Chapter Thirteen Lettle
Chapter Thirteen
Lettle
Neither of them had spoken for some minutes. Lettle wasn’t sure what to say. Here in front of her was a man over a thousand years old.
‘How?’ she said after the silence became too much.
His silver eyes lost a little light. ‘Afa is what my mother called me.’
‘No, but how? How are you here? How are you alive?’
‘Alive.’ He looked to the waterfall. ‘It is a peculiar conception, is it not?’
‘…Are you not alive?’ Lettle leaned into Ajax, taking comfort from his warmth.
‘Oh, you think me an apparition?’ His laugh grated on Lettle’s ears. ‘No, I am animated by the same blood that circulates in your body.’
‘Then how are you here?’
He was silent again as though considering something. ‘I will answer your questions, but first you must fulfil your side of the bargain. Where did you get that grimoire?’
Lettle held it against her chest like a shield. ‘I told you, it was found by an obeah in the cave above.’
‘But who?’ he said with an intensity that frightened her.
‘A fae called Najma, he was a prince in Mosima.’
‘Of the Jani bloodline?’ He stepped towards her and she backed away slowly. Ajax started to growl.
‘Y-yes.’
Afa’s relief was as palpable as Lettle’s, and he stopped advancing.
‘It worked, it veritably worked,’ he whispered to himself. ‘Only half the plan was foiled. No matter, we have other options. Yes, yes, we have other options.’ His gaze snapped to Lettle’s and his lips spread into a smile.
It perturbed Lettle more than a little.
‘I–I’m not sure what you’re talking about,’ she said.
‘Worry not.’
But worry she did. Her hands tightened in Ajax’s fur. Afa noticed.
‘The obeah cannot harm me,’ he said.
‘He will if provoked. Ajax will protect me at all costs.’
Afa cocked his head. ‘He is bound to your lover, then?’
‘I—’ she hesitated.
‘He still will not hurt me.’
‘Ajax, is Rayan watching through your eyes?’ Lettle whispered to the obeah. He shook his head in a clear ‘no’.
He must be asleep then.
She felt uneasy.
‘You’ll still protect me, won’t you, Ajax?’ The obeah let out a small mewl, his green eyes sorrowful.
‘I can hear you, and no, he won’t,’ Afa said, his head turned towards the waterfall.
He was so sure that Lettle began to doubt her own conviction.
She was about to ask why when he spoke again.
‘It has been many years since I looked at this view. The waterfall was not always here, you know. There was a shift in the mountain a few hundred years ago which caused the streams to converge. Year on year it has grown in a fascinating example of environmental evolution.’
He looks just like Alder when he teaches me something. It made Lettle’s heart ache and her voice cracked as she said, ‘What happened to my friend?’
Afa looked at Lettle as though she had spoken a language he didn’t understand. Then he clapped his hands together, making her jump. ‘My apologies, I have not even offered you any refreshment, my mother would be ashamed of me. Please sit, sit.’
Startled by his frantic hospitality, Lettle found herself being led into an alcove by the waterfall.
‘Partake in the waterfall. The rivers are fed from the snow on the mountain tops and I have been told the water is very refreshing because of it.’
Lettle was thirsty and her mouth still tasted of the nerba root Mortah had given her. She removed her flask from her bag and filled it. She was about to put it to her mouth but a prickle of uncertainty washed over her.
Could he have poisoned the waterfall?
No, that didn’t make sense, the entirety of Caperly would have been killed. But as she pulled the flask away from her mouth she found Afa watching her curiously.
‘It’s not poisoned,’ he said.
‘Then why aren’t you drinking it?’ she asked.
‘I’m not thirsty.’
It was such an odd exchange that Lettle wanted no more than to break eye contact, so she sipped from the flask.
‘Fresh, is it not?’ he said.
‘Sweet, almost.’
‘Are you hungry? The crops have grown a little unruly since my time away, but I think there was a strawberry thicket somewhere near.’ He pressed his hands into the dirt and between his fingers sprouted strawberry plants laden with glistening fruit as though kissed by morning dew.
Lettle nearly choked on her water. ‘What are you?’
‘I am a human, no more, no less. I was once emperor of these mountains, also known to the common folk as the Human Lands. But we called it Kaa’pah’lie.’
The word seemed familiar but different. Then it dawned on her. ‘Caperly, of course.’
His mouth twisted in disgust at her pronunciation. ‘The elves who live there have stolen that from us too.’
She wasn’t sure what to say to that, so she said nothing.
‘What are you?’ he asked, his smile returning.
‘I am an elf, no more, no less. My name is Lettle, I’m a diviner from the Waning tribe in the Elven Lands.’
‘A diviner? What are you doing so far from your temple?’
‘Temple?’
‘Your temple to Bosome?’
Lettle laughed. ‘There are no more temples to Bosome; divining is not a well-regarded profession.’
Afa looked shocked. ‘No temples to Bosome–what has happened to the elves?’
‘The Forever War is what happened to the elves.’
‘The Forever War?’
She waved a hand dismissively. ‘It is a foolish war that rages on the Bleeding Field between the four tribes.’
‘When did it begin?’
She shrugged, thinking it an odd question. ‘I’m not sure, a few hundred years ago, maybe longer. For as long as our history accounts for it.’
‘Hmm.’ Afa became engaged with his own thoughts so she tried to draw him out before he wandered too deep.
‘How are you still alive? How are you in Alder’s body?’
‘Those are two questions.’
‘Fine, the latter.’
‘Alder, as you call him, does not exist. He is simply me without my memories.’
She swallowed the ball of grief in her throat. Alder is not gone.
‘What do you mean?’ she probed.
‘My being, what makes me me, is bound to this warren. Beyond it, I am nothing but a shell.’
Lettle’s nostrils flared.
‘Alder is no shell. He is a living, breathing person with thoughts and dreams.’ Her voice shook with emotion and her cheeks flushed.
Afa’s eyes flashed in annoyance. ‘He is me; you seem to be forgetting that. There is no Alder.’
‘He exists.’ Her throat began to close with an incoming sob. ‘The person you are beyond here has a life and people who care for him. What happens to all the memories he has? The life he has built?’
‘You love him?’ Afa looked shocked.
‘Yes, he is my friend.’
Afa didn’t answer.
‘Don’t tell me I’ve lost him,’ she begged.
Afa jerked as though struck by an idea; his movements, like his mind were occasionally erratic.
He stood and went to the waterfall. Then he put on the silkvine harness. When he looked back at her his expression was threatening. ‘There is nothing to be gained by letting me leave. I cannot answer your questions beyond these walls.’ Then he jumped.
Lettle ran to the edge, spray from the waterfall drenching her again in moments.
‘Wait!’ she shouted.
Afa hadn’t fallen far, and he swung back and forth through the waterfall water.
He looked up. ‘Lettle?’
Though there was no physical difference between Afa and Alder, there was a softness in her friend that wasn’t tangible; an innocence that could not be described.
‘Alder?’ Lettle said and automatically began to pull up the rope.
It was only then that he seemed to realise where he was and began to scream. ‘What’s happening? Where am I?’
He began to struggle in the harness, causing him to swing further into the rushing water. She heard him choke as he struggled to breathe.
‘Lettle!’
‘You’re all right, you’ll be all right,’ she sobbed as she tried to pull him up.
His eyes were wide with horror as he moved in and out of the waterfall.
Lettle’s hands were raw and bleeding from the rope, but she didn’t notice. All her attention was on saving Alder.
Inch by inch she hauled him up until his fingers were able to grip the ledge. His face was red from the force of the water and his eyes streamed with tears.
‘Help me,’ he said. She grabbed his hand and pulled him back into the cavern.
‘You’re safe now,’ she said and they both wept in each other’s arms.
It took her a moment to realise his shoulders weren’t shaking from crying. Alder was laughing.
It’s not Alder…
Lettle recoiled and crawled backwards until she felt the warmth of Ajax at her back. She glanced at Mortah’s cane which was on the ground, just out of reach.
‘My heart is aflutter but I have no notion as to its cause,’ he laughed and sat back on his heels. ‘How riveting!’
Lettle watched with revulsion. The brief glimpse of Alder had left her feeling more bereft.
I will get my answers from Afa, then I will bring back Alder.
‘How have you lived this long?’
Afa noticed the strawberries and stopped laughing abruptly. He plucked one and bit into it. ‘I had hoped being away meant I would be able to taste again, but it appears not.’
He acted like he hadn’t heard her, so she tried a different tactic.
‘Was it human magic that did this to you?’
He squished the uneaten strawberry in his hand, the juice trickling onto the ground. ‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
A slow moan emanated from him and he began to rock back and forth. Then he exhaled, and said bleakly, ‘Because I was a fool.’
Lettle moved to sit down next to him. Her movements were slow, as though approaching a wild cat. ‘My father always said there are only two things that make us fools: love or power,’ she said carefully. ‘Which one was it?’
‘Both,’ he said.
‘Were you really down here alone for a thousand years?’ she asked.
From the touch of madness in his eyes, she had already ascertained the answer.
‘Yes, but I wasn’t always alone. And I wasn’t always awake.’
Though Lettle was frustrated with Afa’s piecemeal answers, she contained her annoyance. She thought she was beginning to understand him a little, and his reticence seemed more likely a symptom of his loneliness.
He wishes to draw out the conversation…
Lettle had an idea. ‘Why don’t we strike another deal. Let me tell you the entirety of my life, and then you do the same.’