“You have more faith in me than I deserve.”
“Do I?”
“Yes, if you consider that I wasn’t referring to an attack that might come from a third party.”
The conversation was clearly making the King uncomfortable. Good, Walker thought. I want you to remember how you left things between us. I want you to wonder if I might be a greater threat to you than the enemies you more readily fear.
They emerged from the gardens onto the Carolan, the sunlight illuminating the green expanse of the heights in bright trailers that spilled over into the forests below. Walker led the way to a bench placed under an aging maple whose boughs canopied out in a vast umbrella. They sat together, Druid and King, looking out over the heights to the purple and gold mix of shadow and light that colored the horizon west.
“I have no reason to want to help you, Allardon Elessedil,” Walker said after a moment.
The Elven King nodded. “Perhaps you have better reason than you think. I am not the man I was when last we spoke. I regret deeply how that meeting ended.”
“Your regret can be no greater than my own,” Walker replied darkly, keeping his gaze averted, staring off into the distance.
“We can dwell on the regret and the loss or turn our attention to what we might accomplish if we relegate both to the past.” The Elven King’s voice was tight and worried, but there was a hint of determination behind it, as well. “I would like to make a new beginning.”
Now Walker looked at him. “What do you propose?”
“A chance for you to build the Druid Council you desire, to begin the work you have sought to do for so long, with my support and blessing.”
“Money and men would count for more than your support and blessing,” the Druid remarked dryly.
The Elven King’s face went taut. “You shall have both. You shall have whatever you need if you are able to give me what I need in return. Now tell me of the map. Were you able to decipher its writings?”
Walker took a long moment to consider his answer before he spoke. “Enough so that I can tell you that they purport to show the way to the treasure of which your mother’s seer dreamed thirty years ago. As I said, the writing is archaic and obscure. Some symbols suggest more than one thing. But there are names and courses and descriptions of sufficient clarity to reveal the nature of the map. Travel west off the coast of the Blue Divide to three islands, each a bit farther than the one before. Each hides a key that, when all are used together, will unlock a door. The door leads to an underground keep that lies beneath the ruins of a city called Castledown. The ruins can be found on a mountainous spit of land far west and north of here called Ice Henge. Within the ruins lies a treasure of life-altering power. It is a magic of words, a magic that has survived the destruction of the Old World and the Great Wars by being kept hidden in its safehold. The magic’s origins are obscure, but the map’s writings say it surpasses all others.”
He paused. “Because it was found on the blind and voiceless Elven castaway together with your brother’s bracelet, I would be inclined to believe that if followed, it would reveal your brother’s fate and perhaps the nature of the magic it conceals.”
He waited, letting the King collect his thoughts. On the heights, the Elves were beginning to appear in clusters for the start of the workday. Guards were exchanging shifts. Tradesmen and trappers were arriving from the west, crossing the Rill Song on ferries and rafts bearing wagons and carts laden with goods, then climbing the ramps of the Elfitch. Gardeners were at work in the Gardens of Life, weeding and pruning, planting and fertilizing. Here and there, a white-robed Chosen wandered into view. Children played as teachers led them to their study areas for lessons on becoming Healers in the Four Lands.
“So you support a quest of the sort my brother undertook all those years ago?” the King asked finally.
Walker smiled faintly. “As do you, or you would not have asked me to come here.”
Allardon Elessedil nodded slowly. “If we are to learn the truth, we must follow the route the map chronicles and see where it leads. I will never know what happened to Kael otherwise. I will never know what became of the Elfstones he carried. Their loss is perhaps the more significant of the two. This is not easy to admit, but I can’t pretend otherwise. The stones are an Elven heritage, passed down from Queen Wren, and the last of their kind. We are a lesser people without them, and I want them back.”
Walker’s dark face was inscrutable. “Who will lead this expedition, Allardon?”
There was no hesitation in his answer. “You will. If you agree to. I am too old. I can admit it to you if to no one else. My children are too young and inexperienced. Even Kylen. He is strong and fierce, but he is not seasoned enough to lead an expedition of this sort. My brother carried the Elfstones, and even that was not enough to save him. Perhaps a Druid’s powers will prove more formidable.”
“And if I agree to do this, you give me your word that the Elves will support an independent Druid Council, free to study, explore, and develop all forms of magic?”
“I do.”
“A Druid Council that will answer to no one nation or people or ruler, but only to its own conscience and the dictates of the order?”
“Yes.”
“A Druid Council that will share its findings equally with all people, when and if those findings can be implemented peacefully and for the betterment of all races?”
“Yes, yes!” The King made an impatient, dismissive gesture. “All that you sought before and I denied. All. Understand, though,” he added hurriedly, “I cannot speak for other nations and rulers, only for the Elves.”
Walker nodded. “Where the Elves lead, others follow.”
“And if you disappear as my brother did, then the matter ends there. I will not be bound to an agreement with a dead man—not an agreement of this sort.”
Walker’s gaze wandered across the Carolan to the Gardens of Life and settled on the men and women working there, bent to their tasks. It spoke to him of his own work, of the need to care for the lives of the people of the races the Druids had sworn long ago to protect and advance. Why had their goals been so difficult to achieve when their cause was so obviously right? If plants were sentient in the way of humans, would they prove as difficult and obstructive to the efforts of their tenders?
“We understand each other, Allardon,” he said softly. His eyes found the King’s face. He waited for the lines of irritation to soften. “One more thing. Any treasure I discover on this journey, be it magic or otherwise, belongs to the Druids.”
The Elven King was already shaking his head in disagreement. “You know I will not agree to that. Of money or precious metals, I care nothing. But what you find of magic, whatever its form, belongs to the Elves. I am the one who has sanctioned and commissioned this quest. I am the one whose cause requires it. I am entitled to the ownership of whatever you recover.”
“On behalf of your people,” Walker amended casually.
“Of course!”
“Suggesting that the cause and ownership rights of the Elven people are greater than those of the other races, even if the magic recovered might benefit them, as well?”
The King flushed anew, stiffening within his robes. He leaned forward combatively. “Do not try to make me feel guilt or remorse for the protections I seek to give to my own people, Walker! It is my duty to do so! Let others do so, as well, and perhaps a balance will be struck!”
“I have trouble understanding why, on the one hand, you support a Druid Council giving equal rights to all nations and peoples while, on the other, you seek to withhold what might benefit them most. Should I undertake a quest only for you, when what I would most covet at its end is forbidden me?” He paused, reflecting. “Magic belongs to everyone, Elven King, especially when it impacts all. A sharing of magic must begin somewhere. Let it begin here.”