Her eyes were brimful with bitterness. Auum held her gaze a moment longer before nodding curtly and walking away around the outside of the temple and back to the apron. He had to respect Onelle’s decision, but it was clear that her isolation here among the Ynissul had deprived her of the opportunity to heal her mental scars.
In front of the temple, Elyss and Malaar were addressing the assembled TaiGethen. Auum counted seven cells and did not hide his disappointment at the low numbers. He joined his Tai, nodding for Malaar to continue speaking.
‘… we are certain of little but that the ClawBound will continue cleansing the rainforest, and that means more and more innocent elves will die. Auum.’
Auum stepped forward. ‘How many other cells are on the way?’
‘Four from the south and eastern patrol zones. None as yet from further afield, like Tolt Anoor or Deneth Barine. That’s to be expected.’ Elyss shrugged her shoulders. ‘The call only went out at dusk yesterday.’
Auum nodded curtly. ‘Others will come, but for now we few will have to suffice. Leave word of our destination with Onelle. Tais, we must ask Yniss to preserve our souls and protect our bodies for the greater tasks to come. We need the silence of Tual and the cover of Beeth. We need the luck of Ix and the strength of Appos. We must liberate the slaves of Ysundeneth and we must find Takaar before we get there. Cover every northern approach to the temple on the way out.
‘That bastard is going to help us get into Ysundeneth, human-lover or not. Tais we move.’
Chapter 9
Yniss blessed the blackened earth and from it sprang the glory of the forest. Beeth’s eyes were the widest in wonder and so Yniss bestowed upon Beeth the honour of being guardian of all root and branch. Beeth breathed in his new life, reached down and caressed the canopy. ‘You are long-lived,’ said Yniss. ‘But no tree is immortal. So shall it be for your children.’
The Aryn Hiil
The city of Katura nestled in the palm of Yniss. It was without question the most beautiful place in the rainforest. Towards the southern perimeter of the forest, from which it was three days’ run before the glory of the canopy gave way to the baking-hot plains, it was set within a spectacular landscape of cliffs, lakes, valleys and mountains.
The elves called it the playground of Tual, and for centuries it had been a reserve where Tual’s denizens could run unchallenged. No two-legged hunters confused the chain of life and death here. No vegetation was used for food, shelter or fire. Untouched, glorious, virgin rainforest; until man came and elves were not safe even in their own temples.
Rainforest lore said that all Tual’s creatures spilled from the palm of Yniss and so it was the right place, the only place, for the battered elven race to find sanctuary — back at the heart of life. A place where they could tend to their wounds, gather their strength and learn to live again. If anywhere could provide a balm for the soul, it was here.
The palm of Yniss was a great horseshoe-shaped basin nestling at the base of sheer cliffs backed by tree-covered mountains. Waterfalls roared and ran over the edge of the cliffs in five places, gathering into a food-rich lake whose northern outflow was a distant tributary to the River Ix. Both lake and river were named Carenthan, like the mountain range behind them, while the falls were called Katura.
A vast plain of grass and low trees grew on the sheltered lands bordering the lake and along the banks of the river. It was a perfect place to settle, farm and glory in life, and had it not been forbidden elves would have settled there many generations ago.
But the palm had not just been chosen for its beauty and mythology. It was a hidden land, surrounded by mists and low cloud that periodically swept off the mountains and down the thousand-foot cliffs. To stand on the cliffs and look down on the plain was the culmination of a journey up cleft, over mountain peak and through deep forest where the panthers were still masters of the land.
The only way to reach it was along the base of the sharp-sided valley through which the Carenthan River flowed. The river was wide and the paths alongside it were narrow and treacherous, climbing steadily towards the plain. The sides of the valley were part crag, part balsa woodland, rife with vines and ivies and largely impenetrable.
To walk the valleys, find new paths and glimpse fresh views of the vastness of the forest, where the sun seemed to engender new life wherever it kissed the green leaves, was a joy for any who made the effort. So Methian forced his aching, ageing body up the final incline and joined Boltha at the top.
Two old elves, one Gyalan, one Apposan, gazed across the miles of unbroken forest canopy and down on the city that nestled in the palm of Yniss. Smoke smudged the sky, and even this far distant the echoes of elven prayers were carried on the prevailing wind, along with the clang of hammer on metal and the rasp of saw against wood.
Boltha spat on the ground.
‘We are a stain on perfection,’ he said. ‘A slime that is oozing its way into the bedrock and corrupting the very place that should have inspired us back to greatness. We do not deserve saving.’
Methian tore his eyes from the ungainly sprawl of the city. Katura had become the elves’ greatest shame. Work which had begun with such energy had become lack-lustre and lazy. There was not a single building they could be proud of. And within the city limits, enmity grew by the day.
‘How long since you set foot in there?’
Boltha’s watery eyes squinted back at Methian. His close sight was poor, indeed he feared it was fading altogether.
‘More than fifteen years. Ever since we took the Apposans to the Haliath Vale. We couldn’t bear to stay another moment. No wonder you retired.’
‘I didn’t retire,’ said Methian, and he could not keep the bitterness from his voice. ‘It is an enduring sadness that I was made unwelcome by the very people I was sworn to help.’
‘You can’t blame yourself. Edulis is a drug that removes reason, sense and any familial feeling. She dismissed you because she no longer knew you.’
Methian sighed. ‘I could have stopped her becoming an addict. I should have seen her falling.’
‘Addicts are clever right up until the moment they lose their minds. She’s still alive, is she?’
‘Dead addicts don’t make any money. Dead governors don’t pass handy new laws. The suppliers are careful. After all, the birth rates are so low now that they have a practically stagnant population. They can’t afford to start killing them.’
Boltha barked out a laugh. ‘We should torch the place.’
‘I hear you, old friend, but not everyone there has sunk so low. Some still work and there are many people still praying for redemption in Katura.’
‘Which god will hear them?’ Boltha’s tone was harsh. ‘It’s a cesspit, nothing more.’
‘And you did nothing to help when you took your thread away.’
Methian hadn’t meant it quite the way it came out and he saw Boltha’s face pinch in sudden anger.
‘We did nothing that Auum didn’t do when he took the Ynissul from Katura almost before a tree was felled to build the damn place.’
‘He had to,’ snapped Methian. ‘He had to develop the new TaiGethen and provide adepts for the Il-Aryn, and the Ynissul birth rate is so low that every new Ynissul child is cause for a celebration as if the gods were walking the forest once more. What excuse did you have? You whose hands helped to build what you now despise.’
‘We relied on the Al-Arynaar. Your leader’s spectacular failure is the seed of all that Katura has become. I only removed my thread when the reports began to say innocent elves were being forced into addiction. And what riches are the harvesters and dealers making for themselves, I wonder?’
‘Land,’ said Methian. ‘What else? Pelyn was given the power to grant each elf land in the forest and on the plain. Much of it is in the hands of the Tuali and Beethan drug gangs now. They are strong. They own Katura.’