Elves: Once Walked With Gods Read online

  ‘You’re a fierce one, aren’t you? I’ve been wanting one of you for a long, long time, you know that? Hmm.’

  Takaar turned and walked back to his shelter, which lay a short distance inside the edge of the rainforest where the trees met the cliffs overlooking the glory of the delta at Verendii Tual. The air was fresher here, beyond the suffocating humidity deep under the canopy. His shelter had become a sprawling affair. Part skin bivouac, part thatch and mud building. He headed for the building, next to which stood his third and best attempt at a kiln. A few trial pots rested on a rack next to it.

  The taipan had relaxed, its struggles ceasing. Takaar could feel its weight on his arm. A fascinating creature. He glanced down at it. Those eyes stared where he determined, his grip on its head as firm as in that first moment. Takaar ducked his head and entered the building. It was dark inside but his eyes adjusted very quickly.

  Shame you didn’t choose to let it bite you. Why do you continue this pathetic charade?

  ‘If it was any of your business, which it isn’t, I would explain in greater detail. But suffice to say that the mind must be active or the inevitable descent to madness begins.’

  Begins? For you that journey is a fading memory.

  ‘Madness is subjective. All of us exhibit the signs to a greater or lesser extent. I have some. So do you. It is the way of things. At least I am building something useful. What is it that you will leave behind you?’

  Your corpse being devoured by the beasts you worship.

  ‘I will leave truth.’

  And you have been so diligent in constructing your own truth, haven’t you?

  ‘Can we talk about this later? I’m a little busy.’

  I just fail to see why you pursue this folly. How can you leave a legacy in a place where no one will ever find it? That is why you’re here, right? To make sure no one ever finds you, alive or dead.

  ‘You miss the point of my penance.’

  I miss the point of your continued existence entirely.

  Takaar focused back on his task. There was a table along one wall of the building, the result of a number of experiments in binding legs to tabletops. The surface was a little rough and uneven, cut from a fallen hardwood tree, similarly the legs. They were notched and grooved to slot together and then bound with liana and some young strangler vine. The table rocked a little but it served.

  The tabletop was tidy. Obsessively so, said his tormentor, but it did not do to be confused about what lay in each of the small, wood-stoppered clay pots. They stood in rows down the left- and right-hand sides, leaving space in the centre for new work. He had etched a symbol into each stopper representing a particular herb or animal extract. He recorded the code, carving into pieces of hardwood he’d polished for the purpose.

  A single clay pot half the size of Takaar’s hand sat in the middle of the table. Across it was stretched and tied a circle of cloth from Takaar’s dwindling supply of fine fabric. He picked up the pot, forced open the jaws of the taipan and hooked its fangs over the lip of the vessel. The cloth triggered the bite reflex and the taipan released its venom against the side of the jar. Impossible to see exactly how much, but he carried on milking until the snake tried to withdraw.

  ‘There, my friend. No pain. You are one of Tual’s denizens and I have no wish for you to come to harm.’

  I doubt it feels the same way about you.

  Takaar ignored the comment. He ducked outside the hut, walked away forty or so yards and released the reptile back into the forest, watching it slide quickly and effortlessly away, disappearing beneath the deep undergrowth and leaf fall.

  ‘Now then. To work.’

  Takaar had eaten well that morning. Fish from the tributary of the River Shorth that ran not three hundred yards from him, spouting into a fabulous waterfall down the cliffs a little way to the south. He would need all the strength of that last meal in the hours to come, if his suppositions were correct.

  Going back into his hut, Takaar glanced around at the walls and table as he always did.

  ‘Should I die today, what will be the judgement of the elves when my work is found?’

  That you are a filthy coward who has researched a thousand ways to die and yet has not the courage to use any of them on purpose. The fact that your death was an accident would be the final insult.

  ‘Why do I listen to you?’

  Because deep down in the dying embers of your sanity and morality, you know that I am right.

  Three hundred pots sat on rough shelves around the walls. Each one marked and named on the carved wood hanging at the right-hand end of each shelf. Too few had detailed descriptions of properties, effects and the more complex notes on mixing and various cooking methods, but even if he did die today, if was a start. A bright TaiGethen or Silent priest could take it on.

  Takaar pulled his fine knife from his boot. He’d spent day upon day honing the blade to little more than a spike with a needle tip. He took the cloth lid from the venom pot and looked inside. The taipan had yielded a decent amount of the toxin. More than enough to kill him a hundred times over.

  Takaar dipped his knife point into the pot and withdrew it, assessing the small teardrop glistening on it. It was mid-sized in his terms. A gamble given what he’d seen out in the wild. He did his last equipment check. Saw the food, the water, the cloths and the hollowed-out log bucket. They sat next to a hammock raised three feet from the ground between the two tree trunks around which he’d built the hut.

  Takaar pricked his skin with the blade point, just on the underside of his wrist. He breathed very deeply. This was the time when he felt exhilaration and empowerment. The time to join with nature in a way no TaiGethen, no elf, had ever done. To survive was to understand more. And to find another weapon to use against the Garonin.

  Are you really so deluded? Actually, I suppose you are. The Garonin are gone. You ran away from them and slammed the door in their faces, remember? Or does that not fit with your convenient truth?

  ‘Now there you really are wrong. You never escape the Garonin. Trust me. They’ll be back.’

  Trust is not something anyone will have in you ever again.

  ‘That is part of my penance. Now shush. I have symptoms and reactions to feel.’

  The world will be a richer place if you have overdosed this time.

  Takaar ignored his tormentor. He stood tall and breathed deeply, trying to speed the venom around his body. He ran on the spot, pumping his arms, feeling his heart rate increase. Nothing. Nothing while the sun crept around the forest a notch and the rain began to fall from the clouds that moved to cover it.

  ‘Too slow,’ he said. ‘Too slow.’

  The poisonous secretions of the yellow-backed tree frog were far quicker to act on the elven body. Indeed, he’d have been unable to stand already and he’d be fighting to breathe. The taipan’s venom was slow and that was a disappointment. So far, all he could note was a slight blurring of his vision and an unsteadiness in his step. Still, everything had its uses.

  Takaar moved towards his hammock. His head felt thick and there was an ache beginning to grow at the back of his skull. He swallowed. Or he tried to. There was difficulty there. Takaar raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Better.’

  Takaar put a hand on the left tree trunk, ready to lever himself into the hammock. He felt hot. Sweat was beading on his brow and under his arms. A pain in his stomach added to that in his head. His eyes misted over and he swayed. The symptoms may be slow to appear but they were comprehensive when they arrived.

  Takaar found he had his whole arm wrapped around the tree trunk to keep himself upright. He didn’t remember making the move. He lifted a leg to get himself in—

  Sildaan was screaming at someone. Words that Silent Priest Sikaant could not make out had disturbed his meditation. The priest broke the seal on the chamber of relics in which he had spent the last three days and pushed open the door. From his left, grief and anger was coming from the worker village se
t behind the temple. To his right, across the dome and out onto the apron, the air smelled wrong. Sildaan’s voice echoed against the walls of Aryndeneth, ugly and discordant.

  Sikaant shivered. There was a deeper chill in the temple than the blessed cool imparted by the ancient stones. He crossed soundlessly beneath the dome, his eyes fixed on the bright square of the open doors. Two priests stared out from the shadow. They stood shoulder to shoulder and just to the left of the opening.

  Sildaan’s words began to reach him with a clarity he regretted when he heard them. No longer shouted but strident and terrible. Heretic.

  ‘How can you look so forlorn? Why can’t you grasp this? I have never agreed with Takaar’s law. And I am very, very far from being alone. You cannot enforce harmony. It grows or it doesn’t. You have been presiding over a veneer, nothing more. And it is about to be shattered into a million fragments and scattered into oblivion.

  ‘What is desirable about relinquishing our position as the ruling thread? Do you really think that merely by telling a Tuali or a Gyalan that we love them as equals makes it so? They don’t believe it. They retain their hatred of us. Every thread does. And the truth of that is about to be seen. First in Ysundeneth and soon, everywhere. Even here.’

  Any confusion in Sikaant’s mind was cleared up the moment he could see the scene on the temple apron. Men defiled it. A few of the thirty stared out into the forest, guarding in vain against an attack that, if it came, they would not see until it was upon them. Most watched Sildaan pacing around three kneeling priests. All had their heads up and proud though their hands were bound. All of them had swords held to their throats by human warriors.

  ‘You will see, should I let you live, that the price of this false peace has been too high. I agree with those in every thread who consider that Takaar’s actions on Hausolis were the ultimate message of failure of Takaar’s law. And of Takaar himself.’

  One of the priests spoke. Ipuuran. Ever a fearless advocate.

  ‘You think the denouncement will tear the threads apart. You are wrong. A thousand years of peace is too long a time to throw away. Peace that cost nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’ Sildaan was screaming again. ‘It cost the Ynissul everything. Our position, our birthright. Our respect. The love of our own god. You’re blind if you cannot see what is coming. You like Myriin and all the TaiGethen and Silent who hide under the canopy have no notion of what simmers beneath the lid of the harmony.’

  ‘Lorius will—’ began Ipuuran.

  ‘Lorius. Ha! Lorius is going to do exactly what he has been urged to do. You think he will be able to quell what is coming while standing and denouncing Takaar? Oh dear. He is as stupid as you. He firmly believes in the harmony and that it will endure whatever obstacles he removes from the path of chaos. He thinks his words will give him position among the lesser threads, but they hate him almost as much as they do every living and breathing Ynissul. Barring Jarinn, perhaps.

  ‘What happens at the Gardaryn is happening at our design, O great temple priest. That is why the humans are here. Because only they can prevent the slaughter of those born to rule. And so we will. When the blood-letting is done, the power of the elves will once again rest with the Ynissul. Just as it should be.’

  In the shadows, Sikaant moved again. Up to the shoulders of the priests looking on. He hated what he had to do. Speaking beneath the dome was an affront to his order. But not so great as the words he had just heard. Sikaant was quick. Almost as quick as a TaiGethen. His long-fingered hands, each finger ending in a sharpened nail, slid around the exposed necks of the two priests and rested there. He put his head in between theirs. They dared not move.

  ‘Those watching from safety are surely won to the cause of heresy,’ he whispered.

  ‘We had not realised you were here,’ said one whose name escaped Sikaant.

  ‘Evidently,’ said Sikaant.

  His hands closed. His nails bit, dragged and tore. He ripped his hands clear. Blood flooded from ruined throats. Voices gurgled. Legs collapsed beneath dying bodies. Sikaant held them both upright. Their struggles were weak and their resistance minimal. He dragged them both into the light.

  Sildaan saw him, her words choking in her mouth. Men began moving towards him.

  ‘You need more heretics,’ said Sikaant. ‘These two have failed you.’

  He turned and fled where no man would dare follow.

  Back on the ledge. Watching the river. Wishing for a push. Perhaps he could train a monkey to do it. He laughed. Train a monkey. Hardly. All they were good for was stealing his food. Or becoming food themselves.

  ‘That’s the cycle of life. Tut tut, round and round. Can’t be stopped.’

  Yes, it can. For you, anyway.

  Takaar waved a hand dismissively. ‘Stupid. One death does not a cycle break. One death adds to the cycle. One death is one more body to be reclaimed. One more to be shared. One more to enrich the forest.’

  You make it sound such a positive step. Why don’t you take it?

  ‘Pfff. So much work to do. Reparations to be made. Every day a little more. Every day to even the score. Were I to lie down, I would be failing all who walk in my footsteps.’

  You wrote the book on failure so I won’t challenge you on that one.

  ‘Do I believe in redemption? I can’t tell. Perhaps not. Not deserved. Not sought. The sentence for my crime is life. And I am immortal.’

  Only if you choose it.

  ‘Can’t repeat myself. Not a choice. Run, run, not again. Death is running. Life is suffering. Life is penance. I can climb a tree and fall. I can leap from this edge and none will mourn me. I don’t want grief; I want hatred and I want anger. These are deserved. Hmm. Deserved and sought.’

  You do none of it. You seek nothing but solitude and introversion. Want anger? Ysundeneth has more of it than you can possibly desire.

  ‘No. Not. People. Gods. Yes.’

  I hate you.

  ‘Then I win today.’

  You never win. You merely delay the inevitable while you toy with your death and your immortality.

  ‘Ah, now I understand you. You hate me because the taipan could not kill me.’

  Ah, but it was close

  ‘Ah, but not close enough.’

  Takaar felt himself shudder. His tormentor had no idea just how close, not really. It had not been the swelling at the point of the injection of the venom. That had been excruciating and he would suffer for days from the cuts he had to make to relieve pressure on his flesh. Nasty nasty. Nor was it the strange effects on his blood, thinning it so that when he awoke from the collapse across his hammock, the tiny pinprick in his wrist was still dripping and his nose streamed red.

  No, it had been the paralysis. First of his limbs, rendering him unable to move from his position lying across his hammock, head hanging over one side, legs the other. And later of his throat and lungs, forcing him to fight for every breath. A day had it been? So hard to know. He had seen light and dark. He had heard the sounds of day and night but he had no real idea how often he had been conscious and how often not.

  When the paralysis had eased, he’d vomited bile and fouled himself. Hours later, he had dragged together the strength to move. The weakness remained with him and, alongside it, a furious mind, charting potential uses. Slow to start, this venom, but devastating. He dared not try more than the tiny tear he had used.

  Takaar smiled.

  Smug. Like you used to be.

  ‘Belief in your body is the root of survival.’

  Spare me.

  ‘Never.’

  Chapter 5

  Flinch and perish.

  In a thousand years the seat of government had not witnessed such ferment and unrest within its walls. The floor in front of the stage was heaving. The galleries back and sides crammed like never before. Every window and door was filled. Outside on the piazza, thousands more were gathered, hoping to get inside.

  Properly built at the heart of Ysundeneth, th
e ocean home and first city of Calaius, the building was called Gardaryn in the ancient tongue but less grandly termed the ‘beetle’ by the local population. It dominated the cobbled southern piazza and its spires could be seen from all points of the city. Its shape resembled the carapace of the liana beetle. A metaphor for immense strength. The carapace would not crush under a careless boot.

  Stone walls, carved from the quarries at Tolt Anoor, were all but hidden beneath the splendid wooden roof, whose edges swept almost to the ground either side. It curved up above the grand entrance and staircase, rising almost a hundred and fifty feet at the top of its spine. The spires rose at four corners and in its centre. When the Gardaryn was in session, red flags flew from the spires and ceremonial guards in classical deep-green livery took up station in small turrets.

  Katyett had climbed high into the lattice of rafters with her TaiGethen cell. Up the stairs to the central gantry and then further up into the shadows. There, away from the unsettling closeness of the huge crowd that had filled every seat, bench, aisle and ledge, they could see everything.

  At the head of the large public areas, a stage rose. At its back, an arc of five stepped rows of seats. The seats were plain, though cushioned, one for each of the high priests, the Amllan of every village, town and city, and further representatives of each thread of the elven race.

  In front of the seating were three lecterns, each adorned with a carved image of Yniss at work creating the earth and the elves. They were arranged in a semicircle around a dark stain on the otherwise scrubbed white stone floor. Blood had been spilled just once in the Gardaryn. The day of its inauguration would forever be a bleak one. The large irregular shape was preserved as a reminder of days apparently not all hoped were buried for good.

  The air was charged. A thunderstorm had moved across Ysundeneth an hour before, lightning and torrential rain accompanying it. A message from the gods, some would be saying. Katyett gave that no credence. The elves had to look to themselves if they were to escape this. That was what the gods had placed them on this land to do. Live in harmony. Live in peace. Love the land and all that lived and grew there.