Teller of Fate
Third Movement: Dævara and Bradwold
Chapter Twenty-Two
* * *
Though the Elven Convocation forbad formal contact with all non-elven races, it neither stopped nor worried about elves making their way in the Multiverse at large, so long as they didn’t bring anything back with them that could cause harm.
That was why it had been an unpleasant surprise that guards questioned her right to leave.
The world she was headed for was Misry’s largest moon, called Misry One. It was rocky and airless, the home of a large mine and the town that had grown up to service it.
The Portal deposited her in a plain grey stone chamber, about twelve feet around. It was open to one side, and she could see people strolling across the entrance, some glancing at her with mild interest. The low hum of conversation echoed into the room, distorted to unintelligibility.
Hitching up her pack and gripping the staff firmly, Dævara strode out into the crowd.
She had walked into what looked to be a market mall.
Stone carved colonnades lined each side of a wide hallway. Artificial lighting roofed its aisles, while the mall itself was covered with a clear barrel vault, giving a good view of an airless, star speckled sky. Consequently, the main thoroughfare was dimmer than the sidewalks.
Dæv stepped out and began to stroll down the middle. She could feel a small shock run up her arm to the elbow each time her staff struck the hard floor, but the babble of voices around her masked the sound it made.
Thanks to her mother’s and later Tathar’s tutelage, Dævara could make out most of the languages spoken. She was surprised that most not only recognized her as an elf, but that they didn’t seem especially surprised by it.
The few comments Dævara heard were mostly whispered remarks about her attractiveness. Many were sexual.
Having lived among far less chatty Fæ, the talk surprised her. She grinned at some of the cruder remarks.
Only one speaker was overtly hostile, an older woman with what looked like a perpetually sour expression. Dæv gave her a dazzling smile and nodded.
The Portal had taken her back in time to a little over a century after her abrupt departure, meaning the death of Scorn and all the other systems of its constellation was a short time ago. She wanted to be as close in time to the world she had fled as she safely could.
Her choice of era meant that elves were more common than they would be had she arrived in the same era she left Ælfen.
This confederacy, whose name she never learned, benefitted from commerce with the Æs Sidhe in this time and so should be more amicable.
So far, it seemed an accurate prediction.
Most of the trade in this mall seemed to be in artificial happiness. Commerce was clustered into three groups: the financial, the chemical, and the carnal.
Dævara felt in need of two of those but had none of the local currency. She didn’t think there was much point in getting any. That meant barter.
She had a small collection of gems and gold, but probably wouldn’t get much in trade for them. That left services she thought, smiling to herself.
First things first: she needed passage to the planet. It took a while to find the port. The ticket agent was a stubby, human-looking man with a face that only a lifetime of boredom could produce.
It would be incorrect to say a smile lit up his face when he saw her walk up to the booth. It merely became slightly less dim. Apparently, even a pretty elf woman wasn’t enough to lift his spirits from whatever existential pit he’d dug himself.
She gave him her deadliest smile, “Is this where I get passage to Misry, luv?”
“Yeah.” Even his voice was dim.
“I’d like one, please.”
“One way or return?”
“Just one way for now.”
“Eighty-five credits.”
“I’ve none o’ the local scrip, I’ve not. Can I bargain with you for it? I’ve gold.”
He was already shaking his head. “Local scrip only.” Slam! The partition descended.
She waited a few seconds and knocked on the glass, “’Scuse, me?”
Up slid the divide. He saw it was her and reached for the partition again. He stopped when he recognized her expression.
“You’re sure there’s nothing I can bargain for my passage?”
Moving as if in a trance, the agent opened a side door and beckoned her in.
Slam!
* * *
Five minutes on her knees and Dævara had her ticket. She looked back at the agent sitting in the booth. ‘Now that’s a lit-up face,’ she thought, giggling as she headed back to the main mall.
There was a bland quality to the pubs, gambling houses, and brothels lining the mall, a sense of familiar sameness. They catered to anyone of any species and gender, and most offered everything.
Dævara entered a pub at random.
Tables were scattered on a long, dimly lit room. Bar along right side, curtained booths the other. Along the lintels of the booths were figures standing for the gender of the whore and another for the preferred genders of client.
She was mildly surprised to see there were twice as many men plying the oldest profession here as all the other genders combined.
A variety of card and dice games were in progress. Jarring music blared from hidden speakers. She wasn’t the only woman in the room not a ‘working’ girl. Nor was she the only elf.
Two male elves sitting together and drinking, were the only ones who gave her a second glance. One waved her over.
With a mental shrug, she crossed the sticky tile floor weaving among the tables and gamblers. A chair was pushed out for Dævara as she arrived. She sat.
The others stared at her, not speaking, for several moments. To someone watching, and a few were, it must have seemed odd.
Dævara, who was hearing the questions they didn’t seem to be asking, responded to them and asked her own in the same manner. This had become quite familiar in the last hundred years.
Finally, when origin, clan, and status had been established, Meghildur and Risien greeted her formally.
“What brings you all this way, Dævara?” asked Risien, the one with the silver eyes.
“Just wanted to see a bit o’ the world, I did. Book readin’ is fine, to be sure, but experience is better, I vow.”
They all laughed. “It is that,” Risien said.
Meghildur, he with deep, blue skin and three small red horns on his brow, said, “We’re looking for word of the Syrat.” His voice was pitched low. “They say one was here and that’s what happened to the constellation.”
Dæv tried to look properly shocked as she surreptitiously patted the bulge that was her deck, “Never! Why’d you want to look here, then?” She hid from them her thoughts concerning the deck, a trick she had learned early on.
Dæv realized the two were searching for the very deck she carried, never mind that it had had nothing to do with the deaths of so many worlds. She found the irony delicious.
Twitching her head toward the room, “They’ll not thank you for askin’ about that!”
Risien again, “We didn’t ask, just listened. They talk about it in their cups. Sometimes—” here he whispered, barely audible—“they dream of it.”
“You don’t listen to their dreams!”
“We don’t pry,” Meghildur glared at his companion. “We picked it up, quite accidentally while passing the cribs around the corner.” He told her about the cheap rooms for rent for an hour or a night. “So, we walk slowly by occasionally. Sometimes we get lucky.”
Dæv thought for a moment. Not spying, exactly. Not fair either, but it was harmless enough. Finally, “Did you find anything?”
They were interrupted by a waiter asking about drinks. Risien bought a round, even after Dævara protested she had no scrip. Hers was a double Irish whiskey, neat.
She took a sip when it arrived. It tasted like flying naked.
After paying, Risien continued, “No one here or on Misry proper knows anything. If it was here, the deck must’ve left or been destroyed.”
“Not likely destroyed,” from Meghildur. His face was a bit paler than before. This had the sound of an old argument.
“All right, then. Not likely destroyed.”
Dæv had to agree. Once made, a Syrat was uncannily difficult to damage or destroy. It seemed to warp chance somehow so that it never ended up in imminent danger of harm. Its Teller was consequently hard to injure as well.
“Why’re you so bent on finding this deck?” Dævara asked. She thought she knew, as they must, but needed confirmation.
“It’s unaccounted for, Dævara. All the Syrats’ locations and Tellers are known. This isn’t numbered among them,” said Risien.
“A thirteenth Syrat,” she tried to make her voice sound awed. She had known, almost since she had arrived on Ælfen, that her deck’s existence had been unsuspected. Decades of effort trying to trace its origin had proven futile. She had begun to suspect that it had been made beyond the old borders of the Pleroma.
That others might know of its existence too, had been a worry. Now confirmed, it meant she’d have to be more circumspect than she’d hoped to be, for a while at least.
Meghildur said, “We’ll be heading to the next system soon to try to pick up the trail.”
Risien covered Dævara’s hand with his, “We could use more company along the way.”
She’d been dreading this. “I’ve not been by myself for a long time, lads. I’m flattered by the offer, I am. But I think I’ll wander on alone.”
Truth to tell, they didn’t take much convincing, though they were both moved by her Leannán nature.
They left then, giving her enough money for a few more rounds and a night in a crib. She knew better than to protest generosity more than once. She accepted gratefully.
As Dævara sat alone, sipping another double, she contemplated her options. She’d thought of doing a bit of rather more mundane divining for coin but knew now she couldn’t chance her cards being recognized for what they were.
It was possible, likely even, that such activities were banned altogether anyway.
There was gambling. She could easily win. The problem was whether she’d be allowed to play. If they knew elves well enough here, they’d know better than to give them a chance at gaming. That left only one choice.
She finished her drink and ordered a third. Looking at her remaining funds, she decided to skip getting drunk or renting a crib.
Trying to look vaguely desperate, instead of giddily eager, Dævara made her choice.
The fourth booth along had its curtain open. Within was a nice looking green scaled creature with a long whip-thin tail. They were androgyne and went in any of three directions, according to the icons over the doorway. She pulled the curtain to after determining that she had enough for a half hour.
She disrobed before saying, “How’d you like to make a bit o’ coin and still have the night off?”
Fifteen minutes later, her host exited the booth. After changing the sign above to indicate a female who went in every direction was available, they went, grinning and walking unsteadily, to a table and called for beer. Dæv smiled herself and pulled the curtain closed slowly, giving the brothel patrons ample time for an eyeful of her nudity.
Word of a female elf with her red light on spread quickly.
By local dawn, Dæv had had enough sex to hold her for a few days and more money than she thought she’d need for a lot longer. Even after giving her host their cut, she’d still have plenty, and they’d have more dosh than if they’d worked themselves.
The booth had a small room behind it where she could clean up between clients. After washing the last of them off her skin, she dressed again and headed out.
The lizard person was the worse for drink but counted their cut carefully.
Thanking her and telling her she was welcome back any time, they staggered back to their booth and, after taking all the characters from off the lintel, closed the curtain. They’d likely be asleep in minutes.
The crowd at the bar had thinned considerably, but those left thanked her also.
She laughed and joked with those she recognized as clients and skipped lightly out to face the day.
* * *
Despite a lack of sleep and a bit of soreness, Dæv felt wonderful. She hurried to the port again, scanned her ticket at the gate, and sought food.
An hour later, munching a stale sandwich and drinking something dreadful called ‘coffee,’ she headed for her transport to Misry.
The port itself was a large pit dug into the grey stone of the moon. Dozens of large lights recessed into the ground failed to make the space seem bright. The lower gravity she suddenly experienced had been a bit of a shock. The station itself used a kind of engine to make everything seem heavier, someone told her.
Outside, under an energy dome, they didn’t use it because the lower gravity was why the space port was here in the first place. She fairly bounced to her transport.
Another bored-looking dumpy human checked her ticket and pointed to a ramp that led to the vessel she would be taking.
A yellow, oblong cuboid with windows down both sides, it sat in a shallow pit about twenty yards across.
Across the ramp and into the vehicle she went. Taking her seat gratefully, Dæv stowed her pack under the seat in front of her and leaned her staff against the window.
While waiting for the ship to take off she thought, ‘I’ll just close my eyes for a bit.’
* * *
Returning gravity woke Dævara up. She felt as if someone was sitting on her. Beside her was a large woman with grey hair. Rheumy blue eyes looked down with disapproval as her jowls shook with the turbulence of re-entry.
Dæv glanced around.
The transport was packed mostly with large, grubby men who smelled like soil and grease. There were a few animals in the aisles.
A roaring filled her ears, hummed along her bones. No other sound contested with it.
The windows were sheets of blue flame. It was uncomfortably warm.
Over the next few minutes, the flames fell through green to yellow, orange, and then red. Finally, she could see. The world below was a brownish grey, gridded with yellow lines.
Far in the distance ahead, she could see a flashing blue ring that she assumed was where the ship was scheduled to land.
After a few more minutes of bumping and grinding, the omnibus shuttle ka-chunked to a landing amid a cloud of steam and smoke.
The hiss and pinging of cooling metal competed with the rustle of clothing and the rising level of whingeing and coughing as the passengers rose stiffly, grabbed luggage from overheads, and waited for their chance to join the line crawling forward.
The large woman stood, pushed into the aisle, and studiously avoided Dævara’s gaze. Somewhere in front, chickens complained about whatever it was that bothered chickens.
Dæv waited her turn, pack once again slung onto her back.
It was cool and clear on the surface.
The sky was a pale blue, the sun yellow. Dævara felt only slightly lighter than she was used to. She checked the Universal Time clock on the wall and noted that almost six hours had passed.
She’d slept the whole trip away. Oh well, at least she was rested.
After a snack at the terminal, Dævara left with her unfinished drink. This one, called ‘tea,’ was quite good. Sipping and humming tune, the elf went into the town. One of her first tasks was to purchase an electronic gazetteer of the portal network and a UT chronometer of her own.
There wasn’t much to recommend about the town. Nor, when she had the chance to inquire, the sites to be seen elsewhere.
Misry had always been a small-town type of world. It had minimal resources and an economy that had relied extensively on the much richer worlds of its constellation.
As the sole local living world left, it was slowly dying. A century hence, it would likely be abandoned.
Feeling sombre, a state most uncharacteristic for her, Dævara contemplated the wisdom of coming here instead of going back a few more years and seeing Scorn before its fall.
She decided to wait and see what the night brought.
The hotel she found was in a low rent district, but that described the whole planet, more or less.
At least it was clean. Dæv didn’t bother taking her boots off. She flaked out on the bed and napped until dark.
When she emerged, the night was clear. The air was cold. The wind made it colder.
Dævara walked out beyond the town limits and into the low hills to the south. The top of one offered an unrivalled view of the sky. She looked up and took a shuddering breath.
One of Dæv’s favourite memories as a child was going out to the edge of the desert with her mother to look at the stars. They used to do it two or three times a year.
She had hoped the distance wouldn’t make too big a difference to the shape of the constellations.
She wasn’t disappointed. Only two of the clusters of bright points she remembered looked noticeably squished.
Dævara spent ’til dawn looking up and remembering home.
* * *
Though she was an elf, Dævara had all her human memories. One of her strongest wishes as a child had been to see the worlds denied her by her poverty.
Now that was just what she intended to do. Changing her scrip for some more universal currency, she returned to Misry One and set out by Portal.
Using a mental key unknown outside the Elven Convocation, she moved forward in time to the era she had left Ælfen, close to a thousand centuries.
She started her wandering with the constellation of her human birth.
Scorn, she discovered, was still there. A scorched cinder of a world orbiting a much-shrunken sun cooler than its desert had been. From the orbiting station she looked sadly down. She didn’t bother landing.
None of the other systems existed anymore, a starless void stood where they had been. Dæv wondered what had caused their deaths. It couldn’t have been the Syrat she carried. Could it really have been another one? Would any Teller actually do something like that?
She recalled her talk with her father. Could it be the Wanderer in the Wastes, or the beast prisoned in the Mother Lodge of the Hermetists?
Dæv pondered her father’s quest to find the Incunabulum and wondered if he had been successful, yet. Doubtless he’d have contacted her, were that the case.
The Scarlet Nebula had fared no better than the constellation of her home. Oblivion had erased every one of its worlds. No remains of its suns could she find, either. Beyond that was even more nothing. After a brief internal struggle, Dæv decided to search for more cheerful places.
— Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, August 2026
© Gideon Jagged
All Rights Reserved
