by Tony Roberts
Seltonas looked up as she came in to the hall. “Finally! Should I be grateful you’ve decided to bless me with your presence?”
“No, Master,” Faer bowed. “You should be displeased.”
“Absolutely! This is the first time I believe we’d agreed on anything. You have been specifically told not to get romantically involved with anyone yet there you were clamped to that boy for dear life all through the play! It’s a wonder he isn’t dragging himself through broken glass for you at this moment!”
Faer sighed. “Master, I cannot help being what I am. I did not decide to be this way. Limkel knows the situation and I’ve told him it goes no further than kissing. I have to have a romantic companion, especially as I’ve been told that many of the boys are fantasising about me. It stops anyone else making a move on me.”
“Well I don’t know why, Initiate; I find you utterly repulsive.”
“But they’re not White Elves; they’re humans, and they just find me so attractive. Please try to understand, Master, that is the situation whether you or I wish it or not.”
“Humph! They are weak-minded fools; they simply do not have any idea what they are risking!”
“I agree, Master, but it doesn’t change the situation. Can we please get on with the lesson?”
Seltonas looked surprised. “Eager to endure more suffering? How very Dark Elvish.”
Faer rolled her eyes and remained silent.
“Very well, today we will learn discipline. No point in bruising you any further until tomorrow. Stand still here on the spot. Say nothing, do nothing. You are to rise above your emotional desires. What you may feel in the next few moments, you are to ignore. A warrior must remain cool in battle; to become emotional reduces his or her effectiveness and clouds the mind. Your decision making is impaired. That is unforgiveable.” He clapped his hands and five boys entered the hall. They were seniors. They ringed Faer. She looked wary. What was going to happen?
Seltonas turned, his robe billowing out, then falling back. “Begin!”
The five began to sneer at her, call her names. Most of them were racial, slurs against her dark elf heritage. They mocked her skin colour, her ears, her ability to wield a sword, her accent, her cowardice, her weakness. They circled her, pointing at her, laughing, sneering, insulting.
She felt anger rise within her, and something else. No! Stay away! It was that feeling she’d felt when Seltonas had summoned her dark elf side. How did it appear so easily this time? She pushed it down, squeezing her eyes tightly shut. A finger prodded her shoulder, but she resolutely refused to rise to the jibe.
“Your father was a ball of mud!”
“You can’t even beat a five year old!”
“Bet your skin sheds like a snake’s.”
“You were hatched out of an egg – a dark elf egg.”
“Mud-face!”
“Half breed.”
“Whore!”
Whore? That was a new one. She opened her eyes. The one who said that was the big, thickset shaggy-haired young man with a spot under his lower lip. “What’s a whore?” she asked.
They stopped, then roared with laughter. “Don’t know what a whore is! You ma was a whore! Whore spawn! Whore spawn!”
Faer looked at Seltonas who was looking on impassively, his arms folded. “Cease.”
The seniors looked a little disappointed, but stepped away.
The Swordmaster came through the circle to her. “I asked you not to speak!”
“How can an insult work if the one being insulted does not know the meaning of it, Master?”
Seltonas flicked a finger at the thickset senior. “Explain it to her.”
“Easy. A whore is a woman in a brothel who sells her body for sex.”
Faer held his gaze. “And you called my mother one of those?”
“Yeah!”
“Dismissed,” Seltonas said, seeing Faer’s rigid stance. The seniors filed out, the last turning his head to give her a last look before shutting the door. The Swordmaster slowly approached Faer, noting the clenching and unclenching of her hands. “Keep control, Dark Blade. Discipline.”
Faer was having trouble. The ball of blackness in her stomach was pushing back at her hard. She fought it and fought it but it was rising slowly. She began to shake, her lips becoming tighter and tighter. Seltonas waved his hand before his body and put one leg behind the other.
“You must keep control of this inner beast of yours – it is a threat to you and to others.”
Faer closed her eyes, the shaking becoming worse. Keep down, keep DOWN!
Seltonas saw her finally gain control and breathe out, her mouth opening and panting. He judged the moment, then spoke. “Really, Dark Blade. Dark I understand, but Blade? You are surely the most incompetent holder of a sword I have had the misfortune to teach.”
Faer screamed in rage. Her eyes snapped open. They were slits.
“Initiate!” Seltonas roared.
Faer, still clinging to the vestiges of control, swung ninety degrees to the left and sent a ball of fire smashing into a stand, obliterating it in one pyrotechnic burst. She sank to her knees, a wave of weakness washing over her. She had sent all her anger out in one go, draining her completely. She knelt there at Seltonas’ feet, sobbing.
The stand slowly fell to pieces, the edges burning, filling the hall with the smell of burned wood. Seltonas remained silent for a while, then said her name softly. She raised her head. Her eyes, brimming with tears, were normal. “That, Dark Blade, is what happens when you lose control. What if that had been a friend, like Limkel? You would have killed him outright.”
“I know,” she sobbed. “I-I couldn’t fight it when you said what you did. It wasn’t so much that, it was what had come before.”
Seltonas nodded. He was shaken. He hadn’t expected the level of force she had sent out. “You will have to control your temper. It would appear that your dark elf side has found a route through to emerge much more easily. I must take the blame for that, I suppose. I must have broken the shackles that were there from your birth. No matter, it is done. I shall have to discuss this with the Blademaster.”
“Seltonas –“ Faer looked up imploringly. “Help me.”
The elf stood there for a moment before nodding curtly. “I must do that, yes. Now we know the extent of your emotions and how much they are tied to your darker self, we will have to adjust your training. The next few days you will be restricted to the sword. No more messing with your feelings.”
“No, Master.” She got to her feet. “Did you tell the seniors what to say to me?”
“That is not under discussion. This subject is closed. Now sit and compose yourself, then you will tell me just what you were feeling and how you controlled it till the point of your outburst.”
She nodded. It had been yet another exhausting day.
FOURTEEN
Her training went on, but mostly now to do with her swordsmanship. Concentrating on stance, balance and movement, she found her natural agility a big help, and she even began to enjoy herself.
Behind the scenes both Seltonas and Faer conducted matters the other did not know about. Seltonas sought out Blademaster Territus and expressed his fears about the extent of Faer’s powers. “I don’t know if we will fully be able to control the child. I was astonished at the force she exhibited the other day. An entire stand was destroyed – smashed, I tell you. That fireball ability is not common to all elves, and most that do have it do not possess such force.”
Territus looked thoughtful. “But you said this ability should not be possible without your ability to summon it from within her soul.”
“I fear I might have made easy access for it to flow through her. Her temper must be leashed; that is what appears to bring it forth.”
“Swordmaster – what abilities are we talking about here? Assume she had the full range of a female dark elf.”
“She’s half elf; I don’t think she has all the abilities, but as you say,
let us start with the worst case possible. Very well. She can cast a fireball, or varying degrees of this from lighting a candle to incinerating a room. We also know she can ‘push’, a kinetic force that strikes a target close by and knocks it backwards. What we don’t know is her seductive powers, although it appears the human males here all find her comely.”
“Comely?”
“Attractive, Blademaster.”
“That is nothing to do with her abilities, Swordmaster. Continue.”
“Very well. Dark elves are capable of creating darkness about themselves, which is a huge advantage to them if in combat against those who need light. It also conceals them of course, but the darkness gives away the fact they are somewhere there. The area of darkness varies with their powers, but the largest is about ten feet from the caster. They can destroy these abilities in another, so as to eliminate ‘magic’ being used against them, but Dark Blade has that pendant anyway so that is irrelevant.”
Territus agreed.
“They can also use confusion; send out a swarm of dancing lights to blind or confuse an enemy while they strike at leisure. They can levitate an object, the greater their ability the heavier the object.”
Territus shook his head in dismay. “Surely that is it?”
Seltonas looked grimly at him. “I’m afraid there is more. All dark elf females can see slightly into the future if they meditate for a short while; they can see into someone’s heart and know them to be a good or bad person. Finally, they can draw a person’s life force from their body to enhance their abilities for a short while.”
“Oh my life,” Territus groaned. “And you think she has all these abilities?”
“If she were a pure blood, yes. I don’t know in her case, that’s the problem and I don’t want to risk bringing any more to the fore. She’s dangerous enough as it is.”
Territus stood up. “This is what we must do; we concentrate on her sword tuition, and her discipline. If we can discipline her without evoking this temper, then we may train her to channel any future outburst in the right manner.”
Seltonas folded his arms. “I hope you’re right; we’re playing with fire here, literally. We cannot throw her out now – she poses a far more greater danger out there than in here.”
“Agreed. Arrange a training schedule and pass it to me for approval.”
Seltonas bowed and left.
Faer, meanwhile, had been so shaken by her outburst that she had spent many nights sat on her bed thinking deeply about how to deal with this inner demon. Time and time again her mind went to her sword, until finally she drew it forth and held it in her hands, concentrating on the darkness inside her. She allowed a little to rise, controlling it, guiding it, thinking the sword was giving her the strength.
She looked at the window at the back of the room. Going over to it she looked out into the night and closed her eyes. Thinking of her aura, the area surrounding her body, she projected a trace of her darkness out, tinting it with a hot flash of emotion. A small tongue of flame darted from her fingers and vanished into the darkness. She touched her fingers. They were slightly warm but that was it.
Has the sword done that?
She returned to her bed. There was a candle on the table and so she tried again. The tongue of flame struck the candle at the base. Agh that’s not it! Aiming was a problem. The candle was half melted by the time she managed to work out the right posture for an accurate shot.
What she found was that it was very tiring. The more she used her ability, the faster she got tired. Over the next few weeks she honed her skills, trying the ‘push’ ability too, this she achieved by thinking of forcing a push from her palm outwards, and this worked. The chair across the room ended upside down on many occasions.
She had no idea about any other ability – except the possible ability to seduce and enslave others. How she did this she didn’t know, neither did she wish to try it. Her friendship with Limkel carried on without progressing, although apparently Pappis and Quenia had finally ‘done it’, or so Limkel told her one day.
Faer shrugged. Whatever they did, that was up to them. Quenia was much more friendly and chatty to her, but she still went a little quiet if Pappis and Faer were in the same room or at mealtimes. Faer made it clear she was not interested in Pappis, which wasn’t quite true, but she knew it was best she never let on what she really thought of the handsome young man.
However, Grange continued to be a problem. He began to actively follow Quenia around and no matter what she said, he wouldn’t listen. Pappis was finally persuaded to speak to him and it ended badly. For Pappis. He was badly beaten up, and spent a few days in the infirmary, attended by a tearful Quenia, so Grange was forced to sulk in his room at night while his pursuit was absent.
Faer decided to try to sort the problem out. She knocked on his door, wondering whether she was doing the right thing, but the situation was beginning to look as if it was getting out of control.
“What?” he demanded, seeing who it was at his door.
“Can I come in?”
“Why?”
Faer sighed. “To ask if you could stop this obsession with Quen.”
Grange laughed nastily. “So you think you can come here all nice like and sort the problem out?” He waved her in and slammed the door shut.
“Grange, Quen loves Pappis, and he loves her. It’s not right to keep on chasing after her, as she’s just not interested in you.”
“I chase who I like, Blade. You or nobody else tells me who to chase.”
Faer leaned against a wall. “Can’t you see though she doesn’t want you? What’s the point of keeping on pursuing her?”
Grange paced up and down the room. “She’s playing hard to get; she’ll work out sooner or later that I’m the one for her. Pappis doesn’t really like her anyway; he’s got his eyes on you. Everyone in here can see that! He’s aching to plough you good and proper, just that you’re playing hard to get too. You think fooling about with that idiot Limkel has kidded anyone? Nah, we all know you two ain’t that serious, else he’d’ve had you by now. Anyone can see you’ve never done it.”
“Grange!”
“You’re longing to be with him too, just you don’t want to upset Quen. Well I want you to get it together with not-so-pretty boy now so it gives me clearance for that little redheaded darling. Drop Limkel; he’s a waste of time.”
“I will most certainly not, Grange!”
“What’s up? Too scared of a little enjoyment? Well let me show you, my pretty half-elf, what it’s all about. I’m so frustrated at not having Quen, I need to blow off some hot air, and you need it badly.”
“Grange, no,” Faer’s heart jumped.
The big student placed his arms either side of her against the wall. “You won’t regret it; you’ll thank me for showing you how great it is.”
Faer tried to duck away but he grabbed her and pushed her against the wall. “Not so fast, little lady. Everyone’s been talking about what is it like to enjoy a half-elf, so I’ll be able to tell everyone now.” He chuckled.
“Grange!”
He pulled her away and flung her onto the bed. Her arms and legs flailed and she bounced against the wall the bed was up against. Before she could scramble off he was there, holding her down. “Come on, just a little kiss to start with, those sweet little lips, Blade.”
Faer struggled but was held tight and he was immensely strong – too strong for her. Rape, she thought, I’m going to be raped. She had a moment of utter panic, then felt her darkness rising, brought on by her wild desperation. Suddenly her mind cleared. If he wants enjoyment, he’s going to get that! She had no idea how that thought entered her head, nor how she had constructed the thought in the first place.
Grange was now pressing his mouth against hers, and he expected resistance. Instead, Faer opened her mouth and allowed him in, rolling her tongue round his. She grabbed him and held him tight, gyrating against him. The heat rose in a sudden wave in her and poured out,
engulfing the young man pinning her down.
Now she sucked on his tongue, making noises of pleasure and her nails dug into the nape of his neck, gouging little circles in the flesh. For Grange, the explosion of ecstasy was totally unexpected. His body almost exploded with pleasure, every nerve end sent tingling and throbbing. He vaguely felt her legs wrapping round his lower back but he didn’t have any strength – or thought – to push away. Pinned there, he was absorbed by the sensations flowing from the woman he had intended to take.
Faer was aware of her existence, but in a detached way. It was like she was observing what was going on. She pushed back against the dark mass dominating her mind. I’m taking over she shot the thought around her head. I’m going to lead here. Exerting her will, she partly recaptured her body, rolling over. Grange put up no resistance; he was lost in an ecstatic heaven. Pinning the man down she broke the kiss and put her lips to his ear. “You are mine, Grange, do you understand? Mine! Whose are you?”
“You-yours!” he groaned.
“Forever! Say it, Grange.”
“Forever!”
She giggled seductively and used her tongue over his ear and then his mouth again. Grange emitted a long slow moan of complete happiness and flopped onto the bed. “Mine, you are all mine,” she whispered to him. “Slave.”
She knelt up and pulled off her top. “Now, slave, taste the fruits of pleasure you can never have with any other,” and pressed her breasts against him. Grange moaned and mumbled in a personal heaven; he had no idea where he was or what he was. All he knew was that he had achieved a peak of pleasure beyond his wildest dreams, and this girl had given him that. He would do anything for her. Anything.
Faer was still only half in control – this inner dark elf part of her had led and given these thoughts to her, but she was slowly regaining control. She remembered everything; how she had captured him and forced him to her will. Instinct, it had been, instinct. Her dark elf instinct, not human. Suddenly she knew how to do and for what reason. As Grange gorged himself senseless she laughed, enjoying the feeling of having such power.