exchanging only a few perfunctory words as they ate. The Druid sat in brooding silence, preoccupied with his own thoughts, as he had been ever since they had left the village, and seemingly uninterested in carrying on any sort of conversation. But Wil had determined to learn something more of what lay ahead and he had no intention of waiting any longer to begin talking about it. When they had finished their meal, he eased himself a bit closer to the fire, making sure the movement caught Allanon’s attention.
«Can we talk a bit?» he asked carefully, bearing in mind his grandfather’s many tales of the big man’s uncertain temperament.
The Druid stared at him expressionlessly for a moment, then nodded.
«Can you tell me something more about the history of the Elven people?» Wil decided the conversation should begin there.
Allanon smiled faintly. «Very well. What would you like to know, Wil Ohmsford?»
The Valeman hesitated. «Last night you told us that even though the histories of the old world make no mention of the Elven people other than in fairy tales and in folklore, they were a real people nevertheless, just as men were. You said they were there, but humans couldn’t see them. I didn’t understand that.»
«You didn’t?» The big man seemed amused. «Well, then you shall have an explanation. Simply put, the Elves have always been creatures of the forest — but more so in the times before the Great Wars. In those days, as I’ve told you before, they were creatures of magic. They possessed the ability to blend in quite naturally with their surroundings, much as if they were a bush or plant that you might pass by a thousand times and never notice. Humans couldn’t see them because they did not know how to look for them.»
«But they weren’t invisible?»
«Hardly.»
«Just difficult to see?»
«Yes, yes.» There was a touch of annoyance in the Druid’s answer.
«But why don’t we have trouble seeing them now?»
Allanon straightened himself. «You’re not listening. In the old world, the Elves were creatures of magic, as were all the creatures of faerie. They are creatures of magic no longer. They are men, just as you are a man. Their magic is lost to them.»
«How did this happen?» Wil settled his elbows against his knees and propped his chin in his hands, somewhat in the manner of a curious child.
«That is not so easy to explain,” the Druid advised him. «But I can see that you will not be satisfied until I’ve tried, so I will attempt to do so.»
He leaned forward slightly. «After the creation of the Ellcrys, after the banishment of the creatures of evil magic from the earth the Elves and their faerie brethren drifted apart once more. It was natural enough that this should happen, since they had united in the first place only for the purpose of defeating their common enemy and once that was accomplished, there was little left to keep them together. Beyond their general concern in preserving the earth as a homeland, they had almost nothing in common. Each species of creature had its own way of life, its own habits, its own interests. Elves, Dwarves, Sprites, Gnomes, Trolls, Witches, and all the rest, were as different from each other as the beasts of the forest from the fish in the sea.
«Humankind had not yet begun to emerge from its early, primitive existence, and would not do so for hundreds of years to come. The faerie creatures paid the humans little attention, and indeed there seemed little reason to do so. After all, at this stage in time humans were simply a higher form of animal life, possessing greater innate intelligence than other animals, but lesser instincts. The Elves and their brethren did not foresee the influence that humans would eventually have upon the development on the earth.»
The Druid paused. «It was something they could have foreseen, had they paid closer attention to the differences between themselves and humankind. Two differences were of particular importance. The Elves and their brethren did not procreate rapidly; humans did. The Elves, for example, were one of the more populous faerie people, yet their longer life spans resulted in fewer births. Many of the other faerie creatures gave birth only once every several hundred years. But humans had frequent multiple births within the family unit, and their population grew quickly. In the beginning, the creatures of magic far outnumbered the humans. Within a thousand years time, that situation reversed itself dramatically. Thereafter the human population expanded steadily, while the faerie population began to diminish — but I’ll get to that in a moment.
«The second difference between the Elves and their brethren and humankind had to do with the ability to adapt, or lack thereof. The Elves were creatures of the forestland; they seldom left the shelter of their woods. It was the same with most of the others. Each resided within a particular geographic area, a carefully bounded terrain. It had always been so. Some lived within the forests, some within the rivers and seas, some within the mountains, some within the plainlands. They had adapted their way of life to the terrain that served as their homeland; they could not and would not live anywhere else. But humans were more adaptable; they lived everywhere. The forests, the rivers, the mountains, the plains — they claimed it all. Thus their expansion as their population grew came naturally, easily. They adapted to any change in environment. The Elves and their brethren resisted all change.»
Allanon paused, then smiled faintly. «There was a time, Wil Ohmsford, when life in the old world was much as life is now — when humans lived and worked and played much as the races do in this world. Does that surprise you?»
Wil nodded. «A little, I guess.»
The Druid shook his head. «There was such a time. It was then that the Elves should have come forward and joined with humans to shape their world. But they did not — neither they nor their brethren. They chose instead to remain hidden within their forestland, observers only, still believing that their own existence would not be affected by the development of humankind. They saw no threat to themselves; the humans possessed no magic and their ways were not destructive — not then. So the Elves kept to their policy of isolation, foolishly thinking it could always be so. It was their undoing. The human population continued to expand and to develop. As time wore on, they learned of the Elves and their brethren. But because the faerie creatures chose concealment as their way of life, they earned the distrust of humans. They were deemed creatures of ill–fortune, creatures who spied and connived against others, creatures who performed acts of mischief and whose favorite pastime was to discover new ways of making the lives of hardworking humans more difficult. There was some truth to the charges, since a few of the faerie creatures did indeed delight in tormenting humans with small acts of enchantment, but by and large the reputation was undeserved. In any case, the Elves and their brethren chose to ignore it all. The attitude of humankind toward them did not concern them. Their sole concern was with the preservation and protection of the land and the living things within it, and this they could accomplish very well, despite the ill feelings humans bore them.
«Then even this state of affairs began to change. Humans continued to populate the earth with increasing rapidity, growing, expanding, now building cities and fortresses, now sailing the seas in search of new lands, now pushing, back the wilderness about them. They began, for the first time, seriously to affect the character of the land, changing whole regions for habitation and consumption needs. The Elves were forced to move deeper and deeper into the forestlands that were their homes, as the human population cut away the trees and brush. All of the faerie creatures found their homelands being encroached upon by this expansion until finally, for some, there were no homes at all.»
«But didn’t they resist this intrusion?» Wil interrupted suddenly.
«It was far too late for that,” Allanon replied, his smile bitter. «By this time, many of the faerie creatures had become extinct, some by failure to reproduce sufficient young, some by their failure to adapt to a changing environment. Those who remained were no longer able to unite as they once had done; it had been hundreds of years since their war with the faerie creatures of evil magic, and they had scattered far and wide about the earth and long since lost contact with one another. Worst of all, they no longer had their own magic. When the evil magic had flourished upon the earth, there had been need for good magic to withstand it. But once that evil had been banished, the need for the good magic was past. The faerie creatures ceased using most of it. As time passed, much of it was forgotten altogether. Human beings used no magic of any consequence, so the Elves and their brethren saw no need for the very powerful magics that had once been employed to defeat their evil counterparts. By the time they recognized the need for it again, it was lost to them — all but a small part of it. Thus their resistance to the expansion of the human population into their homelands was weakened badly. At first they fought very hard, using all the power they still possessed to stop what was happening. It availed them nothing. There were
