Seven elflike beings flew toward the scarred mountain, borne on wings like those of gigantic eagles. Two of them held a net stretched between them, and they swooped down toward the pair of elven defenders with grim intent.
Before Durothil could react to this second attack, Sharlario shouldered him roughly out of harm's way. The younger elf went reeling and stumbled over the edge of the precipice. He rolled down the steep incline, hands flailing wildly as he sought a hold. But the slope was slick and smooth from the molten stone that had spilled down the mountain after the dragon's last attack.
Down he tumbled, as swiftly as if he were sliding down one of Tintageer's waterfalls. But no soft spray and warm water awaited him at the bottom. When at last the smooth stone gave way, Durothil bounced and rolled over the bruisingly rough terrain. He saw the pile of boulders approaching him in a spinning gray blur, but could not veer away in time.
There was no sensation of stopping, but pain exploded through him like a sudden blinding light. Gradually the brightness dimmed into the gray void of oblivion. The last image Durothil's dazed eyes gathered before he slipped into the haze was that of Sharlario, entangled in nets and struggling like a hooked fish as he was carried away by the winged elves.
The wheel of the seasons turned many times before the young prince was at last restored to his people.
A band of Gold elf hunters came upon Durothil in the deep forest, found him studying the plants that grew in hidden places with a concentration that suggested he had no other thought or care. Though the hunters pressed him with many questions, Durothil could not tell them where he had been those many years. He simply did not remember; the years that had slipped away from him were meaningless to Durothil, who in his heart and mind was the same young prince who had led his people away from dying Tintageer.
Although he was happy to be among the elves once again, Durothil did not like the changes that had taken place in his absence, nor was he entirely comfortable with the new place the People had found for themselves.
The magic that his people had cast on distant Tintageer had been a true Seeking. It had found a place of power, a dancing hill similar to the sacred site on their homeland. For many hundreds of years, a clan of forest- dwelling elves had gathered starlight and magic on the mountaintop plateau. Many of these fey People had perished one midsummer in the fiery breath of the red dragon who called himself Master of the Mountains. Those that remained welcomed the newcomers to their forest home. And the elves of Tintageer, the proud, golden people from the ancient southlands of Faerie, had mingled with these wild folk.
To Durothil's relief, not all took to native ways. Some of the elves kept proudly to themselves and strove to plant the seeds of their magic, arts, and culture in the forest soil. Amazingly enough, one of these elves was Sharlario Moonflower.
The red-headed warrior had survived and had wed a Faerie woman-a devout priestess of Sehanine Moonbow. Between them they had produced a roisterous brood of young elves, most of whom had inherited their father's pale skin and flaming hair. Almost without exception, members of the burgeoning new clan followed their mother in the veneration of the Goddess of Moonlight. Already the others were referring to them as 'Moon elves.'
As for Sharlario, he often spoke of the avariel, the winged elves who had rescued him, and the wonders of the Aerie, the magical, hidden mountaintop realm to which they had spirited him. He told of the service he had lent the avariel in fighting the red dragon and banishing him from the northern mountains. The avariel were but one of many races of elves in this new land, Sharlario claimed, and they had told him of other clans that peopled the land. There were many elves, scattered throughout the forest, or living in the hot southlands, and even abiding in the depths of the distant sea.
This experience had shaped Sharlario's destiny-or, perhaps, confirmed it. On his native Faerie he had been a merchant who sailed the seas, gathering news and bringing goods to distant elven lands. He was a wanderer still, for the tales told him by the avariel had set his imagination aflame. Nothing would satisfy him until he could see with his own eyes all of Faerun. He and his children often left to explore their new world, searching for adventure, and seeking out others of their kind. The stories they brought back with them were wondrous tales of the sort that would be passed down from parent to child like titles or treasure.
The elves enjoyed Sharlario's stories, but few believed his account of the avariel. None of the forest folk had ever encountered such beings, and the concept of winged elves seemed too fanciful to credit. Not even Sharlario ever again caught sight of one, except in the remembered dreams of his revery. This did not keep him from claiming that the avariel continued to watch over him.
Of all the elves, only Durothil did not tease the Moon elf adventurer about his fancies. He, too, had seen the winged elves. But by unspoken agreement, he and Sharlario never spoke of that day-or of little else, for that matter.
When Durothil returned after his long and unexplained absence, he found that his people had absorbed the ways of the land and no longer needed or wanted a king to rule them. There was no crown for which to contend; nevertheless, Durothil could never rid himself of the feeling that of all the elves of the forest, Sharlario could have been his most formidable challenger for kingship. This he could never forget.
There was also the matter of his own lost years. Durothil understood the Moon elf's fancies far better than he liked. He never saw Sharlario's guardian avariel, but throughout the seasons that followed, Durothil often caught fleeting glimpses of silvery wolves, unnaturally large in size, following him through the forest like elusive shadows. And for all the years of his life, his revery was haunted by the night song of wolves, and vague memories of the kindliness of the shapeshifting elves who called themselves the Iythari. Those fleeting dreams, and the deep scar that, although hidden by his thick golden hair, stretched across the crown of his skull, were the only things that remained to him from his early years upon Faerun.
As the years went by, Durothil schooled himself to put the shadows of his past behind him. Since he was not called upon to reign, the elf turned his efforts to the pursuit of Art. Despite fierce headaches that continued to plague him, he excelled in magic. The Weave that he sensed that first day in Faerun came easily to his call, and he grew swiftly in skill and power. He also had a vast, and seemingly instinctual, knowledge of herbs and potions- perhaps a legacy of his lost years-that served him well in this pursuit. Within a few decades, Durothil was accounted the most powerful mage in the northland forests.
Sharlario Moonflower continued to wander, and he often returned to the forest with word of other elves he had encountered. Some of them were refugees from Faerie or from other worlds. Others were strange, primordial beings who inhabited the trees and the waters and who seemed to have sprung from the land itself. But though many of these wild clans were wary of newcomers, they offered no threat.
That was well, for war of a different kind was brewing in Faerun.
In this land of rich magic and vast wild spaces, dragons ruled the skies and contended with each other for ownership of the forests and mountains. Some of these regarded elves as cattle or vermin, to be eaten or destroyed at whim. Many an elven settlement had been lost to their appetites, destroyed as completely as that long-ago midsummer celebration on the dancing hill. The dragon known to the Green elves only as Master of the Mountain was among the most rapacious. Other dragons were more benign lords, though few gave much thought to the smaller creatures who dwelt upon their hard-won lands. They had other, graver concerns: battle with their own kind.
Fierce and bitter were these wars of conquest, and each spring fewer dragons made the flight to the cool northlands. Determined to achieve supremacy-or perhaps desperate for survival-some of these dragons began to consider the wisdom of seeking new ways.
As he came to understand this conflict, Durothil glimpsed a path by which he himself might regain the power that was his lost birthright. He began to spend more and more time on the mountaintop where he and Sharlario had encountered the dreaded Master of the Mountains in that distant past. The red dragon had been vanquished and exiled, that was true-but his time would come again. He would rule these mountains as he had once before, and the combined efforts of the elves and Sharlario's avariel would not prevent his return.
And when that day came, he, Durothil, would climb to power on the wings of a dragonlord.
7
