The Broken Sword - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"Fool boy is always trying to prove himself," Kelnozz muttered, staring out the window of his and Alesha's palatial bedroom. Alesha smirked behind him and approached.

"No, my love, Bobo is always trying to impress you."

Kelnozz turned, scowling. "I have no need of being impressed, why doesn't he understand that? We are elves, we live for ages beyond imagining, he has time to enjoy life and to be just a boy."

"You forget, he is not an elf as you are. And I am no elf at all," Alesha reminded him. "He has grown up as I expected he would, as a human child would. Our lives are short and we are always in a hurry to leave our mark upon the world."

Kelnozz scoffed. "What of you? You're closing in on one-hundred-forty years of age and look every bit the buxom wench I met who was only a score of years old."

Alesha winked at him and said. "I'll show you buxom..."

Kelnozz chuckled, given the opportunity she would indeed. But he was in no mood for play, he had to many things upon his mind. Alesha saw this in him and inwardly sighed. She had hoped she would be able to distract him, even if only for a short while, from his responsibilities. She went forward and hugged him, laying her head upon his shoulder while Kelnozz stared silently beyond her. She knew he was still troubled, though she had tried greatly to distract him from the worries their son caused him.

His birth had been nothing short of a miracle. In striking out at Bavorish and refusing to take his place in the pantheon of Viconian Gods, Alesha had been forever sundered from the Gods, be it their actions or the magic of their priests. It was of little concern to her for she had captured a portion of Bavorish's power within herself, more then most mortals could ever hope to dream of, in fact. But her powers were dark and seldom of the type that could be used to heal or aid another. Even when she could there was a price to be paid for it. To give life she had to take life, the balance must be maintained.

Thus it was to her amazement that the spark of life caught within her. Bobo was an impossibility made possible only through some sort of outside interaction that she could not fathom. From her childhood chemistry and biology classes on Earth she knew that there must be great differences between human and elven DNA for no children to have produced from a union between the similar peoples. Yet somehow Bobo was born, half human and half elf.

Kelnozz had been horrified to see Bobo when he was first born. To many memories of light elven atrocities lived in his mind, for when his son proved to have white skin he had to remind himself it was Alesha's heritage he was showing. He also possessed a thick mane of black hair, like either of them. His features were delicate yet strong in the way of the elves, however, and his eyes possessed the same color as his, including their intense ferocity when the boy set his mind to something and refused to be denied.

Bobo had tried hard his entire life to live up to the specter of being the son of the finest warrior in elven history. He possessed no link to Alesha's magic, and for that Alesha was grateful. Her legacy was more of a curse then a boon. It had been given to her from the darkest and most vile of places, yet she had learned that power alone was neither good nor evil, only its use. The lesson had nearly destroyed her on multiple occasions, however. She did not want her son to ever face the things she had, thus she had never showed him how to tap into the power that could be his had he only known about it.

They had been shocked and grieved to learn of his accident three years past, when he lost his hand while serving with the Elven Navy. At the time, with the resources he had at hand, he had made the right decision. Not even Alesha's power could restore his hand, however.

What was more was that he had been nearly three months in returning and, though only nineteen years old at the time, he had adjusted to using his left hand remarkably well. He had found a use for his right arm as well. It was not an uncommon thing for a sailor to have a stump. With ropes and pirates and accidents at sea such things happened. Bobo had adapted a double barreled pistol into a brace that fit over his stump, allowing him to wear and aim it as an extension of his right arm, it required only his left hand to pull the triggers to let the flint strike the powder.

Firepowder had been discovered by the elves of Innowendyn hundreds of years past, but a practical use for it had never been discovered until the dwarves that ran the twin islands and all between and beneath them as the Kingdom of Undersea began producing their own and adapted it into pistols, bombards, and exploding balls. Alesha had paled when she saw these devices and reminded Kelnozz and Garrick's trip to Earth long ago. She begged him to forbid their use and to try to destroy any such knowledge of them, for fear what might happen in the future because of their use. Guns and grenades would lead to greater and bigger weapons of destruction, she insisted, and hundreds of thousands would die because of it.

Kelnozz had reminded her of the great battles she had seen and taken part in. Thousands had died already, and with her magic could she not take the lives of just as many as one of the firepowder weapons? Grudgingly she had accepted his logic, but she had vowed that no matter how long she lived and no matter what happened would she ever call upon her scarce knowledge of firearms and explosive devices to create any of them. She knew little, really, other then the concepts that others could engineer devices to accomplish. Yet had it not been for the concept of a wheel people the people of earth would still be hunting and gathering societies.

"He's not an elf, Kel, he might be okay if he goes to Thoragloorin," Alesha said at last, bringing herself out of her memories and trying to soothe her troubled husband.

"He is no human either, remember," Kelnozz responded darkly. He sighed then and shook his head. "Would that Thoragloorin could stay lost forever."

"You don't want that, and you know it."

Kelnozz chuckled without humor. "Yes, I do know it. But I can not let him go there. None who enter can ever leave until the forbidding is released, and no elf may enter it at all, such was the power of the wizards that sacrificed themselves to create it."

"And there are none more powerful now?" Alesha asked him.

"I think not. You are perhaps the greatest Viconia has ever known, save Narellin, and even your power eclipses his, and you know as well as I do that it stands impervious."

Alesha nodded. She was greater then Narellin had been at his height, though his range of magic had the potential to be wider. Kelnozz's first son, Darakor, had been an archmage as well, but he was dead and gone and still no comparison.

"Garrick?" Alesha asked, thinking of the former God that had become their close companion in the many years since Kelnozz had become the King of the Elves. They had even got over their rivalry that had started centuries back when Alesha had captured him as he masqueraded as a barbarian chieftain. Garrick had toyed with her then, letting her think she had the best of him.

"Not even him," Kelnozz said. "And for that matter, I have no idea where he is at these days. It has been years since I last saw him, when he wanted to take Bobo camping with him and turn him into a real man." Kelnozz smirked and Alesha shuddered at the thought of what an extended time spent in the company of the savage man would do to her son.

"So what are your plans? I hate it when you get so quiet and thoughtful like this. If you want my help you need to tell me what's going through that pointy-eared head of yours!" Alesha said, tapping her fingers roughly against his forehead. Kelnozz just smirked.

"I have my eyes out looking for someone who can help. Your part is soon to come, I think. I need you to meet them and tell me if you think they will work."

Alesha looked at him, her eyes questioning him, but he would say no more of it. "I think you worry too much, as you have always done. Bobo will be fine, whether he goes or not. You can not control his surroundings forever, you know. Let the boy be the man he wants to be. He will never be you, Kel, he is something of each of us and there are literally worlds of difference between us."

Kelnozz lay there, hearing her words and thinking about them in spite of his desire to do so. Before he could digest them all she continued. "Because he is so different everything you think you learned from your relationship with your father does not apply here. He is elf, but he is also human. He needs our support and our love and most importantly, our trust that he can do things on his own, without our help."

"When he lost his hand," Alesha said, forestalling any comment Kelnozz was going to make. "He did something then that you admitted made you very proud. From all accounts he stood up to what had happened with responsibility and did what had to be done, publicly as much as admitting his error and his willingness to learn from it. We were both proud then, even though it was a terrible tragedy."

"And that," Kelnozz said, interrupting her and earning a scathing glare which he could only smirk at. "That is why I fear for him."

"The best lessons are the hardest ones to learn," Alesha said, resting her head back on his shoulder and rubbing her hand across the defined muscles of his stomach. "Perhaps that is another thing father and son share, for you seem unwilling to learn this one."

Continued in Chapter 4