The Riddle - Alison Croggon [205]
Arkan was considered second only to the Nameless One as a threat to the Light: he had covered all Edil-Amarandh with ice in the Elemental Wars, causing unprecedented destruction and forcing the Elidhu to raise the Osidh Annova and Osidh Elanor as defenses against him. Before the Great Silence, he had allied himself with the Nameless One, and after their joint victory had spread his influence over all of the North and Northern Annar, withdrawing only when Maninaë finally defeated the forces of the Dark in the Battle of Malinau in A3234. After that, Arkan was forced to leave Arkan-da in the Trukuch Ranges and was banished to the deep North, a banishing effected by some council or gathering of Elidhu and Bards of the Light apparently convened by Ardina. There is no description of this mysterious meeting anywhere in the records, and after its brief mention in Lanorgil of Pellinor’s History, Elidhu disappear from human affairs for nine centuries.
There is little doubt that the Annaren Bards had good reason for their loathing of Arkan. His treachery was the most grievous blow against the Light in Lirion and Imbral, and it was probably his decisive influence that led to their downfall. But in his own way Arkan is as puzzling and ambiguous a figure as Ardina. Documents dating from the Dawn Age often paint a very different figure from that described by Piron above: a being of somewhat perilous charisma and personal beauty. “The Elidhu Arkan is like to a spirit of winter, in human form, and his beauty is both stormy and still,” writes a clearly infatuated Elagil of Afinil. “He hath skin that glitters as white as unblemished snow, and his eyes are of the glancing blues of a clear wintry sky. Yet cold though he be, he is not unmoved by feeling: he hath both the passions and gentleness of a wolf, and speaks often with a loving delicacy of many marvelous and strange things that exist in the world. He is a being of unmatchable beauty and charm; of all the Elidhu, only Ardina can rival his presence in our halls. If he is a being of frost and ice, then surely such passions as he evinces should melt him: but his fiery glances only serve to intensify his dazzling allure.”15
Others refer to his generosity in sharing his knowledge with the Dhyllin: and in particular, there are tantalizing hints of a love that sprang between the greatest of the Afinil Bards, Nelsor, the inventor of the Treesong runes, and Arkan. Although no documents to date speak directly of this, various attributions and dedications by Nelsor himself to Arkan confirm at least the existence of a profound friendship. The sources suggest that the Treesong was indeed revealed to the Bards by Arkan, who may have actively participated in the creation of the runes. Intriguingly, the only contemporary references that speak of the relationship between Ardina and Arkan show no sign of any enmity between them, despite their bitter opposition during the Elemental Wars and his later banishment, but rather suggest at least mutual respect, or even friendship.
RELATIVELY speaking, we have a lot of information about the Treesong, mainly from the Naraudh Lar-Chanë and most notably from Cadvan of Lirigon’s extensive study of it in his crucial scroll The Treesong Alphabet, a document that has been preserved almost complete. Nevertheless, what the Treesong was, how it was created, and what it meant remains as essentially inscrutable as the Speech itself.
It is generally agreed among the Bardic sources that the runes were made by Nelsor of Afinil, who also invented the Nelsor script most often used by Bards, and that they were stolen by Sharma who attempted to use them to create the binding spell of immortality and to give himself the powers of the Elidhu. As we know, he only half succeeded in his aim, and after this the Treesong was hidden