Iron Elf - A Race Reborn (Book 2) (25 page)

The fire was a small one, just enough for light and a little warmth. I didn’t need it to cook, since I planned to drink my dinner. I’d liberated some sherry from the kitchen, and now I was liberating a bottle of its contents. Things were going well when something rustled in the darkness.

“Hello, the fire!”

“Welcome!” I said. “Come have a drink.”

“Decent of you.” He stepped into the light and I stared at the most goatlike capran yet.

Most caprans were built much the same as the other races, being just different enough to make it interesting. This one, however, seemed two-thirds goat and one-third man. He was hairy. All caprans are, but he had enough to make a decent fur coat. Not that anyone would want to skin him, considering he carried a poleaxe over one shoulder. There was a bindle tied to it but he could slip that free in a second.

“You look like someone I know, but you aren’t him,” he said. While I’d been looking at him he’d been looking at me. His eyes were yellow with horizontal pupils.

“I have one of those faces,” I said.

“You sure it isn’t that ring? It keeps whispering in my ear. Pushy piece of jewellery!”

What did I have to lose? I slipped off the ring and dropped the disguise.

He got a good look at me. “Son, you got a condition. Are you an alien from outer space?”

“What? No! Everybody looks like this where I come from.”

“No horns, no beard. How’s that working out for you?”

I handed him the bottle and he brought it to his lips. He had a snout, like a real goat, and two pairs of horns. One pair corkscrewed from the sides of his head, the other curved up and back.

“Lying down must be hard for you.” I said. “I’m Angrod, by the way.”

“I dig a couple holes before I bed down.” One leg was longer. The knees and ankles were in different places. One foot was manlike, with callused toes and yellow nails. The other was a cloven hoof. “Call me Pan. Or Pannomios, Panagreus, or Pan Haliplanktos, if you’re, you know, not into brevity.” He took a drink. “Live as long as I do, you’ll go through a wagonload of names.”

“I know what you mean. I’ve been Roddy, Angrod, and Lord Veneanar. Some people even want to call me King. Ha! Ha! Ha!”

“You have a kind of sick desperation in your laugh.”

“It’s just… I never asked to be a prince. Don’t know much about being one.”

“I never asked to be made what I am either, just like nobody asked to be born. Some days I don’t know whether to eat meat or eat grass. It’s a great way to get fibre, but then my poop comes in little balls.”

“You can always pretend you’re a gumball machine.”

We hadn’t made a dent in our bottles when he opened his bindle and produced a pouch of skunkweed. It was a huge pouch and went a long way toward explaining his odour. “My own special blend,” he said. “If this don’t make you mellow, nothing will.”

I jumped when he pulled an axe, but then I saw it was part smoking pipe, part throwing weapon. He packed the bowl. His fingers were skilful and quick, though he only had four on each hand. His left hand was made that way, but his right had the stump of a little finger.

I passed him a stick from the fire. He passed the burning end over the pipe, making small circles and drawing on the mouthpiece. He tamped the herb down and lit it again. “No more drinking from here on, ‘kay? Alcohol with weed can be dangerous.” He took a couple of puffs and passed me the pipe. I took a pull.

A little while later, it hit me. “Whoah.”

He laughed. “It’s strong, isn’t it? Like the essence of life itself!”

I took another puff, passed it back. “I could get used to it.”

“It is not for the weak. You could live ten thousand years and it would still surprise you.”

I coughed and accepted the pipe. “I’ll have to ask how you manage.”

He grinned, letting the smoke stream from his mouth and into his nostrils. “I take it one day at a time.”

We passed the pipe that way, back and forth, bantering all the way. I remember we said a lot of profound things, but I can’t recall what they were exactly. Probably for the best. We also spent long minutes staring at the fire.

Finally I told him, “I’m so hungry I could eat my horse.”

He shook his head. “I knew his ancestors. Why don’t you try that cottage?”

“What cottage?”

He pointed. There was a little house nearby, and its windows spilled golden light into the darkness. I don’t know how I missed it. “Go on,” Pan said. “Don’t mind me.”

I got up and stumbled toward the cottage. What a snug little thing. I checked it for anything strange, of course. No, it didn’t look like bears lived in it. The door was normal-sized. And no, nothing seemed made of gingerbread. I would have loved to find a gingerbread house, or maybe a marzipan manse.

“Hello?” Nobody answered when I knocked. “Hello?” I pushed open the door.

I was suddenly in a familiar restroom. The walls were red and it could only be the one in the Royal Palace, back in Brandish. The cottage door had disappeared. Well. I was nothing if not adaptable. Since I was already there, I took a moment to use the facilities. I prayed I wasn’t actually peeing on somebody’s chair.

I went to the sinks. The washroom attendant turned the tap for me. “Towel, sir?”

“Sure, why n—Dinny?” It was Dinendal, my childhood friend. My dead childhood friend. And yet he stood before me in servant’s livery. “How are you alive?” I asked. “Didn’t Heronimo flatten your skull?”

“I don’t have any recollection of that.” But he was grinning. “Well, why shouldn’t I remember? Just because I lost my brains doesn’t mean I lost my wits.”

I was torn. On one hand we’d been like brothers. On the other hand he’d grown up to be a mass-murdering assassin. He’d killed Heronimo’s entire village and had tried to do the same to me and my friends.

“Are you really him?” I asked. “Because I’m more than a little high. Heh. A high elf. I mean, an elf’s mind can go strange places. Maybe I swallowed too much sherry or huffed too much herb. Maybe there’s more of the chemical than the physical about you, whatever you are!”

“Your hands are dripping.”

“Then give me that towel, you figment!” I snatched it from him. It was soft like only the best cotton.

“Nothing but the finest for my household.” Instead of servant’s clothes he now wore fine red robes. “In this reality you never existed, and so I became king.”

He led me to where the Royal Ball was taking place. I remembered why I’d come here and helped myself to the banquet. It may have been a dream, but the potato salad was real enough.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Shouldn’t there be two of you? And if I was never born here, how do you know me?”

“And I thought you went to school. A man may exist in an infinite number of universes but on some level he remains the same person. That’s how I know you, even if we never met.”

We walked around the room, stopping now and then so Dinendal could speak with guests. He laughed and shook people’s hands but his eyes never changed. I held onto my plate and nobody noticed me.

“Am I actually here?” I asked. “Am I crashing your party, or am I making a fool of myself in the woods?”

“You’d be a fool no matter where you were. Perhaps you are dreaming me, and perhaps I am dreaming you. Why would I be doing that, when I never knew you? Maybe I wanted to imagine how someone with all of my advantages could still be a loser. How, despite being a warrior, a wizard, and a prince, he could still end up a miserable failure.”

“Ouch.”

“You were never born, buddy-boy, so your aunt adopted me instead of making me the stable boy. I inherited the Veneanar estates. And I didn’t need some sad old man to tell me I was destined for greatness. I always knew I was special.” He began to pace around the room. The lights dimmed and the partygoers faded into the walls. “Did you know that Rosemary was my ancestor too? You and I were cousins! My claim to the throne was as strong as yours, Roddy, and as soon as I discovered that I knew I couldn’t rest until I was king.”

It seemed as though a battle raged outside the palace. The clash of arms was heard in every hall.

“The caprans invaded ten years ago,” he said. “They killed elves, dwarves, and many, many halflings. Vergath was burned, Mithish was torn down, and Pithe wiped off the map. The important thing is that I won. I crushed the caprans. I drove them to their deaths, rode upon their horses, revelled in their women.” He grinned. “I single-handedly revived the slave trade. I think I still have Tamril in a dungeon somewhere. How’s she doing, I wonder? It’s been a while.”

I stared, open-mouthed. “And people let you?”

He sneered. “Everyone loves a winner, Angrod. You’d know that if you weren’t a fucking loser. I was the hero Brandish needed. I became the king it deserved. I have put down dwarven uprisings. I have defeated human invasions. I have fought a hundred battles in defence of my title.” He pointed at his crown. “I earned this hunk of metal. And it’s everything I hoped it would be. Look around, baby. I can point to a man and have his head. I can point to a woman and have her in bed. It’s good to be the king!”

He laughed and he laughed.

CHAPTER 21: ANGROD

Dinendal’s reign was the best thing to happen to elves. Living standards had improved for everyone due to harsh new taxes on other races. Pride and patriotic feeling were higher than ever, thanks to his military victories. There was even talk of retaking the fourth continent.

Dinendal told me other things, too. Mina was in the Northlands, slave to some barbaric chieftain. Heronimo was dead, though in this world he’d never had any quarrel with Dinendal.