” said Dijelon. “She would not reveal the whereabouts of the child.”

The water on the walls instantly ceased to fall, and a grim silence fell over the hall.

“Noroelle, the sorceress, returns.” The queen’s voice was quiet but filled the entire hall. “And she has no idea of the harm she has brought down on us. Give me one reason to let you set foot in my Royal Hall, Noroelle.”

“To banish me from it again with your judgment,” she responded.

“Then you accept that you have done something abhorrent?”

“Yes. I have opposed you. And no one who lives under your aegis should ever do that. But I am not only here to hear your verdict. I am also here to accuse.”

A murmur ran through the crowded hall. No one in Albenmark had ever challenged the queen so openly in her own court. But Noroelle had no intention of holding her tongue about what Emerelle had wanted to do to her child. It surprised her that the queen had convened this meeting so publicly. Like this, everything would be brought to light.

“Then step before the throne of Albenmark, if you dare.”

Noroelle hesitated for a moment, then stepped through the door and approached the queen’s throne. This time, the eyes of those she passed were utterly impassive to her.

She bowed before the queen and looked briefly to one side. Beside Master Alvias stood Obilee. Her young friend was close to tears.

“Before I decide your fate, I will hear what you have to say,” said the queen, her voice icy. “You said there was someone you wanted to accuse. Of whom do you speak?”

Clearly, of Emerelle. But Noroelle did not want to risk a direct attack on the queen in front of her entire court. “I accuse Dijelon,” she said instead. “I accuse him of coming to my home three days ago to kill my son.”

Noroelle saw the soldier stiffen. She knew that he had acted on the queen’s orders, and she was curious how far his loyalty went.

The queen glanced momentarily at Dijelon then back at Noroelle, as if only to ascertain that the soldier was still present. “Did he succeed?”

“No.”

“What do you think I should do in this case, Noroelle? Advise me.”

“I am not looking for amends, and I have no interest in seeing Dijelon punished. I would like to know only one thing. What made him want to take the life of my son?”

“Oh, Noroelle. You know that Dijelon’s fealty to his queen forbids him from answering. So I will answer for him. He was acting on my orders.” A murmur ran through the courtiers. “But am I correct in thinking this answer will not satisfy you? You are wondering how I, the queen of all assembled here, could order the death of one of her Albenkin.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Then what if it were not one of the Albenkin, but—”

“He is my son, the child of an elf. That makes him a descendant of the Alben.”

The gathered elves were outraged at her interruption. The soldier Pelveric shouted, “How dare you,” and others supported him.

Emerelle remained calm. She raised her hand, and silence returned. “Noroelle, if you are the water, then the father of the child is fire.”

Noroelle realized what the queen was insinuating, and suddenly, she was afraid. “Tell me who the father of my child is. A human, is that it?” Noroelle asked. She thought of her son’s rounded ears.

“No. There have been liaisons between humans and elves before today. No, Noroelle.” She stood. “Hear my words. Nothing is as it once was. On the night that Noroelle’s child was born, something was set in motion that we have to bring to an end, with all the power we possess. We have lived protected lives for so long, though we have had to battle trolls and dragons. I remember when the world that lies between ours and the humans’ still flourished. I know the deadliest of all threats. Never will I forget what the departing Alben allowed me to see. I witnessed the downfall of the Shattered World. I saw the final battle against the enemies of our ancestors, against the Devanthar.”

Noroelle went rigid. The name of the old enemy had never been spoken aloud in this hall.

“The beast Farodin and Nuramon went to hunt was a Devanthar,” said Emerelle. “It became clear to me when the wolf returned from the elfhunt, because the stench of that evil still clung to the poor creature, the stench of an evil supposed to have been defeated long ago.”

“Then a Devanthar killed Farodin and Nuramon?”

“I wish I could answer that. But one thing is certain. The Devanthar prevailed. It came to you that same night and conceived your child with you.”

The queen’s words left Noroelle feeling cold and numb. That was impossible. She had dreamed of Nuramon . . . and now the face in her dream was supposed to be that of a demon? She looked at those around her and saw the horror and revulsion on their faces. The soldiers behind her fell back. Even Obilee turned pale.

The queen continued. “When I saw the child, I was overcome by a dark suspicion of what its father was.” She pointed to her magic bowl. “And when, in my doubt, I looked into my mirror, the Devanthar’s deception was revealed to me. It penetrated our heartland, and we did not even notice it.”

The crowd in the hall was growing increasingly agitated. An uncle of Nuramon called out, “What if this demon is still here?”

“A fair question, Elemon,” said the queen, placating Nuramon’s kin. “But I assure you, it was only here on that night. Then it escaped to the Other World.”

“But it could return,” Elemon protested.

“It was clear to the beast that if it remained in Albenmark, I would soon recognize its presence. Now that I know it exists, I will see it immediately if it tries to enter our world again. No, my Albenkin, the demon came here to sow its seed. That was its task, and it succeeded in it.”

“Where did it come from?” asked Master Alvias, who otherwise rarely said a word. “It was said that the Alben destroyed the Devanthar, every last one.”

“This one must have survived all the battles.”

“What have you done to us?” Pelveric shouted at Noroelle. “How could you let such a demon seduce you?”

The queen gave voice to what Noroelle was thinking. “Her love was greater than her discretion.”

“What can I do?” asked Noroelle, her voice low. “If you demand it, I will seek the Devanthar and fight it.”

“No, Noroelle, that is not your job. Just tell me where the child is.”

Noroelle looked at the floor. Deep inside, she felt that it was not right to betray the child. She had seen nothing demonic in him. Besides, not even she could find the way back to her son. “I don’t know where he is. I took him to the Other World. I do not wish to say any more than that.”

“But it is a demon child, the spawn of a Devanthar, the beast that very likely killed the men you love.”

“I may have been deceived in my dream, but I have never seen anything more clearly than the innocence of that child. I will not allow anything to happen to him.”

“Through which gate did you enter the Other World?”

“At a place where two Albenpaths meet.” Noroelle knew that there were countless such places in Albenmark.

“Tell me where the Albenstar is.”

“Only if you swear to me, by the Alben, that no harm will come to my child.”

The queen remained silent for a long time and studied Noroelle. “I cannot afford such an oath. We have to kill the child. If we don’t, a terrible misfortune could befall us. One day, he will learn to use his magic. It is far too dangerous to let him live. You are his mother, and you have to love your child, though it be the offspring of a demon. But consider the price Albenmark will have to pay for your love if you do not tell us where he is.”

Noroelle hesitated. “If my son loses his life, will his soul be reborn?”

“I have no answer to that. The boy is neither Devanthar nor elf. Think of fire and water. It may be that his soul falls in between and is lost. It might also be that your son’s soul, in death, divides into Albenchild and Devanthar. Only then would the Albenchild be reborn.”

Noroelle was stricken. A Devanthar. She should have felt disgusted, but could not. She was unable to look at her son as a demon’s child. She had conceived him in a moment of love. Could that make him evil? No. A mother knew her child’s soul. And she had seen nothing bad in her boy. But there was no proof, nothing but her word that it was so. Everything else spoke against her. She knew that the queen’s judgment might cost her her life, but she was calmed by the certainty that she would be reborn. So she said, “Because my child might only have this one life, it would be wrong of me to let him die.”

“Sometimes, you have to send what you love the most to its doom,” the queen replied.

“I may sacrifice my own life or my own soul. But I cannot decide the fate of another.”

“Maybe you already have. Remember what you said? ‘Whatever task you charge them with, they will do for me.’ Were you not courted by Farodin and Nuramon? It may be that the Devanthar has killed their souls, so perhaps it would not be the first time that you destroyed what you loved.”

Noroelle grew angry. “You are Emerelle, the queen. I thank you for exposing my visitor that night as a deceiver. That gives me hope that Nuramon and Farodin still live. There is no certainty about their fates, but even if I sent them to their deaths, then I did so unwittingly, because I did not know the true danger they faced. How could I have known what even the queen did not know? If I were now to betray my son, then I would knowingly incur my guilt.”

Emerelle seemed unimpressed. She merely asked, “That is your final word?”

“That
was
it.”

“Did you spirit the child away alone? Or did you have help?” She turned and looked at Obilee, who was trembling with fear.

“No. All Obilee knew was that I intended to keep my son out of harm’s way.”

The queen turned to Dijelon. “Did Obilee hinder you or lie to you in any way?”

“No, she was too frightened to try,” the soldier replied, then turned his cold, gray eyes on Noroelle.

The queen, too, turned back to Noroelle. “Then hear my judgment.” She raised her arms, and the water suddenly began to flow again from the springs. “You, Noroelle, have brought upon yourself the gravest of guilt. Though a powerful sorceress, you were not able to tell the difference between your beloved and a Devanthar. As the demon child grew in you, you did not see its true nature. Your love for your son is so great that you would sacrifice all the races of Albenmark for him. Even faced with this truth, you put your child’s life above the lives of everyone else. Though I might understand you as a woman, as the queen, I cannot accept your choice. You have betrayed Albenmark and force me now to punish you. You will not suffer death only to be reborn. You will be banished, but your exile will not be to the farthest reaches of Albenmark or to the Other World. Your punishment is eternal exile to an island in the Shattered World. The gate to that place will not lie in Albenmark, and no one will ever be able to find a way to you.”

A cold fear wrapped around Noroelle’s heart. It was the most dreadful punishment that could be handed to an Albenchild. She turned to the court but saw only abhorrence and anger on the faces of those gathered there. Then she thought of her son, and the memory of his blue eyes gave her the strength to follow the path that fate had given her to its end.

“You will live forever in that place. If you seek death, you will have no hope of rebirth,” proclaimed Emerelle, her voice flat. “Not even your soul will be able to leave that place.”

Noroelle knew what that meant. She would never go into the moonlight. In such a place, no Albenchild could ever find their destiny.

“Do you accept this judgment?” asked Emerelle.

“I do.”

“One final wish is yours,” said the queen.

Noroelle had many wishes, but could speak none of them. She wished that all of this had never happened. She wished Nuramon and Farodin were there, that they could rescue her and take her away with them to a place where no one would ever find them. All of it nothing but dreams.

She looked at Obilee, still so young. Her having been Noroelle’s confidante would certainly hurt her. “I wish only one thing from you,” Noroelle finally said. “Do not extend my shame to Obilee. She is innocent and on the verge of an extraordinary future. Accept her into your entourage. Let her speak here for Alvemer. Knowing that this wish will be fulfilled, I will go into eternity with my mind at peace.”

Emerelle’s face softened and her eyes shone. Her chilly aloofness vanished. “I will grant your wish. Use this day to say your farewells. I will come to your lake tonight, and we will leave together.”