The Tree People (2)

Elonira went inside and found her mother making dinner. She recognized the look of worry on her face and knew better than to interrupt her. She made her way to her room and lay down to wait for her father to get home. Soon after her head hit her pillow, she was asleep. A few hours later she woke up to the sound of her parents talking.

"Meren, there is no need to worry her. She’s already sound asleep. She can leave in the morning, just as well as tonight!" her mother’s upset whisper, floated through Elonira’s room.

"No! I don’t think you understand the threat she faces, Amiina. Keror overheard her conversation with Luthien. Fortunately he did not hear enough to accuse me of telling her about Almirecet, but he has over half the council convinced that she is a threat to the peace of the city. They will come for her. And I am almost positive it will be tonight. They will not want to give me time to get her out of the city." Her father’s voice was quiet but powerful.

Elonira climbed quietly out of bed and packed a small bag of clothes and other necessities, including the book from her father, while she listened to the rest of the conversation.

"But where will she go? I cannot just send my only daughter out into the night alone with nowhere to go." Her mother’s voice cracked, and Elonira knew she was crying now.

"I have already spoken with Oradak. She will not be without help or a place to go. But she must leave now. Will you wake her?" His voice was gentler now, knowing that this was hard for his wife.

Elonira took this opportunity to come out of her room, "It’s okay. I heard everything. I am ready to leave if you will just tell me where to go."

Her mother sighed, "I had hoped you would put up somewhat of a fight. At least there would have been a chance at changing your father’s mind."

She smiled slightly, "It’s okay mom. I won’t be gone long." Even as she said the words she knew they weren’t true. For some reason she knew it would be a long time before she saw either of them again, but she did not say anything to her mother.

"Come Elonira. I have much to tell you, and very little time to do it in." Her father’s face was lined with worry, causing Elonira’s heart to jump. She was much less confident than she had tried to sound for her mother.

They walked into the kitchen where he handed her a small bag of food and water.

"Elonira, you must go quickly. You heard everything I told your mother correct?" she nodded and he continued. "And you have the book I made for you right?" She nodded again. "I am so proud of you for following my hints. I did not want to have to tell you myself, but I had to be sure you knew what to do. Follow the map in the book. It will lead you to the pieces of Almirecet, and the Degli that were left to guard them. Be careful, we have not been back for hundreds of years, so we don’t know if they are all still loyal to us. Do what it takes to get the pieces, and come back as soon as possible. You must get all the pieces or else it is useless. As you heard me tell your mom the Elders have decided you are a threat. They are probably on their way here right now, which is why you must hurry. Luthien will be waiting at the bottom of the east staircase, hurry to him. Do not stop for anyone, and use your powers only when you are out of the city. Try not to draw attention to yourself," her father whispered quickly as he walked her toward the back door of the house.

"I can do this, Father." Elonira whispered to him.

"I know you can. I love you, please be safe."

"I love you too. I will see you soon."

He paused, not wanting to let her go. "Ok, it’s time. You must go now. Hurry!"
Elonira opened the door quietly, glancing once more at her father and then started running through the city. Just as she saw the edge of the city she heard someone behind her. She ran harder, not daring to look back.

* * * * * * * * *

Luthien was waiting at the bottom of the staircase, sitting on his horse. When Elonira reached the bottom he grabbed her hand and pulled her on his horse with him.

"Tell the other horse to follow us!" He yelled as the horse started galloping away.

She did, and then looked behind her and gasped. Coming down the stairs and from all around the stairs was a mob of creatures, most that she had never seen, only heard of. Small, stocky dwarves with axes and clubs; at least two giants, both almost three times her height; and most frightening of all, there were two humans. She recognized one, though she could not remember from where. Both were carrying swords and had two vicious dogs on leashes. The humans were almost being pulled down the stairs by the dogs.

Elonira buried her face in Luthien’s back. He pushed the horse harder, flying between the trees into the densest, darkest part of the forest. She had not been expecting this. She thought that she was going into hiding for a few days, just until everything settled down and she had gathered the pieces of Almirecet. Now she understood the feeling she had had while saying goodbye to her mother. She knew the task would be much more difficult than she ever could have imagined, with enemies that she never would have guessed. Just the thought of the trials ahead of her made her exhausted. She felt herself drifting off to sleep and only woke up as she felt Luthien slowing the horses down.

"I think we lost them. We’ll stop here and sleep for a few hours, but we should get moving before the sun comes up," Luthien said as he jumped down from the horse.

He looked up at Elonira and seeing how tired she was, lifted her down from the horse.

"Loni, are you okay?" he asked quietly as he set her on the ground.

"I guess I just didn’t realize what we were getting into. All those creatures, they were after me?" she asked, although she already knew the answer.

"Well," he paused, wondering the best way to answer, "Yes."

She nodded and he continued. "The council meeting that our fathers left for this afternoon was called by Raeann Dalueene. She said that they had found a traitor in the city. She got the council all riled up, telling them that this traitor had discovered the secret of Almirecet and was spreading the word throughout the city. She claimed that this traitor was planning to find the pieces and use them for herself to take over the city—"

"Herself?" Elonira interrupted. "She was talking about me, wasn’t she?"

"Yes. Something she said made your father realize that she was talking about you. He got my father’s attention and they snuck out the back to come warn you. I overheard my father tell my mother about the plot and volunteered to meet you at the stairs. Your father wanted to be the one to come with you, but we told him that if he came he would lose his place on the council, thus—"

"—losing his say in what goes on in the city." She interrupted again. "I would have told him the same thing." She had been the daughter of a council member all her life and she knew the sacrifices her father had to make. She had always known that her father’s position was more important than almost anything, and she would never have let him give it up for her.

"I know, and he knew that too. That was what convinced him to let me. He knew that you would go alone before you would let him risk his position."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, each trying to decide what the next step was. Finally Luthien broke the silence.

"We should try to get some sleep. We have a long day ahead of us and we’ll be worth a lot more to each other if we’re at least somewhat rested."

Elonira smiled at him "Thanks for doing this for me Luth."

"You know it’s no problem." He smiled back at her, "Goodnight Loni."

"’Night Luth."

* * * * * * * * *

The next day Elonira and Luthien woke up early and, after a quick breakfast packed by Elonira’s mother, left for another long day of traveling. They didn’t stop again until the sun was beginning to set. They set up a makeshift camp with the little supplies that they had, and sat against a tree to watch the sun go down.

"Loni, did you bring the book your father made for you?" Luthien asked, after they had sat in silence for a while.

"Oh yes! I had forgotten." She stood up and took it out of her bag. "Shall we see where this map leads us?"

He consented and they opened up the book. "So where do you suppose we are?" he asked.

"Right there, see?"

He looked closer at the map and noticed two small figures on the page. They looked as though they had been embossed on the page, but after watching for a moment he noticed they were moving.

"Oh yes! Too bad it can’t show us where that group that is following us is. I don’t want to run into them again."
It was then that he saw another group of figures moving across a different portion of the map.

"It does. I had not even noticed them before. I wonder how it knows who they are."

"Luthien, you didn’t notice them because they were not there until you mentioned them. It must show only what you request."

For the next half hour Elonira and Luthien spent time locating some of their friends and family, and becoming comfortable with how the map worked. Just as the sun went behind the trees, Luthien suggested that they eat and make a plan for traveling the next day. She agreed and he went to get a candle out of his bag.

"Ok, it looks like this is where the exit from our world to earth will be," Elonira said pointing to a spot at the edge of the forest.

"Why do you say that?"

"If you look at the map, this section on the right is earth, this section on the left is here. They only come together at this one point, so it makes the most sense for the passage to be there."

"That’s still a one or two mile area though." Luthien said, studying the map.

"Yes, well I say we start in the middle and go from there."

Luthien nodded, "Makes sense to me. We can leave early tomorrow morning and cut through the forest here, and if we ride fast we should probably be able to get there by tomorrow afternoon."

She started to agree and then stopped. "Luth, it looks like we may need to leave tonight. We’re about to be discovered."

While they were talking the group had been following them before had changed directions, and were now less than a mile away from them, although they had not seen Elonira and Luthien yet. Elonira and Luthien quickly broke camp and jumped on their horses. As soon as they started riding the other group saw them and began to race toward them.

"Loni, we need another plan!"

"I know. I’m trying!" Elonira had told her horse to follow Luthien and was frantically searching the map for a place to hide. "THERE! I found something! Turn right now and head for the mountain over there!" She pointed to a mountain in the distance and took the lead.

Soon after they turned, they heard sounds of yelling and hooves beating the ground as the group gained on them. Luthien pushed his horse up next to Elonira's, "What's the plan Loni?" He yelled from his horse.

"I'll explain in a minute, just follow me. I know where we can hide!" She yelled back.

Luthien let his horse fall back behind Elonira and followed her as she turned sharply into a dense area of trees. They wove back and forth through the trees for what seemed like forever until Elonira stopped abruptly. She put her fingers to her lips and listened for a moment. Luthien listened to and realized that he could no longer hear their pursuers.

Still motioning for him to be quiet, Elonira led them deeper into the forest. Then the forest ended abruptly and a huge mountain opened up in front of them. Luthien was amazed he hadn't seen it sooner, but did not have time to fully comprehend it, because Elonira was already pushing forward toward a cave about a half mile away. Soon they reached the cave. Elonira and Luthien urged their horses inside as far as they could and then climbed down and sat on the cave floor.

Elonira sighed, "We made it!"

"Yeah, but where are we?" Luthien asked.

"When I was looking at the map, trying to find somewhere to escape to I noticed these symbols on various parts of the map." She paused and took out the map to show him, pointing to each individual symbol. "The symbols all correspond to different words in the book my father gave me. Fortunately, when I was a child I was obsessed with those symbols and memorized them all. You probably remember me drawing them all over everything when we were younger?" She looked at him for an affirmation and he nodded. "As I looked over the map I noticed two symbols in the area that we were heading for. The first is here," she pointed to it, "and it stands for forest. The second is here," Again she pointed, "And it stands for cave or doorway. I guessed that the reason there was a forest symbol here, when the forest is much bigger than this spot, was because it was more dense in this area."

"So why do you suppose that this cave is marked? I'm sure there are other caves in this mountain."

"I'm not sure, but I'm hoping that it's because this is the doorway we are looking for. We just need to figure out where the door is, now that we've found the cave."