A Castrovel Adventure: Part 3, Chapter 35

In which Vaeol and the Lashunta learn the Elves’ secret.

From the Daylog of Vaeol-Zheieveil u’Zhasaele Zolaemaue be’Son

10. Vealae, 24,542 - 8th Day at Elfring Dale [continued from Chapter 34...]
...Tolamad halted ere answer. I could read something warred within him. At last he said that the barrow-height Kazos bespoke is another Elven holystead. Unforecatchingly, in reading about the gathered Elders’ faces, I beheld this answer little afilled them. So I spoke that, since his folk now dwell within the Dale of Amaea, I did not reckon anyone would wish to drive them from home. Yet this claim of an Elven holystead needed further outlay, for if Lashunta heirlooms were found therein, inmeaning the queen’s crown (as I bespoke), then one might deem it holy even so much to Lashunta. Tolamad answered that, though Lashunta hoardlooms might be found there, Lashunta had not built it. Yet this word nowhit answered our reckfulness, even mine.
Then Master Mearthil rose. He locked gazes with Tolamad, and though I have ever heard that Elves are not so mindsome as we Lashunta, at their earnestness I wondered that they shared an unspoken thought. Then Mearthil asked that he, I, and Tolamad withdraw together for sundry speech. I deemed this beseech odd for a truce-moot. I then looked to the elders and asked whether they would let if it would help unsnarl this riddle. After some thought and talk, they yaysaid. So we shortly took leave of the moot and together offwalked: me, Tolamad, Master Mearthil, and Semuane. Against all, she and I could not withhold hands.
Master Mearthil began saying that a long time had gone since last the Elves of Qabarat had met the Elves of these highlands, but that over time and what meanship they had had, he had gotten wit of their purpose. At his ask, Tolamad outlaid his clan is forebound to ward the holysteads, and not forwhy they are Elven, but else. Semuane blithely asked what they bespoke, whereat both Tolamad and Mearthil stilled haltingly. I chided their stillness, and reminded Mearthil that, if he is so well learned as I guess, then he knows what I had met in Candares. This got a shaken look from Semuane, and a befuddled one from Tolamad. Yet yieldingly Mearthil nodded and bade Tolamad tell.
Then Tolamad shrove that these holystead’s at our speech’s heart are not so forwhy they are Elven, for they are older than the Elves’ comeship. Instead, they are holy forwhy they must be sunderly warded. Straightway I spoke my guess that they were built by the Moqeva. Tolamad nodded and outlaid their strait, which mindfully I heard, and shall write further below.
Tolamad asked how we could keep this secret. I answered it belooked he had little forehap nor might to keep it secret. Instead, he should outlay the thing to the Elders. Haltingly he yaysaid. We again came to the Elders, where I spoke that Tolamad would now tell them what he had right ere told me. I then yielded him the stand. He stood a breathtide, gathered thought, and then spoke.
The Imlarim had first come from the Stormshield Shore, where over the thousands of years they had dwelt after the Elves’ founded Qabarat, he told. With the growth of Lashunta in that city after the Fall of Valmaea, however, the Stormshield Elves had wandered northward until they reached the Inaeusama Fells, which spur and the Stormshields cradle the Dale of Amaea. Over this long time, they had had little trade with any Lashunta, forwhy the clans dwelling among the higher mountains were wild and heathen.
On coming to Amaea, they had first found more Lashunta dwelling there, but bewared something queer and unlike this now-ward time’s clans who today dwelled here. The Elves had found wantsome friendship and much slyness. Feuds had outbroken. Then the Elves had slowly witted something else lurking in the Dale, and underneath. Something had been befouling these elder Lashunta and working them for its own doom-thought. The Elves had unwhelmed they were Moqeva, our kind’s elder foe from the Time of the Warrior-Queens, who had hidden under the fells ever since the Warrior-Queens drove them here, and who for thousands of years had dwelt under and among their erstwhile slayers, all the while using their eldritch weirdcraft to twist the Lashunta into something more biddable. Tolamad told that the Elves had once fought their own wars with the Moqeva, though that elder kind’s might in far Sovyrian had been less than what they had wielded within Asana.
Then war had outbroken within the Dale of Amaea, where the Elves fought the Moqeva’s twisted Lashunta thralls, and then had rousted the overlords out of their stony warrens. Awful had proven that warfare, and the Elves had lost many warriors, but at last outslaughtered all hint of the Moqeva’s filth. Then they had shut and sealed all the burrows and clefts, and had marked as forbidden all steads that the Moqeva had benamed for their ill ends. These the Elves had sinceward benamed their holysteads, though not for any holiness or godliness, outlaid Tolamad, but forwhy they were held aside against any good use. The stone ring below in the dale is such a stead, though lesser, for whatever eldritchness it had once held has long faded. The high barrow above Amaea is another, and grimmer, he told, for even today there are hollows that even his folk have never gone down, and none know what unholiness may lie within.
When Tolamad ended his tale, I gazed aring the elders. Many quailed, making wards against evil, or even prayed fearfully. Kazos I witted sitting most still, as if stonelike, and his skin had faded. I asked whether he had gone done within the barrow and what he had seen. He dumbly nodded, and again drew forth the queen’s crown. He had gone so far as the Queen’s Room, he answered.
At his word, Tolamad glanced oddly and asked what he meant. Kazos outlaid he meant the room with the queen. By Tolamad’s look I read that he knew not this stead. So I asked how Kazos knew it as the queen’s room, at which Kazos outlaid shortly: ~Ea ema oyue-nei dae Shae!~ - “It is the room wherein the Queen lies!”
Then I spoke, even as Kazos’s words befuddled me, and first thanked Tolamad and Kazos for their outlay. Then I asked the elders whether any now dared the Elves’ will in keeping these holysteads forsaken. None upspoke.
I outread we now uplook a bothersome riddle. If the Sholasa hunters had upstirred anything that had long slept within the Moqeva’s barrow, then we could hardly unmind the threat. I asked Tolamad his rede, who answered he knew not what may lie within. His folk have lessened than what they had been when they fought the Moqeva, he told, and have no longer the mightiness and lore they had once wielded.
Then for the first time, Master Mearthil rose and spoke that the Elves of Qabarat long remind their friendship with the Lashunta and how we have stood together against many mean threats. For this sake he had hithercome, he outlaid, for he had learned whispers of the Moqeva’s evil sleeping under these mountains, and believed it our bounden duty to worship our elder alliance. Together we should outseek it. Then he looked to me and said that I have a name for finding worry, and asked that I join him and Tolamad to outfind this barrow.
I shrive that, even after my moot with the old Moqeva in Candares, fear still grew at talk of elder bane lurking under the crags. Had they forsoothly died under the Elves’ slaughter? Do more still creep unseen? What plight may upstir worries me. Yet I also reminded the Damaya Queen’s face from my tree-sight. If Kazos told true, then the shape lying within the barrow may even be the same. So I first spoke to Tolamad and asked his will, for by right we would go onto his folk’s lands and elder trust. Then I spoke to Kazos that, if anything had woken and stirred within the Moqeva’s warrens, then his deed had woken it; would he do the needful thing to see it laid back, and more weightily, ally with the Elves?
Kazos spoke, and I had erenever seen him grimmer. If a threat lies under the crags, he said, for his clan’s and kindred’s sake, he would see it quelled. Willingly he would go with me and the Elves.
At that tide, the truce-moot broke into madly talking knots. All agreed that we stand nigh a truce with the Elves, though little thought on what next must be done. After long striffle, we deemed that Kazos and I shall go with Tolamad and Mearthil, and take doughty warriors with, to outseech the Moqeva warren and cleanse any upwoken plight. When we offered to let the other clans send witnesses, however, they withheld, for they stand overfrightful of anything linked to the Moqeva. They deem this the Sholasa’s tithe, since they had meddled. So they shall withdraw to Noruma and wait, where we will again meet by way of path through Sholasa land after we leave the barrow, which is well, since here we are almost out of stocks.
Afterward, I spoke with Master Mearthil to overtalk the seech-team. He read I must come, forwhy he knows I am a soul-seer, and we shall need all our weirdcraft, though I answered I doubt my soulcraft will bemeet enough. For our team, we shall have Semuane and her shieldbearer, Krastaes, and Oshis, best warriors with heaviest harness, along with Kazos and Damyane his daughter. Istae will stay to head the sith with Tae and Less (against his outyell) as underreeves. Less I bade stay to mind his heavy wifemate, and also my own with their daughter. Tomorrow we shall leave the dale northwestwardly and go through Imlarim land.
Only after all these things did I again reck I had not witted Kaure all daytide. Aloss, I asked Remaue, who sadly beckoned upward.
I climbed until the treeboughs and sought through the leaftop. There I found Kaure sitting upon a limbthwart, and seemingly watching raindrops patter among the leaves. Guiltily she uplooked when I came, and answered nothing when I asked what berecked.
I took her stout hand and asked whether I had worried her yesternight when I fought Kazos. She laughed, which swiftly she stifled when it became a sob. Squeezing my hand, she answered she had never been prouder than watching me beat him, sunderly after he bet to claim my maidenhood. While she had ever worshiped Damaya, she had never believed canny that one such as I could overcome a Korasha’s strength.
And in that pride’s breathtide, she added, she had erenever felt more ashamed.
Anon she wept in my arms, and I could only hold her tight and weep with her. Such wrath I felt as when first we met, and unmerely against the world, but against herself. I witted she beguilts herself for not being strong enough. So best as I could, I gave her my love and let her know how she uplifts me.
Laterward, after she stilled, I asked what I may yield. My face she cupped in her hands. ~Seholis vere moarye qoanassere,~ - “Teach me to become a warrior,” she bade. I so swore, and she kissed me.