Alfheim

by Erik Schubach

  My new armor and hunting cloak shimmered when I made the proper eye movements, and it took on the same coloring of the objects around me, camouflaging me almost as well as the cloaking field of the Folkvangr Chameleon Armor that all of the Valkyrie and Valkfela wore.

  Then I slipped silently from branch to branch toward the blip in my vision, praying to the Tree of Ages that Jania was with Sam, and they were both ok. When I was about fifteen yards away, I heard the slight sound of energy sparking over and over in a repetitive beat.

  I almost fell off my branch when I came to a quick halt in surprise as I rounded a massive trunk to see a befuddling sight below me.

  Jania was sitting cross-legged on top of a half hemispherical bubble of force, one elbow on her knee, her chin on her fist, as she just kept jabbing the vibro-arrow she had stolen from me into the impenetrable shield, saying over and over, “Poke. Poke. Samantha of the Asgard, let me in. Poke. Poke.”

  I leapt, and flipped through the air to land at the base of the shield bubble as I de-cloaked and stared gape-jawed at who was inside the shield. Samantha stood in the center, a tall Dark Elf with more substantial armor and weapons than the others, was alternating between uselessly throwing itself against the shield and attacking Samantha, who just stood there passively, her nano lattice flaring more powerfully than any Valkyrie's.

  Jani saw me and called down from where she sat, “Welcome to the party, Artie. Your stabby pointy thing is useless against Sam's shield bubble. I don't know why you even gave it to me as a gift.”

  “I didn't give it to you as...” I sighed, knowing it was no use. I watched in curiosity as Sam just stood there with the trapped Elf who was in a frenzy as I reached out to find her intelligent shield was keeping us out when we could normally pass right through. “What are you doing Sammie? Drop the shield or let us in.”

  She shook her head. “No. Please, give me time. Something is not right here.” I hesitated then nodded at her, of course, one of the most intelligent people I have ever met would have seen things were not adding up on this night.

  Jani slid down the bubble and rolled then pirouetted as she reached me, and I found that I was cradling her in my arms as she kicked her feet idly, looking at the woman she had professed love to earlier. She reached out with the arrow, and with that sound of energy arching as the arrow blade bounced off, she said, “Poke.”

  I looked down at the playful Elf. “And why am I holding you?” I dropped her and she landed gracefully on the ground, then leaned into me to lay her head on my shoulder as she watched the trapped Elf attacking her girl in vain.

  She mumbled, “But, you're not holding me. I'm standing on the forest floor...” Her eyes widened, “Maybe the forest is holding us, or us standing on it is stopping the forest from floating up to join the stars. I'm hungry. Do you have any chocolate?”

  I caught Samantha grinning at that and holding back a chuckle as she kept her eyes on her detainee. Jania could always get a smile out of Samantha no matter the circumstances, and I knew that is why she acted so zany all the time. She lived for Sam's smile.

  Then she knocked on the shield. “Samantha, please let me in.”

  Sam shook her head. “No, you'll kill him.”

  Jani nodded. “Well, yeah... he is trying to kill you. And I'm sort of adverse to that since I'm overly fond of you not being killed, it makes for more lively parties.”

  And I just about leapt out of my own skin and got the sense that my Verr were caught unaware too as Nerthus spoke from right behind us. “Child, that thing will kill you if given the chance. Let us dispatch it.”

  I sputtered out, “All Mother? You followed me? How did you get out of the farmhouse?”

  She cocked an eyebrow at me like I had said something foolish. “I did not follow you, I went out in search of your charge and my daughter too. I will have no other do what I will not. We just coincidentally located them at the same time. I left through the escape tunnels built under every farmhouse, in case of Dökkálfar attack when the Heroes of the Night are patrolling elsewhere.”

  Jania just gave a half-assed salute of acknowledgment. “Mother.”

  The Queen sighed and exhaled as she shook her head at her daughter's antics, then she raised her pike and asked Sam again, “Child?”

  Samantha shook her head and said, “Not until I have a talk with him.”

  Nerthus snapped, “They are savages without language, you cannot.”

  Sam shrugged. “Someone has to try. Most of those I have seen tonight do not look like warriors, and this one seems to be the most decorated of the lot as he commanded from the shadows here. So he may know more about why they attack the Ljósálfar every night.”

  The Queen of the Elves scanned the night, making me wonder if they had superior eyesight to Olympians and Asgard because the dark didn't seem to hamper her. “We are out in the open like this, without backup. Easy prey for an ambush.”

  Jani actually smirked and said as she tried to hide the pride in her tone, “She Who Lived is not prey.”

  Her mother rolled her eyes and gave her daughter a crooked grin. “Fine, but you must agree to let us in or the Dökkálfar out if we are discovered. I will not see any die for this folly.”

  Sam nodded once in defiance, and said, “Now please, calm down and lower your weapons and let me work.” That was the first time I ever saw Samantha taking charge, she was always so timid, and I liked it. It was the tone of a future leader if I ever heard one.

  Nerthus lowered her pike, and Jania looked down at the arrow in her hand. She stabbed it at the shield one last time, “Poke.” Then she shook her head at me like it was my fault the arrow didn't penetrate the bubble, and she slipped it into her own quiver.

  Then Samantha looked at us as what looked to be a rough metal dagger deflected off of her lattice. “Sit everyone, show you are no threat.”

  We all looked at each other, and I shrugged and sat, the other women followed, and I smiled when they sat back to back with me and each other so we could all keep an eye out for ambushes.

  Then Samantha held her hands out palm outward to the Dark Elf who hesitated, then she sat down cross-legged and said, “Come now, let's just sit and talk. Nobody is going to harm you.”

  The Dökkálfar went into another frenzy, throwing itself at the shield, again and again, slashing at it with its weapon. I wondered if they were starting to enter their own bronze age as it was the first metal weapon I have seen on the Dark Elves.

  He tried attacking Samantha again to no avail, and it roared out in a primal way, the whole time clicking and making structured sounds. I was more and more convinced it was a language. Asgard nanites would translate if they had some context, and the universal translators in our wrist consoles had even more languages to cross-reference than the nanites had.

  The Dark Elf was exhausting himself quickly, as he stopped to pant, his hands on his knees. Sam patted the forest floor in front of her, entreating him to sit with her eyes. She looked just as innocent and non-threatening as I knew her to truly be.

  The man hissed and clicked at her, and she sat impassively, patting the ground. He looked around at us, where we all sat where he wished to be... outside the shield that held him captive. Then he stalked around her, ending up back in front of her as he swayed like an animal looking for a weakness to exploit, as he seemed to be assessing her.

  Then he hesitantly sat in front of her, just out of arm's reach, and studied her. I could see intelligence in his piercing golden hued eyes that seemed to glitter in the moonlight. She smiled sweetly at him then said, “Well met, I'd really like to learn to communicate with you. Shall we begin?”

  Then we all just watched as Samantha patiently worked with the man, learning how they could understand each other first non verbally then started building a vocabulary that would give the translators what they needed to work with to start building a library that would allow verbal communications. We were all awestruck as she sat the
re for hours, building a lexicon with a race the Ljósálfar thought too primitive for structured language.

  It started small at first. As she would hold up objects and name them, like a leaf, then she would hand it to the Elf and after she repeated the word leaf many times holding up another, he made a gurgle click. When he repeated the same sound after she said leaf again, she moved onto something else, like her hand, or fingers. Again and again, this occurred. Then she started adding simple sentence structure.

  Placing her hand on her chest with a leaf, “My leaf.” Then she held it out for him to take. “Your leaf.”

  And as morning approached we were all staring wide-eyed as the universal translators were providing broken sentences from the Dökkálfar and providing his native tongue back as Samantha spoke. The man looked at her in awe as he started talking enthusiastically about gods and magic. And before long they were having a real conversation. I knew the more he spoke the faster the translators would adapt now that it had inflection and context for the language.

  Off in the distance, a gong sounded, the man leapt to his feet and hissed and said, “I must flee the light of the Gods of Fire Sky. The day is not for the Lortax, I will be punished for daring to be out in the light.”

  Lortax? Was that what they called themselves?

  The Queen whispered, breaking out of her trance, “Sunrise comes, fifteen minutes away. The Dökkálfar cannot bear the sunlight, it burns their skin and blinds them. They are creatures of the night.”

  Samantha held a hand out to him. “I will not allow... the light of the Gods of Fire Sky to harm you. Please, sit, I wish to speak with you now that we are able.” As she spoke, the amplitude of the shield changed and it darkened... eighty percent according to the information my Verr was sharing with me.

  His eyes widened and he hit the ground, laid out with his head down in supplication, hands outstretched across the ground toward her. “You are one of the Gods! Have the Lorkálfar displeased you? We Dökkálfar failed in keeping the pale demons from your gardens.”

  I noted how the translator slowly changed Lortax to Dökkálfar, so it truly was their race name. And Samantha looked appalled as she reached a hand out to place on his arm. “We are no gods. Please, I wish to ask you some questions if I may.” Then she added, “What is your name? Mine is Samantha.”

  He looked up slowly as if he expected to be struck down at any moment, and when he was not, he timidly sat again in front of her. “Koar.”

  She beamed at him. “Well met, Koar. It truly is a pleasure to speak with you finally.”

  We heard many feet running through the forest our way, shouts of fear speaking of the approach of the Fire Sky accompanied them. I said, “Umm... Sammie, I don't mean to interrupt, but we have incoming. Either let us in or things might get a bit nasty out here.”

  Just then, a wave of Dökkálfar came running toward the east. Two hissed when they saw us and charged. One calling out, “They have Leader! Attack before Fire Sky takes him!”

  Kroth. This was going to get messy.

  But Koar roared out, “Leave them be! Get our people to safety.” When the men hesitated and a few others pulled their weapons to advance, he growled, “Who is Leader? I am Leader. Get our people to safety, now!” They hesitated again, then hissed and started ushering their people past us, their weapons pointed our way.

  They were rushing back to their tunnels and caves before the sun came up? The light from the sun sounded as if it were anathema to them.

  Koar asked as the rest of the Dökkálfar passed by us in their retreat from the day, “The Giant Evil Walker?”

  The men growled out in fear, “It still lives. May the Gods of the Fire Sky preserve us all.”

  As we watched the last of them disappear to the east, Koar pleaded with us, “You must save yourselves, the Giant Evil Walkers are more deadly than even these pale demons you associate with.” He pointed at the Queen and Jania.

  While Nerthus narrowed her eye at the man, Jania chirped out, “I bet I'm the best dressed pale demon you've ever seen.”

  The Dark Elf cocked his head in confusion then asked Samantha quietly, “It speaks? Is that one right in the head?”

  Sam giggled and said, “Humor is just her way of dealing with tense situations. She's my... well my something.”

  Koar cocked his head at her, likely wondering if whatever was allowing them to speak together was working correctly.

  Sam waved that off and then looked over at Nerthus. “If I let you in, do you promise no violence. I have questions for both leaders as to why this war between your peoples persists. If you try to attack him, I will eject you. Understood?”

  The Queen of the Elves stood, cocking her head and bringing her pike up to run the blade along the shield, watching the energy crackle along the blade and nodded, “Open your infernal magic sphere then.”

  Then the Queen made a startled gleeping sound as Jania pushed her from behind. Nerthus winced just before she passed through the shield like it wasn't there, her hands up in front of her defensively, her pike falling to the ground as the shield stopped it from passing through. She looked back to see Jani just grinning like a loon at her. She was obviously enjoying her knowledge of Asgard tech.

  The Dökkálfar stood and the two glared at each other, circling as they sized each other up. Koar asked, “You lead the pale demons?”

  Samantha snapped like she was dealing with misbehaving children. “Both of you sit down. The faster we do this, the faster you can go your separate ways... in peace.”

  They looked at each other, and the two slowly sat, their eyes boring into the one they saw as the enemy. Then Koar hissed when Samantha reached out and grabbed Koar's blade where it sat beside him and she flung it out of the shield.

  She said as she glared at them, daring them to speak, “Good, now we can begin.”

  Chapter 11 – Gods of Fire Sky

  I just sat there transfixed as the gentlest of the Three Embers spoke to the leaders of both the Light and Dark Elves of Alfheim.

  She started with the introductions. “Koar, you are Leader of the Dökkálfar of Alfheim?”

  He nodded and said as he examined Nerthus, “For those of us living in the caverns near this God Tree, yes. There are others, by the gardens of the Fire Sky Gods near the other God Trees.”

  God Trees had to be the City Trees the Light Elves built their settlements in and around, so these gardens were the farms that were raided?

  Samantha just smiled at him and nodded then turned and said, “And this is Queen Nerthus, All Mother of the Ljósálfar of Alfheim, She Who Lived.”

  The man showed his teeth, his canines are longer than any of the other species I knew, even the Light Elves who he looked so much like. There were just small physical differences, like that and their amazing light absorbing skin, and their ears being just a little longer and pointier. But you could see they were two branches of the same evolutionary tree.

  I hadn't realized that bluish black of his skin actually was absorbing light until I thought it, and then I had to blink as my vision started cycling through all the light wavelengths until I saw in the ultraviolet frequency that there was actually no pigment differential between the two elves, his skin actually was absorbing other wavelengths. And the data streaming beside him from my Verr had me blinking in surprise.

  Just as absorbing light seemed to darken his pigmentation, according to what I read, their skin would convert heat into infrared light. Zeus's Balls, they produced their own organic luminescence! That would be an ideal evolutionary adaptation for a race of subterranean underground dwellers to emanate their own light. Amazing.

  Nerthus was not impressed by his aggressive display as she hissed at him and showed her own teeth with smaller, but no less pointed canines. He asked as he looked at her teeth just as I was doing, “You lead the Pale Demons who invade the gardens of the Fire Sky Gods, which we are sworn to protect?”

  She said in a fros
ty tone full of malice, “It is you who are the demons, killing indiscriminately. My people, my friends.”

  He stood and lunged and she did the same. By the Tree of Ages, they were going to tear each other apart. But they both slammed into an invisible wall between them, and it flared with power knocking both back. I saw Sam's pinky twitch and the wall fell as they both rubbed their faces where they had collided. Red blood was evident on each of their faces.

  Samantha said as if she were speaking with children... and in a way, they were to her as she was thousands of years older than both of them, “If you will not be civil, then I will speak with each of you separately. Just look at you, you both bleed red, the same blood, cousins of the same race.” They hesitated and wiped the blood onto their hands and looked down at it.

  With a motion of her hand, she bid them sit again. They sat farther apart this time as Sammie said, “Koar, I'd like to ask more of the gardens of these Fire Sky Gods and the oath you are sworn to in a bit, but right now, I'm more interested why your people seemed to go after the tall man from our group tonight and ignored all else.”

  Good, she was as observant and intelligent as I believed her to be. I had suspicions about what he might say and she obviously did too. But Nerthus and Jania needed to hear it from Koar.

  He hissed and showed his little mini fangs again at the mention of Intark. “The Giant Evil Walkers have returned. We knew it would happen one day, we have had too many generations of the Peace Days. If they were ever to return, it would mean the end of the Dökkálfar, as we had almost been wiped out the first time and there are so few of us now.”

  Sam nodded, deep in thought. “The Giant Evil Walkers, the Ragnarok who once occupied your world and enslaved the Ljósálfar?” He looked confused and she stood and held her hand as high as she could, “Like the man who was with us? His people?”

  He nodded, making a sour face, fear in his eyes. “Yes. They cannot be allowed to return or all is lost.”

  “That is what the horns were for? To call your people to defend Alfheim in case these Giant Evil Walkers returned?”