Depths of Madness

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Her eyes flicked open. The tent was silent. The air tasted rough and dry, like bone worn hollow by the wind. And flowers-she smelled something sweet. An herbal tang.

Twilight looked around. Vertical black hides bounded her dry world, and leather tapestries adorned with reds, greens, and blues. Skulls and various bones hung around the tent, on chains that would have clattered had there been a breeze.

She lay on a heap of soft animal skins, most of which still had fur on one side. Twilight ran her fingers slowly through the coarse hair and wondered, dimly, what could make her think rothe hide soft. She also wondered if she had always existed, in this place of supreme comfort. She had the sense that something terrible had happened, but her memory seemed more a series of dreams, not events.

Just about the time she became thirsty, Twilight noticed a clay bowl on the sandy floor beside her, containing what she soon found to be the most delicious water she had ever tasted. She drank it all without pause. Her stomach felt hollow and tight.

She stood from the bed and a chill breeze raised gooseflesh over her back. Only then did she notice her nakedness. For warmth more than modesty, she found a blanket of sackcloth and drew it over her shoulders before she pushed her way out of the tent flap.

Twilight emerged in a land that was mercilessly bright, but discomfort was far away. She stopped, and her eyes fell to the cliff edge just under her bare toes. Flecks of sand hissed down through empty air, falling what seemed a league. She vaguely noticed a circle of runes drawn in salt below the sole of her foot, smudged by her movement.

Her tent stood on the edge of a plateau that rose out of a gray-white desert like a graveyard. She looked out over the vastness of dusty death before her. Then, drawn by sounds from behind, she looked the other way, across the plateau.

Atop the crags, life bloomed like a garden. Tents of many colors stood before her, and muscular forms moved amongst them, fleshed in tones of grays and browns, oranges and purples. These were shades of stone, both exotic and mundane. The figures wore almost no clothing-the better to reveal the zigzagging patterns of color that crisscrossed their stony skin. Goliaths, she realized.

Parents and children worked in the shade of tents and boulders, while brawny youths carved arrows and spears for hunting. The tiny community bustled with daily business, yet a certain serenity enveloped all. Incomprehensible jests and bawdy laughs echoed from below, where males and females alike engaged in work and sport. She saw feats of strength, comparisons of skill at archery or rock flinging, and even a singing contest that was foreign to her elf's ears-deep and rhythmic and powerful. Other elves might have disdained it, but she found the music beautiful.

Below her, on mounds and spires of stone that rose up from a shallow, mist-filled depression in the plateau, a score or so young goliaths leaped and danced, hooted and jeered. They played some game, hurling what looked like a stuffed camel's hump back and forth. Occasionally, one of the goliaths would knock over an opposing player who was trying to make a catch, or the ball itself would lay one out. The downed goliath would sometimes sprawl onto the stone and sometimes fall off the mound, into the mists. This frightened Twilight the first time it occurred, but soon after, the goliath stood up and growled in their thick tongue. She didn't understand-she wore no earring to translate.

The simple peace of the goliath village set her at ease, and the sight of the game gave her an overwhelming sense of vibrancy. When had she forgotten the simple pleasure of breathing? Watching the young, muscular goliaths at their play reminded her of the sanctity and power of life. In that moment, the world seemed complete.

Complete except…

Twilight looked around for her companions. She didn't remember their names, but she knew there had been others.

Then she recognized one of them-seated alone not far from her own tent. He was markedly different: where the others wore simple tunics or loincloths, he wore a black cloak that hid his gray skin and red markings. And where they laughed and jeered one another, brimming over with vitality, he merely sat, a cold statue.

Gargan-that was his name.

Twilight wondered why he was not with the others-why they seemed not to notice him. Were they cruel, these goliaths? She opened her mouth to call out.

Then she felt something tingling in the back of her mind, as though a gentle lover were kissing the back of her neck, though no one was there. She stood, eyes half-shut, relaxing in the peace, and allowed the phantom fingers to trace down her neck, along her bare back, down, down… to the starburst mark at the base of her spine.

It was only a thought in her head, but it sounded like words. Lover.

"Liet?" she asked, her heart fluttering.

Perhaps, came the mental reply. But not just now.

Then she saw demons emerging out of the corners of her world, and she pressed her palms against her temples. Maniacal laughter filled her, consumed her, and she screamed her way down into darkness.

Gargan stood amid pots bubbling over fires. He watched the elf writhe, claw, and moan in the sick tent.

Her neck and face stood taut beyond reason, veins bulging all along her body. Blood seeped from her mouth and nose, and her eyes rolled in their sockets. She wore nothing but sweat, her tangled hair, and staining poultices where her ivory skin had broken open under the pressure of muscles spasms.

It took three goliaths to hold Foxdaughter still enough for Mehvenne Starseeker Kalgatan, the clan druid, to administer healing magic and balms, all to no avail. Blood stained her fingers from wrists, throat, and face, and from those who restrained her now.

"There is a demon," the withered crone said. She reached to one of the simmering pots and drew out the long wooden spoon with a substantial helping of the ruddy orange mixture. "A demon inside. She has brought evil into our camp."

Gargan nodded. By necessity, he knew, that was the closest she would come to addressing him. He wanted to assuage the fears of the goliaths, and tell them of Foxdaughter's strength, but they would hear and not listen. It was forbidden.

The elf screamed and babbled incoherently. He could tell the depth of her agony, from her tone. Delirious, she delivered stunning kicks and cruel gouges to those who held her, fighting them off as though they were attackers rather than healers.

The frail druid-the oldest goliath Gargan had ever known-knelt beside her, without fear as ever, and seized the Foxdaughter's jaw. The elf clawed, but Mehvenne pushed her fingers away firmly but gently, as one might discipline a wayward wolf pup.

The elf gagged on the liquid the druid forced down her throat. It worked quickly, and her struggles slackened. Finally, the tent was silent and she slept peacefully.

Gargan had learned his herbcraft at Mehvenne's feet, and even the rudiments of healing from her, but he was still impressed at the power of her potions and poultices.

"Demons of the flesh," Mehvenne said, still not looking at Gargan, "and demons of the blood or heart. We can fight these. But demons of the mind and soul, we cannot."

Gargan did not pretend to understand the minds and spirits of elves, but he knew what she had endured in those depths. She had been right about a traitor in their midst. Gargan had never trusted any of the companions, but he'd given Liet the most faith.

Liet and Slip.

Gargan felt a twinge of regret for the little one, but the demands of fate outweighed those of friendship. He reminded himself of that looking at the shuddering, moaning elf who lay in agony on the furs and hides.

He stepped forward and the attending goliaths turned away. He did not blame them. If they acknowledged his silent existence, they would soon share it. As he took the elf's hand, only Mehvenne's eyes traced his square features-a tribute to her station in the tribe-but even she said nothing.

"Come back, little fox," he said in Common. "Wake."

Then the tent filled with a new sound, one that prompted hands to dart to crude hilts of stone weapons. Laughter.

The elf's lips curled back. "We have found her, monster," her voice said, with words that were not hers. "She will be ours soon."

An unholy chill flared from beneath her pale skin, shaking Gargan like a jolt of lightning. He fell, stunned, listening as maniacal laughter filled the tent for a long, painful breath. Then Twilight arched, her muscles snapping, and collapsed limply.

Finally shaking the shock out of his head, Gargan looked at the star sapphire in Mehvenne's ochre hands. "The Shroud," he said, realizing. "Gestal."

Then he thought he heard a soft little laugh, but it was not that of Foxdaughter, nor was it that of Gestal. Gargan looked around, but no one was there.

" 'Light!" Liet screamed. "Help me! 'Light!"

Demons pulled him down into an abyss from which flames arose. Putrid corruption spread over his body, slowly at first, but faster as the fiends bore him away.

She cried out, but could not hear herself over the cacophony.

Snarling lizardlike demons surged around Liet's receding body, clawing and pawing at their new foe, barbed tongues licking and rending the putrid air.

Betrayal drawn, the elf-without-a-name slashed and stabbed, cut and lunged, all to no avail. The eldritch steel, its gray burned to white, bit into demon after demon, felling them as a scythe cuts wheat, but they kept coming-hordes of the fiends. She sensed them all around her and danced and dodged, trying to fight them all off.

She could not. "No!" she tried to scream, but she had no voice.

Then a single serpentine form rose from the darkness, towering over the other fiends. Its two baboon heads loomed over her, snickering and yowling at one another. The nameless elf cowered, her body locked in place by the awesome power that dripped from the demon lord. "Demogorgon!" shouted the fiends. "Demogorgon!"

Then the two heads had faces, and they were the same scarred, twisted, beautiful visage: Gestal.

"I see you," he rasped. "You cannot hide."

The nameless elf tore her gaze away, but everywhere she looked, there he was. Every demon wore Gestal's laughing face, Gestal's burning eyes, Gestal's broken grin.

"Shadows cannot hide you," the faces said. "We know your lies."

Gestal surrounded her, his madness beating at every corner of her will.

"No," she growled. "No!" The demons surged around her, and she slashed, tore, and cut, but there were so many-too many. She slashed at them and ran them through again and again, but they kept coming. Claws tore and rent her clothes.

"You fear," they all said, out of bleeding mouths and broken jaws. "You fear being stripped of your shadows-fear being nothing-fear knowing your lies for lies."

"They're not lies!" she lied. The claws and fire tore at her clothes-her flesh froze, even though the flames rose and rose around her.

Claws wrenched the gray rapier from her hand and they caught fire. Their blackness burned away before her eyes, stripped and peeled like thick paint on a flawed canvas. White gleamed underneath-white like bone-and she screamed and shut her eyes. The darkness was not an escape-the demons followed her.

"You're alone," they said. "A lonely child-a fool child. A child."

"I'm not a child!" she lied. She staggered and finally knelt, exhausted, naked, and surrounded. "I'm telling the truth!"

"No, you're not," a familiar voice said. "You are nothing alone-without your steel, without your lies. Nothing."

Then a loving, gentle hand-Liet's hand, she thought-reached out of the chaos.

Against all her instincts, against the demand of her will, gods help her, she wanted to take it-needed desperately to take it. She needed to let her mind go, let her heart take her fully, let the dream become her world.

"Come with me," Liet's voice whispered. He was there, welcoming, inviting. "Run-leave your pain and your lies. Accept what you are."

They were all gone. Every man or woman she had loved. Her father, Nymlin, Neveren-all of the hundred or so creatures she had loved were dead. Lilten had abandoned her. Liet was gone. She had no one to call upon.

"Where are you wandering?" Liet smiled so sweetly. "Come. Walk with me."

She reached out to take Liet's hand.

Then there was a sound, from somewhere in the depths of madness roiling around them, somewhere beyond the gray emptiness that stretched forever.

A child's laugh.

Reality shifted, the nameless elf hesitated, and an olive-skinned hand reached out and slapped his hands away.

And Ilira, for she remembered that Ilira was her name, screamed.

The elf woke, lying on her stomach, into silence.

There was nothing in the world but stillness and herself. It was a pregnant silence, so tangible a sharp knife could shave off a bit to keep locked in a box, and so inexplicably sad that it could only live in a lady's heart. One arm pillowed her chin, the other hung at her side. A whisper of breath tickled the small hairs across her exposed back. She did not know if the dream had ended, or if it endured.

Twilight felt a presence and she froze. Slowly, as though any tiny shift would lead to horror or pain, she looked at the plain-faced elf she somehow knew knelt there.

Any Tel'Quessir who looked upon him would see a face like a reflection, but an elflord's face all the same. A moon elf would see pale skin and midnight hair, a sun elf bronze flesh and a golden mane. The skin would seem copper to a wood elf, aquamarine to a sea elf, deep brown to a wild elf. He would be so unremarkable as to be extraordinary-neither handsome nor ugly, old nor young.

But Twilight saw something different. She saw herself, stripped of her lies and fabrications-naked, alone, and helpless-and she saw him.

Fingers traced the sunburst tattoo at the base of her spine in a way that sent chills through her body. Whether it was a sensitive spot or something else, she did not know. In the other hand, he dangled her amulet-the Shroud.

He smiled, and she felt something like courage.

"I…" Twilight pursed her lips. "Are you… are you who I think you are?"

No reply.

"You are."

The smile widened a little, as though its owner laughed at a jest she had made.

"I see." Twilight shifted. She realized that the touch on her back was much more soothing than she imagined it could be. "I… I'm sorry for all the… all the lies I've told… about you." She bit her lip. "About me."

Then his eyes danced with laughter and turned away. His face slipped so subtly the elf barely noticed. His fingers tapped a rhythm on her spine and he rose to leave.

"One… one question?"

He paused and the eyes went to hers. The irises shifted, like a rainbow-red and blue and green and gold.

"When I wake… will those lies be true?" she asked. "Are you you, or just me?"

He grinned and held up two fingers, which he used to close her eyes. In that darkness, he kissed her on the throat, and the world turned only for her.

Breathless, Twilight opened her eyes, but he was gone. The star sapphire gleamed against the pale skin of her breastbone.

She let blessed darkness come, and wondered if she would find Reverie.

It occurred to Twilight that she might have asked if he loved her.

Foxdaughter lay unmoving on her back, eyes wide but empty. The black blanket contrasted sharply with skin paler than the whitest Gargan had ever seen on a living being. The amulet sparkling on her chest did not seem to rise and fall.

"I wonder why it sits by her," Mehvenne said to the tent walls. "She is not dead, but neither does she live. She is lost."

"She dreams," Gargan said. He could not speak the tongue of the goliaths in that place, for a watcher might think he broke the laws.

Mehvenne inspected the back of her hand. "It fools itself," she said. "All my herbs and potions are for naught. The elf-child will die."

Gargan shook his head. There was nothing that would dissuade him.

"I did not agree with the tribe's decision," Mehvenne said to her pots as she stirred two at once. Her emerald stripes sparkled in the half light of the rothe candles.

"Not their decision," Gargan whispered, inaudible outside the tent. "Mine."

That caught Mehvenne's attention, and she turned ruby eyes on him. Gargan felt something in the air strain, as though it would break.

Then she looked away and it returned. The distance between them that would always remain-would remain between Gargan and any goliath-until the day he died.

"The Stoneslayer lost his way, and thus he became the Dispossessed," Mehvenne said. "He is blind. This is not his destiny, no matter what he believes. Not this doe."

"Fox," Gargan corrected. "She is the fox."

Then the elf squeezed his hand.

Gargan looked at the soft skin stretched over delicate features. Her eyes blinked-red-rimmed, shot with blood, oozing tears, but alive. Mehvenne took a step back, startled and ready with a spell should she need to fight a demon.

But the next sound Foxdaughter emitted was a simple sigh.

"Gys sa salen," she murmured, bringing one dainty hand to her forehead.

Gargan hardly spoke the Common tongue, much less Elvish. He wondered if his heavy mouth could even form such dainty syllables. But he, like all goliaths, was a student of body language and expression. Even though he did not catch the exact meaning of her words, he understood her basic desire.

As did Mehvenne, who knelt and offered the water bowl to Foxdaughter.

"No, my good lady," she sighed. "Not that kind of drink."

The druid furrowed her brow, almost looking at Gargan before she caught herself. Gargan could only blink and look down at Foxdaughter blankly.

"What was"-the elf paused-"that game… I saw?"

Gargan felt a smile tugging at his mouth. He squeezed her hand. "Kukanath kuth," he said. Then he remembered that she wore no earring, so he exercised the few words he knew in the trade tongue. "Goat ball."

The elf smiled, and it was the most reassuring thing Gargan had ever seen.