Eldárien and Rórlain make their way through the streets of the city to the haeras' palace, an imposing structure of stone in the center of Ristfánd, surrounded by a grove of trees and a narrow moat dug more for decoration than for defense. Its water glistens in the dappled light of the sun shining through the boughs of the trees.
"The hæras lives in a palace while many of his people live in squalor and poverty," Rórlain comments.
"Not a rare occurrence," Eldárien sighs, stopping to look at the building that stands before them. With high walls of massive stone tightly fitted and sealed with mortar, with vaulted archways, ornate arcades, and richly designed cornices and capitals, the structure is elegantly designed and yet speaks singly of power and solidity, clearly hinting to the reign of the ruler of the clan itself. The building is large enough not only to serve as a place of meeting but also as a permanent dwelling for numerous persons—the hæras and his familiars and perhaps also other influential members of the government of the city. With this thought, a realization comes to Eldárien, and he turns to Rórlain. "I just thought of something that has slipped my mind until this moment."
"What is it?"
"It is something so obvious that I didn't stop to consider it," he explains. "What if the hæras is with the Imperial counselor when we speak with him? We cannot very well warn him of the invasion when the counselor is present."
"That is true, but..." Rórlain says softly, looking at his friend with concern in his eyes. "In truth, your words have just made me think of another possibility."
"Worse than what I have just named?" asks Eldárien. "What is it?"
"What if the hæras already knows of the invasion and has done nothing? If he truly gives the impression of working with the Empire, then it is possible that the counselor has already made him privy to their plans."
"You think that Irilóf was able to get a message here before us?"
"It may be that the plan was made even before Irilóf succeeded at his task, and that what we witnessed was just the final piece being set in place," Rórlain suggests.
"But if the hæras does know about the coming attack," says Eldárien, "then I suspect that he already has some plans worked out with the rebels, and our news shall not be needed to stir him to action. Tilliána said that he was duplicitous, not that he favored the Empire over the rebellion."
"Something does not feel right... Are you certain that this is the best course of action?" Rórlain asks.
"No, I am not, but I do not know what else to do."
"Then we go to speak to the hæras?"
"I am afraid so," says Eldárien. "All of these deliberations confirm for me anew the profound limits of human foresight. We could speak all day about the possibilities that lie before us and about the consequences that our actions may bring, but in the end, we do not, and cannot, know. We must simply do what is right and, for the rest, trust in powers greater than our own."
"Very well then," Rórlain sighs, shaking his head. He crosses the narrow stone bridge over the moat and walks to the main door of the palace, Eldárien following behind him. He reaches out for the handle but pauses.
"What is it?" Eldárien asks.
Rórlain looks back at Eldárien, and his face is serious and lined with concern. "Something just came to me," he says, "almost like awarning, intended for your good."
"What do you mean?"
"A thought within me but not of me," Rórlain attempts to explain. "Do you remember what Irilóf said when he arrested us? He said that his orders were to take you to Ristfánd for trial and execution. If you show your face in the hæras' palace, it is likely that you will be arrested and never see your freedom again."
"It has been long since I was here, and I never spoke directly with the authorities," Eldárien retorts. "I doubt anyone would recognize me."
"Please, Eldárien," Rórlain pleads. "In this matter, will you trust me? I wish to go alone, and I will speak for the both of us. I have vowed to protect you, and I feel in my heart of hearts that this is something I must do in order to accomplish precisely that."
"I...very well, Rórlain," Eldárien says quietly. "I do trust you, and even if I think your caution excessive, I accept the gesture of your care. Whatever this sense may be, I hope that it does not prove true."
"You are a hunted man. I suspect more than you realize. If I can be a bastion of defense for you against the forces that will harm you, then this is what I will do."
"What has come over you?" asks Eldárien, though he places his hand on his friend's shoulder and looks deeply into his eyes, as a way of expressing both his gratitude and his trust.
"It is perhaps just an intuition, but one that I wish not to act against."
"And I will not ask you to." With this, Eldárien steps back and watches Rórlain enter the palace. Only after the door has shut firmly behind him does Eldárien turn away and walk out of the grove and back onto the streets of the city. And to his surprise, he finds himself face-to-face with Elmáriyë, who stops before him, breathing deeply as if she has been running.
"El-Eldárien," she says, looking at him with eyes glistening and with alarm in her voice.
"What is it?" he asks, holding her arm to steady her.
"The ghetto...it's burning," Elmáriyë says, finding her voice. "The buildings, they are on fire. The hospital too."
"What happened?"
"It is too much, too much fire to be an accident. Everything is burning. Please, come with me. We need to help the people evacuate!"
"Of course."
Eldárien and Elmáriyë make haste through the streets of the city, which seem eerily calm considering the blazing inferno that burns not far away, and which can only be guessed at through the slight scent of smoke on the wind and the dull hue of darkness, like a low-hanging storm cloud, in the distance.When they come to the southern boundary of the ghetto, however, smoke billows up before them like a mass of black cloud blotting out a large portion of the sky, and the flames have already risen so high that they are visible above the eight-foot fence, orange, yellow, and blue, licking at the air. Elmáriyë steps forward as if to enter through the gate, but Eldárien holds her back.
"Just a moment," he says, and he tears part of the sleeve off of his shirt. He ties it as a face mask around Elmáriyë's mouth and then does the same for himself. "Please be careful. We will do our best to save them, but you must not allow the smoke or the flames to harm you either. I wish to save and protect you just as I wish to save and protect them."
"T-thank you..." Elmáriyë stammers, and their eyes lock for a moment before she turns away and runs into the ghetto. Without hesitation, Eldárien does the same.
Elmáriyë's words were no exaggeration. The ghetto burns as if someone had gone from house to house with a torch and deliberately set everything to flame. Smoke billows from doors and windows, escapes through thatched roofs dissolving in the fire, and hangs thick in the roads and alleys, making it almost impossible to see more than ten feet in any direction. There is no way that we can save them all, Eldárien thinks to himself, or even a fraction of them. He rushes to the closest house and, drawing in what clear air he can, kicks the door open. Please... he pleads, please save these people. There is so little that I can do for them, but I do not wish for them to die… There has been enough death already, and more awaits us in the conflict to come.
With this, he enters the house, searching in the dense smoke for signs of life, and calling out repeatedly. There is no answer, and he sees nothing but an abandoned house being consumed by flame. He departs, therefore, and sprints to the next house along the road, entering it in turn. How...how am I to choose where to enter and where not? Lives depend upon my choice, and this choice depends upon chance... Guide me... Guide me...
This house too is empty, and, beginning to cough because of the smoke and moving close to the ground to avoid its full force, Eldárien returns outside. He looks around, trying to quell a sense of panic and futility, feelings of powerlessness crashing upon him like waves of a tumultuous ocean in the greatest of storms. Guide me... Seemingly at random, he chooses a house from among those lining the road and enters it. "Is anyone in here? Hello! Hello!"
And then...a child's cry.
Eldárien approaches the sound, forced almost to a crawl in order to avoid the smoke and the heat. He comes upon a figure in the dense blackness, a young girl in the corner of a room, the body of her mother sprawled on the floor beside her. Flames lick at the walls and spread across the floor, consuming wood and setting it ablaze, threatening in but a few moments to cut off the way outside.
"Here," Eldárien says, drawing the child to himself. "Get on my back, hurry..." Then he lifts the unconscious woman into his arms, and, carrying both mother and child, all the while trying to remain low to the ground, he escapes from the building. It crumbles behind him only moments after he is back in the street, sending sparks flying in the air and a plume of smoke billowing forth in every direction.
Looking around for a safe place for those he carries, Eldárien sees other citizens rushing to and fro, throwing water upon the burning buildings, and some entering the buildings themselves as he has done. He sees two young women carrying pails of water, with frightened looks on their faces but intent to do what they can.
"Excuse me!" he cries to them, stepping in their path. "Could you please take this woman and child out of the ghetto? Get them treatment if you can. I know not whether the woman lives, but it may not yet be too late."
"Very well, sir," one of the women says, and she takes the girl, now sobbing uncontrollably, from Eldárien's back. He then places the unconscious mother in the other woman's arms—a heavy burden but not impossible to carry.
"Thank you. Thank you both," Eldárien breathes, and he coughs deeply.
Before they turn away, one of the women says to Eldárien, "Be careful yourself!"
"I have to...I have to save whoever I can."
And with that, he rushes away into the smoke as it continues to grow ever thicker and the air ever hotter. Soon the ghetto will indeed be a burning furnace, and it will matter little whether one is inside a building or outside of it. He comes shortly to the hospital and almost trips over a figure upon the entrance. Kneeling down under the cloud of smoke pouring forth from the open door, he sees Elmáriyë herself, clutching Tilliána in her arms. They both appear to be unconscious.
He looks around desperately for aid but realizes that all the people whom he had seen before are now fleeing from the ghetto. The air is no longer able to support life, and the relief efforts have been abandoned. None more can be saved than have been saved; rather, the rescuer himself will to die with those he seeks to rescue. Eldárien cries out in anger and frustration and slams the earth with his fist in protest against his powerlessness. Then he sees Elmáriyë's eyes open ever so slightly, and she looks at him.
"I will..." he begins, but his voice falters, and then he is overcome by coughing. When he has found it again, he says, "I will get you both out of here."
Her response, in a hoarse whisper, is, "I know you will," and then her eyes close again.
Without another moment's hesitation, Eldárien lifts Elmáriyë onto his back, her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. She clings to him weakly. Then he draws Tilliána into his arms and holds her as one would hold a child in a reclining position, her head against his chest, one of his arms behind her back and the other in the crook of her legs, supporting her. She is entirely unconscious.
He sprints now, as fast as he can in his failing strength, through the streets, which have become a crucible of flame and a furnace of death. The fire burns loudly around him, as if roaring at him in menacing hatred, and the smoke clouds his vision, burns his eyes, and sears his throat, making it almost impossible to breathe. But he does not stop, even though he feels like he is already beyond the point of collapse. Elmáriyë's slim body bouncing roughly against his back and Tilliána's figure cradled in his arms both give him strength and purpose, and energy flows into him from a source beyond his reach and yet deep within him.
He bursts from the gateway of the ghetto and into the streets, free of flame and smoke, and sinks to his knees, tears of pain and sorrow escaping from his eyes. His head slumps against his chest and blackness veils his vision. As he begins to lose consciousness, he feels hands upon his shoulders. He feels the women being taken from him. He tries to look up, but he sees nothing but darkness.
"Sir, are you alright...?" says a woman's voice.
And then a man's voice, "You saved them. You saved them!"
"Please..." Eldárien manages to say. "Take us to the temple of Nirániel."
And then he loses consciousness entirely.
† † †
He awakes to the light of the sun shining upon his face and opens his eyes. He lies on his back on his bed, and Elmáriyë's kind face looks down upon him, creased in concern but gentle and radiant nonetheless. She smiles weakly when she sees him open his eyes.
"I..." he begins, but his voice catches in his throat.
"You survived," Elmáriyë says, "and I owe you my life." Her voice too is hoarse, but in his gladness that she is safe, Eldárien hears nothing but life—a life bruised but enduring.
"I am...glad..." he breathes. "But what about Tilliána? She was unconscious. Did she make it?" As he says these words, he sits up in bed, gripped by concern.
"She has not awakened, I am afraid," whispers Elmáriyë. "She was in the smoke for a long time. Cirien says that there is little hope for her recovery. It is only a matter of time until she slips from this life."
"No..." Eldárien sighs. "She has already lost everything."
"But maybe it is for the best, you know...for her to join those whom she has lost," offers Elmáriyë, but he hears the doubt in her voice.
"She said that you gave her a reason to live again, did she not?" he asks.
"Yes. But I think it is too late for that now."
"I wish there was something more I could do," Eldárien says, swinging his legs off the bed and placing his feet against the floor. Elmáriyë looks at him thoughtfully for a moment, as if deliberating. But then she shakes her head.
"You are too weak already," she says. "I am afraid that you cannot help her."
"At least allow me to go to her bedside," insists Eldárien. "Will you join me there?"
"You should really rest."
"No. Please, go with me."
She opens her mouth to respond but immediately closes it again. Instead, a single tear escapes from her eye and rolls silently down her cheek. She nods to him.
Tilliána is in the adjacent room, lying back on a bed with a pillow behind her head and a blanket pulled up to her waist. The window above her is open, and a breeze blows in softly, causing the white curtain to billow and dance. Eldárien kneels by the bedside while Elmáriyë sits at the edge of the bed. Together they look upon her. She is breathing, though with difficulty.
"There is no natural medicine that can cure her now," says Elmáriyë. "I have done what I can, but I am too weak, too unacquainted with suffering, with this kind of compassion."
Eldárien looks at her and asks, "What do you mean? What do you mean you are too weak, too unacquainted with suffering?"
Elmáriyë lowers her eyes. "It is nothing."
"It does not seem to be nothing," he insists.
"Well, it is just that...you do not have the strength for it. Such a gift always comes at a great cost to the giver, and you are already at the limit of your strength."
"Of what do you speak?" Eldárien asks. "I do not understand."
"I am not going to force you to choose between your well-being and hers," says Elmáriyë, raising her eyes again and looking at Eldárien. She is weeping now, and tears stream freely down her face.
"Please," Eldárien pleads.
"It's just..." she hesitates, as if trying to resolve a conflict within herself, and then she continues, "I knew from the first time I met you, from the first time I looked deeply into your eyes. You are the only person I have ever met who has in himself the gift that I too carry."
"What gift do you mean?"
"It is the gift of 'bearing.' That, at least, is what I call it. Have you not experienced in the past that you carry the pains and burdens of others as if they are your own?"
"But do not all men do this?" Eldárien asks.
"Few are compassionate enough to accept love with such a cost," replies Elmáriyë.
"But surely all are invited to it?"
"You are right, Eldárien," she says. "Of course you are right. Such compassion is the lifeblood of man, the measure of his love in a world marked by suffering and pain. But for us, there is something else at work. I myself have tried...I have tried to save Tilliána. But I cannot. I am too weak, too inexperienced. Her pain is too great for me, too far beyond me. I do not have the capacity to hold it, to hold it without losing myself. But the bearing heart can only mediate healing to another if they can hold the other's suffering, can encompass their pain within their own compassion, and give it a home. In this way, what is theirs becomes ours, and they are made free."
After Elmáriyë has fallen silent, she and Eldárien both sit looking at one another without speaking, the breeze whistling in through the window and Tilliána's labored breathing punctuating the stillness.
"What is theirs becomes ours..." Eldárien repeats, after a while. "I know that what you say is true. I have always felt it, but only your words, now, reveal it to me."
"Then you must know why I cannot ask this of you!" Elmáriyë cries. "For Tilliána suffers not only in body. She also suffers from a heart ravaged by loss and grief. All together they afflict her and lead her to the point of death." She pauses and shakes her head, as if trying to dismiss a surge of strong emotion. "I tried. I tried to give her a reason to live, and she was so close. But with the fire, everything was lost."
"Elmáriyë, I know that you are not asking this of me," says Eldárien, laying a hand upon her knee, and reaching out with his other hand and grasping one of Tilliána's hands as it lays upon her breast. "But this is something that I must do. As you said, I am the only person who can do it."
"But at what cost to yourself?" asks Elmáriyë.
"I care not about the cost," Eldárien replies. "If I am to die that another may live, then I cannot think of a better way to depart from this life. And," he smiles softly, "I may yet live. We know not what strength lies in me yet, in my weakness and beyond it."
The look in Elmáriyë's eyes as she receives these words is inexpressible. "I knew..." she says in a whisper. "Eldárien, at first sight I knew you. Seeing you now is like meeting a long-lost friend or finding a part of my heart that has always been missing. And I do not want to lose that so soon."
"Then pray that I live, as well as Tilliána. If I am truly what you feel me to be, then you know as well as I that I must do this."
"I do."
Following this, without being told what to do, Eldárien simply knows. He rises from his knees and sits on the bed, drawing Tilliána into his arms and holding her heart against his own. Closing his eyes, he allows himself to feel, to feel her heart beating weakly against his, to feel her labored breathing—and through this, beyond this, he opens himself to her pain, her illness, her agony. To her very heart and existence.
There is a moment in which time seems to stop, and the universe itself holds its breath. Only the three of them remain in motion, in a room vibrating with life, with grief and longing, with suffering and loss, with despair and with hope.
And then the moment passes, and Tilliána gasps and draws in a deep breath. She opens her eyes just in time to see Eldárien collapse before her, falling back, unconscious, into the arms of Elmáriyë.