Elliot wasn’t confused now, looking into those clear eyes, at once dark and bright like pools in a deep forest.
He tried to collect himself. Now was no time to stare like a hypnotized sheep.
Now was the time to woo.
He had not seen any other elven girls in the whole camp. So clearly she was defying conservative elven customs by coming here, brave and alone and the victim of cruel oppression. Elliot’s heart went out to her. She was probably feeling scared and shy.
“Hello,” said the beautiful elven maid. “I was just thinking, and I mean no offence, but—how can any fighting force crowded with the softer sex hope to prevail in battle?”
“Huh?” said Elliot brilliantly. “The softer what?”
“I refer to men,” said the elf girl. “Naturally I was aware the Border guard admitted men, and I support men in their endeavor to prove they are equal to women, but their natures are not warlike, are they?”
Elliot offered, after a long pause: “I don’t enjoy fighting.”
She favored him with a slow smile, like dawn light spreading on water. “Very natural.”
“In fact,” Elliot confessed, encouraged, “I never fight.”
“You should not have to,” she said. “There should always be a woman ready to protect a man in need. I take it that you are bound for the council course then?”
“I don’t understand,” said Elliot, and then he shamelessly looked up at her (taller, why was everybody taller?) through his eyelashes and confessed: “I’m from the other side of the Border, and this is all a little overwhelming”—and distressing? Yes, Elliot felt that he was definitely distressed—“and distressing,” he added with conviction. “If you would be so very kind as to explain a few things to me, I would so appreciate it.”
He was going for a combination of shy and winsome. As he had never tried to act like this ever before, he wasn’t sure how well he was succeeding, but the elf maid unbent further. So he couldn’t be doing too badly.
“Certainly,” she said, and offered him her arm. Elliot, a quick study, accepted it with a sweet smile. “The council course is a course in diplomacy, mapping the lands to this side of the Border, learning about other cultures. Elven culture, for instance, is quite different from that of humans.”
“I am beginning to see that.”
“War training is seen as more prestigious, and has far more recruits,” said the elf.
“That is totally unreasonable! These people are idiots! I suspected it all along.”
“You are very forthright for a man,” said the elvish maiden. “But I understand that human men are not reared as delicately as elven gentlemen. I agree with you, moreover: both courses should be considered equally important.”
Elliot had not said that, but he was already unbecomingly forthright, so he fluttered his eyelashes and remained demurely silent.
He did not think the demure silence thing was going to work out, because he was only able to keep it up for a minute.
“What’s your name?”
“Serene.”
“Serena?” Elliot asked.
“Serene,” said Serene. “My full name is Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle.”
Elliot’s mouth fell open. “That is badass.”
Serene’s serious countenance did not change, but Elliot felt a subtle shift of that slim body: he was fairly certain she was preening.
“I’m Elliot Schafer,” he added.
“A strange name,” said Serene, adding gallantly: “But not unpleasing.”
Take that, every jerk at school who had ever laughed at Elliot’s name. No badass elven maidens had ever told them that their names were not unpleasing, had they?
“Are you interested in the cultures of the Borderlands?” Serene asked in a courteous tone.
“Super interested,” declared Elliot. “When you said peoples, you mean humans, elves, dwarves and . . . ?”
Please say mermaids, he thought. Please say something cool with wings.
“Mermaids,” said Serene. He could have kissed her. (He would have been really delighted to kiss her.) “Trolls. Harpies. Centaurs. Dryads, and various other peoples.”
“Badass,” Elliot whispered again.
That was when they both noted that the woman in odd clothes was there again. She turned out to be called Captain Woodsinger, and she was collecting them all for a roll call, which Elliot thought was ridiculous considering they had just lined up to sign into the Border training camp.
He cheered up when she started reading out names, and Blondie turned out to be called Luke Sunburn.
“Sunborn,” hissed Surfer Dude, once Elliot was done loudly making fun of this. “He’s called Luke Sunborn. Of the Sunborns, you know!”
“I don’t,” said Elliot. “And I don’t want to.”
“Centuries ago, the first humans came across the Border to the otherlands,” Surfer Dude recited, as if this was a lesson he had learned long ago. “Humans settled in this country near the Border, and lived among the creatures here, and brought peace to the Borderlands.”
He eyed Serene as he said “creatures” which Elliot thought was an odd way to look at the most beautiful and badass girl in the world
Elliot glanced at Serene, then back to Dale. “So this place is the otherlands?”
“Depends on your point of view,” said Serene. “Some people call where you come from the otherlands. It is, after all, on the other side of the Border.”
Though Elliot enjoyed debate, he was currently on an information-gathering mission.
“This country is called the Borderlands, though,” he said. “And the Border means the giant magic wall?”
Surfer Dude nodded and smiled his happy smile. “Yes.”
“And humans came from across the Border,” Elliot said. “Did we invade?” He leaned forward. “Tell me right now, are we engaged in a system of colonial oppression?”
The boy’s happy smile melted away, like ice-cream in relentless verbal sunshine.
“I don’t know . . .,” said Surfer Dude helplessly, “what most of the words you just used mean.”
“There are small communities of humans all over the Borderlands,” said Serene. “They call the communities villages. And the Border guard established a law that must be kept throughout the land, and enforce that law. Elves consider the humans useful allies. Certainly more to be trusted than the dwarves. Or the trolls.” A dark look crossed her face. “Do not get me started on the trolls.”
“I want you to talk to me about trolls at length, but perhaps another time,” said Elliot. “So elves call this country the Borderlands as well?”
A small smile, almost imperceptible, passed across Serene’s face. “Not in elvish.”
Elliot thought it was possible she was messing with him. What a babe.
“And this is a training camp for the Border guard, the people who made up all the laws and enforce them. This Border guard is partly kids from across the wall and partly kids from the Borderlands villages, but mostly . . . ?”
Surfer Dude’s smile resurrected itself. “The backbone of the Border guard are the families who settled in the fortresses built along the Border itself centuries ago, and have protected it ever since, raising their sons in the tradition.”
He buffed his nails on his leather jerkin. He and Captain Woodsinger and Luke Apparently-Not-Sunburn and many of the other humans were dressed like that, in a lot of leather and straps. It looked pretty ridiculous to Elliot, especially compared to Serene’s form-fitting clothes, soft and green as moss.
Especially if all the leather-clad people were colonial oppressors.
“I’m a Wavechaser, you know,” Surfer Dude added proudly. “Dale Wavechaser.”
“Ha!”
Dale Wavechaser frowned. “Sorry?”
“Nothing,” said Elliot. Mocking people who didn’t get it was kind of pointless, like throwing sharp weapons into pudding.
Dale returned to his favorite subject.
&
nbsp; “Of course, the Wavechasers aren’t anything compared to the Sunborns,” he said. “They were the first family. They held the Border on their own for a generation. There are songs about them: the shining ones, the golden guard, the laughing warriors. The Sunborn family is an army unto itself. Even their women are all soldiers, and a Sunborn woman is as good as any man.”
“Cool, no video games and outdated gender politics,” Elliot muttered.
Serene looked totally perplexed.
Dale continued making cheerful oblivion an art form. “Whenever there is a Sunborn acting as Commander of the Border guard, we cannot lose. Luke is the great Trigon champion Eleanor Sunborn’s nephew, you know. He was taken to his father Michael Sunborn’s last post with him and trained by him personally for three years. They say he’s shaping up to be the best Sunborn of his generation. I was so excited to meet him today!”
Elliot raised his eyebrows. “Congratulations. I’m sure you will be very happy together.”
So Blondie was basically the scary warrior equivalent of a trust-fund kid, the kind who had their pictures in the paper on the regular. One of life’s born winners, with golden luck to go with the hair. No wonder he was glaring over at Elliot, looking betrayed and unhappy as a wet cat, as if nothing like being laughed at had ever happened to him before.
“The elven clans do not pay much heed to the brief fame and even briefer lives of men,” remarked Serene.
She was a stone-cold elven fox.
“Tell me about your clan,” Elliot invited her.
Elves apparently lived in the four woods that stretched across the otherlands, in linked family groups never more than a day’s ride from another clan. Of all these clans in all the woods, if you believed Serene—and Elliot absolutely did—the Chaos clan was the most notorious.
Serene launched into a long tale of bloodshed, kidnapping gentlemen, highwaywomen, and foresworn oaths. The Chaos clan were rogues. Elliot was so into it. Dale Wavechaser wandered off at some point early on, which was his loss.
Serene was actually laughing at one of Elliot’s jokes, h er pale face bright as sun on snow and her dark hair swinging into her face, when Captain Woodsinger approached them and said, her voice very dry: “Schafer. Chaos-of-Battle. Have you made any decisions about whether you are staying or going?”
Elliot looked around the clearing, which was largely empty. Most of the kids in jeans and hoodies like him were long gone. He vaguely recalled seeing the kid who had cried over video games leading the way. Sadly, a group of kids Elliot’s age remained, mostly the ones wearing leather, with Luke Sunborn at the head of the group and Dale Wavechaser circling him like an excited moon.
“It is a very different world to the one you are accustomed to,” Captain Woodsinger observed. Elliot thought she was talking to him until she added, “We have never had a female elf wish to join the Border camp, though of course we have heard of the elves’ legendary prowess in battle. You may be surprised and dismayed by the reactions of those around you, which you will consider unnatural. And your lady mother has expressed serious reservations about your behaviour in joining up.”
Serene tossed her dark hair. “My mother was the wildest elf in the woods until she met my father,” she said. “I can have an adventure of my own. Anyone who thinks I am not equal and more than equal to any human challenge will soon realize their mistake.”
Elliot regarded her with his chin propped on his fist and sighed dreamily.
“And you, Schafer?”
Phones exploded here, and there was way more nature than Elliot was comfortable with, but there were mermaids and harpies and also true love.
Besides, it wasn’t like there was much to go back to.
“I’m in,” said Elliot. “For the non-fighting course. I want to read books and never, ever to fight. I’m a pacifist.”
“A what?” asked Dale Wavechaser.
Elliot stared at him, then over at Blondie. “What I am attempting to communicate,” he explained to the captain, “is that I want to be anywhere that guy is not.”
He pointed to Blondie, who he felt was a helpful illustration of everything Elliot did not like in human form. Luke Sunborn stared at him in outrage, and Elliot used his pointing hand to give him a little wave.
“I think that can be arranged,” Captain Woodsinger said dryly. “Welcome to the Border camp, Cadet Schafer.”
“Cadet?” Elliot repeated. “Ahahaha. Okay.”
Elliot began to regret his decision as soon as he was separated from Serene and sent off to his sleeping quarters.
His sleeping quarters were a large bare wooden cabin with several bunk beds and chests full of clothes and—oh good—weapons. There were already other boys there, and two of them were conducting a fight with daggers. Elliot saw no evidence anywhere of plumbing, and it was freezing cold in magic land. Elliot had never given much thought to the importance of plumbing and indoor heating, and he had never wanted to long passionately for double-glazing.
Magic lands in books had always seemed close to nature, but in a nice way, without all the unpleasant details.
A dagger landed in the wall, far too close to him.
“Oh no,” Elliot moaned, and sat down heavily on his bunk bed. “This is magic Sparta.”
Forget fancy luxuries like telephones and toilets. The Border camp did not even have writing implements.
In his first class, Elliot was presented with a quill, which he promptly broke in two and threw against a wall. He’d brought a pencil with him in his pocket: he clung to it as his only hope and insisted on using it to take notes on the parchment provided. (Magic land also did not have notebooks.)
The first class Elliot took was—somewhat ironically—geography class, though they called it mapmaking, but the maps were of a world Elliot had never seen before. He stared, fascinated, at the lines and circles that formed strange mountains and lakes: at the alien names that he would learn, and the places he was suddenly determined to go.
He still would have been happier with a pen.
He would also have been happier if he’d been able to keep his hoodie and jeans, but this morning he had woken to find his clothes stolen and had thus been forced into the uniform of those in council training. The others called his clothes a tunic and breeches: Elliot called them a dress and leggings, and it looked pretty terrible combined with the fact that Elliot’s wild curly hair needed cutting and there was no hairdresser apparent in this magic land. If anyone from his old school had seen him, Elliot would have been destroyed on sight.
What would have made Elliot happiest of all was if he could see Serene, but she was nowhere to be found. The council course were being taught mapmaking, arithmetic, history, basic dwarvish, all about different species and their cultures, and several different types of law: for treaty making and property disputes and military discipline.
The council course seemed to have almost entirely different classes to the war-training course. Elliot looked for Serene in every class, and saw her in none. He had no idea how to find her, so at the end of the day he stuffed his new books (they were awesome) and his parchment (it was stupid, and nobody had listened to his impassioned speech on the topic of notebooks) into his bag, and went in quest of her.
The Border camp was all cabins, tents, a few stumpy towers like a couple of broken gray teeth in an otherwise toothless mouth, and endless fields. It was very difficult to navigate.
Elliot was fairly certain that he had gone around the same cabin twice, so in order to prevent the same thing happening for a third time he took out his house keys and made a small notch in the wall.
“Hey!” said a voice behind him. “You can’t vandalize the camp!”
“I do what I want,” said Elliot.
He turned and beheld the most horrible sight imaginable: his beautiful Serene and Luke Sunborn. They were actually walking together and obviously getting along, their arms brushing, their gold and dark heads bowed together. They were both wearing the uniform of the war-
training cadets, and Elliot had to admit the leather and straps actually looked good on Serene. They looked like a natural pair, a matched set. They looked like a couple from a storybook.
Elliot’s despair was put on pause when Serene’s mouth turned up slightly at the corners and she said: “Oh good, Elliot. There you are.”
Elliot beamed. “Here I am.”
“You,” said Luke Sunborn. “Why are you still here?”
“I’m sorry,” said Elliot, and paused. “Who are you?” he asked. “Have we met before? What’s your name?”
Luke opened his mouth and no sound came out.
Elliot grinned. “Sorry. I guess you’re just not very memorable.”
“This is Luke Sunborn,” Serene informed him efficiently. “Luke, Elliot Schafer. Did I say that right?”
“Perfectly,” Elliot assured her.
“I know his name; they said it at roll call,” said Luke. “How do you know this guy, Serene?”
“He’s a new friend of mine, like you,” Serene answered, and Elliot was torn between delight and disgust as she continued: “I was hoping that you would both accompany me to Commander Rayburn’s rooms and support me as I make my petition.”
Elliot had several questions, like: Who is Commander Rayburn, how are we supposed to find these rooms, how are we supposed to find anything, what is your petition?
He did not voice any of them. He went to Serene’s other side, taking her offered arm and privately vowing that he would be amazingly supportive. Way more supportive than Luke.
“I wish to be enrolled in both the war-training and council-training courses,” said Serene. “I cannot be content with simply taking one. There is no such thing as too much learning and both have too much of value to offer me.”
“Absolutely not. Get out of here,” said Commander Rayburn.
Captain Woodsinger, Commander Rayburn’s silent, reliable second-in-command and the lady with a constantly serious expression and cornrows who had kidnapped Elliot, gestured them toward the door.