by Kevin Hearne
With every step, he considered the swayback in the center of each stone stair and thought about the Sn’archivist treading this path every day for years as he walked to the beach and thought about how great it would be if a younger elf with a plucky spirit and excellent penmanship landed and offered up his services, releasing the older elf to a life of repose and light fishing.
As he stood before the wooden door, his fingers soft upon the knocker, which had gone verdigris with age, Alobartalus took a deep breath.
“Here we go,” he said.
Knock knock knock.
The island seemed to go quiet around him; even the cackling of the seagulls muted as the knocking echoed over the rocks.
For the longest time, nothing happened. And then, something did.
“That was a really swell knock,” said a man’s earnest baritone voice. “I bet you have truly excellent knuckles!”
Alobartalus felt a flutter of pleasure; to think—the Sn’archivist was flattering him before they’d even met face-to-face!
“Many thanks for your kind words, great sir,” Alobartalus said, trying to match the rich, rounded voice, which sounded like honey mead given tone. “I have long wished to meet you and speak with you regarding your great work.”
“Wow, what a speech! Those vocal chords are top-notch. And what a resplendent vocabulary!”
Alobartalus had never felt so good about himself in all his life. He was smiling so hard his face felt like it was going to split open, and his heart was yammering like a hummingbird, and he just wanted to hug someone.
“Might I come in and greet you as friends?” he ventured.
“What a super question!”
Inside, someone fiddled with multiple locks, grumbling a bit, and Alobartalus prepared himself to meet the Sn’archdruid or one of his Sn’acolytes. He grinned warmly so that his future servants might recognize that he would be a benevolent master. But when the door finally swung inward, he was surprised to see a very short figure, bent over double with a hunched back and clothed in what looked like an old tapestry—possibly a Pickleangelo, but so stained with oatmeal and mustard and cracker crumbs and dandruff that he could barely see the unicorns disemboweling some hateful earl woven into the fabric. A heavy hood hid the man’s face.
“Hey, you look like a real person!” the man said.
Alobartalus faltered somewhat; surely the sweetly booming voice couldn’t be coming from this aged servant. He looked around the antechamber but didn’t spot the ethereal, golden-robed elf he sought—although he did see shelves and shelves filled with the tomes he’d so longed to peruse. There must’ve been thousands of the leather-bound books, spines curling around and around the inside of the tower, their golden inscriptions glimmering but unreadable in the darkness.
“Boy oh boy, are your eyes ever shiny!” the voice added.
“Thank you?” Alobartalus ventured.
“That’s enough, Reginald,” the old man said, pulling back his hood to reveal a dry, papery face, wrinkled ears with tufts of hair on their points, and weary eyes. His voice sounded like a spider’s death throes, wheezing and dusty.
“What a tremendously phenomenal command! You really know how to tell a guy to shut his piehole!”
Seeking out the baritone voice, Alobartalus was confused to discover a gnomeric construct clinging to the wall. It was shaped like a gecko, with round glass eyes and exquisitely painted scales.
“Is that gecko talking?” Alobartalus asked, pointing at the robotic lizard.
“Man oh man, are you ever adept at pointing! Wowee, what an index finger! Just the right mixture of bony and fleshy—I’d even call it supple!”
The old man grunted and sneered at the golden construct. “His name is Reginald, and he’s my affirmation gecko.”
“Holy moly, that introduction was both correct and succinct!” the gecko enthused.
“And…he was the one talking to me through the door?”
The old man’s rheumy eyes swiveled to Alobartalus. “Yes, for he is faster than I.”
Alobartalus tried to hide his disappointment regarding the enthusiasm of those earlier compliments. He still had to convince someone to take him to the Sn’archivist.
“Well, he seems a very pleasant sort,” he admitted, his grin returning. “Now, might I meet your master, the Sn’archivist? For I am—”
“No, I am.”
“You are?”
“Yes.”
Alobartalus shook his head. “You are what?”
“I am he.”
“Whom?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, gosh, what a spectacularly nonsensical conversation!” Reginald gushed. “Just a festival of fragments, a concatenation of quizzical queries, a real humdinger of a confusing interaction!”
The old man put a hand on Alobartalus’s shoulder for balance, reached down, and removed his own house slipper, which he threw at the gecko. He missed, of course, and the gecko didn’t even move as the slipper slapped to the floor.
“Whoa dang, that was the best bad throw I’ve ever seen! Heck of a windup!”
The old man sighed.
“Come along,” he said. “It will be easier to show you.”
Leaving his slipper on the floor, the old man began to climb the steps. Normally, Alobartalus would frown at the phrase began to, but with someone as old and frail as his host, the climb definitely took quite some time to begin. Each step seemed to take an hour as the old man hauled one foot up, grunted, and then yanked up the other with his clawed, arthritic hands. Alobartalus stayed close behind him, ready to catch him should he fall, and Reginald the Affirmation Gecko trailed them, skittering along the wall and babbling things like “Gee, you can really move that foot!” and “Congratulations on your really thick calluses, and can I get a whoop-whoop! for that kingly bunion?”
By the time they reached the top of the stairs, Alobartalus was certain that this must be one of the holy tasks he’d expected. Yes, the Sn’archivist must be testing him. With each circle of the staircase, he passed dozens of books he longed to touch while enduring the old man’s seeping stench and the gecko’s now truly annoying affirmations. But Alobartalus knew a test when he faced one, yes, he did, so he just smiled and kept on, hoping to show his worthiness through grit and patience. As they edged closer and closer to the glowing light at the top of the tower, he felt sure his idol would be waiting there with open arms and possibly a glass of water, because even for a seaman, Alobartalus was feeling mighty dried out.
“Here we are,” the old man said, wobbling into the upper room with a sigh of satisfaction.
“Good call!” Reginald boomed. “That’s exactly where we are!”
Alobartalus was the last to step onto the top floor, and it was indeed glowing. But not with fairy lanterns or his idol’s halo. No, it was some sort of slimy algae spread upon the walls, scrawled in what looked like words that he couldn’t quite make out. It must be another test, another clue.
“Does that say…” Alobartalus stepped closer. “Does that say elf butts?”
“Hot dog, we have someone literate!” Reginald said. “So, so good at stringing together letters to make syllables!”
“But there’s more,” the old man said. “Tell me, boy. What do you think of this?”
The old man selected a tome from the shelf and lovingly placed it into Alobartalus’s hands, and Alobartalus smiled and felt a deep sense of contentment. This was a holy book from the tower of the Sn’archivist! First he marveled at the weight of the thing, then sniffed the supple binding and ran a finger over the fine gold inlays. Next he cracked the cover and fingered the crisp, creamy paper. Last, and with great reverence, Alobartalus turned the first page.
What he saw written there transformed him.
“Elf butts,” he read aloud, and he felt his delighted smil
e melt away into a frown. “It only says elf butts,” he muttered. He turned to the next page. “Over and over again. Page after page. Nothing but elf butts.”
The old man finally smiled and nodded, his hands clasped. “Just so, my young elf. Just so.”
Sliding past the old man, Alobartalus dropped the tome on the floor and plucked up another at random. This one, too, was filled with only those two simple words: elf butts. Sometimes there was an exclamation point, to shake things up. But not a single verb.
Pages and pages filled with those words: elf butts.
In perfect handwriting, in beautiful, luscious burgundy ink, or sometimes other colors like cerulean blue or deep purple, the same words again and again: elf butts.
“But what does this mean?” he asked, tears in his eyes.
“Ah. You seek enlightenment.”
“Well, yeah. An explanation, at least.”
The old man moved in a small cloud of his own dust and dandruff to a table where two volumes were prominently displayed. One looked significantly older than the other and he picked it up, offering it to his guest. “This is the oldest book of my tenure. You will see that in form and structure and, indeed, vocabulary, it is markedly different from the others.”
Alobartalus practically snatched it from the old man’s hands and flipped to the first page.
Elf butts, it said, and he almost tossed it away, but after that, the text changed.
Toight elf butts. Finely sculpted elf butts. Freshly grown organic elf butts. Unbelievably foine secret agent elf butts.
“You see?” the old man said. “Each sentence is one word longer than the previous one. The adjectives never repeat and the sentences expand until an entire page is filled with one long, glorious paean to the exquisite buttocks of an elf. Then they decrease again until we are back to just the two words. I believe it is a masterpiece. The definitive work on the subject.”
“But…why?” Alobartalus nearly sobbed.
“I don’t have all the answers,” the old man grumbled in that really annoying voice old people use when they’ve forgotten what they’re talking about but want to seem wise. “I can’t explain the inscrutable. It is only mine to listen and write down what I hear. I am a conduit, you see. A conduit for the mind of Pellanus. And though the great god Pellanus has two faces, he and she have a singular mind. A one-track mind, in fact. They’ve been thinking about elf butts for most of my life.”
Alobartalus dropped that tome on top of the other one with a loud thump that echoed all throughout the tower and made the gecko squawk, “Boy, can you ever take advantage of gravity and silence, kiddo!”
“Are you telling me,” Alobartalus said, low and deadly, “that you are the Sn’archivist? And this is your Sn’archive?”
Without waiting for an answer, he stalked away toward the shelves and picked out another random tome. He opened it. More elf butts.
And another book. Yet more elf butts.
The old man didn’t move to stop him. He didn’t say a word. He simply smiled beatifically, as if watching a ritual unfold.
“Are you seriously telling me that the Sn’archives are nothing but elf butts and that you’re just a crazy old dude?”
“What an amazing grasp of the obvious!” Reginald said. “Just, gosh!”
“Sometimes Pellanus works in mysterious ways,” the old man said, nodding sagely.
“This isn’t mysterious! This is stupid!”
“Have you really thought about elf butts, though? There’s a lot to them. A lot to unpack inside.”
“What? No! Don’t tell me that! I own an elf butt! I don’t want it to be packed or unpacked, classified or codified, idolized or rhapsodized, or even touched without explicit consent, you understand?”
Alobartalus had left a trail of tumbled tomes in his wake, the books tossed higgledy-piggledy on the ground, their pages bent and splayed. He no longer considered them holy. This had to be a joke. Or maybe the final test? A test that he was swiftly failing? He had to keep trying. Whoever this old joker was, the true Sn’archivist would be watching them closely.
Alobartalus whirled back to the table where the two books had been displayed: The second one looked new, and he pointed at it.
“Is that book different too?”
The old man’s eyes crinkled with pleasure. “It is! An excellent deduction. Tell him, Reginald.”
The affirmation gecko spun in a circle on the wall, excited beyond measure. “Gadzooks, friend! That is a darned impressive melon you have on your shoulders! You’ve got genius-grade brainmeats hanging out in your skull! When life gives you lemons, you make fancy cocktails and throw those lemons at squirrels!”
“Is it about…” Alobartalus made a whirling gesture with his hand, unable to bring himself to say it. “You know.”
“It is not! It is an entirely different subject. I just finished it yesterday, and I was told by Pellanus to show it to the first person who visited me afterward, and that’s you. See for yourself.”
Mistrustful, wary of being burned again, Alobartalus edged toward the book. He picked it up, closed his eyes, took in a deep breath and exhaled before opening it and turning to the first page. He opened his eyes and read. Much to his surprise, it didn’t say elf butts.
It said otter balls.
He dropped the book, shook his head, and started down the stairs.
“What a powerful, climactic ending!” Reginald enthused. “With that kind of professional-grade emoting, you could be an actor!”
“But my child,” the old man called, his voice a lonely quaver. “Did you not wish to take up my pen and learn the secrets of these Sn’archives? Is it not your calling to be the next Sn’archivist?”
“Not anymore.”
“But I have been waiting! Pellanus told me that one day, some expert seaman would come here and I would finally know relief!”
Alobartalus paused on the stairs, one hand on yet another tome chock full of elf butts.
“Well, it looks like all Pellanus actually says is elf butts and otter balls.”
The old man’s face appeared, peering down, desperate and frantic.
“Yes! Yes! That’s it! Those are the holy words! Directly from the lips of Pellanus! Those are the words that will save you in your most trying moment! Those are the words you were meant to hear! Don’t you see? You are destined for greatness!”
Alobartalus walked and then jogged down the stairs, tears coursing down his unelfly face, wanting nothing more than to get out of the tower, off the Sn’archipelago, and away from the island forever. The Sn’archivist was a lie. Every dream of knowledge and winning the admiration of the Morningwood had disintegrated. He would never be seen as elfly, never earn the king’s pride as the scion of the Sn’archivist, never see joy in his mother’s eyes as he proved he was a true son of doubly elven parentage. It didn’t even matter who or what his father was. He was the same thing as the old fool upstairs: an outright failure of an elf. His tears didn’t even shimmer.
As he slammed the door and ran down the stone stairs, he could hear the gecko within shout, “Bro, that was a sincerely tragic flounce, and that exit was incredibly moving. You sure know how to make an old man cry!”
But Alobartalus was done with this place.
He was done with elves. Done with magic. Done with dreams.
Back on the ship, he nearly ran into Morgan, who was holding a slender bow of Morningwood, oiling it proudly.
“Alobartalus, are you okay? Did you find the Sn’archivist?” she asked.
He looked at her, his heart breaking. “No, and yes,” he said.
“So you’re not staying here?”
Standing not quite tall and wiping away his tears, he said, “No, I’m not. I’m going to help you save the otters. And from now on, you can call me Al.”
Tempest was glad t
o know Al would be joining them for the journey to Bustardo instead of staying behind with the Sn’archivist. For all that Captain Luc was a fair and generous host and teacher, and for all that the other sailors were friendly and understanding of her tremendous failure in the realm of knot tying, there was a clear delineation between the sailors paying for their passage through work and the salty dogs Tempest would consider “lifers.” Most of the latter were missing a limb or an eye, loved nothing so much as grog and the sea, and favored striped shirts and pants that always seemed to end in ragged hems halfway up their calves. She’d recently realized that Morgan was toying with the idea of becoming a lifer too. Tempest even caught her saying “Yarrrr!” once, and although she assured Tempest that she was merely trying to fit in, Tempest knew Morgan wouldn’t be making the effort to swallow all those Rs if she didn’t want to stick with it.
But Al was good company, quite unlike all the boisterous elves who’d come to stay at Tommywood with Tommy Bombastic. Quiet, thoughtful, respectful, and he hadn’t put a whoopee cushion under anyone yet. And the otters loved him, which was quickly becoming important on the ship. It was clear within hours that the wriggling things could escape the hold easily, and so in the coming days it fell to the newest crew members to wrangle the oily critters while the lifers clambered up into the nets, muttering about the stench of fish and the harm an excited otter could do to a nicely turned peg leg.
“Almost there,” Morgan said several days later, appearing at the rail beside Tempest to watch a long, rocky island emerge from the mist ahead of the ship.
The otters had taken one look at the Sn’archivist’s island and refused to set paw on the gangplank; it wasn’t the right sort of place for otters, apparently. Not enough clams, perhaps, or maybe they could smell the variety of skins drying outside the leather tannery in the market. On the advice of the Sn’archdruid, The Puffy Peach had kept her wriggling cargo and set course for Otter Island, which had to be a better fit, judging by the name. After that, they would cross the Urchin Sea to get to the mainland, being almost directly across from the first and biggest of the Seven Toes. For the time being, Morgan’s pet otter—or, more accurately, the otter that had adopted her almost against her will, now named Otto—remained wound around her neck like a fur stole.