Realms of War

garden's back gate.

'Where is she going?'

'To have her nails tended, I expect,' Elaith said dryly.

Danilo blinked. After a moment he shook himself free of that puzzling vision. 'We will have visitors very shortly. I received a sending—an amazing bit of magic, by the way—requesting that permission to enter this garden be granted to Shalana O Rhothomir, sister to the Wealdath's elf chieftain, Ganemede, a lythari.'

'A lythari,' Elaith echoed incredulously. He'd only half believed the race of wolf-natured, shapeshifting elves existed. 'In Waterdeep?'

'Oh, it wouldn't be the first time. Ganemede and Arilyn are old friends. He can open a magical gate nearly anywhere, using her moonblade as a focus.'

Elaith's gaze shifted to the weapons rack, where hung an ancient elven long sword. Eight runes marked the shin­ing length, and the blue-white moonstone in the hilt fairly glowed with magic. Just a tenday past, it had turned on its half-elf wielder rather than shed the blood of a moon elf who'd thought himself long past redemption.

'I wonder if the princess will ever wield it again,' he said softly.

A faint smile touched the corners of Danilo's lips. 'You're lucky she didn't hear you call her that. As to the other thing, Arilyn knew what might happen when she challenged you. She figured taking the sword's backlash was the quickest, surest way to convince the forest elves to fight under your command and alongside your men.'

'A form of persuasion that nearly cost her her life.'

'Arilyn thought the cause worthy, and she thought you were worth the risk. Considering the response of her moonblade, it appears she was right about you.'

'Imagine my surprise,' the elf murmured, 'especially considering my own moonblade was decidedly less optimistic.'

The air near the weapons rack changed, taking on a subtle shimmering that might easily be mistaken for rising heat. If not for an elf's innate knack for perceiving magical gates, Elaith might not have seen it at all. Danilo was less prepared, and his eyes widened when two elves suddenly appeared in the garden.

Elaith recognized the female as one of the forest elves who'd recently come to Waterdeep and fought under his command. Ferret, she called herself. The male resembled no forest elf Elaith had ever seen. In fact, his coloring was similar to Elaith's: silvery hair, amber eyes. Like Elaith, he was tall for an elf, long of leg and broad through the shoulders. Had Elaith not known otherwise, he might have mistaken the lythari for kin.

'There is trouble in the Wealdath,' the female said without preamble.

Danilo's shoulders rose and fell in a sigh of resignation. 'I'll get Arilyn.'

'Not the half-elf, not this time,' Ferret said. She nodded toward Elaith. 'It's him we need.'

* * * * *

The sun hung low over the city's western walls when Elaith returned to Danilo's elven garden. Gathering supplies and information, making the necessary contacts, readying spells—such things took time.

A shimmering halo rose around the lythari. Ferret impatiently seized Elaith's hand and pulled him toward it. The three elves stepped through into the deep green shade of an ancient forest.

One step—the journey was that quick, that smooth and simple.

Elaith inclined his head to Ganemede in a gesture of respect. 'I have traveled magic's silver paths many times, but never so skillfully managed.'

The lythari nodded acknowledgment. 'Meet me here at nightfall.'

'It's a brisk walk to Suldanessellar, but we can be back before dusk,' Ferret said. Without waiting for a reply, she circled the trunk of an enormous oak and started down a faint path.

Elaith soon found that keeping pace with a forest elf was no easy task. Before long Ferret veered off the path and headed for a thicket of thorny bushes—formidable thorns, Elaith noted, each as long as his thumb.

'Stay close behind me,' Ferret instructed. She paused, cocked her head, and considered. 'Better yet, keep a hand on my shoulder. The thorns might not recognize you otherwise.'

There was magic here, subtle but powerful, quite different from anything Elaith knew. Curious, he did as Ferret bid.

The branches parted to let them pass. It seemed to the moon elf that the guardian thicket begrudged his presence, for the branches slid back into place behind him with an ominous hiss, close enough for the thorns to scrape against his travel leathers, but not quite hard enough to pierce them.

Finally they stepped out of the thicket into a tree-ringed forest glade. Stones had been piled into a shoulder- high cairn in the center of the glade and crowned with a platform of rune-carved wood. On it rested a low-sided casket topped with a rounded glass lid. Within lay an elf female of middle years, clad in armor of a style not seen in five centuries. Still as the grave she lay, untouched by death's corruption. Magic lingered in the air like incense, and so did something rarer and more wondrous: a sense of legend. Elaith went to one knee to honor a story he had not yet heard.

'Zoastria's tomb,' Ferret said.

Memory stirred. Elaith knew that name. His heart quickened as he rose and stepped closer. The entombed elf's face seemed familiar to him, and her long, braided hair held the distinctive black-sapphire shade Elaith thought of as Moonflower blue. More than fifty years ago, an elf who looked very like that sleeping warrior had come to Evermeet. Thasitalia Moonflower had been kin to the royal family of Evermeet, and she named Princess Amnestria as her blade heir. Elaith had been captain of the king's guard then, betrothed to Amnestria and full of hope for the future they planned to share.

'Zoastria Moonflower, a friend to the forest folk,' Ferret said, confirming Elaith's suspicions. 'She was slain in battle some four years past.'

Elaith whirled toward her. Anger, sudden and inexplicable, filled his heart and blazed from his amber eyes.

'That's impossible. Zoastria was the fourth moonfighter in her line. She lived and died long before you were born.'

'The first time, yes,' Ferret agreed, unperturbed by the moon elf's ire. 'But every moonfighter adds another magic to the sword, is that not true? The elf who passed the sword to Zoastria ensured that as long as her moonblade's magic endures, a hero will return when the need is great. Arilyn is of this line. When she placed the sword in her ancestor's uncor­rupted hands, Zoastria became a living elf.'

Deathless sleep... the first of her line... a hero will return... her line... will return... a living elf.

Ferret's words tumbled through Elaith's mind, staggering in their implications.

Amnestria was the seventh in Zoastria's line.

It was possible. Somehow he'd always known it. When he'd caught his first glimpse of Arilyn nearly six years ago, for a moment he'd thought her Amnestria reborn. Such things were not unknown in Faerыn, even among the elves. But except for that one scalding moment of hope, Elaith had never really expected Amnestria to return.

But what if she could? What if she did?

'This place troubles you?' asked Ferret.

'Perhaps we should reconsider the plan.'

That was not what Elaith had expected to say, but the words seemed right to him. He'd been so busy arranging the usual web of primary, secondary, and contingency plans that he'd neglected to weigh these arrangements on any sort of moral scale. In all candor, he was not in the habit of doing so. But if he'd been spared by Amnestria's moonblade to play some part in her return, he'd damn well better get into the habit!

The forest elf's face fell slack with astonishment. 'Abandon the plan? Whatever for? It is a good plan.'

'But not an honorable one.'

'And for that, all gods be thanked,' she said tartly. 'Any honorable course would bring reprisals against my people.'

She brushed a lock of hair off her forehead with a quick, impatient hand. 'Why these doubts? You are a fine battle leader. Foxfire has been singing your praises since he returned from Waterdeep.'

'Foxfire is a competent battle leader himself—more than competent, and he knows this forest far better than I do. Perhaps he could devise—'