by Nelson, J P
I remember well two boys, humans, there were no other elf-bloods that I knew of within hundreds of miles, these two boys were bigger than I and they caught me playing by myself behind the main barn. With one brave and laughing boy on each side of me, they grabbed my ears and made me walk through mud, manure and a briar bush with my bare feet.
Learning to hate humans became easy. Only the hostler, a simple-minded fellow named Barlan, was kind to me, but he scared me so I stayed away from him. I never knew exactly why he scared me, but he did. Sometimes I have wondered if it was the hunched over way he walked, the way he often seemed confused when he talked, or the way he just stared at me sometimes. I remember his left eye was a lot bigger than the right, and his right eye seemed to always be rolling in different directions.
My momma liked Barlan and she would talk with him sometimes, but my fear was there and I couldn’t explain it. It could have been in part to the fact that he always worked with those horses, and I was deathly afraid of those creatures, they were so big. In fact, my worst childhood nightmares revolved around horses; something about being swallowed alive and not being able to move, screaming, shouting, fire, the feeling of nothingness and then pain, solid and welting pain into the blackness as I screamed and cried, and all around me I could hear the sound of horses hooves pounding on a road, the smell of equine sweat and something burning …
Then the sweetest whisper I can ever imagine would enter my ear, “Komain, Komain …?” My momma’s song-like voice would cross the barriers of the mind and merge into my dream, her fingers gently touching my shoulder as she spoke, “Wake up, my little blue-eyes, it’s only a dream, wake up Komain …”
And no matter how dark it was, the first thing I would see would be my momma’s beautiful eyes, shining out from the depths of my despair and giving me direction to follow through the last tendrils of the nightmare.
“Momma …” I would call out with a shudder, sometimes in tears, and then reach for the safety of her embrace.
“It’s okay, Komain, it’s okay. I’m right here … momma’s right here. I love you …”
She would cradle me and sing softly, sometimes pressing her forehead gently against mine, until slowly I would feel a floating sensation; the world would seem to fade away and I would move like a feather in the wind, rising up into the clouds until I thought I was looking over a sea of mist, and I would forget the horror of my dream and drift into a deep slumber. Only every so often the nightmare would come back.
Sometimes in the nightmare I could see Barlan’s face emerge from a hole in the terrifying blackness, sometimes not. They were nightmares I could never explain, but at least I had my momma to ease them away.
In any case, for my first twelve years it was pretty much just the two of us, and in that I was very lucky.
There are many children born to women who don’t want them for various reasons. In our day and time, children born as a result of rape, and often of prostitute mommas, are usually shunned, callously treated if kept at all, and more likely than not bear the brunt of the momma’s scorn for her circumstance; but my momma wasn’t like that.
Should I live a thousand lifetimes, I would be hard-pressed to imagine a more loving, nurturing, long-suffering parent than my momma. If she had felt any shame in bearing me it never showed. When I cried she was there to comfort me, when I had a question she had time to listen to me, when I made a new discovery she was excited with me.
Before I was old enough to walk and keep up, momma would carry me on a special board and blanket she slung on her back as she did her work among the trees and flowers. As she worked she talked with me and sang in what I later learned was a multitude of languages, each song weaving its own special story. When I was able, she would show me how to work with the plants, so I became her constant helper.
Sometimes the humans of the keep would watch us, but as long as we kept the grounds beautiful we were left alone … except, that is, those occasional visits at night. I would be put outside, and they would leave with smiles on their faces. Momma would not allow talk of it and I didn’t really understand what was going on, but she would have a sad look in her eyes until she saw me staring at her. She would start talking about her childhood, dancing around the blue roses and I could tell she was trying not to cry. But for me, hatred grew within my heart, and not just against the humans; I began to hate the elves, as well.
It was their fault, I decided. Only the worst kind of cowards would allow one of their own to be carried away into captivity. Kn’Yang, I knew, would have come for her; and he wouldn’t have let her defilement go unpunished. In my own fantasy I became Kn’Yang and saved my momma, took her away, and then returned to avenge her. When I was finished with the humans I would punish the elves for allowing her to be taken in the first place.
Our quarters had once been a workhouse for who knows what, but it was built of solid rock on a little knoll all to itself. And when I say solid rock, that’s what I mean, it was like the place had been cut right out of a giant boulder or something. There was no porch or overhang, just a stair-step to the front door and a stair-step to where the back door had once been. The door had been removed and carefully filled in with tight fitting stone and mortar.
Looking from the front, the building was twenty feet across and went back twenty-four feet with a flat roof. The front door was on the left side of the house, a small window with bars was on the right side in front, and another small window with bars was on the left side of the house in the back.
When you stepped inside you could tell the place had been divided in half crossways. The front room went the whole way across and twelve feet back, and at the end of the room on the left side was a fireplace built right out of that solid rock wall. The front ceiling went all the way up to twelve feet, but the wall dividing the front of the house from the back was made strange and never made any sense to me.
Okay, bear with me because I’m no architect.
Imagine the same kind of solid rock wall, as the outside was made from, going all the way across from right to left and cutting our quarters in half. Now, behind that wall, cut that space in half again with the same kind of wall, making two rooms about ten feet wide and twelve feet back. My momma and I called this our center wall. None of these walls have any seam anywhere; they are all somehow carved out of the same piece of stone.
Almost at the very back of the center wall, a two feet wide by six feet tall door used to give access between the two rooms, but now was filled in with mortared stone. The room on the left has the little barred window, the room on the right has the filled in door once leading outside to the right.
Are you with me, or do I need to draw a diagram out on the ground?
Back to the room on the left, a strong ceiling of hard wood was built seven feet high. Another two by six foot door was placed at center and front to open inward to the front room. A keyhole indicated this room could be locked, but momma and I had never seen the key.
Walking back into the front room and looking back, you could see where the left side of the wall was cut away above the seven foot mark to expose a loft with a five foot ceiling. This became my private space when I got older, and the room below was my momma’s.
I can understand the loft and separate room, but the room on the right is what was really confusing. As you looked at it from the main room, the wall was almost opposite in appearance, maybe better to say upside down, of the left side. Where the loft area on the right was exposed to the front and the bottom was walled in, the wall on the right was closed in at the top for five feet, and the bottom seven feet were exposed. What’s more, when stepping from the main room into the one on the right, you stepped down three narrow steps to get into it.
From top to bottom it was about fourteen feet high and in the back was another fireplace built from the wall, only this one was different. Momma called it an oven and it was where she cooked some of our meals. On the left side you could see where the stairs had once been leading to the
door into momma’s room. On all three of the walls in what we called our rock room were metal pegs at various heights and with no apparent pattern. Momma used the pegs to hang cooking utensils, dried foods and our wet clothes when they couldn’t be dried by the sun.
When I say fourteen feet top to bottom, I mean down to the floor surface. The rock room’s floor surface was hard-packed dirt. There were a couple of times I dug down, I guess planning some great escape, only to find solid rock about three feet below. We never could decide just why all that dirt had been brought in and packed like it was, but it was there.
Except for the rock room, the whole place had wood planking for the floor and the only two windows, one in front and one in my momma’s room, were fitted with heavy steel bars. A hatch once opened from the loft to the outside, but it had long been closed off. All in all, our quarters needed but one bar across the front door, which opened to the outside, to make it a formidable prison.
Now, you might think living in such a place would be dismal and spiritually depressing, but not with my momma around. The wood of the floor was maybe hundreds of years old, but it was as smooth, straight and tight-fitting as a freshly hewn and fitted floor could be with not a sign of rot or mold anywhere. A thick, pile mat of hay-straw had been finely woven into one huge carpet which covered the floor, but if the seamless weaving weren’t enough to boggle the mind, somehow my momma had woven colored designs into it, as well, and she made a curtain of woven grasses to separate the rock room off from the front.
We had a split wood plank table, but the edges had been beveled and etched with painstakingly detailed roses. Our couch and two sitting chairs looked like they had been grown into their shape from several vines. The walls were adorned, and I do mean adorned, with tapestries of living vines and flower arrangements. On three of the walls colored vines formed the design of what momma called dream catchers.
Yup, walking into our quarters could make you forget where you were. Take a moment and close your eyes; imagine what it would feel like to live year round among the scent of pine, mountain laurel and honeysuckle; hear the sounds of birds flying in your window to perch on your wall and sing their songs; feel a constant breeze blowing in circles around the room even when the air isn’t moving outside; and then there were your toes, you could squeeze the comforting softness of the floor between your toes at any time. That is what it was like in our quarters, and sometimes I still see and walk through it in my dreams.
Our clothing was sparse, but momma covered us with dignity. She could take an old flour sack and make a well fitting pair of leggings or tunic out of it, and often did.
My momma told me stories upon stories and taught me more songs than I can count, but even as a little tyke she taught me other things, too. When we were in our quarters she would show me by mimicry how to clean an animal skin and prepare it for clothing or tools. I learned the craft of making footwear and high top hunter’s boots with long fringes hanging from the top. Theses fringes looked nice, but they had an important function as well, if you needed a short piece of leather to tie something with, you had yourself a string right there on your boot.
She explained how to make a sheath and the right way to include little pockets into my boots or vest, and I learned cordage as well, the art of making ropes from grasses, roots, vines or whatever. It was to make carrying baskets and holding pots, momma would explain to me when the humans were watching. She explained the formation of a bow and arrows, how to tie knots, even how to make something she called a garrote. These articles we were not allowed to have, but she explained them anyhow and I listened.
She also taught me the elvin perspective of So’Yahr, the masculine power of the sun, the sky, moon, air, and all things directly above us. And there was So’Yeth, that which we walk upon that goes deeper than most people can ever imagine. From So’Yeth came the feminine power of growth, the life force of Orucean within, that which makes plants grow and the land move. So’Yahr and So’Yeth being that which the ancient Dorhune gathered and harnessed their power, and that was just the beginning.
From a very early age she began showing me how to draw pictures on the floor of our rock room. Once I was able to make clean lines, she showed me how to write letters and numbers in all kinds of fun ways. It was a game with us; she would start a word with a certain kind of writing, and then I would have to finish it in the same kind of way. Other times she would draw a word in one way, and I had to draw what the word looked like in a different way. Sometimes she would whisper and tell me that such and such kind of writing wasn’t even used by anyone anymore, and we would quietly giggle at the special knowledge we shared.
When I would despair at the treatment I got from the other children, momma would sit with me and explain that there was nothing wrong with me, I was just different.
“Children reflect what they have been taught,” she said, “and most people, humans, elves, dwarves, anyone, are only able to understand what they can see on a daily basis. Beyond the common and mundane, anything different from what someone is used to, it is oftentimes difficult to accept.”
I remember so well the day the slave children had mud-balled me and called me names; she gently brushed the hair from my forehead and kneeling down beside me said, “You are not like them, and they have been taught to fear that which they do not understand, so it isn’t completely their fault. It is not truly you which they fear; it is their own lack of understanding.”
“But momma,” I explained through my hurt feelings and tears, “I have done nothing to make them afraid of me. I only want to play …”
The touch of her hand on my own was so soft and warm as she took my hand in hers; her precious smile comforted me as I could feel her feeling the pain in my young heart, and then she said, “I know, my son, I know.”
She gently kissed my hand and lingered as her warmth and love washed through me, and then she added with a hint of sadness, “And the truth is, it will often be so.”
Pulling my hand close to her chest, she gazed into my eyes and said words I shall never forget, “If you remember only one thing throughout your life, remember this, what you have been taught is not nearly so important as who you choose to be … and why.”
It was a pretty deep portion of philosophy, especially for a little boy, but she imprinted it strongly. I did not understand it at the time, but it has always lingered with me.
Despite being shunned by other children, I had no lack of a playmate. When we worked, my momma made it like a game. When we were alone and in quarters, she often would play sword-fighter with me. We would use wisps of broom straw, twigs or whatever was at hand. Together we fought beside Kn’Yang as she told me stories of his victories in battle, how we were descended from a long line of warriors, chiefs, Druids, a Tell Singer or two, and one of only eight elves to be declared a ruling king or queen in all of known history.
It was private time for just us, she would explain, and I had no problem with that. It became one of the many secrets we would share.
Chapter 3
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THAT I WAS different from the human children was clear; I didn’t grow as fast as they did, for one thing. At age eleven I was still smaller than most of the six and seven year old boys on the estate. And while I wasn’t what you might call skinny, I was very lean. Although slight of build, however, I took pride in my hand to eye coordination. Not only were my hands quick, but I could stone pine cones from forty feet away.
What’s more, I could run really fast. It got so I could even catch rabbits with my bare hands; well, not every time, but almost. And then there are those things that simply come with being an elf, or even a half-elf, like seeing in the dark and way farther or tiny details no human can.
All too often, we are thought of as frail beings; not so. I’ve seen artist’s impressions of elves with ears sticking way up in the air, eyes looking like slits in the face or overly wide like a recently born calf, and our features depicted as dainty. Others h
ave the idea we’re immortal, but the modern-day elf lives an average of only four-five hundred years, a lot less than it used to be. Of course, that’s a long time for a human, so you can almost understand how they can think that.
When I asked momma why such a difference in life expectancy from ours she said, “It’s because most elves of our time have left the Old Ways and their oneness with nature to follow the human path and their interpretation of civilization. In their quest to fit in and be accepted, they have forgotten who they really are and have left their ancestral heritage behind.”
D’warvec are closer to humans, physiologically speaking, and live to be maybe two hundred and fifty, or so. But humans, the poor creatures only live maybe sixty or seventy years, and that’s providing they stay out of warfare and away from their many diseases. If a human can stay healthy they might make it to eighty or ninety years old. Only a couple of human breeds can live as long as maybe one hundred and fifty years.
To look at us, we appear no different from slender humans. Pure-blood elf males are around five feet and seven to eight inches tall and females four to five inches shorter. But human males only run an inch or two more on the average, and their females aren’t much different in height from ours. The word is, though, that humans are slowly but steadily getting shorter, over the centuries. Why, I have no clue, but that’s the word according to my momma.
Our eyes are slightly almond shaped, like some of the humans on the southern continent of Rok’Shutai, and our skin can be fair or olive toned. Sometimes you might find an elf with rose, lavender or sea green eyes, but typically our eye colors are the same as humans, with hazel or forest green being the most common. As for the ears; get real. Our ears point at the top, but not all that much, and if you wear a headband or cap you can’t tell the difference.
