The Phoenix Ring(65)

“Mine hasn’t been working. I believe that our enemy is somehow using a curse to cancel exact magical frequencies of our crystals, but not their own.” Bartemus said.

“The magical what?”

“Never mind. Just go, Timothy. Deliver that letter, and god speed.” The warlock turned and walked towards the shore.

“Wait, master Bartemus!” Timothy called after him. “If you see, Aidan, please don’t tell him you saw me.”

The old man nodded slowly, and then disappeared into the woods.





“Firebird. Firebird, the time has come. Awake.”

Aidan slowly opened one eye, then another. He was laying on a mat of deer skin, with a pillow of the same material propping up his head. The mat was situated on the edge of a small, round room that smelled faintly of mint and some other herbs that Aidan couldn’t identify. The only light was provided by a large hole in the roof, under which sat a fire pit. All along the edges of the room lay more deerskin mats.

A few feet from Aidan sat a thin man, his ears ending in sharp points.

No, Aidan corrected himself, not a man. An elf.

Had he been a human, Aidan would have estimated the elf to be at least fifty years old, though the only indications of his age were his wrinkles and the color of his long, braided hair. He wore no beard, and carried no cane. He appeared to be as healthy as a young man, his bright amber eyes alert, and his posture ready to leap into the air at a moment’s notice.

“Greetings, Firebird. Welcome to our humble encampment,” the elf said, his voice as deep and ancient as the ocean and at the same time as soft as a cloud.

“Who are you? Where am I?” Aidan asked. He was still a little dazed, but not in any pain. His body felt stronger than it had since he left Fort Phoenix.

“My name is Aeron, chieftain of the elven folk of Gurvinite. You are resting inside my tent, which lies in the center of our encampment.”

Aidan slowly sat up. He instinctively moved his right hand to his left wrist and was surprised to feel no pain.

The elf smiled “Your arm was easy to fix. Your friend was a different story.”

Aaliyah!

“Is she okay?” Aidan asked, quickly sitting up.

The elf laughed. “Yes, your friend is recovering more quickly than I could have possible hoped. She is strong. Would you like to see her?”

Aidan nodded and stood. As he did, he noticed that he was wearing a tunic made of deerskin.

“Your cloak has been repaired. All of your possessions are packed with your griffin. We knew that you may have to make a hasty departure.”

Aidan wondered at the hospitality of the elves. He knew he had never done anything to deserve their compassion. He silently vowed that if he ever found a way to repay them, he would.

“Here is your staff,” Aeron said.

The elf stood and held out the obsidian scepter, and Aidan suddenly realized that the chieftain towered over him by more than a foot. Aeron pushed open a skin in the side of the tent, and both stepped into the sunlight.

Aidan had always expected elves to live in grand houses made of living trees, but this was not the case. As he looked around the encampment roughly half the size of Camp Ward, he noticed that most of the dwellings were round tents, made of skins like the one he had left, or of thatch and leaves. There were also a few structures scattered in the trees around the camp, with ladders stretching down from them. On the either edge of the camp were long, open pens. One contained horses, and the other held griffins, their wings tied to their sides to prevent them from flying away. Aidan saw the beast that he had flown amongst them, lazily munching on a deer carcass.

“My brethren are hunting, to save up meat for the winter,” Aeron said, gesturing to the empty campsite. “Come, your friend is in here.”

The elf pushed open the flap to a tent that was exactly the same as the one Aidan had awoken in.

On one of the mats lay Aaliyah, her hair spread in waves around her. Crouching next to her was a young female elf who stood as they entered.

For the first time, Aidan understood why travelers and merchants spoke with such passion of the beauty of the elves. She was perfect in every way, from the way her body moved as she walked towards them to the perfectly aligned eyelashes that hovered over gentle blue eyes.

But, as Aidan watched her, there was something almost overwhelming about her, like a piece of fine glasswork that cannot be touched. She was like a palace, full of grace and grandeur. Next to her, Aaliyah seemed to compare better to a wooden cottage, simple, but beautiful in its own way.

“How is she, Hollianna?” Aeron asked the elven girl.

When she spoke, her voice sounded like a beautiful symphony of bells. “She is well. By tomorrow she should awaken.”