The Naming

by Torsten Weitze

  ‘But why not? It was so beautiful!’ answered Ahren so vehemently that he was almost shouting. He clapped his hand on to his mouth and was amazed at the strength of his own outburst.

  Jelninolan smiled indulgently and packed the artefact back into her saddlebag.

  ‘There are several reasons. For one thing, I can also release negative emotions with the lute. You’ve seen the unbridled joy it can cause. Now just imagine in the heat of battle if I were to release rage or grief. The consequences would be devastating. The more I use it, the more I fall into the temptation of using it again. And so I use its power only sparingly. Also there are two things one needs to be aware of. You can become addicted to the emotions it releases, and it can unwittingly damage you.’

  ‘Because it can drive you into a rage’, said Ahren who now understood how dangerous the lute could be.

  The elf shook her head. ‘That’s not what I mean. Tanentan did you good. But imagine someone has just lost a loved one. And now, all of a sudden, they are full of the joys of life, dancing and laughing until their grief disappears. The natural emotions are overcome by what they’re experiencing now. There have been listeners whose lives have been broken by the effects of the lute. It’s possible that I have spiritually wounded two or three farmers. I hope not, but it’s a heavy responsibility.’ Jelninolan’s voice died away and she seemed to be lost in thought or in her memories.

  Ahren thought over what he had just heard. He was glad he didn’t have to bear the responsibility for such a mighty artefact, and his respect for the priestess grew even greater.

  They caught up with the others in silence and rode on, deeper and deeper into the Old Marshes and towards King’s Island.

  They were coming across more half-timbered houses and merchant’s dwellings every day, while the number of farmhouses was decreasing.

  Ahren saw an increasing number of town walls on the horizon, and although they avoided the larger settlements, it was clear to him that the towns he could see in the distance were as big or bigger than Three Rivers, the trading town they had gone through on their way to the elves. The thought of how many people lived in these towns made Ahren dizzy. And he’d spotted at least nine such towns as they travelled through the Old Marshes!

  As they continued eastwards there was more and more evidence of the unrest that was shaking the Knight Marshes.

  One midday they happened upon makeshift gallows from which five farmers were hanging. Their cadaverous bodies were swinging in the wind and their threadbare linen clothing hardly disguised the torture they must have experienced before their deaths. Horrified, Ahren looked away. He came from a village where the ultimate punishment anyone could suffer had been abolished. Although the death penalty was sometimes carried out in his homeland of Hjalgar, it was only on an individual basis, never a gruesome mass punishment like this, which had been carried out in a seemingly causal manner at a country crossroads.

  The others looked as darkly as he did. Falk pointed at a sign that had been put up beside the gallows.

  Ahren squinted his eyes and read the proclamation. Condemned for High Treason had been burned into the wood. Someone had smeared Elf Friends in pig’s blood.

  ‘It’s getting serious. Now they seem to be inciting neighbour against neighbour’, murmured Uldini.

  They had encountered several processions of believers over the previous few days, and each time Ahren’s heart bled as he saw the pious faces of the pilgrims and thought of the gruesome fate that awaited them.

  Jelninolan kept her hood pulled over all the while and let her red hair hang loose. She didn’t have the tell-tale white hair and grey eyes of the other elves, and her simple disguise as a farmer’s wife proved effective as long as nobody looked directly into her face. Nevertheless, the tension was rising within the group. It was true that they probably didn’t need to fear any Dark Ones, but every passing farmer, every little town, every armed group – of which there were more and more – was potentially a deadly danger.

  The conflicts between neighbours, villages and whole baronies were certainly on the increase, the closer they came to the capital. The latest news was exchanged with angry faces and it seemed as there was an increase in the number of larger granaries being burned to the ground, and the Knights Marshes had to prepare for a hungry winter. Fear and rage were written on the faces of many, and rumours that elves had been responsible for carrying out the arson attacks were doing the rounds. Voices of reason could scarcely be heard, and when Ahren thought back to the hanged farmers, he could see why.

  The mood among the travelling party was growing darker and Jelninolan would often ride the whole day without speaking a word. From time to time Ahren would squeeze her hand with encouragement and would receive a weak smile in return. He remembered how harmonious and communally woven the Elvin way of life was. The lies and suspicion that the priestess was being confronted with here had to be devastating. Ahren recognised on more than one occasion that he was ashamed of his fellow human beings. The worst traits of human culture were coming to the fore here, and the helplessness in which he found himself once again nagged at him.

  Then one rainy autumn afternoon they strode onto the brow of a hill and Falk gestured to them to stop. Loud cries rang up towards them and the wind carried with it a curious smell. Ahren joined his master and at first he couldn’t make out what was happening before them in the field below. Initially, he thought it was a funfair, for dozens of people were pushing against each other down there, all in colourful clothing. A moment later he realised his error and despaired.

  Two small armies were laying into each other with pitchforks, threshing flails and scythes. Even from this distance Ahren could make out dreadful red stains, which looked like blossoming flowers, appearing on the unfortunate bodies of those who were unlucky enough to be hit by the weapons. The bodies on both sides were tightly packed, the rows behind pushing those in front forward. Ahren realised to his horror that all his sword skills would be of no use in such a squeeze. What good was the best technique if you couldn’t move your arm properly because you were pinned in by two of your fellow warriors, who were pushing you in to the enemy? Left and right of the throng could be seen men and women in full armour striking their foes with broadsword and spiked mace and contributing their share to the bloodbath. Now Ahren recognised the faint scent in his nostrils. It was the blood of the dead and the wounded.

  Falk wearily shook his head and scratched his beard with one hand.

  ‘Now even the barons are beginning to fight each other. If this madness isn’t stopped, it will end up in a full-scale war. Then all the desperate, the homeless and the hungry it creates will turn in their need to the false promises of the Illuminated Path.’

  ‘I hate when that happens’, added Uldini sadly.

  Ahren spun his head around. ‘You mean it’s happened before? I thought it had been stopped that time’, he blurted out.

  Uldini shrugged his shoulders helplessly. ‘When the Illuminated Path appeared the first time during the Dark Days, we were completely blindsided. Nobody knew what was happening until the first empire, destroyed from within, fell apart. Where do you think the Borderlands come from? HE, WHO FORCES all of a sudden had a whole kingdom in the middle of the Northern Lands under his control and just at that very moment when we thought we had come to grips with him. Suddenly, the armies of the Free Folk had a hostile area right in their battle lines, full of Low and High Fangs who would ambush their ranks. It took us a full two summers to adapt our tactics – and the logistics were an absolute nightmare. The Dark Days had already lasted many centuries. And HE lengthened it by another two hundred years with this gambit’, he said darkly.

  ‘And they can return at any time. Even if it all seems to have been forgotten’, added Jelninolan in a melancholy voice.

  Everyone looked over at the elf priestess sadly. Selsena sent out a wave of pity and the elf’s drawn features relaxed momentarily.

  ‘Can you bring us down there
with Tanentan?’ asked Falk in a mild voice.

  ‘No. There’s a full-scale battle raging and the knights will have hacked us all to pieces by the time the lute’s song has taken effect’, she answered despondently.

  ‘But we have nothing to do with them. Why would they attack us?’ asked Ahren fearfully.

  His master pointed down to the battle below. ‘You see how it’s going there. Do you seriously think they would give it a second thought? We’re not wearing the right tabards, so we are the enemy. And for both sides. No, so long as the fight goes on, we won’t make our way through.’

  He thought for a moment, and then pointed with his thumb back in the direction from which they had come.

  ‘Half a mile behind was a guesthouse. We’ll stay there for the night and hope they’ll have finished knocking themselves about by tomorrow. Then we’ll be able to ride on.’ He gave a loud curse, then added: ‘I love my homeland, I really do, but sometimes we can be incredibly stupid’.

  The rain fell continuously that evening and through the night, only to transform into a full-blown autumnal storm the following morning.

  Ahren looked out through the bedroom window and saw how the trees fought futilely to hold on to their few remaining leaves. The wind whipped over the countryside in powerful gusts, and window frames and doors of the lodging house clattered violently. The uneasy muttering of the guests could be heard through the cracks in the wall and was intermingled with the ire of the storm.

  Travelling on that day was out of the question and the apprentice sensed clearly that an uneasy tension was building up among the guests who had sought shelter. It was still only early morning but already he could clearly hear the first loud quarrels. The apprentice had spent the night battling the horrific images he had been subjected to the previous day and the atmosphere in the lodging house didn’t improve his mood.

  Pale and concerned, Ahren looked over at his master, who had a similar demeanour.

  ‘We should go and check on the others’, the old man said cautiously.

  Ahren nodded and went over to the door. Sitting around wore him down. He always had the feeling he was just hanging around waiting for something bad to happen.

  ‘I’ll go over to Jelninolan and then I’ll look into the stable’, he said firmly. Uldini was bound to be in a bad mood and anyway he could try to cheer the elf up a little. He also missed Culhen, who wasn’t allowed into the house and had spent the night with Selsena. Once he’d visited the elf princess, he’d check up on the young wolf, storm or no storm.

  Before Falk had a chance to object, he slipped out and after a few steps he knocked on Jelninolan’s door.

  ‘Come in!’ sounded the voice of the elf. Her voice sounded strangely other-worldly and when Ahren entered he almost started back in surprise. He quickly closed the door and observed the drama in front of him.

  Jelninolan was sitting on her knees in the middle of the little room and she was playing with barely moving fingers on Tanentan. Much to Ahren’s surprise he couldn’t hear the sound of the lute in his head. Rays of golden morning sun were shining through the window although Ahren could still see the storm raging outside. The contrast was disconcerting, and it wasn’t the only peculiarity within the room. An intense aroma of springtime filled the air, and the wooden furniture looked strangely young and fresh, as if the trees from which the pieces were made had only recently been felled.

  He shook his head in wonderment and it took him a few heartbeats to digest what he was looking at. The elf finished her lute-playing and opened her eyes.

  Ahren had recovered his senses again and now examined his travelling companion’s face. He was pleasantly surprised to see that life had returned to the elf’s features again. Her eyes were sparkling with vigour and she had some strong lines in her face which he hadn’t seen before and which gave her face more of a striking look and took away some of her motherly features. She stood up gracefully and Ahren gasped. The elf seemed to have grown by half a head during the night and her figure had become more muscular and was less plump than it had been.

  He blinked twice in disbelief and Jelninolan laughed, her voice clear as a bell.

  ‘I think I owe you an apology.’ The vitality in her voice was unmistakable, and although he was taken aback, Ahren was delighted that the priestess had found her centre again. He nodded slowly and she pointed to her bed where he gratefully sat down and from where he continued to stare at her in astonishment.

  ‘We elves are strongly influenced by emotions, as you already know. SHE, WHO FEELS gave us an overabundance of them, whereas we were left a little short of form and essence.’

  She bit on her lower lip and seemed to be searching for words as she looked at Ahren.

  ‘Members of the Elvin Folk are shaped by the role they have to play in our society. The expectations and demands that work on us, through the emotional connections our people put on us, permeate right through us and that gives us the necessary shape with which we can fulfil our role in the community.’ She looked at Ahren expectantly, but he only gave her a baffled look in return.

  ‘You people also have the expression ‘to grow into a role’, don’t you?’ she asked, trying a different approach.

  Ahren nodded hesitantly, and she continued cheerfully.

  ‘That expression comes from us elves. Yet we don’t just grow metaphorically into our roles, but also physically. All the tree guardians grow tall, with long arms and legs and our magic craftsmen and women have slim, agile figures. In the last few centuries I’ve been the motherly, caring centre of our village and my appearance has reflected the emotional image of my role.’

  She paused and looked out the window where now only the storm could be seen raging. The morning sunlight had disappeared along with all the other contradictory impressions that had been in the room.

  ‘I spent the whole night with the aid of Tanentan living through my memories of the Dark Days. Painful but necessary, so that I could remember what I once was and must be again.’ She looked at herself thoughtfully in the reflection of the window. ‘Most of it has returned. If you wait for another three or four decades, I’ll probably have all my white hair back as well as my silver eyes’, she joked.

  At least, Ahren hoped she was joking. The change in her appearance was shocking, and the idea that nothing in an elf, whether male or female, was unchangeable made him deeply uneasy. Ahren remembered the time in his home village when everybody had seen him only as the son of a confirmed drunkard, and he also remembered the feeling of being defined by others’ perceptions. But at least nobody had been able to physically change his body. He could hardly believe that this was possible in the case of the elves, and the very thought of it sent shivers down his spine.

  His thoughts were clearly written all over his face because the priestess laid a comforting arm on his shoulder in the same caring manner as she had done over the last few weeks.

  ‘I know how difficult that must be for a human being to hear. But your changeability frightens us too. Each human being is constantly developing, either through their own impetus or because they are being forced to by society. But it comes across to us as chaotic and uncontrolled because not all of you have a harmonious purpose to go along with your development. When we come across a human being, we never know if we’re dealing with a brilliant inventor, a merchant or a cut-throat – not until we’ve dealt with them, that is. It took us centuries before we understood how to read the signs. For example, your fashions change so quickly. Hardly have we begun to recognise a merchant by his outfit, the next generation comes along and he talks and dresses in a completely different way.’

  Ahren could hear genuine frustration in Jelninolan’s voice and he began to understand what she was saying. There was no exclusion amongst the elves because they sensed one another’s emotions. If an elf was by nature solitary, then he would probably become a spy. But this being tied together in a mesh of emotions and community robbed the individual elves of certain elements of thei
r personality, elements which Ahren would never like to surrender.

  Now he understood how the elf folk had had to overcome difficulties over hundreds of years in order to live together in harmony. And he also understood how easily this mutual tolerance that they possessed could be destroyed.

  He looked deeply into Jelninolan’s eyes and took her hands in his own.

  ‘I will stop HIM, I swear that to you! Somehow, we’re going to stop a war between the humans and the elves’, he said passionately. His task had never seemed as important and significant as it did now. He thought of the maltreated faces of the Low Fangs, the farmers who had been hanged, and all the other living beings he could save if they were to be successful. Suddenly all the dangers and obstacles that lay in their way seemed to be a small price that he would be willing to pay.

  Even if it cost him his life.

  After Ahren had spent some time in the stable cuddling Culhen and digesting his conversation with Jelninolan, he went back into the guesthouse. He knocked on Uldini’s door and went in without waiting. His new strength of will made him courageous, but within a heartbeat he wished his courage had also been accompanied by wisdom. For in front of him was a tornado of magical energy, scattering lightning flashes of blue, which scorched everything they touched, whether walls, the floor, the furniture or even foolhardy apprentices. He was hit in over half a dozen places and slammed against the very door he had closed so firmly in his over-enthusiastic entrance.

  Uldini finished the magic exercise with a curse, and both the Arch Wizard and Falk stared at Ahren darkly. Both were standing in the back part of the room, which had obviously been safe from the flashes the Arch Wizard had been discharging.

  ‘Tell me, are you weary of life?’ hissed Uldini enraged. ‘Do you know where the magic could have taken you?’

  Falk’s look clearly promised Ahren a lesson on the wisdom or otherwise of entering a wizard’s room unannounced, and this lesson would doubtless involve a lot of sweat. Ahren bowed his head in embarrassment.