Prologue          Chapter 2

 

Chapter 1

Years passed around the fledgling people that had appeared on the earth. They encountered the flowers of spring, the shade of summer, the winds of fall, and the snow of winter, and made names for everything they found in these things.

At first, they lived off what they found on the land. But their people, small and scattered as they were, were too many to do that for many years. So it was that Flar, the noble leader of one group, headed a little to the southwest, out of the forest, and built a village to try farming and gardening instead of hunting. His people became great horse-riders, as well. Flar was a good friend of Zela, and still went to talk to her often.

The most northerly group, led by Erd, kept hunting to find food, but Erd himself retreated to one of the northern mountains and built a town of stone there.

The eastern group that was led by the elf named Kiirstril also continued hunting, making their home in caves scattered through the eastern cliffs.

The southern group, led by the logical Nu, took to farming even more readily than Flar’s people. They cultivated a great area of the meadows around the great river that flowed through the region

Then it was that the unicorns came. From the north, further north than the kalmaei had yet ventured, white horse-like creatures with shimmering pearly horns in their foreheads came south and met the kalmaei. Some of them grew to be great friends with the kalmaei, allowing them to ride them like the horses of Flar’s people – though the unicorns were greater than the horses. They spoke the language of the kalmaei effortlessly, and with great intelligence.

Zela was walking in her woods one day, the woods she had not moved from since the day she woke, when she saw a flash of white light. Quick as thought, she ducked behind a tree.

The tree was already occupied by a dark-haired elf, who signalled for her to be quiet.

“There’s a unicorn coming through here,” he said. “I’m going to catch it and make it my friend.”

“You don’t have any idea what you are doing, do you?” Zela asked him, amused. “They’re much smarter than you.”

The elf thought for a while. “I don’t know. But I do want a unicorn friend.”

“The best way to do that would be to introduce yourself civilly,” Zela told him, stepping out from behind the tree. The elf tried to pull her back, but was too late.

A soft white unicorn stood in the clearing, watching her.

“Hello,” Zela said to it. “I am Zela. This is my home, but you are welcome here.”

“You can call me Yoeath,” said the unicorn. “I am passing through on my own business, but thank you for your hospitality.”

The elf popped out from behind the tree. “You aren’t going anywhere!”

“Yoeath will go where she pleases,” said the unicorn rather coldly, “without any reference to such arrogance.” Zela moved to stand between the elf and the unicorn, her long blue skirt hanging loose to her feet.

“Who are you, anyway?” Zela asked defiantly.

“I am Marotheth, and Lord Erd relies heavily on my counsel.”

“I remember your name,” Zela said thoughtfully. “He thinks you are wise, but I disagree. It doesn’t matter to me, anyway. Please be polite while you are in the forest I roam.”

The elf pulled himself up proudly, and then launched himself bodily at Zela. “You are in my way, foolish lady!”

Zela neatly flipped him over and laid him on the leaves. “I am not helpless.”

“Nor am I,” the unicorn said unexpectedly. “Let us leave this Marotheth and I will tell you where I am going.”

“I do not understand,” Yoeath the unicorn said, “why he thought violence would win him my good opinion.”

Zela smiled easily. “Each is entitled to his own ideas, however wrong they may be. He will realize his mistakes in time.”

“But to use violence so quickly-“

“Some people do. No one has been hurt yet, and the lords, I am sure, deal justice where it is due.”

The unicorn would have frowned if she were able to. “I still do not understand you kalmaei, but I am still young. You are the eldest, yes?”

“I am… but that doesn’t matter, does it?”

“I would like to learn more of the kalmaei.”

“We’re very strange mammals,” Zela said, smiling.

Yoeath blinked back. “I realized that, at least.”

“Where was it you were going?”

“To the fields of Lord Flar’s people. Would you come? There is a great gathering.”

“Of unicorns?”

Yoeath only blinked mysteriously.

 

At the fields a week from that chance encounter, many were gathered – Lord Erd, his wife Lady Gaila, and their unicorn companions, Lord Flar, his wife Lady Stialia, Lord Kiirstril and Lady Shlaes of the Eastern People, and Lord Nu and Lady Yoia of the Southern People, and many of all their people. There were some unicorns, but fewer than Zela had expected.

“What are we waiting for?” Zela asked Flar surreptitiously once she got close to him.

Flar inclined his head towards her in an exasperated fashion. “I haven’t the foggiest. A unicorn from the north came and told me to bring the peoples together, and so I have. I sent a messenger to you, but she says she missed you.”

“I’m sure she did,” Zela replied. “Yoeath the unicorn told me as she was passing by, and we came together.”

“What’s that? There is a flash in the eastern sky that is not a star, for it’s noon,” said Kirstril, pointing. “What is it? Is it what we are here to meet?”

“Yes,” said a unicorn. “Look closely, and you will see the others, who do not gleam in the sun.”

“I see them!” cried Nu in great excitement. “The shining ones are long, with great wings, and tongues of flame, and the smaller ones are like great birds with four legs.”

So the dragons and griffons met the elves. A great company of each landed in the grass around the cultivated field.

“Greetings,” said a great golden dragon and a brown griffon. “We have come a great distance to meet the kalmaei of which we have been told.”

“But how were you told?” asked Flar, standing unafraid next to the creatures’ heads.

“The unicorns told us of you, and said that we should meet. We knew them long ago, and they are the only beings of magic in the world.”

“Magic? What is magic?” asked Yoia, lady of the Southern People.

A tawny griffon folded itself up beside her with a stretch and a grin. “Haven’t you heard of the tales mothers tell to children? Magic is anything that is otherwise impossible. It is impossible to create bright light without energy, not like fireflies but like the sun, but the unicorns do it all the time. It is impossible to speak through the mind, but unicorns do it with each other, and sometimes with dragons. I think it’s supposed to be very difficult, though.”

“So they told the dragons, and the dragons told you?” asked Nu.

“Exactly.”

 

The years passed, and the tiny nations each bonded with a different sentient creature: the Northern People with the unicorns, the Southern People with the griffons, and the Eastern people with the Dragons. The Central People, Flar’s people, entertained guests and friends of all kinds, but remained renowned as horse-riders, their own people, lovers of the coldly gleaming moon and stars rather than the breathing of the trees or the music of the rivers or the majesty of the mountains.

With the aid of their new friends, each nation spread more widely over the land, growing further and further afield from the tiny region where they had begun, the forest they called the Yalekedma. Some called it the Kallakedma, the Forest of the Woman, meaning Zela, but she disliked this name and forcefully corrected those who used it. The kalmaei built cities, bigger and grander than the last, and great houses and castles of stone, for safety against wild animals and the weather; except in the south, in the land of the griffons, where the people built wooden or straw huts like nests of strange rough beauty, or lived in tents of cloth and hide.

In the Dragonlands, the dragons showed their small friends how to find metal, and soon knights and guards to defend ordinary people from ordinary people from malicious danger in the wild were honing their skills and meeting at tournaments to test their abilities against each other with steel swords and armour. Flar, Stialia, Nu, and Yoia were among those not entirely happy by this, but the romance of the image took the second generation by storm, and even part of the first, Zela among them. She learned it as an extension of her favourite pastime, dance, though it had a practical use as well, living out in the forest as she did, and competed with the best in the Unicornlands. Some years she vied with the others in tournaments. Few had the accuracy or the swiftness that she and Yoeath displayed on green fields in the summer.

It was during her frequent stays in the Yohahcol, the White City of the Unicornpeople, that she became friends with Lord – now King – Erd, and his wife Gaila and his three daughters. The eldest, Muila, was a fierce defender of her younger sisters, and rather haughty towards the rather wild waif of the woods. Layalin, Muila’s younger twin, was a gentle girl with long curly red hair who loved to sing as much as Zela loved to dance, and they spent a great deal of time together. The youngest, Kylyralessa, was a merry golden-haired child only just born.

Layalin and Zela spent many years visiting each other, perfecting their roles of singer and dancer. Yoeath and Layalin’s unicorn friend Helith would spend time with the girls too, but would more often roam on their own.

One of these times, in the Yalekedma, Zela was dancing as passionately as she ever had, when a young elf with long black hair and brilliant green eyes nearly fell forward into the clearing.

Zela landed awkwardly, frozen, staring in astonishment. Layalin’s voice cut off with a squeak.

“I-I-I’m sorry,” stammered the elf. “I was just wandering, you know, for fun, and I heard your singing, and then I saw your dancing, and I-I just couldn’t help it…”

Zela laughed then. “Relax, m’lad. We’re flattered you liked it so much.”

“Aren’t you Flar’s son?” Layalin asked from between her fingers covering her embarrassed face.

The elf looked taken aback. “Yes, I am. Flaer. Who are you?”

“I am Zela, and this is Princess Layalin of the Unicornland. I know your parents well, and you certainly do resemble them. Would you dance with me, Prince Flaer?”

“I would love to dance with you, Lady Zela,” replied Flaer, reaching out his hands in response to Zela’s gesture. He was ordinarily at ease and self-confident in his surroundings, but stumbling through the woods into the open as he had embarrassed him into confusion. Layalin took a little longer to recover; her voice was a little shaky at first, but it soon soared out pure as it had before.

Flaer was a very good dancer, Zela soon found. They were a perfect match in height, and while it seemed that Flaer had never trained as a fighter, that did not take away much from his skill as a dancer.

After the song had finished, Flaer still seemed inclined to continue on in awkward silence, but he was saved by the approach of the unicorns.

“There is an elf approaching,” Yoeath said. “He has brown hair and rides a horse, leading anoth- oh, hello.”

“This is Prince Flaer of the Moonland,” Zela said. “Prince Flaer, these are Yoeath and Helith.”

“I’m pleased to meet you,” Flaer said automatically. “I think the person coming is my friend Gyoriing. He’s officially my bodyguard. And my dearest friend.”

“And unofficially,” said the tall elf on the horse, entering the clearing behind him, “the one who chases after him and makes sure he doesn’t get lost every time he gets some fool idea to go wandering off into the trackless woods alone and without food or warmth. Hello, Flaer. I thought you might want my company, and barring that, your horse. But I see that you have found much more engaging friends than I. Greetings, ladies, unicorns. My name is Gyoriing, and I am a Knight of the Moonland.”

“Pleased to meet you, Gyoriing,” replied Zela, introducing everyone all over again.

 

And so happened the fateful – though inevitable – meeting between Zela and Flaer, and between Gyoriing and Layalin. As the years passed, and they met more and more often, their friendship grew and deepened, and Flaer fell in love with Zela. They went to tournaments together, danced together, rode together, and pretty much anytime that Flaer was not assisting his father in the rule of the Moonland, they were together. Layalin might have felt left out, but where Flaer went with Zela, there also went Gyoriing, and Layalin greatly admired the tall knight.

Flaer, at last, took up the study of combat from Gyoriing, though he was no natural fighter. His skill was more with words, being a passionate and quick-witted speaker, and he and his younger brother Lyrestan, who shared this skill, were invaluable to their parents as they led their people. Flaer’s name, the Valiant, had been given to him for his fearless self-confidence, his habit of diving in to verbally save people from injustice, but now it began to better suit him in all things.

Gyoriing, on the other hand, pestered Flaer to help him learn to play musical instruments better, and after many weary hours, over years, of practice, he became rather good with a cello-like instrument. Gyoriing was a third-generation kalma, but his parents and grandparents were still developing their skills the same that he was. But he was already one of the best knights in the Moonland, perhaps in all the Adhemelenei.

It was in this time that Flaer told Zela why the angels had given her that name. “In the Moonland, without thought to your name at all, the sound ze has come to mean ‘a sword’… or more specifically, the sound that a sword makes when drawn. The angels knew what you would become. You are a guardian, a wild free creature of the forest who guards those who wander in; I have seen you fight and it is not for attack but defence and the pleasure of your skill.”

Zela smiled in honest pride. “I am glad that you think that about my name. I have not thought about it for many years. I think you are right about my intentions, and I hope I always remain that way. You, too, are a guardian, though you don’t have much chance to prove it with Gyoriing always at your side.”

Flaer mirrored her smile happily.

 

The day that Flaer asked Zela to be his wife was, for them, great and terrible.

Zela was in her home when Flaer came to see her that time. She looked up, smiling, as he leaned through the doorway. “Good morning.”

“Good morning… Zela… I want to ask you something.”

Something in his voice disturbed the kalla, and she paused and glanced at him sidelong, frowning slightly. There was a long silence as Flaer’s courage deserted him.

“I know what you must be going to say,” whispered Zela finally. “You love me.”

Flaer opened his mouth and closed it again. He nodded once, almost imperceptibly. There was another long silence.

“I do not wish to be in love with anyone,” Zela said softly, without moving. “To tie my feelings to one person… it would prevent me from loving the world the way it ought to be…”

“Give me time to decide, Flaer. This is a harder choice than it looks.”

Flaer nodded again and left.

 

Flar came upon his son, standing at the window of one of the older towers of the castle of the Moonland city.

“What is it? You look grieved about something.” He leaned on the window ledge beside his son.

“Father… It’s not really… well, I’m in love.”

Flar smiled. “Who is the lucky lass?”

Flaer smiled, but out at the sky. “She is beyond lucky, beyond fortunate… she is blessed. And I am the unlucky one… I love the Lady Zela…”

“Oh?” Flar straightened, glancing at his son, and smiled more broadly. “Perhaps you are right about being unlucky, though I, as your father, would disagree with that… Some might say your choice is audacious… Everyone loves Lady Zela… do you know why?”

“Because she is the First-born?”

“Because she is a symbol of the nights before days. She is a symbol of what is already passing. She… retains a wilderness in her that we, living in the cities, have lost… Yet she is not the only one who lives in the forest, nor does she shun the cities, but she is… She is, in a greater measure than most of us, dancing fire and singing water and the green of the world and the laughter of stars all rolled up into one body.” Flar concluded, hesitantly.

“That is why she is beyond me, and all of us,” Flaer murmured. He clenched his hands. “I should not have told her!”

Flar shrugged. “What’s done is done. I can say nothing to help you there.”

“Our relationship before was wonderful, but now it will be destroyed… and she has lost something… she has gained an awareness… I can’t say what I…”

“I understand. What did she say, exactly?”

“She said she needed time to think about it, but that she fears loving me will prevent her from loving the world.”

Flar laughed outright. “While she is the first of us to awaken, she is missing something by not having fallen in love before. I love the world all the more because of Stialia at my side. Still, I understand. You think she should be left untouched lest she become less of a symbol of that wilderness we feel less of in here…”

“Thank you, Father.”

 

Zela wandered aimlessly in the wood in those days, thinking and pondering until her mind rebelled and all she could do was feel half-alive in her state of indecision.

The Prince was true and honest, she knew that much. How he had come to love her so deeply, she could only guess; she did not know her own loveliness. And yet, her heart wavered between the irrevocable acceptance of love and the desire for freedom and solitude that had been so precious to her before she met Flaer. Her mind reeled from the unimaginable future together with the kalma who nearly worshipped her. Then silence took her thoughts as she lost herself in the glory of the woods. Her mind remained troubled, but it was quieted, pushed away again.

Thus it was she nearly tripped over a prone figure cast carelessly on a slope of mossy stone in a gentle hollow. He slept, a slight smile caressing his face, but a tear glittered on his cheek.

As Zela bent over him, mildly curious, she felt her heart change. This was no stranger to her. Unawares, he had entered her heart and now she was caught, held fast from the very moment he had begun to speak to her of love.

His face was beautiful, contented and resigned. She knelt beside him and reached out to touch the tear on his cheek, to touch his hair… but drew back, uncertain and suddenly shy.

His eyes opened, emerald wells of colour that sparkled in his pale face, paler than usual. He sat up and turned his head towards her.

There was silence for a long time. Zela did not blush. Love was too complete for embarrassment. But he read in her face something different and his shy smile grew slightly, incredulously. He held out his hand… and Zela vanished.

She had stood and ran almost faster than thought, afraid suddenly.

 

Two days later, after both young fools had shed tears of doubt and spent sleepless nights wondering if they had not dreamed it all, they met again.

This time they both smiled, shyly, welcoming each other. Flaer spoke hesitantly. “Lady Zela, I am sorry to have caused you trouble…”

She darted forward and caught him around waist, looking up at him – for she was as tall as he, but now she bent to look at him pleadingly. “Dance with me,” she said.

They danced, relaxing into the unspoken rapport that always sprang up between them whenever they moved together. At last, Zela said: “There is no need to call me Lady anymore, Flaer.”

Flaer’s eyes flashed with delight. “Then… you… I love you, L- Zela!”

Zela gazed at him steadily, an accepting smile touching her mouth. “Ah, yes, finally I know I love you back.” She leaned forward slightly.

As gently as the sunlight, he kissed her and both found their hearts too light for dreams.

 

They rode to a tournament together a year later, clad in silver armour and looking forward to the feeling of dancing flight and the matching of skill to skill that sparring gave them. They were meeting with peoples of all nations, and Flar himself was going with them, as well as red Crhaegarrk, greatest of dragons, the leader of the Dragonland beside Kiirstril and Shlaes. Erd and Gaila were busy, though Layalin and her twin sister Muila came, and Nu and Yoia came too, and Ruring and Harn, chief among Griffons.

The people of the Moonland and Unicorn land, kalmaei and horses and unicorns, rode over the last hill, and saw the rolling valleys of the plains where the gathering was spread before them. The forest behind them was like an ocean held back by the ridge. Far in front of them, the mountains of the Dragons reared up, almost beyond sight. Ahead, the people of the Dragons were already gathering, and the people of the Griffons were just arriving from the south. Silver trumpets and warm trombones called to each other in greeting.

They had just begun to pitch their tents and begin fires when Flaer and Zela became aware of a dead silence on the left side of the camp. They turned, and saw all others turning as well, conversation halting as if cut off with a knife.

Then a dragon screamed, and fire burst into the sky from behind a silently gathering crowd. Both kalmaei took off running. A bright green dragon writhed upwards from the crowd and roared fire. The assembly scattered, crying out wildly.

A griffon sprang into the air beside the dragon, screaming more shrilly and with rage and grief.

“Kill you! Kill you!” both beasts were shrieking, chasing each other through the air and landing again where they had begun, beside two bloodied two-legged forms.

Zela darted between them, crying out to be heard over their great voices, flinging her arms out in a useless gesture of control. She leaped aside in time to avoid a fireball from the green dragon.

Fire from the other dragons shot warningly past the warring creatures, and they drew back, alarmed. Then Crhaegarrk’s deep voice thundered over the melee.

“Stop! What has happened?”

Flaer found Gyoriing at his side, grimy and blackened with smoke, but otherwise unharmed. “What happened?” the Prince asked.

“A heated argument between two kalmei turned vicious,” Gyoriing answered, pointing to one of the prone figures. “He is dead, by the other’s hand. Then the other slew himself in guilt. Now their friends fight in their memory.”

Flaer’s face was blank at first, passing through shock to horror and on to unhappy determination.

“Well. Gyoriing, go and tell my father. Lord Crhaegaark, Lord Ruring, please restrain your people in their grief before they hurt someone. Imlolthin, bring the bodies to the hospital tent to prepare them for funeral.”

He turned away to see if his father was coming as those he named hurried to do as he commanded. The dragon and griffon were held down and led away by others of their kind.

Zela stared around at the faces. She caught sight of Layalin’s face, a horrified, uncomprehending mask. Her sister Muila was impassive. Other faces were frightened, blank, confused. But some did not seem terribly surprised.

“What is wrong with you?” she demanded of those. “How can you see such a sight and be unmoved?”

Flaer turned back quickly and saw them. “My fiancée is right. Some of us have seen death before. Someone misses her step and falls from a tall building; someone is a little too slow in the forest and has his throat torn out by a wolf. But this has never happened before in the world that one would deliberately kill another. And see, the one who killed felt such despair that he killed himself. That has never happened either! And yet you see and are unmoved. What could they have been arguing about that could lead to such a thing?”

“They were arguing about who was better,” said an elf. Zela looked and recognized him as Marotheth, now captain of the Unicornland knights. He had somehow found a unicorn willing to befriend him.

Flaer’s face showed his disgust. “And that has cost us two lives meaninglessly, and perhaps four, if the dragon and griffon do not calm down. Listen to me! This must never happen again, that a sentient creature murders another sentient creature. Is it worth it? It is worth nothing! These people had friends and family just like you!”

At last, the two began to see some change in the stony faces watching him. A few broke down and sobbed, while some looked shaken.

“They will forget,” Flaer said sadly as they walked away to Flar’s tent. “People like that, who feel such anger and ego, they will forget how to feel others’ feelings. And they will feel that they are right, and that you and I, who think otherwise, are foolish and immature and weak.”

“I can’t understand how killing would change anything. It only weakens your position,” Zela said, still thinking on other lines.

“I don’t know,” Flaer said slowly. “It seems that anger causes one to lose control.”

“I understand that very well, but to kill? That is unthinkable, even in anger.”

“It is… But not to some, I suppose.”

 

Prologue          Chapter 2