The Aftermath
Part One
The elves watched transfixed as the scenes played out inside the Scroll of Colors. Inside the Firstcomers’ Palace, the Circle of Nine were donning their new skins, while the trolls crept up on the cocooned navigators. Outside on the mountaintop, the final trebuchet fired.
In the Navigators’ Room , the troll rebels hesitated as they felt their craft touch down on the summit…
In their observatory, the nine Firstcomers staggered as their craft suddenly lurched to one side…
In the northwest corner of the Palace, a wall opened up in a flash of fire and blast-rock…
On the summit of Thorny Mountain, crystal shards rained down….
The Palace spun on its central axis, whirling, listing hard to one side…
A single light rose from its highest tower, arcing high into the night…
A brilliant flash and all was still.
The Scroll stopped turning. The elves held their breath.
Skywise was the first to find his voice. “What happened?”
Timmain blinked. She shook her head irritably. “What happened?!” Skywise repeated, more forcefully.
“My friends… my younger self…” Timmain whispered forlornly. “They’ve returned to the past.”
With a huff of irritation, Skywise waved his hands to turn the Scroll again. Guided by his thoughts, memories slowly resolved themselves: trolls tearing open cocoons… dazed High Ones getting to their feet… a nervous Adya approaching a primitive human with an outstretched hand.
“What does it mean?” Savin asked.
Skywise smiled tentatively. “I think… I hope…”
**Mother?** Sunstream sent. **Father, can you hear me?**
* * *
At the sending, Swift lifted her head, only to bang it against an invisible dome. The fire was still raging over them, but Rayek’s shield had held.
In the distance, a thin wail of agony rose up into the night.
**– Father, can you hear me?** Sunstream tried again.
Swift stared at Rayek in disbelief. He looked just as stunned by their survival.
**Son – yes!** he sent back. **Yes, we hear you! Oh, I’ve never heard anything sweeter!**
**Sunstream?** Swift asked. **What happened? Did the time threads hold?**
**I’m not sure yet. I need to hail the Circle. But the Palace is gone.**
**Where?**
Sunstream’s joy was palpable in his sending. **Back to the Homeland. A full spiral into the past!**
As if in confirmation, the keening moan echoed off the rocks.
“Kahvi…” Rayek growled.
“Guess she made it through too.”
Rayek slowly stood, raising the shield to hold off the last residual flames. The main wave of the firestorm had moved higher on the mountain now, and the air was almost clear again. Rayek helped Swift to her feet. Their clothes were singed in places, and they stank of smoke and sweat, but they were both unharmed.
**So, the danger is past?** Swift asked. **We can use real magic now?**
**I don’t see why not. Mother – what?**
Swift glanced at her lifemate. “Rayek?”
“With pleasure.”
Rayek called on the full potential of the Palace. He rose up into the air and summoned a shockwave that blasted down on the mountain like a fist. Instinctively, Swift crouched and raised her hands, but Rayek’s shield was still around her, and the compressed air simply bounced off it.
The shockwave raced outwards, snuffing out the fires around Swift, clearing a path to the remaining Palace – their Palace – the only Palace that mattered now, Swift realized with a flood of relief. But she didn’t run to safety. Not yet. She wanted to watch the show.
* * *
Cheers went up from the trebuchet when the glowing palace seemed to explode in a shower of shattered crystal. The saddle-chief rallied the survivors and ordered them up the mountainside to recover the debris.
“Glory to the Djun!” he shouted. “Retrieve the blessings of Threksh’t!”
Behind the lines of soldiers, Grohmul Djun barked for a mounted escort. He would ride up in full triumph, with sword-bearers and heralds as witnesses to his triumph.
Somewhere nearby, the War Witch screamed, but the Djun paid it no mind. H’saka was always raging. Likely she was disappointed the battle was over so quickly.
Then the fires changed direction, running downhill against all reason, racing towards the trebuchet.
The fires died out before they could reach the war machines. But the shockwave that had extinguished them continued on. Djunsmen flew end-over-end like leaves scattered in a gust of wind. The great beam of the trebuchet snapped in two. The saddle-chief managed one defiant curse before he was hurled off into the night.
Rayek continued to draw on the Palace’s magic. He channelled raw power into a focused beam, heating the air to make lightning. The blast incinerated the remains of the trebuchet, and the harvester on which it sat. The coal in the harvester’s engine and the remaining kegs of ballistics ignited in a huge fireball. Rayek soared above the carnage, untouched. He saw the bulk of the human war camp just below, a hive of chaotic activity as men deserted their posts in terror.
He dove towards the camp.
“Demon!” Grohmul Djun roared. “Shoot it down! Threksh’t has spoken, and He favors MAN!”
Rayek’s lightning bolt tore through the camp, searing the earth in a straight line towards Grohmul Djun. The warlord watched his escort melt away.
“Come back, you fools! No flying rat can stand agains the might of the Djun! I am the source – the answer! I alone control all the–”
Rayek flicked his wrist, and the lightning cracked like a whip. The bolt caught the Djun and his horse, setting them aflame and hurling them through the air like one of the trebuchet’s firebombs. Burning, screaming, Grohmul Djun sailed over his camp like a meteor before crashing down into a supply tent. Jars of oil caught fire, and another blast rocked the war camp.
Rayek heard Kahvi’s scream, rising above all the humans’ cries. He changed course.
“It’s over, Kahvi!” he shouted into the swirling columns of smoke. “Your scheme has failed. The past is beyond your reach now!”
The oily smoke parted, and Kahvi stepped out of the carnage. Her clothes were singed and her hair was full of ash. But the pulsing aura of the starstone continued to shield her from injury.
“It’s not over!” she howled back. “It’s never over for me!”
Rayek allowed himself a smirk. “You’ve not faced a true Palacemaster before.”
“You think you can end this, black-hair? Then show me!” She spread her arms wide in invitation.
Rayek gathered his magic and dove towards her, a great curtain of lightning clearing a path for him. The heat was so intense the rocks themselves began to crack and soften. Bits of debris from the human camp incinerated instantly. Kahvi stood unmoving, her eyes wide with a mad sort of hope.
The leading edge of the lightning beam reached her, and ran hard against the shield of the corrupted Palacestone. Resistance pushed back against Rayek, and his dive began to slow. Great whips of magic cracked about Kahvi’s shield. Rayek grit his teeth and drew deeper on his reserves of will.
“How can this be?” he demanded. “You spit on magic! You always have!”
“I’ve always had reason! Now more than ever!”
“Then drop your shield and let me kill you!”
“Fool! It’s not me! Can’t you see that?” Kahvi tore at her clothes, baring her breast and the humming Palacestone. “Take it!” she pleaded. “Come on, Palacemaster – finish me!”
Rayek pushed onward steadily, gaining ground inch by inch. The magic swirling about them both had become a blinding sphere of light. The air tore apart with the sound of striking lightning. The Palacestone seemed to beat like a racing heart. Rayek was almost within reach. He extended a hand towards the shield. “Please!” Kahvi screamed over the breaking thunder.
Rayek’s fingertips brushed the very edge of the Palacestone’s shield. Kahvi lurched as a thin crack appeared in the purple crystal.
Then the building magical pressure gave way like a snapped bowstring. Rayek went flying backwards. Kahvi was thrown in the opposite direction, tumbling end over end, screaming in agony.
“Rayek!” Swift cried. She shielded her eyes from the brightness as she tracked his fall. The ground was still scorched underfoot, but she deftly bounded from rock to rock until she had descended the hill to the site where he fell.
“Rayek?”**Rayek, answer me!**
She caught sight of him, sprawled on the rocks. Was he dead? Had he truly survived everything this world had thrown at him – even the reweaving of his past – only to be felled by Kahvi? But no, she saw his leg kick reflexively. By the time she had scrambled down to his side, he was slowly beginning to come around.
“Hunnnh… Swift?” he moaned as his eyes slowly focused on her face.
“We’ve had quite the night, you old bead-rattler,” she remarked with a wry fondness, as she helped him sit up. “Anything else you’d like to do before sun-up? Knock Thorny Mountain down? Blast the moons out of the sky?”
“I couldn’t kill her.”
“Never mind that. I’m just glad you’re in one piece.”
“The Palacestone… it seems to breathe with a life of its own. Ngh – it’s impossible. The power of our Palace should be more than enough to subdue it. But it resists! I could not touch it.”
“We’ll regroup. We’ll find a way.”
“If I cannot dent its armor, even with all the magic of the Palace behind me–”
His ankle was sprained, or worse. He was still too stunned to glide, yet he tried to limp on the wounded limb. Swift huffed in annoyance and threw his arm over her shouder. “Oh, you dear fool. Always choosing the thorniest path… lean on me, now. Kahvi can wait.”
Together, they slowly made their way back to the disguised Palace.
Skywise and Savin met them at the threshold. “Stars – don’t you ever do that to us again!” Skywise warned sternly as he helped them inside.
“Vaya?” Swift asked. “The others?”
“All safe,” Skywise said. “Sunstream’s summoning the Circle right now.”
“Yes… he must confirm the time-threads have held across all the nations.” Rayek hopped awkwardly on his swollen ankle, then summoned enough magic to float himself just above the floor. “Then we will need to marshal our forces. We will need to track Kahvi. Who knows what damage she will seek to cause now, out of thwarted spite. We will need to–” he turned, and became aware for the first time of Ember and Teir, standing to the side with their wolfpack.
“You. It’s been many years. Have you decided to rejoin the nations at last? What?” he flinched from Ember’s cold stare. “Why do you stare at me like that?”
“It’s Howling Rock all over again,” Ember growled, and turned away. Teir hesitated, offering Rayek a vaguely apologetic expression. Then he followed his lifemate.
“What does she mean?” Rayek asked, completely baffled.
Swift could only shrug. “Three hundred years with only Teir and her wolfpack for company – who knows what goes on in her head.”
Skywise and Savin led them into the Scroll Chamber. Timmain was turning the Scroll as Aurek and Weatherbird watched. “What happened?” Swift demanded. “We saw the Palace struck!”
Timmain smiled serenely. “As I tried to counsel you from the start: what must be, will be. Look.” She called up images of the fire-bomb striking the Firstcomers’ Palace. A large piece of crystal broke off, and the entire Palace spun off-balance before disappearing.
“A sudden blow – I had always thought it the moment the Navigators lost control, when the trolls cut open their cocoons. But I was wrong: it was the humans’ projectile. That was the blow that sent us back in time. Do you see, all of you? The humans were always meant to attack us.”
Aurek frowned. “You always said it was the troll rebellion–”
“So I thought. But I never saw beyond the walls of the ship before. No… the trolls are innocent in this part of our stranding. It was the humans’ fire-bomb that threw us back in time. The trolls merely ensured we remained there. But we were already on our way to the past when the first cocoon was cut.” She turned a satisfied smile on Swift and Rayek. “Do you see now? In fighting the human incursion, you endangered the very past you sought to protect.”
Skywise let out a disdainful snort. “You know what I see, Timmain? I see one trebuchet firing on the Palace instead of three. If the humans were meant to attack the Palace, then we were meant to defend it.”
Timmain opened her mouth, then closed it. She turned back to the Scroll. “Either way, the circle remains closed. We can debate the nature of our choices in safety now… if choices they truly were. One could argue we were all merely following a thread woven long ago.”
“Once, you believed in forging your own path,” Swift said. “Or maybe the tales told it wrong.”
Aurek took over at the Scroll, calling up an image of the deserted summit. Crystal debris littered the rocks. “We can debate the concept of predestination at another time,” he said. “At the moment, I would suggest we retrieve the shards that did not make the journey back to the past.”
“Agreed!” Rayek said. “We cannot allow them to fall into Kahvi’s hands. Who knows what she may do with more starstone in her possession. Come, Aurek. Together we can gather them all up in no time.”
“We’ll watch your back,” Savin said. “I wouldn’t put it past a Djunsmen or two to still be hanging around.”
“Good idea.” Skywise shot a resentful glare at Timmain. “I could use some fresh air.”
The elves left Timmain and Weatherbird alone in the Scroll Chamber. Weatherbird glanced up at Timmain out of the corner of her eye.
“You lost their trust tonight, High One,” she warned.
“So I see.”
“That doesn’t bother you?”
“Very little can bother me now. The moment is past. My friends are gone. My children are safe. And the temptation is removed.”
“The temptation?”
“The choice I could have made.” She saw the realization dawn on Weatherbird and she smiled serenely. “I will be glad to return to the Egg. You must understand, I was never made to forge a path, only to recall the paths others had trod.”
Weatherbird regarded her warily, unsure what to say. But Timmain was not waiting for a reply; she had already returned to her study of the Scroll. Weatherbird turned to give her some privacy, and saw her father enter the Scroll Chamber.
“The other nations?” she asked.
Sunstream frowned. “All reporting in, except for Oasis. No, no,” he added quickly when he saw Weatherbird’s horrified expression. “They’re not destroyed. I can sense them… but I can’t quite reach them. It’s like there’s a sending shield up around the whole nation.”
“Let me help.” Weatherbird held out her hand to him, and together father and daughter concentrated on a single sending star. Interested spirits left the walls of the Palace to swim around them, amplifying their telepathy. Their combined awareness came up against the shield surrounding Oasis. Strange – most shields read as cold to their senses, but this one was glowing hot… yet did not burn.
“Starstone,” Weatherbird said, as she broke the link. “What has Haken done with the Little Palace?”
Timmain turned around at the sound of Haken’s name.
* * *
The air stank of woodsmoke as they scouted the summit. Rayek’s shockwave had extinguished the closest fires, but others still burned, and the final destruction of the Djun’s war camp had ignited several more. Lines of flames smoldered all around the eastern flank of the mountain.
“That one’s heading right for the Thorn Road,” Swift pointed out.
“Let it burn,” Rayek said. “There’s nothing in that direction but humans.”
Aurek hummed a cheerful tune as he began to float the little crystal flakes scattered about the summit. Shards as small as a thumbnail and as big as an elf child all rose up under his magic and hung suspended together in a neat line. “Like mending a broken vase,” he murmured with satisfaction. “Hmm…” Aurek paused to examine a shard of starstone floating in front of him. A scrap of webbing hung off its side.
“Wrapstuff.”
“There’s more over here!” Savin announced from the other side of the summit pyramid. “And… oh.”
The elves joined her on the eastern slope of the summit. A green-skinned Preserver lay crushed on the rocks, next to the smoking remains of a small proto-troll. Wrapstuff wisps lay all around them, some singed by fire.
“The fire-bomb must have hit the Navigators’ Chamber,” Skywise said.
“No wonder they lost control,” Savin remarked.
Swift nodded. “These two must have been blown out just before the Palace disappeared. Spread out. Let’s see if there are any other dead.”
The eastern face of the summit pyramid was far steeper than the western approach. Rayek scouted it from the air while Skywise and Savin combed the northern slope for debris, and Swift inspected the western face with Aurek. The pair turned up a few more crystal shards, and more wisps of wrapstuff, but no other bodies.
“Anything?” Swift asked when Skywise and Savin returned.
“Nothing,” Skywise said.
Rayek was the last to return. He held a large piece of wrapstuff in his hand. “No body, but I found this.”
He held out the casing under the moonlight. Fresh blood streaked the silver threads.
“Whose blood?” Swift demanded.
“We’d need a wolf’s nose to be certain,” Rayek said. “But I can hazard a guess.”
They all could. Only an elf had any business being inside a wrapstuff cocoon.
* * *
The Mercenary rode down the mountain path, his way lit by the glow of the smoldering underbrush. His horse stumbled in the gloom, and he forced himself to slow his pace. “Become a Djunsman,” he grumbled under his breath. “Riches await you… paugh!” Any fool could have told the Djun that breaking the Pact would end in disaster – his own wretched daughter had begged him not to enlist with the war camp at Haunted Mountain.
“No, Papa! You can’t hurt the good spirits!” she’d cried. “Threksh’t will punish us!” A split lip had silenced her soon enough, but her accusing eyes had followed him as he’d prepared to leave. And curse her, she was right after all. The Djun was dead – blasted into oblivion by that flying elf! – and the gold he’d been promised by the saddle-chief had probably been melted down to slag by the demons’ infernal fires. It was only his quick thinking that had spared him the same fate at his fellow mercenaries.
He drew up on the reins and stopped to think, in the shadow of the mountain’s steep eastern face. He was a deserter now. If anyone else from the escort had survived the attack, they would finger him for a coward and a Djun-killer. But how likely was that, when he thought about it carefully? He had only barely managed to outrun the shockwave himself, and he had been on the right-most wing. Everyone to his left had vanished in light and scorching heat. If he returned home now and claimed to have been on scouting mission when he saw the war camp go up in flames, who would dare contradict him?
The smoke was growing thick again. The brushfires had almost caught up with him. The flames were small enough now, but he knew from experience how quickly a tree could go up in smoke. He had to keep moving.
He heard a mewl of pain, like a wounded animal. He urged his horse towards the sound; he might as well spear a meal for his woman to cook, since he hadn’t the gold to buy one. A nice haunch of venison or even a roast hare would go a long way to soothing his nerves.
The cry came again. It sounded almost human. The man scowled as he dismounted from his horse and probed the brambles that hugged the exposed bedrock. Just his luck if he uncovered a filthy outlaw; the scum would be too poor to rob.
Tatters of white stuff clung to the thorns. He lifted a piece and rubbed it between his fingers. It felt almost like sprite-silk. He wondered if his wife could spin it into something useful. Proper sprite-silk sold for its weight in gold dust at the elf-fairs out west. Even if this stuff was torn and bloodstained, he could probably trade it for a pretty shek.
Then he saw the creature trapped under the thorns.
It was partly cocooned – definitely sprite-silk, then! – and it moaned weakly as it tried to free itself of the webbing. Thin, milky white arms flailed against the ground. It was roughly man-sized and man-shaped, though its head was deformed: long and tapered at the crown, lacking hair or even visible ears. Its eyes were huge black pools in its face.
A Hidden One! His luck was finally starting to turn!
Elfquest copyright 2015 Warp Graphics, Inc. Elfquest, its logos, characters, situations, all related indicia, and their distinctive likenesses are trademarks of Warp Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved. Some dialogue taken from Elfquest comics. All such dialogue copyright 2015 Warp Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved. Alternaverse characters and insanity copyright 2015 Jane Senese and Erin Roberts.