The Elves of Cintra (12 page)

The tatterdemalion’s gaze did not waver. “Everything.” The dark eyes blinked. “I am afraid of everything, Angel. It is a condition caused by the nature of my existence. I live only a short time, and I know that other creatures live so much longer. If I did not think and were not aware of life spans, if I were an insect perhaps, it would not matter. But I do think and I am aware, and so I can appreciate how precious my time is. It does not help that I know I am in constant danger because of what I am and whom I serve. The demons hate creatures like me. So I am afraid even when I do not want to be or even when I do not need to be.”

“That sounds very unpleasant.” Angel hugged herself. Tatterdemalions lived a mayfly existence, their lives spanning not much more than thirty days on average. They were there and gone in the blink of an eye. “No one wants to be afraid. Even if it’s only now and then, let alone all the time.”

Ailie nodded. “I have learned to live with it. I have learned not to be ashamed of or angry with myself. I have learned that some things are simply a condition of our lives, and we cannot help them.”

Angel pursed her lips. “You are telling me I should be more like you. I should not be ashamed or angry about my fear. I should accept it.”

Ailie’s smile was small and winsome on her somber face. “At least you could think about it.”

Angel smiled back. “I guess I could, little conscience.”

Ailie climbed back up behind Angel. “I think we better go. The Elves have need of us.”

Angel nodded. “Elves.” She brushed at her thick black hair. “I still can’t get used to the idea. But I suppose I better.”

She turned the engine on again, engaged the throttle, and steered the Mercury back onto the highway headed north, its engine a dull roar in the night’s silence, its metal body sleek and silvery in the pale wash of the stars.

Hunched close together on the padded seat, the Knight of the Word and the tatterdemalion rode north in search of their future.

I
N THE DARKNESS
behind them, still miles back but coming steadily on, the demon, in its newly acquired form, loped down the center of the highway, an indefatigable machine. That part of her that had been Delloreen was all but wiped away by her physical transformation. Once human in appearance, she was now all animal. Her skin was turned to scales. Her fingers and toes were turned to claws. Her hair was mostly gone; fringes remained only on pointed ears. Her human features were feral and wolfish. She no longer walked upright, but ran on all fours. She had lengthened out from well over six feet to well over ten. She was heavily muscled and sinewy and terrifying to look upon.

She had become something else entirely, and she reveled in it.

She had never been invested in her appearance, never cared for how she looked or what she seemed to be to those she encountered. She knew what she was: she was a demon. That she might become bigger and stronger and more ferocious was all that mattered. That she might become the most dangerous of the Void’s creatures was her primary goal.

She had not forgotten about Findo Gask, not entirely, but he no longer mattered to her. His insolence and his attempts to motivate her to do his bidding no longer mattered, either. The old man was her past, a vague memory at best, a reminder of dissatisfaction and frustration, a momentary distraction that had now all but faded from memory. Her goals, her purpose, had narrowed down to a single preoccupation—to find and kill the Knight of the Word who had twice now escaped her. She didn’t look beyond that. Hunting down and destroying the Knight was everything. After that, she would decide if anything else mattered. For now, there was only the pursuit and the satisfaction that awaited its conclusion.

Her long tongue lolled from between her fangs as she ran, and the pad of her rough paws and the click of her sharp nails on the blacktop sounded a steady tempo that set her pace. Lost in the workings of her sleek new form, in the steady rush of adrenaline the excitement of the hunt generated, she panted with undisguised eagerness and dreamed of the taste of the Knight’s fresh blood.

I
T TOOK
A
NGEL AND
A
ILIE
the rest of the night and through the bulk of the morning to find their way north up the highway and then east onto the side roads that would take them to the Cintra. This was foreign country to Angel, who had never been north of Southern California, but Ailie, who by all rights should have known even less, seemed to know exactly where to go. Angel saw a few signs advising travelers who were long since dead and gone in a world equally dead and gone that they were passing into the Willamette National Forest. When Angel asked Ailie about this, the tatterdemalion said she didn’t know what it was called by humans, only by Elves. She added that she could already feel their presence.

Angel was in a somewhat better mood by now, her fear subsided, her steely determination regained. The darkness of the previous night with its attendant onslaught of black willies had faded with the rising of the sun and the beginning of the new day. She hadn’t conquered it entirely, but she did have it under control. When it surfaced again, she would be ready for it.

The forests through which they passed initially resembled most of the others they had traversed coming north—large sections sickened and wilted, the leaves turned gray, the bark scabbed over by parasites and mold. Many trees were already dead, their skeletal frames suggesting the bones of giant animals standing upright and frozen in time. But as they reached the mountains and climbed into the passes, a change similar to the one that had begun to manifest only yesterday surfaced. Where before the trees had thinned to almost nothing, they now grew close together. Where before the leaves and bark were sickened, they now looked healthy and clean. The colors that had been leached away from the other forests were deep and vibrant here. Angel glanced back at Ailie, but the tatterdemalion just smiled enigmatically and gave her a reassuring hug.

A short time later, Ailie directed her off the main road onto a dirt track that was barely more than a woodland trail. They rode the Mercury down its length for several miles, passing through long stretches of old-growth trees so massive that Angel felt dwarfed in their presence. Streams ran through metal culverts that tunneled under the road, the waters rippling and singing before angling off into the woods. Once, they caught sight of a small waterfall off in the distance. Once, they saw a deer.

Finally, Ailie told her to pull over. Angel drove the ATV off the trail into the trees and parked it. Together they climbed down and stood looking into the cool, shadowed depths of the forest. Angel could hear the rippling of a stream nearby. She could hear birdsong. The air she was breathing was fresh and clean. She could not help thinking that somehow they had driven into a different world entirely.

“What has happened here?” she asked softly. “It looks as if the poisons never touched this forest.”

“The Elves have happened, Angel,” her companion replied. “The Elves have kept the forest clean and alive with their skills and experience.”

Angel shook her head in wonderment, tasting the air, breathing in the scents, wishing she could stay here forever. “Is this where we are supposed to go?”

“This is where we will find the Elves.”

“How do we do that?”

“We walk.”

They left the Mercury where it was, left the dirt road that had brought them in, and set out. Almost immediately, every sign of where they had been before had vanished, and they were deep in the trees, layered in a mix of sunshine and shadows, making their way through the underbrush and tall grasses that grew among the trunks. It looked to Angel as if no one had passed this way in decades. There was no sign of any disturbance of the forest floor, no indication of anything having come through. Ailie took the lead, picking her way through the trees, choosing a path that for all intents and purposes was invisible to Angel. The tatterdemalion seemed to glide through the grasses and scrub, barely causing movement in the foliage as she passed. Angel, on the other hand, found herself snagged and tripped and scraped at every turn. It didn’t help that her wounds from her battle with the demon throbbed relentlessly beneath the tattered remains of her clothing and her entire body ached. In truth, she could barely manage to keep up.

Nevertheless, they moved ahead steadily, the time slipping away, the forest vast and unchanging. Angel knew that if she were left alone at this point, she could never find her way back to the dirt road and probably not out of the forest at all. She experienced a sense of claustrophobia as the trees thickened, the shadows deepened, and the sunlight faded to a pale wash. Angel, a city girl all of her young life, found the woods a creepy place. It had the feel of a warren filled with bolt-holes and hiding places where bad things could spring out at her at any moment.

They pressed on, working their way deeper in, and Angel could not tell in what direction they were moving. It was impossible to see much of the sun, let alone to try to orient it with anything. The mountains had disappeared entirely. The only reassurance Angel could find was in Ailie’s steady forward movement, an indication that the tatterdemalion, at least, knew where she was going. Angel followed dutifully and without asking the obvious, fighting against the insidious feeling that she was drowning.

The sun was no longer above them, but moved west and out of view entirely, leaving the forest darker, the shadows longer, and the chill of the air deeper. Then Ailie slowed as they entered a clearing, looked around as if she was testing the air for scent, and stopped altogether.

“We will wait for them here,” she advised.

Angel looked around doubtfully. As far as she could tell, they were standing right in the middle of nowhere. The forest looked exactly the same in all directions, and Ailie’s choice was indistinguishable from any other they might have made.

“The Elves?” she asked, wanting to be sure she understood.

Ailie nodded. Her face was calm, and her breathing even. She did not look as if the hike in had cost her anything.

Angel shook her head. “How will they know we are here?”

“They will find us. I have put us in their path. They are already coming.”

She sat down, so small and insubstantial nestled in the tall grasses that she looked to Angel like a child peeking out from behind a screen of slender blades. Angel chose the remains of a fallen tree, finding a flat open space on its heavy trunk, settling herself wearily. She was thirsty and wished she had something to drink, but she didn’t want to go looking for fresh water by herself or disturb Ailie’s vigil. She glanced down at her garments and wrinkled her nose. She looked like one of LA’s homeless, and she imagined she smelled like one, too. She cradled the black staff of her order against one shoulder and worked idly with a torn strip of her shirt to rub off some of the dirt.

Time passed. Slowly.

The forest stayed quiet, the only sounds those of birdsong and the soft rustle of wind through the leafy branches of the trees. No Elves appeared. Angel wondered how long they were supposed to wait to be discovered. She couldn’t decide whether Ailie was justified or not in her confidence about the chances of that happening. The Willamette was a big place. The odds of someone stumbling on them out here seemed extremely remote.

But Angel wasn’t going to question her about it. If the tatterdemalion was mistaken, there was nothing else to be done in any case. She was the one who knew how to find the Elves; Angel was just along for the ride.

Or the walk, she corrected herself, thinking suddenly how good it would feel to slip off her boots and give her hot, aching feet some much-needed relief.

“They’re here,” Ailie said quietly. She didn’t look up or change expression. “Don’t do anything, Angel. Just wait.”

Angel had no intention of doing anything but exactly that. She had come a long way under difficult circumstances to see these creatures, and she was anxious to make it happen. She sat quietly, listening to the forest sounds, gazing in the general direction she was facing without focusing on anything in particular, waiting for movement to reveal an Elven presence.