This wasn’t his first breakup with a girl that wanted to get close to him either, but he knew that his actions were for their own good. After all, his life just wasn’t stable enough for anyone to depend on him. And now, well obviously this definitely wasn’t what he’d call stable either, he noted to himself.
About the only one who’d come close to missing him was probably his boss, which he knew would be super-pissed when he didn’t show up for his shift at the Stop-N-Go. The apartment landlord was probably looking for the rent by now too, but other than that; nope, no one would really be missing him.
He’d been too anti-social lately for anyone to become a regular acquaintance in his life, especially since he decided to take the early graduates advanced program and graduated six months before the rest of his classmates. Leaving vague posts on social media from time to time was about the only way anyone heard from him these days.
Thinking about that made him miss his cell phone. He couldn’t remember ever going this long without it before, not since he’d gotten one for his thirteenth birthday four years ago.
Tok walked over to him and began stroking her back against his legs, as if to remind him that at least now he was with others that cared. He reached down to pet her, bringing himself somewhat out of his funk.
“So, what do you think, Aidan, should we go?” He barely heard Tat ask, knowing she’d been rambling on about something, but he hadn’t heard a word she’d said until now.
“Huh? Oh, I’m sorry. I wasn’t... listening,” he admitted.
Tat shot him a crossed look, but then took a deep breath, “It looks like clouds are heading in from the east and Knottagin Dorn is about another day’s walk. Our tent won’t hold up to too much rain. We will definitely get drenched if we camp out another night. Rowen suggested we stop at a small elven village he knows about that’s up ahead, and maybe find a better place to sleep tonight. It’s not terribly out of the way, so what do you think?”
“Well, I don’t know. I suppose we don’t need to get stuck out in the rain, but I’m not sure going to a strange village is the answer. I mean, do we really know anything about the place?”
Rowen laughed. “No worries man, the natives are friendly,” he chuckled, and then stopped when he realized Aidan didn’t get the joke. “I mean, I know them well, they’re good people.”
Aidan shrugged; not sure what Rowen thought was so funny.
“I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you.” Rowen kicked at a pebble, “It’s just... you remind me of when I first got here. I thought this was one bat-shit crazy place. But now that I look back at it and think, ‘they’re not the crazy ones, we are’. Don’t worry dude, you’ll get used to it.”
Aidan paused to reflect and looked down the path, thinking he hoped he wasn’t here long enough to ‘get used to it’.
“So?” Tat questioned again, “Do we go or not?”
He wasn’t quite sure why the decision hinged on his answer, but shrugged again and said, “well, I guess, if Rowen thinks it’s safe.”
“I do. Man, I think you will like it a lot!”
What did they have to lose at this point? And maybe he could get a better night’s sleep than he’d had these past few nights. “Sure, why not?” He sighed. He was stranded in a completely strange world, what else could he do but continue to go with the flow? Who knows, maybe Fortuna would smile upon them since they were with one of her own; and hopefully she would lead them straight to where they needed to go.
Approaching the road, or what Rowen swore was a road, Aidan was sure it was just some kind of animal’s path; the sky clapped with the loudest roll of thunder he’d ever heard. Wind whipped all around them, stirring the tops of the trees like some strange witch’s brew, breaking the smaller branches off and pelting anything below it.
The massive cloud covered sky was growing darker. The wind swept in gusts, picking up in ferocity so much that Tat had to grab hold of Aidan just to keep from being swept away. Tok had given up trying to glide against the winds a while ago and found that lying on the back of Aidan’s pack was quite comfy. The three of them trudged on, but if there was some kind of village out here, it wasn’t very obvious.
“How much further?” Aidan shouted ahead at Rowen who was doing his best to track the trail.
“It’s just up ahead, about a quarter mile from here; hopefully, we’ll get there before the rain starts,” Rowen called back, not bothering to look, afraid he’d lose sight of the trail considering it was so cloudy it was almost like walking in the dark.
Tat had no idea where she was at. She might have lived here her entire life, but she’d never been very much further than her own little neck of the woods without her parents. Briarden village was one of the smallest in the Knottagin area. It was so small that unless you were specifically looking for it you most likely would never find it, considering it wasn’t even noted on most maps.
She never realized how different the woods would look just a few days’ journey away from her home. It made her feel out of place, as if she just didn’t belong. Tat was raised pooka and pookas are known explorers. This should be second nature, she thought, but instead it was very foreign and that was very unsettling.
The storm made her feel uneasy. Storms were rare in the Notherworld, and as Clover had taught, it meant that there was unbalance somewhere. Rain was common, and that didn’t bother her knowing it’s importance, but a storm, that was another thing entirely.
She knew the Gods controlled every aspect of nature, and if a storm was looming it meant they were very unhappy about something. Could it be that they already knew what she’d done? Did they somehow know that she’d gone into the Otherworld and created an Errata? Surely not. After all, she was an Errata herself. If they knew about her, wouldn’t they have eradicated her by now?
I can’t think like that, she reminded herself, knowing that everything that had happened up until now was her fault. We can’t fail, not this soon. I have to fix this situation, no matter the cost, Tat repeated to herself again and again.
She clutched Aidan’s cloak, trying to keep steady. Staring at him, she wondered why he appeared to be so calm about all of this. It made no sense for him to be taking it so well. Aidan was yanked from his home world – thanks to me – and forced into accepting he might never return or worse, might get eradicated. Shouldn’t he be the one panicking? And why wasn’t he furious with her? The whole thing just seemed odd.
Are humans really this calm about everything? Biscuit and Clover had always told her that the human world was a frightening place and that there were dangers everywhere, and the humans the most dangerous of all.
Maybe they got it wrong. Maybe the human world is a very peaceful place. Maybe, then again, she wasn’t sure that Rowen was so peaceful. Sure, he seemed nice enough for the most part, but he did put a wyren in a sack, and he wasn’t – well, Aidan. Aidan... she drifted deeper in thought... If anyone could get us through all of this, surely, he could do it.
“...Up ahead, about a quarter mile from here....” She faintly heard Rowen yell. A quarter mile more? Her legs were already feeling like mush, and the wind whipped her hair frantically all over her face and stung her eyes. A quarter mile more and she knew she’d fall over from sheer exhaustion.
“What the–” she yelled falling to the ground, struggling underneath the weight of some thin vine netting. “Aidan? What’s going on?”
“How am I supposed to know?” he snapped back, crouching near her, also entangled with the net, trying to find any way out.
“Be quiet and don’t move,” Rowen cautioned them with as quiet of a tone as he could manage; hoping they’d understand their situation. While the net itself seemed composed entirely of small vines and should be easy to lift, Rowen knew in this world things were often more than they appeared. He figured the net was most likely spelled to be more like heavy iron than vines. Trying to get out would simply be a waste of their time. Furthermore, he knew that if this came from where he thought
it did, they had bigger problems to worry about.
Both Tat and Aidan stopped struggling immediately. But ‘don’t move’? Moving was something that Tat couldn’t control under the circumstances. She shivered all over. It didn’t help matters when they started hearing the low growling of something coming closer to them.
“Blink wolves!” she terrifyingly screeched. Tok, who’d been knocked down with them, began to hiss. Instantly two sets of dark red beady eyes appeared on either side of them. The haunting eyes were dreadfully surrounded by thick jet masses of short and stringy fur cropped around darkened bald sinewy canine skulls like a mangy wolf with a bushy lion’s mane.
“Stay calm!” Rowen shouted back in response, feeling relieved once he spotted the wolves. “Tybor! Call off your mutts. It’s me and get this thing off of us!” he demanded.
“Rowen? ‘Zat you? Watcha doin’ comin’ up dis way? An’ who’s dat wid you?” A dark blue long-haired elf with pale purplish skin and dark blue eyes to match jumped from the trees above as if he were jumping from a trampoline. He had a thin muscular build, dressed in some kind of leathery brown one-piece sleeveless get-up with knee-high boots.
Tat shook nervously, even though Rowen seemed to know this stranger well. She grabbed Tok and petted her gently, trying to keep the creature calm.
Tybor lifted the heavy net that was pinning the boy down with one very tattooed and muscled arm as if it were nothing, while supporting the full weight of a crossbow with the other.
“These are... my friends from back home,” Rowen hesitated to answer, omitting that they were Errata, “...and we were just wondering if we could avoid the storm at the keep? At least for the night anyway.”
Tybor raised an eyebrow and cocked his head, knowing full well that Rowen didn’t have the power to bring Others through the gates. Adopted by the tribe as an honorary member for quite some time now, he knew Emelda’s boy wouldn’t bring any danger their way. He sneered, “I reckon; if’n dey be frien’s of yourn, I suppose dey are friends of mine too.”
“Envarian elf,” Tat informatively whispered to Aidan after seeing what she figured were tribal tattoos on Tybor’s arm. He could as well have been Braegin, since they also wore tribal tattoos, but his skin tone didn’t fit that of the wilder elves.
“He’s an elf?” Aidan quietly replied.
“Yep, I am, or so’s dey tell me...” smiling, Tybor looked toward Aidan then melodically whistled, calling his wolves to his side. Tok jumped from Tat and hissed again then ran for the nearest tree as the elf and wolves came closer.
Tat’s hands firmly grasped Aidan’s arm again, digging her nails in deeper as Tybor approached. “Ow!” Aidan winced as the robust elf tossed the net aside.
“So can we stay?” Rowen asked Tybor while trying to steady himself from a sudden gust.
“You’s knows you’re always welcome at da keep. Your’n of us, sworn by Amore as our brethren. You’s know dat, but righ’ now, I can’t say’s a good time. I can’t go in ta detail ‘bout it now,” he paused briefly as he nodded towards Tat and Aidan. “But da outpost’s jus’ up yon’er. I suppose Gyrren ‘ll be good wid it.”
“All right,” Rowen nodded. It began sprinkling, he knew now was not the time to be picky about the shelter that would spare them from this storm, “lead the way.”
Tybor looked strangely at Rowen for just a second, making a mental note to teach him the lay of the land again at some point. He figured the boy must’ve spent too much time in the Otherworld since his last visit if he didn’t remember how to get to the outpost.
Aidan pried Tat’s fingers from his arm after he began losing circulation and went to the tree to retrieve Tok, who reluctantly let him.
“Sorry,” Tat muttered, still on edge about all this. She never liked blink wolves. Even if some people raised them as pets here in the wilds. Domesticated or not, wolves were wolves and would always be a thing of the wild, not a pet. While the wolves were never a threat to her, she inherited the fear from Biscuit who told her the story of the pack that jumped his uncle Marble; devouring him just as he’d come through the portal gate after an expedition.
She needed to calm herself and put it all out of her mind knowing they must get to safety before this rapidly growing storm got any worse.
Tybor gathered up his nets and strapped them down to Tippin and Tedo, the domesticated and obedient yet fearsome wolves. With a gesture and another whistle the canines bounded ahead of them. The elf moved with an effortless and silent swiftness back up the trail, stopping every few moments to see if they saw where he’d gone. It aggravated him how slow they were, but he knew Emelda would expect him to be patient.
Rowen followed easily enough, but Aidan stumbled a lot since Tat was once again latched onto his cloak. Nevertheless, they made it just in the nick of time as the deluge let loose.
Chapter Six
The Outpost
T he ‘outpost’ was nothing splendid. If it were anything, Aidan thought, it was a disappointment. Weren’t Elven buildings elaborately carved and decorated, or covered in vines and flowers to resemble nature? That’s what he’d always read in popular fantasy books or saw in movies and games he’d played. This structure resembled nothing like that. It was just a rustic primitive looking building built out of darkened rough-cut wood.
As Aidan stepped in, he noticed the small entry room had rows of racks and hooks, and darkened doorways that led into other rooms. Peeking into one room he saw a small makeshift kitchen.
On one side of the room sat a reddish colored stone-built fireplace next to a row of shelves holding a few crocks which were most likely used for storing spices and dried foods or held utensils for cooking. On the other side sat a crude rather uncomfortable looking wooden table with benches.
Tybor led them into the main room which had rows of more uncomfortable looking furniture. Single-person iron cots with thin mattresses and small side tables lined the walls. A few wooden straight-back chairs and stools also sat around the open fireplace that joined the kitchen. The shutters were drawn closed over the small glassless windows and a single bioluminaire lit each room on the opposite wall of the fireplace.
It might not be as elaborate as he imagined an elven outpost would be, but it would do the trick for now. At least there were no other guests here, Aidan acknowledged, feeling a little more at ease.
He picked a cot out near the hearth and dropped his pack before plopping down himself. To his surprise Tat and Tok plopped on the same cot right next to him. She was still trembling like the leaves shaking in the storm winds, but at least now she wasn’t digging her nails into his flesh.
“Wouldn’t you be more comfortable on your own bed?” Aidan politely suggested while gesturing toward the other cots.
“Oh, yes, right,” Tat mumbled as her cheeks flushed from embarrassment, then she quickly moved to the cot sitting next to his and Tok decided to curl up in a chair closer to the fire.
Rowen followed Tybor back to the kitchen area while the elf muttered something about finding some grub. Gyrren, the caretaker that Tybor said ran the place, was nowhere to be found. When asked, Tybor reassured Rowen that he was sure ‘it’ll be fine if’n dey settled in, ‘cause dat was part of what dis place was for’.
Rowen appeared to have no trouble making himself at home, being familiar with the Envarians, especially Tybor. Aidan was glad that his new friend understood what Tybor was saying, because the slurred garbled English mixed with the fast pace in which the elf spoke left Aidan unable to understand him most of the time. He wondered why it almost resembled the Cajun dialect he’d heard around the bayous in his home state and if all the elves spoke in that thick of an accent.
It wasn’t long before the entire room smelled of a sweet earthy wood-burning aroma. Aidan could hear Rowen and Tybor chatting back and forth with the occasional chuckle or two, noticing how at ease they were with one another.
He stood and stretched, muscles aching all over from the strenuous physical toll that
the journey had presented so far. He wasn’t used to this level of activity. If he were this sore from just the second day, how much of it could he endure?
He watched Tat nervously fidget with the contents of her pack. Poor girl, he quietly sighed then sat back down on the cot. This adventure had been a tough one for him so far, but he hadn’t really thought about how difficult it was for her until now.
She had told them extraordinarily little about her situation while they were swapping stories around the campfire, only explaining some about being abandoned as a baby. He couldn’t help but pity her after that. Aidan stared at her noticing how lost she looked. She’d stated many times that she’d never really been away from home without her parents. He wondered if that’s why she depended on him so much now.
Watching her, his eyes became heavy. The hard-pelting rain drummed a hypnotic melody on the shingled bark roof above him. He tried to fight it, considering it was still early evening, but trudging through the wilds of Breah in a storm was no easy task. He slumped into a laying position on the hard cot and gave in, no longer able to fight sleep.
Images of little green and pink plant people took shape in his mind as he chased after them. Without warning he fell down the tiny hole, landing hard on some soft feathery bluish grass. He sat up noticing his hands, arms, legs and feet were transformed into the wyren’s green stems. Little fairy-like light creatures danced all around his head. They tugged at his leaves and bit his ears and nose.
He saw Tat and Tok run by him, so he ran to catch up with them, yelling trying to get their attention. From out of nowhere Muk bounded down the dirt corridor towards him. Turning to avoid the mongrel he met glowing red eyes, black snarling snouts with dripping giant and sharp looking pointed teeth, then a net flew over him knocking him to his knees.
“Aidan?” He saw the blurry image of Rowen hovering above him, “are you with us?”
The Fateless: Errata Page 7