Good or Evil?

Astra's natural instinct was to join in the fight, but since she had no weapon nor any way of telling which were the good guys she decided that she had better just watch for now. The battle was fast and furious, and before long all four on one side lay dead. But the victors were not unscathed. Two of them were also dead, whilst one of the two survivors had a nasty cut in his thigh.

As the injured survivor made himself a makeshift bandage from the shirt of one of the fallen, Astra asked the other: "What was that all about?"

If the elf had been startled by the appearance of a naked human woman in the tunnel, he did not show it. "The vanquished were our evil doubles," he replied. "They were brought into being by a spell of the Dragon."

"How do I know that you aren't the evil doubles?" Astra asked bluntly.

The elf thought for a moment. "You will have to take it on trust," he responded. "I can think of no way of proving it to you. Besides, for all I know you could be evil. I suppose that we should introduce ourselves, though. I am called Virendel, and my injured friend is Arndor."

"Pleased to meet you. My name is Astra, and the dog is Velus." Not yet fully trusting the elves, she thought it wiser not to mention that she was an Aqualarian princess or that Velus was intelligent and really a teenage boy.

"We would like to bury our two fallen comrades," Arndor said, having now finished bandaging himself. "But unfortunately there is no way of doing that. The rock floor is far too hard to dig in, there are not enough loose stones to build a cairn, and if we attempted to cremate them the smoke would suffocate us in this narrow passage. I'm afraid that we shall just have to leave their bodies here."

"Before we go, would it be all right if I took one of their swords?" Astra asked, aware that some cultures did not approve of taking items from the dead.

The surviving elves had no objection, so she chose what seemed to her to be the best of the blades that were available. Since this race of elves were as tall as men, the sword was large enough for her.

"If the Dragon created evil doubles of you, then I suppose that means that you are here to kill him and that he was therefore trying to destroy you," she said. "If that is so, then I should like to join you. For I too have unfinished business with him."

1. "Please do," Virendel said politely.
2. "But we aren't here to kill the Dragon," Arndor said, to Astra's surprise.

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