She strode forward suddenly and planted a kiss on his lips. Startled, Leifander pushed her away. Were all human women so forward with strangers? He shook his head. It was time to get on with what he had come there to do.
“The message I bear is an urgent one,” he told her. “I would deliver it at once.”
“Give me your message, and I’ll deliver it for you.”
Leifander shook his head. “No. I must speak to Thamalon Uskevren in person … and in private.”
A slight change in the woman’s posture told Leifander that she had grown wary of him. “Why in private?” she asked. “So you can stick a dagger in his ribs?”
Leifander deliberately kept his hands away from the dagger at his hip. “You think me an assassin,” he said bluntly. “I am not. I wish only to speak to Thamalon Uskevren about a political matter. The elves sent me because I have a … personal connection with him.”
His explanation didn’t help. Somehow he had compounded his earlier blunder. The woman’s eyes narrowed with suspicion, and her hand came gently to rest upon the hilt of her rapier.
“You have no ‘personal connection’ with Thamalon Uskevren,” she said, running the fingers of her free hand through her short hair in a nervous gesture. “If you did, you’d have known he was my father.”
The rapier hissed out of its scabbard. “I think you are an assassin,” she added in an icy voice.
Leifander raised his hands in what would seem a placating gesture. In fact, his fingers were already beginning to weave a spell. Before the woman could move to skewer him, he barked out three quick words in his own tongue. Sparks of magic energy crackled from his tattooed fingers-but instead of flying toward the woman’s head, they struck an invisible shield and scattered in all directions. In the same instant, the ring on the woman’s finger flared as its gem was illuminated from within. The woman stepped forward, and the tip of the rapier was at Leifander’s throat. He swallowed carefully and held perfectly still. The woman had the poise and grace of someone who knew how to use a blade.
“I think I will take you to see my father,” she said. “It should prove an interesting diversion while I’m waiting for Ebeian. But I warn you: Make one move against him, and it will be your last.”
The prick of the rapier against his back sent Leifander forward into a large room filled with foliage. Enormous ceramic pots crowded the floor, each planted with a small tree or flowering shrub. Smaller pots hung from the ceiling or sat on shelves, their greenery spilling down. A fountain in the middle of the room bubbled water into a trough that snaked its way across the floor between the pots. This artificial stream was filled with tiny, silver-blue fish. Banks of windows along the two outside walls of the room gave a view of the evening sky.
Leifander was surprised to see several plants he recognized-plants he had thought grew only in the shade of the Tangled Trees. Lady’s Lace moss, Burlbush heavy with ripening nuts, a tangle of Honeyfruit vine, and the delicate white blossoms of the triple-leafed Lady’s Promise. In the moist air scented with growing and blooming things, he felt a sudden pang of familiarity, then he reminded himself that this was all artificial-that humans must have stolen these plants from his forest and transplanted them to their stinking city. With an added snort of disgust, he noted tiny fingers of choke creeper growing out of three pots whose other seeds appeared to have sprouted and died. The human gardeners didn’t even recognize a dangerous infestation when they saw one.
Through the greenery, Leifander could see a man dressed in knee-high boots, blue hose, and a gold doublet with sleeves slashed in blue and white. He stood in profile at one of the windows, the finger of one hand tapping his clean-shaven chin as he stared at the northern horizon with a troubled expression. He was taller than Leifander, but only of average height for a human, with a trim, muscular build. Had he been an elf, his white hair and slightly stooped posture would have caused Leifander to guess his age in the middle hundreds, but this was a human, to whom a single century comprised a lifetime. Leifander pitied their race. By the time he was this man’s age, Leifander would still have the reflexes and appearance of a youth.
As if feeling Leifander’s stare burning into him, the white-haired man turned. At the same time, a sharp pricking in Leifander’s shoulder reminded him of the swordswoman at his back. He stepped forward briskly, and-in deference to the mission the druids had assigned him-placed a hand over his heart and gave the human at the window a courtly bow.
“Thamalon Uskevren, I presume?” he said in the common tongue.
“I am indeed he who bears that name.”
Startled, Leifander looked up. Thamalon had spoken in the language of the forest elves-and not in the harsh, guttural accent humans normally mangled the language with. Instead, every syllable was perfect, articulated with flowing grace. Leifander wondered where and how Thamalon, a human of the south, had learned the tongue.
The sword pricked Leifander’s back. “Well?” the woman demanded. “Are you going to introduce yourself? Let’s hear this message that you snuck into Stormweather Towers to deliver.”
Something flashed in Thamalon’s deep green eyes-a warning to his daughter? One hand patted the air, instructing her to lower her rapier.
“A little less impetuosity, Thazienne, if you please,” he said in the common tongue.
A moment later, Leifander heard steel slithering into a sheath behind him. The woman-Thazienne-stepped from behind him and stood to the side, malicious curiosity dancing in her eyes as she waited to hear what he had to say.
Leifander cleared his throat and held Thamalon’s eye. He’d deliver his message quickly, then get on to the important part-asking this man for information about his father.
“My name is Leifander,” he said in his own language. “I am an elf of the Tangled Trees. I bear a message from the Circle of the Emerald Leaves.”
He paused, watching to see if Thamalon recognized the name. Thamalon nodded briefly. He did.
“The druids wish you to raise your voice in the Sembian council to state that the elves have attacked Sembia’s caravans with good cause, to revenge the magical blight humans brought to the great wood. While most of the elves wish war, there are some … who will work for peace.”
Thamalon’s eyes bored into Leifander’s. “But you’re not one of them, hmm? You’d rather fight.”
Leifander squared his shoulders. “I do as I am bid.”
“Odd, that the druids would choose you to deliver their message. Are you certain there isn’t another message you came to deliver, a message from …?” Thamalon let his sentence trail off, turning it into a question.
Thazienne stood with arms folded across her chest. “Father! How can you listen to this nonsense? He’s an assassin-or at the very least, a spy. I caught him in my room, creeping around in the dark.”
Thamalon gave a barely audible sigh. “Hardly the first time a young rogue was found there,” he muttered. His eyes, however, remained locked on Leifander’s. “I’m waiting,” he reminded the elf.
Leifander cleared his throat a second time. He decided to say as the druids had bade him, ask Thamalon for whatever information he could provide about his father, then be quit of this place.
“I am told, Thamalon Uskevren, that you have a fondness for the Tangled Trees. That you traveled there some years ago.”
Thamalon’s eyes brightened with anticipation. “Go on.”
“While there, you had union with a woman of my people. That union produced a child.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Leifander noted that Thazienne’s mouth had dropped open. He hadn’t realized that she understood the language of the forest elves-and neither had her father, from the startled look that Thamalon shot her.