The Road Home
Part Three
Her hold brimming with coal, her engines steaming at full speed, the Sea Holt sailed from Port Bane to Saltgrove in a mere five days. A small colony of Waveriders had established an anchorage among the sandbars and mangroves. From Saltgrove, it was an easy three day journey by the Skywalk to the Great Holt itself. But the Palacedwellers preferred a faster way home.
The Palace walls shivered and hummed as the pod appeared against it, fusing back into its parent stone. Quicksilver and Sunstream stood in the docking room as the wall peeled back and the travellers stepped out of the pod.
Swift and Rayek led the way, followed closely by Fisher and Mimic, Farseer and Sea Raven, and Coris and Timmain at the rear. While the younger elves milled about, waiting for their turn to greet Sunstream, Timmain swept past the golden-haired Palacemaster, headed for the Scroll Room.
“And hello Timmain,” Sunstream sighed as he watched her go. He turned back to his parents. “Good flight?”
“Fisher!” Quicksilver swatted playfully at her nephew’s hair, styled in a waxed pompadour. “Oh, your little wavelet is back!”
“I convinced him it was time for a resurrection,” quipped Sea Raven, who wore his own short black hair oiled into artful tousles and spikes.
“You always have such good taste, urchin,” Quicksilver teased, then proceeded to ruffle his hair into complete disorder, just to see him squirm.
“I thought Gypsy would come with you,” Sunstream said, surveying the guests.
“Someone has to stay with the ship,” Sea Raven said, as he frantically finger-combed his hair back the way he liked it. “Apparently she wouldn’t trust me with the job.”
“We thought we’d round up Mother and Father and float back down on the river,” Fisher said. “Have ourselves an old-style bonfire on the beach, just like in the days of the Dolphin and Sea Wolf.”
Coris cleared his throat loudly. “After Coris gets his chance to put heads together with Newstar,” Fisher amended. When Sea Raven added his own meaningful glare, Fisher finished with: “And after Sea Raven den-hops his way through half the Holt. Better?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Well, we should be able to join you, then,” Quicksilver said. “We’re almost done the census – just the Plainsrunners left, really, and we know they’ll take months to come together.”
“All good?” Swift asked.
“Eight of nine nations reporting in, and not a single point of difference,” Sunstream said. “It’s amazing. We asked them questions on everything from bloodlines to favorite jewelry! Everything is the same now as it was before the Reappearance.”
Swift let out a long sigh of relief. “Then we did it. We got through the pass. And Weatherbird? Has she called for a pickup yet?”
Sunstream shook his head. “Nothing. I’m afraid Bluestar’s going to give her a tongue-lashing.”
“We’ve enlisted half the Holt to keep him entertained,” Quicksilver piped up. “Tamsin’s even been teaching him tree-hopping. But he’s convinced his mama is trying to keep him out of some great adventure.”
“You’d think in the past three years he’d seen adventure enough,” Rayek remarked dryly.
“I shouldn’t say ‘nothing,’” Sunstream amended. “I did see Weatherbird on the astral plane briefly. A couple of nights back… I was deep in dreams, and then suddenly I was up in the stars. Then all the stars came together and made out Weatherbird’s shape.”
“Did she send to you?” Swift pressed. “Any message about Haken or the Ark?”
“We didn’t have much time. She was always fading away – waking up, I suppose. All she said was: ‘Don’t worry. Everything’s fine… it may be a while but I can handle it.’” He went on with an apologetic wince. “And then: ‘Please don’t tell Cheipar.’”
“Oh drukk it,” Swift moaned into her hand. “What has that cub run off and done this time?”
* * *
The jackrunner approached cautiously, sniffing the outstretched hand. A thick, forked tongue slid out between its jaws and tasted the elf’s skin. Winnowill giggled at the sensation.
“Strange,” she murmured, as the jackrunner ran its tongue up her arm, letting her reach under its muzzle to scratch its chin. “I distinctly remember having no fondness for wolves and their like. Yet you’re quite charming, aren’t you? If – ugh – a little messy,” she extracted Weatherbird’s arm and wiped off the excess drool on her tunic.
Beast emerged from the tunnel entrance. He scowled at the sight of Winnowill bonding with the Shapechanged. “He likes you,” he grumbled. “He shouldn’t.”
“Perhaps he senses a kindred spirit,” Winnowill said lightly.
“You’re not kin.”
“Not by blood. But in soul. You understand something of souls, do you not?”
Beast would not rise to the taunt. He sat down on the ground next to her. The jackrunner bent its head and nuzzled Beast’s shoulder affectionately.
“Does my sister still sleep?”
“She needs to,” he insisted.
“Mm. Poor thing – she is still so young. Unlocking the sphere wearies her.”
“Don’t you ever sleep?”
“And miss this?” Winnowill indicated the bright sunrise, broad strokes of color lighting the desert sky. “Besides, I’ve slept too long already.”
The jackrunner collapsed in Beast’s lap, nearly knocking him over. Beast struggled to right himself while Winnowill laughed goodnaturedly at his predicament.
“Does he have a name?”
Beast shook his head. “Doesn’t need one. He’s… Friend.”
“My folk kept beast-friends once… great hawks that they raised from the egg to be their mounts. My favorite was old Tenspan. He crippled his wing as a fledgling, but I healed him. I kept him in fine health, long past the time when he should have died. I wanted to keep him with us forever. But he died the same day Voll did. Fools… both far too frail for the flights of old.”
“I… don’t know what that means.”
“No matter. Ancient history.” Yet she felt the beginnings of tears stinging her eyes.
He studied her borrowed face intently. “Can I talk to her? Weatherbird?”
“I told you – she’s sleeping.”
“But can she hear me?”
“I’d have to wake her up, wouldn’t I? And it seems kinder not to.”
“She’d be angry. You stole her body.”
“Borrowed, if you please. But, yes… I imagine she’ll be rather cross when she wakes up. I did not exactly ask her leave. That’s why I cannot let her awaken until we’ve finished our work. When she understands why I did this… she’ll forgive me. I know it. We’re very old friends, you see. I could not have done this otherwise. But why did you want to speak with her?”
“Her son. Bluestar. I met him. I… liked him. He wanted to be friends.”
“Ah. Little Bluestar…” Winnowill smiled fondly. “He’s a cunning little lad – I swear, the way he looked at us, I almost thought he could see me hiding behind his mother’s eyes. He’ll be a worthy heir to Sunstream given time.”
“He would have stayed with us… at least a little while. But Mel said he had to go back. He had to forget.”
“Oh, she mind-wipes, does she? Tsk – clever girl! I wonder if she’ll try to make me forget, once I’ve served her ends. She would not succeed, of course. Still… I am duly warned. Thank you, Beast.”
Beast glared at her sourly. “Don’t want thanks. Want you to go away and take that ball with you. Mel doesn’t need you, or it! I’m all she needs.” He looked away. “I used to be,” he corrected miserably, as he tried to distract himself by fingercombing the jackrunner’s shaggy mane. “She said so.”
“You silly boy,” Winnowill remarked lightly. “Jealous of a bit of starstone and an old spirit, are you? Don’t you know she’s doing this all for you? She doesn’t want to grow new bodies to help her folk in Oasis. She couldn’t care less if every other elf on Abode burned away. It’s you she wants to heal!”
“She already did. I was broken, she fixed me.”
“But not all of you.”
“I don’t want magic! I don’t need think-talk. Jackrunners don’t think-talk.”
“You’re not a jackrunner. You’re an elf.” She studied him in silence a moment. “Then… you don’t want a new body? Melati seems quite convinced you do.”
Beast shrugged. “Like to run like my friends. Would like to fly.” He plucked at the jackrunner’s fur. “She said she can make me new shapes. Like new clothes. Instead of remaking this one over and over.”
“You do have a lot of embellishments. Tell me, whose idea was the tail?”
“Mine. All mine.” He looked down at his clawed hand. “Wanted something to kill prey.” He looked at his feet. “Wanted to run faster… not hurt my feet. Wanted the tail for balance… and to grab onto things. I get scared sometimes when I climb – four paws on the rocks, she says. Now I have five, if I need them. Want wings too, but there’s no flesh left. So she’ll grow me some more.”
“But you know, you won’t be able to change bodies without… think-talk.”
Beast made a face. “I know. Promised I’d try it. Don’t want to.”
“Why ever not?”
Beast didn’t answer right away. “You lived with spirits. You know where they go?”
Winnowill nodded. “Elf spirits, at least.”
“Can… can you find one? Can you tell me if he’s there with the others?”
“I suppose that depends: who?”
“Him! The one I used to be! Find him and show me I’m not him! Please, Winnowill,” he begged when she hesitated. “You understand. You don’t want to share bodies. And I can’t! I don’t want magic if it means he comes back! I need to know he won’t come back!”
“Ah,” was all Winnowill would say.
“You understand?”
She nodded. “I believe I do. And for what it’s worth, I don’t believe Melati wants him back either.”
“But she wants me to have magic! She wants me to be something… different! Why? We were happy before. She had forgotten about him!”
“No, child. You never forget your first love. You just learn to live without them.”
Beast looked ready to argue. “Of course, you have an advantage, don’t you?” Winnowill went on. “Your Melati has always been there for you. Shall I tell you the story of my first love?” She shifted closer to him. “His name was Voll, and he was a Firstborn, like me – the second generation of High Ones. He was our leader, and I was his confidante, and his lover. He was strong then… full of bright goals and aspirations. He dreamed of a safe haven for our kind… a new Palace within the walls of Blue Mountain. A hollow dream, we learned in time. But that is a tale for another time. Our love burned brightly for many years… longer even than you and Melati have known. We grew comfortable… complacent. But Voll used to say: ‘A bird that does not flap its wings plummets to the ground like a stone.’ So our love did not flap its wings. And by the time Voll died astride Tenspan, within reach of his mad dream to find the Palace… well, our love had died long before then.
“Later, we reunited in the Palace, and I thought we might start anew. My death had cleansed me of my… sickness. I thought I was ready to love again. But something had changed. We had changed, and so had our love. It had become a deep abiding affection, just as precious as the passion of our youth, and yet completely different.
“I know Voll feels no desire to rejoin the world. Even after I began to reawaken in my work with Weatherbird, he preferred to dream. Perhaps one day he will feel different. But I will not wait for him. We walk different paths now.”
“Would it be the same?” Beast asked. “For her… and him?”
“I couldn’t say. Perhaps this Yosha still yearns for her. But I do know that when Melati and I search the sphere together, she is not looking for Yosha. She is looking for you. And I know, however great her dream to be your soulmate in every way – she would never risk your happiness to achieve it.”
Beast smiled hesitantly. “Truth?”
**Truth,** Winnowill sent, forgetting momentarily. Beast winced, shaking his head suddenly.
“Beast? Did you feel that?”
“Fly bite. In my head. What was that? What did you do?”
“I… am not entirely certain.” Winnowill thought quickly. “Let us… let us not tell Melati, shall we? I would not wish to worry her.”
* * *
Melati awoke shortly after dawn. She ate a hearty breakfast, then resumed her studies in earnest. Winnowill suspected she would have gone without sleep if Beast did not insist on it. Melati’s ambition seemed boundless. For sixteen days they had labored from dawn to dusk without pause, hunched over the messenger sphere together. Winnowill cleared a path through eons of knowledge, while Melati sifted through relevant information. Each day unlocked new discoveries, but so much more remained. How did the ancient High Ones ensure the quality of their new shells? How exactly was the transfer of souls effected? How often did a shell fail to accept a new soul? What measures did the High Ones have to contain wayward spirits? And what extra failsafes would they need to implement on this magic-draining world? Could it work on Abode, or would Melati need to journey elsewhere to set up her Cradles?
There was always risk in new endeavors. But Melati would tolerate no margin for error. She had learned the dangers of haste, yet Winnowill found she had yet to master true patience. She raced through the messenger sphere, gleaning scraps of information here and there, reassembling them in her sleep, rather than taking a proper meditative approach.
But then, Winnowill could not blame her too much. She had been much the same at Melati’s age. And there were so many memories to uncover… knowledge lost to all but the oldest of High Ones – a systematic reading would take eons in itself.
Yet Melati’s willpower was impressive. She pushed forward with a single-minded goal. And on the nineteenth day, she uncovered the final piece of the puzzle: a memory concealed deep within the archives of their homeworld. Winnowill saw it with her: rooms filled with vats of nutrient-rich liquid, each growing a different body according to specific genetic instructions; constructions of flesh and starstone, funneling souls into their new shells; cone-skulled High Ones directing the process from within wrapstuff cocoons.
Melati released the sphere. Her eyes opened wide.
“Yes…” she breathed.
The sphere quieted, and Winnowill let it rest on the table, balanced on its broken side. Melati rose from her seat, her hands gesturing frantically.
“Of course – why didn’t I see it before? It’s so simple–”
“The cellular matrix–” Winnowill urged.
“It all follows from that.”
“And the flesh cultivation–”
“Must be conducted at the precise temperature to ensure optimal growth.”
“Can your Cradles–?”
“Yes. Yes, of course. It will only require slight modification. But the time, Winnowill!”
“Five thousand cycles… that’s… three of our world’s years.”
“And the soul-transference! The ‘door’ to the mind – it’s not one single structure. The secondary nodes–”
“Like… locks that open and close the door at will.”
“Yes – yes! Instinctive control and conscious control. That’s why children must be taught to send.”
“And when the nodes are not exercised regularly…”
“The ‘door’ will not open. That’s how the Sun Folk forgot how to send, in the days before the Palace reawakened! Ohhh… how did I miss it? It’s so obvious now. I have spent years studying the elfin mind, mapping its every pathway. I thought I knew it all – but I only saw the vaguest outlines.”
“No matter, sister. You have the key now. You know what must be done.”
“Yes – yes! I can adapt the Cradle… it shouldn’t take more than a season. Enlarge it, tailor the feedbroth mixture to the precise balance. A scraping of Beast’s skin is all I will need to start a new shell gestating.”
“And my body?” Winnowill pressed.
“Oh. Well… I will have to make a second Cradle. It will take time. But once Beast’s new shell is underway, I will devote my full attention to it. You have my word. The matter of the seed is… troubling. Your bones have long turned to dust, I fear. Oh! But I can simply collect samples from Haken and Chani – combine them and weave a new cellular pattern. It won’t be an exact match, of course, but better than nothing.”
In her excitement, Melati had not noticed the change in Winnowill’s demeanor.
“Once Beast’s new shell is underway,” she repeated coldly. “Why must I wait? Why should he not wait?”
“He’s waited long enough.”
“And I have not? Ten thousand years I have been without form, save what Weatherbird deigns to lend me! Your Beast has a body – one he’s quite attached to, I might add.”
“He’ll have a better one now! He’s have as many as he wants. One with wings – proper wings, not those little gliding flaps Bonebat has. He’ll be able to fly as well as Windkin’s father, and when he wants to explore the steam caves, he can climb into a rock-skinned shell and go as deep as he wants without burning himself!”
“And all with a proper ‘door’ – and fully formed sending nodes?”
“Of course! Finally, I’ll be able to truly join with him! We’ll be lifemates as we were meant to be, before –”
“Before that boy Yosha died?”
Melati bared her teeth in a hiss. “We don’t say his name here.”
“So I’ve noticed. Your Beast is so afraid to speak it – as if the very sound will summon an angry spirit. And has it occurred to you that Beast must die to fulfill your plans?”
“W-w-what?”
Winnowill laughed harshly. “What else do you call it when a spirit leaves a body, never to return? He’s not like us, sister – he cannot simply ‘go out’ at will. To transfer his spirit, you must first free it.”
Melati was stricken with fear. “No… no, I can’t. There must be another way!”
“What other way is there? You’ve told me yourself, you’ve tried regrowing the missing parts of his mind.”
“It never works. It would hurt him… beyond what I could heal. You – you can’t just reweave an entire mind – you should know that!”
Now Winnowill glared at her. Weatherbird’s eyes flashed a deep amber. “Oh, I know, little sister. Because I have done it myself. Many times. All your little experiments on desert creatures – I was doing much the same thing in Blue Mountain. Trying to make birds sing in sending… trying to bend the Preservers to my will… why, I even tried to reweave my own son’s mind – remove all the coarse troll nature and remake it as a purely elfin construct. It failed… badly. I was reduced to more brutal experimentations. It took many years and the skills of another healer – almost as skilled as I – to undo the worst of the damage. Even now, my son bears the scars. And as for myself… I consider it a blessing Blue Mountain fell on me, for I had so snarled the threads of my own mind that I doubt anyone could have untangled them.”
“Then you understand. You changed in death. What if Beast changes? He stopped being Yosha the moment I bound his soul into that crippled shell. Will he stop being Beast if I free him? No! There must be a way to transfer his soul as it is.”
“You saw the primitive healing the Ancient Ones practiced before they mastered the art of growing entirely new bodies. You always could try growing the raw material and grafting it onto his current brain. Of course that has its own risks. Open incisions… blood loss… a sleep so deep he might wake up entirely changed.”
“Then that’s no better!”
“There is an obvious solution. Be content with what you have. Accept your lifemate on his own terms.”
“I can’t!”
“Because you want perfection.”
“Because I want Recognition!”
Winnowill took a step back. “There now! There’s the center of this little tangle.”
“Is it so surprising? Did you never long for it? Never once yearned to become one with someone – more than healing, more than joining – and in that moment, to become more than you were before?”
Winnowill considered it carefully. “Honestly, no.”
“I didn’t either… when I was younger,” Melati admitted. “From the first, when the elders teased that Yosha and I were bound to Recognize, I fought against the very idea. It seemed a violation of the self. With Yosha or anyone. And when it nearly happened… moments before his death… I rejected it – rejected him! – with all my heart. And it killed him.”
“I know the story,” Winnowill said. “The fault was not yours.”
“I say it was. And I thought Beast was my penance. Even when I came to love him as I had never loved Yosha, I accepted that we could never truly be one. I thought I had made my peace with it…”
“What changed?”
Instead of words, Melati shared a memory: a boy lying in a bed, silver-haired and peaceful in feigned repose; Beast’s pleading request to keep him; the layers of meaning in his voice, as he insisted, “He could be ours!”; and in Melati’s heart, the sudden blossoming of a hunger as old as their race.
“Ah,” Winnowill said.
“It’s not just the child I want,” Melati clarified. “Any beast can bear young. It’s the making I want – the proper way: soul meeting soul, two lives giving rise to a third. I want to know that great mystery, Winnowill – that gift I can bestow on anyone but myself.”
“And will you risk Beast’s life in the process?”
“No. Never that.”
“Then you’ve reached an impasse. I cannot see a way past it.”
Melati clenched her fists tight. “Nothing is impossible, given enough time.”
“Then you may meditate on the sphere at your leisure – after you’ve seen to making my new body.”
“That’s all you ever cared about, isn’t it? All this talk of sisterly bonds… you only ever wanted to use me for your own purposes.”
“Tsk. What a child you are!”
“Your body can stay dust for all I care!” Melati cried hotly.
“Then I shall take my leave – and the messenger sphere. I think we’ve kept Father waiting quite long enough, don’t you?” Winnowill took a step towards the table, extending her hand.
“No!” Melati seized the sphere, and immediately a pulsing glow surrounded her hands. “No, you’ll not take it from me! Not before I have my answers!” She turned her gaze into the white-hot light. “Show me. Show me the secrets of what has come before. What has come before what-has-existed-for-eons-each-of-us-memories-ofeachofusallgatheredhereallgatheredmypurposeistoremember!”
“Voll’s bones,” Winnowill sighed. She reached over to take the messenger sphere away, but the glowing light would not admit her hands. A shield had come up around the sphere. Melati was locked in private communion.
“Beast!” Winnowill shouted.
It did not take long for Beast to appear. He never went far when Melati was at work. Winnowill imagined he had probably heard half their argument from whichever hiding place he currently favored.
Melati was speaking faster now, her words blurred into nonsense. Beast took one look at her and let out an anguished moan.
“Free her, will you?” Winnowill demanded.
Beast seized the sphere and pulled. But Melati’s hands were clenched tight around the softness inside the broken stone. The sphere would not come free; the light would not fade.
“Not sleeping – why won’t it go to sleep?” Beast demanded. “What did you do?”
“Not I – your greedy little lifemate! She’s gone too deep, without me.”
“Magic!” Beast snarled the word like the foullest curse. He clawed and beat at the sphere. He dug his clawed fingers in between Melati’s hands and peeled the light back from her wrists. Static crackled in the air. Winnowill flinched at the sudden CRACK! of breaking stone. The sphere dropped to the floor, as Melati’s hands clasped a steaming purple jelly.
The sphere always went dark when it lost contact with an elf. But not this time. It pulsed erratically, flashes of blinding light. Melati’s vocalizations changed to high-pitched hums and clicks. Winnowill felt a shudder of recognition run through her. The ancient tongue of the Homestar…
“Stop it! STOP!” Beast commanded, stamping his foot on the sphere.
“She’s still linked to it – no, wait!” Winnowill cried helplessly, as Beast lifted a massive stone chair as easily as a club and brought it down hard against the sphere.
“NOOO!” Winnowill screamed.
The sphere shattered. The light died. And Melati fell silent, her eyes locked wide open.
Beast grinned at his handiwork, until he looked back his lifemate and saw her vacant stare.
“Mel?” he asked tremulously.
“You stupid half-elf!!” Winnowill shrieked. “You’ve undone everything! You’ve undone her!”
“What? What’s wrong? Fix her – fix her!” When Winnowill hesitated, he seized her by the scruff of Weatherbird’s neck and hauled her over to Melati’s motionless body.
Winnowill put trembling hands on Melati’s temples, but the lightest probe of her mind provoked a sending so intense and laden with meaning that she could not begin to process it. The manufactured consciousness of the messenger sphere was ringing in Melati’s mind, a fragmented echo.
**Uncountable – each that came before – my purpose – to remember –**
Winnowill backed away. “I… I don’t know how to heal this…” she whispered. “I don’t know how to heal this!” Panic gripped her. She had never encountered any hurt she could not heal – save her first shell’s fractured mind. Memories of those days flooded her: the rage, the helplessness, the burning torture of feeling a wound and being unable to tend it.
“I don’t know!” she repeated hysterically. “I don’t know what to do!” Her borrowed heart was pounding frantically. She couldn’t seem to draw breath. A mist of red filled her vision as the memories threatened to drag her down.
Then a sudden calmness pressing over her…
**Enough, Winnowill. I’m taking over now.**
“What? No! You can’t. Not now!”
**I’ve let this go on long enough.**
“‘Let?’ What let? You didn’t know – you were sleeping – I put you to sleep!” Winnowill staggered, feeling her control beginning to fray. The body’s limbs would not obey her. She was going blind and deaf. Even Beast’s howls of rage were growing fainter. Winnowill felt herself begin to float in the blackness and she let out one last shriek of defiance.
**Sleep now,** Weatherbird commanded. **We’ll speak of this later.**
The body’s legs wilted underneath it. Beast caught it before it could fall to the cave floor. Weatherbird came back to herself as he lifted her up.
“Winnowill!” he urged.
“It’s Weatherbird now,” she said, her voice wavering.
He released her with a yelp, as if burned. But Weatherbird had regained control of her limbs. She wobbled, then steadied herself. “I’m sorry, Beast,” she told him. “I know you’d rather hide, but I need the help of the Palace for this.”
She touched her hand to her temple and send a single call into the astral plane. She could feel Winnowill hammering at her consciousness, trying to force her way into control, but Weatherbird held her back.
“She said you were sleeping!” Beast accused.
“Not sleeping – just very, very quiet. Watching, listening.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to see what she’d do if she had a body again. I wanted to hear what Haken might tell her that he wouldn’t tell me.”
“You’re the mother of Bluestar!”
“I am.”
He grinned. “Then you understand. As he did! You’re not afraid either.”
Weatherbird glanced at Melati, still frozen in her chair. “I’m afraid for her. She went in far too deep without a guide to pull her back out.”
“But you can help her!”
“Not alone.”
A great shudder ran through the rock all around them. The roof of their cave room trembled, and bits of dust rained down on them. “Quake?” Beast asked.
“No. Family.”
A second, weaker tremor started up. The rock over their heads seemed to hum.
Beast looked to her in horror. “No… you can’t – you can’t bring them here!”
A bright crystal spire pierced the ceiling of the cave. The starstone spike impaled itself in the floor, then shifted and peeled open into a doorway.
Weatherbird took his hand in hers. “It’s going to be all right, Beast. I promise.”
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.