'You've seen the state of the country,' Keane pointed out, pleased with the verbal opening that would allow him to join the conversation. 'We didn't pass a single farm once we moved beyond the Corwell Road. And the grass was long-I don't think the land is used by herdsmen either.'
'The Ffolk sense that this land is not for mundane employment,' Robyn said. 'Synnoria is a place of enchantment, of power that is drawn from the earth itself, not from the skills of mortal wizards. It's the same power that gives life to the goddess and makes the Moonshae Islands a place of special beauty.'
The queen paused, her face relaxing into a reflective smile. After a moment, she looked up, aware that the others waited for her to continue. 'King-then he was 'Prince'-Tristan and I came through here near the start of the Darkwalker War. It was the detour through Synnoria that allowed us to reach Corwell Road before an invading army of northmen, and also to gain the aid of dwarves from Myrloch Vale, and even a company of the Sisters of Synnoria.'
The history of that war was well known to them all. The aid of the elven riders and their resolute captain, Brigit Cu'Lyrran, had proven decisive in stopping the original attacks against Corwell.
'But the passage through Synnoria lingers in my mind,' continued the queen. 'Perhaps because I didn't see it. They blindfolded us, remember, Pawldo?'
The halfling nodded, suppressing a shudder as he looked into the darkness beyond the camp.
'They told us that the fabulous beauty of the place would surely drive us humans mad, and perhaps it would have, judging by the sounds we heard. Even those-the trilling of waterfalls, the mingling of birdsong and breeze- would have captivated us all. . '
'Except for the bard!' finished Tavish with a smile.
'Indeed. The harpist Keren banged against his harp and made the most awful sounds you could imagine. For a full day, he kept it up while the sisters led us along their trails. Those jarring notes, I'm sure, were all that kept us alive. Finally we came out on a broad and rounded ridge. Synnoria was behind us. …'
Robyn's face grew sad as she remembered the darker moments in the path of her life since then. Suddenly she missed Tristan terribly, and it was all she could do to hold back her tears.
'So you see, there's a lot of magic to contend with,' warned Pawldo, wiggling a finger at Alicia. 'I wouldn't be surprised if half of us are turned into bugs before this is over!' His face was jocular, but his tone indicated more than a little apprehension on this point.
Alicia slumped backward but didn't concede defeat. 'You can argue reality all you want,' she said, 'but I've never doubted, from the moment we started out, that we'd find our way into that valley somehow!'
'Hold that faith, child,' said Tavish with a soft laugh. 'It may be all we need.'
'Arise, Ityak-Ortheel, and answer your master's summons!'
The command of Malar rang through the ether, past the vortices of the gods and down-far, far down-into the Abyssal depths of the lower planes. Here the one known as Elf-Eater raised its muck-streaked maw from the primordial sludge that was its home and, upon hearing the call, uttered a rumbling belch of assent.
Talos observed the activities of his ally with cruel pleasure. The discovery of the platinum triangle on the Moonshae Islands had infused Malar with vengeful hatred. The Beastlord would waste no time in setting his pet creature against those insolent elves-and this vengeance suited the Stormbringer's plans as well.
The image of Malar's muzzled skull, bristling with fangs and resting upon huge, many-taloned paws, appeared before the Elf-Eater. Slowly, with gruesome majesty, Ityak-Ortheel rose from the sheltering sludge until it crouched before the figure of its god. Only the illusionary presence of the deity allowed Malar to loom over his pet, for Ityak- Ortheel was itself the size of a massive dragon.
But size was the thing's only resemblance to those comparatively noble serpents. The Elf-Eater had a mouth but no teeth. Instead, the aperture was a moist, sucking hole in the side of the thing's domelike body. The maw was capable of expanding to a gaping width or compressing into a long, probing snout, and it was surrounded by many long tentacles, each equipped with multiple, weblike pods used to trap a victim and drag it toward that obscene orifice.
And also unlike a dragon, Ityak-Ortheel had no tail nor wings-and only three legs, each as broad as a gnarled oak stump. Upon those limbs, however, it could lumber as fast as a galloping horse. It had no eyes nor ears, but it could sense the presence of warm-blooded beings on all sides, and could easily distinguish which were elves.
With the summons of Malar, all the Elf-Eater's dim intellect focused on the gnawing emptiness within the great body. Quivering in eagerness, the elephantine shape awaited the further words of its god.
The words it wanted to hear were not forthcoming. Instead, Malar seized the spiritual essence of Ityak- Ortheel and hauled it upward into the ether. Malar focused his attention on the target, and Talos used his still- awesome power to enact a powerful spell.
Ityak-Ortheel, the Elf-Eater, shook its great body, exploding through a dark wall of stone to plant its three feet firmly on grassy soil. No longer did it fester in the pits of sludge, it knew. Instead, it had come to a place surrounded by a world of mortals. . a place called Synnoria.
A place of elves.
4
Robyn awakened suddenly amid the stillness of the sleeping camp. For a brief moment, her mind flashed back to younger days. How long had it been since she had slept beneath a canopy of stars? Too long, she decided.
But then, in the clarity of her growing awareness, she wondered what it was that had interrupted her slumber. Sitting up and pulling her woolen cloak about her shoulders, she looked around the silent camp.
The outline of a large, broad-shouldered man was visible some distance above the rest of them. She recognized Hanrald and remembered that the Earl of Fairheight had taken the midnight watch. A swift glance at the stars confirmed her estimate of the time.
The unseasonal chill remained in the air, but to the High Queen, the brisk weather was a bracing welcome, an embrace of nature, ushering her back to her favorite domain.
No longer questioning, Robyn followed an instinctive sense, slowly approaching the glowing mound of coals that marked the place where their fire had blazed hours earlier. She stopped several feet away from the firepit but close enough to feel the radiant warmth on her face, and then she spread the blanket apart with her arms, allowing the heat to caress her entire body.
Slowly the dull red of the coals began to brighten, though the steady radiance of heat remained comfortably constant. Robyn stared at the embers, watching spots of light grow from orange pinpricks to blazing yellow circles in her eyes, as if she stared at the sun near noon of a high summer day.
Yet instead of feeling pain, she felt a powerful sense of exultation, a kind of energy she hadn't known for two decades.
This was the power of the Earthmother, she knew, and it flowed into the willing woman who again was the Great Druid of that goddess.
Finally the power became too great, and Robyn fell to her knees. Still she did not lower her eyes, and slowly the lights that dazzled her shifted into cooler spectrums-red, blue, and finally a pale violet that seemed to linger for hours, soothing the druid's taut nerves and acting as a balm for the grave troubles that worried her.
Then, when next Robyn raised her eyes, she saw a misty form begin to gather in the air above the fire. A whirling vapor coalesced in the night, growing more substantial as it slowed the rate of its rotation. Finally the mist solidified, just for a moment, into the image of a proud wolf's-head. Yellow eyes gleamed at Robyn, seeming to blink against the darkness.
The long, narrow jaws seemed to grin, revealing ivory fangs that gleamed in the darkness. The yellow eyes stared with unblinking intensity, bright and powerful. Robyn Kendrick opened her heart and her mind, letting the
