Elfborn: The Quest

Deeds of the Past

Lash's blood fairly burned in his veins as he stepped, stiff-legged as a fighting cat from the rage that surged through him. He felt neither the fresh snow beneath his bare feet nor did he see what passed before him. He only knew anger, hot as the sun's crown and burning as deeply.

It was only when he found himself sitting in darkness, some indeterminate amount of time later, that the anger ebbed, leaving the young man empty and hollow. He blinked slowly and raised his head. 'Where am I?' he wondered dully. 'Never mind that. What the hell happened to me?? What was that force that overtook me and had me talking to the King of Germanse like he was a first year page! Have I gone mad??' He sagged back against what felt like the canvas wall of a tent, feeling as if he had been wrung out like an old dishrag.

'It had to be whatever that elven she-ghost put into my mind while I was ... dead,' he thought darkly. 'Some sort of foul magic that's polluted my soul with its energies. And filled my mind with false imaginings of power and nobility.'

Someone hung a lamp on a post outside and, by the dim light that penetrated through the thick walls of the tent, Lash looked down at his hands, his left still bandaged with the rag from Wilfred's belt. 'Regardless of what it was, I am now trapped by it,' he realized with a shake of his head. 'Trapped in this useless war that will pit foolish Ristusian against unwitting Manadim.'

Slowly Lash flexed his fingers. 'And worst of all, I stand revealed in all my abilities, a monster and a freak. If I didn't know better, I would almost imagine claws coming out of my fingers!' The young man felt tears welling up in his eyes as despair filled him.

Before his eyes Lash watched his hands blur through the water of his tears. Blur and, in the next blink, he watched them change. In a heartbeat they were no longer his, but another man's. Lash's heart raced in his chest. 'What new madness is this??' he wondered wildly as he stared down at the gauntleted hands that had taken the place of his own.

Gauntleted, but not in the manner of the human knights. No, the gloves that he now saw weren't the heavy steel mittens the humans wore. Instead, they were soft doeskin, the back of the hands and finger joints sheathed with a silvery metal that left the fingers free to move and the palm ready to grip whatever weapon came to hand. And then he became aware of how they fit against his skin: snug and comfortable, both protecting and giving freedom of movement.

"Lord Ithus," a soft voice said and Lash's head jerked up.

And he found himself looking over a vast battlefield, bodies everywhere, nearby trees in flames and the ground ripped asunder by powerful forces.

"Lord Ithus!" This time the voice was a shout from some distance and Lash turned to see a woman running towards him. A woman dressed as a man, her upper body sheathed in the same silvery metal that protected his hands. More plates of the stuff protected her hips and upper legs, with a bar sewn into the front of her sturdy boots as final protection. She carried a naked sword in her hand, stained with blood and fluids, her hair blowing freely in a wind that was whipping up from the south.

South?? Lash turned to stare in that direction, eyes wide in wonder. He actually knew this place! He had been here ... before.

"My lord!" the woman called again, this time much closer. Now Lash could see that she wasn't human, her arching eyebrows and pointed ears marking her as elven. She staggered to a halt beside him and Lash realized that he was looking down at her, being considerably taller.

"My lord," she gasped and at that moment Lash realized she wasn't speaking Anglo. And yet, he understood her as if she was

"You are needed. The others have begun the spell to seal the Fire Lords into the Well. Without your power, the spell will not be completed successfully."