We don’t ride horses, and castles are someplace where you pay an admission fee to go in and wander around and look at how things were a long time ago. Every time I open my mouth I say something that no one understands, and where I come from these things are all common and would require no explanation at all. My world is based on science and technology and magic is a joke, and here it seems to be the other way around.”
The others in the room exchanged glances and were obviously reaching some sort of agreement. Finally, Durbin spoke. “Daniel we know that you have been told of the story of which we spoke earlier. What you don’t know is the depth of the story behind it, the circumstances surrounding it, and why you are drawing so much attention. The hope was that the elf would return with the kind of knowledge that would allow us to stave off the humans. The magic as supposed to return the elf babe to us with full knowledge of our plight and the people involved. You can speak our language but your knowledge of everything else is missing. If the tale is correct, you have arrived here earlier than we expected. If you are not the embodiment of the story, then you demonstrate abilities and skills we have no way of understanding. In these troubled times you offer either great hope or great threat or possibly both.
“In this room we are inclined to believe you. We sense no artifice and your obvious frustration and confusion fit well with your story. Things that we have seen are always easier to believe so we would ask that you provide a demonstration of your abilities.”
Daniel looked from Alan to Lissette for any hint that they had betrayed his secrets. Alan’s face was more emotional than most of the elves but it contained no hint of guilt and Lissette still seemed more… more… something than any one emotion he could guess. She brought him breakfast and then was excited and impatient and now sat in judgement all stoic and reserved. She was like reading tea leaves with instant tea.
“Durbin, what kind of demonstration would you like?”
Durbin extended his closed left hand, which Daniel now realized had been closed around something the entire time, and opening his hand revealed what looked like a cube of granite about one inch per side.
“And what would you like me to do with this?” He asked.
“That is entirely up to you, Daniel, you can drill a hole in it like the castle wall or change it into something else like the coin Barton can’t seem to stop fidgeting with. We wanted to see your ability on a stone we all know well.”
Daniel thought about it for a moment then shrugged and reached for the hunk of stone. He stared at it in the palm of his hand for a moment and then began to hum the tune he had used before. He wasn’t really concerned with whether or not he would succeed with his transformation, but with the low probability that any of this was real, his slightly twisted sense of humor popped an idea into his head.
With a clear image of what he wanted, he began to reshape the components contained within the stone. He was surprised to realize that this was becoming easier, he didn’t really have to focus on the atoms throughout the entire cube just the differences. He didn’t know the exact composition of the stone, but it didn’t seem to matter. It was as if he was commanding the atoms to move from whatever they had been to whatever he wanted them to be. With that insight it also occurred to him that what he built did not have to be symmetrical. Like the coin, he could visualize the end result, what its components should look like in the shape he wanted. He could almost feel the indentations in his mind, and they seemed to move from their original reality to the image he had in his mind.
When he opened his eyes he realized he had clenched his fist around the object, and looking around the room he saw everyone had leaned forward waiting for the outcome. They were looking not at him but at his closed hand. With a slightly smug sense of the theatric, he held his fist palm up and began un-curling his fingers one at a time until the object was revealed. The sight of it brought a gasp from one of the members. Another one jerked back into his chair so sharply it was as if he were throwing himself away from the object. Alan was chuckling and a quick look at Lissette showed her shaking her head slowly from side to side with an otherwise blank expression.
Belwin was the first to speak and his voice was far from the steady calm tones he’d used earlier. “You made a die. A die…out of what looks like gold.” He slowly reached for the die in Daniel’s hand as if it might bite him or at the very least be an illusion set to fool him. He examined the die carefully rolling it from side to side and then passed it to the others. Each of them in turn examined the object with a mixture of stunned disbelief, and perhaps a measure of awe.
Durbin was the last to examine the cube and holding it, saw Alan just nodding his head with as close to an “I told you so” look as anyone of elf blood could get.
“And this is why,” began Alan, “I told you that I am convinced he is the one spoken of for the last nine years and this is why I have committed to aiding him in any way I can.”
Lissette added, “and I as well. If you will pardon the choice of words, he’s hidden nothing from us, or at least from me,” she said with a twinkle. “As you can see his abilities are real and my only way of understanding him is to believe he is the promise fulfilled. If he is not, and still takes up our cause, I believe he remains our best hope.”
The room was quiet for several seconds. Some glanced at each other in knowing ways like Alan and Lissette. Durbin and Aldon looked to the cube in Durbin’s hand and back to each other several times without speaking and Belwin sat motionless staring almost straight ahead. The silence was broken by a new voice that caused everyone to look back towards the door.
“Well, it looks like the skeptics are now convinced and it’s time for us to decide how best to proceed.” Eliana walked over by where Daniel was sitting, placed a hand on his shoulder and said, “Welcome back.” She smiled at Daniel as she spoke, giving his shoulder a light squeeze and then looked to the others in the room.
“Aldon and I are convinced and we pledge our support as well,” Durbin spoke, though barely above a whisper.
“There is one more person who would like to meet you if you don’t mind, Daniel. He is waiting outside to speak with you,” Eliana said. The slight smile still curled up the corners of her mouth, if you looked closely, and she added, “I know the others of you can find plenty to talk about for a few minutes.” Her tone made it perfectly clear the invitation was not for them.
She squeezed Daniel’s shoulder and motioned for him to follow, and like she had with Lissette, began walking away assuming he would. As Daniel rose his eyes swept across the gathering, ending on Lissette, and caught her looking intently back at him. Her eyes seem softer now, he thought to himself, her body language was less tense, and once again he wondered what he was missing.
The man waiting for him on the bench outside was the oldest elf he had seen so far. As Daniel stepped off the porch the man looked up, his eyes brightened with pleasure, and he produced a smile that was both clear and unguarded. He rose as Daniel approached and extended his arms taking Daniel by the shoulders and looking him up and down before pulling Daniel in for a hug. “When I heard the stories I was hopeful but now that I see you, there is no question in my mind. Daniel, I know who you are. You look so much like your father I would know you anywhere, and I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to see you healthy and alive.”
The old elf released the hug. Still smiling and looking Daniel over he said, “My name is Beylvar. Welcome back,” and then gestured to the bench. “You must have a few questions, and, as your grandfather and the one who started all this, I owe you the answers.”
Daniel froze about half into the sitting position as the words sunk in. A grandfather? Welcome to the family? Had his coma just taken a turn for the worst? He continued to sit and slowly looked at the old elf’s eyes and said with all the flatly delivered irony he could muster, “What the hell is going on here, grandpa?”
The old man laughed without missing a beat and nodded his head in
agreement as he spoke. “And you have your father’s sense of humor, which of course he got from me. So let me give you the short version and then we will deal with the questions I know you have.”
“By now you have heard of the conflict between us and some of the humans.” He paused here waiting for Daniel to nod. “One of the advantages of living a thousand years is that our history and the knowledge of how things happened loses less detail. I remember when the first human king crowned himself on the island thirty human generations ago. I can tell you about it firsthand because I was there.
It is important to understand that when I say we know things that are passed down through the generations, three generations might be three thousand years so our accuracy is a little better than you may be used to. I heard you say magic is a joke in your world?”
Daniel simply nodded.
“Our history tells us of a time before the great changing when elves moved between worlds; that is how we knew of the world we sent you to. The descriptions of the other world had humans everywhere, building, experimenting and creating great machines and works by their intellect alone. We had explorers and some small colonies there to watch and sometimes boost the humans with a little magic. No doubt we are the origins of the myths you call a joke.
No one has crossed over in thousands of our years. We knew of the traveling spells but no one had used them because they took too much power and time and with the change we were focused on our own survival. If my mathematics are correct, and based on your arrival here they are close, one year here is about two there. One thousand years for us is two thousand for there.
From the stories passed down to us we guessed that the humans there had made great progress in what they could build. We are told of knowledge lost combining our magic and the products of the cleverness of those humans. The stories are great and are almost a myth among us.”
He stopped for a moment and watched his grandson trying to absorb the story. ‘Daniel,’ the name made him smile at how close it was to the boy’s real name. Daniel’s face seemed to show his thoughts catching up, so Beylvar continued his tale.
“We were desperate here to even try sending you over. We had no other option but to die out. The mountain elves want to fight and destroy all the humans, or at least most, but deep down they have to know that the time for winning that kind of fight has passed. But I digress, an old elf, sadly no longer with us, suggested that the human machines and knowledge might be a great advantage if we could go and get them. Another suggested that the lost magic and the old Elven ways might still exist or be written down there. Either idea was more hope than we had.”
He looked at his grandson and smiled again for a moment. “My guess is that your first question will be ‘why you?’ When Daniel started to speak, the old elf raised a hand to stop the words and continued. “We knew we could never send an adult elf. The shock of the travel, the shock of the other world would overwhelm him if not kill him. To be completely truthful we didn’t know if we had enough magic to send something as large as an adult. Look at how hard this has been on you and you are young and still flexible in your thinking. More importantly, we guessed right that the human world would be far advanced of ours. It is said that going back in time is easier than going forward because it is easier to hide knowledge than ignorance. How could someone from here, no matter how clever, learn enough when so much would be strange and frightening?
You take for granted knowledge this world may not see for another thousand years.”
With a heavy sigh the old elf looked at the young elf, his grandson returned safe and sound and felt the wait of years of apprehension and guilt begin to slide from his shoulders.
Daniel sat spellbound listening to the story unfold. It was true! He was an elf! Sent across what must be dimensions to be raised in what must be a parallel universe and it was all because the elves needed some new way to fight the humans. How come he couldn’t do magic at home? It all swirled in his head trying to sort itself into some kind of sense. A hundred questions, a thousand questions, all competing to get out first and what popped out of his mouth was, “so are Lissette and I related?”
The old elf’s eyes widened and then he began to laugh deep and hard. Trying to catch his breath he said, “well son, at least you have your priorities straight and while we are all related she is a very, very distant kin. In fact, Aldon is your cousin, well second or third or maybe fourth, Durbin is a great uncle on your grandmother’s side, Alan is another extended cousin, and Belwin is my nephew. Eliana is your aunt.
One of the things you’ll have to understand is that when people live to be hundreds of years old their offspring get separated by more than a few years. There is the possibility of hundreds of years between brothers or sisters, making keeping up with generations and relations difficult at best. While none of us marry our first cousins, except possibly some of the elves in France, the Elven family tree is really more of a bramble. I have four children, had four children,” he continued with a slight sigh, “they are spread out over 400 years, so my eldest son’s eldest son’s eldest daughter’s eldest child is about the same age as my youngest son. We have some scribes to keep all this written down. There are no marriages closer than cousins. So, as you see, longevity has some special concerns. If nothing else we have lots of time to straighten out the details.”
The questions and answers had gone on for some time, when finally his aunt Eliana intervened. “I’m guessing his head is about as full as it can be and we need to do the same for his stomach. There is a lot for him to understand today and he will need a good night’s sleep before the Council meeting tomorrow.”
“Probably so,” his grandfather said with a sigh as he rose from the bench and gestured for Daniel to follow.
“What counsel?” Daniel asked as he trailed his new grandfather. “Wait! Just stop for a second! I still don’t really know what’s going on, I don’t really know if any of this is real. I don’t want to see anybody till I get a chance to think.”
His grandfather stopped on the porch and turned to face Daniel, looking down at him, as Daniel was still a step below. “I can only imagine how difficult it must be for you to take all of this in. For you this must all seem strange and dreamlike.” Then he chuckled a little with a slight shrug, “But your return to us is something for which we’ve been waiting for nine years. For us this is thrilling, exciting, and for some of us an incredible relief. The worry and guilt of sending you away as a baby was not easy for any of us to live with and your return fills us with the kind of joy that is hard to explain.” His grandfather sighed again. “I will try and remember how very strange this must all be for you... and how fast it must be moving. Here you are able to do things that before you never thought possible - some of them we didn’t know were possible - but know that you have a family who loves you and is desperately glad to have you home. I hope that in time you can come to understand us.”
His grandfather just looked at him for a moment and then with a bit of a shrug continued. “There are so many things happening so fast for all of us. As you have been told, we expected you a year from now. We have been caught without a plan in place…and frankly many believed it wouldn’t work so now we have disbelief, fear, shock, and of course the Baron.” Here his smile became lopsided. “Your escape from the castle has stirred a hornets’ nest. Your arrival couldn’t have been less subtle if you had appeared with blaring horns and banners. In fact, that would not have had nearly the impact. You announced yourself with an act and proof no one can refute. Our small corner of the world is rapidly falling into camps. Those who believe and those who do not. Some of both are afraid of what it means. The fear is the unpredictable part… the fear makes people leap from burning buildings. Even when the landing is likely death.”
He stepped back down off the porch to be closer to Daniel’s eye level before he continued. “We didn’t know for sure it would work. We expected your return would be quiet and we could contr
ol the whole process. We had no plan for this… theatrical entrance of yours. Yes, Daniel, we are scrambling, and I am sorry it is moving so fast, but we are all trying to catch up.” He chuckled for a second and shook his head with a kind of disbelief.
“We also had no idea you would be able to do the things you do. It was my idea to try sending you over. We were desperate to find a way not to be destroyed one community at a time by the greed of the Baron and those like him. But to be fair, we are a bit giddy with relief that we got you back safe and sound… and even more than we hoped for. So, we are all in the same boat and making it up as we go… the real difference is we, at least, hoped this would happen and for you the easiest answer is a head injury.
“Now we best get inside before Eliana comes after me with a switch,” he said with a wink and a twinkle in his eye.
They had a light lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening telling stories. Daniel was surrounded by his new family and listened intently as they talked of the kinds of things families always speak of, who married who, who was arguing with what cousin, what cousins had been planning to marry and found out that they were more closely related than anyone had suspected. And, of course, there was a great deal of speculation as to whether or not they had been more than just kissing cousins. They seemed to agree that talk of what was to come was off limits for the evening and Daniel found himself laughing and trying desperately to assemble his family tree.
Elves- the Book of Daniel Page 14
