Twilight of the Elves

by Zack Loran Clark

  Callum stiffened, the warmth in his eyes going cold. The High Ranger glanced back at the other elves. “Zed, I’m sorry, but I should be keeping watch. Maybe we can talk more another time.”

  “Sure,” Zed said uncertainly. “How about tonight? I could come sit with the elves for a while, if that’s all right.”

  “That . . .” Callum swallowed hard, the lump bobbing in his throat. “Perhaps.”

  And then the ranger was gone. Zed had never seen anyone move so swiftly. It took only two long strides for Callum to flee from Zed and his pestering questions.

  “Stupid,” Zed berated himself. He’d had a chance and he’d blown it. In the elf’s retreating form, Zed was reminded of yet another back he’d been seeing a lot of recently.

  He marched alone for the rest of the day, the cold gouging deeper into his bones.

  They made camp as the light began to wane. Zed had expected Queen Me’Shala to tire easily, but none of the elves seemed especially taxed by the journey. Even the two sun elf ministers appeared perfectly at ease in the wilderness, their fine silvery coats gleaming in the half-light. Threya immediately began barking orders at Thorn and Petal. Selby paused to take in the view, shielding his eyes as he gazed toward a lonely mountain in the distance.

  Frond started a small fire for the humans, while Hexam pulled Zed and Jayna aside for their lesson on arcane implements. Micah sat languidly against a tree, pretending not to listen, though Zed was certain he could feel him smirking.

  “Wands, staves, and rods are the most common examples,” Hexam said. “Though I’ve seen orbs, jewelry, and even books used, as ridiculous as it sounds. The principles are generally the same as any focus. A spell is folded into the material. Add mana, and presto.”

  “Just like that evil staff that Zed used during his initiation,” Jayna said helpfully.

  “Exactly so,” Hexam agreed, as Zed’s ears began to burn. “That particular piece had been sitting on our wall for years, something the guild discovered decades ago in an old ruin. Actually, I had no idea it was a warlock’s implement until you accidentally set it off, Zed. But it illustrated another important principle where foci are concerned: Materials matter. Do you remember what happened to the staff when you used it?”

  “It . . . broke in half,” Zed answered. He recalled the way the ends had been singed black, though Zed himself was unharmed by the spell.

  “That staff was made from silver maple,” Hexam explained. “A brittle wood, ill suited for spellwrights. Not all components are enchanted equally, I’m afraid. Iron is among the worst materials for magical work, though steel is a bit better, thanks to the carbon. Highly structured crystals are some of the best.”

  “What about mythril?” Zed asked.

  “Yes!” Hexam exclaimed. “Very good. Like the orb we tested in my office, mythril is exceptional in that regard. No surprise that the metal was developed by the elves.”

  Zed glanced away. He hadn’t been thinking about the orb when he’d asked the question. Instead, his mind had gone immediately to the chain around his throat. Makiva’s chain.

  “Tomorrow night we’ll work on some actual enchantments,” the archivist continued. “Jayna, I’d like you to prepare Eldritch Darts for imbuement with your new wand. You’re already familiar with the principles of handling a focus. Zed, I’m . . . less knowledgeable on sorcerous approaches, but let’s see if we can’t give it a try with that gorgeous green fire of yours. A working scepter could make our coming task that much easier.”

  Easier sounded good to Zed, because from what Hexam had said, it didn’t seem like killing the Lich would be easy at all. Not for the first time, he wondered what exactly he’d gotten himself into.

  Hexam rose to join the others, and Jayna followed him, peppering the elder wizard with additional questions that Zed barely heard. His fingers brushed the mythril chain beneath his shirt. Was it a focus of some kind? Was that why the fire was always easier to cast when he wore it? Was the chain a part of . . . a part of his pact?

  It was a word Zed had avoided even thinking about. In the weeks of quiet that had followed his vision of Makiva, he’d almost been able to pretend that it hadn’t happened—that he hadn’t made a bargain with a witch.

  But last night’s dream scared Zed. It had felt so real, and the fox that watched him struggling against the chain was still burned in his memory, as if it observed him even now.

  He wished that Brock was there on the journey with him. Why did everything feel so complicated between them?

  Zed pulled the sorcerous codex out from his pack. He opened the latch and removed his note to Brock, carefully unfolding the vellum.

  Dear Brock,

  I’m scared.

  I should probably start at the beginning, when things first went wrong. It all begins with Makiva.

  Zed gazed anxiously at the sheet, considering what to write next. Or whether to continue at all. If this ended up in the wrong hands, it would be his confession.

  “If you’re looking for your wit’s end,” Micah called from behind him, “I’m pretty sure we passed it a long time ago.”

  Zed scowled, whipping around. “You’ve got a whole forest of personal space,” he said. “Why are you still bothering me?”

  Micah shrugged. “You’re easy to rile. I swear I can actually see your little mind tying itself into knots over there.”

  Zed glanced to the others and hurriedly folded the note back into the book. Frond had stoked a healthy fire and was now standing over it, rehashing strategy with the queen and her ministers. The rangers had spread out to form a thin perimeter around the camp, keeping their watchful eyes on the landscape. Twilight brought an increased risk of Dangers, and before their journey, Frond had warned that the undead were especially active after dark.

  Beyond the leafless trees, the sky was a burning scrim, filling the forest with skeletal shadows. Far in the distance, a black mountain loomed. Zed could feel the already frigid temperature falling with the sun, and he hugged his cloak tighter to himself.

  He’d stupidly volunteered to do something he wasn’t even sure was possible, using a power that the city would execute him for if they knew its source. Zed was out of his depth. He was cold, and lonely, and very afraid.

  “Please,” he rasped. “Please just leave me alone.”

  Micah’s smirk faltered. He opened his mouth, then closed it and cleared his throat. “Listen,” he said finally. “You’re going to be all right. I’ve seen that moldy fireball of yours take out worse than a few mummified elves. And that was without Frond babysitting you.”

  Zed was silent. He pulled his knees to his chest, keeping his eyes on the shape of the faraway mountain.

  Micah groaned and pushed himself up from the tree. He took a few steps toward Zed, bracing his fists against his hips. It was a pose Zed had seen Liza strike dozens of times, just before she gave one of her inspirational talks.

  “You,” Micah said, “are a skinny, weird little sissy.”

  Apparently the Guerra siblings offered different sorts of encouragement.

  “I thought so the first day we met,” Micah continued, “and since then, you’ve only proven me to be an astute judge of character. But that’s exactly why Frond brought me on this mission. Not only am I insightful and hilarious, I’m also uniquely gifted at fixing skinny, weird little sissies when they’ve gotten themselves hurt.”

  Micah held out a hand to Zed, the edges of which began to sparkle with golden light.

  “I’ll back off for a while,” Micah added. “At least until Liza’s around to defend your scrawny butt. In return, you have to stop looking so pathetic all the time. You’re going to Elf-ville, woo-hoo!” Micah waved the glowing hand around theatrically, trailing a comet’s tail of radiance. “It’s your pointy-eared dream!”

  Zed was quiet for a moment. “All right,” he said finally. “Deal.” Then he took Micah’s hand and pulled himself to his feet.

  The shouting began almost as soon as he’d st
ood.

  The rangers who had been standing guard burst back into camp, surrounding Me’Shala and pointing into the distance. Frond drew her sword and Callum flew off into the trees, his face panicked. Zed followed their gestures toward the shadow of the mountain, but he couldn’t see what had them so alarmed.

  Then the mountaintop began to uncoil.

  Two appendages peeled themselves away from the mass, revealing a pair of enormous wings silhouetted against the bloody sky. The mountain’s peak had been a gigantic pair of wings the entire time, encircling the summit like a tent. Zed’s mind came unanchored just trying to comprehend the sheer scale of such a creature. A goliath figure unfolded in the distance, though its details were impossible to make out against the setting sun. Slowly, without a sound, the Danger rose into the air, its two great wings beating lazily.

  In a moment it was gone, disappearing over the horizon. In the next moment, the sound of its ascent finally reached them. Each wingbeat was a drum of thunder that Zed felt in his teeth.

  He and Micah stood side by side, staring dazedly into the distance. Whatever they had just seen, it had flown in the same direction they were traveling.

  Straight toward Llethanyl.

  “And that’s why elves have no word for ‘surprise,’ ” Fel said brightly. “Isn’t that interesting?”

  Brock realized he hadn’t been listening for some time, but he made a thoughtful hmm sound. They were walking down a broad, icy path through the forest, and he was concentrating on where he put his feet.

  “I don’t get it,” Liza said. “I’ve seen surprise on your face, Fel. Wasn’t everyone in the city surprised by the Lich’s actions?”

  “You could say that,” Fel answered, “but we would not. When the unexpected happens, we mae vahrel, which translates to ‘alight upon a hidden truth.’ ”

  “I guess I don’t see the difference,” Liza said. “Whatever you call it, a surprise is a surprise. A rock is a rock.”

  Brock knew what she was too polite to say: death is death. Even if you called it “lost.” Even if you imagined it was temporary.

  “But a rock isn’t just a rock,” Jett put in. “Dwarves have thirty-two words for ‘rock.’ Just because humans are blind to the differences between drostoff and mektin doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Language shapes the world around us—shapes how we see it.” He clucked his tongue. “That’s why translations of dwarven poetry are so terrible. You really lose the effect when every other word is ‘rock.’ ”

  “Sure,” Brock said absently. “That’s why dwarven poetry is terrible.”

  Liza elbowed him.

  “Seriously, though,” Brock said. “If we all just spoke the trade tongue, maybe we wouldn’t focus on our differences so much. Maybe that would be good for everybody.”

  “Easy for you to say, human,” Jett groused. “The trade tongue is a human language.”

  “Okay, so everyone should speak dwarven, then,” Brock said. “My point’s the same.”

  “Respectfully, I think maybe the opposite is true,” Fel said. “We should all learn more languages. I want to learn enough dwarven to read Jett’s poetry!”

  “Hold on,” Jett said, instantly blushing. “I never said I wrote poetry.”

  She giggled. “You never said you didn’t.”

  Brock couldn’t help smiling. Fel was so positive, so . . . cheerful. More than that, she was utterly at ease in the wild. It was something he’d never seen before, not even from Frond. He couldn’t imagine he’d ever manage to relax in the realm of Dangers.

  Yet despite his fears, Brock’s boots had a good grip, his cloak was warm, and the sun was bright overhead. The trees were spaced far enough apart that it would be difficult for anything to sneak up on them. Maybe their luck would hold out.

  Then again, Brock liked to say that he made his own luck. He kept one hand in his pocket, wrapped around the vial of pungent orange liquid he had hidden there. It was the pitmunk toxin he’d retrieved from Master Curse and the perfumer last night when he should have been sleeping. But he’d known he couldn’t afford to leave a potential advantage behind.

  Every once in a while, he drifted to the back of the party and pushed the stopper aside with his thumb, letting out the vial’s fumes. Maybe that had something to do with the absence of Dangers so far.

  “It’s been quiet,” Liza said, echoing his thoughts. “I wonder if the others already chased off everything that was in this area.”

  “That could be it,” Lotte said. “But this season tends to be less active, generally. Many Dangers hibernate in the winter.”

  “ ‘Hibernate’?” said Jett. “What’s that?”

  “Let’s use context to figure it out,” Brock suggested. “Does it mean . . . ‘drool’? Many Dangers drool blood from their horrible mouths in the winter. That sounds right.”

  Jett chuckled.

  “It means ‘sleep,’ ” Liza put in, and Jett’s chuckling stopped short.

  “Right,” said Lotte. “They sleep through the winter. Especially the cold-blooded ones . . . You won’t see anything with scales lurking about until spring.”

  “Well, that’s downright sensible of them,” said Brock. “In fact, I don’t see why we don’t all just nap through the winter. All in favor?”

  Nobody said anything.

  Brock gave Jett a sideways look. “Nothing?”

  Jett shrugged apologetically and snuck a glance at Liza, which made his allegiances clear.

  Traitor. Zed would have played along.

  Maybe.

  “Elves also have no word for ‘nap,’ ” Fel said instructively.

  “I never wanted children,” Lotte muttered to herself from her place at the front of their column. “I made a choice—adventures, not children. And yet here you are, Lotte, here you are.”

  Brock turned to the others, crossed his eyes, and stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth: She’s weird.

  Fel’s eyes went wide and she gasped. Before Brock could ask why, the young ranger sprang forward, quick as a bolt, pushing him aside and rushing up behind Lotte. She shoved the woman in the small of her back, simultaneously looping her foot around to trip her. Lotte went sprawling forward into a snowbank.

  “Fel!” Liza screamed. “What—”

  “Whoa—!” said Brock.

  Lotte rolled onto her back and glared murderously at Fel, but before she had found her voice, Fel splashed the contents of her waterskin across the quartermaster’s face.

  Everyone froze. Brock found himself holding his breath as he looked upon Lotte, her eyes closed and her mouth open in shock as the ice-cold water dripped off her chin.

  The silence lasted for several long moments until finally Fel spoke.

  “I . . . think perhaps I made a mistake,” she said meekly.

  Lotte’s eyes opened and they were furious.

  And for some reason, they were fixed upon Brock.

  “What, me?” he protested. “I’m as surprised as you are!”

  “Fel,” Lotte said, only just mastering the angry warble in her voice. “Who put you up to that?”

  “I thought . . . Brock indicated . . .”

  Now Lotte, Liza, and Jett were all eyeing him. Even Mousebane glared from her comfortable burrow within Fel’s backpack. Fel’s expression, at least, was contrite. “The face you made behind Lotte’s back. Doesn’t it mean one is infected with a psychic worm?”

  Lotte rose stiffly to her feet. “Yes, Brock. Let’s see this face you made behind my back.”

  Brock grimaced. “I, ah . . . I think maybe the nuance of my joke got . . . lost in translation?”

  Lotte stepped slowly toward him, her boots crunching in the snow. “Your joke? Well. Perhaps you need a lesson in humor.”

  Brock liked Lotte well enough. Certainly she was more agreeable than Frond, and generally more reasonable. But she was fearsome, too, and a true taskmaster. During long days of physical training, when Brock thought he could endure no more, it was fear of provoki
ng Lotte that motivated him as much as any desire for self-improvement.

  He tried not to flinch as she stood close enough to throttle him. She smiled, but there was something evil in it. Then she lifted her own waterskin above him, tipping it so that its contents poured out upon his head.

  It was freezing. Brock’s lungs seized up and the muscles of his neck and back clenched painfully. He gasped.

  “See? Now that’s funny.”

  Fel laughed, and when she registered that she was the only one, she immediately stopped.

  “Wait, is it funny or not?” she asked. “I’m so confused.”

  “Lotte,” Liza said. “Lotte, you’re not injured, are you?”

  Lotte turned, looking herself up and down. “The snow broke my fall,” she said. “I’m only wet.”

  “What’s that, then?” Liza asked. And she pointed toward the snowbank where Lotte had fallen.

  Only a few paces from that spot was a trail of bright red blood.

  They followed the blood into the woods, fearing the worst. What if the party had been overwhelmed? What if Zed was bleeding out in the snow? Brock shivered with fear and with cold. His hair was stiff with ice.

  They did not have to travel far from the path to find the source of the blood: a young deer, curled up at the base of a tree. It wasn’t moving, but it was alive; Brock could see its breaths misting in the air about its muzzle. Blood ran from a wound on its rear leg.

  “The poor thing,” Fel said sadly.

  “We have to do something,” said Liza.

  “What can we do?” asked Jett.

  Brock frowned. “Should we . . . put it out of its misery?”

  They all turned on him.

  “Are you serious right now?”

  “What is wrong with you?”

  “It’s just a flesh wound, Brock!”

  Brock held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry! I thought it was dying. I was trying to help!”

  Lotte put a hand on his shoulder. “That’s all right. You won’t have encountered this before. Fel, do you recognize the wound?”