“Bah! Let them skulk and plot!” Galdar said, elated. “She has an army now. What can they do to her?”
“Something treacherous and underhanded, you can be sure,” said Samuval. He cast a glance heavenward. “It may be true that there is One who watches over her from above. But she needs friends to watch over her here below.”
“You speak wisely,” said Galdar. “Are you with her then, Captain?”
“To the end of my time or the world’s, whichever comes first,” said Samuval. “My men as well. And you?”
“I have been with her always,” said Galdar, and it truly seemed to him that he had.
Minotaur and human shook hands. Galdar proudly raised Mina’s standard and fell in beside her as she made her victory march through the camp. Captain Samuval walked behind Mina, his hand on his sword, guarding her back. Mina’s Knights rode to her standard. Everyone of those who had followed her from Neraka had suffered some wound, but none had perished. Already, they were telling stories of miracles.
“ An arrow came straight toward me,” said one. “I knew I was dead. I spoke Mina’s name, and the arrow dropped to the ground at my feet.”
“One of the cursed Solamnics held his sword to my throat,” said another. “I called upon Mina, and the enemy’s blade broke in twain.”
Soldiers offered her food. They brought her wine, brought her water. Several soldiers seized the tent of one of Milles’s officers, turned him out, and prepared it for Mina. Snatching up burning brands from the campfires, the soldiers held them aloft, lighting Mina’s progress through the darkness. As she passed, they spoke her name as if it were an incantation that could work magic.
“Mina,” cried the men and the wind and the darkness.
“Mina!”
Chapter Eight
Under the Shield
The Silvanesti elves have always revered the night.
The Qualinesti delight in the sunlight. Their ruler is the Speaker of the Sun. They fill their homes with sunlight, all business is conducted in the daylight hours, all important ceremonies such as marriage are held in the day so that they may be blessed by the light of the sun.
The Silvanesti are in love with the star-lit night.
The Silvanesti’s leader is the Speaker of the Stars. Night had once been a blessed time in Silvanost, the capital of the elven state. Night brought the stars and sweet sleep and dreams of the beauty of their beloved land. But then came the War of the Lance.
The wings of evil dragons blotted out the stars. One dragon in particular, a green dragon known as Cyan Bloodbane, laid claim to the realm of Silvanesti. He had long hated the elves and he wanted to see them suffer. He could have slaughtered them by the thousands, but he was cruel and clever. The dying suffer, that is true, but the pain is fleeting and is soon forgotten as the dead move from this reality to the next. Cyan wanted to inflict a pain that nothing could ease, a pain that would endure for centuries.
The ruler of Silvanesti at the time was an elf highly skilled in magic. Lorac Caladon foresaw the coming of evil to Ansalon. He sent his people into exile, telling them he had the power to keep their realm safe from the dragons. Unbeknownst to anyone, Lorac had stolen one of the magical dragon orbs from the Tower of High Sorcery. He had been warned that an attempt to use the orb by one who was not strong enough to control its magic could result in doom. In his arrogance, Lorac believed that he was strong enough to wrest the orb to his will. He looked into the orb and saw a dragon looking back. Lorac was caught and held in thrall.
Cyan Bloodbane had his chance. He found Lorac in the Tower of the Stars, as he sat upon his throne, his hand held fast by the orb. Cyan whispered into Lorac’s ear a dream of Silvanesti, a terrible dream in which lovely trees became hideous, deformed monstrosities that attacked those who had once loved them. A dream in which Lorac saw his people die, one by one, each death painful and terrible to witness. A dream in which the Thon-Thalas river ran red with blood.
The War of the Lance ended. Queen Takhisis was defeated.
Cyan Bloodbane was forced to flee Silvanesti, but he left smugly satisfied with the knowledge that he had accomplished his goal. He had inflicted upon the Silvanesti a tortured dream from which they would never awaken. When the elves returned to their land after the war was over, they discovered to their shock and horror that the nightmare was reality. Lorac’s dream, given to him by Cyan Bloodbane, had hideously altered their once beautiful land.
The Silvanesti fought the dream arid, under the leadership of a Qualinesti general, Porthios, the elves eventually managed to defeat it. The cost was dear, however. Many elves fell victim to the dream, and even when it was finally cast out of the land, the trees and plants and animals remained horribly deformed.
Slowly, the elves coaxed their forests back to beauty, using newly discovered magicks to heal the wounds left by the dream, to cover over the scars.
Then came the need to forget. Porthios, who had risked his life more than once to wrest their land from the clutches of the dream, became a reminder of the dream. He was no longer a savior. He was a stranger, an interloper, a threat to the Silvanesti who wanted to return to their life of isolation and seclusion. Porthios wanted to take the elves into the world, to make them one with the world, to unify them with their cousins, the Qualinesti. He had married Alhana Starbreeze, daughter of Lorac, with this hope in mind. Thus if war came again, the elves would not struggle alone. They would have allies to fight on their side.
The elves did not want allies. Allies who might decide to gobble up Silvanesti land in return for their help. Allies who might want to marry Silvanesti sons and daughters and dilute the pure Silvanesti blood. These isolationists had declared Porthios and his wife, Alhana, “dark elves” who could never, under penalty of death, return to their homelands.
Porthios was driven out. General Konnal took control of the nation and placed it under martial law “until such time as a true king can be found to rule the Silvanesti.” The Silvanesti ignored the pleas of their cousins, the Qualinesti, for help to free them from the rule of the great dragon Beryl and the Knights of Neraka. The Silvanesti ignored the pleas of those who fought the great dragons and who begged the elves for their help. The Silvanesti wanted no part of the world. Absorbed in their own affairs, their eyes looked at the mirror of life and saw only themselves. Thus it was that while they gazed with pride at their own reflections, Cyan Bloodbane, the green dragon who had been their bane, came back to the land he had once nearly destroyed. Or so at least, it was reported by the kirath, who kept watch on the borders.
“Do not raise the shield!” the kirath warned. “You will trap us inside with our worst enemy!”
The elves did not listen. They did not believe the rumors.
Cyan Bloodbane was a figure out of the dark past. He had died in the Dragon Purge. He must have died. If he had returned, why had he not attacked them? So fearful were the elves of the world outside that the Heads of House were unanimous in their approval of the magical shield. The people of Silvanesti could now be said to have gained their dearest wish. Under the magical shield, they were truly isolated, cut off from everyone. They were safe, protected from the evil of the outside world.
“And yet, it seems to me that we have not so much as shut the evil out,” Rolan said to Silvan, “as that we have locked the evil in.”
Night had come to Silvanesti. The darkness was welcome to Silvan, even as it was a grief to him. They had traveled by day through the forest, covering many miles until Rolan deemed they were far enough from the ill effects of the shield to stop and rest.
The day had been a day of wonder to Silvanoshei.