Elves: Rise of the TaiGethen by James Barclay Page A

for centuries it had been a reserve where Tual’s denizens could run unchallenged. No two-legged hunters confused the chain of life and death here. No vegetation was used for food, shelter or fire. Untouched, glorious, virgin rainforest; until man came and elves were not safe even in their own temples.
    Rainforest lore said that all Tual’s creatures spilled from the palm of Yniss and so it was the right place, the only place, for the battered elven race to find sanctuary – back at the heart of life. A place where they could tend to their wounds, gather their strength and learn to live again. If anywhere could provide a balm for the soul, it was here.
    The palm of Yniss was a great horseshoe-shaped basin nestling at the base of sheer cliffs backed by tree-covered mountains. Waterfalls roared and ran over the edge of the cliffs in five places, gathering into a food-rich lake whose northern outflow was a distant tributary to the River Ix. Both lake and river were named Carenthan, like the mountain range behind them, while the falls were called Katura.
    A vast plain of grass and low trees grew on the sheltered lands bordering the lake and along the banks of the river. It was a perfect place to settle, farm and glory in life, and had it not been forbidden elves would have settled there many generations ago.
    But the palm had not just been chosen for its beauty and mythology. It was a hidden land, surrounded by mists and low cloud that periodically swept off the mountains and down the thousand-foot cliffs. To stand on the cliffs and look down on the plain was the culmination of a journey up cleft, over mountain peak and through deep forest where the panthers were still masters of the land.
    The only way to reach it was along the base of the sharp-sided valley through which the Carenthan River flowed. The river was wide and the paths alongside it were narrow and treacherous, climbing steadily towards the plain. The sides of the valley were part crag, part balsa woodland, rife with vines and ivies and largely impenetrable.
    To walk the valleys, find new paths and glimpse fresh views of the vastness of the forest, where the sun seemed to engender new life wherever it kissed the green leaves, was a joy for any who made the effort. So Methian forced his aching, ageing body up the final incline and joined Boltha at the top.
    Two old elves, one Gyalan, one Apposan, gazed across the miles of unbroken forest canopy and down on the city that nestled in the palm of Yniss. Smoke smudged the sky, and even this far distant the echoes of elven prayers were carried on the prevailing wind, along with the clang of hammer on metal and the rasp of saw against wood.
    Boltha spat on the ground.
    ‘We are a stain on perfection,’ he said. ‘A slime that is oozing its way into the bedrock and corrupting the very place that should have inspired us back to greatness. We do not deserve saving.’
    Methian tore his eyes from the ungainly sprawl of the city. Katura had become the elves’ greatest shame. Work which had begun with such energy had become lack-lustre and lazy. There was not a single building they could be proud of. And within the city limits, enmity grew by the day.
    ‘How long since you set foot in there?’
    Boltha’s watery eyes squinted back at Methian. His close sight was poor, indeed he feared it was fading altogether.
    ‘More than fifteen years. Ever since we took the Apposans to the Haliath Vale. We couldn’t bear to stay another moment. No wonder you retired.’
    ‘I didn’t retire,’ said Methian, and he could not keep the bitterness from his voice. ‘It is an enduring sadness that I was made unwelcome by the very people I was sworn to help.’
    ‘You can’t blame yourself. Edulis is a drug that removes reason, sense and any familial feeling. She dismissed you because she no longer knew you.’
    Methian sighed. ‘I could have stopped her becoming an addict. I should have seen her falling.’
    ‘Addicts are clever