Project Elfhome

by Wen Spencer

  “Can I have a large fries with cheese?” The menu board proclaimed them as homegrown potatoes, which meant they most likely came from one of the South Hills farms. She might have problems with the grease if she just ate fries. She scanned for a safer option and spotted a turkey sandwich listed at the bottom. Until a few weeks ago, there were large flocks of the wild Earth birds everywhere, flourishing in the abandoned backyards all over the city. By the end of winter, though, they might be extinct on Elfhome. “Can I have a turkey sandwich with lettuce, tomato, onion, and pickles? And a ginger ale.”

  “Turkey hoagie with the works. Large fry…” The girl trailed off as she glanced up and then behind Olivia. “Oh crap.”

  Olivia ignored the curse and the temptation to turn around. Nothing she could do. She pushed a crumpled twenty across the corner. She tried not to think of what she had done to make the money. Shame, however, burned hot on her cheeks.

  The girl continued to stare until Olivia waved a hand in front of the girl’s wide eyes. “Oh! Yes!” She made change, counting out bills and coins. Halfway through, the girl paused and frowned at Olivia. “You’re not Princess Tinker.”

  “No, I’m not,” Olivia said.

  The girl continued to look at Olivia, obviously expecting a name. Olivia had abandoned her human name when she fled Kansas. For weeks she’d been introducing herself only as “Red.” (Her hair was more auburn than carroty-red; besides, the nickname of “Ginger” pissed her off.)

  What was the name that Prince True Flame had given her? Somehow he’d known that “Olivia” was Latin for “Olive Tree” and then twisted it slightly. “I’m Olive Branch Above Stone.”

  “Stone?” The girl’s frown deepened. Her fingernails and lip polish were Wind Clan blue and she was wearing a Team Tinker T-shirt. Her glance flicked to over Olivia’s shoulder. “Eeeewww.”

  Olivia clenched her hand tight on her change. It would be one thing if the girl was simply a bigot, but her reaction was much more selective than blind prejudice. Obviously elves were fine as long as they were pretty. Turn the other cheek…with my fist. But Olivia resisted the urge. She had to think about “them.”

  “Is something wrong?” a deep male voice said in Elvish.

  Olivia sighed and turned around. So much for ignoring “them.”

  Elves were impossibly tall, broad shouldered, and handsome even to the human eye. The holy caste of sekasha was no exception. The elf warriors added in “heavily armed” and “extremely dangerous” to that description. Considered above the law, the sekasha could and would kill anyone that pissed them off. In the last few weeks, they’d mowed down oni soldiers and spies, suspected human collaborators, a Pittsburgh police officer, and one of their own lords. Advice on the street was to stay as far as possible from the sekasha.

  Which was impossible when five of them were intent on following Olivia around.

  The ones quickly clearing out the hot dog shop were Wyverns; sekasha from the Fire Clan and part of the royal troops that came to Pittsburgh with Prince True Flame. They looked like identical quintuplets to her, all red haired and stunningly green eyed, and exactly a foot taller than her. Besides the scale armor vest and the protective spells tattooed down their arms (both in Fire Clan red), their caste was identified by their long swords said to be magically sharp and able to cut through anything. (Nothing was said about the rifles and multitude of knives that they also carried.)

  She wasn’t sure which of the Wyverns had spoken. She could barely tell them apart. Unsure, she fixed her gaze on the one that seemed to be the leader of the five. At least, he was the only one that addressed her directly all night.

  “It’s been a hard day and I’m easily upset.” She kept to the truth since elves thought lying was the ultimate sin. “It’s in the middle of the night, in a war zone, I no longer have a house to go back to, and I’m going to…” She had no idea how to say vomit in Elvish. “Hurl.”

  “Hurl?” the elf repeated the English word.

  “Saemata.” The counter girl murmured. “Forgiveness!” she squeaked when both Olivia and the holy warrior glanced hard at her. “I—I—I couldn’t help but overhear.”

  “You’re ill?” the elf asked Olivia.

  “I’m pregnant!” she snapped. “And my stomach is empty. I need to eat something.”

  “Holy shit!” the girl breathed. Another hard look made her tear off the order and slap it down in front of the nearest cook.

  “And this place serves food?” The Wyvern’s tone suggested that he doubted that was the case. He eyed the sizzling basket of French fries cooking in hot oil.

  “Yes,” Olivia growled and turned back to the counter. “Can I have my ginger ale now?”

  “Oh, sure, here.” The girl pulled a cold bottle from the standing cooler and popped off the metal lid. A tiny cloud rose out of the top of the chilled bottle like an escaping genie.

  Careful what you wish for. Olivia had wanted safety for her unborn child; she’d gotten a twenty-four hour guard of the scariest elves on the planet. The damnable thing was that they weren’t really guarding her. They might even consider it convenient if she was killed.

  She realized that only the leader of the Wyverns was focused on her. The other four were paying strict attention to their true charge, Forest Moss, while maintaining the most distance that the small restaurant allowed. He was rocking in place, muttering darkly, while braiding and unbraiding a handful of his pure white hair. The rest of his long hair flowed loose as spun silk over his shoulders and down his back to past his hips. It covered his rich clothes and beautiful good eye, leaving only the empty socket of his left eye, sewn shut with a starburst of scars radiating out from it, visible.

  Her heart ached at the sight. He wasn’t old enough to deserve white hair; at least in elf years. He’d been betrayed and tortured and then abandoned to total isolation for hundreds of years. A weaker person would have killed themselves. Forest Moss had simply gone slightly but not completely mad. At least, not until this week. The war and the royal troops seemed to be bent on destroying what little sanity he had left.

  “Hey,” she reached out and caught his hands. “Let me.” She gathered up the marvelously silky stuff and tied it into a ponytail with a blue bandana from her purse. He leaned down as she worked and rested his forehead against her shoulder. “There, there. Everything will be fine.”

  He took a deep breath and whispered, “My domi.”

  “Yes, yours.” She felt like she was lying as she offered what little comfort she could. If she understood the conversation between Prince True Flame and the Wyverns earlier that evening, though, their union was temporary. Somehow they needed to find a way to make it permanent. He needed her as much as she needed him. Maybe more.

  But first, food, and then someplace to live.

  * * *

  Not surprisingly, their food order was given top priority. Within minutes the counter girl handed over a small mountain of French fries and a torpedo-shaped turkey sandwich that she called a hoagie.

  Olivia and Forest Moss took over a hastily vacated booth. The Wyverns remained standing, watching for attack.

  Her first bite explained why the diner was packed so late at night. The fries were amazing: hot, crispy goodness with a cheese sauce that tasted like food of the gods. Knowing that her tummy would make her regret pigging out on them, Olivia switched to the turkey hoagie. Thankfully it was its own bundle of awesome: crusty fresh bun, wonderful smoked turkey breast sliced thick, and sweet homemade pickle chips. The nausea passed and Olivia was able to consider the future with slightly clearer mind.

  Pittsburgh had a population of something like two million people living in the metropolitan region at the turn of the century. It now had less than a hundred thousand. Vast sections of the city were standing empty. Finding a place to live was at once easy and very difficult. Some areas were safer than others, thus more densely populated. She had been on the fringe of South Side, which had the river to protect the neighborhood from
saurus and wargs. South of that, people clustered close to the light-rail system with only adventurous types setting up farms beyond. The commute from the South Side, however, required two bus rides, one to downtown and a second up Forbes Avenue to Oakland. True Flame made it clear that the elves needed Forest Moss nearby and fully functional.

  Oakland would be a better place for their new home. It would put them near to the royal troop encampment and the Wind Clan enclaves. The triangular neighborhood, however, was another popular place for humans to live. The Monongahela and the Allegheny Rivers protected two of its three flanks from dangerous animals. The Wind Clan enclaves at the Rim created a barrier along its third. At the heart of this zone sat the third largest employer, the University of Pittsburgh. Unlike the rest of the city, Oakland had very few empty buildings.

  Since illegally entering Pittsburgh, Olivia had only been in the neighborhood three times. The first time was a full day of looking unsuccessfully for a place to squat. The second was a few days ago, seeking out Forest Moss, sight unseen, to propose to him. The last was now. She knew only the three main streets: Forbes Avenue that the buses came up, Fifth Avenue that the buses went down, and the Rim that bisected them both. She didn’t want to go wandering around in the middle of the night in a strange part of town, looking for something that might not exist.

  Forest Moss was watching her as if his life depended on her. And perhaps it did. At least, his sanity seemed to.

  She realized with a flash of guilt that she forgot to ask him if he was hungry. He skipped their last meal because there hadn’t been enough for two. She pushed the mountain of french fries toward him. “Eat some while they’re hot.”

  She had to show him how to pick them up with his fingers to eat them. Did elves not do finger food? She had no idea what was normal table etiquette for elves. Did they eat with forks and spoons? Chopsticks? Sporks? Surely elves weren’t so lazy as to make one utensil do the work of two.

  There was so much she didn’t know about elves. She had only taken Elvish through online homeschooling as an act of rebellion. All ten of her stepbrothers and her four stepsisters were learning Spanish, a practical second language when Kansas was just a few hundred miles removed from Mexico. Unlike the other whores on Liberty Avenue, she had no obsession with elves.

  It was the distance of Elfhome to Kansas that lured her to Pittsburgh. She thought that she would only be totally free if she could hide on another world. All she had managed to do was trade one set of problems for another.

  To be fair, things had gone well at first. She found a good solid home in a safe neighborhood. She had a job at a bakery. She was starting to make friends. It had seemed like she would be fine.

  Then the war started and her life went down in flames.

  Currently she had the clothes on her back, a ten-pound bag of keva beans, and a purse full of elf gold bullion.

  Forest Moss reached out his hand and took hers.

  And one half-mad elf lord with a very scary personal guard.

  She was exhausted. The Wyverns had dragged them out of their bed to go talk with Prince True Flame. It would be hours until dawn. She just wanted to go to sleep and deal with everything in the morning.

  The elves, however, had made no suggestions as to where she could find shelter.

  She collected the empty paper french-fry boat, the paper wrapper from her sandwich, and the greasy napkins onto the plastic tray.

  The Wyvern leader, however, was standing between her and the trash can.

  “What is your name?” Her Elvish wasn’t up to knowing how to politely ask someone to move out of the way.

  “Forgiveness,” he bowed slightly. “I’d forgotten that you do not know our ways. I’m Glaive Smites the Sun.”

  “I need to put this stuff into the bin behind you.” Olivia refrained from jabbing him in the stomach with the tray. That never ended well with her stepbrothers; usually she would have to then pick everything off the floor. Their justification was that women were supposed to be meek and mild and kept in their place.

  Glaive stepped aside. He watched with interest as she tilted the tray to send the paper items into the bin. It was possible that he’d never seen paper napkins and plates before. They were objects of her “sinful” youth when she’d lived with her father, wore halter-tops and blue jeans, and sang Katy Perry songs. Little freedoms that she’d rediscovered after she’d escaped to Pittsburgh.

  With life and death in the balance, she hadn’t considered her independence when she approached Forest Moss. For the few hours when it had been just the two of them, he’d patiently and unquestioningly followed her. It was a day of sweetness that often took her breath away. She thought she’d stumbled into a paradise of safety without tyranny.

  After dragging her to Prince True Flame, the Wyverns had done nothing else except to loom behind her. They felt menacing. Their reputation was fierce.

  So far the Wyverns had done nothing to hinder her, not intentionally. Their abrupt appearance had triggered Forest Moss into blowing up her house. She couldn’t blame it on them. It’d seemed that the last thing they wanted to do was upset Forest Moss.

  The Wyverns, however, had done nothing to help.

  They loomed silently; watching without comment. She’d forget that they were behind her except for the reactions of the people around her. Late night customers kept walking into the diner, then turning on heel as they saw the Wyverns and fleeing back into the night.

  She couldn’t stay at the diner without driving away other customers. She marched out into the dark empty street. The night was sticky hot but the weather report had called for thunderstorms in the morning. They would need shelter.

  The tip of the Cathedral of Learning gleamed above the neighboring building like a lighthouse. Spotlights bathed it with light. The massive limestone tower rose thirty or forty stories higher than any other building in Oakland. It drew Olivia’s gaze like a beacon.

  “He’s a queer hawk. He’s always on the doss. Either he’s knackered or schlossed or both. I’m not a squealer but it’s murder to root around all the empty floors to find him every time he wants to kip.”

  Olivia remembered the tidbit of information mostly because it took her so long to translate Aiofe’s Irish slang. The grad student had been complaining about someone that worked at the Cathedral. When drunk or tired, the man would slip away to sleep. Aiofe explained that she would have to check half a dozen empty floors to find him.

  Without thinking, Olivia started to march toward the Cathedral. Behind her was a multitude of heavy boot steps.

  * * *

  “What is this place?” Forest Moss asked as they stood within the massive, three-story-high Commons Room. The limestone vaults arched far overhead, looking more like a gothic church of Europe than an American university. Only a handful of lights were on so most of the room was lost in shadows.

  “It is a school.” She wondered if she used the right word because he looked even more puzzled by her answer.

  “Like Oxford?” Forest Moss asked.

  “Yes, exactly.” Olivia had picked that much up from Aiofe, who had abandoned a chance to attend the English university for the more exotic Elfhome-based one. The difference was that Oxford apparently was an entire village of old stone buildings whereas Pitt just had the Cathedral. The American university had started as a little log cabin. They’d walked past a replica of that original building out on the lawn.

  “It looks like the churches your people have on the continent.” He waved toward the east. He meant Europe. “Stone palaces to your gods, where only your priests live.”

  She nodded, distracted and unsure if he meant that God didn’t live in the churches or if he simply meant that the buildings stood empty of humans most of the time. Her grandmother had always told her that God made his own temples.

  They were the only people awake and moving in the giant space. Their footsteps echoed loudly off the limestone columns and vaulted ceiling. Certainly there was lots of sp
ace for them, but it looked very cold and uninviting.

  “This room is too open.” Glaive finally spoke his mind. She couldn’t tell if it was a command to find something else, or merely an observation. She agreed with him.

  There was the scrape of metal on stone, a jangle of keys, and then a male voice singing a mix of Elvish and English words. “Naekanain! No. No. Naekanain! Don’t play for that team. Don’t swing that way. Don’t you understand the words I’m saying? Naekanain!”

  They found the janitor around the corner, loading supplies onto a cart, bobbing his head to music playing over ear buds. He was in his twenties but seemed too old to be a college student, which probably explained why he was cleaning in the middle of the night. Certainly he wore the sturdy boots, worn blue jeans, and belt knife that the locals favored.

  “Shit!” he cried in surprise when Olivia tapped him on the shoulder. “You scared me. What are you doing in here? You’re not allow…” He looked beyond Olivia and saw the Wyverns. “Oh, holy hell!”

  “We need someplace to sleep.” She noticed the open door behind him. The room beyond had crystal chandeliers, beautiful mural paintings on the ceiling, elaborate gilded moldings, a long gleaming table and red velvet upholstered chairs. “Oh, this is nice. What is this?”

  “The Austrian Room. It’s one of the Nationality Rooms. All the classrooms on this floor are decked out as a different nations…Wait. Did you say ‘sleep?’ You-you-you…” He glanced toward the Wyverns. “I’m going to have to call someone.”

  The room was luxurious but lacked anything remotely looking like a bed.

  “Before you call anyone, open up the rooms so that we can see them.”

  He considered her and the Wyverns for a minute before pulling out his keys. “They don’t pay me enough to say no.”