Ektelyon

Ektelyon is an old high elf in the campaign Zincirsiz ("Unchained"), who receives visitors in a three-storey shop beside the east wall of Sınır Sapı, among books and the smell of tea. His family name appears to be Nova, and his family is said to share its elven line with a figure remembered among the god-slayers.¹²

The shop and its keeper

Ektelyon's collection holds books of which very few copies exist, along with maps, trinkets and paintings. Money alone is not reason enough for him to sell a book: he wants to believe that the buyer needs it and will do it no harm. He says that the fame of a member of his family, young by his own reckoning, changed all their lives. Because of his age and his family's standing, he says, few dare to touch him.³⁴

He holds that taking the young into the Archon against their will, or not letting them leave when they wish, goes against freedom. He judges the emperor more merciful than others but does not embrace the order, granting that life is complex and that it is easy to criticise from outside.⁵

A white dove settled on his shoulder while he spoke, and he petted it. He counts the dwarf Fundin Alsakal an old friend, and believes Fundin is one of those who keep the witch hunters away from him; he hinted that something had passed between them but said no more.⁶⁷

Helping Jonathan

When Jonathan River and Olaf came to the shop, Ektelyon said that he knew similar violent effects from history books, but had never met such a thing spreading by itself like a plague on this scale. He was understanding about Jonathan's lack of papers and his errand, and sent him to Fundin and to the elf commander Ignorr. He welcomed Jonathan's help with dusting and cataloguing, saying that if Jonathan found a duplicate he might keep the second copy, and agreed to look through his storeroom, where he had magic scrolls he could not name, for those on Jonathan's list. As Jonathan left, he said that he sensed a weight on his soul.⁸⁹¹⁰

Some of the books that arrived before the quarantine were still unsorted; he gave Jonathan thirty or forty of them, which Jonathan shelved in an hour or two, and said that, being exacting, he would check them afterwards. He thought he might find a few, though not all, of the lesser spells Jonathan sought.¹¹⁴¹²

The memory search

After Jonathan lost a span of days he could not recall, he asked Ektelyon to search his memory with his consent. Ektelyon, already worried about Lady Teresa, was at first reluctant and said he would look only at what was asked; given the urgency, he agreed to do it at night under the stars. The work was painful: he found a resistance placed from outside and forced open some fragments of memory, which Jonathan saw too, among them two different images of Teresa. He did not claim to have brought back all the lost time.¹³¹⁴¹⁵

He described Teresa as one who had bonded with the forest like a mother, who could hide there if she escaped but might stay behind if the forest were threatened, and said that the sickness could also touch wild animals. He knew Captain Markus as an ordinary officer who bought books, lived alone and had invited him to dinner. Weighing the two images of Teresa, a strong disguise, a shapechanging creature or a mask, he advised Jonathan not to spread what he had seen until it made sense, since others reading meaning into the unknown too early could do harm. He then gave Jonathan a scroll of Clairvoyance, its price to be settled later, and Jonathan copied it into his book.¹⁶¹⁷¹⁸

The heart of the forest

When Jonathan told him of the foe behind the town's troubles, Ektelyon put aside his tired interest and warned him how great the danger was. He had promised Teresa not to speak of her bond with the forest spirits, but since Jonathan had already learned much of it, he told him the rest. By his account a forest spirit, before Sınır Sapı was founded, liked the land and spread its spirit through it; such joinings can bring plenty in one place and evil or bewildering results in another. Teresa, once more of a wanderer, had settled here to guard that spirit and its influence.^19202122

In the laboratories of the elven academies he had seen specimens called fey hearts, but never one joined with nature. Such a heart, he said, is unlike a human or elven heart and grows into the roots near the centre of its land; it is not a thing someone digs a hole and buries. He read Fundin's memory of a dead fey more cautiously: if its influence went on, he thought the spirit lived on in changed form. His own lore, he said, could not settle questions of its death, which might be debated at the Archon or at the elven academy of Starsong, and he gave no single recipe for using a heart. Fey are held to be creatures of chaos and creation, highly magical and dangerous to handle.^23242526

He thought it reasonable to search where the growth was thickest, though he did not know whether the laws of Galevan would hold in a fey heart. For the mind-shielding ring Jonathan wanted, he offered to speak to the elf commander, on condition that Jonathan come too and give part of his reasons and what he could offer in return. At the post the respect shown to his age and family eased the meeting, and he vouched for Jonathan's word.^27282930

The old letter

Before Jonathan left the town, Ektelyon took an old letter from a cupboard full of letters and gave it to him as a keepsake, trusting that he would value it. It begins "Hello, uncle", speaks of going down to Kızıl Kale and of perhaps calling within three months, and is signed Alcarin Nova, a name remembered as that of a master of the chain and a god-slayer.³¹