BECMI Chapter 234 – Shades of Loyalty

“I am not and never was an agent of the king,” I corrected him calmly. “I intend to resolve this war between the Sidhe and the Shaden with minimal bloodshed and maximal benefits to all parties, while you are a murderous infiltrator and faithless false friend who betrayed fellow elves who deserved nothing of your treachery, Elder,” I continued with scathing honesty, and he was the first to avert his eyes. “Your sense of duty must be great indeed, to so betray such a bright and honest figure as King Lymeril. I imagine you consoled yourself by considering him a fool and you would be delivering him some appropriate honesty about the true nature of the world, by exemplifying the worst of non-elven conduct for him?”That hit him hard. After all, he’d been friends with Lymeril for well over two centuries. There was no way he couldn’t know that the king was a good person, and indeed that most of the Sidhe were kind and generous folk who simply did not deserve the things the Shaden had done to them.

“I make no apologies for my loyalties,” he managed to say back to me, still not wishing to look at me.

“And yet you’ve no pride in them,” I pointed out accurately. “Indeed, you seem incredibly relaxed for the position you are in. You no longer have to fool one king for the foolish wishes and ambitions of another, do you? The lies can now remain on the lips of those who first spoke them.”

The wince crossed his face like a knife. “What do you want, girl?” he finally managed to get out with a measure of composure. “Strange as you might be, you do not strike me as the type to gloat.”

“I am not,” I agreed with him. “I’d much rather make use of you.”

His stare was filled with disbelief. slapped back into my hand, and I calmly flipped it out into him and tapped his chest.

Two things happened.

The first was the prepared went off with the flash of an expanding ghostly black skull chased with swirling green flames. The powerful spell blew through his mind instantly, devouring the magic he had stored in memory. Thirty-six Valences were wiped away from his mind as he failed to resist the spell, which basically meant he lost all his spells in memory.

The second was the went off, and instantly repaired all the physical damage he’d taken from revenge beatings and rough treatment.

He gasped and writhed as the spells were drained from his mind, even as positive energy buoyed his body and returned him to fine physical condition. All the swelling went down, his nose forcibly reset, and a couple of cracked teeth sealed up, along with numerous aches and pains. Caught between the opposing sensations, he didn’t know quite what to do for a moment.

But he settled down swiftly enough, experienced at maintaining his composure as he was. The gaze he set on me was now far more wary and respectful than it had been a moment ago.

“What manner of magic is that?” he gasped out, unable to clutch at his head, pain without exchanged for a yawning, ragged emptiness within. He wasn’t truly harmed, no real damage, but the sensation of having that much magic yanked out of you was not pleasant.

“It is an archmagic called , of human invention. Quite clever, yes?” I said in uncaring, neutral tones. It provided him with two pieces of information: that I was an archmage and able to Cast IX’s, and that I had no problem using spells of human origin, either. “Given your Warrior’s Road, that should have wiped out all of your memorized spells, so I don’t need to worry about you unexpectedly pulling some magic out of your pocket.” I flicked my fingers, and his cold iron cuffs fell off, clattering to the floor. He couldn’t use magic, and the last thing I was scared about were his combat capabilities. “Perhaps you would like to lunge at me, believe you can wrestle me down, or take my Staff from me as an impromptu weapon, use the threat to my life to demand your freedom?” The singsong way I said it, and the way my eyes sparkled dangerously, had the opposite effect of goading him. He almost shrank into himself, sensing what might happen to him if he tried anything.

He put up his hands after massaging his wrists for a moment. “There will be no violence against you from me,” he promised carefully, and I simply inclined my head in acknowledgment. “Given my resentment, how are you proposing to make use of me?” he asked warily. “ to compel me to service? Another ?” he asked resignedly.

“Nothing so crude. The Council is debating once again extending their offer of immigration to Shaden families, but this time the common folk are actually going to hear of their offer, rather than King Ershultaen silencing all knowledge of it. In addition to gutting support for his actions against Sidheduiche, it means that there will be Shaden who need to be educated in what to expect of the surface world and trained appropriately in manners, customs, and general knowledge of the elves and other races here.

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“I believe now that you have discharged your duty to the king and are awaiting your punishment for your perfidy, you might think of bypassing kings and royalty entirely and actually serve the Shaden directly in what is their best interests, and not the ambitions of an old elf desperate to rule a surface realm by any means necessary.

“What would you say of being mentor to some very average common Shaden who just want to walk under the moon and stars our ancestors left behind four thousand years ago, and who want nothing to do with the ambition of kings, merely a freer future for their children?” I waved my hand around. “You know, better than any Sidhe, that life here is far freer and easier than it is in the depths. You also know that Gaebrel has no power here.

“You were an exceptionally loyal soldier, an extremely good spy, and despite all that, you were also a good friend to King Lymeril, saving his life on many occasions, if the stories I’ve heard of you were true. You did good things for a people you know in your heart are worthy of trust and respect, regardless of the tales the king’s minions blather.

“Are you ready to become your own man, and a mentor now, instead of a hidden traitor and false friend waiting to be revealed?”

He gave me a peculiar look. “Are you not afraid I would flee?”

“Where? Home? Could you even bear to look up at the floor of the Sternvult and the tiny lights that are such crass imitations of the stars? To endure the long years without feeling the sun on your face and the wind in your lungs?” My skepticism was cutting, and his eyes flickered away as he frowned.

No, he couldn’t just leave the surface behind. He had lived too long here, and the deeps were not a home elves were made for.

“While there are the fearful who would stay in the deeps, for it is all they know and they can survive there, we all have the longing for the green of the land and the blues of an open sky echoing in our soul.

“Oh, you could wander, but why? Our people would come to you. They would need a guide and a mentor, and you are most aptly suited for it.

“Your whole adult life has been spent living a lie, in service to one king, and in false service to another. You have the chance here to serve no one but your people, and finally gain respect for being yourself, and no other.

“It’s not even redemption. It’s just .”

He stared at me with heavy violet eyes, looking for the signs of treachery. I looked back with eyes liquid ruby in black, which I’d been informed were pretty unnerving to stare at, let alone try to read, and that was if you were an equal to me.

While quite skilled and a true elite among elves, Elder Helamong here was far and away from being my peer in power, and being my superior in age didn’t impress me, either. I had to kill things older than I was all the time. Distressing amounts of the chutzpah of youth, that was me.

At last he sighed and closed his eyes. “I will be able to teach them what I think is necessary?” he finally asked.

“You’ll definitely be working with Sidhe who want to make sure you aren’t teaching them things to hate and fear, just to enjoy life, survive, and prosper. I think you’ve met enough of those silly types to know how distressingly good-willed some of them can be.”

The white-bearded former general even managed a rough smile at that. “Indeed. So blindingly oblivious to the hard truths of reality, including subterfuge by those thought worthy of trusting.”

The twist in his expression told me more than his words. “I see you understand perfectly.”

“And you believe you can get the Sidhe to go along with this? After what I did?” he asked, his skepticism clear.

“You have no Sidhe blood on your hands.” He blinked at me in shock. “Some of the other Shaden do. Sometimes a rather disturbing amount of it. But although you gave your king information of crippling importance, you have never killed a single one of them, nor given the order to kill one of them.

“And on the other hand, you have acted in defense of other elves in a heroic manner many times. You would not have acted in such a manner if you did not believe our surface cousins worth defending, Elder. There is following along with the king, and there is proactive heroing when it was needed and did not interfere with your duties.

“I would not call you a Good soul. But you are not an evil one, and I think you finally have the opportunity to show all elves that you can be better than King Ershultaen allowed you to be.”

He was silent a long time. I waited patiently for him to consider things, clearly at something of a loss at being treated so mercifully.

But while he was a traitor in many ways, he was not . He had done his duty as a spy, true loyalty to one, learned and earned loyalty to another, trying to mitigate what he had to do.

Being found out was a relief that had freed him from the conflict of what he had to accomplish.

“If King Lymeril will allow this, I will do this. He… will not be disappointed in how I go about it,” he finally managed to say in a low voice.

What do you say when you betray a king who never lied to his people, and was extending them a trust and faith their own king never gave them?

There was a reason I was not ever a servant of King Ershultaen and his family, just like I did not serve Gaebrel and the priesthood. While my tribe of elves were generally very good and decent folk, they were being fooled by the arrogant and the powerful who were using them for their own benefits, without a care for their well-being.

Well, it was one more thing on the agendas I had to pursue. Kings and Immortals acting like they owned their people was just so very, very EXPECTED in this world, why wouldn’t they do it?…

Well, time to head back to the school and get graduation proceedings going…