Who Gave Me All My Will
by Margaret R. (Purdy) Dean
**I don't like the feel of this forest.**
Mist straightened from his intent crouch over the faint deer trail and looked around uneasily. His surroundings were unfamiliar, but that was not what bothered him. The Hawkfriends had ranged far from their mountain home in this season of scarce game. An unusually dry summer had shriveled nut and berry and driven the deer and other plant-eaters to search for greener food elsewhere. This expedition was only the latest in a series of forays made by the hungry elf tribe far outside their normal hunting grounds.
**What's wrong with it, Mist?** sent Galedancer, looking around too. **Is it humans, do you think?** Behind her, Thunderstone scowled and fingered the haft of his war-hammer. They'd had a few close brushes with humans whose territory they had crossed, but so far they had avoided any direct confrontations.
Mist grimaced. **Nothing so obvious. But I sensed something … twisted…** He peered forward into the shadowy wood, lines of anxiety deepening around his large dark eyes. Was it the trees? Had they been the pines or firs he was used to he might have been able to tell, but these broad-leaved lowland trees were still strange enough to him that he wasn't sure what was normal for them. They seemed more gnarled than they should be, though, bent out of shape by some unnatural force. Or perhaps it wasn't the trees at all…
**Let's get on with it!** came Dodger's impatient sending. **The most promising trail we've struck in half a moon and you're jumping at shadows?** Galedancer turned on the redheaded elf angrily, but Mist just sighed and passed a hand over his face.
**You're right,** he sent, **it's probably nothing a full belly won't fix.** Setting aside his uneasiness he bent to the trail again. After a few moments he began to pick his way through the underbrush, his three companions close behind him.
The traces soon grew fresher. Here the deer had browsed; here it had lodged, leaving flattened vegetation and a tuft of hair caught on a stiff twig. A little farther on were droppings still moist from the animal's body. They must be nearly on it. Mist checked the wind and led the hunting party to the right of the trail before they crept on again, unslinging their bows. Ahead of them was a small clearing. There they found their quarry, nibbling at the green shoots that reached from the surrounding thickets into the patchy sunlight. Mist could not repress a brief grin of satisfaction. It was a buck, fine and large; it would feed many.
The deer had not detected them yet. Galedancer sent Dodger and Thunderstone creeping through the brush in opposite directions while she and Mist nocked arrows and waited. They were the two best archers in the group. The other two would attempt to startle the deer toward them, but if it bolted to one side, at least one of the other hunters should get a clear shot at it. As long as the wind did not shift—
The antlered head came up. The deer looked around, nostrils working, then sprang toward them. Mist and Galedancer straightened and their bowstrings sang in unison. Galedancer's arrow went slightly wide, just brushing the side of the buck's neck, but Mist's struck it full in the chest as it leaped. The animal's momentum carried it forward to crash into the brush almost at their feet.
"Eeeyah-hah!" The exultant hawk-cry came from Dodger as he erupted into the clearing. The other Hawkfriends echoed him and Galedancer added, "Well shot, Mist!"
Mist grinned at her. "Do I need to remind you who would have had to track the wretched beast if I'd missed, or just wounded it? Sometimes I get tired of creeping through the undergrowth." He pressed a hand to the small of his back and stretched. His face grew more serious as he looked at the sky. "We might have lost it, too. Night's coming on."
They decided to camp in the clearing, since the day's hunt had revealed no better spot. Tomorrow they would begin drying the bulk of the deer's meat for the journey back to the Aerie, but tonight they would feast on fresh venison. Mist felt his stomach cramp in anticipation at the smell of the haunch roasting over the fire. If Joyspring were here she would probably scour the woods for herbs to flavor the meat, but since the hunters' last meal had been a few boiled roots and a single scrawny squirrel, Mist was in no mood to be fussy. Joyspring would have her chance when they returned to the Aerie with their prize.
As the night deepened the wind steadily rose. The flames of their small campfire danced madly. Once the sheer pleasure of filling his empty belly was behind him, Mist found uneasy feelings creeping up on him again. The unsteady firelight played tricks with his friends' faces, the rapid shift of light and shadow distorting them. The wind moaned in the trees; those at the edge of the clearing leaned over as if they were peering at the elves. And Mist began increasingly to feel that the trees were not the only ones watching them.
"I hope we're not in for a storm tonight," he ventured. His voice sounded weak and small compared to the deepening roar of the wind.
"No, the sky's clear," Galedancer responded, looking up with a slight frown. "It's just this wind. We'd better pick wide branches tonight. That reminds me, Thunderstone, be sure to hang up the rest of the meat before we go to sleep. We don't want a bear or something getting at it."
Thunderstone got up. "Right. Anyone want another slice before I do that?"
Mist felt a surge of alarm as the tawny-haired elf moved away from the fire. He almost cried out to tell Thunderstone to come back, that there was something lurking beyond the firelight. Imagining Dodger's scorn and his own inability to explain his feeling, he didn't quite dare. But Galedancer read his expression.
**What's wrong, Mist?** she sent to him privately. **You look spooked. Is it more than just the wind?**
**I don't know,** he returned wretchedly. **There was something wrong before and there's something wrong now, but I can't put my finger on what it is. It's like something's watching us, something horrible. But I can't see it or hear it or touch it.** His mouth twisted wryly. **If I were a human I'd probably be going on about evil spirits—spirits of the dead. Something that wants what we have and it has lost and can never have again.** He hugged his knees and stared into the wildly flickering flames.
Thunderstone reached the deer carcass and bent over it. The wind went abruptly silent. Mist could hear the other elf's stone knife cutting through flesh. Then the wind howled again, louder than before. At the same time a black and burning wind howled through all their minds.
Out of the trees beyond Thunderstone a figure plunged. Huge it seemed in the mad firelight, looming dark and hunched with arms outstretched menacingly. An animal howl came from it, a wailing counterpoint to the wind, but more than animal were the waves of distorted sending that flowed from it. Mist found his senses screaming, going wild, the ground moving beneath him, shapes and sounds melting into monstrosity. He was dimly aware of his companions scattering, driven by terror like blown leaves, and his own body running blindly. A projecting root snared his foot. There was a sharp, clean pain as his ankle twisted under him and he fell flat on the ground. He tried to call out to his friends not to leave him, but his voice would not work. His sending was blocked by the roaring in his head. Cold fingers clutched at him. At their touch his mind seemed to burst from within. Blackness took him and he knew no more.
# # # # #
Awareness returned in stages. Hearing came first: a low grunting that seemed to have been going on for some time gradually made itself known, accompanied by the sound of tearing flesh. Smells crept in next, dry earth and dead wood overlaid by the strong odor of fresh meat. Mist's stomach growled and that brought his body back, uncomfortably huddled in a curve of cold earth with a lingering ache in his ankle and what felt like a sharp rock digging into his side. For a few moments he was confused. He didn't remember going to sleep and he certainly wouldn't have chosen so uncomfortable a spot to do it in. Where was he anyway? And what was that chewing sound? Had a bear gotten at the meat, even after Thunderstone had—
Full memory rushed in on him and terror with it. The monster! Mist's eyes came open almost against his will. What if what it was eating wasn't the deer…?
It was the deer. A dark curve of branching antler against a ragged circle of moonlit sky reassured him. He lay motionless for a while, taking in his surroundings. He was in a small cave made by the fall of a dead tree. Twisting roots fringed its entrance and snaked through the walls and floor. Between him and the cave's mouth lay the ravaged carcass of the deer. The monster crouched over it with its back to him, tearing at it with clawed fingers, chewing and gulping noisily. Mist tensed. Perhaps he could get past the creature while it was occupied with its meal. There wasn't much room to get by it, though, and he would have to scramble upward to reach the hole. The carcass was in the way too.
He shifted cautiously and realized that the hard object gouging him in the ribs was the haft of his stone hunting knife. Maybe he could fight his way out. Now that he could see the monster better in the steady moonlight, it did not look nearly as large as it had in the clearing. In fact, it was not much larger than he was. Its shoulders were broader, but it had short, crooked legs and skinny arms. Mist fingered his knife hilt. He didn't like the idea of killing the creature, but what other choice did he have? It had obviously brought him here for a reason. Though it was concentrating on the deer now, he might be next. It would be safest to take it unawares. Yet he could not bring himself to attack it.
He considered. The creature had at least some rudiments of intelligence. It could not have carried both him and the deer at once. It must have returned for one or the other, arguing both foresight and memory. But that made it more dangerous. Humans were intelligent too, and humans were possibly the greatest danger the children of the High Ones faced in this world. Still, Mist would have serious misgivings about attacking a human in the same situation. Needless killing was always to be avoided, more so when other speaking creatures were involved.
Speaking creatures… He had not heard the monster speak. It had howled when attacking and now it grunted over its meal, but it had not spoken. Yet it had sent. Not words or even intelligible images, just dark, warped waves of raw emotion, but there was no denying it that power—a power only elves had. Animals could not send. Humans could not send. Only elves…
In that moment it turned to face him. Mist gasped and flattened himself against the earth wall of the cave. He had never seen any creature so unnaturally hideous. There were animals in the world that were far from beautiful, from tusked and snouted bristle-boars and squat, snarling wolverines to the varied grotesqueries of insects and spiders, but each of them had its own fitness, its proper symmetry. Not so this creature. Its basic form was that of an elf or human, but cruelly distorted in every aspect. Its wide shoulders were hunched over, its spine deformed so it could not stand fully erect, and one shoulder was higher than the other. Its long, skinny arms were of unequal lengths too. One ended in a hand of spiderlike thinness, the other in a knotted, thick-fingered appendage. It moved across the cave floor with a jerky, uneven gait and thrust a face toward Mist that looked as if it had been blistered and melted by fire. The nose was huge and drooping, the mouth wide and slack-lipped with sharp, jagged teeth. One eye stared at him maniacally; the other was filmed and nearly hidden by its sagging lid. Shaggy, tangled hair hung in a thick mane from the creature's head and clung in sparse patches to other parts of its body. As it came closer, Mist saw it wore a crude loincloth of uncured hide, but otherwise it was unclad. And, he realized with a sickened lurch of his belly, female. Its breasts were long and pendulous, hanging down below its waist.
It—she—reached him and bent over him as if inspecting him. Mist did not dare to move, hardly dared breathe. The spidery hand reached out and brushed his face. A clawed forefinger lightly traced the line of his jaw, then parted his pale brown hair and touched the tip of one pointed ear. Even as he shuddered at her touch, Mist could not help noticing that the exploring hand had four fingers like his own. And though it was hard to tell their shape amid the matted hair, he was almost sure her ears were pointed too.
"What are you?" The words forced themselves out of him like a groan of pain. The monster's hand jerked back. She glared at him out of her one good eye. Her mouth worked and a stream of unintelligible sounds came from it, like animal noises striving to be speech but not succeeding. In a few moments they dissolved into an inarticulate moan.
Mist's heart pounded. She had tried to speak, he was sure. Something prevented her, some deformity of mind or body, but she knew what speech was. And she had sent before. Oh High Ones—did he dare? His mind recoiled from the memory of her devastating sending. But if what he could hardly let himself think was true…
**What are you?** he sent, trembling inwardly. **Are you an elf?**
The force of her sending nearly made him black out again. Grief, pain, suffering, a burning hunger that could never be satisfied—but under it all, an affirmation. She was an elf—or had been, before … before… She backed away from him, her mismatched hands coming up to cover her face. Mist stared at her with renewed horror. Pity welled up in him too, along with a shuddering wonder. What could have done this? If this grotesque she-creature was once an elf, what catastrophe had changed her into a monster?
**Who are you?** he sent finally. **Do you have a name?**
The blast of anguish produced by his simple question was more devastating than the first. Mist sagged against the cave wall, fighting to retain consciousness as her wild grief battered his spirit. But this time there were articulate feelings in the sending that were almost words. **lost … lost … o lost…**
In a flash of intuition Mist understood. She had lost her soul name. Whatever had happened to so cruelly warp her mind and body had separated her from her deepest inmost self. It was the most dreadful fate he could imagine, far worse than death. His hand strayed to the haft of his knife. To kill her might be the kindest thing he could do. But then her sending reached him, tentative this time, almost timid, yet sparked by a faint hope.
**Help? … find?**
Oh High Ones I couldn't … could I?
I healed Wealweaver. Several turns before, faced with an elf who had withdrawn so far into herself that she seemed almost a spiritless shell, Mist had used a previously unsuspected Talent to enter the stricken elf's mind and call back her spirit. Wealweaver, and Joyspring, her daughter, still occasionally called him "Spirit-tracker."
But that was different! Her spirit was lost, not her soul!
I've got to try. She is an elf, she is of my kin. High Ones give me aid, I've got to try.
Quickly, before he could lose courage, Mist reached out and grabbed the monster's arms, jerking her to her knees. When she started to pull away he held on tighter, sending to her, **Don't be afraid. I'm trying to help. I'll try to find it. I'll try.** If the words didn't get through, the feeling apparently did. She relaxed and let him draw her closer. Fighting down the revulsion he felt at her touch, Mist set his hands on her uneven shoulders. Gazing into her eyes, he launched his mind into hers.
Darkness surrounded him, filled with writhing forms and the roar of wind. Where Wealweaver's mind had been orderly, though empty, here there was utter chaos. Mist knew a moment of panic. How could he hope to find anything in this maelstrom, even if he did not lose himself? His consciousness curled inward to make sure of his own soul name, his Eir. From that deepest core of self-knowledge he drew strength and the calmness to consider. Some kind of imagery must be imposed on the chaos without or his quest was hopeless. If she could not provide it, it must come from him. Yet it must not be entirely alien to the mind it described. He harked back to the moment when he must first have sensed her, however dimly. I don't like the feel of this forest…
The protean forms around him resolved into tangled trees. They were dark and gnarled, with twisting, knotted branches and writhing roots. What few leaves they had were withered or mottled with blight. Pale moss hung thickly from them and they were patched here and there with a fungus that gave off an unhealthy greenish glow. Mist's spirit shuddered. This was the wrongness whose faint shadow lay on the wood outside the monster's lair. Yet somewhere in this warped forest lay the treasure he sought.
He began to move cautiously through the trees, casting about for any trail, however faint, that might give him direction. It was not long before he found one, or thought he did. It was little more than a place where the thick trees let him pass more easily, but he followed it gladly until it came to an abrupt end, for no reason he could see. When he turned back it was gone, as if the trees had shifted—as perhaps they had, in this unnatural place. He struggled on for a while and soon found another such path. It came to a similar reasonless end. The same thing happened several more times before Mist realized the paths were a delusion. They were leading him away from his goal. A part of her did not want him to find what he sought, much as she longed for it.
With that thought firmly in mind, Mist began to test the wood. By finding the places where it was thickest and most resistant rather than taking the easiest path, and forcing a way through, he made slow progress but felt confident his goal was nearer. When he came at last to a ring of thick-boled trees so close together that they formed a solid wall, he was sure of it. This was the forbidden place, the heart of the darkness—the heart he must pierce if he was to succeed. He worked his way slowly around the circle of trees. Finally he found a space between two trunks where an arching root formed a narrow tunnel. He lay flat and crawled into it. Halfway through he stuck, but a last desperate wriggle freed him and propelled him suddenly into the guarded ring.
A wild screaming smote him, a shriek of abject terror that did not diminish or die away but continued to sound far longer than any throat or lungs could have sustained it. It echoed and reverberated and rebounded upon itself, gaining intensity with each moment. Mist's spirit reeled, but he forced himself to rise and look around the ring of trees. The trees … the trees were screaming. On the inner side of each trunk a face was shaped into the bole of the tree, blank wooden eyes staring, mouth a gaping oval of horror. Even through the fear and the endless scream, Mist could see that the multiply reduplicated face was that of a male elf.
**Who are you?** he shouted, fighting to make himself heard above the shrieking. **What is this place?**
The scream changed tone, rose and fell, formed itself into a word, a name. **Lyhne! Lyhne!** With the name, memory that was not his own flooded in on him.
There had been four of them, she and her parents and Lyhne, Lyhne whom she loved. For years and hands of years they wandered, sharing the hardships of the harsh world. She had been born with much power for magic, but her parents cautioned her to take the utmost care in using it, for the aether of this world of two moons could warp magic unpredictably. They had been teaching her slowly, carefully—but there was no time for care when humans attacked, slaying her parents while they slept and wounding Lyhne. She had to protect him, but she had never learned how to fight. Their only hope lay in her magic. She must frighten the humans, terrify them, drive them away, make them leave Lyhne alone. She called upon her power and let it surge through her unchecked. Agony tore her as she felt her body twist and change. The humans ran shrieking in terror. And Lyhne … when she turned to Lyhne, he screamed … and screamed … and screamed…
**Stop it!** Mist yelled. **Stop it! It's over! It's past! He's nothing more than a memory! Stop it!** The scream went on, round and round the ring of trees, endlessly circling. Mist felt that if it did not stop, his very spirit would shatter. He flung himself at the nearest tree and pushed at it with all his strength. Part of him said that this was nonsensical, that there was no way a slight elf could uproot a tree just by pushing, but Mist persevered. He must break the circle, stop the screaming.
Suddenly, incredibly, the tree gave. Its scream changed to a groan as its roots came free of the earth. There was a prolonged, rending crash, then silence. For a few moments Mist just stood and let it enfold him. Then he looked once more at the grove. The faces were still there, but they had changed. Their expression of terror was gone, their eyes and mouths shut. They looked remote, irrevocably distanced from the present. An air of sadness came from them, but the screaming had ceased.
Where the fallen tree had been there was a path—not the mere thinning of trees that had deceived him before, but a clear track straight as an arrow's flight. Mist started toward it, then paused as he became aware of two figures standing on either side of the path. They seemed to be elves, one male and one female, but taller and more beautiful than any elves he had ever seen. Roots twined about their feet and branches closely confined their slender bodies, as if they had stood in one place for the countless years it took for the forest to grow up around them. Their faces were wise and serene. Mist looked at them and slowly became aware of who and what they were.
**You know where it is, don't you?** he asked them.
**Yes, we know,** came the dual response, clear yet remote. **But you do not need us to show you the way, valiant stranger. You have discovered it for yourself. Only go on and your quest will end in joy.**
He passed them and went on. The way was not long. He came to the end of the path and into another ring of trees, grey and leafless. In the center was a mound on which a single tree grew. It had been straight and slender once, but a misshaping force had twisted its limbs and blackened its silver bark. Mist went to it and touched it lightly, with compassion. Then he knelt and began to dig at the foot of the tree. The earth was hard, but confidence lent him strength and persistence.
Suddenly a shaft of light stabbed upward. The hole he was digging fell in and a great iridescent jewel dropped into Mist's hands. He gasped, staring at it for a moment, then quickly straightened and held it up so that its light could shine out unimpeded.
**YLLA! I AM YLLA!** The cry of joy leaped forth from his hands in a blinding burst. **YLLA! YLLA!** It echoed shining through the forest. All the trees lifted their heads as new, green leaves sprang from their withered branches. **YLLA! YLLA! I AM YLLA!**
Then the light seemed to pierce Mist's upturned eyes and the voice flamed amazement in his soul. **Eir! You are Eir! Eir!
**We are one…**
**One…** Mist's soul echoed, then recoiled in shock. Recognition—to that creature? To join his body to hers, sire children—no! High Ones, please, no! And yet… He felt her tremulous hurt beginning. To reject her thus was to become another Lyhne, another screaming grove. And he knew her now, knew the shining soul within the grotesque body. He could not cripple her again.
**Yes,** he sent, accepting. **We are one.** In the darkness of the earthen cave he took her in his arms.
# # # # #
The morning sun slanting into the cave woke Mist gently. He lay for a while letting it shine warmly on his face and his closed eyelids. Ylla slept beside him; he could feel the peaceful murmur of her thoughts. It would be a shame to wake her, but he felt he needed a stretch. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, then opened them.
By the lost dwelling of the High Ones! Was that Ylla?
She was tall and reed-slender, graceful even in sleep. The smooth, pearly skin of her rounded limbs was softly flushed with dawn-rose. Her features were delicate perfection. The hair spread around her like a shining cloak mingled tints of red and gold with a many-shaded oaken brown. She was the loveliest creature Mist had ever seen. Her eyes opened, a clear, translucent blue-green, and she smiled at him. **Eir.**
He could only stare at her, his mouth hanging open. **Ylla! How—?**
**How not? Once I knew my true self again, how should I not resume my proper shape? The monster is gone forever, Eir.**
"My tribe-name is Mist," he said aloud. It sounded ridiculously inadequate. He himself felt small and shabby next to this glorious creature. He hugged his knees and ventured, "You—your parents were—High Ones, weren't they?"
"Avak and Farael, yes, they came from the Palace," Ylla responded. She closed her eyes briefly and smiled. "They are free now, as Lyhne is, and I, thanks to you." Her eyes opened again and gazed into his. Renewed wonder stirred in him, a wonder that was close kin to terror. How could he join with one so far above him? But as her sending enfolded him his doubts dissolved. They were one, as much so now as when he accepted her misshapen shell into his arms. In the sunlit warmth of the cave they reached for each other again. The union of their bodies was sweet. Afterwards they lay still for a while, simply enjoying each other's closeness.
"Ylla," Mist murmured softly into her silken hair. Then he raised himself up on one elbow. "I can't go on calling you Ylla. Do you have a tribe-name?"
She shook her head. "I never had a tribe. There were just the four of us. I never had any name but Ylla, and I wish never to be called anything else. Never again do I wish to forget who I am." She shivered and her eyes were haunted.
**You won't forget,** Mist reassured her, stroking her hair tenderly. **As long as we are together, I will never let you be lost again.**
Just then a faint threefold sending reached him, sharply flavored with anxiety. **Mist! Mist, where are you? Are you alive?**
**I'm here!** he sent back joyfully to his companions. **I'm all right! Meet me in the clearing. I have a surprise for you.** He turned to Ylla and smiled. "Come meet my friends, your new tribefolk," he said. His smile changed briefly to a wry grin. "With any luck, they won't be too upset about the deer."
F I N