by S J Cavanagh
Elf Esteem
The court musicians launched into a timid rendition of “I Arqueneva Hendu Ucenuva Naicele Lieva”. The name sounded a lot better in elvish. “The Duke’s ears are full of wax and he hears not the common people” loses something in the common tongue. The dancers’ cue was reached with the rake of a viola, and the lines of nobles came together like teeth.
I soon lost interest and let my eyes drift over the décor. City elves were funny. They had a nostalgic semblance of still loving the forest, but didn’t want to live there. They did, however, keep a ridiculous number of potted plants.
My gaze flicked to the door guards again. They had a slumping posture that retained a legal status of being at attention, and the visors of their helmets were down. Chances were their eyelids were as well.
I gave my arm a flourish and fiddled with my kerchief, watching the sand trickle through the tiny dayglass there. The fingers of my other hand were drumming impatiently on the table. I closed a fist to shut them up.
Two figures emerged laughing from the churn of dancers and moved toward the table. I straightened my jacket. It was the Earl, accompanied by a giant wedding cake adorned with garden clippings. Who turned out, on closer inspection, to be a lady of the court.
“Ha! You see, Mr Chane?” he wheezed as I stood and bowed. “You humans have culture after your own fashion, but cannot compete. We live a decade for every year of a human, guest of the house!”
I’ve been called a human so much I don’t even take it as an insult anymore, and a lot of expense (and a touch of pain) has ensured that I pass as one of the repulsive things. The self-important arrogance of the silver haired race, however, will always rile me. Not that I let it show.
“Of course, my lord, but even in the short life we have, we humans accumulate much and learn quickly”.
He raised a trimmed eyebrow as a memory seeped through the elvish wine, and dismissed Ms Cake with the wave of a hand. “Yes, perhaps… Now why was I…”
I nudged further. “I am, for example, learning how fortunate I am to have won your friendship. The hunting manor was opulent, but this party is even more impressive”.
“Impressive…” I could almost hear grinding between those pointy ears.
I took another sip and nodded in the direction of the Earl’s glass. The wine was a ’73 Silmarillion Blanc and burned me like I’d tongue -kissed a dragon, but alcohol was as integral a part of this operation as my choice of drinking buddy.
“Impressive!” His brain sparked as he swung the glass up. “Did I tell you what I have in my quarters upstairs, o human of travel?”
My pulse pounded in my ears. “You may have mentioned something”.
He grabbed my arm and dragged me over to the stairs, buckled shoes whisking over the mosaic, and I had to hold the lock picks concealed in my cummerbund to prevent them sliding out onto the floor.
“My friend, this will be a day to remember!”
Upstairs, the carpet was pure cashmere and the décor was traditional filthy rich. Portraits of Earl Illtasti’s ancestors lined the walls, looking down their noses as we elbowed our way through the potted plants.
The Earl was vocally wound up by now, which didn’t take a lot. He had a sharp mind for business, but two glasses reduced him to a pompous twit. I nodded enthusiastically at each foppish giggle, drawing out my pipe and lighting it. I knew that we were headed for the southeast corner of the mansion, but I’d only studied the building from the outside so I committed the passages to memory. Information is everything in this business.
I glanced down at the yellow ember in my pipe and mentally reviewed the current phase of the operation. One risk was that someone might find Astin outside, but that could be overcome. The presence of other people in the Earl’s room was unlikely. Still, I wished I’d had more time to work up a good diversion. I gave the Earl another swig from my bottle, the next best thing.
We reached a large valewood door and he unlocked it with a silver key on a chain. Above the door was a magic sigil, and I silently cursed as I studied the runes. If I passed through the door while not in the company of the Earl the thing would wake the dead. Literally, in all probability.
Beyond was a room that even made the court look cheap- marble, gold trimmings, rare plants and every luxurious convenience the commoners would dream of if they’d ever heard of them. Money may not be able to buy happiness, but it sure could rent it.
None of that was what I came for. In a large niche in the wall were some items composing Illtasti’s private collection. A bejeweled crown, a sword whose blade gave a faint oily glow, and a crystalline medallion headed the large display. My breath caught as I also saw the entire reason for my six-week ‘friendship’ with the elf.
I looked down at the orange ember in my pipe. “What’s all this then, Illy?”
He gave me an unfocused wink. “These, guest of the house, are the choice mementos of my lineage’s service to the Elvish Nation. The Netherblade was found in a dragon hoard by my grandsire. That carved bone was captured from an orc chieftain. The medallion and crown were awarded by King Elvissar to my father, but this” –he wavered a finger at a black ball half the size of my head- “two months ago my forest diggers unearthed it, and I have confirmed it to be none other than the Orb of Unsight! Here, touch it!” He grabbed my hand, shaking the wine bottle loose, and slapped it onto the ball.
Everything went black.
I lifted my hand, and could see again. I tapped it experimentally, and my vision flickered.
“Uh,” I stammered, unsure of what to say. I used the moment to step away from him, looked down at the angry red ember in my pipe, and ventured. “What does it do?”
The Earl looked at me like I had used his family history scrolls for toilet paper. “Do? Do? It brings the Lightless Void of Contemplation, man! Removes the deceitfulness of the visible, enabling one to reflect on-“
“Here,” I said, and threw my pipe to him.
He caught it, of course. Elves are good with things like that, even when tipsy. He’d just begun to give me a puzzled expression when it went off with a satisfying Pampf sound, enveloping him in the smoke. He toppled forward, and was paralysed before he hit the floor. I bet he was glad he’d installed that plush carpet.
I removed my silly little cape and fanned the smoke away. My false nose had fine charcoal snout plugs, but the reason I’m still alive is that I take no chances.
“Whfgl? Gfsmgr!” said the prone figure of the Earl, sounding as if he meant it. Holdy smoke leaves the respiratory and vocal systems functional (one reason it’s a favourite with interrogators), so we could have a nice chat while I claimed my prize. I rolled him over with a foot so he could see.
The eyes play a great part in facial expression, even in these creatures. One notices how much when it’s gone. His mouth was open in a gasp of horror, but the frozen eyes retained their puzzlement. Still, he didn’t need to move them to see this end of the room.
He gave an involuntary snort and screamed. “Guards! Help!” Hardly creative, I know, but several centuries of high-class inbreeding will do that to a guy.
“Short memory?” I could let some of the bass back into my voice now. “I know your room is sound dampened. That’s what the fire alarm last week was for. Now why would you enchant the room with that, hmmm? Playful with your sickly white she-elves, are we?”
He was shocked into silence for a moment, and glared as much as he could using only his mouth. “You’ll die before you can sell the orb, thief of the gutter!”
The Earl had raised ignorance to an art form. Such a short, simple sentence, but he managed to be wrong on four counts. One, I did not intend to die. Two, I was not going to sell anything. Three, you are not a thief if you reclaim what belongs to you.
Four, I wasn’t after his stupid ball.
I rolled it into the bag lining my pantaloons anyway (a little misdirection didn’t hurt), helped myself to a jewel or two for added effect, and reverently palmed th
e bone. It was in my hand! Orguk Gnashjaw was one of the founders of modern orc civilization, and his decorative nose-bone was worth more to us than any twinkling bauble.
Now that the objective was secure, my patience began to leak away. My working clothes began to feel disgustingly smooth and breezy and I longed for the dank caverns, the grey fungus of home.
I took a step toward the door and stopped, remembering the alarm sigil.
“I’ll find you!” spat the Earl.
I looked down, savoring the moment. His eyes were still puzzled, and beginning to dry out.
“No” I said, from experience. “You won’t. Hope instead that someone will find you”. Then I was off, covering the distance to the southernmost window in seven long strides. The open air outside the manor was filled with a kaleidoscope of glass, and me.
And sound, a lot of it. It blasted me hard enough to rattle my skull, even though much of my ears had been cut off to make me look human. Illy the elf had also alarmed the windows apparently, and his paranoia paid off as a screech rang out across the town like a harpy giantess had sat on a cactus.
Astin was right where I’d left him. Saddlebagged and harnessed to a cart, the horse didn’t even glance up as I sprawled among the barrels and straw. Even before I clambered to the seat he set off at a brisk trot. Fast enough to make a getaway, slow enough not to attract attention, we made for the eastern city wall. I cocked and concealed my two small hand crossbows on the way.
The guards at the portcullis were as alert as they could be just after lunch, and smart enough to post a bowman up on the parapet when the alarm went off. The other two blocked my way with pikes.
“Quick!” I urged. “Can’t you hear the alarm, you fools? There’s a fire at the manor house, and I have to fill these barrels. Out of my way!” I didn’t have time to lay the groundwork for a better con, pursuit would be on its way within minutes.
One of them lurched aside but stopped when his colleague didn’t. Said guard glanced at me sidelong, a difficult thing to do in a nasal helm.
Three guards, my two crossbows. I gave one of the reins a tickle so Astin would be ready.
“He’s an orc!” blurted the suspicious guard.
I gave a start. This guy was good.
“It’s as plain as the nose on your face,” he said, lifting the pike.
Out came the two hand crossbows.
My mother has a saying, “the best way to change someone’s mind is a warhammer to the left temple”. The quarrels didn’t hit them hard, but they were small enough to get the point through chain mail and were tipped with whatever concoction had come out of Meggle Gutreader’s alchemy and cooking pot. The guards were likely to live, but for the next day or two they would consider that a bad thing.
The third guard on the parpapet would have been a problem if not for my faithful steed. He usually catches people unawares.
I find this surprising, I really do. It’s common knowledge that orcs are distantly related to elves, and that elves breed wonderful horses endowed with some of the splendour of their race. Why is it, then, that nobody puts two and two together? Virtually nobody has heard of an orcish stallion.
Not that I’m complaining, mind you. Even if they did know of them, Astin’s had his tusks filed down just like me. He’s the most horse one can get from one horsepower transport, and he spits better than a camel. As I jumped from the cart to the saddle the bowman caught a fist-sized dollop of phlegm in the face, and stumbled backward over a potted plant. I released the cart in the gateway, flicked a flintflare back into the straw, and hungry flames began to lick at the barrels of paraffin.
We’d covered a tenthday at full pace before I figured out what the guard had meant. My false nose had come off when I jumped through the window.
I rode until mid afternoon, and would have kept going but I found a muddy bog at the edge of a forest that I just couldn’t pass up. A good lathering and the pink-brown makeup soon came off, and I grinned at my reflection’s handsome snout and greenish pigment.
A log among the trees looked comfortable. I sat down, treated myself to a couple of grubs from a pouch, then with self indulgent guilt I pushed Orguk’s bone into the hole through my nose. It felt firm and strong and I couldn’t help, just for a moment, imagining myself as a great leader of orc.
The revered talisman was ours, thanks to weeks of hard work, a little luck, the specialist equipment of double Y section operatives, and the proud blindness of elves.
Most of them believe orcs aren’t smart enough to talk their way into a chicken run let alone an elvish court, and tend to think I should be raiding a small village with a rock in my hand yelling “Me crush!” I don’t know what age they think this is! It’s true that many of our cultural and lifestyle preferences match the ‘popular’ concept of goblinkind, but if you see an orc waving a bone club these days rest assured he’s either putting you off your guard, or putting it on for the tourists.
“Excuse me”.
A polite voice yanked me out of my musings. I had jumped to my feet and was groping for my dagger when I realized it had come from the log.
“Yes, you,” barked the log, raising itself on an elbow and revealing itself to be an ent. “Did you hear anything just now? Any sound?”
I blinked. “Just-“
“Just now, a bit before you sat down. I fell over, you see, and I didn’t think there was anyone around. Did-“
Astin whickered. He was standing on a small rise facing back the way we had come, nostrils reaching at the air. I hopped up onto the ent and craned my neck.
In the distance were the dusty plumes of horsemen, two of them. I wasn’t out of the woods yet. I ran over to Astin and fed him two handfuls of oilmoss from saddlebag one. He began to munch away as we rode hard down the forest trail.
Astin, as I mentioned, is a great horse. He was originally bred for her majesty’s secret circus and given the name GorkDel, or Shademodem, before catching the eye of a horse trainer for the double Y section (and nearly tearing it out).
Nevertheless, the elves knew the region better than we did. The energy afforded by the oilmoss gave Astin an initial burst of speed, but before we had traveled two-thirds of Flakeleaf Forest they had closed the gap with determination, keeping our track. I began to hear the unnerving silence of the elvish horses not making any noise behind me. A white arrow purred past my head.
I crouched low in the saddle, offering a smaller target, and eyed the trail ahead. No convenient low branches presented themselves (like all roads regularly traveled by horsemen). The only thing of note in the forest was a bear, and he was busy answering an age-old question. I would have to hamper their pursuit with my hamper of toys.
I snatched at a hand crossbow, too fast, and fumbled it into the blurring leaves below.
I was fortunate of two things. I still had the other crossbow, and orcs do not blush. I reached for saddlebag three, loaded the other bow with a very specialized weapon, and shot it into a branch several feet overhead.
This type of quarrel is a scaled down wood-biter arrow, and it trails ten feet of fine chain barbed with the same hooks that my cousin Bokin uses to fish for eel. It is stored in felt for ease of handling, and the manufacturer does not recommend riding into one face first at full gallop (In fact, the first ever victim of the weapon was riding backward, giving it the unlikely name of moonraker).
I heard a shriek behind me, and another white arrow thapped skyward through the leaves. I hoped he knew the name of a good magic surgeon.
The other one was a true rider. He stayed with me even when we leaped off the trail and threaded some thin trees, tore through a cluster of whipscrub and galloped up a gentle slope. A jolting plunge down a short bank, and we were on a road heading northwest. Not in my original plan, but if I failed they were less likely to know which orc city I had come from.
I could hear him cursing now, in the white speech of Lesshatch that I will not utter in impolite company. He was still close behind us, and gainin
g.
The forest was thinner and although the ground increasingly fell away to the left, the path was straighter. I let Astin have his head and he surged forward eagerly, spraying leaves behind us.
Two dragonlengths ahead the road was draped over a small hillock and I saw my opportunity. I readied the spring-loader on saddlebag two, waiting until we were just over the hill before releasing the catch. Barbed caltrops scattered over an area the size of a house, and I twisted in the saddle to watch.
The elf warrior crested the rise, his eyes telling me that his determination had only grown during the pursuit. His horse, however, was paying attention and gave a dainty hop that carried it most of the way over my pointed patch. It became a momentary octopus with some nimble hoofwork, and they continued after us unchecked.
It was my turn to swear, and I did. The only weapon I had left was my dagger and I considered throwing it at him, but settled for turning around and concentrating on riding. The gully to the left had dropped into a rocky gorge, and the trees gave up all hope of a canopy and retreated to infrequent clusters. Ahead of us the forest road had become a mountain trail, skirting the gorge and winding steeply to the right.
I hugged Astin’s neck and noted that he had worked up a good lather of sweat. His breath was starting to come in sharp snorts, but between my legs I felt a faint rumble that gave us another option.
I heard the metallic ring of a sword being drawn close behind me. If we slowed down for the bend the elf would have us.
There was no option but to entrust my life to Astin’s dexterity and digestion. I reached for the tail strap.
Oilmoss has two uses. It gives a short burst of energy, and is a powerful laxative that produces the greasiest substance known to orc. Lifting the tail strap gave Astin his cue, and my ace in the hole came violently out of it.
We leaned into the bend. There was a sticky scrabbling sound. A tug at my thigh became a stripe of pain. The horse and rider flew past us into open space, trailing green from the sword and black from the hooves.
It wasn’t a dizzying drop, but it was enough. I pulled Astin back to an easy canter and rubbed his mane.
The slash to my thigh reached halfway to my knee and had soon wet the saddle with blood. I intended to press on but only made it a few dragonlengths before slipping off Astin’s back onto a rocky plateau. In spite of my occupation I had never before received a good cut, and those elvish blades are every bit as nasty as they say. I grasped the wound and could do nothing but roll around growling and cursing. Astin showed the depth of his compassion by ignoring me completely.
When I regained my composure enough to reach the saddlebags, I held the wound together with a few clipper ticks, unwound a bandage roll and sat down to think. I hadn’t traveled to the plateau before, but knew that somewhere at the bottom of the gorge was a cave that eventually led down to Bonebalgen. If I stayed on the trail for another five or six-…
A shadow swept the plateau. Astin was quicker on the uptake than I, and bolted into a dense copse. I could do nothing but sit there in shock as a great winged form dropped from the sky and alighted on the flat.
I had heard of a bullgriff, but had never seen one and didn’t want to start now. It was half cow and half eagle and at least twelve shinbones tall. It fixed its dinner-plate eyes on me and took a few steps in my direction. Claws and hooves clacked on the rock and its wings folded.
Saddled elegantly at the base of the feathered neck was Earl Illasti. I had no idea he was influential enough to own such a monster. He appeared a great deal more animated, and sober, than I would have expected.
I ran through my options. There weren’t any. My dagger wouldn’t even penetrate the beast’s white-and-black hide. The only help Astin could provide would be a light snack.
“Did you think I would not come after you, betrayer of trust?” the Earl shrilled. His mount swished its bovine tail.
I held down the struggling piglet of panic. He had me cold, but it would be a bright sunny day in Bonebalgen before I beg to an elf on a flying cow.
“I didn’t expect a pat on the head,” I said. He didn’t get it.
“And an orc!” he punctuated with spittle. “I shared my table with you! You rode with my nobles! You came into my home!”
“Yeah” I tried to get to my feet. My leg wasn’t interested. “Disgusting, I know, but you have to put up with things like that in my line of work”.
His lips went white. “How dare you! You… you savage!”
“Savage?” I echoed, anger stabbing through fear. “Oh, that’s right. ‘It’s the elves that have beauty and grace’. ‘It’s the elves that have such a highly developed culture’. Was it the elves that created sculptures like Slaughter, with a Kumquat? Have you ever seen Diva Gruelbowl perform Smashdance? You pompous elf, you can’t even see how stupid you are. This ‘savage’ worked his way into your inner sanctum, and if you hadn’t happened to be flying in this direction I would have got clean…”
His smirk heralded a tingling realization. His warriors had made their move on me when the northwestern road had been conveniently close. I had been herded.
“You do appear to be well trained” he paid a compliment like he expected a receipt.
I said nothing. He nudged his mount forward and continued.
“I’m sure there is one lesson your training missed. Perhaps there is something that you are blind to. I am to the manor born, while you crawl from some hole in the ground. I shall live and you shall not. I serve the causes of good and your very race is foul and evil, and good always, always triumphs. Goodbye, Mr Chane”..
My attention was drawn to the slow advance of a very large and sharp beak that could snap my head off like a corn kernel. A tongue came out and licked its nostrils.
They say at times like this your life flashes before your eyes. I was fortunate that this was not true. What flashed through my mind were the Earl’s final words to me and one word stuck out like one of Aunt Morga’s boils.
Wrapping my hand in the bandage, I thrust it into the slash in my leggings. The clipper ticks twitched and I couldn’t stifle a gasp of pain, but I found what I was looking for as the deadly beak closed in.
I hadn’t played basketskull for many years and I wasn’t all that good at it when I did, but at that range I didn’t have to be. The black ball disappeared down that deadly throat and began its journey through the creature’s digestive tract.
At the first touch, the Lightless Void of Contemplation threw the beast into panic. It twisted into the air, shrieking and clawing as if it could throw off whatever obscured its vision. The Earl was unbullgriffed some fifty shinbones up, and landed on his own ones when he fell to the rock.
He took it well, I’ll give him that. He made less noise than I did and merely lay there, gasping and watching his mount pinwheel into the distance.
I drew my serrated dagger and dragged myself toward him. He turned at the movement and wheezed: “Don’t… bother, breaker of lineage”.
I tensed for a trick, but he just stared absently into space. I had begun to think he had died when he ventured: “You were right, you know”.
With an effort, I dragged myself to my feet. “Right…”
“About not being a savage. I, elf of learning and… ruler of a duchy, did not… consider that this might happen. Either you are… highly intelligent, or…”
“Or you’re stupid”. Naturally he would favour the first option. I put it down to the third- that I had been saved by blind luck.
“Of course you have your own culture,” he admitted in a sad little voice. “How could you not? Long ago your race was created from ours. Look how easily you took to our society. You are a perverse reflection, but you must agree that deep within you lies the heart of an elf”.
When I eventually rode from the clearing, I licked my fingers and decided he was right.
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