The Elves of Cintra

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

MOONLIGHT BATHED the shadowed landscape, draping the roofs and walls of buildings, staining the flat, empty fields and layering the highway's dark surface. Candle trailed the boy with the ruined face by a few paces, working hard to keep up, not wanting to feel the sharp jerk of the cord he had tied about her neck to prevent her from bolting. She had said almost nothing since they had started out, too frightened to do more than fol–low his directions. But they had walked a little more than two miles by now, and she was already growing tired.

"How much farther are we going?" she asked.

"As far as I want to."

"How far is that?"

"Far as necessary to get back."

"Back to where?"

His scarred face turned toward her. Irritation reflected in his one good eye. "To where I was when your friends took me away." "To your family?"

"To my tribe." He cleared his throat and spit. "You're the one with the family, not me."

She walked on a little farther before saying, "I don't want to go." "I don't care what you want."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Doing what?"

"Taking me with you."

"Because I feel like it. Because I can." He muttered something she couldn't hear, then said, "I'm doing to them what they did to me. I'm taking you away like they took me. Let's see how they like it."

She was silent again for a moment. "What are you going to do with me?"

"I don't know yet. I haven't decided."

"You shouldn't do this." She was on the verge of tears. "You should let me go."

"Shut up."

She did, and they walked on without speaking, following the dark ribbon of the highway as it stretched away into the distance. She found herself thinking of the booming sound of Bear's flechette as it dis–charged, wondering what it meant. Something had happened, and she hadn't been there to prevent it by warning them.

And it was all because she had tried to do the right thing.

"I set you free," she said defiantly, believing her declaration said everything that needed saying.

"Thanks," he replied.

"So you should let me go."

"Don't try to tell me what to do. You don't know anything." "I know I helped you, and now you won't help me."

"You helped me because you were afraid of what I might do to you and your friends if I got loose on my own."

"That's not true?"

"Sure it is. I saw the way you looked at me. You were afraid."

"I was afraid of what might happen to you. I was worried about what the others might decide to do when Owl wasn't looking."

He shrugged. "Doesn't matter. You set me free. That's all that counts. It's over and done with. You better learn to live with it."

She tightened her lips against the urge to cry that kept trying to sur–face. She was ten years old, she told herself. That was too old to cry.

Her thoughts drifted. She had done what she believed was right in setting him free. She had seen the way Panther looked at him. The first chance he got, he would hurt the boy. He might even kill him. One of the others might do it if Panther didn't. She couldn't be sure. Owl couldn't protect him forever, and Candle didn't want to let anything happen to him. Squirrel wouldn't have wanted him hurt, and neither did she.

She had pretended to be asleep, then risen and walked over to the boy and watched him for a long time as he slept. When he had woken, alerted somehow to her presence, she had watched him some more, even after he had turned away from her. Finally, her mind made up, she had gone over to him, unlocked the chains with the key she had taken from Owl, and set him free.

"Run?" she had whispered to him. "Get as far away as you can!"

But instead of running, he had clapped his hand over her mouth, picked her up, and carried her away, taking her behind the shed and then off toward the highway, keeping to the deep shadows where Bear couldn't see them. She would have struggled harder, but he had whis–pered to her that if she did he would hurt her really bad. Terrified and confused by what was happening, she had kept quiet until it was too late. By then, they had reached the highway, he had found some cord with which to collar her, and she was his prisoner. Even then, she had thought he would get tired of her and let her go or that he would see that what he was doing was wrong. Even then, she had believed he would come to his senses and do the right thing.

Now she didn't know.

"No one tried to hurt you," she said. "Even after you killed Squirrel and couldn't fight back, no one did anything bad."

"I didn't mean to kill that kid," he said defensively, his mouth twist–ing. "It was an accident. They frightened me. The gun went off on its own." He shook his head, his face troubled. "It was only a stun gun, any–way. It shouldn't have hurt him that much."

"But they could have hurt you back, and they didn't. So why are you being so mean to me?"

He wheeled about and snatched at the front of her shirt, pulling her so close to his face that she could see the particulars of the scars of every wound he had suffered. "If I wanted to be really mean to you, I could. I could hurt you enough that you would look like me. So just shut up'!"

He threw her away, knocking her off her feet, and then yanked hard on the cord until she scrambled up again.

His face darkened. "I could kill you if I wanted."

He started walking again, forcing her to follow. She trudged after him, tears in her eyes, her mouth tight. She refused to cry. He was mean and she wouldn't let him see her cry. She tried to think why he was like this. He was angry about what had been done to him, she guessed. About his face, especially. About his lost eye. She wanted to know more because maybe she could say something that would make him feel better, but she was afraid to ask him. He was too angry.

"I might just come back with my tribe and kill your whole family," he said suddenly. "It would be their own fault for taking me away like they did. They should have given me what I wanted. Freaks!"

His bitterness was a slap in the face, and she flinched and looked away from him quickly. She heard him make a sneering, dismissive sound, and then he was yanking on the cord again, dragging her for–ward at an even quicker pace.

"They had no right," she heard him mutter, and she wasn't sure if he was talking about the Ghosts or about someone else.

The night wore on. After a time, she quit thinking about what she was doing, concentrating on putting one foot ahead of the other, on simply moving forward. The moon shifted in the sky, the shadows lengthened once more, and the world was a silent, empty landscape. Now and then she recognized landmarks from when she had passed this way earlier. Mostly she kept her eyes on the roadway and tried to think what she could do.

Until suddenly the decision was made for her.

You have to get out of here! the voices said urgently, abruptly. You have to get out of here now!

"Wait!" she called out to the boy. Her urgency was sufficient that he turned back in surprise.

"There's something very bad coming."

He stared at her a moment, and then laughed. "You'll say anything, won't you?"

She shook her head. "I can always tell when there are bad things near. The voices warn me. There really is something. Just ahead."

He looked in the direction she was pointing, hands on hips. "What are you talking about? I don't see anything."

"It doesn't matter if you see it. It's there."

"I'm supposed to believe this?" He paused. "What do you mean, you hear voices?"

She tried to think what to say. "I can sense things. It's a gift. I can al–ways tell. We can't go that way."

"We can't, huh? I suppose we have to go back? Is that it?"

She ran her hands through her mop of red hair and said, as firmly and bravely as she could manage, "We can't go that way."

"Do I look like I'm stupid or something?" he asked abruptly. "What sort of idiot do I look like? Can't go that way. What crap! You'll go any way I tell you to go, like it or not. So stop playing games with me."

"I'm not playing games."

He shook his head, glanced at the night sky, and sighed. "You know what? I don't know what you're doing. Making me crazy, mostly." She took a deep breath. "I'm not going with you any farther." "You're going wherever I want you to go, you little Freak."

She dropped down on the pavement in a heap. This time she couldn't help it; she began to cry. "Please let me go," she begged.

"Get up!" He stood right over her, his words cutting at her like razors.

She cried harder and shook her head. "I won't?"

He began to drag her by the neck, the cord cutting into her skin, harsh and burning as it choked her. She grasped at the cord in an effort to ease the suffocating pain, fighting for breath. But she refused to get to her feet. The boy with the ruined face turned back and kicked her in the ribs.

She curled into a ball, sobbing. "Stop," she pleaded.

"Get up or I'll kill you!" he screamed at her.

Suddenly there was a piece of broken glass in his hand, a shard re–trieved from the roadway, its sharp edge glittering in the moonlight. He thrust it at her, inches from her face. She squeezed her eyes shut and quit breathing.

"Do you know what it feels like to have your face cut?" he hissed. She shook her head without answering, curling tighter.

"If I cut your throat, you'll bleed to death. How would you like that?"

She shook her head again.

"Get up or I'll do it!"

She shook her head once more. "No. I want to go homer "I'm warning you?"

Hurry! You have to get out of here right now!

The fresh premonition of the danger she had sensed earlier re–turned in a silent scream. The voices were frantic, a palpable presence, and she knew that if they didn't do something quickly, they were going to be killed.

"We have to hide," she whispered.

She was aware of the boy moving away, his attention drawn else–where. She risked opening her eyes, and she saw that he was looking off toward some buildings to their left.

"There is something," he said softly, almost to himself. He stared in the direction of the buildings a moment longer. "Something big."

He looked down at her then, and a change came over his face. "You know what? You're too small and puny to bother with. I don't need you.

He reached down and used the shard of glass to cut the cord around her neck. "Go back, if you want," he said, pointing to the way they had come. "Run away, little scaredy–cat."

She stared at him. "You should hide," she said.

He shook his head. His single eye glittered in the moonlight. "I've got better things to do. Get out of here before I change my mind. I've had enough of you."

He started to set off, and then wheeled about. "They won't come for you, you know. Your family. You think they will, but they won't. No one ever comes for you once you're gone."

Without looking back, he moved swiftly down the highway and into the darkness, and then he was just a shadow. Candle watched him a moment longer before climbing to her feet and scurrying down off the road and into the drainage ditch that ran parallel, away from the danger she sensed. She followed the ditch for a short distance, staying low and quiet as she moved, like Sparrow had taught her. Then she climbed out again and slipped into a stand of grasses beyond. The grasses were so tall they were over her head, and she couldn't see any–thing beyond. She worked her way through them until she was well back off the highway before hunkering down. The premonition was still with her, hard and certain. She didn't know what else to do. She should try to get farther away, but she was exhausted.

She sat all the way down, hugged her knees to her chest, closed her eyes, and waited.

THE VOICES hiss at her, harsh and insistent.

Run away! You are in danger! Run now!

She is old enough to appreciate that the voices are real and that when they speak, it is important to listen. The voices are a part of her, a presence in her mind, as real and substantive as the dark, ruined world around her. She tells her parents of them, but her parents do not listen. They are wor–ried for her. She does not seem entirely right to them. Perhaps it is the poi–sons to which she is exposed. Perhaps it is genetic, she a child born of parents who were also exposed. Perhaps it is a fresh form of madness that claims her early, a madness that they believe will eventually claim them all.

She knows what they think of her because she overhears them talking now and then, and their thinking is always the same.

They refuse to believe what she knows is true.

But tonight is different, the voices so strong and angry, refusing to be si–lenced or dismissed. She runs to her parents, waking them from their sleep, telling them they must listen to her, that they are all in great danger.

Yet even now, even in the face of her pleading, they do not listen. They tell her it is all right, that she must go back to sleep, that they will sit with her until she does, that nothing bad will happen. Even at six years of age, she knows that this is not true. Even wanting to believe it, she knows. A hor–ror is coming, and no amount of pretending will make it go away. Please, she begs. We have to run away.

Her father rolls over and goes back to sleep. Her mother walks her to her room, comforting her as she cries helplessly. There, there, her mother soothes, stroking her fine red hair, hugging her as they reach her bed. I will hold you.

No, you must run! You must run away now! Run fast and hide!

The voices talk over her mother, drowning out the comforting words, fill–ing her mind with sound and fury, with sharp twinges of ten–or. She does not know what to do. She cannot think what else to say.

She is terrified. She is helpless.

When her mother leaves her at last, she lies still only a moment, then leaves her bed and climbs through the window of her home. They live in a house at the edge of what is left of the city of Seattle. It has been her house since she was born, and she knows everything about it. She spends hours in her backyard, playing games. One of her favorites is hide–and–seek. She practices hiding, waiting for her mother or her father to come looking for her. Her parents have asked her not to play this game without telling them first, but most of the time she likes to keep her game a secret.

Tonight is one of those times.

She runs to the very back of her yard and hides in her favorite place, a deep hole that runs under the storage shed in back. The opening is narrow enough for her to squeeze through, but too narrow for anyone or anything bigger. It makes her feel safe to be in the hole, in her secret place.

She needs to feel safe this night, the voices so loud and demanding. They quiet the mo–ment she is inside, scrunched back in the darkness, deep in the shadows.

When the screaming begins, she pulls her knees up to her chest and hugs herself tightly. She tries not to listen, to pretend that it isn't happening. She hums softly to herself rocking back and forth. The screaming doesn't last very long, and then she hears footsteps coming her way. The steps are heavy and are accompanied by heavy, guttural breathing. They approach the shed, circle it once, and move away.

She stays where she is until sunrise. When she crawls from her hiding place, she sees her mother's nightgown lying on the dry, wintry grass of the yard. There is blood all over it. She stares at it a moment, and then she stares at the house, at the back door hanging open, at the walls and win–dows. She listens to the silence and peers at the shadows that lie just inside the open door.

She waits a moment, and then she turns away.

She does not need to go inside. She knows what she will find. The voices have told her, and the voices are never wrong.

She leaves her home and walks down into the city, not knowing what else to do. She will find a new home, she tells herself She will find a new family. She is certain of this in the way that small children are. When she comes upon Owl, her faith is rewarded.

THAT WAS WHEN she was Sarah and before she became Candle, and it was a very long time ago. She sat in the darkness with her knees drawn up to her chest and rocked back and forth and remembered. Time slowed to a crawl, and she listened for the warning voices, but they had gone silent. She was no longer in danger. She was safe.

But the boy who had left her …

The screaming began with shocking suddenness, long and sus–tained, and she cringed from the sound as if struck a physical blow. She clapped her hands to her ears, not wanting to hear, knowing where the screaming came from, knowing its source.

Why wouldn't he listen to her? Why wouldn't her parents? Why wouldn't anyone?

But only the Ghosts had ever listened. Only the Ghosts had known the value of her voices.

She took slow, deep breaths to calm herself, to blot out the fear and the horror, to make the moments pass more quickly. She hugged her–self more tightly, feeling cold and abandoned. Then, unable to stand the waiting further, she stilled her breathing and listened.

Silence.

She waited a long time for the silence to break, for the sounds of whatever predator was out there, but she heard nothing. She got to her feet and peered through the grasses toward the roadway. Nothing moved. She hesitated, wanting to know for sure, but at the same time wanting to keep alive some small hope that she was wrong. The latter won out. There was nothing to be gained by looking. She turned away from the highway and continued walking through the grasses to their end, and from there across an empty, barren stretch of earth that had once been a planted field, and from there through a yard past several farm buildings and back toward the highway and the family from which she had been taken.

She was very tired and very sad.

They won't come for you, you know. No one ever comes for you once you're gone.

She could hear the boy with the ruined face speaking those cruel words, and the memory chilled her. But he was wrong. This was her family, and her family would never leave her. Not the Ghosts. Not Owl and Sparrow and Panther and the others. They would come.

She gained the highway and followed it south toward the place where she had left them. They would come, she told herself again and again.

Just before dawn, as the rising sun turned the sky a strange silvery red below a bank of heavy smoke and ash from a fire whose origins she could only guess at, they did.