The Hair of the Silvermares

To the most helpful, loving and constant woman I know, who always pushes me to reach further and go beyond. Who challenges my creativity (and my character) on a daily basis. Who is here, always. This picture is for you...

 

The incredible story you are about to read was written by my dear talented friend Zakk who kindly agreed to the task right after I shot this picture. You are amazing !

 

THE HAIR OF THE SILVERMARES

 

Ådamál fled at speed up the winding steps, no fewer than a dozen amoured Palace Guards at his heels. Long had he studied the outer structures, stairs and passageways of the Palace through his handmade spyglass, but now he was in the inner courtyard and knew not which hall or door lead to which outcome. There’s nothing for it, he muttered to himself, and burst through a vase-shaped door clad with iron straps.

 

Mayhap this was not the best of plans.

 

Within a dim chamber sliced by shafts of blinding sunlight, there towered three more Guards fetching the curved blades of their station. They spun upon him at once. Ådamál froze, then realized by their silent hesitation that he himself was veiled in silhouette. “Fools!” he hollered with a baritone so loud it snapped them to attention and surprised even himself. “The intruder has escaped down the winding stair! Make haste!”

 

Moments after they blurred past him, there rang out a terrible clattering of Guards meeting in opposing charges outside, and the cry of one falling down the stairs. Ere the cacophony faded, Ådamál was again out the door and racing up another rise. Dangling several feet from grasp was a braided white hoisting rope, fitted with a counterweight far below, he surmised. No time to verify, for his pursuers could again be heard not far behind. He took the leap blindly off the vine-carved banister, grappling the rope with both hands, and ran across the inner stone wall as if it were the very earth. Alas, a counterweight was fitted, but not one intended for such a heavy load. As momentum lost its battle with gravity, he began to descend. All this for the attention of a princess? he questioned himself, spotting a window ahead and swiftly calculating the arc he would have to carve through the air to reach it. No, to save the realm. And for her attention.

 

At the precise moment, he kicked off the wall, hurling himself out into open space, soaring in a graceful curve toward the opening in the rock. He could distinctly hear the whistle of wind as something shiny sailed past his face. The blade missed him by a whisker, but severed the rope. Fast now was he falling.

 

With a painful smack he grabbed at the base of the window, and hung there. The rope fell out of sight below. Shouts met his ears, and he clambered up and inside just as another blade sliced a clean groove through the heel of his boot. Instinctively, his hand pivoted to his chest, to feel with relief that his most prized possession in the world remained safely intact beneath his shirt.

 

“He would be bold indeed who merely painted his ears but was not a true Pearltip,” a voice said. “To say nothing of breaking into the Palace.”

 

Ådamál’s knees crackled as he scrambled to his feet, coming face to face with... her. Roselÿa, daughter of Seánÿa, Princess of the High Forest and Lady of the Pearltip Elves. Strong in stature, fierce of countenance, with piercing eyes the hue of blue silanium: eyes that could draw the truth from anyone within their gaze. She was as fair as his memory and heart had held, since their chance meeting a decade ago. But he knew she would not, and could see she did not, remember that. Or him.

 

“Begging your pardon, my Lady, the first was required to accomplish the second.” He bowed as smoothly as he could with freshly aching bones, which came off as elegantly as if by a peglegged ogre. (Incidentally, he knew a peglegged ogre, named Frelch Pondmuk, who was quite fond of bowing but none could tell what it was he was doing.) “Princess—”

 

“You have but five words to convince me not to hurl you to the Guards.” She stepped forward and revealed a shimmering sword in her left hand, hilt inlaid with ornate jet lettering and molded to her grasp.

 

“I’ll fetch the Silvermare hair.” He stiffened suddenly, the fingers on one hand fluttering slightly, counting.

 

“Yes, that was only five.” She smiled, and it was all he could do not to melt in her radiance. As quickly, her smile vanished. “You are not only bold but foolhardy. None have returned from that task in an age. A deathly journey it has become, since the Song of Three hath faded. Come, they will have seen where you entered.”

 

Without a sound she was gone through the slender crack of a doorway behind her. Down narrow corridors and a maze of stairs they scurried, as she probed with queries and breathlessly he explained why his skills as a mapmaker and crafter of glass made him confident he could succeed where others had failed. He knew the craggy coastline none had yet surveyed, and how to read rock; he could forge a path to the Eastern Vale not through the heart of the realm but by sea and down ragged shale slope. Or so he hoped. He avoided her gaze, for fear his doubts could be read as a scroll etched upon his face.

 

For only in one fold of the Eastern Vale did dwell the reclusive Silvermares, and naught but the hair from their manes — so fine that a single strand could be seen by neither human nor elfish eye, yet of such strength that none but a silanium blade could slice them — could be used to bow the three-stringed instruments played by the old masters. For too long had only two druæon played that primeval music in the white tower day and night. Two, at least, brought some peace, but allowed strife and factionalism to take root, and ancient trees to lose root. The Song of Three was necessary to maintain true harmony in the realm. The hair of the Silvermare alone could produce resonances as pure as clear light on a crisp autumn noon, in tune with the harmonies of nature itself.

 

But all Ådamál could think about now was that crisp autumn noon when he was but a decade and three, when he was hiding in a tower of leaves, and a crazed girl came crashing through from nowhere and tumbled over him. She burst into a fury of words, many of which he had never heard but could guess their intent. He only made matters worse when he explained with a stammer that he was stalking a goat for his family farm. “For cheese?!” she cried. “Cheese from a goat is disgusting and useless, and so therefore are you! To say nothing of being a nuisance!”

 

He was terribly shy, but something about her stoked a fire in him, and he retorted: “Good then! That leaves the best cheese for those of us whose tongues can do more than... than... bark!” She threw leaves in his face, and he challenged her to catch the goat if she were so useful. Soon it became a game, and they were laughing in a heap each time the goat darted this way or that ahead of them. They ended up tackling each other in the same pile of leaves where they’d begun the hour, hurling creative insults with increasing enthusiasm, when a woman who seemed hewn of rough and merciless basalt appeared at a distance and demanded the girl’s immediate return. “Disgusting and useless!” the girl yelled back as a form of “Farewell,” and chuckled. Never had he chance to see her again, though he feasted like a starving man on every rumor and word of her rise in the Palace.

 

Her blank stare at him now showed no recognition, and he dare not tell her all he wished to: that all he had done since then was in preparation for their eventual reunion.

 

At last, they stopped amidst the uppermost colonnade, overlooking all the levels of the Palace and its grounds. Violet wisteria swayed between the columns, bringing out a flicker of violet in her eyes he had not noticed before. “Why have you come here?” she asked.

 

“I’ve heard the tales. To summon the Silvermare, I must know their song. Only royalty know it.”

 

“And this alone is your purpose?”

 

All his will poured into resisting the light of her eyes, for he knew she would turn him away if he spoke the truth. “This alone, my Lady.”

 

His blank stare at her now showed no recognition, and she dare not tell him all she wished to: that over the years she had returned to that very field where they had met. At first, to retrieve her beloved pendant, a thin glass orb upon a simple chain that held within it the mists of an equinox morn, which was when the long Song of Three had traditionally ended and begun anew. But never did she find it, the leaves having swallowed and carelessness crushed it. For that, she despised him. Though in years hence she knew it was her own brashness to blame. Nay, she had returned upon four separate seasons solely to see him again, the only man ever to make her truly laugh. But only once did she snatch a glimpse as he was departing. Afar he otherwise was each time, travelling the coast with a woman of the farmlands. His apprentice, they said. But Roselÿa knew no woman could resist the looksome man he had become. Moreover, dark had times and custom grown, and a Pearltip Princess with an Ochretip farmer? Never would the Queen abide. Thence did she cease seeking him.

 

“Shall you travel alone or with companion?”

 

“I’ll have no companions but the stars and my wits. Such as they are. At times. That is. I could scarce subject any apprentice to such a quest. Will you teach me the tune?”

 

The echo of many scurrying boots on smooth stone could be heard approaching from without. The meadow oak door she had fastened at the end of the colonnade could only stave the Guards off for a short while. She leaned close to him, her lips by his ear, and said: “Verily yours is no less treacherous a path, but in this I can avail. It can only be sung softly here. You must memorize it upon one hearing, do not miss a note, or the Silvermares will attack. Majestic and terrible are they; trusting of upright creatures are they not, apart from those who know their call.”

 

There were no lyrics. Only notes, lu and la, that hung in the cold air like clear jewels amidst the floating pollen. The melody spoke of grandeur and time, ancient loss and hope entwined. Heartaching and sweet was the timbre of her voice, and the music was like a whisper in his ears, which made him shiver. A single tear formed in his eye, and fell upon his shirt.

 

Singing the highest note, Roselÿa followed the glistening teardrop and saw something else glimmer just inside his shirt. Hanging from a silver chain: her pendant.

 

Without thinking, she placed a hand on his shoulder to comfort, and the other on his neck, and finished the song as softly as a distant breeze. She then whispered: “When you are finished, you will hear only the chirping insects of the Vale. If at length they stop, you have earned trust, and can safe approach the Silvermares. However: should any of their young be present...” but her voice trailed off. Ådamál and Roselÿa were searching each other’s eyes, as if to provoke the other to speak first of things unspoken.

 

At once an explosion of splintering timbers tore their gazes and arms apart, and together they sprang to the end of the walkway. There was no escape for him now, but down.

 

This portion of the Palace was carved from granite that grew directly from the spine of the Frigid River far below. No time to think, or say farewell. He was already standing in the gap between two age-worn columns, calculating his fall into the deepest part of the water, where a lack of ripples indicated no rock. Guards charged toward them, but slowed in shock as Roselÿa’s sword sliced a warning through the air between them.

 

To Ådamál she continued gravely: “You absolutely must not —” but he was gone.

 

As the wind roared past Ådamál’s ears and water rushed toward his outstretched hands, he could but faintly hear the words “Disgusting and useless!” falling down beside him. And he smiled, turning his head.

 

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The song she sang:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlyQbS347mE

 

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All the poses used in my pictures are made from scratch

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