Terry Brooks: Wards of Faerie

It was nearing twilight, and she had worked uninterrupted all day. She had eaten nothing for lunch and was beginning to feel hunger’s impatient tug when she remembered that she had promised to dine with Ellich and Jera. She had reached the place in the records where the Old World had destroyed itself, and the survivors of Men and Elves and their descendants had endured a one thousand-year journey to the coming together of the First Council of Druids, with no mention of the Omarosians for centuries. She was about to put down the charts and go off to dinner when a notation made shortly after the convening of the First Druid Council caught her eye.

She translated it twice, wanting to make certain what she was reading. But there it was: a clear reference to a marriage that linked the Omarosians of the past to at least one branch of the family that had survived to the present.

The Omarosians had merged with the Elessedils.

Which meant that, improbable though it seemed, she was related to Aleia Omarosian.

Dinner with her aunt and uncle that evening was a decidedly quiet affair. Jera answered Aphenglow’s questions with brief comments, and Ellich didn’t speak at all. Long silences were punctuated only by the sounds of eating utensils against plates and the big willow outside scraping the roof. It was the longest meal that Aphenglow could remember, and she could not seem to do anything to improve on it. Her uncle and aunt were pleasant enough, but non-conversant in spite of her efforts to elicit more than half a dozen words at a time. For all their warm friendship and family ties, it felt to her as if they were strangers.

She couldn’t account for it and decided not to try. Sometimes you were better off just letting things go.

When dinner was finished, Ellich asked if she would take a walk with him. Jera began to clean up and refused Aphenglow’s offer to help, insisting that she accompany her uncle. It wasn’t hard to figure out that this was something they had talked about before she arrived and been thinking about all through the meal. Aphen knew she wasn’t going to like whatever it was her uncle wanted to talk about, if he and Jera were this nervous about bringing it up, but didn’t see any reasonable way to avoid it.

Ellich took her outside into the clear, cool night air. The sky was filled with stars and the city was wrapped in silence. Side by side they walked down the lane that bordered the surrounding cottages, neither of them speaking. Aphenglow was conscious of how alike they would appear to anyone passing—both of them tall and lean, fair-haired and blue-eyed, and both possessed of a long, swinging gait and a confident presence. This wasn’t entirely an accident or even the result of genetics. Aphenglow had been raised as much by Ellich and Jera as by her own parents, and as a little girl she had tried very hard to emulate everything her uncle said or did, following him around for hours like a devoted puppy.

That had been a long time ago, but some of what she had taken from him she had kept as her own, from the way she walked to her slow, careful approach to solving problems and uncovering mysteries.

“I’m worried about you,” her uncle said finally, apparently deciding it was time to address whatever was bothering him.

“You needn’t be,” she answered at once. “I’m fine.”

“Which would explain the burn marks around your neck, I’m sure.”

She had worn a scarf to conceal those, but somehow he had caught a glimpse of them anyway. “All right, I’m not entirely fine. Someone attacked me, but I drove him off. No harm.”

Her uncle glanced over. “No harm this time. But what about the next? You’ve attracted enemies with your decision to serve the Druids, Aphen. You can’t pretend otherwise. I’ve heard the talk, and people are usually careful about what they say around me. But they don’t like what you are doing, and as a consequence they don’t much like you.”

“I’m aware.”

“Well, then. What I want to ask is whether you’ve given any thought to withdrawing from the order and coming back here to live permanently.”

She sighed. “I haven’t given it one moment’s thought, Ellich. I like what I am doing and I like the people I am doing it with. I can’t help it that certain Elves are angry with this. I would have thought Elves, of all people, would be less inclined to discriminate. But maybe I’m not seeing this as clearly as I should.”

He glanced over. “Don’t get your back up just yet. I’m not one of those who think you made a mistake. I’m just wondering how much more of your life you ought to give over to this choice. While you’re spending days down in dusty storerooms searching for something that very likely doesn’t exist, more pressing problems go unresolved.”

“What are you talking about?”

He stopped walking and turned to face her. “The world isn’t what it was, Aphen. We came out of a world that was dominated by science, not magic. Magic was the old way, and we left it behind with the fall of Faerie and the coming of Men. But with the destruction of the world that science and Men built, we turned once more to magic for ways to sustain and improve what was left to us of the Old World. We were mostly successful for more than three thousand years. But now that’s changing.”

She stared at him. “How is it changing? Magic still governs our people. It still dictates the balance of power among the Races.”

“At the moment, but not for much longer. The Federation works hard to recover the lost technologies. Men distrust magic; they believe there is more reliability in science. This is especially so for those governed by the Federation and even more so by those doing the governing. They have a clear and possibly unalterable worldview. They seek domination over the other Races and they intend that science give them the power that will allow for that. They fought for it during the wars on the Prekkendorran, and even after they were defeated they harbored a desire to pursue it. They outnumber the other Races two to one, and they are working hard at increasing those odds through alliances and treaties. All they need is a way to negate the magic of the Elves and the Druids.”

“That won’t happen.” She met his gaze squarely. “The Druids won’t allow it.”

He nodded. “So you think. But the Druid order is tiny and isolated. How many of you are left? Six? Eight? And your Ard Rhys hasn’t been seen in how many years? Even the Elves want nothing to do with you. How much can you accomplish with so few?” He paused. “This is not to say we are any better off. We aren’t. We have some use of magic, but nothing of real consequence beyond the blue Elfstones. We study the use of magic, and a few of us possess talismans handed down over the centuries, but by and large we are bereft. Once, the use of magic defined us. Now it seems an oddity, a remnant of another time.

He sighed. “It is a worrisome state of affairs, Aphenglow. Without magic, we are vulnerable on many fronts. Our army is well trained, but dwarfed by that of the Federation. We disdain the help of the Druids; our only meaningful alliance is with the Dwarves. If that should fail, we would be susceptible to an all-out attack.”

“The Federation wouldn’t dare. The other Races wouldn’t stand for it.”

“I think they would. I think the other Races would stay clear of the whole mess, very much the way they have in other times. If the Dwarves were persuaded to stay out of it, the Gnomes and Trolls would do the same. The Federation would have the match they seek.”

She leaned back and studied him. “Why are you telling me all this? What does my status as a Druid have to do with anything?”

“Just this. As the King’s granddaughter and an Elf and Druid both, you occupy a unique position in the Elven hierarchy. Even disliked as you are by some, you still command respect. I wish you would consider using it. Come back to us and be the leader we need.”