I have no idea of how long it took me to regain consciousness. It might have been only a few minutes or it could have been days. In any case, it took me a while to get used to being split up inside of two different elves, not to speak of getting used to looking at the world through them. I guess it was a bit like recovering from the shock of a major head injury where you become aware of more and more things gradually. I had fleeting moments when I was aware of a pair of hands tapping on a drum or of another pair of hands playing a string instrument. I had other moments when I was aware of looking at a computer screen while a pair of hands typed on the keyboard. At other times, I was aware of a bow and arrow being used to shoot arrows at people or of a baseball being thrown. I gradually remembered that the two people doing these things were Palerden and Dalerona. More gradually still, I remembered that I was not either of these two people. Palerden and Dalerona were elves and I was not an elf at all. I was a human being and my name was Gwion Williams. When I Remembered that I was Gwion, I realized how helpless I was and I felt a fear that Gwion might never return to his real life.
I think that it was all the singing and dancing that did the most to wake me up. It became evident to me that the elves didn't just strike up a band for special occasions, such as when humans came their way. They played music almost all the time. Palerden played drums and he was quite good at it. Once I was awake enough to really listen to Palerden's drumming I started to admire the complicated rhythms Palerden came up with. Even more interesting was how the other drummers played different rhythmic patterns with little reference to each other. Sometimes I thought Palerden was joining in a contest to see which drummer could drown out all the others. Dalerona played a string instrument that was kind of like a violin, only the bow had a big arch to it. She, too, seemed to play her own thing without trying to be in synch with anybody else. Even so, after I'd had more experience listening to the music--I didn't have any choice about that--it seemed that all of it came together more than you might think, in a wacky sort of way. From time to time, I would hear the sound of a flute getting pretty deep inside my head, the way it did when I was first captured. When I heard it, I tried looking for the elves who were playing the flutes, but neither Palerden nor Dalerona seemed willing to look in their direction.
Like the music, the eating was also continuous. It seemed that cakes and other sweet foods were constantly making the rounds. It was a wonder that the elves were all slender and none of them were fat. The calories they were taking in should have made them all weigh three hundred pounds. That made me wonder if the food was computer programmed like the forest, in which case there might not be any calories at all. When Palerden drank some of the bubbling drink that the elves call Cliskiel, I found out that it was just as heady for the elves as it was for me when I was first served it. Although the music and the eating hardly ever stopped, each elf would spend some time with other activities I had observed before my soul was taken. Dalerona read books that looked like they were made out of wood shavings and Palerden worked at a computer from time to time when he wasn't drumming or serving food or eating it.
Since the elves spoke to each other in Elvish, I couldn't understand a word that was said, and since Palerden and Dalerona thought in Elvish just as I think in English, I couldn't understand their thoughts either. In fact, my growing awareness inside of the two elves made me realize that I was being excluded from everything that they were doing or thinking. It made me wonder if they had any idea of what I was thinking about or how I felt about anything. It seemed unlikely that they cared.
One of the strange things I noticed was that Palerden and Dalerona were together almost all of the time, but they did not seem to care much for each other. They didn't hate each other, either; they just didn't have much of a relationship. My guess was that they stayed close to each other because they had divided my soul between them. One of the very few thoughts that these elves allowed to seep through to me was the fact that they were a brother and sister to each other and their father was none other than the king of the Meladimen. I didn't see any signs of affection between the king and his children, though. For that matter, I didn't see any elf give the slightest indication of caring about any other elf. Their personal relationships were zilch.
The two elves who seemed to have split of Kerry Blake's soul were the only exception to the elves' indifference to each other. These two acted like they really cared about each other and they tried to make real friends of other elves. All of the elves avoided them, however, and I guess that's the reason they did. Every time I saw them approach an elf and try to make conversation over an elvish torte and Cliskiel, that elf turned away from them. The first time I saw them come up to Palerden while he was drumming away, I had a bit of hope that I might get to communicate with Kerry through Palerden, but nothing doing. He ignored them completely and eventually they walked away. I had no better luck when they approached Dalerona. She only answered them in monosyllables until they gave up on her as well. I tried awfully hard to encourage Palerden and Dalerona to be civil to these other two elves, but whatever door there was inside their heads between me and them was slammed shut. It was enough to make me wonder why they had bothered to steal my soul if they didn't want to have anything to do with it. Maybe they were afraid they would become as unpopular as the elves possessed by Kerry.
It was at a time when Palerden was working at his computer that he finally bothered to take notice of my presence inside of him. That was understandable because he was studying English. I recognized the program he was working with because I struggled with it myself when I was in first or second grade. The heading was:"WAYS TO USE LETTERS TO GET THE EEE SOUND." Underneath that heading I saw the letters EA and a list of words such as "beat," "feat," and "meat." Beneath the letters EE, I read the words "beet," "feet," and "meet." The next section was called "E-I after C, followed by the examples "conceit" and "deceit."
"What is this E-I after C about?" Palerden asked me inside his head.
"The rule is: I before E except after C," I told him. "These are words with the letter C in them. The E-I combination gives you the "EEE" sound in the words 'conceit' and deceit.'"
"What do those words mean?"
"'Conceit' means thinking too well of yourself. 'Deceit' means telling lies or trying to mislead people in other ways."
The last section was called "the silent E" and it gave the words "complete" "delete" as examples.
"What do they mean by 'the silent E?'" Palerden asked me.
"It means you don't pronounce the final E, but it makes the vowel in front of it long. A long E is pronounced EEE."
I don't think Palerden would have understood me if I was just talking to him, but he grasped the idea quickly enough when read my own thoughts about the silent E. This gave me my first wedge into Palerden. He was not the sort of elf to pass by the chance to use a crib inside his head that he had with me. My wedge got deeper the next time Palerden's English teacher checked up on his work and complimented the elf on his sudden improvement in his studies. I wondered if he might give me some credit for that, but he didn't. He just took in the praise as if he had it coming to him. If I didn't need to stay in his good graces for the purposes of our plan, I would have deserted him at a most inopportune time. The only trouble with this wedge was that these elementary exercises in English were boring. I had to really push myself to stay mentally alert when Palerden slogged through one sentence after another such as: "The girl went to the drugstore and bought a bottle of medicine," But suddenly my own interest was aroused by the next sentence: "The boy from a foreign country has found a new home in a book store." There was no question about it. It was a message from Marakel to me. It was part of our plan that Marakel, Perlinda and Ralindera were going to try and find the designated elf if my soul was stolen. Now I knew they had found him! Even more important, the fact of my receiving this message told me that Marakel and his cohort had found a way into the files the elves were using without their knowing it. After that, I kept a sharp lookout for further messages. Sure enough, during one of his exercises, Palerden came across the sentence: "The children who were kicked out of their gangs have formed a gang of their own." That the designated elves were all banding together was encouraging news for me. Palerden asked me what the phrase "kicked out" meant and I told him it meant that the children were forced to leave the gang, with the word "kick" being used figuratively in this case. The next time the English teacher came along, she commended Palerden for being the first student to figure out the meaning of the phrase.
When Dalerona noticed how much assistance Palerden was getting from me in his English studies, she was not willing to take a chance on letting him get ahead of her. She didn't need to worry. She was well beyond the simple exercises Palerden was working on and she was reading a lot of stuff that was pretty challenging for me. Interestingly enough, one of the subjects she liked to read about was the human soul. I wondered how I might get her to ask Marakel for suggested reading without knowing who she was asking. As it turned out, Marakel was apparently following her reading course because the files I knew Marakel had studied came up in her lists. I wished I had at least thought about what having a soul meant because then I might have been able to help Dalerona more. The best I could do was make some vague suggestions like a soul helps you do well in life. The phrase "do well in life" didn't make sense to Dalerona and I couldn't make much sense out of it either. At least I got her to start asking questions to the point that she had a rare conversation with her brother Palerden.
"Do you feel that anything has happened after receiving your portion of the human soul?" Dalerona asked her brother.
"No," Palerden answered. "Should I?"
Palerden looked annoyed by the question. He had his drum between his knees and he played continuously during the conversation. By this time, I had insinuated myself into their minds enough that I could understand basically what they were saying. As usual, there was so much loud talking and even louder music going on all round us that I wondered how these two elves could hear each other.
"I just thought something would be different," said Dalerona.
"Who wants to be different?" asked Palerden.
"I'm curious about what it feels like to be a human," said Dalerona.
"Who wants to learn human ways?" asked Palerden.
"It will help us gain more souls," Dalerona replied.
"I've got mine," said Palerden. "Why should I care if we get any more?"
"It is good for other Lorakhienoi to have human souls, too," she answered.
"If the roll of computer chips made somebody else a king's son," said Palerden, "that somebody wouldn't want to study human ways just to get a soul for me, too."
"How do you know?" Dalerona asked.
"Because everybody is just like me."
"What I have studied in human books makes me think humans are not the same," said Dalerona "Their souls make them different. I thought this human soul would help me feel different."
"If you become different," said Palerden, "you'll be just like Merlandera and Flenderal. You don't want that, do you?"
"No, I do not want that," Dalerona agreed. "They are too different. That is why I ask you about how you feel with Gwion's soul inside you and I do not ask them."
"The human soul will get us the human's place in Heaven," Palerden reminded Dalerona. "Merlandera and Flenderal show that it is dangerous to use the human soul for anything else."
"I see the danger."
End of conversation. Never had I wanted so badly to throw a lot of things around a room. But I had no hands and no things to throw. I didn't even have any blood to boil. I was trapped inside of two hopelessly self-centered elves. I was ready to write off the rest of my life as one doomed to witness the pig-headed thoughts and actions of two elves while not being able to do anything about it. On top of that, when Palerden died, he was going to use my soul like some kind of ticket to get into heaven where he will be rewarded for his nasty life by being allowed to whoop it up in the clouds while I remained locked up inside his bone-headed brainless mind. That thought got me feeling really sorry for Gwen. By letting a friend rope her into going to church, she'd gotten to thinking that God was going to let her into Heaven when she died. But she, too, was nothing but a ticket to get a couple of elves into Heaven instead of her. Why would anyone want to pray to a god who ran that kind of show? If only church people knew what I knew and, sadly, what Gwen now knew, they'd give up the whole shooting match.
It was kind of frustrating to have these thoughts and not have muscles I could tighten up and some adrenalin to really get me steamed up. It wasn't nice of God to make elves without souls and then give free souls to humans who weren't much better. And it wasn't nice of God to let elves steal the souls of the few good human beings around like Kerry, Gwen and Margot just so to get them into Heaven. Before coming on this mission, we'd learned that all this started when some awful preacher gave a sermon that said that elves don't have souls. Mr. Kirkpatrick told me that the Bible doesn't say that elves have no souls. The Bible doesn't say anything about elves. That preacher made it up just because he didn't like elves. Chip said that when some people don't like people that are different, they say they don't have souls so they can feel free to treat those people like dirt. Chip also said that for some people, Heaven won't be Heaven if the people they don't like get in, too. That's when the parting words of Marakel came back to me. "May the God who gave souls to all of us guide you." Marakel said that with conviction than I've got. Guiding me into the thick skull of Palerden didn't look like very good guidance to me. It seemed funny, even at the time, that I thought I knew enough about God to criticize him when I hadn't even thought about God all my life until the last day or two. I could only hope that, if Marakel believed in God's guidance, then God would guide him into finding a way to help me and Kerry and Gwen and Margot.
The conversation between Dalerona and Palerden was another turning point. After that, I was able to understand much of the conversation circulating around the room as the elves partied and worked. Much of the conversation was small talk that was even smaller than the small talk we humans make. But one of the more common topics of conversation was about the downloadable computer game and how it wasn't working very effectively. The elves were spending much time and effort into diagnosing and correcting the problem responsible for their failure but, so far, no solution had been found. There was also much talk about the two computer images that should have accompanied me into the elves' forest and why they couldn't find them. Search parties were being sent out frequently to find the images but, so far, with no success. I knew the answer to both questions but I wasn't going to tell them, although I suspected that Palerden and Dalerona could read the answers out of my mind if ever they bothered to do it. The elves were also complaining about other computer glitches that seemed to have no explanation at all. Actually, there was an obvious explanation for the glitches. The Panlorimen were behind these problems and the problems will cease once the Panlorimen are vanquished once and for all. My guess was that the white cloud from the empty computer file was breaking connections in the forest but, once again, I wasn't interested in giving the elves any information about it.
Each time that the elves' buzzing about exterminating their enemies reached a certain level, they all entered their baseball program to practice the game. At first, I thought that the elves had caught on to the game since the wacky match I saw right after Kerry's capture. Palerden was a pitcher and he was throwing the ball pretty much the way you're supposed to pitch. This turned out to be a second instance when Palerden wanted my help. I was able and willing to give it. I instructed Palerden on how to go into a windup and then cut loose with an overhand throw. He caught on pretty quickly and after ten pitches or so, was throwing really well. Then a batter stepped up in front of Palerden and waved the bat. I coached Palerden again on how to whistle a fast ball right by the batter. The batter missed the ball and fell down in the bargain. To my surprise, nobody laughed, nobody even smiled. The coach came over to Palerden and told him nicely that he had thrown a good hard pitch but that he needed better control with it. Palerden nodded and said he would do better. In his head, he was blaming me for giving him a bum steer. I was astounded! Palerden had shown perfect control by throwing the ball right over the outside corner. But when the batter went into his stance, I began to realize that Palerden had a different objective than what I expected. This time, to my horror, Palerden threw the ball straight at the batter. The batter seemed more ready for that than I expected and he hit a line drive right off Palerden's jaw. I heard and felt a crack and feared it was broken A couple of pipers and a harpist, on hand for this purpose, played a healing song that made the jaw feel okay within a very short time. What upset me the most about that was the fact that the batter was clearly aiming at the pitcher. Palerden, though, seemed to accept the assault as part of the game.
I gave Palerden some advice on throwing a curve, though I wished Margot were around to tutor him on that. Being allowed some warm up tosses to get back in shape after his injury, Palerden had the opportunity to practice. I had to admire him. He was a natural. I'd like to get him on our school team. The next elf to come up to bat was Flenderal. He gave me a Slurpy Gurvey type of wink to let me know what they thought of this elvish version of baseball. Palerden scowled at them but I'm sure Flenderal knew I felt differently about his wink. Unfortunately, it was clear that Palerden was, again, going to aim at the batter and brace himself for another batted ball hit straight at him. When Palerden pitched his curve, I wished I hadn't taught him how to throw it. The ball dipped at the last minute the way it was supposed to and it hit Flenderal on the hip. The healing song took care of him on the spot, but I could see that Flenderal was in a lot of pain until the song had its effect. Merlandera gave Palerden a sharp look of disapproval but Palerden, of course, felt good about having hit the batter as he was supposed to. If this practice was for another battle with the Panlorimen, it was going to be a killer.
As time went on, the baseball practices became more frequent and they got longer. When the elves weren't practicing baseball, they ate and drank faster, they played their instruments more frantically, and they fixed computer glitches and cursed the Panlorimen with mounting ferocity. There was no end to it, not even for sleep. The elves never slept. I don't know how they did without it, but Dalerona and Palerden never seemed to feel tired. Marakel's staying up all night to work on Mr. Kirkpatrick's computer was not a one-shot deal to meet an emergency. He was being a typical elf. As for me, I didn't have a body of mine to feel tired, but I still got pretty weary from awake all the time. I remembered my science teacher telling us that our need for sleep and for dreams is more psychological than it is physical. Living inside of two elves helped me understand what he meant. Every now and then I would try to turn my mind off and ignore what was going on, but the noise and the intense activity made that hard to do for very long at a time. Besides, I didn't want to miss anything I might need to know about later or miss any chances to affect Palerden or Dalerona.
These chances were getting down to zilch. Not only were Palerden and Dalerona at baseball practice a lot, but they were preoccupied with the game to the exclusion of every other kind of thought. Worse, the elves who were not practicing baseball were all showing up to play fight songs and practice their bloodthirsty cheers. The chanting, the singing, the dancing, the bashing practices pretty well hemmed me in like a strait jacket. It got to the point where I could hardly think a thought independently of the baseball battle, let alone get through to Palerden or Dalerona. I hadn't experienced anything quite like it, but joining in the cheers from the bleachers at high school football games was close to it. Maybe football cheers are okay but the elves' style of cheering reminded me of a movie we saw in history class about the Nazis. At the time, I couldn't understand how people could get so swallowed up in the crowd but, after seeing the elves, I knew all too well.
Palerden and Dalerona both wanted more coaching from me. Now that I knew what this version of elvish baseball was about, I didn't want any part of it, but I had to do it anyway to maintain my connection with them in the hope that I might eventually influence them in a better direction. Dalerona was a batter and she wanted me to help her hit the pitcher in the head with a batted ball. I couldn't do much to help her because the main thing she needed was bat control and I wasn't so good at that. I just swung hard and hoped the ball didn't go straight at a fielder. Kerry was much better at bat control, but he didn't seem to need to coach Flenderal or Merlandera to keep lines of communication open with them and I was sure he wasn't willing to do it. Maybe Kerry wouldn't have done it even if it meant getting cut off from the elves he was trapped in. At least there was a chance I wouldn't have a broken head on my conscience because of Dalerona. With Palerden, though, it was pretty likely that it was going to be all my fault that an elf's brains got beaned. During practice, the pipers were close by, but in the game, the attempt to kill would be real. Even so, Palerden drilled one elf in the head so hard that it knocked him down and I was afraid he'd been killed already before anything could be done. I held my breath but Palerden didn't hold his. Fortunately, the young elf had enough life in him that he slowly sat up under the influence of the music and finally got back on his feet, ready to settle the score with Palerden at the next opportunity. These practices did not have me looking forward to the game--I mean the battle--coming up.
After a record number of computer glitches had been worked on without success followed by a baseball practice that was more violent than ever, the chanting, singing and dancing flowed into a march of all the elves into wide pathways opened up by computer commands so that the elves could march ten or twelve abreast. With Dalerona and at least a couple dozen elves carrying baseball bats, it all felt pretty sinister to me. I figured it was how a street gang feels when it's going out to rub out another gang or to attack a pedestrian for his wallet. Palerden was among the elves who were carrying baseballs and imagining the elves who were about to be felled by a fastball or a slick curve ball.
The Meladimen reached a large clearing at just the same time that the Panlorimen reached it from the opposite side. They, too, had their baseball bats poised for knocking the ball into the heads of their enemies and their baseballs ready for breaking somebody's skull. This was the time that I faced the realization that it was the intention of all the elves present that somebody be killed and it didn't matter who it was. Palerden or Dalerona could very possibly be the elf who was killed. With my soul kind of divided between the two, I wondered how I would survive if only one of them was alive. Would the survivor get the rest of my soul? Or, would half of my soul get the dead elf into heaven while leaving me only half a soul imprisoned inside of the other? And what if Merlandera or Flenderal should be killed? That wouldn't hurt my soul but it sure could hurt Kerry's. It was pretty clear that neither of those two elves were going to hurt any of their enemies but that only meant they'd be easier to kill. I wished there was something I could do to protect Kerry but there wasn't. I was at least as helpless as he was. There was no way that Palerden or Dalerona were going to risk their necks to help the two elves who were running dead last in the elvish popularity contest.
The music and the shouting reached deafening proportions and then we charged and they charged. Everything became a blur. Palerden fired the ball at the heads of batters and batters batted the ball at his head. Dalerona batted pitches at the pitchers' heads and pitchers aimed for hers. Palerden took a sharp blow to the shoulder and a batter hit in the stomach by his pitch doubled over with pain. Healing melodies and war melodies were being played all over the field. I only got a couple of quick glances at Flenderal and Merlandera since they were the last elves Palerden or Dalerona were interested in keeping track of. What the glances told me was that Kerry had taught those two elves bat control and they were using it to hit the ball between the enemy elves so as not to harm them. Meanwhile, Palerden hit an elf right on the kisser and knocked her down. I thought Palerden had done her in, but a couple of pipers and a drummer were right on the spot and to revive her. Obviously, the real contest was to hurt more elves than the healers could deal with in time to save them. Palerden got turned around by a hit to the jaw. He picked up the ball, ready to fire when a fierce chill gripped him and the ground opened right in front of him.
The music became indistinguishable from the fearful screams as Palerden raced after his fellow Meladimen to keep from being swallowed up in the crevice. The gripping chill slowed Palerden's steeps, but sheer terror kept him going. He looked behind him and saw, to his satisfaction, that the Panlorimen were beating a similar retreat. I knew before Palerden and Dalerona saw it that they were being attacked by a white cloud that hung over the field like a gigantic iceberg. Palerden and Dalerona were freezing to the point of losing all ability to move as were the elves around them. It seemed to be a matter of time--and not very much of that--before we would all engulfed in the runaway computer file that was as endlessly empty as a black hole.