Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

“The liquor is in the back, in boxes,” drawled Harrison. “Boxes’re labeled. Shelves’re labeled. Just keep everything topped off and that’ll be that.”

Colin looked at the gas station’s dizzying array of intoxicants, which ranged from cheap to cheap but pretentious. “You need a whole temp just for that?” he said.

Harrison squirted his cheekful of dip from one side of his mouth to the other with a sound, and a vision to go with it, that made Colin thoroughly queasy. “You got a family?” he said.

“Of a sort,” Colin said.

“You seeing them this month?”

“Most likely,” Colin said. “Free meal, after all, when you’re living on a temp’s paycheck.”

“Well, it may surprise you, Mr. Evans Jr., but I also got me a family. A big ‘un. And there is nothing on God’s green earth worse than them. Probably even worse for you, seeing as your people have to cook for folks who think gratitude is a kinda flower,” Harrison said. “You know who gets me through it?”

“Your wife?” Colin ventured.

Harrison turned to the shelves, peeling three bottles off and shoving them into Colin’s arms. “Mister Jack Daniels, the Reverend Jim Beam, and His Goddamn Majesty the Crown Royal.”

Colin shifted the bottles uneasily in his arms. “Ah,” he said. “I think I get it.”

“You learn the shapes of those bottles by feel, Mr. Evans Jr., because you’re gonna need it.” Harrison turned away. “Get ready. I’m opening now.”

At the click of the latch, Colin had barely gotten the bottles back on the shelf when the liquor aisle was flooded with people. None of them acknowledged him, not the three mothers, two grandmothers, or the uncle with a shopping basket over each arm. They just shambled over, filled their hands and all other receptacles with wine and whiskey, and shuffled off. Within five minutes, the box wine was already out, to say nothing of the Jack and Jim.

Colin took ten minutes wrestling fresh bottles and boxes out of the back room, and had just begun opening the when a fresh wave hit. The people didn’t even wait for the boxes to open, simply scooping them up and taking them to the register. And there were more behind them.

“I quit,” he whispered, miserably.

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The statue was monumental, seated. A king, on his throne. And, indisputably, a human being. There was no sign of the traits the legends had spoken of–no pointed ears, no spindly limbs, no inhuman eyes. The symbol that the Empire had turned up again and again in its excavations of old elven sites was carved into the stone as well, a broach about the cloak of the king, so there was no mistaking that this monumental effigy was one of them.

“It’s a man,” Scimoc whispered. “Just a man.”

Agneja laughed, ruefully. “It’s easier to kill someone when they’re not like you,” she said, as her laughter dissolved into a racking cough.

“Yes, I suppose it is,” Scimoc replied, weakly. “I suppose every empire must fall, every life must end. There’s no escaping from it.”

“What will you do now?” said Agneja, hoarse. “Go tell your emperor that the thing you pinned all your hopes on was just a phantom?”

“I may at that,” Scimoc said. He sat down heavily, leaned against the cold stone of the wall, and exhaled deeply. His breath spun away into vapor. “I just need a rest first, for a little while. You won’t begrudge me that, will you? An old man who has come a long way only to find bitter disappointment?”

Agneja nodded. “Take as long as you like,” she said, settling against the frigid blocks herself. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”

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“We’ve all heard fairy stories,” Agneja said. “But you don’t seem like the sort to believe in that. Why, then? Why look for elves in the godforsaken wilderness?”

Scimoc smacked his hand on one of the stones. “Is this a fairy tale to you?” he said.

“No, but what do we gain from a dead city, soon to have still more dead within it?” Agneja pressed.

“We have it from legends and old histories that the elves were long-lived, that they were not troubled by the petty squabbles that have held our kind back and turned many of our lands to ash,” Scimoc replied. “The population of the Empire is barely half of what it was before the plagues and the Brothers’ War, and there are some in the court that say we’re eventually doomed to exhaust our farmlands, to grow beyond our ability to support ourselves, and dig our own short-sighted graves.”

“The elves can’t help us with any of that,” Agneja said. “They’re gone. Long gone.”

“I’m not looking for their help.” He slapped at the stones again, more weakly this time. “I’m just looking for some evidence that somebody like us could thrive. If they built this place, lived immortal lives, and only disappeared because we killed them all, well…then maybe there’s hope for us. Somebody managed it. Maybe we can too.”

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Even though the structures were still intact enough in places to offer some respite from the howling wind and driving snow, there was little that the remaining travelers could do to keep themselves warm as the temperatures continued to plummet. They’d cut some trees surrounding the city and tried to fashion rude walls with them, stopping the gaps between rough-hewn bits of wood with mud, but even then the cold was an ever-present misery. Food and fuel were in short supply as well, and each further trip out to replenish them exhausted the group still further.

And yet, despite all the hardships, Scimoc continued to carefully map the ruins, day by day, systematically eliminating candidates and expanding his map, hoping to find the statue–the elven figure.

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The party, now numbering fourteen, left Rewitt’s grave in a clearing under a cairn. As torturous as things had been with the old trapper, they were worse without him. Agneja knew her way around the wilderness, surely, but it was not a wilderness she was familiar with. Even with the sun to guide them eastward and the river to mark the path, they constantly stumbled upon cliffs, morasses, and other impassible obstacles which required costly backtracking. Animals were scarce, and edible plants scarcer, while the river never seemed to widen or deepen enough for the party to build rafts to ease their way.

It was seventy days, give or take, after Rewitt died that the first paving-stone appeared, indicating a long and forgotten road that had been overtaken by the ages.

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The rude ramprts of Ysoait soon faded into the distance, and within a day, the supply train had reached the end of the road: a lumber camp. Lord Giarc and his men unloaded the supplies, creating a small cache of buried provisions the expedition could use to sustain itself in an emergency. In addition to Dr. Scimoc and Agneja, as well as their Ysoitan trapper guide Rewitt, they had a band of twenty porters and hunters.

“Small for this sort of work, but you’re not building a city, you’re locating one,” Lord Girac said. “Remember our agreement, Doctor. Anything you find is to be claimed for Ysoait first and the Empire second, and my man is to deliver the news to the Emperor personally.”

“Of course,” Scimoc said. “I am engaged in a quest for knowledge, not a hunt for glory.”

“Good. Keep to your end of the bargain, and I’ll keep to mine.” Giarc mounted his horse. “I’ll inform the Emperor you’ve departed. With any luck, you’ll arrive back safe sooner than news of your departure.”

His retinue followed him down the ruts toward civilization, while the porters busied themselves with the details of their departure.

“How rough will it be?” Scimoc said. “I feel like the hard part is nearly over with.”

“It will be rougher than you ever dared imagine,” Rewitt said, “and that’s if we survive to tell the tale. The hard part isn’t getting there; the hard part is coming back alive.”

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“Velin,” Agneja said. “How much do you know about it?”

“Our last stop before Ysoait,” said Scimoc. “Hilly. Mountainous. It’s said that the fortress is impregnable.”

“Mmm.” Agneja took a few more steps. “Do you fancy another stint in a dungeon?”

“Do you need me to say I’m sorry again?” snapped Scimoc. “How was I to know that Lady Termina was incredibly sensitive about her reputed ancestry?”

“You misunderstand.” Agneja drew close and pointed at the craggy rocks that had begun to rise near the road. “These foothills rise up into the North Mountains, which no man has ever climbed, and beyond which no man has ever ventured. They are incredibly inhospitable. Food needs to be taken up to Velin from lower in the valleys every day, because nothing will grow on the bare rock there. Yet Lady Eleury insists that it be the capital of her hold, and pays in gold for what is brought up.”

“She must live a very secure life,” Scimoc said. “All the better for us as her guests, I suppose.”

“What would you say if I told you that Lady Eleury, when she was a much younger woman, became the second wife of Lord Samej using every charm and wile she had to install herself in Velin and then to see her husband snuffed out with no heirs?

“It’s a story I hear quite often.”

“In the Imperial court, maybe. Who schemes to become mistress of a barren rock?”

Scimoc had learned to recognize the look on Agneja’s face. “You’re going to tell me,” he said.

“Velin is impregnable, a fortress that a dozen men could hold for a year as long as Lady Eleury switched from fresh to salted meat. Eleury set herself up here, on purpose, because she is paranoid. She is terrified that people are out to get her, and this fiefdom exists only to keep her protected. If we are not careful, we will wind up feeding that paranoia, and our broken bodies will roll down the slopes beneath Velin until the woods break out fall.”

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“It has been a rather long time since we’ve had visitors with Imperial letters of introduction in Rajaka,” said Lady Termina. “Longer still since they weren’t here to speak with me.”

“Do you object?” Scimoc said. “When I was dealing with Lady Annika in Jalav, she took offense to my merely passing through.”

“That does sound like her, the stuck-up and spoilt daughter of a stuck-up and spoilt duchess,” Termina laughed. “But no, not at all. Most of the official business I deal with is suitors.”

“Oh, ah, of course,” Scimoc said. He did suppose that Lady Termina was exceptionally fine-featured. If one cared about that sort of thing, naturally. “I assure you, I have no such intentions.”

“Clearly,” said Termina with a wry look. “So to what do I owe the pleasure then, Dr. Scimoc? You needn’t have called on me if you simply meant to resupply at Rajaka.”

“Ah. Yes. Well, my expedition is seeking elven ruins in Ysoait, and according to the information available to me, Rajaka is founded on the site of an old elven village, and your family has distant elven ancestry.”

A rather icy change came over Termina’s features. “Ah yes, of course,” she said. “My line is noted for its beauty, which is proof positive that we once consorted with inhuman creatures, naturally.”

Scimoc immediately sensed his error. “My lady, I surely did not mean any offense-”

“Oh, and there is no offense taken,” Lady Termina said, in a very offended tone. “Let me tell you, Dr. Scimoc, that your sources are quite right about one thing: this fortress is built upon elven ruins. I’ll be happy to let you inspect the part of the castle that incorporates them.”

“Of course! I would be delighted for the opportunity.”

Termina snapped her finger twice, and one of her guards came huffing. “See Dr. Scimoc and his companions to the dungeon,” she said. “So they can see the elven ruins that undergird this fortress, naturally. Once they’ve had ample time for study, see that they make it out of Rajaka…and that they never return.”

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“I am bound for Ysoait,” said Scimoc. “You’ve heard of it?”

The guide nodded her head. “Of course,” Agneja said. “The little sister. Youngest and brattiest of the Seitselin. What do you hope to find there?”

Scimoc tented his fingers, much as he did with the Emperor when trying to emphasize the importance of any one issue. “You’re familiar with the elves?” he said.

“Depends,” Agneja laughed. “You’re familiar with Winterfather, who leaves sweets in the shoes of good children on the solstice, provided they’ve rich parents?”

“Hmph,” Scimoc said. “I’d expect someone familiar with the far west to be a bit more openminded.”

“When it comes to wolves, bears, rivers so raging they can’t be crossed, and slopes so steep that even the goats fall off them, I’m openminded,” said Agneja. “When it comes to magic? Creatures of air and light that were so powerful they could steal our children and yet so weak that we were able to drive them to extinction a thousand years ago? Call me a skeptic.”

“Well, if you’re too skeptical to take on this expedition…”

Agneja cut him off with a firm chop of her hand. “I’m never too skeptical to get paid,” she said. “You want to go into the furthest reaches of Zalissa, well beyond what safety the Seven Castles can offer you? I can make that happen for the right price. But don’t ask me to believe in whatever rich man’s dream has set you out here, all right?”

“Fair enough,” Scimoc said. “Will you indulge me to share my entire purpose, or is that too fantastic for you?”

“Share away.”

“I’ve been reading the reports of Elyod’s Expedition,” Scimoc said. “Trying to discern some meaning from the madness, as it were, and also to reconstruct parts of the text that were lost to the elements before it was found.”

“Elyod, huh?” Agneja snorted. “I know he’s an Imperial hero and all, but if he’d just had to stones to ask someone who actually knew the area for a little help, he wouldn’t have starved to death after eating his own men. Just saying.”

“Quite, which is why I’m not making the same mistake,” said Scimoc. “But I think that, in one of his last coherent notes, he describes the ruins of an elven city. And I think that it contains a depiction of an elf–one of the only, if not the only remaining images of their kind in existence.”

“Pointy ears and all?”

“Well, we shall see, won’t we?”

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