The Masked Elves

The harpies were coming to Trelis again. The sky was covered in an ominous grey and the drumming of thunder echoed in Phadia’s pointed ears. Those monsters made the sky even darker with their wings and when the elf looked up, she saw black stains in the sky. She didn’t mind the thunder, in fact she appreciated the warning, but every so often the sound of a screeching harpy would make her shudder. Before a harpy dived down to Trelis, their beaks would break out into a deafening screech and as they proceeded to snatch any small animals they could find climbing on a branch. And if a light enough dryad happened to be sitting on that branch instead, she would be lifted into the air and taken away forever. Phadia – who was on the ground – wasn’t worried about being snatched but she didn’t want to be in the harpies’ sight when they were hunting, since she knew that they often attacked elves for fun.

A cluster of treehomes were around Phadia, and the dryads she was speaking to that day, leapt inside for safety. The doors that were a part of the tree magically sealed shut when they got inside leaving Phadia entirely alone. “You could at least say goodbye.” Phadia smirked, then looked up once more at the mass of flying monsters. Shaking her head, she said, “why now?” and trudged off to her own treehome that was a little further off. She grumbled as her brown boots filled up with muddy water with every step.

There were many treehomes in Trelis that were huge and sturdy but Phadia could see the elder and ash trees bending in the savage wind that was blowing water in her face like a wet sandstorm. Her nose wrinkled as she tried to wipe it off. Knowing the pathway by heart, she made tracks pretty quickly. There were no roads in the forest of Trelis but every elf always remembered the way to their own tree. The forest smelt different when it was raining. It was a lovely smell of earth and moisture but you could hardly enjoy it when the harpies were circling above you. The harpies were responsible for the lightning and the thunder that she hated. But whenever it was simply raining, Phadia could be found sitting on top of a tree, drinking the rain and sniffing the air.

The wind became stronger while the dark stain in the sky got bigger and Phadia could hear the harpies arguing amongst themselves chaotically like the storm itself. A flash of lighting struck an ash tree that she was just about to pass. She got a whiff of smoke and then a red light swallowed the tree leaves and kept growing bigger. The tree was on fire and it shook Phadia so much she jumped backwards and screamed.

Phadia weren’t sure how exactly the harpies made lightning. A friend of hers once proposed that they breathed it out like how a dragon breathed fire. She wasn’t satisfied with that answer and although she never got a better explanation for their powers that night, she heard something just as exciting: the sound of a harpy speaking.

“Oh, vile beast!” She heard the words come down with the rain. It was a female voice and she sounded aggressive and huge like a giant’s booming voice shouting in the hills Phadia heard dryads talking about. This was the first time Phadia had ever heard a harpy talk and when she caught the sound, her ears stretched upward in curiosity and she even stopped blinking until the speech was over. “From this day forward, you are banished from Noctos forever. And I swear that the penalty for returning will be a slow and painful death.”

Phadia swerved around the burning tree as the sound of beating wings started getting closer to her ear, as if they were coming for her. The words from that law enforcer were followed by a pitiful squeal and rushed wing beats that didn’t lift anyone higher. Phadia looked up into the shadowy sky for a moment where a harpy with black feathers was forcefully carried to the ground by the neck. The quick movements felt like they were blinding her and when the harpy finally landed, she halted in the monster’s view. From a long distance away, Phadia saw that the female still had the banished harpy by the neck as she tackled him roughly to keep him still. Her feathers were silver and his were black and she struck him with a swipe of her claws and yelled, “this is the last time we fight, traitor.” Once she was sure her rival wasn’t going to move again, she rose into the sky and blended with the darkness.

The traitor barely even twitched. She had really done a number on him. Phadia didn’t know whether to get closer or run but when he started to hiss and to whimper, he really didn’t look like he deserved that brutal scratch mark on his face. Phadia remembered the number of dryads she had seen being taken away in her lifetime. She had seen it happen seven times and remembered all the instances clearly. She glared at the harpy, wondering how many times he had done something like that himself. Whatever he was guilty of must have had something to do with his own kind. But could it really be worse than killing and eating dryads?

Phadia decided to turn her back on the harpy, thinking that the dryads and fauns would do something about him after the storm. And when she turned her back, she couldn’t see the harpy’s orange eyes open slowly and stare at her legs (an easy target) or his wings swiftly rising up and picking up speed. So when the furious black blur came her way, he easily had the upper-hand.

She knew what was coming. She was going to be crippled and snatched away to be devoured. Phadia could hardly see what he was doing with the rain taking over her line of sight. Without thinking, she swung her fists but he pushed her backwards. All it would have taken was a rapid strike to legs and she would have been in too much pain to walk. But as fast as the lightning struck the tree, the harpy was tossed out of her sight by another quick blur.

It wasn’t as big as the harpy was but it had the advantage of not being a bird. So even though it was smaller, not having hollow bones made it much heavier. Its skin was grey and its eyes were bright yellow and it had black claws that went for the harpy’s wings. He wouldn’t risk losing his ability to fly, so he let out a screech and gave in; throwing the beast off and flying away at tree-level.

The yellow-eyed beast walked up to Phadia on all fours and looked her in the eyes. It had short curved horns on its head – which would make it a male – and tiny sharp teeth. It was only half her height but he looked powerful. A small growl escaped his jaws before running away.

Phadia shook her head slowly and rose up on her legs that she was thankful were on the ground. Then wiping a little rain from her face, continued on her way home.

Her boots were drenched and flimsy by the time she got to the door of the tree. She knocked on the wood and it magically unsealed itself. “Oh Genevieve, you won’t believe what happened,” Phadia began, and the tree listened in and shook one of her branches. “A harpy almost got me. A harpy that was left here! Expelled, sent out, banished. Which means I won’t be the only one that’ll have to face him.”

She crawled through the short tunnel and stood up in the cylinder structure of the tree that was lit by fireflies that she gathered and hung on lines of string above her head. There were little dents in the tree that looked like pigeonholes that she used as shelves for food and clothes. The biggest pigeonhole was a large gap at eyelevel on the right, where she put the sheets for her bed.

Phadia threw her soaked boots to the left, making a mental note to take her spare boots tomorrow. She got inside the little cubbyhole and pulled the blanket over her head. “The council will decide what to do about the harpy, I’m sure.” She closed her eyes and smiled a bit. “I’m glad you didn’t get struck by lightning, Genevieve. Good night.”

Phadia turned her ears to the pitter-patter of rain, grateful that there was no more screeching and that some strange beast out there had saved her life.

*** ***

Phadia awoke to the sound of carving wood and delighted chatting. When she put on her boots and stepped outside she was surrounded by thousands of elves and dryads who were all working hard to build something. This was the district of Timber, the industrial side of Trelis, the heartbeat of the forest that gave all the other districts the goods they needed.

Phadia turned to see a group of dryads, seven women and four men, who were sewing blankets and clothing together. You can tell the elves and dryads apart by looking at their faces; they both had patterns on their faces that were very different from each other. The dryads had lovely patterns on their heads and necks that looked like the leaves that grew on the trees they transformed into. For instance, one of them had the leaves of a birch tree on her forehead and cheeks. A little further in another direction, ten elves were carving out wood to make bowls for soup. They were cute little round bowls that were light enough to be packaged and delivered to their neighbours by the hundreds. The elves had patterns on their foreheads that looked like teardrops.

The leaves were sparkling under the radiant sun above her and there was just the right amount of breeze to make you feel awake. The pretty light made the citizens comfortable to keeping working on. Phadia knew it was time to join her usual group of elves and help them make shoes and boots (Phadia always made her own boots as well) but she couldn’t just ignore what happened last night. She told herself she had to meet with the council and perhaps ask the Lord of the elves if he had dealt with the rogue harpy yet.

On her way to the council she passed by young dryad children who were just making their way out of their treehomes. Some of them went to the neighbours’ kids to chat, while some explored places on their own. When Phadia passed by the circle of elves she was familiar with she called out to a boy in the group.

“Joshua! Could you come with?” An elven boy with brown hair who wore grey shorts looked up from the shoe he was putting together. “Please come, I’d be really nervous going by myself.”

“Going where?”

“To the council to speak to the Master.” The elves either called him the Lord of the elves or the Master. “Something terrible happened last night.”

Joshua put his shoe down and walked with Phadia to somewhere more private. He saw Phadia give an uneasy look in her eyes and figured she didn’t want to share it with anybody else. “What happened?”

Phadia told him about the harpy that attacked her. She also didn’t fail to mention the strange grey beast that came just in the nick of time.

“You’re lucky. Harpies move way too fast. I swear, you blink and there’s thunder.” The pair kept walking in the direction of the council now that he knew what their objective was. “So you’re going to get a search party after him?”

“They may have already caught him. I just want to know for sure, then it’s back to making shoes.”

A meeting was taking place when they arrived near the Lord of the elves’ treehome. Him and his eight council members were seated on beautifully carved chairs with intricate patterns. And the chairs were placed on a high square stand. The elf Lord wore a stunning green coat and a crown made of silver with a peridot at the forefront.

Beyond the seats, Phadia saw a thorny cage that had just enough gaps to see the figure’s face inside.

“Hey, they got him.” Joshua smiled.

Phadia frowned. Was that really the harpy? Phadia took a few more steps closer. She remembered that the harpy had orange eyes that looked menacing in the dark. But the thing in the cage was different. Its eyes were yellow.

“No. That’s not it. His eyes are different.”

“Oh. Well then, you’ll have to tell the Master about the fugitive. I’m with you.”

They came to the square and stood before the Lord’s chair. They both took a bow.

Joshua talked first to introduce them. “Your Grace, ’scuse the interruption but Phadia here has something important to say. Go on.” The last part to his friend.

“Last night, as you probably heard, the harpies came down here again but before they left they left one of their own here. He was banished. He’s a dangerous and enormous and–”

“Laying low,” the Master said. “Nobody else saw that harpy. Are you sure that’s what it was?”

“Yes sir.”

“Hmm… well it’s almost midday and no one else has come to me about this dangerous harpy, so if you’re telling the truth, then it must have flown to another district by now.”

One of the council members on the Lord’s left spoke up. “And we’ll send someone to deal with him later as soon as we finish up with this imp here; he was captured today.”

Phadia’s attention immediately went back to the beast inside the thorny cage. Now that she was closer to it this time, she could see its horns and a long tail poking out from the back. He was half her height and he had long pointy ears just like elves but much larger. His skin was tough and grey and he had long black claws on all his digits. He was blinking a hundred times a minute and shaking like a reed.

So this was an imp. And not just any, but the same imp that saved her last night. He was the same height and everything. He looked a lot less dangerous standing in a cage. Or it could have just been the fact that he was wearing a white shirt and he had gold rings in his ears. His shirt had cuts from getting tangled in the thorns. She smiled at him. It might have helped a little. He stopped shaking when he saw her.

“All in favour of executing this beast from Shaol,” said the Master. Shaol was not a place on earth. It was the realm that they say that all evil forces went when they died. But the elves had so much contempt for the imps that they called the place they lived Shaol.

Phadia’s mouth dropped as she watched the entire council raise their hands. The imp started shaking again.

Phadia couldn’t stop looking at the imp’s frightened eyes. The beast didn’t even scratch at the cage or sneer at the Master. He just stood there, shaking, afraid.

Joshua looked like he was ready to leave. “I should get back to my work.”

Phadia winced. “But Joshua, they’re going to kill him. Don’t you realise what that is? That’s the imp that saved my life. I just didn’t realise he was an imp.”

Their Master made a final statement before leaving with his council. “This cage will hold him for the night. Dryad magic makes plants tougher than usual. The imp will be executed same time tomorrow.”

“He’s already decided Phadia. Besides, he’s only an imp. He’s a witches’ servant.”

She made a pleading look at Joshua but it didn’t matter when his back was turned.

She asked the council for permission to speak on the matter but they simply told her to leave. And when she looked away she could still see those terrified eyes.