Those were questions for another day. She grabbed Symphony by the mane and leaped up, rolling into position atop him.
And off they went. Pony didn't even have to guide the horse, for hf seemed to know her destination well. Before the sun went down, she wa; at the grove, at the little hollow at the base of the elm, settling in to talk witi the spirits.
She called to Elbryan, she called to Avelyn, but what she found instead whether in her mind or in that other dimension she believed existed behim the mirror, was an image of the world before the human kingdoms, preternatural world of great beasts and exotic plants, of ragged clans c men living under pine boughs or in caves: a world before the Abellica Church, before civilization itself. Before human civilization, for there were races far older than Man.
And there was something else, Pony realized as she examined that strange sensation of times long past: the rosy plague. It was older than the kingdoms, older than the Church, older than mankind.
Perhaps the answer lay in the past, in those whose memories were longer than the records of mankind.
Another image came to Pony then, but surely in her head, in her fairly recent memories, when she and Elbryan had camped on the side of a mountain in the west, staring down at an opaque veil of fog, with Andur'Blough Inninness, the valley of the Touel'alfar, hidden beyond it.
Later that night, back in her room at Fellowship Way in Dundalis, Pony went into the soul stone again, with all her strength-not to attack Jonno's plague this time, but to fly out across the miles, to the west, to the elves.
In mere minutes, she came to mountain passes she had walked once before, with Elbryan. Had she been walking now, she realized, she never would have found the specific trails to the well-hidden elven valley, but in her spiritual form, she was able to soar up past the peaks, getting a wide view of mountains majestic. Still, it took Pony a long, long time to sort out that maze of mountains, to find, nestled in one wide vale, a familiar opaque blanket of magical fog.
She went down to the mountain slope above that blanket and paused. She knew that the elves had set an enchantment upon the place to prevent unwanted visitors-and anyone who was n'Touel'alfar was considered an unwanted visitor! — but she had no idea if their magical wards extended into the realm of the spirit. She spent a long time studying that veil, and she did indeed sense danger there, even for her in this form.
Perhaps she could flow through the mountain, she thought, down through cracks in the stone that would bring her into the elven valley underneath the poisoned carpet of fog. She studied the rock beneath her, picking her path. Then she stopped abruptly, shifting her attention; for there, rising out of the fog, was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen, an elven woman with golden eyes and golden hair, with features angular yet soft, and perfectly symmetrical. She was dressed in flowing robes of the palest green, trimmed with golden lace, and a crown of thorns adorned her forehead. Pony knew before a word was spoken that this was Lady Dasslerond standing before her.
The elf held up her hand, and Pony saw the sparkle of a green gem within, and then she felt the waves of magic rolling over her spirit and body, as if the miles themselves were somehow contracting to bring her wholly to this place.
Pony knew that she could resist that magic, could fight back, and her instincts almost led her to do just that. But she held back and trusted in the fair Lady of Caer'alfar. A strange sensation washed over Pony, and she felt as if she were corporeal again-corporeal and standing on the slope just above the elven valley, hundreds of miles from Dundalis.
"I would have been disappointed it you did not seek us out," Lady Dasslerond remarked. "And I have been disappointed in you before, JilseponieWyndon."
The words caught Pony off guard, and she looked at the elf curiously.
"Your actions in Palmaris were not unknown to me," Dasslerond went on. "I am not fond of assassins."
Pony knew then that the elf had to be talking about her attempt on Markwart's life, a shot with the lodestone from a rooftop far away.
"Better for all the world if I had succeeded, then," Pony replied without hesitation.
"But better for Jilseponie? "
"Better for Nightbird!" Pony retorted, and that seemed to set Dasslerond back on her pretty little heels a bit.
The elf paused, then nodded. "I expect much from one who has learned bi'nelle dasada," she said.
"I understand my responsibilities," Pony replied. "The sword dance will not be shared with anyone."
"So Belli'mar Juraviel has told me, and so I believe," Dasslerond said.
"But I did not come to you to speak of the sword dance," Pony went on, feeling the tug of her magic and fearing that exhaustion would overtake her and send her careening back to Dundalis-if that's where her physical form remained. "Our lands are thick with a disease, the rosy plague."
"This is known to me."
"You and your people have battled this disease before," Pony reasoned, "or at least, you have watched the humans battle against it."
Dasslerond nodded.
"Then tell me how to fight it," Pony pleaded hopefully. "Show me the wisdom of the ages, that I might bring some hope to a world grown dark!"
Dasslerond's expression dropped, and with it, Pony's hopes. "That wisdom is already known to the Abellican brothers and to your King," she explained.
"To hide?"
"Indeed."
"As you and your people will hide? "
"Indeed," said the lady of Caer'alfar. "This plague is the affair of humans, and we intend to keep it that way." Pony's expression hardened into a sneer, but Dasslerond continued undeterred. "We are not numer ous," she explained, "nor do we procreate quickly. If the rosy plague tounc us in our home, it could destroy all that is left of the Touel'alfar. I canno take that chance, whatever the cost to the humans."
Pony bit her lip-and felt the physical sensation as it she were indee corporeal. "This I will give you, and only this," Dasslerond went on, and she reached her other hand out from within her robes, showing a parchment to Pony. She let go of the parchment and gave a gentle puff, and it floated across the expanse on magical winds into Pony's waiting hands.
"A poultice and a syrup," the lady of Caer'alfar explained. "They will not cure the plague-nothing that I know of in all the world will do that-but they will bring some relief to, and extend the life of, those afflicted."
Pony glanced down at the parchment, recognizing some names of herbs and other plants. "Why were these mixtures not known before? " she asked.
"They were," Dasslerond replied, "in the time of the last plague. The memory of Man is not long, I fear."
Pony glanced down at the parchment again, not knowing if it would return with her to Dundalis and wanting to remember well the recipes.
"That is all I can do," Lady Dasslerond said suddenly, drawing Pony's attention back. "You must now leave from this place. Perhaps we will survive this time, and if so, then perhaps we will meet again. Farewell, Jilseponie Wyndon." And she held up her hand and that sparkling emerald gemstone.
Pony held up her hand, as well, trying to make the lady pause long enough for her to commit the recipes to memory; but then, suddenly, she felt the waves of emerald magic and she was flying, flying, across the miles, soaring faster than the wind out of the mountains, away from Lady Dasslerond's secret domain and back to her own room in Fellowship Way in Dundalis.
She was there for just a moment, in body and in spirit, and then, overwhelmed by magical exhaustion, as if Dasslerond had somehow tapped into her own energies to bring about the more complete physical teleportation, she collapsed into unconsciousness.