He handed over the report. Immediately after hearing of the fall of Silvanesti, Targonne had ordered Dogah’s troops to capture several elves alive and have them transported back to Jelek for interrogation. Targonne scanned the report briefly. His eyebrows lifted in astonishment, then came together in a frown. He could not believe what he was reading and started over at the beginning to see if he’d missed something.
Lifting his head, Targonne stared at his aide. “Have you read this?” he demanded.
“Yes, my lord,” said the aide.
“The Mina girl is mad! Absolutely mad! Worse than that, I don’t think she’s even on our side! Healing the elves! She is healing the bloody elves!”
“So it would appear, my lord,” said the aide.
Targonne picked up the paper to read aloud, “ ‘She has now a cult of young elven followers, who stand outside the palace where she has taken up residence, chanting her name.’ And this. ‘She has seduced the elven king Silvanoshei, who was publicly heard to say he is going to marry her. This news reportedly has greatly angered his mother, Alhana Starbreeze, who attempted to persuade her son to flee Silvanesti in advance of the arrival of the Dark Knights. Silvanoshei is said to be besotted with this Mina and refuses to leave her side.’ “
Targonne threw down the report in anger. “This cannot go on. Mina is a threat, a danger. She must be stopped.”
“That may prove difficult, my lord,” said his aide. “You will see in Dogah’s report that he approves and admires everything she does. He is infatuated by her. His men are loyal to her, as are her own. You will note that Dogah now signs his report, ‘In the name of the One God.’ “
“This Mina has bewitched them. Once she is gone and her spell is broken, they will return to their senses. But how to get rid of her? That is the problem. I don’t want Dogah’s forces turning on me. . . .”
Targonne picked up the report again, reread it. This time, he began to smile. He laid the report down, sat back, went over the plan in his mind. The numbers, he thought, added up nicely.
“Are the elven prisoners still alive?” he asked abruptly.
“Yes, my lord. It was thought you might have further need of them.”
“You said there was a female among them?”
“One, my lord.”
“Excellent. I have no further use for the males. Dispatch them in whatever way the executioner finds amusing. Have the female brought here to me. I will need a quill and ink—see to it that it’s squeezed from berries or however the elves make it. And a scroll-case of elven design and manufacture.”
“I believe there are some in the treasury room, my lord.”
“Bring the least valuable. Finally, I want this.” Targonne drew a diagram, handed it to the aide.
“Yes, my lord,” the aide said, after a moment’s perusal. “It will have to be specially made.”
“Of course. Elven design. Emphasize that. And,” Targonne added,
“keep the cost to a minimum.”
“Of course, my lord,” said the aide.
“Once I have planted my instructions in the elf’s mind, she is to be returned to Silvanesti and dropped off near the city of Silvanost. Have one of the messengers ready to depart this night.”
“I understand, my lord,” said the aide.
“One more thing,” Targonne added, “I will be making a trip to Silvanesti myself sometime within the fortnight. I’m not sure when, so see to it that arrangements are made for me to leave whenever I have to.”
“Why would you go there, my lord?” his aide asked, startled.
“Protocol will require my attendance at the funeral,” Targonne replied.
9
Ring of Tears
Silvanesti was an occupied land, Silvanost an occupied capital. The worst fears of the elves had been realized. It was to protect against this very disaster that they had authorized the creation of the magical shield. The embodiment of their fear and their distrust of the world, the shield had slowly drained them, drawing upon that fear to give itself unwholesome life. When the shield fell, the world, represented by the soldiers of the Dark Knights, marched into Silvanost, and sick and exhausted, the elves capitulated. They surrendered the city to their most feared foe. The kirath predicted the worst. They spoke of slave camps, of looting and burning, of torment and torture. They urged the elves to fight until death had taken every one of them. Better to die free, said the kirath, than live as slaves.
A week passed and not a single elf male was dragged from his house and tortured. No elf babies were spitted on the ends of spears. No elf women were raped and left to die on dung heaps. The Dark Knights did not even enter the city of Silvanost. They camped outside the city on the battlefield where Mina’s troops had fought and lost and Mina herself had been made prisoner. The first order given to the soldiers of the Dark Knights was not to set fire to Silvanost but to burn the carcass of the green dragon, Cyan Bloodbane. A detachment even fought and defeated a band of ogres who had been elated to discover the shield had fallen and attempted an invasion of their own. Many among the younger elves were calling the Dark Knights saviors.
Elven babies were healed and played upon the grass that grew green in the fierce bright sunlight. Elven women strolled in their gardens, finding joy in the flowers that had withered beneath the shield, but which were now starting to bloom. Elven men walked the streets free and unfettered. The elven king, Silvanoshei, remained the ruler. The Heads of House were consulted on all matters. A confused observer might have said it was the Dark Knights who had capitulated to the Silvanesti.
To say that the kirath were disappointed would be unfair. They were loyal to their people, and they were glad—and most were thankful—that thus far the bloodbath they had expected had not occurred. Some of the older members of the kirath claimed that what was happening to the elves was far worse. They did not like this talk of a One God. They mistrusted the Dark Knights, who, they suspected, were not as peace-loving as they appeared. The kirath had heard rumors of comrades ambushed and spirited away on the backs of blue dragons. Those who disappeared were never heard of again.
Alhana Starbreeze and her forces had crossed the border when the shield fell. They now occupied territory to the north of the capital, about halfway between Silvanost and the border. They never remained in one location long but shifted from camp to camp, covering their movements, blending into the forests that many of them, including Alhana herself, had once known and loved. Alhana did not have much fear that she and her troops would be discovered. The five thousand troops of Dark Knights would have all they could do to hold Silvanost. The commander would be a fool to divide his forces and send them into unfamiliar territory, searching for elves who had been born and bred to the forests. Nonetheless Alhana had survived this long by never taking chances, and so the elves remained on the move.
Not a day passed, but that Alhana did not long to see her son. She lay awake nights making plans to sneak into the city, where her life was forfeit, not only from the Dark Knights, but from her very own people. She knew Silvanost, she knew the palace, for it had been her home. In the night the plans seemed sound, and she was determined to follow through with them. In the morning she would tell Samar, and he would bring up every difficulty, present her with every opportunity for disaster. He always won the argument, not so much because she feared what might happen to her if she were caught, but because she feared what might happen to Silvanoshei. She kept in touch with what was happening in Silvanost through the kirath. She watched and waited and agonized, and like all the other elves, she wondered what the Knights of Neraka were plotting. It appeared to the kirath, to men and women such as Rolan, Alhana Starbreeze, and Samar and their meager resistance forces, that their people had once more fallen under the spell of a dream such as had been cast on the land during the War of the Lance. Except that this dream was a waking dream and none of them could battle it, for to do so would be to battle the dreamers. The kirath and Alhana made what plans they could for the day when the dream must end and the dreamer wake to a nightmare reality. General Dogah’s troops camped outside Silvanesti. Mina and her knights had moved into the Tower of the Stars. They had taken over one wing of the building, that which had previously belonged to the late Governor General Konnal. All the elves knew that their young king was enamored of Mina. The story of how she had brought Silvanoshei back from death had been made into a song sung by the young people throughout Silvanesti.