Claimer: I own them – all of them. Everything from this story is completely original and any resemblance that it might bear to previously published and already existing entities is purely coincidental. Please, do not use any of this story without my permission. I accept any sort of constructive (in other words, helpful) criticism, but please refrain from flaming me. Thank you.
Author's note: The names in this story have exact and set pronunciations. If this is desired to be known, please direct questions concerning whatever name you have in mind to the reviews section provided with this story.
Chapter 1:
Elladine of the White RealmNighttime was the crowning moment in an enchantress's day. It wasn't because it was the best time for casting spells or working wonderful, exciting kinds of magic – those sorts of things were best done when the moon was at the stage just before it was its fullest, not on normal nights. And it wasn't because enchantresses preferred that the darkness should cover their doings. No, it was because nighttime was the most beautiful time. The sky – which was lovely in another way during the hours of daylight when the sun shone and the birds sang to each other across the fields of wildflowers and the people whistled and laughed at their work – was darkened, transformed into a backdrop of finest black velvet. The stars sparkled like diamonds, faceted and brilliant, as the crickets chirped their poignant, violin-like serenades through the gentle, warm shadows and the wind whispered soft, alluring, electrifying melodies through the tree boughs.
Elladine, youngest daughter of Orandor: the great sorcerer and ruler of the faery-world, the White Realm, and his queen, Vahlada, loved the nighttime.
Her head thrown back against her shoulder blades, so that she could look fully up at the sky that she cherished so deeply, she stared at the stars, knowing – treasuring – the diamond-like shapes that formed so many of the night's creatures and beings. It was midsummer and she was visiting, for a short time, the castle belonging to one of the realm of Éindor's kings: the fortress Imlahdri. Of course, Elladine was awed every time that she saw Imlahdri's sparkling, high-walled and many-towered greatness, its beauty and majesty – although she never really admitted it to anyone, for that was her way – but she was also somewhat accustomed to it. She was just as interested in it as her own home in the world of faeries: an elaborate, palace-like cave surrounded by a vanguard of stone and the gushing sprays of a gigantic waterfall.
But Imlahdri held certain joys for her, even at that.
She had rarely visited it, for – even though she was more mature than other young women of her age, which was nineteen, and even though she was the princess daughter of the monarch who reigned over all the faeries, which gave her certain, noticeable powers, and even though she was a full-fledged, powerful enchantress – Elladine had scarcely any need to visit the world of men. She was perfectly content to remain in either her own palace-home on the borders of the faery and human worlds or her exalted parents' dwelling: the ancient castle of Avalennon, where faeries had lived in ages past, from the time that life had first arisen.
As for Elladine, the only reason why she visited Imlahdri was that her brother, Gavin, the ninth child among ten offspring of Orandor and Vahlada, was a knight in the service of the current king there. Gavin was the only one of Elladine's brothers who she saw often and therefore felt close to, which gave them a special bond. After all, he was only a minute year and two months older than she was.
Just then, as she thought of that, her stargazing was interrupted.
"Could this be astronomy? Why Ella darling, I had no idea that you had any interest in such an art!" said a youthful, masculine, and teasing voice from the doorway behind her. Elladine turned, her lips twisting in a wry but charming smile.
"Gavin, don't be a fool – I really don't think that your lord king needs another one at the moment."
With a grin, her tall, hansome older brother roused himself from his lazy position at the doorway and crossed the balcony to stand beside her at its ledge. After a moment of silence, he looked up at the stars, squinting, and then turned to her.
"You were sorely missed at the pre-banquet festivities, Ella," he said, using the nickname that their family had bestowed upon her early in her childhood. To that, she tossed her straight, fine shoulders at his words and her full, sybaritic lips formed a childish, pretty pout as she narrowed her eyes, frowning a bit.
"I'm sorry to have declined, in that case."
Gavin gave her a scrutinizing look.
"You and the queen still aren't on good terms of hospitality,
friendship, and amiability, are you?"
"Well,
if you could call it that," was Elladine's short reply; then, she lifted her
chin and gave him a superior look. "And unless you've forgotten that I have the
choice of whom my friends are as an indisputable right, Sir Gavin," she used his knight's title pointedly, "You won't try
scolding me for avoiding her, unless you wish to be turned into a squatty
little toad."
"And you would choose to punish me with something like that." Gavin remarked, grinning again. He knew as well as she did that the rather proud, jealous young queen did not relish the fact that Elladine – who was famed for her beauty across the land, making the queen herself second place next to the young enchantress – had come to Imlahdri to visit her much-beloved older brother. Elladine gave him a sour look for his comment and went back to watching the stars. Finally, after surveying the sky with her for several silent minutes, Gavin stood straight and assumed a more serious tone.
"Dinner's going to start in about five minutes," he told her. "I've been sent to see if you'll be joining us down in the great hall."
"And who would care if I was there?" Elladine retorted, but she came away from the balcony's edge, leaving her admiration of the night behind her, and followed him into the candlelit chamber beyond: it was her drawing room, all hung with dark green, black, and gold tapestries and other sorts of regalia.
As Gavin made his reply, she paused before the black-silver mirror that hung over the huge fireplace and quickly ran her gaze over herself. There, a young, shockingly beautiful girl stared back at her: as if she was a creature, a soul, in her own right. Elladine was pleased with what she saw, although she was in no way vain of her beauty. Bards, knights, princes, and others could sing of her 'wondrous fairness' or her 'slender nose of alabaster contour' or her 'cheek of velvet rose', but she was hardly even amused by such descriptions. She wasn't vain – slightly aware, but not vain. She tangled the long, slender fingers of her left hand in one of the elaborately-crafted curls of thick midnight-black hair that hung down on her neck, glowing in the firelight and felt her right eyebrow come down over the eye below it, as the corresponding corner of her mouth etched into its side in a show of gentle skepticism.
Visits to Imlahdri required too much – she felt somewhat disappointed when the members of the opposite gender snubbed maidens when they saw that another maiden had walked by, fairer than the first.
"Well, I was hoping that you would join us…but you probably couldn't care less about what I had hoped for," Gavin said, slyly, interrupting her reverie.
"As long as you keep that ninny Sir Gregoreth from asking me to dance with him all evening. I can't abide the thought of trying to move in an allemande while worrying about whether or not I'm two seconds away from tangling my skirt hem in one of his stupid pointy-toed shoes."
Gavin laughed as they stepped out into the hall: the sound was robust, youthful, and cheerful; nothing superficial, he was really laughing.
"Alright, but I'll have you know I'm not much good at it either."
Elladine made a scoffing sound as he offered his arm to her and she intertwined hers with it. "Perhaps not, but I have spells to assist with that. When it comes to Lærelinorean-inspired fashions, however…"
She sighed, rolling her eyes – which seemed to be two dark, almost liquid pools of deep blue-violet – and shook her head mournfully.
"Well, I can't be of any service there. A fool will wear what he wants to wear, because it's more of a mindset than an actual, tangible thing that you can change."
"The spells have a tendency to just sort of drop off, don't they?" Gavin observed; they made their way down a short flight of stone steps into a square, short corridor where blazing torches lined the walls. Elladine nodded sympathetically to that, her long, massy, ebony-coloured curls moving up and down against her back, rubbing deftly against the deep blue velvet that made up her gown.
"Exactly."
She gave him a hopeful, but questioning look.
"So will you?"
"Guard you from old Gregoreth?" He sighed. "I suppose so, if I must. Say, why don't you just turn him into a toad in my place?"
Elladine shot him a convincingly innocent look.
"And run the risk of being thrown out of Imlahdri, when I haven't scarcely gotten to see my favorite brother yet? I had thought better of you, Gavin."
"Yes…" Gavin assented, reluctantly, as if he was about to add more; then, several courtiers, a knight or two and three women among them, passed by, greeting the pair cordially as they went on their way. Gavin saluted them graciously and Elladine inclined her head with a perfect elegance, lowering her eyes alluringly.
"But you could leave them with the threat of a curse to keep them awake shivering in their beds for three months after that if they did throw you out. You're the best enchantress in the whole realm of Darannor, you know."
Darannor was the name of the king, although Gavin – as one of his knights – usually called him simply, 'my lord' or 'my liege', or any other title of reverence.
"Of course I know it, you overgrown puppy," she replied, smiling playfully. "Maybe I ought to just inform Sir Gregoreth. I'm not sure that he knows."
"Or cares." Gavin put in. "They say that those who wear the Lærelinorean fashions behave as flippant and all-around idiotic as their clothing sometimes. He'd probably just give you a sappy, dog-like look for exactly one split second and then go on to write a sonnet to your nose or the hem of your gown – which does look really very lovely tonight, I must say."
Elladine smiled to the compliment and curtsied a bit as they stood before the doors to the great hall.
"Thank you, Sir Gavin. I am most flattered to know that I have gained your admiration. But tell me – how long will you be here in Imlahdri before your next mission? I must know when I will have to say farewell to you again."
He smiled at her, gently and almost wistfully.
"To tell you the truth, Ella, I don't know. Darannor's been sending off a lot of the knights on missions to various remote places in the realm during the past few months because of…well, let's just say that there's been a lot of odd goings-on in the less settled parts of the country recently. Things like supposedly extinct monsters like fire wyrms, basilisks, ogres, and that sort of thing popping up and making trouble. I heard—"
And then the doors to the great hall opened, and somewhere, a pair of trumpets sounded, nearly deafening both brother and sister, and a loud voice announced, "The banquet of the Midsummer's Eve celebration begins!"
Elladine took her hands away from the sides of her head – she had clapped them over her ears at the initial outburst from the trumpets – and looked irritated as she shot an icy, disapproving glare at the pair of pages and herald who had announced the beginning of the banquet. She and Gavin had been in the wrong place at the wrong time – right before the aforementioned doors to the aforementioned great hall – and the doors had been thrown open to admit the guests to the banquet. Gavin rubbed one ear, causing some of his bright, burnished golden-brown hair, which he had kept slicked back on his head that evening: otherwise, it would fall carelessly to his cheekbones; and with a rueful twist to his lips, he offered his sister his arm again.
"Shall we?"
Leaving the subject of their discussion to itself, the young enchantress set her shoulders straight, straightening herself disdainfully, and gave him her hand.
"Might as well."
They entered the great hall, which was alight and effulgent with the light of torches and the fireplace at the far end of the room. The tables were loaded with all kinds of delicacies, some delicious and bewitching to look at, like a berry-strewn meringue – a fancy, new type of confection from, of course, Lærelin – and others, disgusting and almost vomit-inducing: such as the gigantic bowl of shepherd's stew. Wonderful – sheep's entrails, Elladine thought, already wishing that she had remained in her chambers and been spared the disgust of seeing such an odd dish.
Gavin was already steering her towards the far end of the room, however, and she had no more time to think of a spell to transform the more undesirable foods on the tables into something not only beautiful but delectable as well. King Darannor and Queen Raëna sat in two thrones at the principle table, observing the festivities of their guests with an air of interest and pleasure. Raëna's features seemed to take on a hint of displeasure when she saw that it was Elladine who approached the royal table on Sir Gavin's arm; however, Elladine kept herself from responding to the slight animosity in the queen's eyes, elegantly. Gavin bowed to his sovereign, reverently, and Elladine made a deep, swelling curtsey.
"My liege." Gavin said, then he turned and bowed also to Raëna. "Your majesty." Elladine did the same, murmuring sweetly, "My lord," to Darannor, and, "My lady," to Raëna, whose sour expression did not lighten. Darannor smiled and rose, kissing Elladine's hand courteously and nodding to Gavin; then he said, "Lady Elladine, we are honoured to be graced with your presence."
Elladine curtsied again.
"I could not refuse the king's gracious offer to join the midsummer festivities. My most humble thanks."
Gavin then led her towards their seats and they were able to speak freely again. Elladine glanced towards Raëna, who seemed much more at ease in her beautiful rival's absence, and commented, "She seems ill at ease with her face, Gavin. I think that that is the only reason why she dislikes me so."
Her brother nodded compassionately: his eyes slightly grim.
"Aye – but Raëna's been through very much in the short time of her life, Ella. You mustn't blame her for being insecure about some things. It's not that she harbors any dislike for you personally; being a queen is sometimes a very shaky position to be in. You can't be sure about a lot of your life when that's who you are."
"Everyone is always looking at you, expecting you to show them who to be, what to do, how to speak, think, and act…" Elladine sighed, beginning to understand, her eyes never roaming from the queen's figure. "It's almost worse than being the king."
Gavin smiled a bit.
"Only when you're the queen, you're a woman – so you have to be braver."
Elladine turned in her tall-backed, ornate seat to look at him, about to say more; then, suddenly, she noticed a small, slight movement on the table before her. Gavin had begun to speak with someone else and he was unaware of it. Elladine narrowed her eyes, trying to see what was causing the movement. Whatever it was, it was very small and very quick. It was…it was…a spider? Yes, a spider. It was scurrying quickly, relentlessly, very nearly invisibly, towards the head of the table where Darannor and Raëna sat. No one else saw it. But it was a large spider: completely black, with a peculiar glowing shape on its back. She recognized that shape – she didn't know from where or how she knew it, but she did.
But she did know that it wasn't a good thing to see.
Elladine isolated her thoughts and withdrew into her own mind, listening to the sounds beneath the sounds: beyond the immediate, human ear, delving into the world of thoughts. It was hard to concentrate on just the spider's mind, even if it was thinking. Animals had their own type of thoughts, but it was a different kind of thought than that of humans. Finally, she was able to listen closely.
Tick, tick, tick went the spider's tiny feet on the garnished tabletop, and then, repetitively, like a child's nursery rhyme, over and over again, Darannor kill…Darannor kill…DARANNOR KILL!
Without thinking, Elladine was on her feet, dashing down the table's length, tearing around its corner, never minding the eyes that were suddenly focused on her, and running to intercept the murderous, black, eight-legged insect. The spider had gotten three feet onto Darannor's plate by the time that Elladine had reached the royal table, but it wasn't quick enough for the enchantress. She snatched it up by one leg and stared at it with burning, seemingly alight eyes for one moment.
You bug, what do you think you're doing? she asked it in her mind.
The spider writhed in her grasp, unable to decide for a second what had kept it from its intended purpose, and then it stopped and was still. She could tell it was looking at her intently, as was the rest of the court. No – the spider was looking at her, and the court was gaping at her, although Darannor and Gavin, she could tell, were staring at her not with skepticism and shock in their eyes, but fear and slight wonder.
Darannor kill!
Elladine threw the spider to the ground and quickly crushed it beneath the sole of her soft slipper, trembling with rage as she felt the insect crumple into the floor. She stepped away, wordlessly, and looked at the black smudge that had been the would-be murderer of the Éindorean king. It wasn't just any spider – of that she was sure. No common, everyday household spider plotted an attempt to kill Darannor.
And thus she wasn't totally surprised when the thread of almost transparent, black smoke began to rise from the spider's remains, growing larger and larger until it had reached the height of an average man, materializing into a human shape and solidifying. She heard a few cries from behind her, but she ignored them. Then—
"Elladine of the White Realm!"
There was a sound like an explosion as soon as those words had been thrown into the air, like a handful of dust, and the smoke burst outwards, into the center of the room, curling around the enchantress as she stood – motionless and pale with anger – and waited, as a general pandemonium erupted around her. Then, the smoke cleared and Elladine found herself facing a truly ghastly personage.
In the time of Darannor of Éindor's reign, it was a well-known fact that magic, faeries, and others of their kind were very real entities. There were a great many people who had faery blood mixed into their human families, and even a select few who really were very strongly faery themselves. Those who lived in the human world were very aware that the realm of the faeries – the White Realm – was a real, alternate place of reality, where magic, spells, and miracles were everyday and very much what could be called 'commonplace'. Humans and faeries alike, however, knew that yet another realm of magic and wonders existed, only in a far more dark way.
It was known as the Dark Realm.
The Dark Realm was as evil, vicious, and generally nightmarish as the White Realm was beautiful, good, and heavenly. Its inhabitants were composed of all of the enemies of mankind and faeries: ogres, witches, sorcerers, and others – and they were all totally opposed to the human and faery worlds. Elladine had met creatures from the Dark Realm before…and it was thus that she knew whom – no, more like what – it was that she faced in the great hall of King Darannor's Imlahdri.
She regarded the intruder with a cold, emotionless expression in her dark, blue-violet eyes, her lips set in a firm, straight, unforgiving line.
It was a man, or something that seemed to be a man; he was clearly a sorcerer, telling from his apparel and the sharp, strange, crescent-shaped mark that had been placed high up on his left cheekbone, almost directly below the far corner of his eye. His skin was a hideous, chalk-like shade of white: natural and not at all powder or any other sort of make-up effect. His eyes burned, literally, with the light of a devouring, rage-filled fire, orange as an undefeatable inferno. His robes – black, deep blue, and purple – swirled around him and sent chilling, icy ripples into the room as he faced Elladine, looking at her with his hollow eyes.
"What gives me the honour of this visit, milord sorcerer?" Elladine asked, murmuring: a subtle but scalding mockery in her tone.
The specter was not amused.
"You have saved your king, Elladine daughter of Orandor, but in doing so, you have incurred upon yourself a more dire fate than your sovereign would have endured in his death."
His voice was raspy and almost sibilant, grating to the ears and powerful: the kind of voice that was heard in nightmares and could not be escaped.
Ever.
"You cannot escape those of the Dark Realm forever, child; this evening, you have crossed us for the last time. If you had remained where you were and allowed Darannor to die, you would have only seen a brief period of turmoil in this pitiful little kingdom before someone else came to the throne and restored order."
He shook his head, smiling grimly: evilly.
"But now…now I am afraid that you have just gotten yourself into more of a trouble than you can handle."
Elladine was unimpressed.
"Delightfully put, oh-great-and-terrible-specter of the enraged and highly offended Dark Realm, but forgive me if I don't fall on my face trembling. Pray tell, what kind of trouble have I gotten myself into and what punishment shall I face?"
The sorcerer's eyes burned all the more furiously as he replied.
"Do not trifle with humor in this, little one. We of the Dark Realm know where you are, and I warn you now – the end will not come quickly."
He stepped away.
"You owe no true allegiance to any of these people here – to Darannor and his kingdom. If you had but remembered that, you would have been safe. But you've gone too far now, and the Dark Realm will have its vengeance." Stretching out the fingers of one hand, the sorcerer swept his arm in a broad circle around the entire room, pointing at each and every one of the people present as he did so, saying, "Those who these words hear me say, memories, like shadows, vanish: away!"
There was another sound of an explosion, and black smoke filled the room once more. Before Elladine was able to see again, she knew that the sorcerer – the spell-wielding personage who had attempted to kill the king, only to see if she would act and prove her loyalty to the enemies of the evil side of magic, and sworn vengeance: her death, probably – was gone. She looked around herself, knowing that the spell that the sorcerer had cast was wreaking its effects. No one in the hall knew what had happened, no one remembered. They were all talking just as loudly, merrily, and unconcernedly as they had been before Elladine had kept the spider from doing its work.
She was the only one who knew of her predicament.
If it can even be called a predicament.
But this was not remotely good. The Dark Realm was definitely a force to be reckoned with, and only a fool mocked such great power, such great danger, and laughed in its face. And fools normally ended up dead after taunting the Dark Realm anyway. She couldn't be so stupid…but what else was she to do? The sorcerer had said that he and all of his comrades knew where she was. She couldn't hide – rather, she couldn't hide very easily – now that her greatest enemies knew that she was a threat and were out to seek their vengeance upon her. Elladine thought for a moment, and finally decided.
It's time to go home.
And so, that very night, as soon as she had said good-bye to everyone, she summoned Gavin to her quarters and told him of what had happened that evening with the sorcerer. Surprisingly – or not so surprisingly, as her brother was a gifted user of magic himself and also the son of Orandor, ruler of the faeries – the spell had not worked upon him and he agreed that she should return home. He would go there with her, and would see her safe there though all of the Dark Realm's most powerful and evil servants should bar the way.
Little did they know what awaited her there.
* * * * * *
Traveling never took too much time for enchantresses, or for the better ones, at that. Gavin and Elladine arrived back at the waterfall-fronted mountainside that hid her home – one of the many, many entrances to the faery world – from the eyes and knowledge of men. Sitting behind her brother, clinging to him as they sat perched high above the ground on the back of his faithful steed, the all-white faery stallion Gwuinahar: faster than the North Wind, Elladine glanced around herself suddenly, pausing, as a strange, chilly feeling came over her. That evening, she had stopped the assassination of the king of Éindor from being carried to success; in doing so, she had incurred the wrath of the easily provoked, very dangerous Dark Realm upon herself. Never before in her life had she faced such opposition, but she wasn't terrified or in any way afraid of what her enemies might try to do to her. It was true that she was somewhat unnerved by the threat on her life, but she knew that she had to keep her thoughts cool and her head clear if she was to avoid…whatever it was they had in store for her.
But the question was – what was she to do?
All during her journey home with her brother, her sense of premonition – the feeling that something, someone, was watching her – had been growing. They were not alone in the forest, and help was too far away to summon. Help? No, assistance. Elladine was a powerful enchantress: she could handle herself, and Gavin was extremely well versed in the powers of the White Realm. And yet… Well, she had already told Gavin not to interfere any further than helping her escape Imlahdri. It was her matter to deal with, and she couldn't allow him to bare himself for any of the opposition that the Dark Realm's monstrosities might come up with, to fight her battle. She certainly could not do that. It was her affair, and she would settle it.
Best get back home before someone comes along to rectify that, she thought, grimly, to herself, and she cast one last glance back into the dark, somehow foreboding forest that lurked darkly behind her.
"Do you want to go in?" Gavin asked, softly, turning his head slightly to look behind himself at his younger sister: small in the darkness and lithe as a shaft of cool, silvery moonlight in her forget-me-not blue silken cloak. Elladine nodded.
"Please, Gavin. Let's get out of these shadows."
With a nod, Gavin nudged Gwuinahar forward and the great horse walked into the glassy, gently lapping waters of the pool that stretched before them. They crossed it – the water steadily rising, as they moved further in, to above Gwuinahar's knees – until they had reached its far side, where a misting waterfall plumed from above them, shooting down a wall of smooth, slippery gray rock. Gavin guided Gwuinahar to a nearly invisible crack in the gray, lichen-ridden rock that fronted her home and the faery world. Once they were safely inside, Gavin helped Elladine off of the horse's back and turned to tether him in place; meanwhile, as her brother was busy, Elladine looked around herself, seeing the torches that mounted the walls on either side of the passageway that they stood in blaze to life at her presence. The familiar, engraved figures of mythical creatures – dragons, unicorns, griffins, and others – that had been placed on those walls jumped out at her, welcoming her return. Elladine felt her lips curve briefly. Her life may have been just turned completely upside-down by the deadly threat of a wicked sorcerer, but everything in her home – everything that she knew and loved – was the same as it had always been. And always would be.
She felt a bit more cheerful then – 'cheerful' was a sort of last resort word to describe her emotions at that moment – and turned to Gavin, who smiled and held out a hand to her. "Shall I escort you to your chambers, milady Ella?"
"Please do, Sir Gavin," she replied; taking her brother's hand then, she began her walk down the passageway, towards the chambers that made up her dwelling. They had almost reached the main drawing room when, suddenly, Elladine heard noises coming from within it. She halted dead in her tracks, as did Gavin, and they both listened.
The noises were voices, but she couldn't tell from whom they came or what they were saying. A small, tremble-like convulsion went through her frame when she remembered the sorcerer's words, back in the great hall at Imlahdri.
We of the Dark Realm know where you are, and I warn you now – the end will not come quickly.
She had to get closer.
With a movement of her eyes, Elladine signaled her wish to Gavin, who reluctantly nodded. As they crept silently, cautiously, down the dusty hall's floor, Elladine expected every moment that she would, without warning, come upon some ghastly creature from the Dark Realm and ultimately would be forced to somehow defend herself. Nothing of that sort happened, however, and brother and sister reached the very edge of the main chamber undiscovered. Peering down into the room below with dark, piercing eyes, she was slightly startled but mostly undaunted at what she saw. The sorcerer's threat had come true – the Dark Realm's agents had found her. There were several towering, grotesque creatures that stood within the room below the perch on which she stood; Elladine and Gavin both knew something of the people – if they could be called that even – of the Dark Realm, but there were many species of which they did not know. The seven, for that was their number, were a kind that neither of them had ever seen before. Their forms were somewhere between that of humans and ogres: a truly horrid combination, for it made them look manlike and yet also stunted, towering, and brutish. Elladine shuddered as she caught a scent of something incredibly foul and nauseatingly putrid on the air.
It was the creatures' smell and it reminded her of carrion and blood.
She withstood a very small urge to shrink timidly back from the sight that had confronted her, in her own home: invaded by evil, and listened to the monsters, which had begun to talk among themselves. Actually, they had already been speaking, but she hadn't been paying terribly close attention until then.
Their speech was snarling, guttural, and crude in sound, consisting of the odd language that was usually spoken by ogres and their sort. Elladine understood their speech because her father had taught her everything that had made her into the enchantress that she was from childhood, and the languages of several different peoples other than humans and faeries had been one of his most-stressed lessons. Elladine found that she had to listen carefully, however, in order to comprehend what her home's invaders were saying. Five very tense minutes passed as she eavesdropped, hoping that she and her brother would not be discovered. One of the monsters appeared to be in authority over the others, so the group was organized and had come prepared to her dwelling, she ascertained. He wore a disgusting ornament – a diadem of three skulls: two, small and flanking a larger one, which looked almost human, she realized with a shudder; bound about his head with ragged leather straps – that distinguished him from his subordinates. As to the orders that he was giving out…well, she had already known what they would be speaking of, according to the sorcerer's words back at Imlahdri. Spread out, search every room, leave no corner unchecked, beware of the enchantress's faery powers, the usual, bring her to the leader dead or alive, more orders, destroy everything if finding their quarry is impossible.
Destroy everything, will you? Elladine thought, seething in her growing fury; she clenched her teeth together and felt an icy-hot feeling settle over her. Bring the enchantress to you dead or alive? You can just try!
Suddenly, out of the darkness, something dropped onto her shoulder. Elladine and Gavin whirled around as one, unnerved but ready to tear apart anything that attacked them, like a mother dragon who had found her fledglings threatened, and—
Their sister, Galena, fourth child in their family, stood behind them: almost invisible in the black, inky shadows. Her pale, fine skin and the glimpses of her white raiment, which peeked out from underneath her grayish-black cloak, gave the only evidence that she was even there. Behind her, Gavin obviously relaxed, sagging back against the wall a bit, and Elladine felt her mouth open slightly, even though she knew that any words spoken out loud – even in a whisper – could be fatal. Galena held a long, slender finger to her lips and Elladine could almost hear her calm but imperative 'Shh'. Galena stepped away, into the shadows, her hand moving from her lips to grip her younger sister's hand, giving it a gentle tug, to beckon them to follow.
Elladine and Gavin obeyed, wondering.
The three siblings left the orange-red glow from the main chamber of Elladine's home behind them and sped down the passageway, their footsteps unmarked and silent. Elladine had no idea how far they traveled, but she really didn't care. Within a very short time, they – she knew – were in an entirely different place. She could see a light at the far end of the passageway: dimmer than firelight, more like the gentle luminescence that the moon and stars gave off. It was the moon and stars, she found, as they neared it, and then, suddenly, she was standing with Gavin and Galena in the open night air, on a rough-hewn ledge of rock that jutted out of the side of a mountain. Elladine knew where they were – they were located on a mountainside that faced one of the castles that Galena and her following, including her young daughter Arilyn and sorcerer husband Eírald, lived in. Seemingly far off amidst a great expanse of a forest of evergreen trees that swayed gently to the rhythm of the electrifying night breezes was the castle itself: scarcely lit, but glimmering in the moon's rays.
They really had traveled far away.
Elladine turned to her sister, her dark eyes grave and understanding.
"I can't tell you how glad I am that you came, Gala." She had called Galena the shortened version of her name since she had been able to speak and the habit had become part of their lives. "I fear that I've gotten myself into some amount of trouble…again. At Imlahdri—" She paused and checked her words, for Galena already knew, of course: why else would she have come to her sister's home and instructed her to come away from danger? "You know; I shouldn't be such a fool. What am I to do?"
Galena was silent for a moment, thinking, as was Gavin; then she replied, saying, "Ella, when the enemies of the White Realm are aroused to ire, there isn't any conceivable way to dissuade them until the object of their wrath is either proclaimed dead or becomes entirely out of their reach, ceasing to be a problem."
She paused.
"Therefore, I must reveal to you this: you must become dead. You must leave Darannor's realm and make yourself invisible to the world – make yourself 'dead' – until a way comes to dissuade the plague of the Dark Realm that you are gone."
In spite of the truly harrowing situation, Elladine felt a twinge of humor, albeit quite dry, even somewhat pessimistic, come to her.
"I'll leave tonight, then: by all means. However, there is the concern of what I will wear. Travel garb is so deplorably hard to choose these days, Gala dear – unless you happen to be a Lærelinorean, and then you can wear almost anything anywhere."
Galena smiled a bit as Elladine quirked a curved eyebrow and Gavin shot an impatient look at her, clearly irritated with the fact that she was still able to jest in the middle of the miring, quite serious circumstances that surrounded her.
"I would find it very odd that you aren't fazed by this threat from the Dark Realm, little sister, but I fear that I know you only too well."
From within the depths of her cloak, her long, pale hand emerged: palm up, and she gestured to it gracefully. Elladine took the simple band of gold that Galena was offering her and gazed at it for a moment with her penetrating, blue-violet eyes. Words were written around its outside, in some foreign, ancient tongue: most likely that of the forest-gnomes or a sect of long-gone faeries.
"Here is a ring endowed with some of our faery powers," Galena said, softly; a half-smile crossed her careworn but beautiful face then as she commented, "You in all likeliness had one like it before…"
"But everything I once had is now under the seizure of fire. Pity I didn't have home insurance against ogres-trolls-whatever-you-want-to-call-them-s."
"Is there such a thing? I didn't know that." Gavin commented.
Elladine flicked her hair back over her shoulders then, straightening herself and breathing in deeply, almost for the first time that night. Her eyesight cleared a bit and she found that she could think more alertly than she had five minutes previous to her remark about the strange intruders that had been sent to her home. She turned to Galena and gave her a gentle, almost wistful look: her eyes sparkling a bit in the moonlight.
"Thank you, Gala."
She frowned.
"But how do I work this thing and what exactly does it do?"
Gavin whirled on his other sister, saying dryly, "Gala, what are you trying to do – kill our baby sister? You forgot to give her the bloody instructions!"
Then Galena laughed, clearly and musically, the sound ringing against the hillside like the singing of the best minstrels.
"You poor child, I dragged you out of harm's way, counseled you, and then forgot to tell you how to operate my one gift towards your continued well-being."
She took the ring from Elladine and placed it on her dazzlingly beautiful younger sister's slender thumb, saying as she did so, "This ring will take you anywhere in the world, wherever you wish to go. All you must do to initiate its powers is turn it halfway around your finger and think of the place where you wish to go; if you give it a total turn, it will bring you instantly to the White Realm. Now," a questioning look, "is there anything else that I have forgotten to explain to you?"
Elladine tossed her head defiantly.
"Only why the people of the Dark Realm are so irritatingly temperamental."
Galena regarded her gravely and touched her hand, gently, and replied, "That no one can explain. The corruption of evil is everywhere and, although it is unfortunate that you must learn this, nothing can be predicted in the Dark Realm's movements or its decisions. Be careful, Ella."
The sisters embraced briefly – both very concerned of whether they would be seeing each other again soon, or even in a heart-wrenchingly long time – and then Galena stepped away, looking long at Elladine as Gavin went also to bid her goodbye.
"Keep safe, little sister. If any blackguard of the Dark Realm dares lay even one clammy finger of his on you, I'll hunt him down through a thousand millenniums. Use your best judgment – and if you don't have it yet, learn some!"
"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine, you big idiot." Elladine whispered, holding him close one last time as she closed her eyes tightly, savoring her last few moments with her brother and sister. Then, she stepped away, her eyes becoming bright in the moonlight and shining like jewels.
"If you see Mother and Father any time soon, tell them I'll be home soon…maybe. I love you, Galena, Gavin."
"And we love you." her brother and sister echoed as one.
Elladine gave them one final smile as her fingertips found their way to her thumb, upon which the faery-powered ring rested. She closed her eyes slowly, knowing that, in the next moment, her life would start a very different course, no matter where she went or what she did or whom she met.
She spoke the name of the first place that came to her mind.
"Lærelin."
A swirl of cold but not freezing, sparkling bits of glowing green magic, glimmering like tiny emeralds in the night's blackness, surrounded her, beginning at her feet and gradually climbing up to above her head.
They melded into one another, combining to make a giant column of pure, bright green light, and then, like a firework, they burst and became a vortex of white. The scenery of the mountainside disappeared, fading and swimming before her eyes until it became nothing but blackness, and then—
And then she was in Lærelin.
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