6th Day of Growfest, 565 CY

Amoria, The Blessed Fields of Elysium

Even before Tadoa opened his eyes, he knew something was very wrong.

This was not like the other times. For the past several days, these accursed elves had been trying to- well, Tadoa wasn't sure what it was they were trying to do, but it definitely involved turning him away from the truth of the great Sleeping God.

The child had realized several days ago that he had new arms and legs. How this had occurred was something he spent no time thinking about. After all, since silken ropes constantly bound them now, what was the difference?

Ehlissa, Keasten, Oceanus and the old elf (Tadoa still had not heard anyone address him by a proper name) had talked to him endlessly as Tadoa struggled against his bonds, attempting to get free and escape the Tribal House. Their voices were nothing but a buzzing to him. Life was still nothing but pain, and the boy wanting nothing more than for it to end, preferably in the belly of the legless beast.

But now, immediately upon awakening, Tadoa felt uneasy. The air seemed thick to him, a cloying presence that was trying to bore down upon every pore in his body and into his lungs, which tried to cough up something that refused to be expelled. He took a sniff. Something flowery. Some kind of herb.

Tadoa opened his eyes.

He was lying in a meadow. Small but vibrant purple flowers on stalks covered the ground like a carpet.

It was lavender.

The old elf stood about twenty feet away from Tadoa. His arms were crossed in front of his chest, and he was gazing at the youth with a wry smile. There was no sign of the other elves.

"Now then, Tad," he spoke. His voice projected well. It sounded less hoarse than it had been, but still trembled occasionally, as if from overlong use.

Tadoa just glared at him, pure hatred in his eyes. He remembered none of his earlier fear.

"We're going to try one more thing." The ancient elf's voice could not hide a note of finality. "We're going to set you free."

A finger gestured, and the rope binding Tadoa untied itself and coiled up by his feet.

Tadoa got to his feet as quickly as possible, but immediately started swaying. It had been a long time since he had last stood up, and his surroundings weren't making it any easier. The sun was too bright, the smell of lavender was too strong, and the air still didn't feel right. It was as if he was drowning again, but this time he wasn't looking forward to the experience.

Tadoa's head snapped around. The lavender meadow was in a slight depression, perhaps two hundred feet wide, and both elves stood in the approximate center of it. Other smells and sounds danced at the very limit of his perception.

"Where am I?" he snarled at the elderly elf.

The recipient of his question tilted his head. "Where you need to be, I hope."

Tad bared his teeth at the answer and slowly started backing away him. The ancient elf made no move to stop him.

Tad turned and tried to run but could only manage a half-stagger at best. His legs still weren't working well, but the boy pressed on. He had to get out of here. The lavender was too purple; the grass was too green, the sky was too blue, the air smelled too clean.

The child tripped and went down but regained his footing and continued. He reached the crest of the meadow and looked beyond.

The ground sloped down gently to a clear, astonishingly blue river, perhaps fifty feet across. There were several people standing on both sides of the river. They were mostly humans, but Tad could also see elves, gnomes, dwarves, halfling, and other races he couldn't immediately identify, all mingling freely.

Those on his side of the wide stream seemed to be having a picnic of some sort. Several blankets and cloak were spread out on the grass, while the participants sat or stood, eating a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. Several children were chasing each other around a small grove of fruit trees.

A carved, whitewashed arch of stone served as a pedestrian bridge over the river. As Tadoa watched, a barge came floating slowly down the river, crewed by three humans. One guided the flat watercraft along with a long pole, while the other two were moving around wooden crates stacked high on the deck. As the barge neared the stone bridge, the far end of the bridge suddenly uprooted itself from the riverbank and carefully, like a giant trying to avoid stepping on smaller creatures, swing over the river to carefully plant itself on the near shore. After the barge had passed, the bridge slowly swung itself back to its former position again. Even in his current state, Tadoa felt a small twinge of astonishment at the sight. The stone looked as solid and unyielding he had ever seen, but when the bridge moved, it flowed and bent as easily as supple cloth.

Tadoa looked. The barge was now putting in at a dock on the far bank, perhaps three hundred yards from where he stood. A small village nestled there, consisting of perhaps thirty buildings; most structures of wood, but there were a few of stone, and several mounds held what looked to be gnome or halfling burrows. People strolled among the buildings, talking and laughing. Several pitched in to help the barge workers unload the crates. Tad could hear several of them singing a work song.

That's an offshoot of the River Oceanus."

Tadoa whirled.

The old elf was standing behind him.

The mage gestured. "The elf who saved you was named after it."

Tad snarled again at him, but despite himself, turned back to the pastoral scene before him. That was when he noticed that several of those at the picnic had stopped what they were doing and were staring at him.

A human child, a girl of perhaps seven or eight dressed in a simple frock, walked slowly towards him. She had the markings of a terrible pox upon her face and arms but seemed to take no notice of this at all. Her footsteps were as light and graceful as any elf, and in each hand she held a garland of bright yellow flowers.

"You look lost," She told Tadoa. "Would you like to come and play with us?"

Tadoa turned and ran.

He kept his eyes closed. He didn't want to see anymore the beauty of nature. He didn't want to hear laughter and birds singing sweetly overhead. He didn't want to smell the intoxicating perfume of a thousand flowers. He didn't even want to feel the cool, soft grass underneath his feet, but he had no footwear.

After a minute of running, he stopped and opened his eyes.

It was as he feared. An explosion of color from an infinite variety of flowers slammed into his eyes. The fields seemed to stretch on forever, although he saw what looked like a forest perhaps a mile away to his right. He started to run towards it. A rabbit with golden fur and silver eyes bolted upright out of the tall grass in front of him, stared at the child for a moment, and then ran away as fast as it could.

Tadoa saw something in the sky above him. At first, he didn't turn to look up. He knew it would be some fantastically plumaged bird that would only add to the steadily growing ache in his heart. But as it came closer and lower to him, he changed his mind about that assumption.

It was some mixture of man and hawk. Instead of arms, it had great wings, and its body was covered in light gray feathers. The face was human, but the feathers curled around the head like hair, and formed a short crest. Bright gold eyes stared at him with an expression that, unlike everyone else's, was not benign.

Tadoa heard the voice of the old elf from an indeterminate distance behind him. He could not make out the words, but the avian creature abruptly banked away from the young elf, and flew off some distance, circling Tadoa from above.

A strangled cry escaped the elven boy's throat as he plunged onward towards the forest. This… place was starting to feel as if it would literally crush him, as if something insubstantial was trying to worm its way inside his heart.

"Great Serpent!" The words clawed themselves out of the child's throat. "Help me! Take me into the embrace of your coils. Please, take this all away!"

"Snake!"

Tadoa pulled up short. That had been the voice of the ancient elf. Tadoa was standing just a few yards short of the forest's edge. The voice seemed to come from his right.

"Tad, there is a snake here!"

The boy narrowed his eyes. Was this a trick? There did seem to be an element of fear in the old fool's voice. Could Merrshaulk have penetrated this sickly sweet paradise? He hoped with all his heart that it was so, but still he was cautious.

Slowly, he started moving along the edge of trees towards where he had heard the elder elf's last shout. He ran from one tree to another, hiding behind each one.

Soon, he saw his tormenter. The old elf was standing near a tangle of moss-covered boulders at the very edge of the forest. A massive curtain of vines hung down from the nearby trees, partially obscuring the surface of the large rocks, and yet-

Yes! There it was! Tadoa couldn't see all of it at once, but there was definitely a large green snake, perhaps twelve feet long, slowly slithering on and around the rocks. It was facing away from Tadoa, flicking its tongue at the old elf, who stood motionless, regarding the snake with no outward expression at all that Tad could see.

The child took a deep breath and ran at full speed towards the snake.

"Great servant of the Serpent!" He shouted. "Please, deliver me from this wretched place! Take me in your dark embrace! Save me!"

The snake swung around, faced Tadoa and reared up.

For just a second, he was ecstatic.

Then the boy saw the great, rainbow-colored wings spread out from the serpent's back, and he knew it was all a lie…

He stopped where he was and threw his arms across his face, but the couatl's voice came crashing directly into his mind… his heart… his soul.

LET WHAT IS WRONG BE MADE RIGHT

LET WHAT IS TORN BE MADE WHOLE

AND LET WHAT HOLDS YOU FAST BE GONE

Those words tore into Tadoa and like a punctured waterskin, what was inside began to come out.

He screamed and fell to the ground. His eyes were shut tight, but he could again see "Mirage" leaping at him, the reptilian eyes of the Emerald Serpent, his arms and legs being cut away from him. He could hear all of his precious childhood memories being polluted by the Serpent's smooth, convincing voice. He could feel the cold, dark waters of the Nyr Dyv close over his head…

NO NO NO NO NO NO

The words faded away into a final scream as Tad writhed on the ground, his hands tearing up clumps of rich forest soil and hurling them away, his body rising and then slamming back down into the earth. His feet tore furrows through the earth until his toenails bled.

An irrelevant amount of time passed.

Tadoa was sobbing now more than he thought any mortal body could endure; a great heaving racked his body, slowly diminishing. Dimly, the young elf realized he was now sitting cross-legged on the dirt floor, although he did not remember how that had come about. His eyes felt red, puffy and raw. He could not see well out of them.

He felt a wooden mug being gently pushed into his hands now. Instinctively, he raised the cup to his lips and drank.

"Slowly, now," a voice said.

It was plain water, and yet it was heaven. The sweetest, clearest, coolest draught Tadoa had ever had in his entire life, and yet it was mixed with his own salty tears. It did not eliminate the turmoil within him, but it helped the youth begin to concentrate on it.

Slowly, Tad opened his eyes and looked around him. The couatl and the bird-like humanoid he had seen earlier were gazing down at him. Expressions of kindness, which the elf would have though impossible to reside on such inhuman faces, rested there easily. More words Tad could not understand came from his left, and the two creatures smiled and took off, flying higher and higher into the blue vault of sky. The boy's eyes followed them until they disappeared into a silver cloud above them.

Tadoa still felt weak and confused. Thoughts and feelings were still swirling around inside of him, but he knew that, however slowly, they were starting to subside. That long-lost feeling that he remembered as happiness was slowly starting to come back to his heart, and inwardly, he welcomed it as a young child welcomed presents at his birthday, smiling and squealing with delight as each new surprise was unwrapped.

He felt a trembling hand touch his left knee and looked in that direction.

The old elf was sitting cross-legged beside him. A gentle smile was on that face, and tears ran down from those clouded eyes again, falling into the dried streambeds of lines that crossed that well-worn terrain.

This time though, they were tears of joy.

Tadoa inhaled suddenly from shock. He couldn't believe it. It was impossible, and yet there it was. One final present to be opened.

At long last, he recognized that face. He was almost ashamed of himself that he hadn't earlier, but he knew that his own eyes had been far more clouded than this ancient elf's would ever be.

"Grandfather?" Tad whispered.

The old elf nodded.

"Welcome back, Tadoa Falail," said Lemontharz. "Welcome home."