Standing on the bluffs overlooking the sea, in a land called the Far Coast, Gulamendis considered what he knew of this region. He believed he was near a city called Carse, just south of another human settlement named Crydee and, if his brother’s intelligence was accurate, the Elven Forest lay just north of that town. He weighed what he had in his travel bag and judged it too difficult a journey to make on foot.
He took a long look around, still being cautious, closed his eyes and began a summoning. Within moments a demon appeared before him. Hellspawn it might be, and a lower-caste creature, but it could run as fast as the swiftest horse, and he could ride it. It was, however, a sight to behold.
The creature blinked its huge black eyes against the light of day. It looked around and snorted. It had been summoned by this elf before and knew better than to attack or try to escape, for this was his master. The demon lowered its head and waited.
It looked as much like a huge dog as it did a horse, though its legs were longer and its body more slender. It had a pointed snout, almost lizard-like, and its ears were flattened back against its skull, like an angry cat. The stub of its tail didn’t wag in greeting, but trembled slightly, a warning that it was ready to attack.
Gulamendis closed his eyes again and used a spell taught to him by his brother, a glamour that would make any onlooker, save those with exceptional magic ability, see a horse when they looked at the demon. It was akin to the spell Laro had used to disguise himself as a human while he travelled, and it had served him well.
Gripping the creature’s scaly hide, the elf leapt onto its back and using his legs, turned it northeast. There was a decent road a few miles in that direction, and it would take him to the human town of Crydee. There he might investigate a little, before travelling north to see his long-lost kin.
*
Gulamendis moved his demonic mount through the fields. He had taken to riding off the road, and had found a track between the fields of the farms scattered to the south of Crydee. He had abandoned the King’s Highway when he saw humans staring at him.
At first he had worried that his mount’s disguise was ineffective - he was not the master his brother was - but the second time some human children shouted and pointed at him, he realized the excitement was caused by the fact that he was an elf. Despite this region’s proximity to the Elven Forests, it was apparent that its inhabitants rarely ventured south of what was called the River Boundary, which made him the object of much scrutiny and comment.
From what he could understand, these humans perceived no difference in his attire, manner, or mount from those of the local elves. Still, he decided stealth served him better than attempting to play the part of a local, and at the first opportunity he turned eastward, away from the road.
He could ride between the boundaries of these farms, within sight of the road, without attracting too much notice. The crops were ripening, but not yet ready for harvest, so the fields tended to be unoccupied, and on the few occasions when he spied humans, he avoided them. His perceptions were superior to theirs, so he felt no fear of detection.
When he came to a cluster of farmhouses, he rode eastward, into the woodlands that fed into the deeper forest called the Green Heart, and then moved north again. He felt a strange disquiet in these woods, a presence both familiar and yet alien. He wished he’d had more time to speak with his brother on what Laromendis had discovered about this place.
As he returned to the farm track, the sun set in the west providing a brilliant display of red, orange, pink and gold light against the dark grey clouds on the horizon. Gulamendis held back his emotion, for it was the first sunset he had seen over an ocean on Midkemia. When last he looked out over the seascape, the day had been grey and forlorn, haze masking the boundary between sea and sky.
Every day he spent on this world reinforced one thought; this was their Home. But something was wrong.
He couldn’t put his finger on the exact nature of the wrongness, he just felt out of phase with this place. And he suspected that the wrongness lay within him. Perhaps he had changed during the generations spent on other worlds, away from the nurturing magic that was Midkemia. He wasn’t sure, but he did know that his concerns were academic compared to the immediate need to find his distant kin and discover what sort of ally they might make.
For as he sat on this masked demon, riding along in the evening’s twilight, he knew that only he understood the threat poised to strike at this world. And another certainty rose within him; this would their last battle. If the Demon Legion found its way to Midkemia, if they discovered a path from Andcardia to this world, their Home, then all of the edhel, every last elf born of this soil, would perish.
*