“What do you see, here on the plains?”
“Nothing dark.” Eldengaze replied.
“Then in the absence of darkness and in such open spaces, neither the Word nor the Deed requires the Sight, so give me back my lady.”
“The enemy have Graken.”
“True. But we also have eyes.”
Elayeen’s head swung slowly around, and her gaze was withering. “I alone shall decide when the Word and the Deed require me not.”
This time, Gawain did look away, the force of Eldengaze had become too much even for him to bear. With a sigh and a shudder, he eased Gwyn back and swung her around and away from his beloved. He was about to give his horse free range, to go hunting rabbit, when he caught sight of the wizard Arramin standing alone by his horse at the rear of the column, and on impulse, he dismounted and strode down the track, Gwyn following. Every bruise and muscle still ached, but walking seemed to ease Gawain’s stiffness a little.
Arramin looked startled when he looked up from his book to find Gawain standing before him.
“My lord? May I be of some service?”
Gawain paused a moment, suddenly doubtful, but he shook off the lingering chill of the Eldengaze and nodded. “I’m told, wizard, you are an historian of no small repute in Callodon.”
Arramin bowed slightly. “I have spent most of my life in study, my lord, and later in teaching. Though I regret to say, my studies were of necessity confined to the lowland kingdoms where I was permitted to travel and given access to their libraries.”
“Can you tell me anything about the Eldenelves?”
“Eldenelves? They are long faded into myth, my lord, though it is true, speaking as an historian I can say that all myths and legends contain grains of truth here and there. But alas, the footprints in the sand of their passing are long since faded, my lord.”
“Then you know nothing of them?”
The old wizard smiled, closed his book, and tucked it under his arm. “I did not say that, my lord. Only that the Eldenelves have left few traces a scholar might rely upon as, how shall we say, authentic. Mostly what is known comes to us in the form of myths and tales and snatches of old songs, from which we may deduce little, but speculate much. Is it important, my lord?”
Again, Gawain hesitated. “The First of Raheen has told me that the creatures we have encountered, dark wizard-made, are an ancient evil, and that they may have been familiar to the people of elder times who defeated them. He seemed to suggest that the Eldenelves may have had some knowledge of how to defeat them.”
“Ah, I understand. To know your enemy is strength, and the enemy of your enemy is a friend. Well then, the Eldenelves of yore. You must understand, my lord, that there is very little academic basis for such descriptions as I may impart beyond scholarly consensus, which itself is based upon little more than informed conjecture.”
“Of course. Anything is more than I know now.”
“Well then. In elder times, the kindred races of Man were of course divided by geography and philosophy to a much greater extent than they are today,” Arramin seemed to straighten a little, comfortable in his familiar role as scholar and teacher. “But even so, and in spite of the many conflicts and wars which in elder times gave shape to the world we know today, wizards and Eldenelves moved through the world, collecting and disseminating knowledge and wisdom, bringing the light of reason to the dark places where before only superstition and ignorance held sway.
“I am aware, my lord, of the low opinion in which wizards are held today, but it was not always so, and the elder days I describe were those before all were betrayed by Morloch. But I do not wish to digress. The Eldenelves and wizards who roamed the lands some of which we still recognise today did so for many reasons, I am sure, not the very least of which was their ability with the mystic arts, arts not shared by humans and their cousins the dwarves.
“Those arts, my lord, could have been used to conquer these lands, as Morloch himself intended then and now, but instead, perhaps recognising the nature of the forces at their command and the natural world which is responsible for them, Eldenelves used their abilities in the furtherance of reason and the removal of nonsense from the world of men. Wizards, of course, were bound by the great Codex Maginarum, the Book of Zaine.
“The Eldenelves were bound so closely with the natural world around them in their forest homes they were said to be servants of Nature herself. And as all wise men know, my lord, Nature herself is dread, and far, far removed from the romantic notions of bards and poets.”
Gawain, now standing beside the old wizard, cast a brief glance towards the head of the column, but riders blocked his view of Elayeen.
“There is at first inspection a shocking indifference to the fate of creatures in the world of Nature, my lord, and indeed there are many among the enlightened who of course pooh-pooh the notion of Nature as an entity in and of itself, declaring that nature simply is, and comprises everything not made by the kindred.
“Certainly this may be true, and my opinion inclines towards it. However, anyone with any knowledge of that which we call ‘nature’ will understand that death is a very necessary part of life. Predator and prey, tooth and claw, eat and be eaten, and no one individual immune from the reality that is life in nature’s realm.
“While men would admire the beauty of a dove upon a bough, and write verse after verse of poetry about the bird, and then recoil in horror, tearful eyes streaming as that self-same dove is ripped from the bough by a wildcat, the Eldenelves would simply observe the event, utterly indifferent to the fate of the dove.
“Now of course, my lord, in the world of nature, the wildcat must also live, and the dove is food not simply for its feline assassin but perhaps also a litter of mewling kittens, some of which may live to maturity, and some of which may not. Yet, as the world turns, there will always be doves, and there will always be wildcats, for as long as the balance of nature remains. This too the Eldenelves knew. They also knew that the greatest threat to that balance, in the pans of which lay the lives of all creatures of nature’s making, is the kindred races themselves.
“Thus it was said, to be pinned in the gaze of an elf was to be held in the scrutiny of Nature’s gaze, to be judged according to the threat one represented to the great balance.”
“In truth?”
Arramin smiled. “Who can tell what the truth really is? Certainly there is a balance in nature, between all things, light and dark, life and death… should doves become too prosperous, then the food they consume will dwindle, and their numbers fall in the resulting famine. Likewise the wildcat; too many wildcats, too few doves to feed them. Feast and famine, until balance is restored. It is only the kindred races of Man who possess the ability to destroy that balance beyond nature’s ability to restore.
“This is not to say that the Eldenelves championed the cause of Nature, they were not a weapon of some great entity sent out into the world of men and dwarves to judge those people for clearing forests for fields of wheat or digging ore from the ground. It is to say only that among their mystic abilities was a peculiar vision which to men seemed to judge them thus.”
“But what was this vision, and how was it lost?”
Arramin stroked his threadbare beard, thoughtfully. “In the opinion of elder magi the sight of the Eldenelves was perfectly natural and quite necessary considering the realm in which they dwelled. Much of the land was dense forest, dark and gloomy. How useful then, to develop a peculiar vision which revealed the inner light of all things, including themselves, around them. Gifted as they were, and many of their descendants still are, with mystic abilities, perhaps they themselves created it, the better to hunt in their forest realm. Let us not forget, the Eldenelves too were creatures of nature’s making, and in common with all such, must eat to survive and thrive.”