Dockalfar

by Nunn, PL

  Fluttering birds, scurrying squirrels and rabbits. The rustling of the wind through the trees. An ogre looking straight at them would have seen nothing more than a frightened animal. A sidhe would have no reason to scry through the illusion, no reason to look further than the rabbit unless otherwise warned.

  When the children came, in the company of more scouts and some of the elders, the illusion was strengthened.

  Others followed. The women that worked in the kitchens, the few bendithy that dwelled in Ashara’s keep. The lesser sidhe who found her court more to their liking than their own communities. Those who had no strength for fighting or magic.

  The weak. The injured. They took little with them. Hastily gathered food. What weapons that could easily carry on their persons and pack on their horses. Few small treasures that might easily fit in a pocket or a pack, that could not be borne left behind for the benefit of their enemies.

  And anger and fear. That traveled with them aplenty.

  They trickled out under the disguise of well-crafted illusion. And to the north and west, the enemy pounded at the too thin walls of their home’s last barrier of protection. And those that held that barrier stayed to keep it up long enough to involve the Unseelie court well and truly in its destruction.

  At the edge of morning the ragged line of over a hundred sidhe, young and old, and various others of their keep crossed the invisible boundary where Neira’sha’s grove ended and the Eastern forest began. The trees were older, and the wood rougher, lacking the taming touch of sidhe magic. The path was cut by hand, for they feared to use magic and alert their enemy to the silent escape.

  Those afoot had an easier time than the mounted. The horses had to be eventually led through vine-encrusted pathways barely wide enough to admit a man.

  And the smell of Lake Mirikii was strong in the air. The greatest body of water within the land bound continent that was their home. It sat in the midst of the nameless Eastern Forest like a sparkling jewel of mist-shrouded mystery. Things lived in the lake that the sidhe knew, and things lived there that they did not. Had never known and probably never would.

  Skirting about its shores was possible, but promised harsh travel through the unfriendly wood. Land travel would also take time. Time enough for Azeral to break the shields and discover the duplicity. The hunt traveled fleetingly in the worst of terrain. Over land the Seelies were no match for them.

  Over water – that was another matter.

  No magic could spy them there. No hunt could follow them without the aid of those that dwelled within the lake. And Ashara had a treaty of sorts with her closest neighbors. A means to cross the water safely and quickly and reach the forest on the other side and the vale that nestled silently within it.

  With evening, the first of the scouts broke through the veil of tangled limbs and vines and beheld the vast expanse of the great lake. Mist hung heavily over it, swirling with shapes and figures that might have been imaginary…might have been real. The sound of gently lapping water overshadowed even the song of crickets and frogs. It permeated everything. The water, in the evening light, was almost black. Fading into the fog it might have continued forever.

  The slope down to the sandy shore was steep and tangled with roots breaking out of the earth and twisting vainly towards the water. Okar navigated a path down the embankment, followed by the shadowy form of his brother. The scouts and the gathering crowd of the others peered down from above, shielded by the arms of the wood.

  Alkar caught his brother’s arm when they stood on the shore, boots sinking into the soft, sandy ground. He leaned close, where none could hear him but his sibling.

  “Are you certain this is wise? We’ve no control over the creatures of water.”

  Okar stared out into the fog. “I am aware,” he mumbled, concentrating on discerning forms in the mist over his brother’s unease.

  “Water things are cruel,” Alkar warned, eyeing the lapping water at his feet with mistrust.

  “They have their own ways,” Okar differed.

  “Ways that include the drowning of land dwellers.”

  “There are allies here,” Okar said calmly.

  “Ashara’s allies and she is not here.”

  That got Okar’s attention. Blue eyes snapped to green with pent up irritation.

  He knew very well Ashara was not with them. It had been with much protest and finally threat on her part that he was here now instead of at the keep holding the shield together long enough to allow them time for escape.

  “Silence,” he hissed and Alkar’s lips tightened. But he kept his fears and his tongue quiet. He crossed his arms and held his ground as his brother took a step forward, until his toes touched the furthest creeping wave. He crouched and placed a hand under the cool water, fingers sinking into sandy silt. He could barely see his hand even through such a shallow depth.

  There was no sight of the bottom. It might have plunged to Annwn a foot past where he crouched for all he knew. Alkar’s fears were not singly felt. Okar feared this course to the depth of his being, but there was little choice. Ashara trusted some of the denizens of this lake. He could do little more than support her beliefs. If he drowned in the process, so be it. But he trembled inside at the thought of a watery grave nonetheless.

  There was a disturbance in the rhythmic lapping of water. Something broke the hypnotic melody. His magic extended out over the water with difficulty. He was afraid to try to hard to see what was out there. Water creatures took offense easily. And their good will was desperately needed.

  After a moment he needed no spell to clarify the sounds. A dark shape skimmed across the water a dozen feet out. A round black lump that slowly drifted across from him. Another shape joined it. And another.

  Soon there were almost a dozen of the bobbing forms. Behind him Alkar made a sound of surprise and Okar could sense him laying hands on weapons. Mentally he sent a sharp warning and knew his brother reluctantly relaxed his stance.

  After an interval of silence with only the water sounds to break the tension, the first of the forms rose up out of the water.

  The evening light shone through the mist to reveal the form of a white-skinned woman. Ladies of the lake. Water nymphs.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Part Twenty-two

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  A silence had come over the keep.

  Dusk felt it through the walls of stone he was trapped within. All the presences that filled a place and gave it life had fled. His senses told him that. Occasionally the walls shook and he would stop in his pacing, knowing intrinsically that something momentous took place without.

  But not what. His magic ability was nonexistent. He had no skill to let his senses roam outside of this room. No talent for searching the minds of others.

  Intuition had always served him just as well. It told him now that this keep was falling. And it told him that despite the suggestion of battle, the Seelies were long fled and Victoria with them and he was left in this place for the victors to find.

  He gathered his weapons and carefully placed them about his person.

  He drew up his cowl. A comfortable routine when his nerves were close to shattering.

  He should have killed the girl. The thought occurred to him and his laughter crowded out the silence of the room. The gulun looked up at him from its nest in Victoria’s bed. Kill the girl and none of this might have happened. Kill Victoria.

  He could not picture how he might have done it, although his body would have known the best course if he had so chosen.

  He thought of her dead on this floor and shivered. Better that she had let her Seelie comrades kill him. Azeral might not have noticed and let his soul slip away. Dusk thought it might work that way. He was in no wise certain of the complexities of possessing another’s soul. He had not even the experience of possessing his own.

  His body shifted reflexively as the keep shook around him. It was a violent strike. The worse yet. Slowly it subsided and the air tu
rned dead. The very walls seemed to bleed energy and grow cold.

  The gulun kit whined and lowered its head.

  It was over, he thought. The defenders had lost. He backed to the wall next to Victoria’s bed and slowly slid down to the floor. There was nothing left to do but wait.

  ~~~

  The gardens were trampled under the stampede of ogre feet. The green grasses and delicate cultured flowers were ground into mud and dirt, the sculptured trees broken and smashed, the pathways violently broadened as fringing hedges were toppled. The ogres and the goblins swarmed the keep first, gleefully invading pristine hallways and passages. They destroyed as they went, leaving a blackened, war-torn landscape behind them. They were disappointed in finding no living victims to vent their rage on.

  Gardens and stone cried out not at all at their destruction.

  They found no sidhe. No single one.

  They ravaged the kitchens and pantries and looted to their heart’s content, but that which their master desired was no where to be found.

  The captain of Azeral’s ogre guard lumbered afoot to the approaching company of his master’s hunt. Zakknr shuffled from foot to foot, waiting for Azeral to acknowledge him. The Unseelie lord’s attention was fully fixed on the white keep he had taken. His blue eyes glimmered. One could not ignore an ogre for long, though, especially when an ogre’s head reached almost one’s own when the ogre was not even mounted.

  Azeral looked down to Zakknr with a single arched brow.

  The ogre did not mince words.

  “Gone. All gone. Nothing living in keep.”

  Azeral nodded. His expression did not alter. “Fine. Secure it. Get your troops out and camp them on the grounds.” He turned to the sidhe behind him.

  “Send out scouts ahorse. They cannot be far gone. I want them found.”

  He urged his mount forward, brushing past Zakknr. The hunt followed. What they did was of no concern to the ogre. He had been given his instructions. With a bellow that likely traveled out of the forest altogether, he begin to organize his command.

  Azeral traveled into the keep that Ashara had made. Its every line spoke of her. It spoke of Seelie docility and standards. It had been pure and unadulterated, but his forces had taken care of that. The scar of ogre boots marred the white marble floors. Goblin urine colored the fountains and ponds. He searched the keep with his own magic and found Zakknr’s proclamation to be true.

  Nothing lived in this keep. He searched the surrounding wood and found no trace.

  Illusion. It would take a more thorough search to uncover their trail. He would find it.

  A crash and a chorus of chattering laughter drew his attention. A pair of goblins was busy pulling down a gold embroidered tapestry from a far wall.

  Their claws had already rent great slashes down its lower half. It was a lovely work.

  The artist had rendered his subject well.

  A lovely sidhe woman sitting under a sweeping willow. Strands of pure gold had been woven into her hair, making it glitter with reddish highlights. Her eyes seemed to look right at him.

  With a low growled curse he flung out an arm. Power rippled into the wall yards from the tapestry and in a successive path of destruction dug a trench in the stone of the wall as tall as a man and the length of the weaving. The unfortunate goblins were caught in the path and their remains stained the indented wall with gray and red splotches. The tapestry hung in tatters. But it still hung.

  He summoned white hot flame to engulf it and watched it burn. Cinders of glowing thread floated through the air.

  “Bitch,” he growled, glaring at the remains. His court watched impassively.

  Eventually, assuming he was content to sulk before the destruction he had wrought, they wandered off to search the keep in a fashion more sophisticated than ogres were capable of. One remained. She stood regarding him for long enough to have his hackles up. Finally he whirled on her and demanded.

  “What? Have you so little to do that you need stare at me?”

  “They could have fled south,” Tyra eyed him calmly, gauntleted fists on hips.

  “But past the forest there is only plain land before the End of the World Range.

  No cover. East is more likely. Thick forest, lakes. Many places for hiding a large party.”

  “Yes. Yes. We will scout east.”

  “There is another place east that no Unseelie has ever sat foot in. They might seek refuge there.”

  Carefully he observed her. The cool ease at which she handled his rage. She overstepped her boundaries time and time again and they both knew it. He might exile her from his court; the kindest measure of punishment. He might cut off his own arm as well, for the disadvantage he would put himself at. For she was proving quicker than he, in his disappointment and rage over being cheated out of victory. “Vohar.” He whispered the word with palpable disgust. “They would not dare. It is not a place for sidhe of any type.”

  “But more suited to Seelie than Unseelie,” she commented. “And I’ve heard tales told that the wise woman Neira’sha lived there for a time when she was young.”

  He frowned, disturbed by the suggestion of Vohar. It was the last of the old cities. Places of strange architecture and stranger pasts. Home to a people that had simply disappeared one day long before even his birth. The wards were unbreakable. They were bound to the earth in a way that no power could bypass.

  They were not always active protections, but one never knew. So one never ventured into the old places. The rage built at the thought of Ashara taking her folk there and hiding behind the wards of a people long gone.

  He would not let her. He could not let her.

  “Take what you deem necessary to Vohar,” he told her. She inclined her head, a motion of respect it seemed she granted only because she approved of his actions.

  He had not the time to deal with her subtle discourtesies. He found himself alone in the hall. The wind blew in from the high open skylights. The air did not smell of aged stone and mildew. It was fresh and open and the purity of it made him shiver.

  He had lived for so long in his keep within the mountains that he forgot the freedom of living next to nature. He forgot the feel of grass under his boots. Those were Seelie pleasure. Let Ashara and her folk partake of them while they could. His rule dispelled light and purity. He was well aware of the distinction.

  ~~~

  The goblins were more difficult to evacuate from the keep than the sluggish ogres. The thought of pillage and looting swelled large in small goblinish minds.

  They slunk in from the camps made in the surrounding gardens and wood while their captains were not looking to take what trophies they could. They crept along deserted halls and desecrated personal chambers, pilfering jewelry and trinkets that caught their greedy eyes. Small, withered bodies clung to the shadows, fearful of discovery from their own superiors might they be caught with pockets of gold and pretty blown glass.

  A small group of them, three to be exact, skulked along the upper floors.

  They were quiet as mice, but not nearly so harmless. Their looting, like the looting of their fellows was never circumspect.

  What they did not take, they took glee in desecrating. They shredded silken pillows and shattered glass or pottery they did not desire for themselves. They left signs of their presence in urine and feces deposited on beds or in the middle of carpeted floors. Chattering with malicious delight over the senseless defacement, they went from room to room, their pouches and pockets brimming to overflowing with the booty they collected.

  The particular three that made the west tower hall their own were known as Sith, Mange and Krucc. They differed very little from any thousand other goblins, as they were small, wiry, hideously ugly and single mindedly malicious in each and every activity they engaged. They had taken the best of what they discovered, mirthfully delighted that no other goblin had reached this bountiful harvest before them. Sith was the dominant of the three. It was he that got the best treasures
, even if Mange or Krucc had found them first. It was he that led the way from room to room and marginally directed the actions of the other two. And it was his, narrowed, sly gaze that caught sight of the sealed doorway when his two cronies might have passed blithely by.

  The goblins gathered about what once might have been a normal portal. The stone of the wall to either side of it had been twisted and stretched to cover the door way. It was rough and slightly concave, and very, very sturdy. Goblin claws made no dent in its solid surface. It was very clear to small goblin minds that some magic had been done to seal the room. Therefore something of incredible value must lay beyond the stone portal.

  They spent some time imagining what that might be, working themselves into a delirious frenzy fantasizing over the wealth that awaited them. Next to dwarves, goblins were the most fanatic in their search for gold. They hardly ever did anything more with it, though, than bury it and jealously guard the spot.

  There was nothing more for them to do but go back to camp and procure picks to break through the stone. They sat about this eagerly, scurrying through the darkening evening towards the wild dotting of campfires outside the keep.

  They made a bee line for their own company and rummaged around in the supplies where Mange was certain he had seen a bundle of picks.

  With picks in hand and each carrying an empty sack for the loot they were sure to find, they crept back towards the keep.

  They went in through the kitchens and crept up a narrow back hall. The sidhe were occupying the lower levels, holding what court they could, in the abandoned keep.

  Unerringly they found their way back to the one peculiar door. Sith set the other two to work chipping through the stone.

  Bits and pieces of rock flew through the air. He hissed and snapped at them frequently as tiny projectiles razed his face or the skin of his arms. Mange and Krucc continued on indifferently, occasionally casting accusatory glares over their shoulders at Sith’s inactivity.