The Darkling Tide

by Travis Simmons

  There were hundreds of little plunking noises and from out of the darkness of the grove came hundreds of little soldiers, spears and swords held high in anger. Their cries called out in protest. The little soldiers converged in the center of the grove. The trees were like skeletal monoliths to their tiny forms. There they talked to the old man in hushed tones.

  “I think you were right in saying we need to leave here,” Rorick told Abagail. “There are far too many of them.”

  Abagail’s afflicted palm began to cramp at the coming of the darklings. She tried her best to ignore it. Was Rorick offering a truce? Did she even want to accept it? After all, he was in the wrong, he should be apologizing.

  Don’t be petty, she scolded herself. If you can talk to Daniken, you can talk to him.

  “Maybe they won’t be able to breech the warding,” Abagail said. It seemed the elle folk were considering that very thing themselves. They turned and looked back toward the trail. At first Abagail thought they were looking at her and Rorick, but when she studied them further she noticed they were peering at the trail, casting their eyes here and there looking for a breech.

  “Do you believe that?” Rorick asked, flexing his grip on the hammer.

  “Not at all,” Abagail said.

  He chuckled a little and she felt a warmth spread through her body, but tried to ignore it. She was mad at him, and here her body was reacting to him the way it always used to.

  “I’m sorry,” Rorick told her.

  “You should be,” she told him, but before she could say anything more, Leona and Daniken came back to join them.

  Daniken looked down at Abagail’s bare hand, and she waited for the elf to say something to her about it. She didn’t, only nodded like it might be necessary. Abagail felt the same.

  “They shouldn’t be able to get on the path,” Daniken said, but it sounded to Abagail an awful lot like the elf was hoping they wouldn’t be able to get on to the trail.

  There was a sudden stir within the otherworldly grove and the army of elle folk turned back toward Abagail and her group.

  “Elle folk!” The old man threw his hands high in the air. “We have intruders in our lime tree grove. Intruders of the human kind.” A hostile muttering rippled through the gathered elle folk.

  Behind Abagail, she felt Leona stir, and heard her draw her knife. Abagail crouched slightly, easing her weight onto the fronts of her feet for better movement. If the elle folk breached the wardings, she would be ready for them.

  “You know what we do with humans?” the man asked the group.

  “KILL THEM!” the shout rose up around the group of tiny soldiers. Abagail would have thought it was funny if she’d heard someone tell this tale, but at the time, faced with hundreds of tiny people in skin armor, she couldn’t seem to find the humor.

  Abagail’s hand cramped painfully around the sword, and she gasped out.

  “Let it go,” Daniken told her, nodding her head.

  But Abagail didn’t want to. Celeste had told her not to cast, to keep the power bottled up. Too often she gave in to the power, it had its way with her, and used her like a puppet. This time she wouldn’t let the power win.

  “Do it, Abbie,” Rorick said.

  Didn’t he tell me not to cast before? Abagail wanted to scream, but they were right. She might be the only hope they have.

  “No,” Abagail said. “Use your scepter.” She rolled her shoulders and ignored the pain swelling through her arm.

  Daniken sniffed.

  Finally the tension broke and the elle folk surged forward toward the fogbank. Abagail waited, wondering what would happen when they struck the warding. Her heart hammered in her chest, and all she could think of was the warrior from a couple nights before who had found them in Landanten and nearly killed them.

  The elle folk weren’t to reach the warding, however, because as the first of them were starting to crest the fogbank as if it were a hill they could climb, Daniken attacked.

  The clang of finger on scepter was the same as it had been from Celeste, but instead of a resonant twang to follow, the scepter erupted with a bass hum so low that Abagail felt it in her head, making her feet unsteady and unsettling her stomach.

  Silver light burst forth in a wave, crackling and flashing like lightning as it pulsed toward the elle folk. In the trees above the black birds squawked and the wolves bayed, but they both retreated.

  When the wave met the warding, it flashed, but melded through the wyrd that kept the trail safe, and traveled beyond. It struck the first of the elle folk, and threw them backwards, further into the grove.

  The fogbank dimmed slightly.

  “Leo,” Rorick said. “Go grab me that length of wood in the fire, the one that’s sticking out.”

  Leona retreated to the camp, and when she came back she was holding a chunk of wood up like a torch.

  Abagail gasped and cried out in pain. She swooned where she stood, and stabbed her sword into the ground like a cane. She wouldn’t crumble to the will of the power this time. She kept her back straight and groaned through the pain of the wyrd.

  The withered old man righted himself, his cracked lips thinning to a frown. He took a great inhale of breath and swelled up twice his size. There was a gathering of wyrd, and Abagail couldn’t hold her own wyrd back any longer. Before it burst out of her, she commanded it.

  Whatever he’s doing, protect us, she thought. Like before. She remembered once before that she hadn’t attacked, but wove some kind of shield around them. This time Abagail tried for the same thing. She pictured the orb around them, protecting them.

  She almost had it.

  And then the old man blew the air back out in a cloud of green smoke that seemed to decay the air as it came toward them. The deadened trees of the grove beyond the fog withered further, and whatever elle folk was in the way of the cloud when it came, crumpled to the ground, their skin sloughing off their bones and a stink arising from them and blowing on the noxious wyrded wind to rankle her nose.

  Fear rippled through her, and this time when the wyrd burst forth, she lost all control.

  The sword in her hand throbbed painfully and shock crackled up her arm. She let go of the sword with a yelp.

  When the sword top struck the ground, there was a blinding flash. They all cried out in pain and stumbled backwards. Rorick nearly lost the grip on his torch.

  Then, the ground began to thunder all around them and they found themselves fighting for purchase on the shifting earth. Suddenly with an ear-splitting rent, the ground gave way before them. Abagail barely had time to grab the sword before the earth toppled in on itself, racing toward the fogbank.

  The collapsing ground didn’t touch the foreign forest before them, however, but in a puff of fog it dimmed further, like it were but a dream drifting away before wakefulness. The old man seethed and raged within the confines of his lime grove and the hollow-backed harpist screamed so loud that the air itself shivered in fear of her wrath.

  The green smoke broke against the warding, and where it touched the air sizzled.

  Daniken looked worried, and pulled them all away from the trail.

  “Screw this,” Rorick said, and launched the torch through the warding. It flew true, crashing into the old man, and throwing the wavering fogbank backwards, as if it were a curtain blowing away in the wind. The bank collapsed in on itself and vanished.

  For several heartbeats no one could speak. Abagail pulled her glove back on her hand, sealing away the darkness and pretending as if she couldn’t feel the shadow crawling further up her arm.

  “Are they gone?” Leona asked.

  “For now,” Daniken murmured. She stepped around them all and toward the trail.

  The ward was smoking.

  “Will it hold?” Abagail asked.

  “Not against another attack,” Daniken told them. She turned back around. “The sun is rising, we best press on.”

  New Landanten wasn’t like the old Landanten the elves h
ad left behind so many years ago. This one was crafted of marble and gold gilt instead of rough wood and iron. Where old Landanten had been a simple lane of one story buildings, New Landanten was a sprawling settlement of towering monoliths reaching gracefully to the sky.

  A human might have a hard time understanding the construction that went into the buildings which would allow them to stand strong, but Celeste knew the buildings were crafted with much more than just marble and gold.

  She stood in the icy lane, her feet firm and trying to remember what New Landanten had looked like before the winter that hadn’t ended. Now it stood on a frozen mountain top, overlooking a wintery field with banks and drifts of snow. Before the field had been lush and green, filled with trees and butterflies and insects of all kinds. The wind over the field had brought with it the sweet smell of wild flowers and honey, all rushing up to greet the elves who lived high above it. Now the wind only brought the promise of more snow.

  The sun cut through the clouds, dazzlingly bright on the white snow. Celeste squinted against the harsh glare, and pressed forward.

  New Landanten was set up in a kind of circle, with the central part being left open for a towering tree to grow. Around the tree’s base was a well none were allowed to gather water from as it was thought to feed the tree. It was a representation of the Tree at Eget Row, and though people couldn’t drink from the well, they were encouraged to go to the well and commune with the All Father, tell him their darkest secrets, and maybe pray for his intervention on matters that troubled them.

  In the back of New Landanten sat a shadowy part of the city Celeste never went to. That was where the dark elves lived, and though it wasn’t an official name for those elves that thought different from the majority of the light elves, it was still how a lot of people called them.

  It wasn’t hard to see how the dark elves had gotten the name. Over the years since they’d come to guard the moon scepters their physical appearance had changed. Now they were silvery skinned, darker haired, and with startling dark eyes, as opposed to the light elves who’s skin and hair remained fair.

  Daniken, Celeste thought. Her family were dark elves, Celeste being the only one who had chosen to follow the light elves.

  Celeste passed the tall tree, and looked up into its depths. Some elves might not fully believe it had any connection to Eget Row, but it was the one tree around New Landanten that hadn’t died in the three years of winter they were suffering through.

  Celeste liked to think for that reason alone, the tree was holy.

  Celeste followed a stream of elves to the building to the right where all official meetings were held.

  “Do you know what today is about?” Skye asked as Celeste fell in line beside him. Skye was one of her closest friends, and many people pushed for them to take their life vows together, but Celeste simply didn’t see Skye that way, nor did he want a romantic life with Celeste. They were happy with their friendship.

  “No idea, I was out helping a harbinger through the Fey Forest when I got the call,” Celeste told him. Skye looked like many of the light elves, fair hair, milky skin, vibrant eyes. His eyes were purple where Celeste’s were blue. His hair was short where most elve’s was long. He wore leather armor, showing that he was more guardian in occupation than in title. His sun scepter hung from his waist, normally not used. Skye relied on the sword sheathed on his back for fighting.

  “I heard it is a meeting with the dark elves,” Mari said, sideling up to them. She was younger than both of them by a couple years, but had been adopted as one of their clique when she showed the same dry humor Skye and Celeste had.

  “What do they want?” Skye asked.

  “Likely there’s darkling all over the place, threatening to swallow us whole and there’s only one hope!” Mari said.

  “Open the scepters,” Celeste said, rolling her eyes.

  The glowing white hallways opened up into an atrium. Golden light spilled through the stained glass ceiling giving a slight illumination to the chamber. The inside was normally filled with all kinds of plant life, but today the great hall was filled with elven bodies. To the left stood the dark elves, all brooding and serious, watching the light elves with their shadowed eyes. Their silvery blue skin seemed to shimmer a dark glow augmented by the sunlight.

  To the right were the light elves, their chatter and excitement carrying to the rafters above.

  Inside it was hard for Celeste to really focus on anything other than the thrum of wyrd from the scepters. The lamenting of the moon scepters met the music of the sun scepters in a kind of melody that no terrestrial ears should hear. It was a sound that resonated deeply with something deeper and older inside Celeste.

  Celeste, Skye, and Mari joined those elves on the right side, but they didn’t join in the excited chatter. All three of them had been taken away from chores they were eager to get back to.

  “Another harbinger?” Skye asked, drawing the other two into a conversation of their own.

  “Yes, she arrived in the old Bauer Hall,” Celeste said.

  “Were you able to gather anything on Gorjugan?” Mari asked in hushed tones, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

  Celeste hadn’t given an official report yet, but there wasn’t much to report. “Things are pretty much the same, Hilda and Gorjugan haven’t figured out a way to get Anthros free from Eget Row, so we are safe for now.” She didn’t tell them the most worrisome part of her intelligence gathering. The God Slayer was now in Agaranth.

  They haven’t gotten him free yet, but they are getting closer, Celeste thought. Why would Olik send it back? Did he send it back? Was it stolen from him? She wondered.

  But she didn’t have long to muse because the high chieftains were standing and calling all to order. They were a mix of light and dark elves, and though there was a divide among their people, the high chieftains seemed to get along rather well.

  If only all elves could take the lead from them. Celeste tried to reason with her sister, she tried to keep their relationship open, but Daniken was a problem there. Celeste didn’t worry about her parents. After a certain age that Celeste had already reached, elves naturally fell out of touch with their parents. They became nothing more than other elves to them.

  The chatter died down abruptly and all eyes turned to the raised dais where the high chieftains congregated.

  “We’ve gathered you here today on a matter that is most urgent,” Garth said, his wizened voice raising to the rafters. He was old and frail, according to elf standards, with long gray hair and startling blue eyes. He bore the fair complexion of the light elves. “We’ve been watching the darkling spread for some time now and, as we all know, they are only increasing in numbers. Their strength is overwhelming the Fay Forest.”

  “We should have taken them out when they began pushing our people out of Landanten,” Charissa spoke, stepping up beside Garth. She was a dark elf. Though not as old as Garth, she was the voice for the dark elf chieftains. “Not only have they chased us out of our ancestral home, but they’ve chased all fay out of the forest to find homes elsewhere.”

  “The Fay Forest has become their domicile,” Garth agreed. “Their numbers swell, and for a time we didn’t understand how they were coming to be in this world from the others, but now we do.”

  Celeste perked up. Until this point it had all been more of the same thing they’d heard countless times.

  But this was new.

  “The veil between the worlds is weakening,” Charissa said, leaning heavily on her moon scepter. “They don’t need to use Eget Row any longer because there are points in each world they can bust through to the next. The Fay Forest, we believe, is one of those places.”

  A worried mutter rippled through the assembled elves, and even the dark elves broke their cool façade to chatter about what this meant.

  All Celeste could think about was how close to New Landanten the Fay Forest was, and what would happen to their new home if the darklings swelled beyond t
he forest. Would they be chased away again?

  Celeste agreed with the dark elves, they needed to stop running. They needed to do something. What she, and most other light elves didn’t agree with was—

  “We need to open the scepters,” Charissa said.

  Anger swelled through the ranks of light elves. The dark elves merely nodded their agreement. Most of them had already opened their scepters and were able to wield them as weapons. As far as she knew, the dark elves were only using the staves as protective agents. But the dark elves had scouts and guardians of their own, and unlike the light elves that kept to the boarder of the city and the harbinger settlement in the mountain passes below, the dark elves ventured out into the Fay Forest, looking for darkling to hunt. Celeste couldn’t deny that it would be much better to have a weapon that she could use to strike down the darklings rather than keeping them at bay, but at what cost?

  “At what cost?” Celeste asked, not realizing how loud she’d spoken. The light elves quieted down and turned to her.

  “I’m sorry?” Charissa asked, turning to her. All eyes shifted to Celeste. She rolled her shoulders, uncomfortable with the attention.

  She cleared her throat and stepped forward to the center of the chamber between the ranks of dark elves and light elves. Celeste looked up at the chieftains on the dais high above. Stained glass cast a halo of backlight around them.

  “At what cost are we willing to open the scepters?” Celeste asked. “There are other races to consider in this, not all are beings of the light.”

  “That eventuality is a worst case scenario,” Charissa told her. Garth stepped back to let the dark elf speak. “We don’t know for certain that opening the scepters in the Fay Forest would do anything more than wipe out the darkling tide.”

  “But we don’t know that it won’t do more than wipe out the tide,” Celeste said. It was an old argument, and Charissa hardened her mouth into a line, refusing to get into this debate again.