Narrator:
A figure sits cross-legged before the smoking embers of yesterday's fire. His back is straight, his feet locked about his knees, as he stares blankly to the east. The sky is still black and the stars fully visible overhead. Yet, just on the horizon, a tinge of deep red is beginning to creep upward.
Gallilei: [thinking]
Sunrise.
"The possibilities for the day spread before us as the light of a sunrise."
Narrator:
Thus wrote Sky, another elf now long dead, who Gallilei has adopted as a sort of spiritual mentor. Wise she was, but distant and difficult to comprehend. It was this very distance, the emotional chasm which she placed between herself and both her peers and readers which lead many to abandon her works with disdain. Not Gallilei. That very distance is the thing with which he identifies most. It keeps the world, and the pain there, at bay.
Sunrise.
As the red band which marks the transition from the black, night sky before in to the pale blue behind, moves slowly across the sky, Gallilei harkens back to a myriad of other sunrises he has seen.
Sunrise. No two are ever precisely the same.
There was one, very long ago. Unlike this one, it's early moments were occluded by the spires of his hometown. Small gray clouds had hung near the horizon that day. Gallilei stood before a large window and introduced his first daughter to her first sunrise. He was young, and happy, and she was the center of the world.
There was another, hardly a hand of decades thereafter. It was even cloudier, and the birds could be heard singing their spring song. On that morn, he held her first child before the same window for the same reason.
The red band hangs high now, nearly overhead, and the eastern sky is the pale blue of full daylight.
There was another sunrise, a clear day like this one, when Gallilei had asked Lyra to marry him. Lyra had been a youngster. She had not yet four score winters. Gallilei was an Elder, a respected man nearly twenty times her age. There would be talk, he knew. He could weather it easily. But he wondered at the effect it would have on her. She put his mind to rest on that topic immediately. She simply didn't care. But, that was exactly the reaction he'd expected from one so spontaneous as her. It was the thing which attracted him most to her.
It was another sunrise, this one nearly invisible for the dark clouds above it, when he was told that Lyra had been caught during a swarm of bees and was dead.
Sunrise.
Quickly, to avoid his perennial melancholy, he thinks to another sunrise. This one hardly a week hence. It was in a wood much like this one, on the road to Westend, when Windwalker had given him not only the final bits of his introduction to the real world, but his immediate marching orders.
Windwalker: [in Gallilei's mind]
The humans, guided by the young Jhereg, wish to retake the castle which was cursed by the Druids. The elves are amenable. The Druids are amenable, provided the land is not abused. One person stands in the way.
[pause]
Wood.
Narrator:
Wood.
The name was legend. Wood, most senior of the Elders. Wood, who has once led the Druids. Wood, who displeased with the other Druids stepped down from that role and left their ranks.
Wood.
Gallilei: [recounting in his mind]
But where is Wood to be found? He has not been seen for years.
Windwalker:
He will oppose lifting the ban. He will be present when the negotiations take place.
But he has a price. Ask him to name his price. When he does, ask him if it is a binding offer. When he agrees, tell him the deal is concluded.
Gallilei:
So mote it be.
Tell me, what further background do we have on this curse? I had heard of the curse, and assumed it was because the Druids thought the humans were encroaching too far upon the forest. But, it seems an extreme position after this many generations of humans. Is there anything else to be known about this incident which was not public at the time?
It may be useful in getting the negotiation to the point you have described.
Windwalker:
It was part of a faction fight in the druidic councils. The curse was laid, among other things, to help keep humans and elves apart.
Word of this undertaking is public, spread far and wide. The druids know of it. They will be there when the group crosses into the forbidden lands. Be careful, they are a dangerous place.
Neil:
There won't be a need to bring humans into elven cities.
.......
Narrator: [Ed: after the recounting]
The terminator touches the western horizon and Gallilei arises. Having prepared his gear for travel before his meditations, Gallilei swings his possessions over his back and continues the walk toward Westend.
His next sunrise, he muses, will see him in a human city for the fist time. That should be a sunrise to remember.
It dawns on him [pardon the pun] that Windwalker has lead him to enter a dangerous place to do Windwalker's bidding. Is this just a survival habit of Windwalkers? To have others do what is dangerous?