Wings stretched wide, Eagle Eye soared over the top of the loop. Upside down, Kerian spared a look at her pursuers. Her heart sank. No longer a dozen, at least three times that number of glowing orbs chased her across the sky. They fanned out in a wide cone from her original position. Already, the half dozen in the lead were rising after her. They were pale, as if the effort of the chase was finally telling on them, leaching their color. Those farther back still pulsed in vibrant shades of green, blue, crimson, purple, and gold.
Eagle Eye rolled left, bringing them upright again. They had gained some breathing room but were flying in the wrong direction, deeper into the valley instead of south to the elves’ camp near its entrance.
As always, dusk had come early to Inath-Wakenti, the high, encircling mountains blotting out the sun’s light. In the course of the chase, the bright sky had darkened, but no stars had yet appeared. The will-o’-the-wisps stood out in brilliant relief against the indigo backdrop. Far below, Kerian could see more points of light glimmering among the twisted pines and featureless standing stones. A hundred? Five hundred? A great many, in any case.
She urged Eagle Eye higher still. Insects could rise only to a certain height. Bats and small birds had a limit above which they could not fly. Perhaps the will-o’-the-wisps were likewise constrained.
She and six other griffon riders had left camp two hours before sunset to patrol the inner valley. In all their previous flights they’d not been troubled by will-o’-the-wisps. The eerie lights appeared at dusk, but none ever rose higher than treetop level. Tonight was different. The orbs suddenly appeared in midair all around the griffon patrol. Kerian had ordered the patrol to scatter. The sheer number of lights chasing her was a sort of grim triumph; perhaps none had gone after the others. Perhaps they and their griffons had made it back to camp unmolested.
Eagle Eye was panting deep in his chest as he climbed. Foamy sweat collected on his lion’s body, staining the white plumage of his neck and Kerian’s leather breeches. Her legs were achingly cold. But the desperate gamble was paying off. The lights had risen to maybe forty feet and swooped in flat circles, never rising any higher. By twos and threes, her erstwhile pursuers winked out like dying embers. Already the number of lights had fallen by half. They were giving up the chase.
Kerian was too exhausted to rejoice. She steered Eagle Eye in a wide turn for camp.
From that height she could see the silvery line of Lioness Creek, named in honor of Kerian herself. Beyond it burned the campfires of her people’s temporary home. The survivors of Qualinesti and Silvanesti were crammed into the narrow strip of land between the valley’s mouth and the creek, thousands packed into an area that represented the only safety from the nomads outside and the mysterious forces in the valley.
Eagle Eye had fallen into an easy lope. Once every four or five beats, he held his wings out and glided. He was very tired.
So was his rider. Kerian couldn’t remember the last good sleep she’d had. The challenges of life in the valley were partly to blame, but she was a fighter and accustomed to physical privation. Much harder to face were the unresolved difficulties of her relationship with her husband.
Gilthas of the House of Solostaran was Speaker of the Sun and Stars, king of the exiled elf nation. Just before the departure from Khuri-Khan, he had dismissed Kerian as head of his army. Their breach over whether to bring their people to Inath-Wakenti had seemed irreparable, calling up all the old enmity between royal Qualinesti and forest-dwelling Kagonesti. But with the deed done, with their people in the valley, those differences had been overshadowed by the day-to-day needs of the nation and by one other inescapable fact.
Gilthas was dying.
* * * * *
Against a background of purple sky, clouds drifted by, sending rain coursing down to darken the granite mountain slopes. It was a common enough sight in Inath-Wakenti. Rain fell on the distant heights but seldom in the valley proper. As the light faded and the first stars appeared overhead, the clouds were submerged in the mountains’ dark bulk. The smell of rain lingered.
Gilthas stood atop a crude watchtower of logs and stared northwest, watching the far-off shower. The elves had constructed thirteen watchtowers, ten along Lioness Creek and three at the valley entrance. All were kept occupied day and night. But Gilthas wasn’t watching for enemies. His wife was on patrol, flying on her griffon over the silent valley. Gilthas could not be easy until she was with him again. The elf standing watch in the tower had positioned herself as far from the Speaker as possible in the close confines, motivated less by awe of her sovereign than by sympathy. His worry for his intrepid wife was obvious.
The view into the valley was unchanging: spindly trees and pale stone monoliths scattered in the distance like dice dropped by a giant. No fireflies lit the night; no frogs or crickets broke the silence.
When the elves had first reached Inath-Wakenti, they’d been overjoyed. Their constant tormenters, the Khurish nomads, would not enter the taboo confines of the place they called Alya-Alash, “Breath of the Gods.” The elves collapsed onto the sandy blue soil and rejoiced in their deliverance.
Disenchantment with their sanctuary wasn’t long in coming. The valley that sheltered them from desert heat and nomad attacks provided very little else—absolutely no animal life and precious little edible flora. Warriors and civilians alike clamored for permission to search the inner valley for food, but the Speaker forbade anyone to cross Lioness Creek, reminding them of the deadly will-o’-the-wisps encountered by Kerian’s original expedition.
Hungry and desperate, some broke the Speaker’s stricture, convinced they could return with provisions to allay his wrath. Most did not come back. Those who did only confirmed the Lioness’s warnings. Floating lights emerged at night to drift between the standing stones. The orbs’ movements seemed aimless, until an elf drew too near, then escape routes were cut off and elves vanished as soon as the orbs touched them. The few who escaped did so by various methods. One stood still as a statue all night long as glowing balls hovered, seemingly confused, around him. Another pair survived by distracting the will-o’-the-wisps with thrown rocks. The orbs followed the stones arcing into the darkness, and the elves were able to elude them.
Gilthas ordered an end to the unauthorized excursions. Now, the only explorations sanctioned by the Speaker were carried out by air, on griffonback. The griffon patrols watched for any disturbances inside the valley, even as cavalry patrols watched the valley’s entrance for any sign the nomad tribes were regrouping. When the elves had entered the valley, the majority of the Khurs had turned their horses away and dispersed. But a small band remained, carrying out a plan devised by their leader, Adala Fahim. They were erecting a stone wall across the mouth of the pass to trap the elves within. It was a futile, crazy project, and only the most fanatical of Adala’s followers still worked on it.
Gilthas’s vigil was interrupted by a voice, hailing him from the ground. “The patrol has returned, Great Speaker! There was trouble.”
The messenger was a Qualinesti known to Gilthas. A former silversmith, he was meticulous and careful by trade and not one to spread false alarms. Gilthas climbed down at once.
Although he took pains to hide it, the climb was not an easy one for him. His hands trembled as they grasped the crudely shaped rungs of the ladder, and pain like hot needles stabbed through his ribs. He had taken a blow to the back from a nomad tribesman just before the elves entered the valley. His people put his continuing weakness down to that cowardly attack and he allowed the mistaken impression to stand. Only a handful of elves knew the truth. Consumption, true to its harsh human name, was eating him from the inside out. The sickness had only worsened in the damp, chill air of Inath-Wakenti. By the standards of his long-lived race, Gilthas was still young, but appeared decades older, cheeks sunken and eyes deeply shadowed. He slept little, ate less, and worked as steadily as his failing health would allow.
When Gilthas reached the bonfire in the center o
f camp, he knew immediately what the trouble was. Only five griffon riders stood by the blazing fire. Two were missing.
“Where is Lady Kerianseray?” he asked immediately.
“I’m here,” she answered, arriving at a jog. She stripped off her gauntlets and took the cup of water offered by a nearby elf. She drank it quickly, but before she could finish, the other riders were clamoring for permission to seek their missing comrade.
From the darkness another voice asked, “What has happened?”
Gilthas turned. The newcomer was Porthios. Covered as always by a shapeless, ragged robe and cloth mask, he halted at the edge of the firelight. Porthios was brother to Lauralanthalasa, Gilthas’s mother, who had perished in the fall of Qualinost. Each was very nearly the only family the other had left, yet there had never been much love between uncle and nephew. Proud Porthios had not approved of Lauralanthalasa’s choice of husband and felt Gilthas carried the taint of his half-human father, Tanis. Formerly Speaker of the Sun, Porthios had been horribly burned by dragonfire during a battle. The fire that had nearly killed him seemed to have hardened his emotions further, scarring him inside as well as out. Gilthas doubted Porthios cared for anyone, save perhaps Alhana, his wife.
Firelight glinted in Porthios’s eyes as he scanned the group. “Who didn’t return?” he asked. He knew the griffon riders well. They had flown from Qualinesti with him and Kerian only weeks before.
“Hytanthas,” was Kerian’s grim answer.
Hytanthas Ambrodel was one of her loyal followers. She and the young warrior had fought together in Qualinesti against bandit invaders. More recently, he had served in her army in Khur. When a vast nomad army threatened to attack the elves, believing Kerian had led a massacre of one of their settlements, Kerian had ridden into their midst, hoping to appease their wrath by her sacrifice. Instead, she’d been plucked from the desert seemingly by a divine hand and deposited on the other side of the continent, in occupied Qualinesti. Hytanthas Ambrodel had undertaken a daring mission to find her. He had succeeded, very nearly at the cost of his own life.
Porthios put his back to the bonfire and stared into the haunted land across the creek. “How was he lost?”
“The lights,” Kerian replied.
“They’ve never taken a flier before,” said Porthios. “This is a dangerous development.”
“We must take steps.”
Kerian stiffened. Porthios was among the handful of elves who knew the true state of Gilthas’s health, and she knew he was implying the Speaker could not handle the problem himself. She started to make a harsh reply, but Gilthas quelled her with a glance and she bit back angry words, wondering how her husband could be so blind to Porthios’s maneuvering.
Gilthas was not blind. He, too, had bristled at Porthios’s comment. But unlike his volatile wife, the Speaker of the Sun and Stars was accustomed to keeping his reactions private. He was quite aware of Porthios’s insolence. It was always present, like a thorn constantly pricking him, yet never obvious enough that Gilthas could confront him about it.
Gilthas ordered the griffon riders to stand down. Watch would be kept for Hytanthas, but they couldn’t risk losing more riders in a futile search. The will-o’-the-wisps had never yet given back a victim.
“Food and water are waiting for you in my tent,” Gilthas told his wife.
She nodded but excused herself to tend her griffon first. If Porthios’s tone tended toward insolence, Kerian’s held no emotion at all. Gilthas knew she would defend him against anything. But what she thought of him and still felt for him, he had been unable to divine.
Porthios followed him as he traversed the crowded camp on his way to his tent. Elves of all stations greeted their Speaker with warmth. Porthios trailed behind, as unheralded as a shadow. No one spoke to Porthios lightly.
Qualinesti and Silvanesti alike had an ingrained horror of disfigurement, making Porthios’s return to prominence all the more discomforting. Bathed by dragonfire, Porthios should have died. Instead, he emerged from the forest of the land he’d once ruled to launch a rebellion against the occupying forces of the bandit lord Samuval. Anonymous behind his mask, Porthios freed a Qualinesti town with only a handful of followers and sparked revolts all over the country. Elves as disparate as the displaced Kerianseray, Alhana Starbreeze and her Silvanesti guards, and a loyal cadre of Kagonesti had rallied to his cause.
When Hytanthas Ambrodel arrived bearing news of the elves’ imminent destruction in Khur, Porthios left the revolt in the hands of a Kagonesti lieutenant. Then he, Alhana, and Kerian led a small band of newly-made griffon riders to Khur and saved the exiled elf nation from annihilation. In the final confrontation with the nomad leader Adala Fahim, Porthios had revealed his identity and the ruin of his face to the world. Word spread through the elf nation and Porthios’s name was secret no longer. He retained his concealing attire to hide his deformities, but Gilthas believed the odd clothing served another purpose. Mask, gloves, bandagelike wrappings, and tattered hooded robe all lent the former Speaker of the Sun an air of mystery and authority he cannily exploited. It was considered ill luck to be long in Porthios’s company or even to meet his eyes, but everyone in Inath-Wakenti was grateful for his miraculous arrival at the head of the griffon riders.
Gilthas lived and held court in a great sprawling tent. A forest of pine poles supported much-patched tarps, with only a few low screens as internal partitions. When Gilthas ducked under the low entrance, he could see the entire covered space. Everywhere there were soldiers—veterans of the ride across Khur still dressed in desert attire and sporting an assortment of Qualinesti and Silvanesti armor—as well as civilians of every age and background who carried out the myriad day-to-day tasks required by the Speaker. Through an opening on one side of the tent, Gilthas could see a blazing forge, where broken swords and dented armor were being restored to lethal service. On the opposite side of the pavilion sat a group of scribes, copying orders and other documents for the Speaker.
Gilthas headed for a camp chair near the scribes. Softened by pillows, the simple chair served as his throne. A few yards away was his sleeping pallet, a mound of blankets and rugs. He answered questions and dictated orders until Kerian arrived; then he called for the food and drink that had been held for his wife. When the meal was assembled and the servers departed, Porthios drew near. Kerian stepped in his way and stared him down, nose to nose, until he backed off. Others might be fearful of meeting his eyes but not the Lioness.
As Kerian ate her small meal, she studied her husband. Torchlight was not Gilthas’s friend. His cheekbones stood out like hatchets. The flesh between his throat and collarbone was so sunken, cold sweat collected in the hollow. His skin was pale and parchment-thin. The slightest knock would bruise him for days. All his inner strength seemed to be concentrated in his eyes. They were clear and calm, burning in the meager flesh of his face like twin torches.
She finished, and Gilthas lifted a hand. A scribe seated himself nearby, stylus poised. Gilthas bade his wife tell what she knew about the loss of Hytanthas.
“You look terrible,” she said instead. “You should be resting.”
“I am resting. And I’ve been feeling better today. The healers have been feeding me beef tea.”
She snorted. “Where in this lifeless valley would they find beef?”
“I thought it best not to inquire.” It probably came from boiling leather belts and shoes.
She made her report, outlining the stories of the other riders and telling of her own escape from the great mass of lights. The other riders had been pursued by only a few lights, and none of the elves had seen Hytanthas or his griffon, Kanan, after Kerian ordered them to scatter.
Despite her calm recitation of facts, Gilthas knew she was deeply angry. Any death among her warriors was painful to her, but Hytanthas was special, one in whom she’d seen great potential. Gilthas understood the loss of a valued friend. His long-time bodyguard and comrade, Planchet, had died in the desert fightin
g nomads. Planchet’s absence was a wound that had not healed. Each morning when he awoke, Gilthas expected the trusted valet to be there, protecting his back, chiding him for not eating enough, and offering sage, pithy comments on Gilthas’s dealings not only with councilors and common folk but with his hot-tempered wife as well.
A tide of longing rose in Gilthas. The need to hold his wife close was nearly overwhelming. But, mindful of his healer’s stricture against too-intimate contact with others, he had to content himself with reaching for her hand and saying, “I am sorry. Young Ambrodel was worthy of his name.”
She knelt by him, holding his hand carefully. It was little more than bones covered by skin, hot and dry as the sands of Khur.
The moment was all too brief. Her voice was grim as she said, “If the lights can catch griffons, we have no hope of penetrating the inner valley.”
“You must be confident, my heart.” He shifted position, vainly seeking a more comfortable pose for his emaciated frame, and she let go his hand. “The best minds of our race are in this camp. We shall yet find the answers to the mysteries of this place.”
Time was she would have called him a fool and a dreamer. Now she only watched him walk alone to his pallet (with the eyes of those in the tent on them, he would brook no support from her), made an excuse to leave, and bade him good night. Alhana and Porthios awaited her outside the great tent.
“Is the Speaker lucid?” Porthios asked.
Kerian snapped, “He retains both his mind and his grace, unlike you!”
“Captain Ambrodel’s griffon has returned,” Alhana put in quickly to halt the argument that simmered beneath every exchange between them.
“Injured?”
“There’s not a mark on him,” Porthios said. “Alhana has treated him for exhaustion.”
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