IDID NOToffer you a choice in the matter," Lady Dasslerond said sternly to Aydrian.

"And if I do not wish to go back down the hole?" the young man asked, his voice defiant - even more so than usual.

Lady Dasslerond put an amused look on her face, one designed to show young Aydrian that she might actually prefer his outright denial, if only to give her the satisfaction of personally dragging him down the hole.

"I want to stay out here," Aydrian said, "under the stars, where the air is sweet with scents and the wind refreshes."

"If you do your work well and efficiently, you will be back out here before the stars fill the black sky," the lady remarked.

Aydrian looked at her for a while, then shrugged and said simply, "No, I prefer to remain." He heard a rustling then and a murmuring all about him, telling him that many of Dasslerond's people were near. Even more disconcerting was Dasslerond's continuing amusement at his antics and her expression, now forming into an almost hungry grin.

The lady swept her arm up and looked into the late afternoon sky. "Bask in it," she said. "Enjoy your final hours in Andur'Blough Inninness."

Aydrian, too busy concocting an answer to fully appreciate the weight of her statement, stammered over the first words of his planned response, his eyes then going wide as he regarded Lady Dasslerond, as he evaluated her posture and her catlike grin, and he knew beyond doubt that she was not joking. He recognized only then that he was pushing the stern lady of Caer'alfar a bit too far this time.

As he had been since Brynn Dharielle's departure.

Dasslerond's face suddenly darkened, as if a cloud passed over her, and her eyes turned icy in intensity, her smile becoming an open scowl. "Get in the hole, impetuous young fool, else you will be turned out of my land, with no way to return," she said coldly. "And think not that I am bluffing, for I have grown weary of you."

Aydrian stared at her blankly, stunned by her sudden hardness and by the finality of her tone and her command.

"If you persist, and are lucky, you will be allowed to view the sunset beyond the valley," the lady went on, the devastating control and obvious anger that simmered beneath her cool façade making the young man's legs go weak.

"I know not how to do this," Aydrian complained. "I have said as much many times."

"That is why you keep trying to do it," said Lady Dasslerond. "If we practice only at those skills in which we excel, then we are doomed to mediocrity. The fact that you so admit your weakness only strengthens my resolve that you will go into the hole, will go to Oracle, this day and every day."

"Nor do I enjoy it," the stubborn young man added.

"Whenever did you come to believe that you were supposed to enjoy any of this?" the elf calmly asked. "You are here with a purpose beyond your pleasure. Never forget that."

Aydrian started to respond, but Dasslerond stopped him with an upraised hand.

"I have given you two choices," she said, "clearly stated and with no room to bargain. Choose your path. There is nothing more to be said."

He started to speak again, but before he could even begin, Lady Dasslerond simply turned and walked away.

"I am without the strings of a puppet!" Aydrian yelled after her, fighting back tears then and an overwhelming sense of desperation and loneliness that he didn't begin to understand. The departure of Brynn Dharielle, the only other human in Andur'Blough Inninness and by far the closest thing to a friend Aydrian Wyndon had ever known, had wounded him profoundly, had left him more alone than he had ever been with little hope of that void being filled.

But as much as he wanted to scream at Dasslerond and defy her, Aydrian was more afraid of what might lie beyond the sheltered valley of Andur'Blough Inninness. This was his home, the only one he had ever known. The stories he had been told of the wider world had not been pleasant ones; they had been nightmarish tales of war and strife and a devastating plague.

He took a few deep, sharp breaths, muttered a couple of curses quietly, and squeezed down the hole, coming into a small earthen cave. A root formed a seat on one side, a single candle burned on the floor before it, and a mirror was placed across the way. Aydrian paused and took in the scent of the candle, for it was full of fragrance, of lilac and a myriad other scents of the woodland valley. Immediately his nerves began to cool, his muscles relax, and he suspected, though hardly cared, that there was a bit of elven trickery about the candle, a bit of aroma magic, to calm the wild Aydrian.

With a shrug, the young man sat down on the exposed root and faced the mirror. He stared at it for a long while, then blew out the candle.

At first he saw nothing, but as his eyes adjusted to the dimness, the shape of the rectangular mirror came into view. He tried to look past it, perhaps to sort out the patterns of roots on the opposite wall, perhaps to count them - anything to pass the long hour or so Dasslerond would surely keep him here. He had attempted Oracle several unsuccessful times already. Though it was a gift the Touel'alfar often reserved for older ranger trainees, Lady Dasslerond had insisted that Aydrian keep trying. He was ready, according to her; but to Aydrian's thinking, she was pushing him too far and too hard - and to do something that he cared nothing at all about.

So, as he had done the previous times, the young man looked beyond the mirror and started to take up a count of the crisscrossing roots.

Started, but hardly finished, for - so subtly that he hardly noticed the shift - Aydrian's eyes were soon staring back at that mirror. Not at the outline this time, but at the interior, the reflective surface, which seemed no more than a black pool in the darkness.

Something moved within that darkness. Aydrian noticed it, though he realized that he could not have seen anything, for it was too dim in the cave.

Still, something lurked there, he knew. Something quiet and dark.

Aydrian's focus tightened, eyes narrowing, as he forgot all about defying Lady Dasslerond. He didn't understand any of what was happening here, though he sensed that something was.

Now all of the reflective surface seemed less dark, seemed cloudy, and at the left-hand side, Aydrian clearly noted the silhouette of a cloaked figure, though it was just a silhouette.

Aydrian,it said in his mind.

The young man nearly toppled, but he somehow managed to hold his seat and his concentration.

The silhouette telepathically imparted a single thought: father.

"Nightbird," Aydrian whispered, hardly even able to draw breath, and he sensed then that the figure was displeased with him, which frightened him.

He got a sensation in his head, pushing him along a line of thinking that showed him the folly of his continuing to defy Lady Dasslerond. That notion built and went on and on, revealing to him a life of misery, a life without skill. Aydrian, as stubborn as ever, tried to deny it; but the images coming to him now - real images, though dim and shadowy - within the surface of the mirror could not be misinterpreted. Several times, Aydrian tried to protest; several times he started a sentence only to have the words and the foolish notion die away in the damp and stale and smoky air of the small earthen cave.

For there it was, being played out undeniably before him, the life he was now choosing with his every grumble and every argument.

Hours passed, though Aydrian was unaware of time, when finally the voice in his head told him: Trust Lady Dasslerond, for she will bring to you great power.

Only then did Aydrian realize that other images were dancing around inside the cloudy reflections of the mirror. He saw great cities, so unlike anything he had ever seen in the quiet and subtle tree houses of Caer'alfar. He saw open-air markets and a huge building - one of the abbeys, he realized, though he knew not how he knew that. Throngs of people - human beings, like him! - moved about in the images, some seeming to walk to the very edge of the glassy barrier to stare at him.

The young man was drawn to those images, was leaning forward, though he didn't realize it. He felt a pang of emptiness more profound than anything he had ever known before, and that lonely feeling was only enhanced by the spirit figure subtly telling him of the potential he might one day realize.

Lady Dasslerond will take you on the path to great power,Aydrian heard clearly in his mind. He started to suspect then that this might be a trick of the Touel'alfar to win his obedience to the lady. But then the spirit surprised him, continuing, And then I will show you how best to use that power.

Aydrian sat bolt upright at the surprising promise, and the shock broke his concentration, the images in the mirror fast fading to nothingness. He could no longer see the spirit silhouette, could no longer see the clouds in the mirror, could no longer, he then realized, even see the edges of the mirror, for the cave had grown pitch-black.

Some time after, Aydrian crawled out of the earthen cave to find that he was alone in the forest. He didn't even look to see if any of the elves might be hiding in the boughs of the leafy trees all around him, for he sensed they were not there - and, in truth, he didn't care if they were. He found a clear spot not far from the Oracle cave where he could see a significant portion of the starry nighttime sky.

Then he sat down and stared up, let his spirit climb high into the starlit canopy as he pondered the telepathic communication - what did it mean? A chance, perhaps?

Somehow he felt as if there might indeed be a path to immortality.

"You should not be surprised," To'el said to Lady Dasslerond when they were back in Caer'alfar, long before Aydrian had emerged from the hole. She spoke tentatively, fully aware that Dasslerond was not used to being talked to in such a manner. "He has grown more obstinate and unruly since Brynn Dharielle left us. I expected that he would refuse you again and force you to put him out."

"Yet he stayed in the cave at Oracle," Lady Dasslerond reminded. To'el shrugged as if that was of little consequence against the overwhelming wave of negativity that Aydrian had become. "Perhaps you view our young ranger in the wrong light," Dasslerond explained. "You are reacting to him according to the standards that we place upon our other students."

"Is he not to become a ranger?" To'el asked, her voice halting, for Lady Dasslerond's expression, one of cold calculation, was impressive indeed.

"Only to the extent that he is being trained by the Touel'alfar," said Dasslerond. "Not in the respect that a ranger then returns to his people to serve them as silent protector."

"He is to remain here?" asked To'el, not thrilled with the idea. "For how long?"

"Until he is ready," said Dasslerond. "Aydrian was not brought into Caer'alfar out of any debt we felt to his father, nor because the world was in need of another ranger. He was brought for one reason alone; and while you see his stubbornness as a detriment to the training, I view his independent arrogance as a necessary quality."

To'el started to ask what that one reason was, though she realized that it had to involve the stain, the rot, that the demon dactyl had inflicted upon Andur'Blough Inninness. Dasslerond's expression told her not to walk down that avenue, so she changed the subject somewhat. "Yet you were ready to put him out of Caer'alfar," she said. "When he defied you at the tree, you were ready to put him out of Andur'Blough Inninness altogether, perhaps even to have him killed. I recognized the sincerity in your threat, Lady."

"We walk a narrow plank with that one," Lady Dasslerond admitted. "I see his incredible strength growing daily. It is an inner willpower that he will need, and yet I understand that if we cannot control that power and bend it to our needs, then he becomes worse than a waste of our time. He becomes a danger."

"He is just a human," To'el started to say.

Dasslerond narrowed her golden eyes. "He has the fighting prowess of his father, at least," she said. "And he is strong in the gemstones, as was his mother, perhaps beyond her and beyond our understanding. But more important, he has strength of mind too great to be controlled or diverted. He knows of us, and yet, unlike all of the others, he will not see the world our way; and I doubt he will ever come to view the Touel'alfar as his true family."

"Yet we continue to share with him our secrets," said To'el.

"I hope Oracle will give him peace of mind," Dasslerond explained. "If the ghost of his father finds him and guides him, then perhaps our young Aydrian will become more agreeable."

To'el was more than satisfied with that explanation, for, in truth, it was more than she ever would have expected. She nodded and bowed gracefully, then left the lady to her thoughts - thoughts obviously centered on young Aydrian.

Indeed, Lady Dasslerond was recalling her last encounter with the young human, was measuring his obstinance against the fact that her scouts were reporting that he was still down in the earthen cave, was still either engaged in Oracle or was at least trying. Lady Dasslerond was not overfond of the young ranger - she didn't particularly care for any humans, and found Aydrian even less likable than any of the others she had dealt with. But that was because young Aydrian was less malleable, Dasslerond knew, and she would have to use his independence and pride against him. For, indeed, Aydrian was there, had been there from the very beginning, for the singular purpose of eradicating the stain of the demon dactyl.

Lady Dasslerond still did not understand exactly what such a task might require - would Aydrian have to travel to the dark underworld to do battle with Bestesbulzibar? - but she did suspect that this ranger's sacrifice would have to be no less than that of his father.

Lady Dasslerond had no illusions that young Aydrian would give his life for her or for Caer'alfar. No, she'd have to continue to walk the narrow plank, as she'd put it to To'el. She'd have to balance control over the young man with allowing him to grow stronger in many areas.

And she'd have to bury her own anger, and repeatedly, as her tolerance for the unruly human continued to wane.