Lisa Smedman - Heirs of Prophecy

Moonrise Hill was living up to its name. The standing stones cast long shadows that met at its central point: a moondial on which one could read the season. The moon was just short of full, a glowing white orb that filled the air with a soft blue-white light.

A figure that had been standing at the edge of the hill detached itself from the shadow of a stone and walked back in his direction. It was Larajin. She must have been the one who had bade Kith farewell. Halfway back to the spot where she’d spread her blanket, she noticed Leifander staring at her. She hesitated, then joined him.

“Thank you for agreeing to help me,” she said. “I’m glad you finally changed your mind.”

Leifander grunted and nodded in Lord Kierin’s direction. “I do as I am bid.”

“I’ve been lying awake most of the night, trying to think what we could do,” she continued, “but I can’t come up with any answers. I just wish Somnilthra was still alive so we could ask her what she meant.”

Leifander stared at Larajin, confused. “You’re speaking as though she was dead.”

Larajin blinked. “Isn’t she? Doriantha said she had passed on to Arvanaith.”

“Elves do not ‘die,’” he explained, “unless they are the victims of violence or accident. When they have reached a venerable age and are in decline, as Somnilthra was, they travel to Arvanaith.”

“You mean Arvanaith is a place, here on Toril?” Larajin asked. “Like Evermeet?”

Leifander sighed, feeling as if he was talking to a very young child. “Their bodies remain here on the world of Toril but their souls journey to Arvanaith, where they await rebirth.”

“So Somnilthra is dead,” Larajin said, a twinge of uncertainty in her voice.

Leifander shook his head, trying to remain patient. “No, she is-” he nodded at the windriders-“in a kind of Reverie.”

“They buried her alive?”

“What?”

“Isn’t that what forest elves do with their dead? Bury them in the Vale of Lost Voices, under the trunks of trees?”

“Somnilthra was a seer,” Leifander reminded her, hoping that at last Larajin would understand.

Her blank look told him she didn’t.

“Seers are laid to rest in the crystalline towers under Lake Sember.”

“Oh!” Larajin exclaimed. “I’ve heard of them.”

Now it was Leifander’s turn to look skeptical. “You have?”

How could a human-no, a half-elf raised in Sembia, he reminded himself-know of the crystalline towers? The woods around Lake Sember were forbidden to humans. Any found there were killed without question or mercy.

Larajin nodded eagerly. “Several months ago, a priest from Selgaunt-Diurgo Karn is his name-set out on a pilgrimage. The goddess Sune bid him travel to Lake Sember, a lake whose sacred waters she shares with the elf goddess Hanali Celanil. He had heard that crystalline towers within the lake rose to the surface on the night of the full moon and that their beauty surpassed all other-”

“How did he know of this?” Leifander asked harshly.

Larajin shrugged. “Diurgo didn’t tell me. Nor did he make it to the lake. He abandoned his pilgrimage before he even got close.”

Leifander shook his head in silent wonder, amazed that humans would know so much about a secret the elves had striven so diligently to preserve.

Larajin continued to prattle on. It seemed her foolish questions weren’t finished yet.

“If Somnilthra is in Reverie, could we awaken her?”

“Only if the gods will it.”

Larajin glanced up at the moon. “How far is it from here to Lake Sember?”

Leifander could see where this was headed, but he answered. “On foot, it would be a full day’s journey to the southern shore of the lake.”

“Could we see the crystalline towers from there?” Larajin asked.

Leifander decided to nip this idea in the bud. “Lake Sember is sacred. Only elves may look upon its waters. Any humans found on its shores are slain-and half-elves are just as unwelcome. We would be killed on sight.”

That, of course, was a partial lie. Leifander could easily pass for a full-blooded elf, but he doubted if the gods would be so easily fooled, and he had no wish to anger them.

“Besides,” he added, “even if we somehow avoided the elf patrols and managed to see the crystalline towers rise, they are in the middle of the lake. There would be no way to reach them.”

Larajin sat a moment, thinking. “How are the bodies transported to the towers?”

“By the pallbearers-the clerics who lay them to rest.” Leifander answered. “The gods give them the ability to walk upon the lake’s surface.”

“Ah.”

“Do you know a spell that would allow you to do that?” he prodded.

Larajin shook her head. “I don’t-and I know what you’re going to say-that learning a new spell without a more experienced cleric to guide you in your prayers is impossible-but I’ve been doing a lot of impossible things these last few days.”

Leifander gave a long, heavy sigh. “Why do you care so much about stopping the war? You’re not a soldier.”

“No, I’m not, but Tal is. If this war continues, he will die. I saw his death in a vision. He’ll be shot…” Her voice caught, but she steeled herself. “He’ll be killed by an elven arrow. Your curse has condemned him.”

“My curse?” It took Leifander a moment to realize what she was talking about, but then he remembered the angry words he’d uttered shortly after their escape through the sewers. “‘Black Archer pierce you’ is a common expression,” he protested. “Everyone uses it. It doesn’t mean the god will actually listen.”

Larajin’s eyes blazed. “Then why wouldn’t you take it back?”

“I will,” he assured her. “Right now.” He touched a forefinger to his lips, then smacked it against his open palm, withdrawing the curse. “There. It is done.”

Larajin stared at him a moment, as if gauging his sincerity, then she nodded.

“Thank you, but even if the gods are placated, the elves aren’t. Nor are the humans. More lives than just Tal’s hang in the balance-thousands more. Once again, will you help me try to stop this war?”

Leifander glanced at the form of Lord Kierin in Reverie. He knew how the windrider would answer his protests. A soldier did his duty, no matter how hopeless the battle seemed.

“We should get some rest, if we’re going to set out in the morning,” Leifander said at last. “We’ll need our wits about us to make it as far as the lakeshore.”

Larajin’s smile was as bright as the moonlight.

“Thanks,” she whispered, and squeezed Leifander’s hand.

Leifander squatted, studying the faint footprint on the rock beside the stream. It had been made by a bare foot, like his own and was fresh. The faint smudge of mud was still drying in the hot sun. Considering the way the person had been careful to step around the ferns, leaving them unbent, the print was no doubt left by a forest elf-part of a patrol, probably, and moving fast through the forest. That was fortunate, since it meant the patrol was well ahead of them and rapidly increasing the distance.

Larajin finished drinking from the stream and splashed noisily through the water, stumbling on a stone and overturning it, leaving an obvious sign of her passage. For the hundredth time that day, Leifander winced in silent annoyance. Did the Sembians teach their people nothing about stealth? She was as noisy as a moose shouldering its way through the woods.

“What were you looking at?” she asked.

He pointed at the footprint, but she glanced into the stream instead.

“The fish?” she guessed. “They look too small to eat.”

Her stomach growled. They’d had nothing since morning, when they shared the windriders’ breakfast, and it was late afternoon.