Ascendance

"IWATCHED YOU," Aydrian announced bluntly and boldly when he and the older ranger-in-training found some time alone out in the forest beyond the elven homeland of Caer'alfar.

Brynn looked at him with a hint of curiosity but with no outward sign that the bravado in his tone, the subtle insinuation that he somehow had something over her, was bothering her - or could bother her - in the least.

"When you were riding and shooting the arrows," Aydrian explained.

There came a slight and swift flash of an angry sparkle in Brynn's dark eyes. "I practice my jhona'chuk klee, my til'equest-martial every day for hours and hours," she said, mustering complete calm and using first the To-gai phrase, then the elven one for battling from horseback. "And most of that warrior training in To-gai fashion involves the use of my horse and my bow. The sessions are not secret, as far as I have been told." She seemed almost bored as she finished - indeed, she yawned and looked away.

But Aydrian could read her, could read anyone, better than that; and he saw Brynn's nonchalance for the dodge that it was. "I saw you on the field with the elves," he needled her, taking great pleasure in watching her fighting to maintain that sense of confidence and calm. "Only eight arrows for six targets, and that with an unfair call against the value of one of your hits."

Brynn kept her expression calm and content for a few moments longer, but then a hint of a shadow crossed her brown-skinned face, and that flash in her dark eyes revealed itself once more. "Do the Touel'alfar know that you witnessed the challenge?" she asked quietly.

Aydrian shrugged as if it did not matter, but then Brynn turned the tables on him, put him into an uncomfortable position, by remarking matter-of-factly, "Well, they likely know now, since you spoke it aloud in Andur'Blough Inninness, and we both realize that little we say or do in this elven valley can escape the notice of the Touel'alfar. Likely, your every word was heard clearly, and the message is well on its way to Lady Dasslerond."

Aydrian's smug smile changed into a grimace and then a frown. "They did not tell me that I could not watch the challenge," he vehemently protested.

Brynn only smiled in reply, marveling at the great paradox that she recognized within young Aydrian. He was unparalleled in his skills, the humble Brynn readily admitted, exceeding the limits of every previous ranger, his own legendary father included. He could beat her in sparring almost every time - and it had been that way for several years. Furthermore, though he was not yet fourteen, he could beat many of the elves, which flustered them profoundly. Many times, rangers preparing to depart Andur'Blough Inninness could defeat most or all of the elven warriors, but always before, that had been because of the greater size and strength possessed by humans. Not so with Aydrian. He was bigger than any of the Touel'alfar, but his muscles were still young. For the first time, the Touel'alfar were losing to a human, time and again, because he was quicker with the blade and more cunning in his attacks. Brynn could outride him and could shoot a bow as well as Aydrian. In tracking and handling animals, she was certainly as good as any, but in every other aspect of ranger training - from fighting to fire building to running to climbing - this young man, five years her junior, knew no equal.

In so many ways, Aydrian was as polished as any of the warriors the Touel'alfar had loosed upon the world - more polished - yet every now and then, something would happen, some comment or situation, that revealed the vulnerability and the youth of the ranger-in-training. His protest that he hadn't been forbidden to watch the challenge had been exactly that type of revealing remark, Brynn knew. It was not the protest against an injustice of an adult but the whine over a technicality so common from a child. Brynn enjoyed these moments when Aydrian reminded her that he was human - and she enjoyed them more for his sake than for the sake of her pride.

"You are almost done," Aydrian stated then, quickly changing his tone to one more melancholy.

"Done?"

"Your training," the young man explained. "If Lady Dasslerond brought everyone out to watch your exhibition, then it seems likely that you are nearing the end of your training. In fact, I think that you might have already finished the training. I know not what is left for you, but you are almost done and will be leaving Andur'Blough Inninness soon."

"You cannot know that for certain," said Brynn, but she didn't really disagree, for she had suspected the same thing. Belli'mar Juraviel had spoken to her concerning something called a "naming," but as usual the elf had been elusive when she had tried to press him for details. Brynn suspected that that ceremony, whatever it was, would mark the end of her days in the elven valley.

Aydrian just smirked at her.

Brynn flashed a smile at him. "You are likely right," she admitted. "There is great turmoil in my homeland, and I suspect that Lady Dasslerond would like to send me back there in time to make a difference."

Aydrian's expression was one of curiosity and even confusion.

"Many years ago, my people, the To-gai-ru, were conquered by the Behrenese," Brynn explained. "It is a situation that cannot be allowed to continue."

"I know the tale," Aydrian reminded her, and his tone also reminded her that she had told him of the Behrenese conquest of To-gai countless times over the last few years - ever since Lady Dasslerond had started allowing the two some time together.

"You are to be a ranger in To-gai, then," Aydrian remarked.

"That is the land I know," said Brynn. "I understand the ways of the great oxen and the high tundra lions, of the black-diamond serpent and the wild horses. Never did I doubt that my tenure with the Touel'alfar would end with my return to To-gai, my land, my home, my love."

Aydrian nodded, but then put on a curious expression that Brynn did not miss. Nor did his perplexed look confuse her. Aydrian was wondering where he might go at the end of his training, she knew, for he had no home to return to. He didn't even know where he had been born: what kingdom, what city. Nor did Brynn. Lady Dasslerond had made Brynn's ultimate mission quite clear to her early in her days in Andur'Blough Inninness, and Brynn suspected they had a plan for Aydrian as well, though it seemed less obvious to her and, apparently, to the boy.

"You will go back and patrol the tundra about a To-gai village," Aydrian reasoned, "protecting the folk from dangerous animals and monsters . . . Are there any monsters in To-gai? Goblins or giants?" he added. His eyes sparkled, for the young warrior always liked to hear stories about the many monsters of the world and of the heroes, particularly the rangers, who dealt with them.

"Many monsters," Brynn replied, getting that faraway look that always came over her when she started talking about her beloved homeland. "Great mountain yetis and many goblins. Tundra giants with skin the color of the brown turf, who hide in covered holes and spring out upon unwary travelers!" She said the last quickly and excitedly, leaping at Aydrian; and the younger warrior jumped in surprise, though not very high, just enough to put himself into a defensive posture.

Yes, he is a warrior,Brynn thought; calm and confident.

"Many monsters," she went on a moment later, "but none as plentiful or as dangerous as the Behrenese."

"The desert dwellers," remarked Aydrian, who was not unversed in the religions and peoples of the human kingdoms. "The men who follow the yatol priests."

"The demons who call the Chezru chieftain their god-king," Brynn clarified. "Far too long has their smell infected the clean air of To- gai!"

Aydrian looked around nervously. "Beware that those same elven ears you say have heard my words now hear your own," he said.

"Beware?" Brynn asked with a chuckle. "Lady Dasslerond understands my intent completely. I have been trained to lead the revolution against the Behrenese, and that is my first and foremost duty."

Aydrian wore that confused expression once again. "In all that I have learned in Andur'Blough Inninness, I have come to know that the affairs of men and the affairs of the Touel'alfar are not usually one and the same," he said. "You will be named, you say, and so you will become a full ranger. You will have been given a great gift by Lady Dasslerond, in her eyes. How, then, will the lady allow you to use that gift in the affairs of men? Does that not go against the very precepts of the Touel'alfar? I do not - "

Brynn interrupted him with an upraised hand and a smile. "Most rangers are trained as guardians against the encroachment of the wilderness," she agreed. "That was the way of your father, Nightbird, though his path led him to one of the greatest conflicts between the men of Honce-the-Bear in the history of the world. But my adoption by the Touel'alfar was not an ordinary thing; I was not taken to become a typical ranger. Lady Dasslerond rescued me from my captors, those devil yatols who murdered my parents and all my village, with the intent that one day I would return not only to avenge those deaths but also to lead my people from the slavery they have known since the cursed Behrenese came to us."

Aydrian leaned forward as he listened to every word, obviously engrossed in this twist in the tale. He knew some of Brynn's history, but not until this very moment had he garnered any idea at all that Brynn Dharielle had some special purpose in life beyond becoming a typical ranger. She went on, then, speaking of the yatols and the former chieftains of the To-gai- ru, the proud men and women who led the nomadic steppe people in ways, spiritual and physical, older than either the yatol or the Abellican religions. She talked of the To-gai-ru spiritual rituals, and many sounded to Aydrian similar to the prayers that the Touel'alfar had been teaching him and Brynn. Indeed, the young man came to understand, as Brynn already understood, that much of To-gai culture bore a striking resemblance to the ways of the Touel'alfar.

Brynn's voice changed noticeably as she recounted again to Aydrian those horrible last days of her village, when she had witnessed the beheading of her father and the rape and murder of her mother. She came through that difficult recounting well, as she always did. The scars were lasting, but under the tutelage of the Touel'alfar, Brynn Dharielle explained, she had learned to channel her emotions into optimistic plans for the future.

And what a future she envisioned and now described to Aydrian! Nothing less than a revolution to expel the Behrenese from the steppes of To-gai, to drive the invaders back to the desert sands of their own homeland, and to rid To-gai of the ever-deepening ties to the yatol religion.

"Freeing my own people from the trap of lies that is yatol will perhaps prove my most difficult task," Brynn explained, her tone somber and melancholy. "Many of my people have grown up knowing only the yatol prayers - they do not remember the old ways."

"But your parents held to those ways long after the Behrenese conquered the country," Aydrian reasoned.

"As did all of my tribe," said Brynn, "and many other tribes, scattered throughout the steppes, praying in secret and meeting, all of us, at the ancient religious shrines to celebrate our holiest days. Someone told the Behrenese of my parents and their friends, I am sure. Someone told the yatol priests of our sacrilege, and so they came down upon us with a great force." Despite all her disciplined training, despite channeling all that anger into grand plans, Brynn Dharielle betrayed her seething rage at that moment. Aydrian understood that if she ever learned the identity of the traitor, that man would be better off if he was already dead!

The moment of anger passed quickly, as Brynn began talking again of restoring To-gai to what it once was, a place of many tribes, united in spirit and living in peace. How wonderful might that first To-gai winter festival be when all the peoples of the steppes gathered in the ancient city of Yoshun Magyek to join hands and sing the "Ber'quek Jheroic Suund," the "Song of the Cold Night"!

Aydrian's interest grew as Brynn spoke of the revolution, of the great heights her people would ascend to overthrow their oppressors. It occurred to the young warrior that if she succeeded Brynn Dharielle's name would live on in the history of the To-gai-ru for centuries to come. It occurred to Aydrian that Brynn Dharielle's name would live on beyond the end of Lady Dasslerond's days. . . .

He didn't know it then, but that thought, that notion of immortality through glory, sank very deeply into the heart of young Aydrian Wyndon.

When Brynn finished, she sat perfectly still and quiet, staring ahead, though it was obvious to Aydrian that she was not seeing anything in front of her, that she was looking far away and far back in time and into the future all at once.

"I still do not understand," Aydrian remarked a short while later. "Always I hear Lady Dasslerond proclaim that the affairs of men are not the affairs of the Touel'alfar, and always she makes it obvious that you and I, as humans, are far below the Touel'alfar. Why would she care for To-gai and the To-gai-ru? Why are the problems of your people the problems of the Touel'alfar; and if they are not, then why would she want you to return and begin such a war?"

"She fears the yatols," Brynn answered. "Or rather, she considers the potential problems they might one day cause. Lady Dasslerond has had her eyes turned southward to the great mountain range known as the Belt-and- Buckle for many years now, though I know not why, and she would greatly prefer that the To-gai-ru - whose tales of the Jyok ton'Kutos, the Touel'alfar, speak of them whimsically or as beneficent spirits - ruled the southern slopes of the mountains. Always, my mother would tell me tales of the Jyok ton'Kutos or the Jynek ton'Kutos, the light elves and the dark elves, and she told those tales with a warm smile. We, of all the humans, are the most akin to the elven peoples. So my mother would always say; and now that I have come to know the Jyok ton'Kutos intimately, I believe that she was correct. Certainly the To-gai-ru are more akin to Lady Dasslerond's people than are the Behrenese or the white-skinned folk of Honce-the-Bear. Your people, like the Behrenese, try to shape the land to fit their needs, while the To-gai-ru find pleasure in the land that is."

Aydrian looked at her as if he did not understand - which he did not, of course, since he had little idea of what "his" people of Honce-the-Bear might be like. The Touel'alfar had told him some of the history, of course, and had described the great cities to him - and how Aydrian wanted to go and see those cities! But the only tales he knew of "his" people were those his elven teachers had told him, and Aydrian was developing a pretty good sense now that not everything the Touel'alfar told him was necessarily true.

"If Lady Dasslerond has any ideas of traveling to that southern mountain range," Brynn went on, "then better for her, or for any she chooses to send, that the yatols were long gone from the area."

"You know this?" Aydrian asked, his eyes narrowing with curiosity. "She will leave Andur'Blough Inninness? Or will send others to the south?"

Brynn shrugged. "I merely assume it," she admitted. "For why else would the leader of the Touel'alfar care for the plight of the To-gai-ru?"

"Perhaps Lady Dasslerond would simply prefer that there were fewer humans in her world," Aydrian replied bluntly. "What better way to bring about that than to start a war?"

Brynn glanced around nervously, her horrified expression showing that she believed Aydrian had just stepped way over the bounds of propriety.

He shrugged in response, somewhat nonchalantly. "I do not pretend to understand the desires of the Touel'alfar," he said. "You do, it seems, but have you learned that much more of them in your few extra years of training?"

Brynn looked at him hard.

"Or do you just need to think the best of them?" Aydrian asked.

"They are my family," the young woman replied.

"Your masters," Aydrian was quick to correct. "And while you might consider them your family, they certainly do not think the same of you. Or of me, or of any other humans. Even my father, Nightbird. Yes, they speak of him reverently and say what a great ranger he was. But even his heroic deeds cannot elevate him to the status of the Touel'alfar - not in the eyes of the Touel'alfar, at least."

Brynn's lips grew very thin - for she knew he was right, Aydrian realized, and it pleased him to be right.

"They are the only family I have," said Brynn again. "And the only family you have."

"Then I have no family," said Aydrian. The words coming out of his mouth proved as much an epiphany for Aydrian as for Brynn.

"How can you speak ill of those who saved your life?" Brynn scolded. "Of those who gave you life in every way except birth? Of those who are giving you skills that will elevate you above the masses of our race?"

"But will never lift me to the very bottom ranks of their race," Aydrian was quick to point out. "If I consider Lady Dasslerond my family, then it is a false hope for me, since she will never consider me the same."

"The Touel'alfar have great fondness for the rangers," said Brynn.

"As you have for Diredusk," Aydrian countered.

Brynn started to respond, but gave a great sigh and let it go. She couldn't hope to convince Aydrian. From his perspective, his words were true enough. Brynn knew the reality of being a human among the Touel'alfar as surely as did her young counterpart. Indeed, the elves did consider themselves superior to humans or any other race. Even the words of Belli'mar Juraviel, Brynn's mentor and the elf the Touel'alfar considered the friendliest toward humans, held an inescapable edge of racism, an inadvertent condescension.

But Brynn still did not see things as Aydrian did. The Touel'alfar, for all their failings, were giving her something special, a great gift that she could use to better the lives of her people and to realize her ultimate potential.

"Once I might have seen them as you do," she said, though her words were a lie, for she had never viewed the Touel'alfar as anything other than first her saviors and then her friends. "But when you return . . ." Brynn paused at that word, for perhaps that was the key to the difference between her feelings and Aydrian's toward Lady Dasslerond and her people. She would return to her own people, but Aydrian had never been among his own people! How strange that must be for the boy!

"You will come to appreciate the gifts of the Touel'alfar," she said instead, quietly with all respect. "You will change your heart concerning Lady Dasslerond and her haughty kin."

Now it was Aydrian's turn to merely shrug as if it did not matter; and Brynn sat staring at him for a long time, wondering, fearing, how deep his anger toward their mentors ran. Aydrian wouldn't even admit to that anger, she recognized. He was speaking words that he thought simply pragmatic and honest, but Brynn was perceptive enough to understand that there was some buried resentment behind his remarks.

She wondered whether Lady Dasslerond had noted it as well, and she could not believe that the venerable lady of Caer'alfar and her sharp-eared kin had not. What ill might that bode for poor Aydrian?

She left him then, with a pat on the shoulder as he sat staring into the boughs of the beautiful forest. She wished that there was some way she might mention this conversation to Lady Dasslerond, though of course she could not without getting Aydrian into terrible trouble. She wished that there was some way that she could show Aydrian the error of his thinking.

Aydrian sat there for a long while after Brynn had gone, going over the conversation, particularly his own words, those last few comments that had revealed to him a deep and simmering anger. It was all starting to fall together for him, he believed, all the pieces of this great puzzle known as life lining up in orderly fashion.

Aydrian didn't like the picture those pieces formed at all. The unfairness of his situation upset him profoundly. Not only was he destined forever to be a lesser being in the eyes of the only group he could call a family but every member of that family, barring unforeseen circumstance, would outlive him by many of his life spans! Where was the justice in this miserable existence? To'el Dallia might train a dozen or more rangers after him, and would she even remember the one named Aydrian? Would his "family" recall his name even a century hence?

But that was also the spark of hope that Aydrian had found this night in talking to Brynn Dharielle, the ranger destined to lead a revolution, the ranger whose name, it seemed to Aydrian, might be long imprinted on the memory of the world.

Yes, he thought, perhaps there was a way for a mere human to garner a piece of elvenlike immortality. . . .

It was another calm and quiet night - too quiet, Aydrian recognized, and he knew instinctively that something was afoot, some new test for Brynn, perhaps. With even To'el Dallia nowhere to be found, the young ranger-in- training made his way to the same field where Brynn had passed her previous test.

The place was empty and quiet, not a night bird stirring, not a torch burning.

Aydrian walked along the forest paths, rubbing his chin, trying to figure out where the elves might have brought Brynn. He didn't know how many elves lived in Caer'alfar, but he knew that the number was over a hundred. Aydrian understood that if they were out in the forest, all of them together and with Brynn besides, he would never find them unless he happened upon them by chance. Aydrian had spent his entire life in Andur'Blough Inninness, had trained extensively in the ways of the elves, and all that experience and all that training only let him know better than anyone else in the world how stealthy the elven people could be in the forest night.

He wandered the paths, making wider and wider circuits of Caer'alfar, the homeland proper, and growing angrier and angrier with each passing step because he would again be excluded from . . . from whatever the Touel'alfar were doing with Brynn this night.

His frustration continued to mount but then washed away all of a sudden when Aydrian heard fair elven voices carried on the evening breeze. Immediately Aydrian went on the alert, crouching and slowly turning his head to get some direction from the sound. He knew, too, that the elves could hide their voices or could throw them to misdirect. He wondered as he at last located the heading and swiftly but quietly started in that direction whether the elves would have him running futilely through the night. Soon enough, though, the lights of torches came into view, lining another field, this one as wide as it was long and bordered on all four sides by beautiful pine trees. The young ranger-in-training stopped and took a long while to consider where he was, to recall all that he could of the region about that field. He started off again a few minutes later, but not heading directly toward the field. Rather, he ran off down to the north, making his way to a dry, sunken streambed that ran along the field's border.

When he was even with the field, the elven song filling all the air about him, Aydrian crept up the bank, his belly low to the ground. He paused again just before he reached the crest, taking in the elf song, trying to discern the mood of the Touel'alfar.

From that sound, the beautiful and reverent melody, it didn't seem to him that this was another test, and certainly not one of Brynn's warrior prowess. No, this seemed more solemn somehow, more ancient.

With a deep and steadying breath, Aydrian crept up a bit more and peeked over the ridge, under the interlocking boughs of pines.

There stood the Touel'alfar - all of them, it seemed - standing in ranks upon the field to Aydrian's right, facing Lady Dasslerond. The boy lay there for a long, long time, not even realizing that he was breathing.

At last the elven song stopped, though the last notes seemed to hang in the air. Not a bird, not a cricket, chirped in the quiet night.

"Belli'mar Juraviel," Lady Dasslerond said a moment later. "For the second time in a short span, you deliver to us a ranger prepared to go out into the wider world. Is she ready?"

"She is, my lady," said Juraviel, striding past the quiet elven ranks. "I give you Brynn Dharielle!" He stopped and turned, holding his arm out the way he had come, and in his wake walked Brynn.

Aydrian could hardly breathe, or could not breathe, and didn't care whether he did or not. Brynn walked with a grace and a pride befitting the evening. She was naked, except for a couple of large feathers that had been braided into her dark hair. Aydrian had seen her naked before many times, for he had often sneaked into the brush beside the small field where the young woman did her morning bi'nelle dasada routines, and always the sight of her smooth brown flesh had excited feelings in Aydrian that he could not quite comprehend.

But this went beyond any of that. This night, Brynn Dharielle seemed to him something far greater than the woman he watched at sword dance, something supernaturally and spiritually beautiful, something that transcended the lustful feelings of the flesh. She was naked and undeniably enticing, but Aydrian could not take his gaze from her serene face and her sparkling dark eyes. It seemed to him as if she was wearing her soul as her clothing tonight.

Suddenly Aydrian felt as if he didn't belong in that place, as if he was violating Brynn's privacy far more now than during his spying on her morning sword dances. Then, he had measured her training, her focus, had admired her physical skills and physical charms, but now . . .

Now he was peeking at her very soul.

The elven song began again as soon as Brynn walked over to take her place directly before Lady Dasslerond. But then it stopped suddenly, or perhaps it did not - perhaps, Aydrian thought, the elves had simply enacted one of their sound walls, a barrier through which their voices would not pass. Lady Dasslerond was talking to Brynn then, as Belli'mar Juraviel walked to the far end of the field, disappeared into the pine boughs, then emerged a moment later leading a large brown and white pinto pony, magnificently muscled whose two eyes were so blue that Aydrian could make out their color even from this distance in the torchlight. The pony had a white mane with a single black tuft of hair and a black tail similarly adorned with a single white tuft. It seemed skittish at first, or at least too full of spirit, and tossed its head with sharp jerking motions that kept Juraviel working hard not to be thrown from his feet.

But then the pony was near Brynn, and the chemistry between the two was immediately obvious. The young stallion's ears perked up, and though its eyes continued to take in all the scene before it warily, the pony allowed Brynn to stroke its face and strong neck without a single flip of its head.

The pony stood calmly by Brynn's side then, to Aydrian's amazement, while Lady Dasslerond began to speak again. Then all the elves began their song anew - though Aydrian still could hear none of the elvish voices, just the occasional nicker or whinny from the pony.

It took a long while for Aydrian even to notice that Belli'mar Juraviel had left the field once more, and when that realization at last came to him, it was too late for him to react.

He felt a strong hand grab the back of his hair even as he started to turn over. A sudden jerk by Juraviel pulled Aydrian back from the bank and to his feet.

"What are you doing here?" the elf demanded.

Aydrian snarled and reached back to grab Juraviel's wrist, but the elf anticipated the move and sharply jerked his hand down, pulling hard enough to take Aydrian from his feet.

The boy hit the ground hard, but twisted quickly and started to scramble to his feet, growling with rage, intent only on pummeling Juraviel.

He got kicked in the face before he ever got near to vertical, and in the fog that followed that kick, he felt a sudden, sharp rain of blows that soon had him curled defensively on his side.

"In everything you do of late, you tempt the limits of Lady Dasslerond's patience," Juraviel said.

Aydrian slowly uncurled and rolled to his knees, then slowly and unthreateningly stood up. "I was not told to stay away from this place this evening," he protested.

Juraviel's steely-eyed gaze did not soften. "The answer to your protest lies within your own heart," the elf said after a long, uncomfortable pause. "Did you not recognize that you were violating the privacy of Brynn Dharielle?"

"No one told me - " Aydrian started to argue again.

"No one should have to," Juraviel interrupted. "You have been taught better than that. You have been given insight into your own heart and soul. Can you not measure that which is right from that which is wrong?"

Aydrian started to answer, but again, Juraviel cut him short.

"Can you not?" he said forcefully. "Will you try to deny the truth that is in your heart with twisted words?"

Aydrian stammered for a moment, then went quiet and stood perfectly still, eyeing Juraviel coldly.

He held that threatening posture for a long while, and Juraviel didn't blink until he heard movement behind him. He turned to see Brynn coming off the field, wrapped in a shawl now, leading her pony.

"I did not mean to . . ." Aydrian started to say to her, but as Brynn passed by him, very near - and if she even saw him, she did nothing to acknowledge him - he noted that her dark eyes were glazed, as if she were walking in the midst of a dream.

"Brynn?" he asked, but the newly anointed ranger kept on walking.

Aydrian watched her for a moment. And then he knew. Without a doubt, the boy suddenly understood that Brynn, his only human friend, the only person in all Andur'Blough Inninness who could even remotely relate to him, would leave the elven valley that very night.

He started after her, but there was Juraviel between them, a slender sword drawn and ready - and he wore an expression that left Aydrian no doubt that Juraviel would use that sword against him.

"She is leaving," Aydrian said quietly.

"As am I," said Juraviel, "this night. We are off to the southland, young Aydrian, to a place where the grasses are ever bent by a relentless wind. Brynn Dharielle and Belli'mar Juraviel leave the tale of Aydrian Wyndon this night."

"Will I ever . . . I mean . . . why did no one tell me?" Aydrian stammered, at a complete loss.

"It is not important to that which Lady Dasslerond plans for you," said Juraviel. "I will speak to no one of your indiscretion this night. Now go, and quickly, back to your bed and never, ever let Lady Dasslerond know that you bore witness to that which you should not!"

Aydrian stared at him blankly, completely overwhelmed.

"Be gone!" snapped Juraviel, and before he even knew what he was doing, Aydrian found himself running along the forest paths, all the way back to his small cot under a sheltered bough on the outskirts of Caer'alfar.

As soon as he had started down the path, Lady Dasslerond walked down from the top of the bank, staring after him. She moved beside Juraviel and rubbed her delicate hand through her thick golden hair, her expression clearly fearful.

"He did not deny the truth when I forced him to look into his heart," said Juraviel.

"But the mere fact that he could so deny that truth to commit the violation is what frightens me," Lady Dasslerond replied. "There is a dark side to that one, I fear."

Belli'mar Juraviel didn't reply and didn't have to. He and all the others of Caer'alfar, Lady Dasslerond included, had come to wonder about defiant, headstrong, and frighteningly powerful young Aydrian these last few weeks.

Juraviel could not worry about that now, though, for he and Brynn had a long and dangerous road before them. Their time in the tale of Aydrian Wyndon had come to its end.

So Belli'mar Juraviel believed.