Outside the storm had redoubled its efforts, rain beating down like tiny silver spears. A servant went by the window, head low, dark hair plastered against a pale face. He looked like the fellow Tellin had seen in the kitchen with Ralan's steward, and he didn't look happy.
"All right," Ralan said, smiling. "Tell me what you want from me now, friend Tellin."
They were not old friends, the lord of this house and Tellin Windglimmer, but they were long-time acquaintances. They had developed, over the years, an easy relationship, one that did not run deeply but did depend upon a certain understanding. Ralan liked to burnish his pride with acts of good will, and Tellin liked to accept those on behalf of the Temple of E'li.
"No temple gifts," Tellin said. He cleared his throat. It had gone suddenly dry. When that didn't work, he took another sip of wine.
"Not today? Well, well. But the servants have been bundling up clothing for the poor and setting them aside for you since the last time the moons were full. What am I to do with it all?"
Tellin moved uncomfortably, then said, "Well, of course I'll happily take what you offer, Ralan, but-"
Lord Ralan raised a brow. "But that's not what you've come to ask for?"
Tellin took the little scroll from his pocket. The light of Ralan's fire glinted on the silver knobs of the spindle. "This-I have made this… I mean, I have brought this, a gift…"
"A gift for me?" Ralan reached for it, then let his hand drop when he saw the look of sudden confusion on his guest's face. "Ah, not for me. For whom, then?"
"Well, for your sister." Tellin took a breath and forged ahead. "I remembered that Lady Lynntha used to like the Dawn Hymn to E'li. When she was a girl, she would sing it and her voice used to rise up above all others in the morning service. And I thought, well, I had heard that she is here, visiting you. I thought-"
Ralan's expression grew cooler by degrees. "You thought you would present this to her." He held out his hand again. Tellin gave him the scroll. "This is your work, yes?" He turned the spindle so that the firelight ran on the silver. He unclasped the roll and let the first few inches of parchment slide to show the text of the prayer framed in a flowing hand, the capitals of each stanza illuminated in green ink. Diamond dust had been carefully sprinkled onto those tall letters before the ink had dried, and the tiny bits of diamond had cut Tellin's fingers to bleeding as he'd worked. Ralan looked up, his eyes still and calm. No sign did Tellin find of displeasure, but none of welcome either. "This is what you do at the Temple when you aren't looking for alms, eh?"
"Well, this is what I do sometimes. Most times I'm but a record-keeper."
Ralan put the scroll aside, setting it carefully on the table beside his chair. "I'll tell Lynntha it's a gift from an old friend." He emphasized the two words with great care. Old friend, said his tone, and not a potential suitor. They did not marry outside of their own clans, the folk of House Woodshaper. They had the magic of wild spirits in their blood, and they would not dilute that, no matter whose heart was at stake. "She'll be happy to have it and to know that you remember her."
"I appreciate it," Tellin said. "Thank you."
Ralan drew breath to speak, then stopped and frowned. "Tellin, I find myself in need of a favor."
Tellin nodded. "Indeed. I'll be happy to help. Tell me how."
"There's a servant my steward has lately… um, been talking about. The boy's not working out here, and I'd thought to send him on back to Trevalor, but that would mean a letter explaining the trouble, or worse, a visit from Trevalor himself to bow and scrape and apologize."
He smiled wryly, and Tellin returned it. Few who had to deal with the head of House Servitor found their dealings pleasant ones. Trevalor covered himself in obsequiousness as aging women deck themselves in jewels. In the case of the grand dames, the glitter hides fading glory. In the case of Trevalor, the excessive displays of humility hid something more, a sense of resentful entitlement. He was, as a Householder, a member of Speaker Lorac's Sinthal-Elish. And he was, as the highest member of the lowliest caste in elven society, not one accorded a great deal of respect. "The man is just damned unpleasant," Tellin's father had once said. Tellin had never encountered Trevalor and come away feeling otherwise.
"In any case," Ralan sighed, "I'm not at all sure what the trouble is with this servant-not much interested either, come to that. I'm thinking you might spare me the ordeal of listening to the whole story from Eflid, then hearing Trevalor's song and dance about it all. The boy's a mage, and we thought it would be handy to have one of those around. I guess it hasn't been, but maybe he'll do you some good. Take him off my hands, Tellin, will you?"
Tellin glanced out the window again, at the rain driving down and the gray-green blur of the garden. He remembered the servant going by a few moments before, dark-haired, pale of face, his eyes afire with some emotion. That's the one, he thought, that's the one they want to get rid of.
"What's his name, Ralan?"
Ralan shrugged. "I don't know. Dalamar… something. You'll take him then?"
Well, why not? Tellin nodded. "I'm not the one who acquires servants for the Temple, but, yes, send him along with the clothing and the bedding, Ralan, and I'll take care of matters with the head of the Temple… and with Trevalor."
"Ah, good, then." Ralan looked around at the warm fire, the tapestries hung upon marble walls, and he felt the truth of what he'd always believed. The elves were the best beloved of the gods, and he was, among the best beloved, a fortunate man. Now, it seemed, even his house was falling into better order. After today there would be one fewer complaint from Eflid about the servants. "See how nicely the day worked out? We're all happy now."
Or some of us, Tellin thought, eyes on the scroll Ralan had set aside and did not now seem to remember. He wondered whether Lynntha would receive it, and then he put the wondering aside as unworthy. Of course she would. He was almost certain of that.
Chapter 3
On the first night of Autumn Harvest when the red moon and the silver had but newly risen over the forest, a child looked up from the garden of her family's little home in the Academy District. She was a small girl who had just slipped down from her father's shoulders, their stroll through the garden at an end. In the air the poignant smell of autumn hung, the spicy scent of the year's end. The little girl sighed, for these scents always made her feel sad in a good kind of way. She looked up to see if the pattern of the stars had changed, wondering whether Astarin's Harp had swung up the sky early, as it did in autumn. E'li's Silver Dragon used to hang in the sky, opposite the Five-Headed Dragon of Takhisis, but those constellations were gone, though no one had seen the stars fall from the sky.
"It's why outlanders think the gods are returning to the world," her father had said. "For the Dark Queen is the ruler of evil dragons, and we see those in the world again. Eli is the patron of the good dragons, and those who shine like brass and bronze and copper and gold, even silver, are E'li's."