A Wizard's Tale Read online

slave I would be. The fight escalated, and eventually one of them was killed.

  And then it was up to whoever was fastest on the draw. One of the males—although it was often hard to tell with Elves—drew upon his dark magic and sucked the energy from the corpse. He was shrouded in a black mist for a moment and then released his energy, killing the other Elves around him.

  The Elf dragged me to his home and freed me from the mesh. I ran for the door. He grabbed my wrist and yelled in his angry-sounding language. He reached for his clippers that were on a desk nearby. He shoved me to the floor face-first and pinned me with his foot.

  I let out a grunt of pain. I squirmed under his foot wildly—he was going to clip my wings!—then I closed my eyes and went to my calm emotion, thinking of my wrists. I heated my whole body up to such an extreme that the heat shot through his shoe to his foot—I was sure he was burned—he cursed in his primitive language and released me, dancing around on his cool foot.

  I put my wings away and attempted to run. A woman ran into the room when she heard her husband cursing. She took magic from a nearby shadow and shot it at me. It hit me right in the head and I went out like a light.

  I awoke with my ankle tied to a post outdoors. I realized I must be in the Elf’s backyard, as his house was right nearby. I struggled. I was too tired and bedraggled to do any magic that could break the steel chain—and I didn’t think I could calm my mind enough to do it anyway.

  I sat down with an angry huff. What a mess I had gotten myself into. Again. This time I was in big trouble. I had heard of what Elves do to Pixies. They take away their flight and turn them into slaves to do whatever their bidding might be. Some told me it was a fate worse than death.

  The male Elf opened his wooden door and stamped outside menacingly. If I thought that Human I fought earlier in the arena was gigantic, this Elf put him to shame. Most Elves, I came to realize, at least reached seven feet. This one was seven foot five.

  I cringed as he loomed over me. He knelt down to my level and started yelling again. I shook my head, trying to indicate I didn’t understand.

  “Rok’tishan… show me the wings!” He said in common.

  Ah. Now I realized what he wanted. He wanted to get rid of my wings so I couldn’t escape. He had another thing coming. “My wings are part of being a Pixie. You may not have them, Elf.”

  Quick as a snake, he seized my neck and squeezed. “Rok’tishan!” He said again.

  My eyes rolled into the back of my head. My brain was getting foggy. I let my wings out. He released my neck. I fell on all fours, gasping for air.

  He had his clippers in one hand.

  Even oxygen starved, I couldn’t stand the thought of life without wings. Still gasping and weak, I kicked him back with my free foot. He cursed and smacked me hard across the face. He went around to the back of the post. I tried to retract my wings, but he grabbed them before I could.

  Before I knew it, he had clipped them.

  It was the cruelest thing anyone had ever done to me.

  Mr. Serious was struggling throughout my story, excited, and yet squirming because he was uncomfortable. “You still cannot fly…?”

  I thought for a moment. “I can. But what he did…”

  “It was awful.” He completed. “I heard stories about the Elves, but…”

  “It’s not the Elf’s fault that it happened. He was just doing what he was taught to do form his father’s father’s father. It was my fault. I was being careless.”

  “Was it… painful?” He wondered.

  “Only in the sense that I’ve been missing a part of myself for many, many years,” I leaned forward thoughtfully. “It’s like losing a leg. You never really feel the same again.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said empathetically.

  “Now I have your pity.” I said with a chuckle.

  “No… that’s not how I--Oh. You’re joking with me again.” He said with a smile.

  “Now you’re getting it. Now, as I was saying, without flight, there was nothing I could really do to escape. I thought I might have to spend years and years being the slave of that Elf. He wasn’t such a terrible master, compared to the other Elves and their Pixies. After three years of being his slave, something remarkable happened…”

  I was fetching my master (whose name I found out was Castor) a book at the Elf library—because he was studying a new kind of dark magic—problem was, it was on the very top of a giant shelf made for a seven-foot-tall Elf.

  I scooted a stool over to the shelf, but I was still too small. I stood on my tippy-toes and jumped frantically.

  I heard a she-elf giggle from behind me. “Need some help, Pixie?” She reached to the top shelf and handed me the book. “There you are.”

  I simply stared at her for a moment. Dumbstruck by her sheer beauty. She had high-cheekbones, a sharp, defined chin, and long, silky, flowing white hair that went down to her ankles. She had her hair combed out of her face, so that I could see her most striking feature—her tilted, shining amber eyes, that the sun had caught in its light at just the right moment.

  And she was perfect. Absolutely perfect.

  “Perfect?” Mr. Serious scoffed. “Nobody is perfect. I suppose you’re going to tell me it was love at first sight?”

  I cocked my head to one side thoughtfully. “Have you ever been in love, Mr. Serious?”

  “Yes.”

  “Didn’t you think that she was perfect? Even though your friends and family sincerely doubted it?” I continued.

  “Yes.” he said truthfully.

  “It never mattered to me what other people thought of her. Or, indeed, what she thought of herself. In my eyes, there was no one more perfect in the world. Even though, in reality, I’m sure she was far from perfect. But when you’re in love… well, when you meet someone like her, there’s really nothing you can help but love her to death. It was nothing so childish or fake as love at first sight. I was shocked when I first saw her, really. More because she did me an act of kindness than anything else.”

  Mr. Serious, I saw, was engrossed once more, so I moved on with my story.

  I tried to say something to the girl, but once she handed me the book, she had already begun walking away. I hoped I would see her again. As it was, I needed to get this book to Castor pronto.

  I sprinted as fast as I could. He was not a patient man. I tripped over a rock on my way there, upon thinking of the white-haired Elf. I chuckled at myself and got back up quickly. Castor’s house was in sight now, and I knocked on the door. The Elf opened the door and took the book, glancing at it to make sure it was the right one. Then he grabbed my wrist and dragged me inside.

  “Back to your post,” he demanded. I had begun to learn their language slowly, but surely. I had a mind for it.

  I sighed and obeyed, not wanting to get on his bad side. At my own pace, I walked through his tiny house and out into his backyard, where I promptly propped my back up against the fence. I had, of course, contemplated escape many times before. The elves used Dark Magic to keep Pixies from escaping the village. If you went too far, the shadows would grab you and pull you back.

  I closed my eyes and rested for a moment. It was a tiring job, being a slave. But always when I closed my eyes, he would think of something new for me to do.

  “Fo’portian… go get me ale.” He said, giving me a copper.

  And so continued my drab day. I skittered off like the good lapdog I was, whispering obscenities about Castor behind his back as I went.

  The one good thing about my day was that, as I ran, I saw the white-haired Elfess again. She walked outside the door of a bakery and the wind kicked up. It swept her long hair up from where it hung and blew it to the left. With a frown on her face, she looked the way it blew, moving strands of hair out of her line of vision as she did so.

  She saw me looking at her. Her frown slowly turned into a smile, and I heard her give a soft chuckle. She went on her way ag
ain.

  I knew I had to find out who she was. But not today. Today, I had better get that ale.

 

  Indeed, I didn’t get to actually speak to the white-haired woman for many weeks. We would cross paths sometimes, she would smile at the memory of me trying to crane for the book, and then we would both move on, as we were both quite busy. Though what she was busy with I could not know.

  But finally, a day came when my master—after three years mind you—finally gave me aday off. I immediately went looking for the woman. I searched everywhere I had seen her—the library, the bakery, the bridge, the market—but she was nowhere to be seen. I sat down feeling despondent. If I could just see her shimmering hair one last time.

  But finally, I saw her, just after I sat down. I caught sight of her long shimmering hair first, in the distance. I realized she was headed for the town bridge. It was a charming cobbled bridge, small and overlooking a stream below it. Her hair blew in the wind again.

  I got to my feet and raced to the bridge. I approached her slowly, and quietly stood beside her and leaned over the bridge myself. I leaned so far I almost fell in. The silver-haired woman gasped.

  I jumped back from the railing. “What?”

  “You’re going to give me a heart-attack, Pixie.” She said, putting a long graceful hand to her heart.

  “You afraid of heights?” I wondered.

  “Only when someone is begging to fall,” she said. “You are a newer Pixie here, I take it?”

  “Was. It’s been