He paused. “Because it was found on the blind and voiceless Elven castaway together with your brother’s bracelet, I would be inclined to believe that if followed, it would reveal your brother’s fate and perhaps the nature of the magic it conceals.”
He waited, letting the King collect his thoughts. On the heights, the Elves were beginning to appear in clusters for the start of the workday. Guards were exchanging shifts. Tradesmen and trappers were arriving from the west, crossing the Rill Song on ferries and rafts bearing wagons and carts laden with goods, then climbing the ramps of the Elfitch. Gardeners were at work in the Gardens of Life, weeding and pruning, planting and fertilizing. Here and there, a whiterobed Chosen wandered into view. Children played as teachers led them to their study areas for lessons on becoming Healers in the Four Lands.
“So you support a quest of the sort my brother undertook all those years ago?” the King asked finally.
Walker smiled faintly. “As do you, or you would not have asked me to come here.”
Allardon Elessedil nodded slowly. “If we are to learn the truth, we must follow the route the map chronicles and see where it leads. I will never know what happened to KaeI otherwise. I will never know what became of the Elfstones he carried. Their loss is perhaps the more significant of the two. This is not easy to admit, but I can’t pretend otherwise. The stones are an Elven heritage, passed down from Queen Wren, and the last of their kind. We are a lesser people without them, and I want them back.”
Walker’s dark face was inscrutable. “Who will lead this expedition, Allardon?”
There was no hesitation in his answer. “You will. If you agree to. I am too old. I can admit it to you if to no one else. My children are too young and inexperienced. Even Kylen. He is strong and fierce, but he is not seasoned enough to lead an expedition of this sort. My brother carried the Elfstonec, and even that was not enough to save him. Perhaps a Druid’s powers will prove more formidable.”
“And if I agree to do this, you give me your word that the Elves will support an independent Druid Council, free to study, explore, and develop all forms of magic?”
“A Druid Council that will answer to no one nation or people or ruler, but only to its own conscience and the dictates of the order?”
“A Druid Council that will share its findings equally with all people, when and if those findings can be implemented peacefully and for the betterment of all races?”
“Yes, yes!” The King made an impatient, dismissive gesture. “All that you sought before and I denied. All. Understand, though,” he added hurriedly, “I cannot speak for other nations and rulers, only for the Elves.”
Walker nodded. “Where the Elves lead, others follow.”
“And if you disappear as my brother did, then the matter ends there. I will not be bound to an agreement with a dead man—not an agreement of this sort.”
Walker’s gaze wandered across the Carolan to the Gardens of Life and settled on the men and women working there, bent to their tasks. It spoke to him of his own work, of the need to care for the lives of the people of the races the Druids had sworn long ago to protect and advance. Why had their goals been so difficult to achieve when their cause was so obviously right? If plants were sentient in the way of humans, would they prove as difficult and obstructive to the efforts of their tenders?
“We understand each other, Allardon,” he said softly. His eyes found the King’s face. He waited for the lines of irritation to soften. “One more thing. Any treasure I discover on this journey, be it magic or otherwise, belongs to the Druids.”
The Elven King was already shaking his head in disagreement. “You know I will not agree to that. Of money or precious metals, I care nothing. But what you find of magic, whatever its form, belongs to the Elves. I am the one who has sanctioned and commissioned this quest. I am the one whose cause requires it. I am entitled to the ownership of whatever you recover.” behalf of your people,” Walker amended casually.