by Kody Boye
“Even if I were closer to him, Virgin, that doesn’t mean we’d be any closer to the Book.”
“Shh!” Virgin hissed, jabbing one long finger over his mouth and bridging the distance between them. “You have to be quiet, Odin! Anyone could hear us.”
“I said book,” Odin replied. “I didn’t say which book.”
“Assumption—“
“Makes an ass out of you.”
“You’ve always been a cheeky one,” Virgin chuckled, patting Odin’s cheek one too many times before drawing his hand back and tucking it into his pocket. “I have to say, though, it’s not getting us anywhere.”
“Could you please quit pounding that issue in? I’m doing my best.”
“You better try harder, Odin, because at this rate, we’ll be here for years.”
“Do you have something better to do?”
“Honestly?” Virgin asked, spreading his arms and offering a smile that could have compared to diamonds. “Not particularly.”
“Then we have all the time in the world.”
“So long as we don’t have to start shilling money out to stay here. We are, as I’m sure you’re rightfully aware, here because the queen is interested in speaking with you when her delegations with the Elven court are through.”
“I know.”
“Which means that when she’s done with us—and, more importantly, you—we can’t expect to be housed in this inn unless we’re paying for the room.”
“I’m well aware of that, Virgin.”
“You need to find an issue that the two of you have similar feelings about,” Virgin said, once more lifting his dagger and stabbing at the air as though it were a creature and he was willing it to bleed.
“Like what?” Odin frowned.
“I don’t know. Just… just find it.”
“That’s going to be hard if I don’t know where to start, Virgin.”
“Ask about zirs life, zirs day-to-day routine. Hell—try talking to zir about the history behind the Drow and what caused them to flee the mainland, even though I should say that that is fairly obvious, if you don’t mind me saying. Act stupid if you have to. Just figure out a way to get to the source of whatever it is that’s fueling ze.”
“What if that source doesn’t want me poking around black magic?”
“Then there’s no hope for our mission,” Virgin sighed. “We’ll never get what we came here for if we don’t figure out how to exploit Jarden for the better.”
As undignified and selfish as that sounded, Odin couldn’t agree any more.
“Young Yamda,” Jarden said, frowning as ze opened the door and beckoned Odin into the darkened corridor. “What brings you here at such an early hour of the afternoon?”
“I figured I’d come early so we could discuss more,” Odin said. “You know—because it always seems like the time passes too quickly when I come later in the day.”
“I can understand that, my friend, but is there any… particular reason for your early arrival?”
“Not really, zir.”
Can he see it? Odin thought. Can he really see right through me?
There had been moments during his time with the Neven D’Carda that he felt unguarded and vulnerable to all attack. He’d taken it upon himself to safeguard his mind in ways the mage brothers had once scolded him for not using in the past not only to protect his identity, but to ensure that his plan would not be discovered. This, he did, by envisioning a wall around his mind, which came bent by the logistics of reality around the surface of his head, and could only be unlocked through a safe he imagined was embedded at the back of his skull, one only he held the key to. With this firmly in mind, and with his guard set and at the ready, he felt no one could enter his mind—not even Jarden, the queen, or any other Elf who may happen across him.
Forcing a smile in the wake of such brutal yet subtle interrogation, Odin slid his thumbs into his pockets and followed Jarden down the hall after ze locked the door and led the way into the living chambers. Once there, ze paused, then turned zirs attention to the distant side of the room before continuing to lead Odin toward the office, carefully to navigate zirs awkwardly-long body around slights in the ceiling and sharp, protruding corners.
“Do you ever find it hard to live like this?” Odin asked, giving a slight nod as Jarden opened the door to allow him inside.
“I am not sure I understand your question, Yamda.”
“It seems like you have a hard enough time walking through your home without having to worry about running or stumbling into something. It seems like the office is the only place big enough for your height.”
“It is… troublesome at best. But no—I do not find it hard to live here. I consider this place my home. It has offered me much more than what my previous acquaintances have in the past.”
“You’ve had trouble before?” Odin frowned.
“This is not something we should be discussing, Odin. We should be focusing on your training, on your—“
“Excuse me, zir, but… I’d rather talk about you today—that is, if you’re willing.”
Jarden offered no reply.
As the room seemed to chill, offering a depth of destruction Odin thought himself incapable of handling, he curled his hands at his sides, stared Jarden directly in the pure-white scleras of his eyes, and tried to maintain control over his emotions.
Your will has grown strong, Virgin had said early that morning, after he’d risen from the bathing chamber to come face-to-face with him. You’re much stronger now than you have been in the past.
Could that mean that he could stare a creature like the Neven D’Carda in the eyes without having to worry about faltering?
Does it matter?
In this instance, it mattered more than anything else in the world. If, however, he were to consider the situation as a whole, he could allow himself a moment to get away with the briefest insecurity, if only because Jarden likely felt him a weaker-minded individual than he truthfully was. Weak he was not, for he bore upon his shoulders the burden of loss and the insurmountable odds of oppression, and while foolish he may be, he felt himself more than capable of doing what it was he’d set out to do.
Steeling himself before wraithlike Neven D’Carda, Odin forced himself to remain stoic.
“Myself,” Jarden said, his voice a dagger cutting through pale wire that lay strung between them. “Myself.”
“Yourself, zir.”
“What is it you would like to know, dear Yamda? I can assure you that my past is trivial and not filled with things you would likely find useful.”
“Where did you grow up?” Odin asked, following the creature to the desk. “I don’t know a whole lot about the outlying towns or villages in the Abroen.”
“You may call them ‘villages,’ if you were to call them anything. They are nothing more than small providences that are constructed entirely of things from the earthly realm.”
“Did you grow up in one of these providences, zir?”
“I grew up in a farming village called Tehkera, which, on a map, is located three days southeast of Lesliana.”
“A farming village?” Odin frowned. “If you don’t raise cattle or sheep, than what do you—“
“We grow in fields lush and vibrant the fruits of our desires. Crops of tomatoes, heads of lettuce, cobs of corn—we even manage to grow fruits, though it is quite troublesome in places where our brothers and sisters grow aplenty.”
“You mean the trees… right?”
“Brothers, sisters; Elves, trees—we are all the same. We are life. Are we not?”
Of course we are, Odin thought, but found response better move than to nod.
While Jarden stewed on the words ze had just spoken, Odin crossed his arms over his chest and slumped in his seat as he tried to determine what he would have to do to get the Elf to open up. It would take an ample amount of convincing to get zir just to say anything, especially about magic or the more defined chronicles of it.
The fact that ze had so openly revealed the location of where ze had grown up could have been compared to a man thrusting his hand in dark water to try to catch a fish—an attempt, while seemingly worthless, could sometimes yield some results, regardless of the teeth that always dwelled beneath.
“Odin,” Jarden said.
“Yes, zir?” he asked, straightening his posture when he realized how ridiculous he must look.
“Why were you so interested in knowing where I grew up?”
“Because I feel like I know a lot about you somehow. Because it seems like we’re… connected, or something.”
“Connected?” the Elf mused, lips curling into what could have been considered a smile, had the teeth shown more than just a brief, predatory glimpse. “How so, young Yamda?”
“I… well, zir… if it’s my place to ask, or comment on, I should say, you must’ve had a hard time growing up, considering… well… what you are and all.”
“The life of a Neven D’Carda can be a bit… troublesome, at best,” Jarden agreed, “but like everything, it comes with its gains and consequences.”
“I hardly had any friends when I was growing up.”
“Your eyes, I assume?”
“Yes zir. They… well… used to call me demon child.”
“Children are much more honest than they should be designed to be,” Jarden sighed, reaching up to wave a hand across the front of zirs dome-shaped head. “To be quite honest, young Yamda, I was called many things—hermaphrodite, monstrosity. They even called me an abomination for the fact that I was so different from them.”
“That’s horrible.”
“As soon as my better intuition allowed me the conscience to think and act for myself, I fled Tehkera and made my way here, to the capital, where I submitted my application to the court to become a High Mage to serve under the Fourth Queen of the High Elven Society.”
“Fourth Queen?” Odin frowned. “There’s only been four since the Elves have arrived here?”
“Queen Lanscella, our third queen, passed away from a horrible bout of pneumonia she contracted while visiting one of the bogs within our forest,” Jarden said. “Our first queen was killed by Drow mercenaries during the Great Fall, when the Drow were exiled from the mainland. Her daughter died of a broken heart when her partner left her for another woman. Queen Ahmleyana is our current and fourth ruler.”
“When did you realize you were Gifted?”
“As a child, I drew a bead of iron that had fallen from the sky and safely secured it in a hole far away from our village. Such things are capable of killing Elves—or any of the Fae, for that matter.”
“The Fae?” Odin frowned.
Killed them?
Horribly, the thought of his father dying in cold blood on the Dwaydorian Lowlands came to mind with force that immediately thrust him back in his seat.
Could the weapon Herald’s Dwarf accomplice had used on Miko have killed him outright?
They said it was iron, he thought, shivering, unable to control the tears that came to his eyes. They said—
“Odin?” Jarden asked.
“I’m fine,” he said, reaching up to wipe the tears from his face. “You said something about the Fae.”
“Are you well?”
“I’m all right.”
“The Fae are any creature that hails from the Mines of Myr in the lands known as the Ends of the Earth, which are generally thought to exist in the far south of our world.”
“Has anyone ever been there?”
“Not to my knowledge, no.”
“What are the Fae? And what are the Mines of Myr?”
“The Fae are any magical creature that has been born of the world through the magic of Will. It’s a common thought that Sprites are part of the Fae, though to be honest, I have come to learn that Sprites are what make up the spiritual sides of us—our souls, great and strong, persisting in the physical sense after they have left our bodies. As to what other types of Fae exist, there are Wraiths, creatures of dusk and darkness that manifest usually in the presence of Necromancers or evil places; Fairies, which, as you are probably already aware, are small, Elven-like creatures that bear the wings of butterflies, light and other forms of elementals; Pixies, which are much like Fairies, but wingless; then there are Gnomes, which are small individuals that are much like Dwarves but only grow to be some foot or so tall. As to the mines, they are a supposed source of power where the Will has manifested itself into a great golden river that runs beneath the surface of our world and even beyond it.”
“Is it real? And are the Fae real?”
“I cannot be sure whether or not the Mines of Myr exist. There are some that say that even the Ends of the Earth do not exist, for there has never been someone who has attempted to travel there to find whether or not they actually exist. The Fae, though… I am sure you as well as anyone has seen a Sprite, as they are common in times of war, especially when Necromancers bind souls to their will. In my entire life, though, I have only seen one Fairy.”
“What was it like?”
“This was a young Fairy who had not yet learned to take the form of a butterfly to escape detection from the Elven eye. She was nude—as they often are, for they are not conscious of nudity and therefor have no modesty—and she was lying on a leaf on a hot day after a long bout of rain. I only saw her for but a brief moment, but when she noticed me, she immediately took off into the bushes and I never saw her again.”
“You said the Fae can be killed by iron,” Odin said, clutching the armrests of his seats as Jarden leaned forward and braced his fingers together.
“Yes. I did.”
“My father, he… I believe he was, anyway, or so it was said… that he was shot by a piece of iron.”
“It is commonly thought that our weakness to iron is in part due to the fact that we may be a higher-evolved species of the Fae, one which wandered from its ancestral homelands to live in the sea due to what we believed to be an amphibious part of our natural design. We are, sadly, vulnerable to such things, which took your father’s life if what you are saying is true.”
“It is,” Odin sighed.
Though tears threatened to return, he managed to restrain himself and righted his head.
“You are lost within your grief,” the Elf said, reaching forward to set the tip of a digit atop Odin’s hand. “It is very obvious, my friend.”
“I want to learn more,” Odin sighed. “About my father… about what he was.”
“Today is not the day. Go—return to your current home and rest. There will be further time for learning, but now is not the time to discuss what it is you want to know.”
“Is something wrong?” Virgin asked, opening the door to allow Odin passage into their room.
“Today was a lot worse than I expected it to be,” Odin sighed, seating himself atop the mattress.
“Did something happen?”
“I… I mean, we… ended up talking about the Fae, and how their vulnerability to iron might have killed my father.”
“Ah,” the older Halfling said. “The old iron legend.”
“You don’t believe it?”
“Even if I did, I don’t think it would have reason for it to affect me—well, us, if you want to get down to the true logistics of it.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because we’re Halflings, Odin. We’re different from the rest of the Elves.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean we don’t suffer the same weaknesses as them.”
Without a word of reply, Virgin seated himself directly beside Odin and wrapped his arm around his shoulders, careful to curl his fingers around his upper arm before pulling him against his chest.
“I can tell you’re upset about what happened today at the castle,” Virgin said, brushing his lips along the side of Odin’s cheekbone. “I’m here for you.”
“I know.”
“Why don’t we have dinner somewhere else tonight?”
“
Like where?”
“There’s a few restaurants that make some amazing food, and a bakery that could easily bake some of the best breads I’ve ever eaten.”
“I’m not sure if I want to go out,” Odin sighed, bowing his head.
“Why not?” Virgin asked. “I can tell you’re not in a good mood, but tell you what—let me treat you.”
“Treat me?” Odin frowned. “Why? I have money.”
“I’m trying to do something nice here. Buying you dinner would be the least of my worries.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” Virgin smiled, squeezing Odin’s bicep just enough to put a smile on his face. “So… say after the sun goes down, when the city starts dying down and getting ready to go to sleep for the night?”
“That works.”
“Good, because I’m ready to eat some damn good bread.”
They arranged to have dinner at the bakery up the road. Dressed in casual’s best, hair slicked back and Virgin freshly-shaven, they left the inn just as the sun was beginning to set and skirted alongside the path to keep from running into others who may be wandering the same road. Barely noticed, if even looked at, they kept their heads held high and stood nearly shoulder-to-shoulder, as if testament to the fact that groups in numbers held power in a world where individualism seemed all the more prevalent in the face of adversity. It would have been a sight to see, were there anyone to truly look upon them, but even so, they kept quiet until they made their way to the front of the bakery, where inside a few Elves dined and snacked alone or in small groups.
This is… different, Odin thought, pressing a hand to the pane of glass to protect his eyes from the sun’s obscure vision of dust.
Never in his life had he seen a building lit by the power of magic. Arranged in bars of light along the front counter, orbs of color in the corners of the room and hanging, vine-like constructs along the walls, the magic—pale orange in color, but bridging on the hue of blue in some instances—showered the business in light that could have been comparable to something of a somber mood and an even more depressing setting. As notorious as that notion seemed, and how unwelcome the place appeared, Virgin had personally requested that they come here, so he would not deter his companion in his pursuit for a good evening’s meal.
