"Wait! Wait!" said the king, raising his hand and laughing. He stroked his beard and asked, "You wouldn't be the lad Borthum brought with him? The one who helped capture Garlthik?”
J'role nodded.
"Let him- pass."
The guards looked at their king, obviously questioning the wisdom of his orders. But then they stepped aside, and the king waved J'role closer.
When J'role reached him, the king said softly, "You can't speak, eh?"
J'role shook his head.
"Pity," said the king, looking genuinely sad. Then slyly, as if letting J'role in on a secret, he said, "Here, come and take a look at this."
The two of them walked along the path, the guards following close behind. They passed more guards, who watched over the garden's other paths.
They approached a circular railing set into the ground. Coming closer, J'role saw that it surrounded a big hole through which he could see the city below. The king walked up to the railing and looked down. "We call this garden Bathebal's Eye. Used it to study the layout as we built the city." He smiled proudly. "Came out well, don't you think?"
J'role studied the dwarf, not sure what to make of-him. He seemed at once imposing and kind.
King Varulus narrowed his eyes at J'role. "I appreciate what you did, you know."
J'role stared back, confused, thinking for a moment that the king referred to the murder of his father. "Capturing Garlthik. Not an easy task." the dwarf continued. He stepped up to J'role, raising his wrinkled worn hand to J'role s cheek. The fingers felt warm and comforting "A glum one, aren't you, boy?” The king sighed and turned away, looking down toward the city. "Like so many of us since the Scourge." Suddenly, excitement again. "But look what we're making, eh? New homes for any of the races who wish to live with us. We're building throughout the mountain, sending envoys out to all of Barsaive. We will rebuild the world. We've thought it all out."
The king's words cut through J'role's despair, and he found himself momentarily caught up by the dwarf's enthusiasm. Rebuild the world? Was such a-thing possible?
"Your Majesty," said one of the guards.
The king and J'role both turned, and J'role nearly shouted in fear as he saw Queen Alachia of Blood Wood suddenly appear around the bend in the path. She wore a gauzy white dress, punctured with thorns. A few drops of blood hung momentarily on the tips of the thorns, then rolled down her white flesh onto the white dress without leaving a mark.
Her long red hair spilled down over her shoulders, curling like thick, writhing vines.
Several elven courtiers followed, wearing chain mail and long swords in jewel-encrusted scabbards. The thorns of the queen’s escorts poked through the links in the mail, and again, drops of blood appeared every few minutes.
J’role wanted to turn and run, but he didn't know if the dwarven guards would cut him down on the spot for his hasty actions. Instead he looked at the queen, waiting for her to spot him and demand that King Varulus kill him at once. Had she known he was here?
Had she come for the records, as he and Releana had come, to find Parlainth? He waited for her to glance at him, to recognize him …
She didn't. Her gaze took in the garden, but passed over J'role as if he were no more than another bush or a tree to her. Her indifference threw J’role completely off balance, for her presence drew him as strongly as it had in Blood Wood. He remembered clearly the pain of her touch, and knew he would gladly feel that pain again. She was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
"Your Majesty," the king said with a tone of forced politeness. "You are looking as lovely as ever." He glanced down at the ground, as if uncomfortable handing out pleasantries of state.
The elf queen dismissed his words with an abrupt question. "Am I not allowed to enter the Hall of Records?"
"No."
"Have our paths diverged so far?"
The king stared at her, his jaw moving silently, slightly, in contemplation. "I don't think I need to speak on the matter."
She stepped closer. The dwarven guards shifted slightly and placed their hands on the pommels of their sheathed blades, which prompted the elven guards to do the same. The king and the queen seemed not to notice. J'role saw that she wore the ring of longing on her finger. He swayed slightly at seeing it, wanting desperately to walk up and take it from her hand. He fought the impulse, succeeding only because he knew he would die if he tried.
Later, he thought. Later.
"Varulus," the queen said and smiled. "Certainly, we have made choices your people would not have made…."
"Did not. We did not make them. As you did not have to make them."
She threw up her hands. "What has this to do with anything?”
"The fact that you cannot see it, your Highness, is enough for me. Will I permit you into the Hall of Records, where you might read secrets, both mechanical and magical, that could lead to the downfall of my kingdom and my allies? No. Certainly not."
"You think me corrupt?"
"Not as we feared four centuries ago when we prepared for the Horrors. No. Not that way." Varulus dropped his eyes, perhaps momentarily unsure. "I do not know. Please.
You will not sway me. You and your people made your choice in Blood Wood. You will live with it. And you will live alone."
"Do you think me so powerless?"
"My lady, you and your people are possessed of a power so strong that I would tremble were the same power offered to me. That is what the elves have never understood. The elves of your wood more than any other. Weakness, in degree, is as much a virtue as strength. There are some things one should not be able to do."
Queen Alachia stared at Varulus for a long time, and for just an instant J'role thought he caught a look of sadness in her eyes. She turned and began to walk away.
J'role jumped up. He could not bear to have her completely ignore him, nor could he let her leave with the ring.
He had taken only two bounds toward her when swords came out from all sides, stopping him in place. The moment crackled with uncertainty as both elves and dwarfs wondered whose side the boy was on. They faced off against each other, poised between J'role and the elf queen.
She whirled, facing J'role. A dozen blades flashed through me air between them, framing her face like a garland of silver thorns. Her own thorns cut through the flesh of her face.
A single drop of blood slid slowly down her cheek from the tip of a thorn. The tunnel of sword blades seemed to form a pattern of some kind, and J'role found himself trying to make sense of an idea at the edge of his thoughts.
"I know you," the elf queen said coldly. Then she smiled, a smile full of all the kindness and love and passion J'role could ever want. Then the smile vanished, like a gate crashing down. With no more said, she turned once more. Her guards waited to make sure that J'role would remain where he was, then turned and followed the elf queen through the garden and out of sight.
After a long beat King Varulus said, "Lower your blades. He won't follow her anymore.
Will your lad?"
J'role thought of his time in Blood Wood, remembered his father alive beside him as they knelt before her, remembered his father's joy and disappointment at finally encountering the elves.
"Boy? Are you all right?" The king took his hand, held it tight. J'role felt an amazing strength in the hand, but it did not crush like Garlthik's grip.
"What did you see?" the creature hissed in his thoughts. "You saw something in the blades. What?"
The creature's question offered J'role a distraction, and his thoughts leaped for it.
Yes. Something in the blades. The tunnel of blades; silver thorns forming a pattern, and true thorns revealed at the end.
The stones! he realized. He'd solved the mystery of the stones.