The Countdown
Part Two
Vaya continued to retch after she had voided the contents of her stomach on the Palace floor. She coughed and heaved until she grew light-headed from lack of air. Maybe if she strived hard enough, she could vomit up the memory Rayek had placed in her head.
Kahvi… her mother… not safe and dead after all… but a twisted husk, kept alive by starstone and the force of her own rage…
She barely felt the arm around her waist holding her up. Aurek’s voice in her ear seemed leagues away.
“Breathe, Vaya. Shh… my heart. Please, just breathe for me.”
His free hand rubbed circles on her shoulderblades. With a whimper, she sagged back against him, letting him hold her as the tears began to flow.
She didn’t cry out again. Kahvi could never abide weeping, and the thing she had become didn’t deserve it. But the tears poured down her cheeks in silence.
“Mother…”
Cheipar’s voice, so sweet for its rarity. Her other two sons were half a world away, but her quiet firstborn had always stayed close to her. Sons… yes, she was a mother herself. She could not afford to weep for Kahvi when her own child needed her to be strong.
She opened her eyes, focused on Cheipar, kneeling in front of her. His stormy blue eyes were wet with tears. She reached out for his hand.
“How?” she demanded, her voice raw. “How did this happen?”
“The Palacestone,” Rayek said, somewhere over her shoulder. “It has… merged with her somehow. Perhaps during the snowslide… perhaps later. We knew it was corrupted, unstable. Starstone seeks to renew itself through magic. With no magic to feed on save Kahvi’s own sendings… it must have turned on her.”
“But it protects her, too,” Swift spoke up. “The way she walked out of the fire… healing herself as fast as the fire burned her… I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“But why?” Vaya wriggled free of Aurek’s embrace, struggling to stand. Cheipar helped her to her feet. “Why is she with the humans? Why is she playing their goddess? Kahvi had nothing but contempt for the five-fingers!”
“Could they be holding her against her will?” Aurek asked.
“She commanded them,” Rayek said. “She could have blasted them all as she tried to do to us. But she led them in the chants and she commanded them to kill elves.”
“Door was a captive god of humans once,” Vaya said. “He thought he controlled them–”
“She’s told them of the Firstcomers,” Swift said coldly. “The only reason the Djun is climbing Thorny Mountain is because Kahvi put him on the scent.”
“You don’t know that for certain,” Aurek pointed out.
“No,” Rayek admitted. “But it matters not. Whether by her own will or not, Kahvi attacked us. She calls for the death of all elves. And she wields a power strong enough to attract the Firstcomers' notice.”
“What do we do?” Vaya asked. “What can we do? We can’t leave her like that!”
“No, we can’t,” Swift agreed. “And we can’t let her lead the humans to claim the Palace.”
“We require your assistance, Aurek,” Rayek said. A moment passed before he added, “Please.”
Supporting Vaya between them, Cheipar and Aurek followed Rayek and Swift towards the Scroll Chamber.
Weatherbird was already there, conferring with Quicksilver and Savin. Sunstream was in a deep sending trance, while Skywise watched Timmain turn the Scroll of Colors. Images came and went, flickering and indistinct.
“The future should become clearer as we approach it,” Skywise said. “What’s wrong?”
“Too much uncertainty,” Timmain breathed. “Too many possibilities.” She let her hands fall, and Skywise took over. At length the picture in the Scroll solidified, and Aurek came over to inspect it.
“I reckon five nights,” Skywise said.
“Hmm… perhaps only four.” Aurek pointed out a constellation in the image. The two began to debate the finer orientations of the constellations, comparing angles from landmark stars. It sounded like nonsense to Vaya’s ears. What did it matter the exact moment of the Firstcomers’ arrival when her mother had been made into a monster?
Sunstream let his hands fall from his temples. “I’ve made contact with the Circle, warned the other nations.”
Timmain whirled about, her long hair tangling about her face. “Was that wise, child? Sowing fear now will not aid us.”
“They have a right to know,” Sunstream protested.
“Know what? If it all unfolds as it once did, what matter the exact day? And if these threads should unravel–”
“Then they deserve a warning to make their peace,” Sunstream said firmly.
“I wish Venka was with us,” Rayek brooded.
“She’d never leave the tribe,” Swift remarked.
“I know. Curse her, I still wish she were here.”
“We have to go to Thorny Mountain,” Skywise said. “We have to be there when it happens.”
“We have to make sure it happens properly!” Swift agreed.
“Has this past night not taught you the folly of interference?” Timmain remarked.
“Bluestar!” Weatherbird exclaimed suddenly, her sharp cry silencing the argument. “We must go to the Evertree and fetch him.”
“I know he wanted to see the Firstcomers,” Swift began. “But don’t you think–”
“I want my cub!” Weatherbird cried, in a tone that brooked no refusal.
“Yes…” Vaya agreed. “We have to get Bluestar. And Wesh.” She needed her youngest with her. She needed the strength of her family, now more than ever.
* * *
A summer storm buffeted the Evertree Holt. Wind whistled through the Holt’s branches and Bluestar could feel the deep creak of the wood as the tops of the trees danced in the gale. Distant thunder rumbled, too far away to promise rain. The wolves yipped and shared aborted howls, unnerved by the restless weather.
“The Ghost Wolf is howling,” Littlefire pronounced.
“Hm?” Bluestar turned away from the window, towards the comforting candle.
“Oh, nothing. An old howl.”
“Tell me. It’s a good night for a story.”
Littlefire beckoned him over to the candle, burning in its bark boat. “Once, long ago, there was a pair of wolves,” he began. “Lifemates. They did everything together. They howled, they hunted and lived free as the Way teaches us. They bred, and raised their cubs, and ran with the pack until they were too old to keep up. The female was the first to lay down her skin, and the male mourned her. He howled until his throat gave out. He kept a vigil at her empty husk, and he waited to die so he could run with her again. But when he was on the edge of death himself, he heard her snarling, warning him off. ‘Don’t be in such a rush to follow me,’ she was telling him. ‘You lived your life for me, now you must learn to live for yourself.’
“The wolf learned to live again. He rejoined the pack, though he could never really run with them anymore. But the pack welcomed him back, though he was more burden than brother. One yearling wolf even courted him, until he consented to sire new life on her. He did all that his dead mate commanded of him, though he took little joy in it. And when the time came for the old wolf to die at last, he died content, knowing he would soon be reunited with his lifemate.
“But when the wolf shed his skin, his mate was not there to greet him in the spirit-realm. For years his ghost ran about the woods, chasing down every spirit he could find, asking them, threatening them – demanding they tell him where his mate had gone. Until finally he learned: she had left the forest. All the years he had lived without her, she had learned she too could go without him. By the time he tracked her spirit all the way into the heavens, she was so changed he barely recognized her. And when he begged her to return to the forest, she refused, for she was a wolf no longer.”
“What was she?”
“A star,” Littlefire said, with a bittersweet smile. “And try as he might, the wolf-spirit could not pull her down from the sky. So he raged about the Holt, howling his grief for all to hear. He howled so long and loud he forgot everything but his sorrow and his anger… until he became the wind. And now, whenever the storm rages over the Holt the Wolfriders say it’s the Ghost Wolf, forever chasing his own tail.”
“That’s a sad story,” Bluestar said.
“You think so? We used to. Not anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because the Ghost Wolf chose his grief. He could have stayed up in the stars with his lifemate. He could have chosen to change. But he didn’t.” Littlefire’s eyes turned flinty cold. “And if you don’t change, don’t grow... well, stagnation doesn’t just affect the living.”
“So it’s a warning, then?”
“It’s meant to be. All it seems to teach the young pups today is to curse those ‘cold, unfeeling stars.’” Littlefire rolled his eyes. Though perhaps it was more accurate to say Kit rolled his eyes for him. After two months at the Holt Bluestar was beginning to learn to tell them apart. The Wolfriders seemed to treat them as one entity – hardly surprising when they had all grown up seeing them in one body. But despite the romantic tales of two souls becoming one, it was clear that two very different personalities shared control of this shell.
“They think stars are cold?” Bluestar countered with a smile, trying to lift the mood. “They really don’t listen at lesson-time, do they?”
Littlefire let out a high-pitched, stacatto laugh. “No, they don’t.”
“I want to go to the stars one day,” Bluestar said. “But Mother says no leaving Abode until I’m all grown-up. I won’t appreciate new worlds until I know this one better. Or something.”
“Your mother is very wise.”
‘But when I turn two-eights Skywise has promised to take me to see the star I’m named after,” he added proudly. “You know the one – the Eye of the Hawk, in the southern sky.”
“Shame they didn’t name you Hawk-Eye,” Littlefire teased.
“Ugh!” Bluestar made a face.
“No, it doesn’t quite suit, does it?”
“Have you ever been to the stars?” Bluestar asked.
“We have enough to keep us busy here. For now. But who knows – the only certainty is the need to grow. The day may come when Abode becomes too small for us…” Littlefire looked down at his hand, slowly examining it from all angles. “Perhaps this body will become too small for us–” he grimaced and jerked his head to the side sharply. Bluestar wondered who was waging which argument.
“Change is good,” he said, calm again. “Even when it hurts.”
The talk of stars made Bluestar remember something Varek had told him, on the flight up from the desert. “Homestead… the world beyond ours.”
Littlefire nodded. “So Haken named it.”
“A trollkin was telling me about it. Said Haken wanted to move there, but the Circle voted him down. You’re on the Circle. Kit, I mean. You can tell me what happened.”
“Would you rather not ask your grandfather Aurek? He speaks for your nation.”
“But he won’t tell me everything. He says too much food for thought makes your head ache,” Bluestar rolled his eyes. “Anyway, you’re here. It’s a good night for howls.”
A voice in his head, mostly feminine, yet with a slighter lower echo that suggested Littlefire was not entirely silent. **This is… a secret howl, you understand. Circle matters are not meant for everyone’s ears.**
**I can keep a secret.**
Littlefire smiled and winked, a gesture so playful Bluestar knew Kit’s spirit had taken dominance. **I don’t doubt it. **
**So what happened? The Circle didn’t want elves scattered throughout the different worlds?**
**It was a matter of resources. Haken’s first thought was to move all elves – to abandon Abode forever. ‘The humans can have it.’ You know Haken.**
Bluestar frowned. **But what about the trolls?**
Littlefire raised an eyebrow. No, Bluestar supposed he didn’t need to ask. The upper-caste elf-blooded trolls of Blue Mountain were one thing, but Haken had no interest in the other kingdoms.
**Obviously we voted against it,** Kit continued. **Then Haken offered a second plan. A colony for all those who wanted to follow him. The problem was the Palace. Where would it stay? Haken wanted it to come with him to Homestead. It would be safer there. No humans. The core of Homestead is different, the rocks don’t generate the same magic-dimming aura we have on Abode. It would be better for everyone, he argued.**
**And you disagreed.**
**Of course. There was talk of splitting the Palace in two – I hear Skywise does that whenever he wants to go exploring. But Haken… well, he may be the All-Father, but he’s not… entirely well thought-of…**
**No one would trust him with his own Palace.**
**There was talk of a compromise… of a Travel Day, like Rayek does between all the nations. It used to be as often as once a month, you know. But Haken wasn’t willing to be… dependent on the other nations. And then Timmain stepped into the Circle and –**
“Oh drukk!” Bluestar blurted, before he caught himself.
Littlefire’s eyes twinkled even as he held up a finger in warning. **I know what that means, cub,** Kit chided. **But yes. It became something of a feeding frenzy after that. Still, Timmain made one very good point, and it convinced the rest of us to oppose even a colony.**
**What?**
**The Firstcomers. When they discovered our star’s system, there was one planet with signs of an elfin presence. Only one, and that was the one they chose to visit. If Homestead became a thriving colony of elves, the Firstcomers might well go there instead. The troll’s ancestors might decide to rebel there and not here.**
Bluestar nodded. **And the time threads get all snarled. I bet that made Haken back down!**
**He did. Though he looked like he wanted to kill Timmain for shaming him in front of the other nations.**
Bluestar made a dismissive gesture. “Aww, he always wants to kill Timmain. You should hear the things he calls her!”
**I have. Many times. And she never rises to the challenge – she just looks at him like he’s dung on her bare feet. I think she knows how much it enrages him.**
**You think Haken will bring it up again after the Reappearance? The move to Homestead, I mean?**
**It’s certainly likely. And for myself, I think he should do it, if it’s what his followers truly want. Whether we’ll be able to sort out sharing the Palace is another matter. You know, Haken even tried to convince Aurek to move the College to Homestead. ‘Think what your seedrock could do free of this world,’ he said.**
Bluestar’s first reaction was horror: his home uprooted from the Painted Mountains? Never! He couldn’t even imagine the Egg existing beyond the jagged peaks and sweeping upland vistas. Then he remembered something Maize had mentioned in passing.
**Haken wants the seedrock to make starstone – but he already has seedrock in Oasis! My cousin Maize told me! She said it’s to help with their fleshvines, but what if it’s not? Haken’s got seedrock and the Little Palace – he could make his own starstone!”
Littlefire stared at Bluestar’s outburst. Then he burst into a fit of laughter.
It wasn’t the reaction Bluestar had expected. **You… you aren’t worried? About what Haken would do with that much starstone?**
“Oh… perhaps a little,” Littlefire admitted. “But what can we do?”
“Warn someone. Try to stop him!”
“You like telling others what to do,” Littlefire remarked, in a tone that almost suggested a gentle rebuke. He sat back against the furs, smiling up at the den’s ceiling. “Haken’s Way is not a bad one. A wrong one, for some. For many. But a right way for others. If it’s their choice to follow him freely…”
“And the Hunt?” Bluestar countered sharply. “If it’s their choice to take over the Holt and twist the worldsong into a deathsong?”
Littlefire thought about it a moment. “Things change. And change is good. Even when it hurts.”
Bluestar thought the two spirits were resigning themselves to the continued decline. He was about to argue the point further, then Littlefire spoke again, in a whisper so faint Bluestar had to struggle to hear.
“… and it will hurt.”
“What? What will hurt? Who said that?”
Littlefire closed his eyes. The spirits inside his body said nothing more.
* * *
The Palace arrived just before dawn.
Bluestar felt the ripple of magic in the air. He was out of Littlefire’s den and halfway to the forest floor when the Palace materialized in the clearing beyond the ring of oak trees.
Weatherbird was first out the door, and Bluestar ran into her arms. When they eased apart from their long embrace, Cheipar was standing at his mate’s side. Bluestar gazed up at his parents with a smile that quickly turned to astonishment. He didn’t need to look up nearly so much anymore. His head now came up quite neatly to their chins.
Cheipar seemed to sense his thoughts. He ruffled his son’s hair and murmured, “You’re getting taller. Stop that.”
Bluestar laughed and hugged his father next.
“What are you doing here?” Did you come for Midsummer? They don’t really do anything to celebrate here except complain about how long the day gets. Are you –” but then Bluestar drew back and saw Cheipar’s grave expression. “Father? What’s happened?”
“We need to go, cubling,” Weatherbird said. “Now. Its happening, and sooner than we thought.”
‘The Reappearance?” Bluestar’s eyes widened. “When?”
“We need to go,” Weatherbird repeated. “Now. Fetch your things.”
Bluestar didn’t need to be told a third time. He scrambled back into Littlefire’s den and hastened to pack his travel bag. “Waterleaf!” he cried. “Where are you, you lazy bug? We’re going home!”
Waterleaf buzzed out of the knothole where it had been hiding. “Whaaa…? Silverbaby highthing full of sillyspeak.”
“Now! Or I’m leaving you behind, and I’ll be glad to do it!”
That got the bug’s attention. Bags packed and Preserver in tow, he returned to the threshold of the Palace. His grandmother Vaya had come out to greet her youngest son, and by the way she clung to Littlefire, she was not likely to part from him any time soon. Bluestar looked around, expecting to see at least a few Wolfriders drawn out of their Holt. But the clearing was empty. Not even Sparkstone had come out to greet the travellers.
“Where is everyone?” Bluestar asked. “I thought–”
“Oh, stay long enough and Furrow will be out to complain,” Littlefire said archly.
“I wanted to say goodbye to Sunstill and the others–”
“We’ll be back,” Weatherbird said. “But for now, we don’t have the time to spare.”
“We’ll let them know,” Littlefire offered.
“No,” Vaya said. “No – you’re coming with us. You have to!”
Littlefire smiled sadly. “Mother, our place is here. This is our tribe.”
“They don’t even listen to you anymore. Either of you.”
“It’s the Reappearance!” Bluestar spoke up. “The biggest howl in ten thousand years! You should be there to see it, or you’ll never do the story justice.”
“I’m not arguing this with you,” Vaya said firmly. “You are coming with us!”
Still Littlefire shook his head. “Mother–”
“Wesh!”
Bluestar swung his head in the direction of the stern voice. Aurek stood in the doorway of the Palace.
“Heed your mother,” Aurek commanded. “Inside. Now.”
Meek as a scolded child, Littlefire obeyed. Bluestar chuckled, but a quick flick to the ear from his own mother sent him running inside as well. The door had scarcely sealed up behind them when Bluestar felt the subtle displacement as the Palace left the Evertree behind.
“Telemutation,” Bluestar murmured. Sensing Weatherbird’s questioning gaze, he added, “That’s what Haken calls it. It’s just like flitting, isn’t it Mama? Only it’s the whole Palace that does it, and us inside it!”
“And what does Haken know about flitting, cub?”
Bluestar winced. “Maybe… more than he ought to?”
“Uh-hmm.” Weatherbird sounded displeased, though not entirely surprised. “Come, let’s find the others.”
Bluestar’s eyes lit up as they entered the Scroll Chamber. His mother’s whole family was there – both her parents and all four of her grandparents! And with Grandmother Vaya and Aurek alongside Father – and even Timmain the High One sitting at the Scroll – it was like a College family reunion!
Only… reunions were meant to be celebrations, and there was no cheer in the Scroll Chamber. Sunstream and Quicksilver looked worried. Savin looked pained. Swift, Rayek and Skywise hadn’t even looked up to greet him. They were all huddled together, locksending. “It’s bad, isn’t it?” Bluestar asked. “The Reappearance happening early.”
“We don’t know yet,” Weatherbird admitted.
He looked around the Scroll Chamber. “We just moved. Where did we go?”
“Thorny Mountain.”
“Can I see?”
Weatherbird led him over to a wall and held his hand to his crystal. He could just make out his blurry reflection in the starstone. “Concentrate,” Weatherbird urged. “Like I showed you.”
Bluestar focused, and the wall and those behind it turned transparent. He saw a rocky slope, leading up to a barren pyramid. The sky was a patchwork of black clouds and bright stars. It was still night in the New Land.
“That’s it?” Bluestar asked. “The summit? That’s where the Palace will appear?”
“In four days’ time, more or less. It’s too close to tell for certain. But we’re staying here until it happens.”
A soft orange glow lay to the south, somewhere downslope. “What’s that light?”
“Humans. They’re coming for the Firstcomer’s Palace.”
“Why? How do they know about it?”
Weatherbird looked about to speak, then caught herself.
“It doesn’t matter,” Swift spoke up, and Bluestar turned to face her.
“What matters is that we keep them back, however we can.”
“More intervention will avail us nothing, child,” the High One cautioned. “It may be that the humans are meant to take the summit–”
“‘May be, may be,’” Swift growled back. Bluestar was frightened – the smiling elder of his memory had become a chief wolf. Her hand strayed to the hilt of New Moon reflexively. “It may be I’m meant to take the Djun’s head!”
“We will turn them back,” Rayek agreed. “The humans have taken too much from us already. Our land… our lives – I won’t let them take our past too!”
“Have a care you don’t cost our kind its future,” Timmain warned.
“It’s not our world that’s ending, but Grohmul Djun’s,” Swift vowed. She stared beyond the walls, her mind’s eye focused on the glow of woodsmoke. “The Djun wants a Revelation? I mean to give him one.”
* * *
Grohmul Djun brooded in his war tent. The advance was not going well.
The thunderstorm had been the first setback, but a minor one. By morning the clouds had cleared, and the work had resumed in earnest. The steam-powered harvesters sliced a path through the forest, and the men used the downed timber to build wooden ramps to aid their climb. The summit was almost within reach.
Then the Hidden Ones struck.
First to go were the advance scouts, felled by arrows shot from the trees. Miniature arrows, the kind a child might play with, but with sharp steel points. Then the harvesters stalled in their climb, and when the engineers examined the treads they found them gummed with a sticky substance like spider webs.
“The Wild Hunt is defending their mountain!” a man warned. The saddle-chief had cut him down where he stood, but it did little to improve morale.
The Wild Hunt… foolish tales about giant wolves and a red-haired huntress: the ghosts of Djaar Mornek haunting the mountain. The Djun gave the old tales little credence. He was more worried about living elves.
The Djun’s archers retaliated with volleys of arrows launched into the forest, but he knew it was only a waste of good steel. Those arrowheads would never find their way into an elf’s heart.
When night fell, the Hidden Ones descended on their camp, thwarting the guards and sowing chaos in their wake. The Djun ordered the guard doubled and the torches tripled. By the next morning the treads of the harvesters were cleared and the machines resumed their ponderous climb. But the wooden tracks laid down the night before had been destroyed, and little ground could be gained.
“We should send for reinforcements,” Karkapetch suggested.
“You should mind your tongue, speaking such insolence in front of your Djun.”
But alone in his tent, Grohmul had to admit his doubts. The cursed elves seemed to have the ability to fade in and out of the darkness at will. Against beings from another world, what could any man – even a Djun – do? Perhaps it was time to fall back, to await reinforcements from the garrison to the south.
“We’re out of time…” a voice hissed in the darkness.
“Curse you!” Grohmul pushed himself out of his chair. His eyes searched the sahdwos of his tent. “How can you hide so well with that glowstone shining between your dugs?”
The elf stepped out of the darkness. She wore a roughspun travel cloak, and its folds concealed the purple light of her stone heart. But when she pushed back her hood, Grohmul saw that the tear-like tracks of purple that stained her cheeks were glowing softly. As were her eyes, wide as a cat’s and the color of elfwine.
“I left you at the Citadel,” he growled. “Who brought you here?”
“My legs brought me.” She touched her breast. “The call tugs at my heart. It is coming…”
“You said I had until autumn!”
“You did. Now you don’t. I hear the call… your Voice in the Storm. It is getting louder.” The elf shuddered, her scarred and ageless face contorting in a grimace. “They’ve seen me… they’ve heard me, and they are coming. The voices…” her hands rose to cover her ears. “The singing… it’s always singing now!”
“They – it? Who do you mean? Curse you, woman!” He seized her shoulders and shook her like a leaf. “I’m no fool. I know you’re no more Threksh’t’s child than I am.”
“The singing!” she repeated, flashing him a mad grin. “They are singing. And my heart sings back. They’re coming and we’re going to kill them! You promised me! ‘Kill the elves, the beloved of Threksh’t!’” Now she seized his wrists. Her eyes turned imploring. “You promised me! Make the singing stop! Make it all stop!”
Grohmul thrust her away from him. “To the doom-pit with you.”
Kahvi laughed. “Yes! Yes, please, Djun! To the doom-pit with all of them! It’s almost time. When the Palace appears you only need crush it – crush it to powder with all your shiny playthings! Put out the light, stop the singing! Then it will all be undone! No more demons. No more magic. You’ll have a world all your own! And I’ll have silence!”
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 2014 Warp Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved. Alternaverse characters and insanity copyright 2015 Jane Senese and Erin Roberts.