He cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and started to sing.
At first nothing happened. But halfway through the melody, Kevin felt a tingle run through him, head to foot Magic, he prayed, let it be magic ...
And it was. For the first time in all the weary years of study he felt the song, felt each syllable, each note, as a separate wonder ringing in his mind. Listening to that wonder, he slid more and more deeply into his music ... though he was vaguely aware of something outside himself being different ... the darkness ... ? Surely it wasn’t quite as dark ... ?
Powers! He and his lute were—glowing! They were actually glowing with a pale, steady light!
“Terrific!” Lydia yelled—”Keep it going, just like that”
But all at once Kevin was terrified of what he had done. A childish part of his mind jibbered that he should stay what he’d been, ordinary, unimportant, safe. The bardling’s concentration slipped. His fingers stumbled on the strings, breaking the spell. As the pale light began to fade, his voice faltered to a stop. Kevin slumped, suddenly so weary from (he energy loss of a failed spell he could barely stay in the saddle.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“Sorry!” Lydia echoed. “That was amazing!”
“No, it wasn’t. If I’d done it right, the light would have lasted even after I stopped singing.”
“Well, never mind,” the woman said cheerfully. “You’ll get it right next time.”
Kevin clenched his jaws before he could say something he’d regret The last thing he wanted right now was to be patronized, even by someone who meant well.
What was I trying to prove? I couldn’t hold onto even the simplest song-spell. Fin not a Bard. Maybe I never will be.
At least the two elves weren’t trying to be kind. But it didn’t help to hear Tich’ki chortling to herself, “Just like a human! Disappointed because he’s been de-lighted!”
Once the party had fed and watered the horses, and picketed them in a line, and eaten a dinner of cold meat and bread, there wasn’t much else to do. Kevin tried to start a conversation with the others, but nobody else seemed to want to talk. He sat back, disgruntled. This camp was hardly like those in the old songs: those songs in which a cheery group of comrades on the road gathered beneath the stars. If there were stars, they were totally hidden by the roof of leaves. And except for Lydia and Tich’ki, the comrades were strangers to each other, and not in a very cheery mood.
Naitachal sat as silently as a black-wrapped statue, a darker part of the night just outside the ring of firelight. Eliathanis, polishing his silvery elf-sword with slow, methodical strokes, light glinting off the blade with each upstroke, was almost as silent, though he kept shooting wary, hostile glances at the Dark Elf. Kevin attempted a few practice scales on his lute, not daring to try any magic lest it fail, just keeping his fingers limber. But he gave up after Tich’ki sneered every time he missed a note. And Lydia prowled round and round their camp like some cautious wild thing until the bardling couldn’t stand it any longer.
“What are you doing?”
“Checking,” came the short answer, “just checking. Don’t like the idea of something sneaking up on us without us having some way out”
“Nothing lurks out there.” Naitachal’s soft voice made everyone start. “Nothing living.” With superb timing, the Dark Elf waited till the others had a chance to imagine undead horrors before adding lightly, “Except, of course, for the small, normal creatures of the forest.”
“Oh, thank you,” Lydia muttered.
Naitachal glanced up as the woman passed him in her circlings. “There is a rather large skeleton under the leaves just to your left. It was a wolf, I believe, and it is still in fairly good condition. If you wish, Lydia, I can summon it up to stand guard.”
She gave him a look of sheer horror. “Uh, no, that won’t be necessary. I—”
“We will have none of your foul sorceries!” Eliathanis’ sword glinted in his hand.
“You melodramatic fool.” Naitachal’s voice was quietly deadly. “Don’t ever point a weapon at me. Not unless you intend to use it.”
“Push me too far, Dark Elf, and I will.”
“Go ahead, White Elf—Try.”
«I_”
“Stop that!” Kevin snapped, and both elves turned to him in surprise. “You sound like little boys daring each other to fight! Look, I know you two don’t like each other, but we’re stuck with each other. For the sake of our mission, can’t you declare a truce?”
Eliathanis frowned sternly.’ 41 is not in elf natures to lie.”
“Well then at least pretend! And you, Lydia, will you please stop paring? Naitachal told you there’s nothing dangerous out there. We have three Faerie-kin here and five horses; surely one of them will be able to warn us if anything’s approaching.” He glared at them all. “Is that all right with everyone? Yes? Fine! And now, goodnight!”
There was startled silence. Amazed at his own boldness, Kevin wrapped himself in a blanket, turned away, and curled up to sleep. I didn’t mean to explode like that. But I couldn’t stand listening to that stupid bickering any longer! Charina would have laughed and said—
Charina, who might not even still be alive. Kevin swallowed hard. You are alive. I—I know it, Charina. You are alive. And we’ll find you, I promise.
Bit by bit, he managed to relax. All around him was quiet, save for the peaceful chirpings and rustlings of a forest at night, soothing sounds ...
But just as the bardling was drifting off, timed to exactly the right moment to annoy him the most, Tich’ki murmured, “Cute little puppy dog. Thinks he has fangs!”
Kevin sat bolt upright. The fairy was watching him from beyond the banked campfire, her green eyes the eyes of a sly predator. As he stared, she smiled. “Sleep well,” Tich’ki whispered, and blew him a kiss.
Kevin woke, disoriented, somewhere in the small hours of the night There, just barely visible in the darkness, were Naitachal and Tich’ki, talking softly together in the elvish tongue as though they were old friends.
But as though they felt him watching them, they turned as one—Two pairs of alien eyes, glowing eerily, looked at him, sending a shiver through the bardling at the thought that the darkness was no barrier to them. Why had they been whispering together? The Dark Elf and the perilous fairy: what could they be plotting? Kevin swallowed drily, trying to find an innocuous way to ask them, but before he could open his mouth, Naitachal murmured:
“Go back to sleep, Kevin.”
A trace of sorcery must have hidden behind the simple words, because for all his sudden worry, Kevin found himself sliding helplessly back into slumber.
“Oh, hell,” Lydia said.
For two full days they had been riding through forest so dense Kevin thought that any one of them could have followed the track—The trail had been so overgrown a horse’s body could hardly have kept from breaking telltale branches; there had been no way for the kidnapper to avoid leaving a track, let alone to leave the trail. But the forest had been thinning for some time as the land grew increasingly more rocky.
And now they had broken out of forest altogether. The trail melted into a series of paths and one true road winding their way through a limestone wilderness, a time-eroded maze of tall, gray-white stone walls.