She had been right-the Synnorian Gate would open today! Quickly she nudged Talloth with her knees, and the fleet mare exploded into a gallop, carrying her mistress swiftly up the trail. Passing a steep upward branch to the left, a rarely used trail that led to the human kingdom of Corwell, she continued up the main path.
In a few minutes, Talloth slowed to a lope, and then a trot as the trail opened into a clearing. The mare instinctively paused before the Fey-Alamtine, the Synnorian Gate.
A wall of obsidian-black cliff shimmered before Brigit, as if an invisible sheen of water flowed across the surface, but Brigit knew that the rock was dry. The visual effect had a magical cause.
Three or four times in her life the gate had been used, and once before she had been here to witness. Those memories, from a hundred years ago, remained with her as vividly as this morning's. But today she was the only one here, and as the shimmering grew more pronounced, she knew that the gate would open soon.
As captain of the Sisters of Synnoria, Brigit spent much of her time riding the swales and valleys of this tiny elven realm in the Moonshae Islands. Synnoria, and its beautiful capital Chrysalis, bordered the Ffolk kingdom of Corwell, yet the Llewyrr had existed without human intrusion for more than ten centuries. Magical wards and rugged mountains surrounded Synnoria on all sides; indeed, many of the Ffolk believed that the Llewyrr were creatures of history or legend.
Brigit was one of the few Llewyrr to have journeyed beyond the borders of Synnoria. Twenty years earlier, she and a small company of her knights had aided the human king, Tristan Kendrick, in the Darkwalker War. Now she would happily spend the rest of her days riding these valleys and woodlands.
A burst of light washed over her like a cool dawn, and her attention riveted to the Fey-Alamtine. The glossy black wall slowly grew opaque, taking on a rosy hue and an appearance of great depth, as if she looked through a foggy window at a scene many miles away. The shimmering stopped suddenly, replaced by a fixed glow.
Brigit saw a male elf, clad in a dirty, torn cotton tunic, step through the wall, as if he emerged from the heart of the mountain, though she knew that he must have come from far beyond. He blinked in the bright daylight of Synnoria and then gasped when he saw Brigit. He was unarmed, but he clutched a triangle of silvery metal in both of his hands.
"Get out of the way," Brigit suggested gently. "The gate will not remain open indefinitely."
Blinking in surprise, the male quickly nodded and took several steps forward. A female elf, equally dirty and ragged, followed him, clutching a youngster by the hand. The elven child ran forward to clasp the leg of the male who had been the first to emerge.
They came through the shimmering wall in single file, and the elven horsewoman got a good look at them as they emerged into Synnoria: all of them ragged, unkempt, and dirty. Their blond hair was disheveled, trailing back in the wind and plainly revealing the pointed ears of Brigit's elven kindred. She felt no alarm now, only sympathy and a kind of general sadness at the course of advancing history.
The sister knight dismounted, leaving Talloth to wait patiently for her mistress. Brigit advanced slowly toward the leader, whom she marked as a cleric by the golden oak leaf-symbol of Corellon, god of all the elves-embroidered on his sleeves.
The young priest stared at her in mute suspicion-or hope. Brigit held up a hand and advanced at a walk. "Welcome to Synnoria," she said in the language of the elves. "I see that you have traveled the ways of the Fey-Alamtine."
"Yes-in desperate haste," replied the priest, stepping forward. He held his hand on the shoulder of the elven boy who had run to him moments before. The youngster looked up at Brigit with palpable hostility, his hand rested on the hilt of a tiny dagger-a kitchen tool, probably-that he wore in his belt. More and more ragged elves came through, until well over a hundred had assembled in the clearing before the dark cliff.
"We are the Thy-Tach," continued the cleric. Brigit saw that he held the Alamtine Triangle in his hand. She had seen one example of the rare artifact before, the last time a tribe had come through the gate. "Our village was attacked by some monstrous horror, a three-legged creature as big as a hill. We had no recourse but flight!"
"Easy-you're safe now," the knight said, reaching out a hand to clasp the priest on the shoulder. Her touch seemed to steady him.
"My name is Pallarynd," said the priest quietly. "I thank you for your kind welcome."
"I've seen tribes come through the gate of the Fey-Alamtine before in my lifetime, and the shock of the transition is always upsetting. That's why you'll need to rest here for some time before you continue on," Brigit explained.
"It really worked, didn't it?" asked Pallarynd, his tone amazed, looking back at the Fey-Alamtine. The magical gate again looked like a shimmering wall of wet obsidian. "Torcelly had kept this ancient triangle for centuries. She'd never tell me what it was for, but she said that we might need it sometime. Now it has brought the village here, most of us alive."
"It's the way we ensure the survival of our race," Brigit replied. "Only on Evermeet can the elves reign over all the land. Everywhere else the humans press, or, even worse, other creatures. It is the Fey-Alamtine that gives hope to those elves such as yourselves, too isolated or too threatened to flee on foot."
"We're halfway there now, aren't we?" mused Pallarynd, to himself as much as the knight.
"Yes," Brigit said, with a soft smile at the young elf beside the priest. The little fellow squinted, still suspicious, but at least his hand fell away from the knife. The cleric squeezed his shoulder and the boy took the older elf's hand.
Pallarynd turned to his people. The Thy-Tach pressed close to hear his words. "To think we have come safely to Synnoria, the outpost of our people on the Moonshae Islands! The Fey-Alamtine has led us here, and when it is time, it shall lead us on the final leg of our migration as we travel to the eternal elvenhome, Evermeet!"
The Thy-Tach elves, in their ragged leggings and woods-brown tunics, whispered quietly among themselves. Their losses were too recent, and too horrifying, for the elves to feel any joy. Yet as the sister knight turned back down the valley, their relief was palpable to Brigit. She urged Talloth into a fleet canter. The Thy-Tach would find shelters, beds, and food awaiting them when they reached Chrysalis.
The keen bow of the Coho sliced the smooth waters of Corwell Firth. Under the steady eye of her captain, Brandon of Gnarhelm, the small longship glided toward the narrow harbor mouth a mile or two away. Soon they passed the breakwater, gliding toward the dock at the conclusion of a smooth five-day journey from Callidyrr.
Two women stood in the bow of the ship. One of them was heavyset, with a smile as broad as the sun and a merry twinkle in her eyes, seemingly amused by everything they saw. The woman's hair was gray, tied in a bun behind her neck, and the wrinkles lining her face gave a grandmotherly cast to her age, but she stood at the gunwale with one foot balanced on the rail, as light on her feet as any young sailor. Around her shoulders was strapped a dark-grained harp, silver strings winking in the sunlight, and a smooth, well-polished body shimmering from the reflections of the waves.
The second woman was much younger, and strikingly beautiful. Her fair hair, like straw tinted with copper, trailed behind her in the wind, but though her lips creased into a smile at the sight of her family home, her good humor did not extend to her eyes. She looked up at the castle, rising above the town and the firth on its rocky knoll, and she missed her father more than ever.
"Look-there's Lord Pawldo!" announced Tavish, the bard.