Blade of Erogrund

For perhaps the hundredth time that night, Mira questioned why she continued to sit at the King’s bedside. Night had continued in stillness after Theronin had departed, leaving in his wake only the shadows of the night and the cold words that had frozen her heart.

He left. Fled. Dismal thoughts struck her one after another as arrows fired from some fleet-fingered archer despite her best effort to repel them. The weight of hopelessness threatened to pull tears from her eyes, but she refused to let them come. And now what was left? A dying king to rule a broken kingdom that held nothing for her.

From somewhere inside a voice whispered that Godric would come back; he had to. Yet its otherwise reassuring message was drowned out by the chorus of reminders that the fact he had left in the first place remained, regardless of whether or not he would be back. The matter was that he didn’t care enough to tell her, to even speak to her at the ball. The heat of the battle had sent him running, though not to her but to freedom. He had chosen to run alone....

A single tear raced down her cheek, cutting away a layer of gore that covered it like a hideous mask. It’s warmth set a sudden deeper fire of anger as she thought more about it. He had left. Gone. Run like a coward. There was nothing to be done. He had made his choice and she would have to live with it.

But then even as the roar of anger had exploded it succumbed to the tremors of terror that wracked her inside. I will have to live with it..... Live with what? Unless I do what I cannot there is nothing to live for. Ennor and the rest of us will fade....

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Saracyir had been utterly still since speaking to the young Lord. Her sudden words startled Mira.

“About what?”

The elf noiselessly lifted her head from where it had been bowed toward the bed in order to meet Mira’s eye. “Something troubles you deeply. It has worsened since Theronin delivered the news of your kins’ fate. Even before that a great weight had burdened you.”

It was Mira’s turn to bow her head. “How could you tell?”

Sarah shrugged. “The eyes of Men are thin; much can be seen through them if one knows what to look for. But you hide behind your questions; if you wish not to speak about it, that is your right.”

“It’s not that...” Mira waivered. The maiden that sat across from her spoke with such a calm reassurance that she was tempted to tell all that had crossed her mind since seeing Ennor. To tell her about the voices that spoke in her mind and the terror she felt. “I’m afraid,” she finally answered.

“Of what?”

A deep breath escaped her lips that she had not realized was being held. What is it that I am afraid of? “The end.” Even as she said the words she knew they carried more truth than she had thought any answer could carry. “I’m saddened by the end of all I have know,” she continued. “I am shattered by the passing of Aeis. I am despairing for the leaving of Godric and the end of our companionship. I fear the end of the King. I quake at the thought of what lies outside the walls of the city. And most of all I fear that the end of this story will not be a bright one.”

“And what will you do about it?” The candidness in the elf’s soft voice washed over Mira like sobering, cold water. Evidently her failure to answer was rightly assumed as confusion by the elf who continued. “I have lived to see the sun pass by more times than my memory may suitably recite. Always it rises in the East and sets in the West. Some say it shall never end, but I am more than familiar with the ends that befall us who walk upon the land beneath it. My eyes have seen the building of kingdoms and the tearing of them down. I have seen the scorch of dragonfire consume and felt the heat of it on my skin. I have felt the loss of brothers and sisters, friends and comrades.” Of all the words spoken by Saracyir these seemed the strangest to Mira; that she should have at one point tread beside those of her race - let alone of her bloodline - was somehow legendary. “But we who continue to fight, we are the characters of our story. The only time it may end is if we cease to fill its pages. Do you understand?”

She did not and indicated so.

Saracyir gently tucked a strand of her long hair behind her ear. “Many years ago a great darkness rose in land apart from this. There were many who rose to fight against both it and those who carried it with them, though few of my kin found it in themselves to do so. However there was one among us who was determined to see the darkness break.” It seemed to Mira like the elf’s voice wavered as Mira had never heard. Her eyes deepened as though they were staring back into a bygone era before continuing. “Never shall I forget the look in his eyes when he took up his sword and left us. Never shall I forget the words he left us with. ‘Always will the demons of this world claim us,’ he said. ‘But we may choose whether they are the demons that taste the tip of our sword or the demons that keep us from wielding it.’”

The eyes of Mira had read more words than she could recall. Words of great poetry, words of renown, or even the fairest song written in the finest scroll tucked away in Naevir. Yet every one was overshadowed by the voice of Saracyir as she murmured this quote there in the darkness of the Great Hall beside the King’s bed.

“And that is why you are here?”

The question was perhaps more a realization that a true inquiry. Saracyir nodded gently all the same.

“It is not in my nature to let evil continue for fear of what may come when I stand against it. I have carried those words with me for longer than I care to remember and always they have been a reminder to me that the only bad end is the one we give up our hope to.”

“What ever happened to him?” Mira whispered.

Again Saracyir bowed her head, perhaps hiding the pain that ebbed into her voice. “He fell at the hands of his foes. But the darkness broke and the end that was written for him was penned by his own hand, as he would have wished.”

“He sounds nearly like Ennor.”

A sad, wistful smile turned the corners of the elf’s mouth. “I daresay he was. But enough talk of him and I. Now may you see that not all ends are to be feared if we only have the courage to do what we must.”

“And what,” Mira began after considering these things for a moment, “shall we do when we do not have the courage? Or when we do not know what it is we must do?”

“If we do not have the courage then we find someone who can give it to us. If we do not know then we follow our hearts, but,” she continued solemnly, “always under the council of our minds.”

Even though Mira had expected such an answer, she could not help but cringe as the voice of Power cried out inside her. With it surged the familiar tingling of strength in her fingertips until she drew them away from where Ennor lay lest the Power begin to work of its own accord. My heart says it is right. But dare I.....

Saracyir’s eyes narrowed in the flickering half-light of the candles. “Are you in need of courage, Mira? Forgive me, but something still seems to ail you.”

Mira buried her head in her hands, feeling the dried blood against her fingers and the twists of her ginger hair fall about her. Through her closed eyes she vividly felt emotions coursing through her and heard the host of voices in her mind. But even as her eyes closed her mind cleared and she knew what must be done.

“Saracyir.... I can do things. Things that I shouldn’t be able to do.” The elf’s countenance immediately changed but her expression was unreadable. “I can heal Ennor as though he had never been wounded.” Mira felt her voice quiver. “But it would be a grave evil...”

There was no response from the woman for quite some time until she finally spoke in a tone utterly unknown to Mira. “Why should you say these things? What is it that you believe may come about?” The words were neither accusing nor skeptical but flat inquires devoid of all but the most subtle concern.

Mira took a deep breath. “I’m cursed. I have somehow inherited the power of...” The terror she felt stuck in her throat until she nearly sobbed trying to choke out the words until she recovered her breath. “I’m an Orshi.”

A clear, jovial note broke the tension in her heart like the singing of the first bird in the coming of Spring or the first trickle of the creek after the thaw. Saracyir’s soft laughter was both completely puzzling and oddly delightful as Mira had no choice other to watch, dumbfounded until the elf recovered her breath.

"Iäneur, fear not. You carry with you no curse nor the evil of those Accursed. They are long since laid to rest and their evil with them.”

“But I do!” Mira protested, unsure of whether to be relieved or aghast at the elf’s reaction. “I can do things that aren’t right... I can change people’s minds, create fire in my very palm without feeling its heat! I can create light and remove it... I’m not --”

“-- cursed,” Saracyir finished. The elf’s narrow eyebrows drew together in surprise. “But if it is indeed as you say, this is most unusual. How long has this been with you? What else have you done?”

The young girl’s words filled the chamber, nearly piling onto one another as recounted the affair at Threst and proceeded to hurriedly explain how she had read in the library of the Orshi and their abilities. It took some time to give the entire account, but Mira found it easier and easier to speak freely after she began until the words spilled out like a waterfall that had been dammed for too long. Saracyir listened intently with an unchanged expression until the final word had left Mira’s lips.

“If this is true,” Saracyir began slowly, “then the utmost care must be taken that word does not spread of these things.” Mira opened her mouth to question but was stopped by the elf’s raised hand. “Others will make the same conclusion as you yourself have made if they hear of what you have done. The last thing we need is doubt amid the turmoil that has already befallen. You did right to confess this to me, Iäneur. I will do all I can to help you make sense of it.”

“But what does it mean? If you’re right and it isn’t a curse, what else could it be?”

Saracyir did not answer right away. Instead the question hung profoundly in the dark until words were found to answer it. “From what you say, there are many similarities between these powers and the Orshi, but, while some may say that a transition of power such as you have feared is possible, I am confident you possess no link to their darkness. As to what the source is, I confess I am answerless. You said that this power speaks to you from a voice of its own?” Mira nodded wordlessly. “This gives us cause to be wary. You were wise in ceasing to use these skills, Iäneur, at least until they are better understood, but I beseech that you would one more time...”

Mira traced the gaze of the elf to Ennor’s face. His eyes still were closed under his pale, scarred brow, which was now beaded with sweat. The bandages that had wrapped his chest and scalp were now sodden with perspiration and gore yet the wounds they concealed too grave to remove them. His eyes were still locked closed and his cheeks were flushed with fever against the white of the sheets on which he lay.

The girl let her fingertips gently trace the edge of the bandage until something deep inside began to recoil at the wound. It was not disgust; worse wounds had passed through the apothecary’s quarters. The Power inside her seemed to bend to the touch of illness and grow at the prospect of healing. While her fingers lingered the Power inside grew in vitality until her entire arm prickled like it had fallen asleep and was now being shaken violently. A deep breath pent up in her chest until, with a single thought, she closed her eyes and allowed the Power to flow through her.

Warmth flooded her slender arm, exuding from her chest into her hands to her fingers until she could feel it ebbing into the King’s wounds. It seeped with all the smooth sensations of water or honey across her fingertips yet lacked any visual or material presence. With every passing moment more flowed from her seemingly unending reservoir of power. As it seeped into Ennor’s sickly frame she could somehow feel the flesh knitting itself together beneath the scars and bandages like cloth on a spinner’s rod. The entire event transpired in scarcely more than a heartbeat.

Once the sensation passed it was replaced in Mira by an alarming dizziness coupled with a strange sensation of having sighed deeply without so much as opening her mouth. Her thoughts were soon distracted as the king took a deep breath.

Saracyir smiled reservedly. “He just may make it yet, Iäneur. Come, we must send for Thain.”