Paul Thompson - Firstborn

Kith-Kanan doubled back six feet and dropped down on his hands. There was no sound in the woods. Mackeli called, “You can’t steal up on anyone by sitting still.”

The prince stepped only on the tree roots that humped up above the level of the fallen leaves. In this way he went ten paces without making a sound. Mackeli said nothing, and the prince grinned to himself. The boy couldn’t hear him! At last.

He stepped far out from a root to a flat stone. The stone was tall enough to allow him to reach a low limb on a yew tree. As silently as possible, he pulled himself up into the yew tree, hugging the trunk. His green and brown tunic blended well with the lichen-spotted bark. A hood concealed his fair hair. Immobile, he waited. He’d surprise the boy this time!

Any second now, Mackeli would walk by and then he’d spring down on him. But something firm thumped against his hood. Kith-Kanan raised his eyes and saw Mackeli, clinging to the tree just three feet above him. He nearly fell off the branch, so great was his surprise.

“By the Dragonqueen!” he swore. “How did you get up there?”

“I climbed,” said Mackeli smugly.

“But how? I never saw.”

“Walking on the roots was good, Kith, but you spent so much time watching your feet I was able to slip in front of you.”

“But this tree! How did you know which one to climb?”

Mackeli shrugged his narrow shoulders. “I made it easy for you. I pushed the stone out far enough for you to step on and climbed up here to wait. You did the rest.”

Kith-Kanan swung down to the ground. “I feel like a fool. Why, your average goblin is probably better in the woods than I am.”

Mackeli let go of the tree and fell in a graceful arc. He caught the low branch with his fingertips to slow his descent. Knees bent, he landed beside Kith-Kanan.

“You are pretty clumsy,” he said without malice. “But you don’t smell as bad as a goblin.”

“My thanks.” said the prince sourly.

“It’s really just a matter of breathing.”

“Breathing? How?”

“You breathe like this.” Mackeli threw back his shoulders and puffed out his thin chest. He inhaled and exhaled like a blacksmith’s bellows. The sight was so absurd, Kith-Kanan had to smile. “Then you walk the way you breathe.” The boy stomped about exaggeratedly, lifting his feet high and crashing them into the scattered leaves and twigs.

Kith-Kanan’s smile flattened into a frown. “How do you breathe?” he asked.

Mackeli rooted about at the base of the tree until he found a cast-off feather. He lay on his back and placed it on his upper lip. So smoothly did the elf boy draw breath, the feather never wavered.

“Am I going to have to learn how to breathe?” Kith-Kanan demanded.

“It would be a good start,” said Mackeli. He hopped to his feet. “We go home now.”

Several days passed slowly for Kith-Kanan in the forest. Mackeli was a clever and engaging companion, but his diet of nuts, berries, and water did not agree with the elf prince’s tastes. His belly, which was hardly ample to start with, shrank under the simple fare. Kith-Kanan longed for meat and nectar. Only Ny could get meat, the boy insisted. Yet there was no sign of the mysterious “Ny.”

There was also no sign of the missing Arcuballis. Though Kith-Kanan prayed that somehow they could be reunited, he knew there was little hope for this. With no idea where the griffon had been taken and no way of finding out, the prince tried to accept that Arcuballis was gone forever. The griffon, a tangible link with his old life, was gone, but Kith-Kanan still had his memories.

These same memories returned to torment the prince in his dreams during those days. He heard once more his father announce Hermathya’s betrothal to Sithas. He relived the ordeal in the Tower of the Stars, and, most terrible of all, he listened to Hermathya’s calm acceptance of Sithas.

Kith-Kanan filled his days talking with and learning from Mackeli, determined to build a new life away from Silvanost. Perhaps that life would be here, he decided, in the peace and solitude of the ancient forest.

One time Kith-Kanan asked Mackeli where he’d been born, where he’d come from.

“I have always been from here,” Mackeli replied, waving absently at the trees.

“You were born here?”

“I have always been here,” he replied stubbornly.

At that, Kith-Kanan gave up. Questions about the past stymied the boy almost as much as queries about the future. If he stuck to the present—and whatever they were doing at the moment—he could almost have a conversation with Mackeli.

In return for Mackeli’s lessons in stealth and survival, Kith-Kanan regaled his young friend with tales of Silvanost, of the great wars against the dragons, and of the ways of city-bred elves.

Mackeli loved these stories, but more than anything, metal fascinated him. He would sit cross-legged on the ground and hold some object of Kith-Kanan’s, his helmet, a greave, a piece from his armor, and rub his small brown fingers against the cold surface again and again. He could not fathom how such hard material could be shaped so intricately. Kith-Kanan explained what he knew of smithy and foundry work. The idea that metal could be melted and poured absolutely astounded Mackeli.

“You put metal in the fire,” he said, “and it doesn’t burn? It gets soft and runny, like water?”

“Well, it’s thicker than water.”

“Then you take away the fire, and the metal gets hard again?”

Kith-Kanan nodded. “You made that up!” Mackeli exclaimed. “Things put in the fire get burned.”

“I swear by E’li, it is the truth.”

Mackeli was too slight to handle the sword, but he was able to draw the bow well enough to shoot. He had an uncanny eye, and Kith-Kanan wished he would use some of that stealth to bring down a deer for dinner. But it was not to be; Mackeli didn’t eat meat and he refused to shed blood for Kith-Kanan. Only Ny…

On a gray and rainy morning, Mackeli went out to gather nuts and roots. Kith-Kanan remained in the hollow tree, stoking the fire, polishing his sword and dagger. When the rain showed signs of letting up, he left his weapons below and climbed the ladder to the upper part of the oak tree. He stood on a branch thicker around than his waist and surveyed the rain-washed forest. Drops fell from the verdant leaves, and the air had a clean, fertile smell. Deeply the prince inhaled. He had found a small measure of peace here, and the meeting with the Forestmaster had foretold great adventure for his future.

Kith-Kanan went back down and immediately noticed that his sword and dagger were gone. His first thought was that Mackeli had come back and was playing a trick on him, but the prince saw no signs the boy had returned. He turned around and was going back up the tree when something heavy struck him from behind, in the middle of his back.

He crashed against the trunk, spun, and saw nothing. “Mackeli!” he cried,

“This isn’t funny!” Neither was the blow on the back of his head that followed. A weight bore Kith-Kanan to the ground. He rolled and felt arms and legs around him. Something black and shiny flashed by his nose. He knew the move of a stabbing attack, and he put out both hands to seize the attacker’s wrist.

His assailant’s face was little more than a whorl of painted lines and a pair of shadowed eyes. The flint knife wavered, and as Kith-Kanan backhanded the knife wielder, the painted face let out a gasp of pain. Kith-Kanan sat up, wrenched the knife out of its owner’s grasp, and pinned his attacker to the ground with one knee.

“The kill is yours,” said the attacker. His struggles faded, and he lay tense but passive under Kith-Kanan’s weight.