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same family of chickadees had been wintering there for years, and were so tame that they would
land mere inches from the bathers in the tub to eat and drink from their dishes. Arrowsmith still
had to cope with other people climbing into his bath, but hot water and singing birds were a
pleasant change from cold water in a damp shack, which is what he had at the Troll. He kept
expecting to see unicorns in there, and it was his favorite place to end the day.
"Misty? he said. He was lounging in the deeper end of the pool, his head tipped back, his long
brown hair trailing in the softly steaming water. A glass of white wine tilted dangerously in his
left hand. He had to wait a moment to get a response.
"What?" The blond was in the same pose at a slightly more shallow point of the pool.
"You're half-Elf, right?"
"Yes."
"How do you know you're half-Elf?"
"My father told me. He was an Elf."
"How do you know he was telling you the truth?"
" Cause all the other Elves said he was."
"But how do you know they were Elves?"
" Cause they were around eight feet tall, had long gold hair, midnight-blue eyes, and they ran
around in the forest and said they were Elves."
Nothing moved in the pond for a long moment, then Arrowsmith raised his head. "Eight feet
tall?"
"Yes."
"I thought Elves were little tiny things, like six inches."
A Strange Place in Time - 83
"Those are fairies, unless it doesn't have wings. Then it is a gnome. Unless it is green, in which
case it is a sprite. Unless it is green, not moving, and very, very smelly, in which case it is a dead
sprite."
"I'm sure the National Geographic Society would be very interested in your notes on differing
races."
"Let them catch their own fairies."
A chickadee chirped a single soft and sleepy note. The snow had stopped, and outside the tall
windows a silver-blue moon glowed gently over a white and silent world. There was a quiet
splash as Misty moved his hand towards his wine. A pair of luminous green eyes appeared
outside the window, then two more pair appeared to look in at the people in the tub. It was a
small group of wolves, most likely Infamous' little pack. Khanin was getting quite round, and
had declared the space under one of Infamous' covered tables as her own. Khanin was a friendly,
inquisitive animal, but Arrowsmith didn't think he would like to have a half-wild wolf and her
babies in his bedroom.
The pack moved on, Sebastian and Khanin side by side, Simon trailing behind. The bathing room
door opened, and Wess stepped into the warm steaming chamber. He hung his towel on a low
wooden rack near the pool, and began removing his clothes, revealing a large and intricate tattoo
on his back of a dragon entwined with a briar of thorny roses. He stepped into the pool, and
accepted the glass of white wine Misty passed him.
"So what is tonight's tub topic?" said Wess.
"Fairies," said Arrowsmith.
Wess chuckled quietly. "Still doubting your surroundings, John Arrowsmith?"
"I don't know," said Arrowsmith. "Where I grew up, the only reality was what I saw in my
backyard. Me, my family, and whatever was there. Now I come here, and everyone is trying to
show me a place where there is magic and intelligent non-human races and gods I've never even
heard of, and frankly, as much as I want to believe in all of it, it's hard."
Wess nodded. "I see. Well. I suppose it's not hard to see why you should have a difficult time
adjusting to all of this. It was a bit of an adjustment for our ancestors, too. It is hard to learn to
rely on magic when one has grown accustomed to machines."
Arrowsmith sat up and looked over at Wess. "Machines? You know about machines?"
The refined older man sipped his wine, running one hand over his slightly greying brown hair.
"Most Dargothians do, though they have not seen them in almost a full one thousand years. It
was the great mage Hercandoloff who banished them from the world, and brought back the
natural magic. Your metal friend Harley is an ancient artifact to us."
A Strange Place in Time - 84
"But the people in town didn't know what he was."
"No, I don't suppose they did. If I were to go to the ruins of the holy city of Palaklais and bring
back something from the forges of the Wizard-King, chances are they would not know what that
was either, but it does not make it less ancient. Our land is scattered with the decomposing
remains of machines. You see, our land has survived through several ages. First was the Age of
the Crystal Mages, and without them, we would not be having this conversation. They existed
ten thousand years ago. There were nine of them, and they brought to Dargoth the knowledge of
magic. For five thousand years the descendants of these mages ruled the kingdom from the
Crystal Keep, which used to be at the center of the capital city of our land, but now is lost. But
then the alchemists came; with alchemy comes science and with science comes digging into
matters best left alone. By this time, the Crystal Mages had been destroyed..."
"How?" asked Arrowsmith. Wess had a way of telling stories as thought he was talking to
himself, slowly and quietly. It had an almost hypnotic effect on any one listening. Arrowsmith
could listen to Wess tell stories for hours.
Wess smiled. "Hush, child, one tale at a time. The Mages were destroyed, as was Crystal Keep.
The First Age of Dargoth was gone, and now came the Age of Science. Now, science is not a bad
thing, nothing is evil unto itself, it is what people do with it. And of course it all started out
harmlessly. Extracting the beneficial elements from herbs to make medicine, large kites for aerial
surveillance of land, silly stuff, much of that we still use. But things began to progress faster and
faster. Motorcycles, the great metal war dragons, horseless carts& "
"You mean cars."
"Cars, yes, artificial intelligence, colonies on other worlds, global links through mechanical
minds, all sorts of garbage. And, of course, most people can find any excuse to justify anything.
Even when we slashed down an entire forest that once stretched from the Palaklais Mountains to
the North Sea to the edge of Palace Realm for who-recalls-what, we justified it. And in all the
dirt and stench and confinement, we began to go mad and self-destruct. But like any madman, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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