“They climbed the Star Stair,” he said suddenly. He looked up to see the prince’s face frozen in anger and knew he had to find a way to explain his conclusion.
“The Stair serves, or has served, another purpose besides platforms for the readers of fortune,” he said. “Else your people would not be forbidden it. Those who are now the spirit warriors climbed the Stair, or were near it, and something terrible happened, something that drove them away. They took shelter in the thick wood just to the south.”
“No old song tells of this,” Eyrmin said. “You are making up a tale. We forbid imaginings about the Stair.”
“It isn’t mine,” Cald said quietly, “Or if it is, it’s not a tale, but conjecture. For elven spirits to be trapped on Cerilia, there had to be a terrible happening….”
Eyrmin stared at the young human, searching his face. As always, the prince’s trust in the boy won out, and he reluctantly joined in the conjecture.
“And one that had to involve forces outside the plane of Aebrynis,” Eyrmin added, continuing the logical progression Cald had begun.
“It seems more reasonable to assume the happening involved the Star Stair than some other magical place, since it is so close,” Cald said.
“You have divined the truth, I think,” Eyrmin said softly. “I have taught you the elven skills of seeing detail, but the longsight ability is born in us. When you stand on the high platform of the Grove Father, you, as a human, are unable to see any details of the Star Stair.” Eyrmin was stating another fact known to both of them.
“If I had longsight, what would I see?” Cald asked.
“The lights of our dead rising up from the swamp, climbing to Tallamai,” Eyrmin said quietly. “That is why we are forbidden the area now that no one reads the omens. We must not impede their progress.”
They sat in silence, staring up the length of the lake. Eyrmin’s explanation had not satisfied the need in Cald. The elf seemed to understand the failure without being told. He waited with the patience of his people while Cald picked up a stick and jabbed it in the ground. He dislodged a small clump of earth. An ant, panicked at the sudden destruction of its part of the world, ran halfway up the stick before turning and racing down again.
Down … up and down. Cald looked up. “Stairs allow travel in both directions,” he said. “What goes up might come down.”
Eyrmin had also watched the ant and nodded as if Cald’s remark had been a casual thought, unrelated to the subject, and accepted as such.
Suddenly the prince jerked. “Lightfall!” he announced, almost shouting his idea, it struck him with such force.
Cald felt the hair rise on the back of his neck, and goose bumps of awe rose on his arms as he felt the rightness of the prince’s discovery.
If the old lay held the answer, he could understand why the spirits of the grove looked to the living elves and even to him so hopefully. Every elf knew the old lay; it was sung to every elven child to put him or her to sleep with its soothing melody and repeated phrases. It had long been considered a nonsense song about the sun:
Up goes the light.
Down comes the light.
Call illberin,
Call illberin.
Cald sang the first two lines and the refrain from the old tune. “I always thought the light in the song meant the sun, but the words are backward. You think of the sunlight coming up and going down, not going up and coming down. It would make more sense if it meant the lights on the stair.”
When need and deed
Have not agreed,
Call illberin,
Call illberin.
Eyrmin sang the second part of the song and lifted an empty hand, palm up, as if offering Cald the gift of the last verse.
“Together—you taught it to me,” Cald said wanting to share the secret, and they both sang:
Then they who stay
Will find their way.
Call illberin,
Call illberin.
“It’s so simple. Why have we not thought of it before?” Cald asked.
“Perhaps the spirits laid the burden of finding it on you because you learned the song in Reilmirid,” Eyrmin said.
“You, and the rest, learned it in Siellaghriod, or in other parts of the Sielwode,” Cald added. “No elf child has ever been born here in the western arm?” He knew the answer. Reilmirid was considered a village for warriors. There were no settlements in the western arm of Sielwode. The elven infants were cared for deep in the forest, either in the capital or in one of the villages close by.
Eyrmin leapt to his feet, his eyes ordering Cald to waste no time.
“Now that we know the secret, we must free the spirits,” he said. “If they can leave this place, perhaps the danger of the portal would be destroyed.”
Two hundred yards to the east, they waded across the shallow stream that flowed from the lake and entered the Muirien Grove. After nearly an hour’s wandering through the grove, they found two spirit warriors sitting beneath a tree, as if resting. When they saw the prince and the human gazing at them, they stood, nodding and smiling.
They spoke between themselves, but neither Cald nor Eyrmin could hear them.
“I’ll try just the word,” Eyrmin said. “Illberin.”
Nothing happened. The ghost warriors continued to nod.
“You try it,” Eyrmin said, his eyes dark with his sense of failure. “They looked to you for the answer.”
Cald spoke the word, again without result. He tried singing the song. Eyrmin joined him in the song, but the spirits could not hear them.
“I thought it was the answer,” Cald said as they walked away to leave the ghost warriors in peace. “It felt so right.
“You were not alone,” Eyrmin said. “I still believe we are right. We have the weapon to cut their bounds; there must be a secret to using it.”
Twenty-One
In the clear night, the stars of Tallamai twinkled down on Sielwode. The air was cooling after a warm day, and many of the elves of Reilmirid had left the village. They gathered in a clearing half a mile to the south of the Sielwode grove.
Tall, slender poles with torch heads of tightly woven range grass gave light and movement to the shadows as the gentle breeze caused the flames to flicker. The elves could have done without the torches, but the moving shadows added mystery to the evening.
The elves had ranged themselves in eight groups, each numbering between eight and a score. The size of each group shrank and grew as the elves moved about, listening to and joining in different songs and conversations.
In most of the groups, laughter was frequent, but in one, the listeners were silent, their brows furrowed. Iswiel and Malala were engaged in an argument. The elf from the southern village of Eisermerien, near the swamp of Elinie, was complaining about not being allowed into the Muirien Grove. He was hinting the prince wanted to keep the elves from learning the elven ghost warriors did not exist.
“Prince Eyrmin has seen them; that’s proof enough,” Malala said, her eyes flashing.
“So we hear,” Farmain said. “You’ve spent months on duty near the clearing where the portal opens, and you’ve never seen the spirits?”
Iswiel firmed his lips to hide his smile as the female warrior shifted, uncomfortable because she had to admit she had not. Iswiel had deliberately chosen Malala because she was a dedicated follower of Prince Eyrmin, with unshakable faith in her leader, but she lacked verbal skills. In her determination to convince him, she would argue for hours on end, scoring few points. He in his turn would be able to say everything necessary to sow doubt and distrust among the prince’s followers. The argument continued for a few minutes, and when Iswiel lost his train of thought, his comrade Farmain, who had been listening, joined the conversation.