Those bands joined with the ones of my other matrons to form what looked like a solid band until I actually looked, where they seemed to expand and become individual bands to my gaze. It was an interesting and fantastic thing to see. I was amused that the sigil was on the same finger that would carry a wedding ring on Earth. But my sigils were like a wedding ring and a marriage certificate all in one.
It kind of bothered me, how Amura’s bond was covered in the crystalline… whatever it was. I started to peer, you know, see through the crystals. For a split second, I could swear I saw two sleek blue legs, sitting on an elven toilet before the eyes closed.
GET OUT! Amura’s voice yelled in my head, making me jerk up.
A moment later, Amura came out of the restroom furious. She grabbed my hand and pulled me into another room.
“Do NOT intrude on me like that.” She hissed at me. “I don’t even know how you did that. But stay out of my head.”
“I’m sorry, I was just trying to make out your marking on my sigil.” I apologized.
“My marking on your…” Amura repeated in confusion.
I held up my hand and showed her the band around my finger. “The white part of my bonding sigil is yours. I just focused on yours since it seems to be, like, encased in crystal or something.”
She stared. “But that is so tiny, how can you see anything about it?”
“I don’t know, it just seems to like, expand so I can look at it,” I told her.
“Well, don’t do it again. That was embarrassing.” Amura huffed and whirled, stomping from the room.
That was interesting. So apparently, at least with Amura, I could use the bond to look through the eyes of my matrons. That would require more testing, with Matrons who were aware and willing, not that I had intentionally peeped on Amura while she was relieving herself.
I emerged and we had a breakfast of some sort of roll up, like a sausage roll, though it was a cured meat like ham instead of sausage. We all ate and then it was time to get moving.
We headed out, almost directly north. We reached Fumeir as noon approached. It was just as deserted as the other two villages we had visited and it was clearly starting to discourage most of the party.
“Once these villages would have been bustling… How much have we neglected our sisters whom we were entrusted with their care?”Tavorwen asked the deserted village, emotion thick in her voice.
“That’s why we’re here,” I told her. “To help them, and seek their help.”
We used one of the abandoned buildings for rest and ate fruit and flatbread for lunch. I began looking around more while we ate. Something was starting to bother me. All three of the cities we’d visited were starting to look almost exactly the same, not just in layout, but how they were starting to fall apart. The buildings were switched around how they were breaking, but the number of door hinges that were breaking, the way the windows were giving out… It was starting to feel… staged.
When I expressed my thoughts to Tavorwen, she seemed confused. “What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t strike you as odd, the way all three of these cities are falling apart the same way?” I asked. “I’ve seen my fair share of abandoned settlements, and they never deteriorate this evenly. Especially since… what are the odds that they were abandoned at the same time, and had the same weather effects?”
Tavorwen looked around. “I hadn’t even been paying attention…”
“We’ll have to start watching that,” Benavur noted.
“What exactly are you suggesting?” Creadean asked.
“Well… If they were trying to hide, using old settlements as a decoy, or a distraction, would only make sense. And making it seem like they left might lead an invader to move on.” I suggested.
“That wouldn’t work against my sisters,” Amura noted. “They’d know they were still here, though… it might allow them to hide a portion of their population…”
Midway through the afternoon we arrived at the second city of the day.
“I believe I see what you are talking about,” Risavis noted. “It is almost uncanny how much the decay is the same.”
Finding nothing different, we quickly headed out, seeking to reach a third city before nightfall. We had to hustle, leaving a few of the elves tired as we approached Vroekim.
“You are indeed correct.” Mavrin agreed, rubbing one of the cracks around a dilapidated building. “I’d almost think it an illusion cast by the same mage, but the damage is indeed physical.”
I wandered the city, watching for any abnormalities when a tiny elven child walked out into the street. The child was barely two feet tall, and were she human I would guess she was six years old. She had long black hair and the dark brown skin of a Wild Elf. Her almond eyes gazed up at me curiously. She wore a knee-length skirt and a wrap-around top that covered her from her ribs to her shoulder. She had leather sandals that wrapped her feet and ankles like what I associated with the ancient Romans or Greeks.
“Hello there.” I called out to her, trying to make my voice soft and inviting.
“Kinkair!” A Wild Elf Matron cried, running from a gap between buildings and throwing her body between me and the child.
“I mean you no-” I started but movement cut me off.
If it weren’t for the additional speed and observation granted to me by the gifts from Flendrier and Anbethir, I might have been in serious trouble. A whirl of blades lashed out of the shadows of the building to my left, and only the drilling I had done enabled me to get my sword free and divert the blade.
“Svurin, take her and run!” The male elven warrior cried, whirling his double-bladed scimitar as he placed himself between me and the child and she-elf.
This elven male was nothing like the males of the Wood Elves. Where they were weak and frail, he looked fairly athletic, He had a build like a runner, wiry and muscular. Unlike the Wood Elves, who ranged in height from just over four feet tall to maybe five and a half feet tall, I only had him by a couple of inches and I was 5′ 11″. He wore a vest of the same woven fabric as the child had worn, banded in runes, but otherwise was bare-chested. He wore full pants of the same material. His belt line and hems were ringed with runes. His feet had the same style of sandals as the girl had worn.
I stepped back. “Stop! We aren’t here to fight!”
“Lies!” He snapped and lunged.
“Lavir toa keir!” Mavrin incanted clapping her hands together.
The elf’s arms and legs snapped together and he fell, stiff as a board to the ground, his blade clanging to the ground.
The Wild Elf matron scooped up the girl and sprinted into the alley.
“Wait! We’re not here to… damn it! Mavrin, what did you do to him?” I asked in concern, sheathing my sword and rolling the man onto his back.
“Not to worry,” Mavrin assured me. “He is unharmed, he simply cannot move.”
“Well, this has been a fabulous first introduction. Mavrin, can you please release your spell.” I pleaded.
Mavrin gave a disapproving look but made a motion and the elf began to move, snatching his blade and backing away hesitantly.
“You claim to help, but come in the presence of a Shadow Elf?” He half asked, half stated.
“It’s a bit complicated. She was given as part of the negotiations for the Respite with the Shadow Elves. X’Thallion has instructed me to keep her safe.” I explained.
“Who… and what are you? You are not an elf.” He demanded of me.
“I’m a human,” I explained. “I was summoned by the Wood Elves and have been helping in the war against the Shadow Elves.”
“A human?” He mused, looking at me from head to toe. “You look like no human I’ve seen.”
That was discouraging.
“But you are a summon, you say? Who summoned you?” He demanded.
“I was the one who carried the Crystal of Summoning to the Temple of Ages and performed the ritual.” Tavorwen declared.
“You understand why I cannot believe you?” He declared, crossing his arms.
I sighed, “Look, we are here to help and to try and rebuild relations between you and the Wood Elves.”
“Have the high and mighty finally surrendered the title of High Elves then?” He smirked. “Admitted they are no better than the rest of us?”
“Our people are in no place to claim that title at the moment,” Tavorwen admitted. “Were it not for Master Thomas’s intervention, we may have fallen completely to Kathra even now.”
The warrior’s eyes narrowed, “You want me to believe this one warrior turned the tides so completely?”
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I realized our position was absolutely horrendous. I had been so focused on our goal of peaceful contact that I hadn’t been paying attention to our tactical positioning.
“Fuck… You have us surrounded. Don’t you?” I asked the warrior.
“Of course not. I am the only one here.” He stubbornly insisted.
I sighed and stood.
“We mean no harm!” I declared loudly. “We are here in the name of Wood Elves and we come in peace!”
“Who are you-” The warrior tried to maintain his charade.
“Brahim, while your efforts are appreciated, they are clearly in vain.” A female voice called, and a white-haired wild elf stepped around a corner.
While she was still unwrinkled and showed no signs of a stooped back with age, the way she placed her weight on her cane and the wisdom in her face betrayed her age.
“What are you doing?” The warrior called to her. “Get out of here! Leave me!”
“Why? So that you can claim all the interesting conversation? If they wanted you dead, you would be.” She rebuked him. “No, we’ve seen neither hide nor hair of the High Elves for over a hundred years and now this lot shows up and you attack their emissary.”
The new Wild Elf was an elder if ever I’d seen one. She lacked the matronly curves so I figured either she was a mage, a priest, or a warrior back in the day of her prime. Her eyes swept over my party, judging, questioning, and dwelling on each individual.
“But… Opheira-” Brahim objected, but she cut him off.
“Hush, boy. Lucky for you, these emissaries seem to be the forgiving sort.” Opheira scolded.
She turned to us. “Now, forgive us our poor hospitality. You say you are representatives of the High Elves?”
With some relief, I tried to start again. “Yes, the Council of the Elders of Ealphamir has vested in us their complete confidence and sent us out to visit each of the separate elven peoples and begin reestablishing relationships. I understand that during the events that led to the Massacre, there was a lot of bad blood that was created between all the people. Amura was able to confirm that all the slights supposedly committed by each peoples were in fact careful sabotages by the Shadow Elves.” I began.