An excerpt from Thalib Razi’s Islam-inspired coming-of-age fantasy novel:
With his new enchanted boots and shining twin rapiers, Buzzard Galatiel felt like a true elf warrior. As he and his party of forest rangers walked home from a night off spent at the bars, he bounced ahead on drunken confidence – and the boots’ gravity-reducing enchantment.
“Whoo-eeh!” he shouted as he jumped high into the air, swords drawn, executing a perfect front flip and rolling onto one knee with a wild grin.
Then he doubled over and vomited.
His companions caught up to him. “Easy, Buzz,” one of them said, thumping him on the back. Buzz looked around warily, wiping his mouth. On this major road in the Green Valley of the Republic of Merwick, with neighborhoods of massive trees lining its sides, anyone could have seen that spectacle. Quite improper behavior for one of the Wreath’s finest. Luckily, it was three in the morning, and the street was empty. Perhaps only their fellow on-duty cops were awake at this hour, and they would be patrolling Ashgrovian University, miles away. He dusted himself off, relieved.
Suddenly, he heard a rustling in the undergrowth between the trees.
They stopped. Buzz rolled up his sleeves and walked towards the sound. “Hey, who’s there?”
The rustling continued, more frantically now.
Buzz stabbed his swords into the ground and reached out with one hand, which began to attract specks of golden light from thin air. “Come out, or taste the power of my spirit,” he growled, eyes narrowed.
A black-robed figure popped up out of the tall grass. He was one of the Kinfolk, just like them, but not an elf. The olive-green skinned goblin waved nervously in the dim light of a nearby lamp-tree’s single fruit.
“Well, well, a green snake hides easily in the grass, doesn’t it?” Buzz said. “Taking a dump, were you? Heard you ‘Folk don’t know how to wipe with a leaf.”
Mizan al-Wasati was tempted to retort, “We use water; it’s cleaner, you unwashed barbarians.” But he didn’t. After all, he left the University hours ago. This was fair elf country, and these were some real country fair elves. Instead, he smiled meekly and said, “Taking a nap, actually, sir. I’m from the Frozen Wharf, and I’m traveling to Oddstar to take a ship back in the morning. Enjoying this lovely night, I hope?”
Buzz smiled back. “Not anymore, buddy. We’re rangers, see.” He kicked a stone with a pointedly absentminded boot. “And this right here,” he gestured drunkenly, “this right here is our range. Now just how were you expecting to get to Oddstar by the morning? It’s a good day’s journey from here – on horse! Seems like you’re in no hurry for a fella on foot.”
“I actually – ” Mizan started to say that he actually had some very fast transportation which broke down, and he was just finished fixing it, but he didn’t mention it because he thought they might be bandits, not plainclothes rangers, and come to think of it, he was in a bit of a hurry, so if they’d excuse him, he’d just be on his merry –
“Save it,” Buzz interrupted. “A fire-loving goblin in black robes, meddling around in this dry grass, late at night? With all of these innocent elves sleeping away in their trees? But we ‘infidels’ are never innocent to you, are we.”
“What? No!” Mizan cried. “The Way forbids – ”
“Don’t tell me what your Subverted brand of religion says, I know all about your false pretenses of peace,” Buzz snarled. “Boys, what do ya say? That maple mead is really running through my veins right now. I know we’re supposed to call for backup, but as you know, our colleagues don’t care much for our style of…adventuring.” His companions laughed. “So,” he continued, yanking his blades out of the ground. “Who’s up for a little heroics?”
“Yeah!”
“Let’s put a boot up this savage Riever where the stars don’t shine!”
“For the Free ‘Folk!” cried one of the more old-fashioned elves.
“Wait, w-wait!” Mizan said, holding up his hands. Then his voice grew harsh, and his expression crazed. “You’re right. I am of the Riever sect of the Way – a berserker in fact, our sect’s highest class of assassin. These black bearskin robes were bestowed upon me by the Supreme Riever himself, along with the frenzy-inducing hashishrooms running through my veins right now!” He cackled wildly. “And by El, we’ll incinerate the next elf who moves.” He started to levitate, raising his hands to the sky. Golden specks of light rushed towards him, encircling his body. A cloud of smoke shrouded him, and when it lifted, he had disappeared.
“What in all Four Verses?” Buzz breathed. His spine tingled. Were there more of them?
Out of the grass, a large flying carpet rose with Mizan on top, still glowing with light. The goblin shouted a command, and the enchanted rug rushed forward, bowling the elves over before turning sharply and zooming down the road.
A second later, they all got up and rushed after the distant flying figure, but they were too late. One ranger fired an arrow, more to make a rhetorical point than a literal one. Buzz brandished a rapier, broken in the impact, his golden hair flowing and murder in his blue eyes. “Come back here, you filthy underlander!” he roared, incensed. That blade was a family heirloom from the Old War! Then he looked down. “Hang on…”
One of his friends rushed up to him. “Hey Buzz, should we call a Knight or something? A Riever on the loose and whatnot.”
“Nah.” Buzz picked up an Ashgrovian University graduation cap, soft and tasseled, from the ground. “He wasn’t a Riever after all, just a skinny goblin nerd.” He chuckled. “Those black graduation robes looked awful zealot-like on him, eh? Rich college boy – we probably could’ve scared him out of a ton of pearls… Too bad he fooled us with those cheap tricks. Aw well.”
“Hey, so what now?” one elf said. “The night over?”
Buzz turned around. “Friend, the night’s never over.” He waggled the broken sword knowingly. “There’s always monsters to slay in these woods, always treasures to seek, maidens to beguile, ain’t it? It’s Saturday night, lads! For a party of adventurers like ourselves, well…” He sheathed the blade and grinned. “The party never stops.”
“Filthy underlander!” The words rang in Mizan’s pointy ears. They twitched rapidly, shaking off the sting of the insult, as he approached a roadside rest stop at the top of the Valley. Toggling one of the jewels sewn into the carpet, the goblin activated the damaged brake-field which had sent him careening into the grass earlier that night. For a moment, the laws of momentum and air resistance were bent, and the carpet gradually slowed down.
But before it could come to a halt, the carpet suddenly began to shake. Mizan frantically grabbed for another gemstone button, but the shaking intensified. He and the carpet fell to the ground with a thump, right in front of the parking stables.
“Swear to…” Mizan muttered. He dusted himself off and tucked the carpet under an arm, patting it with weary sympathy. He had to cut the old rug some slack; after all, it had gotten him this far on a hasty repair spell. Here, at least, there would be eyewitnesses if more “adventurers” were afoot. Underneath the rest stop was an underground train station heading back into the Valley, and many would be waiting for a seat inside the roomy exoskeleton of an enchanted earth-wyrm.
A number of Kin were seated on nearby benches – mostly fairies, but a few dark elves too. A couple of the fair elves gave him funny looks as he unrolled the carpet onto the floor. He ignored them, knelt down, and began the process of enchantment repair. He rubbed one of the gemstones, mumbling magical formulas from a half-opened scroll. A golden thread of spirit rose from it with his finger, which he stabbed back into the rug, haphazardly suturing its anti-gravity enchantment.
“All right then, you fearsome Riever,” the goblin said to himself, half-smiling, as he sat cross-legged on the rug. “Rise, quintessential spirit in these stones, in the name of El, Creator of all spirit!” he chanted, using his limited grasp of his mother tongue. The fairies stared harder; to them, the goblin language was harsh and guttural – further proof of the barbarity of their green-skinned Kin who lived on the other side of the world. Mizan continued to ignore their eyes, gazing hopefully at the carpet.
Its emerald-studded corners glowed and flapped a bit, but then flopped back down. Mizan sighed. The rug was originally enchanted in the goblin language by his grandmother, whose husband had bought the spirit-filled gemstones on his pilgrimage to the Northstone at the edge of the world. So his broken goblin just would not cut it, nor would his textbook-level enchanting skills. He stared through the window at the meandering road which led down to Oddstar, the capital of Merwick, and sighed. He was going to miss his ship.
“Meezawn?”
Grimacing at the mispronunciation, he turned around and immediately recognized the green-eyed elf girl staring down at him. He grimaced inside. “Apple!” he said, getting to his feet. “Wow, what a surprise.”
The fair elf laughed. “Almost…serendipitous, don’t you think?”
“Very funny,” he growled at her reference to his goblin island homeland, Serendipitiya, located under his feet on the opposite face of their coin-shaped planet.
Only a century ago, the island gained its independence from being a colony of Merwick; centuries before that, it was “discovered” by shipwrecked Merwickian soldiers who were just seeking shelter. It was the first of the provinces of the multiracial Wayfarer Federation to fall to the fair elves, marking the turning point of the Old War between the coin’s faces. So in fairie slang, the word meant “unexpected luck.” Not so much for Mizan’s people, though.
“Ah come on – I meant ‘cause you’re Serendipitiyan, that’s all,” Apple said. “Hey, want a cookie?” She held out a tree-shaped cookie with green frosting, half-nibbled.
The unexpected request made Mizan chuckle. “No thanks. It’s got dragonsleaf in it, I’m guessing?”
“Ho yes,” she said, eyes crossing for a second. “Still on the good old Way, I see?”
Mizan shrugged. “Still not a fan of your ‘high elf’ friends, if that’s what you mean.”
Apple snickered. “The high elves. Yeah, they were a dumb crowd. You know, I’m a Wayfarer too now.”
“Really?” he said, perplexed.
“Sure!” she said, tugging her tasseled graduation cap with both hands so her hair was completely covered. “Oh, look at me, I’m a Sister of ze Way, khakhakha, may ze peace of El be wiss you,” she proclaimed with an airy dwarf accent, clasping her hands together in a bow.
Mizan narrowed his eyes. His childhood friend Daena was an ordained Sister of the Way, and more than that, he hated being deceived. He huffed lightly in the elf’s direction, and a sharp gust of wind knocked the cap right off, revealing Apple’s pixie-cut red hair with blue highlights: the twin colors behind the green Wreath on Merwick’s flag. She yelped, her fingers snatching the cap just before it soared away. It was a trick Mizan had learned from Daena, actually, a little goblin fire-breathing – minus the ignition spell of course. He wasn’t that mean.
“Chill, bro!” Apple said, fixing the cap back on. She turned to a couple of schoolgirls looking on in concern at this act of underlander aggression. “Whaddaya looking at, huh? He’s not going to eat me.” She scowled until they looked away. “Anyway. Basic fairie chicks. Hey, wait a minute. Where’s your grad cap?” She gestured at his head of curly black hair.
Mizan reached into the empty pocket of his robes. “Damn.” It must have fallen out when… He told her about his escape from the off-duty rangers.
“Bloody El,” Apple said when he finished. “Oh, sorry, pardon my language.”
Mizan waved it off. “To you your way, and all that.” El, God, Creator of the even and the odd and the masculine and the feminine and all five elements, Who continuously spoke the poem of the uni-verse into being, had many Names, but Bloody was not one of them. Not according to the Way, anyway, which taught that El transcended the corporeality of His creation. “Bloody El” was an oath peculiar to fairies, perhaps from their Druidist religion. But her oaths weren’t his problem – and they harmed El not.
“You know, you weren’t the only one assaulted this evening by guys trying to reenact a fantasy,” Apple said. “Me and my girl-friends went out dancing for a last hurrah on campus, and this ugly troll-faced elf kept pushing himself on me. ‘Love should be free among the Free ‘Folk,’ and all that.”
Mizan tsked sympathetically.
“I mean, no offense to trolls; we Kinfolk are probably ugly to them. The point is, some ‘Folk have no fear. But I changed that.” She winked and pulled her petrified wood flute from her belt, twirling it dangerously.
He chuckled. “I don’t doubt it. So, where are you headed?”
Apple’s expression completely changed. “Oh, you’ll never guess…” She didn’t give him the chance. “To a year-long fellowship at the Musical Conservatory of Fridheim!” Apple said excitedly, grabbing him by the shoulders.
“Woo! Um, congratulations.”
“You don’t…sound too happy.” Apple’s eyes narrowed.
“Er…” Mizan didn’t want to get whacked by a stone flute. “Look, it’s my city. I have a lot of mixed feelings about it. Plus, you’re not the first fair elf to benefit from the regime’s special preferences while returning to the ‘Grey Lands’ your ancestors sailed from, or whatever you call it.”
“Ugh, don’t be like that.”
“I’m just saying, Fridheim is…well, it’s a lot of things, all at the same time. I just hope you’ll see it as it really is.”
“Fair enough – I’ll keep that in mind… Anyway, your carpet’s still broken, huh? I’m here on old Barb; I was just buying some feed for the old girl. You need a ride? We’re headed the same way, after all, at least until Finnstar where I’ve got to stop to see my mom.”
Mizan laughed. “On Barbara, yeah right!” He remembered the stout old goat which Apple rode around to class. “The daily ferry to Finnstar leaves just before noon. So unless you’ve enchanted her, hah…”
“Well…” Apple grinned sheepishly – or perhaps goatishly.
“You what!” he exclaimed. “I mean, it’s my profession, but…” Enchanting was meant for inanimate objects, not living things! He had heard that the Wreath was subsidizing local steed enchantments to compete with the famed magic carpets exported by rival goblin Azulistan. But still…if you could enchant the living, what would stop you from enchanting the dead? He shook the thought out of his mind. “How’s that stuff even possible? She’s got a mind of her own, no matter how fast you’ve enchanted her to be.”
“True,” she said. “But where there’s a mind, there’s the potential for mind-control. And while my bard magic only works on people, I did take a few courses in druid magic, remember?”
“Oh right,” Mizan said with a laugh. Then he looked away. “Actually, I don’t remember…We haven’t exactly – ” He paused.
“I suppose it has been a while,” Apple admitted.
He nodded. “Just been busy, you know. Enchanting courses were Hel – ”
“Come on, Meez,” Apple said, shaking her head and smiling. “You’ve been avoiding me!”
Embarrassed, Mizan looked away. Thankfully, the wyrm-train had arrived and left, and the crowd with it. “Yeah,” he said. “I suppose I have. Ever since our… date, I guess? If you could call it that.”
“Yeah, that was a weird night,” Apple said with a laugh. “Although if more ‘Folk had dates like that, Quatrain might be a better place.”
Mizan grinned. “Right. ‘Do you believe in El?’ ‘Who should have won the Old War?’ ‘Do you want to have kids?’ ‘What are your thoughts on the institution of marriage?’ No surprises later on…”
“Anyway, look,” Apple said firmly. “It was a dismal date. We disagree on too many things; you think I’m too free with myself, I think you’re too rigid and cultural – whatever. We agreed just to be friends, but you’ve barely said hi this past year.”
Mizan sighed. “I’m sorry. I just felt awkward.”
“I get that – I felt the same way coming up to you just now. But think about it; does this feel awkward?” She gestured around as if their conversation was floating in the air.
“Huh.” Mizan paused. It felt like they were back in university, bantering over imported Azulistani tea – a meeting of minds, not hearts. “I guess not.”
Apple smiled. “Then it’s settled. Friends?” She extended a hand. “No more, and no less?”
Mizan shook her hand firmly. “Friends.”
Editor’s Note
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