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It was a sunny day in the golden fields just beyond Pylia’s castle, and Ona was in a golden mood. She walked forward through the wind, the breeze pushing its cool fingers through her hair, her short body fairly swallowed by the high grass. As ever, Ona’s shoulders were swept in a shawl of black raven feathers, and beads and bangles dangled from her person. Upon first glance, she looked very much as if she had pried herself from the earth and simply walked off, so shaggy and draped in green growth were her clothes.
Ona’s tiny feet, as ever, were bare, her nails were naturally black, and upon her right ring finger was a gold ring, given to her by the queen of the land for her services of the night before.
Ona had been called in secret to Pylia to heal the queen’s daughter and only heir. She had succeeded, and today, all of Realm Callimor was celebrating. Humans danced in the streets, waved streamers, beat drums. The princess lived! But because it was illegal among humans to employ the services of an elven, no one would ever know how such a miracle had occurred.
Ona had been careful to keep the queen’s secret, shapeshifting into a raven and landing on the balcony of the little princess’ bedroom. She left the same way, and no one was any the wiser. No one knew that a hated elven had ever set foot in Castle Callimora.
Some would suspect and would shake their heads and say the princess had been cursed, not healed, but no one would listen to these spare few. Most would be too busy celebrating the survival of their princess, who had been battling Death for three consecutive nights. In all the realms of Allaca, Death was the only one who hadn’t been pleased.
:The child was supposed to die,: said a disembodied voice, speaking into Ona’s mind. The voice was gently scolding, devoid of anger.
As she passed through the golden fields that hot morn, Ona could feel an unearthly chill tingling its icy way through the air, like a sudden cold breath on the side of her face: Death was near.
“So life and death are fated?” asked Ona skeptically.
:It was for the Callimor princess,: returned Death somberly. :She was not meant to live past her sixth birthday.:
“Hmm. That’s a little cruel, isn’t it?” returned Ona.
:Cruel? Perhaps. Necessary? Absolutely. Who are you to determine what is cruel and what is kind, Onicavora?: said Death calmly and without a hint of anger. :Your limited eyes cannot see the fabric of the universe, how each life and death forms an intricate web.: She was speaking factually, as if there were no arguing an undeniable truth. :The girl’s time was limited. I waited for her. I waited in vain.:
“I couldn’t just let her die,” Ona insisted. “Her mother was in tears. She was suffering horribly −”
:As all living creatures suffer.: A pause. Then the voice said in bafflement, :You used to respect the Old Ways. You never tampered with the endless cycle of life and death. What changed?:
“People change,” Ona muttered.
:This is the second time, Onicavora. Shall you tempt the council to action a third time?: came the voice, a little stern now.
“What council?”
This time there was merriment in the entity’s voice as she said, :Do you truly believe I am the only being who watches your doings with interest?:
“There will be some consequence, won’t there?” said Ona heavily. It wasn’t a question.
:There is always a consequence. You know this, eldor’ekara,: answered Death softly, solemnly.
Ona felt the air warming again with the sweet smell of golden grass and knew Death had withdrawn. She frowned, wondering what terrible thing she had indirectly begun in saving the human princess. But the brooding thoughts scattered from her mind and she smiled when she noticed Takari waiting for her beneath a lone tree in the center of the golden field.
The tree was enormous, a white and ancient giant that whispered in its sleep. It was bursting with orange and gold leaves and was so otherworldly in its radiance, many of the local humans believed some “elf witch” had placed a spell on it.
Takari stood in its shade, blue fur blowing in the wind, watching Ona’s approach with narrow-eyed disapproval.
Ona sighed as she pushed her hair behind her pointed ear, mentally steeling herself for the eemore’s anger. Takari had warned her not to get involved with the humans, but Ona had insisted on answering the summons.
“Happy now?” grunted Takari when she and Ona were face to face.
“Yes, actually,” said Ona unapologetically and walked on. “Don’t be so pessimistic. I healed the girl. Everything worked out fine.”
Takari shook her fuzzy head, and Ona knew the beast woman was thinking that Ona should have been more suspicious of humanity, more resentful, more withdrawn. Instead, Ona risked her own life to help the younger races: elven who were captured by humans were often killed.
Humans feared magick. It was the reason Ozmora had been razed to the ground. Ironically, if magick was as menacing a threat as the humans believed, they would not have succeeded in destroying Ozmora. But destroy Ozmora, the humans did. And centuries later, even with the elven all but driven to extinction, the humans were still paranoid, still mistrustful of magick. Very few of them would have been brave enough to have reached out to Ona and asked for her help. The queen of Callimor had been desperate.
As they made their way side by side through the walls of rustling gold, Ona glanced sideways and noticed the steady scowl on Takari’s blue face. She sighed, catching a white flower petal in her fingers as it drifted on the wind.
“What?” laughed Ona. “Come now. It’s too beautiful a day for all this fuss.”
Takari waved a dismissive paw and turned her attention to a butterfly that was drifting past. She tried to catch it in both paws, missed, and walked on in disappointment.
“Hmm. No lecture this time?” said Ona in surprise.
“Could have been caught! Could have been killed!” the eemore erupted in her deep, guttural voice.
“Ah. That’s more like it . . .” Ona muttered.
“Takari don’t want to be trapped. Don’t want to be rug on human floor.”
Ona laughed. “Fair enough. But imagine if I was a selfish ass and never helped anyone,” she said, letting the white flower petal loop away on the breeze again. “Isn’t that how we met? I helped you.”
Takari blinked, remembering.
***
ONA HELD THE GLOWING white bean close to her face and suspiciously inspected it; her long lashes pressing close together as she squinted in the gloom of the drafty cave. The harvest caves were always dark and cold, but the cuzron beans that budded from the walls always lit each vast cavern marvelously with their glowing.
Ona had come to the harvest caves intent on gathering a few of the beans. She wished to sell them at market (lorna liked to make “love potions” from them) and had expected to spend a quiet afternoon picking them in solitude. Around noon, however, a lone beast woman had appeared in the cavern with her.
The beast woman lurked against the wall, somewhere just behind Ona, and the long, curled horns that rose from her temples made her shadow look like a demon was stretching its black soul across the cave floor. Her musky smell filled the cold room, but it wasn’t unpleasant. Most of the eemore smelled like leaves and flowers and earth. It was . . . a soothing scent, the kind that was released when it rained.
Humans were known to capture the eemore and use their horns for ceremonial cups. This eemore had been foolish to wander so close to human territory, Ona thought.
The beast woman lurked silently against the wall behind Ona, head tilted, watching her with sparkling-eyed curiosity. Her ear flicked and she moaned inquisitively. Ona thought she ought to be the one asking questions, such as: how had the woman managed to find her way into such a deep part of the cave? She had to be eight feet tall and was wide-shouldered to boot. Meanwhile, the passage leading to this particular cavern was barely wide enough for a child to slip through. Ona had managed it only because she was small and could shapeshift if needed.
With her great size and enormous strength, the eemore could have punched her way through the walls for all Ona knew. But in reality, the beast woman had likely wiggled her comical way through the narrow passages, intent on licking moss from the walls with her long, slimy, pink tongue. The cavern they stood in was abundant in the bright purple moss. Most of it had been licked flat, presumably by the eemore, whose tongue was purple from the venture. Her tongue slapped out, and she licked her eye, paused to dig a long black nail in her ear, another in her nose.
Ona held back a laugh: it had long been debated among the o’eka whether or not the eemore people had indeed once ruled Allaca. The eemore’s behavior − as it picked its nose with delight − was not very convincing.
There were legends that the eemore were once a great people and highly advanced, philosophers and inventers traveling from land to land in flying ships, building great cities with skyscrapers that soared to Avara.
Avara was their planet’s star, so named by a legend regarding the eemore. It was believed by many that the eemore were the first people to inhabit Allaca, but a natural disaster of terrible proportions had happened, bringing their cities to ruin and reducing the eemore to upright beasts.
And indeed, there was evidence of great ruins and collapsed machines far deep in the wild. Crumbled skyscrapers and strange flying apparatuses could be unearthed to this very day. But whether or not they had once belonged to the eemore, that was the question.
There were some theologians who believed the “natural disaster” was in fact the god-race who descended from Heaven and devolved the eemore, a punishment for some great sin they had committed . . . or perhaps for some secret knowledge they had obtained.
Ona turned away from the eemore, frowning in pity and hoping the legends weren’t true. It was terrifying to think how easily such a thing could happen again. After all, if the legends were true, then the other civilizations on Allaca had only risen to power because the eemore were devolved by some mysterious force.
“Rooo,” moaned the eemore sadly, and Ona realized for the first time how young the beast woman was. Upon closer inspection, she could see that the eemore’s horns were only half-grown: she was barely a teenager! Her eyes were pleading as they looked at Ona for guidance. She was like a cat that had become stuck up a tree. Somehow, she had wandered too deep into the cave, and now she couldn’t get back.
“Rooo,” moaned the eemore again.
“All right, all right,” Ona moaned, rolling her dark eyes. “Just let me collect a few more of these, and then I’ll help you get back.”
“Rooooo!” the eemore happily replied, her orange eyes brightening, her ears flicking upright.
Ona smiled and went back to inspecting the glowing bean in her hand. It was large as an apple and seemed ripe enough. She dropped it into the woven wicker basket with the other beans she’d collected that day, then commanded the basket to float at her side with a gesture before turning around to face the sad eemore.
“Now,” Ona said, studying the lost eemore up and down with a sort of weary resignation, “you aren’t hurt, are you?”
The eemore sadly shook her horned head, her long ears lowering.
“Hmm. How old are you?”
The eemore sniffled. “Sixteen and three pebbles,” she said in her deep, mournful voice, and she held up three large fingers, each curving with black claws.
Ona held back a smile: the eemore often used pebbles to count their age. They would collect them in large shells for decades, only to eventually lose count.
“Hmm. You are young,” said Ona thoughtfully. “Just as I thought. What clan are you? Where are you from?”
Callimor was an archipelago. How had she even gotten here? Ona wondered wildly. Eemore liked swimming, but not that far.
“Croon-Val,” answered the eemore sheepishly.
“Croon-Val!” Ona exclaimed in wide-eyed amazement. “The Croon village is way the hell – How’d you get on this island? Do you know where you are? This is Dornaca, the seventh island of the Callimor Isles. Queen Calmara the VIII rules here. This is human territory. It’s dangerous for you.”
“It dangerous for you, too,” the eemore sullenly returned.
Ona had no argument: the eemore was right. Humans were as dangerous to her as they were to the eemore.
“I’ll escort you back to your village,” Ona soothed the eemore.
The eemore nodded gloomily. “Dank yoooou,” she moaned.
“And your name?” Ona prompted.
The eemore’s loose, dark lips curled in a smile around her tusks. “Takarrrrri,” she answered, touching a great paw to her fur-covered breasts. She leaned forward and bowed as best her great, hulking body could. The entire gesture was awkward and yet somehow endearing.
Ona smiled and turned away. “All right, Takari,” she sighed tiredly. “Let’s get you back to your village, shall we? I’m Ona, by the way.”
“Ooooona,” moaned the eemore contently.
“Close enough,” laughed Ona. With the basket floating beside her, she took up her staff from the wall. It was a long, twisted white branch she’d taken from a zel tree on the surface. The thinner branches at the top were curved to cradle a ball that wasn’t there. Ona gently tapped the end of the staff on the cave’s smooth floor, and white fire blossomed in the space between the cradling branches.
Takari’s eyes widened in hushed amazement to see the white fire, like a child presented with a pretty toy. Ona didn’t blame the eemore for being amazed, since magick was a rare thing these days. The elven were the only people to possess it, and now they were all but gone. Most were scattered to the wind and living in hiding. . . . like Ona herself.
“It’s not imbued with magick power or anything,” Ona said, referring to the staff in her hand. “I was just using it to light my way in these caves. Less tiresome than conjuring light to my hand.” But she didn’t know why she was telling the eemore that. The beast woman wasn’t even listening, instead staring at the glowing staff in wonder.
White light spread in gentle waves from Ona’s staff, rippling, touching the underside of her face with its gentle blaze. The light was almost a contender for the cuzron beans that glowed in the pockets on the walls, until Ona turned to the passage ahead, and the light of her staff angled toward the darkness, cutting through it like an inquisitive finger.
By summoning light to her staff, Ona had borrowed energy from the cavern. And indeed, the room behind her was a little darker, a little colder, after her silent spell. Takari shivered, expelling a whisk of white breath as she rubbed the backs of her furry arms, her great ears going down again.
“Sorry,” Ona said, tightening her feather shawl around her shoulders. “But the passage I’m going to lead you down is very dark. There won’t be any cuzrons to light the way.”
“Daaaark,” moaned Takari sadly and hugged herself.
“Oh! Don’t tell me a big girl like you is afraid of the dark!” cried Ona in amazement but scolded herself for being insensitive. There were many things she feared as well. Fear was sensible. It was the actions that followed fear that were often foolish.
“Stay close to me and you’ll be fine,” Ona added apologetically.
Takari’s answer was another sad moan. “Can Takari hold staff?” asked the eemore, reaching out with hesitation.
Ona laughed softly. “I suppose. As long as you don’t eat the fire.” So saying, she passed the staff to the eemore, and it looked almost like a stick in the woman’s great blue paws.
Takari brought the staff near her face and stared at the white fire, its flames dancing in twin tongues in her eyes.
Ona smiled and turned away, glad that the woman had at least forgotten her fear of the dark for the time being. “Come,” she said. “Let’s get you home.”
The basket of glowing beans floating at her side, Ona made her way into the darkness. Her bare feet pulsed with light at every step, and for a long moment, they were the only feet that could be heard. She stopped and said gently, “Come along, now, Takari. I’ll protect you.”
Another pause, and then the thud and slap of big bare feet as Takari ran to catch up with Ona. The light of the staff bobbed nearer as the eemore jogged, until it had shed over Ona in its pale, gentle warmth. Takari was clutching the staff fearfully in both paws, her eyes darting back and forth.
Ona smiled to herself, listening to the eemore’s deep, raspy panting. She reached for the floating basket – the cover slid aside for her– and she took out a cuzron and offered it to Takari. “Here,” she said. “People don’t usually eat them raw, but you’re probably starving.”
Takari had been shivering– shivering with fear, Ona realized, not from the cold – but the eemore paused to take the offered cuzron bean. She held it to her nose, sniffed it experimentally, then dragged her large tongue along it in a slow lick. Ona laughed when she heard gagging noises behind her.
“It’s all right,” Ona said. “Not everyone likes . . .” Her voice trailed away. On the edge of the light’s sphere, she could see images on the walls. Colorful images. She had been down the passage a thousand times but had never seen cave paintings on the walls before! She hesitated but kept walking. Takari followed with thudding feet, and as they went along, Ona realized the paintings were appearing as she walked – No! They were appearing as Takari walked! It suddenly occurred to her that the paintings hadn’t started appearing until Takari entered the passage with her.
Ona halted and held out her arm, forcing the eemore to stop as well. She and Takari stared in bafflement at the wall, watching as its colorful illustrations spread over the plain cave browns and grays in splashes of sudden emerald, gold, scarlet.
“What it mean, Oooona?” moaned Takari, eyes fixed in childlike fascination on the busy wall.
“It means this wall was charmed to react to an eemore,” said Ona with certainty. “I’ve been down here a thousand times, and the wall has never reacted to me – or anyone else who’s come with me! I doubt an eemore’s ever been down here before. None of you would fit the passages! Say . . .” She turned to face Takari. “How did you get down here, anyway?”
Takari shrugged. “Found passage could fit,” the beast woman answered. She lifted a claw and pointed ahead. “Like this passage. Came from cave on beach.”
Ona frowned. “The passages here don’t lead to a cave on a beach! They lead to the surface of Dornaca! To the Arzal Forest!”
Takari shrugged again, just as baffled as Ona.
Ona turned to the wall again, watching its curling color. “Look!” she said, pointing down the wall. “It’s flowing into the shape of a door!”
Indeed, the splashes and whirls of color were rising up and then down again to form a rectangular shape. The outline of a door was quickly forming, trimmed in ornate gold designs of delicate flowers and butterflies. It was turning into more than a painted image of a door on the wall: the color was actually becoming a door.
Ona and Takari looked at each other, the light of Ona’s staff falling in a white blaze upon the door that now towered before them. Neither of them knew what to do. The door could be dangerous. It could be a trap. There could be a monster lurking on the other side.
Would a dragon fit back there? Ona could smell no smoke, couldn’t hear the dry rustle of scaly wings, but she remained wary. A dragon was not a game.
“Think there giant spiders back there?” whispered Takari fearfully.
“I can kill those easily,” said Ona dismissively, “or ask them to leave.”
Takari cocked a fuzzy brow and looked down at Ona inquisitively, trying to decide if she was joking or not. Ona wasn’t joking. Spiders were largely peaceful and intelligent and had an entire language that consisted of rapid clicking. The child races couldn’t get along with them because they refused to learn their language.
Giant spiders, Ona could handle. But a dragon – though intelligent and perfectly capable of the common tongue – would not take kindly to clumsy strangers stumbling into her lair. Especially if there were eggs in said lair.
The evilest dragons had been sealed behind magick doors. These were the most cunning dragons, ones who’d led other dragons to wreak havoc on Allaca. The ancient elven had sealed them away in an effort to protect the people. What if there was such a dragon behind this door?
At last, Takari flattened her ears back in determination and reached out a big paw toward the door. Ona opened her mouth to protest but bit her tongue when she saw the door’s reaction: it glowed. Golden light seeped from its cracks, reaching toward them, as if some ethereal being were blazing on the other side. The light was warm, gentle, inviting. Ona sensed no malice from it whatsoever. There was a large handprint on the door, spread across the seam where it would have split open. Ona watched, feeling oddly calm as Takari placed her big paw on the handprint, and the door rumbled in response.
Dust clouds rose to choke them and debris rained from the ceiling, though nothing heavier than pebbles. Ona shielded her face regardless and told the eemore to watch out. Both of them staggered back as the door split down the center and scrolled aside to reveal an immense room.
Ona’s mouth fell open, and beside her, the eemore moaned long in surprise. They stood there, staring into the room, dumbfounded by the brilliance of its light.
It was as if someone had opened the door to a hidden palace. The enormous room was sparkling golden: smooth golden walls and smooth golden floors made of polished stone. There were windows at intervals in the walls, but dirt and rock had obstructed them from the other side. Great pillars lined the room in an avenue, and down the center of the ceiling, braziers hung. But the braziers – having hung there for what were likely centuries – were cold, dark, and devoid of fire. The golden light that had reached from beyond the door was coming from the center of the room.
Ona could see a dais rising in a circle from the floor, its steps reaching forth like rippling water. And at the center of the dais, floating above a pedestal in a sheath of radiant light, was a sword.
The sword’s gold hilt was ornately carved, and its fiery gold blade seemed immaterial, as if it were made of light. On the lip of the pedestal was a plaque with an inscription.
Still in a spell of shock, Ona and Takari went to the pedestal together, and Ona looked at the inscription. It was written in a dialect she didn’t recognize – not even after all the eons she had walked Allaca − but to her surprise, Takari grunted in recognition and said, “That language of eldest. Mother has shield with same words on it.”
Ona knew that Takari wasn’t talking about her birth mother. The eemore called the leader of each clan their “Mother” and referred to her as so for their entire lives. It was common for eemore children to be raised by the clan’s leader and not their own parents, who often didn’t survive long enough at the hands of human hunters to raise them.
But Ona didn’t know what Takari meant by “eldest.” She frowned. “Who are the eldest, Takari? Your gods?”
Takari shook her head, her ears going down. “No, not gods. The eldest our ancestors.”
“Ah,” said Ona, looking at the inscription. “And can you read this?”
Takari squinted at the plaque. “It say this sword belong to −” She gasped, her orange eyes going wide, and the staff fell with a clatter from her paws. It rolled across the smooth floor and stopped, harmlessly winking out.
“What?” Ona prompted. “What does it say?”
“The sword belong to Tala!”
“Who?” said Ona, feeling more and more frustrated that she hadn’t spent more time among the eemore, learning something of their people and culture. She felt a little ashamed to realize she’d never considered them worth the effort. Now she was paying for that prejudice.
Takari glanced at Ona irritably, as if she had sensed that Ona was ignorant of her culture not by circumstance but by choice.
“Tala our greatest warrior!” Takari said gruffly. Her eyes went to the sword and they shone with hushed reverence. “They say the gods loved her. So they gave her piece of Avara. To protect Allaca.”
“Ah. The Sword of Avara,” said Ona, realizing. She knew that legend. The Sword of Avara was a myth that most everyone knew, but until now, Ona had thought it only a myth. She looked at the sword now, trying to register the fact that it was hovering in front of her, engulfed in bright light, a real thing and not some made-up fairy tale.
“Should we leave it here?” Ona wondered aloud. “I’m not sure we can shut that door again. The lock seemed like a onetime happening.” Ona looked at the sword again, took a breath, and reached for the hilt. She was surprised when Takari’s big paw grabbed her fast by the wrist. The eemore’s beefy hand swallowed Ona’s wrist like a twig.
“Only eemore can take from pedestal,” warned Takari firmly. “Anyone else die.”
Ona dropped her hand when it was gently released. “Good to know,” she sighed and glanced at Takari. “Why don’t you take it?”
Takari’s ears went forward. “Me?”
“We can’t just leave it here with the door wide open,” Ona insisted. “And you said it yourself: only an eemore can take it from the pedestal.”
Takari swallowed hard. With her orange eyes trained on the hovering blade, she slowly reached for it . . . and took it down. The humming that had filled the room abruptly stopped, so that Ona suddenly realized the sound had been happening all along.
Ona and Takari tensely waited for something to happen – perhaps for the room to rumble or the floor to crack open and swallow them. Nothing happened. Takari stared at the blade in her big paws, its power ruffling her fur, rippling back her blue hair. Ona could feel the sword’s light thrumming, could feel the heat of the blade pressing against her face until small sweat beads blossomed on her skin. But against the heat came a sudden chill.
:Ah, the Sword of Avara returns to ravish the world with its light,: said Death’s disembodied voice wearily. :My tireless work redoubles.:
Ona didn’t answer and felt the cold retreating as Death passed glumly on her way.
Takari swallowed hard and looked at Ona in disbelief, and it was clear that she, too, had expected something horrible to happen. Instead, she was standing with a legendary sword in her hand. They smiled at each other.
“Damn it,” said a voice behind them.
***
ONA AND TAKARI TURNED. A woman was standing in the open doorway of the once secret room, one hand holding a sword, the other clutching what looked like a severed eemore paw. The paw was dark with blood and half-shriveled in her grasp. She dropped it with disgust on the golden floor as she said, “So I went through all this trouble for nothing. I just had to wait for an eemore to go blundering down here.”
The woman was human, though she was clearly no bandit: she was dressed too finely. Her clothes were only mildly dusted from her venture through the caves. She wore a breechcloth and bandeau of fine dark silk, and her sandals were of good leather. On one side of her belt hung a sheath for her sword, and on the other side hung a jar of fireflies, a makeshift lantern to light her way. She was clad in fingerless gloves and a cloak against the sudden storm that had happened only hours before. The hood of the cloak was up, shielding a mass of loose black hair. The hair framed her narrow, angry face like black tentacles as she glared at them steadily. She was alone.
“Who are you?” Ona asked quietly.
The woman scowled. “None of your damn business.” The hood moved aside from her cheek as she spoke, revealing a brand on the flesh there. A mercenary, then.
“Who are you?” the woman demanded in return, almost childlike in her impudence.
“Your worst nightmare if you don’t answer my question,” said Ona calmly. It wasn’t a threat or a boast: it was stated fact. Sensing this, the woman went still.
Until that moment, it was clear the woman had assumed Ona to be human – a rather small human, perhaps, but human all the same. For Ona’s pointed ears were hidden in her mass of hair, and aside from their long, rather deer-like faces, most elven could pass for human so long as their ears were hidden. Now the woman looked at the serious glint in Ona’s dark eyes and came to the realization that she was dealing with an ancient being. She slowly sheathed her sword and stood very still, like a frightened rabbit caught by the aim of a hunter’s arrow, and yet, her angry face stubbornly refused to show the stiff fear Ona could so clearly feel from her.
Ona nodded at the severed paw on the floor, which Takari was positively fuming over. “Did you kill that eemore?” she asked darkly.
“I did,” said the woman unapologetically, and Takari gave a soft howl of indignation.
“Why? To gain access to this place?” demanded Ona.
“Of course,” said the woman in amazement, as if Ona should have known and her questions foolish. “Why else would I bother tracking one of the things?” Her eyes glanced at the starlight sword, which was still held fast in Takari’s big paw. “I was sent to retrieve that weapon.” She laughed flatly. “I wasn’t even sure the damn thing existed.”
“Sent?” said Ona sharply. “Sent by whom?”
The mercenary hesitated.
Ona’s eyes glowed and her hair lifted around her on an ethereal gust like snakes. The other two women went still.
“If you don’t tell me,” said Ona, “I’ll kill you and find out anyway. Your cooperation just makes my life easier.”
“Both your lives,” added Takari. “Human should be smart. Do what she told.”
The mercenary slowly shook her head, and the way her body tilted, Ona could tell she was resisting the urge to take a step back. “You don’t understand,” she said in a low, unhappy voice. “The woman who sent me, she’s an Old One, too.”
Ona eyes widened in surprise and stopped glowing, her hair abruptly falling from its wind.
“She won’t give me a clean kill like you will,” insisted the mercenary. “She’ll hurt me first, in ways you can’t imagine. I’ll take my chances here.”
Another elven? Ona felt something sap out of her, as if the air had suddenly been sucked from her chest.
“Another elf,” moaned Takari, watching Ona. “One of your kind!” The eemore was shocked by the very notion.
Ona didn’t blame Takari for her shock: dwindling as they were, it was extremely rare for two elven to cross paths outside the wilds. But it wasn’t rare at all for Emora to cross paths with Ona. They were indelibly linked, the invisible chain binding their ankles, so that they were always destined to step in time to the same rhythm. And there was no escaping it. Wherever one of them went, so went the other.
Ona turned her back. “Go,” she said to the mercenary. “Run back to your mistress. Tell her what transpired here.”
A look of confusion crossed the mercenary’s face. She waited, unbelieving that she was free to go. When another beat passed, she slowly backed away, then ran frantically down the passage, leaving the severed paw behind.
Takari looked sadly at the severed paw on the floor, flaring her nostrils to take in its scent. “No one Takari know,” she said after a pause. She glowered at Ona. “Why you let murderer go?”
If she was honest with herself, Ona had intended to kill the mercenary. But now that she knew who the woman answered to, she wanted Emora to know that she’d gotten the sword. She wanted Emora to know that she’d bested her – fumbled blind into besting her, but had bested her just the same.
“Would murdering her have brought her victim back?” said Ona. She sighed and turned to Takari. “Come, ekara. I think the proper place for this sword would be among your people, don’t you think? And it should be growing dark outside. Let us hurry.”
“Fine,” muttered Takari, turning bitterly away.
They made quick progress down the passage, taking the glowing starblade with them. Ona was surprised to find the passage did indeed lead to a beach. There before her was the ocean, reflecting the setting sun like glass. She turned her back to the sea, bare feet sinking into the white sand, and peered at the leaning palm trees that trailed along the bend, at the green bushes that shivered in the gentle breeze. Beyond the roof of swaying green, the sun was setting in a wash of red and orange hues, and Ona could see distant birds trailing in dots across the sky.
“But . . .” Ona said, voice small in confusion. “That passage always led to the Azral Forest!”
Beside Ona, Takari shrugged her wide shoulders.
“And you say you came down this way?” Ona demanded.
Takari nodded, watching Ona closely and likely wondering if she hadn’t gone mad.
Ona knew she probably looked like a muddled fool, but she also knew the passages of the harvest caves. She’d used them for centuries and none of them had ever led her here! This was magick. Someone had altered the caves so that the passages led more easily to the sword. Emora. It had to be Emora. Given her futile quest to conquer Allaca for the elven, it was the only thing that made sense. With the starblade, she would be unstoppable. No one could stand against her.
Ona looked around. They were not on Dornaca Isle at all. There were no white zel trees, no fairies, no golden apples sparkling in the sunlight. They were not in the Callimor Isles anymore. Emora had employed a great deal of magick to create this mystical shortcut, a shortcut that had bridged an island to a continent.
“How far is Croon-Val from here?” Ona asked, stirring herself from her meditations.
Takari pointed a big paw toward the nearby jungle. Ona and Takari made their way through it, listening to the sounds of chirruping birds and insects as the rosy red light of dusk faded around them. As they passed silently through light and shadow, it seemed that every living thing in the jungle avoided them. Hanging snakes hissed and coiled away up trees, insects buzzed frantically and scattered off, small creatures darted in terror through the underbrush, and they even stumbled upon a jaguar that arched and hissed at them like a housecat before scrambling with clumsy desperation up a tree.
It was the sword. No living being wanted anything to do with it, with this legendary weapon made of starlight, a weapon that had slaughtered thousands, won wars, ended battles in mere seconds. They sensed its power and they fled from it in terror.
No matter that she was holding a legendary starblade, however, Takari was still afraid of the dark. As night settled over the jungle, she began to moan sadly, and her paws shook on the sword. Ona remembered that her zel staff had been left back at the harvest caves, when the eemore had dropped it on the ground. Wondering how far they had to go, she thought about scouting ahead. The eemore was terrified and it was getting cold.
Ona halted and faced Takari. “Wait here,” she said. “I’m going to fly up, see how far your village is. Maybe there’s an inn nearby. This is lorna territory, after all.”
Takari looked as if she wanted to protest. Instead, she steeled herself, lifting the sword and clutching it in both big paws.
Ona nodded in approval. Then in a wink of sparkling light, she had become a raven. Forsaking her basket of cuzron beans, she soared fast through the tangle of tree trunks that towered above them, glided toward the web of green that rustled overhead, and broke through its membrane into the cool night air.
Ona hovered on black wings in the chilly air. In the distance, she could see the smoke and fire rising from Croon-Val. The fire of the eemore was always blue as a result of the flowers they burned in the night. The sweet scent of them carried on the wind, and Ona could hear the eemores’ ceremonial vocalizing. The steady beat of drums and rattles rose alongside the singing, which eventually turned to happy screeching. What on Allaca was going on at Croon-Val?
To the west, just as Ona had supposed, were the yellow lights of a lorna village. It was a small enough village, likely of hunters given that it was so near the jungle. Farmers tended to stay on the outskirts of the cities and along the rivers, as it made traveling to and from the market with produce much easier. If they set out now, they could be at the village inn within the hour.
Ona was spreading her wings for the downturn when a noise below made her flap to a pause again. She shifted with another wink of light into a small monkey, letting herself gently drop into the branches of the tree just below her. Big ears twitching lightly, she listened intently as she scurried a little ways down the tree’s narrow trunk. Voices. Deep, purring, female voices.
“The blue beast ‘as gotta nice sword there,” said one of the voices. “Will fetch a fat purse of coin.”
“Alongside that pelt, it will,” agreed another voice. “We skin the beast, and we’ll live like queens off her blue ass.”
“Give us that magick sword, thing. What could you do with it? I reckon you wouldn’t know the hilt from the blade.”
Takari moaned sadly, and Ona felt guilty, remembering that she was just a child. She shouldn’t have left her alone in the dark.
“How do you think she got it?” asked a third voice.
“Who cares? Just kill her and take it!”
Takari moaned sadly again.
Ona sharpened her senses, feeling intently for heat and emotion. There were only three of the lorna hunters. She could smell the feathers of their arrows, the thin linen of their bandeaus and breechcloths, the steel of their knives. Narrowing her eyes against the dark, she could see that two of them were training loaded bows on Takari’s face, while a third – their leader – wielded a sword, ordering her companions to shoot. Ona could feel their greed and cruelty, and the feverish level of it was startling. She had never known lorna hunters to be so vicious. They were worse than bandits. But why?
“Kill her!” shouted the leader again, and her followers obeyed, letting loose with their bows.
Ona blinked angrily, and a sphere of light sprang up around Takari, whose ears lifted forward in surprise. The lorna shouted in confusion when their arrows bounced harmlessly off the sphere, but their cries were cut short when the projectiles spun around and lodged in their faces – splat, splat. Blood splashed and they fell.
The remaining lorna hunter shouted in horror, taking a startled step back. “Fine, keep the sword!” she yelled, sheathing her blade and turning to flee.
Ona knew she could not allow the hunter to escape: she would return to her village, see Ona and Takari there, and proceed to tell everyone her version of what had happened, perhaps turning the entire village against them. By threatening Takari’s life, the hunters had ended their own.
As the third hunter turned and fled, Ona touched the Sword of Avara with her mind. The sword reacted immediately. It spun from Takari’s startled paws, whistling as it swung around through the dark air, a blaze of white fire in the night. The hunter’s scream of terror was cut to sudden silence as the starblade lopped her head off, sending it rolling across the soft, muddy sand.
In the stillness that followed, only the sound of rustling leaves could be heard, mingled with the gentle whistling of the wind.
Still a small, stringy monkey, Ona scurried the rest of the way down the tree trunk and landed lightly in the grass, changing back to her original form mid-leap. She straightened up, summoning with a lazy gesture for her basket of cuzron beans to float at her side once more. Without missing a beat, she was about to turn and head deeper into the forest when she heard a sniff and looked back.
Takari’s orange eyes glistened with tears in the dark. She was very young. Perhaps she had never seen such violence before. She sniffled, staring in shock at the bodies on the ground. On closer inspection, Ona noticed she was splattered with blood. She was shaking.
“Grab the sheath off that hunter,” Ona said, her back to the eemore.
The group’s leader had been carrying a sword because she’d likely been guarding the other two against large jungle predators. She was a warrior. The sheath of her sword could be used to hide the Sword of Avara and its blinding starlight from the villagers, but Takari stood frozen and did not retrieve it. She was horrified by the bloody, staring bodies of the hunters. The one who’d carried the sword was now a headless corpse spraying blood.
Ona leaned down and unbuckled the sheath from the headless corpse. She slid out the chipped, poorly made sword that was in it and gave the sheath to Takari, who slid the Sword of Avara inside and buckled the belt around her waist.
“There,” said Ona. “No one should notice the sword now. At least if they don’t look too closely,” she said, for small beams of light were still reaching from the sheath. She turned away. “Now let’s go. Perhaps we’ll find a spring where you can wash the blood from your fur before it hardens.”
Takari didn’t move at first. Then very slowly, she stepped over the hunters’ limp bodies and followed Ona deeper into the rainforest.
“Where we going?” Takari eventually asked. For they were not headed in the direction of her village but toward the lorna village.
“To an inn,” Ona answered. “Your village is too far away – unless you want to walk all night.”
Takari shook her head. “Wanna go hoooome.”
“What’s the urgency? Your home will be there in the morning.”
“Missing Moonrise Festival,” Takari said unhappily.
“And this moon festival is important, I take it?”
Takari scowled in the dark, and Ona once again felt guilty for not knowing or understanding the ways of the eemore. All her years, and she had ignored them, dismissed them as a lost and isolated people. The eemore rarely left their jungles, after all. When Takari had appeared in the harvest caves on a human island, Ona would have been more shocked and intrigued if she hadn’t been so accustomed to the oddities regularly occurring in her life.
“Moon Festival for mating,” said Takari. “Eemore find life-mate during dance. Takari missing dance. Takari be alone.”
“Oh. I’m . . . sorry,” said Ona guiltily and wondered if she couldn’t somehow get the eemore back in time. She started running scenarios through her mind. Perhaps she could shrink Takari and carry her home in the shape of a bird –
“Don’t matter,” said Takari heavily. “Even if we made it back, it still too late. Festival already starting.”
Crap, Ona thought. “Can’t you catch another festival?” she asked, knowing that if the eemore could, she wouldn’t be so glum. It wasn’t really a question but more of a complaint.
“Takari have to wait,” said the eemore unhappily.
“How long?”
“Fifty years.”
Crap, Ona thought again. But fifty years made sense. Every fifty years, the two moons over Allaca aligned, one on top of the other, so that an immense amount of energy was channeled down to the planet. It would have benefitted Emora immensely to have chosen such a night to rearrange the cave passages: the moons would have leant her ritual the tremendous amount of power it would have taken to have done so.
They walked on in silence, and Ona wondered why Takari had bothered leaving her village if she knew such an important ceremony was going to take place that same night.
“How long have you been gone from Croon-Val?” Ona wondered.
Takari hesitated sheepishly answered said, “One week.”
Ona lifted her brows. It wasn’t like the eemore to wander. Despite their great size and strength, the outside world was a danger to them. Humans hunted them not only for their horns but also for their beautiful blue pelts.
Perhaps Takari was simply the wandering type, too curious for her own good. If that were the case, she was in good company: Ona hadn’t seen her family in five hundred years. Despite all their power, elven were as vulnerable to the outside world as eemore. Most elven stuck to the deepest corners of the wildlands and kept well out of sight, while struggling to find mates and breed their people back into their former glory. But Ona had wanted to see the world.
“Tell me about this shield you mentioned,” Ona said in the hope of distracting the eemore’s troubled mind.
Takari sniffed. “Shield ancient. Belonged to Tala. Was said she wielded it with Avara Sword.”
“Hmm. Is the shield magick or anything?”
“No. Just a shield,” said Takari with a shrug. “Clan Mother use it for cracking nuts.”
Ona held back a laugh, silently trying to decide if the eemore was joking or not.
The lorna hunter village was called Lorvalla. Ona suddenly remembered it as she and Takari were passing down the main street. She had come there once a few centuries before to cure a plague, and the lorna repaid her by driving her away with pitchforks. In those days, the people of Allaca were still terrified of the human realm, which had possessed a large military force and had vowed to stomp out any realm that harbored a hated elven.
The tiny village didn’t look much better than the last time Ona’s bare feet had walked its streets. It was overgrown with weeds and stank strongly of urine. The people were wearing ragged, tattered, fur garments. Ona could see them lighting streetlamps and porch lights with candles on the ends of long poles. They stopped what they were doing to stare at her, and she knew she was probably the first elven to have entered their village since last she was there.
“What’s that, Mommy?!” shouted a child. The girl was standing in the high withered grass of her front yard and pointed at Takari. “It’s huge! And it stinks! And it’s got a sword!”
“Hush!” warned the lorna mother. She snatched her child by the hand and dragged her inside their lopsided house, fearfully slamming the door behind them.
Takari lifted her big arm to sniff her own armpit and muttered irritably, “Takari no stink! This village stinks!”
“Hush,” begged Ona, echoing the lorna mother. She didn’t want to cause any trouble. She just wanted a warm, dry bed for the night and to be on her way again. But she noticed an angry lorna man standing in his yard with a pitchfork and started to wonder if coming there had been a good idea after all.
On the other hand, she was curious to know why the village hadn’t begun to thrive in her absence. With the plague gone, they should have bounced back centuries ago. What had happened?
“We should leave here,” said Takari, orange eyes sliding fearfully from angry face to angry face. “It angry here. They kill us soon.”
Indeed, the lorna were gathering along the street, watching the strangers pass their homes in an ominous silence that made Ona seriously consider Takari’s words. The villagers stood so still and unmoving, it was eerie. Some of them watched from their steps, others stood solemn at the end of their yards. They were hunters and warriors, big and tall women wielding bows and swords, men with farming equipment. Many of their eyes passed with a startling amount of hunger over Takari’s blue fur.
There was that feverish hunger again. But why? What had happened here? As if in answer to her silent pondering, Ona felt a chill on the air, a deep and pinching chill that pricked the hairs on the back of her neck.
:Ah, this place,: said Death into Ona’s mind. :I recall ferrying a rather large crowd of souls from here the last time you visited. Shall I do so again tonight?:
:What do you mean?: said Ona crossly. :I’m not going to kill these people!:
:Three you slew in the jungle already.:
:In defense of Takari!:
:Yes. But the people here are no different from the ones you slew out there. They are desperate, greedy, willing to risk their lives. Takari’s pelt would sell for a high amount of coin in the nearest city market. To them, she’s a walking coin purse, one that could feed their children, restore their village from its sorry state. Do you really think they won’t try to harm her in the night?:
:With me at her side? That would be foolhardy,: returned Ona confidently.
:Take care, Onicavora. No one is invincible. Not even you,: said Death gently.
Ona snorted. :Really? I regenerate almost instantly from physical injury – assuming, of course, that I can be injured in the first place.:
:The Sword of Avara will not pierce your flesh alone. It will pierce your soul, destroying it. You know this.:
Ona was silent. Yes. She knew that.
:I would not be sorry to see you massacre this village, truth be told,: said Death, startling Ona. :The people of Lorvalla brought this misery upon themselves. Or rather, some of them did.:
:How?:
:Hmm. You really don’t know? You’ve been away from this part of the country a long time, haven’t you?:
:Just tell me.:
:Their anglers kept taking from the same schools the mer pursue. These were rare, expensively priced fish at market. Their greed led the mer to anger. This was a direct violation of the treaty. The people of the sea rose to the shore and were ready to fight for their territory. They insisted the lorna were no better than humans.:
:Then what happened?: asked Ona.
:The queen sent an army through the village and had the anglers arrested. Those who resisted arrest were struck down.:
Ona’s lips parted in indignant shock. :The queen did what?: She halted completely in her tracks and stared angrily into space. She thought about making a journey to Torasveena in Purvara, perhaps to challenge the queen’s brutal methods.
:This was long ago, eldor’hon,: said Death, sounding very amused as she emerged from Ona’s thoughts. :Put the thought from your mind. This queen was an old woman when she made the order. She is dead now. Her granddaughter rules.:
:Oh,: said Ona sheepishly.
:Besides, is it really your place to play nursemaid to the royalty of Allaca?: Death gently chided.
Yes, thought Ona but didn’t send the thought directly to Death, even though the Bridge entity had likely heard it.
:What happened after the queen sent the army?: Ona asked unhappily.
:The mer were appeased,: answered Death. :Ever since, the queen has charged Lorvalla with triple the amount of taxes, leaving the town’s people in bitterness and poverty.:
:After two centuries?:
:After one century. The current queen probably isn’t even aware of the decree. There are hundreds of villages in Purvara, you realize.:
:Then perhaps I shall journey to the palace and tell her.:
:If you wish it,: answered Death. :But the exercise would prove futile, if you ask me.:
:I didn’t ask.:
Death laughed softly.
Ona shook her head, glancing around the sorry village. :All of this because a few anglers became greedy? Punishing the people for their greed just bred more greed.:
:It did,: Death agreed. :Carry on with your doings, then, child of Ozmora. I shall be nearby . . . just in case.:
The chill fog lifted, and Ona knew Death had retreated once more. She scowled as she reflected on the woman’s parting words, and it took her a moment to realize Takari was standing beside her, looking at her in open-mouthed wonder.
“What wrong with Oooona?” demanded the eemore, scratching her ear with a heavy claw. “Takari wave in her face and shout for five minutes, and she no answer.”
Ona glanced awkwardly at the eemore. “Er, sorry.” She turned toward the inn again. “Let’s go rent a . . .” The words died on Ona’s lips as a group of lorna women approached up the street, marching directly toward them. They were tall and wide-shouldered women, wild manes, cat-eyes, grim-faced and greedy-eyed, clutching bows and swords and battlestaffs. There were four of them.
As the women approached, Ona could see others gathering in the street to watch. Their faces were expectant and just as grim.
“What now?” wondered Takari. She glanced sideways at Ona. “You kill them all and we walk out?”
“I’ve had enough killing,” Ona said unhappily. Just then, the four lorna women stopped before them, and she fell silent.
“Give us the beast woman,” said the woman in the lead, a warrior carrying a battlestaff, “and we’ll let you leave, no trouble.”
Ona paused in amazement. “You’ll let me leave? Do you know what I am?”
“We do,” said one of the other women darkly. She clutched a bow and her face was tight with misery and frustration. “But we’re tired of starving out here! We hunt every day and everything we sell goes for less than half!”
“We aren’t allowed to hunt but a tiny fraction of venison and pork,” added another woman bitterly, “because the queen don’t wanna anger the precious humans. The whole realm has sold itself to the other races for the sake of this fake peace!”
“Peace, my ass,” said yet another of the four women. “The humans still attack us! We can’t afford clothes! We can’t keep our homes in repair −!”
“Then learn to sew,” said Takari dismissively. “Learn to build.”
The women looked at the eemore in surprise. “It can talk!” said one of them. “I always heard the blue creatures couldn’t make words!”
Takari growled around her tusks, and the woman who had spoken cowered back a little. But catching the disapproving looks of her companions, she regained her composure, and resolve returned to her lion-like face once more.
“Look,” said the lorna with the battlestaff, “we know you don’t want to hurt us, and we don’t to be hurt. So just give us the beast woman. What’s it worth to you anyway?”
“She is my friend,” said Ona through her teeth, “and you’re not taking her!”
Takari’s ears went forward in pleasant surprise, and she gave Ona an affectionate look that the elven didn’t see as she stared down the women.
“All right,” sighed the leader and drew herself into fight stance with the battlestaff. She pointed it at Takari, “FIRE! Fire before the Old One can protect it!”
To Ona’s horror, every villager standing in the street pulled out a weapon – from under wagons, from mailboxes, from behind their backs, from barrels – and hurled it at Takari. Takari’s mouth fell open. She looked at Ona, and they both knew there was no time for the elven to throw up a light-shield. Death was right: Ona would have to slay the entire village. Ona was a split second from throwing herself in front of Takari when she realized: there was no time.
The second the thought passed through Ona’s mind, the entire town froze. Pitchforks, knives, arrows, rocks – all halted midair, their deadly points aiming directly for Takari’s startled face.
The people of Lorvalla were frozen in place, scowls fixed on their lion-faces, arms reaching forward mid-hurl. Ona was sad to see children frozen in the act of leaping up and down in excitement. The children had been excited to see Takari killed.
Hungry and tired after a long day of confusion and strangeness, Ona asked herself why she hadn’t just spent the day sleeping. She was nocturnal, and yet she hadn’t slept in seventeen hours. Holding back a yawn, she turned to Takari and said apologetically, “Let’s go.”
“About time,” answered the eemore, glaring with narrow orange eyes at the violent villagers that surrounded them.
Together, Ona and Takari calmly turned and walked out, ducking under hovering axes and knives that had been stopped midair, shifting around sprays of thrown rocks that had halted like tiny planets spinning in place. The spell would last for twenty minutes tops, and by the time it had faded, Ona and Takari would have been long gone. Knowing this, when they had reached the village gate, Ona gestured her floating basket of cuzron beans to stay.
It was the least she could do.
***
OUT IN THE JUNGLE, Ona and Takari walked in silence. Takari seemed bitter and morose, slapping aside the bushes and stamping along. The hatred and dismissal of her people by the other races was no longer a story her elders told her around the fire. She had finally witnessed firsthand just how much value was placed on killing her and skinning her – not to mention how ignorant and callous the other races could be toward her people. No doubt she was having second thoughts about wandering far from home.
Ona was still trying to digest everything Death had told her and what had just happened. Had they really been attacked by an entire lorna village? The lorna people were usually so gentle and kind, going out of their way to keep peace with the other races. Greed and misery had corrupted the entire village of Lorvalla, so that even the children were ready to see an innocent person die, so long as it meant more food, toys, and clothing for them.
Ona felt as angry and naïve as Takari, who seemed on a mission to flatten and trample everything in her path. Her hairy blue foot nearly crushed a fat jungle slug, which Ona ferried out of the way with a breeze of gentle telekinetic force. She felt the slug’s burst of gratitude as it landed lightly on a tree and oozed up its uneven bark.
“Takari,” Ona said eventually. She spoke softly, sympathetically.
“What?” Takari snapped grumpily.
“I’m sorry,” Ona said. “I’m sorry for what happened back there.”
A pause as Takari continued to stomp along. Slowly, she walked softer, stopped slapping aside branches and nudged them instead. She blinked and swallowed, taming her anger as she said, “Takari always wanted to see world. Not so sure anymore.”
“There are good places out there, I promise,” Ona assured her. “And good people. People who won’t try to harm you.”
Takari grunted, unconvinced.
“Lorvalla is . . . an unfortunate place,” said Ona, searching for the right words. She wanted to call the place a “shithole,” but she didn’t like to swear. “It’s always been that way, I suppose. The last time I was there, the villagers had the plague. I thought they were all pushy and rude because they were sick. Silly me.”
Takari’s ear flicked, as if she had sensed that Ona was stumbling over a swear. Ona was glad to see her cheek bulge in a smile. It was a smile the eemore tried to hide, keeping her face turned away, but Ona could read the amusement pulsing in her aura.
“What are good places?” Takari asked, looking straight ahead.
“Hmm,” said Ona, walking evenly at the towering eemore’s side. “There are some nice places under the sea.”
Takari’s eyes widened in amazement. “Ooona been under great water?”
“Yes. The mer have entire realms down there. Palaces and towers.”
“Why Ooona go down there?”
“I was asked to come.”
“What for?”
“Well, it’s a long story . . . No, it’s a short story. But too long for tonight. I’ll tell you some other night, when I’ve had some sleep.” So saying, Ona yawned and regretted once more that she’d spent the day picking cuzron beans instead of sleeping. What had possessed her to do such a thing? It must have been Emora, the pull of Emora’s heart, tied as it was to hers.
Ona sadly pushed thoughts of Emora away. “There are also some beautiful rainforests in the wildlands,” she said, distracting herself. “The unicorns live there −”
“Unicorns?”
“And some dragons sleep there, mostly underground,” went on Ona.
“Dragons!” gasped Takari.
“The dragons are usually sleeping, though. It’s the fairies you have to watch out for. The ones from wild country are dangerous.”
“Really? How?”
“A bite from one will kill you instantly,” Ona said, thinking glumly of Haliver.
“And that why the wildland forbidden!” Takari said with a nod.
That was true. Most races forbade their people from entering the wildlands. The humans feared that the few remaining elven would cast a curse upon any human who wandered into the ravages of their home. The other races were simply afraid of the dragons and the living trees, the carnivorous flowers, the goblins, the fairies, the sand traps, and the teaming amount of wild, unharnessed magick. For those who did not know how and where to trod, the wildlands were a deathtrap.
But Ona didn’t see it that way. After all, she had been born there, among those ruins and talking trees and snoring dragons and snarling orcs. Born in the midst of magick to a mother she couldn’t remember. Her other parent, she had never known. But she had a sister there, and a child – Assuming, of course, that her ever-wandering Vorana would one day return to the ancient lands of Ozmora. The likelihood was narrow at best.
“I sort of miss it,” Ona admitted.
Takari snorted. “Because Ooona crazy.”
Ona smiled. “Come now. There are many who fear the dangers of the jungle, but none would call you crazy for missing it. It’s your home.”
Takari wiggled her nose thoughtfully. “That true,” she admitted.
They walked on. After some time, Croon-Val was close enough that they could smell the meat cooking on the village fire. Takari surprised Ona by claiming she was too tired to keep walking, and Ona – sensing this was a ruse – pretended to believe her. Perhaps the young eemore was afraid to face her people after missing the Moonrise Festival.
They made camp there in the forest, among the chirruping insects and chattering monkeys. Takari dug a fire pit, and Ona conjured a white blaze in the dirt bowl. They sat around the fire, its pale flames dancing in their eyes. Takari stuck a banana on a stick and roasted it, turning the tips of the flames scarlet.
“What elven eat?” Takari asked with sudden curiosity, as if it had never occurred to her to wonder before then.
Ona shrugged. “Vegetables? Fish?” she answered absently, though she knew the eemore was asking for specific dishes. She couldn’t really think to respond and quickly fell silent again, staring unhappily at the fire. She was scolding herself that it was a mistake, allowing Emora to walk free that day. What devastation would the woman have brought upon Allaca with the Sword of Avara in her grasp? What horrors had they so narrowly avoided?
Ona knew Takari might ask to travel with her, and when that moment came, she had already determined that she would say no. Her last companion, Haliver, had met an unfortunate end. And the companion before that . . . She was tired of watching friends die.
Takari took a bite of her roasted banana, eying Ona in concern. “What the matter?”
“I miss someone,” Ona admitted heavily. She glanced sideways at Takari. “Do you have family over in Croon-Val? A sibling? A friend?”
Takari turned the banana over the flames, and her oranges eyes were sad. “Takari had sibling. Died very young. Can’t remember mother – not clan leader but real mother. She die when hunters come through jungle.”
“Oh. I’m sorry,” said Ona, frowning.
That sentient beings were hunted for their pelts was abhorrent, but despite all her power, there was nothing Ona could do about it. She couldn’t even protect the Sword of Avara, let alone Takari and her people. She asked herself if it wasn’t a mistake, bringing the sword to Croon-Val. Eventually, Emora would learn it was there. And Emora did not respect the Old Ways. She would slaughter an entire village of eemore for the sword.
“No friends?” prompted Ona sympathetically.
Takari smiled around her tusks, her eyes on the fire. “One friend,” she said.
Ona smiled as well. She had a friend, for however long, a minute, a day − perhaps it didn’t matter. For the first time in almost two hundred years, she had someone to talk to besides Death.
Ona and Takari were sitting in content silence, listening to the jungle chirrup and growl, when the nearby bushes rustled, and three tall eemore women stepped into the firelight.
Ona stiffened.
The women must have been nine feet tall. They were clutching long spears that dangled with feathers, and their orange eyes were cold and hard. More feathers and gold rings were in their ears, braided in their wild blue hair. They wore bracelets made of hemp and beads; they even had war paint across their fur. Beside them, Takari seemed naked and small, a mere child, with no piercings and nary a feather in her hair.
Ona also noticed that the three women had long tails, while Takari only had a stub. Their tails curled behind them to avoid dragging on the forest floor. They were smooth tails with fluffy tufts on the end. Ona noticed Takari was looking at the women’s tails as well, and as she did, her stub twitched behind her. Perhaps she would have a tail when she was grown.
The three women just stood there, coldly appraising Ona and Takari. Ona chided herself for not having smelled them or heard them or at least felt their emotions as they approached. At the moment, their auras felt as cold and distant as they seemed, as if they had discarded Takari already.
Takari seemed to know them. She dropped her banana-loaded stick to the dirt and bowed her head, her ears down in shame. The three women looked upon this with approval but said nothing.
Takari didn’t lift her head as she said in a low voice to the lead warrior, “C’valla, la roo. Ennara, la roo −”
“Silence!” growled the lead warrior, and Takari miserably fell silent again. “Children not speak without permission,” the warrior added sternly.
Takari kept her head down.
Ona didn’t speak any of the eemore’s various dialects, but she’d learned a few words over the centuries. She could pick enough from Takari’s sentence to know that she had begged for forgiveness and that the lead eemore’s name was Ennara.
“Why have you come?” Ona addressed Ennara. She spoke evenly and calmly. “Are you here for Takari? I’ve led her back to you.”
“Seeking reward?” Ennara sneered.
Ona frowned. “Of course not.”
“We come bearing message,” said Ennara. She was shorter than the other two, but a short eemore was six feet tall. She looked down her fuzzy nose at Ona, who was still seated by the fire. “Leave our jungle and take Avara Sword with you.”
Ona frowned. “What? Why? It belongs to your people!”
Ennara’s lips tightened momentarily around her tusks. After traveling with Takari, Ona had come to understand that look as one of impatience.
“We know dangerous people after you,” explained Ennara. “They will come to Croon-Val for sword. You must take it away. You must never return.” She looked at Takari. “Both of you.”
Takari sniffed and kept her head down.
“What?” said Ona in disbelief. “You’re exiling her? What for?!”
“She brought the sword here −!” began Ennara angrily.
Ona shot to her feet. “That wasn’t her fault!”
There was a frosty silence as Ona and Ennara stared each other down. Takari lifted her head to watch, her ears forward and her mouth open in bafflement: Ona, an outsider, was standing up for her.
“I don’t understand you people,” Ona said in amazement. “You cast her away for something that isn’t her fault at all! She’s just a child! It’s cruel!”
Ennara heaved an impatient breath. “Do not question our ways, Old One! Your people once ruled a mighty nation, but our people once ruled Allaca!” Her orange eyes were bright with indignation.
“I meant no disrespect, eldor’ekara,” Ona answered apologetically, “but how can you abandon her to the jungle?”
“If the Old One so concerned for Takari,” answered Ennara coldly, “then the Old One keep Takari!”
Takari’s ears slowly went forward and her eyes darted with hesitation between the adults.
“Keep her?” Ona repeated uncertainly and glanced at Takari, who looked at her sheepishly.
“She is a child still,” said Ennara. “Unmated. Unwise. She cannot survive on her own. Barely cut her tail. Should not have wandered so far from village.” She glared reprovingly at Takari, and so did the others with her.
Takari’s ears flattened and she bowed her head again.
“Take her,” said Ennara, “take the sword and never return. My people will watch to be certain you leave. Be gone before sunrise, or we kill Takari.” With that, Ennara sharply turned and marched away into the dark rainforest, her stern companions following.
***
PRESENT-DAY ONA LET the memory fade as she and Takari stood in the golden fields of Pylia’s bright countryside. In the distance, she could see the blue, blue waves of the Siporra Sea swaying gently as they sparkled in the sunlight. How many times had she walked across that water alone, having returned from some tiresome mission or adventure? Now she was with Takari, she would take a boat, constructing it with magick from the materials nearby.
Thinking of the journey ahead, Ona waved her small hand, and golden grass, twigs, and leaves lifted of their own accord, floated to the edge of the water, and there, began to come together in the shape of a small boat. The materials sparkled with magick as they puzzled themselves one to the other, and they moved quickly, for Ona feared a mortal would stumble upon them and trouble would be had.
Takari stood at Ona’s side, calmly and indifferently watching a spell she had seen Ona cast a thousand times in all their years together: a boat weaving itself into existence from whatever happened to be lying around. Now her orange eyes were unimpressed, but when she was a fresh youth, newly severed from her clan, she had watched Ona’s magick create a boat from the white wood of zel trees, from the pink petals of flowers, and had watched with her mouth open, tusks drooling, stubby tail wagging. Now her tail was long. She had no more of the child’s wonder in her. She scratched her armpit, burped, and asked if “Ooona” was hungry.
“A little, yes,” Ona said, thinking she would become an owl later that night and perhaps hunt some mice. The mice in the Callimor Isles always tasted like sweet dried cranberries, coconuts, and raisins.
“But I eat when the moons rise, you know that,” Ona added. “What about you? Want to stay here and fish a little?”
When Takari didn’t answer, Ona glanced at the eemore. Her orange eyes were fixed on the distant blue sea. The vast realm of the lorna was just across the water, and Ona knew Takari was thinking of the night they had left the sword at the queen’s palace in Purvara.
Ona remembered that night well. How could she forget changing her fingertips to imitate those of a gecko? The climb up the palace wall with the starblade on her back? The curvy silhouette of Queen Francesca as she rose from her canopied bed was forever blazed upon her mind’s eye. A hunger stirred between her thighs as she thought of it.
Queen Francesca had been wearing a thin veil of a housecoat that did nothing to hide the curve of her hips and the swell of her great breasts. With a mountain of fire-red hair tumbling in a wild mane around her, she had hesitated before lighting a candle and walking slowly to the balcony where Ona stood waiting with the sword. Her housecoat was so long, it trailed the ground, like smooth water flowing around her, hiding her tiny feet from view and yet, still revealing the shapely silhouette of her legs through its transparent material.
The queen hesitated again as she drew nearer. Ona knew the woman wanted to call her guards, but curiosity had gotten the better of her, and instead, she bravely approached the small but ominous black figure that awaited her, lifting the candle high in one hand and holding her housecoat shut with the other.
Queen Francesca stepped into the moonlight, and Ona paused as the pale light fell over her: ah, but the woman was lovely. A pretty lion-face wreathed in wild red hair, slanted eyes, full lips.
The queen looked down at Ona with narrowed eyes. “Who are you, stranger?” she asked, command in her voice.
Ona was amused. No ordinary being could have slipped past her guards to scale her wall. The woman had to know Ona was magick, that she could snap her in half with a thought, and yet, she insisted on dignity and poise. She would not be cowed.
“I am Ona,” Ona calmly answered. “Ona of Ozmora.”
“Ah,” said the queen, lifting her brows, as if something had been confirmed. “So you are one of the Old Ones. What brings you here, ancient friend? Speak.”
“My queen,” Ona answered softly, “I have a favor to ask of you.” So saying, she pulled the starblade from the sheath on her back and slowly knelt, laying the glowing blade at the startled woman’s feet.
When Ona stood again, she realized her furry bandeau had slid down a little as she was leaning, for the queen was looking at her steadily, with hungry slanted eyes. She let her housecoat fall open, revealing her naked brown body as she whispered huskily, “I have a favor to ask of you.”
“Ooona. Boat finished,” Takari said, snapping Ona sharply back to the present.
Ona looked to the shore, and sure enough, her boat had finished constructing itself. It floated gently in the shallows, an odd contraption made of branches and golden sheaves of grass.
Ona and Takari walked downhill to the boat, padded across the pale sand, and climbed in. Ona then waved her hand, and the boat gently pushed off into the water of its own accord, carrying them back across the Siporra Sea. They would have to pass through the Callimor Isles, and a few human sailors might try to stop them for Takari’s pelt. If it came to that, Ona would place a shield of light around them that would protect them from projectiles, and they would serenely sail on . . . as they always had before.
“Where we going?” Takari asked through a yawn, tusks gleaming with spit in the sunlight. She gazed sleepily off at the distant horizon, where blue water met blue sky.
Clouds were gathering. Perhaps it would rain soon.
“Back to Purvara?” Takari prompted.
“No,” Ona said hoarsely.
Ona hadn’t been back to the palace in Purvara in ten years. She was afraid to go back. Ten years was a long time to a mortal, and the last time she was there, Queen Francesca’s youngest daughter had turned ten. Ona had attended the birthday party, had laughed as the giggling princess clung to her back, piggybacking as she squealed for bubbles. Perhaps the queen would have taken another mate. The realm would have demanded it. Traditionally, a lorna queen had seven daughters, not three, but even more than seven were preferred. The new children would be strangers . . . perhaps the older children as well. Time. Too much time had gone by. There never seemed to be enough of it for mortals. They were like flowers, coming and going endlessly, so beautiful and so frail, sometimes thriving on their own, sometimes crushed by her neglect.
“Then where?” said Takari, scratching herself.
“I don’t know,” Ona admitted. And suddenly, she didn’t care. Let them drift across the sea for one hundred years.
Takari shrugged, leaned back against the side of the boat, and went to sleep. Her soft snorts and moans rose gently with the sound of the lapping waves, the distant cry of gulls. She was enormous in the little boat, to the point that her legs were dangling comically over the side.
Ona looked around at the still blue waters, at the white clouds that frothed across the sky, buttery gold on their heads with the touch of sunlight. She could see white forests on the human islands in the distance, the rainbow speckle of flowers. The world was beautiful, calm, cheerfully blue and vibrantly green . . . and yet, Ona felt nothing but discontent. What was the point in walking such a beautiful world if she must always walk it alone? She looked at the placid sea that stretched away from her and thought it seemed endless. Like her.
:Is that what you desire, Onicavora?: said Death’s calm voice. :An end?:
Ona felt a chill on the breezy air and knew the entity was nearby, just on the other side of the veil. :No,: she answered. :I don’t want an end. I want others to live as long as I.: Her eyes fell on Takari, whose big body was stretched across the boat from one side to the other as she slept contently.
Most eemore could live for hundreds of years. Takari might last a long time as Ona’s companion, if only she could avoid human poachers. The beast woman was reckless, often wandering into traps and eating sharp objects. Ona sometimes wondered if Takari cared at all about her life.
:How long will Takari live?: Ona asked the unseen entity.
:You know it is not my place to tell,: answered Death.
Ona scowled. :Tell me!:
:I will not,: Death answered sternly. :For it is not my place to tell, and it is not your place to know.: Her voice softened as she said, :Takari’s life will unravel as it is destined to. The same as yours.:
:Destiny,: Ona sneered.
:Don’t you believe in fate?:
:I believe that I choose my own fate.:
:True enough. If I came for your soul tomorrow, would you be content to take my hand?:
Ona thought of the long stretch of endless years she had lived. She had befriended wild dragons, run with unicorns, lain with mermaids, lived beneath the sea, walked among the clouds, spoken with trees, and slept inside giant flowers. And yet, there was so much more to see and to do. There was always more. No, she wouldn’t be content. Death could wait. Death could wait forever.
:Then live well,: said Death, emerging from Ona’s thoughts. :And live right now. Forget the future. Forget the past. They don’t exist.:
:The past exists in memory and in thought.:
:The only place it exists,: said Death pointedly. Then the chill in the air withdrew and the breeze was warm again: she was gone.
Ona snuggled against Takari’s soft shoulder, smiled when the eemore absently dropped a big arm around her, and fell asleep. She needed her rest.
Tomorrow would begin a new adventure.
