Robert Salvatore - Mortalis

"Jilseponie did not fight the return of the weapons," Juraviel dared to remark.

"She is in Palmaris still, and likely knew nothing of their return to the north," she answered, "nor that we went to find them."

Juraviel looked at her curiously, hardly agreeing with her first claim. If Tempest and Hawkwing left Palmaris with Elbryan's caisson, then they did so on the instructions of Jilseponie. "But she would not have fought the interment of the elven weapons even if she had known," Juraviel insisted, "nor would she argue if we decided to take them back."

Dasslerond shrugged, apparently not prepared to argue the point.

"You underestimate her," Juraviel went on boldly, "as you have from the very first."

"I judged her by her own actions," the lady of Caer'alfar replied firmly. She shook her head and chuckled. "You cloud your memories with friendship, yet you know that your friend will be cold in the ground centuries before your time has passed."

"Am I not to befriend those of like heart? "

"The humans have their place," Dasslerond said somewhat coldly. "To elevate them beyond that is a dangerous mistake, Belli'mar Juraviel. You know that well."

Juraviel looked away, feeling the tears beginning to rim his golden eyes. "And is that why?" he asked, and then he blinked away the tears completely, replacing them with resolve, and looked at her squarely. "Is that why you deny me the child? "

Dasslerond didn't blink, nor did she shrink back an inch. "This child is different," she said. "He will carry the weapons of Nightbird and Mather, the Touel'alfar weapons of a true ranger."

"And a glorious day it will be," Juraviel put in.

"Indeed," she agreed, "even more so than you understand. The child will become the purest of rangers, trained from birth to our ways. He will hold no allegiance to the humans, will be human in appearance only."

Juraviel considered the words and her determined tone very carefully for a long moment. "But is not the true power of the ranger the joining of the best that is human and elven? " he asked, thinking that his beloved Lady Dasslerond might be missing a very important point here.

"So it has been," she replied, "but always I have understood that it is the joining of the elven way with the human physical form and the impatience that is human. This child will have physical strength beyond that of even its father, a strength fostered by the trials we shall place upon him and the health that is Andur'Blough Inninness. And we will foster, as well, the understanding of mortality, the short life which he can expect, and thus, the sense of immediacy and impatience so crucial for warriors of action.'' Juraviel looked at her, not quite understanding her reasoning behind this talk-words he almost regarded as nonsense. Understanding the source, though, the lady of Caer'alfar, the leader of his people, Juraviel looked past the words to the hopes and the fears. She had taken the child and had flatly refused to return him to his mother, even now that the darkness of Markwart and Bestesbulzibar had passed. Indeed, it seemed to Juraviel that Lady Dasslerond had claimed the child for Andur'Blough Inninness.

And then he understood those hopes of his lady even more clearly. This child, perhaps, so true of bloodline, so strong of limb and of thought, would have the power to heal Andur'Blough Inninness. This child of the ranger might aid Lady Dasslerond in her defense against the spreading rot, the stain the demon dactyl had placed upon the elven valley.

"He will be strong and swift, as was Elbryan," Juraviel remarked, as much to measure the response as to speak the truth.

"More akin to his mother," Lady Dasslerond replied.

Juraviel cocked an eyebrow in surprise that she would offer such a compliment to Jilseponie.

''Jilseponie is strong and swift with the sword, strong in bi'nelle dasada, as was her teacher," Dasslerond explained. "And though she was not as strong in the dance as Nightbird, she was the more complete of the parents, powerfully versed in the gemstone magic, as well. The complete human warrior. This child will be all that his mother was and is and more-for he will have the guidance of the Touel'alfar throughout his journey."

Belli'mar Juraviel nodded, though he feared that Lady Dasslerond might be reaching a bit high here in her expectations. The child was but a few months old, after all, and though his bloodlines seemed as pure as those of any human-and Juraviel, who had loved both Elbryan and Pony, understood that more clearly than did Lady Dasslerond! — that was no guarantee of anything positive. Furthermore, Juraviel, apparently unlike Lady Dasslerond, appreciated that bringing up the infant in Andur'Blough Inninness was an experiment, an unknown.

''Jilseponie made mistakes that we cannot tolerate," Lady Dasslerond stated flatly, a sudden and stern reminder to Juraviel of her feelings toward the woman, "as Elbryan, our beloved Nightbird, erred in teaching her bi'nelle dasada. And do not doubt that we will continue to watch her from afar."

Juraviel nodded. On that point, at least, he and his lady were in agreement. If Pony started sharing the elven sword dance, became an instructor in the finer points of bi'nella dasada, then the Touel'alfar would have to stop her. To Juraviel, that would have meant taking her into their homeland and keeping her there; but he held no illusions that Lady Dasslerond, whose responsibility concerned the very existence of the Touel'alfar, would be so merciful.

"Yet that was Nightbird's error," he replied, "and notJilseponie's." "Not yet." Again, Juraviel nodded, taking well her point. He wasn't sure that he even agreed with his own last statement-that Elbryan's tutoring of Pony was a mistake at all. Juraviel had watched them fighting together, each sword complementing the other to the level of perfection, a weaving of form and of weapons so beautiful that it had brought tears of joy to the elf's eyes.

How could such a work of art be a mistake?

"You trust her," Lady Dasslerond stated.

Juraviel didn't disagree.

"You love her as you love Touel'alfar," she went on.

Juraviel looked at her but said nothing.

"You would have us forgive her and return to her the child."

Juraviel swallowed hard. "She would have made a fine ranger, had she been trained in Andur'Blough Inninness," he dared to remark.

"Indeed," she was quick to reply, "but she was not. Never forget that, my friend. She was not.

"I'll not deny, diminish, or refute your feelings for the woman," Lady Dasslerond went on. "Indeed, your faith in her gives me hope that Nightbird's error will not lead to disaster. However, Jilseponie's role was in bearing the son of Elbryan. Understand that and accept it. He is ours now. Our tool, our weapon. He is our repayment for the sacrifice that we made to help the humans in their struggle with Bestesbulzibar, and our way to minimize the lasting effect of that sacrifice."

Juraviel wanted to argue that the war against the demon dactyl was for the sake of elves as well as the humans, but he held his words.

"And thus, and because of your honest feelings, understand that you are to have no contact with the child," she went on, and Juraviel's heart sank. "He is not Nightbird-we will name him appropriately when he has shown to us the truth of his soul. But Belli'mar Juraviel will learn that truth in time, through the work of others more suited to the task."

Juraviel was not happy at all with the news, but neither was he surprised. Through all these months, he had been complaining, and often, about the lack of interaction with the child, by him or by any other Touel'alfar, and complaining that what interaction there was came more often in the form of testing, and hardly ever the simple act of sharing a touch or a smile. That had bothered Juraviel profoundly, and he had spoken rather sharply to Lady Dasslerond about his fears.