The Coming Storm

by Valerie Douglas

“I’m not certain if there were others. I didn’t get out much after I returned. If truth be told I’m not certain I wanted to see others change. Not after Korin.”

  She took a breath.

  “Once I found the soul-eater, I thought I would go to their expectations and learn more that way.”

  “What did you do with it?” Jalila asked, with an inward shudder at the thought of the thing.

  She had no great love for the things after that one brief encounter and wished Elon could find a way to dispense with the one he had. It made her uncomfortable each time she thought of how easily it enticed her.

  Ailith grinned. “I put it down the garderobe. I think he has it back now but he’s not well pleased.”

  “A good place for it,” Jareth said, amused. “The stone would mute its effects, I would guess.”

  “It seemed to do well enough,” she said with another grin, “especially since I wrapped it in what was left of my mother’s dress. A poor end for lovely cloth, though. But I get ahead of myself again. So I gave them what they seemed to want and played them the pretense. I had my mother as my example. Those last days…”

  For a moment she had to stop to take a breath and collect herself. The pain of that loss was still very deep.

  Gwillim asked, puzzled, “What of your mother?”

  Startled, Ailith looked at him. It had been so much a part of her life she hadn’t realized he didn’t know.

  Very softly, she said, “They killed her. She’s gone, Gwillim.”

  He looked stricken.

  Gwillim grieved, deeply. Selah. That lovely sweet woman. She’d stood at his wedding like any other guest, though she was Queen of the Kingdom, so she wouldn’t overshadow his bride. His wife Danalae was here in the north, his men were bringing her and the children here on their next sweep.

  “I didn’t know,” he said, quietly.

  Selah had come the moment she’d heard one of his children was ill. It had been late, the chirurgeons could offer no help, but the Queen herself had come when she heard, with her potions and such. It had been a long night, but Kela had come through it in the end.

  “Who was it that did it? Was it that Tolan? If so, he’ll answer to my sword for that some day.”

  The room went quiet as Ailith went white and her eyes dropped. For a moment, she struggled with the words. Her voice was very soft when she answered.

  “In a way. But it was my father who held the knife.”

  “What?” Gwillim said, breathlessly, stunned. “Are you sure?”

  It didn’t make sense, if any couple could be said to have been a life match, it was Geric and Selah. They’d been so in love. Though Gwillim had heard tales of the antics of some lesser Kings, Geric had never indulged. His eyes had never strayed from his gentle Queen. It seemed insane.

  Ailith couldn’t say it, the words wouldn’t come. She couldn’t look at him. All she could see was the knife rising and falling, and the blood. As if the pain were new.

  Bowing her head, she pressed a hand to her heart and rocked against it. Heartrending grief, to remember it.

  Jareth swore softly, remembering what she’d said, and what Elon had. She dreamed true.

  “She saw it, Gwillim. She watched it happen. Oh, damn,” he said.

  After a moment the worst of it eased a bit and Ailith smiled weakly.

  “You see now why I don’t fear madness. If I were to have gone mad, I should have done so then. Worse still…” The pain caught at her but she forged onward. “As I felt him go, too. My father. It was that final act that in the end cost him his soul, though Tolan pushed him to it. The soul-eater had its hooks deep in him.”

  To watch parent kill parent. Elon couldn’t imagine it. She’d said she’d seen it but she’d never spoken of what she’d seen.

  His heart ached for her.

  Taking a breath, Ailith cleared her throat, sat up a little more squarely and changed the subject. Anything to fill that awkward silence.

  “Each time I thought they might be talking, I found a way to listen. Sometimes I couldn’t get into the library but most times they paid me no mind, thinking the soul-eater was doing its work.”

  “What did they talk about?” Jareth asked.

  “The petty jealousies among the lesser Kings. How King Milos felt slighted when the boundaries were set or that Queen Dara has a lover amongst her Guard and her husband stays silent or else lose his position as Consort. That Goras of the Dwarves, one of the Three, is looking for an excuse to get out of the Agreement but Elon did too good a job of binding them to it.”

  Elon gave her an intent look.

  She nodded.

  “They said he looks for a clause to escape it but he hasn’t found one. Lacking that he harbors a grudge against you. Tolan said it was a pity you were dead, since that was what they assumed when they found no bodies among the ruins. He hadn’t had word yet when I left that you were still alive. He’ll be quite wroth when he finds out.”

  Ailith grinned impishly.

  “I imagine so,” Elon said, with a nod.

  “Even so,” she continued. “They spoke of alliances among those of the Council, looking for ways to break them, forge them tighter or set one group against another.”

  Jareth nodded. “That’s what he’s trying to do, then, divide and conquer? But how? Did you see any others, anyone he sent? Did he have any visitors?”

  Ailith took a sharp breath. The Door… She pushed it away. She wasn’t ready for that yet, just the idea sent shivers through her.

  Catching the hesitation, Elon let it be. She would tell it when she was ready.

  “No one…not of men, not that I ever saw,” Ailith said. “None coming or going but I dared not follow him.”

  “They awaited my majority ceremony. A great many guests were coming. Landowners, merchants. Opportunity in plenty for Tolan to move among them. I suspect he has a number of those soul-eaters or their like. Geric planned to take some aside, as well, for a private audience. To the same purpose. I’m afraid I may have spoiled their plans, somewhat, since the guest of honor fled before the celebration could begin. Unless they used another subterfuge. They wanted to secure Riverford.”

  “To what end?” Jareth asked.

  “They plan to attack Raven’s Nest and King Westin in the fall as the last of the leaves turn. They want to secure the East. They dare not move with Westin at their backs. For all he’s such a small man and dithery, his mind is sharp. He would have called in the High King at the first sign of trouble. That’s why they wanted Gwillim.”

  She nodded at her friend, seeing his eyes grow grim, his jaw tighten.

  “Once they had Gwillim, he was to lead any of his people who might object into a trap. The others among the Hunters would then hunt down any who tried to escape Raven’s Nest rather than hunt the creatures that took part in the slaughter.”

  “So, you’ve spoiled more of his plans,” Jalila observed.“He’s likely to be quite angry with you.”

  “Let him,” Ailith said, with sharp satisfaction and a great deal of anger. “Though I can’t hurt him directly, I can take a thousand pin-pricks at him. And will.”

  For himself, Elon was glad to see it. Her anger was clear and purposeful, a righteous fury. Healthy and controlled. He’d worried that he’d seen no sign of anger, although somewhere deep inside she must be furious. This man had killed her parents. She had a right to rage. Though Elves were a peace-loving people in general, they rose up in fury at any who spilled their blood for no good reason.

  Jareth, too, was glad to see her anger. It seemed unhealthy for her to be so calm.

  “Why can’t you hurt him directly?” Colath asked, curiously. “He’s a man, a sword will kill him as surely as another.”

  Ailith went still. She looked at them.

  “I don’t think he’s a man. I don’t know what he is but I do know he’s neither Elf, nor Dwarf nor Man.”

  “There’s nothing else, nothing remains,” Jalila said, cautiously.


  “There is, I’ve seen it. Elon and Jareth tell me I dream true. If so,” she said and swallowed hard as the food in her stomach seemed to turn to lead, “I would wish…”

  “I’ve seen…” She took another breath. “He isn’t a man. I dreamed I was down in the dungeons, standing outside the door of the last but one. A dead man, poor soul, lay tossed aside in the hall. What they had done to him…”

  Her eyes closed for a moment as she took a steadying breath.

  “Inside, I could hear Tolan. He was talking. That odd sing-song voice but there he sounded slurred, insane. There was something else, something that should have been sound but was like a whisper one couldn’t quite hear. I knew if I listened long enough I would understand but I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to go near that door but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. The closer I drew the more I didn’t wish to be there but I seemed drawn there whether I wished it or not. Then I saw Tolan. His face… It was as if the part of his face I could see had melted like a candle left too long in the sun. I didn’t want him to turn and see me but he was turning and his eyes were the eyes of a snake, flat and green with a long darkness running down the center. I thought I couldn’t feel more horror.”

  She paused for only a moment.

  “Until I saw who, or what, he spoke to…”

  Her breath grew short.

  “If I were to go mad, I should have at last done it then and there,” she said, her voice a whisper through a tightened throat. “There was another Door, where none could be. The wall of the castle ends there and yet there was a Door, of sorts, something… A shimmering… A figure stood there, twisted in ways nothing living should bend. It wore a cloak with the cowl drawn up over the head. Within the shadows of the cowl there was no face and yet there was. A darkness where one should be. No eyes that you see and yet it could see. It was like concentrated malice, a black hate and fury so deep its skin couldn’t contain it. I knew if those eyes should meet mine, were he to see me with those eyes that weren’t eyes but a greater darkness full of horrors I couldn’t imagine, were he to see me, I would indeed go mad.”

  “I woke screaming.”

  Reaching out, Gwillim patted her arm. “It was just a dream.”

  Ailith flinched at the touch and then took a breath. She shook her head slowly.

  “No, Gwillim. As I awoke and fell from my bed I heard Tolan shriek. A cry of rage so great from down in the dungeons that I heard it clearly in my chambers on the second level. I knew then he’d seen me, he knew who it was who spied on him there. I knew if he found me that the least of my worries would be the soul-eaters. That’s when I fled. With half the castle at my heels, I think.”

  That last ride. Delae. Grief struck her again.

  “I ran. Gwillim, Delae is gone as well.”

  Gwillim sat back, stunned. First Selah, then Geric. “Delae, too?”

  Eyes looked questions at her.

  “My mother’s mother,” Ailith said, in answer, aching, grieving sorrow in her voice. “I knew they would go there first, so I went to warn her and we ran. She rode into the woods. She knew those ways well, they were her lands. If anyone could have escaped through them, it would have been her. She thought she would be safe. I thought she would be safe. It was me they were after so I rode away to draw them off. Tolan killed her, I think. Or caused her death. I wouldn’t have left her otherwise.”

  Jareth listened and his heart ached for her. He could hear the pain, deep and raw, in her voice, although so little showed on her face, she was almost Elven in that. She’d said nothing until now. Never a word of it, keeping it locked inside.

  This Tolan had much to answer for, if only to this one person.

  “Ailith,” he said, gently, “why didn’t you tell us from the first?”

  She looked at him but couldn’t face the sympathy in his eyes and looked away again. “I can’t weep. If I didn’t think of it, if I didn’t talk about it, it was easier.”

  That loss was so new, the wound was still open and had not yet begun to heal. If she kept it from her thoughts it wouldn’t overwhelm her so.

  Mother, father, grandmother. All gone. In so little time. She closed her eyes against it, wrapped her arms around herself for comfort.

  It was a wonder she hadn’t gone mad, Elon thought. A matter of weeks only. In that short a time she had lost all. Everything. Those she loved, her home. The thought of not being able to return to Aerilann was incomprehensible to him. How had she borne it? There were no tears as men shed. Her eyes were dry. Yet the grief and the pain were real.

  In this then, she was Elven. That tearing pain, the terrible grief. He remembered it well. Had suffered it himself, had eased it in others as they had eased his on the death of his father and mother during the wizard wars. All of Aerilann had shared his grief. The Enclave was your greater family, all those of your blood were there. Generations. That was the way it was among them. A burden shared was a burden eased. It was the only solace they had, among a race that had no tears.

  He went to her, laid a hand on her shoulder. “You aren’t alone in this.”

  It was the sign Colath waited for. In this, in her grief, Ailith was one of them. He couldn’t imagine it. To have none of your blood to share such pain with…

  He knelt in front of her, took her hand in the way of their people to give ease and share pain.

  Jalila joined them, sliding her long fingers through the fingers of Ailith’s free hand. “You have friends here.”

  This Jareth had never seen.

  Elves rarely touched each other when those of other races were present. It was too intimate, too private and too familiar for others to see. As was this grief.

  “All of us,” he added.

  That terrible sorrow eased, drained away a little. Shared out among them so no one of them had to bear it alone. So she didn’t.

  “You’re the last of your blood,” Gwillim said, suddenly.

  Three pairs of eyes went to him.

  Ailith nodded. “The last on both sides. It ends with me.”

  The last of her blood. If the one of his people that had sired her mother was unblooded, although he should not have been allowed out of the Enclave, then his blood would die with her, too. His line would end. Elon looked at Colath and Jalila, seeing the shock and dawning comprehension there in their faces. All those blood-lines lost. Tragedy piled on tragedy.

  Another breath. Long and slow as pain and sorrow slowly eased.

  Colath looked at her intently and then released her hand with a quick squeeze. “Next time, if you have need, don’t wait so long to ask.”

  “I didn’t know I could,” Ailith said, humbly, with a look to the others. “Thank you.”

  With a quick press of his hand on her shoulder, Elon said, “The dream you had when you awoke? Do you remember it?”

  It was time to change the subject, draw her mind away. And if she dreamed true, they needed to know what she’d seen.

  She nodded, then again. “Yes. The Door, opening. Heat pouring out and blackness, flames. Blood on the snow in the north.”

  Stepping away, he paced to the fire. “Do you know what it means?”

  With a shake of her head she said, “No. I’ve had them before, these amorphous dreams. Sometimes later I’ve learned what they meant. Sometimes I never have.”

  Elon gave her a sympathetic look. “It’s like that with Foresight. Sometimes it comes clear. Sometimes not. Like this. I’ve wondered all along – why did it feel so much as if our borders were being tested, probed? Perhaps because they are.”

  His expression thoughtful Colath said, “It was worse in the north. In winter, when the passes are closed…”

  Elon nodded. “It will be difficult, if not impossible, for them to summon help and for anyone to get it to them in time. The Hunters and Woodsmen have been worn thin.”

  “We’re already tired,” Gwillim added. “I’m losing people to accidents and injuries. They’re too weary.”

  He nodded in Ailith’s
direction. “If what she says is true – and I’ve no doubt it is – we’ll get no help from Riverford. Tolan has only to cut off our supplies. We’ll be dependent on the villagers and they haven’t much to spare. It’s only going to get worse.”

  “Blood on the snow,” Elon said with a shake of his head. “Aside from the guards in each castle and our people, there are few real fighters in the Kingdoms but for the Hunters and Woodsmen. Lose them and we lose the only effective warriors. Daran’s army has never seen battle, most of them, save to hunt down goblins or settle a few quarrels between Kings. It’s largely untried. All we’re left with are the Hunters and Woodsmen.”

  Swearing, Jareth lay his head against the back of the chair, seeing it all too well. “So that’s what’s been going on. Someone has been wearing them down with these attacks.”

  Elon nodded. “Tiring them out. When winter comes, they’ll be stretched to their limits. Tired people do more than have accidents. They make mistakes. Possibly fatal ones. There must also be a reason for it all.”

  “So, what do we do?” Gwillim said, disheartened. “We can’t just sit by and let them come. Who’ll protect folks in villages like this one? The borderland is only leagues away.”

  A flash of foresight shot through Elon. He went still and cold. In the light of that foresight Ailith’s dream made sense. He nodded slowly, seeing a few more pieces of the mosaic fall into place. Not all of them, but a few.

  “Blood on the snow.”

  Colath looked up, remembering days dodging ogres and boggarts. In his mind’s eye he could see it, too.

  “The wall around this village won’t be enough to keep a determined boggart out.”

  “If they come in force…,” Jareth said, his own blood running cold, as he reasoned it through. “As they did with us…”

  His heart sinking, Gwillim swore softly as he realized what they meant.

  “But that can’t happen,” he said, desperately. “No one can command those creatures. They’ve never come in any numbers.”

  “They have,” Jalila said. “We’ve already seen it. Down at the ruins a few leagues north of Riverford.”

  He looked at her in shock. “That’s not possible. My people have been patrolling.”