The wait for Ördelon’s return was interminable. The hearth was giving off ample heat, and with the thick wolf pelt on my back, I was sweating profusely. I didn't know what to make of any of what had just transpired. Was my father on the side of the Swlesians? Had the Hard Coast Company enlisted the aid of Cralix, or were she and my father into something else? And what of Mag'stula? And don't forget Margrin Ephisieryón, he must know of Cralix's involvement. His net within Wikehold was cast too wide for such a thing to go without notice. Dear gods, I wasn't even certain of the ultimate role of the Wood Elves and High Elves in any of this.
With still a half an hour left until I could expect Ördelon's arrival, I fell asleep, standing up and immobile.
I awoke to the Elf's chattering. “By Élois! What on earth has happened here, Mister Bascombe? You're held tight!”
With a wave of his hand and the word “Dissonitia!” from his lips, I was released suddenly, collapsing to the floor.
Helping me up the best he could, Ördelon walked me over to the sofa, taking the fur cloak from about me and proffering a handkerchief with which I wiped my face and forehead.
“I've never been happier to see a familiar face, my Friend!” I was sincere in saying that and I did feel that I could count him as a friend though I've always kept few.
Pouring two glasses of brandy from an end table, he offered one to me and sat next to me on the couch.
“What took place here, Bascombe? Spare no details. It's all important.” He was visibly distraught although I assured him none of this was his fault.
“Oh, but it is, Bascombe. I didn't research the situation to the full extent of my abilities. This is no time to be lax! All magic leaves a signature. If I had been more diligent, Cralix's name would have been obvious, written all over the spells on her and your father and the chalet. She is most certainly not unknown to me.”
“Nor to me, Sir,” I replied, “She's something a legend on the streets of my city. My father has lost his mind! He'll never keep this disreputable dalliance from the rumor mill if it isn't already there. My mother is not a woman deserving of pity but she's almost earned mine here. Certainly there are wealthier if not more handsome men Cralix could predate! Why my father?”
He looked into my eyes and gave a half-hearted smile. “Why, the amber, Mister Bascombe! Come now, you can't fall behind in your understanding now! You've come so far!”
I was still missing something. But she has all the money she needs certainly, Ördelon. Why this?”
“Bascombe!” He grabbed me by my shoulders and playfully shook me. “You're thinking of her purely as the Black Widow of Wikehold. She is so much more than that! Her power as a Witch is perhaps rivaled by only Mag'stula herself.”
He took a large draught of brandy, coughed, and leaned back into the sofa’s cushions. “This may be the most expensive brandy I've ever tasted!” he laughed. “Your father has exceptional taste. In some things at least. I jest of course. Clarix is as beautiful now as she ever has been. Allow me to give you a little more insight about her so we might be better prepared the next time we cross paths with her.”
Knocking back another quaff, he refilled his glass as well as mine which remained untouched.
“Save some room in there for rational thought Ördelon, your brain is going to be full of fog if you keep it up.!”
But he wasn't listening. Frankly, he looked lost and defeated. I took the opportunity to tell him everything that had transpired before his arrival. He just nodded as I spoke. Blank-faced.
As I finished, I waited patiently for a response. What came next was a shock that caused me to catch my breath.
“She's my daughter, Mister Bascombe. Cralix is my daughter.”
He spoke so softly, I could barely discern his words over the crackle of the fire.
“Your daughter!” I was incredulous. None of this fit.
“Yes, Mister Bascombe! My daughter!” He was suddenly angry, the quiet look of acceptance replaced by a fiery venom.
“I'm so sorry, Mister Ördelon, truly, I don't know wha…”
He broke me off, “Save the pity, Bascombe! She's more dangerous than you could possibly know. Please,” he nudged my glass toward me, “don't make me drink alone.”
“Very well, Sir! Now tell me your story, and quickly, we must get back to the Taliswood and Queen May. We've important developments to report.!”
“Yes, yes, Mister Bascombe. I'll be brief. It's just that it's a backstory you must know for some better context in all this.”
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I took a stiff pull of brandy and he began, “I have been married before, Mister Bascombe, to a beautiful Elven woman named Nesterish. We were married for just over 500 years, but never had children. We didn't think it our place. She was on the path to be a great Wizard as well, you see? The roadmap we were given didn't include a child, just a keen focus on our studies. She was brilliant.”
He hadn't stopped crying. I offered him a handkerchief of my own and he took it absentmindedly, just holding it tightly.
Nesterish was taken by some form of consumption. Terribly uncommon for Elves to contract. She had been teaching many students though, some of them Human, and there was speculation that that was the source of her illness. But I've cast many spells looking for a cause, Mister Bascombe, and consumption doesn't spread like that. I had to see her waste away before my eyes in less than six months, to this day, none the wiser as to how or why.”
“Perhaps a month or so after her passing, one of her students, a young Wizard, came to me, a beautiful raven-haired girl named Veralia. She seduced me, Mister Bascombe, and I'm ashamed to say it was easily done. I was so very lonely. And then I didn't see her again until several months later. She had with her a girl child, obviously hers with the blackest hair you've seen, and mine with steely gray eyes and slightly pointed ears.”
“All she wanted of me was to be a father to the child and a husband to her until the girl came of age. Just so she'd have the finest upbringing and be away from Human society. To this day, I don't know the grudge Veralia had against her fellow Humans, but it was fierce.”
“We were actually very happy, Mister Bascombe, for a time. Until Cralix came into adulthood. Then Veralia vanished. Her beauty faded so quickly as she aged. Like watching someone in a place where the time is out of control. When she was 40, she looked 700 in Elf years. She could see it in my eyes, wondering where the beauty went. I'm convinced that's why she left. Why she left Cralix with me, I'll likely never know.”
“Cralix had an ideal childhood, all things considered. Half-Elven children are fairly readily accepted in our culture, so she had plenty of friends. But she was also the daughter of a powerful Wizard, with access to centuries worth of scrolls, books, and academic works. Her interest in the arcane was piqued at an early age. I forbade her, though, from going deep into those studies until she came of age and had completed her normal schooling. That was not the correct path for her, Mister Bascombe. I've erred many times in my long life, but restricting her access to magic has been perhaps my greatest mistake.”
“All things looked well-enough from my vantage point. She graduated University with degrees in medicine and philosophy, although her work seemed to be purely of a scholarly nature. She spent a great deal of time in the woods gathering herbs, making botanical essences and nectars.”
“But then I found out the wicked truth. One of my own students, a young lad with a very bright future, came to me to speak in confidence. I couldn't imagine what it could be, but he asked if I weren't concerned that my daughter was consorting with some fellow named Avricon. I had never heard of this Avricon and asked Cralix about him when she came home that evening.”
“Oh, Father, he's just a rustic, a Human hermit living in the woods, but his knowledge of the flora and fauna is staggering. I merely go to him to have things identified and explained in greater detail.” She told me quite plainly and with seeming honesty. So I thought nothing of it. Surely I would have heard if he was dangerous. The boy who reported the story to me was likely just enamored with Cralix and jealous.”
But then the young boy vanished. No one had a clue what might have happened to him. He was just there one day and then gone. I assumed, like many young folk do, that he had gotten the notion to give the adventuring life a try and had merely run away. He'd be back at the first sight of an angry hobgoblin with blood in its eyes.”
“A year passed, though, without word. It nagged at the back of my mind. I heard nothing more about Avricon until months later. Cralix came home to me one evening, crying uncontrollably. I asked her the matter and she told me that this Avricon fellow had used his age and experience to seduce her, and that she was with child.”
“Believe me when I tell you Mister Bascombe, my world went red at those words. My head throbbing, my pulse racing, my body felt as if it were on fire! I wanted nothing more than to kill this creature, Avricon. I stormed out into the night to find him. Oddly, she didn't give chase or try to stop me, just sat there in our sitting room, sobbing.”
“It didn't take much to track down Avricon. He was widely known in our community as a fairly powerful Witch and a gifted herbalist. Women with unborn children could go to him and have their pregnancy ended. Which raised the question as to why Cralix hadn't already done this if he forced himself on her. But I'll not pretend to know the female mind. Especially when it comes to matters of procreation.”
“When I found the hermit's hut, I wasn't prepared for what I would see, Mister Bascombe. It still causes my heart to go cold. The man's body was shredded into tiny bits strewn about the hut’s interior with blood covering every surface. It had been done by something from beyond this world, surely. The maliciousness and depravity behind this attack couldn't have been … no, it couldn't possibly have been carried out by Cralix. This was an act of pure evil of the sort that one rarely sees outside of combat, Mister Bascombe. And I had fought in the Siege of the Black Banner. I've seen horrific things one creature can do to another. This was mutilation of a sort with which I was unfamiliar.”
“One thing I did notice before I left, there was a table in the corner of the hut, its top covered with shattered and crushed pieces of included amber. Whether the idea to get to it had come from her or Avricon, I'll never know. But they had been experimenting with forces beyond either of their abilities or knowledge.”
“I left immediately. I needed to get home and talk to Cralix. Find out what had happened there in that hut, but, above all else, console her and see what she was thinking about her future and her child.”
“When I got home, Mister Bascombe, it was unnervingly quiet. She seemed to be sitting where I left her, but the tears had stopped. She looked eerily calm. I spoke first, ‘Cralix, my Dear, I saw the scene at the hermit's hut. Tell me, my Darling, are you okay?’”
“I hate to use the word, but she gave me the creepiest smile I've ever seen and said, ‘Wasn’t it beautiful, Father? All crimson and scarlet, and he won't be able to hurt me anymore. I'm certain of it.’”
“Cralix,’ I said, ‘Listen to me. I don't care what you've done to this hermit. You're my daughter. It was nothing I didn't want to do as well. But, my Dear, the savagery, from where did that come? You've been raised in a pacifistic environment.’”
“‘Oh, Father, Avricon taught me how to talk with the demons and devils, the aberrations, things beyond our understanding. He taught me to call them to our plane. I just invited Yuskifoylipek to pay him a visit. Told him how Avricon had hurt me. He's my favorite, Yuskifoylipek, such a grand schemer.’”
“And she giggled, Bascombe. A giggle to make you never want to hear another.”
“I asked her about the baby and she merely said, ‘Oh, he's gone, Father. There's no room for him today. Not today.’ And I noticed for the first time, on the table before her, a half-drunk glass of wine and a small parchment packet of the sort powdered drugs are dispensed in. There was blood on the front of her dress and the weight of the whole thing came crashing down on me at once. I took her in my arms and ran to Mother Felistia immediately though I'm not fit physically for the act, I'm ashamed to admit. My body was being driven by my heart, which was breaking for my girl.”
“Anyway, after that, she was never the same. And now I'm forced to ask if it wasn't she who seduced Avricon rather than the other way around. Perhaps she got pregnant and he wanted the child and she didn't. She's evil, Bascombe. I don't know where it came from. Certainly not her mother or me. Maybe it was Avricon. She's just become so malevolent that I can't tell anymore. She's not my Cralix.”
“She was banned from here, from all Elven lands. When she left, she ventured south to Swalesia. The king at that time was Mis'jab, just another tyrant. But she worked her way through to him, ahead of an entire harem of wives and concubines. Set to be their next queen, Mis’jab’s Witches discovered her amber and its secret. They confiscated the amber and were prepared to flay her publicly before she made her escape. She's slippery. All she did though, was whet the Swalesians’ appetite for more of the powerful amber.”
“That's what she's after, Mister Bascombe, the amber. Gods knows what she'd do with it, but we can't let her have it. She's using your father and the Hard Coast Company to get to it. They, you, can't be allowed in the bidding.”
“No, Mister Ördelon, I see that very plainly. But who can have it? There doesn't appear to be an acceptable choice outside the Gray Elves just maintaining their control. It would be a shame to have to destroy it. There's so much good that could come from it.”
“Well, Mister Bascombe, these are matters for minds with more authority than ours. Let's get back to the Palace quickly and tell Queen May what we've found.”
image [https://i.imgur.com/0GtZN1I.jpeg]