by Lee Dunning
“How’s that?” Foxfire said, dubious.
“First of all, you’ll no longer find yourselves thwarted at every turn during council votes. Raven and I have no intention of playing lackey to the First’s descendant. That leads us to the second item—you have a human pest problem, and I am nothing if not a bane of human vermin.”
“That will only work if the previous vote gets overturned,” Lady Swiftbrook interjected. “The Sea Elves will continue to back whichever K’hul holds the seat of Voice of the First. K’hul may not have gotten on well with his father, but I doubt he’s any more likely to view the Wood Elves’ plight as a worthy endeavor. Considering our current situation … I don’t think he’ll have much difficulty in swaying our other new councilors to agree with him.”
“Really, madam, do I strike you as a chap who will go meekly into the night because of a vote? I think I’ve already demonstrated I’ll go to great lengths to do as I see fit.”
“Yes,” Lady Swiftbrook said, dryly. “How’s that jaw doing?”
“Quite excellent, thank you. The last few molars grew back before we started down.”
“So, what is your plan? Every time the vote goes against you, you’ll assault the opposing councilors?”
“In my defense, your hulking beau chose to escalate our disagreement to the physical. I foolishly allowed him to take me by surprise. He, in turn, was reckless enough to believe he could finish me off so easily. We both learned much.”
“That doesn’t exactly answer my question. Despite your charming demeanor, even I may see fit to oppose you in council now and again.”
They had continued their trek, descending the switchback trail, which lead into the cavern. Now, as W’rath considered his words, they found themselves traveling among the forest of mushrooms, along a soft, lichen covered path. The mushrooms glowed with a faint luminescence making the paler skinned elves appear ghostly, while the Shadow Elves’ black skin shimmered with the purples and blues of the reflected light.
“Though I admit, I am keen to spar with you, madam, you make a valid point: We cannot simply take up arms every time we disagree with one another. However, I believe we must implement a policy that allows for a certain amount of autonomy among factions. If K’hul does not wish to commit troops to assist the Wood Elves, he should have the short-sighted right to stand by that decision. But his desires should not prevent the rest of us from aiding our cousins.”
“He’ll argue we need everyone in order to combat the evil that attacked us at Second Home.” Lady Swiftbrook said. “I know his mind well. He won’t agree to a proposal that splits our already weakened numbers.”
“All the more reason to help the Wood Elves. If we free the them from their current predicament, we gain their aid in facing our mysterious foe,” W’rath said.
Foxfire chuckled, but without mirth. “He won’t consider that a worthwhile gain. Outside our forests, our magic is so severely limited, we’re not considered of much use.”
“If that’s the case,” W’rath countered, “then we Shadow Elves have even less value. You saw the condition of our lads. It will take quite a while, even with their ability to regenerate, before any of them can fight. I doubt those lads even know how to hold a weapon, and with those collars clasped about their necks, they certainly never learned to properly use their psionics. Based on your argument, we should be free to throw in with you.”
“Not to disparage your offer,” Foxfire said, making way for a newly arrived group of healers, “but how can a handful of sickly children help us?”
W’rath dismissed Foxfire’s words with a wave of an elegant hand. “The children have no part in solving your predicament. They’ll stay here and concentrate on recuperating and relearning how to function as upright, walking, sentient beings. I am all you need to turn the tables on the rabble threatening your home.” He gave Foxfire a winning smile and passed through the gateway leading to the inner sanctum of the castle.
Foxfire held back, and the two females paused, brows raised in curiosity. “I think maybe we’ve exchanged one form of insanity for another. Doesn’t he strike you as just a little overconfident?”
“Well, let’s see,” Lady Swiftbrook said, “first he slaughtered several demons to get to me. Then he healed my mind after a psionic attack drove me insane. Next he teleported us blind to where we met Raven. He then teleported us, and fifty odd survivors, to the Eastern Gate—again sight unseen, with only my memories to guide him. Once there, he played an instrumental role in shutting down the gate to the Nine Hells. I’d say he’s earned the right to his confidence.”
“All right, I’ll grant you he’s an incredible psion, but he hurt himself, didn’t he? Ancestors know how long until he’s able to use his powers to any extent. Just how much help can he be without his powers?”
Raven cleared her throat. “Don’t forget he beat the piss out of an elf who stands nearly three feet taller than him and outweighs him by a couple of hundred pounds of pure muscle.”
“Well there is that,” Foxfire admitted.
W’rath’s voice drifted back to them from the gateway. “Do you three wish to spend the entire evening gossiping about me, or shall we explore this place?”
The three started guiltily. “We just wanted to admire the view from here,” Raven said.
“Of course you were, lass,” W’rath chuckled. “You keep practicing—you’ll get the hang of subterfuge eventually.”
Glow balls, set loose by the healers who had entered earlier, flittered about the hallways of the Shadow Elf castle. More beautiful craftsmanship greeted them. Their footfalls echoed, attesting to the abandoned nature of the structure. Less than a hundred elves had lived within its walls for years, yet its size suggested it’s builders had intended it to house thousands.
They skirted along an inner courtyard where a garden and meditation area had gone wild, overgrown with colorful fungi. The bamboo fountain no longer worked, it’s water source choked off by subterranean plants. Even so, the elves could easily imagine the courtyard’s former beauty. “Did anything like this exist where you came from?” W’rath asked Raven.
She shook her head. “It had a beauty of its own, but nothing like this. What about your former home?”
The memory of a volcanic landscape flashed across W’rath’s mind. In many ways, the early days of this world had more in common with the Abyss than this current, cooler version with its brilliant blue oceans and skies. “No, I’ve never seen anything like this. Most of this structure is constructed out of wood. We never would have had access to so much timber.”
“There’s no way they dragged this much wood down here,” Lady Swiftbrook observed. “They must have opened portals and transported it that way.”
W’rath made a face. “I must say I’ve developed a healthy dislike of portals.”
“Understandable, but we use them for a great many things. We travel to and from the islands of First Home via permanent portals. Even our sewer system makes use of them. You saw the faces of the healers from earlier. We’re short on portal magi due to the attack. Only the team we just followed into here has a pair assigned to them. Those other groups would have dearly loved to escape to the surface through a portal.”
Angry voices drew them from their conversation. W’rath took out running and the other three raced to keep up. They arrived in yet another courtyard. This one held the Sky Elf healers, and presumably the last of the Shadow Elves. The largest of the Shadows Elves, probably one of the females, fended off the Sky Elves with a long, elegant sword. She wasn’t in much better condition than the rest of the young elves, but the sword glinted nastily in the flickering glow of the mage lights.
One of the healers turned as the councilors arrived. “She won’t let us get close enough to help anyone,” he said.
Lady Swiftbrook rolled her eyes. “There’s one of her and six of you. She may have a sword, but you have magic. On top of that, she’s half dead and blinded by the light you brought with you.�
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The healer shrugged helplessly. “We didn’t want anyone to accuse us of hurting her.”
The sound of a fist hitting flesh brought them all back around. The sword bearing elfess sunk bonelessly to the ground, unconscious. Raven stood over her, shaking her hand. “That hurt more than I expected.”
“You punched her?” Lady Swiftbrook gaped. She turned to W’rath. “Did you make her do that?”
“I am as surprised as you as you, madam. Pleased, but surprised all the same.”
“Sorry,” Raven said, ducking her head in embarrassment. “It’s just everyone around here talks entirely too much and does very little. She glared at W’rath as if wondering if he really had healed enough to use his powers to manipulate her. W’rath simply winked at her, and she turned back with a sigh. “She’ll be fine. We have a room full of healers and it just seemed like a better solution than giving her the chance to hurt someone. Not that she posed much of a threat—these mushrooms have faster reflexes.”
The rest of the Shadow Elves had backed against the wall. Some of them crouched defensively and pointed at Raven, squinting at her through watering eyes. “The evil has come,” hissed one, and others muttered their agreement.
Raven scowled at them. “I’m here to help you.”
“Don’t waste your breath, lass,” W’rath said as Raven’s words elicited a hostile chorus of “Exile!”, “Traitor!” and other less than complimentary labels.
“Silence!” Lady Swiftbrook’s voice rang out. The young elves might think of W’rath and Raven as enemies, but they had a hard time disregarding someone they’d grown up viewing as an authority figure. She might consort with the Exiles, but their upbringing made it difficult for them to work up the nerve to dismiss her, at least now that their leader lay in a heap on the floor. They fell silent and crouched expectantly.
“These people,” Lady Swiftbrook said, gesturing at the healers, “have come down here to help you. You don’t realize it, but those you trusted, twisted your entire perception of the world. Please cooperate. None of us want to hurt you, but if you resist, we’ll protect ourselves and subdue you.”
The youngsters glanced from Lady Swiftbrook to their unconscious female, and then to Lady Raven. Frowns and trembling lips shown from every face, and most of the boys tried to back away, eyes darting about, searching for a means of escape. Their legs could barely hold them, though, and they had nowhere to flee. Slowly, they lost their defensive stances and sank to the floor. They wouldn’t go to the healers, but resigned to their fate, they put up no further resistance.
The healers prepared the sick elves for the journey to the surface. Four of them unpacked stretchers while the two portal magi began to summon their means of escape. The portal would save them two plus miles of hiking while burdened with their newly acquired patients.
Lady Swiftbrook turned back to her fellow councilors. “We should have this place searched for any others still in hiding.”
“I’m certain we’ve found them all,” W’rath said. “Caeldan and Ryld indicated there are fifty-one of them in all. With those we met on top, the others we saw carried out of the lava tube earlier, and these we’ve just dealt with, we have our fifty-one. Not to mention, they don’t seem all that keen on breaking off on their own.”
“Still …”
“Oh, I don’t disagree, the entire compound requires a thorough search. I, however, would like to be the one doing the exploring. This place holds many secrets and I mean to discover them. I have no desire for some well-meaning scholar to run off with books he thinks could damage the fanciful history you’ve all managed to conjure up for yourselves.”
Lady Swiftbrook glared at him. “Your sarcasm is duly noted.”
“There’s also the chance you might stumble across a few corpses during your search,” Foxfire contributed.
“Excellent point,” W’rath said, approvingly. He was starting to like this Wood Elf quite a lot.
Lady Swiftbrook twitched with agitation, torn between exasperation and genuine hurt. W’rath ignored her distress, not in the mood to spare her feelings. While he had learned a great many things this day, many of those revelations had proven unpleasant. Not for the first time, W’rath wondered how so profound a change could have come over the elves. Granted, ten thousand odd years had passed since he’d last mingled with them, but he still had difficulty imagining these indecisive, weak-willed folk as descendants of the warriors he had known as a child. Even the strongest among them, K’hul, retained more of the weaknesses, than the strengths, of the ancestor he so revered.
Well, that wasn’t entirely fair. The Wood Elves appeared to have some grit left to them. Perhaps, living on the mainland without allies and powerful magic, provided enough challenges to keep them sharp.
Kela’s bluntness and sharp-tongued, amused W’rath, but he suspected she’d spent her life too isolated in the forest to provide him with the knowledge he needed to eradicate the hostile forces he faced. Still, when the time came, he saw in her the strength needed to follow through with anything asked of her.
Foxfire, on the other hand, seemed a very likely source of intelligence. In his own way, he had stepped in and done the work normally expected of Shadow Elves. But a single elf, no matter how dedicated, couldn’t hope to uncover every plot set up against the elves. While he focused on keeping the Wood Elves safe from the forest-coveting king, someone else slipped in and brought disaster to Second Home.
So, they needed to deal with the wretched king quickly. Not only would defeating the humans free the Wood Elves to assist their cousins with any unpleasantness First Home might soon face, but in aiding them, W’rath felt he would gain steadfast allies. The other elves might dismiss the Wood Elves because of their more primitive lifestyle and weakened magic, but W’rath doubted they had managed to survive without having some valuable skills.
W’rath finally allowed himself to see his companion’s weariness. Even Foxfire’s passion had sputtered out, and Raven sagged as if she’d marched the entire day in her armor. He would never admit it, but the weight of the last several days had taken its toll on him as well. He needed a quiet place to meditate, to allow his mind a chance to repair itself. He regarded the hated portal. The healers trotted through it without concern, just happy to escape the cavern with their patients. With a last inward sigh, he came to a decision.
“As intriguing as I find this place, I see we’re all about done in for today. Might I suggest we utilize the portal Lady Swiftbrook’s people have so kindly provided, and get some rest?”
“The council meets tomorrow,” Lady Swiftbrook said. W’rath wasn’t sure if she intended her words to convey agreement or as a warning of more tiresome bickering to come. Perhaps both.
Foxfire groaned. “I can’t wait for another chance to be ignored and ridiculed,” he said.
“I assure you, I want to know every single morsel of knowledge you hold concerning the various human nations on the mainland,” W’rath said. “Odds are, the enemy behind the attack on Second Home is human, so the council had best listen to anything you have to say concerning those who might have the capability of tearing open doorways to other planes.”
Foxfire crooked his mouth in doubt. “Like I said, I know more about humans than any other elf I know, but I don’t know that anything I can tell you will help pinpoint who attacked Second Home.”
“You know more than you realize,” W’rath assured him. “However, even if your knowledge does no more than allow us to whittle down our list of suspects, you’ll have done us a great service.”
Foxfire smiled and nodded, encouraged. “Shall we then?” he said, gesturing at the portal.
“With a song of joy upon my lips,” W’rath said, and the four stepped through the portal and returned to the night above.
Chapter 9
Raven was relieved to learn that Lady Swiftbrook had made rooms available at her estate for W’rath and her. As beautiful as she found the Shadow Elf castle, she had no des
ire to sleep there. It felt haunted. Its halls echoed with tragedy. She couldn’t stop thinking about the two Wood Elf councilors, elves who had tried to do the honorable thing, rewarded for their efforts with death. She knew Lady Swiftbrook still harbored hope that a less horrific explanation existed for the disappearance of the two Wood Elves, but Raven felt certain the two had met their end somewhere in the mushroom forest surrounding the castle.
Now seated around an immense table, which dominated Lady Swiftbrook’s dining hall, they settled in for a late dinner. Everyone else in the household had retired for the evening, but Lady Swiftbrook’s cook had set out dinner for them in anticipation of their eventual arrival. Covered and kept warm via an enchantment, the food itself seemed out of place on the delicate, floral plates. The generous servings of venison, wild mushrooms and soft bread stood out as austere. “Lord Firemane is a First Born,” Lady Swiftbrook said, seeming to read Raven’s mind. “What he lacks in imagination, he makes up for in skill. You’ll never taste better venison. Fortunately, he wanted his daughter to apprentice under me, and this is the arrangement we agreed upon.”
Raven knew she should be famished, but everything they had witnessed that day weighed upon her, dulling her appetite, making it impossible for her to do more than nibble at her meal. To her right, W’rath busily polished off his venison, pausing only to mutter something appreciative of the absent cook’s abilities. Raven had never seen anyone with such a scandalously huge appetite. Nor had she missed the covetous glances he’d been casting in the direction of her still laden plate. For all his cultured words, he definitely approached his meals like someone who had lived alone, unsure of when next he might hope to eat. He brightened when she offered him her mostly untouched meal. Without the slightest hint of embarrassment, he set to work on his second dinner.
Now that they had returned to the surface, Kela reappeared and joined them. She looked just as wild and disheveled as when they’d left her, all the more obvious now due to the luxurious surroundings. Across from Kela, Foxfire kept up a steady stream of conversation, attempting to recreate through words the wonder of the Shadow Elf castle and its environs for the other Wood Elf. It wasn’t lost on Raven that he completely avoided any mention of the suspected fate of the previous Wood Elf councilors. In fact, his earlier outrage and horror were nowhere in evidence. Since she doubted Foxfire had shrugged off the experience, his behavior had to be an act for Kela’s benefit.
