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.One way or another, the call to deeper community had to be answered.It was no marvel to Rolim, now that he saw the way of it, that more and more often the High Magi were found only among the aged-elders who deferred the call of Arvandor for centuries to serve the People upon the mortal world, finding the needed communion in the Circles.In these days, young practitioners of High Magic-such as his great grandson Vhoori, were becoming exceedingly rare.Vhoori.For a moment, Rolim's thoughts slipped back into the mortal world, tugged there by his concern for the brilliant and ambitious young mage.Be at peace.The son of your son's son will bring great wonders to the People, and power such as few who walk as mortals on this world have imagined.Oddly enough, Rolim was not particularly startled by the voice that sounded in his mind, soothing as the cadences of the sea.For he was reaching out now beyond the bounds of his mortal world, and entering communion with the Elders-those elves who had gone before him.Rolim sensed more of them now, but not as a cacophony of conflicting voices.It was rather like walking into a vast room, and being greeted with smiles of welcome by well-known friends.In this homecoming was a peace-a unity-that filled some unnamed corner of his soul, that place which gave birth to every yearning he had ever known.Dimly, Rolim felt Ava take his hand in hers.There was little sensation of warmth or pressure, though, for their bodies were fading away into translucent, glowing shadows.Yet he knew that Ava's tiny hand was secure in his for they were both truly one with their People.The morning sun broke through the canopy of leaves overhead, sending glowing shafts slanting down through the trees.The last few motes of silver and gold swirled together in a brief, giddy flurry, as if they danced to greet the light.The Durothil mansion was one of the finest and most whimsical in all of Leuthilspar.At a distance, it resembled nothing so much as a flock of swans startled into sudden, graceful flight.One only had to look at the leaping towers to know that many powerful mages dwelt herein, for it took great power to raise a building of any kind from the soil.The newest addition to the mansion was also one of the tallest and most imaginative.Two spiraling crystal towers wound around each other in a way that suggested, but did not precisely portray, a pair of entwined elven dancers.From the tower flowed gracefully curving buttresses, some of which rooted the structure to the sacred island, and others that reached seeking hands toward the starlight.The interior of the tower was less whimsical.It was divided into a number of small rooms, each devoted by its creator to a specific purpose.In one of these rooms, the young Gold elf warrior Brindarry Nierde paced the floor restlessly as he dredged his mind for some way to talk sense into the young wizard who sat calmly before him-floating in midair, his legs crossed and his hands resting on his knees.It was difficult for Brindarry to become too angry with his friend however, for Vhoori Durothil was the epitome of all that Brindarry held dear.For one thing, the wizard was the quintessence of Gold elven beauty, with his pale tawny skin, night-black hair, and large, almond-shaped eyes the color of a summer meadow.His hands were long-fingered and graceful, and his sharp, finely molded features and triangular face called to mind the ancient, enchanted sculptures of the gods that their ancestors had brought from Aryvandaar.Vhoori Durothil was tall, like his illustrious grandfather Rolim, and as lithe as that famous warrior.But his was a different talent.He had come to magic at an early age, and had already proven to have exceptional potential.Already he was acting as the Center of a small circle, and he received from his peers a deference that was out of proportion to his age and accomplishments.Most elves assumed that Vhoori Durothil would in time become the most powerful High Mage on all of Evermeet, and treated him as such.Yet in Brindarry's opinion, the young mage was content to settle for far too little."It is an outrage," Brindarry burst out when his patience reached an end."By Corellon's sacred blood! The Gray elves rule in Evermeet, and you simply drift along with events, as unconcerned as the clouds on a summer breeze."The mage lifted one brow, and Brindarry flushed as he remembered that his friend's great-grandmother, the High Mage Ava Moonflower, had been a member of that maligned race."Gray elf" was more than a mildly derisive term for the People who were usually called Moon or Silver elves.A slight inflection of Elvish transformed the insult to the word for "dross," that which was common and low, the waste product left over when objects of precious metal-by implication, the "Gold" elves-were created
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