Tales of
Elda’ri
Chapter One:
The Shadow Melder
“Shadow Melders are easier to
see in the fog,” Uncle Drakan’ay reminds them, for the second time since they
left their home at Foxhole a short while ago. “Without the fog, we’d be
fighting blind.”
That’s easy for him to say,
Elda thinks. He’s the one with the
living staff covered in bioluminescent Foxfire shrooms, which give off a green
light bright enough to illuminate several paces in all directions. And her
brother Arro’ay follows behind her, carrying a small flame in a lantern hanging
on the end of his spear. Even with the fog, she is the only one of their trio
who will be fighting blind if the Shadow Melders attack. Despite walking between
the two Sylvan, Elda’ri still stumbles as she crosses the Fox Clan’s wheat
fields with her brother and uncle.
Traveling across Sylva at night
is like exploring a mossy cave, thanks to the cloud city Nebula, which floats
above the Rainforest Sylvan Realm and blocks all light from the moon and stars.
Elda squints up at the giant gray cloud, silently cursing the darkness while
rain patters on her nose. She stumbles on after her uncle, her bo staff at the
ready just in case.
“How much further to the Fringes,
uncle?” Arro’ay asks in a soft voice that barely travels to Elda’s fox-ears.
When their uncle doesn’t answer
Arro’s question, Elda pipes up. “We’ve been walking forever. Did we accidentally
pass the Fringes already?”
“Patience, Pup,” Uncle Drake
says. “The Fringes are well guarded, even in the wee hours of the morning. We
couldn’t possibly miss it.”
Uncle Drake has called Elda’ri Pup for as long as she can remember.
They are all members of the Fox Clan, but somehow, out of the many cousins and
siblings she said goodbye to this morning, Elda is the only one Uncle Drake ever
calls Pup. And maybe it’s an apt
nickname. Her whole short life, Elda only left her Smallclan one other time, so
she fits the visual of a young fox kit bravely venturing forth from her den for
the first time. She’s glad to have her uncle guide the way to Foxden, but as
she thinks back on all the goodbyes from this morning, tears prickle at her
eyes. She wishes her parents could have come along, even though she knows that
it would have been impossible. But now is not the time to dwell on long
goodbyes.
Elda focuses instead on the
journey ahead and the chances it will bring. She will finally meet members of
the other Sylvan clans. Despite being human, the Clans of Sylva all have
distinct animal features thanks to their magic and their Clan Animals. So Uncle
Drake, Elda, and her brother Arro all have pointed fox-like ears, fiery-red
hair braided down their backs, and sharp fox-canines. Elda hopes to meet a fellow
Duellator of the Wolf Clan. She’d love to win a duel and prove once and for all
that a fox’s craftiness in a fight matters more than strength.
Uncle Drake stops walking, and
Elda comes to a sudden halt and shifts uncomfortably when she recognizes the
Fringes. The mist ebbs and flows over the man-made clearing. Off in the
distance, the first signs of the sun’s light bend over the horizon. The far-off
thin line of blue, orange, and red light only reminds Elda that she cannot see
a thing more than a few feet beyond the range of the viridian Foxfire. But dawn
is upon them; they timed their departure perfectly. And the foggy morning will
give them a distinct advantage over any Shadow Melders that lurk in the forest
ahead.
Even with everything aligned to
work in their favor, Elda can’t stop her insides from quivering. She looks
about the Fringes, which at first sight appear to be a natural clearing dotted
with knobby bark-like growths protruding from the moss. On closer inspection,
anyone would notice that the bark barricades have been set up in a formation
that completely encircles Foxhole and allows the Duellators to protect the
Smallclan dwelling from any outsiders—Flitters and Melders alike. Uncle Drake
just stopped beside one such barricade, and Elda finally notices the Sylvan
Duellator kneeling behind the barricade, keeping watch.
“Any sightings tonight?” Uncle
Drake asks.
“More than most, I’m afraid,”
the Duellator—a distant cousin on Elda’s mother’s side—answers. “They seem to
be gathering in a group at the forest’s edge just to the east of here. Would it
be safer to head west before making your way south to Foxden?”
“The Root is closest to us here,”
Uncle Drake replies. “Ready yourselves, Arro and Elda. We will make a dash for
the safety of the Root soon.”
Arro kneels down near the bark
barricade to adjust his pack. Elda kneels down beside her brother and tries to
ignore her shaky knees. Now is the time to tap into the primal force of the rainforest
and activate her elemental staff. Elda folds down into half-lotus position on
the mossy ground and focuses on her breath. Beside her, she senses her brother
doing the same.
After meditating upon her mossy
pillow for a long still moment, the power of her Root Chakra begins to stir.
She mentally catches hold of the energy and draws it up and out of herself by
visualizing a lotus in bloom. Elda tugs on the flask hanging around her neck and
pours a small amount of the precious water into the palm of her hand.
She inhales as the water
seemingly grows in her hand and forms a giant globe of ebbing water. Then she
exhales loudly as she waves her hand over the staff at her side; the water ripples
over the wood and intermingles with the weapon. Her staff might not be alive
like her uncle’s, but Elda knows how to wield the powerful water staff in
combat. She knows it will protect her, should they come across a Shadow Melder.
She returns to her feet and
watches Arro infuse his spear with the fire he keeps in his lantern—which he already
moved to a hook on the back of his pack. Arro is one of the fortunate
Duellators whose Smallclan could afford to trade for a glass lantern. Without
the Terran glass from the Mountain People to the north, his fire would be
snuffed out by the constant rains of their Rainforest Realm. Fire is not a
common element of her people, and Arro knows how to use the element to his
advantage. Elda knows she is safe beside him.
While Elda and her brother infused
their weapons, their uncle also prepared himself for combat. He already bound
his living staff to his back and brought out his round shield instead. Uncle Drake
is a Cultivator, which means he can manipulate anything plant-based with his
powers. The round shield can grow to be five times its current size if needed; it
also provides light by way of the same bioluminescent Foxfire shrooms, which
grow all along the inside of the shield.
With his Changeling magic,
Drake can take on any of the characteristics of their Clan Animal. He now
resembles a fox more than ever. Where he once only sported the subtle pointy
canines of the Fox Clan, he now has a full mouth of pointy fox teeth. He has no
need for a weapon, because those teeth, along with his newly grown fox claws,
make naturally sharp weapons. His pointed ears now appear more foxlike than
ever. Finally, his fox Companion Auma has returned to his side from wherever she
tends to wander off to when he doesn’t need her. While small and seemingly
useless in a fight, Auma can easily move into enemy range, where she is very
meddlesome and distracting, and then easily slip out of danger due to her small
size and craftiness.
But the hope is that there won’t
be a fight. If everything goes according to plan, the three travelers will make
it to the nearest Life Root before a Shadow Melder can reach them. For whatever
reason, Shadow Melders tend to avoid the Roots of the Life Tree. Elda thinks
it’s because the Life-force Leylines are sacred to her people, and their power
turns away any who are not worthy of treading upon them. Other Sylvan speculate
that the Life Roots are the only landforms which aren’t shrouded in shadows
during the day, so the Shadow Melders feel exposed when they stand on them.
Whatever the reason, when they reach the Life Root at the exact moment of
sunrise, and the sun’s rays spread over the Realm, they will be safe.
“Arro, you will go first. Your
sister will follow close behind, and I will bring up the rear.” Uncle Drake
moves to take his position; his keen eyes and fox-ears search the area ahead,
which measures several hundred spans to the rainforest, and a short distance beyond
that to the sanctuary of the Life Root. “Don’t go too fast, Arro. We need to
stay together. Run at your sister’s pace.”
Arro nods while Elda scoffs.
“I’m just as fast as Arro,” she insists. “Watch me!” and she breaks out into a
run before her brother and uncle are ready.
“El!” Arro calls, breaking the
stillness of the early morning. He races to catch up to her, and Uncle Drake
follows closely behind.
“Be safe on your journey!” the
Duellator calls out as the travelers leave the safety of the bark barricades
and disappear into the fog.
Running in the thick fog is
like playing a chasing game while wearing a blindfold. Elda’s brother quickly pulls
up alongside her, and she fights to move at her top speed despite the low
visibility. “Now’s not the time for games. Get behind me, El!” Arro’s fire
spear illuminates his pinched face.
Elda obliges as her legs falter
briefly on a slippery patch of moss. She grips her staff even tighter and with
a slow intake of breath, she strengthens her link to the water infused into the
weapon.
Then suddenly, the trio plunges
into the forest. Arro slows considerably as he is forced to weave in and out of
the spindly vines and thick flat fronds of the walking palm trees. Elda
glimpses a trail below her feet, but even with the constant ware from travelers
to and from Foxden, the untamed plants of the forest constantly shroud the
trail in new growth.
The worst part is the noise
they make as they scramble through the underbrush. Any Melders close by have
undoubtedly heard them already, but they are more than half way to the Root. Any
Melders who come after them will also make quite a ruckus and alert them that
they are not alone as they race to the Life Root. Elda squints through the thick
fog that seems to billow off the lush vegetation. Even with Arro’s fire and
Drake’s glowing shield, she can only see a few hand’s-breadths to either side
of her, where the towering undergrowth mingles with the fog.
Over the tops of the kapok and palm
trees Elda spots an immense shadow, which must be the silhouette of the Life
Root. With renewed vigor, she presses onward, gaining confidence as the
patterns of the narrow trail and slight incline become more and more familiar
to her. That incline means the Root grows ever nearer. They are almost there!
In her eagerness to reach safety,
she forgets to pay attention to the runner right in front of her. Her knee
suddenly connects with the heel of Arro’s boot. They both stumble, and with the
next step, Arro’s heel hits her shin, and she lets out a cry as the pain and
the force of the sudden contact send her reeling into the shrubbery with the
solid crack of breaking undergrowth. “Sap!” she curses as she skids to a
painful stop in the darkness.
“El!” Arro calls. “You
alright?”
“Just twiggy!” Elda calls back.
She winces from the sharp pricks of the many thorns that tear at her arms and
legs. The leaves in her eyes make it impossible to see a thing. She struggles
to climb out of the bush with a cacophony of rustling leaves. “Ow! Stupid bush! Let me go!” She reaches up behind
her and realizes her pack is caught in the shrubbery. “Perfect,” she mutters as
she slides her arms free of the rucksack’s thick straps. She manages to crawl
out of the bush while she drags her staff in the dirt and blackens her knuckles
and knees with the rich soil. “My pack’s—stuck!” she says as she tries to pull
it free, but without any luck.
“Stand back,” Uncle Drake says,
and Elda stands up and gives him some room. Drake closes his eyes and reaches
out to the bush with his free hand. Slowly, the branches start to shiver,
though it’s not the wind that touches them. Then the leaves begin to recede,
almost as if the bush is backing away from the trail. Drake takes a step to
maintain contact with the bush as it continues to shrink away, and then Elda’s
bag emerges from the undergrowth. She snatches it up and turns to continue
after Arro, who quickly takes up the lead again.
“Come on, we’re almost there,”
Arro says.
Elda takes a few more running
bounds, and then she blinks as the sunlight shines through a gap in the canopy,
pierces the fog, and shines into her left eye. “We made it!” she says with a
laugh, her pace naturally slowing as the tension in her muscles melts away.
“Almost,” Arro interjects as he
slows way down and climbs up a few step-like ridges in the path; swimming in
the fog beyond that, Elda glimpses a towering hill of mossy bark that must be
the Root. “Keep moving.”
Elda slows down even more to
replace her pack on her back. First one arm, then switching hands on her staff,
she slides the other arm through the thick straps of her rucksack. Behind her,
Uncle Drake slows to a walk.
At that precise moment, something
yanks Elda off her feet and wrenches her through the underbrush. In a moment of
panic, Elda screams as a dark shape pulls her along the forest floor, dragging
her through bushes and over rocks. She scrambles for a foot hold, without any
luck. Finally, she attempts to swing at the Melder with her staff, but it’s all
she can do to hold it in her grip as the underbrush threatens to pull it from
her hands. Her pack pulls at her shoulders, and the forest floor jolts her
whole body.
That’s when she realizes the
Shadow Melder grabbed her pack, not her body, and she makes a split second
decision.
Elda twists out of her pack,
scrambles to catch her staff as it rolls out of her grasp. She bounds away from
the dark flitting form in the fog. As she sprints for her life, she hopes that
the Shadow Melder only wanted her bag, but she doesn’t wait around to find out.
She quickly slows to a clumsy
lope through the thicket of vines and bushes while the plants slap her face.
“Sapping weeds! I hate you!” she declares as she breaks through the solid mass
of growth and finds herself back on the trail. But she’s completely turned
herself around, and with the tall kapok trees and acai palms blocking her view,
she stands still for far too long as she determines the direction of the sun
and finally bolts south toward the Root.
That’s when she recognizes the
terrified voices of her brother and uncle, who followed her into the foliage
and are now behind her. “I’m back on the trail!” she shouts, her voice cracking.
She turns back the way she just came, but she hesitates to re-enter the wall of
hedges. Her brother’s shouts and uncle’s calls are too much for her, though,
and she dives back in, her hand up to guard her eyes from the cuff of leaves
and branches. “Here, follow my voice!” she calls out.
She breaks out of the bush and
finds herself in an open area not unlike a clearing, though it’s still so
densely overgrown with plant life that it would be a joke to call it a
clearing. But finally, with the ability to move about more freely, she is able
to jog in the direction of her brother’s voice.
Arro breaks out of a wall of
green directly in front of her, and he sighs audibly when he sees his sister. “Saint
Sylvana, you scared me to death,” he says.
“Don’t take the Saint’s name in
vane over me,” Elda chides playfully. “I’m okay.”
“You lost your pack.” Arro
grabs her shoulder and pulls her into a half hug as he turns and heads back to
the path, toward the Life Root that looms over them, about twenty paces away.
“I think that’s all the Melder
wanted,” Elda explains as she returns the hug. Arro’s arm is warm to the touch,
making her shiver. She returns her brother’s embrace with her off-hand. “At
least I still have my staff,” she says, waving the weapon in her other hand.
The water infusion has all but dried up, and now she doesn’t have time to
recharge it.
“Lucky you,” he says with a wry
smile as he glances over at her. “You don’t have to carry any supplies to
Foxden now.”
“I’ll take turns carrying—”
Elda spots a blurred image just beyond her brother. She gasps as a jaguar prowls
toward them. “—Shadow beast!” she manages to get out as she pulls her brother
the other way, but it’s too late. The giant feline closes in on them before they
take more than a few strides.
The Shadow Melder’s beastly
companion growls at them, a low rumble that makes Elda back away. Arro pushes
Elda behind him, drops his pack to the ground, and takes a fighting stance to block
the feline’s path to his sister. But the Melder’s jaguar doesn’t hesitate when
faced with a fighting Sylvan. Instead, it pounces, so quickly Arro only barely
manages to swipe at it with his spear. Arro backs away, and Elda scrambles to
give her brother more room to maneuver, as the jaguar pounces again.
Arro thwacks the feline over
the head with a downward swing of his spear. But the jaguar reaches him with
its powerful claws and thrashes his spear arm. Arro cries out in pain as his
spear drops out of his grasp.
“Arro!” Elda calls.
The jaguar attacks the
now-defenseless Sylvan; it closes its powerful jaws around his forearm and tears
him to the ground. Arro punches the beast’s head, but it refuses to let him go.
Elda readies her staff and
whacks the beast in the head. Unfazed, it drags Arro away through the
underbrush. “Arro!” Elda cries out. She follows closely behind and unleashes a
frenzy of attacks, but the beast seemingly ignores her as it continues to lug
Arro deeper into the forest.
Finally, when it looks like the
jaguar will disappear into the undergrowth with her brother, Elda does the only
thing she can think of to save him. She jumps onto the feline’s back and
proceeds to bash its head in with her bo staff in a very unconventional wide
hold with both hands palm down. “Stop, stop, stop!” she yells with each attack,
until her bo staff snaps. “Sap!” she swears as she tosses the bent staff aside
and puts her hands on the feline’s jaws, intending the pry its mouth open.
But the moment she makes
contact with the jaguar, it collapses on the ground in a heavy sleep. Elda
jerks down after it and mashes her face into the black earth. “Ow,” she grunts.
Arro scrambles to his feet.
They both look down at the jaguar sprawled on its belly purring like a kitten.
“What did you do?” he asks. He grabs his bleeding arm with his good hand and
kicks at the beast, which continues to snooze away.
“I don’t know,” Elda answers.
“But let’s get out of here.”
The two turn and make a run for
the Life Root, shouting the whole way, so that Uncle Drake will know where they
are. They stop only briefly so Elda can gather up Arro’s spear and pack, and
then they push onward through the foliage until they make it back to the path.
In a short span of time, they both plant their feet firmly on the bark of the
Life Root and begin the climb up the hill-like landform. After a few moments of
climbing, Elda looks back down and spots their uncle hurrying to catch up to
them. He reaches the Life Root without incident and scrambles up after them.
“Thank the Saints you’re both alive. Are you two unhurt?” he calls once he is
safely on the Life Root. Auma follows right behind him, her orange tail
flicking in the bright morning sunlight.
“A Melder’s Beast mangled by
arm, but Elda rescued me,” Arro says as he gives his younger sister a one-armed
hug with his good arm. “She was brilliant.”
Elda’s cheeks burn. “I broke my
staff and lost my bag, but other than a few scratches and scrapes, I’m
unharmed.” She hugs Arro back, letting out a deep sigh. That whole encounter
could have ended much worse. Now that it’s behind her, she can’t help but sag
against her brother. The sun peeks over the horizon and the mist recedes back
into the shadowy forest below them. Holy sap it’s good to still be alive, she
thinks, and a toothy smile spreads over her face.
