Of Dark Elves And Dragons

by Greg Curtis

  They also loved animals which pleased him greatly, and after a few moments of doubt his normal woodland friends were now more than happy to walk up to them and have their ears scratched or bellies rubbed. The horses too which he’d rescued from the huntsmen were being well cared for by them and he was planning on making them a gift of them when they left.

  Perhaps best of all, they loved to cook, and having been evicted from his own kitchen, he now had the privilege of eating like a lord every day. It was perhaps a fair trade though he suspected he really got the better half of the deal. He didn’t even mind having to have given up his bedchamber for them. The cottage only had two, and the girls were sleeping in one, Dava and Narinne in the other while he found himself in the main room. But the chairs were comfortable, and for the sheer unexpected enjoyment of having someone to share his cottage and pass the time of day with, it was well worth the inconvenience. Having lived alone for so long, it was almost paradise. It was like having a family again, and that he had missed for many years.

  It was just a pity that the week had to end. He suspected his guests felt the same. After all for them the week had surely been a lot more difficult than for him and the coming ones were much less certain. His work done his life would hopefully just carry on as it had before, while they would be asked to lend their magic to a battle and a quest of epic proportions, and then if they succeeded to make a whole new life for themselves somewhere.

  They’d awoken in a strange new land with all of their old world, their friends and family, gone, dead for thousands of years. Worst of all Ashiel had only just discovered that she’d probably lost her parents, brothers and her betrothed, and some days he wondered how she coped with the grief and put on a cheery face. But then he also wondered how they’d coped with the wars.

  What little they’d told him of them, of how Agrin, Klem, Baylor and the rest of the fallen had dreamed of ultimate power and then tried wresting it from their kin and the world itself, had been a nightmare. The forces they had amassed had been immense, and despite the belief of the elves that it had been a true war, it had actually been an endless fight for survival. The fallen had discovered that to take all the power they wanted, they had to steal the magic of their kin, and had then set about hunting them almost to the point of extinction.

  In turn the ancients had tried to fight, and when that failed, had learned to hide from their kin. And they hid very well. Deep in remote mountains, buried under forests and even in the sea itself, while the fallen set about destroying the world around them simply to find them.

  The power they had amassed was incredible, and the smiting of mountains and forests apparently wasn’t that hard for the fallen, but surviving that power was. With each new blast, each new atrocity, each terrible loss of life, the entire world of magic had lessened. Magic was deeply entwined with life if in fact they weren’t two parts of the same whole as many believed, and the fallen hadn’t understood that. So as they wreaked their endless destruction and murdered their kin, they’d slowly been running out of strength themselves.

  At the end, desperate for power and finally understanding the trap they had laid out for themselves, they’d turned on each other, and still more lands had been devastated, while their kin, realizing that what remained after the battles were ended would be far poorer, had thought to sleep through the worst of it, and then reawaken in fifty or a hundred years to rebuild the world. But the likelihood was that no one had been left to awaken them, and finally fearing their return in their weakened state, the fallen had resorted to seeking out their lairs and setting traps.

  It must have been an unimaginably frightening time for the ancients, and especially for Ashiel, who was boarding with her cousin while she attended the academy when the true final ferocity of the wars had broken out, and she hadn’t been able to make her way home. And yet she somehow had come through it. They all had, and for all the evil that had been done to them, they were a robust and happy people.

  “And you’re not. Aunt Narinne will have a fit if she sees you like that. Besides, she has said many times that she would like to make you some decent clothes instead of that boring white outfit you seem to think formal. If nothing else it might make those who come here treat you with a little respect.” Why did she suddenly sound like his mother he wondered? And yet he had to admit she was good at it. Even as he wanted to argue with her, a part of him was actually thinking about dressing more neatly and chastising himself for being a peasant.

  “They will never respect nor accept me Ashiel, but I thank you for the thought. I will wear the white with my armour and silver swords, and hopefully they will know enough to respect my warrior skills as well as my magic and leave me in peace. More than that I do not ask of them nor want.”

  “Liar.” That was the one thing he might never believe about these ancients; while they looked like elves in all their features, though perhaps shorter in stature and silver instead of gold of skin, they weren’t nearly so studied and polite as their elven descendants. They would often call him out on things others would let slip in the name of civility. Even humans. But then they liked the humans. In Silver Falls they’d explored every single shop in detail, examined every piece of material they had for sale, spoken with each and every shop keeper, customer and passer-by they could find, and spent nearly a whole day there. But they’d enjoyed themselves enormously, and since they were spending coin, the humans had enjoyed their company as well.

  Except for Ashiel and Rosalie. Rosalie had greeted him as she often did the moment he entered the White Tail Feather, by throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him thoroughly, mostly he suspected to annoy her father Jorge behind the counter where he was pouring the drinks. For some reason he still couldn’t quite work out, the two of them had been at odds after that, and though Rosalie knew she was a powerful wizardess, after all she had watched them arrive on the carpet like everyone else, she wasn’t about to let that stop her from towering over the small Huron and threatening to rip her ears off when she’d discovered they were all living in his cottage. For her part Ashiel had threatened to set Rosalie’s hair on fire and then the adults had stepped in. It was almost as if they were jealous. But it made no sense. Rosalie wasn’t serious about him, and Ashiel seemed to distrust him most days and actively dislike him the rest.

  Still the rest of the day had gone well he thought, even if he’d become known as the woodsman with the silver wizard’s staying with him, when he really wanted to just be Alan. The women had bought probably every bolt of material the mercantiles had to offer and spent much more coin on the minstrels as they made them play every tune they knew. Dava had been busy in the smithies and farmers’ stalls, studying techniques and buying copious quantities of food that they didn’t need, and a small keg of ale, which Alan thought they did. Later, they’d all tried their hands over lunch at all manner of games. In time to come the bards would no doubt be busy making up songs about the small, silver elves and their flying carpet. As long as they kept his name out of it. He could but hope.

  In the end he’d only managed to persuade them to leave the village by hiding his last few coppers and telling them they were broke. They very nearly were. And yet as he recalled only too well, half the town had come to see them off, many carrying their purchases for them, and some even daring to lay them on the carpet. Perhaps there had been some true sharing of friendship between them after all, and he was simply too cynical.

  Then too he had to admit their flying carpet was a wonder to ride, and best of all it floated gently to the ground without his more usual bruising tumble. He liked that. Elves with silver skins, flying carpets, and the nature of the roughest of humans. Who would have thought?

  “Pardon?”

  “You ache for their acceptance with every fibre of your being, you just don’t believe it will ever happen. And you carry anger for the way they have treated you and your family and your people. As Uncle Dava says, that’s one of the reasons you have become so powerful in y
our magics. Anger is a potent trainer.” Yet she couldn’t talk. Finally, after they had returned and he had shown them his library, and translated many of the books for them with various spells, they had shown him a little of their power, and it was immense. Even the youngest of them, Esille could cast lightning bolts and fire balls that would put his puny efforts to shame. So if anger had made him strong, what sort of rage had fuelled them?

  Their magic, or rather the way they used magic, was different to him. He summoned and persuaded it, using it in the manner in which it naturally wanted to be used, guiding and shaping rather than anything more forceful. His strength came from the magic itself. They grabbed it, held it tight and forced it to their bidding, producing effects that were simply staggering. They termed his style of magic druidic, and their own arcane, but for all that they didn’t seem to class one as more worthy then the other. And as they had told him several times, the most powerful of all magics was neither of theirs; it was the faith based magic of clerics and acolytes. What they could achieve with the help of their deities and spirit guides was often beyond imagining, but it was also unpredictable. In beseeching other entities for their help, they had to remember that those same entities had their own purposes, their own likes and dislikes.

  Arcane magic such as the ancients’ was based almost completely on knowledge, will and study, and to become truly powerful wizards such as Dava and his wife had become they had had to study for decades if not centuries. But the results when they mastered them were the most powerful and best controlled of all wizard spells. The magic of the elves they believed, after having read everything they could find on his shelves about them, was a mixture of all three, but their knowledge was limited and their faith divided, and because of that loss of focus they could perform a great many small magics, but few if any of the great ones. Alan hoped they wouldn’t mention that to the elders. Though it could well be true, it might not be well received.

  Despite their power and undeniable knowledge, they treated him as an equal, and that was something he had never known of any elf. For that generosity he would forgive them any rudeness. And he would miss them.

  “Maybe so Ashiel, but you have not met them yet. You may yet find them as hide bound, hard hearted and overly mannered as I do.” It was an exaggeration and she surely knew it, but even so it was something for her and her family to think about. Alan had the terrible feeling that these ancients might not find life among their elven descendants as enjoyable as they no doubt hoped. They were almost human in their ways, even if they looked elven and had the magic of the strongest elves.

  “Too true young ones, and that is a bridge we may have to cross when we come to it. But we may also choose not to cross it if the gulf is too wide.” Alan turned to see that Dava had joined them. Indeed he had crept up on them, he seemed to love doing that. He also loved wearing deep red, and his leggings, jacket and cloak were all that colour with a lot of gold sewn and embroidered in an attempt to make the whole outfit seem elegant rather than just garish. It hadn’t been a complete success. The elders would be shocked when they saw him, and Alan could almost laugh at the image of their shocked and disapproving expressions in his thoughts, respectfully of course.

  “Pardon?”

  “Just because we have been called here to help our descendants in their time of trouble, and even though we will surely help as best we are able, that does not mean we will choose to live with the elves permanently.”

  “Dava?” Alan was shocked, and yet perhaps he shouldn’t have been. These ancients knew their own will, and despite the fact that the elves of Soolleni Woods surely expected them to reside among them as honoured ancients which Dava and his family would surely hate, they did not have to choose that life. But it would be awkward, and in part perhaps Alan realized, it would be his fault.

  “There are other options, other people.”

  “Dava, please forgive me but you are elves and in the end for elves there is no choice other than elves. I blame myself perhaps for giving you the wrong idea about them. My enmity for them, and the certainty that they will never accept me, has perhaps coloured my views of them, surely poisoned my heart to them. I am not a good person to speak of their lives when I have never lived among them. Indeed, I have always had to hide from them. But for the most part they are good people; they will welcome you as kin, and they will treat you well.” Which was true. They treated everyone fairly and with respect, as long as they weren’t dark elves, but Alan didn’t add the last. The bitterness within him was his and his alone.

  “I think perhaps it is you who do not understand us Alan. We are not elves. We are Huron, the one people of the lands, and we are no more elven then we are human, dwarven or dryadic. All of your races have come from us, and all of you have some attributes we recognise and others we find strange. Before we make any decisions about our future, I think we need to know much more about this strange new world in which we have awoken.” And of course he was right. It was presumptuous of Alan to call them elves just because they looked like them.

  “You are right Dava, and I am ashamed to say I had not thought of that.”

  “You have no reason for shame, and every reason for pride. You are a good and generous young man, your heart is true and your magic strong, and you have been very good to us. On behalf of my family and I, I would thank you for all the kindness you have shown us.” Then he did something that Alan would never have imagined possible. He bowed to him.

  “No Dava, the thanks are all mine. Not just for what you are about to do, but for what you have already done for me. It has been a long time since I have had pleasant company, since I have enjoyed a good meal cooked by another, or a decent conversation with anyone but the four walls and the wind. It is I who am in your debt and in your family’s debt.” Not to be outdone he returned his bow, and was immediately caught by surprise when Dava grabbed him up in a bear hug, something no elf would ever do. Despite his small size, he was a strong man, perhaps even as strong as a dwarf.

  “Then please do us the honour of dressing as you find fit and standing beside us as we meet with these visitors. Besides, despite my niece’s words I think the silver breast plate inlaid with copper is a most interesting piece while the swords are positively beautiful if somewhat intimidating,”

  “I will stand beside you for however long you wish me to. And please also know this; should you choose not to stay with the elves of Soolleni Woods, you may stay with me for however long you wish.”

  ****************

  Nearly an hour later they stood there in his garden awaiting the elves, impatient more than anything else. The elves had taken longer than they’d expected, perhaps stopping to do some sightseeing along the way, or more likely, to discuss tactics for dealing with him. Fortunately Alan had expected that and while the cauldrons of water were hot, he had carefully not added the tea to them, and the food was still being kept warm or cold as necessary.

  The garden looked good too, but then it always looked good. Now however, in preparation for so many guests, he had added to it, shaping several large round stone tables, each capable of sitting a dozen people, one of them for the elders, wizards and ancients, the others for their escort should they choose to eat. He was unclear on that point. They were there primarily to escort the elders not to dine, and they might well choose to continue their duties instead.

  True to their word Dava and his family had dressed for the meeting, and they looked like an explosion of colour beside him, but then that went well with the wild flowers blooming all around them while he dressed in his white and silver was probably the one that stood apart. Still, he stood beside them as he had promised, proud to be there though acutely aware of his own height advantage. Over the previous week he had almost forgotten the height difference between them, but standing beside them in a line it was all suddenly brought back to him.

  Alan was nervous, perhaps more so than he had ever been in his life. Not because of the ancients and how the meeting would
go for them - that was almost preordained. No he worried about how it would go for him with both elders and powerful spellcasters turning up on his doorstep. In truth he had no idea if even his demands for his service had been met or ever would be, and he was half afraid that a battle would ensue. Perhaps that was why he was chewing on his lip while his stomach constantly growled at him, and dozens of steel elementals patrolled the grounds as well as a few others for interest.

  Fortunately he was saved from having to worry too long as with the sound of thundering hooves and loud cries in elven, the first of the guests arrived, a quartet of rangers in ceremonial splendour, acting as an advanced guard. He recognised them immediately from their white robes and silver armour so similar in style to his own, and their weapons, longbows and mithril edged swords at the ready. These were soldiers, and the soldier within him recognised their nature immediately, especially when they entered the clearing itself from the forest path and then immediately took up positions on both sides of the entrance, without so much as even a nod of greeting. Partly it was respect, but with their longbows barely a heartbeat away from their fingers, they would also make powerful guards, - or executioners should things go wrong. Somehow he imagined their arrows would all be pointed at him should he make a wrong move. Their eyes were already on him.