Meddling in Foreign Affairs

Chapter 12: Ayaperna

Dismas was suddenly awoken by movement. He opened his eyes quickly, and moved into a crouching position so he could move more quickly if it proved to be necessary. The sun was up and the cage didn't seem to be emitting any more light. The flowers must only glow in the dark. The cage was descending back to the platform, and that must have been what woke him up. Byulat was also beginning to move, but he still looked half asleep.

When the cage was level with the platform, Dismas noticed that it was a different group of elven guards than the ones who had captured him the night before.

"Good morning, elves!" Dismas called out with false enthusiasm. "How'd you all sleep? I personally was surprised by the comfort of this here cage. I slept the whole night through without a single disturbance. Best sleep I've had in days."

The elves ignored his question. "You are both to come with us. Aesculus would like to discuss your situation with you. Any attempts at escape will be thwarted, so there is no need to try. Only a guilty man runs from honest conversations and justice."

By this point, Byulat had fully woken up, but Dismas didn't give him a chance to insult the elves. "That sounds good, you won't have to worry about us trying to leave. We wanted to talk to Aesculus anyways, so you are all actually helping us."

One of the elves opened the door to the cage and Dismas happily jumped out onto more solid ground. Byulat had a harder time of jumping to the platform because his legs were significantly shorter than Dismas', but he was able to land without any problems. They both obediently followed the elves towards the center of the enormous tree, and were led to a large platform with a huge chair sitting on one edge. There was an elf sitting on the throne, and he was old. Like, really old. Especially since elves lived so long. Dismas thought this elf must have seen at least nine generations of humans. His long white hair reached to his knees and there were wrinkles covering every bit of exposed skin, but his eyes were still an almost unearthly bright shade of green and his thinness didn't look as unhealthy as it probably would be if he was just an elderly human. His very presence oozed of the confidence that comes from knowing things from having experienced them.

There were other elves in the clearing, but not as many as the number of dwarves who had been at the meeting where the dwarves decided that he was not, in fact, an elf. As Dismas tried to casually glance around to assess the situation, he noticed a familiar face with green eyes framed with brown hair. It was the elf who had hired him and gotten him into this mess, and Dismas felt a bubble of anger filling his chest. He tried to ignore the elf, but he was relatively close to where the ancient elf was sitting.

The elves stopped them when they were a few feet away from the old elf, and pushed them down to their knees in front of the throne.

"You have been expected." The elf spoke just as slowly as other elves, but the musical tone was covered up by the raspiness that comes from age. Dismas wasn't sure what it was, but the look in his eyes made it seem like the elf had been expecting them for far longer than they had been in Maiorsem. Maybe he had some hand in what had happened to Zlato after all? "I am Aesculus, the eldest of the elves. Why are you in our city?"

"We're looking for a dwarf named Zlato. The dwarves in Dragstyenost have reason to believe that he's been captured by elves, so we came here to try and figure out if you've got him," Dismas said, looking up defiantly at the elf. He was already short enough, and he didn't appreciate being made to kneel before anyone.

Aesculus furrowed his brow. "What reason do you have to assume that this is the fault of us?"

Dismas didn't actually know. Thinking back on it he never asked anyone why they thought the elves had taken Zlato. He looked helplessly over at Byulat and hoped that he had some evidence other than racism. "We found elven arrows and blood the night that he disappeared. During investigation there was only one elf in the city, and when we asked to interrogate him, he ran away, like the filthy coward all elves are. Why would he run unless he was guilty?" Byulat asked. Dismas sighed with relief that there was actually some thinking other than hatred involved.