Emerald Queen

The sun was very low in the sky the day I realized that the road I walked upon was leading me away from home. All sense of direction was lost somewhere in the trees that reared up around me, silent and looming pillars in a shadowy hall. The dim and feeble light of the fading sun barely lit the path, if there even was one. Young and small as I was, my feet caught on the tree roots and continuously forced me onto the ground. It was cold, the chill of early winter creeping up with the night.

It was with a cold shudder I remember recalling the tales people had spoken of the nighttime forest. There were the strange animals that emerged from their hiding places, fearing the sun, but ruling the dark. There were the gruesome tales my nani had told me of people that had strayed too far into the forest, and what happened to them. They sounded so thrilling when sitting close to a warm fire; soft blankets with gold embroidery enclosing me like a protective shroud, the cracking voice of nani coming from something within the deep cushions of the rocking chair.

“Ianna, my dear meki,” she would say, her aged voice a mere whisper. “Have you heard of the three-eyed people of the trees?” Her soft voice blended perfectly with the creaking of the chair, the crackling of the fire, and the soft swish of my breath being drawn in.

“No! Tell me!” I whispered. I would whisper as softly as my nani, not wanting to spoil that moment, and the sense of magic electrifying the air and making my heart jump up to my throat in anticipation. The gold in the embroidery sparkled in the firelight. Leaning in close to her, I sniffed the sweet scent of the soap she used to wash me with before the fireside stories. “Tell me nani!”

Her wrinkled face would fold into a tiny smile. She reminded me of a tree’s bark with all the wrinkles she had. “Patience, Meki.” I leaned in closer, determined to hang on to every word. She looked down at me, at my eager young face, her own face kind. Then she turned to look out through the windowpanes, the rare glass frosted over with a delicate layer of tiny pearls of water. Her eyes did not see me, nor did her ears hear my broken breathing. Both were far away.

My nani whispered, “The people of the trees. Meki, do you see this forest outside our window? They live in there, deep in the darkness where the tangles and brambles and creeping things hide them from the world, and the world from them. I saw them once.” She paused for a moment, blinking, remembering. “Tall people, they are, beautiful people. Cold faces, though, and souls to match them. With their lights and their sounds they lure anyone foolish enough to wander close into the forest. They hate humans, you know. With a passion. They’ll hypnotize you with their music, and then… well, it’s horrible enough. But those sounds . . . the most beautiful music . . . most beautiful . . . “ She sighed softly, and then went quiet. She was quiet for so long that I almost spoke. But there was something that stopped me, something that told me there was still more to the story. So I watched my nani as she closed her eyes, sinking deeper into the rocking chair, when, sure enough, she began once again. “They have three eyes, Meki. Three eyes. Two, just like you and me, in the front of their heads, but the other one . . . the other is something else. Something beyond these,“ she pointed a frail finger to a closed eye. “They see things we cannot, those people of the trees. Things beyond our imagining. They can see – they can truly –“ she sank deeper into the pillows, the rocking of her chair slowing, “ – truly –“ her eyes fluttered open for a moment, and she whispered the last words, “ – truly see.” Her eyes closed.

That night in the forest I was scared. Nani had told me of worse things than the three-eyed people of the forest. The creatures, the dark creatures that sounded so frighteningly amazing by the fire, those creatures sent cold waves of fear down my back that night in their time to reign the forest. Sleep would not come to me. I was too afraid to sleep. Every crack of a twig was a great black yej, every rustle of a leaf a deadly magical bird of prey, every whistle of the wind around the massive trunks the song of the three-eyed people with cold souls.

Wintry blasts of cold air rushed up my sleeves and chilled my frail arms. The forest blurred as warm tears ran down my face from the icy wind. Crouching in a nook formed by two gigantic roots, feet tucked under me in an attempt to warm them, I pulled my scraggly shawl tighter around my arms. My face was numb, as were my hands. Real tears began streaming down my face. I was truly lost.

It was then that I heard it. I stood up, forgetting the pain. The gray woods, then pitch black, were shifting around me. My eyesight seemed to waver. Green and brown and black ran across my vision like a tumult of water. Dragging my hand across my eyes, I desperately sought to clear my sight. The sound, the ethereal sound, reverberated all around me and through me. My brain rattled in my head until I simply wished I could faint and leave the tortuous world behind. I saw everything through a thin veil, wavering and dissipating until I could no longer tell whether it was real or simply a strain of crazy imagination. The trees seemed to move around me, great black hazy pillars. Above them, the fading sky blinked in and out like an eye staring down at me. The ground warped and wriggled under my feet. And through it all rang that sound, that music that would not cease no matter how hard I shielded my ears from it. My head reeled and I closed my eyes.

There was a presence before me. I dared not move for fear of falling into the chaos. Not that I could move at all. My muscles were locked into a state of immobilization. For some reason I refused to look upon the figure before me, though whether it was from fear or from sheer exhaustion I would never know. The thing touched my arm with its fingers. My breath stilled. It was as though I had been drowned in a bucket of sharp ice. There was piercing pain.

It was then that the music died.

I blacked out.

When I woke, the first sound that hit my ears was the shrill cry of the forest lark. It startled my senses into action, and I groggily opened my eyes. The sky seemed to open above me, the stars reaching down and grasping me by the hand, pulling me forever up, up, and then away. Green and orange leaves darted among the blue and silver of the vortex, little birds fallen from great heights to an unknown destination. There was a slight breeze cooling the tip of my nose. It was odd, but there was a strange quality to the air, some whisper of the ghost music from before. Erie in its own way, it no longer disturbed me. I figured I had melted into oblivion and been forgotten, and had ended up somewhere beyond the nightmare. It was the way my fairy-tale conditioned mind worked. In some ways, I was right.

The rustling of leaves broke the stillness and quiet of staring into a limitless sky. The sound brushed against my ears, but I did not move. I no longer cared, I was in peace, and there was no longer a reason to be afraid. Fear was a thing left behind in a nightmare long ago. Closing my eyes, I shut out the vortex and listened. The sound of leaves was natural in such a flowing setting. It coincided perfectly with the musical breeze and my soft breathing. Nani’s voice had been like that, I thought. Always perfect. I will miss Nani, thought my sentimental brain, in this world apart.

There was a presence above me, the presence from the twisted world left behind, now returned to haunt me. Suddenly I felt a twinge of the panic from the nightmare. Could it be that I had not really been taken someplace better, that this was some extension of that horrible dream, and if I opened my eyes I would see the black and blurry shapes in the darkness once again? Had the nightmare never changed, had it always been lurking behind my dreams and realities of peace and content, waiting for its chance to take over and dominate? What was dream? What was reality? I was no longer certain of anything. Fear of being sucked into the bottomless vortex kept me from opening my eyes. That, and fear of the something that stood above me.

There was a frigid finger on my forehead, very like the one from the nightmare. I prepared myself for panic and excruciating and unbearable pain. Yet this frigidness was the coolness of the morning mist, or of a calm lake in the middle of a summer night. It tied in with the peace, as though it were a caress from the sky or the brushing of leaves across my face rather than a fiendish creature from a nightmarish fairy-tale. I dared to open my eyes, as I had not the courage to do before.

Two eyes bore down on mine. They caught my gaze with their piercing hollowness, reflecting the bright light of the moon on crystalline waters of the lake by which I lay. There was no fear in me as I defiantly gazed back. This was no nightmare. A nightmare is a thing that induces terror and panicked emotions, and a great feeling of helplessness. I felt neither fear nor panic, and I was in control of who I was at that moment. For then, it was enough. It gave me the strength to look back into the eyes of the forest people. The eyes it was said could see through me into the fathomless corners of my soul. They were almond shaped daggers of ice, digging into my head looking for deep, dark secrets. There would be nothing I could hide if I had anything worth hiding. The strange sensation of falling through cold feathers kept me from blocking anything from entering my mind. I was powerless. Perhaps this was a nightmare after all. Yet I could not believe that. As cold as that fall was, it cushioned me, supporting me, keeping me from crashing into the bottom. There was subtle numbness in the ice, quite unlike the painful pinpricks of the nightmare before, allowing detachment from reality without the pain. I could see the three-eyed one meant no harm.

It took me into its arms, carrying me off the bed and towards the lake. It felt as though a soft breeze was carrying me. I could not feel anything under me, yet I was in the air. It was the strangest sensation I had ever felt in my entire life. It was amazing. Softly, I was lowered onto the powdery sand, close to the waves. The one looked down at me, and again I felt as though its eyes could see right through my frail body. Was this the power of the third eye? I did not know.

I was but a child then, simple and naïve. There was a definite edge in the line between right and wrong, but none such between the real and unreal. The three-eyed one was a phantom to me, something unknown yet apparently benevolent. I trusted it, for it had done nothing to make me doubt its credibility.

Till then the only sounds audible had come from the rustlings of the wind and the swish of the waves on the sand, and the whispering of the ethereal music. At that moment the three-eyed one before me opened its mouth, and the strangest voice was heard, a voice made up of the music and the wind and the waves, and the leaves and the seasons and the days. It was a voice indescribable, filled with the detachment that humans lacked, the humility all creatures lacked, and the distant cries of a bird not lacking the will to fly into the sun. I was pressed deeper into the sand by its sheer power and force. Somewhere from the whirlwind of feelings bearing down on me, I heard words: “Who are you?”

As I had already established that this was no nightmare, I could safely answer without fear of provoking an attack from an unstable being of great physical prowess. “I am Ianna. What are you?” I did not think the thing before me was capable of sustaining a name, or capable of being human. I simply thought it was a thing, a three-eyes thing of the trees. I was wrong.

“I am an elf,” it said to me.

“What is an elf?”

“What is an Ianna?”

I did not know what to say.

The elf lifted me into his arms once again and carried me away from the monotonous sounds of the sea and into the forest wilderness, where the stars winked and glowed above thick leaves of emerald green, above the springy moss-covered ground, the crystal shadows that dazzled the eyes with their broken shards of obsidian. The strange music echoed in the air, a constant companion to my ears. He put me down onto a wooden platform and vanished up a tree with the word “follow” trailing behind him. I discovered the branching vine he had used as a ladder, and hauled myself up behind. The tree was too large for me to put my hands around it’s girth, and too tall for me to reach the lowest limb. Climbing was difficult. The elf helped me from the last step onto the tree-platform. It was yet another wooden contraption, suspended from an upper branch with strong twisted rope. Joined to it was another platform, and to that another, and another, as far into the shadowy canopy as my eyes could see. And upon these platforms stood hundreds upon hundreds of elves.

Every single pair of eyes was turned in my direction. Every elf gazed at me with a solemn stare that seemed to blaze through me in a piercing light of clouds and diamonds. I rocked back and forth on my heels, reeling in the limelight of so many third eyes. Though there was nothing to fear, so direct a gaze was oppressive on a small mind, and I soon fell to my knees.

The elf that had carried me helped me stand up once again. I faced him in the brighter light of the thousand fireflies swirling around us, more to avoid the gazes of the hundreds that stared at me than to scrutinize my companion. And I noticed something I had not noticed before. The color of his skin was a startlingly subtle shade of emerald green.

He looked at me and I felt some relief from the pressure around me. And then he spoke again, with the voice that sounded like rustling leaves in autumn, or the waves breaking softly on a smooth shore.

“You will live with us.”

I was too intimidated by the surroundings and too dazed by the force of the third eyes for what he said to firmly be wrought into my head, so there was no shock. He led me to another platform where there was warm, though strange, food, which I hungrily took and ate. Once finished, we went to a lower dais where moss beds lay under an umbrella of leaves, forming a protective shroud around me as I slowly fell asleep to the sound of the whispering wind.

For the next ten years I lived with the elves. They were master archers and hunters, and soon I became skilled enough to be competent among them. Their way of life became mine, and there was much to learn of it. Stealth, allurement, even some fencing, all became a part of me. The fireside story embedded into my childhood mind soon became a comprehendible reality, a fairy tale in which I played a small role. The elves learned to respect me, and though I was never truly accepted among them for being human, they learned that some of my skills could be used to their gain. I was content living among them, and soon the voice of my nani became a distant, though pleasant, memory. Sometimes I even wondered if it hadn’t been a dream.

The elves taught me how to build wooden traps in the forest. “To catch large animals,” they said. The traps were brutal. When caught, three sharp bone-daggers pierced the animal, though not killing it instantly. The creature would have to suffer through great agony before finally dying after half a day of pain. Though I had forever been taught to respect animals, I did not question this abhorring method of trapping. If this was an elf’s way of life, it was mine.

Strange things began happening to the elves after my seventeenth birthday. There were disappearances. Many an elf would vanish, only to be found weeks later, mangled beyond belief and left under a grizzled tree near the forest borders. The elves began taking greater caution once outside their canopies; carrying strung bows ready to slice through an attacker. When asked what was causing the attacks, all they said was, “Large animals.” They set more traps.

As I was an accomplished wood master, the elves sent me to make some of their traps. They never allowed me to see the animals they captured, sending me home before the sun went down, saying it was too dangerous for someone who could not hide with the undergrowth. I grew curious as to what would possibly kill elves so brutally. Elves were removed creatures, cringing away from the affairs of others, gentle and kind, very unlike the cold people I had been taught to fear and avoid. And there had never been such attacks before.

The sun was setting as my feet swept me up a tree close to the trap I had finished making not moments before. I wanted to see what was happening. Something told me that if I could see what the elves wanted so dearly to kill, the reason behind everything else that was happening, all the elf killings and the secrecy and the subtle anger, would be revealed. I had vowed to myself to wait until the malevolent beast was caught before returning home, no matter what the consequences. The night air grew cold as the moon rose in the sky, but I had developed immunity to the brutality of its touch. I crouched on a low branch, close to the trunk and deep in the shadows. The air billowed around me with a murmur of the elfish music, softening the harshness of my breathing and washing over the trap like waves on a shore. It drifted over the dry logs and moss, between the leaves, curling around trunks and gyrating above the treetops into the star-spangled night.

A branch cracked somewhere nearby. My eyes scanned the foliage and undergrowth around the trap, looking for any creeping beasts in the darkness. They alighted on a shadowy figure, prowling slowly towards the base of a tish plant where the trap lay concealed between layers of mast. The creature crawled and snarled softly and made strange erratic noises as it inched towards doom. I held my breath and watched it step onto the concealed trap. I had made it well. Its jaws snapped shut onto the prey, sharp teeth digging into the victim’s legs, immobilizing it. My ears revolted at the piercing scream that followed the attack. The prowler soon went limp, folding up and falling to the ground. The horrendous scream died out, the breeze carrying it away to perilous heights.

For many agonizing moments I waited for the creature to rise. My breath came out in short puffs of air, visible as a pale wreath of a cloud against the moonlight. As the thing showed no signs of movement, I crawled slowly down the tree and closer to it. The wind stirred the leaves of the tish plant and sent shivers up my spine. It swept over the hair of the fallen creature, making it quiver like silver spider threads caught in a breeze. The creature lay face down, arms sprawled around it, legs bent at awkward angles and still tangled and mangled in the trap. Its shape was roughly that of an elf, though wider and slightly shorter. Afraid that I had caught an elf, I quickly turned the head of the creature towards the moonlight.

A face from my dreams looked at me from the ground. Her withered skin was strained with blood and pain, eyes open and staring into the sky. Her chest heaved softly, up and down, signaling that she was still alive. But how could she be alive? How could she even be real? She was a dream, an old dream of happiness and contentment by a warm fire, nothing more. Lying there, bathed in moonlight, she looked like a specter come to life, an impossible piece of imagination. She was real but unreal, false yet true, and she brought to mind a dusty corner of my past that I had forgotten. Who was she? How could she be so illusory and yet so familiar?

Nani.

It hit my heart like a violent tide, knocking my breath out of my lungs. I was drowning in unleashed memories of a time when the trees were not my only home, when life was more than just hunting, eating, and sleeping. A time when I had not known of elves, and those around me had only white skin. A time when the sky pulsated with radiant blue brilliance instead of filtered green. My head reeled with knowledge released from behind the barrier I had subconsciously put up a long time ago to block out the unwanted memories and help with bearing the pain of separation from the family I knew. But the one who lay before me knocked all walls down and forced me to face and bear the truth.

I am not an elf.

The eyes of my nani, lying before me, covered in blood and unconscious, flickered. She groaned, and the sound pierced my heart like no other sound ever had. I jumped to my feet and ran away from the dream and into the forest. The leaves and twigs and branches slapped and scored my skin, cold fingers from a nightmare long forgotten, long accepted, long buried beneath an emerald film that filtered out all light except for green. I flinched away from them, but they were everywhere, grabbing and clutching at my bare skin. There was nowhere in the forest to go to escape from them. The third eye leered down at me, as if daring me to try and run away. Where will you go, it said mockingly. Do you think you can walk away from us so easily?

I ran into brambles. The pain of hundreds of sharp spikes ripping through my flesh pierced through me, and I screamed. The bush clung to me and refused to release me, keeping me fast in its thorny grasp.

The forest keeps what it takes.

My flailing limbs struggled against the plant, kicked and punching and beating it down until it could take no more abuse. I tore myself away from it and threw myself back into the wilderness of the forest. The dense shadows under the trees lunged out at me, threatening to pin me down or make me lose my way.

Where will you go?

I ran forward determinedly, refusing to look back or to my sides out of fear of what I would see. The voices in my head were slowly breaking down my resolve, and gradually my pace subsided from a frenzied run to a brisk walk. I struggled against my third conscience, the one that connected me to the elves. Turn back, it said, turn back. Why do you run away from your home, your only home? Come back; come back to where you belong.

I stopped running and stood still. Above me was a rare opening in the branches of the trees where a small ray of glorious light had fought its way through the many leaves. It cast a tiny bit of radiance onto a patch of dirt right in front of where I stood. Cautiously, I stepped into the light and tilted my face up. There, where the trees had made a tiny hole against the vast expanses of green leafed skies was the moon.

It was not the first time my eyes had set their gaze upon the moon. Even in the shielded land of the elves the towering trees had windows through which the sky could be seen. Still, I stared at it with the utmost amazement. It looked so real, and so close. If only I could reach out my hands far enough, I might be able to touch it. I closed my eyes and reached out into the sky, forgetting the third eye and the haunting voices that followed me.

Suddenly the clinging fingers of the elf folk disappeared. The creeping music evaporated, dissipating into the shadows and leaving behind the crisp silence of night. I stood still in shock, trying to understand the magnitude of what had just happened.

The elves were gone.

It had been ten years since my silence was not punctuated with hollow music, ten years since the presence of the third eye had not haunted my every thought. Ten years since the times when I was my own person, and the elves did not dictate my every action. For however tranquil and peaceful life with elves seemed, there was no freedom in it. No life except for the life assigned to me, the life I was forced to lead. A trapper. A wood-woman. Stepping past those restrictions meant exile. I had been exiled.

And for what?

I had found out a terrible secret. The elves were killing humans. Bigger than that: I was human. It was no wonder they had wanted to hide it from me. I, who had not seen the human race in years, but had lived apart from their kind for most of my life. I, who was almost but never quite good enough to be an elf. It would have killed me to know the truth. It almost did kill me. The elves were just trying to protect me.

Weren’t they?

I stumbled through the branches and moss and creepers, blindly making my way through the forest. I had never been this far out from the canopies of the elves, always being kept close enough to be watched. Everything I had done had been with a guard, the elf who had brought me to the elves. The one who had rescued me and brought me into the magic of the trees. It had all been for my protection, to ensure that no large beasts would hurt me or kill me.

Hadn’t it?

Large beasts were nothing but humans. The elves had lied to me. They were doing nothing but trying to protect me from my own kind.

They were keeping me from the humans.

It hit me like an avalanche. Everything I had heard suddenly clicked in to place and I realized that what was happening was even bigger than I had realized. I remembered what my nani had said long, long ago. “They hate humans, you know. With a passion…”

I remembered the traps. I remembered why they had been made. And I realized that this was no small grudge that could be brushed aside easily by the carelessness of humans. This was a huge force, a force not to be trifled with.

This was war.

I heard a small noise in front of me. As tuned as my ears were to forest sounds, having lived among the trees for most of my life, I immediately stopped walking and listened. There was a soft swish of leaves and a sigh, and a faint hint of the creeping music. I opened my eyes wide and let out a small scream. It was an elf.

Creeping forward, I knelt behind a bush, peering around its thick and numerous leaves. I saw the warm glow of a fire sweep through a small clearing, illuminating not one, but two elves in its wavering light. They spoke to one another in soft but audible voices, and I listened with growing apprehension to their conversation.

“…think that she could get so far?” one finished with a slight grimace.

The other looked around the clearing, as though scanning for something. Then he sighed and turned to his companion. “I do not understand why we should keep looking.”

The other elf looked appalled. “The elder ones command us to. We must.”

“Yes, we must. But there is no reason why. She has served her purpose. Let the forest take her.”

The first elf gave him a curious look. “Do you not feel anything for her? She is almost one of us.”

“She is a human!” the elf spat. I was taken aback. Never before had I ever seen an elf show such a blatant display of emotion. “She will never be one of us.”

Though they were not much of a statement, the elf’s words struck my heart with their black venom. I had always thought that the elves were my family, and would support me through everything that I did as they always had. Everything I had known in my life was unraveling before my eyes, like a leaf being pulled inexorably towards a horrid fate on the back of a raging river. It was horrible to realize that what for so long had been my reality was turning into a nightmare beyond imagining.

“ ‘She has served her purpose,’ has she?” His arm shifted in the firelight and I saw the light blue armband stretched around his left arm. Recognizing it,I suddenly realized the first elf was my mentor’s son, one of the few elves who had always been there for me. Being close to my age, we had shared something that, in another world, would have been akin to friendship. Had that too been a lie? “And what purpose might this be?”

The other elf glared at him. “The elders have chosen to disclose this information to only a few. I cannot tell you.”

My friend looked serenely back at him. “You cannot fool me,” he said softly. “Everyone has seen the preparations. The war preparations.” The older elf shifted a bit, but gave no other sign of disclosure. “I ask you again: what does the girl have to do with this?” He sounded concerned, which warmed my heart. It gave me hope that there had been some truth in a life full of nothing but lies. “Where does she play into all of this?”

The old elf looked at the younger with anger. “The young should not question the old! Have some respect!”

My mentor’s son looked taken aback despite his firm questioning, and sat farther away from the fire, very close to where I hid. My hand over my mouth, I sank farther back into the foliage to avoid discovery. The younger elf might still be friendly, but the older one reeked of evil intentions.

The older elf moved closer to where my friend sat. Speaking kindly, as if to make amends, he said, “All the preparations you speak of are already close to completion. I suppose there can be no harm in telling you, not when the end is so close.”

My friend said nothing, but I saw the gleam that passed over his eyes. His hands tightened over each other where they rested, holding his knees more firmly bent into his chest. I labored to remember his name, though we had known each other for most of the ten years I had lived among his kind. Already the green world seemed a great distance behind me. Arynne, I thought with a sudden resurgence of memory. His name was Arynne.

The older elf fell gracefully into a curve between two huge roots a small distance away from Arynne; his clothes rustled softly like the wind with a hint of an echo of the alluring music fading into the night. His sigh was like a breath of wind through the clearing, gently caressing the fire as it waved and buckled under its light touch. I flinched as it brushed past my face and bare arms, sending sharp pinpricks up their lengths and down my back. It was not a comfortable feeling. “So, you know of the preparations?”

Arynne paused for a moment, then nodded. “Syllea came to the western canopies the day before Lyunna. Even a foundling could have read that sign.” Syllea. He had named the elves’ battle master, the one who trained all the fighters and ordered weapons in times of war, though such times hadn’t been seen for centuries. The western canopies were the home of the smith-elves, and Lyunna was the day of the full moon. If Syllea had visited the western canopies just a few days ago, that meant she had dealings with the smith-elves, and that meant …

The older elf nodded. “She was asking the smiths to prepare the war weapons. We go to war in a fortnight. The elders plan to tell the rest of the elves tonight.”

Arynne stirred slightly. Having known him for a long, long time, this movement made it clear that he was extremely alarmed. Nothing ever fazed Arynne enough to shatter his calm exterior, however extreme his inner turmoil might be. “A fortnight,” he said softly. “So soon.”

“The elders could wait no longer to sate their anger. To sate our anger. The humans wronged us all, Arynne. The wound runs deep in our souls, however long ago the battle was waged. None of their kind deserves to live in this world. We can wait no longer,” he whispered with passion unnatural for an elf. “We can wait no longer.”

“The First Battle,” Arynne said to himself. “I always wondered why it was named so. No doubt leaving the door open for the ‘Second Battle.’ And then a third and then a fourth. Tell me, will we elves continue this grudge until we do exactly what those humans want of us and wipe ourselves out?” His bitterness seeped into his words and lashed out at the older elf, pressing him deeper into the great tree. In that moment I was sure we shared the same astonishment at how Arynne, the least temperamental elf in the entire forest, could create such a savage display of emotion.

“So angry for one who is on the receiving end of the humans’ wrath,” the older elf commented lightly. “The war is inevitable right now, Arynne. Either you fight or you die. When you see the cruelty of humans, when you see how heartlessly they kill us, when you see your friends and loved ones lying hurt and dead and feeding their lifeblood to the earth, tell me then that the humans do not deserve death.” He turned to the fire, and for some excruciating heartbeats all that could be heard was the popping crackle of the fire as it devoured the logs that fueled it. “I was there at the First Battle. I wasn’t much older than you, a young thing full of ideas and fantasies. The humans and elves coexisted among each other, and the Sight was common to all. But humans are a greedy race, and when they decided they wanted a bigger piece of the earth, they drove us back into the corners of the world. We did not go without a fight. It was that battle that caused thousands and thousands of elfish deaths. Those humans can be deadly when trifled with. It’s the reason there are so few of us left. The forests were unfamiliar to us then, and at the onset there were a great many more deaths. But we adapted. Those times were slow and full of loss, but, with the help of the Sight, we survived to bring on a new generation, and another. And each time, we vowed to avenge the deaths of those that died in the First Battle. There were so many, Arynne, so many…” He held his face in his hands, and was silent. When he spoke again, his voice held a snide note. “The humans did not go unscathed. Their punishment for the mass killings was the loss of their Sight. It is this loss that we will use to our advantage in war.” He shook Arynne’s shoulder emphatically. “We can win this time, Arynne. We can win!”

I thought of the older elf’s words. Never before had I heard the First Battle Spoken of in such detail. Never before had I heard an elf speak so much at on time, or with such blatant emotion. They were a quiet breed, speaking only when absolutely necessary. Their philosophy stood that there was to be no anger or hate; those words did not exist for the elves. It was considered shameful to display emotions, for that was the ultimate sign of weakness. I remembered this philosophy that night and wondered at its hypocrisy. How could beings so full of hate and revenge preach the kindness and patience that was the basis of their lives?

Everything. Everything had been a lie.

Arynne turned his face slowly towards the fire, away from the older elf, and I could see the struggle writ upon his features. Helpless anger and frustration battled the façade of peace he tried to pull over his emotions. I could not tell whether the anger came from opposition or support of the older elf’s words. The loss of control sent his Sight wildly out of proportion, and I felt the finest touch of it against my mind, the haunting music echoing faintly within my head. At first I froze with fear, wondering if he had sensed my presence, but when he made no move towards me I relaxed. When finally he managed to maintain control of his expression, he said rather tonelessly, “What has the girl to do with any of this?”

The older elf laughed humorlessly. The noise was so new and unfamiliar that I jumped slightly behind the bush. Never before had I heard an elf laugh. It was something barely half remembered from that pleasant dream of the fire and…and nani. The dream that was not really a dream, but a long forgotten reality borderline on nightmare with the image of nani bleeding – feeding her lifeblood to the earth. I thought again of how much real truth existed in what the elves said. “The humans are an unresponsive race. With us gone and almost forgotten, there was no reason to deal with us again. To make them remember our existence, we needed to take something precious of theirs. So we took her, yes, but she walked in of her own free will. It was our luck that she was the granddaughter of the healer-woman. Perhaps it was the blessing of our lady Hyuine.” Hyuine was the great goddess of the elves, the one to whom they dedicated all their prayers. “We took her to start something, and it worked them into a fury. They came into the forest, which was exactly what we wanted.”

Arynne turned to the older elf with another dangerous glint in his eye. “You told us those traps were to keep us safe!”

“They were. Had the humans discovered our canopies, we would all be dead.”

“So what do you plan? You cannot attack the humans by sheer force, nothing we do will compare to their onslaught. You have led us to our deaths!”

“We will not attack using force!” the older elf countered, standing up quite suddenly in a jerky manner most unbefitting an old and estimable elf. Nonetheless, it had a direct impact on Arynne, who said nothing but simply gazed up at his companion with a queer expression on his brow. “The elders have something more discreet in mind.”

“What is it?” Arynne asked with much more calm than I was sure he felt.

“That I cannot tell. The elders have explicitly forbidden it, and I shall not disobey them.”

“You already have.” The older elf shifted uncomfortably under Arynne’s strange expression. I felt something rub against my cheek, like a silken thread brushing gently across a fold of smooth fabric. Under my finely tuned awareness, I could sense it as it curled around the bush I hid behind and curled itself around the other elf’s head, melting into his awareness as unnoticeably as a tuft of cotton melting into water. I realized with a jolt that Arynne was using his Sight to manipulate the older elf’s thoughts. No! I thought. He will sense you and then you will be lost! Anyone with the Sight could sense an intrusion of the mind. “Now,” whispered Arynne softly, keeping a steady thread of his power coiled around the elf’s thoughts. “Tell me – what have the elders planned?”

I was shocked when the elf answered back to Arynne. Why hadn’t his Sigh protected him? But I could not understand what he said, for he spoke to Arynne through the magical connection, using thoughts rather than words. I could feel a gentle current of information running through the silken thread that ran a pinprick away from the tip of my nose. I wonder what would happen if I… Leaning forward slightly, I let the thread touch my nose. I series of images assaulted my mind –

…a dark room, the open windowpanes banging against the walls outside in the raging winds that pulsed and beat their way through the small, tight space, blowing everything around in a whirlwind of paper and ribbons and dust. The haunting music of the three-eyed elves blasted through my head in a raucous orchestra of sound, leaving no room for thought or movement. I seemed to be lying down, enclosed in a long sheet of some sort of thick, white cloth, the surface below me soft and springy and very unlike the elf beds of leaves that I was used to. Though my limbs attempted to free themselves from the music’s creeping immobilization, they did not succeed, and I found myself as tangled as ever in the white sheets that surrounded me. I had a good view out the window, and though the darkness did not reveal much, I could see shadow-covered figured moving silently in the gloom. There graceful and completely silent motions marked them as elves. Scrunching my eyes, I could see they were spreading out through the entire village, one or two to each house. Just as I thought this, one broke away from the throng and crept silently over to the window from which I peered out. He (or she) was carrying something in his hand, something long and curved, something I recognized immediately as a bow. The arrow was notched in place, and was pointing straight at me, the perilously sharp tip gleaming insidiously in the extremely faint light from the lantern around the other side of the house. Feared assailed my heart and my body convulsed with it as well as it could while it was still unable to move. The wind whipped my hair from where it was tied behind my head, and it spun and cracked around my head as though it were the outer rings of a target in which my head was the bull’s-eye. The arrow inched closer and closer and closer, and each step increased my dread tenfold. Suddenly, it stopped, and I knew what was coming. Sure enough, the arrow drew back and the bowstring was pulled taut and in the moment before it was pulled I knew that everyone in the village was seeing the same thing I was, and in a few seconds time we would all be dead. The arrow loosed, and I heard the piercing whistle as it, and hundreds others, whizzed through the air towards their helpless victims. Right before it hit, I closed my eyes and hoped that someone would survive to tell the tale and right the wrong that had been done … the cold sharpness of the arrow touched my forehead …

I pulled out of the vision with a loud scream, horrified by the reality of what I had felt. The thread of power broke before my nose. My hand jumped up to my forehead, feeling the smooth skin for an arrow shaft that had to be lodged there, somewhere. But I’m not dead, I realized. And there’s no pain. The vision had been just that – a vision. Unreal.

But very, very possible.

And I knew at that moment that if what happened in the vision really came to pass, both the elves and the humans would suffer extreme losses there and in the war that followed. The elves were planning a mass extermination, killing humans when they were most helpless, using their powers in a cruel and unfathomable way to ease their heartless path to destruction. They would wipe out the entire village, the same village where, long, long ago, I had grown up. Every single person, everyone, not only the men but also the women and children and older folk, would die. The rest of the humans would seek revenge, and use all their sheer force and brute strength to get it. Not even the Sight could stand up to that. The elves would die out completely, and the humans would be as ruthless as the elves painted them to be, killing as unthinkingly as the elves did. There would be no survival this time, no fleeing to the forests. If the elves killed the village as they planned to do in a fortnight, they would spell their own doom. There would be no one left. Not one elf left.

True, I had been nothing more than bait to lure the humans into the forest and give the elves an excuse to wage the war they were so longing to have. Yet it was this war that would undoubtedly kill them in the end.

But I could not feel completely sorry for the elves. Weren’t they planning to kill hundreds of helpless people? Weren’t the elves planning to wipe out the same humans that I had grown up with, wipe them out with not so much as a warning or a chance to fight back? What honor was there in that? How could I still call them family?

But I did. I did still call them family. I called the elves family, just as much a family as my nani had been, as the humans had been. They were both my family, both the elves and the humans. Somehow I had been caught between two sides in a war, a war that had been fueled for generations and would cause great suffering and pain to the two families that I knew and loved. I had to do something. I had to stop the elves, I had to warn the humans, I had to keep them from killing all the elves, I had to … I had to do something.

My scream from after the vision had not gone unnoticed. The older elf had snapped out from under the influence of Arynne’s Sight and noticed my presence. While I had been preoccupied with my thoughts, he had crept behind me, and at that moment he pressed a dagger to my back. A residue fear from the vision overwhelmed me and I gave out a small squeak, the memory of the cold arrow against my forehead still fresh in my mind.

“So, girl, how long have you been listening?” the older elf spat with venom somewhere next to my ear. I could hear no hint of the creeping music from him as before, and I wondered again how Arynne had been able to control him with the Sight. It was clear that the elf had not noticed the intrusion into his mind from what he said next, “Arynne, get the rope.” He looked at me with a nasty expression on his face. “Let’s see how long she lasts alone, helpless and tied up, at the mercy of the forest, just as we were after the First Battle.” As he leered down at me, dagger cutting a small hole into my back, I thought sickly, to think these were the people I had called my own for ten years. The older elf frowned suddenly, wondering at his companion’s delay in responding to his summons. “Arynne, where are you?”

I did not see exactly what happened next since my eyes had been fixed on the grass in front of me and not the older elf’s face, but I heard a sick crack, and when I looked up the elf had crumpled to the ground, eyes glazed, and Arynne was leaning down to help me up from the ground, a solid-looking rock in one hand. Shocked, I looked at the rock and realized what he had done.

“Arynne, no, you shouldn’t have!” I gasped, my emotions running away from me as they usually did. It was one of the traits that had set me apart in the serene and emotionless elfish land.

He brushed the comment aside and pulled me to my feet. “Are you alright, Ianna? Did he hurt you?”

I shook my head.

He picked up the dagger the older elf had dropped during his fall, seeing the blood on the tip. “Where?” he asked simply. Sighing, I turned around, feeling the cloth on my back. It was quite damp and sticky, and when I brought my fingers close to my eyes to examine them, I saw they were covered with deep red blood. Without a word between us, Arynne placed a cool finger against the wound, and I felt his power as it surged through my body. My blood pounded down my back, and I felt the haunting elf music reverberate through me for one shuddering second. Then it was gone, Arynne removed his finger, and I went back to feeling torn apart.

My decision had been made. I could not go back to the elves with the knowledge they now knew I had. Their sentiments had come clear to me through the now unconscious elf’s vengeful actions. If I reentered that leafy canopy again, they would tear me apart limb from limb. There was only one way to go now – back to the past, back to confront the reality I had so long perceived as a dream. Back to the village. I had to warn them, to keep the terrible slaughter of war from happening.

I turned to Arynne, and was stunned by the sadness in his eyes. Without asking, I was sure he knew of my decision to warn the humans. There was a definite air of farewell as he swung his bow off his shoulder and put it on mine, along with his quiver. “For protection,” he said softly, and with a small smile he added, “Since you seem to have lost your own.”

Indeed, somewhere along my wild and frenzied run through the forest, I had lost my weapons. My forgotten dagger still lay sheathed and concealed within the many folds of my clothes, however. Remembering the flight, I felt the numerous cuts and bruises over my skin start up in pain. Grimacing, I said a brief, “Thanks,” and turned to leave. The sooner the better. It would take a while to find my way to the village through the forest. Not looking down, I nearly tripped over the unconscious elf. Arynne caught me before I fell, and I steadied myself against a tree, nerves stretched to the limit from the various trials I had gone through so far. I scowled at the unmoving form of the elf.

Arynne looked down at him as well, something close to disgust on his face. “He let his hate overpower him, and he lost his Sight. If he had been able to control his temper, none of this would have happened. But in showing the same weakness as the humans of the First Battle, he had to pay the same price.”

I realized that this was the reason Arynne had been able to manipulate him.

Turning to go once again, I heard Arynne’s voice again behind me. “Wait!” he called. I turned again to look at him. “It will take you days to reach the village if you do not know the way. Let me help you.” He crossed the space between us and held two fingers to my forehead, the exact place where I had felt the arrow pierce my skin. Through them I could feel his Sight building up and snaking through his arm and into my head.

It was an exhilarating experience. It felt as though a new awareness had come over me, one that enhanced and sharpened my senses to a degree that I had never felt in my entire life. Everything around me looked and felt different, as though it all had life and was not simply a stationary piece of landscape. New knowledge coursed through me, like images and details and facts that I had never heard in my life but just became aware of.

And just as suddenly, I knew the way to the village.

Arynne pulled his fingers slowly away from my forehead. Breathless from the feeling that coursed through my body, I gasped, “What was that?”

He smiled thinly. “A small taste of the Sight. Just enough to guide you. It will recede when it has served its purpose.”

The Sight. So this is what it feels like to be an elf. “I cannot thank you enough,” I said, meaning every word.

Arynne said nothing.

I turned to leave, the awareness in my bones making my step as effortlessly light as any elf. “Goodbye,” I said, and turned to look back at him. But he was gone, melted into the shadows of the trees from which he had come. Looking carefully, I saw the bright blue of his armband fading in the darkness.

It took the rest of the night to get to the village. Throughout the journey I was uncomfortably aware of the fact that without the temporary Sight, I would have been hopelessly and completely lost. If I did not have my heightened senses, the forest would have looked exactly the same, each dark pillar of a tree indistinguishable from another. Having them, though, was something indescribable. The entire trip was one wonder after another, from the smallest plant to the biggest animals, one life after another. I noticed everything, but it was not as overwhelming as I had first thought it would be.

The forest ended very suddenly. I crashed out of the trees, still full of energy from the Sight, ready to take on the next steep drop or small stretch of bog-like land. The change was so abrupt that I did not notice it at first. Only when the Sight began fading away did I realize that I had reached my destination, and was standing awkwardly as though perched on the edge of a branch, waiting to jump off to explore the next unknown. The Sight left as quickly as it had come, with the same vibrating elf music coursing through me and then melting away into the night. Quite abruptly, I was Ianna once again, the human girl-child who had lived for ten years among the elves and was going back to where she came from.

Dawn was just under the horizon, waiting precariously before it unfurled its satiny arms and embraced the sky in a glorious display of colors. Right then, the sky was a pearly white color smudged here and there with black marks as though brushed gently by charcoal, borderline pink where the earth met the clouds. The grass beneath my feet was sprinkled with soft dewdrops of water, the shadows between the blades blending into a uniform gray as the heavens brightened. Looking up slowly from the ground, I saw the tops of some tall buildings hiding behind the rise of the hill. They were made of some dull stone, dark silhouettes against the rising dawn, which made them all the more prominent.

“The village,” I whispered.

I crept slowly and quietly over the rise, as if expecting to be attacked. Perhaps I did expect it. I did not carry my bow openly notched for fear of creating unnecessary antagonistic emotions, but my hand did seem to tense over it as my feet half ran down the slope into the village. Reaching the bottom, my eyes scanned the area. The actual village was still some distance away, and completely silent. Farther behind, quite a stretch away from the trees, were fields upon fields of farms and crops. I had not seen them for years, but the familiar sight seemed to trigger my memory, and suddenly many unbidden half-recalled experiences came back to me as though through thick, muddy water. The tall building with the spire and the bell was the church…my nani took me there quite often…the low rising long building made entirely out of wood was the stable…I used to admire the horses everyday…and that one small house, set aside from the rest of the village, very close to where I stood, that was…

I ran to the small shack, forgetting to use stealth. “Nani, nani, nani,” I whispered, tears materializing in my eyes, sparkling in the almost dawn light. An image of her lying on the ground, bleeding and dying, had come unbidden to my mind. Running to the door, I recognized the charms that hung, swinging in the slight breeze and tinkling as they brushed against each other, from the sturdy wooden doorpost. The wood itself had been carved with various signs and symbols, none of which I understood the meaning of. Gently, I rested my hand against the cold metal of the unfamiliar door handle and gave a small shove. It opened effortlessly, though with a loud and resounding creak that seemed to echo across the flat plains all the way to the village. Cringing, I prayed fervently that no one had heard it, and then slipped silently inside.

There was the same rocking chair that I remembered from ten years ago. Though older and much lighter in color than it had been, it was the same chair. Beneath it was a threadbare rug that had clearly seen much better days, the colors so worn and used that it was near impossible to tell one stripe apart from the next. I bent down to feel the rough cloth, remembering the glory it once had.

From somewhere far behind me, deep inside the little cottage shack, I heard a feeble coughing. I jumped to my feet, surprised and alarmed and scared all at once. My senses had felt no one inside; the Sight had probably made my normal intuitions dull. Lucky I had been silent, I thought. Pulling an arrow out of the quiver in a practiced sweep and notching it into place, my feet padded softly across the wooden floors and closer to the racking coughs. I was sure nani had lived alone, and if nani was off hurt in the woods, then who could this be but some intruder?

The bed was in the last corner of the small cottage. A familiar window hung above it, and I realized with a sick lurch that this was the same window from the vision I had seen of the massacre. It offered a clear view of the waking village, the sun rising behind it like a father rising protectively over his beloved children. Pointing my arrow down at the bed, I saw a large lump underneath a thick white cloth, stirring slowly and sluggishly and giving off raucous fits of coughing. Clearly the intruder was sick. Still, I used the tip of my arrow to gently slip the white cloth off of his body, just incase his purpose was malevolent. I gasped. Impossibly, the person I saw before me was not an intruder.

It was nani.

She was sleeping fitfully, but her movements convinced me that she was very much alive. Her wounds had been bandaged efficiently, and though they were quite soaked with blood, the treatment seemed to be working effectively. I looked at the frown on her face and remembered the sweet smell of soap, and the wrinkles that looked like bark. She no longer smelled like soap, but like sweat and blood. Her wrinkles had grown so numerous that they looked more like the rotten withered skin of some fruit than bark. I wished I could ease the pain and suffering writ upon her face, the pain and suffering that had been caused chiefly by my curiosity. And look at where that has landed me, I thought with a grimace.

“Hey, you! Get away from her!”

My heart nearly burst through my chest with surprise and fear. Turning abruptly, I saw the speaker. She was a short, thin girl with an uncharacteristic frown on a face that was livid with anger and a slight twinge of fear. Her fingers were curled into fists so tight that they were starting to turn white. She was covered with a long white piece of cloth similar to the sheets from my dream, one that billowed and swirled around the two pallid sticks that were her legs.

“Understand me? Get away,” she said slowly and menacingly, plain uncertainty flitting across her features at whether or not I understood what she was saying. Uncomfortably, I realized the arrow I had notched and drawn was still pointed straight at my nani, its sharp point barely scraping the ancient neck. Sighing, I swung the arrow away from nani and replaced it in the quiver on my back, placing it and my bow on the ground in front of me. Already I had made a mess of things.

“Sorry,” I said softly, not wanting to frighten the edgy girl any more than I had already done. Hearing a slight groan from the bed, I quickly turned back to my nani. Fear coursed through my veins as I saw her thrashing around in the sheets as if trying to escape their clutching confinements. My hands fled to her head, stroking her hair and feeling the racing beat of her heart as she convulsed. “Nani!” I screamed as she suddenly went rigid, her wide and unblinking eyes staring at the wooden beams that ran across the ceiling.

The girl had run into the front of the house at the start of the convulsions, but now she returned, bringing with her a glass full of some amber-colored liquid. With brisk, short movements, she forced open nani’s mouth and tipped the liquid in the gaping chasm slowly. My nani seemed to be drinking the solution thirstily, and the frown on the girl’s face smoothed out. I kept on stroking her wrinkled forehead, hoping and praying that somehow the warmth would revive her. The girl spilled the last drops of the liquid into the black hole of nani’s mouth, gently placing the cup on a rickety side table. Nani’s eyes closed, and her body visibly relaxed. She was asleep.

The girl, her previous fear of me apparently forgotten, picked up the bow and quiver of arrows and ushered me into the front of the little house, handing me back my weapons. She seemed excited for some reason as she settled me into the rocking chair and sat at my feet, shining and happy eyes staring with fascination and elation into my own. Shocked, I simply stared back down at her, wondering what had caused the sudden change of feeling.

When she spoke, it was in a breathy and rushed voice. “What did you call the Healer?” she asked. Her hands went to my knees, and she eagerly raised her eyebrows. Taken aback, I didn’t respond, but the surprise was clear. She asked the question again, “What did you call her?”

Uncertain of the girl’s intentions, I replied with a single word. “Nani.”

She nearly jumped with delight. I was pushed back into the rocking chair by her extreme jubilation. “So the Healer is your grandmother?” she asked in the same quick and breathy tone.

“Yes.” Once again I answered with only one word, the uncertainty of the situation holding my tongue back and keeping me from speaking any more elaborate statements. My uncertainty and surprise doubled when the girl stood up abruptly and dragged me to my feet, towing me out the door.

“Oh my goodness, it’s you! Ianna, it’s really you! You’re name is Ianna, right?” Mutely, I nodded. Outside, the sun had been cut loose from the horizon, the distance between the two widening as each second passed. The sunrays stretched across the ground as if trying to anchor the sun to something, anything, and keep it from losing itself to the sky completely. The girl was oblivious to the heavenly struggle as she talked on excitedly. “The whole town thought you were dead! We searched for days and days, of course, but you had disappeared without a trace. A lot of people thought the elves had nothing to do with it, but I was sure they did. How else would you just vanish like that? Oh, to see the look on their faces when they see you! Look at you! You’re like an elf yourself, you gave me such a fright when I walked in to check on the Healer and saw you pointing your arrow at her with the queerest expression on your face. What were you doing anyway? Oh, but this is so exciting! The young ones think of you as some sort of a legend, though us older ones know better. The Healer always wandered off into the forest each morning, looking for you, but she’d always come back for her patients. When she didn’t come back yesterday we knew something was wrong, so some of the men went searching and found her one of those darn traps. They’ve been springing up all over the place, right near the village too, so hunting’s been such an ordeal lately. Luckily she was still alive, but the blood was something nasty, I saw her when they brought her back. It was quite repulsive, there was blood all over the place and her leg had been near chopped off, but luckily I was able to save it, though it was a mighty horrible task. I had just been out to get some water this morning, which is when you must’ve come in, but I’d stayed up all night watching her and those horrible spasms, trying to take care of them. They’ve finally begun to thin out, so I’m sure she’ll be all right in a week or two, and then a month of some quiet rest. Oh, she’ll be glad to see you, she was in a right state after you were lost, and she never really did recover from that. Oh, look, we’re at the square! The village head’ll be wanting to see you.”

I was relieved. The girl’s endless talk of nani had been excruciating, sending acute tendrils of guilt searing through my body. Trying to keep the image of nani covered with blood out of my head, I glanced around the village square. It was, indeed, in the shape of a square, and there were many stalls filled with brightly colored fruits and vegetables the like of which I had never seen before. Though it was early morning, there was a great deal of hustle from a great deal of people. Never before had I seen such harried movement or heard such tremendous noise. The elves had been quiet, graceful people. The years of silence among that race seemed to crash down around me, as I suddenly became a part of the great pulsing crowd. It was amazing that I had thought the village to be quiet from a distance when such loud sounds were emitted from these people that were sure to be heard in the very heart of the forest.

The clothes the humans wore also caught my eye in their extreme contrast to elf clothes. I wore a light, sleeveless dark green cloth that ended mid-thigh, with brown leggings that ended right below my knees, merging with the brown tan of my skin. It allowed for freedom of movement and extreme comfort. The women in the square seemed to have heavy, thick clothes that draped and confined their entire bodies, like bonds that allowed no escape whatsoever.

I felt like an invader in a schedule of refined chaos. It was clear that I did not look like or act like anyone in the village, for all that it was my real home, where I had been born and raised as a small child. Already people around me were beginning to stop and stare at me, whispering as they openly gaped at my alien appearance.

“Who is she?”

“What barbaric clothes!”

“What is she doing here?”

“Is she one of them?”

“How dare she set foot in our village!”

“What does she want?”

The girl walked proudly at my side, hand on my elbow, leading me through the crowd like a proud farmer might lead a prize-winning pig, as it parted to make way for us. She kept repeating the same phrase constantly to every passerby, explaining my sudden appearance as though she knew everything about me. “This is the Healer’s girl, the girl from the legend, she’s here to speak to the village head so make way!” It seemed to work, though I wasn’t sure whether it was her words or the crowd’s general awe that kept them away from us.

Once we had made it to the other side of the square, the girl led me to the grandest wooden contraption of a building in the entire village. Purposefully, she held her fist to the polished dark wood door and knocked loudly. The sounds of the square had switched from unbearable intensity to unbearable whispers, and with some trepidation I realized all eyes were boring down on my back. It was almost as concentrated as the gaze of the Sight of the elves. Trying to retain a semblance of pride and indifference to their scrutiny, I straightened my back and resisted the impulse to turn and glare back at all the watchers. Hearing footsteps behind the door, I turned all my attention to the large house in front of me. A relatively tall man opened the door, gazing down at the girl with surprise, and then up at me with even greater shock.

“What?” he asked, openmouthed as the rest of the villagers, who were completely silent.

Finally I managed to find my voice. Jutting in before the girl could babble out an explanation, I said, “My name is Ianna and I’ve come from the elves. I need to speak with the village head immediately.” I gazed intently at the man, hoping that he thought I had the Sight of the elves, though I did not. It would certainly ease my explanations if he thought I did.

“The – the – the village head?” he stuttered. “Um, follow me, um – lady.” He seemed at a loss to establish a title for me through his stutters, but eventually his alarm wore off and he became a brisk servant once more. Looking down at the girl, I saw that she stayed behind when I walked in, waving with a huge friendly grin on her face as the man closed the door on her face.

I couldn’t help but smile when I noticed that the man kept turning back to look at me with a stunned expression on his face. But he did not speak to me again, and once we had turned a few corners and climbed a few steps, he knocked on and left me in front of another polished door with a small bow and a, “The village head is in there. Walk right in.” Then he was gone.

Slightly nervous, I adjusted the bow and quiver I had slung on my shoulder and turned the cool metal handle of the doorknob. The door creaked as I pushed it forward. Closing it gently behind me, I looked at the village head.

He wasn’t even looking at me at first. He had a slightly bored expression on his face at first, an expression that told me he did this, this speaking of matters with the villagers, quite often. He was seated on a raised wooden dais, on a wooden chair. Both the dais and the chair were intricately carved with unintelligible pictures and designs that meant nothing to me. The room was by no means small, but as large as the canopy of one of the moderately sized trees in the elfin forest town. In a tired and bored voice, without even raising his eyes from where his hands fingered a design etched into the arms of his chair, he asked, “What problem would you wish to discuss?” Attempting not to show my dislike, I wondered whether this man was fit to be village head when he obviously did not care for the village at all.

Speaking quietly, I said, “I come to inform you that the elves are planning to ambush you’re village in less than a fortnight.”

The man glanced up with surprise, which quickly changed to shock as he saw my appearance. Suddenly he sat up in his chair and covered his face with a show of regality, chin raised and eyes disdainful, as if I were some common servant. My dislike intensified. “State your name and origin,” he demanded imperially.

There was great temptation to throw my quiver of arrows at his inflated head right then, but I resisted the urge and managed to maintain my calm exterior as I said, “My name is Ianna. I have come from the forest of the elves to warn you of an ambush.”

“Ianna?” he gaped incredulously. “The granddaughter of the Healer?”

“Yes,” I said rather impatiently. He had to understand that there was no time to waste in explanations and long-winded stories of estrangement. “You must start preparations to defend your village immediately. The elfin onslaught will be extremely harsh.”

He was still in a state of shock. “But – but we thought you were dead!”

Shaking my head, I said, “Well, it is clear that I am alive, is it not?”

“Well, yes –“

“Then you must prepare to defend yourselves. There really is no time to waste.”

He regained composure. Staring down at me once more, he said suspiciously, “How do I know you’re Ianna? How can I be sure that you’re not some elf they sent to, to make the village weaker somehow?”

I nearly cried out at his stupidity. “How could preparing for an ambush make you weaker? In fact, it would make you stronger and more able to drive them off when the time came!”

“I don’t have time to listen to your twisted elfin logic. You’ve come here for some ill purpose or another, and I will not listen to your evil words.” He turned and made as to take a long sword off the wall.

Fearing his purpose, I yelled, “Stop!” He looked at me with some surprise and anger. Apparently he had not expected such an outburst from someone who had been so calm for so long. Since I had his attention, I continued to speak. “I do not come for any ill purpose! I am Ianna, and I came to warn you of an ambush that I heard them speak of with my own ears! If you do not believe me, fine, but there is no harm in preparing. Better to have a defense than wait like a sitting duck to be slaughtered mercilessly! I have come because I want to give you a chance to live, and because it is wrong to kill so heartlessly. If you want to ignore my warning, so be it, but live forevermore with the knowledge that you sent the village and the entire human race to their deaths!”

Anger coursed through my veins and I glared at the man with contempt and frustration. He seemed taken aback at my words, and when I turned to leave he called, “Wait!” Looking back at him, I saw him pull a thick rope. A bell rang faintly somewhere in the distance, echoing through the large house. Moments later, a tall and strongly built man covered with various weapons entered the room.

“Sir?” he grunted.

The village head did not take his eyes away from mine. “Prepare weapons enough for all the able men in the village,” he said resolutely. “Make sure they get them within three days. For the rest of the week, train them. We can put off farming for that long, I believe. Tell the women and children to gather all the sticks and stones they can find. Get some men to build a wall as high as they can between the village and the forest. We only have a fortnight, so make it all quick.” The man, who I suspected was the smith, nodded and left the room. The village head relaxed in his chair, saying, “That should be enough.”

I nodded, wondering whether it would be enough. As he called someone else into the room, I thought, Maybe he isn’t so stupid after all.

The next two weeks passed extremely fast. All the preparations had been set in place. The weapons had been distributed within a matter of days, and the wall, though not taller than six feet, seemed sturdy enough to act as a barrier for at least a while.

The night of the ambush dawned quiet and dark. The women and children and older people unable to fight had been moved into the large house of the village head, with a few guards and their own weapons. Everyone else had been placed behind the wall of sticks and stones, arrows notched and swords drawn. I saw their hesitation and skepticism at whether there would be an ambush at all. It was in their stance and the half-hearted holds on their weapons. I too hope there will not be any need to use your weapons, I thought to myself.

Pacing the top of the wall, I towered over everyone else and was able to faintly see the trees in the wan light of the tiny crescent moon. My eyes intent on the trees, I thought of what I was planning to do. I did not want any fighting. I did not want any killing. I wanted peace between the two worlds. I knew that what I wanted was not going to be easily obtained, since there was nothing but cold hate between the elves an the humans, but I did not want either of my worlds shattered. There had to be a way to have some peace.

I was planning to talk to the elves and try and convince them to reconsider their ambush. I knew that if I could persuade them to turn back and continue to live in the forest, much pain and hurt and anger and resentment could be avoided. I had heard the hate in the elf’s voice when he spoke of the humans, and I was sure that the same hate was mirrored in the rest of the elves. Still, I knew that if I tried I could make some sort of a difference.

There was a slight rustling in the trees. My pacing came to an abrupt halt as I quickly turned to look into the darkness of the forest, staring intently at the shadows and trying to make out the figures of elves in the gloom. There was a small flash of bright green, then a hint of red and purple, and soon a myriad of small blotches of color came into existence along the forest edge, as though a painter had spattered patches of color along the tree line. “They’re here,” I whispered. A murmur passed along the line of men, and suddenly the half-hearted holds on weapons turned into firm grips as they lined up into position.

I heard a faint whistle in the darkness of the trees, and another rustle. Somehow I knew that at that moment, hundreds of arrows had been notched and pointed straight at the wall of sticks and stones. I stared, frozen. Behind me I heard a whispered, “Archers, mark up.” There was another rustle, this one of cloth and strings as the men behind me notched their arrows. Another whistle from the forest. Another rustle. A whisper from behind me that said, “Draw.” Another rustle of cloth. Still, I stood frozen. The tension in the air thrummed through my veins, and my heart galloped a beat in my body. It was so deathly quiet. Death. The word hung in the air in front of me, pale and bloody, bearing down on me and suffocating me until there was no breath in my lungs.

Clutched at the thin cloth around my throat, I barely heard the lone arrow whiz past my ear from behind me, from behind the wall, and into the leaves. There was a faint grunt amid the tensioned silence, and then I saw one of the faint splotches of color fall. It seemed to flutter to the ground slowly and agonizingly. I realized in the faint light that the color of the splotch was a light, but bright, blue. Recognition hit me. “Arynne, no!” I yelled. There was a faint thud as the body hit the ground. And then it was too late.

Arrows whizzed past me like missiles of destruction. Everywhere was yells and screams of agony. The peace was gone, pierced through by the arrows that raced by, eager to end the abundance of life around me. Thuds of falling bodies, blood that glinted silver in the revealing moonlight, and the shrill screams …

Suddenly the bright vision of nani lying on the forest ground, covered in blood and moonlight, floating up to greet my vision. With a sickening snap I heard the trap close on her leg again. Her piercing scream as the knife-sharp jaws dug into her skin. The endless pain that she had felt coursed now through my own veins, lighting my head and my body on fire, convulsing me as it had her. Suddenly the vision obliterated, and I staggered at my position on the wall. Glancing down, I saw the shaft of an arrow embedded in my own leg, like the pole of a flag marking its territory. Blood ran in rivers down my skin and into my boots. The pain was indescribable and excruciating. Plucking up my courage, I drew the shaft out of my skin. Luckily, the arrowhead came out with it. I fell off the wall and landed heavily on the ground outside it, facing the forest as my vision glazed.

With sudden shock I saw hundreds of figures running out of the forest with daggers and swords and staffs, yelling and crying battle cries. They were less than a hundred spans away when I realized that this was the end. The elves were heartless. The humans were heartless. Both were merciless. I had thought that by informing the humans of the ambush they could avoid loss of life, but now I could see that everyone’s hate would decide the end. In the end, both sides would suffer great losses. The elves would eventually be annihilated, having such small numbers. There would be death everywhere. The humans might die out as well, from death sickness and poison. This was indeed the end.

The elves rushed at me. The arrows rushed over my head in both directions. Blood pooled beneath me, soaking through my thin clothes and seeping into the hungry ground. I closed my eyes and waited to die.

There was a sudden crack and a flash of bright, bright light. Then there was silence. Looking up, I saw that everyone had stopped fighting to watch as the light grew brighter and brighter, blinding the onlookers. There was a thunderous voice that spoke words in some ancient language, and a loud crack of thunder. Like a flash of lightning, the light disappeared and all was quiet once more.

I stood up. The pain in my leg was gone. Looking down, I saw that the blood had disappeared, and the skin was as smooth as before. Groping for my quiver and bow, I found that both had vanished, though I was sure they had been with me during the fall. Looking around, I saw with amazement that everyone’s weapons had simply disappeared. The elves were staring about themselves with confusion and shock. I jumped back onto the wall in a swift movement I had not thought myself capable of, and saw that the arrows and bows and swords and daggers of the humans had disappeared as well. Everywhere there was the thin muted murmur of shock and fear and confusion. What had happened?

“Lady Hyuine.” I heard someone whisper. Everyone took up the name in the silent conversations. Had the occurrence indeed been the work of the Lady Hyuine, the great goddess of both humans and elves?

Looking up at the sky, I realized that this was my chance. Whatever the noise and light had been, whether it was a god or a coincidental freak of nature, this was a moment to be taken advantage of. Thank you, I said to the heavens. I thought I heard a faint echo of the thunderous voice in reply.

“Everyone, listen to me!” All eyes were on me. “This is a sign! Lady Hyuine has sent us a sign! There shall be no more fighting, or fear her wrath! This is all pointless anyhow. Elves, humans, what are we but one race? Why do you fight against your own kind when you could live together in peace and harmony? Elves, you hold a grudge against humans for killing you mercilessly. Humans, you hold a grudge against elves for the deaths of your villagers. If this is so, you are both at fault! You are both to blame! Think before you fight! Forgive each other for your grievances, and then go on your separate ways if you must. Both of you have as much a right to live as the other. Do not fight so needlessly! Do not kill so much without thought! This is a pointless battle. Even the Lady Hyuine agrees!” I pointed to the sky as I yelled and paced across the wall, looking at the expressionless faces around me. Then I looked beyond them at all the death and carnage, and my anger was multiplied tenfold. “Put aside your differences and have some peace, for the Goddess’s sake!”

Silence. I began doubting whether my words had made any impact on the people at all. My anger, which had raged through my veins so unchecked just moments before, died completely, and I was left with an empty shell of a body. It was all over.

Then, all of a sudden, I heard a single clap of hands. Immediately, there was a roar as hundreds of people, elves and humans alike, began cheering and clapping and yelling, “Long live peace!”

I wondered at that moment whether the Lady Hyuine had addled their minds or if they were reacting of their own free will, but at least she had changed them in a good way. I stood erect and silent, observing as the roar erupted into the air around me. And for once, there was no need to be afraid of the deafening noise.

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