The Ballad of Two-Edge
Part Three
Pain. Agony. Such pain he can find no words for it. Two-Edge drifts back into awareness. He is lying on his side, atop a broken bed of rocks. He is half-buried by pieces of blue-gray stone. Such agony. How long has he lain there? A day... two, three? He twists and turns to his side. Winnowill is lying next to him. She lies on her back, one arm thrown over her head. Blood has dried on her lips and chin. Part of her skull is oddly misshapen under her stream of black hair. Her rib cage is flattened by several large rocks. From the stiffness in her arms and the colour of her face, she has lain there for at least two days.
Winnowill is dead.
But Two-Edge lives.
His mother is dead.
But he lives!
It is over... and she has won again... one last time.
* * *
Two-Edge waits to die... he waits. But he doesn’t die. Clouds gather over the mountain rubble as night falls. At length rain begins to stream down over the dust and rocks. The rain revives him. The urge to die wanes, and he remembers...
Death is weakness.
He pulls himself out of the rubble. The rocks that killed his mother only wounded him. He limps a little... his leg may be broken... or perhaps he has simply bruised the bone. At length he straightens. He is remarkably unharmed. Credit his troll blood.
He begins to pick up rocks and stack them over Winnowill’s body. He will emtomb her as the trolls do their dead, as the Gliders did their dead. Strange... how elf and troll can be one in death.
He buries Winnowill. He leaves her there. He begins to walk. He doesn’t know where exactly. Perhaps he will find the Wolfriders... perhaps not. He doesn’t know what he wants anymore... if he wants anything now.
His mother is dead.
He heard a weak moan... carried on the wind.
A dying animal.
Two-Edge follows the sound. He scrambles over a rise of rubble. He expect to find a small ravvit, or maybe a human.
Instead he finds an elf.
The elf lies on the ground below the stone chair. Why... is it Egg, the elfin shaper of the Great Egg? But that creature was always pure gray – gray skin, gray eyes, gray clothes. This elf is naked, clothed in mere tatters of gray leather, his long hair soft golden. Two-Edge spots a broken metal skullcap lying on the ground. Yes, it is Egg. So he is a living, breathing elf under all of Winnowill’s magic.
Egg is moaning. He is trying to pull himself up. His legs are clearly broken, as is one of his arms. He gasps, coughs, and passes out. He never even saw Two-Edge.
Two-Edge limps away. Blue Mountain is gone, but his underground tunnels are surely still intact.
* * *
Dawn has arrived. Egg is near death. Strange, no scavenger birds have gathered to pick the flesh off the dead and dying. Perhaps they are too afraid. Perhaps they can sense the foul magic that hangs in the air.
Two-Edge scoops Egg from the ground. The Glider is even lighter than Winnowill.
He lays Egg on the stretcher of soft leather and wood. It is a fine stretcher – one which took him the better part of the night to make from a blanket and some scraps of leather. It will make a fine bed for the patient.
Egg moans softly. Two-Edge struggles to strap the half-delirious Glider to the stretcher. His arm aches. Perhaps he injured it as well as his leg.
“Who...?” Egg moans.
Two-Edge pauses. He has never heard the creature speak before. He wasn’t certain if he could.
“You are alive. The mountain collapsed.”
“Unhhh...”
Egg drifts into unconsciousness again. Perhaps it is a blessing. Two-Edge picks up the handles of the stretcher and drags the Glider back to his tunnel entrance.
Egg is so helpless... no stronger than a cub himself.
It feels nice to have someone to tend to.
“Mmm... no, you have not won yet, dear Mother,” he whispers. “Not yet. I have the last hand to play in this game... and I will end it. I will fix your broken toy. I will have the last word.”
* * *
Two-Edge holds up Egg’s head as he feeds him the hot broth. Egg drinks the broth clumsily. Liquid runs down his chin and splashes on his chest.
“Messy... messy,” Two-Edge chides as he sets the bowl aside and cleans Egg’s face with a soft leather cloth.
“Thank you...” Egg moans.
“No worries, no worries. This ends the game... my dear mother thinks she could die and escape the end of the match. Hah! No... this game I win.”
“So... tired.”
“Mm-hm. Both your legs are broken. Left arm too.” Two-Edge turns back to the fire he kindles in the little hearth. His underground home is a little too small for two people. But it will do. “Egg is broken as Blue Mountain. But I’ll set Egg right.”
“Aurek...”
“Huh?” Two-Edge looks up.
“My... name... is Aurek.”
Two-Edge smiles. “Aurek, then. Yes... all her names are dead down here.”
“The others...?”
“All dead or gone. Elves and humans. All gone.”
“Winnowill?”
“Dead. She didn’t want to lose. She died, but I lived. She kept me alive... somehow... she let me live.” Light flares in Two-Edge’s eyes. “Yes. She could have healed herself. She could have. But she let me live instead. And she think she’s won. But I won’t let her win. See... this is my game now!”
Aurek blinks. And he seems to understand, for a slow smile tugs at his lips.
* * *
Aurek is healing very slowly. Two-Edge store of food is all gone. But he knows how to hunt. And so he heads out and begins to stalk game. It is hard work. Most of the game has left the area. He has to cross the Death Water River to the Forbidden Grove. There he finds abundant game. On the very edge of the forest, Two-Edge spots a deer drinking from one of the tributaries of the Death Water River. One precision throw of his hammer brings the doe down. He and Aurek can feast for several days now.
He hears the scream of a giant hawk overhead.
A shudder runs down his spine. Winnowill...
No. No, she is dead. He is safe now. That hawk is nothing more than a bird now.
“Rrrrawwwwkk!” the hawk cries.
“Bah!” Two-Edge growls. “Go back your nest!”
He hears a rustle in the trees. “Skywise?” a familiar voice calls. “Oh, Skyw–”
Two-Edge stares up at the Glider.
“Maiden... Aroree...”
“Two-Edge. What – where are the Wolfriders? They left the Palace days ago. I could not go with them then... I feared facing her... Winnowill. But then, then, as the days passed I couldn’t stay in the Palace. The Go-Backs were kind enough... in their way. But I had to go. I had to go help my little friend Skywise. And so I came here. But... but... nothing – nothing remained! Blue Mountain – what has happened to it? My people – the Chosen Eight? Winnowill? The Wolfriders? Oh, tell me, Two-Edge? Do the tumbled rocks cover Skywise’s bones as well as the Gliders’?”
“The Wolfriders... I don’t know. They were all outside before the mountain fell. I spent many days under the mountain. I think... one night... a few days ago... something was here...” Two-Edge shrugs. “I thought I felt something. Bah. The Wolfriders are gone now. Long gone. Probably back to the Frozen Mountains or Rayek’s cursed Sorrow’s End... no matter... they’re gone.”
“And Winnowill?”
“Dead.”
“Ohhh... I have hoped for such a day... and yet feared it.”
“Aye.” He nods. He understands. “But she hasn’t come back. Her spirit has flown. Probably in the castle-ship now... mild as you please... else she’d be here to torment us still. She thinks she’s won the game now.”
“And the Chosen Eight? And all the others?”
“All dead.”
“And you.... Two-Edge?”
There is such kindness in her sad eyes.
Tears welled in his eyes. “My mother is dead. For all the pain she caused... she was my mother! I wanted to die too. But there is something that keeps me here... keeps me alive. One of your kin.”
“A survivor?” Aroree clapped her hands. “Oh... is there a living Glider free of Lord Winnowill’s poison?”
Two-Edge nods gruffly. “Aurek. The Egg.”
“Egg? Aurek? Oh....”
“You know him?”
Aroree nods. “Oh, yes. He is... I think he is my grandfather... or my great-uncle... but it has been so long since he became one with the Egg. And he is alive? And aware?”
Two-Edge nods. A bashful smile touches his face. “You can come... join us... help me... help him heal.”
Aroree smiles... tremulously. “Yes... a healing...”
* * *
“Aroree...” Aurek smiles weakly when Aroree kneels at his bedside. Now there was almost no room in Two-Edge’s quarters. The halfling raises his pick and sets to work hollowing out new space for them.
“Aurek... sometimes I think I only imagined my memories of you... as you were before.” Tears well in her eyes. “Tell me... please. I know you are my close kin. But I have forgotten... how?”
“My sister Esvahri... you are her granddaughter. Yes, I remember now. You are my great-niece.”
Aroree weeps and hugs him, gently. “Uncle! I have a family at last. Oh, thank you, Two-Edge! Thank you for finding me.”
An alien feeling stirs Two-Edge’s old heart. He turns away abruptly. “You found me, maiden.”
Stupid, senseless troll, he thinks. What maiden would ever accept his love? Certainly not a near High One such as Aroree. No... no... I could never... never dare... never ask...
Two-Edge continues to chip away a new seat into the rock. He sticks to what he knows. It is easier that way.
* * *
Every day Aurek grows stronger. Aroree hunts with her talon-whip, and a diet of rich meaty stew sets Aurek on his feet sooner than expected. As summer turns to autumn, he joins Aroree in the hunt, while Two-Edge stokes the fire to cook what they bring home.
The nights grow colder as winter approaches. Aurek sleeps well at night on his bed – the stretcher now set into a rocky niche to serve as mattress. But Aroree never seems to sleep. She turns down Two-Edge’s bed and sits up instead.
**Don’t you sleep, maiden?** he asks one night as Aurek slumbers.
**I cannot.** She looks away. **Lord Winnowill... destroyed my ability to dream long ago. Without dreams... sleep is an empty pit from which there is no escape.**
**Don’t you get tired?**
**Very tired... sometimes. But elves can go forever without sleep if need be. And there were none in Blue Mountain whose dreams I could ask to share. No one dreamt in Blue Mountain, towards the end.**
**I did. But only nightmares.**
**And now?** she asks. Her eyes seem to pierce his soul.
Now it is Two-Edge who looks away. **Some other dreams... sometimes. The healer Rain... he spared me from many sleepless nights. I... I would offer to share my dreams with you, maiden... but I couldn’t risk sharing a nightmare with you. You do not know what it is to truly suffer at Winnowill’s hand. I do not want you to find out.**
It isn’t a lie. But it is only a half-truth. There are other dreams he does not want Aroree to share. Dreams of a beautiful golden-haired maiden...
**It’s cold... don’t you want another blanket?**
**No...** Aroree sends back. **I am fine.**
* * *
Two-Edge is working at chipping out a new chamber for his cave when Aroree flies in. Her leathers are torn across her right leg, and a deep gash runs down her calf. Her hair is mussed, falling out of the normally tidy bun she keeps.
“Maiden! What happened?”
“I...” she stammers. “I was hunting. I... I found a buck near the river and I struck with my talon-whip. I had never used it on so large a prey. The buck fought the claw in its neck, and it pulled me by the talon-whip’s rope. I fell. The buck tried to trample me... but I... I am fine now.”
“You’re wounded!”
“It’s not too bad...” Aroree sits down.
Two-Edge draws water from the ever-flowing stream that runs through a vein in the wall. He puts the waterpot over the fire to heat it, then turns back to Aroree.
“Where is Aurek? Why wasn’t he there to help you?”
“He was hunting elsewhere... no...it’s all right...” Aroree pulls back her tattered leather pant-leg. The gash is not quite as deep as Two-Edge feared. Soon the water is sufficently heated, and Two-Edge wets a piece of leather and begins to daub away the blood.
“You shouldn’t be hunting by yourself.”
“I am one of the Chosen Eight – at least I was. I am used to it.”
“But it is dangerous.”
Aroree smiles. “You are worried about me.”
Two-Edge flushes. “Of course. You... and Aurek... we need... we...” He looks away, disgusted with himself that he cannot find the words.
Aroree touches his cheek. He flinches.
“I think you are family too,” Aroree says simply.
* * *
Soon a year has passed since Blue Mountain fell. Aurek wants a new home closer to the open sky, and Two-Edge helps him build a small house above ground and several large chambers underground. Aroree hunts constantly. She has cut her hair short now. It floats about her face softly. She seems lighter now. Her hair had held her down for so long. Now she floats free. Now she smiles often.
“Why do you always wear your gloves?” Aroree asks one day. Two-Edge flinches.
“You never take them off. Not even when you sleep. Why?”
Two-Edge looks down at his oiled leather gauntlets. “I’ve... always worn them...”
“They hide something, don’t they?”
Two-Edge clenches his fists. “I’m sorry,” Aroree says quickly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Two-Edge reaches down and tugs off one of the gloves. Puckered scars lace his palm. Aroree gasps. “Ohh, Two-Edge. What happened? Did Winnowill...?”
Two-Edge nods. “They were the first... the first of many.... My father... she killed him in front of me. I fought against the cage bars. The spikes... they dug into my hands...”
“Why didn’t you have Rain heal the scars?”
He shakes his head. “No. I want to keep them. I need to remember.”
Aroree takes his calloused hand and presses it to her cheek. Her face is so small set into the curve of his hand. Her skin is so soft... so warm.
Two-Edge pulls his hand away abruptly. He turns away.
“I’m sorry, Two-Edge,” she says again.
“No... it’s not your fault, maiden. It’s... my pain... my...” he closes his eyes tight. How can he ever confess the truth? She would only laugh. Or turn away in horror. She belongs with another High One... someone like Aurek. So Two-Edge tugs his glove back on.
The moons wax and wane. Aurek and Aroree spent more and more time together. Two-Edge disappears deeper under the mountain every day, rebuilding half-collapsed tunnels and recreating a fraction of his old tunnels. He is certain his maiden will not miss him. She is probably happier with Aurek. They may well be secret lovemates. Why not? Uncle and niece among the trolls is a frequent coupling.
He is tortured by the memory of Aroree’s warm skin.
He digs deeper under the mountain. He disappears for moons at a time. He digs tunnels to nowhere. It soothes his troubled mind... his painful dreams.
Aroree is always there in his thoughts. She has almost replaced Winnowill now.
One day he chips off a large flake of stone in the course of his excavation. He looks down at it a moment, then sits on the floor and starts to shape it with the smaller chisel in his toolbelt. He scratches and chips and molds until a silhouette begins to appear
He will make a present for her.
He emerges from the tunnels days later. He find Aroree outside the little house. She turns and sees him. She flies towards her. A grin lights her up face.
“Two-Edge! Where have you been? I worried.... I thought...”
He holds up a bundle of soft cloth. “For you.”
Aroree takes it hesitantly. She is puzzled. Slowly, she begins to unwrap it.
A smalls statuette, the length of her forearm, is revealed. It is a flawless portrait of Aroree as Two-Edge first saw her, wearing the crown of the Chosen Eight, her leathers trimmed with elegant stone feathers.
“Oh, Two-Edge... you made this?”
“You see? No rock-shaper can match the work of a troll who sets his heart to it.” There is a hint of challenge in his voice. He is daring Aurek to beat this gift.
Tears glint in her eyes. “Oh, Two-Edge, it is wonderful. Is this where you’ve been?”
He nods.
“You should have sent to me. I was very worried. I thought you might have been hurt... or... that you had left us.”
Two-Edge lowers his gaze. “Would you care... if I did?”
“Of course I would. How can you say that? You are my family. You found me... when I was all alone, completely lost. I don’t know what I would do without you.”
“You have Aurek.”
“But Aurek isn’t you, Two-Edge.”
Two-Edge looks up at her, puzzled.
Aroree looks over the statuette again. “Never... I’ve never had anyone make something like this for me. Why, Two-Edge? What... why did you make this now?”
He shrugs. “Because... I thought you would like it.”
Aroree drops down and hugs him quickly. “Oh, I love it. I will always treasure this, Two-Edge.”
Two-Edge flushes. He turns away. “Then... I’m happy... maiden,” he stammers out.
* * *
Two-Edge wakes up in the middle of night. His lies on his stone bed deep under Aurek’s house. It is nice and warm underground. The harsh winds don’t touch him here.
He feels an added warmth up against him. He turns.
Aroree lies next to him on the fur cover. Her eyes are shut, and her breathing is regular. Her shoulders tremble a little with cold. Two-Edge silently drapes an extra fur over her body.
He swears he hears Winnowill laughing in the bad of his mind.
“Fool... do you think she would ever love you?”
Go away...
“She is a High One, like me. And you could never hope to have her.”
Leave me alone...
“You’re nothing but mud, Two-Edge. You’ll never capture a High One’s heart.”
Two-Edge closes his eyes tight, squeezing out silent tears.
* * *
Two-Edge spends more and more time underground. He disappears for months while Aroree and Aurek rebuild. Aurek has learned to tend plants inside his house. He hunts and fishes. He learned to weave together soft cloth from nearby plants and starts to wear linen shirts. He looks more and more like a Glider of old Blue Mountain. He looks like a High One.
Two-Edge continues to dig. He creates huge chambers underground, chambers that lead to nowhere. He chisels elaborate bas reliefs depicting the old glory days of Blue Mountain. He unearths deep red jewels and cuts and polishes them into necklaces and bracelets that he would never dare give her.
One day he comes back to Aurek’s house and finds Aurek and Aroree laughing together as they sit by the table. Two-Edge turns away scornfully. It is all he can do not to snap Aurek in two right then and there.
But he does not go back underground. Instead he seeks out his bed in the lower level of the house and falls into a deep sleep. He wakes up in the middle of the night. Aroree is sitting at his side.
“I wish you wouldn’t go away so often,” she whispers. “I worry about you.”
Two-Edge fumbles for words. “Then... I’ll stay here, maiden.”
He keeps his word. He stays near the house. And as the days turn to months, he finds himself waking up in the middle of the night to find Aroree asleep at his side.
“I thought you didn’t sleep,” he stammers one morning.
“Some nights... I feel so tired... it feels good to sleep.”
“Without dreams?”
“I... I think I have dreams... little shreds of dreams now...”
“What sort of dreams?”
“I don’t know. Mostly memories... bits of memories from the day before. It’s not much... but it’s better than darkness. And you, Two-Edge?” she smiles. “Have your nightmares begun to fade?”
He shrugs. “I have... other dreams... a little more often.” He lowers his eyes so she won’t read his thoughts in his gaze.
Fool.... Winnowill taunts him. Two-Edge shuts her voice from his mind.
Another year passes.
* * *
Five years have passed since Blue Mountain fell.
Five years since his mother died... five years since he was freed from his games, and plunged into another kind of agony. Two-Edge continues to dig under the mountain, rediscovering old passageways. Aroree continues to haunt his dreams.
If only she were a troll maiden. If only he were an elf.
The most painful dream of all visits him regularly now. He watches from afar as Winnowill holds a little troll-baby in her arms. Smelt hovers nearby, his face alight with wonder. And then the dream changes, and it is Aroree who holds a little elf-baby, and Two-Edge who beams with the pride of fatherhood.
He cannot bear much more. He is going mad anew.
It is a warm summer day when he comes out into the sun. Aroree is standing on a rocky ledge, looking out over the valley below. Two-Edge hangs back a moment, then stumbles forward. He holds another bundle of cloth in his hands. Aroree sees him and turns around. She smiles.
Two-Edge holds out the bundle silently, his eyes pleading. Aroree takes it and unwraps it. Inside lies a golden necklace, set with five perfectly cut rubies.
“Two-Edge... I don’t know what to say. It’s wonderful.”
Two-Edge looks up at her. He cannot find his voice.
“Two-Edge?”
He drops to one knee.
“I... I could give you a kingdom underground... your own secret kingdom. I would make you a queen of your own underground world. I could give you Blue Mountain reborn... if you could only... accept this old troll’s suit.”
Aroree only stares at him. She doesn’t seem to understand.
“I could make you more powerful than Winnowill – if you could only be my lifemate.”
Aroree blinks. And she smiles a little sadly.
“But I don’t want all that, Two-Edge,” she says. “I don’t want a kingdom or to be Lord of Blue Mountain, or anything like that.” She reaches down and takes his gloved hand. “I only want to have a simple, peaceful life here.”
“With Aurek,” Two-Edge challenges.
Aroree frowns. “Aurek? No, not like that. Not with Aurek. He is my kin... nothing more. I don’t look to him like that...” she gives his hand a little squeeze. “Not like... I look to you.”
Two-Edge blinks. He isn’t expecting that.
Tears well in her eyes. She wipes them away. “I... I never thought...”
“You... look to me?” he stammers.
She is smiling now. She is laughing and weeping at the same time. “I... didn’t know... you are so different, Two-Edge... you’ve led such a strange life. I didn’t know if you even had the same... wishes... the same longings...”
“I long for you, maiden!” Two-Edge cries.
Aroree gives a little cry, like a baby bird. She falls to her knees and throws her arms about his neck. Suddenly her lips are on his. And then she is kissing his cheeks, she is weeping into his white hair. And he is happier than he has ever been.
* * *
Two-Edge has never known joining before. He has never had a chance... never had a willing partner. He resolved long ago to live life alone. But everything is different now. Now he has Aroree. It has been far too long since she knew love... but she remembers. She is a gentle tutor.
The years pass... so many years. He loses track of them all. Sometimes the voices inside his head will not let him rest, and he goes off again, tunnelling paths to nowhere under Blue Mountain. Aroree never likes this. She comes along with him sometimes. Sometimes he needs to be alone. Yet he is never gone for long. He knows she worries about him. And he can never keep away for more than a month or two before the memory of his maiden calls him home.
“You know,” Aurek says one day. “My father was Winnowill’s brother. That makes us first cousins. That’s only one step away from brothers, you know.”
A lifemate, a cousin who would be his brother.
Family. What a strange concept.
Two-Edge knows happiness now. He knows peace. The teasing voice whispers to him less and less frequently. He has his home and he has his maiden. He needs nothing more.
Yet there are days when he dares long for more. Ridiculous. He already has more than he ever deserved, this great mistake of a broken troll and a curious elf.
The years pass. The summers gradually turn warmer. Is the great ice age beginning to retreat, or is it only an illusion? Life returns to Blue Mountain, most tentatively. Aroree’s Littletrill dies, but Kureel’s second fledging has survived, and she and her young become the Glider’s mounts in turn.
* * *
Two-Edge is coming home from another long absence. He has been far away, exploring a deep fissure in the earth halfway between Blue Mountain and the eastern shores of the landmass. He is just sitting down to a meal cooked under a crack in the rocks. The smoke rises and spirals away. Two-Edge wonders how many more days it will be before he reaches Blue Mountain. He misses her desperately now.
Something touches his mind, like the flutter of a passing songbird. He hears Aroree. She is calling for him. No... they are all calling for him. He hears countless voices overlapping in one puzzling sending.
**Shine brightly! Remember. All of you. Remember.**
It is Suntop’s voice at the center of the call.
Two-Edge falters, unsure what to do. He is only half-elf, after all. But then he feels Aroree and Aurek reach out for him, draw him into the crowd of swirling thoughts. He is absorbed into the elfin consciousness. His thoughts merge with those of others. They are somehow fighting, he understands vaguely. They are charged to remember, to shine with all their love of life, to flood a great darkness with light.
He doesn’t understand half of it. He only knows that all his precious memories of joy are mingling with others, until he is blanketed in a golden cloud of absolute contentment, absolute belonging.
The children of the Firstcomers have lived!
We are the products of that terrible accident...
We will not be forgotten...
I am a child of the Firstcomers... Two-Edge breathes. I am both High One and troll.
And then he hears a voice he has not heard in ages.
Light can never be kindled in isolation...
**Mother?** he calls.
**Two-Edge!** her joyful cry touches him. **Is that you, my son?**
Two-Edge reaches out with his mind. He touches Winnowill’s soul. He touches countless others. He is linked to them all. He almost feels like a pure elf.
He belongs at last.
* * *
Aroree tells him everything, when he returns to Blue Mountain, an eight of days later. She tells him of Winnowill’s father Haken – Two-Edge’s grandfather! – and the psychic battle to keep him from seizing control of the Palace. She tells him of Aurek’s departure to study in the Palace itself, of the incredible power inside the regenerated castle-ship.
“I touched Lord Winnowill’s soul,” she confesses. “And she is... she is so changed now. She is soft and kind and... and she is at peace.”
Two-Edge smiles sadly. “Pity I was away. I would have liked to see her.”
“Oh, but you can, Two-Edge! I’ve already sent the call to Suntop. He had can hear anyone who sends to him, even from the other side of the world. He’s going to bring the Palace back. And you can see your mother again. You can talk to her!”
Two-Edge freezes. He had not expected that. For a moment he glowers. He doesn’t want to see Winnowill. Not now. Not after so long. And for a moment he hates Aroree for calling the Palace.
The moment passes. He cannot deny his heart’s wishes. He needs to speak to his mother again.
The Palace appears over the rocks the next day. Two-Edge cautiously steps over the threshold. He sees Suntop. The child is all grown up. He is taller than Two-Edge now.
Swift and Rayek are there too, and a silver-haired maiden he doesn’t recognize. He learns she is Skywise’s second daughter. She is Suntop’s maiden.
But Suntop is not Suntop anymore, Two-Edge learns. It seems everything has changed.
Two-Edge feels he ought to tell him what it means to see them again, all alive and thriving. But he cannot find the words. Swift only smiles. Perhaps he doesn’t need words after all.
“Where is Venka?” Two-Edge stammers. Fear clenches his stomach. “Is she.... She lives still, I hope?”
Sunstream laughs. “Lives and breathes and continues to show me up in any competition that doesn’t involve long-range sending or palace-flying. Don’t look so scared, two-Edge. All of the Wolfriders are well, and none have come here to kill you. Why, can you believe no one has died since old Uncle Treestump? And we are up to our ears in cubs.”
“Including a certainly recently re-named Wolfrider,” Swift teases.
Two-Edge frowns. Sunstream grins a little bashfully.
“You have a cub?” Two-Edge gasps.
Sunstream glances over at Quicksilver. “We will... two turns of the seasons from now.”
Sunstream takes Two-Edge to another room. He needs not ask Two-Edge’s purpose in coming to the Palace. The room is small and the shimmering light of the crystals bounce back and forth off the close-together walls until everything seems to glow. Two-Edge winces at the light.
“What do I do?” he asks.
“Just talk to her. Aloud or in sending. She will hear you.”
Sunstream leaves Two-Edge. The half-troll wrings his hands, then looks up at the crystal walls.
**Mother? Winnowill... are you here?**
No answer comes, and Two-Edge frowns. **Mother,** he tries again. Perhaps she does not want to speak to him. Perhaps she still hates him.
**Two-Edge? Is that you?** the voice that reaches him is soft, drowsy. **Ohh... it has been so long...**
**Mother!” he calls desperately. **Is it true? Are you my mother again? Or are you only Winnowill... Winnowill sits so still?”
He feels a hand touched his shoulder. He spins around, expecting Aroree.
Winnowill stands in front of him. Her hair falls around her waist. She wears flowers in it. A long black dress covers her limbs. She seems... young, vibrant, as she must have looked long ago, before Blue Mountain warped her soul.
Is she really there? Is he dreaming? It doesn’t matter. The lure of her blue-green eyes is impossible to resist. He collapses against her breast and weeps. She does not hesitate. Arms wrap around his back and hold him tight. “My son,” she whispers. “My sweet little son... I’m so sorry...”
She is crying too. He can feel her tears – tingling spirit tears – on his face. “There there,” she soothes. “How I love you, Two-Edge... I’m so sorry I forgot that...”
“Mother...” he sobs. “Mother, I’ve missed you...”
“I’m so sorry, Two-Edge. I was ill... so ill... I didn’t know how to be your mother. But I always loved you... before that love soured to hate. Do you remember? Do you remember those days... before...”
“I do! I do remember.”
“My beautiful... precious little son.”
He doesn’t know how long they embrace. At length their legs cannot hold them, and they sit on the floor, wrapped in each others’ arms. Two-Edge tells her of his lifemating to Aroree, of the life they built under Blue Mountain. Winnowill smiles proudly as she hears all his exploits. And she tells him of the joy she found in the Palace, how it has cleansed her of all her darkness.
Two-Edge loses track of all time. Finally, Winnowill’s spirit fades back into nothingness. Two-Edge looks up. Has he been dreaming all this time? No... surely not. Her tears linger on his skin.
Her last words to him echo in his mind.
“Never forget – you were wanted, and loved.”
He comes back into the Palace’s main chamber – the Scroll Chamber, it is called. Suntop, Swift, and Quicksilver are nowhere to be found. But Rayek is waiting for him by the Scroll of Colors.
“Did you have an enlightening conversation?”
Two-Edge wipes his damp face clumsily. He nods. Rayek only smiles enigmatically.
The troll mumbles his thanks and starts for the door. But Rayek gestures for him to come closer. “I’ve been studying the Scroll of Colors extensively for the last few days... and I’ve found something that might interest you.”
Two-Edge stares into the flickering Scroll hesitantly. “Now, you must remember that the future is always uncertain, and that the Scroll can only show you hints of possible futures,” Rayek tells him. “But the closer one comes to a future event, the fewer possibilities present themselves. And as I search for your possible future, this image has appeared several times.”
Two-Edge watches the colours of the Scroll change.
An image appears. Aroree lies back again a bed, cradling a newborn child in her arms. And Two-Edge hovers behind her shoulder, staring down at his son in wonder.
Elfquest copyright 2014 Warp Graphics, Inc. Elfquest, its logos, characters, situations, all related indicia, and their distinctive likenesses are trademarks of Warp Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved. Some dialogue taken from Elfquest comics. All such dialogue copyright 2014 Warp Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved. Alternaverse characters and insanity copyright 2014 Jane Senese and Erin Roberts