The Coming Storm

by Valerie Douglas

  No fear. She wouldn’t let him see her fear. Keeping her expression as impassive as an Elf’s, she watched him as he walked slowly closer.

  “It’s wrong to spy, hasn’t anyone ever told you that,” Tolan chided, his voice mild. “Haven’t they? It’s wrong to spy.”

  Ailith stayed silent, watching him warily, keeping her face still and unrevealing.

  “You,” he said, finally, “are a thorn in my side. Yes, a thorn in my side. You pain me. You have caused me difficulties, yes you have. Yes you have. For that you must be punished. You will be. You will be, oh yes. The drows failed. Do you know what I asked? Do you know what I asked them? They were to make you watch. Tear your Elven friends and that wizard to bloody little pieces. You defeated the drows. You may wish you hadn’t. They would have had a much easier death. I’m getting very angry, very angry, Ailith. Angry with you, angry with your friends. Very, very, angry.”

  His voice boomed off the walls but he wasn’t shouting, his voice didn’t rise. It continued that so-even sing-song tone. That so-reasonable voice. The sound of it resonated.

  “Yes indeed. Very, very angry. The punishment must fit the crime. Oh yes, it must. Spying, disturbing all my carefully wrought plans, making me work harder than I should. You must be punished, you must. Shall I tell you what the punishment will be. Shall I? Oh yes. I shall. I will have you. I will have you. Yes. It’s only a matter of time. You must be punished.”

  As she watched in a horror she wouldn’t let show on her face, she saw his face melt again. His eyes became hard and glittery, the pupils slitted like a snake’s. His head lowered so that he stared up at her from beneath his rigged brow. The resemblance to a lizard or snake grew more pronounced.

  Reaching out with one long claw, he traced a line over her heart. A simple gesture.

  Agony. Where he touched her it was cold and yet it burned.

  The pain was stunning in its intensity.

  Another, a line to cross the first. Pain lanced through her.

  With an effort, she didn’t let him see how much it hurt, although she could feel sweat spring out along her brow.

  “I’ll put it right there,” he said and tapped one talon on her chest. “I have to punish you. I have to teach you a lesson. I will, I will. I’ll teach you a lesson about fear. You think you know fear? I’ll show you fear. You’ll learn it well, oh yes you will. I’ll teach you a lesson about fear, about terror. I’ll teach you about pain. A great deal of pain. You will learn it. Levels of pain, levels and levels of pain. You must be punished and I will punish you. You will be mine and I will punish you. I’ll see you broken and bleeding. You’ll wish for madness but you won’t have it. You’ll wish for death but you won’t have that either. You’ll crawl. You will crawl and beg. You’ll serve me. You’ll be punished. You and those Elves. That wizard. I’ll have you. I’ll own you. I’ll press a soul-eater to your breast and hold your face so I can watch your eyes, see your terror and your dread as it rips your soul apart piece by piece by piece. You’ll show them to me then, the fear and the terror. You hide it from me now but you will show me. You will, oh yes. But more, you’ll do my bidding. You’ll serve. Not like your father, oh no. Not by slow degrees, not unknowing. No, you’ll know. I want you to know. I’ll have you and I will have them.”

  A wave of his hand. Doors that hadn’t been there before appeared in the walls. Four doors.

  “I’ll have them. I’ll have you. You’ll watch. Even the mighty Elves break, even they bleed. You’ll watch. Oh yes. You’ll watch as I break them and make them bleed. Yes, yes indeed. Oh yes. You will watch.”

  The doors started to open.

  No. Her breath came short.

  “You’ll watch. I’ll press the soul-eater to your living breast and I’ll watch it set its talons into your soul. I’ll own you. You’ll do my bidding. They will be broken. They’ll bleed. In the end, you’ll do my bidding and make them bleed. Yes you will. And they will know. They’ll know who it is who breaks them, who it is who makes them bleed. You will watch and you will know. You’ll take the soul-eaters and press them to them. You will chain their souls to me. Oh yes and you will KNOW.”

  The doors were opening. She knew who was behind them, as she knew he wanted her to see them there. Four doors, four lives. Elon, Colath, Jareth and Jalila. Broken and bleeding. He wanted her to see that. He wanted her to believe it.

  All that he had taken from her already, while she stood powerless to stop it. Mother, father, grandmother. A huge, towering, rush of rage roared inside her. Furious rage. Enormous power.

  Tolan’s eyes flickered. She saw it, that small involuntary movement.

  NO.

  That was what he wanted.

  Elon’s voice whispered in the back of her mind. ‘You fear the power because you fear misusing it.’

  Yes, she feared it. She knew the stories. It terrified her. She struggled to rein it in, that towering rage, that rush of power, to push it back.

  Where are my swords?

  Her swords she knew, her swords she could control.

  Flinging her hands out, she reached for them and suddenly found the hilts there in her hands. Grasping them, she pulled them free. Fury nearly blinded her, righteous but controlled.

  “You will not,” Ailith shouted. “You will not.”

  She spun, her longsword hitting the dungeon door in a flash of light and the door exploded.

  “I will. You will be mine. You will serve me. You’ll learn your lesson,” Tolan said, his voice so reasonable. “You will break and you will bleed. They will break and they will bleed. You will watch.”

  The doors were open. Broken, bleeding bodies, hanging from chains. One, a clear sight.

  NO.

  “You will not!” she shouted.

  “I will,” he called after her as she fled through the shattered door and away from the bonds of sleep. “I will and you will help me. You will help me and you will know. Look and see.”

  The voice reverberated after her.

  A last glimpse of Vision. Like a black tide of death, the creatures of the borderlands poured over walls, to slash and rend and tear. So much blood. Blood on the snow. That terrible black tide poured down and down into a marvelous city of trees, into peaceful green valleys, into the patchwork quilt of the heartlands.

  In its wake was death.

  “You will be mine and they will bleed.”

  The echo of those words chased her out of sleep.

  She came awake trying not to scream. Her breath came in short, hard pants.

  Colath started up as she sat up abruptly.

  “Ailith?”

  “Help me, please,” she begged.

  The fear and the horror were like a flood inside her she couldn’t control.

  He looked at her. Her face was starkly white. She held her hands out.

  There was blood on them.

  She stared at them, stunned.

  “Elon!” Colath said, shocked.

  “Here,” Elon said, going to one knee beside to her.

  He’d felt the dark magic, it had awakened him instantly from sleep. Not hers, not that gentle breeze but that foul magic touching her.

  Ailith looked at Elon’s face, to that stern, strong face with his steady dark eyes. Reassuring. His presence alone helped calm her, helped to ease the terrible fear.

  The memory of what Tolan had threatened shivered through her.

  She looked to Colath, his fair hair swinging over his shoulder as he knelt beside her also, his gaze warm and concerned.

  To those who said that Elves were cold, this moment gave that the lie. Their faces showed little expression but their eyes said all.

  Broken and bleeding. Those doors. Her heart wrenched. No. Never. Whatever it took, she would do all she could to make certain it would never happen.

  Already she fought for control, struggling to rein in the fear, Elon could see it. Locking her eyes onto the two of them, using them to anchor herself in reality once more. She fought s
o hard. So much courage. So afraid.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  She looked into eyes. Her gaze went to Colath. Back to meet his own.

  “He sent the drows,” Ailith stammered. “Tolan. He sent the drows. To kill you and make me watch. Punishment. To kill all of you and make me watch.”

  He saw the horror in her eyes. The wrenching pain at the thought.

  “He failed,” Elon reminded her.

  She let out a long sigh. “Yes. He did, he underestimated all of you.”

  He gave her a level look. “All of us.”

  Her mouth twisted. “All of us.”

  She closed her eyes. Broken and bleeding. It broke her heart. It wouldn’t happen.

  “Tell me.” Gentle. Insistent.

  Taking a breath, she nodded. “He said he would have me. He would have all of us. He would hurt…” She closed her eyes again and stopped for a moment to will that vision away. “He said he would put a soul-eater on me. Not like my father, unknowing. He told me I would know. He would put it here.”

  She touched her chest and looked away.

  Her shirt was soaked with blood.

  Grimly, gently, Elon drew the collar of that tattered garment away as shock went through him.

  Two marks, deep and very clear, an X over her heart.

  Seeing them, Colath took in a sharp breath.

  Carefully, Elon put his fingers to her chin to bring her eyes back to his.

  “You have no need to look away. There is no shame for you here. Colath, would you bring my clean shirt?”

  With a quick nod, Colath went to fetch Elon’s travel kit.

  “Let me do this,” Elon said, “and return the favor you did me today.”

  Another long slow breath, taking control once again and Ailith nodded.

  Very gently, he reached out, touched the marks on her skin and Healed them.

  The sweet harmony of his Healing whispered through her as delicately as his fingers on her skin.

  Ailith tried not to think of that, turning her thoughts elsewhere.

  Another thought kept intruding, the look on Tolan’s face in her mind. That glitter in his eyes.

  “Elon, I think he was trying to provoke me, he was trying to make me angry,” she said, softly.

  “Were you?”

  She bit her lip. Nodded. “Yes. Dangerously.”

  Dangerously.

  Her eyes were level with his, her gaze steady as it met his.

  This was a different fear.

  Dangerously angry.

  He knew what she was telling him. A memory of burned and shattered trees filled him. Yet, she was telling him.

  For a moment he was still. “What happened?”

  Her mouth twitched. “I heard this voice in my head. It said it’s not wrong to fear the power, but only to fear misusing it.”

  “Did you?” he said and felt tension slip away. As did the memory of the trees. “Wise one, that.”

  Ailith grinned a little. “He thinks so. Full of himself, too.”

  Relieved, Elon allowed himself a small smile. “Sometimes.”

  Laying the clean shirt on the blankets, Colath handed her a damp cloth as well. “I thought you might need this.”

  “Another wise one,” she said, wryly.

  “Our Ailith returns,” Colath said, at the glimmer of humor. “Ah, it brings me such joy.”

  The memory of Gwillim and Colath’s threat to mimic him came to mind as Colath’s eyes gleamed with mischief.

  “Oh, don’t start,” she said but she smiled a little.

  She cleaned up the blood and stripped off the shirt. Her shift was in little better condition than her shirt, she thought, as she shrugged into Elon’s.

  Another memory. That last one, as she’d fled. Tolan had said one thing but what she’d seen hadn’t been what she heard. It sobered her.

  “Elon, there was one thing. I don’t think he meant me to see it. You’re right, they have been testing our borders. He intends for the north to fall. I saw it. Like a black tide washing over the towns and villages. All of them.”

  Another particular memory. A distant view of a city of trees. Jareth’s voice waxed eloquent in his description of it.

  For a minute her breath caught. She looked from Elon to Colath, then back again. It would have meaning to them.

  “And Aerilann. I’m sorry.”

  Both of them went still.

  “Are you sure?” Elon asked.

  She bit her lip and nodded. “He knows you, Elon. He knows you and where you’re from. My father would have told him.”

  He nodded slowly. “Revenge and punishment. That seems to be Tolan’s way.”

  “We have to warn them, Elon,” Colath said.

  “We will. He won’t win, Ailith. We’ll stop him. First, we must find out what he is, if we can. There is a chance Talesin will know.” He looked at Colath, knew the same fear, the same concern. “If he agrees, we’ll send Talesin to Aerilann to warn them. We’ll also need to stop somewhere and get Ailith some decent clothes.”

  She glanced down at the fine Elven-silk of the shirt. It was much too long in the sleeves and the hem fell nearly to her knees.

  “It’s a nice shirt and I’m grateful for the loan of it but I think it suits you much better than it does me. I don’t think I’ll get much more sleep tonight, Colath. And I’m not inclined to try again. Why not rest for a time? Both of you. I’ll keep watch.”

  Elon looked at her.

  “I’m well enough, Elon,” she assured him. “Truly.”

  He nodded.

  They both went to their beds.

  Ailith sat by the fire. She needed to think.

  Broken, bleeding bodies. These people who she’d grown to care about.

  Jalila slept, as did Jareth, her cry hadn’t awakened them. For that she was grateful. Both had been the more seriously hurt.

  Broken and bleeding. It was bad enough to take such wounds in battle, fighting, but more terrible still to do so chained to a wall. For Elves, who saw none as being subject to another, it was even more so. Even the thought of such a thing made her shudder. To have seen it. It wouldn’t happen, she would make sure of it.

  That mindless rage…

  Ailith took a shuddering breath. No. Not that either. The stories of the others like her told her all she needed to know of that. She would be different, she would control it, she would find a way to do it. The anger, later, that had been cleaner, manageable. It hadn’t frightened her so badly.

  She remembered wanting her swords there in the dream and suddenly finding them in her hands. The door shattering in a blast of white light. Tolan. His voice. You’ll show me your fear. He hadn’t seen. She’d hidden it. The next time he invaded her dreams she would be more ready.

  For a while, Elon didn’t sleep, instead he watched the still figure by the fire with concern.

  She looked small, swallowed up by his shirt. She wasn’t, though, there was strength in that small frame, determination and courage, which showed themselves now. He saw her sit up a little more straightly and square her shoulders. Her chin lifted. Ah, that was his Ailith.

  Closing his eyes, he allowed himself sleep.

  Chapter Nine

  The trail was little more than a narrow track through the woods but the sun shone down in bright shafts between the towering trees and the birds sang sweetly as they darted among the branches. Here in the shade beneath the boughs it was cooler than it had been out on the plain. It was hard to find threat in this peaceful place. Other than the birds and the rustle of the breeze in the trees, there was no other sound.

  “He’s here, Elon,” Ailith said with a frown, shaking her head in puzzlement. “I know he is. Nearby.”

  Elon pulled up suddenly and extended his senses. “Ailith, hold a moment. Colath, Jalila, do you feel that?”

  A whisper, a little hint of magic. Particular magic. Familiar magic.

  Colath’s chin lifted and gaze sharpened as he took a breath.

>   He nodded, Jalila did as well.

  Oh, yes, Jalila knew that feeling, that tingle of energy. But here? There were no Enclaves here. Nor any close.

  She looked at Elon, puzzled.

  Jareth looked at the three of them and then looked around. There was nothing that he could sense.

  “We’ve been skirting it,” Elon said and shook his head in disgust.

  Raising a hand, he sketched a symbol in the air. It seemed as if he wrote it in light. The symbol, the Elven character for ‘open’, hung on the air for a moment and then slowly faded.

  To their right a mist appeared, rising up out of the ground, thin, hazy, with rainbow motes of light that shifted and drifted in it.

  Jareth gave Elon a look. “Warding? And a Veil?”

  Elon nodded, studying it. How long had they been skirting its borders? From the well-worn look of this trail, they weren’t the first. These wards had been very carefully crafted. A Veil. It was no wonder Ailith could sense Talesin close but couldn’t find him. If it hadn’t been for that whisper of magic…

  “Talesin!” he called.

  The Elf seemed suddenly to appear as if from nowhere, stepping from behind a tree.

  Even for their folk he was tall, as ageless as they all appeared, his eyes as serene as the moon and nearly the same color. It was those eyes that gave away his age. Those eyes had seen much, the look in them was ancient and old.

  “Ala, Elon of Aerilann,” he said and bowed a little, then inclined his head to the others in greeting.

  His voice was deep but the tone was light.

  “Ala, too, Colath and Jalila. Jareth, I haven’t seen you in some time.” His eyes went to Ailith and a spark of curiosity lit in those ancient eyes. “Ala, as well, Ailith of Riverford.”

  Turning, he waved his hand and walked away, to pass through the glimmering light and mists of his Veil.

  Elon looked at the others, lifted an eyebrow and followed.

  Beyond the warding, beyond the Veil where a forest had once seemed to be, there was instead a broad, light-filled clearing. A vale of a different kind. Carefully tended it spread like a skirt around a single massive tree in the center. A broad gallery encircled the base of that tree, with wide stone steps leading up to it. Vines draped the thatched roof, curled around the narrow stair that spiraled around the bole of the tree and up into the branches, leading up to the balconies there. Birds darted and flew among the leaves and branches.