The welcoming party for the new visitors was grand, and Jarl wasn’t sure how it was all put together in such a short order. A dozen elves lined each side of the gate, and a small quartet of stringed instruments was situated in the back, ready to welcome the guests with festive song. Umbra himself stood in the middle of the street. If Jarl didn’t know any better, he’d say the elf king looked nervous. His mouth was drawn tight, and it seemed like he was shaking a little bit. Based on his calm composure since they’d met, it was odd seeing such a grand figure so put off.
The air was so still and silent they could hear bees buzzing around some flowers set outside a nearby shop. That was, until they saw five tiny figures in the distance, and Umbra took a weary step backwards. He turned to the band and gave a signal, and they all started to strum their instruments. A chipper melody filled the air to welcome their new guests.
Umbra stood, wringing his hands together until the party stood on the other side of the bridge, halted and hesitant. Jarl could see they all had their weapons drawn. Just like him, they weren’t sure what to expect when they got here. He knew they weren’t expecting green pastures and music.
The party cautiously crossed the bridge, the old elf maid was at the front. On their way down to the gate Umbra had told him that the reunion with his daughter was centuries overdue. Jarl assumed the five of them were putting Lena out in front to show Umbra his daughter was with them, and that they should be granted a peaceful welcome instead of a fight. They obviously weren’t aware of the elf king’s penchant for foresight.
When they got closer, Jarl squinted and saw a sight he wasn’t sure he’d ever see again. There was Faro, walking towards the back, fully formed as a human. Jarl’s mouth fell open, and he suddenly felt like he was on the wrong side. How did Faro get changed back to a human so quickly? Would he be willing to help him get back to his own normal, dwarf form? Maybe Faro had some use left after all. He had instructions to kill the lion, but it may not be in his best interest anymore.
The party stood in the gateway looking very unsure of themselves, and the music grew softer at a signal from Umbra. He threw his arms wide in welcome, a tear running down his cheek. “Welcome, my good friends! My daughter has come back to me!”
The elves lined on the sides began to clap and cheer and the old elf maid looked back at her party who all gave her a nod. A brisk walk forward led her up to stand right next to Umbra. After an awkward pause, the old elf king leaned in and embraced his long-lost daughter. The rest of her friends came in closer to the pair, still holding their weapons. Audible crying could be heard from the reunited father and daughter, but Jarl’s focus was all on Faro, jealous that he wasn’t still stuck in the same animal prison he was.
After the long embrace between Lena and Umbra ended, Umbra sized up the rest of their visitors who had accompanied her there. “Thank you, friends, for bringing my Lena back to me. I understand there was some trouble along the way, and she would be dead if it weren’t for your heroic actions on the lake.”
They all nodded, but Lena looked confused. “I didn’t tell you about the lake,” she said.
Umbra pursed his lips and nodded. “In my pursuits of the darkness to stop the greater dark that has overtaken this country, my visions have gone from being random and sporadic to being totally under my control. I’ve gained the ability of foresight, almost at will. That’s how I knew you all were coming. Also how I know that this man,” he pointed at Faro, “isn’t a man.”
Faro looked shocked, still holding his warhammer in front of him in a position to attack. Jarl wasn’t sure if he was about to attack or run away, but either way, the wolverine didn’t think he’d get very far. Umbra had the power of foresight and magic. It would be impossible to go up against such a sorcerer. At the moment, Jarl was happy that he was mostly on Umbra’s good side.
“We won’t be needing that,” said Umbra, flicking his fingers upward. The white cloak flew off of Faro’s head and up into the air. The elves around them gasped and the musicians stopped and stared. There stood a lion where the man had been, clad in a blue tunic, fury toes sticking out the ends of too small boots. The cloak flew over to Umbra and he caught it neatly on his arm. Jarl watched it land, and had to blink twice to clear his vision. For a second he could see up the arm of Umbra’s sleeve, and it looked like his arm changed to a ghostly white. After he blinked the cloak was weighing the sleeve down and he couldn’t see it anymore. He wasn’t sure what was going on in Mireholm, but a lot of things seemed to play tricks on his vision.
Jarl looked back at Faro and let out a sigh of disappointment. It was just some kind of masking spell. There stood the lion. The stupid, moronic lion. The lion that he had failed to kill in Graeton. The lion… kill the lion! The voice in his head was sharp and dripping with acid.
No, he couldn’t. Umbra would kill him before he had the chance. Kill him now! The voice demanded, and he realized that the thoughts were not his own anymore. He felt his hands begin to twitch, wanting to reach for his dagger. His ears twitched too, and he could feel his legs start to move without his consent. Something inside him was urging him forward, making him draw his dagger and lunge into the air. He could see Faro notice him, and draw his warhammer back to strike, but it was too late.
“None of that either!” came the loud voice of Umbra over the crowd. He raised his hand and made a motion as if he were trying to grip the air, only it wasn’t just air he was grabbing. Even though he was ten feet behind him, Jarl could feel Umbra grip the scruff of his neck and pull him backwards, like a mother cat lifting her baby kitten. Hovering in the air, Jarl was moved quickly over to the elf king.
“Interesting,” said Umbra, looking at him as if he were the most rare and interesting weapon ever forged; something to be studied.
Jarl gnashed his teeth at the elf and tried to turn around to attack Faro. “I have to kill him! Let me kill him! Die!” he screamed at Faro over his shoulder.
Another motion from the elf king made Jarl stop talking. “Let’s just see if we can…” Umbra said as he kept his imaginary grip with his left hand, and spun his right in continuous circles, chanting under his breath.
Jarl wasn’t sure what he was trying to do, until he felt it. It felt as if something was stuck to the inside of his head, to his brain, and was being ripped violently away. No! Stop him! Kill the elf! the voice screamed inside his heard, and Jarl writhed and gnashed his jaws, trying to reach for his other dagger and kill his assailant.
Umbra looked unphased as he continued his work.
The ripping sensation grew to a fever pitch and Jarl let out a scream of pain. He could hear the ripping inside his head, the voice growing so loud his brain ached. Then, in an instant, the sensation and the voice was gone. Umbra set him down on the ground, and Jarl fell into a heap in front of him. The old elf bent over to physically pick him up, and brushed off his shirt.
“There!” said Umbra happily. “Now we can all be cordial and get along!”
Jarl, panting in pain, looked back at Faro who still hadn’t dropped his stance. Jarl still knew that he had orders from his masters to kill Faro, but the instantaneous urge to do so had faded to nothing. Jarl nodded at the lion-man, who glanced at Lena. A slight nod from the old elf maid was all Faro needed to agree to be cordial and drop his fighting stance.
“Great!” said Umbra. “Today is a day of celebration! My daughter is here at last! Let’s all head to the courtyard! We have quite the festivities set up just for the occasion!”
***
The walk to the courtyard was awkward as Jarl joined right alongside the party on the way up to the keep. They didn’t say a word to each other, even though Faro had a million questions about his past that Jarl may be able to fill him in on. Instead, they all just marveled at the vastness of the city and the intricacies of the elven architecture.
When they reached the keep, they all stepped through the archway into the courtyard, and were greeted with another burst of stringed instrument music.
They all smiled as elves poured out from the open doors on all sides of the courtyard, dancing around in wonderful patterns, every step perfectly taken. The music picked up pace, and so did the dancers. They moved so fast that Faro wasn't sure how they didn’t trip. They all moved intricately around the giant fountain statue of Solana in the middle of the courtyard.
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Thora was laughing and clapping beside him. Faro smiled and began to clap along with the music, but soon he felt an elbow in his hip. He looked down and saw Tobi. The dwarf with starring over to the back of the courtyard by the main door.
“Look there!” he said, nodding in that direction, and Faro followed his gaze. Standing in the back by the large double doors to the keep was Veronica. She was dressed in a flowing white gown with golden frills. She was twirling so fast that the bottom of the gown billowed out into a whirling umbrella shape. She was throwing her hands into the air and whooping loudly. Her face wore the biggest smile as she danced to her own groove.
On one particularly graceful twirl, Veronica caught sight of them watching her and twirled over toward them. “Hey!” she said, stopping her spin, but still dancing in place. “You’re the folks I saw back in Graeton! What are you doing here? Did my grandfather send you?”
Mathias scoffed at the idea of being a lackey for Mayor Thornvale. “Kind of. We would have come anyways. We couldn’t let a little kid be kidnapped and taken away by a little…” he trailed off as he saw Jarl was staring at him.
Veronica chuckled. “I really appreciate you guys coming all this way! Isn’t this place great? You can just dance and have fun. I can forget about my intense studies back home. It’s amazing and free!”
Thora stepped closer to her, looking a bit concerned. “You haven’t been hurt at all, have you? I mean you were dragged all this way here.” The look on Thora’s face showed her disbelief that their kidnapped query was doing so fine once they found her.
“It was a little rough at first,” Veronica said, still dancing. “Been fine since we arrived here, though. Hope you all didn’t have a hard time getting here to find me!”
Tobi’s mouth fell open as Veronica twirled away and joined a line of dancing elves, falling perfectly in with their step as if she’d rehearsed the dance. “Oh, no trouble at all!” he shouted after her, though he knew she couldn’t hear him. He turned to Faro to finish his thought. “Just climbed a damn water snake and almost became lunch to some dark humans.”
Faro laughed. It wasn’t just his own dark thinking about what the dark humans ate then. The thought sent a chill down his spine, but he quickly brought his mind back to the festivities. The elves had stopped moving about and had formed lines as the song changed to another upbeat jig, and they all began doing high kicks and singing. Before long, Faro felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Umbra.
“You all must be hungry. Please, all of you, join me in the great hall!”
Faro, Thora, Mathias, Tobi, Lena, and Jarl all made their way through the dancing elves. Everyone smiled at them as they passed by. No one broke their smile or their pace as their visitors made their way past. It unnerved Faro a bit, but he just smiled politely back and followed the others into the keep.
***
The great hall was just as magnificent as the rest of the palace. A head table was arranged towards the back, set high above the others. This was where the king and queen would likely sit, if there was a queen, to preside over whatever feasts and festivities the hall held for them. From the ceiling hung golden chandeliers, inset with countless subfluore crystals. The ceiling above them was painted to look like a sunny sky, so real to the eye that Faro could scarce tell it wasn’t just a window to the world outside.
The hall itself was huge, but for this occasion only one smaller table was out on the main floor. Faro imagined that bigger tables were brought out for larger parties, and then possibly cleared away after meals to make room for dancing and entertainment.
They all sat around the small, rectangular table set for seven as elf servants brought out dish after dish and set it before them. Faro was starving after their long journey, but he was also interested in the conversation that was going on between Lena and her father just a few seats down. He grabbed a large turkey leg from his plate and ripped a huge chunk off with his sharp teeth. Since being a lion his appetite seemed to be insatiable, and he had a particular taste for meat. The turkey leg was so juicy that it dripped down his chin. He wiped it off with his paw and took another big bite, savoring the hot, fresh food.
“It is good to be back, but I wouldn’t say that I’m back, Father,” Faro heard Lena telling Umbra. “What is this place? Why does it look exactly like Zelira?”
Umbra was sitting at the head of the table, an untouched plate of food sitting before him. He was obviously troubled and likely knew this subject would come up. “Mireholm is the kingdom I created when your mother and I had our falling out. I couldn’t bare to leave her behind, but she demanded that I leave, that my dark ways were no longer welcome in Zelira. Mireholm looks like home because I want to be reminded of home.”
Lena didn’t seem to want to show him any sympathy. “Then why didn't you just cast aside your dark ways and stay home?”
Umbra shook his head. “You know I couldn’t do that. My visions of the darkness that were going to befall this land grew stronger and stronger over the centuries, and I knew the day of reckoning was getting closer and closer.” Umbra looked ashamed. “The light wasn’t strong enough to beat the dark. My visions showed me that much. Unfortunately, I wasn’t strong enough in the dark ways to stop all that has happened.”
Shaking her head, Lena looked away from her father. Faro wasn’t sure what had happened between them, but this reunion didn’t seem to be making anything better.
A belch rang out across the table, and everyone turned to stare at the source. Tobi the dwarf sat at the other head of the table, slurping down a goblet of red wine.
He looked up from the goblet, and shrugged his shoulders. “You know how long it’s been since I’ve had a drink that wasn’t made from a damned potato?”
Everyone laughed and dug back into the food. Lena looked very put off by her salty reunion with her father, but appeared hungry, and dug into the food none-the-less.
Given the break in the conversation between the elves, Faro decided to voice something that had been on his mind since he’d learned about Umbra being an elf with foresight.
“So, King Umbra,” he started, “you know a lot about visions, what they mean and all that?”
The king took a drink of his own wine and nodded. “Yes, Faro. I’d say that I do. I used to get them at random. A gift from Solana, as my wife used to say.” Mentioning his wife seemed to make him sad as his face fell for a moment, but he pressed on. “When I took to learning more about the dark arts, Virmorphia, dark magic, I began to realize that with a clear mind I could urge the visions to come to me. Ask them questions. Really see in the places I wanted to look, instead of having places shown to me.”
Faro could see the allure of wanting to control such a power, but also realized how scary it would be to see terrible things you had no control to stop. “A few days back in a tree grove…”
This sentence seemed to set Jarl off, and he slammed his fork down on the table. “A few days ago! How the hell did you all get here so fast?” he snarled.
Faro was taken aback. “We didn’t get here fast, we…”
Umbra cut him off. “No need to worry about what happened before you got here. The tree grove, you were saying?”
Faro wasn’t sure if he should continue to tell Jarl that they had feared they were desperately behind and would be too late to save Veronica, but then he decided he didn’t owe the little beast anything. “Anyways, in the grove, we all ate some apples, and fell into a kind of trance. We all had visions. Different visions. Visions we all believe happened in our real lives.”
Umbra nodded. “Someone must have cast a spell on that fruit. Something powerful to make you all recall such things,” he said.
“That’s what I told them,” Lena cut in.
“Right,” said Faro, “but the weird thing is, in our visions we all saw the same man. A man with a large gash across his nose. He talked to us about the fate of Evania and a lost heir. The only thing was, all of our visions were an impossibly long timespan apart. There’s no way this same man lived that long to have talked to all of us.”
Umbra burst out in raucous laughter that shocked Faro and made him scoot back a bit in his chair. When the elf king finally calmed down enough to talk he said, “Friend, I’m over three thousand years old. Lena here is over two thousand. Don’t judge everyone by your extremely, and sadly, short human lifespan.”
“Okay, fair enough,” said Faro, a little depressed now.”
“As for this heir,” said Umbra, an air of mystery about his voice. “The hidden heir is something that has been talked about throughout the land since the great massacre of the Evania family. People have dedicated their entire lives to finding the heir, hoping to restore some peace to our great land.”
“So it’s true,” chimed in Thora from across the table. “The heir is out there?”
Umbra was in deep thought for a moment before he answered. “There has never been any proof that such an heir exists.” Everyone was staring at him with bated breath. “I for one like to hold out hope that they’re out there, biding their time, waiting for the right moment to return to us and save us. Unfortunately we’ve recently traded one tyrant for another, and still no heir has appeared.”
“Still,” Umbra continued, “the fact that you all remember this man is an odd situation indeed. Maybe you can each tell me the details of your visions?”
At that they went around the room and shared what they had seen. Umbra still didn’t touch his food through the entire storytelling process, and instead listened intently, appearing to be taking mental notes of what was said by all.
When they had all finished telling their version of meeting the mysterious man, Umbra sat with his fingers laced together in front of his face, deep in thought.
“Interesting indeed,” he said. “The strings of destiny appear to have bound you all together.” He paused and thought some more. “I will need some time to dwell on this and seek a vision that will provide clarity. I insist that you all stay here in Mireholm in the meantime.”
Lena stood up from the table. “We cannot stay, Father. We’ve come for the girl. They will be expecting her. We must take her and go.”
Faro thought he saw a flash of anger in Umbra’s eyes for a moment, but then he calmed himself and simply waved her off. “I've only just gotten you back, Daughter. I know we don’t see eye to eye on everything, but my kingdom is your kingdom. I insist that you stay until proper answers can be found.”
Lena sat back down in a huff. It was almost comical to Faro that such an old being could still be flustered by her parents.
Umbra stood from the table and threw his arms wide, as he often did. “I will go to my study now and start to dwell on answers. My servants will show you to your rooms.” He took a step back and bowed to them all. “I truly do hope you enjoy your stay in Mireholm. It is such a lovely place to be, after all.”