The Dream Spheres (43 page)

Still Cassandra was not content. “What do you propose to do? And how will this not come back to our door, if it is known that you are involved?”

“Rest your mind on that,” he said. “I have allies no one will connect with this noble house or any other.”

She considered that, then let out a short, humorless laugh at the irony of the situation. “Do what you must, my son.” She hesitated, then gave him a smile that was genuine—all the more so for its self-mocking edge. “Sweet water and light laughter until we meet again.”

The traditional elven farewell surprised him, then left him feeling both confused and deeply touched. He did not understand this woman and would never find his way through the many layers and convoluted passages of her mind. This much he knew: she had given him her blessing, in words she knew would be meaningful to him. He took her hand and kissed her fingers, then turned and walked swiftly from the hall to prepare for the battle ahead.

The gathering at Greenglade Tower was far from cordial. Danilo soon realized that Elaith’s assessment of Waterdeep’s elves had been distressingly on the mark. Some of these elves had recently been evicted from the tower and were none too happy to learn that Elaith had given that order.

Nor were they willing to follow him. The mother of the elf who was slain at Belinda Gundwynd’s side angrily demanded to know if Elaith had anything to do with her son’s death. “Tell me, my lord,” she said with bitter mockery, “was this part of your vendetta against the noble clans?”

Before he could speak, Arilyn stepped forward. She placed a hand on her moonblade. “All of you know what this is. You know it cannot shed innocent blood, and that it can never be used to harm the People. If the task Elaith Craulnober asks of us is a right and true path, if the elf himself is worthy of our loyalty, the sword will honor him. If he falls, you will follow me. Will you accept that?”

There were many doubtful faces, but a murmur ran

through the crowd as a tall male stepped forward from the small knot of forest elves. Danilo knew at once who the elf was. Arilyn had spoken of her friend Foxfire as a warleader. This elf moved with the fluid grace of a warrior. Danilo had seen leaders before who possessed that quiet, indefinable strength that flowed like an aura, who inspired confidence in those around them. Never had he seen one who possessed this quality in such ample measure. If that were not proof enough, there was the elven naming custom in which given names were taken from an elf’s skills or appearance. Foxfire was aptly named, for his long russet hair had the gloss and color of a red fox’s pelt. Danilo noticed as objectively as possible that the elf was possibly the most strikingly handsome male of any race he had ever beheld.

Foxfire took a band from his arm and tossed it at the moon elf’s feet. It was a ritual Danilo had read of—no doubt the band carried the insignia of Foxfire’s position as warleader.

“I will honor the moonblade’s decision, and my people with me,” he said in musical, deeply accented Elvish. The forest elves rose and came to stand behind him. Of course, they could not know that the moonblade’s magic had been unreliable, even contradictory.

At that moment Danilo understood what Arilyn was doing. Fear rose in him like a tide. As if she sensed this, she turned and met his eyes. Gone was any hint of reserve. Her heart was in her eyes, and Danilo had no doubt that it was his. Nor did he doubt that this last, supremely honest gaze might well be her silent farewell.

Arilyn spun away and turned to Elaith. She drew her sword, raised it in challenge.

White-faced, the elf drew his weapon and mirrored her salute. There was no fear on his face, though he clearly expected to die. Danilo suspected that he wished for death. The answer Elaith sought from the Mhaorkiira had never come, but death by moonblade’s decree

would lay to rest the question that had haunted his soul. Danilo marveled at the unlike pair, the incredible courage of both elves.

Arilyn raised her sword for a powerful two-handed blow and brought it whistling down. She never got close.

A terrible flash lit the room. For a moment, Danilo’s horrified gaze perceived the outline of skull beneath Arilyn’s face, the bones in her arms. Then the vision was gone, and the half-elf lay on the floor. Her hands were blackened. Her eyes were open and staring, but she was utterly still.

Before Danilo could move, Elaith threw aside his sword and dropped to his knees. He balled one fist and pounded on the half-elf’s chest. He struck again, and then again. Instinctively Danilo moved to stop him, but Foxfire caught him and held him back.

“He does right,” the warleader said softly.

Danilo realized the truth in it. He nodded to show that he understood, then put aside the elf’s restraining hands and went to kneel beside his love and his elven friend. For several moments he could do nothing but watch as Elaith continued his brutal ministrations.

Arilyn suddenly drew breath in a sharp gasp. Her eyes shut as she struggled against the pain of her burns. When she had mastered herself, she opened her eyes and regarded the somber, watching elves.

“You have your sign,” she said in a faint, ragged voice. “Do as the elf lord bids you.”

A forest elf came forward, a small female, brown as a wren. “Go with the others,” she told Danilo brusquely. “I am a shaman and will heal her.” She looked to Foxfire to help her move the wounded half-elf. The warleader shook his head and nodded to Danilo.

Danilo carefully eased Arilyn into his arms and followed the shaman out of the room. “You expected that to happen,” he said softly.

She nodded once, with great effort, and turned to

Elaith. The moon elf followed at Danilo’s side, his eyes intent on Arilyn. His inscrutable calm was gone, shattered by the sacrifice his “princess” had made for the elven folk, the family of her human love, and for him.

“You did not get the Mhaorkiira, but you have your answer,” she said. “Are you content?”

An expression of wonder suffused the elf’s face. “All these years,” he marveled. “The things that I have done. I am beyond regret—beyond redemption, or so I thought.”

“Sometimes the difference between a rogue and a hero,” she said carefully, “comes down to who is telling the tale. Ask these elves who I am. They will speak of the moonblade. Ask humans, they will say assassin. It could be the same for you.”

“You’re talking too much,” scolded the shaman.

Arilyn’s eyes drifted shut. “Needed to be said.”

Danilo left her with the fierce little elf woman and returned to the main hall. Since Elaith did not seem to want to discuss what had just happened, he left that conversation for later and sought out Foxfire.

“That was a noble gesture,” he said. “A rare kindness to offer a stranger.”

The forest elf gave him an enigmatic smile. “I have seen you before, once, in a battlefield near my forest. Arilyn called all the elfshadows from her sword. Yours was among them.”

“No longer. That bond is broken.”

“Changed,” Foxfire corrected. “Never broken. She has need of you.”

This surprised Danilo. “How so?”

“Arilyn is courage. Never have I seen an elf who embodied courage so completely. However, she is half-elven, and so there are some qualities she lacks. Music and light laughter—these are as important to the elven soul as starlight. These she finds in you. See that you give them to her, and I will always name you a friend.”

There was truth in these words, and also the answer

Danilo had long sought. He raised one hand in the elven pledge. Foxfire laughed and extended his hand for the salute that human comrades exchanged. They clasped wrists, then joined the others in preparation for the battle to come.

Arilyn and the forest elves took to the rooftops. It felt odd, but amazingly right, to be back in the familiar company of her friends. The band took to the new challenge with ease, making their way across the uneven line of roofs as surefooted as squirrels.

They crept up to the Thann villa and circled the place where the tren attacks were to come: the garden shed with the false door that led into the tunnels. They got this in their sights and waited.

The night was dark, with a slim, fading moon and a thick mist. When the tren emerged from the shed, they blended into the shadows. Even to Arilyn’s heat-sensitive eyes, they were little more than a cool blur.

“No one but elves would have seen them,” the half-elf mused as she fitted her first arrow to her bow. “Oth wasn’t expecting this.”

At her side, Foxfire nodded and raised his bow. On his signal, all six elves fired.

The arrows dove in like silent, deadly falcons. A faint, rumbling cry drifted up to them, a sound that was abruptly and wetly silenced.

“We got at least one,” Arilyn said.

“Two,” the forest elf corrected. “There are three more. We should pursue?”

“No need. Listen.” There was a faint hiss as the surviving tren dragged their slain kin beyond range. “They eat their own rather than leave evidence of their presence,” she explained.

Foxfire shook his head in disgust. “All the same, some of us should stay here. You go along with the others.”

She nodded and placed a hand on his shoulder in farewell, then was gone, running lightly over the rooftops toward the Ilzimmer estate. A large shape loomed up in front of her, springing up over the edge of the roof’ so suddenly that she nearly ran into it. It was the tren who called himself Knute, distinguished by the ridge of festering scar over one eye.

The tren touched the wound. “I think I die soon. Wounded clan chief doesn’t live long-others will attack. But I will die wearing your blue hide.”

Arilyn danced back and drew her sword. “Notions of fashion in this city,” she said grimly as she circled in, “are getting entirely out of hand.” She lunged at the creature, a quick attack that forced him back on his heels. Immediately she pivoted into a half turn and swept her sword in low.

Knute turned also, protecting his hamstrings and swatting away the blow with his thick, short tail. The blade sliced deep, but there was little blood. Almost casually, the tren kicked aside the severed appendage. He swiped at Arilyn, a knife in each clawed hand-two quick, slashing blows.

She parried them both, but the pain of the impact jolted through her hands. The prayers of the shaman had healed the blackened skin, but the blow from the moonblade’s magic had dealt deep and possibly lasting damage. Arilyn fought aside a wave of weakness and fell back to prepare for the next attack.

To her surprise, it did not come. The tren looked confused, his tongue darting out and his huge head jerking back and forth as if he were trying to take stock of a host of new enemies. That, she realized, was precisely what he was trying to do. From the corner of her eye, Arilyn saw the ghostly image of a beautiful elf with enormous blue and gold eyes and hair the color of sapphires. The look that the elf gave her—at once bracingly stern and full of love—chased away any thought of weakness.

“Mother,” Arilyn murmured, welcoming the apparition even though it was yet another sign that her sword’s magic was breaking down.

She retreated another few steps and glanced around. All the elfshadows, all eight ancestors who had wielded her sword, prowled about the roof in battle-ready stance. The tren’s gaze darted from one to another, his tongue flicking out to taste their scent. After a few moments of this, the creature began to advance. Unlike humans, he had no fear of spirits. If he could not smell them, they were not real enough to concern him.

Arilyn lifted her sword in guard position. The tren came in hard, slashing at her with both knives. She turned her sword this way and that to block the attacks. Each one throbbed through her battered hands, and the pain grew so intense that her vision began to blur into a red haze.

A musty, heavy weight sagged against her. For a moment Arilyn thought that she had taken too much punishment, that oblivion was claiming her. Suddenly the weight was gone, and the moonblade was torn from her slack hands.

For some reason, the sudden release steadied her. Her vision cleared, and settled upon Danilo’s stricken face. The tren lay dead at her feet, killed by three quick cuts of his sword.

She noticed her hands. Danilo held them both in his, gripping the translucent fingers hard enough to send

renewed pain singing through her veins. Nonetheless, she did not let go, for she saw what he had seen when he looked at her. She could see through her own hands, almost as clearly as she could see the city below through the ghostly forms of her ancestors.

“Not now,” Danilo said, his eyes defying the waiting shadows. “Not yet.”

She felt him reaching through the link that bound them, and sensed new strength begin to edge into her battered form.

“I’m filling in,” she said. It was an odd term, but it suited. Color and substance were returning to her hands. She pulled them free of Danilo’s grasp and held them up for his inspection. Danilo caught one of her hands and gave the fingers a quick, grateful kiss. He then stooped and retrieved the blade. Dimly she realized that it dealt no harm to him, but that did not surprise her. The sword’s magic was utterly distorted, so much so that it had turned upon her and was sapping her very lifeforce.

“The Mhaorkiira,” she said, understanding what was likely at work. “It’s close.”

He stopped in midstride and threw the moonblade aside. “You cannot do anything to fight it. Stay here, or leave that sword.”

Arilyn could do neither. She brushed past him and stood poised at the roof’s edge. “Bring it with you,” she said, and then leaped into the night.

Danilo’s heart missed a beat, then he heard the light thud of her boots landing on the roof just a few feet below. He picked up the sword and followed her to Diloontier’s Perfumes, and from there into the tunnels below.

It was there that the surviving tren were to meet. The elves had done their work well—there had been but few survivors. The bodies of tren and elves alike spoke of the final brutal battle that had taken place. All that remained of this band was the large tren facing off against Elaith.

“Easy victory,” Arilyn said confidently.