Previously in the Tale of Jarthen, our eponymous title-character enjoyed a scrumptious mush-cake with the rest of Jellihondor's party in the Erkenheld, and afterwards were engulfed in nets from above! We left Bertronius at a happier juncture: he and his comrades Lemonius (ha ha!) and Nel having just passed their final spying examination.
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The blue elves seemed to materialize magically out of the eerie mist that pervaded the entirety of the Erkenheld and moved onto the mystical paths in a most catlike manner. The nets had descended upon the small party of rebels so quickly that there was no chance to resist – that, and it would have been an adventure in foolishness for Jellihondor’s group to attempt to fight off a force that outnumbered them two to one. Though a few of the red elves had sought to raise their bows to fight off their blue elf captors, Jellihondor had called a terse order to halt before a single arrow was loosed.
Once the rebels had been clearly subdued by the nets, the blue elves proceeded to bind their hands and disarm them. Jarthen felt naked without his bow, and he could tell by the pained, angry looks on the faces of his fellows that they too felt the loss of their trusty sidearms. Rethnaki appeared to be particularly hard hit by the ordeal: his hands were visibly trembling, he raved under his breadth, and there was a wild look in his eyes. Despite the immense intensity of the situation – or perhaps because of it – Jarthen felt strangely calm.
When the rebels had been disarmed and bound to the satisfaction of the blue elves, their captors began escorting them along the magical path. The blue elves talked amongst themselves in their queer, gutteral language, casting weary glances at their charges but not directly interacting with them. Sensing that the blue elves were not watching him particularly closely, Jarthen sought to speak with Rethnaki who was marching at his side. This, however, proved to be an unsuccessful venture as his best friend in the rebel army continued to babble incoherently under his breath and continued staring wildly in all directions as if he expected a fatal blow to befall him at any moment.
Helkint, who had generally maintained an attitude of distrust and skepticism that occasionally verged on hostility towards Jarthen, overheard the lad trying to comfort Rethnaki. “Oi, lad, let Naki be,” the young red elf hissed to Jarthen in an undertone, while glancing over at the nearest group of blue elves. “He don’ take too well ta captivity. Tha’ an he’s always had a bit o’ a phobia ‘gainst the blue elves.”
Jarthen, lowering his voice as well, responded, “why is he so afraid of them? He didn’t seem that scared of Benno...”
“Well it’s much easier ta be brave when ye’ve got em out numbered ten ta one in the rebel army, idn’it?” Helkint responded. Jarthen who had been growing increasingly alarmed by Rethnaki’s intense anxiety, was comforted by Helkint’s attempt to put aside his feelings of animosity and distrust to talk to him at this time: he supposed that in the face of the threat posed by their captors, the usually standoffish elf was able to look past his preexisting prejudices. “He’s scared o’em,” Helkint continued after glancing around to make sure the blue elves weren’t listening, “cause ta blue elves can’t abide our folk. Fer ages now, they’ve seen us red elves as havin’ betrayed our true elvish nature,” he said, using a mocking impersonation of a blue elvish accent on the last few words.
“What do you think they’ll do to us?” Jarthen asked, feeling a little more alarmed, and, after thinking for a moment he dropped his voice even lower and added, “how do they feel about humans?”
“It’s hard ta say, but they’ll probably take us ta Norsa – tha’s ta blue elves’ city in these parts,” Helkint responded in his still conspiratorial whisper. He paused to look over at Rethnaki who had finally stopped muttering to himself and looking around wildly, only to stare resignedly at the path as they walked. “Ta be honest, I don’ really want ta t'ink - ,” he was cut off mid-sentence by a sharp blow across his face from one of the blue elves’ bows, who grunted something incomprehensible.
Bertronius looked around frantically and suddenly realized that he was in the middle of the Erkenheld, in the dead of night. The trees, ominous and sinister during the day seemed to stretch taller than he remembered, and their branches interwove overhead, making him feel even more trapped.
From the neat hedgerows on either side of him and the well-worn stone path in front of him, Bertronius deduced that he was on one those peculiar magical paths. Unsure of how he had gotten there or where he was going, the lad decided he had no choice but to start out on the path ahead of him. He walked quickly, but unevenly, as he occasionally tripped or snagged his boot between the flagstones. Eventually, the ambient noises around him became stranger and stranger: he could hear a shrill wailing, often followed by an oddly rhythmic clanging sound, and the angry chattering of sprites drawing nearer and nearer. His initial feelings of bewilderment were quickly turning into a deep sense of unease.
In the distance, Bertronius could hear someone laughing with malicious abandon. Compelled by uncontrollable feelings of panic, Bertronius found himself frozen to the spot as the cruel laughter drew ever nearer, with the angry spritely chatter following close behind. The seconds dragged on and on, and he waited with almost unimaginable dread for the arrival of whatever vicious creature the cackling portended. Soon it was just behind him, and he could hear one heavy footstep…then another…then another.
Bertronius felt a massive, heavy hand fall down on his shoulder, and all at once he was flooded with fear. The hand, clad in a thick black leather glove, whipped the boy around and Bertronius found himself facing none other than his nemesis – Larthon Ractor – surrounded by hundreds of mean-spirited sprites!
The malevolent Ractor...Ractor’s face twisted into a cold smile. “Ah, Bertronius. I see you spared me the trouble of dragging you out here to your death! You have so much more initiative than your dear friend Jarthen.” Bertronius felt the fear drain away and be replaced by burning hatred. “And now, I’ll finish the job.” Ractor snapped his fingers, and the army of enraged sprites behind him surged forward in overlapping waves. Bertronius turned and ran down the path as fast as he could.
As he tore down the path, he felt himself inexplicably pull ahead of the sprites. As he did so, he realized that the weeping and banging sound he heard earlier in this terrible night was becoming louder, and felt himself drawn towards it and ran and ran until the weeping was deafening. He rounded a corner and stumbled into someone – someone who felt immediately warm, and safe, and comfortable.
“Hey Bert,” said the familiar voice, “why haven’t you avenged me yet?” Bertronius looked up, and with a gasp, realized that the speaker was Jarthen! He heard the sprites round the corner, and as they fell upon him mercilessly, Bertronius realized that the wailing that had brought him to his deceased best friend was none other than the sound of Jarthen’s mum weeping at her young son's funeral as she stirred a vat of fresh mush….
Jarthen and his comrades passed the remainder of the day in silence, marching along the forest path: the lad noted – though, of course, he could not remark about it to anyone – that the forest around them seemed to grow darker, and somehow wilder the further they marched. It was by no means an easy hike, and, though the blue elves seemed tireless in their unceasing marching, the miles of walking were beginning to wear on Jarthen’s already fatigued limbs.
Indeed, the sun had begun its rapid descent below the horizon by the time the rebel captives reached what had to be their destination: there it was, a thousand gentle lights peering through the blue twilight of the Erkenheld: the great blue elf city of Norsa. And what a city it was! To Jarthen, who had never known a greater metropolis than the paltry hamlet of the West Fethil, the scope of the city was truly staggering. When he first glimpsed the city, Jarthen reasoned that the city must be at the top of a tall hill, as the lights seemed to be coming from atop the very trees – upon closer examination, however, it became apparent that city actually was in the treetops! The lights were coming from a multitude of elaborate, beautifully crafted treehouses with thatched conical roofs, that were linked by an extensive network of rope bridges. As he neared the city, the lone human noticed that it didn’t appear that the houses had been built in the trees, so much as they seemed to have grown out of them like some sort of odd, gigantic house-fruit.
Norsa: a city of 'house fruits'...As the blue elves escorted the rebels closer to the city one of them blew three loud blasts on a great horn crafted from some sort of a root. Before the last blare had sounded a great mass of tattooed faces emerged from the treehouses and on the forest floor below to watch the approach of what had to be the very strange spectacle of the motley group of outlanders. Among the crowd of blue elves, Jarthen saw individuals of all ages: there were many children who appeared to be younger than himself, with the initial tattoos of what would eventually become elaborate facial motifs; a number of men who – though it was odd to the lad’s eyes – appeared to be the caretakers of the children; and, perhaps most impressive of all, the nobly dressed women who carried themselves with such a proud, haughty bearing that he immediately felt the need to avert his gaze in order to avoid withering before their eminent presences.
The faces of one and all betrayed a cautious curiosity, clearly tempered by the suspicion that is the inevitable result of an isolated existence: they did not, however, appear outwardly hostile, they were, if anything, cold and implacable. In addition, many of the elves were accompanied by odd half-humanoid, half-animal creatures that hung about the knees of their masters, chattering to one another in what appeared to be a rudimentary language. The diversity of appearance found among these creatures served to reinforce the homogeneity of the blue elves, whose coloration fell within a fairly narrow, if outlandish spectrum, that complemented their icy beauty.
Jarthen was so overwhelmed with the sight of the strange city that he did not notice that the rebels’ captors were leading them to a large wooden cage on the forest’s floor in the center of the blue elf city. The cage, which like the rest of the elvish dwellings was topped with a conical thatched roof, was easily large enough to accommodate the entire party with relative comfort, and was surrounded by more, grim blue elf guards. The door of their prison was swung open, and the rebels were unceremoniously herded into its confining walls, with no prospect of when, or if, they would again breathe free air.
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