Elfwood Interlude

Agamemnon looked up from his book when he sensed a presence at the doorway to his room.  The rooms in Rinto'eirehn, the elven hermitage buried deep in the secluded Green Wold, had no doors, and noone knocked; you just learned to be aware of your fellow students.

"Tamaril."

"I'm sorry to disturb you, ai'danna."

Agamemnon shook his head.  "It was a boring book anyway.  Some fantasy about the Thorisians engaging in a generation-long war with dragons.  Its historicity is at best highly suspect."

"Human generations, or dragon generations sir?"

Agamemnon laughed.  "A good question and one I wish the author had thought of himself.  And please don't call me sir.  I am your colleague."

"You are ai'danna."

"Whatever that means."  Agamemnon subconsciously rubbed the patch on his chest where lay the holy symbol of Darach-Albith, the Elf Father, a birthmark which had thrown his life into chaos and ultimately led him here, to the contemplative life of an elven student.  He sighed.  "Anyway, what can I do for you Tamaril?"

"Sir, we ... we received news."

Agamemnon sat up, dropping his book on the table.  "What news?"  He knew what news.  He knew he would eventually hear this news.  He had asked the chaplain to bring him any news pertaining to the Great Downwards, as soon as they had it.

"The champion of Dwerfater sir ..."

Agamemnon said nothing for a moment.  He stood and walked to the window behind his elaborately carved and shaped desk.  He watched outside as the occasional leaf detached from a tree and glided through the sunlight to the soft green ground.  He cleared his throat.  "How?"

"An anti-paladin.  A great force of evil."

Agamemnon nodded.  "And was it destroyed?"

"Reports suggest it was, sir, yes."

"It's probably best if you leave me at this point, Tamaril."

The young elf nodded nervously and quickly departed the room, leaving Agamemnon staring out the window.  Some time passed and Agamemnon found his mace in his hand, its heavy weight dragging him down, dragging him on.  The mace was above him now, and he'd turned to face the desk, holding the weapon aloft ready to bring it crashing down, destroying the beautiful craftsmanship, sending delicate objet d'art and research notes and books across the room.  It was dark now.  When had that happened?  He looked back to the window and saw his face reflected in the black pane.  His face was contorted in ... nothing.  Odd.  He was angry, wasn't he?  Snooks was dead, taken by the evil of Rappan Athuk.  Being angry was what Agamemnon did, it was the thing that had defined him since his childhood being raised by a human woman in a town that hated him, being angry was what made him an orc when he was Grazh Ulkesh of the Red Hands, being angry was what kept him and his friends alive in Rappan Athuk, being angry was what defined his relationship with Darach-Albith.  So where was his anger now?

He put the mace down on the desk and sat facing the window.  He thought of Snooks.  What did he feel?  He felt ... sad.  Sad that he wouldn't see his friend again.  He felt ... happy because he'd had the chance to know him at all.  He laughed remembering the dwarf tripping over an unseen bit of masonry and then claiming he was examining it for signs of a secret door, his dwarven pride injured.  He felt proud that Snooks had died facing off against the overwhelming forces of evil, exactly as he would have wanted.

When the sun came up Agamemnon looked at the tiny pot sitting on his windowsill.  When he had arrived here he had been given a seed to tend, an Elfwood seed.  Elfwood wasn't what the elves called it of course, but Agamemnon wasn't an elf, so he called it Elfwood.  Elfwood seeds were miniscule, but they grew over hundreds of years to be some of the biggest, most robust, most significant trees in the forest.  But when you planted an Elfwood seed it sat there, in the ground, and would not germinate, not until it felt like it.  It might take hours, it might take years; noone knew what caused an Elfwood seed to sprout.  Elfwood was the most stubborn plant.  Agamemnon smiled at the tiny green shoot that had finally pushed its way up into the sunlight.

He started packing his books.  Within an hour he had left Rinto'eirehn and by the end of the day he had passed the borders of the Green Wold.  He didn't leave a note.  The elves of the hermitage knew exactly where the ai'danna, the champion of Darach-Albith, had gone.

What they didn't know was that for the first time in his life Agamemnon was genuinely, sincerely happy.