Chapter the 13th
The destroying cloud was frightening enough when it had a dark shadow inside of it, but with shadow inside of it, it was all the more frightening. Since the cloud was the empty file of Kerry’s photo of me, I felt responsible for doing something about it, but was pretty helpless to do anything. I guessed that it might help if I approached the cloud like I did before but, I could do nothing of the kind on my own. I could urge Palerden and Dalerona to go up to the white cloud and stand up to it but I couldn’t make them do it. And they didn’t even listen to my urging them. Their minds were too numb with fear to listen to me. If Palerden and Dalerona weren’t going to do anything, then I couldn’t do anything and neither the elves nor me were going to live to see another hour.
Actually, I couldn’t think terribly well in this frozen state myself. It seemed that all I could think about was how badly I wanted the cloud to destroy the whole forest and all the elves within it. But I didn’t want the cloud to destroy me and I didn’t want it to destroy Flenderal and Merlandera. Obviously I couldn’t have it both ways. If I could and would save the elves from the cloud, then I could save myself. If I couldn’t or wouldn’t save the elves, I was lost, too. But I had no choice. Being willing to save the elves and myself didn’t exactly make it possible for me to do anything with my brain in the deep freeze like it was.
For quite some time, all was still. No sound, nothing moving, no thinking. Then the stillness was rippled by the sound of a flute. A few other instruments joined in. Then the stillness got rippled a bit more by the movement of some eight or nine elves slipping in and out of the trees and circling the white cloud. Among these elves, I recognized the boy who was bombed from the airplane. Thanks to the message slipped into Palerden’s English lessons, I guess that this was the newly formed gang of designated elves. The music they played raised my hopes for a while, but not for long. The cloud did not go away; it only got bigger and vaporized another tree or two. The music these elves were playing got slower and softer and finally it faded away altogether and all was still once again. The rescuing elves were just as frozen as the elves they came to rescue.
Like I said, I couldn’t think much, but there wasn’t anything else to do except try to think. The trouble with trying to think was that I kept thinking over and over again that this frozen pickle we were in was my fault because it was my empty soul that caused it. Never mind that my soul wasn’t in that cloud any more and I couldn’t do anything about it. But the other thing I kept thinking was that I was the only one who could do anything about it. These two thoughts were driving me crazy and I was getting scared that I might be hassled by them forever and ever. But finally I got to thinking about why the computer file of my photo was empty and that got me thinking about the shadow of myself that got away and should be roaming free somewhere in the forest. Not only that, but Slurpy Gurvey was roaming free about the forest with my shadow. Maybe they could help. But how could I call them?
I couldn’t call my shadow and Slurpy Gurvey, of course, but I could start hoping real hard they’d come, even if that meant they’d be freeing all of the frozen elves and not just me and Flenderal and Merlandera. I didn’t think that hoping was going to do any good, but I’d done all the thinking I could do and so hoping was the only thing left, so I did it anyway. I even remembered the message Marakel or another of my friends sent me: One of the uses of a soul is to maintain hope when a person is in dire straits and is tempted to despair. If this wasn’t being in dire straits and tempted to despair, I didn’t know what was.
I don’t know if my hoping did the trick or it was something else that had nothing to do with me, but, after some time, the frozen monotony got relieved when a shadow crossed in front of the frozen cloud and then an even bigger shadow moved in front of it. As the shadows got bigger and darker, I recognized the movements. Sure enough, Slurpy Gurvey and the shadow of my soul walked right up to the cloud just like I wanted to do but couldn’t. Slurpy Gurvey rolled his eyes, slurped with his tongue, scratched his head and grunted like he was trying to figure out what to do about the cloud. I hoped he wasn’t going to ask me for suggestions because I didn’t have any.
Fortunately, Slurpy Gurvey figured out what to do, which is pretty amazing for a computer graphic. He pulled a flute out his pocket and started to play it. I can’t say that Slurpy Gurvey played it very well, but it was something, and it was better than nothing—I hoped. Then my shadow got an idea. He reached into the cloud and rolled up a piece of it into a baseball size snowball. He threw the snowball up in the air and it was gone! That had me feeling a bit better already. When my shadow made a second snowball and threw it right in the middle of a tree trunk, I felt like I was venting my own anger by throwing the snowball so hard. The snow melted right away and the water trickled down to trunk to the ground. That kind of made me feel like my own anger was melting, too.
After my shadow made some more snowballs and threw them away, I started to hear some more decent piping from some of the elves. Slurpy Gurvey put his flute and got busy with helping my shadow make snowballs and throw them about. That was a good thing both for music and for snowballing. It was the designated elves who came to the rescue who got freed up first to play the music and free Slurpy Gurvey for snowballing. Then I heard a Bach-like melody join in. I wanted to turn my head and see who was playing it but Dalerona and Palerden were still too frozen to turn their heads. Even so, I was still pretty sure who was playing it. The music seemed to give my shadow and Slurpy Gurvey more and more energy to make snowballs and throw them away and that got the snowballs flying fast and furiously. The more snowballs that got thrown, the smaller the cloud got. The smaller the cloud got, the more the other elves started to thaw out. After a while, Palerden and Dalerona started to get bits of movement in their limbs and their brains let them do a bit of thinking. I was flattened by the thinking they did. They didn’t seem to be the least bit happy about getting rescued. Believe it or not, the strongest feeling I felt inside these elves was a chilled and chilling hatred of the elves were rescuing them. Palerden and Dalerona could only call them Rakhlakhadimen over and over again. In the their language, the word that means something like “heaps of trash,” to put it politely. The only emotion stronger than hatred for the Rakhlakhadimen I picked up from Palerden and Dalerona was an even chillier hatred of the strange monster and the shadow who were throwing snowballs.
By the time the destroying cloud got dismantled until it wasn’t much more than a puff the size of a loaf of bread, all of the elves were moving about. Though sluggishly at first. Palerden slowly picked up a baseball and Dalerona slowly picked up a bat. Other elves were doing much the same thing. The Rakhlakhadimen continued to play their instruments and Flenderal and Merlandera played with them. Palerden practiced his windup to get the stiffness out of his arm and Dalerona took a few practice cuts. To my utter disbelief and horror, it looked like the elves were going to go right back to their baseball battle as if nothing had happened. Palerden finished his windup and drilled a pitch right into an elf’s shoulder. The elf ran off, clutching his harp for dear life. One of the elves tossed a baseball Dalerona and she hit a hard line drive that just missed another elf who had a flute in her hands. Dalerona threw her bat as hard as she could into the cluster of Rakhlakhadimen and hit Slurpy Gurvey in the belly. Slurpy Gurvey picked up the elf girl in one paw and picked up the wounded elf boy with the other and lumbered off with the Rakhlakhadimen in his arms. There was no question about it: the elves of both tribes had united for the purpose of attacking the Rakhlakhadimen with a hailstorm of baseballs and bats. I was so beside myself that I wanted to flatten the head of every elf with a baseball bat. I even imagined myself aiming at the elf king himself who was urging everybody on when Palerden and Dalerona slowed down their motions once again. I felt a whiff of chill. This was getting to be too much! My shadow leaped on front of me with yet another snowball in his hand and he fired the snowball right into the face of the elf king. That showed him, but it hardly slowed him down. The elf king yelled out a stream of orders, but my shadow and all of the Rakhlakhadimen disappeared before any of the elves could respond.
The escape of the hated Rakhlakhadimen left the elves buzzing like bees on both sides of the divide created by the white destroying cloud. Palerden and Dalerona were pacing about in circles and muttering: “Flenderal and Merlandera.” The other elves within earshot were all muttering the same thing. Soon the muttering became a chant: “Flenderal, Merlandera! Flenderal, Merlandera!” That was frightening enough but when the intention of the chanting became clear to me I was shocked: the elves were designating Flenderal and Merlandera as Rakhlakhadimen! Two reasons for kicking out the two elves swirled in the heads of Palerden and Dalerona: one, the Meladimen’s failure to win the baseball battle and two, the interfering Rakhlakhadimen had all gotten away. It was quite clear that, along with all the other elves, both Dalerona and Palerden took it for granted that, in the event of these two failures two elves must be designated as scraps of trash and, in this instance, it should be Flenderal and Merlandera. From the other side of the chasm, I could hear similar chanting growing getting just as loud. Obviously, two elves of the Panlorimen were about to suffer the same fate. I wanted badly to get a look at the two elves who were about to be cast out but I couldn’t get the smallest glimpse of them. That was no accident. It became clear to me that once the chanting starts, nobody looks at an elf who is being designated as a Rakhlakhadimen. I knew when Flenderal and Merlandera were gone because the chanting of their names petered out and the two elves who held me captive felt a wave of satisfaction that the two elves were gone. The elf king seemed most pleased of all and that was chilling. He seemed to have no qualms whatever about throwing his own royal children out of the tribe. I suppose I should not have been surprised after seeing how indifferent that elf mother was over losing her own son during the bombing raid from the enemy tribe.
Maybe the two tribes were still enemies but, with the elves thrown out, both tribes seemed to be muttering and chanting the same thing: crush the Rakhlakhadimen who had interfered with the baseball battle and prevented anybody from winning it. As this chant bubbled throughout both tribes with growing intensity, the elves paced back and forth along the each edge of the chasm that the destroying cloud made until the two warring tribes faced each other. The elf king stood on a slight protuberance of ground at the edge of the chasm and the elf queen stood straight across from him. At great length, they denounced the Rakhlakhadimen with what had to be a complete list of every insult available in the elvish language. Then they got down to brass tacks as to how they were actually going to do to achieve their goal. The obvious answer was that the two tribes should launch a joint attack on the Rakhlakhadimen. The only problem was finding these elves.
One of the elves tapped on a tree and next thing I knew, computers shot out of the tree trunk in several directions. Palerden made a good catch of his computer and Dalerona’s computer zoomed right into her arms. Palerden and Dalerona sat down on the ground and started typing away madly. Those elves who weren’t working on computers either played music or passed food and drink around. A few other elves got busy with fixing the connections that the destroying cloud had broken. This took a combination of singing and computer programing to make branches and roots move out towards each other and meet. Palerden and Dalerona worked so feverishly while the elf king yelled like a slavedriver that I suspected that, for all of the common cause being made by the warring tribes, there was a contest to see which tribe could locate the Rakhlakhadimen.
Since there was a chance that Palerden and Dalerona might pick my brain, I was glad I didn’t have the slightest idea of where the Rakhlakhadimen might be as I knew that my having any information that could help the elves track them down could be fatal. I rather hoped they were all safely in Chicago. As floods of useless information flowed across the screens of my captors’ computers, I caught one sentence that seemed meant for me. It read: “It is good for the gathering of souls that an empty soul is filling up.”
“Well, that is obvious,” Palerden muttered.
“Why do our computers tell us things we already know?” asked Dalerona.
“Probably because the Rakhlakhadimen are trying to break into our files,” said Palerden.
“I’ve just thought of something,” said Dalerona.
“What?”
“Remember that shadowy thing that joined the Rakhlakhadimen?”
“Just a little, why?”
“I thought that face looked a lot like Gwion Williams.”
It gave me the creeps to hear them talk about my shadow like that and it gave me a lot more creeps to worry about what they might do about it.
“That could not be,” said Palerden. “We have Gwion Williams’ soul.”
“That shadowy thing that looked a little like Gwion Williams came with that funny monster who should not have been loose in the Forest of Windellynn,” said Dalerona.
“You are interrupting my work by telling me useless information,” Palerden complained.
“I am thinking that if we knew the name of the monster, we could do a computer search for it, and finding the monster might lead to finding the Rakhlakhadimen,” said Dalerona.
“But we do not know the name of the monster,” said Palerden.
“It is possible that Gwion Williams knows the name.”
“Uh-oh,” I said to myself. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to find out if I was capable of concealing information when my captors wanted it from me. It looked like I was about to find out.
“Do you know the name of the monster who spoiled our baseball game?” Dalerona asked me.
“Do you know the name of the monster who spoiled the baseball game for us?” Palerden asked me.
“No,” I answered, as simply as that.
But it wasn’t so simple.
“I am thinking that Gwion knows the answer,” said Dalerona.
“I am also thinking the same thing,” Palerden agreed.
It looked like my goose and the geese of all my friends were cooked and I couldn’t stop them from baking us to a crisp.
“I think it would be wise of Gwion to give us the name we are asking him to give us,” said Dalerona.
“That is what I am also thinking,” Palerden echoed.
I was pretty sure they were right but I just couldn’t bring myself around to ratting on my friends, even if it would make things easier for me. As it turned out, it would have. For a few hopeful seconds, it looked like maybe nothing would happen, but then I saw Dalerona type an e-mail to the elf king and send it. The elf king did not reply with an e-mail; he replied by looming way above his royal niece and nephew.
“I hope that what you have to tell me is of sufficient importance as to justify the disruptive interruption of my research that I have suffered because of your e-mail,” said the elf king.
In spite of their confidence, Dalerona and Palerden trembled before the bearded elf king. All I can say is that he made the dean of boys in my middle school look like a sugar daddy.
“Uh—we were thinking that a computer search for the monster who ruined the baseball game might put us on the right trail,” said Dalerona.
“Hmm. That seems possible. Do you know the name?”
“We think that Gwion Williams knows it but he does not wish to tell us.”
“Hmm. We shall see about that.”
And he did. He took one look inside of Palerden and Dalerona penetrated to the soul they had stolen. Then I felt like a clawed hand was pulling out all of my insides. He grabbed hold of the name he was looking for and yanked out of me. Palerden and Dalerona said, it would have been easier for me if I’d told Palerden and Dalerona what they wanted to know right off, but I still felt better about getting ripped apart than I would have if I had just given them the name right away.
“Slurpy Gurvey,” said Dalerona.
“Slurpy Gurvey,” said Palerden.
“Hmm,” said the elf king. “I think we shall try a computersearch for that name.”
My heart sank when the elf king tapped on the trunk of the tree that was hanging over Dalerona. Then my heart rose a bit when the search didn’t seem to lead to any results.
“The name is spelled S-L-U-R-P-Y-space-G-U-R-V-E-Y,” said Dalerona.
The elf king grunted and typed again. My heart sank to the bottom of the ocean. Sure enough, this time the name “Slurpy Gurvey” flashed across the trunk of the tree. The elf king tapped on the link and a holograph larger than three trees exploded in front of us. Huge loads of boisterous cheering and louder riffs of music broke out all over the forest and the elves of both tribes flocked to the holographic image to see it for themselves.
“I don’t see the Rakhlakhadimen,” muttered one of the elves.
“We shall see what the image leads us to,” said the elf king. “Cease all music and cheering so that we may hear what comes from the web page we have called up.”
The computer search had called up an image of Slurpy Gurvey all right and it got the shadow of my soul in the bargain. The two of them were sitting on the floor in the corner of a room, playing a medieval-type fantasy war computer game. I could hear the sound of gentle music that seemed to come from the same room where my soul’s shadow and Slurpy Gurvey were playing.
“That shadow has the face of Gwion Williams,” commented the elf king.
“The face on the shadow looks very much like the face of Gwion Williams,” the elf queen agreed.
“Uh-oh,” I said to myself.
“I thought we had all of Gwion’s soul,” said the elf king.
“The shadow may not have any part of Gwion’s soul,” said the elf king.
I hoped it didn’t if these elves were going to destroy it somehow. I wasn’t feeling any connection with the shadow even though it had my face on it. Each time I saw it, it felt like it was some other person and not a part of myself at all. I sure didn’t get any feeling that it did anything because I wanted it to or that I did anything because it wanted me to.
“I am thinking that you should scroll the screen so that we may see the rest of this place,” suggested the elf queen.
The elf king grunted, twisted something on the trunk of the tree, and a plush room came into view. It was filled with old-looking furniture like what I’ve seen at the Chicago Art Institute and an oriental carpet covered the floor. There were art-like paintings on the walls and chandeliers hung from the ceiling. One elf was playing a colorful keyboard instrument with a tinkly sound that had a picture of a landscape painted on it. Several elves were sitting in plush-looking chairs, playing musical instruments. The elves who were not playing music were working hard on their computers. These elves were mostly wearing clothes that were kind of like the Elvish style, but they were different from what the Meladimen and the Panlorimen wore. A couple of them, though, were dressed in blue jeans and sneakers and another elf wore a Chicago Cubs T-shirt.
“What is this bunch of Rakhlakhadimen doing in the fair Forest of Windellynn?” asked the king in a rage.
“I am sure that these Rakhlakhadimen are working to undermine the many centuries’ worth of culture that the Lorakhienoi have created,” said the elf queen.
“The clothing that they wear communicates a total rejection of Lorakhienoi culture,” grumbled the elf king.
“Ah! Just as I thought!” cried an elf girl among the Rakhlakhadimen who as working at a computer.
Some of the music in that room petered out with just a few elves playing. Slurpy Gurvey and my soul’s shadow continued to play their game, not paying any attention to anything else that was going on.
“What did you think and what is it that you are now thinking?” asked an elf boy.
“I have further proof that souls cannot be stolen,” said the elf girl.
The elves in the holographic image cheered but the elves looking on gasped and muttered dark threats, with Palerden and Dalerona grumbling the most.
“But we have evidence to the contrary right before us!” insisted the elf king. “If the soul of Gwion Williams has not been stolen, how is it that Palerden and Dalerona have his soul captured at this very instant?”
“Then how is it that Palerden and Dalerona have the soul of Gwion Williams captive at this very instant?” asked an elf boy in the room.
“The answer to that question,” said the elf girl at the computer, “is that a soul can be stolen but you still can not own the soul. The information I am receiving from Edward Bulwer Kirkpatrick tells us a soul stolen from Gwion Williams or from Margot Rainer or from Gwen Williams is till owned by Gwion Williams or Margot Rainer or Gwen Williams. When these souls appear at the Gate of Life, it is these three who will be admitted past the Gates and not the Lorakhienoi who stole the souls.”
There was quite an outcry against that statement with Palerden and Dalerona being among the loudest. As for me, it was quite a comfort to learn that these two elves weren’t going to get into heaven at my expense as a reward for robbing me of my soul.
“If we possess Gwion Williams’ soul,” Palerden cried over the tumult, “than it is not possible that Gwion owns it for himself.”
“There is no question that we must steal souls if we are to enter the life after death that the Menarinen have tried to prevent us from entering,” insisted the elf queen.
Several elves grumbled their agreement to that.
“But how are any of us going to have souls if we cannot get them from the Menarinen?” asked an elf girl in the room.
An elf boy picked up a laptop from a table next to him and did some fast and furious typing.
“Ah! Here it is!” he exclaimed. “Edward Bulwer Kirkpatrick sent me an essay by Merlin Kell who says that we were all given souls when we were born but that souls can be damaged or even destroyed. One of the best ways to destroy your own soul is to steal the soul of somebody else, whether the soul of a Menarinen or of a Lorakhienoi.”
The howls of protest among the elves watching and listening were deafening and fists were raised all around me.
“Then the Lorakhienoi will only destroy themselves by stealing the souls of the Menarinen!” exclaimed an elf boy.
At that, all of the Rakhlakhadimen in the room burst out laughing and then started to sing and dance.
“WE MUST REMEDY THIS BREACH OF ALL LAW!” barked the Elf King. “ARROWS! BASEBALLS! BASEBALL BATS! READY! CHARGE!”
Palerden and Dalerona joined all the other elves in charging into the holographic image and into the room itself. Panic flooded the faces of the Rakhlakhadimen.
“Quick!” cried an elf girl. “Run the Slurpy Gurvey Defense Program!”
Palerden, baseball in hand, and Dalerona, baseball bat in hers, pressed in among the other elves so that I hardly knew what was going on. I heard tables and chairs and porcelain lamps crashing to the floor. I heard elvish war cries from all sides and then I heard a monster roar. Slurpy Gurvey to the rescue!
“WHAT ARE YOU SNIFFLING SNIDELY SNAFU-SODDEN SNAKES DOING HERE?” roared Slurpy Gurvey in a voice that could have been heard all the way from Chicago.
He opened his mouth wide enough to show all of his fangs and let out another roar. The attacking elves fell over each other, trying to get away from the monster. Palerden and Dalerona both wound up at the bottom of the pack and they had to squirm about just to get a breath of air. All the while, I could hear the Rakhlakhadimen laughing and singing loudly and long.
“Crummy cretinous crackpot creepy crayons!” Slurpy Gurvey mutter.
“Delirious dilly-dallying dolly dill pickles!” Slurpy Gurvey muttered, overlapping his own voice.
“Fractious fractions of fracas frictions of freckles!” Slurpy Gurvey muttered on top of his other voices.
The weight on top of Palerden and Dalerona got lighter by the second and the furious outcries of elves grew louder with each insult from Slurpy Gurvey.
“Garrulous garish garroting gorillas,” Slurpy Gurvey muttered just as he grabbed Palerden in one paw and Dalerona in the other and flung them both high in the air.