The Way Forward
Part Three
**Melati. Where are you, child?”**
He did not need to ask; with the power of the Ark behind him he could sense her flickering presence, somewhere out in the Vastdeep Water. But he liked to ask questions to which he knew the answers. It helped him keep track of his little daughter’s many evasions.
**On Desolate Reef, out in the Vastdeep. I have located the sphere…** her sending trailed off, and he sensed the “but” to come.
**A difficulty?** he prompted.
**None in silencing it. The Palacemasters will never be able to find now.**
**Never is a dangerous word. It encourages over-confidence.**
**Yes, lord.**
**Go on.**
**The sphere… came to rest in a undersea trench, a full league below the surface. I cannot shape my own body to withstand that kind of water pressure.**
He sensed... something in her tone. A hesitancy, and a slight bitterness to her thoughts.
**The Ark could,** he offered. **But we are not quite ready risk it to such a demanding trial.**
**No, I would not recommend it. Not until its been proven airworthy.**
**A puzzle for you to solve, then.**
**I can repurpose a native sea creature to retrieve it, given time.**
**And you are certain Timmain and her minions cannot sense it?**
There was no hesitation. **Completely certain. The sphere is quite dormant. It’s nothing more than a stone now. But I know exactly where it is.**
**Then take all the time you need, and inform me when you have it.**
**Yes, lord.**
The connection servered, Haken sat back against his starstone throne. He looked at the walls of the Ark around him. A poor imitation of a Homeshell at present, but it would grow. With the power inherent in the messenger sphere and the condensed knowledge of the Firstcomers to guide that power, the Ark would soon become a vessel to rival the Palace itself. Then let Timmain try to stop him from claiming a world for himself and his children.
His children… his thoughts returned to Melati and he heaved a sigh. It seemed his fate to lose his children one by one, no matter how hard he sought to hold them close. With Melati he had seen a chance to have a daughter again. But for all her loyalty, all her achievements which made him so proud, he knew she had locked him out of her heart.
“My lord?” a gentle voice brought him back to the present. He looked up and saw the familiar form of Weatherbird standing before his throne.
“Don’t mind me, child. Simply… lost in throught.”
“You’re hurting.” She laid a cool hand on his. “How can I help?”
“You’re sweet to concern yourself.” He wrapped her fingers inside his own. “A parent’s worry, nothing more. You understand. I’m sure you’re eager to be reunited with your own dear boy. Such a clever little thing… I do hope he joins us when the time comes.”
“I’m sure he will. He’s very fond of you, you know. Even if you do frighten him most of the time.”
“I don’t mean to. I know I could be softer. More… bending.” Perhaps his unbending nature was what had made his youngest child turn from him.
“Melati is hiding things from me,” he whispered. “It’s nothing new, of course. I’ve always known of her little rebellions, the ‘experiments’ she hides in the Cinder Pools. Some riddles I’ve solved myself. Others… well, I do want to trust her. I know she wants only the best for all of us. But there is something festering in her. Oh, not her plan for growing new shells – she’s never concealed that. But something more. A secret purpose she fears to share. One she knows I would not countenance. I worry for her. You know what comes of losing oneself to an ideal.”
The elf nodded gravely.
“She is at sea now, but I have every reason to believe she will return to her den in the Cinder Pools. I wonder… if you might consent to look in on her?”
“Of course. Don’t you fret about it.” She gave him a warm smile. “I’ll take care of everything.”
He looked up at her, eyes moist with emotion. “I am so glad you’ve come back.” He gave her dark hand a squeeze. “Sendings can’t quite compare to this, can they?”
“No, they can’t,” she agreed.
* * *
He dreamt of flying, of wings and talons. He was a bird, soaring over the desert. Melati said that one day she might be able to take his soul out of his body and put it in a different shell. He wanted to try a bird. He wanted to know what it was like to truly fly. Mel had tried giving him wings of bone and skin once, but it hadn’t worked out. He’d still been too heavy – she said he’d have to lose his heavy legs and shoulder spines, and he hadn’t been willing to make the trade. He wanted to have it all.
He stirred, feeling himself leaving the dream. His thoughts grew ever clearer. Something sticky covered his face. He tried to brush it away with his hand, but his arms were bound to his sides with the same gummy threads. He growled and struggled.
“Scat, oh scat – I’m sorry, please just hold still a moment!”
A female’s voice. Not Mel’s. Panic overtook him. Mel had promised he would sleep uninterrupted until she could safely wake him. She had promised!
The sound of cutting. Something sliced through the threads of the cocoon and he thrashed his way free. He scrambled onto his clawed feet and tore the last scraps of wrapstuff from his face. An elf maiden dressed in all in red stood before him. But it was not his lifemate.
“Who? WHO?!” he demanded, roaring.
“Master of the Shapechanged,” the maiden breathed. She dropped into a crouch and bowed her head. He couldn’t tell if she was submitting to him, or simply gathering strength for an attack.
“I am Carrun. One of the Red Snakes. I serve Lady Melati – as you do!”
“Melati – where is she? Did the storm pass?”
“Storm?”
“The magic storm! She said I had to sleep until it passed!”
Carrun blinked, thinking fast. At last her eyes seemed to light with understanding. “Yes. The storm is passed. All is well.”
“No! No, it’s not! Where is she?”
“Lord Haken sent her to fetch something. I… I don’t know what. She asked me to carry your cocoon back to the Cinder Pools, so she could meet you there.”
He took a moment look around him. They stood outside on a salt pan. The air smelled of sulfur. A few hundred paces distant, he saw the mineral domes of his home.
Carrun continued to babble. “I brought you up by the Steam Road. Through the tunnel. As I was supposed to.” She pointed, but he did not bother to look. None of that mattered.
“Your cocoon… it tore on a rock spur, just when I was floating us out of the tunnel. You were starting to wake up – I – I had to cut you free!”
“She was supposed to wake me!”
“I’m sorry. I am. Please, Master… tell Melati – I didn’t disobey! It was just an accident.”
He squinted at her suspiciously. He did remember her, now that he thought about it. Melati had brought her to the Cinder Pools once long ago, and the maiden had stumbled upon him. She had been terrified of him then, too. Not like the child.
Bluestar. That had been his name. He hadn’t been afraid. He had wanted to stay.
Beast would have kept him, had Melati not forbidden it. But he didn’t want Carrun around. He didn’t want to see the fear in her eyes. Red Snakes weren’t supposed to be afraid of anything. Melati always boasted of it.
“Go!” he ordered.
“Master… I swore to see you safely back home–”
“I am home! This is home. My home – not yours. Go now!”
“I should wait for Lady Melati–”
He loosed a great wordless roar, and Carrun took off flying. She skimmed over the ground a few paces, then dove into a hole in the ground. Beast chased her to the hole, then watched it seal up with rockshaping magic.
“And stay gone!” he commanded the rock, before turning on his clawed heel.
He looked up at the mineral domes. A lone vulture perched on a chalky turret, surveying the landscape as if it were master here.
“I am the Master!” Beast shouted, punctuating his declaration with another throaty roar. The vulture squawked and took flight. Beast laughed long and loud. He was back home and everything was right in the world. No more magic storms, no more wrapsleep. As soon as Melati returned, life would be perfect once more.
He heard something approach: claws on salt, huffing breath and low snarls. His cries had summoned a Shapechanged. Beast turned as the jackrunner appeared out of a cloud of white dust, jaws agape and dripping saliva. The two-legged jackal stood a hair taller than Beast; it bent its head to regard its master.
“Hello,” Beast said, petting its massive head. The jackrunner huffed in pleasure.
“Want to hunt?” Beast asked cheerfully. “Come.”
He took off running across the plain, and the jackrunner followed, soon outpacing him on long, muscular legs. Beast watched the way the beast cut through the air with fond envy. Perhaps he would ask to be a jackrunner first.
* * *
Melati did not return that night. Nor the next. Each morning he awoke to an empty bed. Every day he caught enough meat for them to share, and cooked it slowly on the fire the way he knew she liked. Every night he ended up feeding the extras to the small pack of jackrunners who had learned to wait near his cave entrance.
Beast wasn’t worried. Melati always came back. They had played this game of meeting and parting for longer than he could remember. The anticipation of their reunion always eased the time apart.
Still, he wished Bluestar could have stayed. He could have had something to talk to.
Five nights after his return, he dreamt that Melati had returned, that she crawled into bed beside him and woke him with teasing caresses and whispered words of love. He dreamt he sat up to take her in his arms, and as his mouth pressed against hers, he heard her whisper Yosha.
Beast awoke with a start. Melati leaned over him, her arms bracketing his shoulders, one bare leg slid between his scaled ones. Her long curtain of hair brushed against his throat.
“Beast…” she whispered softly.
“Mel!” He caught her up in his arms, so that she lost her balance and fell heavily on his chest. A dull pain reminded him of his tail, caught between him and the mattress, and he rolled them both over until she lay under him.
“What are you – oh! – h-how are you awake?” Mel stammered, as he covered her with kisses.
“The Snake. She let me out. She said it was an accident.”
“Carrun? Where is she? Did she go back to Oasis?”
“I made her go!” Beast said proudly. “She called me ‘Master.’”
“So you are... hmm... Master of the Shapechanged.”
“And of the Snakes?”
She giggled. “Why not?”
“And of you?” he pressed, nuzzling her neck.
“Always. Mmm, my Lord Beast,” she hummed, then gasped as he nipped her neck where it met her shoulder. “Beast… yesss…”
* * *
The next morning, she showed him what she had caught on her own hunt. Beast held the sphere gingerly in his hands, frowning at the hole in its shell. “Bright. Like your necklace,” he said at length.
“It’s starstone. But much more powerful!”
“What power? It’s just rock.”
“Only while it’s sleeping. But I can wake it up.”
He nodded thoughtfully. She had seen her bend every manner of stone to her will. Rock, water, flesh… there seemed no substance Melati could not command. He handed the stone back to her. “What will it do? When you wake it up?”
“Let’s find out.”
Melati stared into the orb and the surface shimmered, changing from a broken ball of crystal into a perfect sphere of light. Melati’s hand sank into the hole in the sphere, and light enveloped her arm to the elbow. Her eyes went wide and locked. Her lips parted and the strangest sounds escaped them: whistles and hums that the cords in her throat laboured to produce. Beast saw them vibrating under her skin.
“Mel?” he asked. “Melati!”
Now her lips moved, forming more familiar sounds, but ran together so that he could not make out words. “Asphereneverendingalwaystouchingnobeginningnomiddlenoendnoendnoend!”
“Mel!” He knocked the sphere from her hands. For a moment she stood frozen in her former posture, hands cupping air. But then she blinked and drew in a shuddering breath.
“What was that?”
“I… don’t know. I saw…”
“What did you see?”
“Visions of the High Ones… the Firstcomers to our world.” She smiled in wonder. “I saw the Circle of Nine, guiding the great sphere of the Homeshell. I heard the voice of Timmain, and all the other High Ones. I even heard Lord Haken!”
She reached for the sphere, but Beast stopped her.
“No. No more. It’s bad for you.”
“No, Beast. It’s exactly what I need. It’s how I will finish my work. It’s how I will make you another body. Remember?” She touched his cheek. “No more fleshshaping, no more stretching skin beyond what it can bear. I could put your soul into a bird’s body and you could fly as high as you wanted. Or I could make you a whole collection of shells, one for climbing, one for running, one for flying. Maybe… maybe I could even make you a selfshaper’s body, and you could learn to remake yourself as many times as you like.”
Beast frowned. “But that needs magic. I don’t have it.”
“You will. I promise. I’ll find a way.”
He scowled. He wasn’t sure if he liked the idea. He’d always thought they were both happy with his lack of magic. Magic he associated with elves who weren’t him… with that one elf who was most definitely not him. “Don’t think I want it,” he said warily.
“Oh, Beast…” she looked so crestfallen at his rejection. He quickly added: “But I could try it.”
“Yes! Yes, once I make you a new body, you’ll have the choice! But I must study the sphere, I must learn everything I can from it.”
“It doesn’t hurt you? It looked like it hurt.”
“No. No – it was incredible! Please trust me, Beast. Let me try it again.”
“All right… but if it looks bad I’ll stop it!” he warned her sternly.
Melati flashed him a grateful smile, and he knew he’d let her do whatever she wanted. As he always did.
She sat down crosslegged on the floor and picked up the sphere again. Again, the glow of light, the wide eyes and gibberish spilling from her lips. But her heartbeat was steady, her breaths deep and regular. Beast sat down next to her, prepared for a long vigil.
* * *
He waited all morning and into the afternoon. Melati did not move. Her eyes stared ahead, fixed and unseeing. He imagined how much it must hurt, to be unable to blink, so he nudged her eyelids down to spare her strain. He tried to be patient. But when his growling stomach told him it was past time to eat, he took the sphere out of her hands.
Melati came back to herself with a sharp hiss of breath. “Why?” she demanded.
“You need to rest. You need to eat. It’s sunset already.”
“Can’t be… so long already?” Melati tried to rise and she wobbled on unsteady legs. Beast helped her up. She was covered in a film of cold sweat.
“What did you see?” he asked. “Was it like dreaming?”
“Yes and no. It was like… watching countless lessons, hearing countless songs, reading countless scrolls – all at once. It was like looking deep into the soul of a High One. It is the soul of a High One! Eons of knowledge entering my mind in an instant. To isolate one thought is like… trying to fish for cave minnows with open hands. I can’t… I can’t hold it all in my head!”
“It’s not good for you,” he repeated. “What if your head fills up with all those – those minnows – and there is no room for Mel anymore?”
“You should listen to your pet,” a low voice purred.
Melati spun around with a shriek. Beast set himself between her and the voice, his clawed hand at the ready.
An elf stood in the shadows, watching them. Somehow, this intruder had evaded all the Shapechanged who stood guard, and found her way through the maze of false tunnels to their secret cave.
“Greater minds than yours have lost themselves in these wells of memory,” she warned.
“Who dares intrude?!” Melati hissed.
The elf stepped forward. She was little thing, shorter even than Carrun, with rich brown skin and a shock of bright silver hair. Violet-blue eyes made Beast think of the child, Bluestar.
“Shade and sweet water, dark sister,” the elf greeted Melati with a little nod of the head. “It is so good to meet you face-to-face at last.”
“Weatherbird,” Melati growled. “What are you talking about? It’s been a while, I know, but–”
The elf laughed. “Oh, I’m not Weatherbird. I’m only borrowing her body.” Her violet eyes flashed bright turquoise as her lips curved in a smirk. “Our father thought you might have need of me.”
Melati caught her breath. “Winnowill? What… what have you done?”
“Well, I haven’t eaten her soul, if that’s what you fear. No, she’s quite comfortable, sleeping away in the deepest recesses of this shell. She was kind enough to lend me her body for a quest in Swift’s service, but when the time came I found I just couldn’t let her have it back. Not after I had stepped outside the Palace – alive! – for the first time in ten thousand years. You cannot imagine what it was like: terrifying yet so thrilling. I squandered my first life, hiding myself inside Blue Mountain, fearing death, fearing change. But in the past few days… oh, I have climbed mountains, I have healed humans, I have even ridden a wolf!” Her eyes glowed with joy.
“I’m… happy for you,” Melati said. Her finger flickered towards the messenger sphere, which had rolled halfway under the table. Beast frowned at her, and she raised an eyebrow. He understood, and he stepped aside, exposing her in favor of guarding the sphere.
In moving, he caught Winnowill’s attention. She cocked her borrowed head to one side as she studied him. He felt his tail twitch irritably.
“My… you have been busy. Father knew you were keeping secrets… he hinted at some of your work. But I didn’t think I’d see this!”
“You don’t know what you see, Winnowill!”
“He’s an elf, certainly. But he has no aura… no inner voice. Fascinating. It’s like he has no soul at all.”
“I do!” Beast snapped. “I have a soul! It just can’t think-talk.”
“Father said you were close to growing new shells, but this - how on earth did you make him, Melati?”
“It’s none of your concern. He is mine; that’s all you need to know. And if you so much as touch him–”
Winnowill smiled softly and shook her head. “I’m not your enemy, little sister. I told you, I’m here to help you.”
“Help me do what?”
“How about we start with that pretty ball of starstone your pet is trying to keep hidden?”
“Stop calling him that!”
Winnowill held out a hand and the sphere sprang up from the ground, drawn to her power. Beast made a lunge for it, but he was too slow. The sphere floated high over his head and then down again to rest in Weatherbird’s palm.
“Ohhh… this is priceless,” Winnowill whispered. “I can see why Father needs it. And why you are trying to keep it for yourself.”
“I did not mean to deceive–”
“Don’t be silly – of course you did. You lied to him in sending.” She giggled. “Or at least misled him. Either way, a remarkable trick. Thought he’d use it all up himself without letting you have your turn, did you? You might be right. He is quite the glutton for power, our lord. Best you keep it for now.”
She tossed the sphere back across the room, and Melati raced to catch it before it could hit the ground. She clutched it close and again Winnowill laughed. “Be careful. I know a story about a maiden who hugged some starstone too hard. But that’s a tale for another day. You wish to unlock the wisdom in the messenger sphere? I can help you. You think you know starstone because you restored that little bauble at your throat, but I have been one with the Palace for a half-spiral of time. I can show you the way to sift through all the memories to find the knowledge you require. And all I ask in return is a simple favor.”
“What’s that?”
“I can’t deprive Weatherbird of her skin indefinitely. But I cannot go back to being a spirit. Not now that I’ve embraced my parents in the flesh. Not when I have rediscovered my appetite for material pleasures. I want a body of my own. And you will make one for me.”
Melati stared at her with the calculating stare of deep thought. Winnowill stared back, one eyebrow raised. Beast looked from Winnowill to Melati, waiting anxiously, wondering who would blink first.
Melati nodded. “Agreed.”
Winnowill clapped her hands in delight. “Then let us begin, sister. We have so much to do.”
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.