A Quest for Revenge

It was a cloudy afternoon as Celeste sat on the broken stone fence playing a mournful melody on her flute. No one lived in that forest anymore… not since… that day…

Her long elfin ears sank downward in sorrow as her doleful music stopped and she sat amidst the melancholy silence of the abandoned wood. Her knee-length blonde hair, tied in the back, flowed beside her in the gentle breeze. Every moment in the still wood reminded Celeste of the calm before the storm. She was one hundred years old this year, and it all happened eighty-one years ago. It was a deep wound, never healing even after the passing of over eight decades. It happened a lifetime ago, and yet it was imprinted in Celeste’s memory as if it had been yesterday.

A clan of elves once lived in that forest, a thriving colony thousands of years old. One morning Celeste, the daughter of the king, went out for a walk. It was a sunny morning… leading to a dark, cold night.

Still a child, the nineteen-year-old elfin princess soon found herself lost in a thicker part of the wood. Storm clouds came rolling in, and amidst the light rain and distant thunder Celeste turned to see what she believed to be a smoke signal, surely coming from the direction of the village. She set out running towards it as fast as her legs could carry her.

But when she reached it—no, no, Celeste’s mind stopped her sorrowful memory short. She was going to get revenge, and that was all that mattered; she would, as much as possible, forget the scenes she witnessed that day until it was time to exact sweet revenge, and take all her pain and malice out on the one responsible for her involuntary solitude.

And so the gloomy music, Celeste’s unspoken lament, resumed as she lifted her flute back up to her lips, reopening her old wound and yet somehow finding comfort in her requiem as it slowly marched on. If only her sorrow could do the same.

Many years she trained to find and kill the demon she sought. Many times she thought she knew where to find her. And many times she was wrong. She almost gave up hope; but she vowed she would find her, kill her, or die trying, and Celeste was not one to forget an oath.

Abruptly the requiem came to a stop once more, as Celeste rose from the broken bit of piled stone that still stood from the high castle walls once protecting her kingdom. Sitting and mourning would not get her a single step closer to revenge. So slowly and dejectedly she began walking in the direction of a small human village a little ways out from the forest.

It was fortunate for Celeste that she arrived at the human village at the same time as a traveling merchant. She heard him tell another interested customer, “Gah, that was sure the last time I am ever gonna go within ten miles of those bastard dark elves. Said we was a-tryin’ to cheat ‘em out of their money, and took my partner’s head. I barely escaped with my life, my life, certainly not my goods, I tells ya! Those menaces are cold-blooded killers; and I ain’t never gonna be stupid enough to go back there again.”

Intrigued, Celeste used cover of interest in some ribbon he was selling to probe him for more information.

“Good afternoon, sir,” she said, walking up to him, with the red light of sunset glistening in her hair beautifully. She certainly had the grace and poise of royalty. “Those are beautiful ribbons,” she continued, her voice sounding gentle and sweet, yet only as a covering for something strong and hard.

“Good evenin’, missy. Yep, these here are my finest, at least, the finest of what I’ve got left.”

“Why, what happened?”

The sun disappeared and lamps were lit, and unexpectedly the merchant glanced around as if suddenly afraid of someone hearing. In a hushed tone, he answered her, “The dark elves, ma’am; me and my partner were stupid enough to try an’ sell to ‘em, and they not only killed him, they gave me such a beatin’ I’m lucky to be alive today!”

“Oh my!” Celeste gasped. “You are very brave, to go within a mile of those creatures! I’ve heard of some absolutely wretched things they’ve done in the past.”

“You probably ain’t heard the half of it,” the merchant said, sounding almost proud of how much he knew of the dirty deeds of the dark elves. “I heard ‘em gloatin’ over this one as I fled. It’s before my time, but you probably were around back then, miss; they say eighty years ago, those same dark elves, led by the monster they still have for a queen, wiped out an entire kingdom in that forest over yonder in a single night. No one survived, and it’s all a burnt graveyard now.”

“Oh, how frightful!” Celeste exclaimed, hiding her hatred. “I am traveling much, and all over; do tell me where those menaces are, that I should be able to avoid them!”

“Out west,” the merchant said, and pointed. “Past a tall mountain. It’s a barren wasteland back there; but there’s a small hill-sized mountain there that hides a rock openin’ leading down to the tunnels where they live. I’m a-tellin’ you, missy, if you ever see a rock openin’, run for your dear life!”

“I will be sure never to go that far!”

“Mercy me, I’m afraid I got a bit distracted. Consider the advice a free extra for your purchase… you are going to buy one of these mighty fine ribbons here, aren’t you?”

“Of course. And thank you very much for the tip! Hmm, I like this light sage color here… but this red… it’s almost the color of blood…”

Involuntarily the sight of blood red sent Celeste’s mind back eighty-one years to continue remembering that which she so desperately wanted to forget.

As soon as Celeste reached home, she found the entire village ablaze. Dead bodies littered the ground like so many pebbles tossed aside, and then she saw… her.

It took much visible effort, but Celeste managed to pull herself out of her thoughts and continue the purchase of a beautiful light green ribbon, playing the ditz to save herself having to explain the sudden and obvious effort she was expending to draw herself out of the world of memories.

Celeste spent the night in that town, and in the morning she bought supplies and set out for a long trek. The traveling merchant was still there, and she avoided him, lest he notice she was headed west.

Her journey took her west for many days before she reached the high mountain range she needed to cross. She thought continuously about that ominous day eighty-one years past, in hopes of kindling enough hatred inside of her to sustain her through her journey.

She looked like a perfect picture of evil, the very incarnation of hell’s fire and Satan’s wrath. Celeste’s knees shook as she saw the dark elf ruler lift her father the king, quietly resigned to death, up towards herself. The menacing creature whispered something maliciously into the ear of her father, who was admirably still carrying himself with royal dignity. Then in one moment, in the blink of an eye, the light of the blazing fire danced off of the evil woman’s blade, and her father was dead.

Dead. Dead. And she, then a child, forced to watch her father stabbed through the heart and beheaded. A child forced to see her father’s dead, empty eyes staring back at her as such a vicious creature as his murderer carried his head off as a trophy. It was a sight she would never forget, never, ever. And an event she would make that monster pay for.

Celeste gasped as she saw the mountains she needed to cross up close. The path she was taking was the most direct way across, and the easiest, but she knew it would still be a challenge for her. It took her many days to cross it, in bitter cold and brutal wind, nearly freezing to death as she diligently plodded along. But she would go to any length it took for peace of mind.

When she finally crossed over, she was hungry and weary, and very carefully rationing her food and water. Still she traveled west until to her great joy she saw the small rocky hill and the entrance to her oppressor’s lair, and the doorway to fulfilling what she felt was her destiny.

Chapter Two: The Blood that Cries Out

Celeste slowly tried to sneak in. But instantly the sentries posted by the door caught her, and hit her so hard on the head that she passed out.

When she awoke with a throbbing head and a silent reproach for being so stupid, she found herself chained to the wall of a dark elf dungeon. As she listened to the blabber of the guard and the messenger outside the door, she knew she was in grave danger.

“The Lord Queen and Master commands this trespasser be brought before her for justice as soon as he awakens.”

“But sir, it’s… I think it’s female.”

Celeste closed her eyes part way and peeked out as a dark elf messenger peered through the bars of the tiny window in her cell door. She saw his eyes grow wide, and certainly not focused on her face.

“I’ll be damned,” he said. “It is a woman. What a rash and stupid wench. No matter. The Master’s order stands. Take her as soon as she regains consciousness!”

The messenger stormed away and the guard opened the cell door. In the torchlight the guard clearly saw she was awake, and it was even plainer when she spat at him. He cursed but tied her up and began walking her to the royal hall as he was ordered. To ignore the cussing of the dark elf, Celeste’s mind finished her tale and grew more hateful still.

Her father was truly dead.

As soon as the deed was done, the sky was ripped apart with lightning and the rain began pouring down with all its might like the very tears of heaven, slowly quenching the flames. The dark elf lord summoned her troops and Celeste, hiding behind the trees, watched as a vast army of thousands marched out of her village, her neighborhood, her home, taking with them every last ounce of wealth.

By the time they were all gone, the fire was mostly put out. All Celeste could do was run up to the body of he who was once her father and swear vengeance between her sobs, cursing herself for not doing something before it was too late.

Celeste still lived in that wood. She had built a shack near the burnt structure of what was once her magnificent palace. She had buried the dead, most in mass graves, all the many thousands of them. And she slowly chanted the names of hundreds of the deceased so dear to her heart, seeing through misty eyes that all the land that was once a majestic kingdom was littered with crude wooden crosses, stuck in the ground along with many tears to recognize the dead.

The long walk suddenly stopped and she found herself in a vast hall, with skulls and heads of both humans and elves decorating the walls. And up on an immense throne she saw her. She saw the one who took everything away from her. She saw the wretch who was responsible for her pain. The cold rage that had simmered inside of her for eight decades suddenly boiled up to her breaking point. She bit her lip ‘til blood ran; it was all she could do to keep from screaming out like a demon-possessed maniac.

She looked exactly as she remembered her, only angrier. She had the same menacing and frozen eyes burning with cold hatred that haunted Celeste’s dreams. And when she spoke, her voice sounded like thunder, exactly as the elfin girl had always imagined it would.

“Who is this foolish high elf that has trespassed in the realm of those who live in the dark?” she demanded.

Celeste’s rage boiled over and she shouted with strength and resolve, with a passionate hatred in her voice and eyes and regal poise in her stance. “I am Celeste, the daughter of the great King Anilhain whom you so brutally murdered eighty-one years past!”

“Oooh,” the queen purred. “A vengeful wench indeed. He was a demon cursed by the gods! And I, the immortal goddess of the under-dwellers, deliberated with many gods and they asked me to kill him!”

“You lying bastard!”

“Do not dare address a goddess as if you spoke to a mere mortal, lowly wretch!” At the thunderous sound of the dark elf’s wrathful order, the guard immediately knocked Celeste in the back of the head so hard that blood flew out of her mouth. All the dark elves sitting around jeered and cursed and spat on her.

“Take the foul elf away!” the queen ordered. “She will be executed tomorrow night, in the light of the full moon! Take her back to the dungeons and deprive her of food and water. I will have her head sitting on the wall of my chamber before I rest tomorrow, right at home with the heads of her father and brothers!”

Celeste screamed rage and agony as she was dragged away kicking and screaming as if possessed. Thrown back in the cell and chained once again, she did the only thing she could: she waited.

Hours passed and there came a time when she did not hear the sound of people above her. She needed wait for only a second before she heard snoring coming from the guard. She carefully pulled a pin out of her hair and with her teeth unlocked her right hand. Soon she had completely unlocked herself.

It was not hard for her to pick the lock on the cell door, as the guard was careless and did not draw any of the bolts. But as the creaky hinges turned, they squeaked just loud enough to awaken him! Instinctively Celeste grabbed a steel pipe he had sitting beneath his chair just in time before his groping hands reached it and hit him over the head. He passed out.

Just as she was about to turn the corner, an invisible man ran into her and hit her with his strong clenched hand. Celeste kept the pipe in her left hand and used her right to grab at where the man’s waist ought to be. She pulled off his belt just as the iron fist came crashing down again. Now able to see him, she flung the pipe at his head and knocked him to the floor. He was certainly not very bright, seeing as he did not notice she had pulled off his belt, or at least did not act accordingly.

Celeste grinned to herself as she put it on. “Belt of invisibility,” she murmured with an evil grin. “Just what I needed.” She turned and bowed at the two unconscious dark elves. “Thank you,” she sneered. She snatched her confiscated sword from the corner near the guard and ran noiselessly off.

True, she had an overdeveloped sense of vengeance, but the high elf princess also had a good sense of direction. She navigated her way back to the main hall and by dumb luck managed to find the door to the murderer’s chamber.

Using the element of surprise, she took out the guards and picked the lock into the room where she found the queen asleep.

As she entered, she suddenly stopped short and muffled a gasp. Tears overflowed from her eyes and she was overcome with absolute horror. Above the bed, on a gold-plated shelf, preserved in some sickly greenish substance and encased in glass, were heads. Seven heads. The head of her father was in the center. And surrounding it, three to a side, were the heads of her warrior brothers. All the memories she still had of the happy nineteen years of life she lived came cramming back in. She felt the wind in her hair as she raced with her brothers, the fear in her heart as they went off to war. She recalled the joy inside when they came back victorious, and the love of her father that she felt all around her every day. But all those feelings were soon overshadowed by her rising hatred and lust for blood.

The dark elf lord woke suddenly to Celeste’s razor sharp blade at her throat. And just as the tyrant had done to her father before, she whispered in her defeated foe’s ear the last thing she would ever hear: “The blood is repaid.”

And in an instant she was dead.

Celeste bagged her head and escaped undetected. Wicked ecstasy took over. At last, the blood of her family, friends, and subjects, the blood that cried out for justice, was avenged.

Celeste was famished and exhausted by the time she reached the village near home where her journey began. Once she had refreshed herself, she returned to the burnt wasteland she still called home.

She built an enormous fire, big enough to be seen for miles around. In she threw the head of her vanquished nemesis. For hours she entertained herself watching the fire slowly burn down and recalling the suspense of the moments just prior to her victory. Soon storm clouds rolled in, just as on that fateful day in her childhood. It quickly began pouring and quenched the fire entirely. She knelt by the king’s grave and whispered, “You are avenged, Father.” And then she stood, facing the grave, with the ashes of his killer not far away.

But as she stood gloating, she realized that all her blood and sweat and tears could never bring her father back; that her revenge, finally achieved, would not take away the horrible sense of guilt she bore. As she knelt once more in the mud before the cross marking the burial place of her father, she lifted her face to the heavens and cried out in anguish; for her vengeance could not break the wall of hate and shame she erected in her own heart, and in the end, it was all for nothing.