Later that night, I sat by the fire and watched the fire dance. Like before, it was not the natural sort. This time, perhaps because he found our discomfort amusing, the old man had made the fire green. There was no wood or scrap to be burned, yet the magical flames licked hot and warded off the cold night air.

Clidale had finally fallen asleep, and I was glad for it. I didn’t miss his painful groaning. Every time he moaned in pain, it was as if I felt it in my own gut. I felt responsible for his injury. If he hadn’t come with me, he would still have an eye. If I could have acted quicker or used my power faster, perhaps he would still have it too.

I looked at Shay, and she stared at the flames with a tired, blank-eyed expression. I could sense that more distance formed between us. Nothing was the same since leaving the sea—since she and Clidale had grown closer, and we grew further apart. Perhaps she thought I did too little and caused my own friend to be hurt. I still felt the mark of her nails as they dug into my flesh as she panicked. Or maybe, seeing a man impaled on a branch and the other man decay before her eyes was enough.

It was so easy to do what I had done in the quiet world. I felt as if I should feel guilty, but I didn’t. It felt dreamlike—as if it hadn’t really happened. It was so easy there to kill men, and it was harder still to connect it to what I had done, to actually doing it. Some part of me didn’t feel responsible, even if I knew I had done it. And the rest was glad that I could kill my enemies without feeling guilty for it. After all, if I had done nothing—what would have happened then? But I could not deny to myself that some part of me--perhaps the biggest part, still felt like a coward.

Rebert still hadn’t woken up, but the old man had carried him as if he had weighed nothing, and settled him on a mat to sleep on. His hair was a mess of brush and dirt, and his grizzled face was bruised and battered. It was a wonder he had survived being thrown off a cliff.

But he was alive, and I found I was glad for that. He was sharp-edged and ill-mannered, but I could tell the man cared for me—or at least had it in his mind not to see me dead. I found it funny that I could admire such a trait in someone. It was once a trait I had taken for granted.

I looked up and found the old man staring again. The old man unnerved me, not only because of what I saw him do, but also because of how long he had been following us. For a brief moment, I wondered how that was possible. We had never seen the man following us on a horse or glimpsed him following us on foot.

His eyes were a bright blue—like none I had ever seen, and if I stared too long into them, everything else seemed to blur and fade, and it was as if I was somewhere else, somewhere terribly cold that crackled with ice, cold, and rain. And it was only when I started shivering that I realized I had not blinked. I reminded myself never to do that again.

“The girl has shock.” He pointed at Shay with a wrinkled finger and waggled it. “She’ll be okay. A young mind is malleable and tough, like young wood. Like this.” He leaned over and broke off a twig from a small bush, bending it back and forth in his hands.

He held up his palm to me, and he closed his eyes for a moment. Then the air on top of his palm began to shimmer and crystalize, and then a small tiny bit of ice formed. “Do you want to know how I did that?” he asked.

To my own surprise, I didn’t. I wanted to get away from the man as fast as I could, but I knew he would find us again. And I had the feeling I didn’t want to make the man angry. I nodded.

He stared at me for a moment longer and scratched his bearded chin. Then he grunted. “As I learned from the elders, the mana pool had always been there, as long as time itself. Perhaps the magic from the pools created time, created the world itself. No one really knows.”

“Incredible things, truly they are.” The old man blew out breath between his pursed lips. “I was just a lad when I first saw it, but I still remember it in perfect clarity. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen—or ever will see again.”

He stood up and stretched out his back, and there was an audible pop. Then he gestured around wildly. “The northern sea cliffs, the forest tree homes of the eastern folk, and even the palaces of the Gnomen, nothing compares!”

He paused for a moment, with a wistful look on his face. “Imagine a huge tree, perhaps a mile long. It stretches so high you can’t see the top. Some think it’s taller. No one really knows. But that doesn’t matter—because the base of the tree—the stump itself, is a wonder of its own. The stump is more of a wooden field than a stump, and it’s covered in the softest moss you could imagine. Softer than cloth, and even silk. But the moss is blue, and it glows—and the water in the mana pool—or rather, the mana itself, is like a lake of shifting diamonds. The water sparkles so brightly and brilliantly that it hurts the eye, but you can’t look away. It's as if your very eyes know the form of true beauty, and if they turn, they’ll never see it again.”

The old man looked at me then, with sadness in his eyes. “I’d kill any man to see the waters again. I’d kill them all if it meant I could just see the mana pool for a mere second.”

I thought he might be speaking lightly, but his sad eyes had turned slightly mad, almost feverish. He held my gaze for a long moment, and I couldn’t look away. I knew he was telling the truth. I feared that I would become lost in his eyes again, but he looked away, angry and somehow hurt at his own words.

“Everything we know of, from the plants, to the water, to the very animals that we eat—all come from the mana pool. Every being is blessed with its magic, and those that die bleed its energy back into the ground to one day be born into another.”

The man gestured below himself. “I would wager that right now, perhaps thousands of feet below, there is a branch from the pool itself, feeding the ground with its energy and taking it back in.”

“Most humans never drink mana. It’s simply not possible. It’s too far away, too hidden. Those that have drunk from the pool are Elves.” The old man eyed me for a second, raising his eyebrow. “Heard of them, have you?”

I shrugged. Clidale had spoken of wood elves, but I didn’t think they were the same thing. I looked down at my friend and felt a deep urge to wake him up. I knew that he would find the man’s tale fascinating. I myself found myself getting drawn into his tale—forgetting, or at least not thinking about what had just happened only a few hours before.

“Good--because few have. It’s good to know when you’re ignorant about something. ” He stroked his beard, shook his head, and chuckled.

“The first beings who became elves were just humans--humans that had ventured far and came upon the pools by chance. But when they drank the mana, they changed. Fragile bodies prone to disease, and short lives became immortal and strong. Humans became elves for the very first time.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

He shook his head slowly for a moment, then scowled. “But while the mana gives its abilities to humans—and strengthens their bodies, it does nothing to purify the mind. Humans—at their core, are an evil and greedy race.”

He eyed me for a moment. “Even you, nothing but a young lad, but you’ve got the look in your eye already. You’ve seen killing, and you’ve done your own fair share.”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

He held up a hand. “You don’t need to defend yourself to me, lad. But I know how the world works. No one is born a killer—seldom anyway. Killers are made.”

The old man kept talking, but the truth of his words settled into my gut. I could have chosen not to come with Rebert. I could have run. Perhaps Roth would have found me one day, perhaps not. I thought when I had made that decision, I had been brave, but it was then I realized that perhaps I had only been too afraid to make my own decisions.

It had not been an easy path forward, and I didn’t think it would get any easier, but I had made my decision to come with Rebert because I was afraid of what would happen if I didn’t.

He snapped his fingers in front of my eyes, and I flinched. “Are you listening, boy?” The old man looked annoyed that I had stopped paying attention to him.

“As I said before, the mana doesn’t just change the physical appearance. It shifts the mind, it changes personality--it alters the very mind, and sometimes—in unforeseen ways. Every elf develops a connection to something in the world. For me, it is the cold that bends to my will. But for Theodmon, it was the mind.”

I stared at him, and he stared back. “Ah yes, I’m an elf.”

I shook my head. There was nothing mystical or strange about the man, except perhaps his musty smell and his ancient age. “Then why do you look like an old man who has been a beggar for most of his life?”

He grinned. Then he waved a hand in front of his face, and the air seemed to blur and stretch in a strange way. It was as if I was looking through the heat of a fire but harder to see through. Then the distortion was gone, and so was the old man. Instead, there was another figure in front of me.

The man before me had a long nose like the previous one, but it was sharper now, and instead of long, curly, grey hair, it was black and straight like the oily skin of a snake. His features were harder, and somehow his blue eyes were even brighter--so bright that they glowed. He held out a hand to me as if greeting me for the first time. “Calk,” he said. It was an odd name, and I could tell an incredibly old one. I didn’t want to shake his hand so I sought to change the topic.

“Who was Theodmon?”

Calk shrugged. “He was both no one of importance and perhaps of the utmost importance. In terms of his blood, he was not even born of noble heritage. But his power was unique. Theodmon had power over the mind, and he could influence others' perceptions and even their own will. In a thousand years, no one had ever seen such power, so it was some time before anyone noticed what he was doing with it.”

“No one knows why the pool gave him such a power. The pool does not seek destruction, and it does not give its gifts to those who are undeserving.” Calk sighed, and I could see the deep regret in his eyes as he stared past me into whatever memory that only he could see. “But perhaps the pool can make mistakes.” He frowned deeply, as if troubled by the truth in his own words.

“It was after some time that he began corrupting the minds of his friends, and then his family. He convinced them all that they could do wonderful things if they only drank more mana from the pool. The punishment for doing so hadn’t yet even been conceived. It was simply not done. And when they did, they became even less human than before.”

Calk paused for a moment, and I could sense a strange mixture of hesitation and disgust in the man. It was as if he had seen a larger spider and wasn’t sure if he should squish it or jump away from it. “Those who drank from the pool twice became tall, spindly creatures, more than twenty feet tall, with eyes like huge jewels and ears longer even than my own.”

“Once they were seen, people came to call them the Elder elves. But it was not long after their creation that their end came.”

“Perhaps they didn’t deserve to die. Perhaps we could have found a way to reason with them. But who they became—what they became—terrified us. We had no conception of what they were capable of, and they had no regard for our lives. They attacked our cities, burned our homes, and slaughtered our people. The war lasted for decades, and in the end, we were left with nothing but ruins and ashes.”

"I was there during the war of Kel’Edhil. If you asked any living being on this side of the world, they wouldn’t know about it. It was the war of all wars, and any war since or before was not like it.”

“But I was there,” he paused for a long moment then, so long I thought his tale was over. His glowing blue eyes seemed stuck to the story of his past, and he frowned as if pained by some hurt.

“It was the first time in history that my people used their magic for violence at such a scale. It was the first time I had done so as well. But it was a war for survival and so I did what had to be done. I twisted the cold to my will to the likes of which I have not done since-- I called upon hail the size of houses, and I summoned a blizzard the likes of which this world had never seen."

"The world turned into a magical maelstrom of combined magical power. When I called upon the furies of cold to serve my bidding, others instead smote the Elder elves with lightning that dug craters into the ground, and some threw fire that scorched the land black. There were others still who fought mental battles with Theodmon struggling to keep their sanity.”

“The air itself was clouded with magic, and the smell of sulfur and other elements seemed to seep into the land and burn my nose. Spells wove in and out and danced and flung and stabbed. The world has never seen such a raw display of energy and power, and the sky crackled with energy, and the ground shook with so much power invested."

"Entire buildings were demolished in the span of hours, and the city itself, Ke’Mordhal was a smoking ruin.”

"On the twenty-third day of the war, everything changed. We learned that Theodmon wished to grant his son the powers of the pool. His son was only a few months old, conceived during the beginning of the war and much too young for the ritual.”

"We knew we couldn’t let Theodmon give his son the power of the pool. It had never been done so early, and we did not know what the consequences would be. And so we planned to attack.”

“But on the dawn of the day of the attack, both were gone. Theodmon and his son were never seen again.”

"That’s it? That was the end of Theodmon?"

"Aye lad, as far as we know. Without Theodmon to guide them, the other Elder elves surrendered, and most were killed for their treachery. But even if Theodmon had been dealt with, Kel’Edhil had become a shadow of its glory. Thousands of elves were dead, and most of the city destroyed by the elements. Even if the mana pool was still intact, most of the land had become infertile, and the nature magi were mostly all killed in the battles.”

"So, it was no surprise that many elves began leaving Kel’Edhil in search of other lands. Some thought that there could be another mana pool, and some just wanted to leave behind their shame at what they had done to their beautiful home. Cities burned and smoldered, and lava poured from mountains that had been ripped in half by the tumultuous magic."

Calk stopped talking for a moment and looked down at the blue fire burning hot.

A sudden leap of intuition formed in my mind. "It was me, wasn't it?" I asked.

He looked up at me, surprise painting his features. Then he nodded. "I don't know how you survived, or how you got here, but I have been looking for you for many many years."

There was something strange in his cold blue eyes, but I could not recognize what. But as he stared at me, only one question came to my mind. But I dared not utter it to him, because I was starting to fear that this strange powerful elf did not want to help me, but only use me to his own ends.