In the days long before the Wars, when the elves had yet to cross the realms, they lived as five peoples: those of the Sun, Moon, Stars, Sky, and Night. Each tribe served their respective creator, and empowered by his Luth, made his lands to prosper.

-Fennorin’s Guide to Elven History, First Ed. UE 2342

Fennorin

The tunnel at the back of Fenn’s basement wound at odd angles. He’d dug it himself, often making jagged turns when he ran into stone. Some sections required one to crouch in order to squeeze through. It ended in a small trapdoor. Fenn pulled it open. A gentle breeze rustled the leaves outside. Neck craned, he peered through the treeline that shielded them from view of his cabin. 

Two Everguards stood on either side of his front door some twenty strides away, armor reflecting the light of the West Moon. He stepped out from the doorway into the forest, ducking behind some shrubbery. Mell moved gingerly behind him, one hand wrapped around his forearm and slid the door closed without a sound. She placed each step as though every inch of the path was rigged with traps, no doubt nervous without her sight.  

Fenn smiled in amusement at her care. There was no reason for the guards posted at his cabin to be looking for them. Not in the forest at an undocumented exit from his house. Still, it would benefit no one to be careless. He led her forward, crouched low. A songbird sang her song, crickets chirped, and the two stepped across the floor of rotted leaves. Small branches pulled at his tunic. He wished he’d done something to trim them and create a path.

“Did you hear something in the woods?” A masculine voice drifted from the cabin.

Fenn froze. 

He could see the other guard squint toward the treeline. She leaned in toward the other guard, then gestured in Fenn’s direction.

Winter’s frost! The guards were alert. He needed a diversion. He glanced around, surrounded by trees, brush, and sticks. 

“Stay here and watch the cabin. I’ll check it out.” The first guard trod swiftly down the slope, slowing at the trees. 

Mell let go and ducked deep into some brush.

Fenn felt around on the ground for something. Anything. His hand brushed a small stone. It wouldn’t be much of a diversion, but it was his best bet. He faced an especially leafy bush down the slope. Gods, please, help us. Stone in hand, he cocked back his arm. If it would just tumble down the hill… 

He pitched the stone. Pitched it straight into a low-hanging bow in front of him.

 It slammed into the branch, bounced off, and flew straight back at him. He dodged in a scuffle of decayed leaves, the stone landing beside him with a solid thud. The guard rushed over and immediately spotted Fenn as he scrambled up.

“Halt! What’s going on here?” The elf unsheathed the small, graceful sword of the Everguard and brandished it toward Fenn.

“No!” Fenn squeaked, hands raised in his panic, “No need for a sword. It’s not what it looks like.” He stared down at the point. “I’m just running a quick errand. To get my notebook.”

The elf squinted and huffed his disbelief. “Then you could have asked one of us. Where’s the woman?”

Fenn hesitated, but Mell stepped in before he thought of a reply. 

“Here, sir, looking for the notebook,” she arose from the shadows, her Circlet of Lorthen beginning to glow dimly between her brows. The guard stepped back, taking a defensive stance.

 Mell smiled. “And now you will leave us alone and speak of this to no one. You will tell anyone who asks about us that we’re in the cabin.” A soft burst of divine energy came from the circlet and dissipated. The same light shimmered in the guard’s eyes for a moment, and he placed a hand to his head. 

Fenn felt like he might choke on his own heartbeat. Please let the spell take.

The guard lowered his sword. “Right.” He sheathed it and walked away. 

Despite the rush of relief, he kept his breath baited. 

“What was it?” the other guard called as the first approached the cabin.

“There was nothing. Those two are definitely still in the cabin.” He resumed his post.

Fenn sighed. Thanks to Beauty. He waited for the crickets to take up their song before they moved on. “Thanks,” he breathed to Mell as he pulled her along in the darkness. 

“I hope you know that consumes a lot of magic energy,” she hissed back. “And it won’t last forever.”

“As long as it lasts the night.” 

Fenn took her silence as an affirmation that it would. 

They crept along in silence, from the woods into the seemingly overgrown vineyards and disorganized orchards of Etnfrandia’s Greenriver Valley. They crossed from one orchard to another, marked only by the change in the shape of trees. Finally, Fenn stopped amongst low bows with wide-spreading branches and starry blossoms. Peach trees. This was where they would meet Syrdin.

They waited. The Western Wanderer chased the crescent West Moon into the horizon, casting shadows across the ground. Just as he began to worry he’d fumbled the directions he’d provided, Fenn saw a figure creeping in the trees. He squinted, tense. A wave of doubt ran through him before he recognized the small stranger’s hood. He pointed. Mell tensed and strained beside him, unable to discern anything in the dark. He’d hoped she could, a little.  

“Glad to see you found us.” Fenn called out to the shadow.

“Of course,” Syrdin answered.

Mell breathed in relief. “Is that what you were pointing at? I thought the other guard followed us or something.”

He withered in shame, only now realizing how frightened Mell must have been. “No, glad to say it’s just our thief.” 

“Right, so what’s the plan?” Syrdin drew closer, looking at Fenn.

Plan. That word had all the power of a noose as his throat slowly tightened. They expected him to have a full-fledged plan where he only had rough ideas. He was painfully aware of that now.

“Well, I was hoping you could help with that.”

Syrdin shifted zheir weight, displeasure coloring zheir words. “Then, what are we working with? City layouts? Schematics? A path in?”

If he had withered before, he shriveled now. “A backway I know, and a rather large building I can describe for you.” As half-formed as his thoughts were, it was time to transform them into a half-formed plan instead.

Mellark

Mell could tell by the feel of packed earth under her feet that they’d finally come out from the orchards to a main road. Starlight reflecting off Fenn’s bright hair kept her on track behind him. Thank the gods for that bizarre, elven hair. She would have been lost in the maze of moonshadows without it. 

We must be near the city by now. It felt to her like half the night must have passed, and they still needed to retrieve Fenn’s soldier friend. Do we really have time? Mell searched the sky for the hour. It was hard to tell through the towering pines, but it seemed the Wanderer constellation hadn’t made a quarter of his trek. She shook her head. No more than  an hour or two had passed since they’d left the cabin.

Fenn trotted now, making swift time toward the Southern Business Gate, or so Fenn had called it. He must be nervous. This gate entered the city's middle tier. Mell shivered with excitement. Their destination was near the back of the top tier. She would have seen much of the city if they could have entered it at this gate instead of traversing beneath. Or perhaps she wouldn’t have. If this road were any indication, elves didn’t seem to believe in lamp posts. 

A small hand landed on Mell’s shoulder. She flinched, but it was only Syrdin. Zhe tugged Mell off the path. On the horizon, darkness blotted out the stars in a rising wall. The wall, Mell realized, to Ar-Etnfrandia.. 

“We’re about to walk into a creek,” Syrdin barely breathed the words, “watch your step and follow it upstream.” 

Mell could just hear the trickle of water, barely a whisper. She looked around, but she had lost sight of Fenn in the shadow of the wall. Instead, she thought she saw a glint on the surface, a ripple running away from the city.  

Mell waded in, lifting her robes. She took a sharp inhale, shocked at the cold on her sandaled feet, and caught a whiff of something like an autumnal wind, crisp and fresh. The water, she realized, has a smell.  She trod carefully onward. The stone was smooth and slick beneath her, but once she waded toward the middle, sediment assured her footing. With each step, the ink wall rose higher in the sky until Mell had to crane her neck to see the top. 

“Can you all swim?” Fenn whispered from somewhere on her right. Mell heard the soft rustling of leather as he removed his boots. Apparently, he hadn’t been in the water at all. 

Mell snorted, a quiet puff. “Is this what you meant by a bath, earlier?” She got busy removing her gray outer robe. “Just how deep does it get?”

“Erm, about up to my middle. You should be fine, Mell. Syrdin,” he hesitated, “you may want to remove some layers.”

There was little chance of that. Mell didn’t know much about Syrdin’s upbringing or zheir escape from the dwarves, but she knew zhe had purple and gray skin, like polished stone, and stark white hair. A Night Elf, no doubt. Even Fenn seemed to suspect as much. Considering how much the two ethnicities hated one another, Syrdin wouldn’t risk revealing zhemself now.

“I’ll be fine. This isn’t my first dip in the water,” came Syrdin’s terse reply.

Mell heard more rustling of fabric. “Suit yourself, but you may want to stay close to me. It gets about as deep as you are tall when it pools.”

Mell listened for Syrdin in the water, but heard nothing. Then Fenn sloshed in. Mell sighed and stepped forward, praying she wouldn’t trip on anyone. In a few more steps, the wall seemed to swallow them up, and she was enveloped in deep darkness.

“Hey Fenn,” Mell’s voice echoed softly around her. It seemed they were in some kind of cave or tunnel. “What is this stream anyway? Obviously not sewage, but I’ve never seen clean water under a city before.” She twisted her lips into a wry smile, “Or in this case, smelled.”

Mell thought she heard Syrdin chuckle under zheir breath. 

“Oh, no, this is spring water. It’s the main source of drinking water for the city, actually. It’s one of the only springs in the region. The rest of the water comes from the seaward rain.”

Mell was surprised to hear Syrdin speak up. “And your people haven’t dammed it?” 

“Oh no, not more than it does naturally.” Fenn sounded chipper. “It’s considered disgraceful, near blasphemous even, to alter the natural course of a stream.”

Mell reflected on their journey. The orchards had felt like forests, with no neat rows like the orchards she knew. And any city in Hethbarn would’ve had a grate over the stream where it ran under the wall. In fact, much of the elf-kept region had a natural, rugged edge to it that made it seem almost uninhabited by outside standards. Certainly untamed.

They fell into an impenetrable quiet. Mell kept hand on the water’s surface, the other holding aloft her robe. It rose past her hips now, and she shivered. The night wasn’t exactly warm, and the springwater chilled her so goosebumps prickled her skin. Time seemed to melt away into the gentle lapping that echoed all around her. 

Her reverie was broken when a loose stone caught on her sandal, sending her stumbling. She gasped as the cold lapped at her chest. A spindly hand closed around her wrist and pulled her upright. Fenn. She shuffled over and placed a hand blindly on Fenn’s back. “Thanks.”

The water level receded to Mell’s knees and the sound of trickling and drips joined the cacophony of echoes. The air hung as though suspended in time. 

“Phosus.” Syrdin’s whisper danced about them. Suddenly, three bright, violet orbs appeared in the air. Mell’s breath caught. The eerie light threw long shadows across a large cavern with many stalagmites and pillars decorating it in a chaotic maze of architecture. Her tension melted into a dazzled awe. The wet stone sparkled in the unnatural light, augmenting the gruesome beauty of the place. 

“Thanks Syd,” Mell whispered. She waded after Fenn toward the soft rush of a waterfall, taking in the everchanging cavern views. The shadows of the stalagmites seemed to dance as they passed, warping into the forms of people. 

People. Mell stopped in her tracks, blinking. She caught Fenn by the elbow, tugging him back. She pointed to where, half-hidden amongst the natural formations, chiseled forms of elves danced and played in the stone. Here, a she-elf posed in an arabesque. There, an elfman played the flute encircled by two foxes in a game of chase. Another figure was seated on a stalagmite reading a book to elflings. Mell gasped in recognition. “Kialmara!” She splashed over to it. 

What?” Fenn trailed after her. 

“It’s Kialmara Lorthen!” Mell repeated, forsaking the quiet they had kept. This was too important a discovery: pure, Elven renderings of the pantheon.  “I knew he was a Faerie god, but I thought you said your people didn’t worship them anymore.”

 Fenn’s brow creased over his glasses. “They don’t. They’re nearly forgotten.” He stepped forward to inspect the statue.

“And look!” Mell pointed to another stone elf a few strides away with a headpiece much like her own, but with a round emblem overlaid with vertical lines of varying lengths. “That one wears a Circlet of the Sun.” The wearer had curly hair and a young, almost boyish face. The version that the modern Sun Order worshiped had large, chiseled, human-like features and longer hair. This curly-headed youth must be the original one, unmarred by the clash of cultures.

“These statues, these are the gods?” Fenn barely breathed the question as he leaned in to view Lorthen up close. “Cialmyra and Anruwan? I had no idea these were more than simple statues. I assumed it was someone’s secret practice space.” Drops of water filled the awed silence.

“Someone’s secret, all right.” Mell’s mind spun with possibilities. Clearly these people had once remembered their gods. But this was underground. Literally. There could have been secret worshippers, an offshoot cult. Or perhaps a single individual could have sculpted this in the city’s early years. Either way, it meant that the gods had once meant something to the Etnfrandians, just as Fenn had hoped. 

“I, and other Etnfrandians, we explore down here as youths.” Fenn’s brows were scrunched and his lips pressed one another in thought. “And yet I never knew.”

Mell traced her finger across Kialmara’s book, looking for any detail, any sign as to what he was teaching. If Fenn had seen these statues as a youth, they were no less than two-hundred years old. She was no archaeologist, but they could be as old as one thousand. Their features were certainly worn smooth, and some nearer the water were partially melting away.

Syrdin cleared zheir throat. “As interesting as it all is, I suggest we keep moving. Unless we want to run out of night before we’ve made it back here.”

“Right!” Fenn stood upright and adjusted his tunic, as though that would help him focus. “Let’s keep moving.”