“Come on. The shock is over. You’re strong enough to do this. And you’re still the only elf I know with a personal relationship with two sets of gods and friendship with one of the lesser races — maybe two of the lesser races if I understood Alicia to say that you took care of water imps too.”
Silvan stood, then reached his arm down and held his hand out to Kestrel, waiting for long moments as the humanized elf looked at the hand, then pressed his palms against the floor and pushed himself up without assistance.
“Giardell will take you to get a cowl you can wear on your trip back to Firheng. Keep the hood up and keep away from folks and you shouldn’t have any problems along the road,” Silvan told him, also standing erect. “We can give you an escort, if you’d like to have an elf or two with you to help vouch for you along the way. That might not be a bad idea. Would you like for your friend Vinetia to travel with you again? We can have her ordered over here in less than an hour.”
“No,” Kestrel said sharply. “I don’t want her to see me like this. I don’t want anyone to see me this way. I’ll wait here for the hood, and a sack of supplies,” he answered.
“I’d like to wait alone,” he added, as the others stood silently observing his anguish.
“Good luck Kestrel,” Silvan said, walking towards the door. “I’ll send orders up to Firheng for you in a few weeks. I know you’re going to help us, all of us. And when you come back with your ears regrown to their usual elven shape, who knows, you may find out you’re so good at this work that you’ll be willing to go back sometime.”
“Don’t bet on it,” Kestrel muttered as the Colonel and his guard left the room. He sat on the table, then reached for the mirror he had used to disable the guard, and held it up to carefully study his new features. Alicia had done a superb job, he agreed. He saw no trace of elven heritage in his face, and he wondered at how quickly it had been erased by the woman who had duped him into passing out for his own operation.
Giardell returned minutes later, and Kestrel hastily dropped the mirror. He took the cowl and sack of supplies without comment. Giardell had brought Kestrel’s own bow and quiver of arrows as well, somehow fetched from his room, and he put them on as well.
“I’ll walk you out,” Giardell told him when Kestrel appeared ready.
It only took a few moments to reach the doorway, where Kestrel discovered he was in the very building that held Silvan’s office, the building where he had first met Alicia just the morning before. He wordlessly took Giardell’s offered hand and shook it, then began to walk alone down the road, his hood pulled up over his head, presenting a forlorn image as he trudged away on his lonely journey.
“He’s such a good boy,” Alicia told Silvan as they watched him from the window of the colonel’s office on the fourth floor. “I hated to do that to him, to go through all those charades; the cold character, the fake assault in the apartment, pretending to be unconscious. In the end, it was the things we didn’t try to set up, the atmosphere set up by the sprites and the spring, that made him trust me.”
“You know how important he is, how important his mission could be,” Silvan told her, draping his arm around her shoulder to comfort her. “And you did such beautiful work on him. He’ll appreciate someday how realistic you made his human visage.”
“I hope so,” his wife responded. “I’ll miss him if he doesn’t give me a chance to be his friend again someday.”
Silvan gave her shoulder a silent squeeze, then they walked away from the window, and Kestrel walked on to his uncertain future.
Chapter 15 — Belinda’s Tale
Kestrel didn’t talk to another elf along the journey to Firheng. He avoided villages, and slept in trees. He ate the supplies he had been given, along with crickets and game he caught along the way, and he stewed in bitterness and regret.
He had lost all sense of identity and hope. He had been raised as an elf, among elves, and only thought of himself as an elf, despite the human heritage he carried and was taunted for. But now, Alicia had erased the physical ties that bound him to elfdom, and set him adrift. He contemplated what to do. He was unescorted, free to do what he wanted, and while he ran along the road he carefully plotted scenarios in which he just disappeared, never arriving at Firheng at all. He could disappear in the forest, and leave all the elves and the humans behind, he realized. He had his bow and arrows; he had the skills he had learned at Firheng. He could easily survive in the wilderness. Or he could take his human identity and just head straight to the human lands, and live among them, not as a spy, but just as a displaced person — someone forced to go where his identity allowed.
But he knew he would do neither, nor would he reverse course and go back to Center Trunk and force Alicia to reverse the operation she had performed on him, though he thought about that too. He thought about Alicia, cold, then warm, then deceitful, and ultimately, unobtainable Alicia, married to the man who had ordered her to seduce him and mutilate him. He cried at night, silent tears of sorrow and longing for Cheryl and Lucretia and Alicia, as he wished the world was a different place.
Finally, on his third night of traveling, as he settled into a nest high in a tree, he called out to Kere, the elven goddess of fortune.
“What can I do for you, grandchild?” the goddess was suddenly present, sitting on the branch above him, faintly visible in the moonlight and the starlight as an elderly woman, the same visage she had used when she had greeted him in the village inn weeks before, back at the beginning of his adventure.
“Can you take me back in time and give me an opportunity to do things differently?” he asked.
I am the goddess of fortune, not chaos,” she replied scornfully. “You should not wish to change any significant thing in your life, elfling Kestrel,” she added. “When you look back on all of this, it will look obvious and necessary and valuable.
“Embrace your opportunities Kestrel,” Kere told him, reaching down to pat the top of his head. “You have things you must do for your people, our people, the elves. And you have things you must do for me. I suspect that your other deities even have expectations of things you will do for them,” she added, alluding to the human gods.
“So go to Firheng, and do everything they tell you, learn everything they teach you, and follow every one of the orders they give you. That will lead you to your fortune, and a future that will satisfy you,” Kere told him. “Be at peace, grandchild,” she added, and then touched his head again, giving him a feeling of contentment, before she disappeared.
With that holy command ringing in his ears, Kestrel doggedly walked through the rain all the following day, his hood up again to both protect and hide his head. He reached the gates of Firheng in the early evening, and walked to the training base, where he entered Cosima’s office and found Belinda at work at her desk.
“I’m here to see Commander Cosima,” he told her, keeping his hood up and extended so that his features were hidden in deep shadows.
Belinda looked up from her desk, and studied the dark opening in the cowl, studying the dim features within closely. “Kestrel? Is that you?” she asked in a quizzical tone.
“Hello Belinda,” he replied, dreading the reaction he expected when she saw his features. “Yes, it’s me. I’m back to finish my training.”
“Well, let me see you!” she urged. “You’re inside out of the rain now; pull your hood down.”
He hesitated. “I’m different now, Belinda,” he warned her.
“Oh, you sound the same, like the same modest young guardsman we met before,” she dismissed his concern.
He raised his hands and pulled the hood back, feeling drops of rainwater become displaced and tumbling downward as he revealed his features. Belinda looked at him intently as the exposure revealed the new, humanized, Kestrel.
She slowly stood as she gazed at him intently, then silently walked around the desk to stand directly beside him, carefully circling from his right side to his left, her eyes only inches from his
head as she examined him. “Magnificent!” she breathed at last.
“What an extraordinary job they did on you! your surgeon did the finest work I’ve ever seen; you could walk down any street in any human city, and not draw a second glance, except from the girls who thought you were so handsome,” she told him. “May I?” she asked, raising her hand to touch him.
He nodded in confusion, and her fingertips gently began to trace the contours of his eyebrows and his ears, then she raised up on her tip toes and began to gently kiss his ear lobes.
There was the sound of a door latch, and she drew back, as Commander Cosima came out of his office, looking down at some papers in his hand. “Belinda, could you?” his question stopped, unfinished, as he looked up and saw Kestrel’s human features.
“Is this our returning agent?” he asked rhetorically. “I almost don’t recognize you, yet of course I do.
“Welcome back Kestrel,” he said. “You’ve had a short trip, but clearly a profitable one.
“How extraordinary,” he breathed softly as he walked up beside Belinda and made Kestrel uncomfortable with his close scrutiny. “Who performed the operation?” he asked.
“Alicia, Silvan’s wife,” Kestrel answered, as his two inspectors bent so close that he could clearly hear them both breathing.
“You should give her your most profound thanks,” Cosima told him. “Her work is going to make your life very secure among the humans; no one will ever suspect your loyalties.
“It’s been years since we’ve had anyone so perfect, hasn’t it, Belinda?” he asked.
“Perfect,” she softly agreed. “Yes. It’s been years.”
“Well, go take your old quarters; they’re still available. Report to training tomorrow at the usual time,” Cosima advised Kestrel. “And of course, for your sake, I’d advise you to stay within the base as much as possible. Don’t go out into the city without your hood up or at least a hat — and only after dark.
“We look forward to preparing you,” Casimo told him, then turned to Belinda, to begin to go over the papers he carried from his office, as Kestrel left under Belinda’s watchful gaze.
The next day he nervously returned to his training, but was immediately put at his ease by Arlen’s cheerful greeting. “I didn’t realize I had trained you so well you’d start to look like a human! I must be the best arms trainer in the kingdom!” Arlen had said as he greeted Kestrel with a warm hug, and then immediate resumption of training.
“So, did you use any of your training on your little pleasure trip” Arlen asked him as they fenced with one another.
“A time or two,” Kestrel said, then briefly explained using a broom stick as a fighting staff to save a woman under attack.
“A pretty woman?” Arlen asked with gleaming eyes.
“Yes, she is,” Kestrel immediately answered.
“Was she thankful for your great service? Did she succumb to your charms and reward you with her virtue?” Arlen pressed him.
“No. She was married,” Kestrel replied.
“And she didn’t even have a sister to introduce you to? What a tragic waste of valor! You’ll have to achieve better results next time!” Arlen told him, and asked no more questions, as their sparring activity increased in intensity.
His weaponry skills improved to the point of drawing praise from Arlen, and they moved on to more difficult tasks, such as the use of weapons from atop the back of a horse. In the meantime, Kestrel’s language skills continued to improve, but not to the degree that his physical abilities did. His instructor even began to sleep in Kestrel’s quarters with him as the intensity of his training mounted, and Kestrel found that the expectations for him were highly discussed among the staff of the training facility.
“You’ll be going out on an assignment, a test run, next week,” Casimo announced a month after his return. “We’ll see how you put everything together.”
“Where will I go? How long? Will anyone else go with me?” he bombarded the commander with questions.
“All in good time, Kestrel. Just keep practicing,” Casimo replied.
The next night his language instructor was ill, and didn’t come to Kestrel’s quarters after dinner. Kestrel sat on his small porch, resting, relieved to have the unexpected window of a few hours of relief from the constant training, when he heard a noise within his room. He stepped inside to investigate.
Inside his room, sitting on his bed, were Dewberry and Jonson. “You are never alone!” Dewberry scolded him, as Jonson inspected him closely.
“You look just like a human!” Jonson pronounced.
“I’m supposed to look like a human. And they never leave me alone because they’re trying to train me to be able to go spy on the humans,” Kestrel explained. He sat down on the thin mattress with his two blue guests.
“Why are you here?” he asked. “Is everything okay?”
“We will be getting married the day after tomorrow,” Dewberry announced.
“Congratulations!” Kestrel spoke sincerely, while wondering what relevance that could have to him.
“And we want to go back to the healing spring and soak in the water again one more time before our wedding. Would you come be our assistant and protector?” Dewberry asked with such a pleading tone and posture that Kestrel knew she was hamming it up.
“I will,” Kestrel immediately agreed. “On one condition.”
“A condition? How preposterous! Don’t you know that it’s the female’s duty to set conditions!” Dewberry grew suddenly mock combative, striking a fighting pose and beginning to swing punches at Kestrel, causing both he and Jonson to laugh.
“What condition did you have in mind?” Jonson asked, as he rose and grabbed his betrothed around the waist.
“I want to take a couple of skins with me so that I can fill them with the water from the spring and bring it back here,” Kestrel replied.
“See! I told you women set better conditions! That’s no challenge at all!” Dewberry answered. “Go get your skins and let’s get going!”
Kestrel rose and searched in his closet until he found three empty skins, whose straps he draped over his shoulder, then stood and waited as Dewberry and Jonson hugged him tightly.
“I am pretty sure that just two of us can move you,” Jonson said, giving Kestrel a moment of doubt just as he felt the same sensations he had experienced before, the blackness and the queasiness, and then everything was alright as they stood on the bank of the spring waters. Kestrel undressed and got in the water, then received each of the sprites as they too entered the water, and he laid them down on the sandy shelf, where they quietly lay in their state of refreshing repose, while Kestrel carefully filled each of his water skins. He laid the stoppered skins down on his pile of clothes, then lay down in the water next to the sprites, and watched the sunset create a changing tableau of colors in the sky.
He thought about his month of looking like a human. He had grown to accept it, but still regret it. The emphasis at his training base was all directed towards the value he would give to the elven leaders, and the ability he would have to learn about the human plans to attack the elves; through the constant reinforcement of the message that he could singularly aid his people, he now accepted the duty he needed to fulfill. But he still mourned the loss of his elven appearance, and the deception Alicia had used to trick him into the operation still rankled. He had enjoyed her company for those few hours together, and the betrayal that he felt from learning her truth was still a cold ember in his heart.
When the last of the colors were gone and stars twinkled brightly overhead, Kestrel lifted the sprite and the imp from the water, and laid them on the ground, then gave their bodies a few minutes to adjust before he shook them awake.
“Gads! How long did we soak?” Dewberry asked, sitting up.
Minutes later they all were dressed, and the two blue beings took Kestrel back to his dark room.
“Good night friend Kestrel,” Jonson told him.
“Kestrel, after our wedding we’ll be on our honeymoon for two weeks,” Dewberry explained.
“Don’t think she’s going to come see you then!” Jonson laughed raucously.
“Best wishes, Dewberry. I know you two will make each other happy,” Kestrel told the small blue body, giving her a gentle hug and a delicate kiss.
And then the two were gone, and Kestrel thought he was alone.
“Kestrel? How did you get in there?” he heard Belinda’s voice call from his porch.
“Belinda? What are you doing here?” Kestrel asked.
“I’m going to be your language tutor tonight,” she spoke in the human language as she stepped into the room. “I’ve been waiting here for hours, and I just gave up. I was starting to go down the steps when there were suddenly voices in your empty room.” She looked around in the darkness.
Kestrel put his water bags down, then fumbled at his bedside table to strike a spark and light a candle. He quickly got the wick glowing, then placed the glass cylinder around the flame and looked at Belinda.
She was sitting in a chair in the corner, near where the instructor’s cot was set up, and she was staring at him intently.
“Well? How did you do it? How did you suddenly appear in your room?” she continued to ask in human. She placed a large bag on the table beside her.
“I would rather not say,” Kestrel replied, after several seconds in which he failed to come up with any better answer.
“In the human tongue, please,” Belinda corrected him.
“Why won’t you tell me?” she asked.
“Please, Belinda, ask me no more questions about this. I cannot answer,” Kestrel responded in the human tongue. He looked at her in the candlelight; she had removed her light overcoat, and beneath it wore a revealing nightgown.
“You can put the light out if you don’t need it,” she told him, realizing that she was the subject of his intense gaze. “I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have worn this.”
“How do you speak human?” Kestrel asked as he blew out the candle, but continued to sit on the bed, befuddled by the unexpected circumstances.
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