One Elf Of Indeterminate Sex

## Ch 2

*quiet I need to hear the pins snap in place*

*stay back this may be a trap*

*go go go*

*watch starboard avoid it*

*seriously does he have to piss on all of the things*

*no of course he's a good boy*

*remember I'm coming in from behind after you engage*

*hold his attention he can't see me coming*

*here they go*

*moon guide my hand please I don't want to die with dad watching*

*steady*

*here we g--*

*what is this what is he*

*no*

*STAB--*

*don't*

*quit looking at me with that sound*

*STAB--*

*get out of my head getoutofmyhead*

*why can't I scream*

*help*

*you don't know me*

*why are you telling me I don't belong here*

*that's not what I*

*how do you know my moth--*

*why aren't they moving*

*someone hit him someone stop this please he's killing me*

*I can't even breathe*

*that's my blood oh moon that's my own blood*

*I can't scream who is screaming I can't scream*

*who was that*

*no now YOU hold still*

*STAB STAB STAB STAB STAB STAB STAB STAB STAB STAB*

*@#$%^&\*(\*&^%$#@@#$%^&^@#$%^&^%$#@@#$%^&\*!*

*STAB STAB*

*STAB STAB STAB STAB STAB STAB STAB STAB STAB STAB*

*...%^&^%$#@@#$%^&\*...*

*STAB*

*...*

*is he dead*

*didn't he mess with your heads too*

*what the sixth hell is going on*

*where is that fucking blue box*

*is this what fancy floors taste like*

"How many hours do elves sleep anyway, geez."

\* \* \*

Stanley did not remember how he ended up in the brig. The Seer's face showed through a little window in the door of the small cell Stanley awoke in. He found himself on a not entirely disagreeable pallet with a wool blanket that now twisted tightly around his legs. What small amount of breeze blew through cooled off the sheen of sweat on his skin.

"Are you awake?" the Seer asked.

"Should I be?" Stanley asked back.

"Yes, you should," she replied.

"Fine, I'm awake. What do you want?"

"I want you to put your sexy leather pants back on and talk to me."

"You're a pervy elf fancier."

"Without us there'd be no Kindred. And you're filthy rich from reading minds. Do you want out or what?"

"Pretty sure either Winter or Sedna--or BOTH--would rather bury me by now."

"They'll get over it if they want me to stay in this moonforsaken outpost. Robbert, hand me--"

Her face disappeared from the window, replaced with Robbert's. "The prisoner will dress in the clothing provided. If the prisoner does not comply, he will be met with unpleasant social consequences. Does the prisoner understand these instructions?"

"Describe 'social consequences' please."

"The prisoner will continue to look amazingly stupid instead of just his standard stupid look."

The Best Pants In The Whole World slid through the food slot on the floor. As he picked them up, he paused. "Does this mean I'm free?"

"No," the Seer answered. "We still don't know what brought you here. You haven't lied in significant ways to us but you're not telling us the whole truth. Winter never ever doubts my senses or Varolus' calculations. Right now both agree you're not a direct threat to the Fast, but my prediction tools have been indicating a threat is imminent."

His damp linen trousers already began to chafe. He peeled them off right there, dropping them on the concrete floor, in favor of the smooth satin lining of his leathers.

"So you are going to be in our custody under the Seer's orders so that the Seer and Varolus can question you in a secure facility," Robbert finished.

"And by the way, that's the Fast's custody specifically, not anyone else's, and especially not Sedna's ," the Seer added. "Here's your shirt. No coat."

"What if I get a chill?" *shut up would be nice not to wear this wet linen* He quickly doffed his soggy prisoner's tunic in anticipation of his familiar, nice, dry, button-down cotton shirt. The Seer's eyes flickered over his bare torso, eyebrow twitching once but otherwise impassive. *did she see it or is she just perving haha who lusts after skin and bones*

"The prisoner seems to forget their conversation with this soldier about vexation. The prisoner did not sleep the entire five remaining weeks of August just now."

"Keem would have handed you the coat," the Seer said.

"Too trusting," Robbert agreed before shoving a dark blue shirt through the window. "I removed the hidden secondary garrote in the placket. Hope you don't mind."

"But there's a lace for my pants also known as a garrote-in-a-pinch--"

"He wants to stay here. Let's go, ma'am--"

"I'm not afraid of you, Stanley," the Seer stated. "I can't figure out why you're terrified of me. I'm just a bookish little woman and if I'm right about you, you're already a superhero."

"You don't know anything."

"I have documents your friend gathered."

"Burn them."

"Didn't the Dead King do things like that?"

Stanley's eyes fell to his bare feet.

"Let's go."

Keys jangled before Robbert disengaged the lock in the cell door and opened it. "I still have to cuff and blind you for the walk."

\* \* \*

He had been unconscious while being taken to the brig, so he had no clue where in the Fast that he was. He could taste steam on the breeze and heard faint thunder. The almost uncomfortably warm pavement made his feet wet. Ahead of him a pair of thong sandals flapped and behind him, Robbert's uniform boots with hard rubber soles.

"I can see your gears moving," Robbert said not unkindly. "Care to share what they're grinding?"

"I slept twelve hours? And a half."

"Uh, yeah I think so. That was a good guess!"

"Thanks."

The Seer said, "He wasn't guessing. The pavement is hot enough to raise steam that anyone can smell when the storm passed which means it's some time after noon but not yet sunset. Storms normally roll through late in the afternoon when the breeze picks up from the west. You inadvertently swallowed enough creek water during your swim you didn't wake of thirst, but you also relieved yourself shortly before you collapsed of Exhaustion, so you didn't have to wake up to shit or piss either. But you probably have to soon. Yes there's a privy where we're going and yes, it is firmly fitted with your dad's toilet seat. What the hell did you eat yesterday? Your pipes could wake the dead."

"I think she reads minds," Robbert said.

"Mentats can't read minds like that. It's simple deduction."

*curse you woman you stole my thunder*

"That's just what Mentats want us to think. And if he were back east, he probably had potatoes and the last winter cheese."

"I didn't eat when I was there--"

"Winter cheese? No wonder." She led them around a corner of a building to the southwestern side. "Hey there sexy," the Seer cooed. Stanley heard a familiar pair of leather-soled loafers approach.

"I'll hold the prisoner while you flip it," Varolus said, taking Stanley's upper arm in his hand. Stanley pulled away for a moment until Varolus' grip tightened painfully. "Quit moving."

Robbert let Stanley go. After a few seconds, he heard the *ting* of a copper coin hitting the pavement and shivering. "Tails," they all called out. Varolus said, "That's me--" before the other two shushed him vigorously. Stanley heard him take a few steps away, heard something scrape softly, then, "Bring him in."

Robbert tugged at Stanley's arm. "There are stairs. Watch your head, the entrance is a little low." Stanley bowed his head but the lintel still raked against his hair. A door closed behind them. "Unblind him and seat him here," the Seer said.

"What are the prisoner's orders?" Robbert asked.

"He is not to make for escape while you re-cuff him so he can use his hands to hold a drink. He may speak frankly and remain seated. He will respect my uranium glass tumblers which I got all the way out in Qvirusz or he will be wearing their shards as sandals on the walk back to his cell."

"That's unnecessarily cruel."

"To my tumblers, yes. The prisoner will physically behave like the refined elf that he is. Verbally, I couldn't give a fuck." After a pause, "Yeah that's it."

"The prisoner is not to esc--"

"Yes, I understand and plan to comply, inasmuch and so forth. And once again, may I open my eyes, ma'am?"

Gentle fingers lifted the cloth strap from his eyes and off his head completely. "Go ahead."

The light came from glass candles all about, some in wall sconces and some on small decorative shelves and curio tables. One burned on the low table in front of a sofa, sitting on the brow of a longhorn bull's skull. Robbert re-cuffed Stanley and then stood in front of the door with his evil can opener on a stick. Stanley looked about, blinking. Bluewood paneled the walls and made up the low table with the bull skull candle. The sofa was abundantly upholstered. "I'm going to look around until you tell me to stop."

The Seer didn't respond to that. "Do you know where it all is?" she said to Varolus as he hung up his hat and suit jacket.

"I didn't think I was going to be accessing it so soon, but yes. It may take a few minutes to collate it though."

She turned to Stanley. "What do you drink? I have access to wine, beer, whiskey--oh, you like whiskey? Would not have pegged you as a whiskey man."

His face felt hot all of a sudden and bees buzzed in his ears. "*The fuck are you reading my mind?!*"

"I told you we can't read minds like that." She stood up and walked around what seemed like a counter behind the sofa, into a spot he couldn't see her. Glass clinked softly. "And watch that temper or you'll drink out of Robbert's boot."

"No, he won't," Robbert commented.

"Here's the thing," she said when she sat back down on the sofa and arranged a quartet of yellow-green clear glass tumblers on the low table next to a clear glass bottle of brown liquor with a gilded paper label that read, simply, *Golden Plains*. "No one can breach the Fast's walls without a conscious act by any of the magical personnel here."

"I can't even do it," Robbert added.

"You achieved the impossible this morning, and everyone--except Varolus and I--are freaking out. They have no idea how you did that."

*Varolus and me* "I've no idea--" Stanley began.

The Seer waved her hand. "I know this. We'll go over that in a moment. However, as soon as we saw you, we knew. There was only one Polymath who didn't have to do anything to get past the walls."

Stanley sighed. "Yeah I get it. My dad--"

"Nope, not him. He's never even stepped foot here. Shut up and listen to me before I tie this blindfold around your mouth." She shook the black satin strap in her fist in front of his face before looping it around one of the bull's horns and grabbing the bottle of *Golden Plains.* "I hope you like the expensive stuff, I'm a snob." She poured two fingers into all four tumblers and handed one to Stanley and one to Robbert. "Please be sociable Robbert, and at least pretend to drink with us. Sit down. I keep telling you he has no intent."

Robbert leaned his polearm pointy side down against the door before lowering himself into the overstuffed chair beside the door. He took the tumbler with a quiet, "Thank you."

She took a big sip while waving the back of her hand at Stanley's tumbler. He obediently took a big sip too. The whiskey warmed his mouth and throat in an acceptable manner and went down smooth as satin.

"You might be aware," she began, "that eighty-two years ago, on the Dawn of the Phoenix, Treveque the Zero-th ascended to the throne when King Trevonne was assassinated."

"By Treveque," Stanley finished the silent part out loud.

"Probably. Highly likely. Yeah, he did. But there wasn't any evidence--"

"Actionable evidence," Varolus corrected from the room he'd gone to which Stanley had problems even thinking about.

"Treveque was already in the process of becoming the Dead King. And then he had the Duke of Arena executed for treason. Trumped-up charges, of course."

"I Awakened long before this, ma'am, and no they weren't," Stanley said. "Unjust, but not false--"

"So then you're also old enough to remember the Kingslayers."

"Old enough to know that no one knows who they are."

"I do. One of them founded the Fast and Varolus is going to show you why."

Stanley felt the blood leave his face. He put the tumbler down gently. "I need to use the privy."

"Robbert."

"I know, I know." He stood. "The prisoner will stand up and walk to me."

"It's probably your feeling of inescapable dread again," she called out as Robbert steered Stanley to an oak door in the far corner of the salon. "Unfortunately, two people can't fit in there so the door will have to stay open. But Robbert'll stand in the doorway so no one sees your ugly shit-making face."

"I have to see it because Sedna told me to keep eyes on him at all times."

"You'll have to show me his face."

"I already swore a solemn vow to the prisoner not to."

"You deviously clever man."

Robbert's teeth gleamed proudly at Stanley.

"I can't tell if that was inescapable dread or Heliopolitan winter cheese, damn your father's lethal intellect."

"Bit of both by the look of him."

Varolus' shoes announced his return from...wherever he went. Stanley could not hear his own thunder from down under, but he could hear the scribe drop a considerable amount of papers and binders on the low table. "No, really dear, I'm fine to sit on the floor."

Finishing his relief brought Stanley little of it. He didn't look at Robbert when he exited and closed the privy. Something still squatted in his guts like a toad made of ice and lead and it was going to take a lot of Golden Plains to dissolve the nauseating little fucker.

"Suit yourself. What have we got here? Are these all of them?"

Varolus fiddled with one particular flyer. "I think so."

The Seer refilled her own tumbler and plunked the bottle on the table. After throwing back another two fingers of whiskey, she raised her black brow at him and fluttered her lashes. "Speak out loud. Robbert and Varolus can't hear your leaky head like I can."

"You said you can't read minds."

"I can't."

Stanley snarled his mouth and grunted at the pile of papers, cardstock folders, frayed envelopes. "What is this?"

Varolus pushed the particular flyer toward Stanley. "It's standard ink, you should be able to read it."

The elf picked it up and scanned it. no no no "No no no."

The Seer plucked the paper from Stanley's fingers. "Yes, yes, oh yes. 'One male human in steel armor with shield and partisan. One female pixie in martial leather armor with a crossbow and a large dog.' Did she really have a saddle on the pooch for riding? 'One elf of indeterminate sex'--why, that's racist!--'unarmored but armed with several knives. One male Kindred, unarmored but armed with two swords. One female Kindred, no armor or weapon, suspected armed with Ignition magic. All. Wearing. Masks.'" The Seer cocked her head. "Sound familiar? 'A reward has been set aside for these heroes.' And for the last fifty-seven years exactly, no one. Ever. Claimed it."

Stanley's breaths quickened. "This is all about...us?" breathe breathebreathebreathe

"Oddly enough," the Seer said, "the first one of your squad that we knew, before we knew--she was actually the founder of the Fast, along with her wife, Fjalle." That name felt like a punch in the gut. I came back--

Varolus added, "She needed a secure place for these particular documents. She couldn't unmake these records, but she was determined to keep them even more secure than the secret Writ of the Sun in Heliopolis."

"I keep telling you, that's a myth--"

"No, it's not," Robbert said quietly.

"Where is she?" Stanley asked. "I haven't seen her--" please sun and moon I know I felt one of us leave last year, just like when Tinkÿ--

The Seer and Varolus shared a dark glance. Robbert bowed his head and said softly, "Her family took her remains back to Delta to feed to the sky."

Stanley's eyes stung and all the air left him. moon and stars not Castille The Seer gently touched his arm. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply.

"We understand the world owes you a great debt. We won't hurt you unless you try to hurt us and I already know that's the last thing on your mind despite you thinking about Robbert's boot knife every other second. For the last time, I'm not reading your mind. This room is more secure than the Fast itself. Literally only Varolus and I can open that door because Castille only trusted us, and didn't want to put her kids' mother in danger. Not even Commancer Winter can barge in here (he wants to). Talk to us."

I can get to Robbert's boot knife before he can Stanley took a very deep breath, let it out, and inhaled again. "There weren't supposed to be records. We were supposed to disappear." Saying this felt like shedding a heavy, wet coat. don't get used to that sense of relief

"If it's anything, she didn't tell us about any of you. Or herself. But when Sedna was installed as Crown's Own Justicar, she learned about this from the memoirs written by Sir Simon, her predecessor. He was a witness to your battle. Even Commancer Winter didn't know, and Sedna believed he had a right to, after Castille's murder."

Stanley choked once, then once more gulped down the contents of his tumbler, grabbed the whiskey bottle, splashed another shot into the cup, and downed that one too. don't slip down the well just get to Arena your Ghoul Drool is waiting to fly up your nose and make you forget "What's the rest of all this, then?" Stanley waved at the rest of the pile.

"Eyewitness accounts!" Varolus said. "Forensic studies! No one was allowed into Arena's Mansus Regal after you destroyed the Dead King--except for the Jandarmerie. Your footprints were analyzed. I think someone has a shard from the armored guy's shield. Burn marks from Castille's Ignitions were copied down. You, specifically, left almost no evidence--"

"--not even my sex--"

"But people wanted to know," the Seer continued from Varolus. "It was history. Don't you get that? And the only reason we're not publishing all of this is because Castille insisted it be kept secret, and her reason went to her grave. If you know her reason, tell us. Because...we're sitting on the biggest story of the entire century here, and without a reason to keep sitting on it..."

"...we will publish it," Varolus finished.

"You can't do that!" Stanley shrieked.

"Tell us why." The Seer's voice did not raise.

Stanley stood up and paced in a circle about the salon. He could see Robbert's left hand reach for his boot knife. The Seer shook her head and he sat back. "Do you know about that pixie commune out west that just blew up one day? No survivors? Forty-three years ago?" Stanley stopped. "Forty-three years ago, today..."

"A little bit before our time--" the Seer began, but Varolus interrupted.

"That was your pixie comrade's commune, wasn't it?"

Stanley started openly sobbing. "Everyone said, 'Oh, it's pixies, was bound to happen.' And I couldn't tell anyone out here that the Waggles commune had no explosives. They bred big dogs. And made big dog toys. And tools for dogs. And saddles for dogs. So yeah, she rode that mutt like a knight on a charger." Stanley stopped to take a few breaths. "Tinkÿ Waggles was our archer. And I never saw her after we split up because shit, a pixie astride a war dog is a bit of an attention-grabber, you know? So I 'bought' her dog and she went home with my entire savings so her family wouldn't be suspicious." He threw back what was left in his tumbler. "He was a very good boy, but I had to speak in Pïxipie to command him." think of the good dog he liked scritches on his belly he was the best boy he was your tree breathe breathe

"But that explosion happened fourteen years after what you did..." Varolus' voice trailed off, before he added, "Today is the anniversary of the Blessed Regicide."

"I know." Stanley sniffled. Varolus handed him the kerchief from his breast pocket. Stanley accepted it and blew. "I know. They waited for that precise day to erase her."

"That's a bit overkill, don't you think?" the Seer scoffed. "I mean, the whole commune?"

"Yes. That's exactly what they would do. Erase your entire existence. Including your family, friends, everyone you know, and take anything they wanted from the ruin!" Stanley's eyes were shut tight while he quietly moaned through his teeth. "They found Castille and killed her here too."

"Sweetie, Castille wasn't killed by a 'them.' She was killed by a fellow Polymath. We put him on trial, he was found guilty by the Judicium Princeps, he was executed according to law. Sedna herself acted as their bailiff. You can ask her, and I'm pretty sure she isn't a 'them,' right?"

Stanley sniffled hard. "No, she's not." He noticed Robbert biting his own index finger knuckle.

"So you admit you were the elf Kingslayer. The stabby knife one."

the world didn't end when I unloaded this

hope I live to regret it

"I haven't been stabby knifing since. Not in Regula, at least. Well, not in Arena. Most of Arena. Not on the living. Usually."

The Seer shut her eyes and waved her hand side to side. "No, don't you understand?"

Stanley shook his head.

A bell over the door rang. The Seer and Varolus both stared at each other before standing up and heading to the door. "This will have to wait. Bring him--reshackle him first with hands in the back."

\* \* \*

They moved rapidly in silence out of the dungeon and into late twilight. An anvil cloud towered to the southwest and another one almost directly to the north, the two storms flashing at each other in a code only they could decipher. No one bothered to put Stanley's blindfold back on. Varolus led them along the side of a thick brick building which, Stanley could see during a flash, bore the number 17.

"You've got to be kidding me--" Stanley began before the Seer turned with a finger in his face.

"This is not the time to be all Traqueljax. Maybe shush."

Stanley cocked his head. "It's just that I'm hearing a bunch of people--"

"Yeah we're all going into Building 17--"

"No. They're by the western wall."

"Who let them in? It's too late for a shipment," Robbert said, frowning at the western wall, as they mounted the low stone steps to Building 17's front entrance. Keem still had on his uniform and an unhappy look while standing by the door with his own can opener of doom. Sedna apparently had already changed into her evening pyjamas but kept a long sword--not her wyr-biter--slung on her hip. She appeared to be scanning faces until she saw Stanley's, then bellowed, "Inside, all of you, now!"

He recognized Fjalle in the knot of people forming in the broad hallway between conference rooms, but the man with filthy fingernails, which Stanley guessed was garden dirt, wasn't present. He could hear everyone asking each other what this was all about. In the hours since he last saw her, she had changed her hair to a pair of silver clouds perched on top of her head.

except those clouds were black back then

stop it

that was a human's lifetime ago

After a few minutes Sedna closed the entryway door behind her, leaving Keem outside. "I need quiet for a moment, everyone. Those of you with the Council of Information, please form in Conference Room 5."

"That's us," Varolus said. "You too, Traqueljax. You're signed out into Robbert's custody but he's under the Seer's direct orders at the moment." They moved back through the open door of Conference Room 5 while Sedna called out, "Council of Defense, Room 1."

"What's this about?" Fjalle called out. "Fine time, interrupting supper like this. Where's Winter?"

"I'll brief both groups separately. Father is finishing his supper, he can't skip meals remember?"

"He needs to shovel it in faster like the rest of us have to." Fjalle's eyes caught Stanley's before she backed into Conference Room 1, mouthing, meet me. Robbert closed the door. "Get comfortable," he said.

The Seer walked to the table she'd been sitting at with Varolus that morning and plunked down a new bottle of Golden Plains from wherever she'd been hiding it, and popped a pair of shot glasses out of the bosom of her choli.

"I didn't say 'get drunk.'"

"Too late." Down the hatch went one shot. "Cards said there was going to be a storm tonight, didn't realize it was going to be this bad. Might be a tornado. Anyone want food from the mess hall? If I can See it I can Fetch it like I did with this whiskey. Might as well chow down now."

Varolus asked, "What's going on? We've had tornadoes before--"

"What's your favorite food, Faerie?" she asked Stanley. "Good for you, bad for you? Really? Just that?"

"I could smell it and I'm so hungry, I don't care."

Beside the whiskey bottle appeared a gallon cast iron pot with the lid slightly displaced and a ladle still in it. So was the gumbo.

"Oh and you're gonna need all this:" She reached under the table and pulled out all of Stanley's clothes, which hadn't been there when they entered Conference Room 5. "And this." From under her chair, she produced a familar sack that made a very familiar noise when she tossed it toward Stanley. Then she plucked three rings off her own fingers that he hadn't even noticed her wearing, and placed them in his palm. "In fact, there are only six walls in the Fast that a Kingslayer can't just walk through, and we are on top of all of them. Go ahead, try to pull out of those cuffs--you always could if you knew. Take your stuff back. In fact, just save yourself if you can. Everyone is going to die soon. We all may as well enjoy it."

didn't I say wait for the world to end well here it comes hope blabbing was worth it