The Wandering Inn_Volume 1, page 306
But it wasn’t the bodies Pawn looked for. He went to each of the fallen Soldier and stared down at their remains. He wondered where the other part of them had gone. He hoped…it was to a better place. And if there wasn’t one, Pawn would find it, make it, if he had to. The Antinium didn’t just destroy. They could create as well.
Slowly, Pawn walked down into the center of the room. He sat down, put his hands together, and believed.
3.07 H
“We are fragments of the past, Ceria Springwalker. That is all we are.”
Ceria sat on her great-grandmother’s lap and looked up. The small cottage was covered in hanging herbs, braids of garlic—every time she breathed in, a myriad of spices tickled her nose. She sneezed, and her great-grandmother laughed.
“No one has told you yet, have they? They just tell you to stay clear of Humans, which is true enough. But no one’s told you of your other half, your heritage.”
“I thought we were descended from Elves.”
“That’s true. But how much of us is Elf? No one even remembers who they were now, do they? They aren’t in any legends—it’s just a word. Even the oldest stories only talk of half-Elves, not Elves.”
“But they did exist?”
“Oh yes. But only Dragons would remember them, I think. And even then, only the oldest of Dragons. Yet, we still call ourselves half-Elves after all this time, even though thousands…tens of thousands of years have passed. Why is that?”
Ceria shifted. Her seat wasn’t that comfortable—her great-grandmother was too bony, and she was holding the young half-Elf tightly in case she slipped away, which is what Ceria wanted to do. She hated questions like these.
“I don’t know. Because we’re half-Elves? Half and half, right?”
“Not quite. How could we be half-Elves? Think about it. If an Elf and a Human had a child, that would be a true half-Elf. But their offspring—if they had a child with a Human, then what would you have? A quarter-Elf. And so on.”
“So?”
An impatient sigh—Ceria felt her ear tips being flicked and she hunched over sulkily.
“Think, child. There are no Elves left anymore. Half-Elves either marry each other or they mix with other species. So many generations have passed—what part of us is Elf, do you think?”
“I don’t know. A quarter—an eighth? Less? Can I go now?”
The small child wriggled, but her great-grandmother was too strong for her.
“Not yet. This is important, so sit still or I’ll pinch your ears.”
Chastened by the threat, Ceria sat as still as possible, trying not to move. She heard a quiet sigh from above.
“You’re too young. But someone has to tell you and those prideful fools would never speak of this. Ceria, the truth is that after all these long years, our people probably have only a drop of Elven blood in our veins. Only a drop, the smallest fraction of fractions. Only that. We aren’t half-Elves. Not even close.”
The news didn’t disappoint Ceria, because she didn’t fully understand.
“So what? We’re all Human?”
“Again, not quite. Do you want to know something interesting, Ceria?”
“Yes? Is it a secret?”
“Only a small one. The interesting thing is this: when a Human and a half-Elf have a child, the child is always half Elf. Did you know that?”
“No. Why is it interesting?”
Another sigh, but this time Ceria didn’t receive a flick to the ear.
“The interesting thing is that this is always true, Ceria. No matter how many generations pass, a half-Elf with a thousand Human parents on one side will always produce a half-Elf child. No matter what.”
The young half-Elf sat pensively, and then looked up into the wrinkled face and white hair.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that our heritage cannot be erased, child. Not by blood or time. We are part Elf, and that will always ring true. Isn’t that amazing?”
“I guess.”
Ceria’s doubtful reply elicited the first laughter from her great-grandmother she’d heard in a long time. The old half-Elf stroked Ceria’s hair gently.
“It might not seem like much to you yet, but it is something to remember. We are mostly Human, for all the others like to pretend we’re so much better. All we have is a drop of our heritage, Ceria. But it’s enough.”
“Enough?”
“Enough. What runs in our veins is a fragment of what we were. An echo of legends past. But it is pure magic in our blood, Ceria. The purest. Even Dragons bowed to Elves as masters of magic. And though the Elves are gone, we remain. It is in our natures; magic. It comes to us easier than any other species, because of who we are. Who we were. The blood of Elves cannot be extinguished, and it calls out even after untold millennia. That which shall never fade.”
The child caught her breath. She didn’t understand fully, but what she did hear in her great-grandmother’s words called to her. The old woman continued, speaking softly in the quiet of her cottage.
“We live it. Breathe it. We are magic, and magic is us. So when a spell burns you, or you play with the fish or eat them, remember. The magic will never fade.”
“Never?”
“Never. Remember that, will you?”
“I will. But what does it mean?”
“It means…in the oldest of tales, the ones only our people tell, the ones I heard as a child from my great-great grandmother, the Elves were said to be immune to charms and curses. They were so deeply magical that any attempt to hex or bewitch them was impossible. Because they were too magical, you understand? The spells just burned away from them.”
“But half-Elves aren’t like that. You said.”
“I did. But we have a part of that in us, Ceria. Remember? Just a part, but that means in time, any spell holding you will fail. If I tried to put you to sleep with a spell, eventually you would wake up.”
“Everyone wakes up, great grandma.”
A laugh.
“True. But you would wake up no matter what. No matter how powerful the enchantment, on you it will fade. Slowly, yes, but there is no spell your blood will not break in time.”
“Really?”
“Really. But don’t you go letting people cast spells on you, Ceria. And don’t think this makes you better than the Human children. Don’t go near them. You can play with the others in the stream now.”
“Will you come with me?”
“No. I have work to do. Just try to remember, won’t you, Ceria? You’re the only family I have left.”
The young half-Elf didn’t even see the pained expression on her great grandmother’s face. She raced for the door, laughing.
“I’ll remember! I promise!”
“Remember, Ceria.”
“I will! I will, I will, I—”
“I will.”
Ceria spoke the words aloud. And then she woke up.
—-
It was dark. That was all Ceria saw. But in the instant where she was not quite dreaming any longer, and not quite awake, it almost felt like she was dreaming still. The half-Elf tried to move her legs and turn her head, searching for her great grandmother.
Then she woke up a bit more and remembered that her great grandmother was dead. Nearly two decades dead and buried in her garden in a village on another continent.
And then she woke up further, and Ceria felt other sensations flooding in. The first was taste.
Taste. Ceria could taste vomit in her mouth, sour and vile. It was dried and made her gag—and she tasted blood as well. Ceria dry-heaved and scrabbled at her side reflexively. She had a flask of water—
No. She didn’t. And that was when the other feelings hit Ceria at once. She was hungry. In pain. Bleeding? No—but she could feel dried blood on her left shoulder, and cold air on her lower body. In fact…she was naked from the waist down. That was to say, she had her mage’s robes on, but someone had taken her pants.
“Wh—wha—?”
What had happened? Ceria’s mind was still too jumbled for short-term memory. She only knew that she was in pain, and something was horribly wrong. She looked around for her pants, or for the water bottle, but she could see practically nothing in…wherever she was.
It wasn’t totally dark. Ceria could see outlines of something in the darkness. But whatever light source was providing the light, it was too faint. She had to see. Ceria raised one hand and croaked a word.
“[Light].”
A glowing orange ball of pure light floated out of Ceria’s palm and she blinked, dazzled by it. But then her eyes adjusted, and Ceria finally saw the truth of where she was.
She was in the pit. The pit. The place she and the others had been teleported into after the trap. Yes. Ceria remembered. And she was lying on something. A pile of things that moved.
Ceria looked down. Something white, many white and yellow things shone in the light. She reached down to touch one, and stopped.
She was lying on a pile of bones. Bones, and horrible black filth. And some of it had been stained by her vomit. And blood.
She didn’t scream. Ceria didn’t scream, but she immediately rolled off the pile. She rolled down onto something hard and rough. Solid stone, crusted with more of that black substance.
For a few seconds Ceria just lay on the ground, trying not to react to the countless horrors around her. She breathed in slowly, trying to keep calm. The air felt dead and there was a horrible smell.
They were in the pit. Trapped. The half-Elf slowly got to her feet, holding her head. It was aching horribly, and she still felt disoriented. But more memory was coming back to her. Yes, they were trapped. There had been the spell and then—
Sound. Over to her left. Ceria spun, reaching for a dagger which again, she didn’t have. Her robes swirled about her as she spotted something that wasn’t bone or filth in a corner of the circular pit.
A…shape. A body. Ceria squinted and the orb of light at her side grew brighter. Then she saw who was sitting next to a pile of bones.
Ksmvr. The Antinium was moving. Ceria stumbled closer, head ringing, and saw he was moving. Rocking, rather. And then she heard the whisper, low and desperate. Ceria stopped as she heard what the Antinium was saying, whispering.
“no. nO. yeS. No. yES. NO. yEs, YeS—no—”
He was repeating the words over and over and he rocked back and forth in one corner of the room. The Antinium was bleeding, or he had been. Green ichor had dried around his left side, and it looked like something had smashed his carapace and ripped part of it away. A huge area was just…missing, exposing his vulnerable innards soaked with green blood.
Insanity. Now the rest of the pieces of memory fell into Ceria’s head and she remembered. She’d gone insane. Insane, just like everyone else. There had been the spell and then—
Her shoulder hurt. Ceria glanced down and saw a wound in her shoulder. It looked like someone had stabbed her with a dagger. Maybe she’d done it to herself. Ceria didn’t know.
“Ksmvr?”
The word was horrible in her mouth. Ceria nearly retched again as she tasted the foulness in her mouth. But the Antinium didn’t respond. Ceria raised her voice.
“Ksmvr. Can you hear me? Are you okay?”
Again, nothing. Ceria looked away. Ksmvr was lost, and so was Yvlon and Pisces, wherever they were. She had to get out of this pit, figure out a way to undo the spell.
The spell. Ceria looked around wildly and her headache grew worse. That was right. She had to disable the spell! Had she thought that before? No? Yes?
The mark of [Insanity] was on one of the walls. It was the other half of the light in the room, that faint, ghostly glow. Ceria caught sight of it as she looked around wildly. There. It was on one of the far walls, high up in the pit. She looked away the instant she spotted it, but too late.
Her headache grew worse. Suddenly, Ceria realized what was happening. Her innate half-Elven nature had helped her fight off the enchantment, but it was still active. And it was trying—
Trying to make her crazy again. Ceria lurched towards the sign and looked up again. It was high on the wall, too high to climb to. She caught a glimpse of the runes again and closed her eyes, but too late. The magic washed over her mind, trying to control her.
“Can’t. I need—”
Against her will, Ceria’s eyes opened. She twisted her head to stare at one of the filthy black walls, but now she knew the symbol was there. And she wanted to look. Had to look. She had to. It was the only thing that made sense.
The symbol flashed in her brain, and Ceria turned her head to look back at it. She couldn’t help herself. The magic runes bored into her retinas, overwhelming her senses. Ceria grinned, bit through her lower lip—
And went insane again.
—-
He knew he was insane. It was the one conscious, deliberate thought in his head. Ksmvr rocked back and forth as he stared into the darkness of the pit. His trap. His hell.
The magic spell flashed in the peripherals of his vision. No matter how Ksmvr tried to look away, he couldn’t. The magic was too pervasive, and he was too weak.
He was insane. Ksmvr had to remember that. It was the only knowledge he could cling to. That, and his own nature.
He was Antinium, and so despite being insane, there was still a part of Ksmvr that could think, could try to act. The Antinium had no spell casters, or at least, none that Ksmvr knew of. But they were familiar with the dangers of enchantments and illusions, so safeguards had been build into their very natures when each Antinium was created.
One of those protections was an innate resistance to mental trickery. The Antinium had their own way of fighting off hostile enchantments. So it was that while Ksmvr was functionally insane, part of him was fighting back, trying to seize control of his body. It was an effective bit of mental conditioning that made the Antinium so effective in battle. It didn’t work in regards to Aberrations of course—
That was different. But Ksmvr could still think, as mired in the [Insanity] spell as he was. So he noted Ceria’s actions. The half-Elf had been stumbling towards the pulsing runes, but now she turned back and lay on the ground, laughing and choking on the blood gushing from her lip.
This was the third time the half-Elf had awoken and gone insane. Ksmvr had counted that. He had logged each occurrence in his mind. At first he’d thought it was just chance, but now he was sure. She could break the enchantment. She could, but within moments she would relapse.
Because of the symbol. It pulsed, and Ksmvr felt his mind being pulled to pieces again. He shuddered and tried to concentrate. He had to act.
But the insane bit of him didn’t want to. So Ksmvr was fighting.
“No. Yes. nO. Yes. on. Yes.”
He was weak. Ksmvr fought to stand up as the insecurities of his mind preyed on him with the effects of the spell. He wasn’t worthy of being a Prognugator. They’d been right to take that away from him.
Klbkch was superior to him in every way. His Queen was right to exile him. He was useless. He hadn’t contributed anything to the team. They’d only accepted him out of pity. If Klbkch was here, he wouldn’t have gone insane.
The knowledge haunted Ksmvr. He was pathetic. And yet, he still tried to stand up. He had to do something. He was the only one who could. There was no Klbkch to give him orders, no Queen to do the same. He had to do it himself.
One leg. Ksmvr twitched and shook horribly, trying to make his rusty limbs move. He’d done it once before. He’d taken Ceria’s pants and her belt. Hadn’t that been harder than anything he’d ever done before? But he’d done it. Now he had to stand up again.
Ceria’s magical ball of light illuminated a trembling form as, in the corner of the pit illuminated by the light, Ksmvr stood up. He shook, and then lurched towards Ceria, holding something in one of his hands. He tripped over bones, crawled—desperate to get to her in time.
The half-Elf was still lying on the ground, grinning upwards. She was spitting out blood into the air and trying to make it land on her face. Ksmvr ignored that and seized her head. Ceria made no move as he lifted her upwards.
Slowly, he tied the strip of fabric he’d cut from Ceria’s pants around her eyes, tying the knot securely to fasten the blindfold. Ksmvr’s hands shook as he finished the knot. He slowly backed away from Ceria and felt the madness overwhelming his conditioning again.
The part of Ksmvr that could still think steered his body away from Ceria. He walked back over to his corner and sat down. Then Ksmvr gave up and let the madness sweep over him again. His mouth began to chant, the distorted words echoing around him.
“Yes. yES, YeS, YES, yEs, Yes, yeS…”
His fingers scrabbled at the exposed chitin on his side. Ksmvr slowly, painfully, pulled part of his exoskeleton off, feeling it break as he ripped it from his side. He put the chip of black armor up to his mouth, and his mandibles opened. Ksmvr crunched the bit of himself down as he rocked back and forwards again. He slowly reached down and did it again. And again. And again—
—-
Ceria remembered falling in love when she was twenty three. Trying to sneak off with the young half-Elf boy in her village—being caught. She had a dream where she ate her great grandmother and buried what was left beneath a blooming cocoon where something lived and tried to burst out.
Then she woke up. Again. This time, Ceria sat up and felt the pain of her lip first. She touched at it, nearly screaming at the pain. Then she realized she couldn’t see a thing.
She cast [Light] several times before she realized there was a blindfold on her head. Ceria reached for it. Her fingers scrabbled on the cloth, but they were too weak to undo the sturdy knot Ksmvr had tied. And before she could rip it off her face, Ceria’s memories came back.
The spell! The ward! It had made her crazy again. Again! Ceria remembered coming back into consciousness several times before that, but each time the symbol had—
The blindfold on her face. Ceria felt at it and realized something had happened. She wasn’t sure what, but this was the only thing keeping her from looking at the symbol and going insane. Her head still hurt, but it was bearable this time.
