by GJ Kelly
She summoned the Sight now, and saw three life-lights. One, tall, arms folded. Another shorter, a few feet away, and third, its light dim, laying on the ground.
“She is awake, Viell Oze,” a harsh voice announced in elvish. “Though why you would not let me kill this bitch and have done with her I do not know. It was her arrows took the greater toll.”
A man sighed. “In the first place, Lorgan, you wear two stripes on the cuff of your sleeve. I, however, carry this up mine,” and Elayeen saw the gingerbread figure produce a slender object which seemed to glow an iron grey in the misty backdrop of the world revealed to eldeneyes. “Which means you do as I vakin tell you. And I have told you,” he said in the common tongue, “That for the sake of our elderly prisoner here, we shall speak in the common tongue. In the second place, this bitch as you crudely describe her, is Elayeen, daughter of Hak, of the family Varan, and shall not be killed by the likes of any such as you.”
Oze stepped closer, and leaned forward, peering at Elayeen’s blindfolded and grimy face. “You surely did not think I would be fooled by your ghastly appearance, did you? I know you can see me with the filthy curse you bear. That curse is easily defeated by a simple piece of cloth. The sleeve of your shirt, actually, I ripped it from your arm myself.”
“A noble display of elvish strength and wizardly power from a filthy traitor!” Dannis called up from the floor, his voice weak and trembling, but defiant nevertheless.
Oze stepped back, and nodded to Lorgan. Elayeen saw the Toorsengard step forward and kick Dannis in the face.
“We have little time, Elayeen. Your ruse is discovered, I know who you are, and though the Toorseneth of course would have you returned to Elvendere and given over to them alive, they would also be perfectly content with your head in a bag. You shall tell me what I want to know and then we shall leave.”
“Very well, Oze of the medyen-Viell, I shall tell you what you should know. My king is coming, and with him, the White Staff of Raheen. If he does not find me here alive, he shall cut down every tree in the forest and bathe in the blood of all of you until he does find me. That is what you should know, you filthy Morloch collaborator!”
She saw Oze’s gingerbread arm draw back, and closed her eyes, wincing in anticipation of the blow from the wizard’s fist smashing into her face. She saw stars, the world swam, and pain shot through her arms when she crashed to the floor. She could taste the blood in her mouth, and feel it streaming from her nose across her lips. Opening her eyes, she saw Lorgan step forward, reaching down to grasp the front of her tunic. Half of it ripped away with a good portion of her shirt as he dragged her and the chair she was bound to upright.
“Oh dear lady,” she heard Dannis weeping, “Oh my dear queen…”
“Oh my dear queen,” Oze mocked, and stooped again, his eyes empty sockets in the dim light of his life. “You will tell me now. Where is the Sceptre of Toorsen?”
Elayeen’s heart pounded, anger burning fiercely now, consuming fear, consuming everything, the conflagration razing pain and turning it to ashes, growing and spreading like the fires of Dun Meven.
She spat blood, and saw Oze step back a pace. “I and the ninety-five riddled the vakin traitor with arrows while he pissed himself with fear in the face of a new dawn’s rising! Just as you shall.”
Oze gave a bark of humourless laughter. “I’m not interested in the fate of the old man of the tower, idiot bitchling of an idiot king! Nor am I interested in old wives’ tales of new ages and wolves reborn! No-one is but you simpering muck-rakes of Minyorn! Do you really think the Toorseneth cares for childish tales croaked by cackling crones around their reeking peat-fire flames? D’you think we are here for the sake of some pissant peasant’s prophecy? Do you think the Creed would risk war with Callodon for a story?”
Again, Oze stooped forward, and announced, quietly, in Elayeen’s ear, “I want the Sceptre! The Dymendin! You took it from a bony claw that held on to it for far too long! Give me the Dymendin and you might live a little while longer!”
And with that, the elfwizard stepped back. Elayeen saw the figure fold its arms, waiting.
“Do you,” she hissed through bleeding lips, and swallowed blood, “Do you honestly believe I would take to the wilds of these eastern lands alone for a story? Do you think the Sight of elder days has returned to the forest through nothing more profound than coincidence or common infection? Do you truly imagine that I would give to a Morloch Collaborator a weapon with which to destroy my own people?”
Again Oze rushed forward, smashing Elayeen in the face and knocking her over while he screamed in genuine rage. “I do not serve Morloch! We do not serve Morloch! We of Toorsen’s Creed have never served that black lord! Witless bitch! Imbecile! You know nothing! You know nothing of what we do!”
Again Elayeen spat blood, anger boiling, and with it came a new clarity of thought, a release, an acceptance of her fate, all pain and shock diminishing. She had told Dannis that she would not, could not, allow herself to be taken to Ostinath. Everything she had ever done had led to this moment, here in what had been the command post cottage of Dun Meven, ancient hill and Aemon’s fortress. Nothing now mattered. The path had been laid at her feet long ago, and even while rebelling against it, she had trodden it.
“Tell me, then, Oze of the Morloch-Viell, tell me what it is you vermin of the Tower do that serves the Kindred.”
“We keep the balance!” Oze screamed, “Oh you clueless spawn of a clueless oaf and his peasant muck-rake bride, we keep the balance! Don’t you see? Toorsen knew the truth even in darken days of old, there can be no light without shadow and the brighter the light the sharper and darker the shadow becomes! Neither must be allowed to overpower the other! For every victory there must be defeat! For every triumph a failure!” Oze kicked her in the thigh, and gulped for air.
“So long and so hard we worked to remove from all our people that cursed sight which gave such advantage in elder days! There must be balance! It cannot be with us and not with the enemy! And you, you bring that diseased sight back into the forest and spread it like a plague! Light and shadow must be in balance or there can be no harmony! And your imbecile clown of Raheen blunders around the lands trying to light every lamp he finds! Fools! Fools!”
Elayeen was almost robbed of breath at the depth of passion and belief in the elfwizard’s outburst. And suddenly, noting once again the grey glow of the twig Oze waved carelessly in his right hand, all the niggling doubts and all those ‘worms’ of unanswered questions sighed in relief, and were gone.
“And so you do Morloch’s work for him here in the east, with Graken of your own making, and riders of the ToorsenViell, and wreak havoc on gentle lands to appease Morloch’s rage at his defeat in the north.”
“A defeat that should not have happened! A victory that should not have been! A war which would not have been fought but for an imbecile on horseback who should have died with his land! A land grown too bright, and the shadow all the sharper for it!”
“You are mad,” Elayeen sighed. “You destroyed Calhaneth! Thousands of our people died…”
“To keep the balance! Stupid, stupid vakin child! Do you think the balance could be maintained if the Orb of Arristanas had been allowed to succeed? With all those lights burning in every town and city? Don’t you know how sharp the shadows would have become in the face of such lights! Sharp enough to cut through the Teeth beyond which Morloch is held secure, confined there by Toorsen and the elders! Sharp enough to wreak catastrophe upon us all!”
“Madness,” Elayeen gasped again, a bubble of blood bursting from her broken nose. “Good and evil are not as day and night or light and dark. Both live in the hearts of the Kindred and it is minds that make a deed one thing or the other.”
“Spare me your peasant babbling. I did not come here to teach you the Creed, I came here to kill you or take you to the Tower.” Oze nodded again to the guardsman, who once more lifted Elayeen upright, his hands rough, and utterly pitil
ess.
“You do know,” Oze lowered his voice, his tone calmer, almost that of a benevolent headmaster. “You do know how easy it will be to end the family Varan with you dead, don’t you? Once you are destroyed, there is no further hope of a child to lay direct claim to the Varan crown. Your brother falls in some skirmish to the west. Your father and mother are throth-bound. How simple then, a draught of poison in your mother’s chalice, and your father’s inevitable suffering and death a short time thereafter. You do remember the pain of athroth, don’t you, Elayeen? When your clown of Raheen left you all alone to go and upset the balance once again?”
Elayeen did remember it, though it was a memory dimmed and almost snuffed by the rapture of reunion and the warmth of Gawain’s light, and his arms holding her…
“With you destroyed, the way is clear for the crown to pass to safer hands who understand better the nature of balance. Give me the Dymendin, and live a little longer.”
“Do you think I would take so valuable an artefact into the wilds?”
“Of course not. We have already searched this miserable village and found nothing. Perhaps you gave it to your two friends, whose cursed and miserable eyes must have led the villagers to safety. How very clever of you. And how very foolish of you to remain instead of leaving with them all.”
Elayeen’s heart leapt. Oze knew nothing of the vaulted refuge beneath his very feet. She drew on her anger to keep the brief flaring of excitement from her voice, feeling the blood dripping from her chin and onto her breast.
“In another day, I would have. I had to be sure they were safe, and I had to maintain the fiction of their presence here.”
“Futile. Though I shall grant you credit for the cunning of it.”
“It was the Toorseneth ordered the seeding of the slopes, and the wilds of Arrun. And Juria.”
“Balance. It is all a question of balance, as I see you begin now to understand. The lands which saw victory at Far-gor must also taste defeat. Balance. Else the wall dividing the two should break, and Morloch devour everything, even unto his very own destruction.”
“Yet how could you have known it was I in the wilds, unless you lie, and work hand in glove with Morloch? I shall never give the Dymendin into Morloch’s hands!”
“I have told you!” Oze screamed, and then struggled to calm himself. “I have told you, we do not serve that foul creature! Our reach is long, we knew from Juria you had left the dwarves of Tarn in company with two others. We knew from Sudshear three elves fought at some nameless scratch of a hamlet on the Arrun coast against Pelliman Goth, and we knew from the arrows used against him those elves came from Threlland. Even a halfwit from Minyorn could not fail to deduce who you were. How easy then to drive you gently here, far from all aid, and all hope of it.”
“It was your Graken-rider who aided this Pelliman Goth, and bore him to safety. Yet still you claim you do not serve Morloch!”
“And we do not! To keep the balance we needed seed and spore and thus is it was sent from the west!!”
“With an army which would have devastated Arrun. You claim that is balance?”
“They were for the Goth’s defence! They didn’t trust us! Seed and spore delivered they would have returned to the west but for a storm which drove them north and into the rocks! And you, like your imbecile buffoon of a husband, blundered in, reeking of horse, sweat and filth, and laid waste to them all! In the west they believed it was we of the Creed who had betrayed them!
“You have no idea, no idea how much damage was done by you for the sake of some scratch-dirt sheep farmers! No idea how much work had to be done to restore order and return Pelliman Goth to the west and appease them there!”
Oze fumed, and paced, and then seemed suddenly to snap. “Our time grows short, Callodon’s force has left Harks Hearth and arrives on the morrow. I am done with this talk,” he stepped forward, and jabbed his wand into the remnant of blood-soaked undershirt clinging to Elayeen’s left breast. A sudden jolt of something shot through her, blinding her and throwing her backwards onto the flagstone floor for a third time.
A hand grabbed her hair, short as it was, and dragged her upright, Oze moving to stand behind her, forcing her head down.
“Do you see him? Do you see the old man?” Oze demanded.
“Yes…” Elayeen managed, gasping for breath, horror and rising fear battling her ire and winning.
She saw Lorgan’s gingerbread arms reach down, and take hold of Dannis’ head, dragging the Curator of Dun Meven onto his knees.
“Do you see?” Oze demanded again.
Lorgan’s hand moved to his hip, and then back again.
“That is a knife in the two-stripe’s hand. He is holding it at the old man’s throat. You will tell me where the Dymendin Sceptre of Toorsen is to be found or the old man dies before your infected eyes!”
“Tell them nothing, dear lady! Vex them! Vex!”
“The Dymendin!” Oze screamed, and shook Elayeen’s head violently.
Tears soaked the blindfold, but tears, like fire and smoke, are no obstacle to the Sight.
“Vex!” she sobbed. “Dannis…”
Oze nodded, and Elayeen saw Lorgan’s hand move, and the life-light flare briefly, and then fade, as the Toorsengard sheathed his blade and let the old man’s body fall.
“Have them fetch the boy,” Oze ordered, and Lorgan left the room. “Perhaps his life will be worth more to this weeping queen of nothing than some aged dullard’s.”
And weep Elayeen did, for Dannis, and for her people, and for a world which had given life to Oze, and all those of his insane Creed, and allowed them to live in it. Anger billowed then, like the gouts of fire she had seen spewing from the charnel-ground at Croptop, the wagons at Fallowmead and the barrels tumbling down the slope here at Dun Meven. The heat from the fires raged, burning ire into fury, and then the door to the cottage opened.
She looked up, and saw Lorgan’s unmistakeable shape enter the room, and three others behind him, two elves, holding a smaller shape between them. Finn’s son, Ned, the Watchman from the tower on the summit. She saw him start with alarm, and then heard him gasp, and then he shouted, struggling violently:
“You vurken bastards! Let her go! You vurken bastards killed my da and Dannis! Let her go! I’ll kill you all!”
Over the pounding of her heart and the fury burning inside her, Elayeen thought she heard the old man’s gentle voice again. He’s a good lad, that one, Finn’s youngest boy. Wants to follow his father into the Black and Gold, and hopes for my letter of recommendation when the time comes.
“Tell me where the Dymendin is, or the boy dies.” Oze announced, his voice bereft of all feeling, as though he were announcing the day’s date or the time of day.
“Don’t you tell ‘im nuthin’ Ranger Leeny! Don’t you tell these vurken bastards nuthin’ fer me!”
“Ranger Leeny? The boy does not know? You didn’t tell him who you are?”
Rage, bubbling like lava, threatening to explode, breath whistling through her bleeding nostrils, blood bubbling and spraying the front of her ripped undershirt. Movement caught her eldeneyes, away to the left, far off, moving closer. She was, she knew now, in the command post, facing the door, and the lights were moving stealthily from the direction of the Spikebulb field south of the road.
“No, I don’t suppose you did. Look well, boy. The last thing you’ll see is Elayeen, the Queen of Raheen, broken and bleeding and on the brink of death herself.”
She saw Ned struggle violently, and then he screamed… “Vex! Vex!”
Lorgan stepped forward and punched Ned in the face, silencing him. Elayeen saw the boy go limp, the two elves either side holding him up. But still his light shone brightly.
“The Dymendin shall be mine, and with it, the Tower and all it holds. Where is it?”
Something seemed to burst, like a tiny bubble, deep inside her, and a great calm like an ocean swell washed over her. Her breathing slowed, and she straightened in the
chair. The effect on the elves was disturbing, all of them taking a pace backwards at the unexpected grace and serenity that seemed to shine from the half-stripped, grimy and bloodied elfin tied to the chair before them.
She knew, of course, what it was that had broken. The seed within her had been sown, at last. This was the moment Eldengaze and all the ghosts of ancient wizards long dead and dust in their crypts had waited for, the moment A’Knox had feared, even if Oze did not: the conception of the Shimaneth Issilene Merionell, the Wolves of Issilene, Reborn.
“I shall tell you this, with all the certainty of the Seers of the Shitheen,” a cracked and familiar voice echoed from the past and through Elayeen’s bleeding lips. “You shall all die screaming, your lights guttering as candles quenched in filth. The Tower shall fall, and all those within, perish, and it shall be the Shimaneth Issilene Merionell wields the Sceptre and brings it down. This is the day of your ending,” Elayeen paused, watching as the gingerbread lights stepped further back from her, “And now is the time of your doom.”
Elves swallowed nervously and gazed at each other, hearing the awful quality in Elayeen’s voice. They looked to Lorgan, and then to Oze of the ToorsenViell, who, on the brink of cruel laughter, blinked as the door and half the wall in front of him shattered with a blinding white light and a deafening concussion.
“Don’t kill him!” Elayeen screamed, knocked back onto the floor again, “Don’t kill him G’wain! Don’t kill him!”
In the commotion that followed, gentle hands held her, steel sliced through ropes, groans sounded faintly around her, and the air was filled with the acrid smell of summer lightning.
