The Light of our nights wasn’t normal.
When the mists were white, it felt almost like home. No blue sky, but a world full of every color, with the forest that stretched out above our settlement looking almost the same as any mountainside back on Aranar. But when it was night, the familiar trees and grass that began a hundred meters after the mossy, rocky strip of land that ran along the cliff’s edge weren’t enough to keep the new world from feeling alien.
That night, we held a conclave as the mists began to turn red. It was a time when, for an hour, the world was bathed in the same light as a sunset—a fiery orange shot through with different hues.
“Last night, as I stood atop that mountain and watched our musicians work their wonders, I wept.”
We’d gathered in a field before the temporary keep. The grass had been trampled flat by the many conclaves we’d had here already—the keep was functional, but also cramped. The new one would have space in its great hall, but it wasn’t yet finished.
I stood in the center of a circle of elves, speaking first.
“I wish I could tell you that I wept because the music and the moment had moved me, but it is not so. I wept because I missed my husband. Because when faced with so much to wonder at, all I could think was that I wanted him to be there with me.”
I saw some nods as I looked around at the many faces in the crowd. Most of them had lost more than I had—and I knew, on some level, that most of them were far less able to deal with that kind of pain. My training meant that I was re-focusing myself in every moment, bringing myself back to the experience-rich world. Between that and the work I had before me, I had more to gird myself against loss than they.
“I know we’ve lost so much,” I said. “It will not only take all of us together to even begin to express our pain, but it will take time. A long, very long time. Time takes everything, or so they say—I wouldn’t know, I’ve only been here for a little bit.”
A few laughs, though nothing in my tone had been joking. “But for all that we’ve lost, we’ve kept much,” I said. “As the days have gone by, I’ve looked forward to that mountaintop concert with such hope—such precious, fragile hope. I wanted Hassina to succeed not just because I wanted good trade with the lord of our skies, but because her success does for me what might otherwise be impossible: it lightens the burden of memory.”
I clasped my hands. “You’ve seen it. I’ve seen it all around us. In steel, stone, music, magic, warriors: our ways are old and strong. Why did we know that the elementals might like our music? Because we are raised up by the discoveries of many generations. They lift us up, our forebears. They show us that our memory is not only a hard, heavy thing.
I paused, lowered my head, shook it. “I fear that the longer we grow accustomed to living here, the more our loss will weigh upon us. It has a furtive way about it, grief. It lies beneath all happy moments, stealing what were once old joys for itself. As the dangers of this world give way before our growing mastery, I foresee that they will gave way to grief, to ennui, to the aimlessness that grows from loss. These are no simple enemies.”
Then I raised my voice, making it suddenly loud and harsh, the steel voice of a battlefield commander. “And yet all these enemies cannot stand against our memory. Every moment we bring forth our forebears.”
I unclasped my hands, gesturing to the elves openly. “That is all I wish to say tonight—except to give my gratitude to Hassina, high priest and grand storyteller, for delivering all my hopes to me, last night upon the peak of the Skytusk.”
They cheered her on as I sat. Hassina rose and took the center circle, smiling a little as she waited for the sounds of their praise to fade.
“Just a few things, though not unimportant,” she said. She spread her arms. “Our path before us now takes us clear toward Aziriel’s promised ritual!”
More cheers.
“This will be no easy task, not for our number,” Hassina said. “We need two [Primeval 3] keys for each elf.”
She let a few murmurs of realization spread through the gathered elves. “Yes,” she said. Then she glanced over to the quarter of the circle that was mostly families with children. “A [Primeval] key is fused from three of [Primeval]’s subtypes—[Body], [Elemental], [Surge], and [Wild]. This process requires two things: a skilled keyshaper, and time.”
She clapped her hands before her. “Because [Surge] is highly valued, we use the other three keys—and this means that we must fuse [Elemental] keys from three of its subtypes—the [Earth] and [Water] that we’re gathering. All told, each [Primeval 3] key will require 5 other rank 3 keys.”
Now Hassina smiled, and the expression had a little deviousness in it. “A trivial expense,” she said, speaking of the 625 million essence involved. “Trivial, when one considers what we are buying.”
A few more cheers rose up from the gathered elves, but she silenced them with a raised hand. “I will choose a place that is away from all our worksites, but close enough that they can easily be visited. There I will draw three circles in small stones. The stones will be painted as we come closer to the ritual’s fruition. The first circle, when complete, will indicate that we can begin our stockpile. Before then, we will be using the [Body], [Wild], [Earth], and [Water] keys we gather to equip our people for the very task of stockpiling. This will make the whole affair faster overall.”
Hassina held out two fingers, pacing the edge of the inner circle as she spoke. “The second circle will indicate our stockpile. It will be completed when we have each of our [Primeval 3] keys. This second circle is the one that will take the longest to complete—once it is done, the eve of the ritual will be close at hand. For the third circle, that will indicate all our other preparations for the ritual. That circle will complete fastest.”
She held her hands out to them. “That’s all.” More cheers followed her as she left the circle.
Then it was Mirio’s turn to speak. The celebratory energy that followed Hassina out of the circle seemed to die as he stood and came forward, cheers fading.
I was testing him, or training him: one or both. Neither Hassina nor I had given him any fanfare or introduction, and unlike both of us, poor Mirio had nothing but bad news to deliver.
An unfavorable set of circumstances, but confronting unfavorable circumstances was a part of his position. He had authority, and it was time for him to use it—and time for me to see what came as a result.
“I am afraid I will not leave you with the same good spirits as her Holiness,” he began. “Not tonight.”
He had been teaching in Ellistara before all of this, and he had a voice that was used to speaking to crowds. But compared to Hassina it was a pale thing: the high priest’s voice was rich and textured, carrying every feeling she cared to suffuse it with far across the field around us. By comparison, Mirio was simply loud—and what feeling he did convey was an uncertainty in his own words, an anxiousness.
“I won’t be overlong in preamble,” said Mirio. “But I will say this: Aziriel speaks truly. Deep is the wisdom of our forebears. Our ways were crafted by many great minds, and they guide us to prosperity. It is time that we abide by the knowledge of the druids. Knowledge that demands we restrain our hunters from indiscriminate killing.”
There were no mutters of objection from the gathered elves—just silence.
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“I am forbidding the hunting of any further wyverns on these peaks, save those which reside on this side of the Skytusk. Other creatures too, I will forbid the hunting of, until our wildhearts can make a proper assessment of what we’ve done to the wilds here already. Our needs were great when we first came here, but now that we know we have access to [Air] keys, we needn’t kill the wyverns and can hunt further from our settlement. There are still lands near-north of here which we have largely untouched: these places may still be thoroughly hunted. The swamp, too, can be hunted: but certain creatures I must also forbid, such as the mana mushrooms and the apehounds.”
As he spoke, he seemed to deflate under the twin weights of attention and silence. “I won’t lie: this will delay our ritual. [Body] keys, [Wild] keys, [Sight] keys, [Surge] keys… all of these will be harder to acquire. But we have left necessity behind, and now we hunt everything near at hand more out of ease. All our traditions warn against this, and my duty demands that I stand and forbid, so I do. The wildhearts who accompany the hunting parties know that which is now forbidden: they will make their impositions in the days to come. My forbiddance is to become binding in five days’ time. That is all.”
Mirio finished, turned—then spotted one elf amidst the crowd who had stood.
It was Varath. He was one of the keyshapers under Galeena, and four centuries old. He was stocky elf, dressed in plain, brown robes. His hair was white, and like Hassina’s it reflected the golden orange glow of the changing mists.
Mirio froze when he saw him. For a moment the two of them simply stared at each other across a field full of elves and silence.
Good, I thought. I wouldn’t have been surprised if half the assembled elves could see exactly what I was doing, what I wanted—the half that had voted for him when I’d asked them to.
“You object to my decision, Varath?”
“You think I stand in objection to your decree?” Varath asked. “No. I stand in objection to your appointment.”
Technically speaking, it wasn’t something one could stand in objection to at a conclave. The process for moving to remove a current councillor was more involved. But Mirio didn’t remark on this: I’d asked him not to, if it should come up.
“Explain yourself,” said Mirio.
“I am in my fourth century,” said Varath. “Each day I work to do the part given to me, flying out to shape keys on the back of a spectral broadwing. I have no command, or especial esteem: I answer not only to my captain, who answers in turn to Valir, but to Galeena. All of this is as it should be, for what have I done that I should expect otherwise? I have many betters in even those things I am best at. And while I am not especially young, I am not old. But you, Mirio—you are young.”
He spoke the word in a way that made it a clear indictment. “You do not have the experience of an archdruid. You do not have the bearing of a leader. You take the center tonight, and you tell us that you have decided something that anyone could have decided—that you simply do what the wisdom that precedes you demands. I have no personal quarrel with you, Mirio, and yet I must wonder: if you are to be our archdruid, and act thus, then why have an archdruid at all? You act automatically. Lux Irovex could have done all that you’ve done.”
He shook his head as if in regret, and continued. “If there must be an archdruid, and it must be Mirio, so be it: I will not question those who know more of [Wild] than I do. Yet I can question why you must have a place on the council. Let there be an archdruid, but let us break with tradition and appoint another wild elf to the council, one whose name is known and whose judgement is unimpeachable. Let it be Valir, who was himself a wildheart before he became a warrior.”
Many voices rose to agree to this, and Mirio looked very small indeed at the center of the circle.
But I didn’t rise to his defense. I’d told him that if this happened, I wanted him to be ready to fight back on his own.
And so Mirio waited for the voices to quiet, then spoke in his defense. “Well,” he began simply, looking around at all of them. “I’m grateful to you, Varath. I know you bear me no personal grudge, and you’ve obviously given voice to something many feel.”
He locked eyes with the keyshaper. “You’re wrong, though.” More muttering rose from the crowd, and Mirio looked around and added, bluntly: “Be quiet. I’m defending my appointment.”
If it were possibly, the atmosphere grew even more tense—but I was resisting the urge to burst out laughing. Like many of those who worked so well with animals, the nuances of working with elves were secondary to their interests. Mirio lacked tact. At present I couldn’t see whether it would work in his favor or no, but his typical nervous energy was giving way to… something else.
“We need an archdruid because we want to grow and flourish on this new world,” Mirio said, sounding a little uncertain of himself, but more tired and irate than anything. “The wildhearts will do more to achieve that end than anyone, given time. Having a leader, and direction, makes a group efficient. When we act out a plan, try for a goal, it is not to be compromise between two plans, two goals. It’s one or the other, because trying to do half of two plans together is a mess, not an agenda. It almost seems to me that you don’t understand what an archdruid does—I’m not finished, Varath. You talked for a while.”
Varath had opened his mouth to object, but now closed it.
“An archdruid isn’t the person who decided which course of action to take—that’s the council. An archdruid is the person who most makes sure we’re all working in concert toward the one goal. As to why that person is me, it’s because I have an encyclopedic knowledge of wildlife and the psychic talent to put it to use. Give me a living creature who I can touch with [Wild Bond] and I can do the work that needs doing, usually. That means that I can speak to the needs of most all the tasks that our wildhearts could be asked to do—basically, I’m the person who can always act as an in-between for the council and any given group of wildhearts doing any given task.”
Mirio raised his hand and made a noise as Varath tried to speak again, silencing him.
“Right now, we’re taming vines,” Mirio said. “We’ve got twelve we’re looking at, all of which seem to grow in or around the mists primarily. We’re trying to see how amenable they are to being cultivated, how quickly they increase their own limit and accept essence and how well we can decide what they’ll do when they level. This is because the vines produce mana—a lot of mana. A blanket of them covering this cliffside could increase our productivity.”
He shrugged. “It’s not that I’m the best at mentally yoking and guiding the vines, it’s that I know enough about it that I can speak to the needs of anyone performing that task. I can do the same with the wildhearts making catalogues out on the hunt, and the wildhearts defending our hunting parties, and the wildhearts searching for wildlife of interest, like hydras or our lightning bugs.”
“So that’s why I’m the archdruid, since you were wondering. As to why I’m on the council, that wasn’t my decision—but I’ll do what Aziriel asks because I trust her. As far as I can see, it’s the archdruid because the wildhearts are the only wild elves who ever tell her no about anything, and our champions are only useful if their power is properly balanced.”
He spread his arms and shrugged his shoulders. “Look, I don’t know what else to say. I’m not a skilled leader or speaker, I know—not here. When I’m with the people I’m supposed to lead, though—the wildhearts—I think it’s a different story. A lot of you are working with some of us in one way or another, and you’ve probably noticed that we’re a fairly strange lot. If I tried to stand up here and talk the way that Aziriel and Hassina talk, it would sound like a mockery, I think. So i don’t. Anyway, that’s all I have to say in my defense.”
Mirio finished, and more murmuring spread through the gathered elves. Slowly, attentions turned Varath, who still stood.
Varath was quiet a while. He seemed hesitant to speak. Then he made a mistake—he looked at me.
I smiled the sort of smile that suggested he was a meal.
Varath blanched and quickly looked away from me. “It is a defense, at least,” he said. “And my qualms are somewhat alleviated to see that you can give that much. I will consider all you’ve said, archdruid.”
He sat. My smile widened.
I needed them all to accept Mirio. I wanted tradition to hold—for myself and archdruid to represent the wild elves to the council. Anything else would undermine my power, long-term: Valir would function perfectly well as a councillor, but whispers would always follow the breach in tradition. It had to be Mirio.
For now, at least, it would be.
Valir gave a rough outline of the plan for how the hunters would deal with the archdruid’s forbiddances, and the conclave ended soon afterward the conclave ended soon afterward.
I found Mirio at the edge of the cliff when it was done, looking out at the sea of red mist.
He saw me coming and shook his head, looking exhausted. “That was about as hard as you said it would be. I have to say, Lux Irovex—things like that… they’re not why I became a druid.”
“Politics is a subtle game,” I said. Then I smiled and added: “Usually. There’s something I want you to do that should help to… cement your position in everyone’s eyes. I assure, it will mute much of the criticism coming your way.”
Mirio sighed, seeming to steel himself. “And will it be easier, or harder, than what you just asked of me?”
“Harder, definitely,” I said. “But much more fun.”
He looked over to me, his expression confused.
“I want you to subjugate and tame a behemoth.”