What Do You Say to a Naked Elf?

by Cheryl Sterling

  “What do you propose we do?” he asked, angered at the decision to stay.

  “We get help,” Bryant said with confidence.

  “Where?”

  “From the closest source. From Isleighah.”

  No! Charlie’s mind screamed. “Impossible.”

  Bryant looked at him, his gaze steady, his green eyes so much like Jane’s. “It’s her only hope.”

  What goes around, comes around. How often had Jane told him this? With a sigh, Charlie acquiesced. He would go to Isleighah and beg for help. He knew, without a doubt, that she’d get her wish, and he’d learn of his heritage.

  Two things struck Charlie as he returned to the others. Neither shocked him, each seeming a rightful inclusion to this adventure. The first: He recognized Tivat as one of the four figures lying prone on the ground. Second, at Bryant’s shout of, “Marion,” he realized another had to be Jane’s mother.

  Charlie’s mind clicked through the possible answers to where and when they’d met. Their gear, new and foreign-made—probably on Earth—told him Tivat had escaped Lowth, and escaped Jane’s vehicle as well. Fresh scars on the man’s arm and leg pointed to recent injury. Struck then, and hurt, to be found and nursed by a curious mother, a woman who desired to return to Lowth in search of her daughter?

  Bryant cradled the woman, soothing words flowing from him. Charlie watched a moment, then dismounted and walked to Hugh. His brother knelt at Eagar’s side.

  “Does he live?” Charlie asked.

  “His lungs are injured, as well as the others’. A few more moments . . .” He shook his head. “They need medical attention.”

  “We ride to Isleighah,” Charlie announced, his voice grim, the decision still rankling.

  “And Jane?”

  Charlie moved away. “Jane will probably talk Capp’ear to death. He shall end up paying us to take her back.”

  She is vindicated now, he thought, glancing at the unconscious Tivat. Or will be when we find her.

  An hour later, the crippled group headed back the way they’d come, upstream to the headwaters of the Fendi. Of the ten, six were injured. A small stand of timber was cut down, young trees made into litters. The worst hurt, Marion and Muttle, lay in these, pulled by the ponies. The others rode the animals, guided by the healthy.

  Afternoon slipped into evening, then into darkness. A crescent moon lit the way, and at midnight, another slipped into the sky. Eagar woke, shaking, and threw up a weak curtain of magical light around them—no more than a lantern would give out.

  The murmur of the river to their right accompanied them during the long night. At dawn, they curved away from it, to the northeast, and entered the path to Isleighah. They descended into wide valleys, crossed shallow streams and climbed long, low hills. Here, so far from home, the grasses grew with a depth of color that hurt the eye. By midmorning, they’d entered the cool, green forest of Isleighah, the last of the ancient forest that begot the Malin. The injured, restless on their mounts and pallets, calmed, as if soothed by old magic.

  A fairy appeared on the path, barely discernible from the trees. Charlie had a feeling they’d been under surveillance for some time. But what threat did their disabled group pose?

  The stranger waited for them. As they drew to a halt in front of him, Charlie saw others farther back in the woods.

  “Who are you, that come to our land?” the fairy asked, his voice the murmur of wind in trees, of water on pebbles.

  Bryant stepped forward. He’d aged in the past day, his concern for Marion and his daughter drawing dark circles under his eyes. “We are poor travelers, many wounded, and seek assistance from the people of Isleighah and their king. I am Bryant, long of Malik and these, my companions, dwell in the south at Malin. We also carry an Earthwoman.”

  The last caused a stir, like the wind whispering secrets to the topmost leaves.

  Bryant continued, “You know of me. I have hunted with your king, the great Tuniesin. Come, we have no quarrel. These injured have suffered from the sandobbles, scourge of Lowth. Even as we speak, they hold captive another, my daughter.”

  The fairy considered his words, then nodded and extended a hand in greeting.

  “Well met, Bryant, long of Malik. I am called Rasleigh. The sandobbles are enemy to all, and elves and fairies have forged bonds in the past.” He glanced at Charlie, as if he could see his wings under his loose shirt. “We will guide you to Kerreleigh, the king’s residence. You will be aided there.”

  Others of his kind joined him until six escorted the band of travelers. They continued for another hour. At last, they came to a break in the trees and Kerreleigh stood before them.

  Shaped of trunks and limbs millennia ago, the light of oak, the burnish of maple, the dark of walnut and iselwood, a complex design wove through the home of the king of fairies. Of the forest but separate, it housed scores and generations. Time and history merged in its walls.

  They entered a great hall. With care, the injured were taken to the healing rooms, Alfted and Bryant at their sides. Rasleigh showed Charlie and Hugh to rooms to freshen and rest.

  An hour after their arrival, Rasleigh returned and escorted them to the heart of Kerreleigh, the throne room. Comfortable settees lay scattered around its perimeter. Rich, vivid tapestries lined its walls, with scenes depicting hunts, the stages of the moons, butterflies so real as to be captured in midflight. Great circles with eight-pointed stars, for the eight holidays, patterned the ceiling twenty feet above a floor made of one plank. Light streamed in windows without glass. Charlie’s eyes adjusted to the radiance, and he saw a man seated in a chair off-center in the room. King Tuniesin.

  Tuniesin looked to be in his early forties, but who could tell with fairies? The monarch was tall and slender, his face unlined, his hair sable brown, his eyes linden green. He smiled at Charlie’s interest and beckoned him forward.

  “A Whelphite,” the king said, his voice surprisingly deep. “They are rare nowadays. And a Isleighah-Malin combination. The Malinese will now only take a Wingback for a mate, our cousins to their south, if they choose to crossbreed.”

  Charlie felt something tighten in his stomach at the mention of his fairy characteristics. He bowed to King Tuniesin, whose wings rose from his back in golden splendor.

  “Forgive me,” the monarch apologized. “It is rude to comment on such. I can see you are uncomfortable with your fairyness. Why else would you hide your wings?”

  “Sire?” The conversation wasn’t going the way Charlie had planned. The king’s directness caught him off guard.

  “Why do you wait until you are in such distress before you claim aid from your people?” the other man asked.

  Switching tactics, Charlie decided to be direct as well. He bowed his head to the king. “I have known none but elves all my life. What you say is true. Most fairies who visit Malin come from the south. Because of the way I was raised, I do not consider myself one of them.”

  “You should not, as you are not. You are Isleighahan. Take off your shirt.” The king snapped his fingers in command.

  Charlie looked at Hugh. His brother gave him a do-as-royalty-tells-you look. Reluctantly, Charlie lifted his shirt and drew it over his head.

  “Open your wings,” the king said with a gesture.

  What is this? How will this help Jane?

  Feeling he had no choice, Charlie spread his wings to their full extent. Except for Jane, it had been a long time since he’d let anyone see his appendages. He watched Hugh’s eyes grow wide in amazement.

  “Magnificent,” Tuniesin said, rising from his chair to inspect Charlie’s wings. “The color is true, the pattern is Largare’s.”

  Largare? Of whom did he speak?

  The king sat down and addressed Charlie. “Did your father not teach you of his heritage?”

  Charlie knew he did not speak of Owen Tanner. The sinking feeling spread in his gut. The truth lay around the corner. “My father . . . my elf father . . .” The strangeness of the w
ords tangled his tongue. “Died in the Malin Forest when I was an infant.”

  “But surely your mother’s family—”

  Charlie interrupted him. “Unknown, sire.”

  “This is not right.” Annoyance darkened Tuniesin’s voice. He looked at Rasleigh on his left. “Has no one known all this time? Are we so isolated?”

  “Sire,” Rasleigh said, “it was thought the babe arrived.”

  “Does he not live and work in Sylthia, for Garmade?”

  Charlie felt a shortness of breath. They inched closer to the truth he didn’t want to hear. A vision of Jane came to him, riding on the backs of sandobbles, in the clutches of a madman. Helpless. Well, as helpless as Jane could be. The time had come to stop this and get the aid he needed. His temper rose.

  “Your majesty,” he said, breaking into the conversation. “How many Whelphites of my age and gender are there in Malin? Of Malinese and Isleighahan mix? Only I. If confirming I am the babe of whom you speak aids in the search for the woman I love . . .” He paused to take a deep breath. “You must tell me.”

  Tuniesin studied him, looking for something in his face. He nodded. “Very well. It is confirmed. I tell you so you will know of whom you are descended. Your father was Largare, from a well-respected family of long lineage. Thirty years ago, he rescued your mother, an Elf, from a goblin prison. He brought her here, ill and frail. Later, they married and you were born. She did not survive the birth.”

  Charlie felt his mouth go dry. Twenty-seven years of denial, and if not for Jane he’d still be in ignorance. He took the last step necessary.

  “Name her.”

  “Elaine, daughter of Garmade of Malin.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The trouble with bringing the rain, Jane thought, is that you’re perpetually wet. She glanced at the thundercloud glowering above her. So far, she’d failed in her experiment to wash away the sandobbles. The same with commanding the wind to blow them into oblivion. Whatever power she’d held over the elements had almost disappeared since she’d extinguished Hugh’s house fire and cooled herself on the trip to the Magwrosin almost three weeks before. Her brilliant idea of diluting her captors resulted in perpetual mist that trickled down from an ugly storm cloud.

  Her efforts hadn’t done much harm to the sandobbles, but she had slowed their progress. After her abduction, she and Capp’ear had been carried down the north escarpment of the Andair Mountains. Her captors converged into a liquid vehicle, rolling like a fluid Sherman tank over everything in their path. They followed the north branch of the Fendi, called the Ilian, past the waterfalls where her boat had crashed.

  At first, she’d ridden on the malleable shoulders of the sandobbles. When she tried to roll away to freedom, they pushed her to their center. Only after she’d had time to get over the shock of her capture did she think to bring the rain and wind down on them. With less than favorable results.

  The sandobbles dropped her and retreated to a safe distance. Their pace slowed. She splashed forward, wet clothes and sopping shoes, in the middle of a one-woman, pitiful, not-quite-a-thunderstorm.

  What I do for you, Charlie, she thought. You and this cursed land of yours.

  She endured throughout the day as they hugged the eastern shore of the Ilian, walking miles out of their way. Jane knew they didn’t cross it because Capp’ear wanted to protect his minions from dilution. Even the small streams that fed into it delayed them as they looked for the shallowest crossing.

  Her basic knowledge of Lowth’s geography came from going over Hugh’s maps with him each night, tracing the route he’d plotted, asking questions. It had given her a sense of the scope of the land. North of the river, except for a green area blocked out as Isleighah, the land was uninhabited.

  With little wonder, she thought. Elves and dwarves preferred high ground next to the sea, with tall trees at their backs. The Andair Plains offered none of that, only low hills and troughs of undulating grass as far as the eye could see.

  Capp’ear called a halt as dusk approached. Mumbling to himself, he didn’t seem to notice their lack of progress or the odd storm cloud that followed their journey.

  “That’s enough,” Jane said to Lowth, certain they’d stopped for the night. The drizzle extinguished itself.

  Jane stood in the middle of her captors, water dripping off her hair and back. She took a step forward, her feet wet, foot rot no doubt moments away. In answer, the sandobbles shifted perceptibly as they adjusted to new parameters. If she hadn’t felt so exhausted, it would have been funny.

  The smell of freshly washed grasses drifted to her. Clean and pungent, it rose from waist-high spears that surged forward to the horizon. It reminded her of the sharp scent of the geraniums on her mother’s front porch.

  Mom! Did you survive the attack? Jane wondered for the hundredth time that day. What of Muttle and Tivat? Her heart sank into her chest. She’d traveled slowly, but many miles had passed from where she’d last seen them, lying unconscious on the ground. Had the sandobbles killed them?

  Muttle, she cried, sending out a distress signal. Only the post-dusk wind answered.

  A contingent from the rear of the pack came forward and dumped a pile of firewood at Capp’ear’s feet. He snatched the driest pieces and arranged them in a pyramid on the flat ground. One of the creatures covered it, not smothering, but puffing up like a mud-encrusted parachute to shield it from the wind. Capp’ear reached into a pocket and pulled out a flint rock. In moments, the kindling sparked.

  Holy Boy Scouts, Batman! Jane watched as the blaze grew. The flint rock looked suspiciously like the one Eagar used. Had it been stolen from him as the creatures withdrew from his body?

  “Are you hungry?” Capp’ear asked.

  “Hmmm? What?” Breakfast had been smoked fish, lunch a freeze-dried culinary delight Tivat had mixed together. “I could do with dinner.” Though what it might be, she had no idea. As far as she knew, they had no weapons or tools.

  Capp’ear whistled. One of the sandobbles approached. In mud appendages that resembled arms, it carried Tivat’s backpack. Her captor ripped it open and pulled out an assortment of prepackaged dinners. He handed one to Jane.

  Freeze-Dried Chicken Stew. She flipped it over to look at the ingredients. Potatoes, cooked chicken (chicken meat, mechanically separated chicken), carrots, peas—Wait! Mechanically separated chicken? Visions of a Rube Goldberg, Wile E. Coyote contraption sprang to mind. She shuddered at the mental illness of the engineer who had designed that device.

  “You mix it with hot water,” she said, reading the directions in the dim light. As much as she’d have liked Capp’ear to choke on dehydrated food, the packet served two, and she wanted hers hot and nonlethal.

  He dug around in the bag and pulled out a saucepan and passed it to his minions. In bucket brigade fashion, it traveled down to the Ilian, returning filled with water. A few minutes on top of the fire and Jane took the container and mixed a portion of the hot liquid with the food. Squishing the bag, she set it before her to wait the required ten minutes.

  “When did you take this?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “My friends have many talents.”

  “That’s something I’ve been meaning to ask,” she said, and sat down. “The last time I knew, you’d escaped a sure death in the Magwrosin. Then you show up on the cliff with an army in tow, all under your command. What’s up with that?”

  He joined her on the ground, a safe distance away but still creepy in appearance. His clothes remained shredded, dirty, and bloodied, and he smelled of a mixture of rotting garbage and dead animals. Jane scooted around the campfire to sit upwind. She didn’t know where she stood with him. He’d tried to kill her three times. She’d pressed her luck once too often.

  “They admire me,” he said. “Few have survived the swamp. I’m their hero.”

  Hero. Uh-huh. You’re as much a hero as Mr. Magoo. “That’s nice,” she said, trying not to sound too patronizing. “Where are we headed?
” In case Muttle isn’t dead, and I can send him a message. Or Charlie. She hadn’t been able to contact him, either. Did distance dilute their telepathy? Had he been hurt in the attack?

  “To their homeland.” Capp’ear nodded to the nearest group of sandobbles. “On the shores of the Tahmdee. They’ve been separated from it for over fifty years. They were brought to the Magwrosin against their will and imprisoned. As I was. They only want to go home.”

  “I understand, Toto. Don’t we all?” She fingered the food pouch, then opened it. Using a utensil from the camping paraphernalia, she scooped half of it into the saucepan. Handing it to Capp’ear, Jane sat back and tried to eat her meal.

  “How come they kill people, then, if they’re peaceful?”

  Capp’ear swallowed a bite of the concoction. “They will be peaceful once they return home. Wouldn’t you fight to get back to where you belong?”

  Jane leaned forward, her interest in her dinner lessened. “I’ve been fighting for six weeks, but I don’t go around smothering people.”

  “Add fifty more years to your quest,” he said softly. “You did agree to go to Malik in order to win your freedom.”

  She put her food down. “I had little choice in that decision, though I still think it holds the key.” Tivat’s reappearance meant a change in her role, but without Eagar’s ruling she was stuck in limbo. “I’m not going to Malik, am I? Why did you take me hostage? Are you going to kill me?”

  Smart, Jane. Bring up the subject you’ve been dancing around all day, she thought, regretting her words.

  “Kill you? No, no, you misunderstand. I mean you no harm. We only wish for you to go with us to the Tahmdee.”

  Jane took a deep breath. “I’ll regret asking. Why?”

  He glanced at her. “You are to rule as their queen.”

  Ew. She tried not to show revulsion on her face or lose what little bit of supper she’d swallowed. “And you?” Please don’t say king. Please, please don’t say king.