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  "Oh, Z'thandra." Ulda reached over and put her hand on Z'thandra's wrist, pressing it down until Z'thandra released the plate she'd been washing and turning to face her. "Z'thandra, I know you really want to believe that some of your people survived, but it's just not likely. The whole village was ravaged by the fever – no one survived."

  "I survived."

  "I know dear, but only because you'd fled from it two years earlier." Ulda's face was soft and her voice dripped with sympathy.

  "I'm sorry Z'thandra, but you really are the last of your kind."

  Z'thandra's shoulders dropped and she sighed audibly, taking a moment to collect her thoughts before speaking again. "Okay, well, even so," she said her voice low and filled with disappointment. "I think I saw someone on the other side of the lake, a human maybe?"

  "Grung hasn't mentioned anything, but I'll ask him about it at dinner tonight and ask him to have the patrols keep their eyes open."

  "Thank you, Ulda." Z'thandra smiled wanly and leaned over to plant a kiss on the Reptar's scaly cheek. Then she wandered toward her own room to change and wash up before returning to the path by the lake and tying new strands of fabric to mark the pits.

  Dinner that night was a somber affair. Grung came home from

  a patrol to report that a Reptar had lit their house on fire trying to use the now defunct central heating. "I’ve told them time and time again," he grumbled, hanging his head sadly, "that without proper maintenance it’s impossible to use them anymore. Anit thought she knew better though – unfortunately for her, birds had built nests in all the pipes. They started on fire and it spread – apparently that’s the only thing those vents are good for anymore, spreading fire."

  "Oh no!" Z’thandra gasped. "Was anyone hurt?"

  "Thankfully, no, but when will they learn? I ask you?"

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  Aphanasian Stories

  "Who cares?" Snorted Orga, kicking Z’thandra under the table before smiling sweetly at her. "Oh, sorry Z’thandra, would you be a dear and pass me the fried frogs?"

  Despite the bruise Z’thandra could feel growing on her shin,

  she resisted the urge to reach down and rub it. Instead she picked up the bowl of fried amphibians and, averting her gaze while she did it, passed them to Orga. Even so, the scent of the cooked meat assailed her nostrils and she resisted the urge to gag. Orga knew she was a vegetarian, that the very idea of eating another living creature repulsed her which is why she’d picked that particular item to ask her to pass. Swallowing down her bile, Z’thandra handed off the offending dish, refusing to give her adoptive sister the satisfaction of seeing it affect her.

  "Everyone should care," Ulda answered, oblivious, or perhaps simply ignoring the nearly silent battle going on at the other end of the table. "We have to stick together. The curse is over now. Now is a time for putting an end to conflict and working together, as a village."

  "As a village." Orga finished with her mother. "Yeah, we’ve heard it all before."

  Ulda looked hurt but said nothing for a long moment before

  turning toward her husband. "Oh yes. Z’thandra said she thought she saw a human, or something like one, across the lake today."

  "Is that so?" Grung turned toward Z’thandra, his reptilian eyes alight with interest. "I haven’t heard of any humans around here in almost a year, this is interesting news. What did it look like?"

  "Oh, well," Z’thandra stammered, aware of everyone’s eyes on her. Grung and Ulda expectant, Orga waiting, anxious to find any material to use against her. The elf paused, picking her words carefully. "I’m not sure really, I was using my heatvision so all I really saw was a shape."

  "How can you be sure it wasn’t a Reptar then?"

  "I can’t see Reptars when I’m using my heatvision, you always seem to blend in with your environment."

  "Like snakes you mean," Orga shouted, jumping up from the table and sending her chair skittering across the floor.

  "That’s not what I—"

  "Of course it’s not, Z’thandra." Ulda soothed. "Orga, sit down and stop being so over sensitive."

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  Rhonda Parrish

  "Over sensitive? Mother, how can you take her side? She

  obviously just compared us to snakes."

  "She did no such thing Orga, sit down," Grung said calmly.

  "I will not!"

  "You will, or you’ll leave the table."

  "Fine!" The young Reptar slammed the palm of her webbed hand into the edge of the table, causing all the drinks on it to spill and then stormed out the door.

  Z’thandra sat, staring at the destruction on the table for a

  moment and then jumped up to get a rag and begin mopping at the rapidly spreading water. "I’m sorry," she muttered. "I didn’t mean to upset her – I wasn’t comparing you to anything."

  Ulda reached out and took the cloth from Z’thandra’s hands.

  "We know. Orga’s just…Orga."

  Z’thandra sighed and looked down at her half-finished trencher of roots and vegetables. "May I finish eating in my room?"

  Ulda and Grung both nodded and she picked up her wooden

  trencher and started down the hallway.

  "Oh, and Z’thandra?" Grung called after her, "I’ll tell the patrols to keep an eye out for any signs of humans across the lake."

  "Thank you," she murmured, though thoughts of the human were washed away by the flood of self-pity that swamped her. She ate her dinner sitting on the edge of her mattress, the vegetables tasted like the straw it was stuffed with. She swallowed them down, then went to wash up in her bathroom, thankful Ulda had refilled her wash basin while she had been out re-tagging pits on the path.

  Z’thandra sighed, poured some of the clear water into her basin and leaned over to splash it in her face. Her thoughts were a million miles away and she stared down at the water for a long time without seeing. When awareness finally returned to her, she found that the splashes and ripples in the water had long since passed and the surface was still and reflective.

  "Drek!" she thought, but by then it was too late.

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  Aphanasian Stories

  Chapter Three

  Against her will, Z'thandra's eyes narrowed their focus, zeroing in on a single spot on the surface of the water – the reflection of a dot of brown in the iris of her otherwise blue eye. Her vision blurred until the speck completely filled it, becoming a myriad of shades rather than just one. Then, gradually, the haze began to dissipate, thinning in the center and spreading out toward the edges like taffy that's been stretched too far.

  As the haze lifted, Z'thandra's consciousness expanded and

  then as the color cleared away completely the swamp elf found herself in two places at once. Part of her remained aware of where her body stood in her washing room; she could see the room out of the corner of her eyes, its empty walls and open ceiling. In front of her, however, was something altogether different.

  She was in the swamp standing in the middle of the same path

  she'd spent so much time on today. The wind was coming from the lake, cooling as it swept across its surface and blew strands of her hair across her cheek. Her arms felt heavy, encumbered, but she didn't look down at them because her eyes were transfixed by

  something else.

  In the eerie evening light that comes when the sun is clinging to the horizon by its fingernails, she could see that one of the pits had collapsed and, judging by the way bits of vegetation continued to slide in, it had happened recently. Very recently.

  Z'thandra took a step closer and peered over the edge of the

  hole. It was filled with broken sticks, leaves and assorted swamp debris – the materials that had been used to disguise the hole from unwary eyes. The detritus shifted while she watched, making her suspect that whatever lay inside was still alive.

  Then, a hand burst through the vegetative ceiling – a human

  hand. It was closed into a fist
, as though clutching something and, Z'thandra could see the flash of a gold ring on one finger. As she leaned over for a closer look the cold shock of her face slipping beneath the surface of the water in her basin abruptly shattered the image and left her, dripping, cold and with a throbbing headache.

  "Drek," she murmured and stumbled over to her bed.

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  Rhonda Parrish

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  Aphanasian Stories

  Chapter Four

  She awoke the next morning, still wearing the clothes from the previous day, to the sound of someone banging on the door in the kitchen that lead to the outside.

  "Let me in, Ulda!" A familiar voice shouted in between bursts of frantic pounding. "Let me in right now!"

  Z'thandra heard the scrape of the ancient door against its frame as Ulda forced the leather hinges to comply to her visitor's

  command, and then the voice of Ulda herself, always patient but with an obvious note of annoyance.

  "What is it Eerna?"

  "Where is she?"

  "Where is who?"

  "That, that, that elf you harbor under your roof. Where is she?"

  Eerna demanded.

  Z'thandra sat up quickly, too quickly it seemed as the blood

  rushing to her head amplified the throbbing pain that still hadn't left it. If history served as a good reference, the headache would stick around for a couple days yet – stupid second sight. She opened her eyes and then quickly clenched them tight against the stabbing pain the sudden influx of light had brought.

  Z'thandra wondered what Eerna wanted. After all, she had

  gone back and re-marked all the pits despite the fact it had been Orga who'd removed them in the first place. Rising slowly from bed, careful not to jostle her head, Z'thandra opened her eyes a fraction at a time, letting the light in slowly to lessen the pain of exposure. The whole time she could hear Ulda in the other room talking to Eerna, who appeared to be determined to ask questions only, not answer them.

  "Where is she?" she demanded once more, as Z'thandra pulled open her bedroom door and moved out into the hallway.

  "I'm here Eerna," she said, her voice soft in hopes it would encourage the Reptar woman to lower her own. "What's wrong?"

  "What's wrong?" The woman, her hands waving frantically this way and that, became louder. "What's wrong? Didn't I tell you to go back and re-mark the path? Didn't I say someone could get hurt?

  Didn't I? Didn't I?"

  Z'thandra frowned and nodded slowly, "You did. And I did, Eerna. Please, lower your voice I have a headache."

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  Rhonda Parrish

  "Oh," the woman dropped her voice an octave or two, cooing rather than shouting, though insincerity oozed from every word.

  "Oh, you have a headache do you? Do you?" She paused and then continued screaming at the top of her voice, "Do you think I care about your headache when my little Itra is lying at home with a broken arm because of you?"

  Z'thandra winced under the verbal onslaught then looked over

  at Ulda in confusion before returning her attention to irate Reptar storming about their kitchen. "Because of me? I've done nothing to Itra." Besides, she thought, Itra was a full grown man and the size of three reptars standing side by side. He was not someone anyone but his mother would call 'little'.

  "Exactly! That's precisely why Itra is injured."

  Z'thandra sighed. "Eerna, I don't know what you're talking about. Please, I, please I am not really able to deal with this today."

  "Well that's just too bad isn't it?" she sneered. "I've already reported you to the council, you're to report there immediately."

  "What?" Ulda and Z'thandra asked simultaneously.

  "Eerna, I don't know what you're suggesting but Z'thandra would never hurt anyone."

  "But she did. I told her to re-mark the pits on the path between here and the lake but she didn't and Itra fell into one and broke his arm."

  "But I did!" Z'thandra exclaimed and then, as a hammer of pain slammed into her forehead from the inside of her skull, grew silent and slumped in her chair at the table. After taking a few breaths to recover her composure she started again, with her voice in a much lower tone. "I did re-mark the pits Eerna, I borrowed one of Ulda's rags to do it with – she helped me tear it into strips."

  "It's true," Ulda nodded. "I did, Eerna."

  "Bah! You'd say anything to protect her." Eerna waved a hand dismissively. "Z'thandra is to come to the council. We'll see what the stone says of her innocence."

  "Oh for Phrake's sake, you don't really believe that the stone detects lies do you?" Z'thandra said, thinking back to all the times reptars had 'stretched the truth' in front of the stone to get her in trouble. "Eerna, I'm telling you, I re-marked the trail. If Itra fell I'm sorry, but I'm not to blame."

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  Aphanasian Stories

  "Blasphemer! Of course I believe in the powers of the stone!

  Now you've more to answer for! Come, the council commands it – to the stone."

  "It's okay Z'thandra," Ulda said in a very unconvincing tone of voice. "I'll come too and tell them what I know, it will be okay."

  Z'thandra sighed wearily and stood up. "Okay, let's go then."

  "I'm sure the council can wait until you've combed your hair Z'thandra, and dressed," Ulda said gently.

  "No, it certainly cannot!" Eerna protested.

  "No, it's alright, the sooner I get this over with the better."

  Z'thandra muttered and, with one hand rubbing her temple and

  wearing only her nightdress, she followed Eerna out the door and toward the council chambers.

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  Rhonda Parrish

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  Aphanasian Stories

  Chapter Five

  Eerna walked with a self-satisfied smugness that was

  unflattering in children and teenagers and revolting in a grown woman. Z'thandra chastised herself for thinking that way, but it the description fit. The woman, like most of the members of the tribe, resented her presence so it was only to be expected that she was reveling in the opportunity to get her in trouble. Like a little kid running to tell the teacher, Z'thandra thought before giving herself another mental slap on the wrist.

  First of all, she reminded herself, the analogy wasn't apt

  because the Reptar no longer had schools, formal or otherwise, and secondly, she repeated, it was to be expected. Z'thandra suspected most of the resentment and venom directed her way was merely

  from habit. It's true that her people and the Reptar had once been at war, but that was during the years of the curse when the Reptar went to war with anything that moved. The bad blood between their races had been filtered out as the curse came to an end and both races discovered their populations had dwindled to a dangerous extent.

  Still, when Grung found her sobbing over the corpse of her uncle so many years ago while on patrol and brought her back to live in his house it had caused problems for the Reptar, enough, she supposed, to rekindle old resentments.

  Though her race was gone now, their only remaining village,

  her village, devastated by Swamp Fever, the Reptar seemed to have found it impossible to abandon those bitter feelings once again.

  Z'thandra followed Eerna through the village with Ulda behind her. They formed an interesting parade as they made their way to the council chambers at the center, as evidenced by the number of Reptar who stopped their business to gape as they went by.

  "Going to the council," Eerna announced to no one in particular. "Finally going to get what's coming to her, she is."

  Z'thandra sighed again and blinked back tears – of pain from

  her head or from all the bad feelings leveled her way she didn't know. Maybe, she thought, they were for this race, once so powerful and advanced now brought low by their own foolish mistakes.

  Rarely was their situation made as clear to the Swamp Elf as it was now. She walked by their stone hom
es, crumbling due to lack of maintenance and saw their clothes, mis-matched and ill-fitting. If they didn't wake up and see that their entire civilization was

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  Rhonda Parrish

  crumbling all around them soon, she thought, it was going to be too late. Or, maybe they knew, and just preferred to dwell in denial.

  Z'thandra was pulled from her thoughts as she caught sight of the building that housed the council chambers. Once it had been the pride of the village – a two story stone building that had the very first central heat system – a giant fireplace that heated all the rooms by way of an elaborate system of stone vents and ducts. Now it was another symbol of their decay. The top floor had crumbled in on itself and the stones had not been removed. The ones not resting on the building's roof were scattered around its base. The pipes that had once transported water from the river were broken by the stones and lay twisted and rotting. The door hung from one leather hinge and was perpetually half-open. Eerna grabbed it by its edge and lifted it up at the same time as she pulled it outward to open it. Then she, with Z'thandra at her heels, entered.

  The interior of the building was a single massive room, with

  another interior chamber in the very center of it. It was well lit, none of the windows had shutters or curtains to keep the sunlight out, and still more light streamed in from the opening in the ceiling where the stairs went up to what had once been the second floor. There was no one in this room but for the two well-armed Reptar who stood guard on either side of the door of the internal chamber.

  Eerna nodded at them and they returned the favor before once

  again putting on strict faces and standing at attention. Z'thandra watched as her accuser walked between the pair of soldiers, her chin lifted high, and opened the door. It slid open much easier than the one before it, not making a sound as it swept across the stone floor.

  The trio of women, Eerna, Ulda and Z'thandra trooped into the room, and Z'thandra heard her foster mother shut the door again behind her.