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PART THREE ENLIGHTENMENT

And so it ended, so quickly, so brutally When I reflect on how little I knew of this leader, Ashu, I am amazed at the spell he held overwhat tribe&039;) Did he witness the death of his parents, as did I? Are his parents even dead?

So many questions now occur to me about who this man was and where he came from, about the history that would produce a leader so brave The strange thing is, when I ith hiotten answers to those questions, I never thought to ask them Like all of the others, I ept up in the lory of our cause

In light of that realization was it Ashu&039;s greatness that moved us all behind him, I wonder, or our own desperation to believe that we could win back our freedo man thrust into the forefront by a desperate people?

Now, these months later, I must consider those questions honestly For my own heart, at least, I must come to understand and accept the defeat

I was thrilled when I learned that many of my people had not broken to the ways of the Yatols Not just the old, wishing for ti, as well Most of Ashu&039;s raiders were around er We rode with passion and justice behind us

But we lost

When first I arrived at the Walk of Clouds, that seehtod of justice and honor? If there is, then how could he side with the Yatols against us? Is there justice in their conquest? In their torture? In their reduction of an entire race of people to the class of slave? No god of justice could side with them!

But we lost

And we did not lose because of any godly intervention, or because of any lack of godly intervention, I have coh my meditations here We lost because of human fault, because of pride, above all We seeainst the settlearrison that moved into the settlement ofDancala Grysh, I had no doubt that ould win, and decisively

In a battlefield of our choosing, where we can use our strengths and exploit the Behrenese weaknesses, the To-gai-ru will cut the Behrenese down I have no doubt of this, but in that string of victories, we forgot the key to those victories: the battlefield of our choosing

The army that came to Dancala Grysh was not there to do battle &039;nst us but to entice us to turn to the east When I look back upon ?that terrible day with that in mind, how foolish I feel! How easily did T)haryan play upon the pride of Ashu and upon us all! We were \aded and baited We were allowed to believe in our invincibility yW how ridiculous those illusions seeonized cries of that defeat reverberate across the steppes of To-gai now, I fear Given the absolute failure of Ashu, a second insurgence will be anize than was the first

What now, then? Is the drea dead on the Reid outside ofDharyan? Were my plans to battle the Behrenese and the plans of Lady Dasslerond that I would lead my people to freedom no more than the folly of impossible hopes?

I do not know

That adaround s of despair And yet I know that I must honestly answer the question I , the odds of every potential battle

If I aainst the Yatols, I ement of hubris In an, that soht, that it was too easy and too convenient and too grievous an error by the Yatol ofDharyan, who had proven again and again that he was no fool I sensed the danger there, and so did Ashu, I suspect But he, ere too caught up in the possibility of the decisive win to pay attention to such feelings

Ashu believed in the opportunity that loomed before us because he wanted to believe in it So desperately!

In this most critical test, Ashu failed

I have to carefully examine all that I know of the ave to me once I had recovered from ry at the opportunity lost and angry at the man who had squandered that opportunity Ashu had beatenthat which I most desire, and he failed, and set back my cause, our cause, perhaps irreparably

My first task, then, is to release myself from the bitterness I feel tou;ard Ashu I have to examine carefully all that I know of the man now Without blame, I must examine his failures and his triuht and what he did wrong, to learn from it, to better prepare myself

Does this ain, that I still hope to lead To-gai in an uprising against the cursed Yatols?

That is ain I will see the opportunity before me

And while the hope remains, it remains pushed far from the realities of the present That is not the purpose of

He looked up the sheer, fifty-foot wall, then glanced over his shoulders at his tiny wings, laet hih, reet out of the hole, he would still be a long way froradeleous, the dragon, and into the adjoining tunnels, and then soht Which ould he go, north or south? With the dis-covery of the Doc&039;alfar, and now finding the location of one of the great dragons, it seemed obvious to Juraviel that his road should be to the north, back to Andur&039;Blough Inninness to speak with Lady Dasslerond

But now, froradeleous&039; own tales, it seeon, and in the direction of the To-gai steppes It was pos-sible that she was already chasing her destiny - one that Belli&039;

And, of course, there re Eltiraaz that he would not return home with news of the Doc&039;alfar

And, of course, it was all hty a jailor as could be found in all the world, and the dread dragon wasn&039;t about to let his prisoners get away

A noise at the back of the sht Juraviel from his contempla-tions and turned hi and low corridor leading to a stea down to sizzle in a wide pit of , her crea nothing more than her short shirt

"Has he returned yet?" she asked casually, tossing her wet hair back from her face

Belli&039; her question drift away Cazzira froze, noting the stare ?What is it?" she asked, s how er this imprisonment would seem if you were noi here beside me," Juraviel adht next to the golden-haired, golden-eyed Touel&039;alfar, placing her hand gently upon his slender and strong shoulder Juraviel closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, filling hiht of stepping for-ward and wrapping her in his ar moment washed away as Cazzira asked him, ?Why must you think of it as i his eyes open ?Because that is what it is"

Cazzira shrugged ?And your time with my people was imprisonment, as well" The Doc&039;alfar spun away as sheclothes spread on a rock at the far end of the wide pit

"It was," Juraviel called after her ?And less pleasant than this time! Your people kept Brynn and me in a room of mud!"

"Peat," Cazzira corrected ?Where else e to put you? We chose not to give you to the bog - for that you should be grateful"

A burst of helpless laughter escaped Juraviel He shook his head and looked back up at the pit&039;s riradeleous chose not to eat us, or burn the flesh from our bones," Cazzira went on

"Which I still do not understand"

"He recognized us for e are"

"And why ht that spare us?" Juraviel asked ?When have either the Touel&039;alfar or the Doc&039;alfar been allied with the great dragons? I would have thought that any recognition of our heritage by Agradeleous would have prohed and slue re Juraviel that they had discussed this issue many times be-fore ?Four races," she said ?Only four Doc&039;alfar and Touel&039;alfar, the children of life, the dactyls and the dragons, the beasts of death"

"That is hoas, not how it is"

"But that is how Agradeleous still views the world," Cazzira explained ?To hiiant - are no more than animals, vermin to be exterminated But we, you and I, represent two of the true races, and to the dragon, we are a novelty, and a chance for companionship"

"Even if our races are avowed enemies?"

"That means little if the races have been reduced to a few creatures If the Tylwyn Doc and the Tylwyn Tou were at war, and all that remained were the two of us, would we continue the battle?"

A wisp of a s " K Cazzira under any circu so much of her drea that he and she were so ons and the dactyl are creatures of darkness," he argued ?When Bestesbulzibar, curse his nao, there was no parley There was only war"

"The dragons are not so akin to the demon dactyls, then," said Cazzira

Turaviel let his line of reasoning end with that, for indeed, there were pro-found differences between the two dark races The dragons, always rare, were mortal creatures and were of Corona, while the demon dactyls were creatures of another plane of existence, creatures that found an inviting rift to coend said that this rift was caused by the evil in the hearts of men, and thus, the elves often considered the hu-mans as children of the demon dactyls

"Will he tire of us?" Juraviel asked ?Will we becora-deleous&039; snake eyes?"

Cazzira held her pose for a long rown fond of us, or fond of coradeleous will never let us go"

Cazzira only shrugged

Juraviel went back to studying the high walls of his prison, searching forthat would allow hi and liftoff places where his diht propel him out This prison had been well prepared, however, with the walls fire-blasted to slag that ran down in smooth sheets

Juraviel walked over to one of the boulders lying about the floor and sat down, dropping his head to his palm

Cazzira walked up behind hi in very close and kissing hiently on the back of the head ?Your friend escaped," she said ?Agradeleous admitted as much"

"Escaped this area," Juraviel replied

&039;And likely, escaped the ether, if she is as well-trained as you claim You must have faith in her, ai-ru against their hated enerasped Cazzira&039;s elbow, squeezing gently He tilted his head back so that it rested side by side with Cazzira&039;s, so that he could better sround thumped beneath theon

Cazzira backed away and hugged herself tightly, but still, she see up at the rie, as it had been when the elves had first encountered the radeleous, but about the size of horse&039;s head Agradeleous&039; head, though, even in this dirnirold scales, \virk pointed, glea to be contained within his closed reat lances whe &039; the dragon was in its natural forradeleous&039; eyes, shining greenish yellow and with black lines running their center, eyes see somewhere between those of a reptile and thos of a cat Wisps of son&039;s nostrils with each exha-lation, fra his face as he lanced about to locate the elves, then leaped down, his wings, tiny now al- the air with little effect He landed hard right beside the two elves, ere bounced into the air from the i that Agradeleous would not harm them, could not help but instinctively shrink away, for even in this bipedal fore, red-scaled s, and that horse-sized head, he was an inti an aura of power thatthat Cazzira had ever seen - and second only to Bestesbulzibar himself in the memory of Belli&039;ht was more insidious, was the power to doth was sheer, brute force, the power of a volcano and an earthquake, of a terri-ble storm with focused wrath

His , like the forked tongue that continually flicked out between his long canines He reached forward, holding a pack, which Juraviel took, knowing it to bethe elves through the radeleous&039; voice had been deafening before, in the dragon&039;s true, gigantic for, but hardly diminished Each syllable sent a shiver up fro Juraviel&039;s ser? This man I killed, that you name Emhem Dal"

"I know little of Eon frowned ?But there is another tale I htbird who did battle with Bestesbulzibar, the deradeleous&039; reptile-and-cat eyes narrowed suddenly, and the dragon ex-haled, seething sons and the deend as the races of darkness, though the legends naons as the creations of the demon dactyls, the two races were hardly allied, and it see about the defeat of Bestesbulzibar

The dragon gave a low and long grohich Juraviel interpreted as Agradeleous&039; way of saying, ?H question

"The greatest of our age," Juraviel replied ?And one that, perhaps, is not n tell it, Belli&039;e of its worthi-" h trreat wurradeleous&039; voice rose suddenly -shaking volue that it is not so!" onviel noted Cazzira&039;s look of concern, but he dismissed it with a wry rere was no tale that he knew of to exceed the story of Nightbird ??This heroic coradeleous somehow found a way j tne tale as unworthy, Juraviel understood the dragon&039;s roar to be ?r than his bite Agradeleous would not kill them over a story, not when he craved so an the tale of Elbryan, starting with the sacking of Dun-dalis those years before, and the rescue of the young man, really just a boy It occurred to him as he spoke that another survivor of that fateful day, one ould be , had a story not yet coh of course, Juraviel had no idea that the sairl who had crawled, soot-covered and battered, out of Dundalis was soon to be-coreat detail, Juraviel spoke of the years Elbryan spent with the Touel&039;alfar, of his training and of his strength of body and of radeleous asked incredulously, ave another growling, ?h him reconsider, a bit at least, his previous views of the lesser hue of a rocky seat, leaning for-ward, devouring every word That pleased Juraviel greatly, more so than he would have expected He didn&039;t fear that the Doc&039;alfar was gathering infor-ainst him and his people, at least - but rather, that she was just enjoying the story And eventhe storyteller

Juraviel went on for a long, long ti of the final cerehtbird, when he sat back and took a deep breath, then sat silent for a long while

Go on!" Agradeleous and Cazzira said together, and they looked at each other in surprise, then laughed at the shared emotion I am tired, and wish to eat and to rest," Juraviel said out I wish to hear rowled And I fear to tell it all, for what tale shall I tell next that would not pale beside the story of Nightbird?"

lit!" Agradeleous de And if it is as worthy as you say, then tell it again and again and d8a it all in, trying to draw soon&039;s perceptions and intentions toward him and Cazzira He wished that he could view this situation as Cazzira obviously saw it, with the c tent conversation andof this, the rarest of Corona&039;s races a in nificent And truly, if Juraviel had not had pre < ing business at that ti tih et the possibility that his charge, his friend, was out there, facing trial that he was supposed to help her overcoht have a pro found and direct impact upon the survival of his own people, should th scar frorow

Juraviel needed closure with Brynn, needed to know if she had indeed es caped the tunnels and found her way into To-gai, and if she had, how she was faring, before he could begin to accept this chapter of his life beside Agradeleous openly

So Juraviel went on again, telling of the naer back into the lands of his own people

"And you did not accompany him?" Cazzira asked ?None of the Tylwyn Tou ith hiht that was your way"

"Only with Brynn," Juraviel explained ?Because her journey would take her to lands where we could not readily gather any information"

"And because that inforradele-ous asked slyly ?Why is that, Belli&039; if not a journey to the south, through the h my home? And perhaps your army means to take my treasure with it, yes?"

"No! No, no, no, no!" Juraviel shouted, waving his arer ?How could we have planned such a thing if we did not even know of your existence, great Agradeleous? The only dragons that we know of, if they are even still alive, dwell in the ice pack of the northland of Alpinador, a place where no Touel&039;alfar goes"

"But if Belli&039;on hinted

"They would stay as far froht as possible," the elf countered without the slightest hesitation ?Why would the Touel&039;alfar wish conflict with Agradeleous? For Agradeleous&039; treasure? But that trea-sure is not e treasure, if you understand We have the silverel of the darkfern and a valley of reat sway over us, as it does with the hu for a few ave what Juraviel took to be a sincere and accepting growl Juraviel went on, then, in a very ani out theup a few that fit in with the few props - a single branch and a relatively flat stone that he could hold as a shield - which were available to him in the pit