Terry Brooks: Wards of Faerie

In retrospect, she had acted without sufficient forethought, ignorant of how the decision would impact her life. The Druids were held in low regard by the Elves, and those who chose to join them were seen as lacking in both common sense and moral balance. Once you chose to side with the Druids, you were automatically considered to have sided against the Elves. This was the common thinking of her times, and Aphen’s assumption that as a granddaughter of the King she would somehow be treated differently proved optimistic. If anything, it infuriated the Elves even more.

Now, six years later, she was back in Arborlon and thoroughly disappointed to discover that nothing much had changed when it came to how her people viewed her. Slow to anger, they were even slower to forgive, and her return had not generated much in the way of good feelings. Even her family—her sister and uncle aside—had seemed less than pleased to see her. But she had come for a purpose, and she intended to see it through. It was an effort supported by her fellow Druids, who instantly saw the value in it, but was regarded by everyone else as a waste of time. The King, her grandfather, had granted her the permission she requested, but only after making it clear that the same search had been conducted repeatedly by others over the years and that even if she found something useful her discoveries would belong solely to the Elves and not to anyone else—especially not to the Druid order.

She understood the reason for the prohibition. Hard feelings endured from the time when Grianne Ohmsford had served as Ard Rhys and the Elven nation had been threatened by the Southland and its Federation armies. Though it was Grianne who had put an end to that threat, various members of her order had allied with Federation Prime Minister Sen Dunsidan, and both she and the order had been tarnished by the perceived treachery. Queen Arling Elessedil, already harboring a deep dislike and distrust of the Druids, had cut all ties to the order.

It didn’t matter that Grianne Ohmsford had been gone for more than a hundred years, or even that her successor as Ard Rhys was herself a member of the Elessedil family. The old King, Arling’s son, held fast to his mother’s beliefs where the Druids were concerned, and it was only because Aphenglow was an Elf and his granddaughter that she was allowed to conduct her study.

Many others thought she should take her studies and her practices elsewhere if she could not remember where her loyalties should lie.

Head up, eyes sweeping the landscape watchfully, she left the palace grounds behind and moved down the pathway that led to the cottage she shared with her younger sister. Wherever she went in Arborlon, she paid close attention to what was happening around her. The city might have been her home once and it might be so again one day, but for now she was no better than a visitor from a foreign country. There were enough Elves who mistrusted her presence that she could not afford to take her safety for granted.

Especially not tonight, when she was carrying that which she was expressly forbidden from having. One of the agreements she had made was that she would take nothing from the storerooms. Not at any time. Not for any reason. Yet buried amid the collection of notes and papers contained in her pack was the diary.

And if she were caught with it …

She shrugged the matter away. She had done what she needed to do. The diary was important—perhaps the most important piece of information that had been uncovered since the First Council of Druids convened.

Everyone knew about the existence of the missing Elfstones, of course. But only in the abstract and not in the specific. They knew primarily because the blue Stones, the seeking-Stones, had survived whatever had become of the other sets. There were three stones in each set—one each to reflect the strength of the heart, mind, and body of the user. No one knew what had become of the other sets. No one knew their colors or their functions. No written record of their history had ever been found, save vague references to a time in ancient Faerie when all the Elfstones had been crafted—just enough to indicate that there had been five sets altogether and that by their absence it could be concluded that four had been lost. It was the great mystery of all Elven magic.

Yet after virtually everyone had decided the missing Elfstones were gone and would never be recovered, now there was this—a diary written by a girl named Aleia that might at last solve the mystery.

She could hardly believe her good luck in finding it. Imagine, if they could recover the Stones! She smiled at the thought. Everyone knew about the power of the blue Stones. But no one knew the first thing about the other four sets; no one even knew their colors. No records existed that described them. Or at least, none that had been uncovered. It was all so long ago, so far back in time. It was as Ellich had said. The Elves were a different people then. The world was different. The other Races hadn’t been born. Only the Faerie people were alive, imbued with various forms of magic—some of which they shared with creatures now consigned either to mythology or by powerful magic to the dark world of the Forbidding.

It gave her pause. All those who had followed or sworn to the Void were imprisoned in the Forbidding—Darklings, Furies, Harpies, dragons, Goblins, and others. Yet the author of this diary had fallen in love with one of them. She had found him beautiful and enchanting, had given herself to him freely and had envisioned a life with him.

With a creature of the Void.

It didn’t seem possible, but sometimes Aphen wondered if those viewed as evil were in fact only those who had lost the war and were tarnished by the victors. She understood that reality wasn’t as simple as everyone wanted to believe, not as straightforward or as easily explained. Not black and white, but mostly gray.

She reached the cottage, dark now and apparently empty. Perhaps her sister was in bed or perhaps she was not home yet. Her work as a Chosen of the Ellcrys was difficult and demanding, and sometimes her days were eighteen hours long. Aphenglow didn’t think she could ever do what that job demanded. But she guessed there were those who didn’t think anyone could do her job, either, or even be what she was.

She opened the door and went inside, pausing for a moment to let her eyes adjust to the darkness. The silence enfolded her, and she gave herself over to it, using her senses to detect her sister’s presence. She found the signs quickly enough—a gentle breathing, a stirring beneath sheets, a rustle of bedclothes—just up the stairs in the bedroom they shared whenever she was home, which was not often these days. Aphen sighed and sat down, her mind still mulling the entries in the diary and the questions they raised about the fate of the missing Elfstones.

She wondered first and foremost how the Stones had disappeared. Apparently, Aleia had tried and failed to find either them or her Darkling boy. That seemed odd, given that she had the use of the blue Elfstones to seek them. But of course, if she wasn’t trained in their use—which was likely—then she might have lacked the sophistication to detect them.

Still, hadn’t others tried to find the missing Elfstones since? Hadn’t the Elves themselves used the blue Stones to attempt it? She couldn’t imagine that efforts hadn’t been made. And yet in all those years, no one had found a thing.

She put her deliberations on that subject aside and gave consideration to what had become of Aleia after her return to Arborlon. She had indicated in her diary entry that she had been given another chance at making things right, one that she hoped might give her a measure of redemption. But what sort of chance? The diary didn’t say.