Elves: Rise of the TaiGethen

by James Barclay

  There followed the silence he had grown to hate. When Ystormun had left Balaia he had been the strongest of them. Now he was looked upon as a mere digit on the hand of the greater body that was the other five. He had been gone for far too long.

  ‘We feel resistance,’ said Giriamun. ‘We sense the next logical step is not forthcoming. We have heard nothing to suggest that a change in the ultimate plan is necessary. What we glean from you is all obfuscation and delay. That cannot continue.’

  ‘Any of you is welcome to travel here to advise me in person.’

  ‘You are the appointed representative of the cadre on Calaius,’ said Pamun immediately.

  Ystormun laughed and felt the righteous anger flowing across the Southern Ocean to drown his mirth. Despite the pain he felt, Ystormun spoke with as much force as he could muster, hoping to send some small part of that pain back.

  ‘I will continue here as long as I deem it necessary. I am here not because I am the junior partner but because I am the most capable among us. I will decide when and if the remainder are to be hunted down, and I will decide how it is to be done.’

  ‘Your isolation can be made permanent,’ snapped Belphamun.

  ‘Calm yourself,’ said Pamun. ‘Ystormun. We are a collective. None of us acts in isolation. You must hear us.’

  ‘I hear you far too often and with excessive volume. Before you think to instruct me, do any of you deny that this facility works? Deny that the products and resources I export to you have made you wealthy beyond your most fevered dreams and have allowed you to increase our standing army to an unheard-of level in peacetime Balaia. Do you deny that continuing our mission here will further increase our strength, wealth and influence?’

  ‘We deny none of these statements,’ said Belphamun. ‘Your problem, Ystormun, is your ignorance of the changing situation here. You are correct that our standing army is large, but you control more than a third of it at any one time. Those soldiers and mages are required here.’

  ‘The rotation must continue,’ replied Ystormun. ‘The security of this facility depends on it.’

  ‘Then amend the situation so your security can be maintained using hundreds, not thousands, of souls.’

  ‘It is not that simple.’

  ‘It is that simple!’ Pamun’s voice blared across the divide and every muscle in Ystormun’s body spasmed. ‘Seek them out and destroy them. They are so few and you are so many. Stop hiding inside your palace and do what you were sent to do.’

  Ystormun was exhausted. The stamina required to maintain Communion over such a vast distance against minds as strong as the five lords’ was considerable. He fought to remain calm. He had to win this argument with reason.

  ‘One does not simply dispatch a force into the rainforest. It could swallow Balaia whole. I am already working to uncover their most secret hiding place, but to march before I have confirmed my information is foolhardy. Add to that the issue of the enemy. They are few but their skill is legendary and we have no idea how many of them now have the run of the rainforest.

  ‘I will not burn the forest indiscriminately to drive them out, because that robs us of resources. I will operate this task to a timescale dictated by the situation on the ground here. There is, my lords, no other way to proceed.’

  ‘You are afraid,’ said Giriamun.

  ‘I am cautious,’ said Ystormun. ‘And I am right to be. Our current understanding with the enemy means I can work against them without striking out at them, and in the meantime I can continue to harvest the forest unmolested.’

  ‘Your time is up,’ said Belphamun. ‘We are under threat. Our enemies know the size of our commitment in Calaius and will soon believe themselves strong enough to challenge us. You will receive no more military support and indeed you must prepare for the recall of the bulk of your army.’

  ‘You still don’t understand,’ said Ystormun. ‘If I embark on an undirected attack there might be no army to be recalled. Our enemies remain the masters of the forest, and there is a balance between us. Recruit more men for yourselves. Don’t threaten this facility with precipitate action.’

  ‘Your stubbornness will prove costly,’ said Pamun.

  And abruptly the contact was broken. Ystormun waited, with his head still on the cushion, until the shivers had subsided and the ache in his head died away. When he finally lifted his head, its left-hand side and the cushion were soaked with sweat. An aide stood before the desk, his face to the floor.

  ‘This had better be good news.’

  The aide shook his head. ‘There have been more attacks.’

  Ystormun sighed. ‘Not now. Not now.’

  Auum led Elyss and Malaar into Aryndeneth an hour after dawn. The temple doors stood open and the stone apron at the front was busy with workers and TaiGethen who had already responded to the ClawBound call.

  ‘Elyss, get me numbers and information on who else is coming. Malaar, brief them on what we’ve witnessed and what the ClawBound intend. Say nothing of my decision. I’m going to find Takaar.’

  Auum trotted into the cool air beneath the dome. He knelt in prayer before the statue of Yniss before hurrying into the depths of the temple. The low hum of voices, one louder than the rest, travelled to him on the still air. They were coming from a chapel close to the block of individual prayer cells and visiting priests’ rooms.

  Auum stood at the door for a moment, watching Onelle talking with a group he recognised as the orientation class; they had been lucky enough to be in the forest when the humans attacked. The voices hushed when he walked in, the adepts bunching reflexively and moving half a pace backwards. Onelle smiled at him. Auum embraced her, kissing her eyes and forehead.

  ‘I must look quite a sight,’ he said.

  There was nervous laughter.

  ‘You need to reapply your camouflage,’ said Onelle, her expression sober. ‘You didn’t stop them, did you?’

  Auum shook his head. ‘They are starting their own war and their actions force us to save those who cannot save themselves. I need Takaar. Where is he?’

  Onelle hesitated and Auum felt his anger flare. ‘He’s . . . visiting. Or I assume he is. He’s been gone for two days.’

  ‘Damn his Ynissul heart!’ Auum clapped his hands to his face. The adepts flinched as one.

  Onelle took his arm and walked him back into the passage and then through the rear doors to the village.

  ‘It doesn’t matter whose side you’re on, no one is very comfortable in front of an angry TaiGethen.’

  ‘They may need to get used to it,’ said Auum. ‘Why did he go now? Surely even he, or his other self, could see the risk the ClawBound posed. And his reaction is to run off to talk to a human? Perhaps he is not fit to school the Il-Aryn.’

  Onelle had kept him walking and they had passed through the village and into the forest, heading towards a shrine to Tual that nestled near a Hallows of Reclamation.

  ‘Take a breath, Auum. What’s happening? We’re still in shock after the attack, and the rites of reclamation for the dead have only just been completed. I’ll have nightmares about those victims’ faces for ever, and worse about those whose deaths left no trace at all.

  ‘What am I trying to say? We heard the ClawBound call the muster. The TaiGethen are arriving here and people are scared. I’m scared. The forest feels strange and we can sense changes in the lines of power. You’ve decided to attack the humans, haven’t you? When I have no one to help you.’

  Auum took Onelle’s shoulders and gave her what he hoped was a calming smile.

  ‘I’m sorry, Onelle. It’s all moving faster than a taipan strike, I know. Listen: the ClawBound aren’t just taking revenge, they’re starting a cleansing . . . which means hundreds of elves in the slave cities are going to die unless we can save them. Serrin will no longer hear reason and he as much as challenged my courage and authority.’ Auum sighed. ‘He’s forced our hand. We have to attack Ysundeneth, and to save as many as we can.’

  Onel
le’s glorious oval eyes widened in her age-worn face. She gestured about her. ‘But we . . . I mean, I can’t—’

  ‘I’m sorry, Onelle. We have to get into Ysundeneth before news of the attacks gets to Ystormun. We’re already too late to stop some of the deaths. And now it grows worse because, without Takaar, we have no one to guide us past the wards. No one but you.’

  Auum could see her shrinking from the prospect. But it wasn’t fear of humans or conflict that drove her emotions when she shook her head.

  ‘I can’t go back there, Auum. Not after what happened. Not after what they did to us. Some of the elves who persecuted the Ynissul are still alive in there. Others are living in Katura. Why do you suppose I came here? It wasn’t just to learn magic.’

  Auum looked at Onelle anew. She was shivering with the rawness of memories which were a hundred and fifty years old.

  ‘Then why do you teach, if not to arm us for the fight against mankind? I have learned to forgive those of other threads who attacked my Ynissul brothers and sisters. If we are to prosper under Yniss when the humans are gone, we must all forgive each other.’

  ‘It’s easy for you, Auum. No one kicked down your door and raped you while your husband was beaten and forced to watch. No one shouted in your face that the Ynissul would pay when they saw mixed-thread offspring drop from their wombs.

  ‘I teach magic so that humans like the ones who murdered my husband in the rainforest might die in flames as he did. But I cannot go back there. I’ll never go back.’

  ‘Onelle you must—’

  ‘There is nothing I must do. Not even for you, Arch of the TaiGethen. Give me another fifty years and I will school new Il-Aryn for you. But that is all I will do. If you want to get into Ysundeneth, you’ll have to find Takaar.’

  Her eyes were brimful with bitterness. Auum held her gaze a moment longer before nodding curtly and walking away around the outside of the temple and back to the apron. He had to respect Onelle’s decision, but it was clear that her isolation here among the Ynissul had deprived her of the opportunity to heal her mental scars.

  In front of the temple, Elyss and Malaar were addressing the assembled TaiGethen. Auum counted seven cells and did not hide his disappointment at the low numbers. He joined his Tai, nodding for Malaar to continue speaking.

  ‘. . . we are certain of little but that the ClawBound will continue cleansing the rainforest, and that means more and more innocent elves will die. Auum.’

  Auum stepped forward. ‘How many other cells are on the way?’

  ‘Four from the south and eastern patrol zones. None as yet from further afield, like Tolt Anoor or Deneth Barine. That’s to be expected.’ Elyss shrugged her shoulders. ‘The call only went out at dusk yesterday.’

  Auum nodded curtly. ‘Others will come, but for now we few will have to suffice. Leave word of our destination with Onelle. Tais, we must ask Yniss to preserve our souls and protect our bodies for the greater tasks to come. We need the silence of Tual and the cover of Beeth. We need the luck of Ix and the strength of Appos. We must liberate the slaves of Ysundeneth and we must find Takaar before we get there. Cover every northern approach to the temple on the way out.

  ‘That bastard is going to help us get into Ysundeneth, human-lover or not. Tais we move.’

  Chapter 9

  Yniss blessed the blackened earth and from it sprang the glory of the forest. Beeth’s eyes were the widest in wonder and so Yniss bestowed upon Beeth the honour of being guardian of all root and branch. Beeth breathed in his new life, reached down and caressed the canopy. ‘You are long-lived,’ said Yniss. ‘But no tree is immortal. So shall it be for your children.’

  The Aryn Hiil

  The city of Katura nestled in the palm of Yniss. It was without question the most beautiful place in the rainforest. Towards the southern perimeter of the forest, from which it was three days’ run before the glory of the canopy gave way to the baking-hot plains, it was set within a spectacular landscape of cliffs, lakes, valleys and mountains.

  The elves called it the playground of Tual, and for centuries it had been a reserve where Tual’s denizens could run unchallenged. No two-legged hunters confused the chain of life and death here. No vegetation was used for food, shelter or fire. Untouched, glorious, virgin rainforest; until man came and elves were not safe even in their own temples.

  Rainforest lore said that all Tual’s creatures spilled from the palm of Yniss and so it was the right place, the only place, for the battered elven race to find sanctuary – back at the heart of life. A place where they could tend to their wounds, gather their strength and learn to live again. If anywhere could provide a balm for the soul, it was here.

  The palm of Yniss was a great horseshoe-shaped basin nestling at the base of sheer cliffs backed by tree-covered mountains. Waterfalls roared and ran over the edge of the cliffs in five places, gathering into a food-rich lake whose northern outflow was a distant tributary to the River Ix. Both lake and river were named Carenthan, like the mountain range behind them, while the falls were called Katura.

  A vast plain of grass and low trees grew on the sheltered lands bordering the lake and along the banks of the river. It was a perfect place to settle, farm and glory in life, and had it not been forbidden elves would have settled there many generations ago.

  But the palm had not just been chosen for its beauty and mythology. It was a hidden land, surrounded by mists and low cloud that periodically swept off the mountains and down the thousand-foot cliffs. To stand on the cliffs and look down on the plain was the culmination of a journey up cleft, over mountain peak and through deep forest where the panthers were still masters of the land.

  The only way to reach it was along the base of the sharp-sided valley through which the Carenthan River flowed. The river was wide and the paths alongside it were narrow and treacherous, climbing steadily towards the plain. The sides of the valley were part crag, part balsa woodland, rife with vines and ivies and largely impenetrable.

  To walk the valleys, find new paths and glimpse fresh views of the vastness of the forest, where the sun seemed to engender new life wherever it kissed the green leaves, was a joy for any who made the effort. So Methian forced his aching, ageing body up the final incline and joined Boltha at the top.

  Two old elves, one Gyalan, one Apposan, gazed across the miles of unbroken forest canopy and down on the city that nestled in the palm of Yniss. Smoke smudged the sky, and even this far distant the echoes of elven prayers were carried on the prevailing wind, along with the clang of hammer on metal and the rasp of saw against wood.

  Boltha spat on the ground.

  ‘We are a stain on perfection,’ he said. ‘A slime that is oozing its way into the bedrock and corrupting the very place that should have inspired us back to greatness. We do not deserve saving.’

  Methian tore his eyes from the ungainly sprawl of the city. Katura had become the elves’ greatest shame. Work which had begun with such energy had become lack-lustre and lazy. There was not a single building they could be proud of. And within the city limits, enmity grew by the day.

  ‘How long since you set foot in there?’

  Boltha’s watery eyes squinted back at Methian. His close sight was poor, indeed he feared it was fading altogether.

  ‘More than fifteen years. Ever since we took the Apposans to the Haliath Vale. We couldn’t bear to stay another moment. No wonder you retired.’

  ‘I didn’t retire,’ said Methian, and he could not keep the bitterness from his voice. ‘It is an enduring sadness that I was made unwelcome by the very people I was sworn to help.’

  ‘You can’t blame yourself. Edulis is a drug that removes reason, sense and any familial feeling. She dismissed you because she no longer knew you.’

  Methian sighed. ‘I could have stopped her becoming an addict. I should have seen her falling.’

  ‘Addicts are clever right up until the moment they lose their minds. She’s still alive, is she?’

  �
�Dead addicts don’t make any money. Dead governors don’t pass handy new laws. The suppliers are careful. After all, the birth rates are so low now that they have a practically stagnant population. They can’t afford to start killing them.’

  Boltha barked out a laugh. ‘We should torch the place.’

  ‘I hear you, old friend, but not everyone there has sunk so low. Some still work and there are many people still praying for redemption in Katura.’

  ‘Which god will hear them?’ Boltha’s tone was harsh. ‘It’s a cesspit, nothing more.’

  ‘And you did nothing to help when you took your thread away.’

  Methian hadn’t meant it quite the way it came out and he saw Boltha’s face pinch in sudden anger.

  ‘We did nothing that Auum didn’t do when he took the Ynissul from Katura almost before a tree was felled to build the damn place.’

  ‘He had to,’ snapped Methian. ‘He had to develop the new TaiGethen and provide adepts for the Il-Aryn, and the Ynissul birth rate is so low that every new Ynissul child is cause for a celebration as if the gods were walking the forest once more. What excuse did you have? You whose hands helped to build what you now despise.’

  ‘We relied on the Al-Arynaar. Your leader’s spectacular failure is the seed of all that Katura has become. I only removed my thread when the reports began to say innocent elves were being forced into addiction. And what riches are the harvesters and dealers making for themselves, I wonder?’

  ‘Land,’ said Methian. ‘What else? Pelyn was given the power to grant each elf land in the forest and on the plain. Much of it is in the hands of the Tuali and Beethan drug gangs now. They are strong. They own Katura.’

  Boltha raised his eyebrows. ‘Really? Has anyone told Auum?’

  ‘Auum hasn’t been here in over fifty years. No TaiGethen come here.’ Methian sighed. ‘I’m sorry. I do not mean to bait you.’

  Boltha smiled. ‘You and I will always clash, as our threads dictate. So why did you invite me on this hike with you? Not to recreate our journeys of past years, I’m sure.’