Elfling (U.S. Edition)

by Corinna Turner

  I shot him a look. Most men would have been suffused with embarrassment at having been struck down by a member of the weaker sex; the he-elf seemed worried that carelessly allowing himself to be struck down by a woman might imply that he did consider them the weaker sex. Well, they did seem to have a queen by default, rather than by mere...lack of male heirs. Very intriguing.

  He didn’t pause until we were out of the Quays and up as far as Lombard Street. Though beginning to tremble with gathering shock and the day’s cold, I handed my now conspicuous ragged cloak to a delighted urchin.

  Ystevan stopped beside a public trough and leant against it. “We’d best get you a hot drink,” he said. “But before we do, perhaps we’d better…” He produced a handkerchief and dipped it, then reached out to wipe my face.

  The handkerchief came away stained and I touched my swollen nose and lip. “Ah. Make me look a little less as though I’ve just been punched in the face.”

  “Quite,” said the he-elf. He gave my face another wipe, then put the handkerchief down beside the trough and traced his fingers slowly over the damage. The ache of the bruises and sting of the cuts rapidly eased. “All better,” he said after a moment.

  “Good,” I said, with relief. “If I went home looking like that my father would probably never let me out again.”

  Ystevan groaned and leant on the trough. “What did I just heal it for? It was hardly serious!” He sighed and sat down properly on the trough instead, fingers going to his own injury. “Obviously high time I dealt with this.”

  He ran his hands over the back of his head for rather longer than he’d spent on my face, but his pained expression gradually eased. When he’d finished, his hands came away glistening in the evening darkness.

  “My brains were still on the inside, leastways,” he remarked, rising easily to his feet. Taking the clip from his hair, he plunged his head into the trough, rinsing the blood away. He straightened, flicking his hair back and then shaking it so vigorously it was clear his head was entirely better.

  I peered at his hair throughout this exercise, stroking Raven absent-mindedly through my dress. It seemed to almost glimmer, the gold visible again. But it was too dark for the color to be very noticeable and quickly enough he fastened it back again with the clip, and then it just looked as plain black as usual.

  Wringing out his damp handkerchief, he tucked it away, led me to the nearest inn—The Pope’s Head—secured us a private room and ordered hot wine. I sat in front of the fire and steamed damply for a few minutes in silence. Finally, I looked up to where he sat opposite, rather quiet, his hair steaming as well. “Thank you, Lord Ystevan,” I said quietly.

  He made a movement as though to brush my thanks aside, and said rather cautiously, “You can call me Ystevan, you know.”

  “Are you not a Lord?” I inquired lightly, struggling with such conflicting feelings. The pain of his cruel words still lingered, along with my anger and the frustration that he wouldn’t heal my father, but...the more I remembered, the more he felt like Ystevan, my friend...and he had just saved both our lives.

  He shrugged. “For all intents and purposes, yes. It is the closest human equivalent for the elfin title of fort guardian. But even large Torr forts like Torr Elkyn are small, and we are all largely interrelated to some degree or other, so we are most of the time much less formal with one another.”

  “Yes. Well, I suppose you can call me Serapia. Lady is...rather formal between friends. And I suppose we are friends, are we not?” Surely there simply were some things two people just could not go through together without becoming friends—no matter what had passed between them previously?

  He smiled faintly, as though he knew what I meant. “Yes, we are friends,” he sighed, but his eyes were bright. They quickly became more wary. “Don’t think that it changes a thing with regard to that parent of yours, mind.”

  That would be too much to hope, wouldn’t it?

  The wine arrived then. I cupped the warm flagon in my hands, sipped gratefully, and looked up before the pot boy could leave. “Soup, bread and cheese for me, please,” I said, too hungry to wait and see if Ystevan thought to ask if I wanted anything.

  Ystevan looked faintly startled, but added quickly, “The same for me.”

  When the pot boy had departed, Ystevan sat and regarded me with a rather singular look. “You really are a very strange girl,” he remarked. “I’m sure I am supposed to be attempting to bring you around from a swoon about now, but you are sitting there ordering a meal. That is to say, I know perfectly well how plucky you are, coming all that way on your own, and...everything. But still, you seem to have taken what just happened without turning a hair. Comparatively, anyway.”

  I looked down at my hands, which were still shaking as they held the flagon, though I began to feel much better. “Well, I haven’t eaten all day,” I said defensively.

  “You know that’s not what I mean,” he retorted, taking one of my hands meaningfully in his. “And…I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean it.”

  I looked down into my wine for another moment, my rough, lined, weather-beaten hand still in his. So. He’d never really thought me spoiled. He’d just been hurt and lashing out. “Alright,” I said at last. “I’ll tell you the story of my…singularness, if you’ll tell me the story about the dragons and the Elfin’s creation.”

  He laughed and shook his head slightly in amusement. “Very well,” he said, returning my hand to me. But another flicker of wariness went through his eyes.

  The pot boy returned with our food so we moved from the hearth to the table. When the pot boy was gone, I began my tale. I told him about my mother’s death, my uncle, my long years on the streets, and how I had finally found my father.

  “So you see,” I added pointedly as I finished, “I do not say he is a good man from any childish bias!”

  He held up a quelling hand. “Not now, Serapia, least, not if you want to hear about the Elfin’s creation. If I...uh...need to tell you?”

  I couldn’t help scowling, at that. “Yes, you do,” I said grimly. So he had told me before...but I couldn’t remember.

  For a moment it looked as though he would begin, but then he shot a look at the dark windows. “One moment,” he said, then added, as though it explained everything, “the sun is gone.”

  He reached under his coat to the back of his belt, and I realized he had another pouch there, a long thin one that ran along it. From this he took seven fist-sized rocks and, moving around the table, he placed them down in a circle right around it. Then he settled back into his chair. “Now I can give you my full attention.”

  I raised my eyebrow, for the performance with the rocks was most intriguing. “What are they?” I asked, nodding to them.

  Ystevan looked surprised—then wary again. “Oh. Travelling ward stones.”

  So I’d seen those before too, had I?

  “Well, um, here goes,” Ystevan said quickly, with a slightly forced smile. “The reason why demons can hurt the Elfin, and no other living thing on this earth, is to be found in our creation. It has been pointed out, I believe, that the British humans are a—how shall I put it?—mongrel race, of Picts, Celts, Romans, Saxons, Normans and so forth. I mean no offence by pointing this out,” he added, and I nodded to reassure him. The mixed ancestry of my native land was something well known to me. But...mongrel race... I had heard that phrase before.

  “Wait a minute...” Suddenly it was unfolding in my mind.

  Ystevan had joined me by the fire after dinner, and I’d asked him why demons could hurt the Elfin, and he’d begun his reply in almost the same words...

  “Well, if the British are a mongrel race, the Elfin are a mongrel species in many ways. God almost seems to have simply allowed us to come into being through various other of his creations—we’re not sure how deliberate we were on His part. Of course, you can say that about any number of other things, so he probably did intend us all along.

  “But, let
’s see,” he went on. “You know about the fall of Lucifer and the angels, I suppose?” I nodded, so he continued, “There’s a lot of confusion about dragons among humans, because most humans rarely encounter them for good reasons, but by and large they are on God’s side. Certainly to begin with, when he set them to guard hell, a job they still do. Demons are free to trickle to and fro from the gates, but the dragons prevent a mass exodus. However, the demons fell through free will, and some dragons have done the same; it’s only natural, I suppose.

  “Anyway, the dragons were set to guard hell, but eventually their numbers multiplied, and some went to live in heaven instead. But while there were too many to live comfortably in hell, there were not quite enough to be comfortably split between the two realms, and they grew lonely. Some of those still in hell sought solace with the fallen angels, and some of those in heaven...did likewise. There were children born of the unions.

  “Anyway, God did not much care for this fraternizing, and he banished the dragons from heaven to the earth, with their half-breed offspring. The devil did not care for the situation either, probably because the dragons were, after all, God’s servants, and he also drove away the offending dragons and their children. All these arrived on earth, where the dragons, still not a species large enough in number to easily find mates among their own kind, fell for the occasional human, until their numbers rose sufficiently for the temptation to be removed. But again, half-breed children were born.

  “For some time it is believed the dragon children, as we call them, lived in two separate groups: the dark children, those of the demons, and the fair children, those of the angels. The children of the humans were split between the two groups. But their common blood was such that intermarriage soon came about, especially since they were so few in number themselves. The two groups mingled and merged inextricably and formed the Elfin. So when I say we are mongrel, I mean it,” he concluded.

  I stared at him. “Dragon, human, angel, demon?”

  Ystevan nodded. “Hence demons can hurt us. Angels probably could too, but they don’t. Humans and the rest of God’s creation are on the physical plane with regard to their bodies. But the Elfin have bodies that exist on the physical and spiritual plane at once. Which is in some ways a fearful nuisance, since it makes us vulnerable to the demons and they don’t like us at all.”

  “Why don’t they?” I asked curiously.

  Ystevan shrugged. “I think they’re just plain jealous. We have their blood in us, yet we live on the earth, very civilized and nice to one another, and they are trapped in hell, in eternal suffering. So they’ll kill any adult elfin they can lay their claws on. Hence why none other than fort guardians ever go beyond the wards after nightfall.”

  “They don’t come out in the day?”

  Ystevan shook his head. “Not in the daylight, anyway. We’re not completely sure why not. It’s probably because the day is full of angels, and whenever you have a demon and an angel within a mile or two of one another, feathers and scales soon fly. It’s a good thing they can’t, though, or the majority of elfin would never be able to go out at all.”

  A shiver ran up my spine at this narration. “A demon couldn’t hurt me, could it?”

  “No, of course not. You’re human. It can whisper at your soul subconsciously to lead you astray, but it can’t lay one claw on you physically.”

  I thought about all this for a moment. “So are there still dragons living in the world? Or have knights killed them all?”

  Ystevan smiled. “The knights only get the few that go astray and acquire a taste for human flesh and livestock, so yes, most definitely there are still dragons. There’s a pair living at the top of the mountain, and another pair nearby. They also like wild places.”

  ...Dragons! Had I seen one? Would I ever know, or had Ystevan stolen that from me, forever?

  I stared across at him. He was doing that searching gaze thing again. Ticking off his list? I knew I should forgive wrongs done to me, but every time I wondered just how much I’d lost the anger surged back...

  “Did I see a dragon?” I demanded.

  His gaze dropped from mine, but he shook his head slightly. “We...didn’t run into one when out and about.”

  I lowered my eyes as well, and stared at my already almost empty plate. The warmth I’d felt towards him so recently had chilled.

  “Serapia.”

  I looked at him again.

  He leant forward and placed his elbows on the table, looking me intently in the eye. “Serapia, I am more sorry than I can say about what I had to do. But it was my duty. Can you understand that?”

  “Did you even tell me beforehand?”

  As far as I could remember, I’d had no idea what was coming. How had he done it? And when?

  He let out a little breath, almost a snort. “Of course not! What if you had bolted to try and avoid it? Aside from the fact you could have got hurt, we’d have had to chase you, and in the—admittedly very unlikely—event that you actually got away, well, I’d have betrayed my kin, wouldn’t I?”

  I looked down at my plate again. The problem was, from everything he had told me so far, I could see why he hadn’t hesitated to put duty first. Why he had considered it necessary. His choice just seemed to hurt a lot more than it rationally should.

  I ate the last few bites of my meal, trying to settle my surging thoughts—until the first of London’s clocks began to strike the hour. I looked up, appalled at myself, sitting there eating and drinking and listening to—or at least remembering listening to—interesting things. “I must get back. My father will be so worried!”

  “I will take you home,” said Ystevan, as I hoped he would.

  “Oh, but…can you?” I said, suddenly looking at those seven ward stones.

  “It’s all right,” he reassured me. “I would not sleep or be inattentive whilst outside of a ward at night, but so long as I am alert the danger is not great. Generally, a guardian is a match for practically any demon they have the misfortune to meet. That’s really the power requirement to be a guardian, and it is high. But one doesn’t meet demons very often. They don’t usually bother attacking a guardian.

  “Don’t think me complacent,” he added, rising from his chair. “I have met, which is to say, fought, four demons. At night, that is. I have hunted many in daylight, the foolish ones trapped by the break of dawn, hiding away in some crack until nightfall. But of those night-time four I sent three howling for hell.” He reached for the first stone.

  I raised my eyebrows. “And the fourth?”

  Ystevan smiled rather a twisted smile. “Oh, the fourth sent me howling for home. Without laying a claw on me. So trust me, Serapia, when I say that I am not complacent about demons.”

  With this less than entirely reassuring revelation, he put the rest of the stones away and offered me his arm.

  ~+~

  CHAPTER 38

  THE PURSUIT OF LORD ALLIRON

  When we finally reached the tall stone gateposts of Albany House, out on the road to Islington, Ystevan glanced around, then drew out the ward stones again, placed them down in a circle on the grass verge and stepped within. We had walked in silence and I had felt his quivering alertness beside me. He might claim that he could walk around outside a ward at night, but it was clearly not the most relaxing of occupations.

  I doubted he would leave the stones behind, but I took a prudent grasp of his arm, all the same. It was far too late to attempt to persuade him to come in for some polite refreshment, more was the pity. Surely if I could only bring him together with my father and make him speak to him properly, to exchange even a few words, face-to-face, eye-to-eye, then he would realize he was not a bad man. But there really was no chance of it at this hour. So I said firmly, “Now, where are you staying?”

  He smiled and shook his head slightly. “I am staying at a fort near London, but there is no question of me telling you where.”

  “Then how can I contact you?”

  He loo
ked at me for a long moment and finally pursed his lips slightly. “I suppose if I do not give you some means you will carry on twisting information from Sir Allen and throwing yourself into appallingly dangerous situations,” he said wearily.

  I pointed at the lights of Albany House, glowing in the distance. “Father. Dying. Remember? Quite right I will!”

  “All right,” he said quietly. “You know that new chocolate house on St Clement’s?”

  I nodded with some enthusiasm. I’d stood outside it once or twice as an urchin when on route to Westminster, breathing in the delicious aroma. My father had since taken me several times, and I’d been once or twice more with Susie.

  “Meet me there tomorrow at eleven, if you wish.”

  I nodded. “I’d better bring Susie if we’re meeting there,” I remarked, “or my reputation will be in ruins.”

  “Susie?”

  “My maid,” I explained. “She doubles as my chaperone. I’m rather afraid that sooner or later it will occur to my father to acquire some awful matron for the position, but at the moment Susie and I are as free as the birds. Almost. I haven’t been taking her elfin-stalking, I confess.”

  Ystevan seemed to hide a smile, then his face straightened. “Leave Sir Allen’s information alone, all right?”

  “So long as you are there at eleven tomorrow,” I returned, evenly.

  “Demons and dark elfin besides, I’ll be there,” he said, turning to collect up his stones.

  “Be careful,” I whispered, as he disappeared into the darkness. Someone certainly wanted him dead.

  He was gone, anyway. I set off along the drive, growing chilled again in my damp clothes, and feeling like I’d walked clean from one end of the city to the other. Which I very nearly had. Raven climbed out and cuddled to my neck, still shaken by the events of the evening, as, if I was honest, was I. I stroked her gently until I reached the house.