Of Dark Elves And Dragons

by Greg Curtis

  “Mother be praised!” Ashiel looked at him as he uttered the blessing under his breath, clearly not happy with him. She had intended to release the spell and the thought that it might not be what everyone else would have wanted did not sit well with her. But things weren’t quite so desperate yet, and he didn’t feel the need to apologise for his relief.

  Still there was nothing to say and little to do save at least break them free of their prison, and he sent a diamond in to rip the bars apart, which was when the inexplicable became more so.

  The diamond ripped the first of the huge stone columns nearest them apart without any trouble, it was simply so strong that a foot of black stone woven into a column running fifteen feet from floor to ceiling, was as nothing to it. But the second bar proved more difficult for some reason and it took several tugs and a few huge stone shattering punches to break it loose. For the longest while as he watched Alan thought it was simply a sign that whatever it was made of was simply much, much tougher than normal stone, though what was tougher than diamond he simply didn’t know. But then he looked at his elemental and realised that the stone hadn’t got tougher, the diamond elemental was weakening.

  Somehow, and he had no understanding of how, the diamond was becoming opaque, its perfect translucence fading until it was becoming more like glass after it had been worn down by a sand storm. Still worse was that he could see dust coming off it, fine almost glass like powder simply falling down like rain. But how? Yet as he asked himself the question he also watched the fallen columns starting to wriggle around and he knew it didn’t matter. They were in danger.

  “To me.” With two bars down they had plenty of room to escape their immediate prison even if they had to then break through the next set of bars, and he knew it was time. If it wasn’t already too late. In fact he was half surprised that the necromancer hadn’t already rebuilt them, simply growing them out of the stone floor as he had those huge columns a few months back. Those had risen with such frightening speed and power. And yet these fallen columns were barely wiggling like worms in the sun, slowly dying. Maybe there was something wrong with him too.

  Ashiel and the unicorn instantly came towards him, and for a moment he thought at least that they were going to escape their prison, but it wasn’t to be. A dozen new stone columns simply burst up out of the stone floor between them and him, and they escaped their first cell, only to find themselves in a new one.

  It made no sense. The columns where they had been were all but dead, but new columns were full of the necromancer’s will. It was almost as if Ashiel was somehow interfering with his ability to spread and grow. Even the fallen columns he suddenly noticed as they neared them, stopped moving. It was almost like she had killed them, and it had nothing to do with the ancient scroll.

  “It’s you Ashiel! You’re doing something that hurts the necromancer.” But if she was she didn’t know what, and he saw the look of confusion on her face. It was probably the same one he was wearing, considering that as far as he knew, her magic hadn’t returned to her.

  “I’m not doing anything.” And she wasn’t. He could feel the truth coming from her, and the continuing lack of magic. Her touch and her feel were improving, he could sense that much, and in time he suspected she’d make a capable druid, but none of her ancient magic was flowing as it once had.

  “Then maybe it's not what you’re doing but what you are.” It seemed the only logical answer, that she being an ancient was somehow protected against the might of another ancient’s echo. “I mean look around you, the necromancer’s will seems to fade near you.”

  “It's not me!” He could see the denial and confusion on her face, and he knew she was telling the truth.

  “Then what?” For the longest time they stood there, the question hanging between them, and no answer forthcoming, until Ashiel suddenly found the answer.

  “It’s the unicorn! The unicorn is pure! It’s the cure!” Ashiel was right he realised with a feeling of shock. The unicorn was the key to their problems. Agrin was in effect a disease, a corruption of life, and the unicorn was the essence of life itself, and from a time before the ancients had started destroying the world, before they had even been born. It was the cure. No wonder the Mother had been so eager to recreate it. She understood the battle ahead in a way that no one else could.

  But why only send one? It could only have a limited effect. A limited range. Foolishly he asked as much.

  “Because it's an essence!” Ashiel yelled it at him as if he was deaf and dumb and maybe he was. “Beauty, purity, life and magic. All bound as one essence, and you can call that essence, summon it.”

  “What?”

  “Goddess be blessed, that’s what this is all about.” Ashiel looked as though she’d been hit in the head once too often, but it didn’t stop her speaking, explaining what was happening, even if it seemed crazy.

  “The Mother called you, she used you to be the new midwife to her re-birthed children, and first among them her most blessed unicorn. The cure to this terrible disease. Then she sent me the dreams to send me here, guided her unicorn to help me and keep me safe, and then used us to draw you here. Now you’re here and the unicorn is here. Everything is in place. Call the essence.” She yelled the last at him and Alan knew she wasn’t about to do any more talking. It was time to act.

  He reached for the unicorn’s essence with his thoughts, exactly as he did for every other essence he called, and somehow, despite the fact that he had never done it before, never been able to channel a living essence, he found it. A swirling ball of life and magic and order set deep in the heart of the beast that he could somehow call on. He called it, letting his elemental magic merge with the essence and instantly feeling it respond. That was different.

  Normally when he summoned an essence, his magic and the essence that was all around him, merged, but his magic was always the one in charge, his will the guide. Other essences didn’t respond, they just obeyed. But that which lay within the beating heart of the unicorn was different. It was alive, and more importantly it had a will.

  He called it and it came by itself, gathering up his magic, using him as a channel, and forming a whole new form of elemental, one that he had no part in shaping. It took his magic and shaped itself.

  It should have been frightening, an essence taking control of him, using him as its tool, but it wasn’t. Something deep within him kept telling him that this was as it should be, that it was what he had been made for, and so he let it flow free, and watched with anticipation as he saw the new form arising in front of him.

  It was a unicorn of course, he probably should have expected that, but it was different to the one he’d channelled. That one was a living creature with a link to the elemental, this was the source itself, and the power, the sheer living strength as it began forming in front of him was impossible. The same size and shape as the unicorn, it was real in a way that nothing else was, and even the original unicorn almost seemed to be a shadow of it. But then so was everything else. And the longer he stood there watching, the more real it became while the world itself began to look more and more transparent.

  Agrin or whatever it was that thought it was the ancient necromancer, recognised this new elemental as a threat, and instantly began screaming, turning the fortress all around them into a cacophony of noise and terror, and the walls and floor started shaking with his rage. But that didn’t matter to Alan as he stood there, still linked to the new elemental, still letting it form itself through him, because he suddenly understood what it was that the necromancer feared. He was in essence a disease, a distortion in the pattern of life, and this new essence was a cure, here to straighten the world out.

  Then without warning, it was there in front of him, fully formed, and Alan knew that nothing was ever going to be the same again. Against it, the unicorn, the fortress all around him, Ashiel and even himself seemed unreal, shadowy and vague, clouds just floating above the solidity of the land. They were almost as nothing. But
that didn’t matter as he stared into the elemental’s black eyes and knew its will. It was straightening the world out, and that was likely to be violent. His work done, he was being dismissed.

  It was time to run.

  The instant it let him go, and he had never been held by an elemental before as none of them had any will at all, he sent in a diamond to rip the bars of stone apart between them, and started planning his escape. It wasn’t going to be easy. The fortress was deep and the tunnels that made it up, long and twisted, and he had a feeling that they weren’t going to be there for long. Since the fortress itself was in a very real way the disease that called itself Agrin, it was about to be returned to its natural state.

  This time his elemental, so close to the unicorn elemental and whatever magic it was that allowed it to be, was as powerful as ever, and the stone columns came falling down in massive piles of rubble as it simply punched them. Half a dozen heartbeats were all it took before the gap was large enough for both of them to escape, and he knew they had to dash.

  The entire fortress, all of it, was starting to shudder and scream, and while Alan didn’t know what it was doing, he knew enough to know it was dying. The elemental unicorn’s presence was somehow destroying it. And they had to be gone well before it died.

  “To me.” Ashiel was too slow of course, she was still weak and shocked, and they didn’t have time for her to wonder what he meant.

  He half leapt half flew straight for her, landing in a confused tangle of wings and limbs, but somehow just in front of her and that was everything he needed.

  “Get on!” Even as he screamed he saw the unicorn break through the broken bars and simply leap right over him as if he was a minor hurdle, and he knew the creature wanted out. It knew the same sense of panic and imminent doom that he did. But still it waited for them, frightened but loyal to the end. Happily it didn’t have to wait long as Ashiel clambered on to his back, spread her body out flat and wrapped her arms tight around his neck and screamed. That he knew was the signal.

  Alan somehow leapt into the air, fear powering his muscles as never before, and then began streaking as fast as he could across the chamber and then back up the tunnel they’d come down, the unicorn just behind them.

  Columns of living stone suddenly grew out of the floor in front of them, threatening their escape, but they couldn’t. They grew so far but then the unicorn got too close and they stopped, leaving enough room for him to fly above and the unicorn to leap over, and Alan realised it would continue the same way. The unicorn might not be an elemental, but such was its magic that it too could hold back the necromancer for a time and a place. And such too was its loyalty that it would stay with them until the end.

  “Thank you Mother.” Ashiel knew it too as she gave her thanks for the mother’s blessing, uttering words he would have never thought possible from a Huron’s mouth. Maybe her time in the lair had changed her.

  They raced through the fortress like that, diving through tunnels and into chambers like lightning, and all the while somehow escaping whatever dark deaths the necromancer might have in mind for them, and for a while Alan thought they were going to escape without danger. But then the fortress started screaming.

  At first it was soft and quiet, the distant roar of the wind and the echo of thunder, and in his panic Alan barely noticed it. But slowly it became louder and louder, and he couldn’t ignore it any more. The fortress was actually screaming its rage and pain at them, and maybe its fear as well as it saw death approaching.

  Tunnel after tunnel the screaming grew louder and more terrible, and stones started falling from the roof, the entire fortress venting its fear and pain in an earth shattering shriek of self-destruction, and Alan called to Ashiel to hang on even tighter though he doubted she heard him. Regardless she crouched even lower on his back and he felt her grip tightening around his neck. It was just as well as they came up to a series of narrow twisting corners which were never meant to be taken by flying draglets, and he had to duck and weave blindingly fast as he continued his mad dash for safety.

  Behind them, though he didn’t dare look, the unicorn, the real one not the essence, was giving chase, right on his tail; he could just hear the cracks of its hooves as they smashed into the stone floor, beating an impossibly fast tattoo on the stone.

  Then they hit the large entry hall with all its tunnels leading away and he knew a heartbeat of relief as he realised they were close to the exit, before he noticed the horde of undead that had turned up out of nowhere to fill it. When and why he didn’t know. What he did know was that they were a danger, especially when the entire underground fortress was falling to pieces all around them. So he drew a deep breath and laid down a channel of fire right through the middle of them and tried to stay above them as they milled around in confusion. He only wished the ceiling was higher, so they would be completely out of their reach. Of course he realised as they made it out into the middle of the chamber, he’d made a terrible mistake, the unicorn wasn’t so lucky as to be able to fly and he doubted even it could run through fire.

  Hating himself for his stupidity he turned back, thinking to somehow try and carry the creature over the burning army, only to find he was already too slow.

  “Goddess be!” Somehow over the thunderous noise of the fortress shaking itself to pieces, he heard Ashiel calling out the blessing, and then watched with shock as the entire undead army simply shattered and fell to the floor, before a wind came out of nowhere to sweep their burning remains, dry bones and rotting corpses to the sides of the chamber, opening up a path through them. The unicorn instantly started galloping down the middle as only a unicorn could, and somehow after another quick turn they actually ended up in the unexpected position of chasing it through the chamber. But who lead wasn’t important just then, as he gave chase with all his might.

  “How did -?” Of course he realised as he let the rest of the question trail off, she couldn’t hear him and in any case it wasn’t the time for talking. Instead he flew flat out, chasing after the unicorn, hoping it knew where it was going, and leaving his questions in the smoke behind them.

  The far side of the chamber came up very quickly as they flew like an arrow at it, and letting the unicorn guide them, Alan streaked into the left tunnel at full speed, trusting his course to the mystical creature, and rightly so. The tunnel walls were a blur as they flashed by, flying faster than any bird ever born, but even at his fastest pace he could barely keep up with the unicorn. Its hooves were invisible as they beat against the stone, the rest of it was little more than a flash of white in the distance, and slowly it seemed to be getting even further ahead. How could any creature be that fast?

  Still he chased as hard as he could, ignoring the pain as his lungs started to labour as they tried to take in enough air, pushing aside the ache as the muscles in his wings began to burn from beating so powerfully, and after another series of complicated twists and turns that left him almost reeling like a drunk in mid-air, he knew a sense of victory as he burst into the vast chamber he had first found. Beyond it lay the incredibly long entrance tunnel, and he chased the unicorn hard straight to it. Then finally, just when he reached the entrance, he could see it opening up in front of him, and most important of all, a patch of daylight at the far end. The most beautiful colour he had ever seen.

  Just a league to go.

  Of course whatever was happening behind them was also moving fast, and though he didn’t dare take the time to look back, he could feel the thunderous screaming growing louder as it kept getting closer. He just beat harder at the air and chased the unicorn to safety.

  “Bastard!” It took Alan some time to understand that the necromancer was screaming at him, cursing him with his dying breaths, if he actually breathed, and it surprised him. But not enough to make him answer as he streaked for the distant light. Let him curse him, let him hate him, let him do whatever, the only thing he wanted to know was the safety of the open sky, and soon.

  Then beh
ind him he heard the sounds of rocks falling, and mountains exploding, and knew he had to go still faster. The end was very close. Though he was pushing every ounce of strength he had into the beating of his wings, he somehow found a little more, as death chased them both.

  “Scum!” The necromancer’s curses were louder than before and getting closer, but also more strident as his own death neared, and Alan beat at the air like a madman. Whatever it was that was chasing them, he knew he didn’t want to be caught by it. Being chased by a bone dragon had been pure terror not that many months before; this was far worse. But at the same time that distant patch of blue was getting closer all the time, and it was salvation.

  But was it enough?

  The tunnel walls were all but a blur, and his heart was thundering in his chest as never before, but he could see hope ahead. Of course, he could also hear doom behind them and feel the hatred of the necromancer as he gave chase and he knew it was going to be tight. Ashiel knew it too.

  “By the Mother.” Somehow he heard her calling the Goddess above even the resounding explosion that was the fortress being torn apart, and he wondered anew what she was doing. It seemed so wrong. Then a heartbeat later a powerful wind came up from behind him, a storm of raw fury, and he didn’t care as somehow it lifted them both up higher and blew them towards the distant blue sky so fast that it was like lightning.