The other man turned his head, and for the first time Amero saw how hollow-eyed he’d become. “Too much wine,” Pa’alu said calmly. “I should thank the dragon for stopping me.”
Amero flashed a smile. “Duranix says living with humans means stopping a hundred stupid things a day.”
Both men laughed briefly. Amero threw his legs back over the wall and slid down to the ground outside the pen.
“I must keep looking for the thieves,” he said. “Good night, Pa’alu.”
“Peace be with you, Arkuden.”
Amero departed and was soon swallowed by the darkness around the village houses. Pa’alu waited to a slow count of thirty, then took a squat jar from under his cloak and broke the beeswax seal. Making clucking sounds in his throat to attract the hungry cattle, he poured a stream of golden honey on the dirt. Before long the oxen were lapping at it with their fleshy red tongues. Pa’alu wiped the rim of the empty jar with his fingers, then stuck them in his mouth.
Back in the camp, Nacris and Tarkwa were panting from their run. They ducked into a large tent, with triumphant grins. Hatu, inside the tent, was waiting with a small lamp burning.
“Well?” demanded Hatu.
“He wouldn’t strike a blow, but he took a jar,” Nacris reported.
“Good. Pa’alu will soon be one of us. Next time, we must make sure he strikes the first blow but not the last.”
Hatu bent forward and blew out the lamp.
Nianki was not sleeping in the orchard.
Though she lay in the soft grass at the base of an apple tree, she could not rest. She stared up through the tree’s twisted branches at the patches of night sky visible through its remaining leaves.
It was a tree that saved me.
Amero’s voice drifted through her mind. He’d climbed a tree to escape the yevi all those years ago.
Thoughts of Amero kept Nianki from sleeping. Each time she closed her eyes, her brother’s face seemed to rise up before her like a spectre that wouldn’t be banished.
“Go away,” she muttered. “Leave me be. Go away.”
Her brother’s face smiled at her.
“Leave me in peace!” she screamed and sprang to her feet, drawing her flint knife as though she could fight off the strange, unnatural feelings assailing her.
With a shock, she found herself facing a stranger. A tall, thin figure with a high forehead stood only a few steps away from her blade. He recoiled so sharply that the long robes he wore whipped around his ankles.
“Stop!” he commanded.
Nianki kept her knife between them and demanded to know who he was.
He recovered himself quickly and adopted a calm, superior air. “Savages have short memories,” he said. “Don’t you know me, Karada?”
She still didn’t relax her posture, but it was obvious that her mind was working to place him. With a small smile, he lifted his hands and pushed back the hood he wore. The moon’s light limned his features with silver, including a wispy beard and tall, sharply pointed ears.
Surprised, Nianki backed away a step. “Elf!” she spat. “You were with Balif the day we fought on the plain. He called you…” Her troubled mind wouldn’t obey her. The name escaped her utterly.
“Vedvedsica,” he said coolly. “My name is Vedvedsica.”
Nianki wasn’t listening. Her head darted violently left and right. “Where are your troops?” she demanded. “Does Balif think to attack us as we sleep?”
“There are no troops,” he said. “There is no one but me.”
After a few more moments peering into the dark, she had to accept his words. “What do you want?”
“You.”
Her expression was so outraged the priest gave a dry laugh. “Calm yourself, savage,” he said. “I merely wish to take you on a journey.”
She backed away. “I’ll go nowhere with you.”
Vedvedsica shrugged. “You would cast aside an opportunity to know your enemy better? You aren’t much of a leader, are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I offer you the chance to learn more about the Silvanesti. It will cost you nothing, not even time.”
She obviously didn’t understand, and he sighed. Slowly, as though speaking to a particularly dim-witted child, Vedved-sica said, “I will not harm you. I merely wish to show you the city of your enemy.” Stroking his wispy beard he added, “A true leader would not miss such an opportunity. Unless she were afraid to see the truth.”
His taunt penetrated her clouded thoughts. It was true her mind was a whirl of conflicting impressions and impulses, and she often found herself in places with no memory of how she got there. For all of that, she understood the elf’s slight to her courage, and it angered her.
Stiffening her spine, Nianki shoved her knife back into its sheath, pushed her tangled hair from her face, and said, “Show me, then.”
“Take my hand.”
She nearly balked again, but his expression — so condescending! — caused her to clench her jaw and obey. She wrapped her hand around his wrist. The cool dryness of his skin made her flinch, but a sudden blast of icy wind in her face was much more shocking. She squeezed her eyes shut to keep the dust out. It felt as though she were falling.
“Home.”
At his spoken word, Nianki opened her eyes and gasped. She was suspended in midair, hundreds of paces above the ground. The elf was by her side, and she still held his wrist. She was immensely grateful for the touch now. It seemed the only thing between her and a horrible death.
“Amazing, is it not?” Vedvedsica said calmly, looking around.
Nianki squinted in bright sunshine, though only seconds before it had been night in the orchard. Once her eyes had adjusted, she gathered her courage and turned her gaze slightly downward. It was enough to set her heart to pounding, and she closed her eyes.
“You won’t fall, savage.” His sarcastic comment forced her to open her eyes again.
“Where — ?” It came out as a croak, so Nianki swallowed and tried again. “Where are we?”
“Silvanost. The city of my master, Balif, and his master, the great Silvanos. You may be the first human ever to see it. Don’t squander the opportunity.”
Taking a deep breath, Nianki vowed to do as he said. She looked down. She was standing on stone so white it nearly blinded her to look at it. The marble was cool beneath her bare feet and just ahead of her it curved downward. Behind her the white stone stretched for a good distance, probably twenty paces at least.
“What is this?” With her free hand she gestured at the glossy marble platform.
“The Tower of the Stars.”
“Tower?” Nianki carefully edged her feet forward, toward the downward curving edge of the marble. Peering beyond the edge, she gasped.
She and the elf were standing atop a structure that must surely reach halfway to the sky. Its white marble sides stretched for a dizzying length to the ground far, far below.
Nianki slowly and carefully straightened herself again, fighting against the urge to clutch the elf’s arm with her free hand. When she was upright once more, she turned her gaze outward to take in her surroundings.
Now that she’d grown accustomed to the great height, her first impression was one of light. It glinted and sparkled and flashed from a thousand surfaces. All around this tower were other, smaller structures. They appeared to be made from white or milky stone and the sun’s light scintillated off them as though from a thousand polished blades. Quite a few of the structures looked complete — Nianki stopped counting after thirty — but nearly twice that number seemed to be still under construction.
It was astonishing. Amero’s village of Yala-tene represented the largest gathering of people Nianki had ever seen, yet this place, this Silvanost, was easily ten or more times the size of the humans’ village.
Looking past the ring of spires, Nianki saw the city was built on an island. Beyond the surrounding water lay a forest. It stretched away, green and dense, as far as the eye could see.