Iylaine overhears something bad

Iylaine slept, one delicately pointed ear pressed against her pillow, but the other was alert and kept her informed of the goings-​​on at Nothelm castle by feeding sounds into her dreams.

She had been walking in a forest of pines so old that their bare trunks stood like columns supporting a dense and distant roof, so far overhead that even the sighing of the sky could not be heard, so dense that even the light of the sky could not be seen. It was like a church made of trees. It was a good place.

But she found herself suddenly in a castle made of stone, for her ears had sent her the sound of hard-​​shod feet bounding up stone steps and then jogging across a wooden floor, and such sounds could not exist in her forest of pines. She was in a castle behind a door, and at the door the feet stopped suddenly, and the person they carried hesitated a moment, as if calming himself before attempting a quiet but insistent knock.

She opened her eyes. The knock was real.

Her Da snored on in the bed next to hers, though he was hidden by the wide column that stood between them. His snore was familiar enough to her that it never entered her dreams, and at times it served to tell her whether she dreamt at all.

The knock came again, a little louder.

“Da!” she whispered harshly.

Silence for a moment, and then another knock, this time without any attempt at politeness.

Her Da grunted awake and mumbled something about being tired.

“Da, there’s someone here!” she whispered.

She heard him sit up and throw the blankets off. She heard his bare feet hit the floorboards, and then she could see him hurry to the door.

She could not see who stood outside, but she heard at once that it was the Earl. Her Da stepped outside and pulled the door closed behind him, but the door was nothing to her sensitive ears.

She sat up on one elbow and listened.

Soon her mouth was dry and her heart was pounding. This was grave news. She wished those footsteps had been a dream. She wished those feet had never come into her dream at all, and that she had been allowed to remain in the still holiness of her forest. This was like waking into a nightmare.

They did not speak long. Her Da came back into the bedchamber and went directly for his clothes.

“Da?”

“It’s nothing, Baby,” he said as he dressed. “Only a little trouble at the castle. I must go see.”

A little trouble! Of course he did not want to worry her.

“Do you have to go?” she asked.

“Aye, but don’t let it trouble you. It means you will get some sleep without my snoring. Now,” he said as he sat to tie his boots, “if I am not back when you wake, be a good girl and do everything Her Grace asks. But stay inside today, please. Will you?”

“Aye. But you will be back soon, won’t you?”

“Probably.” He came and hurriedly kissed her forehead. “Be good, Baby girl.”

He hurried for the door, but as the Earl had, he stopped when he reached it and took a moment to calm himself before pulling it closed quietly, so as not to wake anyone else.

She heard their boots head back across the floorboards to the stairs, and they spoke in whispers as they walked, but they moved so quickly that she only heard a few more phrases before they were too far gone.

Sleep! Certainly not. She did not know what to do. She felt too terribly alone with this grave knowledge. She was only a little girl. Only a little elf. Then she remembered that Malcolm was here. She would tell Malcolm.

She slipped out of bed and padded across the floor, trying to be silent enough even for elf ears. One never knew. But Malcolm’s room was not far, and no one saw her.

She did not bother to knock.

She thought Malcolm must have good ears, too, for his head was already lifted from the pillows by the time her eyes adjusted to the dark.

“Baby?” he asked after a moment of confusion.

“Malcolm!” she whispered. “I have to tell you something.”

He let his head fall back. “Tomorrow,” he mumbled.

“No!” She pulled the door closed behind her and came closer. “It’s something bad!”

That got his attention. “What kind of bad?”

“My lord Earl came for my Da. Something bad happened at the castle.”

“Just a moment,” he said, wide awake. She waited while he lit the lamp and then hopped out of bed. “Tell me.”

She bent her head to his and whispered, “Some men came and attacked the guards, but they weren’t men, they were elves! And they had wolves with them. And then they went to the place in the court where is the door to the dungeon, and they broke the stones somehow with their hands, and they let the two bad elves out, and they all ran away!”

“The devil!” Malcolm breathed. “They were still alive down there?”

“That’s what my lord Earl said.”

“The devil!”

“What will happen now, Malcolm?” Iylaine begged. Malcolm would know.

“I don’t know.”

Her shoulders slumped. “Will they kill some more people?”

“I don’t know,” he muttered, seeming dazed.

“Oh, Malcolm!” she sobbed.

He threw his arms around her and gave her a quick squeeze. “No one shall hurt you, in any event.”

“But the elves!”

He straightened. “Oh, we shall kill the elves if we can find them,” he said grimly.

“But no!” she whimpered softly. “They aren’t all bad!”

“You aren’t, but that’s because you have been raised by men. We know you aren’t bad, and no one shall hurt you, I promise that.”

“But the other elves aren’t all bad either.”

“Baby, I know you don’t like to think your people are bad, but they are. Look at all the men they killed – and what they did to them. And look – now some of them have come to attack the castle and free the two elves that were locked up there. You don’t believe they will leave us in peace now, after that, do you?”

“But they’re not all bad. They won’t all hurt us.”

He sighed. “I know they aren’t all bad, because you are an elf, and you aren’t bad. But all we know of the other elves is bad, so we men must defend ourselves. You must stop thinking of them as your people. You are one of us now. You are my cousin, aren’t you?”

Iylaine could not tell him of her real cousin. Oh, how she longed to see him! She wanted to see that he was safe, and she wanted to ask him what this meant. And she wanted to beg him to tell the elves to leave the men in peace. But the best she could hope would be to see him on her birthday, which was many months away. Meanwhile she was alone with the men.

“Aren’t you?” he repeated.

“Aye,” she agreed.