abilities, there for the discovering if you knew how to look. Delloreen tracked her all the way to the camp, to where she had met the humans fleeing Findo Gask and his army, and then lost the scent. But after circling about, she had found it again, a solitary trail that meandered off into the woods.
The woman Knight had met someone there, deep in the trees. She was able to tell that much, even though she was unable to tell much else. Whoever the Knight had met had left no scent, no tracks, and no readable traces–nothing that would provide an identity. In the end, Delloreen concluded that it was a Faerie creature and that something of importance had taken place, since it had drawn the woman Knight away from the children.
Delloreen had tracked her down the dirt road to the paved crossroad and the storage facility. The trail went into the facility and ended. There were machine smells everywhere, raw and rank and difficult to sort through. Her quarry's scent disappeared in those. The demon ran up and down the paved road like a wolf, sniffing the ground, searching for tracks. She circled the entire complex twice, hunting carefully. But she found no trace of the woman Knight.
She went back into the complex and began to prowl through the units. Down on all fours, she worked her way along each row, through the discarded contents, in and out of the units, across the grounds and back again. Now and then, she caught a trace of the woman Knight's scent, but not enough of it to determine where she had gone. Another hunter might have given up, but Delloreen was relentless. The harder the search, the more satisfying the death that would signal its end. She was driven by thoughts of how that death would play itself out, how the woman Knight of the Word would be brought down, how she would beg for mercy, how she would gasp out her life.
When she smiled, her pointed teeth gleamed and her muzzle showed red. She flexed her claws and ran them softly over her scaly body. So sweet it would be when it happened.
It took her almost an hour to reach the units in the back and to discover the one with the false wall. The Knight had been so confident–or perhaps so hasty–that she had not bothered to close it up again. Delloreen read the absence of the ATV the woman had taken from marks on the floor. The reason for the intensity of the machine smells was revealed; her quarry had ridden the ATV out of here. But the machine left a distinct smell, one as easily recognizable as the woman Knight's own scent. It would be easy enough to track it if she left now and traveled quickly. Easy enough if she could match the other's speed and exceed her stamina.
But she would need a vehicle, something that would convey her as swiftly and surely as the woman Knight was conveyed.
She looked at the huge Harley Crawler sitting back in the shadows. She checked the engine bay and found it empty, but she caught a whiff of her quarry's scent and tracked it to where she had hidden the power cells. She carried the cells back, slipped them in place, and fired up the Harley's big engine. It caught with a roar that shook her to her bones.
She smiled as the vibrations filled her.
It would do.
TWENTY-FOUR
KIRISIN WAITED AN entire week for Arissen Belloruus to summon him. He remained patient, telling himself he must not act in haste or out of frustration, that research of the Elven histories and conferences with official advisers took time. It wasn't as if the King didn't care what happened to the Ellcrys and the Elven people; it was that he must be careful to do the right thing. Kirisin saw it more clearly than the King did, of course; from his perspective the decision to do what the Ellcrys had asked was not debatable. But he was only a boy, and he lacked the experience and wisdom of his elders.
He told himself all this, but even as he did so he was thinking that he was dealing with a family of duplicitous cowards.
It was a terrible thing to believe, but ever since he had come to the conclusion that both the King and Erisha had lied to him he had been unable to think anything else. Erisha's betrayal was worse, because she was a Chosen.
Being a Chosen bound them in ways that even blood could not, and no Chosen had betrayed another in living memory.
But Kirisin kept his anger in check and went about his business.
He worked in the gardens with the others, caring for the Ellcrys and the grounds in which she was rooted. He performed at the morning greetings and evening farewells. He smiled and joked with Biat and the others–although not with Erisha, who would barely look at him most of the time–trying his best to make it appear that nothing was amiss. Apparently, his efforts were successful.
No one seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary, or said another word about what had happened that first morning.
The tree did not speak again. Kirisin was certain she would, that her need, so palpable when she had spoken to him, would require it. He willed it to happen each sunrise when he joined the others to wish her good morning and each sunset when they gathered to say good night. He prayed for it to happen, for some small exchange to take place, a reminder of what had passed between them, even a warning or admonition. But nothing happened. The Ellcrys remained silent.
In the times he was free to do what he wanted, he wrote in his journal of his thoughts and concerns, putting down everything he was struggling with, even his thoughts of the King and his daughter. He tried to imagine the King's thinking, to put himself in Arissen Belloruus's frame of mind so that he could better understand. But it was a miserable failure, a process to find a justification for what he did not believe. All it did was further convince him that something was terribly wrong and needed righting.
He thought to speak of it to his parents more times than he could count, but he could not bring himself to do so. He knew that if he voiced his concerns to them, they would act on their feelings, just as he had, and take the matter directly to the King. That would invite a disaster for which Kirisin did not want to be responsible. His parents were already suspect after their efforts to move a colony of Elves to Paradise. The King would have no patience with an intrusion of this sort, particularly if he was hiding something. The best Kirisin could do for them in this situation was to leave them out of it.
He kept hoping Simralin would come home. He could tell his sister what had happened and know that she would offer a thoughtful response. That was her nature; she was not given to rash acts and emotional outbursts like the rest of his family. Simralin would think it all through; she would know what was needed.
But the days passed and Simralin did not come home, the King did not summon him, the Ellcrys did not speak to him, and his thoughts grew steadily darker and more distressed as he carried out his Chosen duties in mechanical fashion and waited futilely for something to happen.
"You seem like your head is somewhere else lately/' Biat told him at one point, squatting down beside him as he worked on the flower beds. "Is that business with the Ellcrys still bothering you?"
Overhead, the sun was high in the sky, a blazing orb burning down on the Cintra. There had been no rain in weeks. Everything was drying up, Kirisin thought, including his secret hopes.
"I've just been wondering how Simralin is," he replied.
"Better than most," Biat smirked. "She's the Tracker all the other Trackers wish they could be. Smart, beautiful, talented–everything you're not.
Too bad for you."
Too bad indeed, thought Kirisin as his friend wandered away.