Douglas Niles - The Druid Queen

"Aye! The gods are pleased!" A chorus of congratulations rose from the shadows around the great fire.

"They are pleased, but they are not satisfied. This can only mean that our work is not done!" hissed Garisa, fixing them all, one at a time, with the balefully gleaming orb of her wandering eye.

"Tell us!" demanded a troll, nervously following Garisa's glance at the sky. "What is the will of the gods?"

"Tell us!" came the chorus of agreement, a basso rumble of voices, all turning to the ancient shaman for advice and comfort. "What do the gods desire?"

Garisa made a great show of shuffling about the full periphery of the large fire, examining the floating image of the axe from every angle, cocking her head this way and that to confront the different firbolgs and trolls with her challenging gaze. To an individual, they would not meet her eyes.

At last she came back to the place where she had started. The image of the huge axe remained poised in the air; once Garisa had established the simple illusion, she hadn't had to pay attention to it. Instead, the image would remain for some time, unless she chose to adjust it.

Staring back at it, mumbling unintelligibly, she suddenly did just that. The axe disappeared with shocking suddenness. The firbolgs and trolls erupted in gasps of astonishment or murmurs of superstition and fear.

"Bring me my bowl!" declared Garisa, her voice shrill. A pair of firbolgs leaped to obey. "Find me coins-they must be gold! Then I will foretell the will of the gods!"

Deirdre started upward in her bed, aware of the pounding of her heart, the pulsing of blood and life through her veins-all that and more! She felt a keen sense of awakening power, of growing mastery.

Her nightly sleep had become a soothing balm for her spirit, such that she could hardly contain her anxiousness during the day. Each darkening eve, it seemed, brought her a new infusion of vitality, energy … and sheer, constantly building might. That, more than anything, slowly convinced her to stir; she had to test, to examine this sense of limitless power!

Somewhere in the castle, she sensed the presence of another powerful being, one who had summoned his god to serve him. That god, she sensed, had refused. But why? The pressure of the immortal contact tingled in the air around her, tantalizing her even as it refused to answer her question. Yet within that teasing aura, she sensed she would find more than a simple explanation.

She sat up in her bed, feeling as though she were still in the midst of a dream. Around her was her room, looking as mundane as ever, but now she had a feeling that she could see through those walls, beyond the confining borders of her apartments.

And what beckoned there was not Caer Corwell. Instead, she sensed that she rested in the midst of a vast cosmos, a place so immensely huge that the entire Realms amounted

to little more than specks of dust. On those specks, the tiny, insignificant islands called the Moonshaes were even less than dust.

Voices called from the spacious void surrounding her, drawing her attention this way and that. She knew them and she was pleased, for these were voices of mighty beings, and they showed her honor and respect. In a flash, she understood, and the knowledge placed her entire existence into perspective.

She had been selected to hear the gods themselves, and it was an honor that dwarfed all the rest of her life.

Ever watchful, Helm took note of the immortal turmoil tearing at the fiber of Gwynneth. He pressed close, his power linked to the life and body of the patriarch, only to find that a strong barrier of power held his full might at bay.

Over the land, the presence of Talos was a rumbling and ominous cloud, not yet ready to unleash its storm. Below, the fertile loam of the Earthmother flourished, as if in challenge or scorn.

The Vigilant One realized immediately that the goddess, not the storming god, formed the barrier to his own power, actively resisting the workings of Helm's might or his agents. The goddess blocked him, while Talos… Talos strived to weaken her.

In a flash of immortal understanding, Helm sensed the course of destruction acted upon the world. A horde of monsters ravaged the land. Some of them labored in the name of Talos, though even the beasts themselves did not understand.

And Talos showed his workings freely to Helm. The Vigilant One understood that knowledge of the scourging band could be used to his own advantage-and that such advantage would not be unpleasing to Talos.

Thus, in mistrust and suspicion, but full awareness of mutual desire, the purposes of Helm and Talos became aligned.

Two proud steeds crested a grassy hill and paused restlessly, drawn back by their riders. One of the prancing mounts was a huge, shag-hoofed war-horse of chestnut brown; the other was a nimble, long-legged mare of purest white.

The pristine valley of Myrloch Vale swept away below them. Off to the right, the huge lake gleamed in the sunlight, heartbreakingly blue and dazzlingly clear even from a distance of more than ten miles. The placid water filled the southern end of the vast, roughly circular valley. The northern stretch of the vale sprawled beneath a blanket of lush vegetation, forests of pine, oak, aspen, and elm, interspersed by numerous meadows, each dotted with a blazing mosaic of flowers.

The riders were as diverse as the horses: A tall, strappingly powerful man rode the dark gelding. He wore no armor, but a huge sword swung easily at his side, and everything about his appearance suggested an accomplished warrior. He rode with the ease of a man born to horseback, guiding his horse with knee pressure alone as he gazed in wonder across the spectacular vista before him.

The white mare's rider was smaller and female, with straw-colored hair that tumbled about her shoulders and the slender, almost fragile features of an elf. Nevertheless she, too, rode with an easy grace that suggested many years of experience in the saddle. Now, like the human warrior, she paused reflectively to enjoy the sweep of valley below.

"It's spectacular!" said the man, after a few moments of silent admiration. "Every Ffolkman has heard of the Myrloch, of course, but it seems a shame that so few of us have seen it!"

"Perhaps that's why it's still spectacular," suggested the elfwoman dryly. "Do you think that a smelting house beside the stream or a smoking forge in the meadow would help the picture very much?"

The elf was Brigit Cu'Lyrran, Mistress Captain of the Sister Knights of Synnoria, and her prejudices against rapacious and populous humanity ran deep. Still, she smiled at her companion to take the sting from her words. Clearly she regarded him in an altogether different light than she did the vast bulk of his kinsmen.

"You're right," agreed Hanrald Blackstone, the Earl of Fairheight. "So much of its beauty comes from that same isolation."

The two had chosen to enter the vale from one of its eastern passes, taking the long route to Brigit's home in the elven valley of Synnoria. The detour would allow them to see some of the most beautiful terrain in the Moonshaes, according to Brigit. She hadn't said that it would also postpone the homecoming that she anticipated with a feeling akin to dread.

How, after all, could one of the prime protectors of Synnorian fastness go before the rulers of her people and tell them that she had fallen in love with a human? It was a question that Brigit still hadn't been able to answer, and so each day that postponed its necessity was another day of exhilarating freedom.

Hanrald Blackstone had no such weighty concerns. He knew only that he rode beside the woman who had come to mean life itself to him. He would follow where she led, confident in the love that bound them. Of course he knew that sooner or later he would have to return to his holding, in the kingdom of Callidyrr, but for now, that was a distant, unreal eventuality. Even further removed from his conscious thought was the knowledge that he would grow old and die in the space of the next half dozen decades, while his love could look forward to many centuries of vibrant life.