Ancient Watchtowers Ch.01

By the time that she turned around, all that there was before her was a silver screen of slightly cold rain. Though she tried to put her feet on the path, Loriel almost couldn't see the wall of rock and she wasn't sure about anything as she stumbled along. The darkening sky threatened to bring nightfall even earlier this night.

The hissing of the downpour was such that she didn't even notice the sounds of the horse and rider as they passed her quietly and found their way inside.

As they passed, Nila saw little, intent on finding her own way back home. As well, she was thinking about the girl that she'd seen and even hoped a little that she'd found the cave.

Loriel was astounded only a minute later.

She was lost.

An elf and she was lost. How could this be?

She didn't know and worked her way on until she'd found the wall. At least that was something, she thought, and she began to work her way along it, reasoning that if she didn't come to the opening within a minute or two, then she'd go back and work the other way.

In the stable, Nila stood looking at her mare, as soaked as she was herself. But the animal didn't seem put off in the least as she drank some water and turned to eat from a large depression in the stone which Nila had filled with oats, stolen from a very distant farm over half a day away.

It was warm in here anyway, she decided as she walked over to the opening to look out, wondering what had befallen the woman who had been watching her from hiding.

She hadn't gotten a really good look and was a little sorry for that, but she'd been flying along and one had to keep an eye out no matter what.

She wondered where she'd come from and decided that she'd really never seen anyone who looked like that. She felt the beginning of her concern as she thought about a night out here by the shore all alone. She'd been here with her large friends for most of a year now and as she thought about it, she'd never seen another soul on this beach anywhere.

Her eyebrows rose then as she thought of something else. She really couldn't say that she'd ever been out on the beach even once in that time and noticed that the wind wasn't blowing at least some.

She looked through the pack which the cat had called her to and she saw the powdered and dusty remnants of some food and a little clothing. Other than that, she found only a pair of old-looking weapons, curiously curved daggers of some sort.

She shook her head. She didn't know who it had been, but she hadn't looked threatening or anything and no matter what kind; either one of the people and their many tribes or not, no one deserved to drown by standing in a rain such as this.

There was a flare of lighting as she stepped out into the deluge again. Nila only muttered a quiet curse in response and began to search.

------

Loriel was beginning to feel the cold of the rain. Normally, what she was prevented that, but here, with the sky pouring out like this, it was as though the gods were angry over something, and over the time, the cold was slowly getting through to her.

She'd gone back and forth along the wall several times now, never knowing that she'd have found the doorway if she'd only gone a little farther in one direction. But the force and coolness of the torrent caused her to grow disoriented in time as well as distance and she'd missed it more than three times, moving farther away in the other direction each time. She was now more than a quarter of a mile from the opening.

She looked for shelter and found none.

The one time that she'd seen a small overhang of soil and headed that way, there had been a mudslide from up above and she'd been glad that she hadn't even gotten there.

She squatted down next to the grass of a dune and thought of her torch.

In something like this pouring flood, there wasn't a chance of getting it lit.

That was where Nila found her.

She wondered how she could help, and knew that she needed to.

She'd have shrugged, but as what she was at the moment, needing to be that for the sensitivity of her nose then, she couldn't shrug much at all.

So she took a breath and slunk forward slowly.

Loriel knew that she wasn't alone a minute later. She could see fairly well in the dark, far better than any human could. But as in anything else this horrible night, the rain made even seeing difficult.

So it came as a large shock to feel the heat of another body close to her own. The next flash of lightning removed the cloak from her eyes as she saw the size of the beast next to her, looking over. Her hand began a slow excursion toward the haft of one of her daggers and she held in her groan to remember that they were in her pack.

The animal tensed as though aware of her thoughts and it moved off and disappeared into the darkness. In the next minute or so, Loriel heard a female voice, and as the sky flickered overhead, she saw the woman who had been riding the horse.

"You should follow and get warm," Nila said.

It sounded very nice to Loriel, but she didn't understand any of it.

She did stand up though, and she tried to warn the woman of the beast which she'd seen.

The woman shrugged out in the darkness.

Loriel called out to the woman once more, but there was no reply and when the sky flickered again she saw that there was now no one there.

Nila suddenly knew what the trouble was. She could understand many of the dialects of the tribes in this area, even some of the speech of the whites. What she'd heard wasn't even close.

She thought about the structure and the strange words and then she smiled as some of her father's teaching came to her just as it was needed and she sifted through her recollection of what had been said to her.

Loriel did feel the something touch her hand then and she looked down to see the inky shape in the darkness and was even more surprised. When the beast was standing on its four feet, it was the largest wolf that Loriel had ever seen. The animal was trying to hold it's tail against the elf's hand.

There was a ripping, tearing sound in the heavens then as chain lightning flew and flickered from one bank of clouds to the next. In that time, Loriel saw the whole animal, the whole beast as it looked back and began to speak to her very slowly using what words she could recall which might apply

"I would lead you as you saw me, but there are places where you might fall."

The elf was astounded to hear the woman's voice from the wolf and could only stand and wonder.

Nila tried again, "Do ... I say ... it ... wrong?"

The elf made no reply out of her shock.

Then the tail was gone, the animal too, and Loriel stood alone again.

She was startled to find the snout and the head of the wolf beginning to emerge from between her knees from behind. Before she could decide whether to try to jump or not, her feet were leaving the ground and like it or not, she found her weight settling onto the animal's neck.

"Move back ..." The animal said, "We will both drown if I leave it up to you. Lift your feet so that they do not hit anything that I pass and hug me a little with your knees."

Loriel got nothing much of it, but she hung on with her knees and her hands and they began to move slowly in the rain. The rest of the wisdom was a self-learned lesson a moment later as Loriel's toes were pressed against a low boulder.

She bent her legs and held her feet up. She thought that she heard something then and looked to her right, just as the lightning flared and she saw ... the largest cat there could ever be, looking over as it paced them - and clearly annoyed to be out in the downpour.

She leaned down, trying to get the attention of the one carrying her, "There's a - a big - "

"Yes," the creature said, "I know. We have both been trying to find you to get you out of this. You kept moving and it is hard to track anyone in this.

He will not harm you."

Loriel sat back, trying to peer into the rain, not being so sure of what she'd heard.

Almost ten minutes later, Loriel saw the yawning hole in the rock that she'd tried so hard to find almost in front of her face and then they were out of the rain. She got off and watched in a bit of wonder as the wolf shook herself off and stood up to become the woman before the elf's shocked eyes.

She reached and took Loriel by the wrist to move her aside as the huge cat walked in and re-wet them both as he shook the water off himself.

There was an oil lantern there burning very low and she could see the horse there as well; her head buried in her huge stone bowl of oats.

She almost jumped out of her skin to see a young pair of cats come out from another chamber to sniff and stare at her. They were larger than lynxes and had huge front fangs like the big one.

"Who are you?" Loriel asked and the other one almost laughed, understanding it, but thinking that the question had a humorous sound to it.

"Come with me," Nila said with a smile and she reached for Loriel's hand, leading her to an opening that she hadn't seen in her earlier explorations, but by it's slightly hidden location, she wasn't surprised.

A moment later, she stood in another chamber entirely and with a motion of her hand. Nila caused a small flame to sit atop a distant candle. Loriel looked around and she saw several others. She pointed to one with a questioning look and Nila raised her hand, thinking that she'd wanted that particular one lit.

Loriel shook her head and waved her own hand. It caused three candles to light and Nila stared and then laughed.

She pointed to the pack leaning against the wall.

Loriel was initially glad, but upon opening it, she remembered what had happened to her other things when she'd stepped through the opening earlier.

"Ruined," she said in a little disgust, "though the other things might be saved if they aren't too rusty.

I don't understand," she said, "I came from the village where I live, looking for a place to stay - away from the bastard magistrate and his sheriffs. I packed this bag before I left with food, and clothes, and a couple of daggers.

When I walked through an opening, my clothes crumbled - what wasn't good leather, anyway, and now this looks like it went through the same thing. It's mostly ruined," she said as she took out the disused-looking daggers and slid them into their scabbards on her back.

Nila asked about the village, "I have been here almost a year and I have seen no village, and no people ever."

Loriel gaped, "Why, it's no more that a league from here! I could see this rock from there all of my life."

Nila looked perplexed, "Can you take me there? Where you came in?"

Loriel nodded and tried to lead the way with Nila walking beside her and the cats trailing along behind them.

"Why are they coming?" she asked, "They don't look hungry, but I don't think I'd know what hungry looks like on something like them. Are you sure it's alright?"

Nila looked to be amused by the question, "It's alright," she smiled, "He is my male. I found them when I came here. The boys were smaller then, though they seem to grow slowly. No matter how they might look to you, they are not hungry."

They found the place, stepping through, even the cats, though it was a near thing in the case of the large one. Nila regarded the surroundings and said that she'd never been in here before, "This cave goes off in many ways. I have always wondered, but I have never explored the whole thing. I was always happy with the quiet place that I found in it and always sought to return there.

Where did you come in from?"

"Why right over -"

She stood staring, but all that there was in the direction in which she was still pointing was a pile of rubble. If there had ever been an opening there, it was well closed off now.

They walked back through and made their way back to the main cavern - or what Nila knew by that term.

What they found was darkness.

Loriel reached into her semi non-bodice as it were and produced her little stick-torch. She shrouded the tip of in in the curl of the fingers of one hand and with a soft phase and a gentle puff, there was a small flame at the tip.

She encouraged it with another whispered thought and it flared brightly as she held it up, illuminating the whole of the chamber.

Nila looked with dismay at her favorite bow, for most of the arrows and all but one of the three bows themselves appeared dry and cracked. The bowstring on one fell away as she picked it up and the bow snapped from the release of the last of the small tension.

With a cry, she ran to the stable, urging her companions to come and she stood staring.

The trough was long dry and the hay on the floor was well-past rotten.

The horse was gone.

She seized Loriel's hand and the elf understood the need to shoo the cat outside with them.

They stood blinking in the bright light of mid-morning and there were no signs of the storm they'd left behind them only minutes earlier or that it had ever existed, since the sand was a dry as dust. There were no tracks to be seen at all, and other than that, the beach looked just as timeless as ever, with shorebirds nesting among the grasses in the dunes and many gulls wheeling overhead.

Nila walked to the place where she'd often had fires and it took some fair digging to even find a few traces of charcoal. The biggest piece she found was part of a log, burned at the end, but the real charcoal had long since fallen away and disintegrated.

Nila sank to the sand with a troubled expression. "It looks to me that time goes past when anyone steps through that little space - back where you came from," she said, "I never knew of your village - and I hunted in the meadows there often. I must have, but it was not there - because it was gone long before I came here."

"How can you get there?" Loriel asked, looking over.

Nila shrugged, "By walking all the way around this big thing," she pointed.

"My bows and everything else is old from only our looking into that hole - and my large mare - my friend has been gone for many years and is likely dead herself. She would have waited for me to give her more oats in the morning, and not seeing me for some days, her hunger would have driven her to leave."

They talked about it for some time and then Nila went inside and came back with her only decent bow and the last two arrows which looked as though they might still be sound.

"No matter what has befallen us," she shrugged, "We must still eat. Come, let us hunt."

She looked back at her 'sons' after a moment and told the elf how they'd met. "I have always wondered what happened to the female. After this, I think now that she might not have followed them through quick enough, maybe."

The elf looked over at the cats and then back at the woman, "You said that he's your male ..."

Nila nodded, "You have seen the other way that I can be. Use your imagination."

The elf stared, "You mean you ..."

Nila nodded, with a soft smile.

"You fuck with that thing?"

Nila nodded, "If there is a brain in your head, you might see that finding a mate for myself as I am has always been trouble. I look human. I began as a human, but I am not one. I can only fool a man for so long, and I can never let him see me as I am.

Him? He knew me for what I am from almost the start and we are good for each other - though I would wish for some talk from him at those times. But we are happy and I have a family. The boys are not mine, but they are sons to me anyway. I just wish that they would grow faster. I worry a little for the smaller one."

As they walked to get to the end of the long rock, the elf spoke after a time, "My name is Loriel. You never told me your name."

"Nila," the woman said, "I am Nila, and I was once in a band, one of the Shoshone tribes."

"What's that?" Loriel asked, "I've never heard of them."

Nila gave her the thumbnail sketch, which astounded the elf, "I've never heard of any of it, though I guess that I'll probably find out more now myself."

Nila shook her head, "Maybe not. My people were in decline when last I saw them. And of my own clan, I am the only one left anyway. The others were killed."

She shook her head as though to clear it, "But who and what are you, Loriel?"

The elf stared, feeling as though it was what she always did now, "You don't know?"

She stopped and Nila did as well as they faced each other, "Smaller than humans, nimble and quick, pointy ears ... this is new to you?"

Nila nodded with a shrug, though it seemed friendly and even hopeful in a way.

Loriel rolled her eyes, "I'm an elf."

Nila's expression didn't change at all and Loriel saw absolutely no recognition at hearing the name.

That took up a little more time as Loriel amazed Nila with things that she'd never heard of.

"How is it that you're a changer?" the elf asked, and that took some explaining until Nila understood what had been meant. Once she had it, however, she told of everything that had happened to her.

"You are not frightened of me, knowing what I am, as you do now?" she asked.

"Naw," Loriel said with a shrug herself, "I figure that you can die by a blade, the same as anybody else, even him," she pointed over her shoulder with her thumb. "It's all just a matter of degree. I'm more nervous about him, though he seems to like you fine."

Nila looked back and motioned and in another moment, the cat walked beside them. Nila picked the elf up bodily and set her down on the cat's back. He didn't even miss a step.

"Whadja do that for?" Loriel asked, trying to determine whether she ought to feel annoyed over it.

"We - all of us - are together, at least for now," Nila smiled, "I did not think of it until you said it, but you have shorter legs, so I think that you should ride and learn that he is neither stupid or hungry - or not deserving of your trust. Most of all, he is dear to me, so do not think to try for his death with your blades."

They went on a good distance in silence, Nila searching for sign of game along with her cats, while Loriel found quiet pleasure in the motions of the beast's shoulders as he walked.

The landscape began to look familiar in terms of the overall topography, though Loriel found that she couldn't place the trees exactly or anything. She turned around, looking back the way that they'd come, generally. There was the fucking huge, long rock, off in the distance. It looked to be about right. She looked around as far as she could see.

"I don't see a single thing here of my village," she said quietly as she got down from the cat's back, "not one thing. But I think that's old farmer Reeve's place there. I recognize the rise of ground. He used to chase us out of his orchards, making all kinds of racket.

That was why we liked to steal his apples. He made all that noise."

She shrugged, "I guess he was just too dumb to know that we could have gone in the middle of the night and taken all we wanted without him or his stupid dogs knowing a thing about it.

But we liked to hear him yell."

She left to head that way, trying to ignore Nila's calls to wait, lest they get separated somehow. She ran all the way, needing to know now, needing to see ...

Nothing.

She stood at the top of the rise and looked all around herself. Where were the fields? The orchards? The great bloody farmhouse? It was as though none of it had ever existed. She couldn't see even a single wizened old apple tree.

She saw Nila and her cats waiting for her and she headed that way, wondering a little why they weren't coming toward her. When she reached them, Nila said nothing. She only looked back with a questioning expression.

There in the weeds and meadow flowers, there wasn't a single stone block, and Loriel knew that this was right at the gates of the walled village - well she thought that it was.