by Rex Hazelton
I'll do what? He wondered. Go home? He was surprised at the question he asked himself. But home is here in the Warl of the Living. Isn't it?
Blowing a burst of breath out of his mouth in frustration over the conundrum his mind was wrestling with, Travyn was surprised to hear leaves rustling in a nearby tree.
He didn't know if the noise he made alerted a creature to his presence. If so... what kind of creature had he disturbed? Was it something he had never seen before? He had heard the swamp was full of such things, like flesh eating squirrels for example.
When Travyn looked up to see what had made the sound, he spied a human form pressed up against a tree trunk, high above the swamp's floor. Since the form stood on a branch, he guessed it wasn't a wraith that wouldn't need something corporal to brace itself on.
The comfort this realization brought with it didn't last long, since it was clear he was being watched. But by whom? Was it one of the Sorcerer's agents, a Shadowman perhaps? Were the Neflin been keeping track of him? Or was it something else, a highwayman perchance? And if this was the case... were there more of them?
The concern he felt was seen in the brightening rings of amber color that appeared in his eyes.
Lowering the lip of his hat's broad, flat brim, Travyn tried to hide the light that grew there. As he did, the person, for indeed it was a person and not some phantom or human-like creature, pushed away from the tree trunk they had been leaning against.
After seeing the stranger, whose features were still hidden in shadow, reach up and run a hand through the long hair that fell from their head, Travyn watched them begin a quick descent from the tree's height. Moving with cat-like speed and precision, the stranger soon reached the lowest branch and hung from it before dropping a considerable distance to the ground, a distance that would make Travyn think twice before he did the same.
Impressed by the stranger's athletic prowess, Travyn became alarmed when they withdrew a bow that was slung across their back and an arrow from an accompanying quiver. Then in one swift motion, the deadly projectile was aimed in his direction a moment before it was sent flying. Striking a tree trunk that stood behind him, the arrow would have hit Travyn if aimed a little lower. Recognizing the act of intimidation for what it was, he'd be thrown into the Fire's of Darkness before he'd show fear before the stranger. Still, he scanned the nearby trees, looking for others who might be there and for a way of escape if more strangers were found.
"I could have killed you if I had wanted too," a deep feminine voice said as the stranger stepped out of the shadow of the tree she had climbed out of.
"So you think." Travyn was both irritated and unwilling to cede the point.
It's a Neflin female, he thought as he gazed upon the graceful creature that stood before him. Then she wasn't sent to spy on me.
Scouting, spying, and the like were jobs, in the Neflin way of thinking, that were ascribed to males only. Though the females were capable of doing such things, as the strangers tree climbing exhibited, the Lorn Elves division of labor didn't allow such tasks to be assigned to the females except in the direst of situations.
Travyn also didn't think the Neflin could keep up with the magically enhanced pace his horse had set on the trip to the swamp. And he was certain they wouldn't guess where he had gone off to unless Mar’Gul had divined his intentions. In addition, the Neflin female didn't look like any he had seen before. She looked... odd... and beautiful in an extremely feral way.
With features as fine as any of the Lorn Elves, but with skin a shade darker than others of her kind, the female's movements were as fluid as rain water flowing off of a roof it had fallen upon. Her almond-shaped eyes were larger and darker than other Neflin, giving her the aspect of a nocturnal creature. Her ears were longer than other Neflin. Her teeth were almost too white, white like the fangs of a wolf or one of the big cats that lived in the swamp. No doubt, the teeth's juxtaposition to her dark skin was responsible for this impression. Her hair was long and unkempt like she had forgotten to brush it that morning. The clothes she wore were tailored without an eye for fashion. Reflecting light in the mercurial way that shards of glossy, black stones covering the vast Stone Desert did, her eyes luminous expulsion flashed about in patterns that the angle the rays of sunlight fell couldn't account for.
"Shall I put an arrow into your heart to show that what I said is true?" The Neflin drew out another projectile so quickly that it appeared to sprung out of her hand like some entertainers have flowers do when they are pretending to work a feat of magic.
As the female nocked the arrow to the bow string, Travyn replied, "Shall I plunge my sword into your sorry gut?"
Laughing at the human's audacious boast, for how could a sword be an arrow's match at the distance separating the two of them, the Neflin lowered her bow with the arrow still nocked and said, "You interest me, Bright Eyes, you and the one who was with you the last time you came here. Kaylan. Isn't that his name?"
"How do you know that," Travyn asked, the light in his eyes increasing as he did.
"I followed the two of you back to Lan'Fon." The female smiled a wickedly beautiful smile as she admitted the stealthy deed. "That's how, Travyn."
"Since you have the advantage of knowing who I am without me having a clue to your identity," Travyn found that he was being drawn to the feral female much as he was being pulled to Dragon's Tooth. And at the moment, neither things bothered him much, "may I have your name?"
"You say you have no clue to my identity?" The females's smile took on a cunning aspect as she spoke. "But as you can see, I'm a Neflin who went to Lan'Fon to learn about you. Doesn't that say something about me? In fact, Lan'Fon is where I was born."
"But Lan'Fon isn't where you live, correct?" Trayvn was getting an idea of who he was dealing with. The strangely interesting female saying she was born in Lan'Fon while neglecting to call it home said she was a loner. Maybe even a hermit. But if she was, the look in her eyes was far from the kind of thing one sees in the faces of those who long for solitude to the degree hermits do. There were no firtive glances that said, Back off and leave me alone. There was no lowering of the head in the way those who wanted to avoid eye contact did, nor was her body postured in the way the aloof and disinterested held themselfs. Instead, her gaze was a hungry one. Eager to know more about Travyn, it bid him to stay despite the bow and arrow she stedfastly held in her hands. If the female was alone, the reason for this didn’t come out of a desire to keep clear of other elves. Something else had driven her to live near the Lorn Swamp. Travyn was certain of this.
"No." The woman sighed wearily as she explained. "I live here, where you found me."
"In that tree?" Travyn couldn't help adding a bit of sarcasm to the conversation.
Closing her eyes in thought, the female only opened them half way as she replied with a touch of her own wit thrown into the mix. "Why? Are you jealous? You shouldn't be." Then swinging the point of her arrow at the other trees, she said, "There are plenty to go around. Choose one and we can be neighbors."
"That's not going to happen." Travyn felt foolish for bandying words with the female. "I just thought..."
"You thought I look crazy enough to live in a tree, right?" After looking down and scanning her crudely stitched garments, the female added sarcasm to wit. "With the fine clothes I'm wearing," she said with a hint of self-consciousness that didn't fit her well, "you'd think a tree would be just the place I'd choose for a home. But that's not so, though I am an elf, and we elves do love our branches and leaves."
"Well, where do you live?" Travyn, with the direction the conversation was taking, figured he was no longer in danger of being skewered by the female's ever vigilant arrow. "I haven't seen you in Lan'Fon, even though you said you followed me there."
"If you must know, I spend most of my time in the Lorn Fast Swamp, though Lan'Fon's my real home." Appearing self-conscious again, the female added, "Now you know why my tailoring skills are so lacking and why my clothes look a
s wild as the swamp that compels me to live here."
"And why does the swamp compel you so?"
"I guess for the same reason it pulls on you." Because of her experience in the matter, the stranger stated what was obvious to her. "The things our fathers did is the source of our impulse."
The female's words took Travyn off guard while explaining much. Her appearance was an offshoot of the obsession he was sure bound her to the swamp, the same obsession he was developing for Dragon's Tooth that sat in the middle of the foul, water-laden warl that beckoned to him. And their fathers were the reason for this. His own, because Jeaf dared to brave the swamp and the wraiths that roamed there, so he could break into Cara Lorn and find Andara's Tears before scaling Dragon Tooth's heights and traveling down a corridor that took him to the Warl of the Dead.
But what of her father? What had happened to him in the swamp? Was he still here? And if he wasn't, why would she want to stay? She was more than pretty enough to bag a mate. And Travyn was certain she had never been to the Warl of the Dead like he had.
"Why do your eyes glow as they do?" The female's question wasn't as random as it sounded at first. It had everything to do with the subject of their fathers and the reason why the two of them felt pulled to this loathsome place.
"I don't know." Travyn looked a little self-conscious himself. "No one I'm related to by blood have eyes like mine. Well, some have the dark brown part but not the rings you're no doubt referring to. Only my god-father, Alynd the Elf-Man, has eyes that appear to give off light. But his are blue."
"You're god-father is Alynd?" the female was pleased that Travyn had such a close relationship to an elf, though the elf was from Nyeg Warl and half human as well. And her pleasure was increased when she learned it was Alynd, for she had seen the Elf-Man back when she was a child in Lan'Fon. That's when she saw Jeaf Oakenfel too, when he was about to lead a company of humans and elves into the Lorn Fast Swamp, a company that included her own father.
"Yes, of course." Travyn knew his relationship to the Elf-Man would be of interest to the Neflin, but he wanted to return to her earlier question. "But why do you ask about my eyes?"
"As they say, the eyes are the windows to one's soul."
"And what do you see in my soul?"
"Anger that borders on rage," she replied in measured tones. "And darkness."
"You call me Bright Eyes and yet you say there's darkness in my soul?" Travyn was irritated over the accuracy of the stranger's assessment. He did struggle with controlling his anger. But saying he had darkness inside him was going too far. She had no right to say such a thing,
"Not every definition of darkness implies the lack of light." Carefully studying Travyn as she spoke, the Neflin female didn't want to miss his reaction to her words. "The Fires of Darkness prove that."
Travyn's amber-colored rings flared up at the seeming accusation. "You think something like the Fires of Darkness dwell inside me?"
"I think darkness has touched you. I didn't say it controled you. Still, its touch is not easily shaken off."
Hating what he was hearing while recognizing the truth in what was being said, Travyn turned the tables on the stranger. "What about your eyes?"
"Mine?" Not surprised by Travyn's inquiry, the female was ready with the answer she knew her question would give rise to. "They're not like those of other Neflin, are they? They're too big. For like you, I've been touched by darkness. Living in the Lorn Fast Swamp as long as I have has seen to that."
"But I'm not evil," Travyn said this more to convince himself than the strangely alluring female.
"Neither am I, though my definition of evil is not the same as it was when I was child."
"I see where you're going with this." Travyn relaxed as things began to sort themselves out. "You think we're both alike. And you're trying to prove your point."
"I don't have to prove anything. Things are what they are." The wickedly beautiful smile returned to the Neflin's face. "I'm just glad that I'm no longer alone. There are two of us now."
"Three, if you count Kaylan."
As they talked, Travyn was getting a good idea of who the Neflin's father was. It was easy enough to figure out, once he took time to think about it. This must be Kotalik's daughter, the Neflin who had died while he was accompanying Jeaf Oakenfel through the Lorn Fast Swamp. Bacchanor and Mar’Gul didn't have any children, Bala was a cretchym, Alynd's family was in Otrodor, and Kotalik's brother, Kolosha, had two sons. Not a daughter.
"Isn't it time you gave me your name," Travyn made the inquiry that would verify his assumption.
Now that the Neflin female had revealed the crux of the matter, why would she withhold her name? "Lamarik," she said.
"Lamarik daughter of Kotalik, I would imagine."
"You're not as dull-witted as he you appear."
"I'm sorry for your loss," Travyn said as the tale of her father's death came to mind. "But that doesn't explain why you're here."
The brothers, Kotalik and Kolosha, were sent on the fateful trip to watch over the Neflin's interests in the venture that could rebound to their loss if Ab'Don found out that the Lorn Elves had given aid to Jeaf Oakenfel and the other Nyeg Warlers who were with him, aid that was offered out of the respect that the Neflin had for Alynd and Mar’Gul who supported him.
As the Company of the Hammer skirted a pond filled with rancid water, a creature that was mistaken as a peninsula-shaped protrusion of land that reached out into the water lifted up from the shorline, opened its gaping mouth that was as large as a king’s bed in size, and inhaled Kotalik into its horrible maw. The slograp's hide, emulating the environs the amphibious monster lived in, was covered with protrusions that looked like giant mushrooms, rocks, and tufts of razor grass. Camouflaged to perfection, the slograp was a master at ambushing its prey. Quickly reaching massive proprtions that their skill in waylaying the unwary helped them attain, the slograp didn't require fangs or claws to survive in the dangerous swamp. A bone crushing maw and the ability to hide was all the monsters needed.
"You of all people should be able to figure out why I spend so much time here." Lamarik, who was irritated by Travyn's inability to figure more out, added, "Think man... why are you here?"
"I'm here... I'm here..." Travyn frowned as he tried to understand his own motives for coming to the swamp, and he was troubled by what he was thinking, "because I want to return to the Warl of Dead."
Lamarik smiled as she sighed and said, "Ah, the Warl of the Dead. It's the tie that binds us. But I don't want to go to the Warl of the Dead like you. I just want my father to be able to go there and my sister too. I'll follow later, when my time comes."
Lamarik had already been told what had happened to Travyn, Kaylan, and Muriel, how their spirits were forceably taken to the part of the Warl of the Dead where the Nameless Evil dwelt. Mar’Gul explained all this in an attempt to break her and her sister's fixation on the Lorn Fast Swamp and the haunted city of Cara Lorn.
Janalik, Lamarik's younger sister, had followed her on a quest to find their father's spirit since the two were convinced it was being held prisoner inside the swamp. Legend told the sisters that this was true; an old legend that grew as the winters heaped up on top of one another; a legend built on an increasing number of accounts where Neflin saw the ghosts of their relatives while braving the Lorn Fast Swamp looking for the precious herbs that could only be found growing there; relatives that had died in the swamp like Kotalik had. But unlike Kotalik, who was killed while accompanying the Hammer Bearer on his quest to find Andara's Tears, they perished while hunting for the herbs the Neflin loved so much that they risked their lives to gather them.
Based on the conversations the departed had with the living, the dead claimed that their spirits were being forced to remain in the Lorn Fast Swamp. From what could be comprehended from the forlorned spirits' agonized ramblings, the same wicked enchantment that compelled the wraiths, who were once citizens of Cara Lorn when they were still clothed in f
lesh and blood, to stay and keep guard over the foul place, kept the unfortunate Neflin imprisoned in the loathsome swamp with them.
Along with the torturous frustration over not being able to satisfy the unrelenting urge to complete the journey that would take them to the Warl of the Dead, the continual harrassment the unfortunate spirits endured from the wraiths, who tried to get them to join the ranks of those that were commited to stand guard over Cara Lorn, was the chiefest torment the deceased had to bear.
Hearing that their father was numbered among those so treated, the sisters set out to uncover the Lorn Fast Swamp's secrets so they could set his spirit free. Since Mar’Gul was with Kotalik the day he was tragically inhaled into the slograp's bone crushing maw, she took special interest in the orphaned girls who had the misfortune of losing their mother to an illness that took her life the winter before their father's death. At first, she tried to dissuade the girls from searching for their father's spirit. Failing to do this, Mar’Gul relented and gave the sisters information they needed to survive the swamp whenever they entered it.
After Janalik lost her life, for she was sucked into one of the many pools of quicksand that were found in the swamp, Mar’Gul told Lamarik more. This is when she heard about Jeaf and Muriel Oakenfel and their sons. Though she didn't know Travyn and Kaylan's names until they showed up in Lan'Fon, Lamarik already knew that they had been in the Warl of the Dead. She had also been told the twins were two of the Four Winds that Bacchanor said would blow across Ar Warl in the days that Ab'Don's reign would be challenged. As you could guess, both of these things made the brothers infinitely interesting to Lamarik.
When they first visited the swamp, though she hadn’t been to Lan'Fon for some time, she still had a hunch who they were. The attraction Lamarik felt as she looked at the twins was disquieting. She had never had such feelings for other males. Her quest had no room for this type of thing. But now, looking at the two Lamarik figured were as interested in uncovering the Lorn Fast Swamp's secrets as she was, feelings that she didn't think she was capable of having emerged.
