Worlds Without End

6

We have always been a meddlesome race of beings, we Elders.

I suppose it comes from a long time of being priv- ileged. Few have known of us. And none have been able to stop us from doing what we wanted. Oh, well, there was that business with the great worms, but even they must sleep eventually.

What was that amusing little saying from the comix? "Who Watches the Watchmen?" I used to see it scrawled across the bottoms of bridges and on the sides of buildings during the late nineteen-nineties.

So, though we'd been given a thrashing, while the cat's away (or the monstrous serpents), the mice will play. And so we did.

Myself, I have always preferred a low profile. None of the flash that has marked the passage of my fellows. The tales that have floated about me were easily written off as fables. That wasn't by accident, for I have believed for a long time that our presence is more a danger than a boon.

Perhaps had I been more vigilant, certain events of the past wouldn't have come to pass.

I had been traveling to England. Why, I can't re- member now. Although I believe it had something to do with that collection of stones in Wiltshire. There were rumors of power there. Tremendous magical power. It was whispered in the harems and in coun- cil rooms. In market places and among the nomads. There were always places of power and this was one of them.

Stupidity.

That's how I came to be there. Had I bit of sense in my head I would have left them all to die. Hack- ing their lungs out, puking up what they'd barely managed to down a moment before.

Ignorant, superstitious peasants.

I knew there was a reason I'd stayed in the east for so long. In the east I wasn't looked upon as a black devil. The color of my skin was hardly com- mented upon.

But here among these backwards Englishmen with their pasty skin and bad teeth I was something to be feared, hated, and possibly killed. And the place they'd put me in might well do that.

It was called the Tower, but, of course, it wasn't. More like several castles and towers collected to- gether. Not that I'd had much of a chance to see any of it. I'd been brought here in the middle of the night and hadn't seen much of the light of day since. Sometimes I wondered if anyone even remembered I was there.

Once a day a jailer slid a plate of bread and por- ridge through the grate. I could hear him muttering catechisms under his breath. It would do him little good and likely lose him his head, given the political mood. But don't we all fall back upon the icons from our youth? The stories we recite to keep the monsters at bay.

And that was how I knew I must appear. Oh, I'd lost the pointed ears, thank goodness. The more ob- vious signs of my elven condition were muted now.

Magic was at a low ebb, though for some reason be- lief in it had never been higher. There were more charlatans and mountebanks claiming to turn lead into gold than you could swing a dead cat at. And they did a great bit of that, too. To drive out the de- mons.

Demons like me with my black skin and my white hair. My hair I could dye. Luckily, my eyes had changed to a brownish-gray color; otherwise I'd probably already be dead. What would they make of Vistrosh and his ceathral skin and pink eyes? I won- dered.

But here I was locked up tighter than a miser's hoard.

And how had I come to be here? My own weak- nesses, as usual.

"Help us," I'd heard.

I looked down and saw a young child, a girl, maybe eight. She wore a ragged tunic and her feet were bare and dirty. What desperation drove her to ask for help from any passing stranger? Much less one who looked like me.

"They're sick," she said.

"Who is sick?" I asked.

"Everyone," she replied. "Everyone except me."

But she didn't look well herself. Her eyes were bright and glassy and as I drew closer, I could feel the heat of fever radiating off her.

"Please," she said. Her hands reached out and I thought she might actually touch me, but she pulled away.

"What makes you think I could do any good?" I asked.

"Someone has to," she replied. "Or I'll be all alone. They'll… die."

I didn't want to help them. For as far back as I could remember I'd been trying to keep out of these things. To let Fate take her own course. It wasn't for me to decide. There were other matters that needed my attention. But as I looked into that pale feverish face another child came to my mind, and I found myself being led into the rude thatched hut.

The air was thick with the odor of a low-burning peat fire. There was a hole cut in the roof to let the smoke escape, but that only helped a little. Pallets lined the edge of the room. On them lay several peo- ple, all of whom were in various stages of the same sickness.

The grippe.

Why these people were so ill from it I didn't know. It was a common enough problem-not as frightening as the plague or cholera, which could pass through a town and leave it devastated hi a mat- ter of days or weeks.

At my feet lay an elderly woman. I knelt down beside her and took her wrist in my hand. Under my fingers her pulse felt erratic. I was closer to the power here; the pull of it too tempting to resist. As my eyes closed I began to see the pattern of her life. Thin and threadbare. Bleak colors woven together with an odd shock of bright blue.

It was so difficult to hold on to what I was seeing. The images were blurred and hazy, slipping away from me if I hesitated for a moment. But, healing her would be simple enough, I saw suddenly. It had been so long since I'd taken the risk. Since I'd wanted to.

There was a faint sound. It broke my concentra- tion and I turned toward it. There, shadowed in the doorway, stood the girl. For a moment her image blurred with one from my memory. I knew then I would help them, regardless of the risk.

Again, I took the woman's wrist. Tapping into what little reserves I'd tucked away, I focused all my concentration into bringing back the weave of her life. The heat flew through me then, sliding into her body, burning out her fever and pain. Hot ribbons of health wove themselves into her body.

I released her wrist then, exhausted by this minor act. I smiled a bit at this, I who had brought armies to their knees with a flick of my wrist, swooning at this child's play.

And what did my generosity get me?

A private room in the bloody Tower.

The people I helped weren't to blame. They couldn't have been expected to keep quiet about their miraculous healings, I suppose. Though I sus- pect the tale was embellished by the time it reached the ears of the clergy.

The Protestants and the Catholics had been going at it ever since Mary came to the throne, but the one thing they agreed on was that anything smacking of witchcraft was to be dealt with severely.

For some reason the local priest, who was the first person to see me after I was captured, didn't want to kill me right off. Perhaps it was my skin, or maybe he hoped to gain points with bishop. At any rate, I was taken to London and then sent to the Tower.

Where I remained for months.

I'd heard that there were prisoners here who'd been forgotten for years. But I tried not to dwell on that.

Spring passed, then summer.

All Hallows Eve.