Pirian’s cheeks each carried four ragged tears that ran from the sides of his nose all the way to his ears, both of which had been bitten half away. And finally, his neck had been sliced from the tip of his chin all the way to the top of his shirt. No single cut was deep enough to be fatal but every single one was designed to scar. Jeral touched his own facial wounds and blessed his relative good fortune.
Pirian himself was lost to shock. His eyes were seeking an end to his nightmare and his face was shrouded in his blood. But while his face and mind were wrecked, the rest of his body was wholly undamaged.
‘Can we move him?’ asked Jeral. ‘Have you tried?’
‘He’s totally rigid. I think we’ll have to carry him,’ said Hynd, his voice quiet. ‘Why have they done this? Why not just kill him?’
Jeral sighed, and another small door into the elven psyche opened for him. His fear and respect for them grew in equal measure.
‘It’s a message,’ he said. ‘By morning, everyone will know what has happened to him. Sooner or later, everyone will see him. The elves know we can’t kill him, or leave him behind, and so every day he will be there, the most chilling reminder of what is waiting for us out here.’
‘They came all this way just to do that? Deliver that message?’
‘Oh no,’ said Jeral. ‘This was just a sideshow. They’ve just freed about seventy Sharps. Didn’t bother killing as many of us as they could have, either. But they’ve weakened us nonetheless.’
‘What can we do about it?’
‘Build. More. Barges.’
Chapter 14
There was Ix, jumping and sparkling, laughing, capricious and mischievous. Yniss laughed and the forest echoed with his joy. Ix danced along the lines of the earth and cavorted in the rivers and streams, matching her movements to the energies Yniss had laid there. Because she loved it so, he made her its warden and her laughter echoes still among Beeth’s boughs.
The Aryn Hiil
It was not until the next morning that Auum noticed something that he should have seen much sooner. He found Onelle, and after they had prayed together at the statue of Yniss, they walked towards the Hallows of Reclamation beyond the village.
‘Takaar has been here, hasn’t he?’ asked Auum.
Onelle nodded. ‘I’ve wanted to speak to you about it but Lysael’s news rather took over, didn’t it? And you needed more rest last night. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let you be the one to bring it up.’
‘You have nothing to apologise for. He’s taken your orientation class, hasn’t he?’
Onelle put her head in her hands.
‘Auum, he was wild. He was unshaven, he stank like he’d run all the way from Ysundeneth without pause and he was weak from hunger and thirst. He should have collapsed but there was something in him, driving him on. He brought the Il-Aryn together, and he gave this extraordinary oration. It lasted for an hour, maybe more, and we all sat and listened though so much of what he said was little more than ravings; nonsensical mutterings. Half the time I wasn’t sure if he was talking to us or talking to his other self. I have never seen anything like it.’
Auum nodded. It sounded like a continuation of his meanderings outside the city a few days before.
‘He’d been talking to Garan,’ said Auum. ‘Something got so far inside him he couldn’t shake it. He’s descending fast, isn’t he?’
‘Is he? I don’t know, Auum.’
‘You’re going to explain that, I hope,’ said Auum. ‘Because from where I’m standing he’s a menace, pure and simple.’
Onelle sighed. ‘I know you and he don’t see eye to eye but I’ve spent a great deal of time with him during the years since his return. We’ve studied together, worked together and talked endlessly about the Il-Aryn and how best we can harness it for the good of us all.
‘He’s passionate to the point of zealousness and he’s given to flights of fancy, but more than that, he’s a genius. Don’t scoff, Auum, because you don’t know, you don’t see. He believes Ix is the rising god in our pantheon and that the Il-Aryn are the bedrock of our future.’
Auum’s heart missed a beat. ‘I see. The days of the Ynissul are over, are they?’
Onelle stopped and Auum was surprised to see the frustration in her expression.
‘No, Auum, you’re missing the point. Yniss will for ever be the father of us all, but we have to evolve. Man is here with his magic and we have to be able to fight fire with fire or we will fall. Magic has been awakened within us. In some threads it will remain dormant but in others it will burst into brilliant life and we have to be able to harness it. Ix is undeniably in the ascendant and you have to face that. Embrace it. Magic will be the salvation of the elven race.’
‘Really.’ Auum raised his eyebrows and gestured in the direction of the River Ix. ‘There are thousands of men in the forest right now and magic will not save us from them. Takaar would do much better to refine his fighting skills and join the TaiGethen. If we can repel them, then we can talk about where our future lies.’
‘You cannot stop what is happening,’ said Onelle. ‘Why can’t you see that?’
‘No, I can’t stop it. But our enemies can. Right now we have no magic, and so we need to fight in the way we always have.’ Auum walked on a few paces. ‘I need to know that he is not going to cause any more problems. The Ynissul are safe and hidden, which is something. But Takaar has taken what little magical force we do have and run off with it. What exactly was this genius raving about? And why didn’t you go with him?’
Onelle managed a brief smile. ‘You know very well that my travelling days are long done. I will never leave this temple.’
She stopped and Auum could see she was nervous, uncertain about what to say next.
‘You began by describing a lunatic to me but you’ve just been painting a picture of some sort of tortured genius. I understand your loyalty, but it seems to me you’re confused about whether you want to follow him or warn people away from him. So tell me what he said.’
Onelle wiped her hands on her leggings. Her beautiful oval eyes sparkled with moisture and she had to clear her throat twice before she spoke. ‘I love Takaar. I love what he has brought us, though I have often struggled with his methods. When he ran in, he had no time for anything but taking our Il-Aryn adepts with him. He called them all teachers and said their role was not to be that of pioneers. He said we’d been sailing the wrong rivers and that others would provide what we lacked. He said Ix had been laughing at him, but that he had the answers now.
‘After that, he began to mumble. I heard something about a gift, how time would wait for the just and something else that, I admit, was really strange.’
‘Which was?’
‘He was talking to his other self. I know because he was looking to his right and not at us. And he was getting angry. He said that they were after him but he wouldn’t let them get him. Then he laughed at something and said that not even Shorth was fast enough.’
‘Who do you think he was talking about?’
Onelle shrugged. ‘I thought it was you, the TaiGethen.’
‘He flatters himself.’ Auum didn’t feel the need to go any further. ‘But why on earth did the adepts go with him? I’d have been running in the opposite direction.’
Onelle frowned as if the answer should have been obvious.
‘Because he asked them to.’
‘Could they really not see through him? Where’s he taken them and what does he think they’re going to do? There is at least one human army in this forest, after all.’
‘He’s looking for other threads than the Ynissul with active Il-Aryn potential. Presumably the Ixii are high on his agenda, though not one of them has shown the slightest potential so far. He didn’t say where he was going, but there’s really only one possibility, isn’t there? He has to be going to Katura.’