The Coming Storm (44 page)

“And me,” she said. “And me.” That image, beyond that door. “You and Colath, Jareth, Jalila. All in chains. So much blood. Me with a soul-eater, putting it on you.”

Chains on the soul.

That image was such a shock Elon’s mind recoiled from it. Chains on him, bound. And on Colath, his true-friend. To see him and the others chained and battered. Men had done that more once to his kind over the centuries. To have seen that, to have that thrown against her. To know what it meant to them. Men could only stand so much. Elves had no such release but they understood the concept of time. To see herself, betraying as she’d been betrayed.

She turned to look at him and the expression in her eyes was fierce and angry. “It won’t happen. It won’t.”

Ailith straightened

Oaths bind you, Talesin had said. A light in the darkness.

“I will never betray you, Elon. Never,” she said, her voice strong, “not you nor any of the others. I will lift no hand in harm against you or them. He won’t use me to bind your souls. He won’t. I swear it on my honor, on my life and on my soul. It will not be.”

It was as if a deep and sonorous bell rang deep inside her.

“My hands will never lay such a thing upon you,” she said, vehemently.

Elon felt it, that shiver of binding magic. He looked at her, knowing what she’d just done, what she had bound to herself. Willingly. In the face of that, in the face of the pain Tolan had inflicted on her, Elon had to tell her, needed her to know what he himself knew to be true. She needed to hear it and from him.

“Until the day I would see such a thing with my own eyes,” he said, quietly. “I would never believe it possible. You would never do such a thing, not of your own will, Ailith, I know it. This I swear to you.”

He looked at her, let her see the truth of what he said in his eyes.

Ailith sighed. “And you wonder why I came to you?”

He allowed himself a small smile and then sobered.

“I’m sorry, Ailith, to have put you through such pain,” he said.

This Tolan had more to answer for now, to torture her this way. And make him a party to it.

“I needed to know,” he said, firmly, “Never fear to tell me.”

She shook her head. “It wasn’t fear, it was what I saw. How could I say such things to you? Look you and Colath in the eye and talk of such terrible things. Or Jareth and Jalila. To look in your faces and still see what I’d seen in that vision. I couldn’t.”

“Always,” he said, taking her hands so she would know it for truth and feel it, “you can. So you aren’t alone with it.”

It was true, she could sense it through the empathy, sense it and the core of strength that ran so deep in him.

“Your hands are cold,” he said, releasing them. “Go rest.”

Weary in body and soul, she nodded. She paused once on the stair to look back at him, a greater shadow against the darkness and then she went on.

Crossing his arms, Elon stared out into the night. It had been a day of unexpected revelations.

This Tolan and the other, that Dark figure Ailith had seen. A wizard with stolen Elven magic. The creatures of the borderlands massing. He thought of Aerilann and all of those in it all unknowing of what was about to be unleashed upon them. The heartland and all within it, Elves, Dwarves and Men, all unaware. He could still prove none of it. There remained Raven’s Nest and winter.

There had to be a way. Somehow they would find it.

When they awoke the next morning it was to find their horses saddled, bridled and awaiting them. So was one other. Talesin also waited for them, his arms folded, his pack at his feet.

“What are your plans?” Talesin asked.

“Knowing what we do, we have to find a way through Riverford lands to Raven’s Nest to warn them,” Elon said. “Ailith?”

Jareth said, “Not that Bridge again, please.”

Restraining a grin, Colath gave Elon a look.

Apologetically, she said, “It may be the only way. We can’t use the northern trail, not if what we saw in the Gorge is any hint. The only other way I know would be through Dwarven lands.”

There was a danger there, in bringing Ailith to those places. The Dwarves had more recent reason to hate Otherlings than the other races. If they discovered what she was they would kill her without a second thought. Yet, he should seek them out. They would have to tread carefully.

He looked at Ailith. She looked back evenly.

To look at her, there was no way to tell.

If she was willing to chance it…

“I would speak with the Dwarven Lore Masters anyway,” Elon said. “I would know what they think of this. What is it they sense?”

Talesin nodded. “It would be as well. The Lore Masters might be inclined to listen. It seems unlikely they won’t have noticed something amiss so close to their borders. They should be warned in any case.”

He hesitated for a moment, then handed Elon a silk-wrapped package. “You’ll need this, to help convince them. They’ll remember these.”

Holding the thing in his hand, knowing now what he knew of them, what their purpose was, Elon loathed it. Hated it, hated touching it even through the silk with every fiber of his being. He looked at Talesin, their eyes met. There was a like loathing there.

Talesin was right, though, he would need it.

“If you can find a way to destroy it, do it,” Talesin said. “We never could.”

They rode through the Veil around Talesin’s Enclave. The ancient Elf glanced back once and didn’t look back again.

After the third time Ailith did, looking with puzzlement back over her shoulder down the trail, Elon raised an eyebrow in question.

“There’s something. I can’t put a finger on it,” she said, frowning, in answer. “I thought I would look at the stars in my mind to see what I could sense around us. Practice so it wouldn’t make my head ache so much. After sensing the Guards, it seemed a good thought to try it now and then. There’s something or someone following us, I think. I can’t sense it well. There’s something odd about it.”

“Tolan,” Elon said. “His other tries have failed.”

Ailith nodded. “It’s likely. He knows he did, he said so.”

“So, what has he set upon our trail this time?”

“There is a ridge ahead,” Talesin suggested, “where we can see the track for some distance behind us.”

Trees obscured parts of the trail but other parts of it were clear. Through a break between the trunks they saw the riders but not clearly, eight or ten of them, it was difficult to tell for certain through the foliage.

“Men?,” Elon asked.

Ailith hesitated. She was clearly confused and frustrated. “Yes and no.”

“What is it?” Elon said.

“They’re not white lights, they’re gray,” she said, letting out a breath. “I would have missed them but for the fact that there’s no one but ourselves around. I thought only to see the difference, between there being something and nothing.”

Jareth said, surprised, “Testing it?”

She nodded. “To see what I can see and what I can’t. To sort one from another, nothing and something. So when I saw gray it didn’t make sense.”

Talesin suddenly went still. He took a breath. “Men but not men.”

Looking at him, Ailith nodded with relief. “Yes, that’s it.”

“What is it?” Elon said, looking at Talesin.

There was something in Talesin’s voice, some odd foreboding. A heaviness.

“Trackers.” Talesin took a breath, forced back the memories. “These, too, are of old. Men who have gone into service to dark wizards. There are men who glory in violence, who like to shed blood. They take pleasure in it. They have no magic of themselves, it’s imbued in them. Blood magic, a life in trade for it.”

“Murderers and thieves,” Jareth said. “Exiles.”

As punishment for their crimes, exile to the borderlands was a common sentence for men who took the life of another or for those who repeatedly broke the laws of men or the Agreement.

“Yes. Tolan has been busy it seems. In exchange for their service, they’re granted enhanced strength and endurance and the opportunity to indulge their basest desires. The wizard gets the benefit of the blood and pain. They’ll follow. They’re excellent hunters, by sight or by smell, that’s one of the gifts given to them. If the opportunity arises, they’ll try to capture any they may. For return to their master. It’s not a pleasant journey.”

His eyes intent, looking down the trail as the riders that followed behind them disappeared into the shadows of the trees, Elon said, “So, he tries for stealth this time, where brute force failed.”

“Likely they’ve been waiting, having tracked you this far. My Veil would have hidden your trail and kept them out,” Talesin said.

Jalila suggested, “We could outrun them, our horses can outpace theirs easily.”

“Perhaps,” Elon said, “But then we push the horses when we might need their strength later. Now, we know where they are. If they are the trackers Talesin says they are, they’ll find us again anyway. Better the enemy you can see than the one you can’t. “That is if Ailith can keep watch on them from time to time?”

“As much as I can and I’ll tell you if I can’t.”

She did.

Three days of it and the effort and tension of it was wearing on her. Always, always, those shadows were behind them, those gray images, despite Elon’s efforts to throw them off the trail. It was a futile effort, in the face of Talesin’s knowledge but they had to try.

Once Ailith lost their pursuers among the many lights that thronged around them in a small town and the fear she wouldn’t find them again left her shaken and unnerved. There had been too many bright lights overshadowing the gray ones. It was with relief that she had found them again amongst the other travelers on the road.

“They seem not to want much company or others don’t want theirs,” she commented. “There’s distance between them and anyone else.”

Jareth said, “If they’re the kind of men who enjoy violence for its own sake, you wouldn’t want to travel near them, either.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“Ailith,” Colath said. “We’ve been some time in the saddle, would you need to stretch your legs?”

He tapped his shortsword.

“If those that follow wish to watch, perhaps we’ll give them something to see.”

Forms and exercise. The thought of both lightened her heart and eased some of the fear and awful tension. If nothing else, she’d be able to work out some of the tightness that held her neck and shoulders in such a grip.

She grinned. “My pleasure.”

They set camp on the crest of a hill looking down upon a wide valley below. There was no visible sign of the trackers.

“Are they still there?” Elon asked.

Ailith nodded. “That ridge over there to the south. On the far side. Behind the trees.”

His dark eyes settled on her.

“Don’t tire yourself too much with Colath,” he said. “If you would also spar with me?”

That set a sparkle of anticipation in her eyes. “I don’t think Colath will mind much.”

“Colath,” Colath said, “won’t mind at all.”

It would do Elon some good as well, Colath thought, to exercise some of the demons that rode him of late. He’d been too quiet, too tense, since they’d left Talesin’s vale.

Settling in with his pipe, Jareth nodded to Talesin, “This will be something to watch.”

“Ah,” Talesin said, in satisfaction, as Ailith and Colath began the forms.

It was in a way like watching water flow. Each movement made was smooth and graceful, the patterns slow to allow muscles to warm as they shadowed each other, one tall and fair, the other smaller and a little darker. They followed the patterns, each step precise. In time, the tension in them gradually dropped away, their faces became more serene, as they were lifted out of themselves and became more at ease with the world.

There was about the forms a precision and intricacy that Colath loved, as each step trained body and mind so the movements became instinctive. Strike, block, parry, one motion flowing smoothly and effortlessly into the next and the next. Muscles moved and blood flowed.

Like a mirror, beside him Ailith matched him step for step, turn and spin. Her swords rose and fell in rhythm with his own.

Drawn by the simple movements, by the ease it offered his soul, Elon slid into the flow of movement as if it were inevitable and all three drifted effortlessly through the intricate patterns, the rise, fall and flow. They moved as one to create a web of grace and steel. It was like a meditation, as three minds merged and each understood instinctively where the other went. Each anchored the others.

To those who watched the smooth graceful movements were entrancing, soothing, drawing them into a spell of peace, of calm.

It felt to Elon as if he’d been troubled for far too long, this shadow of darkness hanging over him, but now he shared it out to the other two, as was only right.

Watching, it had been impossible for him not to feel the draw, the serenity and harmony it offered, impossible not to join them, although it had been long since he’d practiced the forms.

There had been so much to take his attention, first the negotiations with Daran, delicately avoiding the traps in which Daran tried to catch him, and therefore the Enclaves with him. So peace had been made, and then the Alliance forged, the Agreement written, the Council Chamber and building designed and built. In the midst of all that there were the affairs of the Enclave to be tended to as well. A generation of time for men but only a small fraction of his long life, yet it had dominated it. That fragile peace had been too important.

Once he and Colath had done the forms together regularly, in harmony with each other, restoring the connections between them, one to the other.

That was the other purpose of the forms, as a type of meditation, a reconnection of body and soul.

As he stepped into the pattern beside Colath, Elon realized it had been so long it seemed he’d forgotten how calming they were, how they centered him. He shook his head at himself.

Nor had he realized how much he needed to find the balance within again.

A connection opened within him and the empathy flowed from him to Colath to Ailith and back again, smoothly, bonds being forged and reforged, a new connection made, a piece falling into place. Shift the pattern, change the sequence and it ran from one to the other just as smoothly. A sense of immense peace settled over him, sure knowledge and confidence. Another piece of his life had fallen into place. Look to his right and there stood Colath as always, dependable, sure, the rock on which he could lean at his need. To his left now was, Ailith, her light spirit and joy an ease to his soul, as true and as sure.

To Ailith it was as if some part of her had been missing, some emptiness she hadn’t known was there was filled and yet she hadn’t even known it was there.

Here it was.

Like the sky above her head and the air she breathed, there was Elon, his will and knowledge an anchor to hold her steady against the raging tide of fate.

Colath was at her side, so strong, so sure, as solid as the earth beneath her feet.

With a sigh, Colath was caught up with them, the missing pieces of his soul fell into place, settled and took hold. A feeling of rightness, of belonging, of which he was the foundation, the rock on which they stood.

Talesin watched as the balance was struck and forged. Mind, heart and soul, all three. Grace, power and skill. He nodded, understanding now. He waited. The moment was coming, he could feel it.