Whom The Gods Love

by M. M. Perry

  “He suggested they send over a ship full of some of our native wildlife. What’s in these woods, in particular, to address the elf population problem,” Cass said with a smile.

  Callan clamped his mouth shut, not wanting to know anything further.

  “Do you have any good stories about the elves?” Nat asked. “Why would you spend time around them if they’re so terrible?”

  “I have many stories about the elves, but it depends on what you mean by good. It’s hard to think that anything is good about them, to be honest. But I’ll tell you this cautionary tale you can share with anyone who thinks elves are beautiful, fun creatures to be with,” Cass said.

  “It’s a story, a true story,” Cass began, “about a merchant’s daughter. The poor thing was a bit of a romantic. She had all these impractical dreams about living with the elves someday, off in a wonderful forest kingdom where they’d teach her to speak to the trees and the animals. You know, the kinds of stories you hear from people who’ve never actually met an elf. Her father knew about her fantasies, but he put up with them. He assumed they were just the fancies of a naïve girl. That she would grow out of it when she found a man to her liking. But the thing is, she never did.

  “When she was twenty, and still unwed, she managed to sneak away from her father and board a Cartan ship headed back to Ledina. She had been saving up for it, and spent every last penny she had to go there. She thought she’d have no need of any currency among the elves. The stories she had been told and read in her books described the elves as living at liberty in the wild, free from everything, including commerce. So she had packed very little.

  “Her father realized what had happened the next day when he found a note his daughter had left, explaining that she was off to find her lover. He, in turn, tracked me down and employed me to bring her back. He happened to know a bit about the real nature of elves. He dealt with the Cartan on a regular basis, and heard them cursing the elves frequently. I agreed to help him, and sailed across to Ledina. It didn’t take me long to find the girl. The Cartan keep close track of everything coming into and out of their ports, especially inbound, unaccompanied young women. Seems there is a regular stream of them, all thinking they’ll strip naked and start dancing with the elves among the trees as soon as they disembark. They checked their logs and verified that she’d arrived, and declared her destination as the nearest elven city,” Cass said.

  “Why would they care?” Callan asked, “I mean the elves are, from what you’ve told us, clearly a nuisance, but why bother keeping tabs on a bunch of empty-headed foreigners? It might even serve a purpose—something to distract the elves and keep them from bothering them in their cities for a while?”

  “Well, yes. Cartan care little for anyone but other Cartan. But they see some profit in keeping track of these women. A warrior usually is assigned to go after any women who declare they’ll be visiting the elves. The Cartan are nothing if not opportunistic. They see a chance to make a little coin and take it,” Cass said, “after all, all of these women, they assume, have brothers, fathers or occasionally husbands willing to pay for their safe repatriation.

  “But we’ve gotten sidetracked a bit, haven’t we?” Cass finished.

  She tapped her chin a moment while picking the thread of the story back up.

  “Well, you should know about how elf cities work. And I use city in the very loosest way. Elves are opportunistic and lazy. They don’t build cities. They take them over by sheer numbers. Then they run the place into the ground, letting the wood decay around them. So an elven city is kind of a strange place to go. If it’s been around for a long time, most of the homes are these mud domes, since elves don’t really want to take the time to build anything. That’s actually probably where the whole living in the trees thing comes from. They will hang out wherever there is even the smallest amount of shelter. Tree canopies provide some relief from the rain. That’s about the most the elves care for trees though.

  “Usually, when someone first visits one of these squalid cities, they figure out pretty quickly that elves don’t live up to their stories and take the next ship home. This girl, however, from the way her father described her, I thought she may have been a little off… in the head,” Cass tapped her temple. “I found her in a mud house in the city. It had only been three months since she’d left her father by the time I caught up with her, but she already had a baby on her lap, and was pregnant with another. Elves of course.

  “I still remember the smile on her face. She told me her husband would be back shortly, and she showed off her elven child. She seemed quite happy, but I had to be sure. I had never heard of an elf husband. Elves don’t even have a concept of marriage. So I asked her about it. She said elven weddings were beautiful things. Her husband, as she called him, told her to plant an acorn. That was the extent of the wedding ceremony. She said it was symbolic, that elves didn’t require all the pomp and circumstance of a traditional human wedding. I didn’t know what to do. This was a new one to me. So I asked her where her husband was.

  “Of course, he was at the pub. I sauntered over to the rundown building that had, at one time, been a Cartan tavern and went in. I didn’t bother asking for the human girl’s husband. I knew there was no way that any elf would think of himself as married. I mean, I supposed there could have actually been an elf style wedding ceremony I didn’t know about, but I didn’t think the acorn ritual she participated in was it. Instead, I loudly asked who was the father of the human girl’s children. All the elves in the pub looked at each other blankly, then one shouted back, ‘We don’t rightly know, lady. She can’t tell us apart, so we take her by turns. Everyone here has dipped their wick in that one!’”

  Both Viola and Callan shuddered visibly at this part of the tale.

  “I know,” Cass said after seeing their reactions, “I told you, elves really are miserable things. I really didn’t know what to say after that either. After I fended off a couple dozen propositions, I went back to the hut and spoke to the woman. I asked her point blank if she was happy, and she said yes. Now I’m not one to ruin a girl’s day, so I simply told her that if she ever changed her mind, that she could go back to the Cartan port and ask for someone to send me a message and I’d come back and get her.

  “Then, she suddenly stood up, sending the squalling elf toddler in her lap to the ground, hiked up her skirts and said, ‘Bless every last god. When can we go?’”

  “It turns out she wasn’t crazy at all. She was just trying to make the best of the situation. She had no money, and the Cartan wouldn’t send her home without coin to pay for the passage, plus a handling fee. She had hoped to seduce a wealthy elf, and convince him to give her enough coin to escape, but to her dismay, she discovered there was no such thing as a wealthy elf. She simply hadn’t wanted to seem like an idiot in front of me so she’d pretended everything was peachy when I asked.

  “We had to wait around a week for her to birth the second elf child, which we left in the hands of some very annoyed elves at the pub, along with the toddler, before we left,” Cass finished the story.

  “How do the Cartan make sure no pregnant women leave with elves in their bellies?” Viola asked.

  “Cartan are immune to the elves wiles, as I’ve mentioned, but that isn’t their only defense. Cartan females are not compatible hosts for the parasites. And any human women who seek transport must remain in quarantine for four weeks, the gestation period for an elf,” Cass said.

  “Are there no elf women?” Nat asked.

  “Oh there are, but you never see them. They’re pregnant all the time, and caring for giant broods of little ones. The men bring them food, but that’s it. The merchant’s daughter’s babes probably were dropped off with some aggravated elven mother,” Cass explained.

  “She didn’t mind,” Viola asked, “leaving her children behind?”

  “No,” Cass said, “she explained to me she didn’t even know how she got pregnant with the first one. That’s how th
e elves work. They have this ability to knock you out for a short while. It isn’t long, but it’s long enough for them to deposit their seed. I told you, they are repulsive.”

  Callan looked at Cass, wondering if it was wise to ask the question that had been burning in his mind. He decided to take the chance.

  “Have you ever been pregnant with an elf child?” he asked.

  Cass frowned, “No. Not for lack of the elves trying, though. Fortunately, I seem to be immune to their charms. And by charms, I mean the actual ‘knock you out’ magic they weave. They aren’t charming in the other sense at all.”

  “Well, I’ll tell my sister that story, but she probably won’t believe me,” Callan said sleepily.

  “If I’m being completely honest,” Cass said, growing somber, “that’s why I tell elf stories.”

  “What do you mean?” Callan asked.

  “I don’t really have any happy elf tales. They aren’t exactly fun to tell. The terrible songs, we can laugh about them, but I wouldn’t ever want someone to come away from an elf tale not realizing the danger of thinking elves are harmless. It’s a bit of an additional public service I like to perform. Spreading the truth about the blighters. It only takes rescuing one lass from Ledina to make you realize some fairy stories really are harmful.”

  “Well, should I live through all this, I’ll make it a royal decree everyone learn the truth. I can honestly say, if no bards ever sang elf songs in my court again, my happiness couldn’t be measured. Perhaps I’ll even outlaw those songs. Now that I have moral justification on my side, I can feel righteous about it as well.”

  Callan smiled to himself, imagining his sister’s reaction to that.

  Cass, content at the idea she might have done some good with her story, lay down in the wet sand and stared at the stars. She was silent for a bit while the rest of them stared into the fire.

  “I’ve been having a really good time, your highness. Thank you for asking me to join you on your quest,” she said.

  Callan looked over at Cass a little stunned. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had thanked him for anything, other than his wife of course. His expression soured as he thought of Melody, lying in the royal bedchambers, too ill to leave the room. He touched his locket and turned to Cass. Suddenly, he didn’t feel so put out that he wouldn’t be able to sleep in a tent that night.

  “I should be the one thanking you. Thank you for putting up with me, and for helping me save my wife. There is nothing more precious to me than Melody. I don’t want to live in a world where she isn’t there every morning when I wake up. I didn’t know how wonderful life could be until I met her,” Callan said.

  Gunnarr watched the king with a newfound appreciation. He thought he knew what that felt like, to want someone more than anything else. He was sure he’d go to great lengths, if it was Cass’ life that hung in the balance.

  Cass waved her hand dismissively.

  “I’m happy to do it. It is, after all, why I became a warrior. Why we all become warriors. We do it to help people,” Cass said.

  Gunnarr nodded at her words, silently agreeing with them.

  “That’s why I want to be a warrior, too,” Nat said sincerely. “Of course, the adventures are a nice fringe benefit.”

  “Yes,” Cass smiled, “they sure are.”

  Chapter 8

  Callan woke with a stiff back, which made him grumpy. He wasn’t old enough to have back problems, he told himself, but that morning he felt like he was eighty. He had stuffed himself to bursting with the little fruits the night before, and now his stomach lurched with every movement he made. A troubling rumble emanated from closer to his rump than his mouth.

  “Oh no,” he said as he got up and made his way a little into the woods, not even thinking about the possible danger there. As soon as he broke through the tree line and the camp was out of sight, he squatted and sighed with relief as the pressure in his lower bowels let up. He smiled broadly with the release. Then his nose scrunched up and he gagged.

  “By the Gods,” he cried out moving away from the stinking pool of effluence, “that isn’t humanly possible!”

  Callan stumbled into camp and woke everyone up with his shouting.

  “What is it, fool?” Inez said as she crawled out of her wagon crankily.

  “It’s… nothing. Just don’t go over there,” Callan said gesturing to where he’d stumbled out of the forest.

  Callan sniffed the air surreptitiously and found that he could scent neither his effluvia nor the scent of the little fruits.

  The makeshift camp was stirring, wakened by Callan’s outburst. Tampoto was making his way around the party, handing each person a few more fruits out of his now nearly empty sack. After the diminutive aboriginal had given Callan his own portion, he was shocked to find that they lacked their previous pungency. He could barely detect their unique aroma, even after pressing them right up to his nose.

  “I think maybe these are duds. I can’t smell them at all,” Callan said a little concerned.

  “That’s how you know they’re working,” Gunnarr said as he took another mouthful of the fruits.

  “Oh,” Callan said, “okay then.”

  “Tampoto knows what he’s doing,” Cass reassured him, “and this isn’t my first trip through the forest. You can’t smell them anymore because you’re getting used to them. Pretty soon, you’ll even start craving them.”

  He sat down and started on the small pile Tampoto had divided out as his portion. He only got three down before his stomach started complaining.

  “I don’t think I can eat anymore,” he said holding his gut.

  “That’s okay. You should be fine by now,” Cass said popping one of the little fruits into her mouth. “With as many as you ate last night, you’ll probably be good for a week.”

  Callan gave his remaining fruit back to Tampoto, who took them back while giggling something out in his sing-song native tongue. Cass and Gunnarr both started laughing.

  “What? What did he say?” Callan asked.

  “That these smell much better than the last batch you finished with,” Cass chortled. Tampoto was holding his nose, his face a wrinkled mask of mock disgust, waving his hand in front of his face as he backed away from Callan.

  “Look, he does know I’m a king, right? King? With the crown, and the armies? The occasional beheading here and there? Kings aren’t to be mocked,” Callan replied testily.

  “Guess that means you’re not much of a king then, eh boy?” Inez sniggered.

  Callan just glowered at the old woman, who had joined Tampoto in pretending to be overpowered by Callan’s stench, scrunching up her face into a mass of wrinkles and waving him off. He didn’t respond, instead focusing on rubbing his stomach while the rest of the group ate as much more of the fruit as they could manage. Cass got up to begin giving each of the mounts a few more handfuls before they got saddled up. Her preparations spurned the rest of the party to start getting their own packs and gear in order. Given the make-shift nature of their camp, it didn’t take long for them all to be ready to ride.

  Cass hopped up onto her horse then pulled Tampoto up in front of her.

  “I think we’re all ready folks,” she said. “We should get moving. We can stop at the village overnight then make our way out of the woods tomorrow morning.”

  “We’re spending another night here?” Callan asked, his irritation rising again.

  “These woods are deep. The village is quite a ways from here. Trust me, you’ll want to stop there when we get there. This is going to be a long, hard ride. The only reason Tampoto got here so quickly was that he happened to be out gathering near us when he heard our call. He didn’t come straight from the village,” Cass said.

  “So long as I don’t need to eat any more of those fruits,” Callan grumbled as he got atop his horse, “I suppose it can’t be avoided.”

  Cass kept the group in a tight cluster as they traveled, rather than her scouting ahead and Gunnarr tr
ailing behind. Cass explained it was because there was no threat of ambush in the woods. As they rode, Callan began to notice differences between this forest and the one across the river. These woods were actually much thicker in places, and the trees were all covered in a spiny green moss. Callan could easily imagine himself getting lost in the woods here. Unlike the other forest, this one felt more claustrophobic, mazelike and somehow menacing. He tried to make a mental map of their progress but whenever he looked for a distinct cluster of trees that he had just noted a few moments before, it was no longer where it should be. After a while, he simply gave up trying, accepting that he was now hopelessly lost.

  Callan didn’t really want to see the deadly creatures that roamed these forests firsthand, but he thought he should see some evidence of its presence. If it was big enough to swallow him whole, he reasoned, there should be some signs of its passage through the dense forest—broken trees and massive footprints. But he saw nothing of the sort. Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling of menace. He urged his horse to make its way around Inez’s cart, and fell in beside Cass and Gunnarr. They were chatting to each other happily. He didn’t really want to interrupt them, but he kept having the feeling that they were being watched. Large mossy clumps of green blocked out most of the direct sunlight from above, making it difficult for Callan to peer into the woods. Finally, when a shudder ran down his spine, he spoke up.

  “So… where exactly is this fearsome beast? What have we been avoiding all this time? You said it was huge. If it was about, we’d hear it or see it, wouldn’t we? Something so huge can’t really be as stealthy as all that,” Callan asked as nonchalantly as he could.

  Cass turned in her saddle to face Callan, her look serious.

  “I told you, you don’t really want to know. I’m sure it was hard for you coming in here blind, but it’s for the best. I don’t know that being aware of the exact nature of the beast is going to help calm your anxiety, your highness,” Cass said.

  “Try me,” Callan said sitting up straight, “I’ve been through my share lately. I think I can handle it.”