by R. E. Fisher
“How do you know this?” she asked him.
How? he responded, laughing. Because it was the path I set us upon when I created Asmordia, of course. Oh, it wasn’t the original intent, my lady, but more of an aftereffect. My intent was to corrupt your Realm of Light with my own vision. So, I created a curtain between Asmordia and this one—one that can only be crossed if one’s will or purpose is great enough. The creation of this curtain caused an unanticipated ripple effect. It was like a pebble being thrown into a pond, where the wave emanates outward and becomes weaker the further it travels from the center. The echoes of these ripples became additional realities as they washed outward. The curtains became innumerable in number.
“Again, how do you know this?”
Without sounding arrogant, it is the difference between myself and the rest of you. I contemplated why we were here, and I drew conclusions based upon the facts and reasons of the gifts we were presented. Why should there only be one reality, when there was more than one god? If there were many equal gods, there would be only slavery of their creations if each of them were worshipped equally, according to you. I was wrong for pressing for them to each be worshipped equally. What is the difference between many being equal and one? Nothing at all, my lady. He paused to see if she would comment. When she didn’t, he continued. The rest of you wanted to manifest beings who would have the freedom to choose whom they would worship and glorify, which makes those gentle gods weaker gods. If a being of creation has a choice, have you not seen that they almost universally choose strength for themselves or those they follow? Why would their choice in gods be any different? Love binds and ties, but strength can break those bindings—and it still allows one to be tied only to whomever they choose. You must see that!
He paused, attempting to gain a sense of where her thoughts were going, but it was difficult for him to do so. She was unlike Quensi, whose thoughts he had been able to read anytime he wished. Though it appeared he could imprint his thoughts and desires on Tetra, he was unable to ascertain her thoughts. He attempted to investigate that, but he was unaware that his attempt at doing so had alerted Tetra to the fact that he was trying.
“Do not attempt that again. I know you are trying to manipulate me by reading my thoughts. I will drop you into a raging volcano or to the bottom of the sea if you try to do so again. Either of those choices is fine with me,” she threatened.
You misunderstand, my lady. I spent centuries with Quensi, and as her husband, she allowed me to take certain liberties for the sake of convenience. Those liberties became habit for me. I apologize; it will not happen again! he said.
“See that it does not! I will not have you walking about in my thoughts!” Tetra commanded him.
Lavalor felt a slight compulsion to ensure that he didn’t. Odd, he thought, but moved on to say, to prove my sincerity, my lady, I will share this with you. Rest assured that you must find this one outworlder amongst all the beings within this realm.
“And what to do when we find him or her?”
Kill them, of course. Ensuring that the end isn’t brought about by doing so, he said calmly, without remorse or concern. But you must use a very specific sword, he offered, sensing her disapproval of his prior statement.
“Why kill them? What purpose does this sword serve?” she asked him.
It’s that sword you must use to kill the outworlder. If you use just any weapon, it will be like ripping a curtain by tearing it slowly. This tear will allow all beings—from all the other realms—to enter this one, bringing about Im’Shallene. Using the sword, I am telling you about will, in effect, be like using a sewing needle to immediately seal the tear that his absence will create upon his death.
Tetra thought about his words, knowing he had been mad in the past; she felt unsure of his intentions, desires, or even his sanity. Would she be serving his needs rather than the needs of those she knew she must? How could she trust anything he said? “Lavalor, I never knew you, but I know your history. I doubt you have changed, but if you have, and if I am to believe that you have, you will need to aid me better than this,” Tetra demanded.
What must I do to convince you of my intentions? Lavalor asked sincerely, seeking to hide his true intentions from her. The strength of her words was compelling him slightly to do as she wished yet again.
Tetra continued walking toward the village, contemplating how to answer his last question.
Tetra arrived at the village just before sunset, and she found her welcome cold and full of suspicion. She walked into the village, watching them as they stared at her, unsure of what she was or her intentions. Her appearance was nothing like the other elves that occasionally arrived in Vicala seeking trade. She was much taller and much regaler than they were.
Upon seeing her, one of the fishwives had cackled to her neighbor, “I don’t know what she is, but she makes the high elf I seen look like a wilted cornstalk!”
The comment hadn’t gone unnoticed by Tetra, but she was unable to put it into context. She kept walking and investigating the town, more from a sense of curiosity than anything else. She had never had contact with any of the races, and she watched as one after another viewed her with suspicion and distrust. Although she smiled at them, she was unable to begin a conversation with any of them. They walked away from her before she could greet them.
They are what you made them to be, Tetra, Lavalor said to her.
Not wishing to respond and knowing that the humans hadn’t heard the sword speaking to her, she kept silent.
She walked upon the docks, looking at the sailing vessels used to harvest the fish from the lake; she then walked past the large buildings housing the ice and fish that were either already sold or were still being prepared for shipment. The odor of the village was overwhelming to her, but she bore it with the understanding that she was going to have to learn of all of the races, and soon.
After studying the docks and the men and women who worked them, she saw a young girl sitting on a large stone overlooking the waters of the lake. She walked toward the girl, not wishing to frighten her. But the girl never looked up as she neared; she just kept looking out over the waters, tilting her head every now and then.
“What can I help you with, miss?” the young girl asked, noticing that whoever had arrived had to be a woman. The gentle scent of jasmine that accompanied Tetra told her so.
“I am just a stranger who is passing through. I envy those of you living on this beautiful lake,” Tetra said with a smile.
“I wouldn’t really know about that. I come down here because the sound of the water is nice.”
“Mind if I sit with you?” Tetra asked her.
“Sure; it’s nice to have someone to talk to!”
As Tetra sat down next to the girl, she saw that there was something strange with her eyes. They were dim and unfocused. “I am Tetra. Who are you?” she asked the girl.
“I’m Edella. Hello; it’s a pleasure to meet you!” she said with a smile and then added, “My momma always told me to be polite to strangers, since I don’t never know who they are.”
“Well, I think your manners are splendid, Edella,” Tetra said, smiling.
“Want to smell the flower I found?” she asked Tetra, holding it toward her.
“Where did you find it, child? It smells beautiful.” Tetra was more curious of the how than the where.
“It was sitting on the rock when I got here. I think one of the boys put it here for me.” The girl giggled. “Boys are funny.”
“Do you like boys?” Tetra asked.
“I like everybody,” Edella replied.
Tetra got the sense she was being watched; she turned her head in the direction she suspected and saw two men working on the nearest boat, indeed watching her.
“That’s admirable of you,” Tetra told her, turning her attention back to the child. Then, she asked, “What is wrong with your eyes?”
“I can’t see no more. Got bit by somethin’ when I was just a baby an
d got a fever. I guess the gods felt I should go through life in the dark; at least that’s what Momma told me.”
“Oh, I do not think that is what the gods wanted for you, child,” Tetra said.
“It’s okay. My momma takes good care of me! She’s teaching me how to cook for myself now when she can.”
“What do you mean, when she can?” Tetra asked.
“We don’t always got food to eat. So, it means what I said, when she can.”
“With all this food around here—the fish, the wild vegetables, the fruit—you go hungry?”
“Well, Momma don’t always have the money to pay for meat, and the orchards and farms all belongs to other people. Momma says you got to pay copper or silvers for food. Coin don’t flow from the falls, you know!” Edella said, very serious.
Tetra studied the girl and felt a sympathy she had never known before. Had they fallen so far that they cared so little for the infirmed?
“What would you do if you could see again?” Tetra asked Edella.
“I don’t know; never gave it no thought.”
“Why not?”
“I guess ‘cause if Momma ain’t got money for food, she really ain’t got no money for a cleric, so why think about it? ‘Sides, people are nice to me. I know most of them by their voices, and I says hi to them on my way down here or on my way back up to our house.”
“How old are you, child?”
“I’ll be eleven in a couple months. Why?”
“I was just curious.”
“How old are you?” Edella asked, as only a child can.
“If I tell you, you have to promise not to tell anyone,” Tetra replied with a mischievous giggle.
“Ohhh...I promise. Momma says that a proper woman never tells her age!” Edella giggled. “I don’t know why, but she says that sometimes.”
“Well, I am very, very old. Much older than anyone in your village.”
“I don’t know about that; mims Ferrold is pretty old,” Edella said, dragging out the word old as if it were a groan. “Momma says she is more than sixty years old!”
“Oh, I am much older than that,” Tetra giggled.
“More than that?” Edella asked. “How can that be? You don’t sound old.”
“Well, I am a bit different. I am kind of like those elves you might have heard of.”
“Ohhhh…I ain’t never meet no elf,” Edella said. “I bet you’re beautiful! Momma says she only ever seen three elves and that they was beautiful! She seen them a long time ago when she was a little girl in the capital.”
Tetra found herself enamored with the child. Her honesty and innocence touched her.
“If I gave you something, child, could you keep it a secret? A secret that I gave it to you, I mean?” she asked.
“I ain’t supposed to take things from strangers, Momma says, or things that ain’t belongin’ to me neither.”
Tetra thought for a moment. “Well, what if it was something that your mother could cherish too?”
“Oh, I’d do anything for my momma. She takes such good care of me. Best she can—that’s a fact!”
“Give me your hand, then, child. Please let me give you something that I know will make your mother happy.”
“I can’t. Momma says we got to pay our way in this world. That’s why she works at the inn. She works all night and comes home tired and sad most of the time,” Edella said, becoming sad herself.
“How about you pay for it, then?”
“With what? I ain’t got no coin.”
“How about that flower you’re holding? That would be more than enough payment for me,” Tetra offered.
“Well, okay. But you promise it will make Momma happy?”
“I promise, child. Give me your hands, now, and close your eyes.”
“Don’t know why I got to do that,” Edella mumbled.
Edella held out her hands and Tetra took the flower from her, placing it behind her own ear. Against her stark white hair, the brilliant crimson of the flower seemed luminescent.
She then took the child’s small hands into one of her own, and placed her other on Edella’s forehead. Tetra closed her eyes and began concentrating, trying to see as the child saw. As she tried, she realized that the child hadn’t lost her sight just from a fever. Edella had lost it when she was a toddler because of her father; her own father had been the cause. Becoming angered at this revelation, she looked in earnest to try and find the reason for that inhuman act—an act that the child had no real memory of, just images.
The two fishermen who had been watching Tetra saw her putting her hands on Edella; fearing the worst, they rushed off the boat toward the child that everyone in the village cared for—given what had happened to her real mother.
There was that, and the fact that her current mother was the local evening’s entertainment for those who frequented the inn. It wasn’t the child’s fault that her mother was what she was. They figured that since she was unable to see the ugliness of her world, she should be uncorrupted from it as much as possible.
As the two men neared, they saw that Edella was now trembling and shaking. What was the stranger doing to her? They grabbed Tetra, attempting to pull her away from the little girl. They were surprised when they discovered that they couldn’t. The fisherman who owned the boat pulled a dagger from his belt, shoving it toward Tetra’s back. Between the force of his blow and the strength of the armor that protected her, his blade snapped.
Tetra felt their attempts to pull her from the child, but she was almost finished and was determined to do so.
Since they were unable to pull Tetra from the child, they both began stabbing at her with their scaling knives. The two men realized that the armor the stranger wore protected her from their little knives; the son rushed back to the dock and grabbed the gaff from the boat. He rushed back to stop the stranger from assaulting his friend.
Finished with her magic, Tetra released Edella’s hand and told her to open her eyes. The young girl opened her eyes and then screamed upon seeing the beauty of the lake for the first time in her life.
Not realizing that Edella was screaming with joy and noticing that the stranger wasn’t wearing a helm, the young man swung the gaff at Tetra’s head. His untrained swing struck her near the base of her skull, but the gorget that protected her did its part by partially deflecting the blow. Fortunately for Tetra, his inexperience caused the hook of the gaff to miss striking her fully.
The force of his blow knocked Tetra from the rock and down onto the lakeshore, face-first into the sands. The young man, just seventeen, struck Tetra again while shouting his anger.
Lying face down in the sand, dazed and unaware of what had just happened—or even what was about to—Tetra struggled to rise to her feet but found that she couldn’t. Her senses were too jumbled and confused. She kept telling her body to get up, but it wouldn’t respond. Her anger rose, as did her sudden helplessness.
Sensing the danger Tetra was in, Lavalor realized that the chance for his plans to succeed now lay with him rescuing Tetra.
Out of a sheer sense of fury due to the jeopardy that the boy’s action had put Tetra in, he clumsily visualized his need and desire, which enabled him to rip himself free of the sheath at her waist and launch himself at the gaff that the man was once again swinging toward her head. This time he was using the gaff so that its hooked point would enter and cleave open her skull.
With an effort of will that was unknown to him, Lavalor launched himself at the gaff, knocking the steel-tipped rod from the young man’s hands as he swung it downward at the still- prone Tetra.
In a rage after countering the blow, Lavalor rushed at the young man, driving himself into the unfortunate lad’s chest. At first Lavalor didn’t realize that he had gone through the boy’s heart and chest, or how his ancient metal body was now about to truly become one with the insane Elfaheen. His arrogant miscasting of the binding spells was long forgotten.
Lavalor hadn’t yet realized how f
ar he had passed through the boy’s body, but the boy’s father had; he knew that he could not defeat this odd elf and her magic. He grabbed Edella’s wrist and pulled her from the stone where she still sat, trying to get her to safety. Both began running toward what the soon-to-be-grieving father hoped was the safety of the village.
Upon entering the boy’s body, Lavalor realized that he could feel the difference between the warmth of the blood that was now wrapped around him and those parts of the blade that were unbloodied. It reminded Lavalor of what sex had once felt like—with its warm, all-encompassing sensations wrapping him in pleasure, and the headiness that it had brought him. During the ecstasy that he was feeling, he could “taste” the blood of his victim where it had washed over his steel “flesh,” the blade drinking in the boy’s warm nourishment. The enchanted ancient mythryl of the blade allowed him to sense the coppery taste of blood. It was much like that which he had tasted so long ago in Asmordia, when he had still been constructed of flesh; it fueled a need deep within Lavalor’s own psyche for more blood. As the boy faded toward death, Lavalor felt his lifeforce joining with the blade, infusing him with a sudden, agonizing surge of magical energy. The sword was inhaling the source of his life, of the boy’s very existence.
In agonizing pain but realizing that his magic had just grown stronger, Lavalor saw that Tetra was now also writhing on the ground. Because of his previous efforts to bind himself to her, she was now sharing his pain. Even as he experienced the pain, unlike in his old form, he was still able to act if his thoughts would remain clear. While wishing to continue feeding on the boy’s essence, a part of him knew that if he continued, Tetra would not be able to survive. The voices that he had stumbled across in her mind were growing louder; he should not have been able to hear them without journeying deep within her psyche, yet he was. Fearful that the woman would be too damaged to continue his needed journey, he reluctantly jumped backward, ripping himself free. He protected Tetra, hungrily searching for any other threat to her—or to anyone, for that matter, as his thirst for blood now grew.
