That Night
“Come on, get up,” Xanth nudged the lump roughly with a long, sharp finger. The cocoon of blankets shifted, stretched and groaned slightly. The muffled voice was unintelligible beneath the heap, and he watched as it seemed to roll and stopped. “Up,” he repeated, poking the bundle once more and turned to walk back out of the room. Tali pulled the blankets back over one eye and squinted out after him. Straining to sit up and free herself from the warm net of blankets that she’d wrapped herself in, she rubbed her eye and swung her legs off the bed. Blearily she looked around the room, silently fighting the urge to flop back over and fall asleep again; she tried to sweep away the fog in her brain. There must have been a reason, she thought, for being hauled out of bed. Gathering her senses, opening her eyes fully and sighing exhaustedly, Tali wrapped herself in the large quilt from the bed, pulling it tight over her shoulders, and picked a path across the floor, dragging the long train of blanket behind her.She crossed the door of her room and entered the hall by the fireplace. Lan was laying by the fire, eyes closed and breathing heavily. “Up,” she said, her voice employing the tone of Xanth’s voice moments before, mocking him. She nudged Lan with her toe, and the fox lifted his head slightly. “Come on,” she said, still lowering her voice to imitate Xanth, and began to shamble forward again. Lan snapped his teeth half heartedly at the quilt train behind the girl and nuzzled his nose back under his tail. Tali looked toward the windows as she made her way slowly through the hall. Blackened, the window reflected back to her, the colours of the quilt, patchwork and bright, blurry enough as if to smudged. Her head seemed smudged too, she thought. Her dark hair was a silken reflection of the crazy nest her bed had been. It would have been standing up on end, if not for the length that seemed to weigh it down. She winced slightly at the reflection and pulled the quilt over her head. Now only her face was visible in the walking blanket. “Why is it still dark out?” She yawned and stretched inwardly under the blanket.
“It’s almost winter again,” came the soft reply from the table at the center of the big hall. “Sun gods and bright things have moved beyond our world’s score, and shadows and night wings have shaken from slumber and move once more.” She looked at Trynn who sat in his chair at the table, his feet stretched towards the fire and his fingers interlaced. He smirked at her slightly. She understood the understated bite of the answer he’d given. He implied that she was one of these dark and godless things, one of the winter creatures. It had been years, it seemed, but he still reminded her that she was always going to be that malevolent thing, pure chaos and fire, the one who betrayed and stabbed him, and the one responsible for the destruction of their way of life. In response, she smiled slightly and flapped the edges of her quilt at him. She loved him, and hoped that someday he’d trust her again, that he’d find a renewed fondness for her. They were family, after all. Was it winter, she wondered. There weren’t many details she remembered about that night, when everything changed. Just images. Her eyes lost focus as her mind took back to that night, and the feelings that welled in her made her heart race.
They stood in the garden, the stars peeking through the branches overhead. Nothing stirred, no wind carried the dry brown leaves across the ground between them, and no branches knocked or scraped. It was chill, as the breath steamed out of them both, standing toe to toe. Trynn was dressed in his black hooded robe, his face shadowed by the hood and the moonless night. She could she him clearly though, the anger burning his face that seemed to glow in the darkness. It was a trick, she knew. It was one of the ways he kept control, by intimidation. But now she stood glaring back. He will not win this time, she told him silently with her eyes.
“You will turn around and go back into the keep,” he hissed at her, his lips so tight his mouth didn’t appear to move. “You’re going to go back to your room, and you’re going to stay there until I can undo this. Once I have everything back the way it should be, I will come for you, and you will be sorry.” Neither moved; neither spoke. Tali stared back at him, and her own eyes took on some of the fire from his.
“No,” she finally said. It was soft, barely audible even in the silent garden, but it hit him like a brick, and she knew it. His fist clenched involuntarily, a slight crack in the always calm. A slight slip of control. She saw it and pressed. “If you really wanted what was best for us all, you’d just go away. I have work to do.” She turned to walk away then, her eyes following the lightning in his, and walked slowly toward the door of the keep. The massive stone walls around the garden seemed to shrink then, and her breath was like lead in her chest. She could almost feel the weight of the old elf on her. And then suddenly, she could. Trynn had crossed the distance between them in an instant, and had her. He grabbed the shoulder of her cloak and spun her. Her head was still spinning, when striking like molten lightning, he slapped her across the cheek. She staggered and almost fell, her hand going to her cheek, which burned white hot, and she knew it was bound to bruise. Instinct took over for her then. She moved without thought, and the edges of her vision collapsed into red pin holes, and the blood in her ears finally deafened the soundless night.
She leapt straight at him, her fingers closing on his throat. The muscles in her arms, neck and jaw all contracted, as if simultaneously bent on crushing the elder’s neck. He wasn’t a man to her anymore, he wasn’t her brother. He was the thing that had stood and denied her since she could remember. He had locked her away for the last time, struck her for the last time. It would all end now; she thought and squeezed all the harder.
Trynn’s red face bulged and started to turn blue. He felt her talons digging into the flesh on his neck and felt the blood start to flow down into the collar of his robe. He felt his vision blur, his face start to tingle from numbness, and threw out a fist into Tali’s ribs. She pushed out a short breath before letting him go. She doubled and tried to catch her breath. It had seemed like forever since she’d had air in her lungs. Trynn had fallen to his knees and was coughing softly, also trying to fill his body with air again. Tali felt her lungs coming back to life, and her eyes went to the weakened elf kneeling in front of her. Her hoarse scream filled the garden, pushing the walls back again. She lashed out with her boot, solidly kicking Trynn in the side of his torso. There was a wet crack, and the elf crumpled further on the ground. She was standing over him now, fists clenched at her sides, her body heaving and red, and she prepared herself for another assault.
But she didn’t move. Slowly tears came to her, her eyes stinging and raw now, and her heaving became ragged, as her breath poured out of her again in angry sobs. Her body wrenched itself as she cried, and slowly reached out a hand to the exposed man at her feet. “I’m....” She never finished the words. Trynn had reached out a hand and a blue light shot from his palm. The light flashed into and around her, her body stiffened and her hair stood on end. The electric blast held her long enough for Trynn to get back to his knees. His right hand wrapped around his rib cage, holding himself together as he struggled to get to his feet. Tali had fallen, the charge dissipating and the two were eye to eye again. Trynn’s eyes were now a void. She stared into the inky depths and saw nothing. Not anger, not pain, nothing. Panic gripped her then, the icy fist of unreason locked on her spine, and she scrambled to her feet and backed away.
“No more, Tali,” Trynn said, his voice even and strong. This was his strength, and the reason the others followed him; when all else was spent, all the hatred was used up, when the initial rush of emotion evaporated from the situation, Trynn’s mind took over, and cold reason seemed to stop time for everything. Now he could focus, now he could see the myriad of possibilities, and the one solution that would make everything right. She saw it too, intuition whispering at the edge of her panic, the bond between Trynn and Tali bleeding the perfect reason from his mind into hers. She saw the end in his empty eyes, and knew that he intended to kill her.
Trynn stepped forward, and Tali stepped back. Fear filled her, and nearly paralyzed her. Only mirroring his movements now kept her moving. “Trynn,” she choked, “please don’t do this. I’m thinking of all of us. Just let it go.”
“No, Tali. Not anymore.” When he spoke her name, she felt it like a physical blow, no less real than the fist she’d received earlier. It was cold, like the panic, like the night. “I’ve done what I could to keep us safe, to protect this place from all the people outside these walls that want to tear this place apart.” His voice was rising, and she could feel the hair on body stand up as the charge filled him again. “I’ve built these walls, and kept us together and....”
“And driven us from friends and kept us from the world. You’ve condemned us, and you want to keep us all trapped!” She regained her nerve and dug her foot into the ground. “You’ve built us a prison, and you’re the warden.” Trynn glared at her, not responding to her accusations. “You’ve prevented us from growing.” Softening slightly, she stepped forward and placed her left hand on his chest. “Trynn, we need to move and grow. We can’t hide here forever, and you know it. Please,” her voice soothed him, and light came back into his eyes, “please, just open the gates and let us go.”
“I can’t do that,” he said coldly. “We have no place out there. We’ve been there and lost too much every time. They,” he jabbed a finger at the gate, indicating that he meant those that lived outside it’s safe walls, “don’t want us, and don’t understand us. I will not watch them parade through here and try to tear this place down again.”
“It’s not us, it’s the keep?” Tali’s face twisted a little as the tears came again. “You aren’t trying to protect us, you’re hiding. You’re afraid of them, they’re aren’t afraid of us. We’re done hiding, Trynn.” She pushed him back and turned her back to him and walked toward the door to the keep. “Tomorrow the gate comes down. Like it or not, the monsters inside and outside these walls are free.” She glanced over her shoulder as she walked, “and tomorrow, you can lock yourself in your library and never come out. We live from this night on.”
She was part way up the steps of the keepfront when he moved again. For several seconds he only watched as she walked away. “I’m sorry Tali, but not all of us live through the night.” His words were almost a whisper again, but she heard him. It was as if that intuition came to her again, like his mind was pouring out into hers. Now they were linked by in intangible series of threads, and they knew each other, as only one mind can. He stepped forward, and started to sprint. His long strides ate up the ground between them, and before she could turn, he was there, his breath hot on her neck. He touched her softly, his hand palm flat on the small of her back. It seemed almost loving, his touch, a caress she almost thought seemed invisible, and the electric blue energy surrounded her again. She spasmed, her body rigid again and her mouth opened to scream, but nothing worked. Her muscles, even the unconscious ones were crippled, and she was helpless. She could smell her body start to burn from the intense energy he pushed into her. Time crawled as she was conscious of being killed, but unable to move.
Trynn released her again, stopping to catch his breath and rechannel the energy. Tali slipped to the ground in a heap, her body limp. She coughed softly, and her chest throbbed and burned. This made her cough more. She curled into a ball and was wracked with fits of coughing. Soon her body still convulsed, but she had stopped making any sound. “I’m sorry Tali, I’m so sorry.” Trynn bent over her and summoned the energy to his hand again. He leant over her and extended an index finger to her forehead. She rolled over and looked up at him. Her eyes red and swollen, her body shrivelled and weak, she smiled. Trynn’s head tilted slightly, curious about the expression, when the shock ran up through his body and down his left leg.
“I’m sorry too, love,” she said, her voice hoarse. She felt the blood flow out over her hand, almost welding the knife there in her grip. Trynn looked from her eyes down at her hand, which was attached to a small knife that was inserted into his hip. Her voice was like gravel on raw skin as she talked to him then. “You know that I’ve spent some time in the library too, and Brant has taught me a thing or two about blades. I don’t want you gone, Trynn, but we can’t continue like this.” She pulled herself up then, still holding the knife that was buried in Trynn. “We’re one now, all of us. What happens to me will happen to you.” She used the knife and made a quick cut on her left palm and pressed the bloody wound to his. “What happens to me happens to you,” she repeated, her strength reasserting itself in her. She stood then, pulling Trynn to stand with her, and she wrapped her arms around him and leaned her head on his shoulder. “It’ll be better,” she whispered into his ear, “you’ll see.”
Nothing seemed to happen between the two. For a long time, she held him there, bleeding and pressed against her for support, and suddenly the cold night melted away. Shadows suddenly dissolved and warm washed over the courtyard. The air itself seemed to shimmer for a minute before the elf and the girl were instantly a ball of flame. Intense heat swelled out from the pair and into the keep, and everything around the two started to burn. Tali closed her eyes then and leaned her cheek against Trynn’s.
Tali shivered slightly under Trynn’s gaze as she refocused her thoughts, bringing her back to the present. She pulled the quilt tight around her again and shuffled over to the table where Trynn was sitting. She bent and kissed his cheek as she passed and sat in the next chair. “So why is it, us night beasts and shadow things are up and about then?”
“We discovered something the other day,” Xanth replied as he came back into the room carrying a carafe and cups. He poured out the coffee into the mugs and passed them around the table. No one moved or spoke until he’d finished and Tali slowly raised the cup to her lips. “We think we found the stone, Tali.” Xanth said the words just as he lowered himself into the chair next to hers. The fire crackled but no one moved. Trynn watched her carefully for some slip. Tali only stared blankly at Xanth and held the cup steady at her lips. There was a brief silence before she put the cup down and looked between the two of them.
“You know what pisses me off about the two of you?”
“The stone you used to start the fire,” Trynn interrupted her.
“Tali,” Xanth said patiently, “this is really important. We need to know where the stone came from. It could be having lingering affects on us, and we’ve speculated that that’s why Trynn still hasn’t healed. We figure….” Tali stopped him this time, with a strong fist on the table that spilled her coffee. But she seemed to either not notice or not care.
“The reason he hasn’t healed is because he won’t let it. We’re joined now, and the rest of have healed. He’s just being stubborn. He acts like a bloody martyr!"
Trynn looked at the table and looked up at Tali. “The giants have been spotted in the woods again. We think they’ve been watching us for a while and suspect that they have been the ones who tricked you into….” He trailed off softly, and turned away again, unable to look her in the eye.
