Beneath a thunder of undeniable sound, President Thurston Manning toppled from the window, disappearing from sight and leaving the two from the Veil with Farsing and Hargrove and numerous agents at the door. Those onlookers rightly cowered in utter awe and terror as the whole segment of building was blasted away, sent ripping out into the lawn, the remaining Blackhawk, and beyond. A few new explosions marked the end of the other chopper and its armaments, and for long moments the sound slowly dwindled, leaving behind nothing more than a jagged, yawning ruin.
A long string of moments shocked into silence ensued, leaving dumbfounded men staring into the fringe of the Veil of the Leaf’s Edge and the wrath of the dark little figure. Shannon struggled to rise with whimpers of pain the men could not hear, but her movement drew the eyes of the men. Director Farsing’s mouth hung agape. He recognized her. Her clothing was strange and unexpected, but her face was the same as the pictures in Connelly’s report. He couldn’t believe it. Connelly was right. Shannon Hunter’s escape had indeed something to do with this entire mess.
Slowly, he started to raise his gun against her, but he noticed the black eyes of the dark figure with that incredibly powerful sword of such ridiculous length it was as if he was wielding a flag-pole, albeit a razor-thin and apparently weightless one, bent beneath a gentle curve and glimmering of a silverine haze. It was as if his gaze upon Shannon Hunter alone had drawn the dangerous warning of Deh Leccend’s eyes like a magnet.
With a subtle gesture, Deh Leccend destroyed the Qual-goggles, stripping them from the faces of men. And casting them aside as nothing more than crushed bits of metal, plastic, and shattered glass, Deh Leccend turned to face them halfly. He prepared to take a step towards Shannon, for she was injured, unable to gain her feet. This of course left the men staring furthermore, for now they could see him without their visors.
Deh Leccend had descended to the third dimension for the first time in several millennia. But, Shannon had not. She was unable to do so without his aid. Uncertain of what to do, Farsing tested the waters, taking aim for Deh Leccend’s inattentive head. He squeezed the trigger, loosing a single, halfhearted shot, but the Black Leaf merely deflected the bullet in a blazing flourish of his sword, sending it ripping away without even bothering to look.
Silence enveloped the White House grounds once again as the Black Leaf had proven his point. There was no stopping him as a mortal.
He moved then for Shannon, his Firea’csweise, and he bent over her, plucking her up from the floor with ease and grace. Of course, the others could not see her in his arms, but it was clear what he bore aloft.
She welcomed his strength and steady touch, but finding his black gaze left her pain forgotten. His features were riddled with a flood of emotions she couldn’t even begin to describe. He looked terrible, ruined about his sharp features, and yet, he looked fierce and compassionate for her injured self, like a lover, and yet more. He looked about to cry for her, eyes gone puppy soft and swollen with tears, and yet, she could feel that not all of it was for herself.
“Deh?” She spoke, a soft lilting question, for she worried for his looks. Yet, her pain and voice were marred by a mingling of excitement for him. He was feeling emotions.
“My dear Firea’csweise, milady, the White Leaves have fallen from the great tree.” He said, turning to her for support in the consequences of his actions.
“The furies of the Black Leaves have been unleashed!” He added dreadfully, knowing how much she had feared the coming of this moment.
“It is over for your kin. The end has come!” And as he spoke it, the world heart a wailing cry. It may have been a horn from the heavens. It may have been an animal. It may have even been a billion voices crying out their sudden terror, but Deh Leccend knew the truth. It was the Black Leaves. His kin, given back their fury, were quick to suffer the ages of pent up feelings being released all at once.
The men here gathered could do nothing but watch as the Black Leaf ignored them, and both he and his unseen charge simply vanished altogether.
Chapter 19
"What do you mean, the White Leaves have fallen?!” She asked wildly as Deh set her to rest upon the exposed roots of a massive old oak tree beyond the Veil. She knew of what little he’d shared of the White Leaves, bearers to the charms of ‘the Powers’. Yet the entire topic was vague and fairly mysterious, if not outright nonsense.
The Black Leaf didn’t answer. He focused on touching her softly in various places with an open palm, scanning, feeling for her injuries and healing them in ways she couldn’t begin to see or understand. She simply incrementally felt much better each time his brow furrowed in thought and effort.
“Deh!?” She insisted, gripping his arm, halting his efforts at her wellness. She was well enough, and tough despite what she’d shown of herself to the elves since her abduction. Her pain could wait.
“What do you mean of the White Leaves?”
“Athaem’s death has infuriated Dunesil!” He said emphatically –now more emotively than he had within the oval office. He was grown thick with feelings, but oddly Shannon didn’t find it unusual. His voice had gone from mechanical to normal, and the tones he wielded now somehow suited him better than the persona she’d grown to know.
“He has gone to the great tree! In his rage he has unleashed the Black Leaves. But more! He may have slain the White Leaves! Milady, it has begun!” His words left her speechless. Why would Dunesil do something so foolish? How could he cut any leaves from Addl’laen, knowing full well the tree was the life-spring of all creatures of mind, not to mention killing leaves of such importance?
Deh Leccend turned slightly away from her, as if to hide his shame for Dunesil’s actions. But it wasn’t shame he didn’t wish her to see. He waved his hand upon the air as if drawing a great circle, and there before her eyes it appeared as if he’d torn a hole in the Veil.
Light and color poured into the everlasting twilight of the Veil as a massive scene splayed out before her. She recognized it immediately. It was New York City. She watched in utter awe as a single Black Leaf stood upon the sky as if upon solid earth. With great long saber in hand the Black Leaf was making slashes against the city from on high. Without so much as coming close to touching anything that tremendous sword tore it all down.
Shannon now bore witness, as Firea’csweise indeed, to the ends she’d slowly begun to wish would never come over the past week. Buildings were scored in twain, sundered and collapsing under their own weight and the forces of the Black Leaf. People were screaming. She could hear their distant roar. The chaos wrought beneath the terrible power of the Black Leaf was frightening. His howls of vengeance on behalf of the mother were filled with enjoyment.
It was too late to do anything to save mankind, she now knew. They would be buried. City by city, they would all perish. Civilization would be smote to dust, the stragglers would be hunted down like vermin, and yet she couldn’t pry her eyes away. Even as Deh Leccend began speaking, Shannon could only stare in terrible awe at the might of the Black Leaf there. His voice radiated over all sounds pouring out of Deh Leccend’s window, maniacal with laughter and bloodlust.
“He has not waited for mankind to comply with what must come to pass for the great mother’s survival! He is now forcing it! My wrath has been unleashed like all my brothers and sisters. But we are not the worst your kind must face.” He was dreadful at the prospect.
“The Powers are waking! The charms have already been taken from the hands of the White Ladies!” Again he waved his hand, brushing over the window as if shooing a fly. In a wash the scene was now Los Angeles. It was already consumed by fire, reducing itself to ashes and suffering an even greater wrath beneath another lone Black Leaf, who was already miles from the decimated city.
This Black Leaf stood upon the fault lines of San Andreas. He reached down to the earth as he stood upon it, and as if a giant, he was tearing the land free. She could almost feel the tremors, as the tiny figure of the Black Leaf heaved
upward on the edge of the tectonic plate. The earth roared in protest as he lifted it, but could not resist pouring all of its ruin and people into the sea in the single greatest landslide the world may have ever seen.
Shannon was breathless as the great shelf of California slowly slid into the sea, casting out the water of the Pacific Ocean into a tsunami that likely wouldn’t stop even after reaching the far eastern side. She’d known the Black Leaves were powerful. She hadn’t yet seen such powers openly wielded to their fullest extent like this, but she’d always felt it in Deh Leccend. She’d suspected it early on, but what she’d experienced that night at Murton and Norton, and everything he’d done since, was virtually nothing compared to what he was truly capable of.
“Is it like this everywhere, Deh?!” She finally stammered, turning from the scene as her misanthropic ways fell into a chasm of disuse and a familiar old feeling rose up to replace it within her heart. She was sickened by the haunting reality that she was watching the world end for humanity. Terror swept through her as it hit home. She was going to be the last one left alive, and she could only look for support in Deh Leccend, one of the very agents that would bring about her solitude.
There were tears in his eyes as he nodded toward the window to confirm her question, waving his hand over the scene again, bringing it to travel elsewhere.
By the time she looked, Shannon only caught sight of the last moments of Big Ben of British Parliament fame. And she was given witness to the destruction being wrought in England. London was swiftly being obliterated. Again and again he changed the scene, rapidly passing through various locations, that she might bear witness as Firea’csweise was bidden by Addl’laen.
“Here is Kyantantan Dalieahda Trialn!” Deh Leccend gestured, touching the tiny figure of a Black Leaf in the Middle East, somewhere in a desert, and Shannon watched the burning of oil field systems in one fell swoop of Kyantantan’s blade. At Deh Leccend’s touch, the dark figure stopped, turned and smiled -waving back as if he’d touched her in truth. Shannon was surprised to see a female Black Leaf. She didn’t know why, but she hadn’t expected there to be two sexes for the furiously powerful little machines.
“And here is Vinsillir Tyatarli!” He added, excited and proud for his kin. Shannon helplessly watched the cooling towers of a nuclear power plant in Russia collapse with fantastic booms. She almost felt the rush of the wind and debris.
Japan’s sprawls of city were no different, as Deh Leccend took her there. China too. Beijing and Hong Kong, were utterly devastated already. And elsewhere, the destruction was even greater. The scenes flickered before her eyes and she could only imagine what it would be like to be there, helpless before the onslaught of what she imagined the people in these places could only consider a cataclysm.
But here, in Washington D.C. nothing was happening in wake of Athaem’s death. Deh Leccend should be wreaking havoc like his brothers and sisters. Instead, he was talking to her.
“In little time, Miquael, the Celestine Sword, will descend from the sun. The light he bears will pierce even the Veil of the Leaf’s Edge! His brother, Enfaeri, the Fire Hound, will awake and assault all that burns, saving Addl’laen and the Veil of the Leaf’s Edge for last. Traemin will rise from the forests south, and assault the atrocity of your cities. Gane of the regrowth will assist him. The trees will come alive, consuming all things in their path until they meet Enfaeri, and a war will ensue between them...
Your legendarily misconstrued Quetzalcoatl’ will rise from the north, when the ice melts. The world will flood! Tsunamis will rise from his everlasting battle. The true form of his name is a battle between the brothers, Lleviathaln, the Maw, and Kraquen, of Seven Tongues.” Through all that he spoke, Deh Leccend was dreadfully awe-struck, and his features were utterly intense.
“The Bahthalumut Onix, will open the weather to his wings, and Bahthalumut Fafnir will open his on the wind. Together, they will blow down upon the earth, turning mountains to sand and the seas will fill with the ash of the mother’s ruin! The brothers will then wage war on one another!” For all his emotion, Shannon felt more separated from him and all that he would tell than when he was a child-like machine. She grew cold, her stomach wanted to turn, and her fear wrought a peculiar mixture of disbelief and acceptance within her.
“Once their destruction of Mankind’s atrocities is complete, it will be left to the Black Leaves to put them back into their charms and wield the White Leaves as locks once more!” He revealed as he’d told had occurred once before, but he was fearful of it. She could see he didn’t think it could be done by the twenty-one.
“For if we do not, one of them is bound to find Addl’laen, and all will perish with her.”
“Is there any hope for anyone?!” Shannon was frightened too, but oddly struck by a resignation to what was happening. This was all absurd, impossible and ridiculous, but it was none-the-less truth.
“I’m afraid not, Firea’csweise.” He admitted with a heavy sigh.
“When the Powers were let into our realm more than mere countable millennia ago by your standards, back when the north of your Africa was part of a greater land and turned into a desert of sand by we the Black Leaves in effort to cover all of human kind’s treacherous past…” His tongue came swift, as if he couldn’t get the words out fast enough to emphasize his point.
“It took many of our lives to fight against them. They have not been unshackled since. They were never meant to rise again. There are too few of us to withstand them, for we also lost many when the Wyrms needed annihilation Millions of years ago.”
“Wyrms?” Shannon was confused.
“Dragons.” He responded. “Or dinosaurs as your people have called them fairly accurately. They were indeed terrible, but only vaguely reptilian. They were incredibly powerful and highly resilient -very difficult to kill. But we, the Black Leaves, succeeded in wiping them off the face of the earth, and Addl’laen shed their leaves. All but one, for he took root and hiding, deep within the earth. He hid from us well, but when we found him, he pleaded for salvation. He repented and swore his blood to never rise again.” Deh Leccend trailed off, balling his hand into a fist.
“The dinosaurs were dragons?!” Shannon couldn’t believe it. Of course, it wasn’t the first time anyone may have assumed them to be dragons. Many people may have imaginatively speculated such, if at least in a passing glance of possibility. But here Deh Leccend was telling her it was the truth of the matter.
“Yes, but he’s the only one left, and still lives, as the last lord of their kind. Edelwizir, the Shadow.” The Black Leaf responded with a light grin.
“He’s still alive?!” Shannon was incredulous, for the realization of the true cause of the dinosaur’s extinction suddenly registered.
“Yes.” Deh Leccend answered. “And now you know what really killed the dinosaurs.” He confirmed, grinning widely -proud of the skills and power of his kin.
“It certainly was no comet, nor the coming of cold ages.”
Shannon just stared, deciding that was all she cared to know about that. She turned to the more immediately important matter of the Powers loosed by the White Leaves’ charms.
“So, what of the Powers then?” She asked. “Can they be destroyed like the dragons?”
Deh Leccend scoffed lightly.
“The last time the Black Leaves had to put the Powers back, there were more than three hundred of us. Now, only 21 remain, constantly under the supervision of Dunesil’s seven sons -six now with Athaem’s end.” He trailed off, the fear in his usually emotionless black eyes was palpable.
“We lost many in the struggle of the annihilation of the wyrms, and even greater numbers in the locking away of the Powers. I fear there are too few of us left to do so again. Dunesil has made a terrible mistake! He should have let the Black Leaves destroy mankind. The Powers will not be stopped. I will die. You will die. The Elvine will perish and the Great Tree will be devoured. Everyone will fall beneath this final doom.” He blink
ed, looking on her as if to ask if her question was answered. It wasn’t, and it showed on her features.
“So…?” She asked for clarification.
“No, Firea’csweise! The Powers cannot be destroyed! That is why they were locked away beneath the keys of the White Leaves to begin with. They claimed too many lives in the Black Leaves, and we fell from the Great Tree rapidly.”
“The world is going to die? All of it?!” She still couldn’t believe it, yet her eyes wore sadness -not disbelief.
“The great mother will be the only survivor, but she will live within eternal turmoil under the sway of the endless battles between the powers. Unleashed or not, the Black Leaves are helpless to prevent this end.” He finished, but Shannon suddenly had an idea. Something in the unleashing had yet gone unanswered in all the talk they’d shared of it.
“What does it mean, Deh, when you say the Black Leaves’ furies have been unleashed?” She asked quickly. He hesitated, pondering the question.
E.L.F. - White Leaves Page 26