Elders of Eventyr

by Ellias Quinn

  Dewdrop’s antennae twitched again, and she slowed in her six-legged gait.

  “What is it, girl?” Matil said.

  “Latuam!” roared a stranger’s voice from the undergrowth. A bird startled out of a bush to their left.

  The forest abruptly rushed downward. Or was Matil going up? The forceful motion knocked her head against Dewdrop’s shell and pressed her down. She cried out in pain and surprise. Dask’s sharp yell and Khelya’s bellow were near, a fact that comforted Matil until she realized that it meant the same terrible thing was happening to all of them. Nychta had finally caught up with them. She’d captured them and there was no way out—

  But Matil didn’t sense her presence. She didn’t hear Crell’s voice or the telltale buzz of Skorgon wings.

  The sharp ascent stopped, and the air grew thick with a disgusting stench. Matil cringed. Dask told her about the smell that the beetles might give off when threatened, but she hadn’t yet had the…pleasure of witnessing it. She pinched her nose shut and assessed what had happened. Fear seized her.

  A flower had closed around Dewdrop, who jerked her six legs, trying to free herself from the broad, pink petals. Yellow-topped stalks brushed Matil’s legs and Dewdrop with sticky pollen. The petals twisted tighter to resist Dewdrop. An unstable feeling led Matil to look down. The ground was very far beneath Dewdrop and her.

  “Hey!” Dask said. “What are you doing? Leave us alo—ow!”

  “Uhf!” came Khelya’s voice.

  A heavy green net dropped on Matil’s head, restricting her movement, and chatter in some unknown language fleeted past her ears. No matter which way she turned, she couldn’t see the source of the voices. She could see her friends, however, and they didn’t look injured.

  Just below to the left, Khelya was sprawled on her back across the spiny center of a sturdy flower with four large, light blue petals. She struggled against a net, but its corners hung down past the flower head, weighted with stones. A big yellow flower with many layers of inwardly-curved petals had sprung up to Matil’s right, and only Dask’s head could be seen over the walls of that lovely prison. Matil’s flower swayed dangerously with Dewdrop’s movement.

  “Outsiders!” a man shouted with a heavy accent. “Who are you?”

  Matil looked up and stared, wondering if she had dozed on the beetle and was now dreaming. Above them hovered a kind of alva that she had never seen before. They were light-skinned and hearty like Khelya, but as short as Ranycht. In almost every hand was a wooden staff, and they wore sleeveless robes together with leggings, both made from foliage and rough fabric. Intertwining symbols and geometric designs were painted in white on their bodies and clothes.

  They fluttered like butterflies, but their airy and vibrant wings were more flora than fauna. The wings resembled petals that could have fallen from the flowers all around, and several alva appeared to have leaves for wings instead. Their hair was untamed and richly colored. Straw-yellow hair framed some mischievous faces, jet-black flopped over others, and Matil glimpsed manes red as raspberries. Their ears had a rippled triangular shape; they curved forward and then backward again at the upper ear tips, and both the earlobes and the tips came to points. They looked like what Khelya and Dask had described to Matil.

  These alva were the Eletsol.

  The man who had shouted hovered in the center, facing the three confining flowers. He wore a sleeveless dark blue robe and was lean-bodied, with tawny brown hair and eyes. Lines of white paint went down the center of his face, punctuated by a many-pointed star on his chin and another on his forehead. His jagged elm leaf wings flapped quickly while he glowered at the prisoners. “Answer!” he said.

  The Eletsol lowered their staves toward Matil, Khelya, and Dask. The end of every staff sharpened to a point instantly. Matil blinked.

  “We’re, uh, we’re just humble travelers,” Dask said, voice squeaking at the end. “If you let us go, we’ll be out of your territory very soon.”

  “Why is the giant…” The man waved his hand. “Why is she not whole?”

  Dask smiled weakly. “No reason.”

  Some of the Eletsol were examining Khelya’s transparency, poking her with blunt staves. She grabbed one stick through the net to stop it. Its tip suddenly became sharp. Khelya yelped and let go.

  Matil cocked her head. How did they change the staves?

  The leaf-winged man scowled. “You’ll speak the truth later.” He shouted something in his language to the warriors. Was he the leader of these Eletsol?

  All the warriors focused as they held their staves against themselves, where the wood began to curl. In a moment they relaxed, and the staves had become wooden belts and sashes. They turned to the flower prisons and waved their arms expansively. The flower stems responded to the Eletsol’s magic by shifting around and then surging forward. Matil clung to Dewdrop in panic as her flower sagged backwards and almost tipped over. Dirt flew up around its base and the flower’s trailing roots left a furrow in the ground.

  The prisoners traveled in this manner for some time while the rest of the group flew above, below, and all around in an ever-changing swarm. The beetles calmed down as the flowers settled into a more stable motion. Occasionally, the strange magicians had quick spats in their sharp language. The leader was silent except when the arguments grew too loud, and then he intervened. But they didn’t stop until a different man, with blue wings and golden-yellow hair, barked out words that quieted the others right away.

  Matil checked on Khelya and Dask again. Khelya looked disgruntled, pinned against her flower, and Dask was trying to communicate with his captors in a friendly way. They responded with not-so-friendly words and gestures.

  Another Eletsol burst out from the forest with a scrap of orange cloth in his hand. He headed straight to the leader and the yellow-haired man. As all of the magicians took notice of the cloth, they began moving the flowers faster. The two men briefly conferred, and then the yellow-haired man gave muted orders that spread through the party in a babble of soft voices. Some magicians broke away to fly around the group, watching the forest and readying their staves.

  Matil’s ears lowered as the tension affected her. She looked up at the trees casting shadows across the undergrowth. Shadows. She imagined the cool touch of shade spreading across her whole form, the shadows growing to envelop her. Just how she pictured it in her mind, her body faded out of sight.

  Savage cries and twanging strings rent the air, and a few of the Eletsol magicians dropped to the forest floor. The flowers halted. The stem of Matil’s flower rocked to one side, tipping her backward. Shocked out of her faded state, Matil abruptly became visible. Her fingers scrabbled at Dewdrop’s back. She found the edges of the beetle’s shell and gripped it until her knuckles turned white. The beetle tried in vain to lift her spindly legs out of the flower, then the two lurched as the flower swung in the other direction. When Matil felt the motion slowing, she stretched to look over the pink petals. Something stuck out from the body of a fallen Eletsol. She nearly let go of Dewdrop.

  Arrows. The Eletsol had been shot.

  Chapter 2

  The Bonds of War

  The rest of the Eletsol drew together around Matil and her friends and coiled their staves into oval shields. Arrows continued to fly, but now the shields blocked many of them. Matil’s heart clenched when the projectiles whizzed past. Another Eletsol fell. An arrow grazed Khelya’s flower.

  The leader and two others flew down to the ground and then back up, appearing to pull at the air with their hands. Plant tendrils and grass twisted upward, forming a barrier around the flower prisons and the Eletsol. The whir of incoming arrows diminished as they stuck in the plant wall. Matil kept her head low against Dewdrop’s back. She peeked past the petals of her flower and tried to spot the enemy through the gaps in the grass and plants. The attackers were nowhere to be seen. The Eletsol inside the enci
rcling wall waited, quiet and still, until long after the sounds of bowstrings had stopped.

  The yellow-haired man finally said something, pointing toward the arrows’ source. The Eletsol turned their shields back into spears and began to peel back the plant wall with their magic. The leader cut in sharply, causing them to freeze and look at him. The two men glared at each other before launching into a heated exchange. Matil met the eyes of Khelya and then Dask, whose head was still the only visible part of him. It looked like he was trying to pry his flower open under the net.

  The leader gave one final shout that sent the other into dour silence. Things moved hastily afterward. The Eletsol let the plant wall fall to the ground and then retrieved their four fallen companions, piling them in a larger moving flower taken from the wayside. Wind blew Matil’s hair back as they traveled at a newly urgent pace. The Eletsol moved in an odd way while they propelled the flowers onward; they rocked back and forth in the air and let the currents determine their flight paths. They looked like falling petals. Matil wondered why they would travel like that, but then she imagined the staggered movement helping them to evade a sudden barrage of arrows.

  At the mushroom-ringed base of a huge, gnarled tree, someone gave an order and the party came to a halt. Trilling calls echoed down from the branches, to which the leader responded entreatingly. He seemed to reach an agreement with the unseen alva. The yellow-haired man began directing the Eletsol in forming plant walls, fortifying an area among the extensive roots of the tree. One side of the area was already walled in by immense rocks that rose out of the roots. Gravel lay scattered on the ground. While the Eletsol worked, they left the flower prisons off to the rocky side with a guard. The guard stood between the prisoners and the tree on a squat tree stump with a flat top.

  Matil looked around to make sure the leader was out of earshot. He was the only one who had spoken the common language so far. Hopefully the guard couldn’t understand it. “Can either of you move the nets? Mine’s too heavy.”

  The guard looked at her without much interest.

  “Same,” Dask said. “I’d suggest we cut the nets, but that’s obviously out of the question.”

  Khelya grunted, pushed off from the flower as much as she could, and fell back down. The guard flew over and smacked her with his staff.

  “Why, you—git back ‘ere!” She again struggled at the net, drawing another smack. “Ow!” Now Khelya settled down, grumbling.

  What would the Eletsol do to their prisoners? And would it take a long time? Matil couldn’t help but picture the Skorgon marauding through Eventyr. She would make the leader understand that he had to let the group go. What if Nychtfal was devastated and war-torn because it had taken so long to journey north on this search? Still, if Matil, Khelya, and Dask wanted to stop her – Matil wasn’t sure whether her meant Nychta Olsta, Matil herself, or both – they didn’t know how else to do it. Which was why they must get free soon and find the human, Mr. Korsen.

  When the Eletsol finished setting up their fortifications, the forest was darker. Matil could see snatches of heavy clouds through the trees.

  “Looks like we’ll have some rain,” Khelya said. In her position, she was unable to do much besides look upward.

  “Looks like it,” Dask said.

  Khelya pursed her lips. “Think we’ll have any trouble?”

  “Trouble?” He smiled, the round flower making him appear to be a yellow fruit with a Ranycht head. “Nah.”

  Even Matil could detect his sarcasm.

  The hum of wings alerted them to the leader’s approach from the camp. He landed beside the guard on the stump and his wings flicked down into a rest position. “Outsiders. I am Ansi the Smart of the Taina Eletsol.”

  Dask coughed to stifle a laugh. “The Smart, huh? Nice name. Puts it all out there. I should be Dask the Incredible.”

  Khelya snorted. “Dask the Incredibly Full of Himself.”

  “Ouch.”

  “How about Dask the Smart?” Matil said. “Smart-mouth, that is.”

  “Ooh, you guys are hurting me.”

  Ansi stared, unamused. “This is not the time to joke.”

  “I know,” Dask sighed. “But somehow that’s when things are the funniest.”

  “I am the son of the chief who ruled our tribe.” He stepped forward, taking his wooden staff from around his chest. It uncurled in his hand to its full height. “You will respect me.”

  Dask bowed his head to Ansi, coming across as very oily. “Of course, sir prince, of course. We’re at your service.”

  Matil bowed her head, too, and Khelya could only nod.

  “Good. The giant, what’s wrong with her?”

  “Magic,” Dask said nonchalantly. “We used ours on her too much and she’s been stuck that way since.”

  Ansi looked at each of them in fascination.

  “Now,” Dask said, “let’s do business. If you promise to let us go, we’ll owe you one.”

  “What is this ‘one’ that you would owe me?” Ansi said.

  “Oh, anything you want – within reason, of course. We can put you in connection with merchants of rare goods, provide building and farming advice, perform at feasts and festivals, and a lot of other things. The only price is our freedom. We keep tips.”

  Ansi turned his attention to cleaning his fingernails.

  “Or- or you could keep our tips,” Dask said. “If that’s what it takes.”

  “You are bound for captivity unless you tell all,” Ansi said, looking up from his hands. “Maybe it’s different where you come from, but spies are not welcome here.”

  “Spies?” Khelya said. “We ain’t spies!”

  Matil patted Dewdrop’s head, partly to calm herself. “Sir, have you heard about the Skorgon and Nychta Olsta?”

  “Only some. We Eletsol…we have our own problems.” Ansi looked down in distraction. A moment later, he lifted his chin sharply. “Talk.”

  “Basically, we think Olsta’s trying to take over Eventyr,” Dask said.

  “With the Saikyr,” Khelya added. “We’re on our way to ask Mr. Korsen how to wake up the Elders from the Hibernation.”

  Ansi burst into laughter. “You speak of tatuvar! Baby stories!”

  “You’re…you’re an Eletsol,” Khelya said. “Haven’t you seen Mr. Korsen?”

  “Yes. The Watcher is real enough. But to talk with him? The Watcher watches. He doesn’t speak. And to ‘wake up the Elders’? They can’t be woken. The Elders have been dead for a thousand years.”

  Chapter 3

  Such Is Death

  Khelya’s mouth hung open and Matil stared. The Elders were everything. Without them, Nychta may already have won.

  “Dead?” said Dask. He leaned toward Ansi. “How do you know?”

  Ansi chuckled. “Dyndal of the Green told our ancestors so as he laid himself down for the last time.”

  “That’s a lie!” Khelya said. She grappled briefly with the net and then gave up. “Calo made a speech about the Hibernation an’ everything! How can you say the leader of the Elders is wrong?”

  Matil looked with apprehension between Khelya and Ansi.

  Ansi folded his hands behind his back. “Have you ever seen an Elder?”

  “‘Course not,” Khelya said.

  “I have,” he said. “The body of Lord Dyndal.”

  The three prisoners stared, even more astounded.

  “Slow down,” Dask said. “A body? A dead guy? There’s no way he’d last a thousand years. I think you’ve been conned, my friend.”

  Ansi shook his head. “You won’t understand, not unless you’ve seen him. And as outsiders, you will never see him.”

  The barest amount of color rose in Khelya’s translucent cheeks. “Why not?”

  “Dyndal trusted us enough to give us the truth,” he said. “He told us t
o guard his body for the rest of time, because it has much power still. He spoke, ‘Those outside of the Eletsol clans may not enter, save he who bears my sign.’ But the sign has never been seen.”

  “What if we have the sign?” Matil said a little desperately.

  He looked at her. “Then show it to me.”

  “Um…” She thought about everything they had in their packs. An Elder’s sign, whatever that meant, would probably be mystical and ancient. None of their food scraps or cheap supplies fit that description.

  “Don’t waste time showing me a fake,” Ansi said. “Even Eletsol children know what the sign is. We can’t be fooled by outsiders.”

  “You’re makin’ all this up,” Khelya said. “You gotta be.”

  Ansi gestured at the camp. “Each one here has looked upon Dyndal. According to his instructions, passed down through the generations, every Eletsol visits his tomb after Thrualrest, for our greatest festival.” Ansi’s expression darkened. “This year’s Velana Festival has passed, but Tain Fridda did not allow our clan to go. She only listens to her pride.” He glanced behind him. “I shouldn’t let such things slip from my tongue.”

  The guard on the stump stood idly, showing no signs of comprehension.

  “We didn’t hear a word,” Dask said, grinning.

  “Good.” Ansi strode across the stump as if distancing himself from his own words.

  “Then, um, now that you know what we’re doing here,” Matil said, “can you let us go?”

  “You are no longer prisoners, but guests,” he replied.

  “Then we can leave!” Dask said.

  “You’re our guests.” Ansi maintained a level gaze. “You may leave, but it is…a bad plan. First, you’re still under suspicion. You appeared right before we were attacked.”

  “We didn’t have nothin’ to do with that attack!” Khelya said.