“I was a prisoner once,” she said, her eyes dark with memory, “a prisoner of the Dark Queen. Unless you have been a prisoner, Sir Knight; until you have been shut away in darkness, alone in pain and in fear, I don’t believe you can understand.”
Gerard accepted the gentle rebuke and said nothing more.
He had seen little of the kender, as well, for which the Knight was extremely grateful. Palin Majere kept Tasslehoff closeted away for hours at a time, having the kender relate in detail his ridiculous stories over and over. No torture devised by the cruelest Neraka Knight could match being forced to endure the kender’s shrill voice for hours on end.
The night they were to leave Qualinesti came—all too soon. The world beyond, the world of humans, seemed a hurried, grasping, sordid sort of place. Gerard was sorry to be returning to it. He had come to understand why the elves were loathe to travel outside their beautiful, serene realm.
Their elven guide stood waiting. Laurana kissed Tas, who, feeling a snuffle coming on, was quiet for all of three minutes. She thanked Gerard graciously for his help and gave him her hand to kiss, which he did with respect and admiration and a true feeling of loss. She spoke last to Palin, who had remained aloof, off to one side. He was obviously impatient to be gone.
“My friend,” she said to him, placing her hand on his arm, “I believe that I know something of what you are thinking.”
He frowned at this and shook his head slightly.
Laurana continued, “Be careful, Palin. Think long and well before you act.”
He made no answer but kissed her as was the elven custom between old friends and told her, rather curtly, not to worry. He knew what he was about.
As he followed their elven guide into the night, Gerard looked back at the house on the cliff. Its lights shone brilliant as stars, but, like the stars, they were too small to bring day to night.
“Yet without the darkness,” said Palin suddenly, “we would never be aware that the stars exist.”
So that’s how you rationalize evil, Gerard thought. He made no comment, and Palin did not speak again. The mage’s morose silence was more than made up for by Tasslehoff.
“One would think that a cursed kender would talk less,”
Gerard grumbled.
“The curse isn’t on my tongue,” Tasslehoff pointed out. “It’s on my insides. It made them go all squirmy. Have you ever been cursed like that?”
“Yes, the moment I set eyes on you,” Gerard retorted.
“You are all making noise enough to wake a drunken gully dwarf!” their elven guide said irritably, speaking Common.
Gerard had no idea if this was Kalindas or Kelevandros. He could never keep the two brothers straight. They were as alike as twins, although one was older than the other, or so he had been told.
Their elven names, both beginning with K, blurred in his mind.
He might have asked Palin, but the mage was disinclined to talk, appeared absorbed in his own dark thoughts.
“The kender’s chatter is like the twittering of birds compared to the rattle and clank of your armor, Sir Knight,” the elf added.
“Not that it would be much different if you were naked. You humans cannot even draw a breath without making noise. I could hear the huffing and bellowing of your breathing a mile distant.”
“We’ve been on the move through this forest for hours,”
Gerard countered. “Are we anywhere near our destination?”
“Quite near,” the elf replied. “The clearing where you will meet the griffon is straight ahead at the end of this trail. If you had elven sight you could see it from here. In fact, this would be a good place to halt, if you would like to rest. We should keep under cover until the last possible moment.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere,” Gerard said gratefully. Dropping his pack, he sank down at the base of a tall aspen tree, leaned his back against it, closed his eyes and stretched his legs. “How long until morning?”
“An hour. And now I must leave you for a while to go hunting. We should be prepared to offer the griffons fresh meat. They will be hungry from their long flight and will appreciate the courtesy. You should be safe here, provided none of you wander off.”
The elf looked at the kender as he spoke.
“We will be fine,” Palin said the first words he had spoken in hours. He did not sit down, but paced beneath the trees, restless and impatient. “No, Tas. You stay here with us. Where is the device? You still have it, don’t you? No, don’t bring it out. I just want to know it’s safe.”
“Oh, it’s safe,” the kender said. “It couldn’t be unsafe, if you know what I mean.”
“Damn funny time to go hunting,” Gerard observed, watching the elf slip off into the darkness.
“He leaves on my orders,” Palin said. “The griffons will be in a much better humor when they have eaten, and we will have a safer ride. I was once on the back of a griffon who decided that her empty belly was more important than her rider. Spying a deer on the ground, she swooped down upon it. I could do nothing but cling to her in terror. Fortunately we all came out of it alive, including the deer, who heard my cries to the griffon to stop and dashed off into the forest. The griffon was in a foul mood, however, and refused to carry me farther. Since then, I have always made certain that I brought a gift of food.”
“Then why didn’t the elf do that before we left instead of waiting to go hunting now?”
“Probably because he did not want to walk for miles lugging a deer carcass over his shoulder,” Palin said sardonically. “You must take into account the fact that the smell of fresh-killed meat makes many elves sick to their stomachs.”
Gerard said nothing, fearing to say too much. By the mage’s tone, Palin took the Knight for an idiot. Perhaps he had not meant it that way, but that was how Gerard understood it.
“By the way, Sir Gerard,” Palin said stiffly, “I want you to know that I consider that you have done your part in fulfilling my father’s dying request. I will take up the matter from here. You need no longer concern yourself with it.”
“As you wish, sir,” Gerard returned.
“I want to thank you for what you have done,” Palin added after a pause during which the chill in the air could have caused snow to start falling in midsummer. “You have performed a great service at the risk of your own life. A great service,” he repeated softly. “I will recommend to Lord Warren that you be given a commendation.”
“Thank you, sir,” Gerard said. “But I’m only doing my duty by your father, a man I much admired.”
“As opposed to his son, is that it?” Palin asked. He turned and walked off a few paces, his head bowed, his arms folded in the sleeves of his dark-colored robes. He obviously considered their conversation at an end.
Tasslehoff settled himself down beside Gerard, and because a kender’s hands must always be busy doing something, he turned out all the pockets in the new shirt he’d persuaded Laurana to sew for him. The shirt was a riot of color and gave Gerard eyestrain just to look it. By the lambent light of a half-moon and many thousand stars, Tas sorted through the interesting things he’d picked up while in Laurana’s house.
No doubt about it. Gerard would be extremely glad to deposit the mage and the kender in Solace and be done with them both.
The sky above them gradually grew lighter, the stars faded away, the moon paled, but the elf did not return.
Marshal Medan and his escort reached the rendezvous appointed by the elf about an hour before dawn. He and the two Knights with him reined in their horses.. Medan did not dismount. Rebel elves were known to inhabit this part of the forest. He looked intently into the shadows and the swirling mists and thought that this would make an excellent place for an ambush.