The girl from the mist

Chapter Six

The dirk skidded along the floor, dancing whimsically as the blade struck small, uneven patches on the cobblestones. The door to the pantry vibrated gently where it stood, halfway closed by the recoil from hitting the wall. Vance, with Cassandra on top of him, was struggling to get up even as flour poured from a sack over his head. There was a confusion of arms and legs for a moment as they both struggled to get to their feet. A callused hand moved blindly until it struck something soft, and Cassandra froze.
Then her eyes narrowed, and she gave Vance a ringing slap around the ear.
Untangling herself, she stood over him, hands on her hips.
"Where exactly is it you think you're grabbing?"
The dazed boy, still with flour pouring a steady stream of white into his hair, simply stared at her in incomprehension.
"Where am I gr-? What the heck was that thing?"
"She's not a thing!" Cassandra snapped, rushing to the door, "her name is... Is... Well, she is not a thing!"
She was halfway towards the back door when Vance caught up to her, grabbing her by the wrist. Her eyes flashed as she turned on him, but his grip didn't loosen. He had half a foot on her, and nearly twice again her weight: She might as well have tried to free herself from a rock.
"Let me go!" She shouted, pulling uselessly at her hand. "She's in danger!"
"She's in-! Cassandra, what the heck was that?"
"She's a Pale Elf, alright?" Cassandra snarled, freeing her hand and rubbing it. "She came from the Otherworld, I think."
Vance looked as if she had just told him the moon goddess had popped in for tea. Cassandra ignored him, rummaging through the closet by the door for her cloak and lantern. The elf had already left: There were only two other doors in the kitchen, and if she'd run into the living room, they'd have heard it. She quickly lit the lantern. Vance shook himself, and stood in front of her.
"What the- you're not going after her, are you?" He said in disbelief.
"Of course I am" she said, defiantly. "What does it look like?"
"It looks like you're committing suicide!" He shouted. The door to the living room wasn't all that thick. Perhaps the others had retired? But for once, Vance didn't back down at a good scolding. His eyes burnt as fiercely as hers as he pointed a shaking finger at the door.
"Don't you see? That's why it's here! That... Wyrm thing came with her, and now that they're reunited, what's holding it back?"
"You don't know her!" she snapped. "She wouldn't do that!"
"Oh really? And you do?"
Cassandra opened her mouth to reply, then hesitated. It was a terrible thing to admit, but Vance actually had a point.
Master Token had said that the Lindworm had either been summoned, or the Wards had been weakened. Two Otherworld creatures arriving at the same time seemed too much of a coincidence, so she had assumed the wards were weakened. It now occurred to her that a more likely scenario was that they had arrived together. The wyrm might have neither the intellect nor the ability to create a gateway, but the elf certainly wielded some sort of power. Vance shook his head, exasperated.
"Where on earth did you find her, anyway?"
"In the rock garden where we used to play Knave and King" she muttered, not meeting his gaze. "Next to where I was attacked."
He stared at her.
"And that didn't strike you as odd? Cass, the wyrm hasn't attacked anyone, anyone, but you, and even that only when you were near the elf!"
She looked into those suddenly hard eyes, and remembered vaguely long forgotten days at play, with hide-and-seek and Find the Familiar. Days that seemed as if they would never end. And which, recently, had seemed so once more.
Her jaw tightened.
"I don't care" she said coldly, lighting the phosphorus lantern. "I'm still going after her."
Vance gawked.
"Cass, it's protecting her, you must see-"
"We don't know that!"
He tried to stop her, but she whirled around, her face like a thundercloud. He took a step back, and for a moment, the balance between the two of them were restored. He sighed, and patted the empty sheath at his side.
"Alright. Alright! We'll look for her, let me just-"
"No."
He stopped, and furled his brow. She didn't see this, because she had her back to him. Her shoulders were shaking.
"But I'm coming-"
"No. No, you're not."
He looked at her for a moment, then rubbed his forehead, baffled.
"Cassandra, I just- I don't understand what you want me to do!"
"NOTHING!"
She whirled around, lantern swinging from a shaking fist. He took another step back as those wild eyes stared at him.
"I don't want you to protect me, I don't want you to help me, I don't want to marry you or work with you or- or- anything! I want nothing, alright?"
He looked at her for a while with his mouth open. Then his face seemed to sag into an odd, tired grimace, and he waved his hand, turning away from her.
On seeing his dejected look, she was tempted to say something else, to correct herself, to nuance it, but the impulse was drowned by the vision of thousands upon thousands of days, all alike. She turned around on her heel, and rushed into the darkness.
Once the warmth and light of hearth and home fell away, Cassandra felt her heart beating. She didn't know if it was the darkness or the realisation of what she had just said, but her feet propelled her forward. Foolishly, she briefly lamented not having brought a weapon, but she scornfully dismissed the idea. No weapon would work against the lindworm anyway, if the elf turned it against her. She laughed bitterly: Had she been so blind? Had Vance, of all people, seen the truth when she did not. Had she been that desperate for a change?
It didn't matter now. Nothing matter. She rushed into the forest.
The forest was always a discomforting place during the night. The lush branches seemed to claw at her, snatch at her. She wanted to cry out for the elf, but didn't dare. Was she afraid of the wyrm? No, not the wyrm as such. Master Token, rather, flushed with magical power, subjecting the beast with arcane might, saving her, bringing her back. Bringing her back to where it was safe and warm, and where everybody now knew how she felt...
She froze, holding out the lantern.
The ground had shook.
It was weak, almost imperceptible, and she wished her heart would quiet down, so she could listen. There was not a sound: No nightingale or owl. No lizard moving in the undergrowth. It was quiet as death, and outside the bright circle of light from her lantern, just as dark.
The ground shook again, and she closed her eyes.
"Alright" she whispered. "Okay, so this is..."
The ground exploded before her, earth showering upwards. Simultaneously, and from another direction, fell a pillar of light, smashing into it. There was a high-pitched shriek from beneath the ground, and she felt a soft form strike her, carrying her away. She panicked.
"NO! No, master, I don't want to g-! I- Elf?"
It was, indeed, the elf. The red eyes looked at her worriedly, the black material of her cloak fluttering about her like a moving shadow. Her skin glowed with an eerie light, as if lit up from within. The ground rumbled again, and the pale elf jumped away, nimble as a squirrel, a small dot of light against the trees. Once more the ground erupted, and the head and torso of the lindworm emerged from the ground, pouncing towards the moving dot. It missed, breaking several trees in the process, and continued its hunt. Cassandra it ignored completely.
She stood mesmerized for a moment, then regained her senses and followed. It was impossible to lose the trail: even if the Wyrm didn't break every tree in its path, frequent bursts of light could be seen. The fighting creatures eventually made it to the swamp, where the stagnant pool of water impeded their progress. The moon cast a silver glow over the scene, which seemed something out of a story book: The elf rising from the ground, floating in the air with her cloak flapping around her. The wyrm rising its serpentine body upwards, coiling upon itself, hissing at the floating figure, which seemed to throw arrows of light at it.
No doubt they hung like that for no more than a second, but it was burnt into Cassandra's mind forevermore, like cold fire. It seemed so pointless, so empty, and Cassandra felt like laughing. The elf could fly! Why didn't she fly away? Why didn't the wyrm simply abandon her? It was as if they were... Linked...
...E'er wrathful is the Lindworm, for 'tis no more free than its jailor...
Cassandra realised it then, the meaning of those words. She briefly had a vision of life in the Otherworld: elf and dragonkin, locked in an eternal struggle that neither could win or escape. Her friend was trapped- trapped, or dead.
But how could she help her? No matter how hard she fought, the elf was the weaker party. The wyrm would eat the elf, or she would be forever trapped with it. And what if she was eaten? Would they return to the Otherworld? Would they simply die? She had to do something, but she had no magic, she had no...
She looked down at her lantern, even as the battle raged above her. It was iron, but the sides were glass. Inside it, a small, fierce fire burnt like a furnace of Pandemonium. It would burn until the volatile, white phosphorus was consumed. She looked up at the fight, and held the lantern behind her back.
"Elf!" She shouted. "Flee!"
She threw the lantern at the lindworm.
And she made a great light.