A Sea Change
Part Three
The home of Brill and Surge proved to be just as alien as Quicksilver had imagined. It seemed like a waterbound Blue Mountain. Dominating the view from the ship was a great holt made of stone caves and terraces, looking nothing so much like a diluted approximation of the Palace that Quicksilver wondered whether all elves retained some racial memory of the High One’s home.
The cove in which the Mura docked was sheltered by a great wall of coral and rock, shaped into jagged pinnacles to hold back the waves. Quicksilver winced as she watched the ship maneuver in between the towers at one of the two small gaps in the wall. The ship barely cleared the two coral spires that rose several feet above the waves on either side of the hull.
“Can’t have their precious kelp beds damaged by an errant storm – much less risk one of their maidens to a passing shark,” Loosestrife chuckled. “One of Surge’s brilliant ideas. You watch yourself around him. Ever since his lifemate was lost at sea, he’s liable to get riled up over anything.”
In contrast to the other islands they had visited, Quicksilver saw no elves racing forward to meet them – with one exception. A single maiden, devoid of any flesh-shaping, was bounding across the rock-and-coral breakwater. She paused on a rock outcropping and waved.
“Ahoy, pirates!” her clear voice carried over the wind. “Got any good spearpoints to share?”
“Only the best brightmetal for you, Krill!” Treefrog shouted back cheerfully. “I hope your harvest is in. Captain’ll make you pay through your pretty nose for them!”
The cove itself was deep, and there was a dock built of rockshaped coral where the Mura could set in. Now more mer-elves were arriving to greet the pirates, all heavily shaped. The sailors had scarcely thrown their lines to the waiting elves when the Speaker himself rose from the water. A great column of foaming seawater bore up and set him gingerly on the dock.
“Close your mouth, ‘Silver,” Loosestrife whispered when Quicksilver stared agape.
Her uncle had been right. Surge seemed scarcely elfin to her eyes. His skin was burnished leather over bone and sinew, his only clothing lengths of kelp and seashells. His legs and arms were decorated with iridescent fins, and his fingers were webbed. But those cosmetic shapings seemed trivial compared to his face.
He had no hair; in its place he sported a great crest that shimmered with iridescent hues much like the dorsal fin of a silversail. Where a Wolfrider might have facefur, he had fan-shaped fins – they were his ears, she realized belatedly; ears stretched out into great shells of cartilage. Even his eyebrows were fins, not hair.
“And I thought Tyldak was flesh-shaped...” Quicksilver murmured as Loosestrife gave her a nudge down the gangplank. She knew from now on she would regard the winged elf as positively ordinary.
“Now watch yourself,” he whispered. “I have a feeling Surge won’t be too happy to see us this year.”
Surge remained standing at the far end of the dock, arms crossed over his chest. It seemed Loosestrife would have to come to him. Quicksilver followed closely behind her uncle as he strode up to the Speaker.
“Surge. I assume everything’s in order–”
“I marvel you dare show your face here, pirate! After the dishonour your kin showed to my niece!”
Sure enough, Brill was waiting on the beach several paces behind her uncle. Her eyes narrowed at the sight of Quicksilver. “That’s her,” Brill whispered. “The Wuf-raidor.”
“Come now, Surge,” Loosestrife said reasonably. “You know your little limpet is no negotiator. You’ve have done better to send Krill up north – she has the tough skin for the game of trade–”
Surge swung his finned arm through the air. “First you insult my line with your unacceptable terms! Then you allow your wayward tribe to insult my niece. And now, you bring this shame!” he pointed to Quicksilver, who recoiled under the force of “A dry-lander elf! You brought one of those half-savage Wuf-raidors here? To our sanctuary?”
“You watch yourself!” Loosestrife warned. “This is my sister’s pip.”
“Wolfrider!” Quicksilver insisted. “We ride wolves.”
“And what is a wuf?”
“Giant beasts, uncle!” Brill interjected. “I saw one at Green Moon Bay. Great shaggy creatures with horrible fangs. Like the dogs the pirates and the humans keep – but much much larger!”
“Big enough to snap an elf in two,” Loosestrife added unhelpfully.
“Why not just bring a human here?” Surge raged. “Young fool! What’s to keep more of these wuf-elves to come here with their beasts and their lander ways? And what’s to keep the humans of the Point from following them?”
“Surge – for the love of Mura–”
“Time and again the world beyond our Islands has proved it cannot be trusted! Is there one among us who does not mourn for one who was lost for venturing beyond the safety of the reefs? I may never see my only grandson again. And you - where are you parents now? Bones in some human camp, for all we know!”
“You leave my parents out of this–”
“You can extend the hand of friendship to humans and lander elves if you will. But Jewel Cove is a sanctuary for our kind. I will not allow you to bring the world’s dangers here!”
“The dangers of the world... never keeps you from trading for troll-metal and trinkets, do you?”
“Do not change the subject, pirate. You take that... lander elf!” – he might as well have said, “thing” – “and you put her back inside your ship. I’ll not trade with you while she walks on our island!”
“Then I’ll not trade with you at all!” Loosestrife shot back. Abruptly he turned around. “Pull in the lines, lads!” he barked. “We’re weighing anchor! Next year, Surge. Maybe you’ll learn some manners by then.”
“Uncle – maybe...”
“Come on, ‘Silver. We’re going. The Mura can get by just fine with the ropes from Vantage Rock!” he shouted over his shoulder for Surge’s benefit. “And I hear Shark Cove is trying to farm a new, larger conch.”
“You dare not! We have a trade agreement with your sister–”
“Watch me.”
“Leave now and Jewel Cove will never trade with you again!”
“Suits me fine.”
Surge’s face was a mask of rage. He sputtered wordlessly as he watched Loosestrife march away, hustling Quicksilver alongside him.
“You’ll leave without even sharing a draught with the Speaker?” Surge shouted, a last attempt. “Have you no honour?”
Loosestrife hesitated, weighing his words. He met Quicksilver’s gaze and winked.
At length he turned around. “It is a hot day.”
“Then we are agreed?” Surge asked.
“’Silver stays.”
“I’ll not have a strange elf wandering about my shores.”
“I will entertain the little Wuf-raidor,” Brill offered diplomatically. She smiled on Quicksilver. “Did you not bring your friend with you? The golden-haired twin?”
“He’s not here,” Quicksilver said in a clipped tone.
Brill smiled sadly. “And I’d so hoped he would come to meet my sister. Did you keep him penned up at Green Moon Bay, little pirate?”
Quicksilver’s hackles rose. “Don’t call me that.”
“You misunderstand me. I do not mean to mock you, for children are so dear to us. Come, the pips are all playing skip-stone down the beach,” she offered. “I’m sure little Tumble and Puffer would welcome a playmate. Oh, do not worry, uncle. I will keep an eye on her–”
And Brill coughed suddenly as a spray of sand caught her square in the face.
“How dare you?!” Surge barked. “Loosestrife, control the child!”
Quicksilver only shrugged, Skywise’s own snide smirk plastered on her face.
Brill turned and spat out sand as gracefully as she could.
“I’m going back to the ship now, uncle,” Quicksilver said, affecting a child’s chirp. “There’s nothing fun to do here.” She glanced at Surge and kicked up a second spray of sand into his face.
Surge sputtered loudly. Quicksilver turned and walked back to the ship with a new spring in her step.
“Are all you Wuf-raiders such ill-mannered wretches?” Surge shouted to her back.
Quicksilver walked on, head held high.
Surge tried to wipe the sand from his face. But his hand was wet too, and he only smeared the sand around. Brill had to giggle at his stormy expression.
“I’m not done speaking to you!” Surge called.
“Well, I’m done with you!” Quicksilver shouted back.
She walked up the gangplank to the applause of Goldcinder and the Mura’s crew.
* * *
**I saw Brill again,** Quicksilver sent that night.
Suntop’s spirit self shuddered. **She didn’t bother you, did she?**
**Not really.** Quicksilver couldn’t help but add with a smirk, **She asked after you.**
**She frightens me. Did you see the way she started... stalking me?**
**I was there, remember?**
**Felt like a deer being hunted.**
**Well, you are choice prey.**
**Did she think I was going to Recognize her or something just because she’s a twin too?** Again his spirit blushed in discomfort and shuddered. **And I thought the Sun maidens were obvious. You’re sure she – what? Why are you... you’re glowing, ‘Silver. What is it?**
Quicksilver fought to hold in the wide grin that had overtaken her spirit self, and found she could not. *Nothing.... I love you, that’s all.**
“Shark Cove’s just across the way,” Treefrog pointed out the nearby island. “We’ll drop anchor before evening.”
“Shark Cove...” Quicksilver murmured.
“Swarms of them,” Skelter teased as he passed by. “Bloodthirsty devils...”
“Don’t worry,” Treefrog reassured her. “They’re only black-tips and prongheads. They stay in the outer reefs – keep to themselves.”
“Those prongheads can take off an elf’s arm like that!” Skelter snapped his fingers for emphasis.
“But oddly enough, you’ll never see an elf in Shark Cove swimming around with only one arm.”
Skelter shrugged. “’Course. They have a healer.”
They docked at Shark Cove to the warm greetings of the mer-elves. In contrast to surly Surge – who had eventually accepted another three brightmetal spearheads as a salve for his wounded pride – the Speaker of Shark Cove as gentle and soft-spoken as old Ekuar. His name was Salt, and he seemed as old as a Glider. It was with some difficulty that he came up onto the dock to speak to the pirates, for in place of legs he sported a long purple tale. After exchanging pleasantries with Loosestrife, he was visibly relieved to take to the water again.
**Doesn’t he shape his legs back?** Quicksilver asked her uncle.
**Word is he’s forgotten how. Or maybe he does at the end of the day, and the Cove Folk just like to tell stories.**
A lanky golden-haired elf with a strange pattern of raised scales over his face and shoulders came up to Loosestrife and greeted him with a solid clasp of hands.
“Snakeskin. So you still haven’t gone back to the bubbles at Jewel Cove.”
“Am I likely to, pirate? Not while my father rules over that pitiful lot of limpets.”
“You’ve seen their new breakwater, then?”
“Paugh! Pathetic, overwary creatures. He teaches the young pips to live in fear of anything beyond their reefs. Mother would weep to see what’s become of the Cove. I pray one day the landers take to the waves in their little canoes and pay Surge a visit. It might just snap him to life.”
“Surge is a sleeping thunderstorm. I don’t know if I’d want to wake him up.”
“True enough.” Snakeskin’s brooding expression grew softer. He gave Quicksilver a gentle nod, then put a hand on Loosestrife’s shoulder to lead him away down the dock.
“Tell me...” he whispered. “Has there been any news of my son?”
Loosestrife shook his head. “No.” He shrugged awkwardly. “You know how it is. Some of us, we get the wanderlust in our blood. He’s probably up in the Green River somewhere, learning how to talk to landers.”
“I hope not. Not all landers are as harmless as your pets.” Snakeskin looked down the length of the dock. His lifemate Longfin was waiting on the beach, gazing out hopefully over the dock.
“His mother worries...” Snakeskin murmured.
“He’ll resurface,” Loosestrife insisted.
“Surge considers him lost. Blames me for losing his only grandson.” He looked out over the water. “Perhaps he’s right. I left Jewel Cove because I could not bear to raise a child under Surge’s heavy hand. I raised my son not to fear the world beyond our reefs. When he sought to explore, I gave him my blessing. Perhaps... it is my fault.”
“Don’t you believe it.” Loosestrife told Snakeskin firmly. “Wavecatcher will return. He’s just taking his sweet time, that’s all. You’ll see.”
“Do you think Snakeskin’s son will come home?” Quicksilver asked him later after she had extracted the entire tale from him.
“Dunno. Fifty years... ought to be more than long enough to an elf to come up for air. But then again... you never know.”
“I could ask Suntop to look in the Scroll for him. We could find out if–”
Loosestrife shook his head. “Leave it.”
“But if he’s alive and somewhere, we could take Snakeskin to visit him. I told you – distance is meaningless now.”
“And if Suntop finds out he’s dead?”
“Then... wouldn’t Snakeskin want to know?”
“And lose hope? And blame himself for letting the boy go off by himself? Haven’t you ever wondered why your mother’s never asked Skywise or Suntop to find your grandfather in the scroll?”
Quicksilver flinched, ashamed to admit she had never considered it. Savin often spoke of her memories of Eastwaker, but never spoke of his disappearance. Like many others, Quicksilver had always considered the matter resolved.
“As long as she doesn’t know for sure, she can still hope,” Loosestrife continued. “She can tell herself that he’s hiding in a cave somewhere, or maybe bundled up in that wrapping-web-stuff and asleep for a hundred years. But the moment she knows... and it’s not what she’s hoping to hear – then that’s it. So you leave her her hope. And you leave Snakeskin his.”
“What about you, Loosestrife? You believe in your heart that Grandfather is gone. But doesn’t it gnaw at you that he might be alive? And your mother, too? Don’t you want to know for certain?”
“No,” Loosestrife shook his head.
“Why? If you have no hope...”
Loosestrife smiled wanly. “Maybe... maybe there’s some hope left after all. Who knows... there might even be some hope for you, little pip.”
The ship was becalmed again on the return voyage. The crew spent the time competing in various contests. Challengers tried to best Treefrog in a race up the rigging, or hold their breaths longer than Mimic. Idleness overtook even the most disciplined elf, and Skelter teased Quicksilver ruthlessly whenever he caught her spending too much time studying the rigging.
“Relax. The sails aren’t going anywhere in this weather.”
After five days sweltering heat and scarcely a breeze, a favourable wind began to blow. Quicksilver was manning the rigging at the mizzenmast with Spider when Goldcinder gave the call. “This is the one we’ve been waiting for! Hoist the sails! Look alive back there, Spider. Get that mizzen staysail ready!”
“One side, pip,” Spider said, as she set to work on the rigging.
“I can help!” Quicksilver insisted. “I’ve been on this ship long enough.”
“Look, it’s just easier if I do it. You heard ‘Cinder – this needs doing quickly. If we can’t catch this breeze–”
Quicksilver fumed silently as the taller maiden went to work on the sheet, relying on the complex set of pulleys and blocks to bear the weight of the canvas as she winch the sail into position. With nothing else to do, Quicksilver gazed idly over the knots holding the other lines in place. She named them off in her head. Bowline. Double bowline. Sheet bend. Dancing troll. Reef.
“What a minute...”
“Ugh... what is it, ‘Silver?” Spider called over her shoulder.
“This line – it’s a reef knot!”
“So?” Spider still wasn’t looking.
“So it’s one of the main lines–”
“Good way to collapse the sail–”
“No!” Quicksilver searched her brain, trying to remember the multitude of ship’s terminology. “I mean it’s one of the main lines!” she stammered out. “It won’t hold if you hoist any higher!” Knowing Spider would not pay her warning any heed, she seized Spider’s arm and yanked her around to face the offending knot. “It’s supposed to be a bowline!” she exclaimed.
Spider stared at the knot, then followed the line of rigging with her eyes up into the sails. “Damn.”
“Spider! What’s the hold-up?” Goldcinder shouted.
“Bad rigging!” Spider shouted back. “Here. Take the rope, ‘Silver. Hold on tight, now. Don’t worry. The pulleys will take the weight off your arm.”
Quicksilver seized the thick rope and winced as she felt the weight of the canvas sail tug at her arms. The wooden block pulleys did not relieve her of all the burden. Quicksilver looked up at the great folds of canvas shivering in the air overhead. She felt the rope jerk with each flap of the breeze.
She did not know how close the sail had come to collapse until Loosestrife and Goldcinder called the sailors to account.
“I did not tie that knot!” Spider insisted. “It must have been Cavey. Or Skelter–”
“I don’t care who tied it!” Goldcinder barked, his gentle manner evaporated. “It was your responsibility to check the lines before you started to work.”
**She’s not going to be in trouble, is she?** Quicksilver asked Treefrog. **I should have looked at the knots before myself.**
**Don’t worry about it. Captain and Goldcinder will chew her out. Then we’ll get on with it.**
Sure enough, the incident was not spoken of again, although Spider was moved to work below deck, and Quicksilver promoted to work up in the rigging with her cousin Treefrog.
“You’ve got good eyes,” he told her. “I could never learn to tell one line from the other until I was nearly twice your age.”
That night Quicksilver received another invitation to dine with her uncles. “Whew. Twice in one sailing,” Skelter whispered appreciatively. “Someone’s the Captain’s new pet.”
When Quicksilver returned to her hammock that night, she swore someone had replaced her old blanket with a newer, softer one.
“Land!” Quicksilver shouted down from the crow’s nest.
“About damn time!” someone shouted back up from below. “How’s Eastward looking?”
“Clear skies and high surf,” Quicksilver called over the wind that whipped her hair about her face.
“Come on down,” Goldcinder told her. “You’ll burn if you stay up there much longer.”
Quicksilver caught the long guide rope and looped it once about her leather boot. She slid down the rope to the deck, and hopped down from the rigging daintily.
“Look at the monkey,” one of the sailors laughed. “You’d think she had been doing this all her life.”
“She’s a natural,” Treefrog said, throwing an arm around her shoulders for a quick hug.
“It’s not that much different from climbing through the Grandfather Tree,” Quicksilver shrugged. “Although we don’t have anything like that slide on the rope there. I should talk to Yun about it when I get home. We could rig one up.”
Treefrog smiled sadly. “We’re all going to miss you on the ship.”
“I’ve got a ship of my own to get back to,” Quicksilver said.
If the Southern Coves were the Sorrow’s End of the Islands, all agriculture and easy living that bred timidity, then Eastward Isle was the home of the Islander Go-Backs. The tattooed inhabitants spent their working days spear-fishing off the reefs and spent their leisure hours catching waves on their long wooden surfboards. Hurricane season was still another month or two away, but the surf was already rising at Eastward, and after trade was concluded, the crew of the Mura took to the beaches. There Quicksilver found herself quickly befriended by a Islander named Spine.
“So this is a lander elf,” Spine chuckled, looking her over.
“Half a lander,” Quicksilver replied. “Half a pirate.”
“And not half as fearsome as the old tales say.”
“How do you get your hair to grow like that?” she asked, indicated the plume of brown hair that stood at attention down the center of his head. “Healer-shaped?”
“Naw. Just a sharp blade and a lot of wax. You surf?”
“Never learned how. But I love to spear-fish.”
“That’s toil. It’s time to play. Come on. Let’s see if we can find you a board. Pity it’s not the season for whales. I could show you how to ride their wakes.”
“Hey, now! Don’t you drown my cousin, Spine!” Treefrog warned.
Her first attempt to lie on the board as the waves crest beneath her left her bruised and sand-covered. By the second day, she had learned how to ride the wave like a seal. By the third day she tried kneeling on the wooden board, steering over the breaking wave by leaning from one side to the other. By the end of their eight-of-days on Eastward, she was standing up.
“You’ve changed, pip,” Loosestrife said as they left Eastward Isle behind them. “And I don’t just mean how you’ve learned the ropes on the ship. You’re carrying yourself differently. Everyone can see it.”
“Differently? How?”
“Not half as... breathless, for one thing. Steadier. Calmer.”
“I feel steady,” Quicksilver nodded. “I feel... I’m sorting things out.” She breathed in the saltspray. “So, where now? Greywake?”
“Not. One more stop first. It’s time to pay our friends the humans another visit.”
The Lady Mura anchored in the same cove just beyond the first human village they had raided over a moon before. Quicksilver helped her uncles lay out a collection of knicknacks on a simple piece of cloth. Painted seashells from Eastward Isle. Crude coral carvings from the pips of Jewel Cove. The wooden spools that once had held the gold wire Brill had so desperately bartered for. Woven palm fronds and shiny pebbles dotted in white paint. One piece of gold wire, as long as an elf’s arm, topped the pile.
**Spirit totems,** Loosestrife explained.
**So you take worthless trinkets from the trolls, trade them for riches which you share among yourselves, and then dump new worthless trinkets on the humans?**
**The trolls are happy – they think they’re swindling us! The humans are happy – they think they’re blessed by the spirits! And most of all, we’re very very happy.**
They heard the sound of bare feet on damp earth, and they looked up. A small human child was watching them from the doorway to a hut. Loosestrife beckoned the child closer, but she shook her head, grinning.
Loosestrife put his finger to his lips. The child mirrored his expression, then scampered back into the hut.
The Mura caught a breeze back to Greywake just long enough to deposit the small community’s due portion of the booty. The sun was beginning to set behind them as the Mura returned home, rich with its own share of the trade season. Torches were already lit on Race Rock, and lantern-bearing outriggers outlined the navigation channel back to the dock. Quicksilver smelled roasted meat and the sulphurous tang of blast-rock powder in the air.
“Look at you!” Gullwing exclaimed as she embraced her granddaughter. “Sun-kissed and wind-burned. And you smell of saltspray through and through. You look like a proper pirate.”
Quicksilver searched the crowd of well-wishers, but she could not see Suntop.
Tradition dictated a great celebration to welcome the heroes of the Mura back. The feast was held on Race Rock, as fire fountains burned on the rocks and frenetic drumbeats filled the night air. Quicksilver gratefully swapped her worn sailor’s shirt and skirt for a new cloth dress she hitched up above her knees in front and let fall long behind her. She downed mug after mug of sweet coconut milk and rum as the pirates toasted their newest crewmate. This time she did not decline the lads’ offers to dance.
By midnight the rum was flowing, and her senses were addled by the combined scents of rich food and the pounding beat of the drums. Everything was moving faster than life. Even the stars overhead seemed to be spinning. She could scarcely catch her breath as she spun from one partner to another.
And then she saw Suntop at the edge of the crowd.
He was hanging half in shadow, bashful. But she spotted him instantly by his golden hair and the intensity in his stare as he followed her dance.
She left her dancing partners behind and waded through the crowd, oddly dazed. The world that had been spinning so rapidly had just slammed to a halt, and she was stumbling to regain her footing.
“Where have you been?” she managed to whisper.
“This is your night,” he said. “I did not want to intrude. ‘Silver...” his voice caught his throat. “You look...”
She broke across the distance that separated them and kissed him full on the mouth.
The celebration went on long into the night and the early morning hours. As dawn began to creep over the island, the loudest of the elves were still dancing and feasting. No one thought anything of it when the newest crewmember of the Lady Mura disappeared from the rocks with her lovemate. And when the last of the Race Rocks pirates dragged themselves down the cave passages to seek their own beds, no one noticed that Quicksilver’s door was already shut and barred.
Quicksilver rolled over to sleepily regard her lovemate, and smiled up at him from under a curtain of disordered silver hair. Suntop smoothed her hair back from her forehead to kiss her temple. In response, Quicksilver snuggled against him with a contented murmur. The journey was over. The time for waiting was past. She was home in her lovemate’s arms.
**Hmm... Malin...** she sent without thinking.
Her eyes snapped open, meeting Suntop’s astonished gaze.
Elfquest copyright 2014 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 2014 Jane Senese and Erin Roberts