Morruck's Story

The spice-scented candles burn low as the last black-cloaked, hooded elves file silently into the driftwood hut, seating themselves.  At one end of the table sits a tall, straight-backed elf, wearing the same robe as the others, while at the other end, his gloved hands folded impassively on his lap, sits a figure clad entirely in thick, white sealskins, not a scrap of flesh exposed.  Even the face beneath his tight-fitting hood is concealed behind a blank, wooden mask.  The straight-backed figure's posture is rigid with tension, and her voice is a harsh snap as she calls the meeting to order.

“Members of the Redmoor Town Council, be seated.”  One and all, they sit, filling the four seats on each side of the table.  Two more elves, their motions oddly stiff and awkward, stand paired at attention on either side of the door, bearing fire-hardened spears and stone knives.  Although uncloaked, they wear carved wooden masks, and their skin has a greyish, bruised coloration to it.  The tall figure points to the short, round-shouldered one beside her, the first to arrive, “Councilor Morruck, tell the others what you informed me of when you arrived.”

The short, rotund elf stands, his voice a thickly-accented burble, “Gratitude, Councilor Sseilani.  The cranberry yields have fallen again, fully half what they should be at this time of year.  Diseases rack the crop, pests gnaw away the margins of the yield, and what does grow is stunted and bitter compared to prior years.  I strongly recommend against the raising of further husks until we have proven whether or not they are the cause, grrbitt.” He coughs at the end of his statement, the sound markedly froglike, “If this continues, we will have no town at all.  Berry production and fishing have kept us going through our troubles, but...if they should all die...” He spreads his hands, the webs between his greenish digits prominently displayed.

“What about the fishing?  Have your people discovered why the fish have left?”  One of the other cloaked elves asks, but the heavyset one is already shaking his head with a sad croak, “Perhaps the raising of the husks has frightened them off, too.  Animals sometimes sense the use of dangerous magic before we do.”

“Preposterous.”  A slender elf sitting next to the utterly silent and motionless white-clad figure, stands up, “What we lack is will.  Being a small town, suffering without help from our neighbors, do we really expect more?  The land suffers because we are weak, because we have had a great power placed into our hands...found by one of our own, when we needed it most...and what do we do with it?” She says, not bothering to hide her contempt, “We use it to raise farmers who do not need food or rest, who can pick berries left untended due to lack of hands to cultivate them, so that we can live without having to work and share the profit among the meager survivors clustered here.  The land is ashamed that we have not moved to share this power with the surrounding towns, to expand Redmoor to the fullest.  We suckle at its teat like babes, and when we are weaned, we cry instead of standing and walking for ourselves.”

The tall elf at the head of the table stands abruptly, slamming her palms down on the table, “The Council does NOT recognize your right to speak, Ssaerana!  In fact, we have dire questions about your visits to the outlying villages, about these reports of you raising hundreds...hundreds!  Of unauthorized husks.  If, in fact, our overuse of the Tome is what causes the land to blight, we cannot risk putting motion back into so many corpses.  Not to mention this...this outsider you have brought into our midst!  Who is Mourn, really?  What does he want here?  And WHAT, precisely, HAS HE BEEN TEACHING YOU!?”  By the end, her voice has risen to a shout, and she pauses to collect her breath before continuing, in a calmer tone, “Now, if you still wish to speak, before I confine you to the house, you may do so.  Answer our questions at once, but be warned that you stand upon the thinnest of ice.”

Mourn, presumably the one dressed in white sealskin, laughs softly, his voice thready and somehow indistinct.

Ssaerana's face is hidden behind her hood, but the set of her shoulders radiates anger, despite the sweet tones in which she replies, “Is that what this is all about, mother?  Jealousy of your own daughter, because my might has surpassed Kokoltum's own studies of the Tome?  Because you have yet to master a single spell, while myself and Ianwe...” She gestures to the shortest Councilor present, who shrinks away from her slightly, “Yes, little Ianwe, even, has mastered two spells.  While you have none.  Thank the land for father's blood in our veins, for yours is thoroughly useless.” She finishes, sarcasm heavy in her voice, “Mourn has not taught you anything for this reason.”

“This bickering avails us nothing.” Speaks a previously silent elf, sitting at Sseilani's right hand.  A leather bag rests on his lap.  His voice is quiet, but resonates well in the small room, “I agree with Councilor Sseilani and Councilor Morruck's assessment.  Until we know this magic is safe to use, I will permit no further raising of husks, and begin laying to rest those we no longer need.  Morruck, you were a friend of my father, could you help me determine the numbers?”

The heavyset Councilor chuckles and nods, “Family spats, family spats.  Always so bitter, gerrrockkk.” He coughs again.

“Enough!” Sseilani snaps again, “I will not be mocked in front of my own Council.  Neither by my own daughter, nor by insouciant Mer.  It was my leadership, in case you all have forgotten, that let us survive the plague and drove the ghouls towards Bluebell!  I saved this town, and I will not endure further barbs.”

“Then endure them no longer, mother.  You are already free.” Ssaerana smiles, casting off her hood, revealing a pale-skinned Long-Ear with hair the color of peat, and eyes a deep, solid black.  Pretty, but there is something feral about her, a sense of danger apparently lost on Sseilani, who responds.

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean is...Grulad, kill everyone in this room, save myself, Mourn, Ianwe...hm, and Morruck.  I will require a new translator for the Tome.”  The girl smiles beatifically, while her mother starts, “Grulad?  I know of no such-”

The figure seated on Sseirana's other side stands while she is speaking, and casts off his cloak.  Beneath stands a heavily-muscled elf with skin the pasty color of a corpse, but stained with peat.  His entire face and bald head are concealed beneath a headdress or mask of pale, white, rootlike tendrils that drip down to hang around his shoulders, yet are drawn tight by innumerable rootlets burrowed into his flesh to reveal the cadaverously thin face beneath.  Drawing two bronze shortswords, simple leaf-shaped blades emblazoned with a red eye above the guard, he plunges them into the throat and chest of the Councilor next to him, who squeals once and shudders as blood spurts from his wounds.  The Councilor with the bag shouts something, and extends his hand, webbed and spotted with small red dots, and the husks by the door lurch into motion, their spears leveled.  With the speed of a hurricane, the huge elf catches the first stab between his swords, and tosses it aside, the weapons blurring into bronze streaks.  One slash severs the husk's bicep, while the other blade plunges into the back of a fleeing Councilor.  The fat one, Morruck, grabs the shortest one, Ianwe, and dives beneath the table, a webbed hand covering her eyes as Grulad slices the two undead apart with quick, efficient chops.  The two remaining Councilors scatter.  The first, the one who asked about fish, cries out in terror as Grulad hurls one of his swords, pinning her to the wall, her hood fallen back to reveal a rather hatchet-faced Short-Ear female.  Blood bubbles from her mouth, and she is still.  The Councilor with the bag has his knife in hand, and drives it through Grulad's chest, but the huge elf doesn't even slow, elbowing him in the jaw and brutally slashing along his ribs.  He staggers backwards, and falls to the floor at the base of the window.  All in a handful of seconds.

Sseilani stares, her posture expressing shock, as Grulad retrieves his sword, whirls his blades around his fingers as if they were pocketknives, and starts towards her.  Ssaerana holds up her hand, and he stops as though his strings had been cut, weapons lowering to his sides.  The Long-Ear smiles, her voice sweet as honeysuckle and poisonous as aconite, “No, let mine be the hand for this work.”  There is an almost gleeful pleasure in her voice as she draws an obsidian knife from her belt, standing up, “Work long overdue.”

“No.  You will not.”  There is still steel in Sseilani's voice, and she gestures around at the wreck of the Council chamber, “I will overlook this...insolence...this time.  You have made your point about power, child.  If you want to wage war on the nearby towns, so be it.  The Council is obviously dissolved and I will, respectfully, retire.  Even remain under house arrest if you wish.”  She leans forward, “But I know you, child, and you will not kill your own mother.  You may have inherited your father's talents for magic, but the rest of you is mine, and you know it.  We are too alike to slay ourselves.”

Ssaerana rocks back as if slapped.  Mourn inhales breathily, but she glares at him over her shoulder, “I do not need your advice.  You are needed for your knowledge of magic, nothing more.”  The white-clad figure does not even shrug, merely dips its head a fraction while the Long-Ear girl strides over and yanks the hood back from Sseilani's head, revealing a face nearly identical to her own...save that the eyes still have whites, and irises of a deep cranberry red.  Ssaerana smiles, “No, mother.  You are nothing.  The eldest surviving Councilor of a small, dying town, skilled only at the pettiest level of politics.  I?”  Her eyes, pitch-black orbs, glitter, “I have the power.  I have what you could never have.  And...” She drives her knife once between her mother's chin and throat, “You should thank me, you envious hag.” She pulls it back, and stabs it into her chest, her hands scarlet with gore, “For freeing you.” Again and again, she stabs her, her face twisted with fury, “From the curse of mediocrity!”  The knife snaps, and Mourn suddenly speaks, his voice as breathy and oddly muffled as his laughter, “The Tome!”

The window breaks, and the councilor with the bag, having staggered to his feet with Grulad standing like a statue a few feet away, throws himself through the window, the faint splash of hitting water far below drowned out by Ssaerana's shriek of fury, “Find him!  Find him, kill him, and bring me the Tome with his head!”