“I would not have known you from Ardhiel’s last description, Lady Paksenarrion. You are not what he remembers.”
“I daresay not.” Paks was surprised to find herself so calm about it. “Yet what he remembers is not the worst of it. Will you believe that if I can change so, the prince is not beyond hope?”
“That is a hard saying. I saw him once myself.” The elf looked quickly at the squires nearby, and Estil. “I—”
“By your leave, I think we should not discuss his past until the Lady comes,” said Paks. “Will it be long? How far is it?”
Both elves laughed lightly. “Far? Far is a human word for distances humans travel. And long is a word for human time. No, Lady Paksenarrion, it will not be long, for it is not far as we elves can travel within our own lands.”
“Yet your friend Ardhiel rode and walked the same miles we did,” said Paks.
“Oh—to be courteous, when traveling with humans—I’ve no doubt he did so. And that was outside the elvenhome forests, where other travel is difficult and perilous.”
“As hard for you as travel in the elvenhome forest would be for humans?” countered Paks.
“Perhaps,” said one of them. “I had not thought of it that way.”
Estil came back to them. “Will the Lady stay for a meal, sirs? And what would be appropriate?”
One shook his head; the other looked thoughtful. “I doubt she will stay longer than to listen to Paksenarrion, my lady. If the household can offer something to drink—”
“What season is it, in the Ladysforest?”
“Ah—you are aware, then. It was late summer when we left, but the stretching may thin it.”
“I have a good wine for that,” said Estil. Paks looked at her in surprise. She had had no idea that the seasons were any different in the elven lands. Estil grinned at Paks. “Some good comes at last, of the time I listened at my great-aunt’s door when she spoke with an elven friend. I thought for years all I’d got from that was a whipping.”
Estil was hardly out of the room on her way to the kitchen when Paks felt the change. It was as if the room filled suddenly with water, and yet she could breathe. Her blood tingled. The air smelled of late summer, with the first tang of fall apples still unripe. It wavered, then thickened; common objects on table and hearth took on the aspects of enchanted things of song. It would not have surprised her if the table had begun to dance, or the fire to speak.
Paks looked at the squires; their eyes were bright. Suriya leaned forward slightly, her lips parted as if she saw an old friend. The door to the courtyard flew open. Instead of the gray winter sky they had ridden under, a soft golden light lay over the court. Paks heard birds singing, and the dripping chimes of snowmelt running off the roof. The elves in the room seemed unchanged in any detail. Yet Paks thought they moved with even more grace, and when they spoke the music of their voices pierced her heart.
So beautiful was that music that for a moment she could not follow the meaning of the words, and stood bemused. They waited, then spoke again, and this time she realized what they wanted. The Lady of the Ladysforest waited beyond the gate, and called her out. Paks glanced again at the squires. Esceriel’s eyes were almost frightened; she knew he feared that she would give up the quest, release the sword, under elven power. She shook her head silently, and went out into the light.
Patterns of power. Paks remembered what Macenion had said about the elves and patterns—their love of them, the beauty, the strength of binding that they worked into them. Now the strange gold light of a late-summer evening seemed to accentuate the patterns of Aliam’s steading. Stonework glowed, the joints making intricate branches up every wall. The arches of the stable cloister seemed ready to speak; Paks thought if they did they would sound like deep-voiced horns. The bare sticks of the kitchen garden, with its lumpy green heads of winter-kale poking from the snow, had sprouted a film of new green, lacy and vulnerable. Even as Paks looked, tendrils of redroot worked up the nearby wall.
Yet the light was not all golden. Through the open gate came the silvery opalescent glow of elflight itself. And in that glow, silver in gold, was the Lady of the Ladysforest, in form so fair that Paks could never after bring that face to mind. She was tall, as all elves are, and graceful; she wore robes that shifted about her like mists around mountains. And she conveyed without gray hair or lined face an age greater than Paks could well imagine, and immense authority.
Aliam Halveric bowed, welcoming, and the Lady inclined her head. She came through the gate, looked around, and crossed glances with Paks. Behind her Serrothlin and Amrothlin, not looking at one another, moved to stand beside Aliam.
“Lord Halveric, we have known you from afar; it is our pleasure to know you in your own steading.”
Aliam bowed again. “Lady, you are most welcome here, as your kin have been and will be.”
“As for us, we shall hope that your friendship endures, Lord Halveric.” She looked around. “You have not walled out the trees entirely,” she said, noticing the fruit trees trained against one wall. Under her influence their winter buds had opened into leaves and snowy blossoms. “I will mend them,” she said, “when we must leave; it would be ill grace to leave you with frost-killed bloom. May we greet your family?”
“Of course, Lady.” Aliam called them forward: Estil, then his children in order, and theirs. The Lady smiled at all, but Paks saw true joy in her face when one of the grandchildren reached out to her unbidden.
“What, child? Would you come to me?” She held out her hand, and the baby, still unsteady, toddled forward and wrapped chubby fingers around it. “Can you say your name, littling?” She looked up at the mother, Hali’s wife.
“He doesn’t say anything yet, Lady; his name’s Kieri, for the Duke, Lord Aliam’s friend.”
“A good name, a brave name; gods grant he grows into it. He’s bold enough now.” She laughed softly, for the baby had grabbed her robe, and was trying to stuff it into his mouth. “No, child, that’s not food. Best go to your mother; she’ll find something better for you.” She picked the baby up and handed him over in one graceful move; the child’s eyes followed her as his mother turned away.
Then she turned to Paks. “And you must be Paksenarrion, who found the scrolls that Luap wrote long ago, and freed the elfane taig.”
“Yes, Lady.”
Her glance swept the courtyard, and cleared it without a word. The others moved quickly into the buildings; the two elves reappeared with seats, and she waited until they were placed. Paks felt the immense determination behind her courtesy, the weight of years and authority. With a fluid gesture, she sent her son and nephew away, and seated herself. With no less grace, the Lady set about to make her position clear.
“My son and nephew,” she began, “brought troubling word of you, Paksenarrion, and of your quest. I had hoped never to face this hour. My daughter was dearer to me than you can know, mortals with many children; when she died, and her son disappeared, my grief matched my love. Once that grieving eased, I laid their memories to rest, and hoped to find solace in her daughter. When first I heard of the boy again, it was that he had borne such injury as left him with no knowledge of himself, and none of his elven heritage. A lesser grief than his death, you might say, but not for me, nor for any who loved him. Patterns end; patterns mangled are constant pain. By the time we found him again, he was here, alive—” she glanced around the courtyard. “In this safe haven. If he could mend, it would be with such love as you gave. So I was told.” Paks noticed that she neither gave Kieri Phelan’s name, nor asked if they knew it.
“But why didn’t you—?” began Estil. Aliam squeezed her hand. The Lady frowned slightly.
“The elf who brought word, Lady Estil, had it from a ranger first. Then he came himself: Haleron, a distant kinsman, much given to travel in mortal lands. The boy was badly damaged, he told me, in body and mind both. He found no trace of memory that he could use, only the physical signs that we elves read more easily than you. To be sure, he would have had to invade the boy’s mind—a damaged mind—and risk more damage to it. As well as endure the pain of it himself.” She turned away; Paks saw her throat move as if she swallowed.