“Be quiet, Deed. You need your strength.” He spoke with a worried tone that was alien to him. He tightened his arms about her for a moment. “We’re almost to Valis. You can see it over that hill.”
“I know,” she said, coughing weakly.
“Are you going to be alright, Deed?” he asked.
She nodded slightly, but she felt cold against him, and it felt to him almost like he carried a corpse before him. He pushed the thought away. Deedlit was very ill, but she wasn’t going to die.
Parn sighed and gave up on conversation. He pushed some of her silver hair out of his face. Please, Deed, he thought, you have to be alright. Don’t die on me.
In the palace courtyard of Valis, Parn slid from his horse. He helped Deedlit down, but this time there were no jokes. She truly needed his help now, even for so simple an action as dismounting. Indeed, even the small exertion required for that seemed to be too much for her, and she fell. He caught her deftly and snapped at one of the guards. “Someone get Etoh! Quick!”
“I’m already here, Parn,” Etoh stated, stepping forward. “We saw you riding in. Is Deedlit alright?”
Parn turned to face his old friend, still holding Deedlit in his arms. “I don’t know, Etoh. She’s been sick for the past few days. She says we have to go the Forest of No Return, but I don’t think she can make it that far. I had hoped you could help her.”
“I’ll try,” Etoh promised. “Take her up to my study, and I’ll see what I can do.” He smiled encouragingly at Parn.
“Please stop that,” Etoh said calmly, his glowing hands stretched out of over Deedlit’s pale form. “Pacing isn’t going to do you or her any good. If you can’t sit still, why don’t you go talk to the emissaries from Flaim or maybe find yourself some dinner. You’re distracting me, and I need to concentrate.”
“Sorry, Etoh.” Parn sat down uneasily on one of the chairs. “Is she going to be alright?” It was the third time he had asked the question.
“I don’t know yet.” Etoh’s voice was characteristically patient. “I won’t until I have five minutes of silence to assess her condition.” He stared down at the elven woman for several seconds, studying parts of her that Parn couldn’t see: energies, auras, pulses, other things for which the Common Tongue had no words. He had healed Deedlit several times in the past, and he knew what he ought to be seeing. Normally there was a brilliant green-gold aura with flashes of silver running through it and a heart of the deepest green. That heart was different now, as if something dark were eating away at it. The rest, energy that radiated out from that heart, was weak and faint. What could have caused this, he wondered. Whatever disease was gnawing at Deedlit had invaded her spirit as much as her body.
“Well,” he said at last. “I can at least help her some, I think. I don’t know how much I’ll be able to do. We shall see. This may take a while, Parn. I know you don’t like sitting still. Please, go see the emissaries from Flaim.”
Parn looked towards Deedlit reluctantly. He plainly didn’t want to leave her side.
“She’ll be fine in my care.”
“I know that, Etoh. It’s just-”
“Just that you don’t like letting her out of your sight?” Etoh gave his friend a smile that was almost teasing. “I do understand. I feel the same way about Fianna.”
There was a slight pink tint to Parn’s face. “It’s not like-”
Etoh didn’t argue with Parn on that issue, though he knew that Parn’s feelings for the fair elf-woman mirrored his own feelings for his beautiful wife, the queen of Valis. He had always wondered why those feelings that Deedlit plainly shared had never gone further between the warrior and the elf. “She’ll be fine. Go! You’ll enjoy yourself. You know them.”
Parn looked puzzled. “Who?”
“Shiris and Orson.” Etoh noticed Parn’s wince at Shiris’ name. “What’s wrong with Shiris?”
“Aside from the fact that she’s the most difficult woman since Karla?” Parn shrugged. “I’m not in the mood for drinking and verbal sparring matches.”
“She’s mellowed over the past few years, you know, ever since she and Orson settled down in Flaim.” Etoh sighed. “Parn, I don’t care where you go or what you do, provided you don’t kill anyone, but it would make it much easier for me to help Deedlit if you would go somewhere else. For me to help her there must be no distractions.”
Seeing things that way, Parn immediately left the room. Etoh wondered if Parn would end up visiting with Shiris and Orson or not. Etoh sighed and returned his attention to Deedlit. Cautiously he began to feed divine Falis energy into her own, until the aura brightened again to its usual color, though the verdant heart of it continued to seem shadowed. At last, her blue-green eyes slowly opened.
“Well,” Etoh said, leaning backward into a chair. “Welcome back to Valis and the land of the living, Deedlit.”
“Hello, Etoh,” she said simply. Her voice was still weak, yet there seemed some animation in her face and a bit of the glow that had always been so much a part of her.
“Parn’s worried about you,” he informed her.
He saw her eyes soften for a moment. “I know.”
He stared down at her. She was one of his oldest friends, and he was well able to read her expressions and their meanings. Parn in his naivety couldn’t see it, but she had been keeping secrets about this illness of hers. “I think,” he said, “that you had better tell me all about it. Maybe I can do more to help you. It would kill Parn if something happened to you.”
Deedlit sat up slightly. She seemed to have regained enough energy for at least slight activity.“I suppose you’re right. You must make me a promise first though.”
“What must I promise?”
“You must promise,” she answered, “not to tell Parn.”
Etoh’s eyes widened in shock. “I can’t do that, Deedlit. He’s been my friend for years. My best friend. He’s so worried about you.”
She crossed her arms delicately. “Then I won’t tell you.”
He didn’t really have any choice after that. There was a Falis Oath, “to stand always against the Darkness, to heal what wounds I may, to never reveal the secrets of the Order or the secrets entrusted to me in good faith, to act with kindness and mercy to those in need, to never refuse aid to one asks it with a clean heart.” She needed his help, and for him to help her would require him to keep her secrets. “Very well,” he said at last. “I will keep your secrets, Deedlit. But I urge you to tell everything to Parn.”
“I’m dying.”
He stared at her, though not with disbelief, for he had feared that it might be so.
She continued, “The High Elves are so much a part of the Forest of No Return that our lives are tied to its. The Forest is dying, so all of us, all the elves, are dying.”
“What’s killing the Forest?” Etoh inquired.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “Something dark and horrible. I feel it within me, eating away at me.”
Etoh remembered the shadow within the emerald heart of her spirit and it made sense. “Something dark and horrible.” He sighed. “Why haven’t you told Parn?”
She shrugged. “I don’t want him to worry anymore than he has to.” She paused. “I want him to reach the Forest. If anyone can save it, it’s him, isn’t it?”
“You think Parn can do anything, don’t you?” Etoh smiled.
She nodded. “I hope he can. If he can’t save it, at least he will try. And at least I can die there. At home. With him nearby.”
“You should tell him,” Etoh told her. “He will find out when you reach the Forest anyhow. Isn’t it cruel not to tell him? Not to give him time to adjust to the idea?”
“I can’t bring myself to do it.” Her eyes sparkled with tears.
“I’m sorry, Deedlit.” Etoh placed his hand on hers. “I understand. He’s my friend, too, you know.”
Deedlit burst into tears then. Etoh sighed slightly and offered her a handkerchief. She took it gratefully, wiped her tears then said, “I don’t want to hurt him, Etoh.”
“I know you don’t,” Etoh answered. “Is that also the reason for the other secret you’re keeping from him?”
Deedlit looked confused. “What other secret?”
Etoh sighed, realizing that Deedlit was as unlikely to admit anything as Parn. He changed the subject. “Why don’t we go find him? He’ll be very glad to see you awake.”
They found Parn quickly, pacing up and down the hallway. Etoh thought that Parn looked like nothing more than an expectant father just then, and he wished that the circumstances were so joyous.
Parn spotted them immediately. “Deed! You’re up! Did Etoh heal you?
Deedlit shook her head slowly. “No.”
Parn’s eyes had begun to shine again, but that one word caused them to dull again. “Oh. I’m sorry. I had hoped-”
“Don’t worry, Parn.” Deedlit smiled, and Etoh knew the effort it took her. “Etoh gave me enough strength to continue the journey. We can go to the Forest of No Return now.”
“And you’ll be healed there?”
Deedlit paused. “I hope so.”
“Deedlit-”
“Yes?”
“Are you going to be alright?”
The number of times he had said that to her since she had first fallen. She did want to tell him the truth, but she truly did not want to see those blue eyes grow even sadder. So she forced another smile and said, “Of course, I will.”
The next day Parn once again pulled Deedlit up before him on the horse. She no longer seemed quite a dead weight, and she smiled as he lifted her. Parn smiled back at her. It reminded him almost of their first days travelling together after he had saved her from Wagnard. “Let’s go!” he said, and they set out at a brisk pace onward towards the Forest of No Return.
Part Three:The Forest of Light: What Do You Mean "No Cure?"
