The Two Confessions

by John Whitbourn

  In the front courtyard resided an old all-purpose handcart. Samuel's luggage had travelled in it when he first arrived. Directly the Elf touched the handles it regained colour and solidity, incorporated into their present realm.

  ‘Take this. You will need it.’

  It sounded ridiculous. Come to that, Trevan was sure it looked ridiculous (could anyone see), but he obeyed, trundling the little cart along behind his leader.

  It transpired that everything Samuel required had been right in front of his nose from the start. The Elves' treasury lay unguarded in open view, dumped by the roadside on the way into Welcombe. Perhaps the name should have supplied a clue.

  Most was either bullion or gems. The Elf gestured him forward and Trevan needed no second prompting. Using his strong arms like scoops, the cart was soon awash with wealth - much of it antique and/or beautiful, although Samuel didn't pause to admire. When the first frenzy was past, he took to selecting the more negotiable stuff, like coin.

  He was confident of being surveyed with disgust - but reckoned that a price worth paying. It didn't take a Hebrew goldsmith to tell him he was loading a fortune per minute.

  ‘Enough.’

  He'd been right: the Elf voice was twisted by distaste. Samuel ignored it in favour of packing down and filling odd corners.

  ‘No more!’ Disdain had soured into anger. Trevan turned and caught the departing signs of associated expression. Then, entire master of his face, the Elf resumed his usual bland mask.

  ‘Can I keep it?’ Samuel asked, pretending to be innocently touched.

  ‘Yes. We intend a secure future for you. Now follow.’

  There seemed no question of the Elf waiting for him. Samuel exerted all his strength and got the burdened wheels going.

  ‘It's a risk, isn't it,’ he puffed, ‘leaving that lovely mountain out in the open?’

  It is removed from your domains.’

  ‘Even so....’

  ‘And is of no great concern to us. The material is easily acquired.’

  ‘Legitimately?’

  The Elf was amused.

  ‘What does that mean? But no, of course not: not in your terms. Do try to understand. We only demean ourselves with it for vermin transactions, or for our rare children to play with. Only infants and animals like yourself attribute value to such dross.’

  Samuel increased the pace to keep up. ‘I really should resent these constant slights,’ he said.

  ‘But you will not. Amidst the wider opportunities presented you will find it strangely easy to be mild. Also, you are no match for me.’

  ‘I could always come closer....’

  ‘Ah yes, I forgot that.’

  ‘And you forgot to explain as well.’

  ‘No, not at all. The omission is quite deliberate.’

  It was a dead end. So Samuel turned the conversation round.

  ‘I still can't see why you don't knock me off.’

  ‘No.’ Mere agreement.

  ‘And that's something else you'll hide, is it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Likewise, where we're going.’

  ‘Wait and see.’

  The sterile exchange was elbowed aside by Samuel noting something odd even by present standards. Their steps were traversing more ground than they ought - and increasingly so. Though bowing low before a lumbering cargo, Trevan was travelling at better than sprint speed and the colour-drained landscape was fairly streaking past. Which should have been cause for stumbling and sweating, yet he felt no call for either.

  ‘We are not like you after-lifers,’ his guide obligingly confirmed. ‘Exemption from Judgement removes the obligation to tread each sequential point. Or experience every plodding second. Stay - moderately - close and you will be similarly blessed.’

  ‘It's handy,’ Samuel admitted as Bideford and then another, larger and unknown, town flashed by. ‘But where are we-....’

  ‘Here,’ said the Elf, and they stopped dead, completely untroubled by mundane matters like momentum.

  Samuel looked about. It was an English village; simultaneously a typical but also curious one. All the normal sights - thatch and fields, church and cattle-trough - were present and correct, but in addition the place was ringed with raised stones.

  Trevan knew something about these: about how the pre-Flood people had erected circles and avenues of rock in which to worship demons, or maybe mark their Limbo-bound dead. Under Mr Farncombe's tutelage he'd read all about them, in books which buried bafflement under flimsy house-of-cards speculation.

  Samuel set the cart down. ‘Where's 'here'?’ he asked.

  ‘I will not use the newcomer name. And our own is too sacred to relate.’

  ‘Alright then: why here?’

  Samuel saw that the Elf really had had enough of his company. The white brow furrowed as the brain beneath pondered all that remained to be said - and the swiftest way of saying it. The conclusions came out like bullets.

  ‘Here we tried to teach you true religion, back when you first arrived. After our wars of extermination failed. But that went wrong too; the call of the sordid was too strong for your elevation. Too few would sacrifice eternity or ‘soul’, despite their drawbacks. However, some of our influence still lingers here. Call it residue missionary spirit. You will be more shielded here than elsewhere. Remain one week and do not stray abroad. There still remain dangers to you that must be liquidated. Meanwhile, we shall send you a gold merchant, one of our hybrids. He will convert your plunder into - I hate this word - money. Trust him but no one else. Then go wherever you chose.’

  Following so long in Elf company and one epiphany after another, Samuel was almost reluctant to part. Might not normal life now seem insipid by contrast? What relish could there be in watered-down stuff: ‘Adam’s ale’ after champagne? Even more than death Samuel feared eternal beige.

  ‘Will we meet again?’

  Trevan had gained the impression that Elves had little strength of feeling, but a fair stock of it rode on the reply.

  ‘I sincerely hope not.’

  For some reason that did it where all the other insults hadn't. Good honest anger made Samuel leap forward and grab the Elf by his elegant neck. He was about to punch him in the face (though surprised he'd got that far alive) when it became clear there was no need. In every place Trevan touched, the Elf was burned to the bone. Smoke came from under Samuel's fingers as they visibly melted their way down. Shocked, he withdrew. The Elf fell without grace.

  ‘Sorry!’ Trevan always felt that way when he flared and won. Crocodile tears were fine, a permissible indulgence, so long as they came after victory.

  The Elf would or could not speak. He made one, then another, attempt to rise; finally prevailing via a period on all fours. After a space for recovery he made a weak bow.

  ‘The future arrives in anger,’ he said, in a gasping vestige of his former voice, ‘and I submit.’

  ‘Do you?’ Samuel was half aghast and half wary of being duped. He was still poised to strike.

  ‘Yes. That is what this is all about. We must acclimatise....’

  Trevan decided to go with it, never one to withhold his teeth from gnawing on advantage.

  ‘Right then. Well, the stories say a beaten faery grants three wishes….’

  The Elf attempted a smile but failed.

  ‘Mere myth, alas.’

  ‘Oh, well... how about three questions then?’

  ‘Or what, vermin?’

  Samuel lifted a fist as illustration.

  ‘Another such encounter and I will die,’ husked the Elf. ‘Our flesh is more fastidious than yours.’

  ‘So?’ Trevan didn't really mean that - but it sounded good.

  ‘So you would be stranded in our world, forever segregated from humanity.’

  ‘Ah....’

  ‘But I will comply, just the same. Strategy dictates that you be humoured. Clothe your dreary puzzlements in words.’

  ‘What? Oh, right….’


  He had to think quickly, but burning questions naturally bubbled to the surface in swift order.

  ‘Well, for one thing: what is it down in the mine?’

  Samuel succeeded where the Sicarii had not.

  ‘A pimple from another state of being. A random, accidental, intrusion from a sentient elsewhere. An air-bubble in your world's brick, as it were. It is limited and bound and can only look, but it is also occasionally curious.’

  Trevan reflected that the older breeds were not so delicate as they made out. The Elf was visibly recovering his former assurance and health.

  ‘So, not a god then?’ he said.

  ‘Hardly; no more than its spy hole is a 'mine'. The creature first appeared under your Bristol Channel and slowly eroded its way to a better viewing point. It will come no further in. It cannot. Your rulers worry without call. Their monastery project was unnecessary.’

  ‘So it's a demon?’ ventured Samuel.

  That produced a tired sigh and despairing accord.

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘And malign?’

  ‘Not really. It will do favours and play games with whichever faction triumphs. But it knows the rules - just as we do. Next question.’

  ‘Why am I such poison to you?’

  The deep wounds Trevan had made were now 'only' black scars, but their unsightliness seemed to trouble the Elf far more than what went before. He'd drawn up his collar to hide them.

  ‘You are not up to this,’ he said. ‘With a more educated vermin perhaps....’

  ‘Try me.’

  Another resigned sigh.

  ‘Umm... well, I could say that we are borderline diffuse beings, blurred somewhat over the linear time you are trapped in. So, we sense the future coming, just as we feel the past die. You are a possible future - and a bad one. The closer you approach the deeper we experience it. And whilst we may not remove you there is hope that you may be moderated. Hence our help and gifts.’

  ‘And don't think I'm not grateful.’ Samuel thought it a fair stab at sincerity.

  ‘No you're not,’ the Elf batted back in complete confidence. ‘Ingratitude is an intrinsic newcomer trait.’

  Trevan didn't care for being so well read. ‘This future...,’ he growled. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘A ‘revolution’, in ‘industry’: I will show you.’

  One long Elf finger outlined a frame in the air – and thus created a window into… elsewhere. It showed a world of black factories and smoke, of roads and haste. And little else besides.

  ‘The image will be brief,’ said the Elf, who seemed to have problems holding it stable, ‘since it is far off. Mark it well.’

  Trevan did. No one could call it a pretty scene by any means, but it looked like people were improving themselves. Samuel saw a go-ahead, prospering, sort of place and he wanted to see more, but the picture soon faltered and died.

  ‘When?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, that rather depends on you - and your dangerous energy.’

  The reply was prompt enough but unsatisfactory - and wilfully so. Only elder-breed cunning forestalled an angry follow-up.

  ‘This,’ said the Elf, hurriedly, ‘will be clearer, because closer. Look.’

  A replacement view, indeed crystal clear, showed a room Samuel knew well. Mr Farncombe was at ease in his parlour, in his shirtsleeves, washing Roman pottery sherds and far from prepared for visitors. When an ashen-faced Mrs Farncombe showed the Sicarii in, her husband's jaw descended like a trapdoor. Introductions brought only basic recovery and the terrifyingly friendly soldier had to step forward to shake Farncombe’s dripping, drooping, hand.

  ‘A brighter prospect, I think,’ said the Elf, sweeping the vision out of existence.

  ‘For me, anyway,’ Samuel specified, almost daring to hope.

  ‘That was my meaning. For the present it is you that counts.’

  ‘So you say. Is that it or do I get a third question?’

  The Elf shrugged. ‘Why not?’

  ‘I want to know who still thinks of me.’

  ‘Surprising people,’ came the laconic reply. ‘But that is not what you mean. You want those who think warmly of you.’

  ‘I suppose....’

  ‘Two.’ A blunt answer, drawn from lengthy Elven scenting of the air. He looked to be seeking out spoor from the ether. ‘I find just two sticky lines of sentiment searching you out.’

  ‘Who?’ Again there was the pain of hope.

  ‘One is your vermin-mate. 'Mel'... Melissa? She is ardent. Must I probe for detail? It is disgusting for me.’

  ‘Don't. Who else?’

  ‘A parent or mentor. 'Mar'? O' Mar? His spark is fading but currently fixed on you. He is due to depart. Was there some promise made to him? By you? About after his death?’

  Samuel’s stomach lurched. Acid abounded.

  ‘There was.’

  The Elf sniffed for particulars.

  ‘He thinks of it in hope. He meanwhile worries about you. Also, he is recalling some foreign city.’

  ‘Will he last a week?’

  ‘No. And I warn you: though he yearns for it you must not go to him.’

  Samuel thought about that - but not for long.

  ‘I'll just have to miss him then.’

  So be it. That was the way the world was. Trevan told himself pragmatism outweighed sentiment and was - almost - consoled.

  ‘Presumably,’ the Elf said, amused, ‘you believe you'll meet again in your… ‘afterlife’.’

  ‘No. But I'll raise a statue to him in Lewes.’

  Again, the Elf tuned in to a private transmission.

  ‘That is not what he wants.’

  ‘It'll have to do. I'm not arranging things I don't believe in. Masses won't serve his soul or memory. Better he should be remembered in the real world….’

  Deliberately trailed bait. But because he didn't care what men thought the Elf didn’t take it.

  ‘Then our bargain is fulfilled,’ he said.

  Samuel was thinking of all the things he could have asked. But the chance was gone. No point begging. Let it go.

  ‘Yeah, reckon so. Sorry about the... you know....’

  He indicated the wounds he'd inflicted and, with a nod, the Elf implied they were nothing. By now it was nearly true.

  ‘My actions postpone the future and I thereby heal myself,’ he said. Samuel could not be bothered to comprehend.

  ‘Well, thanks for everything....’

  ‘Oh no, thank you, vermin,’ said the Elf - and seemed to mean it. He forced himself to touch the human and they thereby parted.

  Samuel found he welcomed the return of normal colour and shade, even if knowledge of the Elf's unseen presence detracted somewhat. He decided to assume that that problem - like so many others apparently - was speedily removing itself. Happily, the treasure hadn't followed suit. He sped to lay tight grip on it.

  For a moment he basked in the renewed warmth of the sun, and likewise his revived good fortunes. Then Samuel Trevan squared his shoulders against the world and wheeled his cart down the main avenue of megaliths, into Avebury and the years to come.

  ************

  Some days later he met a girl there, whilst out studying the stones. She proved as interested and informed as he, and likewise in a holiday mood. It seemed auspicious.

  Up to then he'd been on tenterhooks, standing sleepless guard over his hoard till the promised Elf contact arrived. When he did, Samuel's red eyes learnt that Elf and human blood could prove an unhappy mix, blending faults from both. The stunted, corpse-cold, banker had no greetings, no conversation, and he bargained hard. When he and his armed servitors left, consistent to the end without a smile or farewell, Trevan held a thrice-checked draft in his favour. It was for more than he could spend in one lifetime, even trying hard. Samuel then slept the clock round, dreaming of celebration.

  In consequence, this chance-met girl was just the ticket: curious, easy-going and good company. Just like him it was her first day o
ff for ages; a break from drudgery at a nearby big house. Her being Welsh explained away the strange accent and reverence for the past. Few local girls would choose to spend their precious free time studying old stones. Ever cautious, Samuel looked long into her sloe-eyes but glimpsed no gold. Then that prolonged gaze decided it for them both.

  Back at his lodgings he had her three ways, and then they had claret and guinea-fowl. Then they did it again as dessert. To himself, Samuel briefly queried her inventiveness and noisy delight, but put that down to her origins too. The ‘Cymric arts of love’ were acclaimed by men of the world throughout Christendom. Even procurers for the harems of the dual Caliphs had heard of them. So it seemed only natural when for whole moments at a time she was rampant and bestrode the wild frontier of strumpet-dom - but without ever crossing over. A certain fragile innocence to her was the tart sauce on top.

  The only shadow over their encounter came with dusk and the girl's natural melancholy at thoughts of an early start to skivvying tomorrow. She'd got just a day off whereas Samuel was starting a whole life off.

  What remained of Trevan’s good heart was touched just as his grosser parts had been. He brushed back the black curls drooping over her moon-face, and for once the rush of impulse was not opposed. It was only the first of many such he could now indulge: a whole neglected army of them, long deprived of rations.

  ‘Must you go?’ he asked. ‘In fact, don't go. No need. Stay. Tell you what, Jane - that's your name, isn't it? Marry me if you like....’

  He shocked himself as much as her. He heard his voice saying so, but none of the expected ‘common sense’ cavils stampeded in its train. That wasn’t like him either.

  The offer hung in the air. It had put her mouth into an O of surprise. Then, presumably by way of consent, she slowly lowered it onto Samuel’s cock. Which rose to the occasion.

  Trevan recognised a contract when he saw - or enjoyed - one. He felt god-like and deserving of everything. Having risked so much and endured so much and worked so hard, it was now life's long overdue turn to fit in with him. He'd have whatever good things it could give - and not stint on them either. And if there remained any opposition, or should new problems arise, then his wealth or the Sicarii would sweep them all away. Or crush them.