Of Dark Elves And Dragons

by Greg Curtis

  More people were in his main room, some of them sleeping as it was dark outside, exactly as was intended. Others by the looks of things were involved in animated conversations, but conversations he would never hear as they stood and sat like statues speaking with one another in complete stillness.

  Ant was there, as he should have expected and Ashiel and her mother which surprised him a little. Especially when he saw the look of worry and exhaustion written in her face. But it pleased him too. To know that maybe, just maybe she did care a little, that was good. Sadly he didn’t have time to stop and speak with them. He only had just enough time to change shape and go.

  Outside the night air was cool and refreshing, and surprisingly buoyant as he transformed into a roc and took off into it. It made the flying easier. The transformation was easier than normal as he simply took the well-known shape in a heartbeat, almost without feeling his flesh moving, and he knew the lady had done something to him. Taught him perhaps, gifted him with greater talent or just helped him as he did her bidding. Once that might have bothered him, might have troubled him to think that someone, even a goddess, maybe especially a goddess, could just play with him like that, but not this night. Instead he simply accepted it for some reason, perhaps because he was still under her spell, and let her instructions guide him. But then he also knew her intent, and it was good. It was time to heal.

  The journey wasn’t far, just to the top of Mount Fair, an ancient flat topped volcano long since dormant, a dozen leagues west of his home, and he made the journey in an hour or less. It almost seemed as though the wind was helping him, pushing him, perhaps in turn being sent by the lady, and he was grateful for the ease with which he landed on its flat top in only a minor tangle of wings and feathers, and transformed back into a man, again in mere heartbeats.

  Once there he found the shrine almost immediately. It was all but invisible in the night, and though he’d been here before as had many others, it was so well hidden that he’d never seen it. But the Lady guided his feet and opened his eyes and it was suddenly there in front of him as it had always been.

  A part of him knew a sense of awe and even fear at seeing the ancient, almost mythical shrine, and of disbelief at discovering it so close to his home, though he understood the shrine could be found in many places. The Shrine of Beginnings had never been seen let alone worshipped at in recorded history. It was just a legend, less than that, a tale told around fire sides of only the most ancient races, the dryads in particular, and most of them regarded it as a myth, a tale handed down to them from the time of the ancients. They in turn had passed it down along with the myth of the progenitors, their legend of the first people of the world, and the ones who had shaped the very foundation of all they knew. But most of him saw it simply as his destination, and the beginning of his work.

  It wasn’t much of a shrine in truth, simply a stone table covered with moss and lichen, and with a small stone slab for him to kneel at in front of it, but appearances could be deceiving and he could feel the power and the purity streaming from it. The stone of this table hadn’t been chiselled and carved. It was simply a formation of stone raised out of the ground itself, directly connected to the very bedrock of the world, and the lichen and moss, some of the first forms of life to have been brought into the world, were somehow intimately entwined with all other life throughout the world.

  This shrine he knew was one of the very few places where the entire balance of life in the world could be altered as the progenitors had once done according to legend, altered as he was intending to do, or actually as the lady was intending for him to do.

  Taking a deep breath, he took his place kneeling at the shrine and spoke the first word of the ancient incantation.

  “Ao.” He knew even as he said it that the word was not a part of any language spoken today or even in recorded history. He even knew what it meant; life. But he had no idea who had first spoken the word or which race of beings had used it. That knowledge was lost in the untold millennia that had passed before history had even begun. It was still right.

  “Sava.” It meant rebirth, but not in a mortal or even spiritual sense. It referred to the very rebirth of the world itself, as the cycle of life and death, of continuing growth and vitality, endlessly restored itself. As one man died another was born, as one entire species passed from the light of the world another took its place. That was good, that was natural, but it wasn’t always right. Sometimes the natural order was replaced by the unnatural. By the unacceptable. Such a thing had happened five thousand years before when the ancients had begun destroying the world, and a grievous hurt had been caused by them. But what had been done could be undone if the time was right and the spirit of the world was strong. After five thousand years the world was strong enough again.

  “Bi.” In human terms it might have meant memory or recall, but in the shrine’s language it meant so much more than that. From the moment he had uttered the syllable he could see, hear, smell and even feel a parade of creatures that had not walked the land in five thousand years or more. Many of them had not walked at all.

  There were so many of them. For a moment, half a heartbeat perhaps, he was all but overcome by the vast horde of creatures that had once lived and breathed before passing on to exist only in the memory of the world. And if the number was vast the strangeness of so many of them was more so. Many, perhaps most, he simply didn’t recognise, though the lady did and she smiled upon them all with fondness. But then he realised the number didn’t matter. The lady was only looking for a few of them, using him as her tool as she sought out those which should never have passed on. Those which had been wiped out by the Hurons in their madness.

  The first to come to him, though it was not actually there but just a memory or a ghost, the essence of what it had once been, was the unicorn, perhaps the Lady’s most wondrous creation, and just looking at its ghostly visage Alan could suddenly understand why. As the legends had said it was a small horse or deer like creature, with a perfectly white coat and a spiralled horn in the middle of its forehead, but it was so much more than that. It was beauty and grace, innocence and righteousness, the perfect balance between life and magic, and one of the world’s greatest champions all in one sacred package. No wonder the lady had missed it. The unicorn was her masterpiece, one of perhaps only two she had ever created. Even staring at its ethereal visage he was captivated by the creature’s beauty, held by its simple presence. But then he knew much the same feeling in the presence of her other masterpiece, the dragons.

  “Fara li zah.” Even without the Lady’s knowledge in his own mind he would have known that the words meant go forth again and multiply. That was always the purpose in his being brought here, but he also knew how the ghostly essence of the long dead beast would do it even as he watched it gallop off into the night, a ghostly vision in white. A simple touch with its horn here, a whinny there, and those creatures that had once been about to conceive foals or fawns, he wasn’t quite sure which, would find themselves becoming pregnant with corns. The lady had not returned the dead into a state of undeath - for such a thing would have been an anathema to her. She was simply using the essence of her own former creations to reshape some of the living to her original design. Of course she was far from finished.

  Next on her list the magnificent Simurgh appeared before him, cousin in some respects to the griffin except that instead of a lion’s body it had a dog’s, and the creature was far larger than he’d imagined. As a wolf dwarfed a household cat so the Simurgh dwarfed the griffin, but despite that it wasn’t particularly fearsome, except perhaps to its enemies. The griffin was the warrior, the Simurgh the protector as it had the impossible ability to heal even the most serious of injuries and illnesses with just a touch of its tongue, and to carry its charges away to safety. It would be a lucky town indeed that had a pack of simurgh to protect them, just as he understood, many had once had before the ancients had robbed the world of their magic.

  Even as he
sent the mighty, ghostly Simurgh off soaring into the night sky it was the turn of the hippogriff to appear. Part horse, part eagle and part lion it was a strange creature and yet completely natural as it stood there before him, snorting steam in the cold night air. How ghosts or essences or whatever they were, could breathe he wondered about, but only briefly. Such things weren’t really important to him as he sent the ghostly winged mount flying and the wyvern appeared in its place. Only that he carried out his task. He had only a limited time, the lady herself had only a limited time before she would return to her endless dream of creation and they had to be done by then.

  And so the night went on. The wyvern, small, brightly coloured and impossibly loyal cousin to the dragons and drakes vanished and was replaced by the pegusus, a creature both somehow powerful and peaceful as it snorted vapour like any other horse and stamped its feet at him. The winged horse in turn flew away only to allow the salamander to take its place and blow ghostly fire all around. An ugly and even frightening creature, though not of course, to the Lady. Yet even as the salamander stomped off, still threatening to burn down everything in sight as it made its way towards the swamps he assumed, its clumsy bulk was replaced with the beauty and grace of the lorelei, half woman, half fish and all siren song. Transparent as she was he was drawn to her as all men were, but for some reason the attraction passed even before she simply vanished in front of him.

  For hour after hour it seemed, as he knelt there before the alter and watched a menagerie of mythical creatures or their essences appear in front of him, he knew little more than a sense of wonder and awe. Yet at the same time a part of him, the part that was somehow still connected to the Lady, knew instead a sense of rightness as her children, for want of a better word, were slowly being reborn into the world. He felt privileged to be able to carry out her duty.

  Not all of them he knew were creatures that men would be pleased to see again. The ancients when they had committed their evil had destroyed not just the mythical creatures of great beauty and joy, but also those of great danger. But then the lady hadn’t created these creatures to serve or please man. Rather she had created them all to serve her, just as she had presumably created and shaped men. All had their place in her dream, from the fire breathing salamander to the petrifying cockatrice, and though it seemed odd to him, all were her children. She had missed them all, and she welcomed their return, and that was all that mattered. But more than that, in his very bones he felt that their return was a good thing. Good or evil, these creatures were all magical, and though some might be dangerous, just their very presence in the world strengthened the magic all around. They strengthened the world and the world needed all the strength it could get.

  The Lady knew that. She’d planned on it. But more than that, she’d waited a very long time to be able to bring these creatures back. Waited for the right circumstances to arise. A mage of life such as himself, gifted with the magic of shape changing and elemental summoning, taught by the dragons, lost somewhere between life and death, right when the world was finally strong enough to return them, and when a threat was near enough to awaken her from her perpetual dreaming. Magic was life and life was magic, and the Lady was healing herself and all those who formed part of her world at the same time as she was trying to defend herself. But was she in time?

  Of course while to him five thousand years was a long time, to the lady it was but the blink of an eye. To her she was like a soldier who had just been hit in the face, she was stunned, shocked and just getting to her feet again, and now finally realising she’d been hit and more was coming, she was reaching for her shield and weapons which had been knocked aside. It was only a question of whether she would be fast enough as the enemy prepared to strike once more.

  Alan had the horrible feeling in his guts that she might not be. But then even she couldn’t be sure herself and that was worrying. As goddesses went, she was suddenly seeming distinctly mortal all of a sudden, and her actions in coming to this wakefulness stage were alien to her and him both. Her true nature was as a dreamer and for her acting as she was, was about as natural as eating grass was to him. She didn’t like it, she felt exposed and vulnerable, and she desperately wanted to return to her dream of creation and life. The shock of what had been done to her, what was still being done to her, was all that allowed her to continue as she was, and that only for this one night.

  Yet as the Lady’s purpose was finally done, and the last of those creatures that she wanted returned to life had been reawakened once more, and as the rebus, a jaguar like cat with the disturbing ability to appear as any other creature, absconded into the morning light, he knew that they had done their part. He knew that once more things had been done that would hopefully bring order back to the world, which would restore the lady’s dream to its rightful state. He knew it because the Lady knew it, and as she gently laid him down to sleep so that she in turn could leave him and return to her own dream, he had a feeling of satisfaction.

  The battle was still ahead and things were far from certain, time was short, the danger was great and the mortal part of him knew that there would be a price for having had the Lady work her will through him, but for the moment it was time for him to rest.

  He made his one last transformation as the lady left him, surprised once more at how easy it was, and found his new form most comfortable as he curled up on the soft grass under the morning sun, knowing he would be safe no matter how long he slept. And he knew this sleep would not be one of a single day.

  Like any of her creations of war the lady wanted him well rested before the coming struggle.

  He was one of her soldiers too.

  Chapter Twenty Three.

  “Get that accursed barrel lashed down tight.” Rosalie’s father was in fine form as he yelled out endless orders to her and her family. He’d been like that all morning. But then if what the soldiers were saying was true, he had reason to be. They had at best another hour to get everything secured on the wagons before they had to begin the long trip south. Of course their mother didn’t appreciate his tone or his sometimes colourful language, and was constantly telling him off for it. It was going to be a long trip.

  Still the wagon was mostly loaded down, the horses fed and watered and in truth ready for the journey, and what was left in the inn was stuff that would probably be of no interest to the walking dead, and could be replaced. Always provided they didn’t simply turn up and burn the entire town to the ground. They had done that elsewhere according to the soldiers.

  All across the rest of the town others were doing much the same, and the main street they were on had at least a hundred wagons being hurriedly loaded, and many more had already left. In another hour or so, Silver Falls would be a ghost town.

  That made Rosalie sad. This was her home after all. She’d spent all of her life growing up there and remembered playing in the streets with the other kids, getting in and out of trouble, and generally making her father red in the face every so often, something she still secretly enjoyed doing. But the sadness she felt was less for herself and her family, for they would get to safety and had enough coin and wares that when they reached wherever they were going. They would be able to set up again quite quickly.

  Many others weren’t so lucky, most especially those who lived out of town in the surrounding forests and farms, hunters, trappers, fishermen and farmers, those who hadn’t yet received any orders to leave and probably wouldn’t. Many of them would still be there when the undead came marching through. Many of them of course were her family’s customers. One of those customers was Alan.

  Alan. Just the thought of him out there somewhere, annoyed her more than she would have liked to admit. He had become such a nuisance of late.

  First he turned up one day out of the blue with those funny silver people and most especially that annoying hussy Ashiel, all of them wizards. How did such a thing happen? She didn’t believe for a moment his somewhat lame explanation that they’d simply shown up on his
doorstep one day. The horses could have come up with a better story then that.

  Then he’d vanished for four months without a word. That hurt. Not a single word, and when she’d ridden out to his home one day and against her father’s orders, something about not having a single young woman ride out alone in the wilds, more of those little silver people were busy destroying his home. She’d chased them off, her longbow skewering a few of them in their softer parts, but they hadn’t answered any questions as they fled, they probably couldn’t since they didn’t speak trade. And they also didn’t seem to have any magic any longer.

  After that he returned, again with no warning, though he did do justice to his apologies with fine words and fresh cut flowers, and then added in some toffee treats, before setting to work on repairing his home, which in her opinion was beyond repair, and told her he’d been away studying. Studying? In truth having no explanation would actually have been better than that. The man was nearly thirty after all, not a school child. He had to be lying. And as if to make the madness worse, he didn’t even blame the silver people for what they had done to his home. Just said it was understandable. It wasn’t understandable at all in her opinion. It was criminal. He was too forgiving, and he should have spanked some of them hard with those swords of his.