The Aftermath
Part Three
The rescue party tracked the fading scent of the Navigator down the mountain. Old Starjumper led the way, Skywise and Savin on his back. Rayek floated closely behind, bearing Swift in his arms. Behind them came Timmain, Weatherbird clinging tightly to her back, cheek buried in the fur of her shoulder.
“Holding up, Winnie?” Swift asked when they paused at an outcrop.
“This… this is the first time I’ve been out of the Palace inside skin since…” Winnowill looked down at the steep slope and closed her eyes tight. “It is rather… overwhelming.”
“Go to sleep if you need to. Let Weatherbird take over again. We’ll wake you when we need you.”
“No,” Winnowill insisted. “I can do this.”
Timmain turned her head and licked Weatherbird’s cheek consolingly. Swift raised an eyebrow.
“You’re so much nicer when you’re a wolf, you know that?”
They found the remains of the cocoon in a stand of brambles, just below a nearly-sheer rock wall. The scent grew fainter as the trail of blood drops ended. But Starjumper’s nose soon found the reason why, and Skywise pointed out the faint imprints of horseshoes in the dirt.
“Humans!” Rayek swore.
“Let’s go!” Swift said. “No time to waste.”
“We’re going to go fast again, aren’t we?” Winnowill asked miserably.
They took off on a track parallel to the forest fire. The flames were gradually gaining strength as the brambles gave way to stands of pine trees. The smoke grew heavier, but the scent-trail led them down gullies, below the worst of the ash.
**Human huts ahead,** Rayek sent.
**Ugh, I know. I can smell them from here,** Skywise sent back.
The horse had cut directly through the farmlands on the outskirts of the settlement, but the elves took the long way around, hugging the very edge of the forest until Starjumper whined.
“Can we try an open sending?” Swift whispered.
They all sent out a call of wordless comfort. Only Winnowill registered an answer.
**Something ahead. That hut there… the two-level one with the troll-like carvings all along the roof.**
**Be mindful,** Timmain sent. **I smell near-wolves. And many humans.**
**So what’s the plan?** Skywise asked. **Phew! Why can’t Djunsmen keep their hives clean-smelling?**
**Thatch roof,** Rayek observed. He turned and studied the pine tree behind him.
Winnowill moaned softly. “We’re going up trees, aren’t we?”
* * *
The thatch parted easily under a few slices of New Moon. Swift and Rayek dropped down into the house to the shouts of the humans. The Mercenary staggered back in search of his longaxe. “Hidden Ones! Back! You’ve no right to enter! I have a horseshoe on my lintel – you cannot enter without leave!”
“We come for our kindred, human,” Swift growled.
The Mercenary swung his axe. Instinctively, Swift leapt out of the way, up onto the table, while Rayek simply raised a shield to deflect the massive blade.
“Surrender our brother,” Rayek ordered.
The Mercenary smiled cruelly. “What’s he worth to you?”
Rayek flicked his wrist, and a shockwave battered the Mercenary back against the wall. The longaxe slipped from his grasp and Rayek kicked it away, as Swift sprang down from the table to hold New Moon’s point against the human’s throat.
“What is his worth to you?” Rayek countered. “Your life, perhaps? Your family’s?”
“I saved him! I rescued him from the fires! You should be grateful!”
“Where is he, human? Don’t test my patience!”
The Mercenary clapped his mouth shut stubbornly.
“He’s here under the floor!” his wife cried. “Please, good spirits, show mercy.”
“I’ll kill you, woman!” the Mercenary vowed.
**All clear,** Swift sent. Moments later, Winnowill, Skywise and Savin dropped down through the hole in the thatch. The human woman was already moving the floorboards to reveal the hiding place. The wounded Navigator moaned within.
“How is he?” Swift asked.
Savin and Skywise worked together to lift the naked Firstcomer out of the root cellar. His moans rose to a desperate wail. Winnowill knelt down and touched the Navigator’s shoulder. He fell silent as a soft healing glow filled the house. Both humans stared in amazement.
“A bit more magic than your horseshoe on the lintel,” Rayek remarked wryly.
The Mercenary tried to rise, and Swift shifted her grip on New Moon. A thin line of blood rose underneath his white-blond beard.
“Please,” the human woman murmured. “Good spirits… what will you do with him?”
Swift’s steely gaze never left the Mercenary. “You are his mate?”
“Yes…”
“Then I’ll let you decide. Should he be spared?”
The Mercenary shot his wife a desperate look. She bit her split lip and trembled, but could not find her voice. “Say something, woman!” he roared. “I swear, I will wring the life out of you–”
“Please…” his wife repeated. Her hands rose to cover her mouth. The words came out around her fingers in a desperate whisper. “Please – kill him. Kill him! Kill him now!”
“You worthless cu–”
Swift drew New Moon back sharply. The Mercenary’s head tipped back in an open-mouthed grimace as blood erupted from his slit throat. Swift stepped back before it could splash her coat.
“Winnowill?” she asked, slipping New Moon back in its sheath. “Is he well?”
Winnowill stood. “I’ve healed his body. But his mind remains… fragmented. I suggest we return to the Palace without delay.”
“Right. Rayek, you take the Navigator. Fly to the Palace, as fast as you can. I’ll ride up with Winnowill.”
“Wait!” the surviving human pleaded, as the elves turned to go. “Please – good spirits. I know I have no right, but… my daughter Shuna– she is dying. Silver-haired maid… if your hands can heal, please: heal my daughter!”
Winnowill looked at Swift with Weatherbird’s wide eyes. “May I, Swift?”
“All right. But be quick about it.”
The Mercenary’s widow led Winnowill into the sickroom where the young human lay, covered in blisters and boils. Rayek gingerly cradled the unconscious Navigator in his arms and floated up through the hole in the roof. Swift paced the room restlessly, watching the Mercenary’s blood slowly spread across the floorboards, listening for any sound outside the walls of the house. Distantly, the watchman could be heard calling.
“Fire! Fire on the ridgeline!”
**Winnowill, now!** Swift sent impatiently. What little remained of the wolf in her was growling a warning. They had to move. This idyll couldn’t last. How long had it been since the world nearly ended? She couldn’t think. She hadn’t had the time to think since the first of those trebuchets had started throwing death on the summit.
At last Winnowill re-emerged, wearing an exhausted expression on Weatherbird’s face. The widow fussed about her, murmuring her thanks in servile tones. “No need… I’m a mother myself. Ohh… I forgot how hard you humans can be to heal.”
“Please, wait a moment,” the widow hastened to a large wooden chest and drew out a long garment – velvet dyed a deep forest green. Winnowill held it up in wonderment. “Silk-fur…” she murmured approvingly. “Oh, but I’m afraid I’m only borrowing this body, and I’m certain your daughter could make better use of this gown.”
“Better sell it and everything else you can bear to part with,” Savin remarked. “If the fires don’t come for this village, what’s left of the Djunsmen will.”
“Yes,” Winnowill agreed. “Take the Djunsroad as far west as you can, then ask a Longrider to show you the way to a place called High Hope. You can raise young Shuna in safety there.”
“Now, Winnowill!” Swift snapped.
They didn’t bother with the hole in the thatch. The widow opened the front door for them. The watchman had moved on, and though a near-wolf caught their scent and sent up a furious barking, the alarm was soon drowned out by a cacophany of startled chickens in a nearby coop. The elves stole out into the night.
“Fire!” the watchman bellowed again. “Fire on the ridgeline!”
Timmain and Starjumper were waiting for them in the shadow of the trees. “The fire is between us and the Palace,” Swift breathed. “We’ll have to cut far to the north to get back up the mountain.”
“No, we won’t,” Skywise said.
“How else will we–” Swift began. But Skywise pointed upward, and she remembered that there was no longer a limit on their magic.
The wind had changed. Smoke was beginning to waft over the village. The stars flickered uncertainly behind the sooty scrim. In one large section of the sky, the stars seemed to be oddly dimmed… static points of light that did not quite match the rest of the starfield. Swift felt relief wash over her
“Ah, he can never get the flickering right,” Skywise sighed ruefully.
“Show off,” she smiled up at the camouflaged Palace.
Skywise and Savin took to the trees. Within moments they had scaled to the very top of the tallest fir. A brief, bright flash – like one of the Blue Mountain’s aerial sparklers – was the only indication of the door opening and closing.
“I believe I’ll wait for the lift,” Winnowill remarked.
“Me too,” said Swift. Her last reserves of strength were melting away, as she realized the danger was well and truly past. She doubted she could find the will to climb even halfway up the tree ladder.
The wolves were the next to go up, Starjumper whining in discomfort even after millennia spent in the Palace, Timmain stoic and regal. At last Swift felt the floating magic surround her: a comforting blanket of air buoying her up. The ground dropped away beneath her feet, and the stars grew brighter until a flash of white light made her close her eyes. When she opened then, she was standing on a crystal floor, and Rayek’s arms were around her.
Her ears popped as the Palace displaced itself – she didn’t care where they were going, as long as it was far far away from the stench of humans. Her legs buckled in sudden weakness, and she clung tightly.
“I have you,” Rayek whispered.
She was safe. They were all safe. The long night was finally over. So why the pain in her chest, swelling up and constricting her throat? A sob tore from her lips, then another. Rayek continued to hold her up, murmuring words of love as Swift wept with relief.
* * *
When she awoke in her bed, the growl in her belly told her it was at least midday. Swift rolled over and found Rayek sitting on the edge of the bed, watching her.
“Sleep well?” he asked. The gentle tone in his voice told her all was well. When Swift nodded, sleepily, Rayek added, “It seems Skywise owes me a gold wolf.”
Swift blinked, bleary-eyed.
“He wagered you would sleep through to sundown, but I knew your love of self-torment would compel you to wake before then.” He smiled. “If you are determined to see me lose my coin, however, you have my permission to go back to sleep.”
“Nngh, where are we?”
“Still at Thorny Mountain, safe under Aurek’s rock dome. It seemed the wisest course, until we decide what to do about the Navigator… and Kahvi. Though Timmain is anxious to depart for Oasis.”
“Oasis?” Swift sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Why? Did they–”
“Oh, it’s nothing to do with the time-threads. Sunstream finally made contact with them, and everything seems as it should be. He and Savin will have to do a full census to be certain, of course. But Sunstream couldn’t raise them until nearly sunrise, and Haken is being… cryptic as to the reason.”
Swift’s brief flash of panic had fully roused her. She crawled out of the furs and reached for her discarded clothes. She could distinctly remember shedding them all across the floor, but now they were neatly laid at the foot of the bed.
“And the Navigator?” she asked as she dressed. “Is he awake? Is he sending?” She could only imagine the stories he would have to share – a true Firstcomer, newly arrived from the stars.
Rayek averted his eyes. “He is… conscious. But to see how he fares, I rather wish he wasn’t. Come, you will understand when you see him.”
He led Swift back towards the Scroll Chamber, in the very heart of the Palace. Just shy of the central chamber, several smaller alcoves held crystal pallets for wrapstuff cocoons. The Navigator was laid out on one such dais, as Aurek and Weatherbird stood over him, their faces grave with worry. Timmain, back in her elf form and wearing nothing but her long hair, knelt on the floor so she could be at eye-level with the Firstcomer. They touched foreheads and hummed to each other in low voices.
Swift nodded to Aurek, then hesitated at Weatherbird. She frowned slightly. Usually she was quite skilled at reading the subtle differences between spirits...
“Are you…?”
“It’s me, Grandmother,” she said, her voice pitched high with only a hint of laughter at Swift’s gaffe.
“Sorry. Must still be a little muzzy-headed.” Swift glanced down at the Navigator. The elf lay on his side, clutching the filthy horse blanket around his frail body. One exposed shoulder trembled violently.
“Why is he still wound up in that thing?”
“He started screaming when we tried to take it away,” Weatherbird explained.
“I believe he finds it a comfort – something to ground him in this reality,” Aurek said.
Swift listened carefully to the sounds Timmain and the Navigator would making. Under the steady hum came soft trills and little clicks, all made at the back of the throat. It was mostly Timmain vocalizing, Swift realized. The Navigator only hummed tonelessly.
“Is that how they speak? The Firstcomers? Is that the High Ones’ tongue?”
“Or the last tongue the Navigator spoke before he was cocooned,” Aurek theorized. “Swift… this is not a hurt that can be easily mended. This soul has spent untold ages crafting itself for one purpose alone – a purpose that does not involve anything so limiting as flesh.”
Swift nodded. “Like you and Door, back in Blue Mountain.”
“An inadequate comparison, I fear. I lived apart from the world of the living, but I still interacted with it, both in conscious and instinctive sendings. I built new worlds in my mind, and from time to time I even explored the astral plane. I even crossed paths with Timmain, once when I became lost in my wanderings. And Door… well, he was Winnowill’s private door, but at least he maintained steady contact with her. And he only spent a few thousand years in the role.”
“Only,” Swift remarked under her breath. She was not quite old enough to consider such a span of time so trivial.
“No, I fear the Navigator is more akin to Brace. Did – did you ever encounter Brace?”
Swift’s mind was a blank. But Rayek nodded after a moment’s thought. “I believe so. He was… assigned an archway to protect, was he not? I recall Winnowill showing him to me.”
“His entire being was devoted to protecting that archway – and the myriad stresspoints connected to it. You might ask why Lord Voll and Winnowill sacrificed an elf to maintain one single tunnel, but the truth was that arch was a keystone of the mountain, and Brace volunteered to maintain it. He always enjoyed puzzles, and in the stresspoints of that archway he found a riddle worthy of his mind.” Aurek’s voice had turned wistful. He returned to the present with a blink of his eyes. “He shut out everything beyond the call of the stone. Eventually his spirit merged with the stone, but his body lived still. It was a mercy when the mountain fell – that it crushed his body before his spirit could be pulled back to it.”
“Husk-shock,” Swift murmured. A shudder chilled her spine at the very words. She had experienced it once herself, in her early experiments at “going-out.” However far a spirit might roam, as long as the body lived, flesh and soul remained bound together by a thin thread. Wrapstuff let the thread stretch further, by binding the body outside time. But when the cocoon was opened, the thread would snap back, violently.
The first rule of “going-out” was: Be back in your body before it wakes up.
If you weren’t, the results were… unpleasant.
“The High Ones measure time in spirals,” Aurek went on. “By their reckoning, it has been one turn of the spiral since they first set foot on Abode. And as near as Timmain can remember, the Navigators had been guiding the Palace for some two hundred spiral-turns.”
Swift’s eyes widened. Two hundred times twenty thousand years. Even with the sophisticated numbering systems elves, trolls and humans alike had developed over the years, she could not quite fathom that span of time.
Timmain’s clicks and hums cut off sharply as the Navigator arched his back and let out a long wail. Timmain sat back on her heels and rested her hands on her thighs.
“Timmain?” Swift asked. “What can we do?”
“I have tried to explain… in sending and in words. He cannot understand.”
“Has he really been in wrapstuff for…” she glanced to Aurek for guidance, and he mouthed the word – an alien loan-word for which most elves had no need - “…four million years?”
“By our reckoning. By his… you know time has no meaning for spirits. Yet he has kept track of time in his own fashion, through the many paths he had guided our shell along. He and his kindred. There were nine Navigators, one for each member of the Circle… each one a link in a chain. Together, they made one common soul, the very spirit of our ship – a living system that could not be disrupted. While we took many forms, shaped our shells to new purposes, they dwelled outside form altogether… in perfect, unchanging balance.”
She frowned as she searched her memories. “Nine cocooned bodies… five male, four female… names that ceased to have meaning….”
“You keep saying ‘body’ – but what about the soul? Can’t he tell you who is he?”
“He is a heart, torn from a living beast. Does a heart know what it is? No – it only knows the lack of blood to pump, and the inevitable outcome.”
“What, is he dying? No! He can’t die. You have to heal him – someone has to–”
“Why?” Timmain asked, sounding genuinely curious.
Rayek moaned and massaged the bridge of his nose.
“Allow me to explain, Grandmother,” Aurek began.
“There’s nothing to explain,” Swift said. “‘No elf must die!’ I vowed that when I was still a stripling, though it went against how we’d lived since the days of Timmorn Yellow-Eyes! And I stand by it now. I had to watch eights of elves die at Howling Rock! I went to the doom-pit and back to save all our kind. I’m not going to stand by and watch a Firstcomer die of something as simple as husk-shock!”
“Will you condemn him to suffer in a world that is no longer his own?” Aurek asked.
“He can change,” Rayek said quietly. “He can grow. As you did, Timmain.”
Timmain closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. “You speak of ‘standing by and watching.’ I just watched my kindred disappear into the deep past, knowing that for them, their sufferings have just begun. I watched, I remembered, and I did nothing, because I knew to save them was to destroy their – my – children.”
“But here’s one we can save!” Swift insisted.
“Even against his will?” Aurek pressed.
“What must be, will be,” Timmain intoned. “Let it be his choice.”
The Navigator began to thrash on the pallet. He twisted and fell over onto his back as his back arched sharply. His multi-faceted eyes stared up blindly at the ceiling. The howl of air tore from his throat, like a death rattle. Swift thought she could hear a single word: “Nooo….”
“The spirit wants to leave the body,” Weatherbird said. “There’s nothing we can do, short of violence.”
The Navigator’s seizures grew more intense, until finally he stiffened, back bent in a bow so that only his shoulders and heels touched the pallet. He let out his last breath in a long hiss, then the body slowly began to relax.
“His spirit is gone,” Aurek said. “The shell will fail now.”
“Be at peace, brother,” Timmain said sadly. As she bent her head, the light fell on a single tear poised on the edge of her eyelashes.
“He wouldn’t stay,” Swift murmured. She knew it was irrational, but she felt the sting of rejection all the same. A newly-arrived Firstcomer: untouched by the time-stranding; possessed of powers Timmain and Haken had long forgotten, and visions neither of them could fathom. He could have shared so much. He could have enriched all their lives. But the barest brush with their world had so repelled him that he chose death over transformation.
If only his cocoon hadn’t torn. If only they had found him before the humans.
No elf must die. She clung to that vow more tightly than ever in the wake of Howling Rock. It took an effort to remember the years when friends and family were choosing death over life.
She felt the tears at the back of her throat and she realized she wasn’t just grieving for the Navigator. She was mourning all the old comrades who had willingly laid down their skins: Nightfall, Redlance, One-Eye, Clearbook, Dart and Kimo… even that old growler Strongbow… her Way hadn’t been enough to hold to them. She hadn’t been enough…
Even six thousand years later, it was so hard not to take it personally.
No, no! This was more than her own festering grudges. This was a chance denied forever. This was a rejection of everything that made them elves. When faced with stillness or growth, the wise elf always chose growth!
In time, she was sure they could have convinced the Navigator to live. Aurek had longed for death once, but Two-Edge had not permitted it, and the whole world was the richer for that choice. This broken Navigator – he was more than a link in a chain, whatever Timmain said. He deserved the chance to live for himself.
Swift looked to her lifemate. He appeared equally stricken by what he had witnessed. She caught his gaze, wordlessly pleading for his support.
He understood, even without sending. He nodded once.
“Petalwing!” Swift called. “Petalwing, Waterleaf! We need you!”
“Wait – what are you doing?” Aurek asked.
The Preservers always seemed to appear out of nowhere. Petalwing was the first to fly overhead, humming inquisitively. Waterleaf was close on its leaders’ clawed heels.
“Make wrapstuff,” Swift commanded.
“Ooooh… High-highthing!” Waterleaf exclaimed.
“Guider-flyer high-highthing,” Petalwing specified smugly. “Petalwing remember! Petalwing do!”
It was the work of a moment to cocoon the inert body. Timmain stared at Swift harshly. “Why?”
“Because I won’t close the door on this,” Swift said. “I can’t. He was in shock. You said so yourself. He didn’t understand – couldn’t understand. Now he has a chance to. He can find the spirits of the other Navigators, learn what happened, make his peace with it. And he can choose with a clear mind.”
“And if he chooses to merge once more with the Palace?”
“Then he can ignore the cocoon, like he did for the last two hundred spirals. But if he decides he wants to live – if he decides to be himself again – then his body will be waiting for him.”
“It may be waiting a long time,” Aurek remarked.
“It can wait as long as it needs to, under wrapstuff. We’ll tuck it away where no one will disturb it. This hurts no one,” she insisted. “The choice remains his.”
Weatherbird nodded, her face slowly brightening. “Yes. Yes, I like it. And if he does choose his flesh, we can wake him up more gently next time.”
“Timmain?” Aurek asked. “I can see wisdom in it… though I fear we may be nurturing false hope.”
Timmain considered it, then gave a slight nod of the head. “The choice remains his,” she echoed. With a long, steadying breath, she pushed herself upright, and strode away from the cocoon. Weatherbird and Aurek exchanged puzzled glances. Rayek only huffed into the palm of his hand and began to follow her.
**Scroll Chamber, everyone!** Swift sent openly. **We need to chew out what to do next.**
Her call drew everyone to the Scroll Chamber within a matter of minutes. Swift summarized what had happened to the Navigator. “It is a fine compromise, child,” Timmain admitted when she had finished. “His cocoon can be safely stowed within the walls. And we can now proceed to Oasis without delay.”
“What about Kahvi?” Teir asked.
“If I could find her, I’d drop the Palace on her,” Rayek drawled.
“We have to find her!” Vaya insisted. “I’m not leaving her stuck as that magic-laced monster!”
“Wrapstuff contains just about everything,” Skywise said. “If we could track her…”
“We can track her,” Teir said. “No Scroll, no sending, just what scents and marks she leaves behind. She’s not a spirit – she will leave a trail.”
“We have a greater concern at the moment,” Timmain argued.
“I don’t know about that – she did almost wipe us out of history,” Swift pointed out. “And now that one Palace is out of reach, she might be desperate enough to try for the other one.”
“Another reason why we should be an ocean away.”
“Unh, why couldn’t you just stay a wolf?”
Weatherbird giggled suddenly, which she hastened to cover up. Cheipar and Bluestar both looked at her askance.
“Uh… I have a question,” Sunstream said. “If Haken is up to something with starstone – do we really want to fly a huge block of it to his doorstep?”
Skywise chuckled. “Now you’re shooting with a strung bow.” He rubbed his hands together. “I say you take a pod to Oasis, Rayek – a small one. I can take another to help the Wild Hunt look for Kahvi. And Sunstream, you get the Palace itself back to the Great Holt – well out of Kahvi or Haken’s reach – and call the Circle to get everyone caught up on what’s happened. How’s that sound?”
Swift grinned. “It sounds like a plan, soul-brother.”
It only took a moment for the elves to split up into three groups. Aurek would accompany Vaya and the Wild Hunt inside Skywise’s pod. Timmain, Swift and Rayek would journey to Oasis, pausing just long enough to return Littlefire to the Evertree. Quicksilver and Savin would return to the Great Holt with Sunstream, to begin the great census and verify that history had remained consistent across the nations. Weatherbird and Cheipar hesitated, hands clasped, as they watched their families split up.
“If Haken is planning something in Oasis, I should be there,” Weatherbird said. “I may be the only one he’ll talk to.”
Cheipar nodded, but his gaze kept drifting towards Vaya.
“Go with your mother,” Weatherbird prompted. She gave his hands an encouraging squeeze.
“What about you, Bluestar?” Sunstream asked. “Why don’t you keep us company on the trip back to the Great Holt?”
“I want to stay with Mother,” Bluestar said stubbornly, reaching for Weatherbird’s hand.
“I won’t be long,” Weatherbird insisted. “You go with your grandparents. And when I come get you we can all go back to the Egg, you, me and your father.”
Bluestar looked at her skeptically, as if he didn’t believe a word of it. But reluctantly he moved over to join Sunstream and Quicksilver.
“We’re needed back at the Evertree for now,” Littlefire told Vaya. “No matter what the stags and the wolves think – everyone is affected by what’s happened. The howls need to be told. But if you need us–”
“I know.” Vaya hugged him. “My little mite. You always take good care of him, Kit.”
The elves said their goodbyes, and Rayek and Skywise’s groups left for the two detachable chambers that served as travel pods, each at opposite ends of the Palace. “The Waykeeper is correct,” Timmain remarked. “The time threads have held, but nothing remains unchanged after last night’s events. We may encounter a world transformed when we arrive in Oasis. You must be prepared.”
“Uh-huh,” Swift looked her up and down. “You… might want to put on some clothes before we get there.”
Elfquest copyright 2015 Warp Graphics, Inc. Elfquest, its logos, characters, situations, all related indicia, and their distinctive likenesses are trademarks of Warp Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved. Some dialogue taken from Elfquest comics. All such dialogue copyright 2015 Warp Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved. Alternaverse characters and insanity copyright 2015 Jane Senese and Erin Roberts