Venom and Song

by Wayne Thomas Batson

  “Looks weird,” said Tommy. “You want to go see what it is?”

  “No, I did the chest. Your turn.”

  “Great,” said Tommy. He had to open the cell door for this one. It moaned a protest but opened enough for Tommy to get inside. Sword ready, he entered the cell and moved carefully around the rough, fallen stones. The white posts caught the light of the arc stone and reflected back brightly. The posts were bowed slightly, and Tommy squinted at them. He recognized the shape, but the concept didn’t fully materialize in his imagination.

  He took another few steps and stepped around the largest hunk of stone wall. Then he froze.

  “What is it?” Kat asked. “Tommy, what’s wrong?”

  He didn’t answer.

  Bones. A full skeleton. The posts were actually ribs of a massive, barrel-chested, humanoid figure. And then there was the skull. Much larger than an Elf’s, especially the eye sockets, black and empty, and the jutting jaw filled with jagged teeth and fang incisors.

  Gwar.

  Unnerved by the discovery, Tommy backed away. He backed hard into the cell door, sending a shooting pain down the middle of his back and slamming the door shut with a thunderous clang. An image filled Tommy’s mind so ferociously that he cried out. He saw himself, shackled and chained, thrown into the cell, and the door slammed shut . . . forever.

  “Let me out!” he yelled, pushing hard on the cell door and becoming all the more frantic when it wouldn’t budge.

  “Hold on,” Kat said. “It opens the other way.”

  But Tommy didn’t listen. In a frightened rage, he began to slash at the cell door.

  “Tommy, stop it! I can’t open the door with you swinging that sword around!”

  At last, Tommy lowered the sword and backed away from the door. Kat kicked open the cell door, grabbed Tommy’s wrist, and yanked him out of the cell. “Tommy! Tommy, what’s wrong?”

  “I’m sorry, Kat. I don’t know what happened. I just kind of lost it in there. I thought . . . I thought I was trapped in there, trapped forever.”

  “What did you see in there?” she asked. “What was it?”

  “A dead Gwar . . . or at least that’s what I think it was. I’ve never seen a skeleton like that. It was old and kind of twisted up. But the skull is what really freaked me out. Wait . . . how did you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “You told me to stop slashing the door,” said Tommy. “In my head.”

  “No, I didn’t,” said Kat. “I was yelling at you.”

  “You were loud all right,” said Tommy. “But it wasn’t out loud. I’m telling you, I heard your voice in my mind.”

  Kat was silent for several moments. “I can hear your thoughts,” she said. “But . . . I’ve never even tried . . . hold on.” She stared at Tommy and concentrated. She saw his thoughts floating before her, and focusing all her efforts she placed one of her thoughts. “Well, what was I thinking about?”

  “Um,” Tommy looked at her strangely. “You want ice cream?”

  Kat laughed aloud. “Oh my gosh! It works! I put my thoughts in your head!”

  “Okay, see,” said Tommy. “But, you know, that’s kind of weird.”

  “Grimwarden told us the gifts would get stronger,” said Kat. “I wonder what yours will do.”

  Tommy did not reply, but looked up and down the hallway. So many cells. “I don’t like this place, Kat,” he said. “It’s different from before. Before I was just scared. Now I feel heavy inside. Almost sick.”

  “What about the other hallways?”

  “Let’s just go,” he replied. “I think we know what this place is.”

  Other than the constant whistle of the wind, the flight home was silent. But with her newfound ability, Kat was able to communicate with Tommy by projecting her thoughts and then receiving Tommy’s.

  “Why would this bird take us to a prison?” thought Kat.

  And what’s that prison doing out in the middle of all that tall grass or grain, or whatever it was? And why us? Tommy answered inside his mind.

  “I think I might know that last bit,” thought Kat. “Remember when the bird cut us both?”

  Yeah, it still stings. Why?

  “Well, I got a closer look at the parchment the bird seemed to be writing on with our blood.”

  Okay, what was it writing? asked Tommy.

  “It wasn’t writing. It was matching samples. ”

  “Huh?” Tommy exclaimed out loud.

  “That parchment was very, very old. When I looked there were two fresh bloodstains—ours and two old, dried-up bloodstains. Remember when the bird was staring so hard at the parchment? I think he was comparing our blood to the Old Ones.”

  Like a test?

  “I guess, maybe to see if we are really Elves.”

  Or to see if we’re really Elven lords, Tommy added.

  “I wonder what the bird would have done if we weren’t.”

  Remember the Gwar? I don’t think it would have been pretty.

  A few hours before dawn, the scarlet raptor landed lightly on its scroll-filled roost. The creature allowed Tommy and Kat to clamber down. They left the bird’s chamber and returned to the main gathering room in Whitehall. A fire still burned in the huge fireplace near the stairwell, but no one else seemed to be awake.

  “Should we wake someone up?” asked Kat.

  “Nah, especially not Grimwarden,” said Tommy. “He’d probably knock us into next week.”

  “Best not to surprise the fiercest warrior in Elven history.”

  “I’m not going to be able to sleep,” Tommy said.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” asked Kat.

  “You ought to know,” said Tommy.

  The two plopped down on a bench and set the book on a long board.

  “Where should we start?” asked Kat, opening up the book.

  “I don’t know,” said Tommy. “Prophecies sound cool. Never liked history much.”

  “Me, either,” said Kat. “Mr. Wallace would be angry if he heard me say that.” She felt a pang as soon as the words left her lips.

  Tommy turned a few pages past the title page. He found the strange series of dates like in the book Mrs. Goldarrow had given him. He was about to flip past it when something stood out from the page.

  “Why’d you stop?” asked Kat.

  “Something’s different,” he said. “I don’t remember this Age of Chains, do you?”

  She shook her head. “I might not be remembering it right, but I thought I remembered there being an awfully big gap between some of the dates.”

  “Like something was missing,” muttered Tommy. “It’s got to be this.”

  “What are you waiting for?” she asked. “Turn there.”

  Tommy found the page and they started to read.

  “Wait a minute,” said Kat. “What are we doing?”

  “What do you—oh, right, touch the ink.”

  Tommy put his finger down on the opening line of the page. Nothing happened. He touched various places on the page. Still nothing.

  “Let me try,” said Kat. But her touch elicited the same response. “It must not be written with the same ink as the books we saw.”

  “Or maybe . . . it was written before that ink was invented?”

  “Looks like we’ll have to read the old-fashioned way.”

  Eyes greedily devouring the words, Tommy and Kat soon found that the story being related in this chapter tasted foul . . . tasted of misery and . . . treason.

  After reading for a long time, Tommy slowly closed the book. He fought back tears and refused to look at Kat. Something about the shared experience . . . he knew if he looked at her and saw her crying, he’d lose it, too.

  “The Gwar,” whispered Kat. “They weren’t prisoners of the Elves. They were slaves.”

  17

  The Prophecies of Berinfell

  JUST BEFORE breakfast, Tommy and Kat gathered all the young lords together for a meeting. It meant gi
ving away the location of the special balcony high up on Whitehall’s main tower to the other teens, but it could not be helped. They needed a place where they could talk discreetly.

  A pile of ridiculously large muffins waited on a platter on a shelf near the inner wall. Jimmy, Johnny, and Jett eyed them greedily.

  “Don’t make me smack your hand like Mumthers,” said Tommy. “Those are for after we talk.” But as good as the muffins looked, he couldn’t think of eating with his stomach so twisted in knots.

  “What’s all this about?” asked Jett.

  “Yeah,” said Autumn. “Why all the secrecy?”

  “Wait,” Jimmy interrupted, standing dramatically and extending his arms like a surfer. “Don’t tell me, yu are both secret agents.”

  This bit of drama was answered with nervous laughter, except for Johnny, who laughed aloud—until Autumn glared at him. “What?” he asked. “It was funny.”

  “Where were you two yesterday, anyway?” asked Kiri Lee. She cleared her throat. “Goldarrow was worried.”

  “Yeah, Tommy,” said Jimmy. “I canna’ believe yu left me to play silly American football with Jett.”

  Kat had been sitting on the bench nearest the edge of the balcony. She stood up and said, “It’s about where we were yesterday. And, guys . . . this is serious.” Her voice cracked slightly at the end, and the smiles around the room vanished.

  Jimmy turned red and slid to a seat on a stone bench along the inner wall.

  Kat began, but she and Tommy told the story together, filling in each other’s thoughts, sometimes interrupting to add some critical detail, . . . other times lending a nod or a somber shake of the head. They told about their discovery of the secret tower and the scarlet raptor. They told of the creature’s testing their blood and giving them the ancient book. They told of the raptor’s taking them on a long flight north. They told at last of their exploration of the abandoned fortress . . . and, upon their return to Whitehall, their reading the missing age of Berinfell history.

  When Tommy and Kat finished, they met expressions of confusion, shock, anger, and sadness.

  “They started it.” Jett shook his head. “All this fighting . . . all this death and pain, and the Elves started it.”

  “Why?” asked Kiri Lee. “Why would the Elves try to enslave the Gwar?”

  “From what we can tell, fear,” Kat explained. “Elves and Gwar lived together, kind of neighbors geographically. There was often trade between the two groups, and when the Elves wanted to put down roots and build their kingdom, it was partially on the backs of the Gwar that they built it.”

  “But even then, the Gwar were willing to help,” said Tommy. “They were friends.”

  “Right,” Kat went on. “But the Elves saw how strong the Gwar were and how they were becoming more and more advanced in the use of powerful stones and minerals. They feared the Gwar would turn on them and overrun them. And when a really harsh winter came over the land—”

  “The Fell Winter of 7066,” Tommy chimed in. “It snowed so much that much of Berinfell was paralyzed. The Elves went to the Gwar for help, but they refused . . . the Gwar cities had their own problems.”

  “This shocked and infuriated the Elves,” Kat explained. “The Gwar had never turned them down before. A faction of the Elves stirred up the rest saying that this was the first sign of a Gwar rebellion—that they needed to take decisive action. The Elves still had superior weapons and tactics, so they invaded the Gwar capital city, took the Gwar by surprise, and forced them to clear Berinfell of ice and snow.”

  “After that,” said Tommy, “the Elves bought and sold the Gwar as property, like pack animals only worth as much as their muscle.”

  “It got even worse later,” said Kat. “The Elves found a region where a valuable food grain called gildenfleur grew naturally. And they wanted to build a trade center there, a fortress.”

  “But to do that,” said Tommy, “they needed stone, and the nearest quarry was eighteen leagues away.”

  “A league is like three miles, right?” asked Autumn. “So that’s fifty-four miles?”

  Tommy nodded.

  Kat continued the explanation. “The Elves made the Gwar mine the stone and then transport it. They had to build a fortress to be a center for their own slave trade. The Elves called it Cairn Umber, but the Gwar had another name for it: Fellmarch, after the long, bloody journey the Elves forced the Gwar to take. Thousands of Gwar died on that horrible road and in the construction of that fortress.”

  “What’s it mean?” asked Johnny. “Are we fighting on the wrong side?”

  “Our ancestors did,” said Tommy. “We’re all related to Elven Lords who either did hateful things or who did nothing while all this was going on.”

  “But that doesn’t mean we’re on the wrong side,” Kat explained. “Many of the Elves were against slavery of any kind to begin with. For two hundred years they fought with the council to end it once and for all, to pay reparations to the Gwar, and seek peace.”

  “Did it work?” asked Kiri Lee.

  “According to the book,” said Kat, “the Elves signed a treaty with the Gwar in the spring of 5807. All Gwar were given unconditional freedom, land, titles, technology, crop stores, and gold. The Seven Lords issued a formal apology and requested forgiveness.”

  “But then the Nemic invaded,” said Tommy.

  “Nemic?” blurted Jimmy. “Who’re they?”

  “Whoever they are or were,” said Tommy, “they were fierce, superior to the Elves in many ways. They would have destroyed Berinfell if it weren’t for the Gwar aiding them against the invaders.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” said Jett, pacing between the balcony and the wall. “After all that? After the killing, after the slaving . . . the Gwar still helped the Elves?”

  Tommy nodded.

  “Mannn,” said Jett. “That’s just crazy.”

  “What I don’t get,” said Kiri Lee, “is if the Elves and Gwar signed a treaty and then fought together against a common enemy, why are they still fighting now?”

  “That’s where things get interesting,” said Kat. “See, not all the Gwar were willing to sign the treaty. In fact, about two-thirds of the Gwar were led away by one, Palor Irethrall. They broke away from the Gwar nation and settled in Vesper Crag.”

  “You mean”—Jett wrinkled his brow—“the Spider King?”

  “One and the same,” said Kat.

  Tommy finished. “The Elves and the Spider King’s Gwar have been at bitter war ever since.”

  “So what do we do now?” asked Johnny.

  “If you want my opinion,” said Tommy, “I think we should confront Grimwarden and Goldarrow about this.”

  Jimmy stood up. “Yeah, why didn’t they tell us this in the beginning?”

  “But the books they gave us didn’t have all that in them,” said Autumn, wearing a pained expression. “Did they lie to us?”

  “That,” said Kat, “is a very good question.”

  “You are late for training,” said Grimwarden. At first, he stayed focused on the sword blade he was sharpening in the lair’s forge. But when the Seven walked in without saying so much as a good morning, he put down the sword and looked up. “You’re not dressed for training, either.”

  “We may not be training today,” said Jett curtly.

  Grimwarden had seen more carnage in war, more overwhelming attacks, and more treachery than almost any living Elf, but something about Jett’s cool pronouncement sent rivulets of ice down his spine. “Before I assign you twenty-one cords of wood to cut as punishment, can you defend such arrogance?”

  “Tommy, you want to answer his question?” asked Jett.

  “I think Goldarrow should be here as well,” Tommy said. “Guard-master, we have some questions. Something . . . something has changed.”

  “I see,” he replied, the ice beginning to form on his spine once more. “Then I will go myself to get her. She is tending the garden on the windward hills.”

>   Grimwarden returned a lot faster than the young lords thought possible. A startled Sentinel stood at his elbow. “Lords,” Goldarrow said, “what’s wrong?”

  Kat looked to Tommy. They both found themselves speechless at first. Tommy finally stepped forward and placed the book in Goldarrow’s hands.

  Upon glancing down at the book, Grimwarden and Goldarrow wore expressions of confusion . . . of nervous curiosity. But when Goldarrow began turning pages, both their faces paled. Goldarrow’s hands trembled.

  “Where did you get this?” Grimwarden demanded.

  Mistaking his tone for suspicion and anger, Kat responded in kind. “Why?” she asked. “Were you keeping it hidden from us?”

  “Hidden?” echoed Goldarrow. “No Elf has laid eyes upon this manuscript for more than three thousand years.”

  “I want to believe you,” said Tommy. “I really do. But we read the histories, Kat and I, and it’s the same history that was in the books you gave us.”

  “The same histories you’ve fed us here,” said Jett.

  “The same except for more than seven hundred years of slavery,” said Kiri Lee.

  “You led us to believe bogus histories,” said Jett, his face now more anguished than angry. “The Elves started all this! . . . You made slaves of the Gwar!”

  “And I thought fer once,” said Jimmy, “that I might do somethin’ good . . . be some kind ’a hero.” Jimmy’s voice went high and thin. “We’re not heroes. We’re the bad guys in this story!”

  “In the past, yes,” said Grimwarden. “But we will not be ruled by the atrocities of the past.”

  “Jimmy, Tommy—all of you,” said Goldarrow, her own voice strained with sorrow. “I am sorry that you had to find out in this way. But please understand, the full history of Elves has been lost to all but the Old Ones for thousands of years.”

  “The Old Ones?” several of the lords asked.

  Grimwarden strode forward. “Manaelkin is not the oldest Elf to survive the sacking of Berinfell,” he said. “There are others, Elves solely devoted to Ellos who fled the corruption of our people. They keep scriptoriums— vaults of vital Elven documents—hidden in the safe places of this world. The Old Ones still teach and practice the customs prescribed at the founding of Allyra. Some of us, Goldarrow, Alwynn, and myself, have had the opportunity to learn from the Old Ones. Because of their teachings, we know much. But not all . . . far from it.”