“I will not bargain with an evil spirit,” he exclaimed. “Begone! Trouble me no more!”
The red elf laughed, the loud peals echoing weirdly in the black, empty tower. “Our bargain has already commenced, Great Speaker.”
Kith-Kanan was confused. Already commenced? Had he somehow summoned this odd being from the netherworld?
“Of course you did,” Dru said, reading his thoughts. “I’m a busy fellow. I don’t waste my valuable time appearing to just anyone. Here, son of Sithel. Let me demonstrate what I can do.”
Dru brought his white hands together with a loud clap. Kith-Kanan felt a breeze rush by him, as if all the air in the tower gusted toward the strange elf. With a crackling hiss, a ball of fire appeared suddenly between Dru’s palms, and he flung it to the floor, where it burst. The loud crack and blinding flash caused Kith-Kanan to stagger back. When his vision cleared, he beheld a transformed scene.
Kith-Kanan no longer stood in the Tower of the Sun, though its rostrum was still solid beneath his feet. His surroundings were those of a smaller tower. By the stonework and the shape of the windows, he knew that it was in Silvanost. Tapestries in shades of pale green and blue hung on the walls, depicting woodland scenes and elegantly clad ladies. Sunlight filled the room.
A sigh caught his ears. He turned and saw a large, heavy wooden chair, its back to him, facing an open window. Someone was sitting in the chair. Kith-Kanan couldn’t see who.
Suddenly the someone stood. Kith-Kanan glimpsed her beautiful red hair and his breath caught.
“Hermathya,” he whispered.
“She cannot see or hear us,” Dru informed him. “You see how she languishes in Silvanost, unloved and unloving. I can have her at your side in the blink of any eye.”
Hermathya…the love of his youth. For many years the wife of his twin brother, Sithas. She stared straight through the spot where Kith-Kanan stood, piercing him unknowingly with her deep blue eyes. Her red-gold hair was piled up on her head in elaborate braids, showing the elegant shape of her upswept ears, and she wore a gown of the finest spider’s web gold, thin and clinging. Once he had proposed marriage to her, but his father, not knowing of their love, had betrothed her to Kith-Kanan’s twin, Sithas. So much time had passed since that distant day. Now Sithas was leader of the Silvanesti elves, as Kith-Kanan ruled the Qualinesti.
Lonely and a bit self-pitying, Kith-Kanan felt himself sorely tempted. Always Hermathya’s great beauty had been able to arouse him. An elf would have to be made of stone not to feel something in her presence.
Just as he was about to ask Dru his terms, Hermathya turned away. She lunged at the open window before her chair. Kith-Kanan cried out and reached for her.
Before she could hurtle through the high window, Hermathya was brought up short. The harsh clank of metal shocked Kith-Kanan. Beneath the hem of her golden gown, he spied an iron fetter, locked about her right ankle and attached by a chain to the heavy chair. The chair was fastened to the floor. Though the fetter was lined with padded cloth, it gripped Hermathya’s slender ankle tightly.
“What does this mean?” demanded Kith-Kanan.
Dru seemed vexed. “A minor problem, Great Speaker. The lady Hermathya suffers from despondency over the crippling of her son during the war and, I might add, over the loss of your love. The Speaker of the Stars has ordered her chained so that she won’t harm herself.”
Hermathya had been staring with palpable longing at the open window. Her face was as exquisitely lovely as Kith-Kanan remembered it. The high cheekbones, the delicately slender nose, and skin as smooth as the finest silk. Time hadn’t marked her at all. Once more her faint sigh came to him, a sound full of sorrow and yearning. Kith-Kanan squeezed his eyes shut. “Take me away,” he hissed. “I cannot bear to see this.”
“As you wish.”
The dark embrace of the Tower of the Sun in Qualinost returned.
Kith-Kanan shuddered. Hermathya had been out of his thoughts, and out of his heart, for centuries. The break between him and his twin brother had been widened by the passion Kith-Kanan had felt for Hermathya. Time and other loves had practically extinguished the old fire. Why did he feel such longing for her now?
“Old wounds are the deepest and the hardest to heal,” said Dru, once more answering Kith’s thoughts.
“I don’t believe any of this,” the Speaker snapped. “You created that scene with your magic to deceive me.”
Dru sighed loudly and circled the rostrum, his yellow aura moving with him. “Ah, such lack of faith,” Dru said sardonically. “All I offered was true. The lady can be yours again if you meet my terms.”
Kith-Kanan folded his arms. “Which are what?”
The red elf pressed his hands together prayerfully, but the expression on his face was anything but pious. “Permit the passage of slave caravans from Ergoth and Silvanesti through your realm,” he said quickly.
“Never!” Kith-Kanan strode toward Dru, who did not retreat. The strange elf’s yellow aura stopped the Speaker’s advance. When he, reached out to touch the golden shell, he snatched his fingers back as if they’d been burned. But the glow was bizarrely, intensely cold.
“You are brave,” Dru mused, “but do not try to lay hands on me again.”
At that moment, Kith-Kanan realized who Dru really was, and for one of the few times in his life, he was truly frightened.
“I know you,” he said in a voice that wavered, though he fought to keep it steady. “You are the one who corrupts those beset by adversity.” Almost too softly to be heard, he added, “Hiddukel.”
The God of Evil Bargains, whose sacred color was red, bowed. “You are tiresome in your virtues,” he remarked. “Is there nothing you want? I can fill this tower twenty times with gold or silver or jewels. What do you say to that?” His red eyebrows rose questioningly.
“Treasure will not solve my problems.”
“Think of the good you could do with it all.” Hiddukel’s voice dripped with malicious sarcasm. “You could buy all the slaves in the world and set them free.”
Kith-Kanan backed away toward the rostrum. It was his safe haven, where not even the evil god’s magic could reach him. “Why do you concern yourself with the slave trade, Lord of the Broken Scales?” he asked.
The god’s elven form shrugged. “I concern myself with all such commerce. I am the patron deity of slavers.”
The stone of the rostrum bumped against Kith-Kanan’s heels. Confidently he climbed backward onto it. “I refuse all your offers, Hiddukel,” he declared. “Go away, and trouble me no further.”
The look of malign enjoyment left the red-garbed elf’s face. Addressed by his true name, he had no choice but to depart. His pointed features twisted into a hateful grimace.
“Your troubles will increase, Speaker of the Sun,” the God of Demons spat. “That which you have created will come forth to strike you down. The hammer shall break the anvil. Lightning shall cleave the rock!”
“Go!” Kith-Kanan cried, his heart pounding in his throat. The single syllable reverberated in the air.
Hiddukel backed away a pace and spun on one toe. His cape swirled around like a flame. Faster and faster the god whirled, until his elven form vanished, replaced by a whirling column of red smoke and fire. Kith-Kanan threw up an arm to shield his face from the virulent display. The voice of Hiddukel boomed in his head.
“The time of wonders is at hand, foolish king! Forces older than the gods surround you! Only the power of the Queen of Darkness can withstand them! Beware!”
The fiery specter of Hiddukel flew apart, and in two heartbeats, the Tower of the Sun was quiet once more. The deep darkness that filled it remained, however. Sweating and shaking from his near escape from the Collector of Souls, Kith-Kanan sank to the floor. His body was wracked with spasms he could not control. A jumble of thoughts and images warred inside his brain—Ulvian, Hermathya, Suzine, Verhanna, his brother Sithas—all surmounted by the leering visage of Hiddukel. He felt as if his soul was the object of a deadly tug-of-war.