Maggie Furey - Harp of Winds

In the lands of the North, yet in a place unreachable within the boundaries of the mundane world, the palace of the Forest Lord, with its treelike towers and innumerable gardens and glades, lay deceptively tranquil in a waiting silence, within and upon its massive hill. Upon the craggy slopes of the mound, a ferny hollow cupped a crystal pool, fed by a silvery filigree of water that twisted and tumbled down a stony precipice from the heights above.

The Lady of die Lake sat by the water, combing the silver-shot strands of her long brown hair. Warily, the great stag watched her from its thicket on the other side of the pool; safe, he thought, and unobserved—until the Earth-Mage lifted her eyes to him and smiled.

“Do you prefer that form, my Lord?” Her voice was low and musical.

Hellorin, chagrined, stepped forth, shifting to his magnificent human shape. Only the branching shadows of the great stag’s crown above his brow remained as a reminder that this was no ordinary Mage or Mortal—for indeed, the Lord of the Phaerie was more than both. His feet, clad in high boots of supple leather, caused nary a ripple as he walked toward Eilin across the surface of the pool. “The eyes of the Magefolk were ever keen,” he complimented her. “Many’s the Mortal huntsman I have lured and deceived with that shape.”

The Lady Eilin laughed. “Aye, and many’s the Mortal maid, I’ll wager, that you have lured and deceived with the shape you are wearing now!”

Hellorin chuckled, and made her a flourishing bow. “I have done my best,” he told her loftily. “After all, my Lady, the Phaerie have a certain reputation to uphold!” Sitting down beside her on the fragrant turf, he turned to more serious matters. “I did not expect to find you here. Are you tired, then, Lady, of your vigil?”

Eilin’s brow creased in a frown. “Not tired. Lord-not weary, at any rate. It helps to see what passes in the world outside. But oh, it galls me to be reduced to an onlooker, when I long to be free—to go where I am so badly needed, and do my part”

Hellorin, hearing the tremor of tears in her voice, turned the starry depths of his pay eyes upon her. “But that is not the sole cause of your unhappiness. There is more, Eilin, is there not?”

The Earth-Mage nodded. “The window in your hall shows my Valley,” she said sadly. “It shows Nexis, and all the northern lands—but it doesn’t show me Aurian Day after day I bend my will upon the thought of my daughter, but she is nowhere to be found! Where is she?” Her voice caught on a sob, “Trapped in this Elsewhere, I might not know if she died. Surely, if I cannot find her, then she must be dead!”

The Lady’s hopeless weeping scalded the Forest Lord’s heart. Since losing D’arvan’s mother, the Mage Adrina, grief had been a constant companion to Hellorin, and he sorrowed for Eilin’s heartache. Putting an arm around her shoulders, he drew her close to his side. “Take heart,” he told her. “Your fears may yet be groundless. If you cannot see Aurian’s image in my window, it may only mean she has voyaged across the ocean to the south.”

Eilin stiffened. “What?” Her head came up sharply, a spark of irritation lit her eyes. “Do you mean your wretched window doesn’t work across the sea?”

Hellorin, amused by her transformation from sorrow to anger, and her sudden abandonment of the courtly manners of the Phaerie, struggled to hide a smile. Ah, it took little provocation for the Magefolk to revert to type! And how much she reminded him, in that moment, of his dear Adrina! “Did you think to try to look?” he asked her gently. The Earth-Mage reddened. “Why, yes!” she blustered, “I mean—no! How the blazes should I know what the Southlands are like? I thought your window worked in the same way as scrying—I concentrated on Aurian, and had she been in the south, I was relying on it to me there!” To Hellorin’s astonishment, she flung her arms around him and hugged him, “Gods,” she cried, half in laughter, half in tears, “what a relief it is, to hope again! For days I’ve been convinced . . .”

It had been ages since Hellorin had held a woman—of any race—in his arms. After the loss of Adrina, he had never had the heart to do so again. As the Earth-Mage looked up at him, their eyes caught, and held—then Eilin looked away. “Tell me,” she said, in a voice that sounded strained and unnatural to the Forest Lord’s ears, “why the range of your window cannot see beyond the ocean?”

“The salts are a barrier to the Old Magic, such as the Phaerie use.” Hellorin found his voice with difficulty. “A fact that your ancestors, Lady, used to their advantage, and our detriment”

“How so?” The Mage was frowning now, and Hellorin felt a fleeting pang of regret that the bitter troubles of an age long gone should mar their accord. He sighed. “Lady, forget that I spoke. What good can it do us, to dwell upon the quarrels and injustices of the past?”

“I want to know!” Eilin snapped; then her expression softened. “If the forebears of the Magefolk wronged you, then only their descendants may make amends. And since I am the only Mage to whom you can speak at present ... . .” She tilted an eyebrow at him, and Hellorin realized that her anger had been directed, not at him, but at those ancestors, long gone to dust, who had imprisoned his folk out of the world. And so he began to speak, telling her things that no Phaerie had ever told a Mage. He told her how the world had been long ago, before the Artifacts of the High Magic had been crafted, and the Magefolk had gained ascendancy over the elder races who possessed the powers of the Old Magic.

The Lady Eilin listened, wide-eyed, as Hellorin spoke of the gigantic Moldai, elemental creatures of living rock who lived in an odd but mutually beneficial association with the Dwelven, the Smallfolk, who dwelt within their mountainous bodies and went out into the world to be their eyes and ears and limbs.

“When the Magefolk wished to weaken the Moldai, what better way than to separate them from the Dwelven, exiling them in the Northern lands where they could no longer reach the Moldai, who dwelt in the South?” Hellorin’s voice was bitter. “And what apt justice, to use the sea to do so—for it was a Moldan—a mad, wild giant—who seized the powers of the Staff of Earth and used them to fracture the land mass that was once both North and South together. He caused the sea to enter, drowning the lands between, with the loss of many lives, both Mage and Mortal alike.”

Eilin frowned. “I didn’t know,” she said, “These tales of the Ancients have vanished from our history,”

Hellorin laughed sourly. “Then the more fools you, to misplace such vital knowledge! Lady, are you not aware that the Mad One—the Moldan who caused the destruction—is now the only one of his race to exist in the North? And had you no idea that he still lives, chained and imprisoned by spells, within the very rock on which you Magefolk built your citadel?”

“What?” Eilin gasped. “In Nexis? Dear Gods, if the Archmage should discover this ...”

“We must pray that he does not,” Hellorin agreed grimly. “Miathan has already placed the world in gravest peril by his profligate summoning of the Nihilim—a Moldan, mad already, and bearing a grudge that has lasted centuries, might not care about limiting his revenge to the Magefolk who imprisoned him!”

The thought of the Moldan existing all those years beneath the Academy was too frightening for Eilin to dwell on. Wishing to distract her mind with other matters, she turned back to the Forest Lord. “You said that my ancestors used the sea against the Moldai,” she told him, “but what has that to do with the Phaerie?”

Hellorin shrugged. “Little, in truth,” he admitted, “but when the Moldan created the sea that had not existed before, the Magefolk found that the power of the Old Magic could not pass across salt water. Also, the catastrophe convinced the Mages that elemental beings such as the Phaerie were too dangerous to be left at large in the world. They used the Artifacts of Power to exile us—and not content with that, they also took our steeds,”