Immortal

by T Nisbet

Chp. 43

  “I recommend you listen my boy. Tell the truth if asked anything, and don’t accept any food or drink if it is offered,” Thallium said softly. “The last time I had fairy wine…”

  “He almost agreed to marry me,” said a musical female voice behind me.

  I turned slowly and looked. Standing in the roadway not five feet away from me was the most beautiful women I’d ever seen in my life. Her hair was the color of golden wheat and fell about her naked shoulders in a cascade of tightly bunched curls. Light blue eyes regarded me with amusement, which pulled up the edges of her rich red lips.

  I looked down ashamed. Ivy was trapped in a dungeon, and here I was ogling a beautiful, almost naked woman.

  “Don’t beat yourself up lad. This isn’t a woman, this is Illithril, the fairy queen.” Thallium laughed. “She is the incarnation of all that a man could dream for.”

  “And yet you rejected me, dear Peenors,” the fairy queen said, with a sad lilt in her voice.

  “Peenors? Your first name is Peenors?” I chuckled inwardly, my eyes still cast downwards. “You must have been teased mercilessly as a kid.”

  “I didn’t reject you altogether Illithril,” Thallium said ignoring me and talking to the fairy queen. “I said I would gladly marry you after I finished my penance.”

  “So you did love, so you did,” the queen of the fairies laughed lightly. “It’s good you remember since your penance might be over soon. The immortal has the Demon bound and has but to remove it from this world before we can be together my love.”

  Thallium laughed loudly in my head.

  “It’s not quite that simple my queen. The fact that I lack any physical substance could get in the way.”

  “This body you inhabit now would do… quite nicely,” the fairy queen sighed.

  I looked up at that, and found her smiling at me in a most seductive manner. She was absolutely, radiantly lovely. Her ripe body was covered in layers of white diaphanous silk that hugged the curves of her perfect figure. She reminded me of Ivy.

  “I can be anything you want me to be young immortal, and more,” she said moving closer to me. “I can be your girlfriend, or anything else you desire.”

  I looked away as I felt a flush of anxiety rush through me.

  “Ivy is all I could ever want,” I managed to stammer. “I love her.”

  “And you could never love me?” the queen of the fairies breathed moving closer until I could smell flowers and fertile earth.

  I forced myself to take a step backwards, my heart starting to race in my chest.

  “His heart belongs to another, Illithril,” Thallium chuckled. “I doubt it is within even your considerable power to stop their love, my queen.”

  “I’m not a fool Peenors. That was my gift to him for giving me back my kingdom,” the fairy queen laughed. It was the sound of music played to perfection.

  “Indeed, an amazing gift to be sure,” Thallium laughed. “But he would have realized he loved her in time.”

  “Perhaps, my dearest. I would offer him another gift then,” the fairy queen laughed and stepped back.

  I looked at her tentatively and saw by her body language that she was done flirting with me. A sense of utter loss mixed with profound relief. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “I would ask that you return here when your mission is complete Immortal. The light you carry is promised to me and I would have him brought back here so we can be married. In return, I will give you a gift that is very precious, more precious than any ever given to a child of mankind. Do we have a deal Immortal?”

  “Should I agree?” I asked Thallium, it was after all his choice, not mine.

  “I made a promise…” Thallium began.

  “Lord Thallium’s promise to me is binding, even if he did manage to have his essence pulled from his body,” smiled the queen.

  I shrugged.

  “Then I agree.”

  The fairy queen clapped excitedly and stepped forward offering me something in her hand. I reached out and she dropped a simple golden chain into my palm.

  “This chain is meant for one you call friend. She must accept it freely for she will be bound to it until God himself walks this land.”

  “Carla?” I asked, looking at the chain. It was unremarkable, just a simple golden chain.

  “That is her name for now I believe, but it will change. There is one more promise I would have of you before you go Immortal,” she said smiling at me benignly.

  “Yes mi lady?” I answered, casting my eyes down.

  “Bring the sage Llava and her daughter with you when you return,” she asked sweetly.

  “I’ll try, but I don’t know how…”

  “Your best effort is all I can ask,” she laughed, interrupting me with her beautiful voice. “Thank you again, Immortal. You have given me back my sweet kingdom and I name you friend. I shall not forget.”

  Looking back over her should a frightening gleam came into her eye.

  “Now away with you, the dark ones come. Remember what you have learned about the stones,” said the queen of the fairies, her eyes smoldering with anger.

  Her skin began to pulse with light, and then, suddenely, she was another dancing light. She joined the others swirling around me. I took another deep breath and let it out slowly trying to relax. The pinpoints of light swirled faster and faster, then streamed off down the road I had just come from.

  “I wouldn’t want to be a dark elf on the road tonight,” Thallium said. “That went pretty well all in all!”

  I swung myself up into the saddle and looked up at the light I’d created. I willed it to die out slowly and focused on restoring the light coming from my horse’s eyes. I willed it into being as nothing more than pinpoint of light and slowly added more and more magic to it letting the horse adjust properly this time.

  “You really are getting quite good at that,” Thallium snickered.

  “Why is this necklace important?” I asked urging the horse into a slow canter.

  The old man chuckled.

  “It’s a powerful token my boy. It could do anything at all. Under normal conditions I would tell you to bury it and forget you ever found it, but in this instance I would say you need to give it to Carla as the queen suggested.”

  “Anything? What do you mean anything at all?” I asked.

  “When it comes to crafting objects, the fairies are ruthlessly moral my son. Their items are usually both a blessing and a curse. For example, if you bought a pair of fairy shoes guaranteed to make you the best dancer to ever live, you would get a pair of shoes that did just that, but they might cause you to never stop dancing until you died from exhaustion. A ring that makes you the best looking person ever born might also make it so no one could see you. They have a twisted sense of how to enforce morality. People who gain a fairy-crafted item usually wish they’d never seen it.”

  “Great.” I sighed aloud getting ready to toss the necklace into the trees.

  “Don’t!” Thallium yelled in my head. “As I said, the circumstances under which you were given that item are completely different. It wasn’t given by a fickle fairy intent on having some fun, but by the Queen herself. She is neither fickle nor solely intent on having fun. That necklace is a gift roughly equal to the worth of gaining her kingdom back as she sees it. It must be extraordinarily powerful.”

  “Really…” I said putting it in the pocket of my tunic.

  “Indeed,” Thallium said. “I can feel its power, but it is unlike anything I’ve felt before.”

  “In a little while I won’t be able to hear you anymore.” I thought to myself. “Whenever I can’t hear you is usually the time it seems that I need to ask your advice the most.”

  “It is often hard to ask for an answer when you don’t know the question yet, my boy,” Thallium chuckled.

  I had to agree with that. I had a lot of questions, but none of them seemed very relevant to my current situation. The fairy queen sa
id she wanted me to bring Ivy and her mother to see her after the Demon stone was safe in our world. Why would she ask for that?

  “No idea my boy… none at all,” Thallium said. “But an invitation by the fairy queen is an honor not to be passed up.”

  “Can she see into the future?” I asked.

  “I wouldn’t dare to guess what she can and can’t do. She is older than me, older than the elves. Just how old she is, is anyone’s guess. She’s ancient in the true sense of the word.”

  “Do you think she knows that Ivy is trapped in the dungeon in Grimhome?” I asked.

  “I really couldn’t speculate either way,” Thallium said in a fatherly way. “I would say that King Zildain didn’t foresee the fairies taking back their woods so quickly, I certainly didn’t think she would move quite this fast. He might not even know it was the Demon that caused the fairies retreat and allowed his great grandfather to take these woods. I believe he will soon have more on his mind than who might be trapped in his dungeon.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well, I don’t presume to know the queen’s mind, but I would guess the first thing she will do is secure her border, which means she will be visiting Grimhome shortly.”

  “Holy crap!” I swore.

  “Holy crap indeed!” Thallium agreed.

  Thallium told me a lot about fairies and their kingdom while I rode towards the boulders where Gill, Bronn and Carla held their camp. Apparently the fairy folk were the only sentient creatures that originated in this world. Humans, Elves, dwarves etc, actually came to this place from other worlds. Because they originated here, the fairy folk were perfectly attuned to this world’s magic. When the Demon came, they were forced to flee through bridges created by the most powerful of their kind. The fairy ring at Brianna’s estate was an example of such a bridge. Thallium explained that the fairy folk were forced to flee because the Demon was drawing forth power from their magic, and using that power to break its bonds. Before they left, they played a trick on the Demon and manipulated its need for their magic against it. The result delayed the Demon’s plans, and forced it to find its power elsewhere. After the fairy folk succeeded in tricking the Demon, they scattered, waiting for the day they could return. Today was that day.

 

  We talked about a great many things including football, all the while Thallium’s voice grew weaker and weaker until I could barely understand him, and then he was gone. It was still dark, but the night air had that expectancy of dawn’s coming, when I topped the rise leading down into the clearing where my friend’s were hopefully waiting. I slowed my winded horse to a walk, as I drew even with the ledge Gill and I had stood on. I peered up at the stone ledge, but couldn’t see anything there in the darkness.

  “Gill?” I whispered trying to project my voice so he could here it.

  I waited impatiently for an answer, but there wasn’t any so I turned my horse off the road towards the immense granite boulders, surprised and apprehensive that neither Gill nor Bronn had challenged me.

  As I drew closer to the boulder I knew something was wrong, and I started to feel the beginning stages of panic. The horse’s eyes lit the area before the boulder, and I could see signs that a battle had taken place. Three dead, dark elf bodies lay in disarray covered in dried blood. My heart started pounding in my chest. Taking Gwensorloth’s hilt in my hand, I pulled it free of its scabbard.

  I concentrated on my breathing as my horse rounded the massive boulders, and the light from its eyes lit the camp. The wagon was on its side, a few of the casks of wine were broken, their contents spilled onto the pine-needle-covered ground. The rest of the casks were gone. I pulled in some magic and willed a soft light into being above the camp. A half dozen more dead blood elves littered the ground surrounding the fire pit. Several of the bodies had Gill’s arrows embedded in them.

  I dismounted and tied my tired horse to the wagon willing the light to fade from its eyes. It nickered happily as the light went out. Going over to the nearest blood elf, I bent down and felt its skin with my hand. It was cold to the touch. The blood on it neck had dried, but wasn’t black or flaky yet. I didn’t have any experience examining battles, but I figured the fight had happened a while ago.

  I began searching the camp frantically for some sign of Carla, Gill or Bronn. I kept thinking I’d find them dead, but I didn’t. Relief flooded through me. It only lasted a moment before I started speculating about what could have happened to them and I began worrying.

  I hadn’t passed anyone on the road, so I doubted they had fled towards Grimhome, if they had fled at all. The idea of the three of them having been captured swirled through my thoughts, and I had to close my eyes for a second. One-by-one and two-by-two my friend’s and companions had left me. My only companion now was a legendary old mage who thought surprises and teasing constituted a working relationship, and I couldn’t even talk with him unless I was drunk, exhausted, or in a place of power.

  If they had been captured, the obvious choice had to be Memron. We had, after all, captured his daughter. Somehow he must have found her and managed to take Bronn, Gill and Carla captive. That was really the only plausible option, if they hadn’t escaped.

  I heard the sound of a stick snapping and opened my eyes. At the edge of the light I had set hanging above the camp, two pairs of eyes reflected back at me. One of the pairs drew closer, and I could see it was a horse.

  Sheathing Gwensorloth I moved towards it slowly, trying not to frighten it. It moved forward as well, as if recognizing me. It was the horse I’d ridden from Lockewood! It walked up to my chest and nuzzled me with its nose. I pet it slowly whispering reassuring words. After a couple of minutes the other horse walked out of the darkness to stand before me as well. My heart fell inside of me. It was Carla’s mount. There was no way she would have ridden another horse if she’d had a choice. I petted it as well.

  “Where were they taken?” I asked the horses aloud petting them both.

  “They’re safe for now, Gunn,” said a gravelly voice from behind me.

  I twisted around, blade in hand and fell into a defensive stance looking at the speaker unable to believe my eyes.