Traitor to the Blood

CHAPTER SIX

Magiere reached the inn's room she shared with Leesil and slammed the door behind her. Chap and Wynn were safely tucked away in their own room. Frustrated, she just stood in the dark.

"I know what I'm doing," she muttered, repeating Leesil's last words to her. "Yes, and it's nothing to do with sinking into your past… you witless mule!"

Each thing Magiere learned of Byrd raised more questions, more suspicions, and fewer answers. All of it kept coming back to Leesil, his parents, and Darmouth's keep. All of it centered on Byrd. Now Leesil sat, alone, waiting in the common room for someone he hardly knew.

She went to the small side table, struck the sulfur stick across its underside, and lit the candle lantern resting there. Placing the lantern's glass down around the flame, she settled on the bed.

Taking Leesil head-on was her first instinct, and it was a mistake. She didn't want to be one more weight upon him, shoving him over the edge of good sense.

Magiere unsheathed her falchion and rested it across her knees. She reached over the bed's end into the travel trunk and pulled out a scrap of soft hide permeated with oil. Within its folds was a smooth basalt stone, and she began cleaning and sharpening the blade.

She fingered the steel, from its wide curved tip to its cross-guard, and her gaze slipped down the hand-and-a-half hilt to the strange glyph en-graved in the pommel. She still didn't know what it meant, but the blade's power against the undead suggested much.

Magiere paused in her work and lifted the weapon in her grip.

Made by her half brother, Welstiel Massing, it had been wielded by three women of the same blood. First her mother, Magelia, had tried to defend herself against Magiere's father, Bryen Massing. Aunt Bieja had used it to defend an infant Magiere against a village elder trying to cast the misbegotten child into the wild. And lastly, Magiere herself carried it for her own defense… and for those she chose to defend.

It wasn't much of a heritage, tainted with bloodshed and suffering, but it was hers. As she stared at the blade, it gained new meaning. More than some arcane device made for a destiny she neither wanted nor understood.

Her own "parent," bad-tempered Aunt Bieja, had tried to keep her safe with this weapon.

Magiere settled the falchion on her knees.

There'd been no way for Leesil and his parents to flee together. She wondered if Nein'a and Gavril had even considered it. Leesil had been raised in his mother's ways. To Magiere, this seemed worse than what she'd endured as a child, and it begged a question.

Why had Nein'a done this to her own son?

An elf among humans, Nein'a had married one. That in itself was bizarre, from what Magiere had learned of this reclusive and dangerous people. Nein'a kept Leesil ignorant of her kind and her caste, and even her native language. It made no sense. It was a puzzle Magiere never heard Leesil mention himself.

Gazing at the steel wielded by three women, Magiere couldn't imagine why any mother would do that to her child. But for all Leesil now faced, she wouldn't put it in his mind.

Not yet. Not until they found Nein'a. If Leesil lived that long.

Magiere sat still and silent, and looked to the room's door as she listened intently. Not a sound reached her ears from anywhere in the quiet inn. Below in a dimly lit common room, Leesil waited blindly for a piece of his past to come for him.

She slipped the falchion into its sheath, stepped to the window, and shoved the heavy curtains and shutters open. The drop to the alley behind the inn wasn't difficult. Magiere would not let Leesil out of her sight, whether he knew it or not.

Hedi turned the corner at the back of the Bronze Bell and spotted a hefty man in the alley leaning back on an empty ale barrel. Even in the dark, she made out the yellow kerchief around his head and knew it was Byrd. His brow was wrinkled in concern, though he wore a half smile on his pleasant ruddy face. In a world of false smiles, Byrd's meant little to her.

"My lady," he said with his usual wry twist of the title. "An alley at night is no place for you… or me, if I'm seen."

Three years had passed since Hedi was first visited by one of Byrd's less savory confidants. Not long after that she began spying for the Vonkayshi, would-be rebels of which Byrd was her main contact. She dreamed of Darmouth's death long before then and found she was not alone in that desire. She'd seen many attempts on Darmouth's life. Those involved tried, failed, and died as traitors. Byrd was not to be trusted with anyone's safety or agenda besides his own. His heart was made of ice, but he was the first one to make Hedi believe Darmouth could be dealt with.

To assist him, Hedi took mental notes or quick diagrams on scraps of paper, if she had time, whenever she went with Emel into Darmouth's stronghold. She fed Byrd these details, bit by bit and drop by drop, as she gathered them like a small scavenger in the shadows. She knew she placed herself-and Emel-in great danger, but if Darmouth died, the risk was worthy.

"Shhhhh, and listen," she said. "Tonight Faris interrupted Darmouth's little dinner party with an urgent message. Darmouth immediately ordered the guards on the keep and city walls to be doubled… and for any man with light hair and dark skin to be arrested or killed on sight."

Byrd lost all semblance of pleasantry and lurched upright, but he remained composed as he spoke. "Why? What did you overhear from Faris?"

"Only scant pieces," Hedi returned with a shake of her head. "There was a skirmish at the Stravinan border. The man they seek crossed the stream and attacked Darmouth's troops running down deserters and their families." Panic crept into her voice. "If the soldiers are to arrest anyone who resembles an elf, we are ruined! What was your fool of an associate doing out there?"

A hint of confusion passed across Byrd's face, and then quickly vanished in some sudden realization. He shook his head. "Where is Baron Milea?"

"Asleep inside," she said.

She did not like Byrd asking questions about Emel and had not risked herself for this meeting only to have her own questions avoided. She stared at him, silently waiting.

His gaze was steady. "Do you remember a married couple in Darmouth's service from before your father died? The woman was elven."

Another absurd change of topic. Was he being deliberately evasive or did he not realize the magnitude of Darmouth's new orders? She remembered the woman, for who could forget an elf living among humans, let alone in this accursed place?

"Yes. I only saw them a few times."

"They had a son."

She did not recall this, but her family had lived outside Venjetz and seldom attended events except the winter feast. "I don't remember him. Now please, what about the-"

Byrd held his hand up. "It was their son at the border, not one of my associates."

"Then he is responsible for fouling our plans?"

"In a sense. He is staying with me at the inn." Byrd dropped his gaze in reflection. "But I've wondered if anyone could scale the keep without being seen. My elven associates were the only possibility we had… until now."

"I do not understand," Hedi said. "What has changed?"

"This elven woman and her husband were forced to flee years ago, but they ran inside the keep instead of trying to slip out the city gates or over the wall. I don't know why, and it's a riddle I've never answered or put aside. Now their wayward son wants that answer, and if he finds it…"

"So you still think our efforts might-"

"I'll wait and see. The plan may be altered, but it's far from ruined.

Be patient. We'll get one of the elves inside those walls. Darmouth will be dead before the winter feast."

A slight relief, but Hedi's satisfaction was incomplete. Byrd wore many faces, and he would sacrifice anyone-including her-to meet his end goal. Her own determination for assurance made her bold.

"Why are the elves helping us?" Hedi asked. "What are they getting from this?"

"I don't know, and they're not saying," Byrd answered, and glanced warily about the alley. "As troubling as that is, we've no one else for the task. And don't call me this way again. I'll contact you when I know more."

Hedi nodded and whispered, "For our people."

"For our people," Byrd repeated, and disappeared out the alley's end.

Hedi pulled her cloak tight against the cold night. The inn's rear door was within reach, but it was better to reenter from the front and attract less attention from the staff. She headed for the corner and the side way to the inn's front.

A tall figure stepped from the shadows to block her way.

Welstiel sat on the floor of his room after Chane left, continuing his task of locating Magiere. He had fashioned one of the amulets she wore from the bone of his own little finger. He set the knife down, focused his will to heal the cut on the stub of his finger, and watched the drop of his own fluids on the center of the brass plate's dome. The droplet quivered and spread slightly south.

She was here in the city.

He wiped the plate and tucked it away in his pack. When he stood up, he paused at his own reflection in the narrow oval mirror beside the room's door. His recent doubts about his ability to manipulate Magiere subsided.

Bathed and groomed, in freshly brushed clothing, he was himself again. He would stay in control so long as he kept Magiere from following Leesil into the elven territory. He must convince them that Leesil's parents were dead or block them from their course.

The city's south side was mostly mercantile and not large. For now

Welstiel would find Magiere and keep track of her. Hopefully Chane would be sensible while hunting. After Welstiel's last warning, he had shown some attention to concealment.

Before leaving the room, Welstiel opened a small jade box and removed a brass ring with tiny symbols etched around its inside. He rarely took it off these days except when bathing, as he had done this evening. He slipped it on the first finger of his right hand.

The room wavered briefly in his sight like the horizon across a desert plain at noon. Then it settled again.

Though he could be seen and heard, his nature and essence would be masked from all extraordinary means of detection or observation, as if nothing existed where he stood. Not Magiere or the topaz amulet that Welstiel had created for her, or even her dog, would sense his presence as that of Noble Dead.

He stepped quietly into the hallway, closing the door behind himself, and headed downstairs. The evening had grown late, there was no one below, and he slipped out the front door unnoticed.

A woman's cry filled the night.

Welstiel glanced both ways along the street, senses widening, but he detected nothing. He heard a heavy thump against wood and he turned about, staring first at the inn and then saw the side passage around it. He stepped along the street and peered between the inn and the next building. A nagging alarm grew in Welstiel.

Chane would not… not so close to where they stayed?

He hurried down the passage to peer into the back alley. There was Chane with a small, well-dressed lady pressed against the inn's rear wall. He had her wrists pulled up and pinned with one hand while smothering her mouth with the other. He pushed her head back to stretch out her pale throat.

Welstiel's anger grew. Was Chane so far into madness that he would kill right outside their inn? And a noblewoman at that?

Chane opened his mouth with a savage snarl, exposing elongated teeth, but he did not bite down yet. He appeared to be absorbing her fear for the moment. He put his face directly in front of hers and drew his lips farther back. The woman's eyes widened, and her scream was stifled by

Chane's palm. Chane looked lost and dissatisfied rather than triumphant, as he sank his teeth into her throat.

Welstiel froze in uncertainty. Perhaps he could cloud her mind enough, if Chane left the inn and never let this one woman see him again. He took one step, ready to clutch Chane by the hair like a dog.

A gray shadow dropped from above and enveloped Chane.

Welstiel lurched back against the inn's wall, glancing to the roof's edge as the shadow drove Chane to the ground. The noblewoman was dragged down the wall in his grip. Chane lost his hold on her, and she scrambled away toward the inn's rear door. He pitched his attacker off and rolled to his feet, drawing his longsword.

"Help!" the woman shouted with no hysteria in her voice. "Guards! Help!"

Before Chane raised his blade, two metallic flickers shot at him through the air. He swatted the first one aside, but the second struck the center of his chest. He stared down at the stiletto hilt protruding from his torso.

In the alley stood a slender man, slightly taller than Chane. His breeches, shirt, and tunic were all monotone deep grays or perhaps greens. The calf-high soft boots and hooded cloak were darker still. The cloak's corners were pulled up and tied across his waist, holding the cloak to his back and out of his way. A scarf wrap hid his features within the deep shadow of his hood.

Welstiel's sight opened to the fullest, and he saw a hint of yellow-orange glint from the man's large eyes. His slender hands were deeply tanned.

Neither the woman nor the mysterious guardian noticed Welstiel's presence. She had already called for guards, which meant some retinue was within earshot. Welstiel retreated to the side passage, preferring not to be dragged down in Chane's lunacy.

Chane's lithe opponent reached back inside his tied-up cloak. The woman fumbled with the back door, but it would not open.

"Emel!" She cried out.

She fled down the alley beyond Chane's opponent before she stopped to look back.

Chane jerked the stiletto from his chest and rushed forward. His op-ponent whipped something chin and glinting out of the lashed-down cloak and charged to meet him. Chane swung, twisting his blade's path into a thrust. He connected with nothing but night air. The gray-clad man had already leaped sideways to the alley wall at full speed.

Narrow feet stepped once, twice, three times sideways along the building across from the inn. His hands passed on both sides of Chane's head as he dropped to the alley floor again.

Welstiel saw the garrote wire as the man pivoted behind Chane and pulled it tight.

Instead of gasping, Chane pushed off with both legs and threw himself backward. The gray-clad man tucked up his knees against Chane's back.

The assailants shoulders hit the alley floor, and he flipped Chane over himself, following on the momentum. Chane's sword clattered from his grip as he landed facedown on the packed dirt. The assailant ground his knees into Chane's back as he pulled the wire tight.

Chane pushed up on all fours. His opponent pulled harder on the wire. Black fluid seeped around it down Chane's throat as he reached back to grab for the fingers holding one of the garrote handles.

Welstiel pulled his own sword, for things had gone too far.

The inn's rear door swung inward and two men in yellow felt tabards over chain vests rushed out, wide-bladed sabers in hand. Welstiel pulled back again.

"You, there!" one guard shouted at Chane. "Stop!"

Two more men appeared at the alley's far end, coming up next to the noblewoman.

Chane's opponent released one garrote handle and jerked the other as he thrust with his knees. The wire lashed Chane's throat as he was propelled forward, skidding facedown in the alley. The gray-clad man turned and fled the opposite way.

One guard closed in, trying to pin Chane down with his boot. Chane rolled away against the alley's far wall and kicked out into the man's stomach. The guard's feet left the ground as he slammed back into his companion. Both men hit the inn's half-open door, and it tore from its hinges as they toppled into the rear hallway.

Chane snarled at them. When he saw the other two near the woman, he fled down the alley in the wake of his opponent. One guard with the noblewoman began to follow.

"No!" she ordered, and he immediately halted. "Get me inside and wake the baron."

Welstiel waited as the woman was escorted into the Bronze Bell. Soon the alley was empty. An unknown guardian had been watching over this woman. Welstiel wanted no part of this. All he wanted was to keep Magiere under his control. Chane's erratic behavior had created unwanted attention. He slipped down the alley to track down his lunatic companion.

Leesil sat at a table in the common room of Byrd's inn, where he could face the front door.

anmaglahk had come to Venjetz, the home of his youth, just as he himself had come looking for his past. Of all places and people, they'd come here to Byrd the very night Leesil had arrived.

One too many coincidences, in a land where happenstance made the wise wary.

Few of the cats were still about. Night was the time for such creatures- and others-to prowl about their business. Leesil stared at the drawings, trying to speculate upon their many missing details, and the front door's latch creaked.

Byrd stepped inside. He froze at the sight of Leesil, then quickly closed the door.

"Couldn't sleep either, eh?" he said, and casually tossed his cloak atop the bar.

Leesil shoved the drawings to the table's center. "What are these for?"

Byrd remained relaxed, perhaps contemplating a response. Leesil watched the man's hands as much as his eyes. His cuffs were rolled up twice, exposing thick wrists bare of anything up his sleeves.

"Been nosing about in my things," Byrd observed without answering. "Not many could've found those."

There were no signs of Leesil's own training in Byrd, though there was something in the way the man planted himself before the table. The last eight years since Leesil's escape felt as if they'd never happened.

He'd never left this land any more than Byrd had. They were both part of the world Darmouth and his father had made. Across the table from Leesil stood a cunning friend, a deceitful enemy, or most likely both. Few but the two of them understood that it wouldn't matter either way. Not when the moment came to kill Byrd.

"Why were you talking to an anmaglahk? Leesil continued. "Have they been watching for me… reporting to you?"

Byrd paused too long. Long enough for Leesil to see he understood what the question said as clearly as what it asked. Byrd knew more than he shared, perhaps playing Leesil to some end from the moment he'd arrived.

"You've a high opinion of yourself," Byrd answered. "Do you think you're the only one of interest to them?"

Leesil realized his error. His second question revealed he had a history at odds with these particular elves. In turn, Byrd's answer said much as well.

Byrd hadn't questioned the strange Elvish term Leesil used, so the man was well aware of what these elves were. This begged another question. How had Byrd made their acquaintance and gained their assistance for… whatever… when they detested humans?

Tension held fast beneath the pretense of polite conversation.

"What should I think?" Leesil asked. "Why else would they be here?"

Byrd cocked his head ever so slightly. He slipped his right hand behind his back slowly enough that the movement would be clearly seen. When he withdrew it, a wide blade protruded like a squat spade from across the knuckles of his fist.

Leesil relaxed all tension in his body.

Most people tensed when threatened, but tight muscle didn't react quickly enough in the final moment. Leesil had spent his entire youth altering his instincts, shaping them. He lazily shifted one forearm beneath the table, tilting it between his thighs, until a stiletto hilt slid into his hand.

Byrd stepped to the table, remaining noticeably out of arm's reach. He pressed the blade's tip slowly into the table's surface. When he released his grip, it remained poised there, tilted toward him as he pulled out a chair and sat down across from Leesil.

"So what's your gripe, lad?" he asked like a concerned father giving all his attention to an angry son.

Still relaxed, Leesil glanced at the blade.

Wide and long as a hand's palm, it resembled a skinner's blade for working hide. No guard, with a short "hilt" ending in a crossbar, it was gripped in one's fist to cut, stab, or gouge a target. The naive would see its open display like raising empty hands or releasing one's weapon in good faith.

Leesil knew better what it meant. Byrd was an infighter.

Not like Leesil, with thin stilettos used for surprise or lethal subtlety or the weaponless ways taught by his mother. Byrd would come straight in with speed, weight, and muscle for a close encounter. He wouldn't care what it cost him so long as he finished his opponent first. Brutal efficiency in place of cunning precision.

Whatever Byrd chose to do, it would be backed by determination few possessed and most wouldn't care to face. He did not attack; instead, he sighed.

"I didn't know you were coming," he said, "and these drawings have nothing to do with you. None of this has to do with you, lad."

"Back in Bela, I met one of these elves," Leesil said. "His name was Sgaile, and he hinted that my mother was alive, imprisoned by her people. Did your friends tell you-"

"Nein'a alive?" Byrd asked quickly, and his surprise appeared genuine. "You heard this from one of them?"

"Not exactly." Leesil wondered if this might work in his favor, if Byrd began questioning his associates, but it seemed just one more risk of betrayal. "There was enough implication in Sgaile's words, and, if true, I needed to know if Gavril survived as well. So I came here. Did you know she might still be alive?"

Byrd shook his head as he growled back. "I didn't know! If I had, I would've-"

'Perhaps you were preoccupied," Leesil countered with a quick glance at the drawings, hoping to keep Byrd off balance. "With too many missing pieces."

Byrd's voice took on an open, hard edge. "Did you even look at the state of these lands-of the people-on the way here?"

"Yes."

"Would you help them, if you could?"

"That's a pointless question."

"Would you?"

Leesil suddenly felt like a fool. A second-rate one, at that, as pieces of Byrd's scheme started to become clear.

Whoever was getting the details for Byrd's drawings did so piece by erratic piece. As if there was no telling when, how, or where the next scrap might be acquired. Byrd's informant wasn't a regular or confidant of Darmouth's close company, but someone who gained rare and limited access within the keep. Such an undependable source meant all other avenues were closed to Byrd, or Darmouth had grown so paranoid that no one close to him could be enticed. It also meant the informant was someone desperate, perhaps fanatical, who had succumbed to the delusion of revolution-Byrd's delusion.

Leesil knew of such. He had betrayed many in his youth. And though it was mostly guesswork, there was the other hint they'd already discussed-the anmaglahk.

"How much longer will it be," Leesil asked, "before you're ready to kill Darmouth?"

Not that he cared, since it would be no help to him. Every question Byrd ignored strengthened this new realization as well as Leesil's first suspicion. Byrd might play any side to get what he wanted, even the son of an old friend.

"I know nothing more of your parents," Byrd said flatly, as if Leesil had never asked about Darmouth. "Nothing more than what I've told you."

"Do you think removing Darmouth will change anything?" Leesil continued, offering his father's old friend one more chance to talk. "How many officers and so-called nobles wait eagerly to take his place? It's how Darmouth's own grandfather came to power."

Byrd continued in his own conversation, still ignoring Leesil's questions. "But don't stop looking for your parents on my say-so. I've not much but guesses and scant facts concerning Nein'a and Gavril, but perhaps those drawings might give you some leads."

He stood up.

Leesil sat upright, feet flat on the floor, and spun the stiletto in his palm. He lifted the blade until the point was just below the table's edge.

One slap of his free hand would flatten and pin Byrd's blade to the table as the man reached for it. And that movement would provide a clear opening to pierce Byrd below the jaw… slide the stiletto tip up along the spine into the base of the skull.

Byrd turned away, lifted his cloak carefully from the bar, and trudged toward the stairs.

"I'm going to bed. You should do the same. I'll let you know if I need the drawings, but best you don't leave them lying about."

Leesil stared after the man he'd been waiting to kill. The little he'd uncovered hadn't settled his suspicions, and still he'd hesitated when the moment came.

Perhaps he should take Magiere, Wynn, and Chap and head straight into the mountains to find a way to the elves' homeland. But what if Sgaile had lied? He'd be leading his companions into an unknown territory, where humans would be unwelcome, and all for no reason. What if his father was alive, somehow, locked away beneath the keep?

Byrd disappeared at the top of the stairs.

The moment had passed, and Leesil looked down at the squat blade in the tabletop and the unfinished drawings of Darmouth's keep. Indecision began to build to despair as the front door's latch creaked once again.

Leesil reversed the stiletto, grasping the blade as he swung his hand wide, ready to throw. The door opened, and the common room's low light spilled outward to reveal a pale face in the dark.

"Put that away," Magiere said.

She stepped in, closing the door. Her black hair hung loose across the shoulders of her hauberk, which was buckled down and fitted for combat. Her falchion was unsheathed in her grip.

Leesil felt an unexplained chill at the sight of her. "What were you doing out there?"

"I don't trust that man," she said. Her irises turned dark at the sight of the blade stuck in the tabletop. "What happened here that I didn't see?"

"You were listening?" Leesil replied. "I told you to stay away. I'll handle Byrd my-"

"Your judgment has been…" Magiere snapped, but never finished. "I told you, you're not leaving my side. And don't fight me about it again."

Leesil looked away. Magiere tried to play bodyguard, yet couldn't see that she was the one who needed protecting. She didn't understand this world. Leesil's hand shook as he slid the stiletto back into its sheath.

"Go to bed," he told her, trying to sound calm. When she was about to argue, he added, "I'll be along once I've gathered the drawings and put out the lanterns."

Her gaze shifted sharply to the wrist where he'd just sheathed his blade. She sheathed her own sword and headed up the stairs.

Leesil sat back, and his hands trembled.

Magiere had been outside the whole time.

He'd come here prepared to kill an old acquaintance. That was just the way of things, and there was nothing to feel about it. When it happened… if it had happened… at any sound of struggle, Magiere would've rushed in to protect him.

Only to see him murder a man in front of her.

"You fool!"

Welstiel had no trouble following Chane, and waited until he was certain that Chane was alone in an alley before closing on him. As Chane spun about, Welstiel grabbed him and slammed him against a stone wall to the alley's side.

Chane did not resist. His neck still oozed black fluid from the garrote line just above the scar of his beheading. His eyes were vacant and desolate, as if he did not know where he was or did not care.

Welstiel released his grip and stepped back. Common sense told him it was time to get rid of Chane one way or another, but he did not wish to. Not yet.

"Now you do need to feed," he said. "We will go to the east side, far from the main gates and our inn. Some market area where refugee peasants try to hide."

Chane looked down at the black stains on his shirt where the stiletto had struck. "They plan to assassinate Darmouth. That was an elf that attacked me."

Welstiel stepped in close. "What? Who is planning this?"

With halting words and rasping voice, Chane recounted what he had seen and heard between the noblewoman and a man called "Byrd." Particularly that a homecoming half-breed stayed at the man's inn, which meant Magiere was there as well.

Welstiel listened carefully, anger fading. "It's not safe for you at the Bronze Bell. Those guards or the woman might recognize you. But I need to go back quickly, before the panic subsides. We passed an inn nearer the gate, the Ivy Vine. Do you remember it?"

Chane's composure returned, and he pulled his cloak over his wounded chest. "Yes, I saw it."

''Go and feed, but be cautious. Then get to the Ivy Vine and stay out of sight."

"What are you doing?"

"Go! I will gather our things and join you in a while."

Welstiel trotted down the alleyway, not bothering to watch which direction Chane took. He hurried back through the winding alleys, but stepped out to the main streets before approaching the Bronze Bell. He smoothed his hair, brushed at his cloak, and pulled on his black leather gloves before entering the front doors, like any wealthy patron with a purpose.

He was relieved at the sight of the yellow-surcoated guards still in a commotion. In the back foyer, the noblewoman sat upon the edge of a hardwood bench with red cushions a bit too worn. She held a white handkerchief to her neck. A slender man with reddish hair, perhaps ten or fifteen years her senior, sat protectively at her side, barking angry questions at the guards around them.

"What do you mean, 'he just ran away'? Why didn't you run him down?"

Welstiel pushed between two guards and stepped directly before the noble couple.

"Forgive me. Is the lady all right? I tried pursuing the villain myself but lost him in the alleys."

The woman and her protector displayed mild surprise at his sudden intrusion. One guard even stepped in to push him back. Welstiel held up his open hands and proffered a curt but respectful bow of his head to the couple.

"Pardon me. I am Viscount Andraso. I was returning to my room when I heard the lady cry out. When I entered the alley, your men were already at her side, and I saw the creature flee."

"Creature?" The red-haired nobleman blinked and stood up, offering the short nod of a superior to a lesser or unknown noble. "I am Baron Emel Milea. This is the Lady Hedi Progae. You said a 'creature' attacked her?"

"It was a man," Lady Progae said calmly, shifting the cloth at her throat. "Some madman."

Lady Progae's shoulder-length hair curled like black silk around her pale face. Her nose was so small and narrow that Welstiel wondered how she could breathe through it. She grew lost in thought, and the longer she lingered there, the more doubt filled her refined features.

"He… his teeth were…" she began. "He was so strong."

Another guard, too young and obviously unsettled, nodded to the baron. "It's true. I saw him just before he kicked Tolka into me. He wasn't right, with teeth like an animal, not a man."

A stocky and scruffy guard snorted and pushed the young one back.

"Don't start again, Alexi, or you'll frighten Lady Progae," he warned, then carefully appraised Welstiel. "Your attempt at help is appreciated, sir, but we'll handle this."

"I do not think so," Welstiel replied, noting that Lady Progae hardly seemed frightened. "And I pity any of your men who catch up with this thing. Have you ever hunted an undead… a vampire?"

"What…?" the stocky guard sputtered angrily.

"What nonsense are you suggesting?" Baron Milea interrupted. He looked down at his lady, but her eyes were fixed on Welstiel.

"You know I am correct," Welstiel said. "They saw its face. They can attest to its strength, as well as the lady. And how else would you explain her throat? Tell me, Lady Progae, how did his touch feel? Cold, perhaps?"

"It's a winter's night," Tolka insisted, but behind him young Alexi looked more and more unsettled.

Hedi Progae remained silent a moment. "I will not jump to conclusions, but I admit he was unnatural."

"What about the other?" Tolka asked. "The tall one fighting with him who scampered off first?"

"He was trying to help me," Lady Progae said quickly. "Just a passerby who became frightened by so many guards. Focus your efforts on the… this madman before he harms anyone else."

"They will not find him," Welstiel said with a slow shake of his head. "No one will find him except a hunter of the dead, a dhampir."

Silence followed. Folklore and superstitions of the undead were not uncommon. Some of Welstiel's listeners might infer his meaning, if any of them had heard tales of such a hunter, let alone a dhampir. Welstiel kept quiet, letting his words sink in. A third guard listening from the archway sighed and stepped nearer.

"Much as I hate agreeing with the whelp," he said, cocking his head toward young Alexi, "I saw those teeth, too. It wasn't a man."

Baron Emel Milea settled down beside Lady Hedi Progae and gently took the cloth she held, lifting it from her throat. Welstiel noted that the white handkerchief was only slightly stained. Chane must have just broken her skin when he was assaulted from above.

"Are you…" the baron began as he looked up at Welstiel. "Do you know how to hunt such a thing?"

"No, but there is someone within the city who does," Welstiel replied. "Her services and those of her confederates can be costly, and she requires a free hand. She would need to be retained by the lord of the city before agreeing."

The baron leaned close to his lady. They spoke softly to each other, and then he returned his attention to Welstiel with a curt nod. "I will try to arrange an audience for tomorrow."

Welstiel returned a courteous bow. "My schedule will not be free until after dusk. Oh, and city business requires me to change inns. Have word sent to me at the Ivy Vine."

Polite farewells were exchanged, and Welstiel turned up the stairs toward his room. Finding Magiere would not be difficult armed with the information Chane had given him, and he would soon regain control of her. He almost smiled.

Chap lay on the thick rug beside Wynn's bed as she slept, and the kittens, Tomato and Potato, were curled around her on the pillow. Their rumbling purrs were louder than Chap thought possible for such annoy-ing little things. Even so, he would not have rested if the room were silent.

Something had gone wrong in the Droevinkan forest, when he had tried to cleanse wild magic from the young sage. Instead, her mantic sight had merely gone dormant and now began to remanifest in new ways. Though this bothered him deeply, it was not why he remained restless and unable to sleep.

Each time he closed his eyes, Chap saw images of Nein'a and of her mother, Eillean. And he remembered the name Byrd had used for the elf who had come in the night. The name had been shortened, which was why Chap had not recognized it at first.

Brot'an. Brot'an'duive acaraj Leavanalhpa En wire gan'Daraglas.

Like all elvish names, it marked identity, lineage, and place in the world.

Dog in the Dark… born of Bending Elm (and) Joining Waters… from the clan of the Gray Oak.

Chap barely remembered the man who had accompanied Eillean when she had taken up a young majay-hi pup as a gift for her half-elf grandson.

As a pup, Chap had almost forgotten himself in his new existence among the brothers and sisters of his litter. Until his kin came to him, and then he relearned sorrow for the life in the forest he would set aside. His kin whispered into him through a dragonfly's buzzing wings as he chewed on the heads of wild grass beside a rippling stream.

It is time… the moment for your beginning… to go to the one caught between two peoples, two worlds. You will be with him… guide him… to one day steal the heart of the sister of the dead.

Chap let go of the grass, though some of its seeds stuck to his nose. He tried to "remember" what more there was behind the words of his kin.

This task was part of why he had taken flesh-to steal the sister of the dead from the Enemy-but other memories were hazy and faded. His new flesh, mind as well as body, did not hold all the awareness he had shared as a Fay. Flesh had severed much of the knowing that they shared as one. He had to trust in his kin for what he no longer remembered.

Bur he understood that they now reminded him of why he had freely chosen to be born.

Chap scampered back to the glen where his "mother" and siblings roamed the village.

Few of the elves were about. Most would be busy with the day's labors or out gathering sustenance from the deep forest. In nearly three moons of "life," Chap had learned much of their language. Their strange sounds-words-brought flickering memories with each utterance. It was how he learned their speech, though language seemed such a limited way to share meaning.

Their domiciles were a mixture of shaped living things. Hollows were nurtured in the growth of massive trees until spaces within their wide trunks formed warm and dry places to sleep. Ivy and briar bushes tangled in low tree branches to create walls for exterior spaces where family and friends rested midday or gathered to share meals. Yellow-green moss covered the grounds within the village, where Chap often lounged or tussled with his siblings.

He curled up before an arch made of twining primroses that formed an entryway to a cedar with a cultivated hollow. The tree was wide enough that the outstretched arms of a dozen men could not encompass it. The place provided a home for one family. There Chap waited, ignoring the taunts of his siblings wanting him to come play.

An elder woman came at dusk.

Her cowl, cloak, vestment, and breeches of soft wool were a deep green that sometimes seemed the charcoal gray of shadow. Her expression was flat and hard. Faint lines around her large eyes and small mouth suggested she was old for her kind, though still shy of a hundred years. Chap looked in her eyes and sensed worry, determination within regret, and scarred-over pain.

A young elven girl and boy, their hair tucked behind narrow peaked ears, peered out from the cedar tree's hollow.

"Eillean!" the girl whispered with adoration and awe.

The woman glanced over at the two children with a soft smile. Chap saw it was only a polite response that hid an inner emptiness.

A memory surfaced in the young girl, and Chap saw her playing make-believe alone in the forest, mimicking Eillean's imagined exploits. The girl had picked an old oak to pretend at presenting herself to Aoishenis-Ahare, Most Aged Father. She would take up service to her people like the great Eillean.

It puzzled Chap why anyone would want to be someone other than who they were, which was impossible. He looked at the elder female elf through the girl's surging memories-which told him more than words could. Not just who the woman was, but what she was.

anmaglahk.

Stealthy warriors, guardians, and agents of Most Aged Father, they sacrificed hearth and home, leaving behind the elven sanctuary in order to keep it safe. A caste unto themselves, separate from the clan structure, they worked in secret within the human lands to ensure nothing there could ever send harm toward their people.

Before Eillean stopped in the village's open space, the soft sound of her steps upon the moss carried another message from Chap's kin, the Fay.

This one will take you to the boy.

Eillean, whose name meant "Sandpiper," watched Chap's siblings tumble about the moss carpet. When her gaze fixed on Chap, a memory from Eillean washed over him.

He saw a half-elven youth with white-blond hair crouched behind a lakeshore house. Eillean's grandson, Leshil, whose name meant "Colored with Rain" or "Tint of the World's Tears," had never met his grandmother. When passing through the land where he lived, she stopped to watch for him from across the lake. A stone fortification sprouted from the water, and the boy looked up, quick and furtive, before slipping inside the house.

Eillean glanced once more at Chap's siblings, then crouched down before him.

Chap sat up, staring into her large amber eyes.

His presence brought a childhood memory of her own, watching a yearling majay-hi run through the forest. Chap took that memory and repeated it to her, over and over, alongside the one of the lone half-elven boy. The two memories linked.

No elf would take a majay-hi from the forest, as they were free-willed creatures of the land. Chap knew he could force her, dominate her will, but he did not.

Eillean scowled, her eyes narrowing at the small pup before her. The more she stared, the more what she saw began to form a memory.

Chap saw his own image surface in Eillean's thoughts. He took it and repeated it alongside the one of the boy named Leshil.

Eillean frowned, looking troubled, as if what she contemplated were immoral.

Chap rocked up on his haunches, putting his paws on her knee where she crouched before him. He stuck his nose up at her brown, triangular face and barked once.

One of Eillean's delicate and slanted eyebrows raised. Chap rolled the memories through her awareness once more with a bark. She lifted him in her slender dark hands.

Her touch felt cold and betrayed no love or affection. But Chap's memory-play would have worked only if some compassion and warmth were buried deep within her. She pulled up the loose fabric wrap around her neck until it covered her lower face. Chap felt a stab of loss, longing for the touch of his mother's tongue or the press of his siblings at night, as Eillean carried him away from the village.

She did not go alone. She stopped in the forest and waited. Another came to join her.

Brot'an'duive.

"Dog in the Dark" dressed the same as Eillean, and only his large eyes and the bridge of his long nose were visible above his face wrap. Chap saw more of him through Eillean's memory, and his thin-lipped mouth was nearly always held in a stern line. Silvery hair marked him as old, though younger than she was. Standing half a head above Eillean, he was tall even for an elf, and more solidly built than most of his people.

Chap sensed inner turmoil in the elder male elf, as if he too had grown weary and disillusioned with his place in the world. It made him feel alone among the anmaglahk, except perhaps for Eillean.

Their journey was long, passing through the elven forest and into desolate and cold mountains. Chap's companions spoke little at all along the way. It seemed there was nothing to say, or whatever lay in their thoughts was so akin in guardedness that words were unnecessary. Chap lost count of the days and nights, shivering in Eillean's arms, as at times the snow was too deep for his short legs. On the mountain range's far side they entered wooded foothills, staying clear of roads that appeared now and then. When they finally reached their destination late one night, Chap recognized it immediately.

The lake and keep within Eьlean's memory.

Bright red-orange fires burned atop its four corner towers, and Chap smelled decay and death for the first time. It stung his insides as well as his nose.

They circled halfway around the shore, until the keep stood on their left in the lake and the city houses were visible beyond it. Brot'an waited silently as Eillean cradled Chap in one arm and pulled a silver mirror from inside her vestment. She looked up, and Chap followed her gaze to the bright moon free of night clouds.

Eillean caught the moon's light upon the mirror, then angled the bright surface toward the lakeshore. It seemed impossible to Chap that the moon provided enough light, but she continued flashing the mirror until three answering sparks appeared in one house's upper window. The same house Chap had seen in her memory. Not long after, soft footsteps approached through the forest.

A young elven woman appeared in dark breeches and shirt beneath a charcoal cloak. Her resemblance to Eillean was clear to Chap. White-blond hair hung loose around her tall, narrow frame. Her amber eyes were as hard as her mother's. Eillean held Chap out, speaking in their native tongue.

"Cuirin'nen'a, my daughter… for the boy."

Cuirin'nen'a-"Water Lily's Heart"-took Chap, and he felt a difference in her hands from those of her mother. She pulled him carefully to her chest to warm him. Hidden tenderness in her touch belied her cold gaze, and this tenderness deepened as Chap caught the daughter's memory of her own son. She had another name for the boy-Leesil.

"Thank you," she said. "A companion may keep him whole in the face of what we must do to him."

"He has a task ahead in his life," Eillean answered sharply. "One for which he cannot be influenced by our people's ways. This pup is small compensation, but spare Leshil nothing in training. There is no room for compassion if he is to learn the ways of his father and those of our caste."

Chap's ears perked up. He did not understand what was behind these words. There were images that lashed through Cuirin'nen'a's thoughts, but she crushed them so quickly that Chap saw little. No more than bone, blood, stained blades, and silence in the dark. Chap remained quietly still.

These three were anmaglahk, yet they spoke of a plot unknown to the rest of their own kind. Subversion seemed a strange and unfamiliar thing for the guardian caste of the elves.

"I am not so certain," Brot'an added quietly.

Eillean turned on him. "I stood for you, when it came time for you to join us in this… to be a part of our plan. We need a better way than that which Most Aged Father demands in his fear. If you had doubts, you should have said as much before we allowed you among us."

"Mother, enough," Cuirin'nen'a said. "He only voices the doubts we all have at some time. And no matter what the necessity, it is my son we prepare like a tool. I will never stop aching for him."

Eillean shook her head slowly and gave her daughter no reply.

"Most Aged Father has waited many years," Brot'an said to Cuirin'nen'a. "He grows suspicious of the reasons we bring him for why you have not dealt with Darmouth by now."

"My reason remains the same," she answered. "It is true that Darmouth's death would throw his province into turmoil, but the other War-lands provinces still fear facing one another in open war. And open war is what Most Aged Father wants, not just an internal conflict over who will rule in one province."

"There may come a time when Most Aged Father will not settle for this answer," Eillean said.

"Then keep him distracted with his plans elsewhere," Cuirin'nen'a replied. "If war among the humans is to be seeded here, then Darmouth must die at a time of unrest throughout the Warlands. Otherwise he will be quickly replaced by one of his own scheming nobles."

Brot'an shook his head. "We have already counseled this-"

"Then do so again," Cuirin'nen'a snapped. "Let Most Aged Father continue to think that turning humans upon one another is the only way.

He is intent upon crippling them, for fear that they will be the waiting forces and minions of this ancient beast he believes will come again."

"Perhaps he is right," Brot'an added. "I only wonder if a choice between his way or ours is necessary. Weakening the humans might be wise as well."

"So we hack at an unseen monster's body," Eillean spit at him, "instead of severing its head? We have been over this countless times before you were even among us! We must train Leshil to take that head!"

"We can see the monster's body," Brot'an replied, "in the human hordes spreading across this world. We have yet to see its head. We know nothing of this ancient adversary Most Aged Father dreams of."

"Only because he refuses to tell us," Cuirin'nen'a finished. "And the rest of our caste still follow him in blind faith."

Chap began to tremble. These three planned to kill an unseen enemy from the deep past, though they had no concept of what they sought. Only that their patriarch feared its return and that the humans would be its engine of war. Chap understood what they toyed with in their ignorance.

It was the Enemy. Chap had taken flesh to seek out and steal its creation, the sister of the dead. It was now clear he was not the only one trying to use Leesil for a hidden purpose. Perhaps his own scheme would at least save the boy from a hopeless fate at his own mother's hands. Chap squirmed and whined.

Cuirin'nen'a looked down, folding her arms closely about him.

"The reason Darmouth still lives remains the same," she said to the others. "It is not the correct time… and Most Aged Father must have enough patience to accept this."

Brot'an took a slow breath, then finally nodded. Eillean reached out and touched her daughter's cheek in farewell.

Cuirin'nen'a carried Chap into the stifling city of dark smells and dark corners. She took him to the house on the shore below the stone keep. She fed him goat's milk and shredded partridge. After, he lounged in her lap near the kitchen hearth as she stroked his back. And Chap waited.

When dawn arrived, a bleary-eyed young Leesil came down into the kitchen and saw Chap in his mother's lap. There was so much delight in his face that he tensed with a shudder, as if such a feeling were rare and startling. Chap forcefully wagged his tail, not allowing mother or son to know that he was anything more than a new playmate. Leesil wrestled with the pup upon the kitchen floor under his mother's silent and watchful gaze. Chap's heart eased a bit. He had not lost a mother and siblings after all. He had a brother to watch over-to guide. And in the years that followed Leesil's flight from home, Chap kept hidden the few hints he had of Nein'a's plans.

Lying sleepless in Wynn's room, he wondered again at the reappearance of Brot'an. Leesil must never meet this man.

But Chap also wondered over the fate of the mother who had taken him in.

Nein'a should not be his main concern, as his own path was crucial to the world as a whole in guiding Magiere and Leesil. But he could not turn from this search, as Nein'a's fate mattered much to Leesil. It mattered to Chap, as well.