In the Temple of E'li, the Dawn Prayer lifted upon the winged voices of the old and young, men and women. Day after day, Dalamar woke to it until he could no longer hear it as anything but the sound of desperation. To him, it was the helpless cacophony of people bleating like sheep to a god who-if he had indeed returned to the world as rumor said-had not bothered to stop the hand of Takhisis from ripping apart the kingdom of the Silvanesti. Lords and ladies came to pray, as did merchants and masons and gardeners and servitors. Elves of high station and low trooped in for morning services, for noontide worship, and were often back again for Day's End prayers. The smoke of incense hung in the air, stinging the eyes and making old ladies cough. It did nothing to cover the odor of fear permeating the Temple of E'li and all those others clustered round the Garden of Astarin as reports came to the city of burned villages in the north and west, of battles on the border. Some of those battles between elves and the dragonarmy were victories. Others were not. Troops of Wildrunners practiced war-work on the training grounds around the barracks, their cries and the ringing of steel on steel heard even in the Garden of Astarin. Others moved out of the city, marching north even as flocks of citizens marched to the temples and dark rumor ran like smoke through the city. The Speaker and his council were considering the idea of evacuating the kingdom if Phair Caron broke past Alinosti.
"Why don't they do something?" Dalamar muttered, watching out the window of the scriptorium on one of the last warm days of autumn. One of the last he knew, for each time he went in the forest to hunt for herbs to fill the Temple's storerooms he saw signs that colder weather was coming. Seed dropped fast now. Stalks withered. The plants drew all their life downward to hide it under the ground till spring. Farther north, in the forest where his secret texts lay hidden beneath magical wards, mice and voles had moved inside the cave. He had been obliged to put a warding on each book to protect it from the incursions of nesting creatures.
Lord Tellin looked up from his pages-lists or reports or some small work of his own-past Dalamar to the garden. People stood in small groups, some just come out from service, others waiting to go in. His eye searched for one in particular, Lady Lynntha, who had been each day at the earliest service, lifting her voice in the Dawn Hymn.
"Do what?" he asked Dalamar, but absently. He saw her, tall and slender, standing a little apart from a group of other young women. She looked around idly. This had been going on since the day she'd come to return Tellin's gift. Her voice was now a regular part of the prayer services.
"Anything." Dalamar saw glances meet, Tellin and Lynntha's. Dangerous, he thought, dangerous, my Lord Tellin. "All they do is pray and feed troops up to the border."
"And these things are nothing?" Tellin reached for his pen, found the quill's tip split, and took up another.
"Yes." Dalamar turned his back to the garden and the people milling there. "Lord Garan, I think, would agree."
Tellin looked up, surprised and perhaps amused to hear so bold an opinion from a servant. He had heard one or two similar opinions in the last weeks. Dalamar had changed since he had returned to the Grove of Learning to take up his studies in magic again. He grew bolder, more confident, and it seemed to Tellin that this was both a good thing and bad. He did want a mage skilled in the healing arts, one who could put his talents to use should that become necessary. Who would not want one near who knew how to imbue a salve with magical properties? And yet… and yet there were these bold, striding opinions, which, even if they sometimes matched Tellin's own thoughts, were not seemly in a servitor.
Perhaps this, he thought, is why we don't allow them too much knowledge of art and literature and magic. They overreach. And yet, Tellin didn't think the reach of this careful and cunning servant often exceeded his grasp.
"Do you think Lord Garan would agree with you, Dalamar? Well, perhaps. But hindsight-"
"Yes," Dalamar interrupted, "it's the best sight. Still, seeing backward, I know that a mistake was made to forge treaties with Phair Caron. Another was made when the king delayed Lord Garan's hand for the sake of building up troops. The Highlord, it seems, built a stronger force than we can muster."
The words fell like the ring of steel into the room. Tellin looked away from the garden, his eyes dark and troubled. He heard the truth of what Dalamar said, and he knew that truth was being whispered in other quarters. Still, it was not right to engage in such speculation with a servitor.
"Easy enough to say," Tellin murmured, shuffling his pages to say he'd done with this talk, "now that all deeds are done."
Dalamar took a moment to decide whether he would accept dismissal. Then softly he said, "I suppose you're right, but seeing forward, I know how that mistake can be rectified."
Tellin put aside his quill again, this time not smiling. "Have you been making war plans, Dalamar? Isn't that better left to-"
"-to my betters?" Dalamar shrugged. "I suppose you might think so, my lord, if you thought the heart of a servitor were not as deeply filled with love for his homeland as the hearts of lords and ladies."
Tellin winced. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"
Yes, said Dalamar's cool smile, you meant just that. "Look what my betters have wrought. Have you heard it," he said, "that the refugees from this war are not marching neatly to the cities on the river? People with maps thought they would do that, but people in terror simply run. These are trampling their way to Silvanost, hungry and cold and frightened. Come, I suppose, to see what the best of their betters have to say about things."
Tellin's eyes narrowed at this impudence. Dalamar wondered whether he had pushed the cleric too far. He did not back down, though. He had been a long time considering his plan, and most of this morning looking at the maps in this very room when what he should have been doing was sharpening quills, scraping parchment clean, and laying out the lists of stores for Tellin to review and amend.
"My Lord Tellin," he said, striving to keep a tone that wouldn't alienate his master. "I have a lot of time to think out there in the woods where the herbs are. And I have a chance to hear what is being said in the city among the people. Lords and ladies, they don't look to see if a servant is near. We are invisible to them. And so they speak freely, and we listen freely. I know we elves held our hand too long, and now we suffer for it. We let advocates and emissaries steer our defense, as though we were in some court of law and not at war. We put our trust in treaties that Phair Caron had no mind to honor. Now we are too late to the border with too few soldiers." Softly, he said, "You know that as well as I, my lord."
Tellin looked out the window again. Lynntha's voice lifted in sudden laughter. Her brother had come to escort her home from the Temple. He watched her turn and walk away, lovely on Lord Ralan's arm. Her cheeks were sun-gold. Her silver hair, caught back from her face and captured in a glittering jeweled net, hung heavy on her long slender neck. What would happen to her if the Wildrunners could not hold the border? Who would defend her and keep her safe?
Tellin shuddered and looked at Dalamar, his impertinent servant. "Tell me," he said, reluctant to show enthusiasm, and yet curious. "Tell me what plan you have."
And then what? He could not go to the Speaker of the Stars and say, "Beg pardon, my lord king, but my servant has come up with a brilliant plan of defense." Certainly he could not! War plans from the servant of a cleric whose duty it was to keep the records in the Temple of E'li? This was idiocy! And yet, he was curious.