In the Dark of the Night

In the Light of the Day 4

After leaving the tavern, the Rangers made their way back to their outpost. Sparrow shivered in the chilly night air.

"Here," said Del, handing her a small metal cylinder with orange crystals at each end.

"Thanks, Del," she said, rolling the cylinder between her hands to warm them up. "By the way, Eis, that was nice, what you said back there. I mean, I was about to say the same thing, but I was surprised when you spoke first."

"It's nothing," said Eis'Libe. "It is our duty here as Grey Rangers, that's all."

"Sure," said Del. "Or maybe that heart of yours isn't made of only ice after all. But I was wondering, how revolted were you when he hugged you? On a scale of one to ten? You know, because of the darkness."

The last part he said mockingly, but Eis'Libe frowned and thought about it. "It was surprising and appallingly rude, but...I don't actually recall feeling revolted. Perhaps because there was no skin-to-skin contact?"

"Or maybe that whole Darkness thing about the goblinesh is exaggerated," Del said. "How often have you interacted directly with them, really?"

"Hardly ever," Eis'Libe admitted. "But I have it on good authority that it is the case."

"Well, on the plus side," Sparrow said, "if we don't find Trayps, maybe Harry will take you as his new eldakar boyfriend!"

Eis'Libe glowered at her while Del laughed.

Once inside the Grey Ranger Outpost, they explained the day's developments to Mapstone. "Well, well," she said. "A city guardsman, eh? I wonder if it came from higher up. Someone in the nobility? The Duke himself? I've never heard anything about it from my contacts in the courts. Usually people are only arrested in secret when there's a direct threat against a ruler...and even then, the royal court would keep records. I'm on good terms with a clerk of court who can discreetly check for us. If there's no record, then it's an illegal arrest, and we could petition the King if we get more proof – assuming this guardsman wasn't acting on his own. Now, what's this about our missing man being a 'faelakar'? I've heard of them, but I thought they were extinct."

"No," said Eis'Libe. "I'm not privy to the exact number, but there are at least a handful still alive."

"Harry said they were like a super-magical elf race?" Sparrow asked. "What does that even mean?"

"The faelakar are the ancestors of all elves in Shaintar," Eis'Libe explained, his voice taking on the tone of a lecturer. "Roughly six thousand years ago, they were spirits brought in from the Aethereal World by the Sky Father, Targon, and given forms when Shaintar was new. When they reproduced, the first eldakar were born. No faelakar has ever been created since then, so every one of them alive today is almost as old as the world itself. Sadly, despite being closer to the spirit world and therefore more powerful, magically speaking, than even the eldakar, their numbers have been decimated over time, especially by the necrotic plague, Vainar's Curse, that scourged the land in 300 BCA. The very few that remain are safely guarded deep within Elvish territory. The eldakar were similarly decimated, but unlike the faelakar, we at least are capable of reproducing. Even so, our numbers were so few that if we wanted to survive in the long term, we had to bolster our numbers by breeding with humans, who were compatible and much more resilient than we. Thus, the alakar came to be."

"Wait, the alakar are part human?" asked Sparrow.

"How do you not know that?" asked Del. "That's why they're mortal, unlike this old fossil."

"That is pretty common knowledge," agreed Mapstone.

"B-But," stammered Sparrow, "what's the deal with the M'adukar, then? They're half-elf, half-human, and that's why neither group accepts them, I thought. But the alakar are already part human! So why should anyone care??"