from the forthcoming novel, The Fate of Stars
Like the many lovers Dævara had taken in the says since learning she was becoming an elf, flying was a glorious sensory revel.
Air driven past with gale force furrowed the skin of her teats, tummy, and thighs like the fingers of a sadistic masseur.
The air chilled her to the marrow, forced her limbs to splay behind her.
The wind pushed its thumbs into her eyes, squeezing tears out.
Her hair flogged her back.
It felt wonderful.
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Davida Escapes
Teller of Fate
Tumbling, rolling, grinding, grating—like fire from the sky erasing a flawed creation before the birth of new worlds.
Hear it change. Slowly, it begins to seem like—something else; billowing, blasting, scouring, roaring—hurricane winds driving sand against the weathered planking of a one-room shack.
Davida lit the oil lamp. It took three tries and the yellow light flickered, threatening to go out a fourth time. The stinging drafts coming from between the ill-fitting, unpainted boards of the walls were to blame. Well, that and the shaking of her hands.
Davida lit the oil lamp. It took three tries and the yellow light flickered, threatening to go out a fourth time. The stinging drafts coming from between the ill-fitting, unpainted boards of the walls were to blame. Well, that and the shaking of her hands.
The lamp lit a room barely six feet on a side with no visible means of ingress. The floorboards were worn smooth by decades of bare feet. Swirls of fine sand made patterns; glyphs that almost coalesced into meaning. The girl wore clothing that had been little better than rags even before the attack. Rough woven grey cloth bore reddish-brown stains below the waist, some still tacky.
Full lips pulled back from small white teeth and pale green eyes squeezed shut as she slowly lowered herself to the floor. Once seated with her feet curled to the left, weight resting on her right buttock, her features smoothed slightly, though her jaw muscles twitched arrhythmically still. Tears, squeezed from her eyes by the effort of sitting, trailed down her flushed cheeks, leaving clear streaks through smudged kohl. She snuffled mucus up through her nose, wiped roughly at her upper lip and then shoved long, tangled black hair from her eyes.
From the folds of her blouse, she pulled a worn, silk bag, indigo in colour. She loosened the drawstring and pulled out a thick pack of old metal cards. A ghost of a smile haunted her expression as she fondled them. She sat for a few moments thus and then set to work.
Hands now steady, Davida turned the deck face up and spread it on the floor. She carefully selected three cards and gathered up the rest of the pack, sliding them back into the bag.
She laid the first card carefully down; a tangle of many coloured glyphs giving the impression a woman and a lion-headed man in a fierce embrace surrounded by writhing serpents. The second she placed crosswise atop it; a nude woman spreading a crystal net between two pillars.
Bits of the card underneath showed through the top card as if the upper card were partially transparent. The copulating couple began to move, the net to ripple.
She slid the top card down until it was no longer overlapping the upright card at all. She pulled it a little further down and a ribbon of blue-green light formed between edges of the cards stretching and rippling like a miniature stream. The drab flickering light of the lamp dulled the entire room except for this jewel-bright ribbon. She closed her eyes, reached out with her left hand, and tickled the ribbon with her thumb and first two fingers. It danced and sparkled around them, climbing up past the second knuckle of each. Her breathing got even…
…deep…
…and slow.
After a few moments, she seemed not to be breathing at all. Almost, she could have been a wax doll.
Davida’s right hand moved slowly up under her dress and came back with red on the tips of her fingers. Not a twitch on her face betrayed any pain. Her left hand rose; a sparkling string of light came after it, pulled light like taffy from the ribbon joining the two cards on the floor. The third card was a voluptuous gravid woman, legs parted, hair thrown back. The girl’s right hand stroked it, leaving three maroon streaks across the glyph formed figure. She picked the card up and, holding it by the edge, sliced through the twisting string of colour.
As the card tore the ribbon, Davida felt a tug through her gut and an electric tingling in her hands. A high, sweet tone, like the ringing of a crystal bell, shivered her whole body. A new sound—a tumbling, rolling, grinding, grating—like water cascading over a cliff, drowned out the bell’s long slow decay. The sound got louder filling her ears, her head, the world. She fancied she could feel the spray on her face and neck; the backs of her hands. Now she opened her eyes.
Blue-white, streaked with silver, it hovered before her like the bell of an enormous horn, spinning clockwise. It lit the room, drowning the lesser lamp. Tiny motes of liquid light were leaping from it and striking her. For the first time in hours, she smiled.
Gathering up the three cards placing them carefully into the bag, Davida stood quickly, whimpering slightly at the pain.
A tug in her midsection pulled her toward the portal. She resisted, stepping slowly, and leaning back to keep her feet. Resistance became harder the closer she got. The sparks were shooting out now, orbiting her, landing everywhere. As each one struck her it stayed, a glowing point of blue-silver light. It coated her clothes, skin, and the dark bag.
After a moment`s hesitation borne of apprehension of the unknown she leapt forward, glancing over her shoulder as she did so, as if to get one last glimpse of her homeworld. As she passed the plane of the aperture, something wrenched the silk bag from her hand. Whatever the force was, it shredded the cloth and scattered the one hundred and sixty-nine cards over a room growing larger, stretching upward and outward and falling away. As she whisked along the pale blue funnel, she screamed.
A sensation of eternal falling. Then…
Cold
A hard, slick surface
Sliding
The loud squealing of flesh on marble
Pain
SLAM!
No movement. Throbbing pain.
Darkness.
Care in an Elven Aion
…A gentle voice, “Wake, child.”
Davida felt a gentle touch through something thick and soft, that covered her to the shoulder. She was in a bed. Such a bed! She was clean and warm, and the pain was gone. Light, soft white light, through her eyelids. Cool air caressed her left cheek, bringing the scent of something subtle and flowery.
She took her first conscious breath, inhaling until it hurt just below her breastbone, to catch that delicious elusive odour. Warm, slightly calloused fingers stroked her other cheek. Her eyes opened. As she turned, a palm joined the finger-tips, warming more of her cheek.
Neatly bearded in black salted silver; the only other sign of age were wrinkles like short cat whiskers at the outer edges of his eyes, his green-brown smiling eyes. That same warmly timbered voice, “Welcome to Ælfen,” he said. She couldn’t help but smile back.
Davida tried to speak, but no sound came out except a coughing fit that had her leaning forward over her knees. She expelled something thick and jagged, from her throat. Most of the pain went with it but her voice still rasped harshly.
He handed her a cup; its cut crystal rainbowed the white light filling the room. She gripped the goblet in both slender hands. The chill wetness of condensation thrilled her fingers and palms.
It wasn’t water. It tasted like icy sunshine, flushed her cheeks, and quickened her pulse. The lingering pains in her throat and abdomen vanished. After draining it, she again breathed deeply and made to hand the empty vessel to him.
She saw the gob of greenish ugliness she’d puked onto the pale blue duvet. Seeing her distress, his smile turned to laughter. “’Tis but a bit o’ bile child, easily cleaned.” His smile was a warm as his voice.
Not trusting hers, Davida just nodded, smiling to let him know his words had comforted. She looked past him at the room.
The ceiling was a good ten feet high and paneled in hexagons of multihued wood. The windows drew a gasp from her. Floor to ceiling the narrow panels joined seamlessly to define an ovoid room which looked out on the trunks of enormous multihued trees. They stood rank on rank fading into a soft white haze in the distance. No hint of either ground or sky could she see. Before this moment, she had only ever seen trees in holos.
She spoke, turning her eyes to him, “Whare am I, then?
When first he’d found her, lying crumpled against a pillar in the Portal room, Tathar had been sure she was dead; she was human and no human had been able to enter elven Aion in almost a thousand years. The presence of a pulse had stunned him. Fearing what might happen were she found alive, he’d rushed her to his home.
Over the next seven days, he had treated her injuries, uncovering several puzzles in the process. She had suffered a concussion, broken collarbone, three fractured ribs, bruises, and abrasions from her arrival. Other, slightly older injuries dismayed him. Bruising around her thighs and hips, ligature marks on her wrists, and most troubling, tears on her vulva and vaginal bruising; she had been violently raped.
This had left Tathar shocked, saddened, and not a little disgusted with her species. He’d quickly chided himself for this prejudice; it was one that he and the few progressives of this world refused to indulge in anymore. With evidence like this, though, it was hard not to.
He had peered into her Essence to determine her spiritual strength and found an elven soul. That explained her presence but raised the question of why she had a human body.
Further examination with his enhanced Sight showed her body was changing. From the look of her when she had first arrived, the girl couldn’t have been more than twenty years old, UT. In the few hours since her rescue, that had begun to change. Something had triggered it. The assault, perhaps, or the Portal journey to Elvenhome. Whatever the reason, in a matter of days this young woman would be an elf in form, not just in essence.
Finally, there was the puzzle of the Syrat. How one so young could be a Teller was less surprising than discovering an unknown Syrat. For thousands of years, there had only been twelve of the decks and he knew where and with whom every one of them was.
That she was a Teller was not in doubt. The cards had left their signature imprint on her soul. Why did she not have them with her? He could sense the fresh spirit wound of separation. That he could not heal. This worried him, for that wound would grow worse until it eventually killed her.
The old elf’s smile was kind as he repeated for Davida, “You’re on Aelfen, one of the worlds of the Elven Convocation.”
“I’m on an Elf world?” she asked.
“Indeed. Do you know how you got here?”
“I used the cards ta open the Gate—” her heart hammered, a thousand hot needles tickled the skin of her face, arms, hands. “My cards! He took my cards, he did!” She was screaming the words now and thrashing in the man’s suddenly strong grip. He held her firm until her panic subsided and her fear gave way to weeping. He stroked her back and whispered words she didn’t understand into her ear. After a time, calm returned. The pain remained, but it no longer dominated.
“How did anyone manage to part you from the Syrat, child?” he asked.
She snuggled into the warmth of his arms, was silent a while before replying. “I used a spell ta open a Portal.”
“Where did you learn to use the cards that way?
Eyes already more scarlet than green looked up at Tathar from beneath lashes rapidly going to gold, “Me ma taught me, she did, when I was quite young.”
Tathar smile at the notion that she was no longer young. Learning to Tell took many years, even for one lucky enough to have a compatible spirit. The type of magick she had used was above and beyond the mere reading of Fate, however. “You got the Syrat from her. I assume she’s gone, then?” A Teller was bonded to their deck until death.
The smile faded, “These ten years, now.”
The older elf decided not to pursue further the origins of this thirteenth Syrat until the girl had recovered more, though he was intrigued to think there had been yet another human Teller.
“What is your world?”
“Scorn.” She went on to describe it.
“I don’t know it, which is odd. I thought I knew most of the human worlds. But never mind. Tell me about this person who managed to get the Syrat from you.”
She went on to tell him most of her life story. She was again weeping by the end of it; but she was in better control of herself. She viewed the rape as not especially traumatic; something else Tathar couldn’t fathom. He hadn’t thought humans were as psychically mature as that. Either he was wrong, or the girl was an exception.
Resting against propped up pillows, she said, “We hav’na been properly introduced, yet. My name’s Davida, Teller of Fate.” Already holding his hand, she gave it squeeze.
Tathar bowed his head slightly. Placing his free hand on his chest, he replied, “And I am Tathar, the Raven’s Son, master of Raven’s Ærie.”
“Is tha’ what y’re home is called, then?”
Tathar nodded, “Named for my father.”
Her gaze had brushed the windows and the vistas beyond often as she had told her story. When, after introductions, there was a gap in the conversation, he broke it by asking if she felt up to taking a walk.
Exploring
She glanced at him, a look of wonder her face answering for her. He smiled in return.
A whisper of sheets and the caress of cool silk as she swung her legs to her right. The old elf firmly grasping her waist and her raised right hand, Davida slid from the bed and onto the floor.
A rag rug in a million shades of blue made from something that felt like the softest fur, felt so good on the soles of her feet it made her giggle.
The giggle turned into a cry of surprise as her legs folded under her. Tathar lifted her back up. “Do you feel strong enough to continue?” Concern only lightly textured his tone.
She saw none of it in his gaze, only good humour, and an affection strange to her, because since her mother’s death it had been rare. Tender emotions died quick deaths in the Under of Scorn. “Aye. I feel a’right. Let’s go, then.” Her smile returned the affection.
Though she’d known it since waking, it was only now, as a renewed breeze lightly slid over her teats, belly, and thighs, that she noted she wore not a stitch. She became intensely aware of his warm soft hand on her waist. Her upper chest felt warm as a blush bloomed there. Her face began to feel hot. She felt an urge, disturbing in its intensity, to pull his other hand to her left teat. Another, almost as strong, to cover herself. She felt shame at both urges; they were alien to her.
Her companion seemed to intuit its cause. “Oh, what am I thinking? You must be chilled, child.” Moving her hand to the closest bed-post, he left her holding herself up and returned a moment later with a white shift.
Davida let go of the post, feeling slightly apprehensive about her balance. Her weight settled under her nicely. She hardly wobbled at all. Lifted her arms, she gratefully accepted Tathar’s help in donning the garment.
She caught her breath as one of Tathar’s hands inadvertently brushed her left nipple. It immediately rose and became painfully stiff. She imagined Tathar’s lips and tongue on it and felt a pleasurable tingling in her vulva. A trickle of moisture slowly moved down her inner thigh. Shivers replaced the heat of a moment before and a coppery taste soured her mouth. Goose-bumps tidal waved from the crown of her head.
She was glad the cotton soft garment hid her face as she slid it gratefully down. Davida hugged its warmth and softness, feeling the comforting weight of it. The chills subsided.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
Her smile felt odd on her face. “Ready.”
He held out an arm and, ignoring a worry lest the sexual desire should return, Davida placed her hand on it. It did not, which left her unaccountably conflicted.
After taking a few steps toward the door, she felt confident enough to stop watching her feet as she went and smiled up at her host, her momentary surge of lust remembered but no longer troubling.
The door had been made of the same blonde wood as the floor. The handle was silver and suggested a leaf by its shape. The light of the day sparkled along its length, inviting her touch. She reached for it, unthinking, and encountered Tathar’s just doing the same. His touch felt warm and friendly, nothing more. He withdrew his hand as, with that same mixture of relief and disappointment, Davida twisted the handle.
The light hit her; bright white. It was the view from the windows, stretching forever up and to the left. The only interruption was a high screen of wood, though that was a poor description of it.
Lace it was, grown from wood; delicate, yet with the appearance of strength and resilience. And it was entirely beautiful. At its top, living branches grew up and arched out over open air. Small delicate leaves of green, blue, yellow, white, and red-gold mantled it.
An enormous freeform sculpture covered the wall of a building to her right, blocking the view. It consisted of huge vertical columns, rough-edged and layered, with deep, twisty grooves between, each one at least two yards wide.
Her mental sense of scale adjusted, and she knew she was looking at bark. The two of them stood on the side of one of the colossal trees. Craning her neck, she could just see, through the brightness and the haze of distance, a limb stretching out and away from the trunk. Its end fading in the pearlescent air.
Lowering her eyes, she could see the walkway ahead, made of the same polished wood as the room behind her. It ran all the way to its vanishing point and, try as she might, she couldn’t make out the slightest hint of a curve to the trunk.
The wood was warm beneath her feet and gave just a bit as if layered with swansdown. She turned to her companion, meaning to ask him one of the dozens of questions queuing up behind her tongue, but the lure of the view defeated her.
Leaving his side, she took several increasingly steady steps until she was at the rail. Close to, it smelled of clean, living wood with an undercurrent of something she’d always thought of as cinnamon. Celtic knots and delicate arabesques, carved and excised, danced on the surface of the twisty, braided branches, beyond the skill of any craftsman.
As she got closer to the leaves, she saw they had a metallic sheen that reflected and focused the light. Like tiny concave mirrors they were.
Davida leaned against the rail. Her hands told her it was the same smooth softness as the wood under her heels. She poked her head through the pointed arch of the opening.
A breeze, carrying those scents that enchanted her on waking, slid their gentle fingers over her hands and brow, lifting her hair from her ears.
Trunks and branches diminished little by distance, coloured in muted pastel shades, were everywhere. The nearer ones, she could see, were the homes of others of elf-kind. Structures covered the upper surfaces of every branch below her. The closest seemed mere yards away, despite the mist.
Davida could see streets lined with shops and homes and even trees. Bright towers of tinted wood wound ’round with stained glass windows like strands of gems, dotted the settlements.
Over the edges of the branches dripped ragged-edged curtains of jewels, their bright winkings undiminished by distance. Dwellings, too, they were, hanging out over nothing but clear air.
Markings on the trunks and the larger branches she divined as railed walkways like the one on which she stood. Many leaped from branch to branch in paired parabolic strands of delicate sparkling wire. She wondered why they didn’t fall.
Flights of birds, huge and glowing a white so bright it hurt her eyes dived, banked, and soared in their hundreds. Never did she see them alight.
The sourceless light of the place, seeming dimmer for the presence of these avians, was uniform both above and below.
Tathar leaned out an adjacent break in the timber crocheted wall. “Magnificent, isn’t it?” from her left. Davida looked up at the sound of his voice, wonder covering her features. “Many centuries I’ve lived here, yet never have I tired of this sight.”
“How did all this come ta be, then? What is this world?” Her hair and eyebrows had almost all lightened to a shade of dark red. He could see shining threads of gold in it.
Davida’s skin was much paler than it had been only a day ago. He saw hints of silver on it, sparkling in the light. Her irises were a liquid ruby red.
His head retreated between the shining leaves. Reluctantly, she followed suit.
As they began to walk serenely onward, he replied, “I can answer the second question easily: this isn’t a natural world.” To the surprised look, she gave, “Our ancestors made this place back in the days of the Great Magicks.”
“Ye made the sun, the earth and all?”
At this, he laughed. “There is neither sun nor earth here. The trees have neither roots nor crowns. They go forever from the depths to the heights and their number is without end. We are inside a synthetic Aion.”
As the wonder of this washed over her expression and a delighted sounding laugh burst out of her.
A frown furrowed her high brow, turned down her cupid’s bow lips. “How did I ge’ here, then? I mean—” she gestured to include the whole of everything—“there’s no ‘outside,’ is there?” Her inflection fell on the last word.
From her reaction, she must have felt the heat of his stare. “You came via Portal. I assumed you knew.”
A smile bloomed on the young woman’s face. After a musical giggle, “Oh, I knew tha,’ I did! I meant how did it bring me here. This place isna part of the Portal network, unless I’m quite mistaken.”
“You’re quite knowledgeable about it, I see. Moreso than I would have thought. You must forgive me, Davida. I let your physical appearance guide my judgment of you. I assumed a human so young would have less interest in the engineering of your civilization. Though you never were quite human, were you?” This last was a whisper as if he spoke more to himself.
“What d’ya mean, ‘not quite human’?”
Tathar started, feeling more than a little guilty.
Personal Growth
Tathar had decided not to tell Davida the truth about her nature until she’d had more time to heal. He had felt bad for his decision when the truth had slipped out.
She’d accepted the news with only a good-hearted admonition to him about not keeping secrets. The lack of the emotional upheaval he’d expected at the notion that she was changing species surprised him. It meant that her essential nature had always been that of an elf, the information he had on the human psyche as wrong, or her past life had left her with truly little to celebrate being human about.
As the weeks of her convalescence passed, the old elf knew that she was much better off knowing.
The young woman showed scant evidence of the emotional trauma he’d expected from someone just having experienced a violent sexual assault. That argued in favour of her being an elf at heart. It later turned out that Tathar’s guess about her nature was correct, but not for the reason he thought. One day, he’d asked her why she’d taken such an assault so well.
She replied that her mother had raised her among whores, that her mother had been one, in fact. Davida knew from direct observation that some of her mother’s customers like to take her rough. Davida’s mother had soothed her dismay about the issue when she was younger and had told her what to do if someone took her against her will. The memory, though painful still, didn’t haunt her.
She’d spent the rest of that day pestering him with questions about this world and her new people. He’d answered as truthfully as he’d dared; his protests mere tokens.
She took to her new status with élan, learning most her new strengths and abilities in days and exercising them vigorously.
A surprise to him had been her literacy. She was fluent in six different languages, both spoken and written. The intensity of her joy, as she got her first view of one of Ælfen’s libraries, had been comical.
A mile-high chunk had been removed from one of the trees to supply the space for the public archive. So wide was the tree that the room didn’t seem overly tall.
Bright and airy, the place seemed made mostly of tall, gracefully thin pillars. Arching at their tops to support the ceiling, they looked so like trees themselves, Davida was not surprised to discover they were living parts of the great tree above and below. Exquisite floor to ceiling coloured windows defined the space’s perimeter. The resulting light, coming as it did from all directions, tinted the air itself within. It dimmed only slightly toward the middle of the room.
Floating shelves circulated in stately and precise rhythms offering whatever one desired to elves who themselves stood or sat on floating platforms at all heights of the titanic room. Beyond, other great trees receded in the distant light of day.
Printed books had been a rare thing in her world. Oddly, they were most plentiful in the poorest areas, the wealthy of her world preferring less bulky methods of information storage. Her mother had had dozens.
She picked up the written Elven language as quickly as she had the spoken. After only weeks, there was no way anyone other than Tathar would have suspected she had ever been anything other than Elf-kin.
They agreed on a story to explain her presence, hiding from the others the truth of her origins. Tathar had no intention of telling even his fellow conspirators that she’d been human until she was well gone. The only thing that remained was a name befitting an elf. One seemed to leap out at them, based on how Tathar’s accent made ‘Davida’ sound, anyway.
So, she became Dævara.
It was her appearance that startled most of the elves who met her during her stay. Her eyes became a stunning ruby with flecks of gold and her hair deep auburn threaded with golden strands that shone in any light. A blush, the palest blue, appeared in the hollows of her skin. As if covered with glitter, that skin turned alabaster white and sparkled silver in the light. A musk that Tathar found disturbingly erotic wafted from her whenever she moved. Tathar found the whole of it unsettling.
There were others that he knew with unusual features. He himself was odd in that he did not have anything to mark him out. He knew an Elf-woman with skin a shining green and another with eyes like polished silver. A male of his acquaintance had hair the colour and consistency of thistledown sprouting from his scalp. There also was a family of elves who had lived near when he was younger who all had clear, copper veined wings growing from their backs, visible for all to see.
Even so, there was something troubling about her and the effect she had on him and others, especially the males.
He’d spent some time since that first conversation with her trying to find the world she had come from, without success so far. He put that task aside to find something to explain her remarkable form. What he found shocked him.
Dævara had the native appearance of a Leannán, a sub-species of elf that had been extinct since the Templar Wars a thousand centuries earlier.
The Leannán had been known for free-spiritedness. They had been fantastic lovers, by all reports.
Tathar told Daevara what he’d found, leaving out for the moment the fact that she was the only one of her kind. She found this news something of a relief, telling him it explained much that she’d been feeling.
Then she disappeared for four days.
Learning to Fly
After failing to find her after a day, the old elf resumed his search for her homeworld. He didn’t look for her again until he’d found it.
Dævara was at the home of an acquaintance of Tathar’s, in bed with three elves in addition to the owner. A damask curtain over the only window reduced the perpetual light to a memory of itself, dimming the white room. There was enough illumination make out the five of them, sprawled on one another like kittens, breathing deeply and slowly. The twisted knot of the bed sheets lay mostly on the carpeted floor. After he theatrically cleared his throat, she raised her head from the breast of the other woman in the tangle and craning her neck, saw him.
Dævara greeted Tathar with a smile that would have melted granite. Her eyes actually glowed. She wiggled out from under an elf Tathar would have thought old enough to know better and hopped lightly onto the floor.
With no warning whatsoever, she bounded toward him, jiggling most unnervingly, and leapt into his arms.
“G’marnin’ ta ya,” she giggled up at the look on his face. The laugh deepened and ripened when she felt his reaction to her along her belly. “Anythin’ I can do f’r ye?” she asked, head tilted to one side. Her face redefined mischievous gaiety.
Tathar found himself on the verge of telling her exactly what his first reaction prompted. He overrode the impulse quickly.
His expression must have given him away; her left eyebrow rose and her smile drooped just a fraction. “Okay, then. Let’s go flyin’!” Without a pause to find, much less gather clothing, she sped from the room.
Tathar tore his gaze from the doorway and his mind from the memory of an exquisite pair of buttocks and turned to the bed.
No change. No sign any of them had even noticed his presence; or Dævara’s absence, for that matter. He sighed.
“Tath, are ye comin,’ then?”
He turned to see her head poking around the doorframe. The brighter light of the hallway lit the cascade of deep red, threaded gold that reached from her brow halfway to the ground.
“Come on!” Without waiting for an answer, she blew him a kiss and ran, laughing, down the hall.
“Dævara, wait! Where are your clothes?” He bounded after her, catching her up just as she reached the wide veranda.
She stopped when she reached the trellis and turned, “Dunno. I havna seen ‘em since yest’rdey, I’ve not.” She laughed merrily at the look on his face. Turning quickly, she made three passes in the air before the woodwork of the barrier before her, muttering words Tathar wouldn’t have thought she knew. The branches withdrew from in front of her, forming an arch that opened on nothing but the air.
‘Oh, she’s in a fey mood!’ he thought smirking inwardly at the play on words. Aloud, “Who taught you that, child?”
She had taken a step back in preparation for her leap. She stopped, turned, and gave him a look as stern as someone in such obvious good cheer could give. “Child, am I? Have ya trouble wi’ yer eyes, man?” She took a deep breath, lifting her arms. She ran her fingers through her hair, head tilted back. As she exhaled, her head came forward, piercing Tathar with a gaze that had nothing of mirth in it. An old, old smile came to her face as her hands slowly ran up her flanks and ended with each cupping a small breast. A small frosted blue areola capped each. She bit her lower lip, a look of naked hunger in her eyes. As her left hand rose to stroke her neck, her hips cocked left. Her head tiled right as if inviting him to bite her where her finger tickled. Her eyes slowly closed as her right hand descended to the tuft of pale bluish hair growing from her Venus Mount. Fingers splayed, the heel of her hand brushed the hair, the third and fourth fingers curling. As they disappeared between her legs, she moaned, once more tilting back her head.
Tathar’s laugh seemed to startle her. “Alright, woman. You’ve made your point.”
Her former mood quickly returned, and she giggled in turn. “Are ye flyin’ wi’ me, then?” She held the pose, fingers still buried in her pussy.
“No, I—” He never got a chance to finish.
With another merry laugh, she stepped back and, pausing to lick the nectar from her fingers, swung both hands above her head and leapt backward off the ledge.
Tathar cursed and jumped after her.
Dævara arced out and away, head first. The wind of her descent slammed her arms to her sides. Eyes barely open against the force of the air, she saw the trees around her and below one of the branch cities fast getting closer.
She arched her back slightly and was flying past the city, coming close enough it seemed as if she could reach out and brush the bark of the branch.
She twisted her body to her right and dove away from the tree and out into the vast space between the nearest trunks. She was giddy with the thrill of the experience.
Like the many lovers she’d taken in the last few days and…well, everything else since her rebirth in this world, flying was a glorious sensory revel. Air driven past with gale force furrowed the skin of her teats, tummy, and thighs like the fingers of a sadistic masseur. The air chilled Dævara to the marrow, forced her limbs to splay behind her. The wind pushed its thumbs into her eyes, squeezing tears out. Her hair flogged her back.
It felt wonderful.
Concentrating on small muscles in her upper back, she visualized the symbols she’d been taught and pulled out of the dive. Slowing not at all she leveled out, curving ever so gently to slide to one side of a tree. It was no smaller than the one she’d been living in, but such was her speed it passed a handful of seconds.
The newly born elf arched her back more sharply this time, swung her arms out and bucked her hips. Her flight turned into a spiraling ascent. She bled speed. Her rotation slowed and stopped.
Dævara now hovered, panting, and looking at the world around her. Every inch of skin tingled. The air seemed warm now. Reaching out with senses she’d been unaware of only days before, she could feel the life in the trees, see it throbbing in the very air.
She turned to regard another flock of those glowing white birds, noting with surprise that they had neither heads nor tails, when Tathar tumbled into her, knocking the wind out of her.
They spun around, out of control, each trying contrasting things to slow their wild spin. Instinctively, Daevara twisted toward the taller elf, meaning to hang on to him. He, however, was changing his grip at the same time. The result was she ended up with her right hand on his crotch and the other in his hair, while his left ended up on her bottom, the right hovering just over her left breast. She removed her hand from his head and firmly pressed his against her teat.
His palm was hot against her nipple. “D’ye mind, luv? That one’s cold, it is.” Again, that impish grin she couldn’t resist tugged at her eyes and mouth. Finally, their rotation began to slow.
Tathar laughed, “You do behave like a child sometimes, Daevara.”
“Aye, that I do.”
“How did you manage to master flight so quickly?”
“Golradir taught me.”
“He should’ve known better. How did you talk him into it?”
Through her grin, “I didna use my mouth fer talkin’!” Then her mirth got the better of her and a musical giggle escaped her.
He muttered something she didn’t catch about it taking time to teach or something. More loudly, “How many tests did you manage before this?”
“Tests? What d’ya, mean?” her good humour for the moment stilled.
Suppressing a chill, he asked, “Have you tried this before now?” His green-brown eyes held actual fear.
“No. Why?”
“Dævara—” he rearranged their limbs, so he was holding her close. Into her ear, he whispered—“most fail to stay airborne when learning for the first few dozen times. It takes time for mind wings to form and mature.” They were now still in the air.
She squeezed him tight. “I’ve worried ye, haven’t I.”
He pulled away until he was facing her. She’d been teasing him before, but she realized he really was quite handsome. A tremendous affection, part lust, part gratitude for the care he’d given her, welled up. Suddenly, she was ashamed of having caused the pain she now was in his visage. His look softened into a smile. “No harm, Daev. You’ve mastered flight in record time, it appears.”
“So, I’ve wings now?”
The old elf glanced over her shoulder. “You do. They won’t be visible to mortals, but they’re present, now.”
Then she saw his wings. Much larger than she thought such things would be, they were all but transparent, flickering through the colour spectrum as they flapped too fast to make out clearly.
Tathar appeared to master himself and began. “Are you at all curious why I came after you?”
“I thought ye’d changed ye’r mind, was all.”
“I don’t mean out here—” he indicated the air around them, —“I meant to find you today.”
“I thought ye mighta missed me, I did.”
“I did, in fact; but no. I came to find you to tell you that I’ve found Scorn.”
Reckonings
Scorn.
At the sound of that name came the memory of the Syrat. Since coming here, she’d been struck at odd moments with a longing for the cards that reduced her to numb lethargy. Tathar had given her a broth for it that soothed her and gave her back her strength. Each episode, however, had left its residue of despair. He kept saying she’d be fine. Dævara knew Tathar worried, though. For the last few days, she’d not thought of the deck once. Her thoughts instead had been ones of the pleasures of the senses; of the tastes and smells of flesh and fluids and the feel of turgid flesh; of orgasms felt and given; of sleep, delicious sleep in the company of lovers. Now, all her past had come back, a past she had unconsciously hoped lost.
“Dævara? Did you hear me?”
“Aye. I heard. Uhm…what happens now?” Everything began to look fuzzy. A buzzing started in her ears. She couldn’t tell up from down any longer. Dævara felt herself falling. Tathar’s grip on her tightened.
From the look on his face, Tathar was deeply troubled. Getting a firmer grip, he began to move. “Let’s get home, first. You need rest, and clothes.” He smiled at her.
Her humour had entirely deserted her. She felt weak. The loss of the Syrat was upon her again. It already felt stronger than it ever had. “Tath…I feel—”
“I know, love. I know. We’ll soon have you home.”
She remembered nothing after those words for a long time.
She woke once again to the feel of the sheets. She was in her room. She opened her eyes at the sound of murmured conversation and saw Tathar and a female elf she recognized as one of his mates (sea-green hair streaked silver). They concluded their dialogue as she turned her head. With a kiss and a hug, the woman left.
Tathar saw that she was awake and came to sit on the edge of her bed, his look of concern softening into a smile. “How do you feel, Daev?” He took her hand.
She gave his hand a reassuring squeeze, “Weak. Weaker than b’fore, I vow. What’s happenin’ ta me, Tath?”
He sighed. “It’s the soul wound, as you’ve probably guessed.”
“I’m dyin’.” It wasn’t a question.
“I honestly don’t know. Ansrith is one of the best healers we have, and she’s doesn’t know exactly what the separation between you and the Syrat will do. There’s little lore on it.”
“Why’s that?”
“Mostly, I suppose, because there are so few copies of the Syrat in existence. Counting yours, only thirteen decks exist; eleven are in Convocation worlds. I’ve not been able to find any evidence that a Teller and Syrat have ever been forcibly separated before.”
She was silent for a time, staring off in the distance. She saw, in her mind’s eye the face of the Dark Man, who had taken her maidenhead and her Syrat, smile cruelly.
She turned to her companion, “I want my cards back, Tath, and I mean to get them, I do. Ye told me ye’d found Scorn. Can I get back there?”
“I did find your planet. It took a long time because, it’s no longer there.”
“What d’ya mean? I left it only a few weeks ago, I did. What coulda happn’d ta it?”
He frowned and rubbed his brow, “How to explain. This place—” he indicated the world beyond the windows–“exists in its own time. In the Aions beyond it, time moves on, leaving us behind, as-it-were. It’s possible to enter here from any time, as time is measured in the Thirty Aions.
“Daev, you came forward almost a hundred millennia in Universal Time when you passed through the Portal you made.”
“I didna know a Portal could connect separate times as well as spaces.”
“I’m not surprised. Your mother likely didn’t know.”
“How did me spell do tha,’ then?”
“To answer that, I’d have to know what the spell was. Perhaps you cast it incorrectly.”
Another thoughtful pause. Then, “What happened ta Scorn, Tath?”
“I don’t know. It was part of a cluster of stars that went dark in quick succession a few centuries after the end of a terrible civil war that engulfed most of your multiverse and several others as well.”
“The Templar Wars?”
Tathar smiled, “I keep forgetting how well educated you are. Yes, the Templar Wars.”
“So, the cards are gone, then.”
He smiled again, shaking his head, “You forget time’s true nature. A Portal back in time to Scorn is possible. I don’t recommend going back to get them, though.”
“Why?”
“The risk is too great.”
“Ta me? ’Cause I dinna care fer that. I’ll have th’ cards, Tath.”
Tathar was shaking his head. “The risk is to more than you. That Portal is meant for travel between worlds of the Convocation; all of them, like this one, self-contained multiverses. Your coming through from outside shouldn’t have been possible. I’m still trying to figure out how you did it.”
Daevara felt crestfallen, “Is there no way ta get them, then?”
“I think there might be. You see, Ansrith found something when she examined you that I hadn’t the skill to discern. Your lethargy worsens because the wound keeps getting worse, rather than healing. The wound won’t close because it keeps getting ripped open.”
“By what?”
“By the Syrat, of course. Your connection to it is tearing, but it remains. It won’t go as long as you live. I’m torn, Daev. There is an ongoing risk to the Elven Convocation because of this open connection. The surest way to close it is to sever your connection to the Syrat. The link would close at once.”
“But I’d die.” She felt a frigid dread.
“I should have this done, for the sake of all elfkin, but I cannot. That leaves only one way.”
“I havta get me cards back, I do.”
Tathar nodded gravely.
—Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, December 2019
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