Chapter the 14th
I winced when Palerden and Dalerona landed hard on the ground. They weren’t badly hurt but the bruises they got weren’t going to go away for some time. I heard a thump close by and then another thump and grunts and cries of rage and an earful of Elvish curse words.
“Malicious malefactors of malefic malfeasance,” Slurpy Gurvey muttered.
“Reprehensible reprobate reptiles,” Slurpy Gurvey muttered over his other voice.
Palerden and Dalerona sat up just in time to see several more elves hit the ground from several directions not far from them. Looking back to where they’d been, the two elves saw Slurpy Gurveys everywhere grumbling insults and throwing elves out of the holographic screen. One of the elves had obviously cloned the computer graphic of Slurpy Gurvey and made an army out of the copies!
“Terrible terrorist terminating termites!”
“Vicious vertiginous viscous vixens!”
With that, the last of the invading elves had been ejected and the image of the Rakhlakhadimen’s home blinked out. Palerden and Dalerona jumped to their feet, heedless of their bruises and paced about the forest, muttering curses over their humiliating defeat at the hands of the Slurpy Gurveys. At first, Palerden and Dalerona each chanted a different name and I heard a confusion of other names being chanted by the other elves. I didn’t need a spine to feel the chill of yet another mounting expulsion of one of the elves for this failed attack on the Rakhlakhadimen. It seems that with these elves, every time you don’t win, somebody has to suffer for it. The murmuring hadn’t gone on for very long before I heard an elf chant the names: “Palerden and Dalerona, Palerden and Dalerona.” Another elf picked up the names and then another. “Palerden and Dalerona. Palerden and Dalerona.” The thing that amazed me about this was that Palerden and Dalerona were the only elves left in the tribe of Meladimen who had stolen human souls now that Flenderal and Merlandera were gone. I wondered if maybe the other elves were jealous because Palerden and Dalerona had a captured soul when nobody else did. I started to wonder if I would be better off if Palerden and Dalerona got designated and kicked out of the tribe, but the alarm felt by both these elves made it impossible for me to think for very long.
In their alarm, there was only one thing Dalerona and Palerden, could do before it was too late. Dalerona uttered the name of the first elf she laid eyes on: Panselden. As soon as Palerden heard her say the name, he repeated it: “Panselden, Panselden.” They made sure that the nearest elves heard them chant the name. As they hoped, some of the nearby elves began to chant the name, too: “Panselden, Panselden.” But other elves continued to chant: Palerden and Dalerona, Palerden and Dalerona.” For a tense time, there was quite a battle between the elves who were chanting for the expulsion of Panselden and those who were chanting for the expulsion of Palerden and Dalerona. It was a stalemate for a while, but then gradually the chanting of the name of Panselden became an unbreakable chain across the minds of all the elves, Panselden included. Panselden slipped away, the chanting died out.
I was so upset with it all that I tried to stuff it into the heads of Palerden and Dalerona that it was absurd to throw out Panselden just because the elves got routed by a computer graphic. They weren’t listening. I reminded them of how close they came to being the designated elves. Didn’t that show them how absurd this whole society was? No, all that showed was the importance of making sure that somebody else was the designated elf. What else could one do? That was the rub. What else could I have done in their situation? More to the point, what did I do when I was in the same situation? I knew by this time that ganging up on Kerry Blake with the other guys just for singing at the school assembly was a pretty awful thing to do. But at the time, the conviction that Kerry had acted badly by singing at the school assembly and should be punished kind of gripped all of us like a flood and carried us away. I couldn’t have resisted that flood if I’d wanted to and I didn’t want to. I couldn’t even think of not wanting to at the time. So, I couldn’t blame the elves all that much for getting caught up in the same kind of flood that led to one of the elves being thrown out. If I had really seen Kerry’s face when he saw how everybody had turned against him and stood up for Kerry then, I would have been expelled from all human society except for Margot and Kerry, and they didn’t count as human society. No wonder I couldn’t pound any sense into the heads of Palerden and Dalerona. I didn’t have any sense to pound with.
With Panselden gone and forgotten by everybody but me, the Meladimen moved in the direction of the Panlorimen while the Panlorimen walked towards the Meladimen. Since both tribes seemed to follow all of the same customs and the same laws of combat, I was pretty sure that they, too, had expelled one of their own tribe for failing to win the attack on the Rakhlakhadimen. When the two tribes got to within talking distance, they started to do a lot of talking and it made the list of insults hurled earlier at the Rakhlakhadimen sound pretty mild. Then they discussed the need to pool their resources and destroy the Rakhlakhadimen once and for all. To look at them then, you’d never know they were deadly enemies devoted to destroying each other. Before long, the Lorakhienoi agreed that the Rakhlakhadimen had sabotaged the computer game they had designed to lure children into their realm where they could steal their souls. It followed that a completely new computer game had to be devised to kidnap the children. This computer game should also be designed in such a way that the Rakhlakhadimen would also be wiped out. The elf king and the elf queen gave their battle cries and all the elves retrieved their computers and went to work and played fight songs and cheered their fellows on and passed food and drink to all those who were making music or working on the new computer game.
Not surprisingly, Palerden and Dalerona were among those who went straight to work on the computer game. It was pretty clear that after their close call at being the designated elves, they wanted to be the ones who secured a great victory for their tribe. Before I had a chance to work out any strategy for how I might help the elves with their computer in such a way as to screw the works for them, I found my brain wasn’t just being picked by Palerden and Dalerona, it was being gouged out.
The question was: What sort of computer game will be most effective for the purpose? I was forced to review the computer games I liked best. Most of these are high action games where you have to defend yourself from attack by a bunch of enemies, or games where you organize an attack on your enemies to wipe them off the face of the virtual world. The elves then burned down the list of elements that make these games particularly exciting. One of the scenarios I like best is one where you lead a siege against an evil fortress. I suggested that the gamer be the newly appointed general of the Elf King’s army who must rid the elves’ world of the evil goblins who are threatening the whole elvish kingdom. Most kids like to pretend they’re somebody else when they play computer games and they usually like to be the good guys. Most kids will think that the elves are good guys because a lot of fantasy stories present them that way. A gamer will, of course, want to fight a whole bunch of gruesome creatures who get more gruesome and fiendishly intelligent the closer you get to the fortress.
Every scheme I’d ever encountered and every idea for inventing a game like this that I’d ever thought about was grabbed out of my head and turned about and upside down and squeezed for every last drop of game strategy those elves could get, both for defending the fortress and for attacking it. Every attacking and defending character I’d ever seen was examined for its best qualities and designs and then they were all bent and twisted out of shape to make the gruesome creatures unspeakably hideous and the good guys shining like the sun. Then every weapon I’d ever seen in a game was pulled out of my head and exploded into weapons of mass destruction to end all mass destruction. I’ve got to admit that I got pretty involved with the game design and pretty much forgot what it was really for. Palerden and Dalerona aren’t slouches at game design and with my input, it got to be so exciting that I could hardly wait until I got my copy in the mail and could pop it into my computer. Which is a way of saying I was losing touch with reality. I wasn’t going home where I could play computer games anytime soon.
After we’d designed the creatures in the attacking army and the monsters defending the fortress, Palerden and Dalerona called up a proposed design of the evil fortress that some other elves had worked out. I was dumbfounded. It looked something like a tree fort that kids might put up in their back yard, only bigger and fancier. It didn’t look very evil and it didn’t look that interesting for an action game. I told Palerden and Dalerona that if kids see an excuse for a fortress like that on the screen, their interest will fizzle in two seconds. Who can take a tree fort seriously enough to launch a deadly attack on it? What you need is a fortress that the forces of deepest darkness would want to live in. My imagination went on quite a trip with ideas for a suitable fortress of ultimate and total darkness and Palerden and Dalerona ransacked everything I collected on that wild trip. The result was a fortress with black towers that looked like bat wings, two huge windows filled with fire that looked like the eyes of a balrog and a wide gate with the sharp teeth of a dragon. That was more like it! I exclaimed when I saw this new design materialize on the screen.
The next step was to work out the best marketing strategy. Like the other elves, Palerden and Dalerona were planning on offering this game as a free download, which is what they’d done before. I let them know that the idea was good as far as it went, but it had its problems. You don’t get much on the Web that’s really free, so when kids see an ad for a free downloadable game, they’re suspicious and assume there’s a catch somewhere. The best way around that is to present the game as the first product created by an enterprising new company in gaming software. Send an ad to a few kids and tell them that they are among a select group chosen to receive this advance promotional. Invite them to download the full feature version of the game and play it all they want for free. What’s the catch? They are expected to write a brief evaluation of the game. This feedback will help make the game even better before it hits the market for the general public. Anyone who makes an evaluation—no matter how favorable or unfavorable—will receive a free download of the revised market version. Anyone whose feedback leads directly to a change in the game for the better will receive a gift certificate worth $25 towards any new game produced by this company. Anyone whose testimonial is selected for use in future advertizing will receive a gift certificate worth $50. That should bring in a good harvest of stolen souls right off the bat. Speaking of stealing souls, they could include a warning to prospective gamers that they will be matching wits with the most cunning of dark lords and that if they lose the game, their souls will be devoured by the dark lords and they will trapped inside of the dark lords for all eternity. This way, kids will really want to download the game, and if the elves get sued for stealing kids’ souls, they can argue in court that they gave fair warning.
With all that agreed on, I helped the elves put together a brief demo that should get kids dying to download the game and then worked out copy for the ad:
BE A HERO!
BE A PIONEER!
BE THE FIRST TO STORM THE FORTRESS OF DARKNESS
AND FREE THE ELVES FROM THE SCOURGE OF THE GOBLINS!
RISK YOUR SOUL FOR THE SAKE OF THE ELVES!
ALL THIS FOR FREE!
You are among a select group
that has been invited to preview this new exciting game!
Download the full feature version for FREE!
Have unlimited play for FREE!
What’s the CATCH?
A chance to earn MORE FREE GAMES!
Send an evaluation and receive a full-featured market version FREE!
If any suggestion is used, you will receive a $25 GIFT CERTIFICATE
If your testimony is used, you will receive a $50 GIFT CERTIFICATE
DOWNLOAD NOW FOR FREE!
You can see how far gone I’d gotten over designing this game, like I was off the deepest end there ever was. If I was drunk on designing the game itself, I got even more drunk with the praise Palerden and Dalerona got from the other elves and from the elf king himself.
“Here’s a computer game that can kill two birds with one computer chip!” cried the elf king.
“Yes,” said Palerden proudly. “When a kid downloads the game and begins to play it, we’ll lie in ambush among the trees, the Meladimen on one side and the Panlorimen on the other.
“The child will enter the Windellynn Forest, gasping with delight at the realistic graphics,” Dalerona continued. “Meanwhile, we’ll watch the child launch an assault on the castle. If the child’s army gets blown up by the missiles from the castle, it’s too bad, but nothing is lost. Probably the child’s soul wasn’t worth stealing anyway. We’ll wait for the next gamer.”
“But if the child succeeds in destroying the evil castle,” said Palerden, “the graphics will go crazy in celebration of the victory. While the winning child is dazzled by this display, both tribes will spring on the child. The winner of that struggle will keep the child and give its soul to the members of the tribe designated for that soul.”
“This way,” said Dalerona with mounting enthusiasm, “both of our goals will be accomplished. We will have captured one more precious soul from the Menarinen, and the Rakhlakhadimen will be blown out of existence. After that, we can still use the same graphics for the next children who come along that we used to camouflage the house of the Rakhlakhadimen.”
The Rakhlakhadimen?! That last word brought me to my senses, but it was too late. The cheering and piping and dancing was deafening, but the noise punctured my pride and excitement in nothing flat. What had I done? I had just given the elves the means for luring kids from all over Chicago into the elves’ forest where they would be raped of their souls and, in the bargain, given the elves the means for destroying the Rakhlakhadimen, the only decent elves I knew. This game wasn’t just a game, it was real! The trouble was I wasn’t used to reality having anything to do with computer games. You blow up repulsive-looking enemies to bits and, if you get blown up yourself, you start the game over again. But there wasn’t going to be a next time for the kids who got roped into playing the game and got their souls stolen or for the Rakhlakhadimen who after their tree house got blown up.
This was the lowest point of low points for me. The whole rescue plan was wrecked, and it was all my fault. I was going to be stuck inside two of the meanest elves you ever saw for the rest of my life. The thing that had me kicking myself the most was remembering that I knew from the first what the elves’ plan was and then I forgot all about it in the heat of designing the game. I knew that I probably couldn’t have stopped them from ransacking my brain like they did but I thought maybe I could have made it hard enough for them that they wouldn’t get the best of my ideas. That’s when I lost it. I really wanted to yell and scream and jump up and down and throw things, but I didn’t have anything to throw—I didn’t even have any hands to throw anything with. I ripped into Palerden and Dalerona and really let them have it. I listed every brutal and indifferent act they and the other elves had done since I came to their horrible world and got my soul snatched away from me. I pointed out how they reserved their greatest malice for the Rakhlakhadimen who came along to save them from the destroying cloud only to be thanked by having baseballs and bats thrown at them. And now, they were designing the most evil computer game ever devised by elf or human and they thought that was wonderful! I went on and on and on, but Palerden and Dalerona slammed the door in my face every time they got the slightest hint of what I wanted them to think about.
That got me thinking about how much more Kerry succeeded in getting an influence on the two elves who absorbed his soul than I did. Kerry got Flenderal and Merlandera to act in humane ways previously unknown to elves, but I had gotten nowhere with Palerden or Dalerona. Maybe that’s because I got two clunkers while Kerry got a couple of nicer elves, but I wasn’t buying that. Ever since my soul got stolen, I hadn’t seen any signs that some elves were nicer than others. They all acted the same when it came to fighting wars, playing, eating, and stealing the souls of human children. For that matter, Marakel, Perlinda, and Ralindera weren’t exactly kind souls either when I first met them. Most likely, Flenderal and Merlandera were just as mean as Palerden and Dalerona until they swallowed Kerry Blake hook, line, and sinker. The problem, then, wasn’t the elves who devoured my soul, the problem was that I just didn’t have as good a soul as Kerry Blake does and so I wasn’t as good at getting elves to act like decent creatures. That shouldn’t have surprised me. Even considering his flakiness, Kerry’s been a nice kid for as long as I’ve known him and I didn’t even try to be nice until a couple of days before I got captured. I guess that goes to show that having a good soul takes practice, and I hadn’t exactly done a lot of practicing.
I collapsed in a fit of frustration and wished I had real tears that I could cry for about a year. To make it worse, I could tell that Dalerona and Palerden were making a point of not listening to me. They just didn’t want to know how horrible they were. Frustrating as it was, I had to admit I understood the feeling. When my parents or teachers bawled me out for something I’d done wrong, I tuned them out. Who wants to be told how awful they are, especially when it’s true? That reminded me of something one of my teachers said: Recent converts to a cause are often the most obnoxious people in the world because they want to convert everybody else the next day. I wasn’t a convert in the sense that I wanted to go to church or anything, but I was a convert in the sense that I’d decided to try acting like I really had a soul. As a convert, I was expecting Palerden and Dalerona to change their lives at the drop of a hat.
That string of thoughts calmed me down some, enough to make me aware of what Palerden and Dalerona were doing. All the while when I was throwing my temper tantrum, Palerden and Dalerona, were pulling e-mail addresses and schemes for getting other e-mail lists right out of my head. They’d gotten addresses for Ron and John and Karen and everybody else I knew at school. They’d even gotten the address for my sister Cynthia! I could hope she wouldn’t be interested in a game like this, but what if she thought it would be a good way to entertain Sherman? Then the elves could have their souls too, just to make things complete.
That was an even lower point than my lowest point, if you know what I mean. But this point was so low my stubborn streak kicked in, like it does when you’ve got nothing to lose. My stubborn streak got me thinking more clearly, and thinking more clearly got me remembering some things I’d lost sight of. While I was having my temper tantrum, I was thinking about me and how I was supposed to be the rescuer all on my own. I guess that’s what comes of not having much of a soul. You forget how to work with other people. I had forgotten that Marakel and Perlinda and Ralindera and Mr. Kirkpatrick and Officer McDougall and probably lots more of the Rakhlakhadimen were doing everything they could to help me. They had proven that by breaking into the elves’ computer system and sneaking messages to me in the educational programs Palerden and Dalerona were using. That meant there was hope that they knew all about the computer game the elves made with my help and they knew how to deal with it. The main thing was: I wasn’t really so all alone as I felt. A lot of my despair was caused by thinking I had to do everything all by myself, but I didn’t have to. I was on a team, and the other guys on the team were going to do everything they could to help me and help make our plan work. That meant, I had to act like a team member myself. There was no way I could stop Palerden and Dalerona from picking my brain, but there were ways I could make their use of me boomerang on them.
Palerden and Dalerona were still working on a list of children to send their e-mail invitations to. The list was pretty small and they were pretty frustrated. I suggested they break into the e-mail lists of a company that sells computer games. They thought that was a good idea and Palerden and Dalerona did a search for the names of companies. In the middle of the list was the company: Parchment Programs. Bull’s-eye! My excitement was contagious and the elves didn’t know what I was really excited about. I told them that Parchment Programs was by far the best bet and they shouldn’t bother with the other guys. Palerden and Dalerona went to work on hacking their system to get their mailing list. I don’t know much about hacking computer systems so I couldn’t help them there but I was pretty sure that Marakel and the rest of the gang would give them all the help they needed. They did. All of the so-called protection crumbled as the elves penetrated the system and before long, they had downloaded a long list of e-mail addresses. I was pretty sure that either all the addresses were fake or the Parchment Gang was blocking the elves from getting the game to unsuspecting children.
Then I got the idea of telling the elves not to send a flood of e-mail ads right away. If word gets around the schools that everybody got the ad, they’ll know they aren’t in a “select group” after all and they won’t take the ad seriously. Send a few ads out at a time. When I recognized the addresses of my friends, I made sure the elves sent ads to them. You can bet your bottom bottle cap I was keeping my fingers crossed that my friends were in on the plot and wouldn’t get trapped by the game.
Once the ads were sent, I was beside myself with excitement and worry. The truth was that I had put my friends in danger and maybe a lot of other kids. That reminded me of what was at stake: the souls of a lot of kids. If my plan to sabotage the game failed, a lot of people were going to suffer an awful lot and it will be all my fault. Palerden and Dalerona passed the time playing their musical instruments and eating and drinking, just like what the other elves were doing, but all I could do was rehearse all the worst case scenarios. Somebody starts playing the game, decimates the fortress, massacres all the good elves within it, and then gets caught in the trap. That, of course, was what the elves were hoping for.
Several songs and dances and cakes and drinks later, the elves got that thrill you get when you’re fishing and you get a big strike that has got to be the fish of your dreams. Lights flashed on trees all over the forest to announce that some kid was downloading the game. The return address was rontom@express.net. It was Ron Thompson! That was good news if Rom was coming because he was working with Marakel and Mr. Kirkpatrick. That was bad news if he wasn’t. If Ron didn’t know what he was doing and he got kidnaped, I’d never be able to live with myself for the rest of my life. If Ron did know what he was doing and but got his soul stolen for charging the evil fortress, I was still going to have trouble living with myself.
The elf king and the elf queen quickly organized their ambush groups with Palerden and Dalerona included in the Meladimen’s group. The elf king called up the file for the game and the evil fortress mushroomed before us, looking a lot more imposing when you’re in the game than it did on the screens. Some of the elves started to play their instruments to give Ron a live soundtrack. Palerden and Dalerona climbed up into nearby trees to watch the attack and, hopefully, steal the first Menarinen soul that had come their way in quite some time. I looked anxiously for signs of life within the fortress. I didn’t see any. I hoped that was good news but I couldn’t be sure with the fortress design being superimposed on the tree house the Rakhlakhamimen built for themselves.
Then I saw the gamer elf king walk along the path, dressed in elvish armor designed by Dalerona. The face of the elf king was Ron’s and he looked pretty scared. That was good news, I hoped. He probably knew what he was doing and this was enough to make him my friend for life. The trick was having a life to be friends for. Ron’s army of super warriors came up from behind and then, at a nod, moved forward towards the evil fortress. Ron raised his hand, held it in place for a tense second, then lowered it to start the attack.
Canon balls and elf-style scud missiles rattled the fortress and scarred the facade. The front gate opened and an army of goblins rushed out to meet the attackers. Every last one of them fell before the first line of fire. Some of the elves in the tree next to where Palerden and Dalerona sat grumbled. That was good news for me. Two squads of monstrous defenders leaped out of the forest to attack the elf king’s army but the archers and hatchet men were ready for them and the whole lot was dispatched in nothing flat. The elves’ music got louder and more intense, as is fitting for an exciting battle. Bat-winged dragon-like demons jumped out of the trees at the army but weapons were already aimed straight at them as soon as they appeared and they all fell, making their hideous screeching death cries. Several elves were buzzing with anger and alarm. I didn’t blame them. It looked like Ron and the other guys had studied the game so closely they knew exactly what was going to happen when.
Next came the giant trolls but, again, cannons and bazookas picked them off as soon as they reared their ugly heads. But there was more. A small group of soldiers climbed up the trees to the fortress. Other soldiers moved about in the forest outside of the battle. I didn’t remember there being a troop of gruesome defenders out that way and I hoped they weren’t going to get into trouble. As soon as the last troll was gone, the soldiers who had climbed to the front of the fortress peeled it away and revealed the tree house. My heart stopped for a second, but then I could see right away that it was an empty dollhouse. The soldiers tossed the facade into the trees and then all the soldiers took off their masks to reveal the faces of the Rakhlakhadimen. Roaring sounds from all directions announced the arrival dozens of Slurpy Gurvey clones, all of them wielding giant clippers.
“Time to crush and crash the crust combo-compo-campo-crumbly-crimply computer game,” announced one Slurpy Gurvey.
At his signal, each Slurpy Gurvey cut off a branch of a tree nearest them. Palerden and Dalerona tumbled and everything went topsy-turvy. I don’t know quite what happened next but when things got settled a bait, elves were scattered all over the ground and in the trees. Not far from where Palerden and Dalerona had landed, the elf king and the elf queen were frantically typing on trees and getting no result.
“THE WHOLE GAME IS CRASHED!” yelled the elf king.
“THE WHOLE GAME IS RIDDLED WITH VIRUSES AND WORMS!” cried the elf queen.
Silence. A stunned silence. I should have been laughing up my sleeve but the shock of the elves was too strong for me to do that. Not that I had a sleeve to laugh up anyway. The important thing was: the computer game was ruined. Nobody else was going to be able to download it until it was reprogrammed from scratch. My counter-plan had worked! Then the chanting started.
“Palerden, Dalerona; Palerden, Dalerona.”
Palerden and Dalerona made one try at chanting the name of another elf. Nobody picked it up.
“Palerden, Dalerona; Palerden, Dalerona.”
Palerden and Dalerona hung their heads. The chanting grew in force.
“Palerden, Dalerona; Palerden, Dalerona.”
Palerden and Dalerona folded into themselves.
“Palerden, Dalerona; Palerden, Dalerona; Palerden, Dalerona; Palerden, Dalerona.”
Palerden and Dalerona knew there was escape.
“Palerden, Dalerona; Palerden, Dalerona.”
The chanting reached a feverish pitch and then suddenly it stopped. The elves were gone. The noise of their chants rang in the ears of the two outcasts left alone in the Forest of Windellynn.