by Nelson, J P
Roveir sure liked to talk. I’d never heard a human talk so much.
Turning his attention back to me he continued, “I’m tryin’ to say she only cares about herself, skipper, so you stay shy of her. As is, she’s the only one who tells the story of seein’ a little boy with pointed ears. She’s been askin’ around tryin’ to get someone to look around and burn the sinful one, as she calls it, as if the damned …” I saw momma raise her eyebrows and shift her body language, “I mean as if the codger hypocrite has any room to talk … but nobody’s listenin’ to her …” his eyes narrowed and he gave a sly grunt and mischievous smirk, “… least of all me.”
He chuckled, “Think I’ll send her back to Miller’s Branch Village in Taylor County where she came from, let her teach school or somethin’. Make her work for a change.”
I looked at momma who added, “The Bor-Duke was slain, and Roveir has been appointed to act in his place, at least until the siege is over and until a meeting of Counts can be held.”
Glancing at Roveir, he gave me a salute.
___________________________
The siege lasted another two weeks, but the worst part was over. I spent most of the time in the barn and momma stayed with me, only it was me trying to take care of her. Barlan was a big help, and helped me fix her soup and all.
Roveir told me it was my seeing those gliders that saved us all. Momma figured some kind of powerful wizard had made them all see like elves, because humans couldn’t have seen where to go. But Roveir had been able to get a bunch of the warriors inside the main house to meet the enemy. It took a little time, and people inside were killed, but castle forces caught them before it was too late.
When the fog was gone, those enemy men were catapulted out into the field. Eventually, a small army from Gevard made it to defeat the enemy around the castle. This was the start of a war that lasted for years, but it was the last hostile act in Fel’Caden Providence.
No one had been taken from within the main keep and everyone had been accounted for, dead and alive, except that boy, Panjé. I hoped deep down he had escaped somehow and was safe, somewhere. I decided at that young age that no child should be beaten like that, whether slave or free, elf or human, or whatever.
Ahrnema had been sent kicking and screaming, the story went, back to her birth-land, which was just a couple of miles from Neh’Krac Providence in the low country, where supposedly she was put to work under the one school master there, teaching young children their letters and watch them draw pictures. It seemed the only reason she had been allowed to stay in the Fel’Caden Main House was because she was acting as private minister to the Bor-Duke. Apparently when he was found dead with a sword in his back, she had immediately informed everyone her son, Thannael, was going to be declared the heir apparent and she would be Duchess by default.
I learned a new word from Roveir, although momma didn’t like it a whole lot, it’s called Flake; that, he told me, was a way to describe that woman. Momma called her delusional. Either way, she had serious problems with reality and was gone.
Roveir was re-appointed Duke, although momma said he got it by one vote and many were almost violently against it. This much is true, however, he was as good as his word; he promised not to let any bad visitors come to our quarters, and he didn’t.
We still had our work to do, that didn’t change, and momma said Roveir tried to get us set free. The best apple products in all of Gevard, however, came from the result of momma’s work, and the family elders weren’t about to let that go. It turned out one of the most sought after trade exports from Gevard was a tasty drink called apple brandy, and it came right from momma’s trees. At least we were left alone.
As far as we knew no one but Roveir, momma, and me knew about me inside the main house or her magic in what I learned was called a tower crib. Something else interesting, was that about five miles from the main keep an enemy camp was found where everyone was dead, including a known sorcerer from the highlands, a swarthy fellow named Kroaft, one of those Roveir thought of in the beginning. A dozen warriors had been strangled in their sleep, two more stabbed in the back, and Kroaft looked like he had fallen from hundreds of feet above. The camp was nowhere close to a cliff or a tree.
There were also signs of a fight with a large creature, but the creature was nowhere to be found, only a severed lion-like paw and some feathers.
There was a lot of scratching of heads on that one. Roveir told me about it, and he said he had suggested one of the other mountain sorcerers with whom Kroaft was known to have personal conflict. No more questions were asked. Only Roveir and I looked at my momma, but he suggested it wouldn’t be good to ask. I never did learn if she had done that, but it would explain why she had been gone for so long. But why would she, if she did? In fact, I would have never even considered it if I hadn’t seen what she did to those humans when she found me.
After the Gevard Army chased the enemy from the locale, my momma and I returned to our quarters. The grounds were a mess, but our quarters, on the other hand, hadn’t been entered. Momma put her hand on the doorknob and a chunk of ice came out of the key hole. When we stepped inside it was like a spring morning, all fresh, nice smells, and perfectly preserved.
Through it all, my biggest question was this; with all of that power, why had my momma never escaped from Gevard? I knew there was much she said she hadn’t and couldn’t tell me, was that part of it? What could keep my momma prisoner that couldn’t be seen?
During the next couple of years, though, I figured it out, or at least the gist of it.
With the guarantee of no nighttime visitors, momma began to teach me in earnest and she did it in many different ways. From the beginning of every day we would speak and sing in a variety of languages, I learned drums and how to use my hands to speak in symbols, and in the dirt of our floor she taught me to draw runes and writing no longer practiced by any known peoples.
By rote she had me rehearse, over and over, pieces of history spanning across the ages, each in its relative language. She taught me rituals and tribal dances with meanings I was not sure I could understand, but I learned them as best as I could, anyway.
Sometimes she would get those awful headaches when trying to teach me something and she would have to stop. But I became aware it was when she was trying to tell me something super secret, each time in a different way. I was thinking someone, or something had done something to my momma on the inside; someone didn’t want my momma to tell, or show, something she knew. There was more, I was sure, but what?
I have a big imagination, myself. So I found myself wondering what could possibly have been done to my momma.
She showed me maps, as well, on our rock room floor. When she was just telling me about places, she was fine, but when she made the floor move, her headaches came and her nose would bleed. It happened every time, but when she tried to show me the Dsh’Tharr or Itahro Mountains it became severe, her eyes even got bloodshot and once they started to bleed a little.
“Momma, no!” I grabbed her as I was bit by bit coming to understand; something she had seen or learned, something to do with our ancestral regions, or maybe more importantly some event that had happed there … somebody wanted it kept quiet. As bad as I had hated to think it, why hadn’t she just been killed, unless … unless that somebody wanted more than just her silence. But what? In remembering things she had said, why did it matter if someone was Fel’Caden or not?
And then I remembered Roveir, wasn’t he Fel’Caden? Hadn’t he been there when she was taken?
“Momma, don’t do it.”
“But …” she said in pain, “You need to know …”
“Show me another way, momma. I’ll figure it out, I promise.” It was my first real promise to her, and I meant it. One day I was going to find who did this. And then I would hurt them, bad. I didn’t know who or what, but deep down inside, I knew it was someone who lived a long time, like us. For now that would be my only clue.
Yes
, Tell Singers had what humans called magical ability, kind of like Druids, but different. Now-a-days the word bard was being used in the place of Tell Singer, but you can’t compare what humans call a bard to an Elvin Bard. Human bards are basically actors and musicians and that’s it.
An Elvin-Bard, or Tell Singer, is an elf that has specialized in keeping the old lore and history secrets of times past. They are also masters of music and more often than not, teachers of one kind or another. Like Druids, a Tell Singer is usually brought up in their craft from infancy. If they demonstrate the magical aptitude necessary, they’re cultivated with tender care.
A Tell Singer learns by rote, their awareness and retention abilities are phenomenal, and are attuned with nature. It is said a strong Tell Singer, like a Druid, can sense and feel magic just by being close to it, and they can talk with animals. Tell Singers are rare, and one who can heal even more so. A Dsh’Tharr Tell Singer, or Elvin-Bard, is the most powerful of them all, especially when it comes to nature and weather attunement.
I still had my own chores, which grew in scope, and I found myself spending more time with Barlan. I still couldn’t get myself too close to those big horses, but I lost my fear of Dahnté and I stopped having those nightmares. Barlan taught me everything there is to know about chickens, even how best to cook them and make a special soup that helped humans get over sickness. He also taught me a good bit about goats, shearing sheep’s wool, and how to run a dairy barn.
Why cows didn’t bother me and horses did, I wasn’t sure, but I always had a good thing going with those cows. The calf I rode became my first ever pet, and he grew up to be the dairy barn’s main bull.
Roveir was gone a lot, what with him being a Duke again and all, but sometimes he came to our quarters and spent time with momma. If it hadn’t been for her, we might have gotten along, but in the back of my mind were the thoughts that he was human, he had been there at her Time of Taking, and he was Fel’Caden. I was sure there was something going on they weren’t telling me, and I didn’t like it.
I learned how to do something else without momma teaching me; I learned to forget. What I mean is, if I didn’t like it enough, I would just not remember it on purpose. I got to where I would pretend Roveir hadn’t been there, and I would just not remember my momma liking him. As a result, there are a lot of things I have flat out forgotten about him.
One thing he did, though, and it wasn’t for a long time I saw the reason for it, is he set it up so that she would sometimes go all the way to Strattengar to play and sing music for the Council of Dukes. He told me, “If I can’t set her free, then I can get her some exposure. Maybe word will get out to the north.”
To me it was just a means for him to take her away. During those times I would stay with Barlan and he would make me a hammock which would swing. But I worried I wouldn’t see my momma again, and next morning Barlan would always find me curled up in the hay with the goats. If there was a baby goat, it would be snuggled in my arms.
For the most part, though, my momma and I had some happy times. I’ve heard lots of human children complain about having to learn things, but I loved it. Also, there was something about how my momma taught that made learning fun; it was those stories … and how she made them come alive, just in her telling. She could speak in all kinds of accents, use her voice so many ways, and her animation … she never got tired of acting out anything she was telling.
I learned math, science, astronomy and art; music is a given with a Tell Singer for a momma, and I became proficient with several instruments we made at home. But what excited me the most was the history.
It wasn’t long before I could trace my entire lineage all the way back to Diustahn, and outline the significant aspect of each of their lives. I knew the details of how before the Old Ones came the Dragons ruled the world and developed a high level of civilization, but an entity called Tiamat caused a war that nearly destroyed all of Dragon Kind.
The Old Ones were called the Diustahntei, and they left their birth world of Seun with a colony of humans to Sail the Stars, as the story goes, until they followed the Selestian Star to this world. Ultimately their vessel crashed into the icy north mountain range of Sn’Ahquay, where the remains are supposedly buried under the ice to this day.
The humans wanted to call this world Xn’Csero, the third world, because they themselves had come from their home world to Seun, which itself meant Second. The name Orucean was chosen, however, during the first Ehleshuvah Dm’Fahrlnah, a fancy name for the High Elvin Council. Many other things were determined, including; names for the days of the week, months, a dating system, names for the continents, standardized measuring system, etc.
Yes, I could tell you of the settling and building of the first Elvin Citadel at Ch’Hahnju, eventual battle and parting with the D’Rhoatna Ieshintow faction, elvin migration south and building of the Phabeous City, the Kl’Duryq War, and on and on.
At first, the elves were creatures of nature. As they became more cultured, on the other hand, they began shunning natural things. A group called the Dorhune rose up to retain the Natural Ways and they had all kinds of fearsome power. From the Dorhune Teachings, Druidology came into being and focused on weather, the wilderness, wild creatures, and so on, but a select few humans were able to harness aspects of Dorhune Power to become Magicians and Wizards.
Tell Singers were cultivated to preserve what the old elves called Ch’upia Fai, the True History. Unfortunately, both disciplines were becoming a thing of the past.
The elves ruled, so-to-speak for ages, but humans breed like rabbits and reproduce thirty-forty times faster than us. Contentions were rising up all over and the human frame of common thought became to push the elves right out of the sunlight and into the caves. Human civilization, if you can call it that, finally took over. Elves were pushed back or tried to fit in, such as the Abaishulek, often called common-elves.
As far as anyone knows, the last real elvin culture is in the Ch’Hahnju Mountains at the Citadel.
Somewhere along the line d’warvec, giants, leprechauns, trolls, chonatts, and the half-sized human race of gon’yia entered into the picture; each in their own time developing strong cultures and they are only the most prominent. There have been other intelligent cultures to emerge on Orucean, most of which have disappeared or been wiped out in battle, but of them all the d’warvec are the only ones left with a significant presence.
Before you go around talking about d’warvec, however, you better get the name right. All of the species who identify themselves as d’warvec are adamant about you, me, everyone, distinguishing them from a dwarf. A dwarf, you see, is a short human with specific characteristics. D’Warvec as a species insist they are physiologically different than humans. The spelling of the name, D’Warv, is different, as well, with two syllables when properly pronounced, not one. And then there is the matter of plural verses singular tense; one dwarf, two dwarves … one d’warv, two d’warvec.
There’re lots of stories about how d’warvec came around and some are downright right colorful, if you aren’t a d’warv, that is. One belief is that they emerged from another world through a big hole in the ground. A similar tale is that a great, unnatural storm occurred and a band of d’warvec came through a temporary portal from their ancestral home.
Many d’warvec hold that their deity carved them from the stone and then breathed them into life. The most popular belief, however, is that as the D’Rhoatna Ieshintow, often called D’Rhoaw or even Drow, left Ch’Hahnju they tried to magically change a herd of pigs into slaves and wound up with d’warvec.
Now, I’m not saying anything about what or how, because typically elves and d’warvec don’t get along and have had territorial wars over mountain country, but I’m saying if d’warvec came from pigs, they’re doing a big disservice to their ancestors, because pork is their main meat source in the north, and that’s just plain nasty.
The only elves who can eat pork without getting really sick are the Aba
ishulek sub-culture. They also happen to be the only Elvin variant which can get potbellied fat, and their lifespan is way shorter than the rest; go figure.
To this day I don’t eat the stuff; even smelling a pig roasting … e-e-e-yuck. I learned that pork was a steady meat diet in Gevard as well, the reason we never saw it was because momma made it clear long ago she, we, wouldn’t eat it.
Other species, which the elves named the Gh’Nshyko Races, are those which reportedly were developed through magical experimentation on humans, d’warvec, and even elves. Gh’Nshyko being a blanket name which includes any of those species like orgs, minotaurs, dinosuets, troglodytes, and so many more.
Basically, the Gh’Nshyko possess combined traits of the original species and certain animal traits. Intelligence is usually at problem solving and above animal reasoning levels, so they can implement simple tools and maintain a basic culture, but designing complex items like a crossbow or learning to read even a children’s primer is above their ability. Underestimating their other abilities is a bad choice, however, because they were all bred at one time for their own very specific purposes.
The events leading up to my momma’s Time of Taking, as far as I could determine, traced back to the first Dsh’Tharr king, Oshang. He had been a great warrior and was responsible for winning the Kl’Duryq War, but when he went home, the way I saw it, he should have stayed home. Instead, some time later he got his best warriors together to go save a whole ‘nother culture from an evil he knew nothing about. As a result they all simply vanished, poof, no trace. The story is that a search party trailed them to a canyon where the trail came to an abrupt end. It was as if they rode right out of existence.
Not much later an enemy force referred to as The Vile caught the Dsh’Tharr Elves by surprise and overran them. The survivors split up in tribes, some of whom migrated to forests all about the continent, but the greatest tribe was eventually led by the fabled Gahjurahnge Chieftess, Lahnumae Ahk’Nohra, the grandmother of Kn’Yang.
