“ So, my cousin is going to be an outsider here as well, made to feel as if she doesn’t quite belong…Gods!” Magnes muttered angrily. “She doesn’t deserve this. All she wants is to find a real family!”
“ Does your cousin know her father’s name?” Ashinji asked, leaning forward slightly to look into Jelena’s sleeping face.
“ He called himself Zin,” Magnes replied.
“ Hmm. Zin is really just a bukuza … a nickname. That is all she knows about him? It would be far more useful if she knew his family name, at least. That way, we would know if he was noble or common.”
“ Gods! I almost forgot. She carries a ring that belonged to him. It hangs on chain around her neck. I’ll get it for you.”
“ No, no, do not disturb her. Just describe the ring to me.”
“ It’s made of white gold, with a black stone set flush in the band. There’s a griffin, also white, inlaid into the center of the stone.” Ashinji reacted as if he’d just heard something completely unexpected and altogether startling. “What? What is it? Do you recognize the signet?” Magnes eagerly asked.
“ I…I am not sure,” Ashinji replied. He frowned, and pulled on the gold rings in his left ear, staring at Jelena intently all the while. Then he shook his head as if answering a question in his own mind. “I do not recognize it exactly, but it could fit the devices of several noble families, or it could be someone’s personal device. My father should be able to figure it out.” He rose to his feet and stretched. “I have something in my saddlebag I want you to try,” he said, then strode away into the dark.
Magnes leaned over to check on Jelena. She remained deep in a drug-induced slumber. He adjusted the blankets around her then allowed his eyes to slowly scan the campsite.
The man named Gendan Miri sat a few paces away, a very young, strawberry blonde woman at his side. They were deep in conversation, and Magnes focused in on the musical cadences of their speech, allowing the alien words to flow into his ears like warm rain. The elves’ language, the sound of their voices, was as beautiful as they were. Most of the others had retired for the night, little more than dark lumps on the riverbank. Two troopers stood guard.
Ashinji returned shortly, carrying something in his hand. It was a small metal flask, which he offered to Magnes. “Have a taste of this,” he said, an enigmatic smile on his face. Magnes took the flask and pulled the stopper. He raised it to his lips and took a sip.
Magnes had never been to the southern islands to behold the great volcanoes there. It was said that when they awoke, the mighty mountains belched clouds of burning smoke, and rivers of molten rock poured forth from their steaming maws. The liquid that ran down his throat must surely be a distillation of the essence of those rivers of fire. He gasped and choked, then began coughing helplessly. Tears streamed down his face as he fought to catch his breath. Ashinji deftly snatched the flask from his hands before it could drop to the ground.
When he could finally talk again, he looked up accusingly at the young elf lord. To his chagrin, Ashinji was laughing. “You…you knew that was going to happen, didn’t you?” he spluttered.
Ashinji looked a little sheepish, but made no attempt to hide his amusement. “I am sorry, but you should see yourself. I did not know a human could get so red in the face. I hoped that you would be able to take the muato a little bit better than you did, but believe me, one does acquire a taste for it. The first time is always the hardest, but you will get used to it,” he promised cheerfully.
“ I hardly think…hey, that is good.” The potent liquor had settled in Magnes’s stomach like a red-hot coal, but it was cooling rapidly, and like steam, rose straight to his head. He nodded in pleasure, beginning to feel its full effects. “Tha…tha’ has got t’be the strongest stuff ever made, much stronger than anythin’ we have back home.”
“ I knew you would like it. It is a drink shared only between close friends and allies.” Ashinji tilted his head back and took a sip. He re-corked the flask and sat down beside Magnes.
“ How do you know I’m your friend…or your ally?” Magnes asked, speaking slowly and carefully, so that his words would not slur. His tongue had turned into an unwieldy turnip in his mouth.
Ashinji tapped his forehead with one elegant finger. “I know because I have an instinct about people, and because you have brought something that is meant for me.”
Magnes puzzled over Ashinji’s words. What, in the names of all of the gods, did the other man mean? Magnes had no more possessions, for everything he had brought out of Amsara had been lost. He could not possibly have anything that was meant for this young elven lord, unless Ashinji had been speaking metaphorically.
Before Magnes could reply, Ashinji slapped his knees and stood up. “Well, it is time that I go to bed. I have left the vial of poppy juice for you, in case your cousin awakes and has need of it. If you need me during the night, I will be close by, just over there.” He pointed toward a spot nearer the water’s edge. Magnes nodded. “Good night, then.”
“ G’night.” Magnes lay down and snuggled close against Jelena. Exhaustion and the muato were pulling him down inexorably toward sleep. He hoped that if Jelena needed him, he would be able to respond. His last thoughts just before sleep claimed him were of Ashinji’s odd statement.
Tomorrow, he would ask for an explanation.
Chapter 14
Jelena stood alone on a gray, featureless plain. Above her head hung a blank sky and below her feet, gray dust, stretching out until the two met at the horizon. She turned around slowly, looking in all directions, but one direction seemed much like another.
How did I come to be in this place?
She began walking. Her footfalls sent little puffs of dust spurting into the still air. Oddly, she could not tell if she was actually moving forward, even though she watched herself place one foot before the other. She had no way of knowing how long she walked; time did not exist in this strange, gray world.
The sensation started as a dull ache in her chest that rapidly grew into something far more intense. She stopped walking and looked down to see that, beneath her skin, where her living heart should be, a bright light now burned. Its color was bluish white, and so intense that it hurt her to look upon it. Instinctively, she knew that this was the source of the magic that she carried within her-powerful, wonderful, and dangerous. As she stared at the light, it began to pulsate in a steady rhythm, just as her own heart would have, had it still been a part of her.
She covered the light with her hands, but its rays bled through her fingers.
I mustn’t let it out… can’t let it be seen-but why?
Then, she knew.
Someone, or some thing , was searching for the magic-searching for her!
I must not let it find me!
She took a step forward and in the space of an eye blink, found herself standing at the edge of an impossibly high cliff. A wine-dark, restless sea heaved and sighed below. In the strange logic of dreams, only one course of action made sense. She spread out her arms like the wings of a gull and jumped, hurtling down toward the hungry waves. She pierced the surface of the water like an arrow and was immediately seized by a powerful current that tugged her relentlessly downward. Fiercely, she fought against it, stroking hard towards the surface, exploding upward at last with a cry…and awakened to find herself being rocked along on the back of a horse.