by Raven Bouray
Pushing up from the ground, she decided to stretch her legs and walk around the cavern while nibbling on her meal. The textures down here were rougher, not worn away and smoothed by the air and sand like the rock above and there were more holes here as if some of the rock had been scooped away.
They must be further down into the earth because the buzzing that had been ever present so far had only gotten worse since they entered this tunnel. It wasn’t painful. It just took some of her concentration away while making her skin feel as if there were insects crawling all over. With every heartbeat, the buzzing pulsed through her. Itching without scratching and it was going to drive her mad if she had to endure three or four more days of it.
Oddly enough, the closer that Kelithor was to her, the less the buzzing really bothered her. She didn’t really want to think any about what that could mean, but no matter how close or far away from her he was, it did not stop her ears from burning and itching. To distract from the buzzing itch, she decided to talk. “If you were at my birth, how long had you known my parents then? Or were you a physician or midwife apprentice?”
“Of a kind, yes. And I met them in person abou’ two months before your birth. And at times until ye were four.”
“I wish I could remember you then. You must look very different for my parents to not remember you if I had seen you more than once.”
His next question truly surprised her. “Tell me o’ your life. More o’ it. After ye were home.”
“What exactly do you want to know?” She licked her lips and made her way back over to the moss and water. The water in the bowl had cleared from her previous use and Arya was drinking happily from it.
“What ye wish to share.” He sat down near her with the light between them.
“Well. I already told you about going to see my grandfather. My father had never been his favorite, even though he was the firstborn.” Words came easily to her, and she even felt comfortable divulging things that most people did not know. “Grandfather passed him over for inheriting the crown and gave it to my uncle, who was ten years his younger. They never got along, and it was the final straw for my father. He volunteered as the liaison for the Erudin and left with my mother before I was born. They had been married for a couple years by then. I was born within a year after they arrived on the isle. But after we were home again, I was at the castle for two years before my first fostering with the Calgen family. They are fairly close allies with our family.”
He interrupted her, “Fosterin’? What be?”
“Oh. I was sent to live with another family for a year to continue learning and to forge stronger bonds with other nobles and make valuable connections.”
“Why would ye send ye children away?”
Emmaline shrugged. “I’ve never really thought about it. It’s just a custom that the noble families have. The only real difference is when my second fostering came about I went with the dwarves. My father has good dealings with them and they are very secretive usually, so it was a great honor to be among their people. Most children only go to other noble houses.”
“Ye are very small to go away from ye family then.”
“Small? The second time I was fifteen.”
“Age.”
“Oh. Young. You mean young. Well the first one isn’t that young. By seven, you are usually weaned for at least three or four years. And children learn faster and more easily than adults do. We’ve had a few fosterlings in our house while I grew up. It also is a noble house’s way of arranging marriages.”
“Marriage.” He tested the word out. “Ye are different then? Tha’ great feast tha’ ye had was ta find ye a marriage, yes?” Emmaline noticed a slight change in his tone then, as if he sounded angry.
“Yes.” It was a source of constant embarrassment for her, but the very thought of it still turned her stomach. “I should have been married off three or so years ago by now. But I’ve never wanted to marry and I’ve never been what men want. I’m thin, no curves, and so far it also seems as if I could be barren. Not to mention the fact that it makes me sick to think about.” The last confession had her backpedalling. “Now I’m going on and on. If our customs are so strange to you, then how do noble elves marry?”
“We do no’ have noble elves.”
“No nobles? What?”
“We have no nobles. No in the way that ye do. Elves all equal. Unless ye are the king or queen or ye are a guard or a druid. Rules are different for them.”
“How do things get done?”
“We jus’ do them. All elves work for all. No elf go withou’ food, clothes, shelter, or anythin’ like tha’.”
“They don’t make any coin?”
“No’ in the way that ye do. I’m no’ a merchanter though. I could no’ tell ye.”
“Does that actually work?” Emmaline thought of her home. There were shelters for those who could not afford lodging, and they gave meager rations. They could afford no more and keep the economy afloat despite having good harvests.
“Better than ye have. Children run the cities wit’ clothes in tatters, cold, hungry with nary a fire to ligh’ their way. In rain, snow, heat, and no’ a soul care? How ‘noble’ are ye nobles then?” His harsh tone struck her much like a slap would, and he stood now to shift from foot to foot.
Emmaline wasn’t sure how to answer. Sure they had their problems of homelessness, but she wanted to defend her race from this elf’s judgement. However, she could only think of the way that Edrin DeVross had sneered at her when she suggested that they give jobs to those who had nothing. Her face must have given her confusion and anguish away because a gentle voice took her from her musings.
“Sleep. Tha’ talk was no’ fair o’ me.” His tone was apologetic. Or at least she thought so, and he tossed her the blankets she used from atop Arya’s back. She continued to think about his words long after she had lay down to rest. Emmaline wondered if her dreams would plague her this time or not but she would not know until the next morning.
Chapter 27
They continued on the next morning like always, and her sense of direction still had not improved. To make her day worse, her back ached and it made riding horseback somewhat uncomfortable. Emmaline couldn't help but think about what Kelithor told her about the elves that she had not learned from any book or even Master Telgrin. “Do elves do anything like fostering? You seemed off put by the idea. Do they just stay at home until they marry then? How would people find mates to spend their life with if they aren’t given to other places?”
“No. All children go ta class where from the ages o’ four or five, they learn all skills o’ adults as well as history, writin’, ciphers, and it is when they find their work.”
“Do all elves take classes? Even the girls?”
“Yes. Each child learns and all o’ them are looked at for magic ‘round age o’ eight. Those who show the signs go ta be a druid.”
“That's a bit like us. All the boys start classes and tutoring at about the age of five. And those who are tested for magic talent are taken to the tower and are either magically gelded or are trained. Those who are gelded though are never really right after it though.” Kelithor had stopped, and Ayra came to rest behind him. Emmaline swore she felt a flash of horror run through her mind as clear as if she heard the gasp in person. “It’s better to do that.” She reasoned in response but not sure exactly why or how she knew to do so. “Too many mages would be bad because they have such destructive power and the last time mages had control of things, they nearly destroyed both Brecirin and Erisin. And magic is hard to control, I’m told, and some people do not fancy being locked in a tower or imprisoned and so they volunteer to be cut off from the power. Some view magic as a curse. I know it's not the best solution, but no one seems to care enough to do anything about it.” She knew she was rambling now but couldn’t stop her torrent of excuses until it came to an abrupt end.
Emmaline was sure, even in the low light, that she noticed his entire body shiver.
“Druids,” he continued, “from wha’ I know o’ them, they are given a task upon the power tha’ rests inside them. There are those for battle, healin’, growin’, defendin’ and a few others I can’t think o’ now. Children wit’ no power can be smiths, bakers, potters, cloth makers, jewelers, builders, but there are so many tasks tha’ they can be.”
“Do they have to do what their parents did?”
“No. They are free ta choose.”
“How do you have enough of something? What if no one wants to be a baker or a clothier or something like that?”
“Mos’ o’ the time, they jus’ do. But we live for a very long time. No need ta thin’ o’ tha’.”
“True. Elves do live for a long time. Around 2,000 years, yes?”
“If ye live to elder age, yes. But elves are no’ plenty. Children are no’ many. Only around three ta five in class.”
“That makes sense. If elves lived that long and had a lot of children there would be issues with overpopulation, and there might be war for more room for your people to grow and spread.”
Kelithor nodded, impressed with her deduction. “Classes are til fifteen ta eighteen years. After a young one has their maturation, they choose go ta be apprentice, then second maturation comes, an’ they are mos’ oft’ a journeyman.Takes long time after ta be master or gran’ master.”
“What is a maturation?”
“Changes their face, an’ body. Often from sixteen ta eighteen. Like the human change from child ta man or woman. It happens then an’ then at near fifty. The secon’ one makes it tha’ ye can have a child.”
“Fifty seems quite late to start a family.”
“Ye would no’ see may new babes at fifty or marrying. Mos’ do no’ come about tha’ until one or two hundred. No need ta’ rush when ye have lifetimes in human years.”
“I can see that. It just seems so odd to me not to marry around my age.”
“Ye marry too young. Girls barely more than babes birth babes. Tis a shame they do so. Humans take half a year or so ta birth them but it takes a full year for elves.”
“Sixteen months,” she squeaked out. “That would be torture, from what my friends have told me about it. Most of them have had a child or two of their own now. Ten months is long enough to carry a child.”
Kelithor chuckled, “I have no learnin’ o’ it.”
“I guess everything takes longer as a elf then. You lot are perfectionists then. So if someone becomes a master of one craft, they can learn another starting from the bottom?”
“Yes. Tha’ does no’ happen often.”
“So you wanted to become a fighter then? What happens with that?”
“Learn weapons, movement, defense, how ta defend from the earth and tree. Very long time. But I did no’ wan’ ta be a fighter. I wanted ta be a potter.”
Emmaline was taken aback. He seemed so good at what he did. Fast and strong, well suited for that kind of work. “A potter? But you just said--.”
“Does no’ matter. Life is tha’ chose me. Any dreams I had before be gone now.”
“But it matters what you want.” He has just gotten done talking about how if elves wanted to change what they did then they could at any time. Why was this different?
“This life chose me a’ sixteen. In a way, I offered myself ta it but I did no’ expect it ta be me.”
“Well I can tell you that you move better and faster than anyone else I’ve seen. You must be at least 200 or something by now, right?
Kelithor gave a real chuckle and it sent a pulse of warmth through her chest. “No. I am… 33.” He had to pause as if he actually had to think of how old he was instead of just knowing.
“Oh.” She certainly didn’t expect him to be close to her age. “That’s nearly my father’s age. He is approaching his 36th year.”
“And ye have jus’ been seventeen, yes? Marrying age but no’ mate. If ye want ta talk abou’ age and being too old or young.”
“Well if you hadn’t rudely taken me from my home, then I would probably be preparing for marriage right now. This complicates things.”
“Ye mus’ ‘ave been hard ta please.”
Emmaline sniffed indignantly. “Well you must have a girl back home, despite the fact that you have been rather grumpy with me.”
“No. No girl a’ home.” He sounded distant.
“Well you’ve got time, or so you’ve told me. I’m sure that when you get less growly, you might be able to find one despite dragging me with you.”
Kelithor snorted and continued along.
They were silent for a while until another question surfaced. “Men or women can be whatever they want to be in Elven society?”
“Yes. Tha’ do no’ bother with ability. Either can do work needed.”
“Even fight?”
“Yes. Women can give ‘nother voice an’ thought ta battles and they be stronger wit’ speed rather than strength.”
“If women can learn how to fight in your society, then would you possibly be able to teach me? I keep thinking about that night that my home was attacked. I trained with the guard twice a week but I didn’t do anything but be afraid. I think that if I could help, then maybe that boy wouldn’t have died for me. I was so scared and I don’t want to be in that position again. And I don’t want to rely on others to save me.”
“If ye have no fear, ye woul’ be foolish. Fear keeps ye alive. Courage is overcomin’ it. I can teach ye abou’ our way. But I can no’ teach ye courage. Ye have to ‘ave that on your own.” He seemed annoyed, or something else. Perhaps grumpier than usual though it was difficult to tell.
“I don’t care if it’s easy.”
“It may keep us ‘ere in this place longer,” he pressed on with his harsh tone.
“I want to learn.” She sounded convincing even to her own ears now.
“We will begin tomorro’. Res’ up.”
Chapter 28
“First lesson. Listen.” Kelithor had told her upon waking the next morning. However, now that it was later in the day, she was beginning to think that he was just trying to keep her quiet. On the other hand, his lesson, as he called it, also made a bit of sense but that point was only giving grudgingly. Captain Uracen had given her similar lessons a few times to listen for the opponent's movements with her acute hearing. The slight shift of a boot or the sound that came from the movement of different types of armors. But the only sounds she could hear now were the echoes of Arya’s hooves on the stone, the rather muffled sounds of Kelithor’s boots hitting the ground, and at times, the sounds of small burrowing creatures as they did whatever those animals do.
On the second day of silence, he had pulled out a long piece of dark cloth in the exact shape of a blindfold, and she refused to wear it. The dark frightened her, and she wasn’t ashamed to admit it. As a compromise, he dimmed the light from the wand, and she did not particularly enjoy that either. The near darkness made her skittish still, and in place of her eyes, her hearing began to pick up other sounds from further away. If one were to ask here from which direction the chittering, growling, and other strange sounds that she could now hear came from, she would have very little idea. But she could hear them.
She broke the silence on the second day just after they had eaten. “Am I listening for anything in particular?” And winced the moment her voice echoed around the cavern.
“No.”
She glared at him and wanted to give a scathing reply as to why she was even doing this but refrained. It wasn’t as if she didn’t already know how to swing a weapon so all this other nonsense was unneeded. Instead she continued to listen and watch the dark figure in front of her.
That night he left her alone to scout the path ahead, and Emmaline slept fitfully.
The third day, despite her eyes burning with the lack of a restful sleep, she could hear a sound just barely, one that was oddly familiar to her. And oddly enough, Arya seemed in better spirits, lifting her head and twisting her ears around.
&nb
sp; “When will we actually train?” she whispered to him.
“Ye are.”
“But--.”
“I had ta stay still for seven days, sittin’, just listening. Another month with my eyes cover’d and another month with no’ ears ta hear. Be glad I do no’ do tha’ ta ye.”
Emmaline shivered at the thought of doing anything like that, “Good. But you do know that I have some training, correct?”
“Humans are clumsy fighting. Too slow an’ foolish for wha’ ye need.”
Emmaline huffed at him indignantly, “We are not. Captain Uracen is a great fighter and fast as well. He kept me plenty safe the night that you kidnapped me.”