"Dan," Tammy said, lying on the bed.
"Yes, Love?" I replied.
"Tell me a story, like the ones you used to write," she asked of me.
"What do you want to hear."
"Anything. I just want to hear your voice."
I smelled it then, the smell of death. My wolven senses told me that this was her final hour and my heart sank. The years had passed far to quickly. What would I do without her. All my plans seemed useless.
I took her hand and looked into her face. Though time had stolen her youth, I saw only beauty. To my eyes she was still young.
"Please, Dan."
I force a smile. "OK"
I told her one of the many stories that Xiona had told us in the forest clearing. I told her of the love of two people who had left everything they knew to be with each other, finding through their journey that their home was in their hearts.
As I talked, I wished for more time.
I closed my eyes as I finished the story. When I opened them I imagined our bedroom was gone. Tammy lay before me on the grass by a small pool. I touched her cheek and she looked up at me and smiled sadly.
"You tell such wonderful stories. I wish I could see it, this world you made up. It sounds lovely."
"It is," I told her gently.
"Always true to the story?" she said, a weak smile on her face.
"Why not," I thought. "What do I have to lose?"
"Do you really want to see it?"
"Yes, too bad it doesn't exist."
"Oh, but it does," I said, softy. "I don't know if this will work."
I willed us both into the Mists and my vision became truth.
Tammy bolted up from the ground, her dark hair falling down on her shoulders and across her back.
I could only stare at her. Her young, graceful body was impossible. I had only meant to show her the Mists, the pool. How had she regained her youth.
"Where are we?" She asked, panicked. "Am I dead?"
"Shhh," I told her, putting my own questions aside. "These are the Mists, the place between our world and the world of my stories."
"What?" She asked, her eyes going wide.
"Tammy," I said, touching her shoulder. "My stories are true. I really walked that world among the Elves."
She gawked at me. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I didn't want you to think I was crazy. I never thought I could actually bring you here. If I had known, I would have suggested coming here together long ago. Here time means nothing, no past no future, only now. We could have an eternity together and return home at the same time we left."
"I don't understand."
"I'm not sure I do either. But, Tammy, I have more to show you. Be calm, but look into the pool."
"Why?" she asked, suspicious.
I had a thought that my desire to have her young again had restored my wife, at least in the Mists. Boy, was I wrong. When she looked into the pool, the truth hit me.
Tammy gazed into the clear water, seeing her young, perfect beauty. It was definitely her face, only the cares and hurt of our world had not touched her. Her body was also young, strong, supple, and shapely. I was starting to get distracted. Then she tilted her head to one side and a pointed ear escaped her hair.
"Huh?" I asked, dumbly, as I reached to touch her.
Somehow my wife had become an Elf.
She accepted it much faster and easier than I expected.
"I always wanted to be one of them." She said. "You made the Elves so alive, I felt I was one. You said this was a magical place. Maybe both our wishes made it happen."
I knew though that the change wasn't only in the Mists. She was truly Elven and if we returned home she would remain as she was.
We sat by the pool for a long time just looking at each other. Then, for the first time in years, we made love.
As we lay together, Tammy asked, "What now? When we return home what do we do?"
I thought about that. "Tammy, if we return home, then we will watch everyone we know grow old and eventually die. Our children expect us to pass on soon ourselves. We would have to leave and hide for the rest of our long lives. Anyone we got close to we would lose. I'm sorry for bringing you to this. I didn't think to force you to bear my burden."
"Don't be sorry, love. I asked for it. But, what do we do now? What were you going to do?"
"Well, I had planned on crafting an image of my death when you had passed on. I could do it for both of us. Everyone will think we died together. They will mourn us but it will be easier than if we just disappeared."
"Our children," she said, her heart in her voice.
"Love, its not perfect. Our other choice is to return home and change identities as we watch them grow old and die. I, for one, couldn't do that."
"Neither could I."
She laid her head on my chest. "Where do we go now?"
I stroked her hair. "Where do you think?"
"The keep?" she asked.
"Why not? I have friends there and they will be glad to have us. It's where I planned on going."
She lay there a while before raising her head. "When do we go?" She smiled.
I fashioned the image and placed it in our room. Our family would find it and accept this seemingly normal passing. We couldn't do more.
I know it sounds like creating that image was easy, it wasn't. I had never done anything so hard in my life. Tammy could only watch as I built the illusion slowly. When I was done, I lay by the pool, exhausted.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
"I'm fine, that just takes a lot of energy. I guess the Lady or the Goddess could have done it easily but I'm still basically human and the Mists require a lot to control."
"It's strange how you can do that."
"I've had a lot of practice."
"It looks strange, seeing that," she said, looking at the image. Then she bent down to take a closer look. "My nose is too big."
After finishing our seeming deaths, we stayed in the Mists while I rested. We wanted to use the pool to check up on our friends at the keep but my control over the pool was erractic.
"What's wrong with it," Tammy asked after one attempt that only showed a mountain range.
"Nothing probably," I replied. "The Lady created it and it's probably attuned to her. I'm not even sure the Oracle could have used it properly."
Finally, I was able to center on the keep. It was much as I remembered, the stone shone still in the sunlight, the lake reflecting the blue sky. A group of Elves sat by the lake, just talking and playing.
"The gifted," I said, looking at Tammy.
"I remember you saying something about this," she replied, still watching the pool.
Suddenly, she gasped.
I looked back into the pool, trying to see what had scared her. The Elves were gone, the keep destroyed. Stones were scattered all around the field where the keep had stood. Blackened and cracked, the showed signs of an intense fire. The oak tree that had stood before the keep's entrance was now a blackened stump.
Nothing moved, nothing lived, within the picture the pool showed us. The sun blazed harshly on the lake. Causing it to reflect red, as if to remind everyone of the fire and the destruction of this once lovely home of Elves.
"What happened, Dan?" Tammy asked.
"I don't know. But, I think it hasn't happened yet."
"Why not?"
"The pool originally showed us what it is like today, then it showed what may happen."
"Can it do that?"
"I don't see why not. Look, time doesn't exist here. So why couldn't the pool show us the past, present, or future?"
"So what can we do about it?"
"Well, for one, we can warn someone. Then we find out how to stop it."
"Two questions. One who do we tell and two what can we do?"
"The first is easy. We tell Lord Tariel and let him decide who to let in on it. As for what we can do, I don't know, yet."
"Well, you know this world, Dan," Tammy said.
"Not completely but, that doesn't matter."
"No," she said, pointing back into the pool. "They do."