The Countdown
Part Three
“Sleep well, love,” Melati whispered to the cocoon. She looked up sharply at the black-winged Preserver. “Is it still properly sealed?”
“Whyfuss? Flitrin do. Flitrin did!” it answered pointedly.
Reluctantly, Melati got to her feet. The cocoon was one of many tucked against the wall of the cave chamber. With the Preservers’ help, she had brought many specimens of her Shapechanged to Oasis, safely suspended in wrapstuff. They would slumber peacefully until the crisis had passed, insurance against an uncertain future. No one would notice one more cocoon added to the pile.
He hadn’t wanted to come – not even anonymously cocooned. She had rehearsed several different lies before deciding the truth was the best course. She had tried lying to him once before, and it hadn’t ended well.
“There’s a storm coming, Beast,” she had told him. “A very large… magic storm. The Cinder Pools may not be safe. But the walls of Oasis will protect us. You’ll be fast asleep. You won’t know anything’s changed. And I won’t let anyone find you. I promise. You trust me, don’t you? I always keep my promises.”
All but one. Once, long ago, she had promised her soulbrother that she would resurrect him…
Four thousand years later and the guilt still gnawed at her, if given the chance.
It was all that little Wolfrider’s fault. She had been quite happy with Beast in their hidden sanctuary. Years could pass without her thinking of Yosha. But then Beast had saved an elf-child from a dust storm, and the quick-witted cub had recognized him as a distant cousin within an evening.
She had used her powers to make Bluestar forget what he had seen and learned. She half-wished she could do the same to everyone who had ever known Yosha.
“Aunt Melati?” Maize appeared in the doorway, the beads in her hair clicking softly. “It’s almost time. Are you ready?”
“Yes.” Melati turned away from the cocoons. She summoned a smile for Maize. Here was an unconditional success story. By all rights, Maize should never have been conceived, never born, never grown to maturity. It had taken Melati years of practice to force Recognition in a body as frail and sterile as Cholla’s. It had taken even longer to unlock the key of external gestation – centuries of careful study and experimentation on lesser beings. How many times had others told her she was wasting her time and her tears on an impossibility?
But nothing was impossible, given enough time. Maize had taught her that. After the disaster of Yosha’s failed resurrection, Melati had been forced to learn patience. She had refused to risk Cholla’s health or an unborn soul on anything less than a sure chance.
And here Maize stood, as fit as any child born of natural Recognition, a bronze-skinned beauty with a quick wit and powerful magic. Melati felt as proud as any mother – for wasn’t Maize just as much her child as she was Cholla’s and Klipspringer’s?
“So many,” Maize indicated the bundles of wrapstuff. “Which ones did you bring?”
“Only the essentials: one of the peace hounds, a breeding pair of peacoos, a jackrunner and some fertilized gigaquail eggs. Oh, and the Cradle.”
“The Cradle? My Cradle?” Maze grinned like a child. “Can I see it?”
“Your parents have shared sending pictures, surely.”
“Oh, but you know how fuzzy memories are. I can’t believe you actually kept it!” Maize walked over to the cocoons, trying to divine which one was the flesh-shaped incubator.
“What would I do, feed it to the hounds? I put far too much work into it.” And too much of her own flesh and blood. She had bled herself almost dry to create the Cradle – but no one needed to know that. Too many elves already called the flesh-egg unnatural, though its base ingredients were as commonplace as anything the World of Two Moons could spawn.
Hypocrites, all. They accepted Maize as one of their own, but they wrinkled their noses at the methods Melati had used to create her.
Maize neared Beast’s cocoon, and Melati felt her pulse quicken. The girl couldn’t sense him, of course. Beast was deaf and dumb to sendings. Under wrapstuff, he was an inert as any other sleeping Shapechanged. But still she feared. When Maize poked the cocoon’s sticky threads, Melati held her breath.
“No touch!” Flitrin hissed. “Bad highthing!”
“Come, let’s leave the poor bug in peace,” Melati said, taking Maize’s arm and leading her away from the cocoons. “We shouldn’t be late. You can see the Cradle for yourself tomorrow – I’ll unwrap it just for you. Don’t think you can still fit inside it, though,” she added on a laugh.
“Why did you keep it? In case my parents want another child?”
“Oh, how likely is that? When would they find the time – when their every waking moment is devoted to spoiling you rotten?”
Maize giggled. “Why, then?”
“Progress. If one can grow a child in the Cradle, who knows what else one could hatch.”
“Shapechanged?”
“And perhaps more, one day. Doesn’t the All-Father say our kin once grew ourselves new shells to replace broken ones?”
Maize’s eyes widened. “New bodies?” She sounded equal parts terrified and fascinated.
“Think of it, Maizie. Shells you could don like clothing – this one for toil, this one for play, this one whenever the mood suits you. A world where death is a minor inconvenience.”
She was close to a breakthrough. The years preparing for Maize’s conception had taught her so much. Where once she could only heal and twist flesh at hand, now she was able to grow it from the smallest samples. First clumsy constructions like the fleshvines, then whole beasts. Mindless beasts, unable to breathe on their own, but she didn’t want to create life – only husks to hold it.
Maize had been a half-formed lump of flesh when she was first born – little more than the samples of meat she regularly experimented upon. In the Cradle she had grown steadily, following the plan dictated by her own cells – and Melati’s magic.
The final hurdle had been the elfin mind, the seat of all advanced thought and magic. She had failed with Beast, but she had learned from that mistake. She had taken special care with Maize’s infant brain, and the result was a gifted sender and plantshaper.
Soon she would be able to grow full-sized bodies from something as simple as a skin scraping. All she needed was a larger Cradle, and a little more practice with mind-building. She could build Beast a new body, one identical to his current shell – with one crucial difference.
It was good she had met Bluestar, she decided. He had shaken her out of centuries of complacency. She had accepted imperfection for far too long.
She didn’t expect to get Yosha back. She accepted that his soul had been forever altered, his memories lost. But she could make Beast a true elf. She could give him the gift of magic that was his due. They could be lifemates in every sense at last.
“Is it possible?” Maize asked, startling her from her reverie.
Melati smiled with a confidence she didn’t entirely feel. “Everything is possible, given enough time.”
She had to believe that.
* * *
“We called it ‘being aground,” Haken explained. “And in those days, it was a rare state. We were forever in motion, changing our shapes, changing our minds. Forever searching…”
“Searching for what, my lord?” Chani prompted.
“I… I cannot remember. Home? No, we knew we had lost our true home long ago. When our world exhausted all its possibilities there was only one choice: die with it or seek a new experience. I suppose that was what we were searching for. Something new. Anything new. We hungered for possibilities, for growth. There would be none on our Homestar. So we looked outward.
“You must understand, our shell was but one of many,” Haken told the assembled elves. “We bonded into many groups when the time came to leave our world. And each group raised and sealed about itself a shell made from the dying soil. Curious, is it not? This priceless starstone,” he indicated the Little Palace at his arm, “was once as humble as soil.”
A murmur of approval spread through the Sun Folk. They had heard this part of the story many times over the years, but they always treasured its retelling. The value of the soil was a beloved theme for them.
At the edges of the assembly, the elite of Oasis – the old families of Glider descent – exchanged glances of tolerant amusement. As if it mattered what the starstone had been. Elves had once been hairy, meat-eating beasts. It was the end result that counted, not the origin.
“One by one, the shells floated towards the stars,” Haken continued. “A vast sea of twinkling lights… cold and empty, but far from dead. Anything we needed, from air to breathe, to food to eat, we simply made from the matter we collected from the blackness between suns. And those suns gave warmth to different worlds… some teeming with life. Others bleak and barren, oh, but so fascinating! Matter in such different forms, such combinations. The possibilities were endless, but we sought an end. We sought to unravel everything. Or I did. Timmain called me our Circle’s ‘passion,’ forever driving us forward.” His face darkened. “Gibra used to say I was our goad, forever pricking, forever restless. She said she pitied me… because I could never be content. She did not see what I did… that contentment is just another word for stillness. Which is just another word for oblivion.”
“But you are content here, lord, surely,” Sust challenged goodnaturedly from his seat with the rest of the Pride.
Haken gave a little smile, which was not so much an uplift of his lips as a softness at the corners. “Say rather that I am ‘fulfilled’ here. Or that I am in the process of finding fulfillment. Every day my fire is fed, and every day it grows larger. I… do not know what I should do if ever I were to find it quenched.”
The assembled elves nodded and whispered appreciation at this new pearl of wisdom from their lord.
Chani smiled adoringly at her lifemate. “Go on,” she murmured.
Haken paused for a moment to gather his thoughts. “Our stranding here… in both place and time. Yes. Strange, my memories become clearer as we approach the event itself. I imagine I can almost sense my other self… steering our Homeshell as it nears this world. The temptation to reach out is so strong, though of course I know I dare not. But I wonder what my younger self would think, if he knew of the fate in store for him. Condemned to endless turns of pain… to witness the degradation of not only his kin but his own children.” His gaze turned inward again. “So many condemned to die… so that others might be born. So that our kin could be humbled as far as dust, only to grow and reach upwards towards the stars once more. Would he consider it a sacrifice worth making? And have we the right to demand he make it?”
“You do,” Chani said without hesitation. “All-Father. And you’ve already made it.”
Now Haken flashed her a genuine smile, fragile and fleeting. “Yes. But he hasn’t. And I grieve for him. I… wish I could tell him it will all be worth it.” He turned back to his tribe – nearly a thousand elves strong, all crowded into the great chamber recently hollowed out inside Tallest Spire. “For it was worth it, my children!” he cried. “Never doubt your lord’s love for you – or the lengths he will go to, to keep you all safe!”
The Oasis elves all cheered and clapped their hands, proudly declaring their love and loyalty in return. Only one small contigent, surrounding Leetah the Healer, was less than thunderous in its applause.
Each elf held a bag of supplies close by: their most precious possessions wrapped inside clean clothes and a simple bedroll. With the glowing lanterns strung throughout the great hall, and the scents of cooking afloat, the mood was almost festive. Almost. But a thread of unease ran through the families of elves. No amount of music could make them forget the cramped quarters, nor the growing staleness of the enclosed air. And any farmer needed only look at his bag of relics to remember that they had all become refugees within Tallest Spire.
“How long must we wait?” The question had been whispered, then muttered, then outright demanded. Their lord insisted they could take no chances until the “Moment” had passed. The split-second when past and future touched at last…
And past and future had to touch so precisely. Few elves inside the Spire understood the true scope of the Moment. Some like young Jethel could even be convinced this long vigil was nothing more than another sort of a festival: a night to bond together, to mourn the past and celebrate the present. Most knew better. The All-Father’s orders had been very specific: Bring whatever possessions you can carry in your arms, whatever you cannot bear to lose. The elders remembered the last time he had given such a command, the night before the Flight from Sorrows. They knew there was a chance they would emerge from the Spire to find the sun rising on an empty land.
But they would emerge at dawn. Haken had promised them, and even Leetah had to admit that the All-Father always kept his word.
“The Moment approaches,” Haken explained. “Even now, the Circle is gathered in the innermost room of the Homeshell. Adya is telling them of what he has seen: a world seemingly touched by our kind, a world devoid of its own magic, but humming with the influence of our homeworld. No.” He frowned suddenly, shook his head. “Strange, I am only just now remembering…”
“Haken?” Chani pressed.
“Adya… what he said – what he will say – what he is saying…. I remember he spoke of legends, of art and craft, of human works! The forms of our kind, but not the essence. And now…”
“Now?”
“‘It is our kind,’ he said. ‘The threads of power… the very essence of our fellow travellers.’ That’s what he’s saying now. He swears he can even sense a piece of starstone from another shell.’”
“The Palace?” Door spoke up from his seat near the dais. “Us? Adya senses us? You never told us that before, Grandfather.”
“Did I not? Strange… perhaps I simply did not remember it before.”
**Are our own memories being rewoven?** Chani locksent. **Is it all coming undone?**
But Haken forced a calm expression. “My memories grow clearer now,” he insisted, raising his voice so all could hear. “You see, the Moment is fast approaching. My two selves are drawing closer. Even now Adya is calculating the exact point in space, while Sefra is calculating the exact point in time. The Palace is preparing to displace itself from deep space into orbit over Abode.
“Mura has come to the Circle chambers. She begs an audience, but Kalil refuses it. We are far too busy: she must return later. Adya speaks of this new world’s beauty, its twins moons, its deep seas. But all worlds are equally beautiful when seen from the stars.
“Mura pleads for Gibra to hear her. She’s worried about the burrowers… those little ape things we brought with us from the Homestar. I had warned Timmain about granting them sanctuary – I alone had seen how they resented us. Ingrates – they would be still be mindless beasts had we left them behind… or dead, along with everything else on our homeworld. We gave them shelter; our magic nurtured them. They evolved, gained thought, speech… surely serving us – keeping our shell in perfect order – surely this was a small price to pay for such benefits.
“At first it was just the mischief of children. Tying our robes together at table… spitting in our food and waiting to see if we noticed. But as they grew more rebellious I tasked Mura to keep a closer watch on them. But she proved a poor guard. I suspect she sympathized with them. She often spoke about granting them more privileges – better quarters in our shell, a voice in the choices of the Circle. When she comes to warn us of the burrowers’ latest discontent, I will dismiss her fears. I have no idea what they will one day become, these little apes. We have uplifted them so much already… and one day my own daughter will choose to uplift some even more.” He chuckled darkly. “Oh, would that I could tell my other self he will one day call a burrower ‘grandson.’”
Polite laughter rippled through the hall, as the elders thought back to that first meeting between Haken and Two-Edge. The younger elves, who had all grown up thinking of the Blue Mountain trollkin as cousins, could not appreciate the joke.
“Mura will argue that the burrowers have reached their limits,” Haken explained. “A faction has formed, and wishes to be free of our shell. As if they understand the concept of freedom. Mura will suggest that we might want to consider their request – that we might let any burrowers who wish leave the safety of the Homeshell and settle on this new world we have discovered.
“Adya will protest: the poor burrowers could never fend for themselves outside our guidance. Kalil will protest: this world has its own path and its own life-forms, we cannot contaminate it with our leavings. Kaslen will protest: who will keep our shell maintained if we lose the burrowers? Voices will argue, and Timmain will dismiss Mura with a vague promise to ‘consider it in due time.’ There will be no due time. It is night now. By morning, the burrowers will rebel, and the shell will crash in the distant past.
“Adya points to a mountain… the greatest concentration of the human’s reverence for our kind… and – and more! But I cannot…” he rubbed at his forehead irritably.
At his side, the Little Palace began to tremble. A soft hum filled the air, slowly rising in pitch
**We need Melati,** Chani decided. **Melati, where are you?**
**Coming, my lady.**
“The mountain,” Haken fought to recover his train of thought. “The cocooned navigators nudge the shell towards it, under the guidance of the Circle. We will soon link hands, we nine, changing our shape before reaching the planet’s surface. The creatures must see us in forms they already know.
“It will be the work of a moment. As we change shape so will the shell. It will appear over the mountain as a glowing palace, to best appeal to the creatures we hope to meet. The Palace will hover… then slowly descend to gently alight on the mountain’s summit. Only… it won’t. Not in our time.”
“What will happen, lord?” Sun-Toucher asked.
“It… has never been clear. I remember… a sharp blow, and Kalil falling to his knees. In the distance, something like shattering crystal. And then: the screams of the navigators as they are thrust back into wakefulness: the burrowers cutting open their cocoons, throwing them all into husk-shock – as traumatic as the hardest death. One sharp blow, and the Palace falls from the sky like a bird shot by an arrow…”
The Little Palace was now vibrating intensely. Seated so close to the dais, Sun-Toucher had to clap his hands over his sensitive ears.
“It is time,” Haken said. “One Palace senses another.”
He looked across the hall in time to see Maize and Melati arrive at the doorway.
“The Homeshell has appeared above our world.” Haken rose from his throne. One by one, other elves got to their feet: Ahdri, Door, Ekuar, Longfeather, Saffron, Feathersnake, Carrun – all the rockshapers of Oasis, moving to the periphery of the crowd.
“The Moment approaches. None will leave this room until it has passed. Should the Palace fail to crash at the proper time and place, the world outside may be altered irrevocably.”
Melati was the first to begin. A slight tremor raced outwards from the doorway. Then the other rockshapers went into their own trances, and soon elves cried out as the floor shivered underneath them.
“But we will not be altered by time’s whims!” Haken vowed. “I will not allow all our sacrifices to be in vain.”
He closed his eyes, and the Little Palace began to rock on its pedestal. For a moment its vibrations grew so frantic that it seemed it would shatter. But instead the pedestal broke, the dull ochre stone casing crumbling away to reveal a thin beam of glittering crystal.
Cracks radiated out from the pedestal base, as the layer of seedrock under the floor reacted violently to Haken’s magic, and the starstone of the Little Palace. The wave of transforming magic shot out, until each rockshaper reflected it. One set of ripples swept across the floor, another climbed the walls of the chamber. The inert facings of wall and floor crumbled to dust, and the seedrock underneath catalysed into pure starstone.
Carrun was the youngest rockshaper, and the first to tire. She dropped to her knees, followed by Saffron and Longfeather. As the dust continued to rain down on the startled Oasis elves, even Ahdri began to show strain. But Door, Ekuar, Melati and Haken remained standing: arms raised, magical auras visibly palpating.
When at last the tremors stilled and the dust cleared, the four rockshapers lowered their arms and opened their eyes.
The entire chamber had transformed into a giant crystal dome. Haken probed its limits with his magic and smiled in satisfaction. A second dome extended beneath their feet, protecting their precious stores of food and livestock.
“This is our Homeshell!” Haken declared proudly. “Come what may beyond its walls, inside we are bound in our own cocoon of time and space. Whatever world awaits us come the dawn, we will all live to see it!”
Cheers went up from among the crowd, some exuberant, others restrained. Spent from his exertions, Door let Spar wrap her arms about him and hold him close. Haken saw how his great-grandson’s shoulders shook, and he soon guessed at the cause.
**It was foolish of Blue Mountain to decline our offer,** he locksent to Chani.
**You must have known they wouldn’t accept. We haven’t the space to shield them all.**
**But Two-Edge and his family. And Door’s twins–**
**Could come here, knowing those they leave behind are worse than dead? Their children, their grandchildren, their friends and followers? They could never do it.**
“They made their choice. As have I.” Haken felt his expression harden. “I knew we couldn’t save them all,” he whispered. “The wolf chief tasked me to calculate how many I could save. And I chose to save my own.”
He reached out for her hand, and when she clasped it tight within her own, she could feel it shaking.
“Whatever happens, we will survive this night,” Chani vowed. “Together.”
“Yes,” Haken agreed. He glanced back at Door and Spar. Now Klipspringer and Cholla had joined them. Maize was slowly making her way towards them through the crowd, stopping to collect Jarrah and Ekuar.
All throughout the crystal shell, families gathered close, waiting for the long night to end.
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.