a note on this chapter: Yes, i know I already published it. But it’s changed SO much (Editing-wise) that I published it again. The whole last section is totally rewritten.

Chapter One

Reunion

Marigolds blossomed with summer touching the tips of their tongues. Spring’s wet air washed through the dewswept valley with a light chorus of birdsong chasing winter’s cold chill far into the depths of the vivid sky.

Alix laughed as she chased her shadow into a grass-stained hillside and tumbled carelessly into a bed of golden petals. Her lady’s maids would never find her here. She rolled onto her back, letting the clear sunshine bathe her painted face upturned to the azure heavens.

“I’m free!” She whispered softly to the bobbing flowers, stretching her legs and sneezing as yellow pollen tickled her nose. “Or, at least, I’m alone. They’ll find me eventually.” She groaned aloud.

“So pessimistic, my dear?” A deep voice inquired amusedly. Alix sat knife straight.

“Who’s there?” She demanded warily.

“I thought you cleverer than that, my child.” A throaty chuckle engulfed her in its warmth. She turned and saw the careworn gentleman who had befriended her since she had turned seven and had entreated him to kidnap her. He sat beside her.

“Johann!” She exclaimed, throwing her arms around his kind neck and resting her head on his grandfatherly chest. “I didn’t expect you until day after tomorrow!”

He set her back, inspecting her youthful face.

“Expectations are dangerous things,” he said gravely.

“I’m not so old that a friend arriving early would stop my heart,” she teased gaily.

“Now, I’m serious,” he said with as serious a look as his tired features could muster under the intensity of her exuberance, his baggy eyes wrinkling gladly.

“Point taken,” she said, smiling sweetly. “Shall I escort you to the fortress? That is, if we can expect it to be there.” She leapt to her feet with a mischievous grin.

He smiled warmly, losing his attempt to be grave. “Hm, yes indeed. Actually, I was sent to escort you,” he said, chuckling, “Your father considered me excellent bait.”

Her trumping look soured. “How could you?” She demanded, but a light smile was ready at her lips. It seemed impossible to be angry at Johann.

“Come, my dear, it is your birthday. You should be present at your own party.” He stood, taking her elbow and making her stand with him. He had surprising strength for an old man.

“Couldn’t you just abduct me?” She begged pleadingly.

His laugh cradled her heart, brushing the hillside with its deep sweetness.

“You’ve asked me that before, and my answer remains the same,” he said.

Alix pouted theatrically.

“Come, my dear,” he said firmly, taking her arm again and pulling her along behind him. “Your guests are waiting.”

“They don’t even care if I’m present or absent!” She whined, locking her legs in place.

“I think you’re wrong, Alix.” He tugged her into a walk again, smiling conspiratorially. “There are a number of young men who surely crave your presence.” Her extremely audible groan amused him. “Surely you do not wish to be a spinster?” he inquired.

“No. But I’ve no inclination to be a pampered lapdog, either.”

“No, indeed not!” Johann laughed. “I think that is not your destiny.”

Instantly Alix’s mood changed.

“Can you – see who I am to become?” She asked hesitantly. Johann paused.

“I see many paths,” he answered finally. “But I do not know their ends and nor do I seek them.” He turned to her. “And neither should you.”

Alix nodded and watched the ground. She felt ashamed but knew not why.

The silence lingered for a moment before they began walking again and Johann attempted to renew their easy conversation.

“What mischief were you up to?” He asked lightly. “Terrorizing your maids, no doubt, running off like this.”

“They deserve it,” Alix said in a surly tone.

“Alixandría,” he chided her. “They only do their duty, as we all must.”

Alix shrugged.

“Only you could make a lecture into a philosophical debate,” she accused.

Johann chuckled.

“I’m an Elder,” he smiled, “I spend much of my time philosophizing for that is my duty. But an Elder’s duties seem to be changing.” A shadow passed over his face. They crossed the busy moat with a decked out covey of ladies and men, who did not recognize either of them.

“You should dress, Alixandría,” he said gently.

“I won’t have a choice,” she grumbled. He gave her a gentle push.

“Go on, my dear.”

She glared at him before disappearing up a velveted staircase. He sighed, tiredly, the shadow falling over him again. He hoped with all his heart that the darkness of these days wouldn’t touch her. But darkness had a way of creeping into even the smallest crannies and the grounds of lord Amais, Alixandría’s father, were not easily overlooked.

With a heavy heart he turned to join the guests in the magnificent ballroom some hallways away.

§

“Ho!” Said a young man, the youthful lord Joringel, prodding his companion jauntily. “Here we are!”

“Here we are indeed!” His companion grinned.

“You are two silly boys,” a lady in their company said, laughing. “We’ve been to many such events, and I didn’t see you attending so diligently for any of them.”

“Ah, but never for this event,” Joringel said, raising his eyebrows to his companion meaningfully.

“Never,” said his companion, chuckling.

“I see I am quite on the outside of this joke,” the lady said, raising her own eyebrows. “It may be the finest fortress aside from the Capitol, but I doubt you would be leaping over each other in order to get the first glance at some well mastered stone, hm?”

“Probably not.”

“Definitely not.”

“I give up!” the lady turned away. The young men grinned at each other, thoroughly enjoying their joke. “Or -” the lady looked back. “Does it have anything to do with a certain lady at these festivities? Perhaps whom the event is celebrating?” She smiled cleverly. “The ladyAlixandría?”

“Perhaps,” the companion said, looking over at his friend for confirmation.

“Most assuredly!” exclaimed Joringel. Their carriage paused, allowing them to take their leave and begin their walk down the pleasant walk over the wide moat.

“I suspected as much,” the lady said primly. “And pray, tell me why?”

“She is beautiful!” the companion said, grinning widely.

“She has dark, intelligent eyes,” Joringel began. “And long, rippling auburn hair.”

“A graceful personality, a fine lady,” added the companion.

“She is tender and docile, and an attentive host,” Joringel said.

“You derived as much from a single portrait?” The lady asked. “I am impressed.”

“Well…” Joringel admitted sheepishly. “Perhaps my imagination enhanced it a bit.”

“Mm, perhaps,” the lady said, agreeing politely.

A dark figure joined them soundlessly. None of them, neither the lady, the two young men, or the rest of their retinue noticed the addition to their company. He was as inconspicuous as a shadow in their midst, a secret buried in their light banter and festive colors. Silent and unnoticeable, he was invisible to their accidental glances. By the time they had passed the gates and had been directed into the ballroom, he had left their company, and had quickly placed himself in the extravagant ballroom.

He stood against an empty wall and became motionless, watching.

He noticed that the lady, Alixandría, was undoubtedly contriving her escape. The plastic smile masking her mouth was betrayed by her bright eyes. The one he sought was not with her as he had been told he would be.

Then he saw him. The old, grey man appeared beside the girl and she scowled beautifully. The figure strode deftly through the crowd, an art he had perfected, so that no person saw more than a flight shadow even if had they been watching for him.

“You always appear at the most inopportune moments,” Alixandría complained to the old man.

“On the contrary,” the Elder chuckled. “My moments are very opportune.” She rolled her eyes maliciously.

“I was about to escape.”

“No longer.”

“Why must – ”

The figure stepped between their conversation, his back to the lady and facing the Elder.The Elder blanched.

“What do you want?” He asked in a husky voice.

“The Arc requires your presence, may fate bless his days,” the figure said in a low, dusky voice.

The Elder bowed his head.

“I will go to the capitol immediately,” he said in a tired voice.

“No,” the figure said. “The Arc is here.”

A soft gasp reminded both of them that Alixandría was listening.

The figure inclined his head.

“Don’t be rash,” the Elder said brusquely to Alix. Then he followed the dark figure out of the ballroom, leaving Alix alone to survive a labyrinth of sharp toothed imaginations. Her eyes drifted dazedly over the party. She was in the refreshment room with a expensive cheeses and wines and punches. The room was hot with body warmth, for a few couples were dancing and many others were engaged in polite conversation. Her father, as well as a few other influential guests, were missing from both the dances and the punch table. She wondered if they were in another room or if they too had been summoned to the counsel by dark figures.

She looked back, hoping to catch another glimpse of Johann and the figure, but they had melted away like shadows under a sunrise. She bit her lip. She was overwhelmed with a starving grip of curiosity. The Arc, a secret counsel, dark figures, rumors of elves and danger – paradoxes unsolved, mysteries yet undaunted by spies or traitors, adventures fresh and unconquered.

She looked around, was she being watched? She saw no eyes on her. She walked across the ballroom floor, pretending to be joining the swirling partners around her. The door, very close, was being guarded by one soldier. Her heart sank as she realized who it was, her fencing instructor. No lie pierced through the armor of his keen mind.

“Hello, Yurdy,” Alix said hesitantly, with as much nonchalant innocence as she could muster.

“My lady,” he nodded his head in dignified respect. She fidgeted with her smile.

“Ah… there’s a commotion over there,” she lied undeftly.

“Is there, my lady?” he asked dryly, seeing through her guise as swiftly as she had expected. Then he motioned to the door roughly. “Go on, my lady. You’ve earned it.”

She grinned embarrassedly as she recovered from her obvious surprise. “Thank you, Yurdy.”

“Scat,” he waved her away, uncomfortable with her gratitude. She smiled and hastily exited the sultry room into a fusty hallway. In the stagnant fortress, every room and hallway and chamber was fusty and dank and airless and stale.

That was why she spent so many of her hours hiding out under the blue sky. The fortress seemed to defend itself not only from enemies or miserable weather, but from any cool breath of air or glimpse of green grass. The only windows were high up, letting in light but barring out the view and air. She felt trapped in its impenetrable hold, caught between politics and stone.

The hallways she walked through were built of decrepit, cracking stone masked with tapestries depicting histories that only the Elders still remembered. Once the past lords of this fortress had been friendly with the Elves and, in return for some great aid they had given the fair folk, the Elves had given incredible masterpieces from their grand city, Corinthe. Now these extraordinary works of art were displayed throughout the fortress with an ancient rooted pride. Some were paintings, others pottery or fashioned metals, and one a mask that displayed scenes of history in which its participants were in terrifying disguise.

They all told tragic stories, for the Elves had an age old fascination with what overwhelmed weaker mortals with melancholy. They themselves experienced little grief, or at least not in the ways that Humans did. To the human watcher they  felt no extreme emotion, only perfect serenity. Only the Elves and their kin knew that this was very much not so.

Alixandría remembered these things as she hurried to the counsel room, for she had a long, though not age old, fascination with Elves. Their end was sad one, and now only eighteen Elves remained in the land ofInfinell. A terrible plague had murdered the rest of their kind.

She stopped walking as she saw the doors to the counsel room. They were great, double doors, laced with ebony and ivory symbols. They read thus:

All words spoken within these doors are secret.
And as these doors were of Drow make and sealed by the Elves, it was not a feckless promise. No idle eavesdropper nor trained spy could overhear any words spoken within when the doors were shut. Not only were the doors barred with Elvish promises, but two guards were rigidly posted beside them.
Alix walked over to them, exposing them both to a honeyed smile.
“Would you let me in, please? I was invited, though I am late,” she lied.
The guards looked at each other, repressing knowing grins.
“No, milady, I’m afraid not,” the guard on the right said.
She felt a wild temptation to throw a whining tantrum, but she refrained.
“Oh, fine,” she said, submitting so easily that they both looked at her in concern. Obviously these guards had met her before. “I’m starving,” she said suddenly, and swiftly scurried down the hall, three doors down, to a staircase that led down to the kitchen. Opening the door, she flew down the rickety steps and disappeared from view, slamming the wood door behind her. It did not go unnoticed by the guards that she had just left a party with very sufficient refreshments for a hungry stomach.
Running down the stairs, she stopped at the warm kitchen and waved briskly at the busy cooks. The kitchen steamed with water boiling and sauces bubbling, an engrossing matrix of preparation and food, like a complicated dance for no cook’s movements interfered with another. She often found respite here, and the cooks knew her and waved back – those who had their hands free – and she left the kitchen and went down a different serventry hall, tripping up a series of short staircases. It was used for storage, but Alix had a different use for it. It ran alongside the counsel room.
Air vents shuttered the wall in some places. One of them opened into the counsel, and no elvish promise protected it. Eagerly pressing her face to the cold metal, she listened with taut concentration.
“…dangerous, even fatal.”
“Indeed, Lord Belrost, but avoiding this quest could write our end even worse,” Johann’s voice rang out clearly.
“Thank you, Elder,” the first voice – Lord Belrost – sneered spitefully. “But you are not in danger of being commanded to take this deadly quest.”
“The consequences of any path we choose concerns me as much as they do you, Lord Belrost.” Johann spoke calmly, but there was an intensity in his voice that Alix hadn’t heard before.
“I don’t see why one of us must go,” a different lord cut in. “Why not give the task to some page boy?”
“You would trust the fate of the Empire to a page?” Alix’s father questioned skeptically.
“As much as I trust some other characters here,” the lord said darkly.
Even with her limited view through the metal slats, she could see the anonymous lord and Lord Belrost stand defensively. Johann, who was directly across from the vent, stood hastily.
“Gentlemen!” His voice boomed through the counsel, cutting short whatever feud had been about to begin. He took a deep breath. “We are all friends here,” he said tiredly. “And if we are not friends, let us at least be companions in these dark times. If we cannot trust one another, who can we trust?” The two men seated themselves, but each seemed to sulk in their own dignified, disguised manners.
“Besides,” Alix’s father said, “a page boy is less likely to survive, and even less likely to succeed.”
“Do not we all share the same chance of survival? The Elf was the only one who had the true strength for this quest,” the anonymous lord countered.
“We are strong!” A young lord demurred passionately, jumping to his feet as if daring anyone to challenge him.
“None of us have any of the Talents,” Lord Belrost growled. “And neither are we in the bloom of youth, save for yourself. Are you volunteering, Lord Joringel?”
The young lord sat reluctantly.
“I see,” Lord Belrost smirked.
“But together we are strong,” Lord Joringel said, but with less vigor.
“Perhaps,” Lord Belrost said. “But even together we do not reach the potential of the Elf, as Lord Nimrod has said.” The anonymous lord had a name.
“That path is closed to us now,” Johann said.
“I know it is closed!” Lord Belrost snapped. “My point is that our last hope has failed us.”
“Our last hope?” Johann asked in his rich voice. “The hour is too early last hopes.”
“The lais rok is our hope,” Lord Nimrod said thoughtfully. “But how can we reach it?”
“It is impossible!” Lord Belrost exclaimed.
“Lord Belrost,” Alix’s father said cooly. “Are you admitting defeat?”
“Of course not!” Lord Belrost spat angrily.
“Then what are you suggesting?” He asked, unruffled.
Lord Belrost closed his mouth and sat back in his chair, taking a slow, deep breath. He waited a moment before he spoke again.
“I am suggesting,” he said with careful diction. “That we find another way.”
“Such as what?” Lord Joringel asked heatedly. “Wait for the Black Empress to find this Life Stone first?”
“What if it does not exist?” Lord Belrost asked tightly.
“What if it does?” Lord Joringel asked, his voice dangerously patronizing, leaning towards the other Lord challengingly.
“The Life Stone exists,” Johann said heavily. “It is a secret long remembered by the Elders. Even few Elves are certain of Its existence, and fewer of those know where It lies, and none know those who keep It. And although the Iele and Nephilm know, they care not for our trials and will reveal it to none without a great and sacrificial price.”
“Where?” Lord Belrost asked with sudden sweltering intensity. The Elder looked up abruptly at the Lord’s desperate face.
“It is a secret carefully kept,” Johann said in a low voice.
“Do you not trust this company? Moments ago you were the one preaching the importance of trust.”
Johann said nothing. With a sudden shock, Alix realized that the Elder was staring directly into her eyes as she peered past the vent’s metal slats. She smiled weakly, though he could not see her mouth. He looked away abruptly, but his face looked more troubled than it had before. She felt guilty, but not guilty enough to leave.
“Now is not the time,” Johann said quietly. “Our counsel has met to decide if and who will look for the Life Stone.”
Lord Belrost was about to speak, his mouth open and a half-formed syllable leaping into the air, when a slow, ancient voice spoke. Everyone silenced and stilled with such sudden reflex that Alix herself stopped breathing.
“Lords of Infinell and Good Elder of the People,” the voice paused as he took a heavy breath. “Your bickering is petty.” He seemed to have difficultly speaking, as if he couldn’t get enough air to talk easily. Despite this, every word he spoke seemed to be filled with power and authority.
Every Lord bowed his head and the Elder did as well.
“This amorphous hope is an elusive shadow of the past, not to be trusted. To be so desperate for it is a weakness of the Black Empress.”
“Perhaps, or perhaps a deep founded strength,” the Elder disagreed softly.
“You share her weakness!” the voice said with sudden forced volume.
The Elder bowed his head respectfully, but looked up again.
“What would it cost us simply to look for it?”
“I do not see cause,” the strong, old voice said. “The Black Empress is not stronger than we are, even if such a stone existed.”
“Your Highness, the Arc,” the Elder said, a despair in his voice. “She is greater than you suppose. We know now that she has overcome many lords of Infinell, and some of the strongest minded as well.”
“But we have more!” Lord Belrost boomed. “It is weakness to go after the Life Stone, an petty hope.”
“Lord Belrost,” Lord Nimrod addressed the passionate man distastefully. “Your positions are shifting swifter than a Dryad’s. First you explain that we are too weak to go after the Stone, then you question its existence, and now you say we are too strong.”
Lord Belrost sputtered angrily, his face red, but said nothing.
“Perhaps the Black Empress’s arm reaches longer than we assumed,” Lord Nimrod said, watching the enraged Lord darkly.
“Assumptions are dangerous when you use them to condemn a friend,” Johann said. “Use them wisely and sparingly.”
“But surely you see his faulty logic!” Lord Joringel said, almost shouting.
“I do,” Johann said, troubled again.
“Let him answer this: what is your interest in the stone?” The Arc asked in a slow, calculated tone.
Lord Belrost looked around at all of the accusing faces around him, at the Arc’s old one, and at Johann’s sad one.
“I have no interest in the stone,” he said.
No one spoke.
“Then,” the Arc said, sounding strangely pleased. “We shall abandon our search.”
“So be it,” said the company. “May fate bless your days.”
The counsel dispersed.