The Elves

CHAPTER 4

"Your friend is coming for you. He recently joined the Rangers. Any idea as to the connection between all these events?"

The prison was dark. The man lay on the floor, kneeling, chained with his hands behind his back. His head was bowed. He slowly nodded. The prisoner and his interrogator were in a secluded area underground, a dungeon called Fatesworth. He look emaciated. Had he been eating? his prisoner wondered. And there were bruises all over his body. Alone in solitary confinement with the creative torture techniques of the Elkin, it had to be a mental hell. After all, no one understood the mind better than the Elkin.

But this prisoner hadn't cracked. The prisoner was a she. And she could tell he was a little off from the first day they'd met. Humans were the weakest of the three races. So being capture by any of the other two spelled despair. Humans had actually migrated to the very edges of earth, they were scattered all around, just so they could get away from the two warring races. And the prisoner had been caught spying. Only an elkin knew what would happen to him.

The Elkin who held him prisoner was the ruler of the kingdom, Mira-neth. She had no empathy for conspirators against the kingdom. They'd killed her father when she was only six years old. There was a funny thing about Elkin aging though. Their minds usually took decades to develop whilst their bodies caught up after mental growth was complete. Any number of circumstances could cause this. But for Mira, it had been the death of her father. It had shocked her into adulthood.

Being a ruler was tiring and stressful at times. Dealing with traitors both from within and outside the kingdom, Mira had no illusions about the people who surrounded her. Especially her uncle, the Vice-Captain. She simply referred to him by his rank and never by his real name. One reason was to consistently remind him of who was in charge. Another was for him to realize she was on to his schemes.

Some may call it unwise. Wouldn't a better strategy be to lull the enemy into complacency, pretending to trust whilst suspecting everything? No. That might have worked for older people. But Mira was a young ruler who needed to prove herself. Not only was she the youngest ruler in the kingdom, she was a woman. And although Elkin weren't misogynistic, they were patriarchs. In times of war, they turned to men not women.

That wasn't entirely their fault. Many years ago, women came across as idealists. The ones who could solve all the areas men had gone wrong. Many of the proponents of this message hadn't really handled power themselves. Of the ones who had many were not thoroughly honest. The impression it gave was that women weren't willing to do the nitty-gritty to get power. Power was gender-blind. It was simply about doing whatever certain people weren't willing to do. Rulers weren't good or bad. They were simply there to attain and maintain power. Mira had learnt this sometimes the hard way. But it would take more than a few acts of strong leadership to win the people over.

She hadn't particularly learnt herself to the war against the draconians.

The reason for the war was simple. Power. And the Elkins were an ambitious lot. They were envious of the bio-engineering that allowed the draconians to change shape at will. Although Elkin had strong minds, they had relatively weak bodies. The normal human has twenty five percent of his/ her energy used by the brain. Imagine how much the brain would take up if it was at 100 percent capacity*. The Elkin needed stronger bodies. The draconian had those stronger bodies.

The Draconians were fighting them for a similar reason. Whilst the Draconians had superior physical characteristics, they suffered mentally. Some of them had to battle with the instincts of the animals and beasts they transformed into. Some even went crazy and attacked each other. They wanted the mental control that the Elkins had.

In short, each wanted to become the perfect species.

The ruler before Mira's father had also been a woman. Her name was Erethlia. Her reign had been chaotic. She challenged the status quo too much. Tried to change too much at once. The history books never spoke too fondly of her. She wasn't pure elkin. She'd been a half-breed. Half human, half elkin. She'd spoken against the ambition and pride of the Elkin. That they were still humans not demi-gods. She'd wanted to at least create an alliance between the humans and elkin. At the time the Elkin were still preparing themselves. They weren't ready to go to war with the draconians just yet. Any race that teamed with the humans was seen as preparing for war.

Mira read of all the things she'd tried. And she really sympathized with her. But she couldn't help but feel a bit of scorn. How had she managed to become ruler if she was so naïve? She was far older than Mira was when she sat on the throne. Or had grandfather been protecting her all that time?

Mira stared at the prisoner again. She repeated the question. "Your friend is coming for you. He recently joined the Rangers. Any idea as to the connection between all these events?"

For some reason telepathy didn't work with him. The information that Mira was now using to interrogate him was something he'd uttered in a half-conscious state. It was gibberish at first but her best had managed to make sense of it. Now she hoped by pretending to know more than they let on they could get something from him.

He simply lifted his head and laughed. Then he developed a fit of coughing.

"Who told you I had only one friend? I have two. One male, the other female. Although for different reasons both of them are very serious trouble for you".

"And what about you Jason? What future do you see for yourself?''

"You managed to get my name huh? About my future , I'm getting out of here", Jason said.

Mira laughed.

"And it won't be Atlas or my friends that break me out. It will be you, when you need my help".

*Note from the author: Whilst I do not follow the myth that we do use 10 percent of our brains. It is common knowledge that we do not use it to its utmost. The Elkin are simply the embodiment of that dream