The year was 3075, on a morning when the mist of Mount Carias in the kingdom of Asch’endra-Conschala shrouded the wood where the Elf Ma’hadrin lived in seclusion with his family. His chosen Chext’a lay on the damp straw sleep-mat in their hut, feverish and writhing from a child due, not his. He remembered last year how they had held and loved their firstborn, Val’ha.

Chext’a cried out and he went to her with broken heart, using a nearby cloth to wipe her brow. She had neither arisen nor spoken for many days, and his attempts to relieve her with fresh clothing caused her anguish, and he had stopped; none of his magic would work.

Ma’hadrin crossed the room to his shelf of liquids in vials. Some glowed light blue and others red with small brown creatures bouncing off each other on touch of their spindly hairs, and some clear green. He reached for a green one, but could only hope that it would lessen her pain.

Returning to Chext’a, Ma’hadrin uttered an incantation taught by his father, and applied the liquid to a rag, then lifted her brown tunic to gently rub the liniment on her womb. Her suffering grew muted; Ma’hadrin returned the vial and set the cloth down upon a golden libra with inlaid blue garnets that occupied the same shelf. The libra shifted, clanking.

Chext’a cried louder, bringing Val’ha to the open door, her hopeful eyes shifting between her parents. She played quietly outside every day now as her mother’s suffering grew. "Val’ha." Ma’hadrin’s glance sent her outside and he resumed his vigil. Chext’a rolled onto her side, glazed face but with clear eyes for the first time in many days. He knelt to hear her whisper that it was time.

**

On the ridge behind her hut, Val’ha had four years back set upon pyre the body of her father Ma’hadrin. From his telling so too had her mother gone here, overlooking the forested valley that Val’ha loved this quarter century of her life; the steep side opposite, a barren silver face, rose to the top of the sky and, when she stretched her neck out far enough, she might on a mistless day see where the Xm and Gyger streams reached their confluence.

The decline of her father’s health had started from her earliest memories, the heartbroken and wise elder spending his last years teaching Val’ha about the Song of Terra, languages spoken and written, properties of wood, rock, water and air, measurement, time and years, how some plants heal, and at the end, the rituals for his departure to the gods of the House of Zeus.

Ma’hadrin told her that Elves are eternal when she could understand such things. Yet little of her mother she knew and with the flame that carried away his body, Val’ha could not fully understand Ma’hadrin’s teachings of everness for that other than the sky and its wandering stars, the seasons of Terra and Terra itself. Surely Elves must be like other creatures apart from the gods, she wrote in her log, and all must pass.

Val’ha lived all her life on the mount, her friends the birds, the trees, the animals who shared Mount Carias with her, trisahn the Night Moon and the lights of the sky. It was 3100; these past four years she continued to practice the languages taught her in writing and voice, those of Dwarves and Humans she had never seen.

What of their seclusion from the Elves and everyone else, Ma’hadrin never spoke and Val’ha did not ask, but in the corners of her dreams she felt a shadow she could not describe; nevertheless, for the four years since her father’s death she contented herself with being alone as the seasons of the mountain changed from white to green, then fragrant, then in a burst of color, cold and white once again.

She knew much of Terra, what berries and leaves and roots could be eaten. Passing through the circle of the years, Val’ha accustomed herself to the snow when few birds shared their song, the uses of fire and starlight and yet, to learn the magickal words that rested only on the lips of her father and in the liquids of his glass? He always told her someday, someday and another someday. But Ma’hadrin’s decline, though she knew not its cause and he did not tell her, stole away his will, and she could not heal him as he wasted to his end in spite of Terra’s remedies and the green liquids, and she learned no more.

Sharing her hut with none save the brown furry orbs that rolled about the land, that Ma’hadrin called dweemtweezles, Val’ha practiced her arts to pass the time. One day she would venture from the glade.

**

She sat on a stump and wrote in her log, running her hands through her dark hair and occasionally reaching down to stroke a passing dweemtweezle, little many-eyed creatures that seemed to increase their numbers faster than the rabbits. Late spring in the air brought a song to the trees, and from this Val’ha felt uplifted; her spirit lightened each year with the vernal green. She arose to prepare for her day’s journey down into the valley where stood a mid-cliff outcropping of trees precious to her, as they afforded her with the most perfect bark, white, thin and when dry, upon which she wrote. From the day of Ma’hadrin’s death Val’ha kept the log, from which she would read aloud to the birds and beasts who sometimes, she imagined, gathered just outside the clearing of her hut to hear her thoughts.

She adjusted her tunic and bent over to tighten the rope holding her foot-coverings; a dweemtweezle rolled by and the end-grass. When she stood, Val’ha could hear only the wind. From a second ago, when birds colored the sky, now she sensed quiet, as if the trees had stopped waving; not an animal moved. Val’ha’s ears perked, a rush of blood in them. She crouched, knowing of no enemies in the glade, though sometimes her father would tell of dangers beyond their world on Mount Carias, foul and dangerous creatures from the air, water and inside Terra itself.

Val’ha glanced at the open door of her home to figure the seconds it would take to find cover. The trees to her left rustled, though the only path was the valley trail behind the hut. Another rustle of bushes and she neared fright; in the next second she knew she had been seen. The figure stumbling through the woodferns was a Human. Clutching a sack as tattered and dirty as he, the Man fell to his knees upon reaching the end of the clearing. His eyes met hers, widened and narrowed several times and Val’ha stood rooted as a tree. The rush inside her stopped so that she could make out the Man’s labored breathing; the rustling continued, though from a greater distance and heavier.

From the Man’s right side a broken stick protruded, and the darkness of blood that stemmed from the stick plotted its way down the leg of his dirty pants. His hair, clothing and the mass of the wound surrounding the stick were matted with twigs and burrs, and from the looks of him Val’ha wondered if he was about to die, and in the next second how he survived thus. He held the sack to his middle in a grip that showed the bones of his left hand. Val’ha stepped back, then toward him. His eyes rolled upward and she heard curdled noises from his mouth, half-mutterings: "Tyf – dyf … den … dennel … poss." The Man fell forward, faster by weight of the sack, his other hand reaching at the broken stick.

Val’ha regained herself after a bit, alert to the prolonged rustling. The sound moved further away and a little further until the light and birdless breeze resumed in her ears. A dweemtweezle poked out of the woodferns near the fallen Man. And then she knew she must save him.

**

Val’ha stood over the Man, scurrying the dweemtweezle back into the glade; the blood of his wound browned the grassblades, and she rolled him over. The sack was underneath him and the stick of a wood unknown to her, but she knew it from her father to be the broken shaft of an arrow. The Man fell from consciousness.

His face resembled a raccoon; Val’ha could not make out any details under the hair covering his jaw, chin, and upper lip. Several layers of dirt covered him, and he smelled of great unpleasance. She shivered. There were vials of the healing liquid left from her father in the hut, and to this and these Val’ha lifted the Man and brought him. He was slight and she strong, and when she had him on the sleep-mat, struggled to loosen from his grip the heavy sack and uncovered his wound, Val’ha fetched a pot of rainwater to clean around the area.

After several attempts to remove the arrow-stick with moderation Val’ha knew she must pull fast and strong, and did so. The arrowhead held, then came out with a cry from the Man that momentarily deafened her. She dropped the bloody half-arrow and clasped her hands to the sides of her head, frightened at his scream. He was still unconscious; in the echo of his pain, she resumed her task.

That night, after much cleansing and application of Ma’hadrin’s green healing liquid and leaf-poultice and much blood loss from the Man, Val’ha stood weary. The smell of stench and herbs permeated the hut, and suddenly unable to breathe, she stepped outside into the last rays of Terr’Sol over the trees as the dot of stars, one by one, uncovered themselves from the night. The nightbirds told her none was amiss now, and behind her the Man’s breathing, heavy and deep, meant he might awaken. A dweemtweezle skittered by; she went in and built a cherry-orange fire in the hearth to counter the night’s coming cold.

When full nightfall arrived in the glade and Val’ha replenished from berries and leaf, she studied the Man. Through the one window over the mat where he lay came the white strands of the Night Moon. It might be many days before he speaks, she told the Moon, and in her tongue she gave the Man its name, Trisahn. The fading crackles of the fire overtook her and she slept.

**

Hard thumps upon the forest floor brought Val’ha to her feet; with the sounds coming closer, she turned toward where Trisahn lay, but there was only the sack that he had clung to so tightly the prior day. She made toward the door and opened it in time to see through the woodferns and trees several figures, she guessed centaurs. The clomping slowed and she counted four; excited and confused, Val’ha guessed them in pursuit of Trisahn, and she kept her stance, concerned that any danger would be directed toward her. Centaurs are wise and magickal, Ma’hadrin said, and for use of their bows and arrows they seek only to eat, not make strife. Then Val’ha saw that they were not centaurs at all, but Humans and another sylvan Elf upon horses. A Woman clad in brown hides upon a brown steed led, with the he-Elf next, in the same skins on a grey-and-white spotted horse and two Women on grey, smaller horses in the rear. The leader and the Elf carried bow and arrows upon their backs.

One of the horses snorted and the Woman appeared concerned with the ferns. A morning breeze blew to Val’ha’s ears her words. "You see here, Gregarcantz," said the Woman and the Elf looked down. "There, the blood spot." Her voice was triumphant.

Suddenly her head shot up and froze. Danger crept to Val’ha’s mind and she wondered if she should duck, flee or retrieve her axe. The horses were arrayed in ropings and mats where the riders sat, and the Woman pulled upon her steed’s neck. Val’ha was sensed, she guessed.

The wind could not carry the Woman’s next words; her party made slowly toward the clearing of Val’ha’s home. The two Women in the rear wore belts of grey metal, and from these hung knives and sword. The Elf had brown wrinkled eyes and grey-brown hair and she guessed him to be of great many years. Their leader reached the end-grass first, shaking her red hair as though a tree bough caught it, her gaze upon Val’ha. The Woman pursed her lips and she glanced about the clearing and back to Val’ha. Several dweemtweezles broke the silence, and Val’ha realized she had forgotten to breathe for some time. The Elf pulled his horse up to the Woman and called out in Elven, "Friend! I am Gregarcantz of Denlineil, and we are posse-goers in pursuit of a thief, a robbing-man, for many days. We intend you no harm."

The four riders stopped when they reached her. Gregarcantz set Val’ha at ease, though she was still unsure of the leader. The Woman spoke next. "Do you know the common tongue? Little information had we of any who lived here save the woodbeasts" She eyed another dweemtweezle that rolled by. "I am Tropruscht of the Caves."

"I am Val’ha, daughter of Ma’hadrin, and have lived here all of my days, these past four alone." Her shoulders dropped a bit. Tropruscht glared at her, then barked a short laugh and dismounted; Gregarcantz alit as well, but the others stayed upon their mounts, hands on their swords.

"As I say, we come in search of a bandit," Gregarcantz said, stepping toward Val’ha. "He goes by many names, but is known to us as Dyphrasian. We have explored this area two days and this morning we found a blood-trail that leads us here to you."

"It was yesterday when last we saw him," continued Tropruscht. "I venture I had enough time to place an arrow into this – thief." She hissed the last word before describing Trisahn in detail. "He stole from our city treasury, and we will have it back or his life. The mayor offers a reward for the capture or killing of Dyphrasian and the return of the treasury." Val’ha remembered the heavy sack still in the hut. "...the blood on the woodferns and I knew my arrow had found its mark." There was pleasure in her voice and she reached back back to touch her bow. "Have you seen this Man? Do you know of his whereabouts?"

"Without care for reward," Val’ha said, "I did see such a Man. He was gravely wounded, and otherwise as you described him. He had no strength to continue but carried a sack, and when I gave him a bit of food and bandaged his wound the Man, though near death, continued there." She pointed south.

"Then!" Tropruscht of the Caves exclaimed. "May he begone forever from our city."

Val’ha kept her composure, afraid to betray her false story even as she knew nothing of the whereabouts of Trisahn, or Dyphrasian, or whatever name was really his at his birth. "I have inside what may be your treasury, if it is indeed not coincidence."

Tropruscht called to the others, "Look about this glade, but do not tarry long." The two Women pulled on their horses’ ropings and went forth. "Dyphrasian is of great skill," the posse leader said to Val’ha, "moving neither grassblade nor woodfern, and has left little sign other than a spot or two of blood from the wound now covered. If what you say is true, then I care not as much for his whereabouts, for to give up his treasure he must mean to meet death shortly. Bring me the treasury." Val’ha retrieved the closed sack from her hut and handed it to Gregarcantz. The two Women rejoined them and with a glance to Tropruscht shook their heads. "Hmm! He will join the House of Terr’des for his misdeeds, and his rottenness feed these little beasts that roll by us!"

Gregarcantz wiped a few small leaves and twigs from the bloodstained sack. "Did you seek within, daughter of Ma’hadrin?"

"No, as I had no cause to, only to help this Man you call a thief. When he had gone, I realized it was left behind and set it aside for his retrieval." More lies, a voice inside her lamented, but she ignored it. "If it is what you seek, then it is yours." Terr’Sol had dispersed the morning mist, and in its light Gregarcantz pulled back the strings of the sack. The shimmer of green and blue jewels, gold rings and coins burst forth, causing Val’ha to blink. Gregarcantz closed the sack, lifting and lowering it several times, and nodded with satisfaction at Tropruscht.

"Though you wish not reward," she said, "we thank you for retrieving these treasures of the City of Denlineil, and from the mayor himself I give you these." Tropruscht’s hair, gold in its flame, pulled forward when she removed from her neck and handed to Val’ha a brown leather sack, the chink of metal sounding slightly. She and Gregarcantz remounted their horses with the treasury.

"Live well, Val’ha of Carias," Gregarcantz said and with heel-click, the posse-goers turned their mounts and galloped back through the woodferns in the direction from which they had come. Val’ha watched them until the last tree moved only from the morning breeze and no other.

**

The next day Val’ha awoke with vigor, intent upon retrieving enough bark from the white trees to record her encounters. After a morning meal of wood-berries and roots, she took her axe and proceeded down the trail behind the hovel. The excitement of the previous day filled her dreams and the mystery of Trisahn’s vanishing perplexed her greatly, for familiar as she was in the Song of Terra, Val’ha sensed strongly the rhythms of the glade, the lights and shadows, and its sounds, and so could not understand how Trisahn would not have awakened her with his departure.

The trail down to the valley she had over the years padded with rocks and wood to keep it fresh, and down now she felt the smooth stones under her. Song wisped through the trees, squirrel and rabbit and dweemtweezle shook the fern and Val’ha inhaled the beautiful day. The reward hung about her neck to remind her of those come to her clearing and of the Human and horse she could now call memories, not Ma’hadrin’s stories.

When she reached the mid-cliff where the white trees grew and withdrew her axe from her belt, Val’ha sensed that something was amiss. In the lowest branches of a nearby tree, two bluebirds hopped toward her. One of them pecked at the branch and shook its wings; the second did the same. They hop-hopped once more before flitting away through the leaves. Under the tree and beneath the woodferns lay a long-rotting log – as a child Val’ha used it to jump into the tree to play. A slight shifting almost escaped her ears, and she nearly dropped the axe; a breath, as light as the flapping of a moth’s wings, came from behind the log. She smelled, with such vagueness that she inhaled again, the whiff of blood.

Val’ha raised her axe, her entire body alert; she used the shadow and the voices of the trees to hide her while she crept by inches toward whatever hid behind the dead log. She leapt to the log, all of her being intent on defense. But nothing moved, and she stopped, peering over, catching now blood mixed with the stench of Trisahn. He was curled up, and she heard more short breaths, placed the axe back into her belt and did not remember the next few hours that she brought him back up the hill and home to redress his wound.

**

For twelve days and nights Val’ha tended Trisahn, her only other tasks to care for herself and finally retrieve, dry and etch upon the white bark all that had happened. When she removed in the second day the filth and wood-coverings from his body and replaced his clothing with a tunic left from Ma’hadrin, she studied Trisahn’s body, smooth but for his face. He was pale and his ribs shown; his eyes were blue, his hair dark brown, and by the tenth day, his face-hair grown so that with careful and sharp axe, Val’ha shaved it out of concern and curiosity. She knew from Ma’hadrin that Dwarves and Men grew such face-hair, but Trisahn’s was becoming long so that food and insects began to dwell in it. Under his bearding were sunken cheeks, dry lips and bad teeth. His only possession besides the clothing she burned in the hearth was a knife that Val’ha set to the side.

Trisahn took the food and water she put into him, but mostly whether day or night either slept or sometimes moaned and once ranted for a few moments without making words. Val’ha kept his brow cooled and applied the medicines every day. Now that she knew the voices of others like her and their short companionship, she grew to feel loneliness for the first time and wished to the House of Zeus that Trisahn would speak.

On the twelfth day his body grew cooler and on the afternoon of the thirteenth while outside writing she heard him again, dropped her bark, branch and vial of juice and raced into the hut. Terr’Sol flowed through door and window; Trisahn lay still, but his eyes opened wide at her. He blinked once, twice and finally four times. "Where am I?" He croaked like a frog, but for this Val’ha’s heart leapt for his recovery.

She sat on the floor to face him. "Mount Carias."

"Oh." He closed his eyes again. A long moment stretched Val’ha’s patience, but she kept silent. "Who are you, friend?"

"I am Val’ha, and you are Trisahn by my naming."

"Oh," he said again, and Val’ha feared the thief would once more remain in silence for more days and nights. He opened his eyes. "Trisahn. You impose this upon me." He questioned in satisfaction, and somewhat again to himself. "I should think I have given enough names to myself. But Trisahn..."

Val’ha could wait no longer, and told how he came to her with his fever and the arrow of Tropruscht, his vanishing and how the posse-goers took the sack of jewels and rings, to which he listened without expression. When she finished, he said only, "So they think that I am dead. Those in Denlineil think that I, Trisahn, am dead, and they have back their treasure."

"As I can see it, yes."

Trisahn mulled over this, then grinned weakly. "Indeed though I am dead you have saved me, from your tale, not just once, but again and again, dear Elf, with your magic potions and your compassion. And I am no longer wanted by the posse-goers of Denlineil." After another pause, he endeavored to lift himself to his elbows and failed; he was of such strength, however, to stroke the two days’ growth on his chin. "You – Val’ha of Mount Carias, how did it come that you are my savior on this ridge, away from all, away from your clan and all who live in cities and towns? Tell me."

Val’ha recounted how she grew up on Mount Carias, knowing no other than her father, all that he taught her, how he had died and she continued to dwell there. Trisahn listened with great interest and, when she finished, touched his side and winced. "Then you are a thief as was claimed."

"Yes, I was. But in the treasure I carried I hoped to start anew in Moncrovia, where my face is not known." Val’ha did not know what to say, unsure of his truthfulness, but decided to not judge him further. "Have you ever heard of the Royal City of Moncrovia?"

"No," Val’ha said.

"As I am able and ready, I invite you then, to come with me there. It lies between the King’s castle and the sea," Trisahn said. "I am friends with one there named Porcie the Son."