by Shawn Keys
Perhaps worst of all, there was the sun elf castle. Ajax stared up at the castle atop the cliff with angry eyes, as if he could see the King glaring at them from the Sun Tower. From their vantage point, soldiers on the walls of the castle would be able to track Wavesword for hours. The horizon to them was a score of miles away. They might have fought off the first ship to chase them, but the Tidesmasher would not be the last, and the King would know which way they had sailed.
Giving the castle one last dark look, Ajax turned his back. No sense worrying about what can’t be helped. Once beyond their sight, we’ll change our course and hope it’s enough.
He went to Helleanna’s side, going to one knee beside her. “Are you well?”
The maid was treating her right arm and leg tenderly, but the sullen redness on her skin looked more like a sun-rash than the blisters and dead skin of more serious burns. She spared him as genuine a smile as she could muster. “Better than I have right to be.” She lost the fun skip in her voice. For a moment, she was totally serious. “Thank you.”
Not comfortable with such direct compliments, Ajax shook the words off. “We need to get used to doing anything for each other. That’s the only way we’ll survive.”
Helleanna’s gaze trailed along his shoulder, doing her own investigation of his seared flesh. Biting her lip in sympathy, she said, “Give me an hour and the chance to raid the ship’s hold. I think I can whip up a poultice for us both. Enough to cool the sting at least.”
“Burns can be the worst,” Ajax agreed. He held out his hand to her. “For now, we need to talk up near the wheel. There is information you need to know. Decisions that need to be made. Come with me?”
She took his hand and let herself be lifted on the wings of his strength. Leaning into each other, they crept toward the wheel-deck.
Ajax called out, “Jyliansa! Krizzilani! Meet with Callistia by the helm!”
They heard his call, and they slowly converged at the post where the ship was steered. Every one of them was soaked in fatigue. Callistia’s pride wouldn’t let her show it, but her knuckles were gripped white to the wheel. Ajax poured Helleanna against the forward rail, and she gratefully took a seat. Jyliansa collapsed bonelessly and shamelessly onto the deck, laying flat on her back. Krizzilani perched on the lowest step of the steep ladder-stairs heading up to the ballista platform.
A long silence fell over all of them.
Then, Ajax rolled his shoulders through an exaggerated shrug. “Probably no going back after that.”
The statement of the blindingly obvious drew a laugh from the four elfish women.
He rumbled his own laugh, then shook his head. “We came this far to get you all away. I know you said you would join me in my quest. But I want you all to know: I won’t hold you to that. I would have risked the same and done the same either way. It was necessary to pry you from the grips of those who didn’t deserve you. Do you hear me? Necessary.”
Callistia’s heart was in her throat, but tried to reply, “Ajax…” She couldn’t quite move on.
He held up a hand, imploring her to give him a moment longer. “You called me your knight. I cannot hold your favor hostage. I need you all to be honest with me. If you tell me you have paths you would rather walk, then I’ll wish you well, though it would pain me to never see you again. But where I am going… the task I must perform… only the willing will live through it. Only the committed.”
Helleanna smirked, “Trying to scare us away?” She paused, then laughed again. “Might be working.”
Jyliansa didn’t turn, looking up at him from the deck upside-down. “Yeah. I just met you, human. Try any harder and I may simply slip away into the sea.”
Ajax steadied himself on the imposing bulk of the mizzen mast. One last time, he fought with himself. Was this the time? They all had secrets. He could at least wait until they were closer to land. No. They need to know. They need to know all of it. The longer I wait, the fiercer their anger will be. Rightfully so.
Summoning his courage, he said, “We may as well begin with that.”
Krizzilani voiced the confusion they shared, “With the sea?”
“With being human.” He shook his head. “I’m not.”
Callistia’s hand darted to her mouth to cover her gasp. “My sight… by the Fury, was that real? I saw the aura of the beast in you! I was so sure it was only my fear! Lyvarress was feeding me to… to…”
With a smile thick with dark humor, Ajax finished for her, “…to a beast.”
She shook her head, “But that was only my fear…”
Krizzilani was totally amused, much of it at herself. “You let me stalk you that night. You let me steal a fake artifact. You let me…” Her mouth fell open. “…all of that!”
Ajax favored her with a lustful smile. “And I would again.”
The dark elf chewed on the raw lust they had shared. Then, on his actions since. “So would I.”
Helleanna was glancing back and forth between them all. Then, she locked eyes with Ajax, demanding, “What am I missing here?”
He didn’t dodge her. The possibility of seeing hatred bloom in her eyes put fear in his heart, but he wasn’t shying away from what he was. He never had. Until now, it simply hadn’t been…convenient to bring it up. “I’m an ogrelav. My father was human. My mother was an ogre from the Bronze Hills.”
Helleanna’s mouth fell open in utter surprise. Splashes of emotion warred over her features as her mind tumbled end over end. Ogres were said to be cousins to the orcs and goblins that haunted the nightmares of her ancestors. Monsters, if anything was.
Jyliansa accepted the news with far less shock. They had yet to share a bed, which helped. Helleanna was coming to terms with the undeniable fact that a monster had been between her legs. Beyond that, Jyliansa’s ancestors dwelled among the waves. Sea trolls and scuttlemen lurked in the dark places of her world, not orcs and ogres. Then again, many believed it was fear of the evil tribes that had driven sea elves into the ocean depths. She rolled onto her stomach and peered up at him. “Wait. Father human? Mother an ogre? Ahh… but… ahem… I mean, how? I mean, physically, how?”
Stunned silence.
Then, suddenly Helleanna burst out with laughter, “Far easier than I took him!”
The strange burst of humor tore through the tension, and laughter took all of them but Callistia. Even she allowed herself a gentle smile, though her sense of decorum permitted nothing more.
Ajax regained himself first, though embarrassment clung on a little longer. Even that didn’t last. But for Jyliansa, they had all sampled what he was. No sense pretending. “My mother was an outcast. My father was a mountain man who turned away from what he saw as the two-faced manners of ‘city-folk’. They were less a love story, and more two lost souls using each other for comfort. Neither was the type to speak of love. They never did. But they were with each other till they died together in an orcan raid.”
Callistia asked in wonder, “How could you have survived?”
“I was still young, though as large as most orcs. They dragged me off in chains. Whether I would have been a slave or fodder for their death arenas, I never found out. An elfish hunting party found them a few days later and ripped me from their hands. One of those elves was the son of Tyvanthelam. He would later become my sponsor to become a knight of the realm.”
Jyliansa smiled with a flash of twisted humor. “I thought you were so very much the knight. On the run, but a knight all the same. Merely misunderstood. Nice to know you are as much an oddity as we are.”
Ajax suffered agreeably as another wave of laughter passed around the circle. “My life ceased being ordinary long ago, if it ever was. I’ve kept this secret buried my entire life. I’ve seen others with orcish blood hauled away to be executed…to cleanse the taint, as they call it. I never knew why the same magic didn’t reveal me. I’ve suspected for some time ogre blood is different from orc. Legends suggest they are giant-kin corrupted by orcish blood, rath
er than true cousins. In the end, the truth never mattered. I didn’t care about my heritage. Neither side of it. I was part of the elfish court. I was their knight. It was all that I cared about.”
Krizzilani interjected, always the cool and practical one, “Until something changed.”
“Until everything changed.” He reached back and into the long braids of his hair. They were becoming rope-like tangles, in desperate need of care. They were rapidly approaching the point where it would be easier to slice it all off and begin again. He found the thickest braid at the core, a good inch thick and pleated using five different smaller strands. He worked behind his head until he opened a path into the heart of the braid, then unhooked the lantern shaped object nestled inside.
He left the chain in his hair. Getting it out would take hours, and he intended to replace the object he held anyway. The sun had risen well over the horizon, shedding enough pure light to set the inner, red gemstone aflame. The minute details on the black lantern were exquisitely crafted, suggesting on each of the four corners a different element – the flicker of flames, the crag of mountain stone, the whirl of the wind and the wash of the waves. The red flame gemstone at the center didn’t feel like a representation of fire, but rather the attribution of life that wove the other elements together.
As Ajax presented it to the others, Krizzilani’s hands clenched to the ladder in surprise. “You still have it!”
Callistia’s reaction was similar, nearly letting go of the ship’s wheel as she stammered, the royal princess losing her typical composure. “You weren’t just running to hide the secret of the magic! But I saw him take it from you!”
Ajax nodded, “Misdirection. I gave him what he wanted to see.”
“The King… he has a fake?”
Krizzilani darted to her feet, raking a hand through her hair as she realized how far she had been misled. “The King has another fake! It was a double blind. Any thief might expect a fake, but you had a second to pass off as the original once the first fake was discovered.” She shook her head, and her smile grew a sly edge to it. “Who would have thought a human would have balls of brass ?”
Ajax held the lantern artifact affectionately, then asked the gathered women, “We’ve been through a lot because of this little item. But do any of you know what magic it holds?”
All of them paused before answering, extending their elfish senses toward the pendant.
Callistia, most confident with her magic, spoke first, “Nothing. How can this be the true item?”
Ajax cradled the lantern-shaped object all the tighter. “You’ve touched upon the reason why none of the other kings have been able to unlock its secrets. You cannot see the magic within because the spirit trapped within doesn’t wish you to see it.”
Jyliansa’s curiosity was roused. She spun off the deck and folded her long legs into a lotus fold. “Spirit?”
With a shrug, Ajax admitted, “There is probably a more accurate term known in the circles of magic. But that hardly matters. She is a living being, an entity of pure and powerful energy. Opening the barrier between her and the outside world is dangerous. Her whispers alone nearly tore my mind apart. She tried to convey her history to me in fragments and pieces small enough to keep me safe. From what I understand, a powerful mage summoned her from the Plane of Creation and snared her in this structure.”
He lowered his voice, and coaxed, “Quala, let them taste. Only a fraction, as much as you showed me.”
Nothing, though a slight warmth chased the windy chill from Ajax’s palms. Concern resonated through his mind.
He whispered again, “Begin small. Relax into it. You will know when it is enough.”
A strange sense of acceptance passed into him.
Then, the lantern began to hum. The sound was beyond most human hearing, though the elfish women all immediately winced in pain. A furious vibration caused the metal artifact to buzz in his palms as if he had captured an irate wasp.
Once again, it was Callistia with her power who reacted first. Her eyes widened as she stared at his hands, then she gasped openly, “That’s impossible! The weave is so intricate to hold that much energ –” She was cut off as the magical radiance only she could see became too bright to withstand. She balked, pulling away and shielding her eyes reflexively.
The others had their own reactions. Helleanna and Jyliansa both flinched, while Krizzilani was sucked closer like a moth to a flame, creeping across the deck until she could stand no more. She stood her ground, hissing in pain yet unwilling to pull away. A covetous light rose in her eyes.
The humming receded, and so too did the ethereal light.
The elves all released the collective breaths they were holding. They traded glances that spoke of amazement and uncertainty, as if questioning each other for an explanation for what they had just seen.
Ajax provided what they didn’t have. “That was just the containment spell she is suppressing. Not the power of her own essence.”
Helleanna’s voice betrayed her total wonder, “What does it want of you?”
Ajax shrugged. “Nothing more than the rest of us. To survive.” Carefully, he replaced the lantern into the strands of his braid, no longer needing it out in the open. It made him nervous not to have the spirit’s cage hidden away. “Again, her communication to me was distorted and broken. My details may not be accurate. Do all of you understand the planes of existence? Most humans do not. When I felt her pain and knew what I must do, I tried to educate myself before I committed to the quest. But I fear my knowledge is still adolescent at best.”
Callistia provided. “In the center, there is this mortal realm. It is the most stable, the focus of all that has been created and is yet to come.”
She gestured as if shaping her hands around a sphere. “Around this mortal place is a cascading, interwoven web of chaotic life. Closer to creation, there is the Wyld World of the Light Fae or the Glaring. Closer to destruction, there is the Dark Wyld or often called the Shadowscape. Both are the filter for life’s energy to enter into the mortal world and then leave it again. The insanity of pure energy merges in those places, combining in distorted yet wondrous patterns. The flow of energy across the Glaring then bleeds into the mortal realm in coherent patterns that can be understood and accepted. Stable. Then, as that same force of life exhausts itself, it breaks apart and enters the Shadowscape. There, the last remnants of sanity are stripped away. The balance returns to pure chaotic force that is cast into the Elemental Fury.”
She pulled her hands further out, forming another, larger layer around the first. “Above the Wyld, there are the elemental planes. They are the first coherency. Violent. A storm of never-ending power and the source of all magic. When I use magic, I am opening a conduit past the Wyld planes, accessing the raw potential of the elements directly and funneling them into this world. Hence why I am able to break the rules of what you might call nature. These elemental planes stand in opposition to the Fury. Destructive magic taps into the Fury, rending apart that which should be whole.”
One last time, she raised her hands outward to shape a final sphere level. “Beyond the elements are Pure Creation. Endless, shining, dazzling energy filled with limitless potential.” She gestured with her other hand ‘beneath’ the darker side. “And standing in opposition is oblivion, to which the Fury renders all things in the fullness of time. There is nothing here but the devourers. And what shape those take, no-one knows.”
Her eyes fixated on the lantern that Ajax was weaving into his hair. “I heard fables of great mages… only the greatest of mages… who could reach their hands into the plane of creation and bring forth one of the angelic beings that dwell there. Beings that used to be worshipped as gods by those who could not understand. Or, as the servants of creator beings that could not be proven real.”
Ajax huffed in quiet amusement. “There are many humans that still do, in secret. Elves have abandoned what they call the Elder Gods, but many humans still cherish the idea o
f a divine spirit watching over its jewel of creation.” He shook his head. “But it doesn’t matter. Thank you, Callistia. That is what we all needed to hear.”
Helleanna’s wonder had not faded. “You keep suggesting this spirit is endangered. With such power, what could threaten it?”
Ajax struggled to explain, “Again, the images the spirit shared are difficult to decipher. I am no mage. But put briefly, the spirit’s magic does not come from the elements. It comes from the wells of creation. But she cannot reach those wells from here. When the energy she carries is consumed, then it vanishes forever. And so will she.”
Krizzilani mused, “For a creature made of this primordial magic, that makes sense. I’d say you understood perfectly well.”
Ajax inclined his head her way in thanks. “Using any of her power causes her pain. Even now, concealing what she is from the world, she suffers. A necessary evil, but it is a cost she bears in hope of returning home. The sun elf kings who seek to conquer her and use her magic would surely ascend to power unheard of. But in the process, they would destroy her.”
“You heard her cry in pain?” Callistia asked.
“I was an experiment. King Tyvarthelam had been frustrated for a decade trying to fuse the spirit’s power to his own. I have no idea how he acquired this artifact. He was not the one to summon her, nor any of his elfish mages.”
Jyliansa asked, “Can you see the one who did in the visions she sent you?”
“Sparks and flashes. If I stood in front of him, perhaps I might recognize him. I have not focused on such things. The strain is so great connecting to the spirit, I focused my time on what needed to be done.”
Callistia cautioned, “The information may prove important. If this mage yet lives, he may be hunting her.”