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*****

Two weeks later, Elvish poetry would have seemed a completely different world from that which I inhabited. My world consisted of, in no particular order, having to call out the Fundamentals of Gramerye while doing pushups (in a muddy field), dodging nests of feral hornets that I missed because I did not know the proper dispelling glamers (followed by practical lectures on field medicine), doing penalty squat-thrusts for hesitating in spell formation and, most interesting of all, learning that a kick to the groin is the best defence in a paw-to-paw Gramerye situation.

The Imperial and Royal Army of Faerie does not consider the study of magic (or, as noted in the manual I had to learn by heart: "Substances, Tactical Manipulation of") to be an intellectual exercise, a point driven home to me repeatedly, usually after I ended face-down in a muddy field, with my nose in a fresh pile of feral spraint.

There was a certain logic to this, I won't deny it. From a distance, it looked like the ordinary training of a particularly stupid squaddie. It's not advisable, I was told, at this stage to advertise that I knew how to use Arts, when I could barely use it to wipe my arse. Arts was something to use on the enemy, preferably without them knowing it. Even better, that you were even there.

Lt. Rutter had decided that I was a special project of his, deserving of his sole attention, and in addition to my other "light, skiving duties" (i.e., being batman to Lt. Chitterleigh), I was going to learn how neither to be seen, nor heard. The exercise with the hornets' nest was repeated on a few different occasions, until I could learn to "be a buck" and deal with getting stung while lying with my muzzle in a mixture of mud and spraint. Which was a snap compared to the morning with the forest scorpions.

Trying to remember and learn confusing new skills while operating on about three hours' sleep, while you have a boar yelling at you from a distance of six inches, is an interesting exercise in scholarship.

The tide finally started to turn when I was told, after a morning of excavating rough trenches in rocky forest soil with only my mind and my paws as implements, to take a break and have some delicious fresh mushrooms growing nearby. As it turns out, they were of a species noted by our distant forebears for their entertainment properties, viz., visions and a feeling of euphoria. Not that those sensations would have done me any good at that moment. I snarled under my breath at the mushrooms to deactivate whatever poisons or other defensive mechanisms it had, and was rewarded by a multi-coloured goo that burst from the damn things and oozed all over my paws.

This was, I was told later, the point where most furs undergoing intensive training for the Gramerye Qualification snapped. They'd start to scream, and you'd even get one or two who would fling the goo at their instructor. I cleaned my paws with another incantation, stuffed the mushrooms in my face, and chewed.

Lt. Rutter strolled over to the hole where I was half-kneeling, half-crouching in a pool of mud, and gently smiled.

"Isn't this more fun than Elvish poetry?"

I took the question as rhetorical.

I was told that I could take the next day off, and that the rest of the course would be classroom exercises, where I would have to deal with hornets' nests only in theory. Maybe. Looking under chairs was always a good way to start a morning. In the meantime, a nice ten-mile run would do me a power of good.

The next morning, once I managed to straighten my back and get the taste of Rainbow Puffballs out of my mouth, I went about some of my normal duties for the Lieutenant, who seemed not to notice that his soldier-servant had a posture like a question mark given a vague sense of sentience, and that my right ear had only recently lost the swelling from a half-dozen hornet stings.

No. He had just remembered a jolly ballad about moonlight walks in the forest. I could tell him, and for that matter Miss Eichelgruber, about how lovely the forest was at nine o'clock when there isn't any moon but plenty of rain, and I bit my tongue.

Meadow, thank Fuma's world-girdling whiskers, had been understanding. She was the only fur (other than Sergeant Wing, of course), who knew the whole story of what I was doing, and I think she'd tipped off Miss Eichelgruber in vague terms. The squirrel femme put down her needlework, said she wouldn't dream of straining my voice when it seemed I was coming down with a cold, and left Meadow to use her paws to try to move my neck back to where it was supposed to be.

Lying face down (on a soft blanket, praise Fuma), I had just about dozed off when Meadow suggested that the afternoon might be profitably spent at the Hall of Ancestors. She had never been, herself, and she thought I might find it interesting.

It took a bit more coaxing from Meadow, who can be extremely persuasive when she wants to be, but I agreed that it, indeed, might be interesting. I had also remembered that Sergeant Wing had dropped a not terribly subtle hint that a visit there would be profitable.

The Hall of Ancestors turned out to be on one of the highest hills in Albric Tor. Standing with your back to it, you can see virtually the entire city, and the woods, lakes and rivers beyond. Few noises from down below reach up to that level, and the loudest sounds are the occasional feral birds that fly by.

The building itself, as I looked at it with Meadow, was very attractive. The material had faint veins of lapis lazuli running through it, which caught the angle of the sun. On a summer's afternoon the stone was warm, but not hot, to the touch. As we walked inside, it was very much cooler, and seemingly even more hushed, with only my hooves and Meadow's toe-claws clicking against the marble floor.

The Hall, in a certain sense, seemed full: the monuments that were just inside the circuit of the stone pillars were recent, if you count elves that had died a generation before as "recent." Some were plain pillars, others boxes, and there was one marker that was set in the midst of a reflecting pool. It memorialized an elf that had, it seemed, gone swimming too soon after eating. A rather curious place for such a joke.

Walking toward the centre of the dome, the markers got slightly older, but not much older. It was difficult to see where the ancient memorials were located, the ones that were supposedly here.

There was one mysterious noise that began to occur: a soft, grinding noise, like one makes with a mortar and pestle. It wasn't scary, but it was puzzling, and Meadow began to grip my paw tighter.

When the voice spoke, it made us both nearly jump out of our fur.

"Good afternoon."

Both of us whirled around, to find standing behind us another fur. He (it was a he) was a feline, dressed very neatly in black. He appeared to be furless, except where he had a prominent pair of eyebrows. His paws were clasped in front of him, one paw gripping a small pipe, from which a thin plume of fragrant smoke was ascending.

He spoke with a somewhat peculiar slight grimace, and a habit of bobbing his head slightly and cocking his eyebrows. For all that, he was extremely polite.

"Do you need some assistance?"

I asked if there was a map of the Hall available, as I was looking for a particular monument. The cat smiled again.

"Diagrams, unfortunately, would be somewhat futile here. You will not find what you are looking for on any map."

Meadow and I looked at each other, before she spoke.

"Are you a docent?"

The cat considered the question with a half-glance toward the ceiling. "Merely a traveler in this void like yourself. But I can help you. What are you looking for?"

"Is there a monument to the Elfhame Rangers here?"

"A student of military history. There are many tales here that could be told."

With that, he turned, and started to pad slowly, pausing to let us catch up. As we went deeper into the Hall, the soft grinding noises increased. I had the uncanny sensation that some of the monuments we were passing were moving to let us pass.

We caught up to the cat; he was examining a sarcophagus with interest. He pointed at it with his pipe, and the glow from it briefly illuminated the carved figure of a rooster holding what appeared to be a broken sword.

"Submitted for your approval, Lord Chanticleer. Poet, drinking companion and warrior, not necessarily in that order. A fur that dreamed of being immortalized forever by his actions. What he didn't realize is that when you pay more attention to your uniform, and when you're composing quatrains in your head, you may not see that enemy behind you, the one with the upraised spear. The knowledge that you can be remembered by subsequent generations, not for glory but for the object lesson of ignoring sound advice, is something that's hard-earned. And there's no way to spend those kinds of earnings here...in the Hall of Ancestors."

The Docent resumed his walk, and we followed. Both Meadow and I looked up: the ceiling could not be seen, though from time to time, the dim form of banners and flags could be made out, as well as occasional mysterious combinations of numbers and letters.

Our group came to a stop, and as my eyes adjusted to the light, I could see something. It appeared to be a thin, free-standing slab of stone. It extended about fifteen feet up, and was probably about thirty feet wide. The fact that this was my destination was marked by the fact that a pair of actual recurved bows and a tangible single-stick formed a tripod, standing neatly at the left of the cenotaph. For cenotaph it was; no fur could be buried there.

Visible even in the dark at the bottom of the monument, written in neat block letters picked out with gold leaf, was a simple phrase:

GO AND SAY IN FAERIE, THOU WHO STANDETH BY

OBEDIENT TO OUR KING WE WERE, AND IN OUR GRAVES WE LIE

I approached the monument alone, and gently rubbed my paws over the letters, looking up. The monument had hundreds of names carved into it, though in the light, they were not readable.

The Docent cocked his head. "This is not, I take, merely an exercise in recalling past battles?"

I turned, and shook my head. "No, sir. These furs, they're from my home."

The cat looked up, his paws clasped once more in front of him. "Elfhame. An ancient holding. What are you looking for?"

I looked at the monument again, and felt out the names. "Docent, how was this built? When was it built?"

The cat took a puff on his pipe, and reclasped his paws. "Time out of mind, with technology beyond that which is known by furs today. When an elf dies, there are judgements made by a court without robes, scrolls or gavels. But judgements are made, for any fur to read if they care to. Lord Chanticleer being a case in point."

"But surely, this monument wasn't built all at once, was it?"

A slow shake of the head. "Accumulated over time, like legends and myth. What lessons can be drawn from them isn't always clear."

"I'm actually looking for some facts, Docent. Can you help me find some names?"

He bowed. "Of course. Your family's name?"

"Winterbough."

The Docent approached the monument, and gently laid a paw flat against its surface. "Monument, please show this young fur the Winterboughs that you memorialize here. The ones that were to be remembered."

He withdrew his paw, and there was silence and dark. Then, like glowing embers, there were faint sparks of blue that ignited. Not in one spot, or even in a few spots. As I sank to my knees and looked up, there were revealed names scattered throughout the roster listed on the memorial. There were those written in an archaic spelling near the top. But the names further down below were familiar. There was a Westersloe Winterbough. Over there, a Westersloe Winterbough II, along with a Standfast Winterbough. Here, Westersloe Winterbough III's name glowed brightly, in part because there were other names close to it that were also picked out in blue.

Near the bottom, there were three names in a row. Forest Winterbough. Castor Winterbough. Pollux Winterbough. My father and my two brothers. Furs that fell in some distant land, and that never came back to Elfhame. Furs whose voice and touch I never knew.

I put my cheek against those names. The letters were not hot, even if they did glow. The only thing hot were my tears.

From behind me, I could hear the cat murmuring some verses. I caught some of them:

Sing, O Bards, with voices clear

Of the war twixt Faerie and Dareth;

Of Winterbough, of vision clear,

Whose storm struck the foe to death.

[...]

And flights of arrows, black-fletch'd Death

Did eclipse Fair Fuma's lambent Moon,

Spreading terror among the hosts of Dareth,

Spreading hope that help would come soon.

[...]

Then stood forth Winterbough, valiant buck,

Hoof raised in token of parley

And challenged, 'Come, try your luck!

And again be mowed down like barley!'

[...]

Five times the hosts of Dareth dared

The heights that valiant Faerie held.

Five times again how ill they fared;

Their charge Elfhame Rangers repell'd.

Some time must have passed, after he ceased reciting, before I felt a firm paw on my shoulder. The Docent gently pulled me upright, and extinguished the lights on the memorial as I wiped my eyes. I stammered out an apology to him.

He stood, pondering for a moment. "Those in ancient times who caused this Hall to be built would have been pleased. Not because of the tears or the heartache, but because there's been something created out of the ancient dust and still air. A memory. There's little to steal here, and grave robbers would be very disappointed furs, indeed. But those who would mine these stones to prepare for the future are going to find themselves rich, and in ways that can't be taxed away, stolen or lost under a bed."

Meadow gently led me away from the cenotaph, as the Docent walked behind us, until we reached the threshold where the light from outside met the dark of the inside. Before leaving, I turned to him once more, as he stood in the dark, regarding me with quiet interest.

"Sir, how can I ever live up to those names?"

He considered the question, and walked away. But his answer hung in the air.

"It's not how you mine wisdom. It's how you refine it."