III
Dawn broke, and Night released Daniel. He laid on the ground, cold, too exhausted even to shiver. He barely breathed; only the thinnest stream of air entered his lungs through his open, gaping mouth. Dew covered his body and the grass around him. He was aware, but thoughtless, his mind brutalised by the Night. He felt as if he could move, but he had no desire. His will had been completely pulverised.
He moved his hand-more of a jerk-just an inch. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to break him from his nearly catatonic state. He took a deep breath and pushed himself up-and vanished, becoming incorporeal. He was reminded once more that not all of him was in the world-that his soul, his mind, whatever part of his consciousness that made him him was still separate.
This again, he thought, with a sort of sigh. What had he gone through? All that pain just to-
It was that thought of pain and the suffering of his body that brought him back together, standing upright. He felt the leaden, painful, dreary weight of existence pulse with every beat of his heart as well as a deep weariness. He remembered the pain that had racked every cell of his body, and at last he was corporeal again.
So that’s the trick, he thought as he flexed his aching hands. Meditate on the pain of existence and become more real. How miserable.
The enormous morning sun was just breaking from the horizon and throwing orange rays of light into his eyes, across his face.
“So what now?” he said out loud.
He thought of the only other people he had met in Elfland, of K?yle’s wood-burning hut in the forest, and felt himself moving. The plain flew beneath him, and then the trees, passing through him like he was nothing.
And then he was there. He focused on becoming “real” again, focused on pain, and felt his body solidify. He looked down at his clothes and noticed that he wore the blue outfit that he’d been given in Ni?ergeard, only scaled to his adult size.
“K?yle?” he called.
The clearing looked a little overgrown and disused. He moved over to one of the burning pits and saw weeds poking up through the thin layer of ash and burned earth that had been left behind when the last batch of charcoal had been made, which would have been. . weeks ago? Months?
“Daniel?”
He turned and saw Pettyl standing at the entrance to the hut. He smiled, happy to see a familiar and friendly face, but the face didn’t seem happy to see him. She wore a look of what may have been sorrow, or even despair. Her cheeks were sunken and eyes ringed with dark circles.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I’m not exactly sure about that, Pettyl,” he said, falling back into the Elfish he had learned. “I met up with three dead elves, and then there was Night. I was running, and then there was pain. .” Daniel trailed off. What had happened to him came in pictures that he didn’t think he could describe.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“Do you. . do you think that I really am here? I’m not so sure if all of this is real, if I’m real. I mean, look-” Daniel allowed himself to discorporate. Pettyl seemed to experience no real surprise at this, merely staring at the place where he had been standing, in a mild stupor. Daniel thought of the space off to her side and appeared there.
“See?” he said, causing Pettyl to jump slightly. “It seems to me that I shouldn’t be able to do that.”
Pettyl reached out to him. Her hand rested on his chest and pushed slightly. He felt a rush of pleasure at a physical sensation that wasn’t cold or painful.
“It’s really you,” Pettyl said, pulling her hand away. Her face soured and she spat in his face. Daniel only barely recoiled and then felt Pettyl’s hands slapping at him. “How dare you? Are you here to torment me? To punish me some more? Is that why? Is it?”
Daniel dissolved and Pettyl’s hands passed through him and where he used to be. He hovered above the clearing.
“Why?” Pettyl called to the air. “We had so little! Why?” She fell to her knees and began weeping. Daniel just stayed where he was and watched. Emotions were softer and more distant in his cloud-like state. He watched Pettyl sob, finally still, and then pick herself up and move back into the hut.
Daniel concentrated on the clearing again and reappeared. He walked into the hut and saw Pettyl lying on one of the low wooden beds. There were bottles everywhere-elfish food.
“Pettyl?” he said. “I’m sorry, for. . whatever it is I’ve done.”
Pettyl did not move.
“What happened?”
She did not answer or move for a long time-it may have been hours. She may have been sleeping. Daniel just stood. He didn’t get tired or-after the horror of Night-grow bored. He was content just to wait.
Pettyl stirred and shifted off of the bed. She went to a box that stood by the entrance into the stable. She pulled out a tall, thin blue bottle, uncorked it, and took a long drink. She gave a cough, a sort of choking cough, and then laughed a lilting schoolgirl laugh.
“Pettyl? Where’s K?yle?”
She recorked the bottle and turned to look at him, smiling and swaying. “Ha ha. K?yle made a mistake and he paid for it.”
“What kind of mistake?”
Pettyl moved across the room with the long steps of a dancer. When she reached the centre of the room, she pirouetted and stood, her head tilted back. She swayed gently to a music that Daniel could not hear, a smile still on her face.
“He was working in the woods one day and a little bird fell down from the sky. It was lost and injured and weak.” She giggled. “K?yle picked it up and fed it, cared for it, and taught it to speak. And when it grew strong again, it took to the sky, and soaring among the treetops, the bird saw a bear and swooped down and pecked its eye out. The bear died, and that made the bear’s brothers very mad. Very mad, indeed. They talked to the wolves, and the wolves came and hounded K?yle away. That was the mistake that K?yle made-he was kind to a little bird. He was always so kind.”
“Who took him?” Daniel asked. “Pettyl, what really happened?”
“They did,” Pettyl said, giving a lurch and knocking over a few bottles with her feet. She spun around and around and then fell onto her bed. “The brothers. The ones you didn’t kill. They took him away-I don’t know where. They thought he had knowledge of the Elves in Exile.” She laughed awkwardly.
Daniel suddenly had an intuition. “What’s so funny?” he asked.
Pettyl guffawed.
“They took the wrong one, didn’t they?”
Pettyl became sombre suddenly.
“You know where they are-who they are. You were just coming back from them when I first arrived. You’re a resistance fighter.”
Pettyl frowned. “I was. I used to be. I still am, in a way. I’m a soldier, but I’m not allowed to fight. That was the plan. I joined in, K?yle didn’t, and so when they’d come, they’d take him and leave me. And now I can’t go back to them. I’m watched. So I stay here now. I drink.”
“Could you tell me where to find them?”
“Perhaps. I don’t know where they might be for certain. But they shouldn’t be too hard to find. Just follow the war.” This struck her as hilarious and she began laughing again.
“So they’re fighting openly now?”
“Yes,” said Pettyl, getting herself under control. “They have been for the last eight months. Perhaps they’re all dead. All of them dead.”
“I don’t think so,” Daniel said. “I think that they’re still alive, and that I’ve been sent here for a reason. I’m certain of it. First I’m going to find them. Then I’m going to rescue K?yle. Then I’m going to help them win this war. The Elves in Exile will return, and I will stand by the true prince as he takes his place on the throne.”