Leaving Penitence

Sola, the Mother of Life and Light, gifted Mernac with yet another rising sun and cloudless sky, the same as it had yesterday and the same as it would on the morrow. Its power and image, captured as a reflection in a drop of dew, surrounded by iridescent ripples of color. Each shimmering hue tried to overpower yet another reflection, that of a young elfin girl intently contemplating the water bead and trying to understand why her princess, her mistress…. Her friend was dead.

Staring at the glistening drop, Halna tried to shake her melancholy mood. Volusia had warned her before dieing to be wary of dwelling on sad thoughts. “Being marooned alone on Penitence Island is not a place to ever become overly glum. Do you understand me Halna?” The High Elf girl mouthed Princess Volusia’s words of advice given to her before the princess passed into the Land of Shadows.

As she did each morning, Halna shook the encroaching blues with steadfast determination and gazed at her reflection, trying to comply with the Princess's last wishes. “Above all, keep up appearances, make it a game. I know you Halna, without that, you will soon lose your sanity.” Halna smiled for the first time that morning as the Princess’s words passed through her mind… and through her lips.

“Not a hint of my true ugly self!” Halna told the glossy wet globule gleefully, “Volusia would be quite pleased in how well I have maintained myself.”

Halna had long ago lost any inhibitions about speaking aloud to herself. There were no other voices to be heard on the island, and the sound of her own soothed her sense of loneliness, if only slightly. The droplet shimmered at the vibrations of the High Elf’s voice. Soon it would become too heavy to sustain its form and would tumble down the slick deep purple flower on which it had formed.

The remembrance flower on the rock-covered grave was but a pale tribute to the beauty buried beneath, for Princess Volusia Stabin, heir to the Tobernian High Elf Kingdom of Paizes had been considered the loveliest elf on three continents. “But that was many Moons ago,” Halna told the water bead, not exactly remembering how many moons it actually had been since she and the princess had left their home. They had left to meet Volusia’s betrothed in Greater Gilmore on the Cathall continent, the winner of five suitors that had vied for her hand. “Yes, many moons. Before the slaver attack that forced us to come here, before we built the hut, and before… before you died. Isn’t that right, Volusia?” she asked the grave bitterly before retuning her attention to the dewdrop.

Before the droplet transformed into a tiny stream, trekking the easiest path down the subtle pink grooves in the purple flower’s petal, Halna studied herself closely in its watery mirror. If she had not lived it, she wouldn’t’ have recognized the High Elf that stared back at her. The once pudgy milk cheeks had been churned by the island’s relentless tropical winds into a smooth rich brown butter, devoid of the blemishes that had plagued her since childhood. Her hair, once a miserable mud, had been purified by the briny waters of Penitence’s secluded lagoons and bleached by Sola’s cheerful sun into a golden silt. Her overweight mountain of a body had been chiseled into well-formed curvy foothills, pleasing to the eye, with not a sign of the bluffs, cliffs, and crags it once contained. Only her eyes remained the same; much like Princess Volusia’s. The same in fact as all the High Elves of Toberna: a dark golden brown speckled with light-catching yellow flecks surrounding large elliptical pupils of the darkest midnight blue.

“I suppose I owe you for this wonderful new look,” Halna laughed toward the Princess’s grave. With the vibrations of her laugh, the dew finally did succumb to the forces of nature and trickled off the flower’s petal.

“You wanted me to look and act as your old noble friends, but wouldn’t you be just furious that I now look as pretty as you did,” Halna regaled the grave with something she would never have had the courage to tell the living princess. “Too bad neither you…” The Elf girl swallowed hard in remorse, “or anyone else is around to see how we could now be considered twins.” With that, the High Elf left her morning ritual by Volusia’s grave, headed for the beach and her daily battle to find sustenance for yet another day of solitude.

If truth be told, Halna could now have passed as the twin of Princess Volusia. Not only for all the physical changes the harsh island living had wrought upon her, but for the way she held herself, her choice in the few articles of clothing that still remained in their hut, and by the way she would paint her face with the colored remnants of flowers and berries that flourished everywhere on the island.

The making of theses paints had been a blessing of sorts after Volusia’s real blush and lip paints had finally run out. Making more gave Halna something to do. After nearly three seasons deserted on the small island, Halna had exhausted all avenues of things that could possibly stimulate interest. The trees, bushes, and flowers leading to the underground springs were the same as they had always been. The patterns of waves and currents in the turbulent ocean had all been studied and memorized. Rafts built, rafts launched, and rafts never being able to escape the strong currents of the coral inlet. The imagining of what the clouds in the sky looked like had become a tedious game seasons ago. The only thing that could keep her mind clear and stave off madness was remembering what life was like back in Toberna before the slaver attack and subsequent shipwreck that had landed the two High Elves on Penitence Isle.

Remembering her own life became boring after only a moon. A slave since five, her life, even before being marooned, held little substance. What substance it did have held little consequence and even less pleasant memories. She had become a slave on being proclaimed “ugly and unfit” by the priest in her small village and her parents sold her that very day. “It was the proper thing to do, of course,” she told herself, walking toward the lagoon.

Reaching the beach she vaguely remembered she never begrudged the priest, or her parents for that matter, for having her sold into lifelong servitude. “An ugly female has no place in the home of a free High Elf,” she recited the proverb that had been hammered into her by the Scribes and Teachers of the royal house since entering into slavery. “She would never find a mate and would never have a life,” the second part of the proverb escaped her lips as she reached for the rope that secured her fishing lattice, and began pulling it in.

“But Volusia’s life - that is different,” Halna told the ragged fishing net made of the sailing cloth and rigging. These had washed ashore the same day the two waterlogged, almost dead, Elfin girls had struggled up the pristine beach of Penitence. The memory of that day and the memory of Volusia flooded her mind. “It is only by the grace of Sola, the Matron of all the Elves, that we survived at all.” She uttered to the daily winds that had already started their relentless redistribution of the island’s dry white sand.

All had been well on the voyage from Toberna. They had crossed the Bluewash Channel to the Brangin Continent with little effort. The new class of water vessel the renegade Dwarven engineers of Haven had developed 30 seasons earlier were well suited for the task. Though not prone to engineering like the Dwarves, Tobernian High Elves adapted to seamanship almost as effectively as they had become master equestrians. The ‘Salanda,’ as the vessels were called, were large two-masted ships with a deep angular hull weighted at their very bottom with a water ballast to ensure the vessel would remain upright in the storm-torn oceans surrounding the Tobernian continent.

The size of the Salanda was considerable; featuring a large hold for cargo, a protected common area where 20 sailors slept protected from the winds and rains, a stone-lined cooking area, and four private cabins for the ship’s officers. The largest of these, the captain’s cabin, had been given to Princess Volusia and her slave Halna for the long voyage to Greater Gilmore in Cathall.

Though the Salanda were perfectly capable of deep ocean travel, at least in the hands of their Dwarven creators, the High Elves preferred to closely hug the shores whenever possible. The Elves did not yet trust the Dwarves ‘Guider’ device, so no other route was attempted. The Guider, a slim sliver of treated Bluesteel, floated on a cork trapped in a clear crystal bottle and was said to always point due South. Etched into the glass were symmetric marks filled with paint, each representing increments of direction of travel. The Dwarves claimed that by using the Guider, coupled with an intimate knowledge of the dots of light in the evening sky, they always knew where they were, and always knew the path to their destination.

The High Elves simply did not trust the technology and in those times even thought that to use Sola’s night time stars was sacrilegious; an offence to their Mother. So the Guider and stars were not used and a voyage that would take the Dwarves but half a Moon’s cycle through open ocean would take the Elves over two full moons, as they closely followed the shores whenever possible.

Halna’s and Volusia’s journey took them down the western edge of Toberna, crossed the Bluewash Channel, then traveled up the eastern coast of Brangin until they reach the 10,000 island Kingdom of Garuff on the southern reaches of the Cathall continent. Their voyage for the most part had been uneventful… until they started hopping between some of the islands of Garuff in the last leg of their journey.

It was the third night of island hopping when the black ship appeared on the horizon. It was near twice the size of the Dwarven-built Salanda. Riveted to its decks were what appeared to be massive longbows. Though imposing, the Elven seafarers were little concerned by the bows on the approaching ship, thinking it would be all but impossible for the arrows thrown to be accurate enough to pick off a lone sailor across the ocean from a ship that would be rolling in the waves. Then they saw the flames and the true purpose of the longbows became apparent.

Fire arrows pelted the Salanda for most of that night. Not aimed at the individual sailors, but aimed at the tinder dry sails that drove them forward, and aimed at the thick oak planking just above the waterline, but far enough down that it was all but impossible for the elves to reach them from the deck. The arrows were wrapped in rags and coated in a thick sap or pitch, sticky, and so flammable that even the arrows that fell harmlessly into the ocean would continue to burn for several minutes. When the burning pitch met with wood or sailcloth it would ignite and feed the flames to consume anything that could possibly burn.

The Elves, much to their credit, successfully extinguished the flames with salt and flour from their stores, at least for the first night. In the morning, the flame arrows stopped and the larger ship crept closer to the vessel where Halna and her mistress were valiantly helping the crew snuff out the last smoldering remnants of the fiery attack. As the pirates came closer those on the Salanda could just start to make out the figures scrambling across the other ship’s deck and the Elven Captain screamed at the two females, “Get Below, NOW!” At the same time, grabbing each of them by one arm and literally dragging them to the forward hatch leading to the four private quarters.

“What? What is it that would have you forcefully drag me… me, the Princess of the High Elves of Toberna, around like mindless cattle,” Halna remembered the Princess indignantly protesting as the captain shoved them through the hatch.

“It is a Zont Gnome Ship” was all he replied, slamming the hatch shut. It was all he needed to say.

Though Halna was oblivious to what that meant, Princess Volusia was not, and she nervously explained the threat. “The Zont Gnomes and our people have a long and tumultuous history. We, as female High Elves, once wronged them, or so they feel, and they have a long memory.”

“What could we have done that was so terrible?” Halna innocently asked.

“The Zont Gnomes,” the princess began, “are different than any other Gnomes and are said to be Barak’s Godly plant into his brother Roadius’ Race. The humor and mischievousness present in most Gnomes is deeply hidden and replaced with Barak’s jealously and rage. They are fierce, vicious fighters driven by both Roadius’ penchant for wealth and Barak’s predilection for revenge. The Zont were sent against us in what has come to be known as The Battle of Lost Descendants, almost a millenium ago. Though the conflict was close, our Elfin archers decided the battle and the invasion was crushed. Thousands of Zonts were captured.”

“So that is why they are so dangerous, they are seeking revenge for those captured?” Halna inquired, as the two made their way to the cabin they shared.

“If it were just that simple,” Princess Volusia mused. “No, Halna, their rage and revenge goes much deeper than that. One of my ancestors, Queen Selfie, ruled the land at the time and she was said to be a Witch of great power, one with no allegiance to the Fathers, or the Mothers. Without the compassion of the Mothers, she ordered retribution and enslavement for the Zont. She wanted to teach them a lesson and show them that they should fear and respect all High Elves, be they male, like those who had beaten the Zont in Battle… or the wives they were protecting.”

“She ordered all the Elfin archers to send for their wives and ordered that each of the captured Zont be given a choice.”

“What choice?” Halna asked, becoming enthralled with the secret lore Volusia was sharing with her.

“The choice of death,” Princess Volusia said ominously, “or the wives cutting off their genitals with the Zonts’ own weapons - in front of all their comrades and our Elfin soldiers, to add to the humiliation.”

“Oh how terrible!” Halna said.

“Mayhap it was,” Volusia replied haughtily, protecting the decision of her ancestors, “and perhaps it was simply justice, for the Zont raped and killed many innocent Elfin girls in each and every village they captured before they were ultimately defeated. Terrible or not, this is where the grudge started... and you do not want to know how they exact their revenge.”

Halna, an overly sensitive girl, certainly did not want to know this and did not ask. The remainder of that day they remained huddled in a Dwarven cabin too short to stand upright, overly dank with old seawater, and overwhelmed by the thick smell of recently burned wood. It was not until the coming of night that the captain came to update them. It appeared the Zont ship had let loose no further aggression but tailed them closely.

“So close, I can make out the tiny black dots in the center of their sickly yellow eyes,” he told them. “They will continue again when darkness falls,” he warned. “But whatever you do, do not show yourself. If they know there are females are aboard….”

“Yes, I know Captain,” Volusia answered him as he was leaving, “I know all too well what that would mean.”

“We must prepare for the worst.” Volusia told Halna after the captain departed. “We need to prepare for an escape, for the Zont must never know we are aboard. I can not let our sailors go to the terrible fate that would befall them if that were to happen… or the fate that would befall us.”

Halna shuddered at the foreshadowing danger of the princess’s words and began to sob uncontrollably. “Why?” she cried. “Why did the Mothers see fit to let you be in a place like this now?”

Halna remembered Volusia’s response and smiled widely, bringing her out of her reverie, and back to the wind tossed beaches of Penitence Island. Her mistress’s response at the time seemed a joke, one to cut tension, but with the passing of time Halna had come to learn it was the true arrogance of a Princess whom she eventually learned to love.

“I have not yet decided if my beauty or importance is the reason the Mothers chose for me to live with mortals instead of the heavens,” Volusia had said.

Halna repeated Volusia’s words as she threw three fish caught in her nets far up on the shore and away from the crashing ocean waves. She laughed at the sound of her own voice. It was not her timid utterance she had heard - it was the strong tone of the princess. Over the seasons, trapped on the island with little else to do, she had managed to learn how to exactly duplicate the haughty arrogant pitch of her mistress’s voice.

Halna had ample opportunity to master the tone in the first season of her island solitude. Volusia, completely uninterested in anything Halna had to say, had dominated all conversations the two had. And why would she have an interest? Halna thought, not realizing her thoughts still retained the egotistical quality she mimicked when imitating Volusia. Back then I was a miserable, know-nothing slave. It was before mistress taught me to be a noble.

The thought brought warmth to her heart, as Halna remembered the games she and Volusia had played to pass the time on the island. Though Volusia had no interest in Halna’s life, and absolutely refused to discuss each of their actions once the Zont Gnomes finally attacked the ship, she was completely consumed with her own life before the voyage.

To combat the insanity that boredom would bring, she would relive her life and its events to Halna. Each day, and sometimes several times a day, she would regale Halna with the tales of her life, the people she knew, and the secrets she kept. After the third or fourth telling of the stories, Volusia would want to act out memorable scenes from her past. Volusia, of course, always played herself and Halna played all the other roles.

It had been difficult at first, for Halna was shy and had no concept of the “proper” way royals spoke, acted, or dressed, but Volusia was a tireless taskmistress. The princess was insistent that Halna act and speak as the royals of her past had spoken and acted. She wanted to have old conversations revisited, but more than that she wanted to have new conversations from her imagination. The only way she could do this was to teach the then-ugly and overweight Halna all the ways of a Royal.

It became a long and methodical affair. She started with the walk, the way to hold the body. Then came dress and appearance. The oak chest they had floated in on contained enough of that and Halna learned the way of color matching, corsets and petticoats, of blush and lip color, and finally of speech and of etiquette. She became the perfect actress, honed by the playacting Volusia insisted on each night on the beach as the sun sank slowly into the ocean to sleep with the stars.

“I miss her at night the most,” Halna said out loud, thinking of plays they had both enacted, as she gathered the fish from the beach and deposited them in a saltwater pond carved into bedrock on the north side of the beach. Here they would keep until nightfall when she would clean and cook or prepare them for drying before a lonely supper. “Yes, the nights were the best,” she thought, trying to escape the drudgery of another day alone on the island. Halna slipped into the daydream that was quickly overwhelming her slim grip on reality.

On those nights with Volusia, she had played the parts of Bramba, Volusia’s Father and King of their people, Faleece the Queen, or any of the five different suitors who vied for her hand in marriage. Volusia, demanding and callous to Halna in her father’s palace and court, or even their sea voyage for that matter, was much kinder and gentler in their island seclusion. She would coach Halna on the words, make up her hair and paint her face for effect, give her encouragement and comfort - all for the scenes they would play out… and the only diversion that kept them both from madness.

“But besides being a talented teacher she was a true leader and knew what our priorities should be,” Halna told the coconut grove leading from the beach to the highest point on the island.

“Three times a day you must go to the lookout and search for sails on the horizon,” Halna’s voice came out as Volusia’s once more. “They will be looking for me, you know.”


“And why is that?” she continued in her own timid voice, just as Volusia had trained her to respond. “Is it because of your beauty or your importance?”

“I have not yet decided if my beauty or importance is the reason the Mothers chose for me to live with mortals instead of the heavens.” Volusia’s haughty arrogant tone escaped Halna’s lips. The young High Elf smiled despite herself as she reached the apex of the island’s only cliff and scanned the seas for any sign of a ship.

Scanning the seas took her back, as it often did, to her last night on the Salanda before the Zont boarded. “Escape?” she blurted out loud, the word driving her back to that nightmare.

“How can we Escape, my lady?” Halna had asked the Princess, “We are in the middle of the sea, with an enemy bearing down on us. Where would we escape to and how? By the Mothers, Princess, it is impossible.”

“Mayhap it is,” Volusia replied, “but it is what we are going to do. Now open that large chest, we need to pack,” she said, completely dismissing Halna’s apprehension and questions. “Halna, you can swim, of course… Can’t you?”

Halna, always completely obedient, trained since childhood to follow Volusia’s every wish, stood there and did nothing. The deep base whooshing of a volley of fire arrows screaming through air drowned out any response Halna tried to give, but the vigorous shaking of her head and the sheer dread in the girl’s eyes gave the Princess her answer.

“I see,” she replied. “With luck, swimming will not be needed.” She stopped and considered the very overweight slave, her double chin, the rolls of fat that hung over her beltline and jiggled under her arms. She then continued, not in malice but with pragmatism, “With all that blubber, you are likely to float in any case. Now, pack that chest, we need to get moving.”

Halna was frozen with fear, fear of the Zont Gnomes that were pelting their ship with fiery projectiles of destruction, but more in fear of the possibility of swimming or, in her case floating, on the open ocean.

“I… err… I can not m’lady.”

Volusia considered being strict and yelling at the girl, maybe even whipping her, but realized it would do no good.

“Halna,” She started softly, “Let me tell you a story, and if after that story, you still do not want to escape and if after hearing what I have to say you do not want to help me pack, I will not force you. Is that fair?”

“Ahhh, yes Princess,” the girl mumbled fearfully.

“My Grandmother Tessi, some one hundred seasons ago, was the last of several High Elf women to be captured by the Zont Gnomes.”

“Is she still living?” Halna asked. “I have never heard her spoken of in the palace.”

“No,” the Princess sighed, “she is dead, or I pray to the Mothers she is dead. She was visiting the Gorbin countryside, only days after the difficult birth of my mother. She was with a company of 50 elite Paizen Archers when the Zont attacked. All but 12 were killed trying to protect her, but the party was overwhelmed and those alive were captured.

“The Zont then went about exacting revenge for the thousands of Zont castrated by Elfin Women after The Battle of Lost Descendants. The 12 Elfin Archers were stripped and lashed to trees. Their eyes were propped open with sticks so they would be forced to watch what was about to happen, and at their feet…. a single bronze arrowhead, the weapon of choice for a Paizen Archer, was placed.” Volusia’s voice became very low and filled with emotion.

“The Zont then proceeded to rape my Grandmother repeatedly in front of her men, sometimes two or three at a time mounting her. When they were spent, another would jump on to take their place. This continued for three days with only 12 breaks in the assaults to her body. Each time the Zont would drag her to one of the bound archers and give her the choice of castrating the elf with his own weapon or the rape would continue. 11 times my Grandmother refused and 11 times an elfin archer would die as the molestation of my Grandmother continued.

“The final Elf, was not so much of an archer but a page, of maybe 11 or 12 seasons. The boy, much to his credit, volunteered, as the others before him had, to have his manhood cut off to save my Grandmother from further despoilment. Princess Tessi broke, not wanting a child’s death on her head and quickly and cleanly severed the testicles from the boy as the Gnomes demanded.”

“The gnomes stopped the bleeding and bandaged the boy, all the time the Zont whispering in his ear, “Tell them, tell them we remember. Tell them that we will take this one,” they pointed the now bound Princess, “and put her in a pit where all of our kind can use her. Tell them that we will plant seeds in her belly and then her offspring and the offspring of a thousand like her will be trained for but one thing, the eradication of the High Elf race.”

“Halna, those things that are coming, those beasts of revenge, are the same as those that captured my grandmother. They will do the same to us and all the men aboard this ship.”

The two looked in horror at each other.

“Now, will you help me pack?”

There was no need for the question. Halna was already shoving all the Princess’s possessions into the large oak trunk as Volusia was taking a rope, tying it to her bed and throwing the other end out of the cabin’s porthole. Through the port they both stared at the three-masted Gnome ship that was getting closer and closer.

Halna blinked once, twice, and then a third time. Her mind was out of the past and she was once again scanning the ocean from the lookout cliff, searching for signs of a ship. Even before she saw it, she knew it would be there and then, off in the distance, she saw it… A large ship with three masts, not unlike the one she and Volusia had fled from all those seasons ago.

The sight washed any pretense or playacting out of her. Fear had knocked it out, fear of the possibility that this ship approaching Penitence Island was a ship of the Zont Gomes. The slave girl glanced over at the pile of branches, leaves and dead logs she had spent moons dragging up the hill. The pile reached the top of her head and then half again. Off to the side, was the daily allotment of freshly cut palm greens, these, placed on the fire once it was raging would create giant billows of thick black smoke which would be able to be seen from tremendous distances out to sea.

“You will need to act quickly if you ever see a ship,” the departed Princess’s words escaped Halna’s lips. As if obeying someone else’s command, Halna started for the pit where she had smoldering embers and charcoal. Throwing these on the dry tinder at the bottom of the pile would quickly ignite the combustible pile and draw the ship to her. Then the girl froze.

“What if the ship belongs to the Zont?” she asked out loud in her own timid voice.

“It won’t be.” she answered herself in Volusia’s self-confident tone. “Besides, at a distance you will never be able to tell. If you hesitate, the ship will pass by and we will never be rescued,” that had always been Volusia’s reply to the concern, and she always followed it up with, “And Halna, this time there can be no hesitation.” With those words from Volusia, Halna’s mind returned to that last night on their ship.

“Ahhh, no, no, mylady, I just can’t do it.” Halna had uttered in hushed hysteria as she gazed down at their oaken chest, crashing about in the waves of the ocean below them. Halna, Volusia and the Salanda’s captain were on the darkened deck of the two-masted Dwarven ship. They were on the starboard side and off in the distance were looming the vague outlines of several small uncharted islands. On the opposite side of the ship the three-masted Zont ship was quickly approaching from the direction of the setting moon.

“Jump, Missy, I beg you,” the captain urged her. “Jump or we will all be tortured in ways I can not bear to see a second time.”

Halna could see the terror in his graying face. Volusia had confided in her that this captain was once a young page in her grandmother’s Elite Paizian Archers. It was he who had been castrated and left alive so that he could carry the Zont message. The captain was now begging the girl to jump into the ocean, but still she could not force herself to do it.

The captain had come up with the final part of the plan just hours before the dawn would break. They were sailing due north through several islands, tacking on a steady easterly breeze. The Zont ship was gaining steadily from the east, the strong winds filling their sails, giving them the advantage of speed. His plan was to veer toward a large island to the northwest. Timing would be paramount. He had five sailors with torches below the deck, at the ready. The flames from the arrow had all been extinguished… but he fully intended on setting his ship ablaze when the time was just right. Ten other sailors were at the ready to shift the ship’s direction at the critical time. The Zont’s ship, with its three masts may have had the advantage in speed, but the smaller Salanda had the advantage of maneuverability. It could turn on a single gold Mernal.

The captain had waited until the Zont ship was almost upon them. He had already strapped empty kegs to their chest of belongings and supplies and thrown it overboard, dragging it by the rope from the porthole in Volusia’s cabin. The heavy chest had almost no draft and it barely broke the surface of the ocean and was all but invisible. He had Volusia and Halna just inside the hatch at the ready – waiting on his signal.

With a shrill whistle he gave it. Sailors hidden in the rigging cut loose securing ropes, unfurled sails and retracted others. The small ship made a tight arching curve to the west, away from the approaching war vessel and in a matter of but a few moments was tacking due south, in the opposite direction to what they had been moving.

The Zont ship would have a quick choice to make, tack to the southwest or risk crashing into reefs that were sure to be surrounding the island in front of them or change direction and follow them. The Zont ship tacked and bore down straight on the ship. This placed the Salanda directly between the Zont line of sight and a second island to the southwest. They would be blind to any happenings on the other side of the ship – say, two escaping High Elf Girls. But time would be short.

Once the girls were in the ocean he would give the order for the five sailors to set the ship ablaze. This would draw the full attention of the Zont to the ship, and none to the dark waves the girls would be bobbing in. With the bright blaze, the light would fill the Zonts’ eyes, making it all but impossible to make out the darkly-dressed females, even if a wandering eye did go to the dark choppy seas.

“Jump, Halna!” Volusia urged the slave girl for the fourth time.

“I… I… I….”

Then it was too late. The fire arrows had started again and one landed on the deck directly behind the two Elves, illuminating them clearly. From the not-too-distant deck on the Zont ship a cry went out ringing through the night, “BAH’ZAHI”, the Zont word for “she-devils.” The Zont now knew there were female High Elves on the Salanda they were attacking.

“By the Fathers” the captain uttered in pure terror, “We are now lost whether you escape or not. They know that you were on the ship… and the revenge they will exact will be…”

Before he could finish Volusia cut him off. “I will do what is needed,” she said with a nod. The captain nodded back, “Thank you Princess, It was a pleasure serving you.”

“Float, swim, or sink, I care not,” Volusia screamed at Halna rushing with arms outstretched toward he servant. “But if you want to live you had better tie yourself to the chest.” The Princess’s body and stiffened arms crashed into Halna pushing her off the side of the ship.

Days later, in a feverish dream laying atop a bobbing oaken chest, Volusia had told her what had happened. The Zont Ship had crashed into their bow, only moments after Halna had been pushed into the ocean. The Zont had swung from rope tied to the masts of their own ship onto the deck, just as Volusia locked the hatch behind her. On the other side, the captain and four of his men died as they successfully ignored battle and barricaded the entrance to the hatch.

Volusia ran to the cabin, the captain’s cabin, which he had graciously given to the princess at the beginning of the voyage The captain’s cabin is the only place on the Salanda that had access to the ballast portion of the ship’s lower hull. An ingenious Dwarven system of filling the bottom of their ships with limited quantities of sea water, to give the ship the downward weight it needed to remain upright and stable in choppy waters. She crawled though the small access panel in the floor of the small closet and went into the bowels of the ship.

The entrance was quite well hidden, and Volusia perhaps would have been able to remain hidden in the ballast compartment undetected, but this was not her plan. She had to save her men from the torture that was sure to begin at any moment. She took a sledge with her and crushed the elm plugs that allowed water from the ocean into the ballast compartment.

“Better they drown,” she murmured as she completed scuttling the ship. As the water poured in, Volusia had to swim to the panel, back to the captain’s cabin, barely getting through as salt water began to flow into the living compartments of the ship. She swam through the open porthole and untied the rope that was still securing the chest, scrambled out the opening, and fell to the ocean below.

As Halna dragged the princess to the floating chest, the ship blazed with raging fires so bright that looking at it filled their eyes with stars and made it impossible to see anything else in the darkness. The currents pulled the chest and the empty mead kegs that supported it quickly away from the sinking ship.

“Oh I am sorry I hesitated so long Princess, by the Mothers what have I done?”

“What have you done?” came back a guilt-ridden cry as the Salanda slipped below the waves, taking Elf and Zont alike with it. “By the Mothers, What have I Done?”

“Oh Volusia,” Halna cried, “What do we do now? Where will we go?”

“I am not sure,” the princess’s tearful voice responded, “but wherever it is, I think we will both be in penitence for quite some time.”

The remembrance of Volusia crying brought Halna back to the now of being marooned on Penitence Island for over three seasons, her princess now dead and her own mind teetering on the brink of madness.

“Volusia,” the girl’s timorous voice came out as she stared at the three-masted ship that may be her Elfin salvation, or maybe her Zont destruction. “No, Volusia, this time I will not hesitate.”

“I know you will not, Halna,” Volusia’s words escaped Halna’s lips as she raked hot coals from the fire pit to the tinder at the bottom of the signal pile.

The fire erupted brilliantly, consuming first the twigs and leaves, then lapping orange flames, overpowered the thick logs and washed-up driftwood, sending a beckoning inferno high into the air. Halna dragged very green palm branches onto the fire. At first the flame subsided, then, as Volusia had told her it would, giant billows of thick black smoke tumbled out of every nook and cranny in the tightly-packed pile of debris yearning to escape to the clouds, the sun, to the sky itself.

The heat then returned and Halna had to stand back from the crackling and snapping cinders that the turbulent signal fire threw out in all directions. With the pile completely engulfed, Halna backed down the lonely path up to the cliff and headed for the beach below her.

The sun was just beginning to set as she reached the beach, its powerful white rays dyed with the yellows and oranges of Sola’s hair; the massive ball itself raging in hues and intensity, not unlike the fire she had left burning on the cliff. Its new tint was so intense that it immediately impregnated the clouds and sky with gold and saffron streaks, which were picked up and reflected on the crest of each wave that slowly came crashing into the secluded lagoon, leaving a golden glow anywhere the wetness left traces on the sand.

The three-masted ship had changed direction. With the coming darkness it was heading straight for the island where Halna had done her Penitence.

“What will you tell them?” Volusia’s words came once again from Halna.

“If they are Elfin, I will tell them of you and your bravery, you need to be remembered,” Halna softly replied to herself.

“And when you do, they will know you are but my slave, and to that existence you will be returned,” Volusia’s voice told her.

“But what other choice do I have?” Halna ask the ghost in her mind.

A sweet laugh of Volusia’s arrogance escaped Halna, “You are not the slave you once were. You have learned much and I have not yet decided why the Mothers chose for you to live with mortals instead of the Heavens.”

“But what if they are Zont?” Halna asked, as she watched two small boats leave the ship and begin to row to the shore. Volusia did not answer.

“Volusia, what if they are Zont?” Halna repeated. Try as she might, the now slender and attractive slave girl could not form words in Volusia’s voice to answer herself.

“Volusia?” Halna cried. “Volusia? What shall I do?” Volusia did not answer and Halna knew that now her rescue was about to happen, she may never hear that voice again. It would not do for society to hear you speaking to yourself she thought, as she walked up to the small shack she and Volusia had shared for so long. “No, it would not do at all.”

Halna packed the few possessions into the battered oak chest that had brought them to the island, took out a small dagger and held it to her neck and layed on the reeds that were her bed. If the visitors were Zont, she meant to take her life quickly before they could ever lay a hand upon her.

The blade pricked her neck and a drop of blood ran down her neck as she heard footsteps approach the hut. She clutched the dagger tightly, hoping, begging, praying the owners of those footsteps would be Elfin and not Zont. She closed her eyes tightly as a large figure entered the hut, her dagger ready and resolve in place.


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He walked across the hut and placed a hand on her shoulder and in amazement the Tobernian High Elf seaman stared down at her. Behind him she heard he who must have been the captain yell, “Is she alive? Is she pretty or ugly? Does she look like she is of a family of importance?”

Halna’s timid nature kicked in. She dropped the dagger as the seaman helped her up. Volusia was gone and Halna was once again the ugly slave of a royal High Elf, or would be once her tale was told.

The indentured ship’s hand that looked down at her had obviously been sold into slavery for the uneven size of his eyes and the ways his scraggy ears stood out prominently from his head. He would be bound to serve just as she, for appearance sake alone.

“Not sure Cap’n,” the seaman bellowed back over his shoulder.

Praise be to the Mothers, he is an Elf not a Zont, Halna thought, rising with deliberate motions, drawing attention to her trim figure, golden hair and ample bosom. Words escaped her lips in a voice not her from birth, rather one that had been learned over the last three seasons.

“I am alive and I have not yet decided if my beauty or importance is the reason the Mothers chose for me to live with mortals instead of the heavens.”

Thus, Princess Volusia, not the slave Halna was rescued from Penitence Island on our Mother’s day of Himple 24th in 2218 and as real life goes, she had much catching up to do. The first of this was dealing with the captain who had walked into her line of sight. He was a strange looking creature, obviously a half-breed: half High Elf and half Zont Gnome.

Her dagger was out of reach.