Repeating the words over and over while they stepped and double-stepped, Erienne couldn't help but blush as she caught Ren'erei and Tryuun watching her over their shoulders. Both elves were smiling and as they turned back, Ren'erei mimicked the double steps the song demanded.
'One day, it'll be your turn,' said Erienne, joining in their laughter.
Lyanna skipped up to the elf and took her hand.
'You're not doing it right. Mummy, sing it again.'
'Just once more, then,' said Erienne. 'Pay attention, Ren'erei.' And while she sang, she watched her daughter, carefree, giggling at Ren'erei's attempts to mimic the steps, and wished fervently that Lyanna had been born without the burden she carried. And with that, came guilt. Because Erienne had planned it to be this way. And though it was a great thing they were trying to do, before they achieved their goal, there was so much hardship to come. And Lyanna, of course, had no choice in the matter. Erienne already grieved for the childhood she was to lose.
Lyanna let go of Ren'erei's hand and trotted on, warbling a vague approximation of Erienne's walking tune. She turned out of sight, around a corner of the tree-lined path a few yards ahead. Erienne had upped her pace the moment she heard the song falter. And by the time Lyanna's scream had split the air, she was moving at a run.
Chapter 3
Four years after the last Wesmen had withdrawn, the College city of Julatsa had returned to something like its old self, with one significant difference.
Ilkar stood on one of the few undamaged sections of College wall and turned a full circle, his shoulder-length black hair drifting in the light breeze. On the city's borders, the Wesmen's wooden fortifications had long been stripped away to use in rebuilding homes, businesses, municipal offices and the scores of shops and inns burned and demolished by the invaders during their brief occupation. Original stone was much in evidence, bearing the scarring and scorches of war. The populace, scattered or enslaved, had flooded back once the Wesmen departed and the destroyed city now glowed with energy again, the people bringing with them the pulse of life.
Ilkar shook his head slightly at some of the new architecture. The kindest word to describe much of it was 'enthusiastic'. Yet no one could deny the energy that the rash of twisted spires, white stone domes and flying buttresses exuded. They had been built with tremendous verve but Ilkar couldn't help but wonder what those builders thought now.
Their desire and that, perhaps misplaced, enthusiasm had run out at the gates of the College. It hadn't started that way. In the immediate aftermath of Wesmen withdrawal, the devastated College had been the city's focus as it struggled to come to terms with its trauma. There had been a recognition of the scale of violence visited on the College and in the early months, new building work had forged ahead. Quarters, administration, kitchens and refectory, a long room, the old quadrangle and a library – sadly empty but for a few of Septern's texts, brought there by Ilkar himself following the closing of the Noonshade rip – had appeared from the rubble.
But the job was enormous and, as more Julatsans returned to the city, attention turned quite rightly to its infrastructure. The trouble was that with life able to begin again, it was easy to turn away from the College and forget the work that was still needed there.
Ilkar couldn't. His circle ended with a view down over the new library. He couldn't argue with the quality of what had been done but it left them so far from having a functional college. And vital to it was the building that should occupy the black, scarred, jagged hole, three hundred feet wide, that dominated the centre of the College.
The Tower.
Ilkar knew that what lay below scared the city builders and tradesmen. Gods, it scared him sometimes, but for him it was the enormity the crater represented that was the fear. At its base, covered by an impenetrable black mist, lay the Heart. Buried as Julatsa fell, by Barras, the old elf Negotiator, and a team of senior mages, its raising was critical to the College's return to power.
So much knowledge lay within. Not just key magical texts but, of greater immediate importance, plans and blueprints. Until the Heart was raised, they could not rebuild the Tower, ManaBowl, Cold Room or recovery chambers among others. And until he had enough mages, he couldn't hope to raise the Heart.
Ilkar sat down on the parapet and let his legs swing. There was the nub of the crisis. Hammering echoed up to him. New paint sparkled in the sun under the clear blue sky, its odour fresh in his nostrils. Wood dust covered the stone flags that had been awash with so much blood.
But it would never be finished. There weren't enough Julatsan mages to cast the necessary magic. Gods in the ground, there was barely enough experience to form a council but he'd done it anyway, just to give the place some structure. He didn't particularly want to take on the role of High Mage but there was no other figurehead and at least his reputation with The Raven earned him respect and weight in negotiations.
He'd had to put out wider calls for mages. There had to be Julatsans scattered across the continents, those like himself who rarely visited the College but who owed their lives to it nonetheless. He'd even sent word into the Southern Continent of Calaius, to the
elven homelands where so many Julatsan elves had returned over the years, bleeding Balaia of a crucial resource. The Gods knew what the state of their magic would be. Ilkar only hoped their Julatsan Lore training hadn't lapsed with the passing of time. It was becoming increasingly clear that he needed them badly.
Tlkar!' called a voice from below. He leaned forward. Pheone, her brown hair tied up in a bun and her long young face smeared with dust and sweat, looked up at the parapet, her green dress flapping gently at her ankles. She was a fine mage but inexperienced, and lucky to be alive after surviving the rout of the Dordovan relief column during the siege of Julatsa at the height of the war.
'How's it going?' he asked.
'The cladding on the long room is complete. A few of us thought we'd run a test. Release a little pent-up emotion, if you know what I mean. Care to join us?'
Ilkar chuckled. He hadn't cast an offensive spell in four years. He flexed his fingers and hauled himself to his feet.
'I don't mind if I do,' he said. He brushed stone chips from his tan breeches and the dark leather jerkin that covered his fawn shirt and headed for the stairway.
A feeling of energy caused him to look up at the sky. A bolt of lightning, pale as straw and angry, arced in the unbroken blue heavens, its report echoing dully in his ears. Another flash, and then a third, broke the peace of the day. He frowned at the repetition of the startling and worrying sight.
Ilkar descended the stairs, resolving to mention the subject over supper. Someone, he expected, could provide an explanation.
The Unknown Warrior sat in a chair beside the sleeping form of Jonas. The boy had spent a quieter night than his father, who had come home not long before dawn. And though he had slipped into bed next to Diera to try to grab what little sleep he could, his mind had churned over Denser's words, and kept him from his dreams. Shortly after Diera had risen in response to Jonas' cries, to feed and comfort him until he slept again, The Unknown had ceased his endless turning and come to sit in the calm of Jonas' room to give his wife the chance of uninterrupted rest. And sat he had, while the sun rose above the horizon to cast cool
light over Korina, listening to the gentle breathing of his six-week-old son, still bearing the after-effects of the slight cold that had given way to his touch of colic. He was a strong boy and The Unknown was glad of his brushes with illness; they would benefit him in later years much as they had his father.