I was dreaming again... The Duke sat in his armchair by the fire, head resting against the wing of the chair, clearly asleep. Or dozing, at any rate. A heavy old book lay on his knee. I peered unconsciously with my borrowed eyes and determined that it was an Arthurian romance from the library.
Raven felt...frayed, and my father looked terrible. The skin was drawn over the bones of his face, cheeks and eyes growing sunken, fingers skeletal. He looked desperately ill, and when the butler appeared beside the chair and woke him with a respectful, “My lord?” he raised his head wearily, as if even that were a great effort.
“Yes?” he inquired, stroking under Raven’s chin with one gentle finger. I ached to be able to give him better comfort than the company of even that faithful little companion.
“It is late, my lord,” pointed out the butler matter-of-factly. “I thought you might wish to retire.”
The Duke glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece, yawning. “Indeed,” he said simply, and allowed the Butler to lever him from the chair, keeping a more than supportive hand under his arm as they made their way slowly from the room. Raven leapt from the chairback and ran after them, cutting off the dream with an abruptness that spoke almost of irritation.
~+~
I let Hellion amble across the steep hillside at his own pace, lost in thought and wrapped in a lingering sense of urgency after that dream. Another day had been sufficient to convince me that Alliron was a waste of time. Even were he not much older than Ystevan, and correspondingly more rigid in his ideas, I just could not corner him often enough, let alone get far enough into a conversation with him, to hold out any serious hope of changing his mind at any time in the next decade. Which was rather longer than I had available to me.
I simply had to get home! I had to get back in time to at least...say goodbye...
No, I wasn’t thinking like that! I pulled Hellion up with a gentle twitch of the reins as we approached a cliff edge with a stunning vista back towards the mountain of Torr Elkyn. My shoulders squared, though I couldn’t help sighing, but Raven's impatience could not be ignored. I had no time left. I would simply have to turn my attentions to my kind host.
Not, of course, that he was strictly my host, for I had learned that among the Elfin she-elves owned chambers, and a he-elf would only ever hold a set of chambers in trust until he should marry, at which point ownership of the chambers would revert to his she-elfen. It was a system that I found it quite hard to get my head around, but which I regarded as being far from unpleasant. Ystevan didn’t seem to mind that his mother owned their chambers. He clearly viewed the idea of a man inheriting property by default with just as much surprise as I viewed their system.
But that was beside the point. I turned Hellion and let him amble on his way back towards the fort. The point was, that I was not so blind as to think that Ystevan, whose view on sorcery could hardly be called flexible, could be persuaded to help my father without long debate, that was, argument, and in short, many ructions to our domestic peace. If only I could have persuaded Alliron!
I allowed Hellion to break into a canter across a flat area of slope. I would have to go on somewhat carefully with Ystevan. If I upset things too much, it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that he would send me to live with some other family, and then he would become almost as inaccessible as Alliron. I must avoid that at all cost.
Anyway, I didn’t want to go and stay somewhere else.
~+~
Even at that hour in the morning there were already several gentlemen in the chocolate house and a couple of ladies, their maids standing behind their chairs inhaling as deeply and surreptitiously as possible.
“I want to be your maid forever and ever, Lady Serapia,” sighed Susie, sipping her chocolate with an expression of bliss on her face.
“You are an excellent maid,” I said absently, sipping my own chocolate with rather less appreciation than usual, eyes on the door. “I do not see why you should not have a cup of chocolate.”
Susie clearly considered it impolitic to reply, “Well, the price!” and went on sipping away happily.
My mind strayed back to my stay at the fort, and my previous attempt—attempts?—to persuade the recalcitrant guardian...
I returned Hellion to his stall after his much-needed exercise and headed back up the entrance tunnel to the open air, directing my steps along the mountainside to where I thought I’d spotted a certain he-elf.
Sure enough, there was Ystevan, standing, running his hands, finger-spread, over something invisible. His eyes were half-closed, and occasionally his fingers twitched as if smoothing or manipulating something. His faithful little—or not so little—dragonet was curled around his shoulders, but as I approached Eraldis gave his customary affectionate head rub to Ystevan, and flew off with his—equally customary—disapproving snort in my direction.
I hovered uncertainly, afraid of disturbing Ystevan, and indeed, after a moment, he said, without opening his eyes fully, “Perhaps you could stand outside the ward...”
I assumed that outside was on the other side of him from the mountain, and complied, but he had not sounded annoyed. I watched him for a while, but there was not a lot to see, and I wasn’t sorry when he took his hands away, raised his head and turned to look at me.
“That will hold for another night,” he remarked, clearly satisfied with his work.
“Did I distract you?” I asked, and then, as I absorbed his words, “Only one night?”
He smiled. “Having you so close inside the ward...well, I was picking up a human presence so strongly that it was rather hard to feel anything else. But outside was fine. And the ward...this bit probably won’t need touching again for days, but that’s just because the demon will almost certainly have a go at a different bit next time.”
More questions about wards blossomed in my mind, but I resisted the temptation to ask. I must not get distracted. I had time only to discuss my father, nothing else. Racking my brains as to how I should bring up the matter, I followed, keeping outside the wards, as Ystevan walked on around the mountain, trailing one hand along the invisible ward beside him.
But when I finally drew in a breath to speak, he turned his head to me with a very sharp look, and spoke instead. “I will not heal a sorcerer, little one, so do not think me an easier target than Alliron.”
“We are having a conversation,” I said sourly. “That automatically makes you an easier target than Alliron.”
The he-elf barked a short laugh, half his attention clearly still on the ward under his left hand.
“If you’re saying no, you could at least enlarge your reason for doing so.”
“So you can start thinking up counter arguments, you mean?” queried the guardian, arching a brow at me. “Still, I suppose I should explain myself. I might convince you.” He did not sound very hopeful, though.
He took his hand away from the ward and stopped walking. Apparently, we had come to the end of his section. He turned to face me, and for all he was still refusing me, it was so nice to have someone taking me seriously about all this...
“Ooh, that’s a tall, lean fellow.” Susie’s remark jerked me from the memory and I looked up in time to see Ystevan entering the room.
I watched as patiently as I could whilst the he-elf got himself a cup of chocolate and had a quick word with the proprietor. Coins changed hands. Finally, he approached. “We may have the garden for our private use,” he told me and nodded towards the back door.
Susie giggled and shot me an apologetic look, no doubt for her previous comment.
“Come along, Susie,” I said briskly.
Susie sprang up and gave her cup an anguished look.
“Bring your chocolate,” I urged her, so she seized it and followed us.
The garden was fairly small, overhung all around with creeper. There were seats here and there, so I indicated the one by the door. “If you wait there, Susie, that will be best.”
Walking with Ystevan to the farthest end of the garden, I looked around for a seat. But he drew me towards a wooden gate in the wall, largely overhung by the foliage, and pulled it open. “There is a park behind here. Far more private than this place with so many walls, behind which one knows not who listens.”
I shot a look back down the garden, found that we were well hidden from Susie and followed him through.
“Have you reconsidered about healing my father?” I demanded urgently, as soon as we had settled ourselves on a grassy knoll under some tall shady trees—the sun was shining ever so brightly today—and well away from any eavesdropping walls. If the physician was right, I was almost out of time entirely.
Ystevan gave me a rather frustrated look. “There is nothing to reconsider. Sorcerer, remember?”
“Father, remember?” I said. “And he’s not a sorcerer. He just did one bad, foolish thing many, many years ago. If he were really a sorcerer, he could have saved his own life by now. He has what he needs. But he will not do it. Nothing will make him touch sorcery again, do you understand? Nothing.”
“No,” said Ystevan quietly. “The answer is no.” He placed his cup beside my empty one, staring off across the park. There was no one else in sight at all, right now. Raven was sitting happily on my shoulder, hidden from any distant gaze by my hair.
“Won’t you explain? Please?”
“I’ve explained, Serapia,” he said tiredly. “I explained until I was hoarse.”
“Are you looking for sympathy? Because I’m afraid you’ll just have to explain again, since for some reason, I can’t remember your poor throat’s torment!”
Ystevan sighed heavily. Looked at me intently and—recited? From memory? “The threat posed to the Elfin by sorcery is actually very similar to that posed by dark elfin...”
It was enough...
“The actions of the former put us in danger unintentionally,” Ystevan told me, his hand straying, absent-mindedly, back to the invisible ward beside him, “not that a sorcerer would care, while the second endanger us deliberately, but apart from that the scenario is similar. Supernatural events occur among the humans, and someone is usually seized, although often not the sorcerer and usually not the dark elfin responsible. Sometimes it is just a scapegoat. This sends tales and rumors all over the country, sparking countless other alarms and/or scapegoat-seizures, which in turn fuel more rumors.
“In some places, if the panic and suspicion whipped up is sufficient, then the humans will attack anything supernatural, whether it has any connection to sorcery or the devil whatsoever. Such mobs are mindless and vicious, sometimes so much so that they will forget all the good the Elfin have done in a certain area in the face of the sole fact of our ‘supernaturalness’. It doesn’t happen very often,” he conceded, “but when it does it is usually very nasty. Especially for sheiling-forts. Torr-forts are much safer due to size and isolation.”
I opened my mouth to protest that all this was irrelevant since my father was not a practicing sorcerer, but Ystevan cut me off. “I know what you will say, you will say that your father is a good man, and so forth, and will never do sorcery again. That is not good enough. He has had recourse to sorcery.
“Think, little one. If I should heal your father, how would I feel if he went away, and prompted, perhaps, by some Foreseeing of danger to you, he reverted to sorcery again, caused panic to sweep the country, and a sheiling-fort, say Torr Shyvalere; my sister’s home, to be destroyed, all its elfin slaughtered.
“No, I will not heal your father, and that is why. Or rather, that is merely the primary practical reason why I will not. It is morally out of the question, of course.” His tone was icy...
I looked back up into Ystevan’s watchful face and tried not to bite my lip.
“You remember?”
I nodded and thought it best to drop the subject for a while. Give myself time to think how to respond. What had I said? Then? Clearly it hadn’t worked. Not an encouraging thought.
“So...so why do demons chew on the wards?” I asked. “You did say they chew on the wards, didn’t you? Are they that desperate to kill elfin?”
Ystevan shrugged. “I think when they chew on the wards they are thinking not so much of wholesale slaughter but of getting to our elflings. You probably remember that I told you that they would kill any adult elfin, but elflings are a different matter. Their chances of taking an adult are extremely low, but elflings are far, far more vulnerable. You can be sure we guard them very closely indeed. Young elflings must not go beyond the wards without an adult, even in daytime. Older elflings must always be in a group until they come of age.”
I frowned to myself. “You are very careful then,” I could not help remarking, “since you say demons cannot even come out in the daylight.”
“Indeed they cannot, but they can be hiding in shade,” replied the guardian, “and accidents can happen that can prevent any elfin or elfling from getting within the wards before nightfall. And can you imagine, Serapia, what it is like to lose one of one’s young ones like that?”
Uneasily, I queried, “Lose...?”
Ystevan looked grim. “If they are lost to a demon. Think, Serapia. One dark elfin in among the humans, engaged in acts of spite, malice or sheer evil, and what are the repercussions for us? Humans are so dangerous—and so many—and our safety lies in their goodwill. A lost child can rarely be recovered, and they are far too dangerous to be left alive.”
I swallowed, understanding. A decision like that must touch everyone in the fort if the population, by human standards, was so small. There could be no impartial executioner among the Elfin.
“That’s why you’re here,” I said softly.
Ystevan looked away for a moment, then back at me, his eyes dark. “Yes. It is a guardian’s duty. We are the ones who are responsible for seeing that they are not lost in the first place. It’s a matter of fort security, after all.”
Now that must be a good incentive for the guardians to perform their duties fastidiously... Oh. No wonder he was so willing to steal my memories.
I pushed that thought away for now, and started racking my brains as to how I could bring up the matter of my father again, trying to keep my mind on that rather than Siridean, to whom it kept turning.
But when I finally drew in a breath, he turned his head to me with a very sharp look and spoke instead. “I think I have made it plain, Serapia, that it is a similar reason why I will not heal a sorcerer.”
“But…” I began.
He cut me off. “I have a much-loved nephew. Well, what you humans would call a fourth cousin, but we elfin are very close to our extended family and we have a lot of it. I dandled little Arathain on my knees when I was an elfling, played with him as he grew. I was there the first time he rode a deer. I helped teach him as he grew strong in his elfin abilities. He was sweet-natured and brave; we all thought he would grow up to be a guardian.
“Then one day he went out with his decade group, and he got separated from them. Failed to make it back within the wards before nightfall. We have searched for him for many years and found nothing. But now we know that my little nephew is here in London. And so I have come to find him. And when I find him, I will kill him. Do you understand?”
His face was hard as granite, but his nostrils were pinched with pain. “My people’s security is my duty and nothing can come before that. Do you really think there are any circumstances in which I would agree to heal your father?”
I stared at him in silence, temporarily rendered speechless. Well before I could form any reply, he suddenly craned his neck in that odd way that was not exactly sniffing. Or perhaps it was, but sniffing with his crest.
A split second later he dived forward as though to escape something rushing at him from behind—Raven shrieked and recoiled so violently she fell from my shoulder—as Ystevan went, he twisted onto his back, both his hands shooting out, palms thrusting with considerable force, and a cloud of…of safyrs… rose from his body to hurtle in the direction of whatever he was fleeing… For just a second, they seemed to strike against an unseen shape, momentarily outlining—impeding—something…
As they began to fade, Ystevan rolled up into a crouch, his stick in one hand, the other darting to that long pouch he wore at his belt—and coming out with a…an arrow!
By the time he’d raised the shaft, his other hand held not a stick, but his bow, on which he notched and released the arrow in one smooth movement. It flicked across my vision and…disappeared, about where the safyrs had betrayed the presence of that unseen thing. Raven hung from my hair, wings thrashing as she tried to climb up again and I reached back to help her.
Ystevan was already notching and releasing another arrow, rising seamlessly to his feet even as he did so—I knew he was a skilled hunter, but for the first time, Sir Allen’s comment about Ystevan’s martial prowess came back into my mind. He made my dueling father look as graceless and harmless as a toothless old sow.
Ystevan was moving forward now, eyes bright and fierce, as though driving something before him. He loosed another arrow, and followed his unseen aggressor a little further—tables firmly turned by now, it seemed fairly clear.
Raven safely back on my shoulder—in fact, plastered to my neck, shaking—I trailed after him at a distance as he closed in on one of the thickest trees, getting within about ten feet of it before suddenly whipping out his dagger and darting around to place the trunk between himself and the hollow knoll that lay between two wizened roots.
As he reached around the trunk to drive the dagger into this hole, hard, several times, I edged close enough to get a good look—though keeping something of a distance. The knoll was large enough that I myself could have squeezed in, at a pinch, but I still couldn’t spot anything.
After a few more blows, Ystevan finally stepped back, still with the trunk between himself and the opening, wiped his (clean) dagger in the grass and returned it to his sheath. He glanced around the park—still deserted—then gave the bow a quick shake and suddenly he held his stick again.
Now I understood why he carried the silly thing everywhere!
He brushed a hand over the quiver that hung at his side, and it was once more that strangely long pouch. “Let’s find some sunshine, shall we?” he suggested airily.
But he was frowning as we headed out from under the trees. “A demon should not have ventured out into that level of light,” he muttered to himself. “Unless…” He scowled even harder.
“Unless what?” I asked.
“Uh…no matter.”
“I’m not a fainting violet!”
“Very well, someone must have put the word out to kill me. And put it out pretty wide. Someone powerful, if they’re ordering demons around. That thing would never have come out otherwise, let alone attacked a guardian. Still,” he gave a satisfied nod, and spoke much more lightly, “That’s one demon that will be too busy crawling home tonight to get up to anything else.”
“You didn’t kill it?”
Ystevan gave a slight laugh. His black mood seemed to have eased somewhat. “Could one kill an angel? I’m afraid demons can’t be killed. I always think it’s rather unfair, but that’s how it is. That one, however, will not feel like troubling anyone for some time to come.”
“I couldn’t see anything,” I pointed out.
“Did you really expect to?” Ystevan asked with rather a teasing smile, sitting down on the grass—in full sunshine.
Biting my lip, I sat beside him, suddenly feeling foolish. Of course I couldn’t see anything! I concentrated on stroking Raven, who still seemed so terrified she’d surely seen all there was to see.
“Oh, my poor little friend,” Ystevan said, reaching out to Raven himself. “Never had a demon rush at you before, hmm? Come here, eh?” Quivering, she crept onto his palm, her head and body held low, peeping up at him rather hopefully. His gentle fingertip found all the right places, running up under her chin and rubbing in between her ears. He crooned softly to her as he stroked, and before long she was curled up in his palm, her tiny forepaws wrapped around the base of his thumb, calm and happy.
Thinking about what Ystevan had told me about the creation of the Elfin, it was only then that a most horrible thought struck me. “Could…that demon have hurt Raven?”
Ystevan smiled slightly. “Theoretically, but since the Good Lord designed dragons to guard hell, it’s probably not surprising that on a spiritual level their hide is fairly demon-proof, and dragonets are no different. A demon might harm one if they really put their mind to it, but even a little dragonet like Raven would be such a tough nut to crack, a demon would need to be really motivated. But I think this poor little one is far too young and inexperienced to know that.” He directed a tender gaze at Raven.
“I remember when Eraldis met his first demon!” He shook his head. “You’d have thought he’d been laid in the wrong hearth, you really would! But he’s a proper guardian’s dragonet now. Minor things like demons don’t concern him at all!”
Yes, Eraldis, suspicious Eraldis...where was he? When I peered closely at Ystevan’s willowy form, from top to bottom, he laughed. “Oh, he’s back at Torr Elkyn, safe with my mother. He’s getting too big to hide, now. He’ll be glad when I’m back. So will I, for that matter. I don’t like leaving him, but I don’t have much choice.”
“So, dragonets aren’t…wild?” Had I asked this before?
Apparently not—at any rate Ystevan shrugged and replied. “There are some wild dragonets, but not many. The dragonets have been living with the Elfin for so long most of them have forgotten how to live on their own. They’re terribly cuckooish with their eggs, as well, which has helped their, er, domestication, if I can call it that. Sometimes a newly mated couple will raise a chick, but usually they just choose an elfin’s hearth, lay their egg there, and go away and forget about it. The chick becomes the elfin’s problem, or treasure, as the case may be, hence it’s small wonder if it never occurs to them to go off and live wild in the hills with their big cousins.”
He smiled down at Raven again. “Goodness knows I was desperate for a dragonet of my own when I was little. When Eraldis’s egg was finally laid in our hearth, you should have seen me hovering over it, day and night! I was so worried I’d miss the hatching and the chick would choose Alvidra instead!”
“Didn’t she hover too?”
“Alvidra, hover over a dragonet egg? No, she wasn’t bothered. Thankfully, or things would have been much more fraught.”
“But why did Raven’s mother lay her egg in a human’s hearth?” I asked. “Raven was nearly killed at birth!”
Ystevan sighed. “Well, their maternal and paternal instincts have been very much eroded by generations and generations of fostering their chicks on the Elfin. They are far less concerned about their eggs than dragons are. Anyway, her mother could have been hurt and had to lay the egg in the nearest suitable place, or something like that. For I must say, a human’s hearth seems careless even for a dragonet!”
He glanced at Raven again—she was fast asleep. “Well, this little one’s calm enough, now. She’ll feel better after a nice nap.” He tipped Raven carefully into my waiting hand, and I tucked her down my bodice. She turned drowsily, making herself comfortable in the new space, and went back to sleep.
Ystevan unfastened his cuff and only then did I notice the bloody gashes on his arm. Suddenly dragonets and hearths and eggs were wiped from my mind…
“Don’t look so worried.” He started to run a finger over the wounds in a tracing, stroking motion, and the bleeding ceased.
“That was the demon?” I demanded, my pulse accelerating.
He nodded. “It got me just at the end there. Even if it can’t be killed, you can hardly expect anything to sit still and be stabbed without fighting back. Least of all a demon. But it was worth it to ensure it’s thoroughly incapacitated for a while.”
“That’s it!” I declared. Finally, finally I knew.
“That’s what?”
“It was a demon! A demon cut him to pieces. That’s why I couldn’t see it!”
“Cut who to pieces?” said the guardian, thoroughly baffled.
“Siridean,” I replied distractedly, running through my memories again. Yes, I was quite certain. The mystery was finally solved.
“Siri...” Ystevan broke off as though he couldn’t believe what he had just heard. “Are you talking about an elfin?” he demanded harshly.
I blinked and gave him my attention again. “Well, yes, I’m pretty sure he was.”
Ystevan’s lips drew into a grim line. “The only elfin I know of with that name is a dark elfin!”
I bristled at his tone but was somehow not particularly surprised by his words. “Well, he’s dead.”
“Good,” retorted the guardian. “Good riddance.”
“He wasn’t all bad,” I snapped, unable to hold my tongue. “He was kind.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. He was a dark elfin—evil through and through.”
“He was not!” I cried, stung by his tone, manner, words and all. “He saved my life! He fought a demon rather than hurt me, and it killed him! How can you make such a presumption? Did you even know him?” My voice broke and I felt perilously close to tears. It was no surprise to learn that Siridean had not exactly been on the side of the angels, but to hear him condemned as irredeemably evil was unbearable. And, I felt quite sure, untrue.
Ystevan blinked and touched my shoulder gently. My distress and my fervent certainty seemed to have made an impression on him. “I did not know him, little one, you’re right,” he said levelly. “Why don’t you tell me how you came to do so?”
So I stumbled through the sad tale for the first time in my life. The guardian listened intently and allowed me to reach the tragic conclusion without interrupting. When I’d finished, he remained silent for a moment, clearly lost in thought.
“Siridean of Clan Varannis,” he said at last, “was from a fort in the south of England. He was taken by a demon at the unusually advanced age of twelve hadavin, or sixty by human reckoning. He and the demon were pursued, of course, but never caught...” He fell silent again for a moment and I waited patiently, hungry for more information, though a whole raft of elfin age-related questions were blossoming in my mind.
“From what you say,” Ystevan went on, “it sounds as though the demon never really managed to make Siridean his own. The process of corruption is as follows, you see. The demon succeeds in taking an elfling in thrall; you might call it possession, for want of a better word. Once the elfling is in thrall the demon can control them and make them do all manner of wickedness, calculated to exploit that elfling’s natural weaknesses. Small things, to start with, hence why the sooner they can be caught the better; the less harm they will have done. But also why they are much harder to find and, if not caught the moment they are taken, often go undiscovered for quite some time.
“Gradually the evil deeds grow in scale and the impressionable elfling becomes truly corrupt. Once the demon is sure of them, they will release them and seek a new victim, leaving them to their evil-doing. At this point, Serapia, there really will be no good left in them. I’m not exaggerating. Don’t you ever, ever trust a dark elfin, or…or think you can get them to repent.
“But it sounds as though the demon never corrupted Siridean quite enough to feel sure of him and had to keep him in thrall far longer than was practical. Like skin, bones and virtually everything, an elfin’s will toughens as they get older and the permeability that leaves them vulnerable to demons is lost. So eventually, I surmise, Siridean managed to break free of his demon and there was still enough good in him that he was not prepared to let it take him again, even though he must have known that to resist was certain death.”
I swallowed, remembering. I felt pretty sure that Ystevan was exactly right. “I told you he was good really,” I whispered.
Ystevan gave me a rather pitying look. “Serapia,” he said gently, “he clearly meant well by you, but the state he must have been in, I think you were safer without him.”
I swallowed again and said nothing. A tiny practical voice said that he might be right, but four years of intense longing for the kindness and security that had been briefly offered and so cruelly snatched away were not easily silenced.
I rubbed the hilt of my dagger through the slit in my skirts, feeling that slight, comforting presence. Ystevan eyed the place where the dagger was hidden as though he could sense it through the cloth, but with surprisingly endearing tact, did not inquire about it. Was the hematite’s safyr still loyal to Siridean? Was that why it looked out at me with his eyes? Maybe it was the power of the safyr combined with my tiny talents, that made the dagger fly true… But…questions for another day, perhaps…
Eventually I looked again at his bloody arm and my thoughts returned to his chilling declaration concerning the duty that had brought him to London. His own nephew…
“Why did they send you?” I asked at last. “Was it…was it your…fault?”
He shook his head, his expression subdued. “It was nobody’s fault, as such. Other than that of Arathain and his friends, for letting themselves become separated. Most of the other guardians are related to him as well, at some distance or other. I was sent because I am the youngest. Always the oldest and most experienced guardians stay at the fort whenever possible. The youngest are sent to deal with such things. You do not, after all, become a guardian until you are trusted to be steady-headed enough not to show your skills in front of humans, under any inducement whatsoever. Even at the cost of the dark elfin getting away. You let them go, and you catch them another day.”
“It’s such a long way,” I said, remembering my long ride to Yorkshire. “Why don’t the London guardians…take care of it?”
Ystevan shook his head sadly. “That would hardly be fair. Though it is no one’s fault, it is surely more our fault than that of the guardians of the London forts. This is not to say,” he added, “that any guardian would spare a dark elfin they happened across. That any elfin would. But it is only guardians who venture among humans. Anyway, as far as hunting down dark elfin is concerned, each fort deals with their own as far as possible.” He turned his attention back to his arm.
I watched as he put the finishing touches to his healing, then rolled his sleeve down and gave me a real smile.
“All better,” he said, then smiled ruefully as he explored the rips in his sleeve. “My mother will get in a state when she sees these, though. Not that she’ll let on, as I’m sure you can imagine.” He added, in a mock confidential tone, “I would try to hide the evidence, but then she’ll just have words with me for making a mess of the repair! Needlework isn’t really my, er, forte, y’know.”
I couldn’t help laughing at the way he made this confession, despite my thronging thoughts. For a moment, humor glinting in his eyes, he looked more his age, more like the cheerful young guardian I remembered from Torr Elkyn, as though momentarily freed from the weight of the crushing responsibility he’d carried to London with him.
Looked his age… There was one thing I had to know. “How old are you?”
Ystevan smiled. “How old do I look?” he teased.
“Eighteen, nineteen years old?”
The he-elf chuckled. “My, aren’t I precocious, then. How old are you?”
“Fourteen,” I admitted, since he’d clearly figured out by now that I was not quite so young as he’d originally supposed when he’d brought me into the fort. “But you haven’t answered my question yet.”
“I’ve just turned nineteen hadavin—a hadavin is a half-decade in English,” Ystevan told me. “So not so precocious.”
“You’re joking!” I exclaimed, for I really had thought I must have misheard what he said about Siridean. I began to remember those tales of the Elfin...but they seemed so human...well, comparatively, anyway.
Ystevan raised his eyebrows. “Of course not, although I suppose it must seem quite old to you.”
I frowned as I absorbed this new and surprising information. Wait a minute... Something that had been vaguely niggling at my mind for a while suddenly crystallized. “The Queen! Your queen, that is... She spoke as if she knew my great, great, great grandmother personally.”
“Well, it was only a little over twenty hadavin ago,” said Ystevan mildly. “I only just missed knowing your esteemed ancestor, of course the Queen knew her. She was the Queen’s cousin, I believe, of some degree.”
While this news was certainly flattering, I scarcely paid it any heed. It must have all happened over a hundred years ago. “How old is she, then? The Queen, I mean?”
“Hmmm,” said Ystevan, clearly trying to remember. “It would be...seventy-three hadavin, I believe.”
I performed a quick calculation. Over three hundred and sixty-five years old. “So how long do elfin live?”
“Oh, somewhere around one hundred hadavin is normal—or five hundred years in human reckoning,” replied the guardian. “You can translate human-elfin development to one year for a human equals one hadavin for an elfin, so that’s the equivalent of about a hundred years.”
“Long-lived all round, then,” I responded dryly. “How do you live so long?”
The he-elf pursed his lips. “It seems to be our natural span. Although there is a certain phenomena whereby elfin who go away from the fort age more quickly while they are away. But it’s only just perceptible. What is much more perceptible is that any human who comes into a fort will age at near elfin speed for the duration of their residence. When they go back outside their ageing will gradually return to what is normal for them.”
I could feel my eyes widening. So there was more to the stories of people disappearing into elfin forts and emerging decades later unchanged than met the eye. “So...when I left the fort I wasn’t any older than when I arrived?”
“You were older,” Ystevan told me, “but scarcely older than any of us elfin were.”
That was quite something! But I couldn’t help performing another little calculation. “So...you are about nineteen?” I hazarded, “um, comparatively?”
He nodded. “We grow and learn at a rather more relaxed pace than humans, so yes, I am merely a rather worldly-wise just-nineteen-year-old, comparatively.”
I shook my head. Now that really was strange.
“Well, this has been most charming,” said Ystevan, glancing up at the position of the sun. “Some of it, anyway,” he added dryly. “But I really do have other things to be getting on with, you know.”
We walked quickly back to pick up our cups. I paused him before we could go through the gate, though. “My father?” I asked desperately.
“Dragonsbreath, no,” said the guardian. “No, no, no.” He tried to move forward but I still stopped him.
“How can I contact you, then?”
He glowered down at me, rather. “In the interests of keeping you from anything suicidal rather than from any possible intention of changing my mind,” he said sarcastically, “here again, tomorrow, same time. Satisfied?”
I nodded reluctantly. But there didn’t seem to be much else I could do.
We crept back into the garden, where Susie was still stretching into the depths of her cup with a finger, trying to capture the very last streaks of chocolate, and walking together through the chocolate house, we went our separate ways.
~+~