“What do you mean there are elves among us?” said elder Sunki. Elder Kezler’s eyes opened wide and he gave a furtive glance to each side. The other elders were similarly confused, with only the priests of the human Jora tribe looking calm.
Noel and I exchanged glances. Noel mouthed that we should attack the priests. I shook my head. Noel frowned. She probably wanted to explain why she wanted us to go on the offensive already, but I silently told her that we had to wait.
Elder Sunki was furiously demanding something from the priests, but they wouldn’t respond to him. Instead, the oldest priest lifted his heavy, hairless eyebrows and stared right at elder Kezler. He raised a bony finger at the red haired elder of the Roja tribe and said something. The other elders looked at elder Kezler with surprised eyes. Even elder Sunki stepped back to stare at Kezler, his mouth agape.
Elder Kezler met the old priest’s gaze. Then he spoke, loudly, “yes, our tribe has been graced with the presence of the venerable elves. The first elves that our tribes have met for many generations.”
“And you didn’t tell us?” shouted elder Sunki. “You didn’t tell me?”
“It was the venerable elves’ wish,” said elder Kezler.
Elder Sunki’s expression cooled. The other elders also seemed to have finally collected themselves. The priests frowned. They said something, but I couldn’t hear them. I wish I’d known we’d be in this position, I would have invented long range listening magic.
Elder Sunki gesticulated wildly. He was getting heated up again, but I couldn’t tell why. The priests were saying something to him, but it didn’t look like he liked it. The other elders seemed to be backing him up, especially elder Kezler, who was also beginning to get angry at the priests.
In the corner of my eye, I saw Noel crouch as low as she could. She began to make her way towards the pit, slowly creeping from one statue and wall to the next. I cursed under my breath, but followed her.
The elders and priests had almost come to blows. I was sure the noise had reached all the way to the main camp by now, and even if it hadn’t, someone would come to check up on the elders soon. I was sure nobody was expecting a bunch of geriatrics to get into a brawl in the pit, but judging by the way elder Sunki was being held back by two other elders, that might actually happen.
As we got closer, I could make out more words. Things like “dare” and “elves” and “prophecy”. The priests had lost their cool demeanor. The youngest priest, a man who looked to be in his fifties, drew a flint dagger from a pouch strung along his waist. Elder Kezler surprised everyone by taking out a copper knife.
Everyone was surprised by Kezler’s weapon, but the priests were especially shaken. They murmured something about the knife and elfin secrets. The youngest priest stubbornly raised his flint dagger, pushing off the priest who was telling him to calm down. Even the oldest priest was staring at Kezler’s copper weapon and telling his companions to stand down.
But the youngest priest rushed forward. Elder Kezler was caught by surprise. He raised his knife, but the priest knocked it out of his hand. Elder Sunki grabbed Kezler by the shoulder and tried to pull him back, but the priest was quicker, and the dagger was heading straight for Kezler’s chest.
The priest’s hand flew into Kezler’s chest. Everybody stood still. The priest was breathing heavily, his eyes wide with madness. Kezler’s eyes were stretched open too, as was his mouth, but he didn’t react at all. Sunki was the first to move. He grabbed the priest’s hand and tried to get him to let go of his weapon. He must’ve known that it wasn’t a good idea to take a dagger out of a body too forcefully. But as he pushed away the priest’s hand, his eyebrows furrowed. The priest’s expression changed as well. He went from wild euphoria to befuddlement.
The flint knife was floating in the air below the priest’s feet. Nobody had noticed it because they weren’t looking for it there. Elder Kezler turned his head, recognizing the magic. Noel stood in front of a statue; a crude statue of a wild-haired elf, hands outstretched, casting magic into the pit.
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Noel wasn’t disguised by magic, since there was no point in hiding if she was going to be using magic that the Roja tribe had not known before. Besides, it sure sounded like the human Jora tribe knew that we were here. My suspicions that the immortals were involved grew stronger. I stepped out from behind a statue too; a statue of an ancient human, looking down into the center of the complex.
The elders reacted in the same way the Roja tribesmen had: chaotic reverence. Some fell to their knees, others started singing praises, and a few even had tears in their eyes. The Jora priests reacted differently. Most of them were confused, looking at each other for some reason. The oldest priest looked shell-shocked. He eventually fell to his knees and collapsed to the ground like a puddle of wrinkly skin and brittle bone.
The youngest priest, who was still standing right next to elder Kezler, was frozen in place. He saw that I was observing him, so he also got on his knees and started spouting inanities. I sighed. Elder Sunki recognized me, since the disguise magic had only hid my ears and hair. He started apologizing to me for some reason.
I looked at Noel. I was expecting her to be as exasperated by the humans’ reaction as I was. Instead, I saw her glaring angrily at the priests. The image of a young elfin girl shooting daggers at a bunch of whimpering old men should have been comical, but it didn’t make me chuckle or smile. Instead, I felt a faint chill in the back of my chest.
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“A prophecy?” I said.
“Yes, great one,” said the human Jora tribe’s leader, the old priest Oxi. “Our ancestors warned of a great cataclysm, which would fall on the solstice when the red star flashed through the three great constellations.”
The priests seemed to follow some sort of astrological tradition. It reminded me of the Oracle’s ability to tell the future, especially because this prophecy relied on the movements of the red star. “Then why were you about to fight the other elders?” I asked.
“Well…” said priest Oxi.
He explained that most of his tribe’s priests believed that the elves had ascended into immortality, which was why they could no longer be contacted on this Earth. When the priests came to the pit, their ancient relics reacted in a certain way which was only supposed to happen when there were elves nearby. But since they believed that all the elves had ascended, they assumed that some infernal magic had been used to bring their souls back to the mortal world, which filled the priests with anger.
“Please accept my sincerest apologies,” said the middle-aged priest that had tried to stab elder Kezler. Priest Oxi had introduced him as Priest Mal Jora. “I believed Kezler Roja was the evil sorcerer who had profaned the ancient elves. But after seeing your appearance, I know that I was in the wrong.” Priest Mal refused to get up off his knees, and although I wanted to make him get up, Noel insisted he stay down.
We were sitting around a large campfire near the edge of the encampment. A large crowd of humans kept peeking over to our group, hoping to catch a glimpse of the mythical elves that they had heard stories about all their lives. The Roja tribe was in charge of making sure nobody came to disturb us, and their strange copper weapons were a pretty good deterrent.
The various elders of the human tribes sat at a respectful distance from us. Noel and I chose to sit next to elder Kezler, with the priests of the human Jora tribe sitting on the other side of the campfire, their faces occasionally obscured by wisps of smoke and tendrils of orange flame.
“Please, punish me for my mistake,” continued Priest Mal.
“Noel,” I said, before she could say something. “Elder Kezler has already accepted his apology. Why don’t we let him get off his knees and start asking the questions we really want to ask?”
Noel hesitated, still looking angrily at the middle-aged priest. Priest Mal was bald and had a big, flat nose. He had a scraggly black beard that went all the way down to his neck, and even his clothes were unkempt and full of patches. Eventually, Noel nodded, but she started glaring angrily at the other priests, instead.
“Get up there,” said Noel, gesturing for Priest Mal to join his fellow priests on the small log on which they were seated. “Your punishment will be telling us everything that we want to know, even if it embarrasses you and your tribe. Understood?”
“Yes, great one,” said elder Oxi. The other priests voiced their agreement as well. The elders of the other tribes also nodded, for some reason, with elder Sunki leaning forward like he was eager to answer anything we asked him.
“Then start,” said Noel as she clasped her own hands together and spoke slowly, and clearly, “by explaining why you took the name of my tribe.”