A wind whispers through the leaves of your tribe. It is said in the Lofty Mountains of the North lies a system of caverns adorned by a dark subterranean lake. You grab your cloak and staff and head out to spelunk this perilous realm.

The Northside rises before you. Of the industrial fortresses that once towered here all that’s left now are toppling ruins. A four-story metal factory mechanism demands exploration. Tiny colorful rocks spread across the yard. You stick your head through a hole in the tower’s corrugated metal hull. Sunshine falls through a tall shaft, lighting the wreckage of a primitive mechanical dynamo.

Springs, cranks, rods, cogs, pulleys, gears, levers, and hammers lie in a confused jumble half buried in minuscule stones. In the next room you wade through hills of the tinted globules, enough to cover miles of aquarium bottom or fill a stone giant’s cereal bowl. You stow a handful in your pocket.

Across the street, a stretch of cliff face appears oddly regular. You brush your fingers along the warm rough stone until you trace a door’s outline. Protected by invisibility, this secret entrance has been left unlocked. You slip through into a hushed cave-like interior. A flight of stone steps climbs steeply into darkness. To the right a pathway leads to an arched opening in the rock. A buzzing drone reverberates the cold hard reflections of a vast underground space. Blinded for a moment by the acrid stench of sulphur, you almost step off the path into a black pool. The dark lake stretches off into obscurity, its surface a shining mirror starred with far off points of flickering light. You lean over and peer down upon it. The pool does not return your reflection. Careful not to disturb the surface, you keep as far from the edge as possible. Turning left, you creep along the arched stone passageway. The echoes of your footstep return high and cold.

The tunnel ends abruptly, opening out into a lofty cathedral-like space cut out of the mountain. Hundreds of flickering candles hang in diamond patterns along the rough-hewn walls. Though currently unoccupied, it’s obviously a social hall of some kind. Tall backless chairs line long tables of polished obsidian. A counter of the same material stretches along the room’s right side. Behind it shelves lined with bottles glowing in a multitude of sickly green hues. At the end of the hall a red velvet-curtained platform rises like an altar.

A spiral staircase winds into the upper level. At the top you get lost in a maze of tunnels, each branching off from the next, passing through rooms of office supplies, candy and beverage dispensing machines, theater equipment, and primitive yet elegant weaponry.

In the next room, a tall big-boned citrine-skinned woman in crushed black velvet sits working at a terminal. Her spidery fingers input figures into rows and columns of an electronic ledger. She doesn’t look up when you walk in.

—He’s ready for you now. You can go on in.

She points her long finger to the door on your right. You walk into a large room lit by deep shafts cut into the rock. Behind a wide wooden desk cluttered with loose pages and an heptagon of green crystals—a tall chair turns its back to you. 

—Ah. Hello, you must be…?

The beguiling voice soothes your hot nerves like a cool caress. The seat swivels around, revealing a tall thin elf man dressed in elegant green robes. He fingers a jeweled scepter in his slender right hand.

—William.

—Pleasure to meet you, William. I am Bobby, Lord of the Dark Elves. You can call me Bobby.

Bobby walks around the desk. His hand is starfish soft, a cold rubbery undersea thing that won’t let go.

—Magic-user, eh?

—Yes. I am a Magic-user.

—Which branch of magic?

—I’m learning how to control the weather.

—Solid.

   His silky voice holds you in its sway. You feel drowsy and open to all manner of suggestion.

—Let’s take a little walk and I’ll show you the works.

His hand lightly glued to your shoulder, the Elf Lord walks you out of his office. He pauses before the door of a cavern chock full of honeycombed receptacles, a golden hive filled with buzzing drones.

—This is where my elves sleep during the day. You probably shouldn’t go in there.

Bobby guides you out onto a steel platform occupied by two huge black cylindrical tanks.

—And this is where we keep the Black Mayonnaise.

Bobby’s smile warms your genitals. He takes you to the bottom of the spiral staircase. Over drinks he slips his hand onto your knee and explains the operation.

—I’m sure you noticed our subterranean lake on your way in. Please be careful around that. If you fall in not even I can save you. The lake is Black Mayonnaise. Our minstrels’ music brings out the dark emotions. This energy is channeled into the lake. When we have enough Black Mayonnaise we’ll open a portal and invite our deity, Llolth, to incorporate on this plane. We hope thereby to heal the world. Solid, right? Come by around midnight and you’ll see.

—Sounds wonderful. I can’t wait.

—Dark Elves, unlike our light-toned brethren, desire nothing more than to extend our culture to the other races of the world. The trees you see here are called Drakkar. We want you to plant seeds from these trees in select locations about town. You will tend the trees and make sure they grow and flower properly. In time, the flowers of these trees will blossom, and their scent draw music lovers to our location. Here they may listen and be edified. Do you understand?

—Yes. When do I start?

—You begin . . . now.

—What is the pay?

—A hundred gold pieces a week. Free drinks and shows.

—Ok. Sounds good.

—Solid. Now please allow me introduce you to my daughter. She’ll be in charge of setting you straight.

Bobby leads you back upstairs, through the disorienting corridors, and into another office. A pointy-eared waif sits with her back to you, typing symbols into a blinking EYE terminal. Mint green curls cascade to her slender waist. A wispy dress exposes her painfully thin shoulders. Her combat boots have the fought-over look of authentic Great War surplus.

—Eilistraee, this is your new assistant, William.

The elf girl stands, whips her skeletal figure around, and eyes you with a sharp look of appraisal. She smiles. Her cold boneless hand gives a noncommittal shake. She hands you a bag of seeds, handheld spade, and silver watering can—and sends you off to work.

* * *

The next week you report directly to the Elf Princess. She sits before you in her gauzy dress with a smile that suggests she’s considering whether or not to eat you. Though she looks like a child, she must be nearly as old in elf years as you are in human years. Her skin is pale aqua. Her thin pouty lips copper. Her long hair aqua. She sports shiny clean clay-green rubber rain boots that rise to her knobby elf-girl knees. The sublime angles of her bird-thin bones make you shiver.

You visit Elf Princess every day to collect more seeds. Though she is your immediate superior, you have a hard time taking her seriously, if only because she takes herself so seriously. You walk in out of the rain, take off your pointed hat.

—How’s it going Elf Princess?

—You will refer to me as ‘Your Highness’ or nothing at all.

Not even trying to hide your amusement, you kneel before her with an air of gravity.

—I’m yours to command, your Majesty.

Rather huffily, but, you sense, secretly pleased, the Elf Princess hands you another sack of seeds, full to bursting, and sends you out into the street.

You plant the seeds of Dark Elf Magic. The seeds sprout into saplings and grow quickly into trees in the waxing summer radiation. Their heart-shaped leaves, indescribably dark and green, sing to passersby, inviting them to Dark Elf concerts. All kinds of animals fill Elf Land’s hall. But the Elf Princess isn’t satisfied with your performance.

Bobby insists you participate in the late night rituals. You can’t put it off any longer. An artichoke-headed elf guarding the invisible door stops you when you try to enter.  

—Let’s see some ID there, kid.

—Since when does anybody need ID in the Broken Land?

—Since right now.

You rummage your bottomless pockets and hold up an imaginary card.

—I’ve got my poetic license here. Will that do?

—Haha. What are you supposed to be, a magic-user or something?

—Yes. I am. I am a magic-user. I’ve got some important magic to do here tonight.

—Very funny. Next in line please.

—Wait. Wait. Look. I work here.

—Sure. Sure you do, kid. Where’s your ID.

—It got stolen. I tried to get a new one in Apple City, but you can’t get one unless you already have one.

—Tough luck.

—Look. My boss is the great Dark Elf himself. His name is Bobby. Um. I’m here to sow the seeds of darkness. Milk the misery of the masses. I work in the ad department with the princess.

—You put up the posters?

—Yes, I do. For the Dark Elf Lord, your boss and mine.

—Whatever, kid. Go on in. Have some fun. You look like you could use some fun.

You skirt along the dark lake to the social chamber and take an empty seat at the bar. The bartender, a dour she-Elf with pine-green hair, asks for your prescription.

—I’ll take a Long Island Iced Tea, please.

—You mean a Pomanok?

—Yes. A Pomanok.

The candle-lit social chamber fills quickly. The crowd of Tribals and in-the-know Pilgrims ignore you. You sit sipping your Pomanok, listening to nearby conversations, trying to decipher the thick patois of obscure cultural references. The evening’s musicians occupy the high altar-like stage. They finger strings and blow puff-cheeked into reeds of Dark Elf instruments, conjuring eldritch ambience that plays on primitive brain centers. But it’ll take a greater power than this dark light electric orchestra to move you. Maybe you should start your own band.

The Elf Lord’s entourage descends the spiral staircase to preside over the evening ritual. The Elf Lord sees you sitting alone and settles in on your left. The elf prince and princess sit on your right. The Elf Princess strokes your hand. The prince wears a look of utter boredom.

The music rises out of a cavern deep inside you, climbs through twisted tunnels to the surface, and spreads sticky cold across your skin. The crowd strips off its clothes, pulsating to the music’s roaring drone, and wades into the dark lake. The pool boils. Black waves wash over their writhing forms. Hundreds of wriggling arms covered in stiff stalks and suction cups slowly crawl from the lake and attach themselves to the bodies. The shadowy pool overflows its banks. An oily tentacle caresses your ankle and sips your loneliness, drinking the sadness that makes you want to know everything and everyone, yet holds you back from fully partaking in even this minor ritual, leaving in its place a coma of buzzing numbness.

***

Centrifuga drops her suit on the bathroom floor. She rips it off. More like peels. Shucks? She sheds it like a shadow and lets it fall in the kitty litter. Her jello body firm today in the cool evening. Come summer she’ll need the suit to hold her shape. The toilet lid claps open. The black and white sound of bath water. The hot and cold squeaking on. Dialing up the perfect admixture. Door opens. Sound floods out, crackling softly from the tiny room into the larger interior. She takes a little glance at the clear green face in the mirror. Brain stuff crammed inside. All those perceptions, memories wound up in her serpentine lobes.

Centrifuga drops the suit and sits on the toilet. You bend down.

—Do you mind if I spend some time alone with that.

You point at the black suit puddling on the floor, its crotch oozed with a gooey coating of snail lubricant.

—Excuse me?

—Can I have her alone to myself for awhile?

—Now or in the future?

—What kind of a question is that?

—I just want to know . . .

—Now, of course. And how dare you treat this sacred object with such disrespect?

You grab the suit off the floor, fling the slinky smelly thing over your shoulder, and head out to the typewriter.

***

In hopes of impressing her with your devotion, you spend a whole week working on the map Elf Princess asked you to make of all the Drakkar seeds you’ve planted. Seated before you in a thin open back dress, the princess sips from a tall glass of bubbling apple-green liquid. The map fits perfectly in her slender leaf-shaped palm. She examines it a moment before rolling her eyes.

—What is this shit?

The map is drawn with blue ink on a small sheet of teal-lined notebook paper. Where it was ripped out the edge frays into a surf of tiny white feathers. A scribbled grid with dots, lines represent streets, dots the places where you might have stopped to plant seeds. What means what is more than obvious to you. The key to unlocking the map’s symbols is left to the reader’s imagination.

—It’s no work of art, but it is a functional map.

The dark clouds over the Princess’s eyes part and cool white light shines like a jewel from her smooth green brow. Again she’s the coquettish elf Girl who enjoys toying with the young magic-user’s heart. The map and all its precious symbols flutter from her hand to the floor. She smiles, squirms, swivels her narrow hips, slips out of her chair, kneels before you, and puts her hand on your knee. Lightning shoots up your spine and cold blue fireworks burst in your head. She looks up into your eyes, then back down at her hand.

—Are you ticklish?

Her hand explores the furrows of your corduroy-clad inner thigh like a noiseless patient spider. Black fangs sink into tender flesh. Poison turns you to stone. Long strands of green hair cascade across your skin, filling you with the moist salty-sweet breath of a subterranean ocean. A single pale white star hangs in the pinnacle of the dome sky. Waves of sea-green flesh stretch over undulating vertebrae. Her shoulders fold and unfold like a seabird’s wings. Hollow cries, and a rushing sound, and you know no more.

# # #

J. Pascutazz grew up in a small town in Ohio. Victim of tragedy. Escaped to trailer park in Pennsylvania. Met someone special. Delayed entry to art school. Got dumped. Went to art school. Transferred to fancy northeast institution. Arrived in New York with three hundred dollars and a dream. Currently stay at home parent. Published by Right Hand Pointing.

Photo: Farrah Fuerst