Consequences (Majaos Book 2)

by Gary Stringer

  “We should be OK to talk normally now,” Bunny told him, at length. “Are you alright?”

  “I think so. You could have given me a bit more warning, though.”

  “Sorry, I didn't dare. Unfortunately, in reality I'm not immune to poisoned arrows, and neither are you.”

  “Point taken.”

  Bunny grinned at Phaer's unintended pun. Even Phaer had relaxed enough to spare a crooked half-smile.

  “Thanks for the help back there,” Phaer offered.

  “Saving your life, you mean?” Bunny pressed.

  “Yeah, that,” the half-elf agreed. That was as far as his pride would let him go. “You were incredible, the way you handled them.”

  Bunny shrugged. “I'm a thief and a sorceress: illusion, deception, trickery, it's all part of the same thing. I just had to give them a worry, and play to their fears.”

  “Yes, well, thanks.”

  “You're welcome...twice!”

  “Twice?” Phaer questioned.

  “Sure. Remember those nasty chaos thingies you were fighting?”

  “The Umchara? What about them?” Bunny rolled her eyes. “Where do you think your double came from?” Phaer groaned. At the time, he had been too busy and too frightened to think about how that had happened. Then with all that had occurred since, he'd forgotten all about it. Besides, as the elves liked to say, one should not look a gift unicorn in the mouth.

  “Y'know, you could have avoided that fight if you'd just been paying attention,” Bunny scolded. “You're more used to the outdoors than I am yet I knew they were coming before you did.”

  “Hey, I did sense I was being followed...”

  “That would be me. My way of trying to warn you.”

  “Oh. Well, I did have a lot on my mind at the time, you know.” “First rule of survival,” Bunny pursued. “Don’t so caught up with what's going on in here,” she tapped a finger to her temple, “that you forget to pay adequate attention to what’s going on out there.” Her hand gesture encompassed their general surroundings.

  It was hard enough for Phaer to have to admit someone had saved his life from his own people, but to put himself in a position where he had to be saved from getting killed on the way to his own execution...that was almost too much to bear.

  “I suppose you think the whole thing was pretty stupid, hey?” He remarked. “Actually no, not at all,” Bunny assured him. “Remember I'm not exactly Miss Popular where I was born - well, `created` to be strict. If I went back there my father would probably react much like T'lar did with you – lock me in a cage. You knew what would happen when you came here, but you had a chance to free your people. In a sense, my father's other creations are my people and they are still caged and tagged the way I was. I don't know how they would react if I tried to free them, but I wish I had the courage to try.”

  Phaer suddenly saw his companion in a new light. “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” he told her. “Maybe one day something will happen that forces you to make a choice. Then you will have your chance and you never know, you might surprise yourself.”

  “Maybe,” Bunny replied, non-commitally. Snapping herself out of her reflective mood, she said, “Anyway, don’t worry, I'll keep the first life-saving a secret...but I want something in return.”

  “Does everything have a price with you?” Phaer demanded, irritated at her attitude.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact,” she answered without a hint of apology. “But my prices are oh-soreasonable.”

  “I'm surprised you didn't just take your `fee` out of T'lar's pocket.”

  “I looked. Nothing he had interested me,” Bunny replied with a shrug. “Besides, you're surely not suggesting you don't owe me a debt after saving your life?”

  “Alright,” the ranger sighed, “I suppose that's a fair point. What is it you want?” “Answers,” she stated, simply, as the tunnel they were in shifted direction to their left. “I saved your life twice and in return, I have two questions. If it makes you feel any better, they are probably the same questions Eilidh would ask if she were here and not worried about respecting your privacy, which I'm not.”

  “You’d better ask away then.” “OK, good. Firstly, it's no secret the way dark elves feel about half breeds -” Phaer bristled, but she held up her hands to ward off the verbal assault. “Their term, not mine! It’s not as if I’m pure blood anything myself, is it? Anyway, it's no secret how they feel about... people like you...so why-”

  “-Why was I ever born?” Phaer interrupted.

  “Essentially, yes. No doubt Eilidh would phrase it more politely, but I'm pretty sure she'd be wondering the same thing.”

  Phaer had to admit it was a fair enough question, under the circumstances, so Bunny pressed on with her second.

  “This one needs a little explanation, I suppose,” she began. She went on to describe her cautious approach to the dark elf village, deciding she needed to make a dramatic entrance if her bluff was going to work. Therefore she had to find a way to sneak in unnoticed. Being quite talented at such skills, this was not normally a problem.

  “But,” she continued, “I was dealing with elves here. Everyone knows how strongly Life Gifted the elves are, so I was worried about what magical traps might be set, or about being forced to quickly silence any elf who spotted me, before they had a chance to call upon their magic.”

  The companions came to a two-way fork, but an ancient roof collapse had blocked the lefthand passage, leaving them no choice but to take the right without discussion. “Imagine my surprise, then,” Bunny concluded, “when I discovered that there is not a single trace of magic anywhere in the city. Here we have an entire sub-race of elves and all of them, without exception, are magically Dead. Just like you! What in the name of all creation could cause that?”

  The ranger sighed deeply. This was not an easy question for him to answer, but on reflection he decided it did have strong connections with Bunny's first. In fact, they were part of the same history.

  “Those are big questions,” he objected, half-heartedly.

  “It's a big debt,” the sumorityl reminded him, pointedly. He could have cheerfully slapped her at that moment, were it not for the truth that she really did have a right to know. He would have preferred to talk to Eilidh about this but hopefully that would come later. Perhaps it would make easier telling the second time around. He doubted it.

  Steeling himself to the task, he began an abridged version of dark elf history. It was a history that had faded into legend, myth or even less to the other races, yet a history that was branded onto the soul of every dark elf child of each generation.

  The Great Sundering of the Elves occurred long before the arrival of humans, so the dark elf colony was well established at the time of early human recorded history. In fact it seemed to humans as if it had always been so. Life in Mythallen was largely stable and peaceful, despite the upheaval of the Exodus from Earth, until Niltsiar rose to the height of her power. Phaer was hazy on the precise details of the magic, but he knew that Niltsiar was a renegade, rejecting the Council in some fundamental ways. Indeed, she rejected the very existence of the Council and would not recognise its authority. In the Mage Wars that followed, Niltsiar was not without allies. Chief among those were the dark elves, whose philosophies matched hers so well.

  “I'm sorry,” Bunny put in, “but I don't understand why the dark elves would accept any mortal leader that was not an elf certainly not a `mere human`.” “Ah,” Phaer held up a finger for emphasis, “but Niltsiar was not human...in fact I'm not even sure she was mortal. She was Faerie: a race from old Earth who had strength, grace and power that rivalled and even surpassed that of the elves. In many ways the Faerie helped to bridge the gap between all the peoples of Majaos and the humans from Earth, through their contact with the elves. Most elves viewed the Faerie as kindred spirits; the dark elves viewed them as demigods. In their reckoning, however, only Niltsiar had the vision to become a true god - their god - and when she asce
nded, the world would be theirs to rule as they saw fit.”

  During the course of the Mage Wars, the Council and their allies slowly gained ground and many of Niltsiar's followers deserted her. In the end, she stood alone except for the dark elves. Indeed, it was the dark elves that prolonged the war even after Niltsiar herself had gone.

  “Gone?” Bunny wondered. “What do you mean, `gone`? Was she defeated or not?”

  “As I was taught, so I will tell you: It was the Time of the Ancients...” Phaer's words painted a scene of this Faerie woman, Niltsiar, at the centre of great and terrifying wonders of magic. Vast battles she fought, often alone. She was magic's power unleashed, untempered, ungoverned. Finally, the woman faced another Ancient mage - she knew his power but feared it not and she was defiant in the face of his authority.

  “`Give up the pretence`, she told him. `Ye shall not fight me, old man. Ye know well what will happen should thee try. Our combined power shall surely destroy the world`.

  “`I thought you cared not for the world`, the man shot back. “`Ye have always misunderstood me, old man. I care for the world as it ought to be. I care for the world that achieves its full potential. I care for the world growing my way, under the natural order. This world shall rise to fulfil my vision or it shall be destroyed. It is for the world as it exists at present, that I care not. But ye do care. That is why thy threats are surely empty and hollow`.

  “But she had miscalculated. The man called down power she didn't know he possessed, and threw himself at her, transporting them both beyond this world, this reality.”

  “Judging by that,” Bunny spoke up, “I would say she lost.”

  “Not according to my people. Their interpretation is that she merely lost a battle...the war isn't over yet. That is why they continued to fight even after Niltsiar had gone.” The dark elves had refused to surrender and they had been taught well. Meanwhile, fractions grew amid the Council, as some parties had always viewed the threat as beginning and ending with Niltsiar herself. With her gone, the war lost momentum. Other elves had no stomach for fighting and killing their cousins unnecessarily, and many humans considered the dark elves just another rival in their power struggle. The dwarves were just as suspicious of forest elves as dark elves - many saw little distinction. The other races, in the main, simply lost interest, being more concerned with getting back to normal and rebuilding their communities. The result was an uneasy stalemate. A cold war. The dark elves shut themselves in their home, content with occasional, deadly raids, and the Council could not raise the manpower required to wage a war that the people did not want. But one man could not allow matters to stand and he worked in secret to devise a spell that would neutralise the dark elf threat without bloodshed.

  “Who was this individual?” Bunny inquired.

  “I'm not sure I ever heard his name,” Phaer answered, “but I can tell you one thing about him.”

  “What's that?” Bunny wondered.

  “This Faerie was none other than Merlyn's own apprentice.”

  “Wow,” Bunny gasped, impressed. “The first my people knew about it was when the apprentice appeared in their midst and unleashed his power. From that moment, every dark elf was stripped of all magic. As for the apprentice, nobody ever saw himagain.”

  “This spell,” Bunny inquired. “Was it something like the Enforcers' Nullmagic?” “Well I'm no expert, but I don't think so. As I understand it, Nullmagic merely severs the connection between a mage and his magic, and is reversible. It’s a spell intended only to facilitate the capture of a mage, to punish and make it easier to take him into custody. What that Faerie mage did has lasted for millennia and in that time, the only thing more important to a dark elf than his own interests has been the restoration of magic. They’ve never managed it.”

  “That answers my second question, what about my first?” Bunny asked. “I'm getting to that,” the half -elf assured her. “As I said, restoring the magic is a high priority, and I suppose it's a testament to my people's hatred of humans that they took so long to try one of the most obvious solutions: mating with Life Gifted human mages.”

  There was nothing in the dark elves' appearance to distinguish them from their cousins. As for the lack of magic, magically Dead elves were highly unusual, but not totally unheard of. Besides, nobody on the outside knew that dark elves were magically Dead - they took great pains to keep that secret.

  “Knowing you as I do,” Bunny remarked, “I'm guessing it didn't work.” Phaer shook his head. “Not a single one of the `half breeds` was born with anything so much as Life Potential. Most were culled at birth, but the Sovereign decided not to entirely waste this `possible future resource`. In other words, he thought there was a chance that some future solution might turn up that required half breeds...if only as subjects for experimentation.”

  “Bred for experimentation purposes, eh?” Bunny mused. “I can relate to that.” Phaer recognised the connection she was making - the sumorityl was also bred as an experiment. Bunny had a disturbing way of making him see the world at an angle he didn't really care for.

  “One thing I still don't understand,” Bunny pressed. “How come nobody but your people remembers the story you've just told me?” “Well, it's all a question of perspective: To the outside world, the Mage Wars are just a myth. Who can be sure what really happened? Even if it's mostly true, it happened many thousands of years in the past, so even the forest elves dismiss it as an ancient battle that was fought and won and the world moved on. It can't possibly have any bearing on anything in the here and now. Or so they think. Would you be any different, if I were not telling you this myself? Could you conceive that events from so long ago could be directly important?”

  Bunny shrugged. “You're asking the wrong person, my friend. You forget - I'm only four years old. To me, almost everything happened a long time ago!” Phaer shook his head. “Four years old. I really can't get used to that, but it does highlight my point. The time-span between the age of the Ancients and now is so vast that the perspective of the oldest forest elf on Majaos is not that different from yours.

  “The dark elves see it altogether differently, though. As I'v e said, they don't believe the war was ever won or lost - there has simply been a lull in the fighting. However long that lull might be is irrelevant. Niltsiar is their key to power and they have faith in her. Do you see, Bunny? To my people, this is not ancient history, but an active religion.”

  Bunny had an instinct that seemed to warn her when there was something more than what she was being told. It was the same instinct that had driven her to escape from her father/creator and seek this thing she called redemption. It drove her then and now it warned her again - there was something missing. She didn't think Phaer was intentionally hiding anything, but rather that he was forgetting something. Something important.

  “OK, so let me get this straight,” she pressed. “Since the time of the Ancients, so long ago, ever since Merlyn’s apprentice did what he did, all of your people and all of their offspring have been magically Dead, yes?”

  “That's right.”

  “All of them?”

  “All of them.”

  “Every single one without exception?” “Well yes, as far as I...No! No, there was one. It's a forbidden subject in the dark elf communion, but one dark elf did achieve the Life Gift.”

  “Achieve?” Bunny wondered, frowning.

  “Yes, achieve is right because he was born Magically Dead like the rest of us.”

  “How can you achieve the Life Gift? You're either born with it or you're not.” “I know it's supposed to be impossible and no, I can't tell you how. If my people knew, they weren't about to tell me. As I say, it's a forbidden subject. The only thing I can tell you is his name: AkarSel.”

  Akar-Sel was the renegade mage who had instigated the Tech Wars two centuries earlier. Powerful beyond anything known to the Council with ambition to match. Supremely intelligent and devious, he hid his involvement from the Enforcers for
a long time before they began to suspect. At last, through a combination of traditional magic and Techmagical invention, the renegade was captured. He was summarily sentenced to the highest punishment possible under magical law: a living death, cruel, torturous and irreversible - the Turning. Even the impossibly young Bunny was well aware of Akar-Sel - it was almost the first thing every mage was taught.

  “Akar -Sel is forever cursed by my people because he learned magic but did not teach the technique to anyone else. He broke the highest of dark elf laws, so my people are pleased and grateful for the sentence.”

  “Aren't we all!” Bunny remarked.

  Chapter 12

  Between the two warriors, Mr Granite Longbeard and Miss Jayne Corr, the small band of orcs that had attacked them had been dispatched with speed and efficiency. Magic had not been required, which was fortunate because Toli had just enough Life for one more low level spell and the two Catalysts could Grant no more until they, too, regenerated. Now that dusk was approaching, there was going to be precious little sun to power any significant regeneration, but this didn't seem the ideal place to be making camp.

  It had been hard, slow progress from the Wise One's hut, running into a steady trickle of chaos creatures, orcs, human bandits, and the occasional wild animal. There had never been a large enough band to overwhelm the four-strong party, but their vigilance had certainly been tested. Running so low on magic was a worry, should a larger force present itself, but so long as they were paying attention, they ought to be aware of any such threat before it was too late to evade them or hide. There was plenty of cover from any flying reconnaissance, though that possibility was unlikely in the extreme anyway. Perhaps the foliage could protect them from ground-based onlookers as well, Eilidh considered, if they just climbed up and hid in the trees.

  Tree climbing was a traditional childhood activity shared by friends all over Mythallen. Usually daring each other on to higher and higher branches. Harmless enough if they kept their heads. Eilidh had never been the tree climbing type, as a young girl. She supposed it would be more accurate to say that she had never had any friends with which to share the activity. Nobody had ever pressed her to climb a tree, although if she had, there were a few who would probably have found it a great game to see who could push her off from the greatest height. No, she chided herself, that wasn't fair. That would imply hatred. On reflection that might have been easier to deal with, but apart from the weeks immediately following `the Incident` the vast majority simply did not care enough even to hate her. She was a nobody - except in the classroom, of course. In classes, she had excelled. There had been others more intelligent than she in that class, but Eilidh had worked twice as hard as anyone else. Mind you, with no social life to get in the way, she supposed she'd had more time than anybody else.