Paks had been listening in rising horror. She stared at the cliff, the rust-red and orange rocks streaked with black, and shook her head. “I don’t—don’t remember. Yet—as you talk—something comes back. Like—like seeing a valley from a hill, faraway and hazy.”
“That will be the magics, I don’t doubt, or the knocks on your head that left such lumps. Well, then, when we found you, that was a strange thing too. We had fought several times in the dark ways, and came to another band of the enemy. None of us knew what was that black warrior so tall behind the others, all in black armor. You—but we did not know then it was you—were killing them, the ones we faced, and when they parted seemed like to kill us too. Then—” he paused to puff on his pipe and blow more rings. Paks waited impatiently, a feeling of pressure swelling her head. “Then, Lady Paksenarrion, you were still, all at once, sword arm so above your head. Very strange. Very strange indeed. Lord Amberion and Marshal Fallis went to look—being careful, too, for any treachery. Then they lifted the visor of the helmet—and a nasty, evil thing that was, that I could sense from where I stood—and there was your face behind it, pale as cheese, and your eyes seeing nothing. All that bad armor was magics—enchanted—your paladin and Marshal had their way with Gird. It split, finally, lying around you like a beetle’s wingcases, then it shrivelled and was gone. But that wasn’t all. Around your neck—”
“Master Balkon!” Neither Paks nor Balkon had noticed Amberion’s approach. He looked more than a little displeased. “Is this well done, to tax her beyond her knowledge?”
“Tax her? I but tell her what things are lost to her.”
“But you knew we thought it wise to tell her nothing.”
“That you thought it wise, yes—but you never forbade such telling to me. And of the ill-doing of elves and their kindred we dwarves have more knowledge than those the elves would make their allies. To my wisdom it seems right that she should not be left to anxious wondering.”
Paks felt a wave of irritation that they would talk over and about her as if she were not there. “I asked him, Sir Amberion, as I asked you. And he chose to think me whole-witted enough to answer me as one fighter to another, not as if I were a witless child.” She surprised even herself with the bitterness in her voice.
Amberion looked at her, brows raised. “Surely, Paks, you realize that we do not think you a child—you, of all people. We were concerned that if we told you what we knew, you might never regain your own memories, which must include much that we cannot know. Have you so forgotten the fellowship of Gird, that you mistrust a paladin this way? It must be your wounds that make you so irritable.”
Paks felt herself flush at the mild reproof. “I’m sorry,” she muttered, still angry. “I—I was worried.” Her voice trailed away, and she looked beyond Amberion to the cliffs beyond.
“Are you in much pain?” Amberion went on.
Paks realized that she did, in fact, ache all over as if with a fever; her head throbbed. “Sir, I do ache some.”
He felt her forehead, and frowned. “It may be fever—and no wonder with your wounds—yet you feel cold. Let me see what I can do.” He placed a hand on either side of her head, and began to speak. Paks felt she should know the words, anticipate the phrases, yet she could hardly concentrate enough to hear them. Her vision hazed. For a few moments the throbbing in her head merged with her aching body in one vast rhythmic pain, then it eased. As it disappeared, she knew how much pain she had felt, and wondered for an instant why she had not known it—had it been even worse, that she could accept it as normal? Her vision cleared. She felt Amberion’s warm palms leave her head.
“Does that ease the pain?” he asked.
Paks nodded. “Yes, sir. Thank you. I had not realized how much it was.” Now her outburst of a few moments before seemed unreasonable to her; she could not understand why she had said such a thing to Amberion.
“Good.” Amberion sighed, and sat beside her, across from the dwarf. He looked tired. “Master Balkon, I heard but the last of what you told her. Was it just the tale of her capture and our pursuit?”
“Aye, it was, and scantly told, at that. I did not speak of the capture itself, since none of us saw it, only that she was taken. Nor did I speak of the debate when she was found missing, or—”
“Well enough,” Amberion interrupted. The dwarf scowled at him. “Paks, has any of that come back to you as he was telling it?”
“It seemed, sir, almost as if something were trying to break into my head. Something I should know. But as I told Master Balkon, what I do recall seems faraway, dreamlike.”
“That’s not unusual. By Gird, I wish that elf would wake!”
“By his face,” said the dwarf sourly, “that one is enjoying some rare dream such as elves delight in, too rare a dream to wake for our need.”
“Elf?” asked Paks.
“Ardhiel,” said Amberion. “From the embassy to Fintha—”
“Oh!” A live memory flashed into Paks’s mind. “I remember him. In Fin Panir, when we—” she looked at Amberion, then went on more slowly, with dawning comprehension. “When we planned this expedition—I remember that now. I was there. I was taking training, and then—” In her excitement, Paks tried to sit up, but could not.
“I’ll get another pack for you,” said Amberion. He brought a fat blanket roll, and propped her higher on it. For an instant she was dizzy, but recovered.
“I do remember,” she said eagerly. “On the caravan, and when we turned off—those canyons with the white stone high above. A black hill with a dip in the top. Is this farther down the canyon we went into, the one Master Balkon said was not as deep as it was meant to be?”
“Yes, Lady,” said the dwarf. “This is the canyon choked with sand. I have not yet had the time to look, but I expect something—some rock fall, perchance—has blocked the downward end.”
“And at the high end—that’s where the cliffs were that the smoke came from?”
“Yes, in a branch canyon to this one. Do you remember the fight?”
“Something of it. One of those black fighters called out, and it was hard to move after that.”
Amberion nodded. “It affected most of our party, save Master Balkon and me.”
“Then you did something, and it eased; they were shooting arrows down. Ardhiel and Thelon were shooting back—”
“Yes,” said Balkon. “And then that black scum who called down the fear on us came down the cliff in the shape of his lady—” the dwarf spat again. “That one.”
“Like a spider,” said Paks. “I remember. It was horrible—he just came down the rocks, straight down, and then more and more of them swarmed out of holes in the walls, and Ardhiel blew that old hunting horn he carries, only it didn’t sound like a hunting horn.”
“No,” said Amberion. “And after he blew it, its own shape returned. It was under some enchantment. It’s an elven horn, the only one I’ve ever seen, and a rare treasure. Whatever or whoever it was who appeared when the horn sang, I know not, but great goodness and power were allied in him.”
Paks shook her head. “I don’t remember anything but the sound of it.”
“Pretty enough,” grumbled Balkon, “but I’d like to know what it means.”
Amberion stretched and sighed. “It meant trouble for our enemies that day, and a long sleep for Ardhiel. Paks, I think your memory will come back; as it does, I’d like to know about it.” She nodded. “Master Balkon, we still think it would be best to let her recall these things on her own.”