Close Kin Read online

  “When I was younger, newly back from the continent and its troubles, I was traveling not far from the village of Nearing, by a little lake in the wooded hills. As I sat there in the shade of twilight, two elves walked down to the lake. I’ll never forget them as long as I live. They were so beautiful and graceful, so splendid and regal. I knew right away they were elves.” He came out of his happy reverie and glared accusingly at Seylin. “And they didn’t look a thing like you!”

  The excited cat stared at the priest, his eyes like lights and his fur all on end. “Thanks!” he squeaked in a hysterical tone, and disappeared in a streak through the door. The old priest felt a little disappointed. There was a story behind the odd behavior of this mysterious cat, and he would have liked very much to know what it was.

  Seylin consulted his map. The lake was only a couple of nights’ journey from the goblin kingdom, near one border of the elf King’s lands. The area was no longer one large forest; instead, small groves grew in the folds of the hills. Seylin had been nearby before, but he had been discouraged by all the human encroachment. Now he hurried back as fast as he could, walking far into dawn and starting as early in the twilight as his eyes would allow. He would have been perfectly happy to walk all day long, but his cat form couldn’t shoulder the pack.

  He soon found the little lake and the campsite, but it didn’t contain quite the evidence of elves that he had expected. The trees that grew there were stately and tall, and the traces of tent sites were in their deepest shade, but here also were the charred remains of a log fire and piles of animal bones. These things certainly didn’t belong in a normal elf camp.

  Then Seylin found a small elf graveyard, without a single stick or rock to act as a monument. This race never marked the graves of their dead, not even the elf Kings. So elves had been here, and perhaps were still coming, but this was a spring or summer camp, too exposed for cold weather. By now they would be in their winter camp because the first snows had fallen. That meant caves if possible, so Seylin began to travel the limits of the forest in search of them. He meandered back and forth for most of another long, snowy night and found a second little camp. Now he was very excited. One camp might mean humans, but two camps had to mean elves. Only elves moved from place to place in a forest without cutting down the trees.

  Just a few more hours till dawn. He paused in a clearing and located the uneven crest of a range of hills in the distance. Perhaps those hills sheltered a modest cave or two. He would try that direction next. Seylin turned to retrieve the pack he had dropped at his feet and stopped, the pack forgotten. A sizzling shock ran through his frame.

  Standing in the moonlight was an elf.

  For a long moment, the two stood and looked each other over. The elf had thick black hair and green eyes, and his form was lean and muscular. He was wearing brown. Seylin was wearing brown clothes, too because elves always wore brown in the winter. The elf wore a short, belted tunic, and his breeches were gartered below the knees, straps of thin leather crossing in X patterns to hold the cloth close to the calves.

  This was the style that elf men had worn for millennia, but the outfit was not of properly made elf cloth. The poorest human farmers had better homespun clothes than this, and Seylin’s own garments were luxurious beside it.

  “You’ve been leaving tracks all over the forest,” commented the stranger in English. “I’ve been following you for some time. You walked right by two rabbits just now. What are you hunting for?”

  “I’m hunting for you,” said Seylin in elvish, but the stranger just looked baffled. “I’m hunting for elves,” he added in English. “I thought I might be the last one left.”

  The other elf considered this. “What happened to the rest of your band?”

  Seylin shrugged, uncertain how to respond. “I’m alone now,” he answered. The elf looked at his nice clothes, his well-made boots, and his sturdy and capacious pack.

  “Your women are all dead, aren’t they?” he remarked in a knowing tone. “Thorn will want to see you. Wait here. I’ll come back. Don’t try to follow me because I’ll know, and I don’t leave tracks everywhere like you do.”

  Seylin sat down by his pack and waited, mulling over how to proceed. He had read about elves and daydreamed about elves, but he had never really thought about what would happen if he found any. He supposed he had always expected some wise, fatherly elf to walk up and say, “Seylin! Home at last! You’re one of us now!” But it was beginning to look as if that wouldn’t happen.

  The stranger returned with two more elf men, and they studied Seylin. One of them was still just an adolescent, perhaps fourteen years old. The other didn’t look terribly old, either, but there was such a hard, capable look on his face that Seylin felt like an overfed baby. He was very handsome, with blond hair and gray eyes, but his crudely woven clothes were a mass of stains and patches.

  “Rowan tells me you’re supposed to be the last elf of your band,” he said, and his face told Seylin that he didn’t believe it. “Your women are dead, aren’t they? You’ll find no luck here. We only have one girl ourselves. We don’t intend to marry her to an outsider, so you might as well keep looking.”

  Seylin felt his face grow hot.

  “I’m not looking for a wife,” he protested. “I’m just looking for elves, for a band to join.”

  “Can you hunt?” the blond man wanted to know, and Seylin nodded. “Then show us. Bring some game back to this spot tonight and you can join our band.”

  Seylin walked away, trying not to show the dismay that he felt. He hadn’t exactly lied. He could hunt; he had just never done very much of it, and what he had done was from horseback. The goblin King had learned from his mother, Adele, a certain reckless enthusiasm for foxhunting, although he never actually let a fox be killed. He put a magical blue stripe on the animal to show that they had caught it, leaving some of the local foxes with five or six stripes apiece. But Seylin doubted very much whether these ragged elves would be impressed by a blue-striped fox. Hunting was literally their survival.

  In the chronicles, the elves hunted nothing but deer, and Seylin knew very little about how they did it. After searching fruitlessly for as long as he dared, he decided to attempt a calling spell. Making dinner walk right up to him seemed disgusting, but the mutton that he ate walked right up the lake valley to the slaughterhouse in the palace town.

  He paused in a clearing and said what he thought were the right words. Time passed, and his heart sank. He must have botched the spell. Why had he charged out of the kingdom without bothering to learn basic elvish spells? All the fancy magic he knew couldn’t make up for the ordinary elf spells he didn’t know. Just as he was about to give up, moonlight reflected in large brown eyes. A small doe stepped cautiously out of the forest.

  Now Seylin felt sick. He knew that elves ate does, but he had never killed or eaten a female animal in his whole life. This doe was a mother, a sacred thing, and a goblin would rather starve than eat her. He called her up to him and stroked her thin flanks. A mother carrying young. Seylin was sure he couldn’t possibly kill her.

  With his arm around the doe’s neck, he said the spell again, and the two of them waited and waited. Just when he was wondering if he really could bring himself to kill her, he saw movement in the trees again. Seylin reached quickly toward the new deer, light blazing from his fingertips. The startled doe leapt away from him and bounded off into the forest.

  Seylin examined his kill. A handsome stag of some winters lay at his feet. He took a firm hold on the stag’s ear and whispered the elvish Carrying Spell. He guided the body off the ground to a height of a couple of feet and towed it behind him as he walked along, the stag slipping through the forest on a cushion of air.

  The blond-haired elf and the adolescent were waiting where he had left them. When Seylin walked up with nothing in his hands, the youngster grinned and pointed.

  “See?” he said triumphantly. The elf leader looked disgusted.

  “Well? Whe
re’s the food?” he demanded.

  Seylin gestured behind him.

  “I didn’t have anyone to help carry it,” he said, pulling on the ear and bringing the stag into view.

  The pair gawked at the dark body gliding above the snow. The leader recovered first.

  “See?” he retorted to the boy. “And he doesn’t even know this forest. I don’t want to hear any more of your excuses.” He clapped the successful hunter warmly on the shoulder. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Seylin,” replied Seylin, stiff with apprehension. He probably should have chosen an elvish name.

  “Seylin?” hooted the teenage elf. “What kind of name is that?” It was goblin, of course. Would he have to lie about it?

  “Shut up, Willow,” ordered the elf man, and the subject was closed. “Seylin, my name is Thorn, and I lead this camp. You can stay if you want to hunt for your share and if you remember what I said about the girl.”

  Seylin nodded silently. He followed the two men through the woods, trying to sort out his feelings.

  They arrived at the winter camp. A hovel of sorts had been constructed by walling up a cave with boards, and a dilapidated shed stood nearby. Seylin lowered the stag to the ground and eased his pack from his shoulders, marveling at the poverty and filth. Elves, he reminded himself, didn’t build anything, and their lives were full of beauty and ease. So far, he hadn’t seen any beauty in this life, and he suspected that ease didn’t play much part in it, either.

  Thorn and Willow dragged the heavy body to a nearby tree and tied it up by the front feet. Willow opened the crude door and spoke to someone inside. A minute later, an elf girl wandered out. She had lovely green eyes, the dirtiest hair Seylin had ever seen, and a miserable expression on her face.

  “Not a deer!” she groaned. “And such a big one!”

  The elf that Seylin had first met walked up behind her. “Don’t you want to eat this winter, Irina?” he asked.

  “It’s all very well for you, Rowan,” she grumbled. “He doesn’t make you butcher them.”

  Elves normally slaughtered with a spell that took care of everything in typically beautiful fashion. The whole deer disappeared in a golden cloud and reappeared as neat parts. Irina took a large metal butcher knife and began to gut the deer into a tub. She was soon bloody to the elbows.

  Thorn grinned. “You know the rule, puppy,” he told her.

  “Yeah,” Willow chimed in, patting her cheek, “the ugly people have to butcher. That means you.” She swatted his hand away from her face—since she was holding the knife, a dangerous move for them both. Seylin expected someone to laugh at Willow’s joke, but no one did. He had, in fact, been stating their butchering rule, just the way Thorn had made it up.

  “Well, come on,” Thorn told the men, heading for the door of the hovel, but Seylin shook his head.

  “I’ll stay and help,” he answered, pulling his elf knife from his belt. The men were puzzled at the offer. Irina was puzzled, too.

  “Why is he helping, Thorn?” she demanded, peeling back the bloody deer hide. “He’s not ugly. He looks better than any of you.”

  Thorn paused, staring thoughtfully at Irina, and then shot Seylin a suspicious glance. Why, indeed, should he stay out in the cold? The blond elf drew the obvious conclusion.

  “It doesn’t matter why,” he growled, “because I think he’s smart enough to keep that good-looking face of his out of trouble. It wouldn’t look nearly so nice with two or three teeth missing.”

  Seylin’s stomach was beginning to tie itself into knots. He couldn’t believe he’d been searching for this. The pages may have teased him when he was a boy, but no one had ever made such a crude threat.

  “I’ve been after that one,” said Rowan thoughtfully, studying the carcass. “He was a smart old beast.”

  Seylin felt ashamed. “I’m not a very good hunter,” he admitted. “I had to use a calling spell.”

  “I know,” said Rowan. “I watched you. You’re an awful hunter,” he added matter-of-factly.

  “I don’t care what he is,” remarked Thorn to the group. “He’s brought home food, and that’s more than some people around here have done lately. Seylin, stop stabbing at it. Butchering’s not for men. You don’t know what you’re doing, and Irina has enough help.”

  Another woman had stepped up silently to join them, carving off strips of the haunch. Seylin didn’t notice her arrival until she was kneeling almost at his feet. The busy woman had her back to him and didn’t seem interested in introductions. Her long hair was black, so it didn’t show dirt as badly as her companion’s.

  “Come on,” said Thorn impatiently, and the men went into the warmth of the cave while the women worked in the cold.

  Beyond the plank door was a big, messy room floored with dirt, half house and half cave. Along the back wall were four low tents, the only thing in the room that made sense. Elves always slept in tents, inside or outside.

  There was a fireplace at the boarded front of the cave, with thick logs blazing in it. Seylin could look at the flames because his eyes weren’t normal elf eyes, but he didn’t understand how the other elves could bear it. Everything he had ever read about elves mentioned their hatred of fire and metal; they associated both things with goblins. Yet here, in a real elf camp, he saw a fire crackling merrily on a normal human hearth with a metal pot heating above it.

  Seylin braced himself for the expected barrage of questions, but no one even bothered to speak to him. Thorn and Willow began scraping the bits of flesh off a deer hide, and Rowan sat down with a hunk of fat to grease his ancient boots. The perplexed newcomer occupied himself with pitching his own tent at the end of the row and settling his belongings into their places.

  When he turned around, the women were back inside, preparing the morning meal. Irina was patting out dough with still-bloody hands and frying it up on a griddle. The black-haired woman had her back to him again, stirring the stewpot.

  “Who is she?” he asked, joining the men. Thorn glanced up from his deer hide.

  “That’s the ugly woman,” he replied. “Ugly woman! Show the nice man why we call you that.”

  The black-haired woman turned around, and Seylin had trouble avoiding a gasp. Her cheeks were covered by twisted masses of scar tissue. The smooth, perfect skin abruptly became silvery, pink, and white, in mottled, tangled bands across the sides of her face. The scar tissue tugged up one corner of her lip so that she always appeared to be smiling, but the dark blue eyes that she raised to his face were the saddest he had ever seen.

  “It’s unbelievable, isn’t it?” commented the elf man, enjoying Seylin’s shocked expression. “Ugly woman! Get that ghastly thing out of my sight.”

  Seylin watched her turn away again, her head bowed and her shoulders slumped. Goblin deformity was a deformity of strength, but this was unnatural and brutal. Why had this woman been disfigured? Why hadn’t she been treated and healed? Seylin couldn’t recall a single instance of the deliberate maiming of an elf.

  “Food’s ready,” said Irina, and the men stood up. Thorn glanced down inquiringly at Seylin, but he was too upset to eat. He just shook his head.

  Thorn walked forward to take the first bowl and a piece of bread from Irina. But when Rowan stepped forward to take the next bowl, Thorn blocked the way. He set down his own food and took the bowl himself, weighing it critically and putting part of it back into the pot. Then he took a piece of bread and laid it on the bowl.

  “Puppy!” he said. “Here’s your share.”

  “Oh,” said the blond girl, surprised. “Thanks, Thorn,” and she reached up to take the bowl. The scarred woman stared in astonishment at this and looked up at Rowan. He gave her a shrug in return, as if to say, Why would I care?

  The scarred woman spooned Rowan’s bowl and then scraped the pot to spoon Willow’s, but Thorn took the bowl as Willow reached for it and faced the youngster sternly.

  “When’s the last time you’ve brought home food?” h
e wanted to know. “You need to go hungry for a few nights, Willow. When I was your age, I brought home my share.”

  “There’s not much out there,” muttered the youth. “It’s not like I don’t look.”

  “Rowan and I do all right,” challenged the man. “We keep the lot of you fed.” The boy just scowled in answer, staring at his boots.

  “You still don’t know what you’re doing,” commented Rowan from his seat on the floor, where he was rapidly devouring his stew. “Come with me on my next night, Willow. I’ll help you find something.”

  Thorn handed over the stew, eyeing the young elf critically. “See that you bring something home next time,” he ordered. Then he picked up his bowl and bread. He tore the bread in half and frowned at it.

  “Ugly woman!” he said. “Come get your food.”

  The scarred woman stood up, her eyes on the strip of bread he held out. Her face was wary and her whole body tense. She reached out for the bread, but at the last second, he dropped it. Then he stepped on it as he walked back to his place.

  Seylin glanced around in outrage, expecting someone to say something, but they were all busy with their food. What had happened was no business of theirs. He watched with distaste as the woman picked up her bread and quickly dusted it off. She knelt down next to the hearth again, eating it hurriedly, like an animal who has found a scrap that may be stolen at any second. He realized then that she had no bowl of stew. She began to scrape the remains out of the cooking pot, trying to make as little sound with the spoon as possible. Seylin watched her moodily. He could tell there wasn’t much left.

  “Doesn’t she have a name?” he asked. Thorn followed his gaze to the woman at the hearth. When she realized they were talking about her, she dropped the spoon into the pot with a clatter and froze, her eyes on the ground.

  “The ugly woman, you mean?” asked Thorn casually. “Oh, yes, she has a name. A grand name, in fact, passed down from her father. Sable, his name was. We don’t use that name now, out of respect for him. He wasn’t the useless trash that she is. You’d never believe it, but that thing was engaged to me. I hunted for her when I was sixteen, Willow,” he said, shaking a finger at the young elf. “You could take a lesson. I brought home two shares at sixteen, her share as well as my own. For years I took care of her, did everything for her, and then our marriage moon came. She’d never turned down a meal, notice. She hasn’t turned down one since. But she told me on our wedding night that she wouldn’t marry me. And then”—he pointed at the scarred cheeks—“that’s what she did to her face.”