All had been restored to excellent health. Wounds from the war in the desert and injuries acquired from the harsh, daily battle for survival healed outright. Sicknesses endemic to the population since the fall of their homelands-afflictions such as pox, ague, and consumption-were banished. Even greater miracles were recorded. Lost faculties returned. Deafness and blindness were cured. So were madness and despair. Oddly, elves who had lost arms and legs fighting the nomads did not have these restored, but those who lost eyes to arrows or to the poisonous flies so common in the desert found those organs grown anew. The great healing followed a logic and law of its own. Many tried to fathom the Great Change (as it came to be called), but no one understood it.
Eager to explore the new-made valley, Gilthas sent scouting parties out on horseback and afoot immediately. Most were charged with finding food, and they returned quickly, their hampers overflowing. Apples, pears, grapes, and berries of every sort grew in abundance, as did wild onions, various greens, and many kinds of nuts. Sage, rosemary, basil, and other herbs grew in broad swaths like green lakes. A profusion of crops, which naturally ripened at different times during the year, had been created instantly. Mounted hunters brought back venison, rabbit, and squab and reported sighting bears, although the creatures had been extinct in central Ansalon since the First Cataclysm. One band of warriors returned driving a shaggy aurochs before them. The presence of wild oxen in the valley meant there would be not just meat, but leather too.
Water birds proved especially abundant. Flocks of geese and pintail darkened the sun as they passed over the camp. Swans and loons populated the lakeshores. Ponds and streams teemed with fish. Honeybees swarmed the fields of blossoms. Soon there would be wax, honey, and later, mead.
Other finds, seemingly less dramatic, were of equal import. Flax was discovered growing wild. The elves would be able to make linen again. The valley was filled with tall, sturdy hardwoods of the most useful species, including oak, walnut, ash, and yew. In the shade beneath the trees sprouted fantastic mushrooms, twice normal size. Every variety, from the delicate pink shell mushroom to the rare subterranean blacknut, was as common as weeds in a summer garden. The more widely the elves searched, the greater the bounty they discovered.
The valley’s riches were being catalogued by Varanas and the scribes. Vixona Delambro, who had demonstrated her mapping ability in the tunnels, was commissioned by the Speaker to map the entire valley. Gilthas intended to send a warrior with her, to aid in her work and protect her from wild animals. Before he could designate an elf for the task, however, one volunteered: Hytanthas Ambrodel. In the months to come, the two would be gone for days at a time, either on horseback or mounted on Hytanthas’s griffon, Kanan. It surprised no one when warrior and scribe eventually married.
To Kerian, the change wrought in Gilthas was more amazing than the entire litany of wonders they had found thus far. Every trace of the horrible disease had been cleansed from his body, leaving him thin but vigorous.
An equally vigorous appetite soon returned the flesh to his bones. It was almost as though, having been more ill than anyone else, he was granted the greatest healing. He positively glowed with vitality. It shone from him like some invisible aura. He seemed unaware of it, but Kerian found it nearly unbearable. When he was near, his presence intoxicated her like a draft of the most potent nectar. When he touched her, she felt almost sick with love. Even the slight contact he considered proper in public left her shaken.
They were in public at that moment, awaiting the arrival of the human prisoner Jeralund. The setting had been carefully staged. A light canopy had been erected near the northern bank of Lioness Creek, in a meadow awash in bluebells. All the newfound bounty of the valley was piled beneath the canopy. In the center of it all, the Speaker of the Sun and Stars sat in a tall wooden chair. Although hastily finished and intended as only a temporary throne, the chair was strikingly beautiful, made from a single piece of ash and embellished by carvings of intertwined oak and ash leaves. Elves skilled in wood shaping had invested each detail with loving care, relishing the chance not only to serve their king, but to practice their art for the first time in years.
