by Barb Hendee
Leesil tensed beside Chap as he took his first clear look at their host.
"I see your mother in you," said Most Aged Father. "And I know she trained you in the ways of our caste. You are Anmaglâhk."
"Not in your oldest dreams," Leesil croaked, finding his voice. "Where is she?"
At that question, Chap caught the flicker of a glade in Most Aged Father's mind. Before it vanished, he saw a tall elven woman seated upon the grass. Beside her was a basket of moth cocoons, which she had been using to spin strands for raw shéot'a cloth.
Chap swallowed. Nein'a. But he caught no hint of where she was held.
"She is with us," Most Aged Father said, and lowered his hand. "She is a traitor to her people… to your people, Léshil. You are Anmaglâhk, so I have brought you here to help her."
"Stop saying that!" Leesil answered. "I am not your son. You're nothing to me. Release her, and I'll take her far from here, where she'll never trouble you again."
Most Aged Father nodded, his head rubbing the moss on which he lay. A stale scent like dust flooded Chap's nostrils.
"In good time," he said. "First you must do a service for your people… yes, you are of the people, and you would not turn your back on your own. Not on your kin and blood."
Leesil's voice rose. "Make some sense, old man! What do you want from me?"
Fréthfâre spun toward Leesil, as if she wished to strike him down. Most Aged Father remained calm and unaffected.
"There are others like your mother." A long silence followed before he went on. "She was misled—misguided—so she could not have acted alone. Your birth was a violation of our ways, but that is no fault of yours. But the idea of… a half-blood child… it could not have come from her. No, she was misled… yes?"
Chap saw a flash in Most Aged Father's mind—another woman, an an-maglahk. The resemblance to Nein'a would be clear to anyone, though her face was harder, her eyes colder.
Eillean.
"My sole concern is to protect our people," Most Aged Father continued. "Now you are honored to serve them as well. Most of the Anmaglâhk are true in their hearts. But a few… just a few have fallen from our way, like your mother. They will see you as the son of Cuirin'nên'a. They will seek you out. Find them, Léshil—help me shield our people—and I will release Cuirin'nên'a to you."
Chap could not help looking up at Leesil. This offer was nothing more than a trade of flesh, the dissidents for Leesil's mother.
Sweat now matted Leesil's blond hairs to the sides of his face, but his expression was guarded.
"Let me see her first."
"No," Most Aged Father answered softly.
"Then you get nothing from me. I talk to her first… then you and I might come to an arrangement."
Chap could not believe what he heard.
Most Aged Father seeded violence among humans. Did the Fay know of this ancient elf hidden in this shielded land? And if so, why had they never spoken of him? So concerned with keeping Magiere from the enemy's reach, had they no interest in why Leesil had been born and trained?
And now Most Aged Father sought to use Leesil for his own purpose, and Leesil had half-agreed.
Chap stifled a growl.
"We are not bargaining here," Most Aged Father said. "But there is no need for haste. I have given you so much to think on. I understand that you need time to consider. In the end you will do what is correct for your people… as I do. Go now. I will call for you again soon."
"I'm not going anywhere." Leesil's voice rose with every word. "My mother couldn't possibly be a threat to you now. Your Anmaglâhk… they may look at you like some saint, but I'm not one of them. And with all those like Sgäile, following you blindly… what could you possibly fear from a few dissenters?"
As these words left Leesil's lips, a rapid barrage of memories emerged in Most Aged Father's mind and assaulted Chap's awareness. The room went dark before his eyes.
Out of the darkness came black scaled coils—circling and writhing.
Chap's legs began to buckle.
He heard screams as the battlefield took focus.
Bodies of elves and dwarves and humans of varied race lay mingled among those of other creatures that walked on two or four legs. All mutilated and left to rot beneath a dying sun.
Two seas of the living had crashed together on this open plain of rolling hills. The battle's remains were so mangled and mixed that Chap could not tell which direction either had come from. Broken armor and lances and every other thing were spattered in blood that had already begun to dry or soak into the earth. There were so many…
So many that Chap saw not a blade of grass for as far as his sight could reach.
The growing stench thickened until it choked him.
On the ground at his feet—for he saw elven boots of forest green suede, and not his own paws—lay the broken body of what the humans called a goblin. Two-thirds a man's height, these pack animals walked on two legs with cunning enough to use a weapon as well as their teeth and claws.
Wild spotted fur covered its apish body and caninelike head of shortened snout and muzzle. It had clothed itself in motley pieces of armor, likely stolen from the dead in previous battles. Foam-matted jaws hung open, and its tongue sagged in the dirt. Dead eyes with sickening yellow irises stared unblinking at Chap's feet.
A jagged rent in its throat exposed the ends of its severed windpipe.
Perhaps one of its own had turned on it in their frenzy for slaughter. There was strangely too little blood on the ground beneath it.
Dusk rapidly closed in on Chap.
At first he noticed stars along the horizon. Then they moved.
Not stars, but glints from some light… on black scales that writhed all around him…
"Chap!"
Strong hands gripped his shoulders until his forepaws almost lifted from the floor. Leesil knelt before him, glistening face wary and awash in concern.
"Chap, what's wrong?"
Chap lifted his head, his legs still shuddering, and looked over Leesil's shoulder. Most Aged Father watched him in suspicion. He whined and pushed his head into Leesil's chest.
"You are dismissed," Most Aged Father said. "Leave now. We will talk again."
Leesil carefully released Chap and stood up. "Until I see Nein'a… don't bother sending for me."
He turned and, with a brush of fingertips across Chap's neck, strode out for the stairs, not waiting for Fréthfâre to usher him out. Chap did not look back to the old elf as he followed on unsteady paws.
The great war was but a myth to some. What he had seen and felt in that flash of the old elf's memory left him shaken.
The humans called it the Forgotten History… or just the Forgotten. Some believed this war had covered the known world.
And Most Aged Father had been there.
Most Aged Father settled in his moss-padded bower, neither worried nor distressed. The meeting with Léshil had progressed as expected. After so long a life, there was little he could not easily anticipate.
Léshil would struggle in anger and denial, until he realized no other choice remained. He could not leave this land without permission. He could not stay indefinitely. He could not find his mother without assistance.
He would realize the truth soon enough and accept it.
Most Aged Father was patient. The names of the dissenters would be uncovered. They would join Nein'a, each in his or her own separate solitude unto the end of their days. And he would turn his full attention to the human masses once again.
Only one thing troubled him. He had not anticipated the majay-hì.
None of its kind ever came here. He knew their history better than anyone, for in the end days he had fought beside a few of the born-Fay, who had come into flesh in the war against the Enemy. But their descendants never neared this place. He felt no blame toward them. No matter their ancestry, they did not understand why he clung to life for so long.
The Enemy only slumbered and would return
.
It would always return.
But this majay-hì with Léshil had walked into his dwelling and looked him in the eyes.
Most Aged Father would learn more of this one. He did not care for being in the dark on such matters. In his long years, he'd learned that nothing ever happened without purpose.
But the conversation with Léshil had exhausted him. He placed withered hands against the wood of his home, his life's blood. Slowly, the forest's life flowed toward him. In recent years, it took more to sustain him another day. His moments of strength and vitality shortened ever so slightly.
His Anmaglâhk thought him omniscient and eternal. They honored his sacrifice for remaining among them rather than joining their ancestors in rest. They believed his presence could reach to all living things that thrived and grew from the earth. But this was no longer true.
He could reach out through the trees and hear words spoken anywhere in this land, but long distances now took great effort. And remaining aware of just one place at time was all he managed. It drained him quickly.
Today it was necessary. Today he must hear what was said between Léshil and his companions.
Some time had passed, and likely Fréthfâre had returned Léshil to the quarters prepared for him and his companions. Comfortable quarters but lacking in any luxury or pleasing distraction that might make waiting easier. Lacking enough to keep Léshil always on edge and wanting to leave.
Most Aged Father closed his eyes, his feeble hands still resting upon the bower's living wood, and reached out through the roots of the trees. Through the wood and leaves of a domicile elm, he heard Léshil's voice.
Chapter Nine
M agiere watched the light wane below the doorway curtain's hem as dusk settled in. All she could do was wait and listen, but she heard no footfalls outside.
Where was Leesil?
She paced their one-room quarters, glancing at the curtain each time she drew near it. Even if she got by Osha or whoever stood post outside, she had little chance of finding Leesii. And she no longer had her falchion or even the dagger she'd made Wynn carry.
The strange vibration in her bones returned. It had faded to an almost unnoticeable level once they'd boarded the barge. Here in this place of the Anmaglâhk, it built in her flesh once again. It made her even more anxious to take Leesii and run from this land by any passage they could find.
She finally sat and watched Wynn writing out one enlarged Elvish letter after another upon a piece of Gleann's paper.
"This will not be as quick as the talking hide," Wynn said with frustration. "Chap will have to spell out every word. Another hide would be better, or something less fragile than paper."
"At least we can to talk to him," Magiere said.
For once she took comfort in Wynn's sudden bursts of chatter. Wynn carefully scribed and blew dry two pages of symbols and pulled out another blank sheet.
"I did not expect their dialect to be so different," Wynn said, "until I heard these elves speak. It is no wonder Chap and I have problems communicating… beyond his frustration with language. If only I could dip into that messy head of his, in the same way he sees and uses other people's memories."
Magiere didn't answer. No one had come to their quarters after Sgäile took Leesil away. She hardly considered him or his companions to be friends, but it was strange that not even Leanâlhâm had looked in on them.
"Do not start pacing again," Wynn said. "If the elves wanted Leesil dead, none of us would have made it this far… nor would Sgäile have gone through so much to guard us. Our bodies would have vanished like any other curious human who came looking for this land."
How blunt the little scholar had become. A far cry from the soft-spoken sage Magiere had met back in Bela.
"I know," Magiere said. "It's just that lately Leesil has been so—"
"Erratic, pig-headed, idiotic, obsessive—"
"Yes, yes, all right," Magiere interrupted. A far cry indeed.
Wynn smirked slightly, her strange new stylus scratching out the next symbol. Just how many letters were there in Elvish?
Magiere hadn't bathed, wanting to be ready the instant Leesil and Chap returned. But she did change her clothing, tossing aside the elven attire for a pair of dark breeches and a loose white shirt. It was warm enough to leave off the wool pullover, but she had strapped on her hauberk again. It made her feel more secure—more like herself.
She closed her eyes. When all of this was over and done, perhaps Leesil might find his old self again. The one she'd fallen in love with so reluctantly at first. And if he didn't—she still couldn't see any day ahead of her without him.
The doorway curtain wafted inward, bulging up from the ground, and Chap slipped in under its hem. The curtain swung aside, and Leesil entered right behind the dog. Magiere was on her feet before the fabric settled into place.
"Are you all right? Did you see your mother?"
One look at his face answered both questions.
"What happened?" Wynn asked, and set aside paper and quill.
"He wants a bargain with me," Leesil answered flatly, and Chap issued a low rumble. "Most Aged Father wants the names of every Anmaglâhk who might have a connection to my mother. If I get him those names, he'll release her."
Of all unsettling possibilities, this wasn't among the imagined worries that had run through Magiere's head.
"What makes him think any of his butchers would talk to you?"
"Because I'm Nein'a's son." He looked up, eyes sad and distant. "But he's lying. No matter what I do, I don't believe he'll release Nein'a—or us. You should've seen him…"
His eyes squinted and his mouth tightened as though he'd tasted something stale and bitter.
"Why go to such lengths?" Wynn asked. "By bringing you here, he has clearly alienated his people, even some of his caste. He must be desperate."
"Who better to hide from the Anmaglâhk than an Anmaglâhk?" Leesil retorted. "I think he's already exhausted his own means. I'm guessing my mother's refused to tell him anything in all these years. And I think he suspected my grandmother, but she's beyond his reach now."
"Chap, careful!" Wynn snapped. "I am not done… You are slobbering all over the pages!"
Chap was pulling Wynn's papers off the ledge seat, and Wynn couldn't keep up with him. He dropped them on the ground, separating the sheets with his nose, and began pawing the Elvish symbols.
"Ancient Enemy," Wynn translated.
They'd heard this from him before outside of Venjetz, when he'd tried to explain that it was Eillean's skull, not Nein'a's, that Leesil carried. And that Neina, Eillean, and perhaps even Brot'an, had some hand in a conspiracy surrounding Leesil's birth and training.
Chap continued, and Wynn shook her head in puzzlement. "He spelled out… 'il'Samar'… or as close as he could."
The name snapped a memory in Magiere's head.
She and Chap had closed on Ubâd within a forest clearing near the abandoned village of Apudâlsat. Enormous spectral coils of black scales had appeared in the dark between the wet, moss-laden trees.
"That's the name Ubâd cried out before…" Magiere couldn't finish.
Looking at Chap with that memory in her head made her shiver. The dog had gone into a frenzy at the sight of those coils, which had seemingly come to Ubâd's plea. They didn't answer the old man, but instead spoke to her, Magiere, in a whispering hiss of a voice.
Sister of the dead… lead on.
And then Chap had torn out the necromancer's throat.
"What do you know about this?" Magiere asked of Wynn.
"It is definitely Sumanese. 'Samar' is obscure, meaning 'conversation in the dark,' or something secretly passed. And 'il' is a prefix for a proper noun… a title or name."
Wynn shook her head with uncertainty and perhaps a taint of fright.
"Back in Bela, Domin Tilswith showed me and Chane… a copy of an ancient parchment believed to be from the Forgotten. I cannot remember the exact Sumanese wording,
but it mentioned something called 'the night voice.' Perhaps… from what you told us of Ubâd in that clearing…"
Magiere wasn't listening anymore. The name that Ubâd had cried out echoed in her mind. And then came a piece of the vision that her mother's ghost had shown to her.
Her so-called half brother, Welstiel, walked alone in the courtyard of their father's keep. As Magelia came upon him, he whispered to himself in the dark… or in answer to a voice no one else heard.
Chap struggled with how much he should tell them—and how to manage complex ideas with only a few sheets of large Elvish letters. The idea that Most Aged Father had been alive during the ancient war seemed too much for the moment. There was no telling what Leesil, or even Magiere or Wynn, might do in this strained moment if they knew.
Leesil and Wynn were little help with their tangled debate and speculations, and Magiere seemed lost within her own thoughts. For now, it was enough that they learned of an enemy that was known by many names in many places—and that Magiere was never as far from its reach as she might assume. Chap knew better.
As he was about to bark for their attention, the room blurred slightly before his eyes. It was more like a waver in the living wood of the wall. Then it was gone an instant before he fixed upon it.
Chap shook his head and looked about. Nothing had changed, yet he had felt something. Elation and then anxiety rose in him.
Had his kin finally come? But surely not in the presence of others, especially those in his charge?
They would not reveal- themselves so explicitly to mortals. He sensed no echo within his own spirit that marked their presence and shook off the strange sensation. There was nothing here, and he was being foolish. Even so, the disruption left him restless. He padded to the outer doorway and stuck his head through its curtain.
Osha looked down curiously at him from the doorway's far side. Chap ignored him, and searched the trees.
There was no sign of Lily, and she had not been waiting when he emerged from Most Aged Father's home. Something about this place—and that one great tree—frightened her. It frightened all the majay-hì, and they would not come near. Lily had only come to try to drag him from it.