“Can they share their powers with us?” I asked her. “Can they make us stronger—so that I might win this war? Like the stag that gave powers to its knights.”

  “The answer is yes,” she replied, laughing softly, “but I suspect it won’t be enough to keep you from coming back here to bother me again.”

  “You’re right,” I admitted, smiling down at the ground. “I didn’t even think the question through. I just threw out the first thoughts that crossed my mind.”

  “It shows,” she said. “So let me give you a fuller answer—based, of course, on what we know, without any certainty about what is truly true, or to what extent.

  Thousands of years ago, many of the elementals, furious at the way the lion treated the world, gathered and began recruiting descendants. Their aim was to build an army and overthrow him. They sheltered and nourished those descendants until they had gathered enough, until they believed the moment had come to march against the princes.

  But misfortune awaited them. The descendants harbored plans of their own. From the elementals themselves they learned that the beings were immortal—and that the lion had achieved immortality through the power of one of them. So they waited until that power was granted to them… and then they turned against their benefactors. The elementals could not reclaim what they had given. Thus they were forced to fight the very descendants they had empowered.

  The elementals won that battle, but the cost was staggering. After that, they resolved never again to entangle themselves with humans from the other side—only with those already here. Yet we cannot aid them, because we cannot set foot upon the road as you can. And so, all these long years, they have done nothing but wait for something to happen.

  No one is going to grant you power. No one will trust you, no matter how desperately they may need you. The sun is absent, and it feeds every creature in this world—every last one. Their honour, however, remains more important than anything else.”

  I closed my eyes and pressed my lips together. I drew a long, slow breath and let myself drift for a moment into thought. Difficult. Very difficult. I would have to find something to offer them, some way to earn their trust—otherwise my journey back onto the road would almost certainly end in tragedy. Especially now that the princes knew a representative of Eftis had arrived.

  “Ready for your third question?”, Kalli asked, propping herself up on her right arm and tilting her head toward her right shoulder.

  Her hair no longer concealed any part of her face. Even her ears were bared to the candlelight, and throughout our conversation they had gradually flushed a deeper red. Sometimes she stared at me intently; at others she turned her gaze away, toward the deeper recesses of the cave.

  “I think so. No—definitely yes. Please tell me: since they have no connection to us, yet clearly have one to you… what do they gain from this interaction, with humans I mean.”

  “Because we can give them descendants.” Her voice was quiet, almost tender. “No other creature in the world can couple with them—not even among themselves. They feel no romantic desire for one another—only for us, for humans. The offsprings are not guaranteed to inherit powers; they may be ordinary mortals. But the moment powers manifest, the elemental parent comes and takes the child away, raising it far from human influence.

  They do not, however, remain long with their human partners on the island. Their mere presence sows disorder; it drives people mad. The last elemental to visit and linger here was our mother. My father tried to keep her, but when strange things—much like now—began to happen, the council drove her out and left us in his care. At first the disturbances seem harmless, but they quickly turn dangerous.

  Only the council members, my family—because of our direct lineage and contact with an elemental—Eftis, and you—because you do not belong organically to this island—can perceive what is happening. And the reason it is happening is that the elementals have begun to draw near the island. They scent you. They want us to drive you away. They want you dead. They loathe and despise you, and because we protect you, they punish us.

  The rest of the council has started to suspect what you are—who you are. If they refuse to leave us in peace, you may have to leave the island sooner than planned… or you may never leave at all.”

  She did not mean I would live here. Her eyes said it plainly. She meant they would kill me.

  Normally I should have asked no more questions, but my mouth betrayed me once again.

  “And then… why not you? Why not share your power with me?”

  Kalli stiffened. Her face tightened and she rose abruptly from her place.

  “I have no such powers. You’ve misjudged. And the same goes for my brother.”

  “Your father told your mother something different last night. He said you alone stopped the curses the last time. How can someone without powers accomplish that?”

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  From the corner of her eye she glanced at the water beside her. Nothing stirred; all was still. Yet she was shaken—I could see it in the way her palms clenched into fists, the veins standing out dark against her skin.

  “You will never speak those words aloud again. If the wolf were here, he would take your head in a single bite. I don’t know how these powers work. I don’t know how to transfer them. Because of me certain curses appeared when my powers first began to surface. I told the wolf, and he calmed me, guided me, until I understood how to hold them inside and keep them from spilling into human minds. That is as far as my knowledge goes. I cannot help you. And that was question number four. Now please—leave.”

  I too looked at the water, seeing nothing, though I felt the wolf’s eyes upon me. I was used at them starring at me from within the darkness of the forest. I did not press her further. I believe she told me the full truth as she understood it. Throughout our conversation I felt no hostility from her—only kindness, ease, warmth. As though no one else on this island could offer her the same companionship I did. Or perhaps I was merely projecting my own longing.

  Whatever the case, I stood and began the walk back without once turning to look at her. Just before I disappeared from sight she called after me:

  “Oh—and don’t forget. Stop trying to fit everything into neat little boxes. They won’t fit the way you want them to. We humans can understand that the flight of birds follows certain rules, yet we can never achieve it ourselves—we can only imitate it at best. And even imitation carries danger. The elementals and their powers are far stranger and more intricate than birds and flight. The moment you try to classify them, you will fail. And the same goes for this side of the world. The other side has the rules, this side kept the symbols.”

  I said nothing. I looked at her for a long moment, then left.

  I returned to the house and resumed writing in my notebook until there was nothing more to record. Petros and Stas had not yet returned, so I decided to walk to the center of the island—anything to clear my mind a little.

  Once again the familiar curses appeared along the way—the ones I had seen for so many days—together with new ones. When you encounter them for the first time, it is hard to dismiss them as tricks of the mind. Had there been people around me, I would have watched their reactions. Like the man in a narrow alley who was methodically severing his own limbs, beginning with the toes. He screamed and laughed at the same time, yet no one paid him any attention.

  At first I was frightened, as always. But it was becoming undeniable: the incidents were growing exponentially more savage, more brutal. They were no longer mere shadows, sounds, and fleeting events—they were beginning to touch true madness. Part of me wondered whether these occurrences would one day harm the inhabitants themselves—whether the harm would be physical or spiritual, a blow to their very reason. Another part wondered whether I should even try to stop them.

  As I understood it, expelling me from the island would be the safest course for them, yet it would offer no real solution. The absence of the sun had blurred every spectrum of this world. The sun’s path no longer followed any astronomical cycle; it was the source of energy for the entire realm. The darkness poisoned every mind—even those of the elementals. And I feared the elementals themselves were slowly transforming into the very creatures that had once been banished from this side.

  My reasoning rests on this: both kinds of beings require humanity to survive. One dwells in darkness, the other in light. One consumes the body; the other feeds upon the mind. Yet now, on the far side, the creatures of darkness devour humanity in a spiritual rather than material way—reducing them to irrational, violent beings. And the creatures that once fed upon the energy of light seem to be doing something almost identical.

  I suspect that just as the world was cleaved in two, so too were the non-human beings—two faces of the same coin, apart from humankind. I suspect the elementals conceal their true intentions; perhaps they still hope the stag will one day restore them to their former state. I suspect they possess some gateway to the other side through which they feed and endure, keeping the humans on the island merely as a breeding herd.

  Lost in these thoughts, I arrived—without realizing how—at the center of the island. As I wandered through the market, I saw before me the head of the ram family with the brown colour. The bustle had thinned at that hour, and he had fixed his gaze upon me. A woman—presumably his wife—held his arm, walking beside him. They approached and stopped directly in front of me.

  “I would like to speak with you privately,” he said, “without Petros or the others interfering. I invite you to my house for a meal, Nikiforos. My wife here cooks beautifully—I daresay more deliciously than anyone else on the island.”

  The woman appeared somewhat younger. She smiled, though sorrow was etched deeply into her features. Her head rested against his shoulder, yet her eyes—though they looked at me—seemed uninterested in me, uninterested in this world. They gazed far away, beyond matter itself.

  “Yes,” she said softly, “it would be nice to see a new face. We’re not such a large community. We’d like to hear how things are on the other side. It would be pleasant. Sym would enjoy it too, wouldn’t he, my love?”

  “Yes, he would enjoy it. Certainly. So what do you say? Will you come and talk?”

  I could not decide which choice was wiser. I suspected I had little to lose by accepting a meal—yet the problem was that I did not know whether anything might happen to me there. If I told Petros, he would almost certainly forbid it.

  But on the other hand, I needed alternatives. What if they could offer me some form of power? What if, now that I had trained and was ready, revealing the truth to them might lead them to help me survive?

  “Fine,” I answered. “I’ll come. Tomorrow, after training, I’ll go home to wash and then head to your house.”

  “You know where we live?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I know where every council member lives—so I know which neighborhoods to avoid. I learned that early.”

  “A wise precaution,” he replied, “and an even wiser choice now. Know that the head of the tiger family will also be joining us. He comes by from time to time to talk. He’s still young and inexperienced, so I help him as I can.”

  “As long as none of the others—the trained, dangerous ones—will be at the meal, I have no problem,” I answered lightly. “Thank you very much for the invitation. We’ll speak later, then.”

  Our paths parted somewhat awkwardly. I did not turn back to see whether they watched me, but I quickened my pace the moment I turned into a side street. A small fear began to stir regarding my decision—yet, like all my choices so far, it sprang from a strange marriage of impulse and the fierce instinct to survive. Clumsy movements wedded to instinctive calculations. Hard to believe I have lasted this long.

  Hard indeed.