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.She determines to seek out the aunt for whom her sister is named, Abbess Gisela in her cloister, and ask for sanctuary.Riding alone, protected—with irony that she recognizes, and loathes—by her own waxing magic, she comes to her aunt’s abbey.The abbess takes her in, clearly not crediting her story of a sudden urge to penitence, but choosing to accept it, for the moment.Rowan settles in to prayer, penance, and a concerted attempt to purge herself of magic.She reckons without Kerrec.He comes to her in the cloister, calls her coward and abandoner of her kin, and hauls her back.She, fighting him and striking to wound, cries out that if he calls her a coward, then he must know whereof he speaks.For a moment she knows that he will kill her, but his response is quiet.One would think so, he says.They return just in time.Michael Phokias has the Talisman, and with it Gisela.He works a sorcery to weaken the Emperor and subvert the Emperor’s ministers.Rowan and Kerrec struggle to prevent him, but they fail.The Emperor is ill.The elephant, Abul Abbas, is none too well either.Its will and its strength are bound somehow to the Talisman; Kerrec is not sure how, although he has driven himself to exhaustion in trying to find out.Rowan, who has become fond of the huge, wise beast, is beside herself with worry for both her father and the elephant.She and Kerrec, united in a wary truce, decide at last upon a plan.They will try to find Michael Phokias, who has not been in evidence since he worked his sorcery, and with him find the Talisman.They will also do what they can to free Gisela from his spell.The hunt ends where to an extent it began, in the stable near the elephant’s pavilion.In the confrontation, Rowan rescues Kerrec, who has set himself against a sorcery far stronger than his own, and offers herself to Michael Phokias.He needs one of the Emperor’s blood in order to wake the Talisman to its full power.Just as Michael Phokias accepts, Abul Abbas bursts his bonds and overwhelms the sorcerer.Rowan seizes the Talisman.As she touches it, all her will and desire pour out of her without any conscious volition: to see her father well and the beast likewise, the sorcerer cast far away and stripped of his power, the empire safe and the land quiet and Kerrec, who she fears is dead, alive and well and driving her to distraction.In the final scene, Gisela is free of the sorcerer’s binding, and ready at last to go into her beloved cloister.The Emperor is in splendid health.Rowan is distraught that she has “used up” the Talisman, but the Emperor reminds her that it is still a very holy thing, and it has power yet and always to guard his spirit.He agrees to keep it and to wear it, and never to put it off again.There remains only Kerrec.The Emperor wishes him to receive a great reward.He asks only to serve the Emperor as the servant of Abul Abbas.Such modesty becomes him, as all agree and as Rowan finds somewhat difficult to credit.She taxes him with it.He grows angry, and in his anger reveals his true name and house.In the ensuing uproar, Rowan corroborates his statements, and one by one others come forward with their own tales of the battle in which Kerrec’s father died.At length all is settled, and Kerrec is confirmed in his lands and his title, with no taint of shame.He asks, however, to continue as the elephant’s servant.He is not looking at Abul Abbas when he speaks, but at Rowan.She pretends not to notice.But she is very much aware of both his meaning and his intent; and not, when she thinks about it, displeased.***Nancy Varian BerberickWhen Nancy Varian Berberick began her writing career, she lived in a far, cold corner of northern New Jersey and scratched out a garden from the stony hill and the woods behind her house.Then she lived on the very hot, very damp southern edge of North Carolina, where she only had to wish for a garden and the rain would fall, granting her vegetables, flowers, herbs, and kudzu.Lots of kudzu.Now she lives in warm (and sometimes very hot, but almost always dry) New Mexico, near the foothills of the Sandia Mountains.She finds it just right.Nancy is the author of eleven fantasy novels, most recently Prisoner of Haven in the Dragonlance series and from Margaret Weis Productions, The Lost Sword, a choose-your-own-adventure book for kids.Nancy has also written three dozen or so short stories, in the fantasy, science fiction, and horror genres, some for children and most for adults.Unlike other synopses of mine, this for The Jewels of Elvish is very short indeed.That’s because I wrote it after having completed the novel
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