Forsaken House (2 page)

out, our libraries are in need of some updating.”

Aeramma Durothil folded his arms across his chest as if the remark had affronted him.

“Is it true you led humans and folk of other barbaric races”-Aeramma used the blunt term n’tel-quessir, or “not-People” in the Elvish tongue-“to secrets we hid from them centuries ago? And that you allowed them to despoil our tombs and sacred places?”

Do not give in to anger, Araevin reminded himself. His eyes smoldered, but he retained his calm.

“It is true that I traveled in the company of people other than elves,” he said, deliberately referring to them as Tel’Quessir. “I formed the Company of the White Star from the best folk I could find regardless ofrace, because

I needed stout and loyal comrades to help me. And it is true that we explored some ofthe forgotten yaults, towers, and libraries ofIllefarn and other long-fallen realms. But a forest fire in Flamerule. They have no reverence for those who have gone before them … including us.”

“Yet that is an advantage as well as a danger, High Mage.” Araevin turned to Philaerin and spread his hands. “We live among the works of our ancestors. We are burdened by their misdeeds, and shackled by their mistakes. What history we write of ourselves in the years to come has already been determined, at least in part, by the wars and grief of ten thousand years. Humans are not bound by the past in the same way we are. Every day is a new beginning for them, an opportunity to discard the mistakes ofthe day before. We might learn somethingfrom that.”

Aeramma frowned and asked, “Would you also have us copy their squalid cities, their senseless squabbles, or their fickle gods?”

“It seems to me that you see everyone’s faults except our own, High Mage,” Araevin said sharply. Despite his determination to remain calm, he was growing angry. The Durothil mage’s smug self-assurance was exactly the sort of myopic view that had driven Araevin to seek his answers beyond Evermeet’s shores in the first place. “You don’t know humans as well as you think.”

“Nor do you, if you love them so well,” Aeramma retorted.

The noble-born high mage started to frame a more severe reply, but Philaerin raised his hand. He glanced at Kileontheal then at Aeramma. Araevin sensed the lightning-swift flicker of thought from wizard to wizard, and bleakly wondered if Aeramma’s thoughts were anything he would care to hear. He settled for clasping his hands before his belt, and waiting. Outside, the surf

boomed like distant thunder.

When the high mages appeared to arrive at some consensus, they returned their attention to Araevin.

“We did not call you here to ask you to explain your travels among humans, Araevin,” Philaerin said. “We have been considering your request to take up the study of high magic for some time now, and we have arrived at an answer.”

Araevin steeled himselfagainst the uncertainty in his stomach. He’d waited two years to hear the response of Tower Reilloch’s high mages. Hewas confident ofhis lore, and he’d proven himself in his service with the Queen’s Spellguard years before, but still … no one was made a high mage unless those who already held that exalted rank concurred in the decision.

This is where Aeramma puts me in my place, he thought bitterly.

“You have demonstrated competence and care with your Art in the years that you have studied at Tower Reilloch. Your skill rivals that ofany other wizard in our circle who is not a high mage already, and your scholarship is even more noteworthy,” Philaerin continued. “All in all, we consider you an excellent candidatefor the study of high magic.

“However, you are onlytwo hundred and sixty-six years of age. We would like you to continue your studies here at the Tower for another fifty years or so before we will begin to share with you the power that has been placed in our care.”

“Fifty years?” I have been selected! he thought, with no small relief, but at the same time, he almost groaned aloud at the thought of the wait. He inclined his head to Philaerin and said, “Thank you, Eldest, for your confidence in me. But that is a long time, even by our measure. What am I expected to learn in that time that I do not know now?”

“To tell the truth, Araevin, I do not know,” Philaerin said with a sigh. “You have shown an excellent grasp of your studies in the Art, and I believe you could embark on the higher studies tomorrow and not fail. But you know as well as I that, questions ofskill aside, we do not make high mages of those who are still young, or those whom we do not know well. Your passion does you credit, but you are so young, and you have spent so much time away from Evermeet. We do not think it unreas6nable to see what Evermeet and time might teach you.”

Araevin did not attempt to conceal his disappointment, but he accepted the decision with a curt nod. Arguing his case would certainly not convince Philaerin to let him begin sooner. “As you wish, Eldest. I look forward to beginning my studies, when it is time.”

“We know you are nearly ready, Araevin,” said Kileontheal, not unkindly. “I do not know of a single high mage who began his studies before his three hundredth birthday, and many of us do not take it up until we are a

full five centuries in age.”

“You are, of course, welcome to continue your studies in another Tower,” Philaerin added. “But I hope you will remain here. You have much you could teach our younger mages. Your time will come, sooner than you think. We

will wait.”

Araevin could think ofnothing else to add. He touched his hand to his lips and his brow, and bowed again. “Of course, Eldest. Sweet water and light laughter,

until next we meet.” With his heart a turmoil of frustration and hope, he

withdrew from the great hall.

*****

Araevin left Tower Reilloch the next day, following the old track that led east along the steep headlands and forested hillsides of the rugged northeast coast. In the north, Evermeet was covered in dark pine forest, and the trail threaded its way above striking views of the rocky shore and the angry gray sea. Streamers of windblown mist clung to the hilltops and hid the higher slopes

above him as he walked, a sturdy staff in one hand and a light rucksack over his shoulders. The seaborne wind was strong in his face, and the forest sighed and rustled with the gusts.

From time to time he found himselfglancingup into the treetops, as if to surprise his old companion Whyllwyst. Every time he caught himselfat it, he frowned and pulled his eyes back down to the path before him, trying to ignore

the stab of sudden grief. It had been more than ten years since his familiar had died, and yet the small gray gyrfalcon still seemed a part of him. Araevin had thought once or twice about summoning another, but he was still not done grieving. For the time being, he preferred to be alone.

Late in his second day of walking, he came to a particularly rugged headland and turned offthe track, following an overgrown trail above a precipitous drop

to the rocky strand below. At the end of the path stood a battered lodge, a rustic place offieldstone and carved cedar beams. Many of its rooms were cleverly sculpted balconies and open colonnades that rambled over the

southeast side of the headland, open to the weather. Higher up on the hillside a living spring gave rise to a swift rill that rushed through the center ofthe house in a moss-grown waterfall. Humans might have built the place of similar materials, but they never would have managed to conceal it so well among the rock and the forest of the headland.

“Glad homeagain,” Araevin said softly, but the wind and the surfmade no answer. Araevin had not set foot in the House of Cedars for the better part of thirty years. When he was in Evermeet, he usually stayed in the apartments set aside for him at Tower Reilloch. The elements had been hard on the house. Water stains marked the woodwork, the cedar beams were gray and split, and some of the fieldstone walls had uckled and crumbled with thirty winters of freezing and thawing. He dropped his rucksack to the flagstone floor, and leaned his staff against the lintel with a sigh. The house seems half a ruin already, he thought. Has it been so long? We are so changeless, but the world is so impermanent.

“Well, I can’t say I expected to find anyone here,” he said aloud. Few of the Teshurrs remained, after all. His mother and father had passed to Arvandor a hundred years past, and his sister Sana lived in the open, sunny meadows of Dregala at the other end ofthe island with her husband, children, and grandchildren. Still, he would have hoped that someone-at least his cousins Eredhor or Erevyella, or their children-might have made the House of Cedars into a summer home, a hunting lodge, or simply a place to go to escape their daily cares. Araevin spent the next few days repairing the place as best he could. He had no skill to replace the great timbers-ancestors wiser than he in the ways of living wood had crafted much of the house-but he was able to coax the ancient spells sleeping in the beams back to life, and he had some hope that they would slowly heal themselves in time. Cleaning out the house and redressing the fieldstone was a matter ofsimple physical labor, which he did not shy from. He opened several of the storage rooms and brought out a few of the old furnishings in order to make the place more comfortable, though he had to resort to magic to dry out and restore many of them. He also spent hours each day clambering all over the headland, wandering the paths he’d haunted as a child while he considered what he wanted to do next.

On returning to the house from one such walk, a tenday after he’d left the Tower, he found a fine gray destrier grazing on the thin grass just outside the house’s front door. A light saddle, blanket, and pair of saddlebags worked with

a swan design lay nearby, alongside a large leather bow case. “Well,” said a clear voice from behind him, “I was wondering if you were going to turn up.”

“Ilsevele!” Araevin exclaimed. He turned and found her watching him from the doorway. She was lissome and pale, a sun elf with copper-colored hair and a graceful figure, and she wore a simple green and white riding outfit. Even among elves she was thought to be strikingly beautiful, and it had never ceased to amaze Araevm that her heart had turned to him. He had no gift for songs of love or dances beneath the stars, not compared to a dozen other noble-born lords and princes who had wooed her, and yet she had promised herself to him. The sun falling on her shoulders brushed away his melancholy, and he laughed out loud in pure, unintended delight.

“Ilsevele! What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you, of course. You might have taken the trouble to tell your betrothed where you were going before vanishing from the Tower without a word to anyone. Fortunately, my father divined your whereabouts for me.

I really should be angry with you, I suppose.”

“I didn’t mean to be away for long,” he said. “Without even thinking about it I found myself here. The house needed caring for, so I tarried to do what I could.”

“And to escape some weighty matter of the Tower, I am sure.”

“Well … yes. I suppose I wanted to slip away for a while nd think of something besides the affairs of Tower Reilloch.”

Ilsevele set her hands on her hips and said, “You needed to escape the Tower for a time, but you didn’t think to come visit me? Now I think I am growing angry.”

“I thought you would be busy with your duties in Leuthilspar. I did not want to trouble you.”

“We are to be married, in case you’ve forgotten. You are not a trouble to me … unless I find myself riding all over Evermeet looking for you, because you were not at your lonely little Tower when I chose to slip away from my

post to surprise you.” Ilsevele poked a finger in his chest. “Next time, send word to me! For some strange reason, I sometimes wonder where you are when we are apart.”

Araevin bowed, spread his arms wide, and said, “Lady Miritar, I offer my sincerest apologies.”

“Hmph. Well, that must do for now, I suppose.” Ilsevele swirled away, gazing at the old house around her. “So this is the place where you were born, all those many ages ago?”

Araevin smiled. The difference in their ages was a standing jest between them. He was almost a hundred years older than she. Of course, among elves there was really no such thing as a winter-and-spring match, as his human friends might have called it. Once an elf was older than a century or so, age really did not matter much-except to high mages, he reminded himself. He stepped ahead of her and led her inside.

“You are gazing on the House ofCedars, ancestral seat ofthe Teshurr clan, my lady,” he said. “I suppose it is not much to look at right now.”

“You suppose wrong,” Ilsevele said. She ran her hand along a rich cedar balustrade centuries old, admiring the work. Sunlight and shadow dappled the waters ofthe broad cove below. “This place is beautiful. The sea, the cliffs, the

forest … to sit in Reverie every night with the sound of the sea in your ears. It’s perfect, Araevin.”

“My family was content here for a long time.”

“Maybe they will be again,” Ilsevele said.

“Oh, we’ve all gone our different ways now. My sister lives in…”

“I wasn’t speaking of your sister, you dunderhead.”

Ilsevele glared at him. “I thought mages ofyour rank were supposed to be brilliant, Araevin. Honestly, you’re as thick as a post sometimes. No, I was thinking ofour family.”

Araevin glanced around the house, as if seeing it for the first time, and said, “I hadn’t ever thought of it that way.”

“We are to be married in only three years, Araevin, if you haven’t forgotten our promises. We will need a place to dwell, won’t we?” Ilsevele smiled at him. “I have no intention of taking up residence in an unused corner of your workroom in Reilloch. We will need a place that is ours, dear one, and with a little work, I think this might do quite well.” Araevin stared at her in bemusement. They’d been promised to each other for almost twenty years, and of course their wedding was almost upon them. Yet when he was immersed in his work in the Tower, or traveling across Faerun, the fact that he was betrothed to a beautiful and clever lady of high family had a way of escaping him. Ilsevele was right. He was thick as a post sometimes. Ilsevele watched him as if she could follow the course of his thoughts. In truth, Araevin would not put it past her.