of the first moonblade.''
Teldin caught the touch of wry humor and responded with a delighted, if confused, grin. 'I'm afraid you lost me.'
'I'm sorry?'
'Take a left turn at Myth Drannor,' Teldin suggested helpfully.
Vallus looked startled, then he laughed outright. Teldin's jaw dropped in astonishment. Somehow, he'd never thought of the elven wizard as possessing much of a sense of humor. Since their arrival in Evermeet, however, Vallus seemed to have shed much of the aloof, distant manner that Teldin associated with him.
'Would that I could,' the elf said, with a chuckle. 'That particular center of elven culture fell many centuries before my birth. By all telling, it would have been a sight worth seeing.'
'You know a great deal about Toril's elves,' Teldin commented.
'Learning is my passion,' the elven wizard said avidly. His pale green eyes settled on Teldin's dark cloak, and an involuntary, almost imperceptible shudder rippled through his slender frame.
Teldin blinked, startled by the sudden intensity of the elf s emotion. He had never before been able to 'read' Vallus's expressions, but he couldn't miss the apprehensiveness with which the elf regarded the cloak. Reflexively, Teldin drew the somber black garment a little closer and glanced out the window.
The ground was far below now, and the litter had reached a height even with the oddly shaped door. The gate disappeared suddenly, slipping with a smooth swish into a hollow in the palace wall. They floated forward, and Teldin noted that the litter's unusual shape matched the door as precisely as a key might fit its lock. The litter glided into a hall, and the passengers stepped out onto a green carpet that led down a winding incline to a council chamber. Through the arched doorway Teldin caught a glimpse of a dais shaped like a crescent moon and dotted with thrones.
At the door the elven guard announced them as ambassadors of the Imperial Fleet. Vallus preceded Teldin, giving a ritual phrase in a dialect of Elvish that Teldin had never heard, but nonetheless understood.
'We welcome you, Vallus Leafbower, for your own sake and also as a representative of the Imperial Fleet.'
The formal words were spoken in a clear contralto voice that held all the music and promise of the sea. The speaker was a female elf as beautiful as any Teldin had ever seen or imagined. Her age was impossible to guess, for her smooth white skin was flawless and touched with blue where a human woman's face would flush rosy. Vallus's mention of blue skin had brought to mind the dusty, unappealing complexion of the arcane, but the elven woman possessed a beauty as cool and elusive as moonlight on a pond. Her face was angular, delicate, and dominated by large, almond-shaped eyes as blue as Teldin's own, though flecked with gold. The elven queen's hair was elaborately arranged in a cascade of waves and ringlets, and the color was a startlingly deep, bright blue that looked as if it had been spun from fine sapphires.
Around her throne were thirteen chairs. One chair, Teldin noted, was pointedly empty. Seated in the others were six princes and six princesses, all bearing a strong resemblance to Amlauril. Some of them had her wondrous blue hair, others black. All were dressed in court robes of palest spring green, all had the moon-kissed skin and golden blue eyes, and all regarded him with friendly curiosity.
Vallus again bowed to the queen, holding his hands palm up as he did.
Teldin stepped forward and performed a passable imitation of Vallus's bow. 'Thank you for seeing me, Queen Amlauril.'
The elven monarch leaned forward, slender hands folded in her silken lap. 'We are honored, Teldin Moore. Your quest is of greatest interest to us all, but to me you bring an answer I have sought for many centuries.' The queen paused and glanced around the room, and a touch of uncertainty softened her regal face. 'You see, I have seen the great ship
'Why have you not spoken of this before, my queen?' The demand was made in a voice that crackled with age and astonishment.
Teldin followed the direction of the speaker's voice, and for the first time he noticed another group of elves seated to one side of the moon-shaped dais, all of them robed in pale gray. These, he supposed, were the elven sages of whom Vallus had spoken.
A wistful expression crossed Queen Amlauril's face as she answered the sage. 'If I had told such a tale when it occurred, who would have believed me? Wildspace travel was not a well-known thing in Evermeet some eight hundred years past. Even after I heard tales of the great ship, I could not be certain that was what I saw. The earliest memories of a child are so dreamlike that dream and reality are virtually indistinguishable.' Her smile held great charm and self-mocking humor. 'Until we received your message, Vallus Leafbower, I am not certain I believed myself.'
'What did you see?' Teldin demanded, taking a step closer. In the corner of his eye he noted the warning look Vallus shot him and surmised that he had violated some protocol code. In his eagerness to learn of the
'Before we begin, perhaps you would take a seat?' the queen said graciously, gesturing toward the table placed directly in front of the throne. Teldin and Vallus took their places, and Amlauril began her tale.
'My family's ancestral lands lie on the northernmost shore of the island,' she began, taking a leisurely elven pace. 'As a child, I spent much time on the coast, sometimes walking the shore, sometimes sailing in the protected coves with my sisters. One night, when the moon was full, I slipped away alone, compelled by some childish impulse to catch sight of the merfolk. My nursemaid had recently told me tales, you see, of the marvelous dances the merfolk held on the water's surface on each full of the moon, and I was eager to see this wonder.
'I saw instead a giant ship, shaped like a manta ray, flying slowing through the sky and all but blocking out the moon. At that time, of course, I did not know of other worlds, nor did I dream that ships could sail among the stars. I remember looking from the ship above to the sea below. Seeing its reflection on the still waters of the cove seemed a complete reversal of all I had ever known or imagined. I was terrified and fascinated all at once.'
A fleeting smile touched her lips. 'Of course, I fled like a frightened ground squirrel, back to the safety of my own bed. At daybreak, I was not sure whether I had seen the ship or only dreamed it. Even in later years, I heard so many conflicting stories about the
'And now, Teldin Moore,' she concluded, 'it is time for your tale. Permit me first to present your audience.'
One by one, the queen introduced the members of her court. Teldin bowed his head to each prince or princess in turn, trying to commit the unfamiliar elven names to memory.
When the introductions were completed, the queen asked Teldin to tell his story. He nodded and did as he was bid. Keeping in mind elven patience and the elves' delight in long and fantastic tales, he left out little of what had befallen him since the day he first had donned the cloak. Throughout his telling, the elves' rapt attention never wavered. As he spoke, Teldin noted with surprise that he was beginning to understand elven reactions and emotions. By and large, they were more subtle than those of humankind, as different as the slow, stylized dances he'd seen on the world of Chimni were from the boisterous frolic of a harvest dance on his homeworld. Less heavy- footed, he noted, pleased with his own analogy.
Their faces betrayed guarded outrage as Teldin told the story of the elven admiral Cirathorn and his attempt to seize the cloak for his own purposes. Finally, he described the battle with the illithids and his rescue by Vallus Leafbower.
'Vallus has offered to aid me in my search, with the understanding that once we find the
'War? What war?' asked an elderly sage in a querulous tone, his face puckered with dismay. It seemed to Teldin that the elf was distressed not so much by the prospect of war, but that such a thing could happen outside of his knowledge.
The perceptive Vallus stepped in to soothe the elven sage. 'The war of which Teldin Moore speaks is a matter for other worlds. It rages far from your shores, Master Tseth.'
The elven queen leaned back in her throne, her expression suddenly unreadable. Her gold-flecked gaze settled upon Teldin. 'Where does your search take you next?'
