Before she left, the being demanded one thing more. She was tired and found it hard to think, but the pressure gave her no ease until she obeyed. In that mound, through that gap—and take those things. She packed, vaguely aware that much of it was treasure: weapons decorated with gold and jewels, coins, rings and baubles. But why the scrolls? She didn’t understand, but she obeyed, picking up what she was bid, and stowing it away in Star’s pack. As she worked, the clouds thickened overhead, and a chill wind rolled down from the mountains. She didn’t notice. She felt no triumph, only a great tiredness.
As she stumbled away on the narrow track she had been nudged to follow, the first dancing flakes of snow fell from the thickening clouds behind her. Soon a light dusting whitened the tops of the mounds in the valley, outlined the limbs of trees and clung to the cedars in little furry clumps. The clouds reached out, northwards, and gathered in the trail Paks had taken. Snow hung in the air around her, filling her lungs with its damp clean smell. She hardly noticed. It was harder and harder to walk. Every step seemed to take the last of her strength, as if she were pulling her legs out of the ground. Her left hand still felt dirty, and she rubbed it on her trousers as she walked, without realizing it. Uphill—it was all uphill, trying to clear the ridge on the far side of the valley. Paks caught at Star’s pack, clung to it, and the sturdy pony plowed on, through the deepening snow, ears flat and tail clamped down. Her left side caught the blast of wind off the mountains. Soon it was numb, and she stumbled, lurching into Star, and then back, to fall face-down in the snow. A wave of nausea swept over her, but she had nothing to heave. Her stomach cramped. She couldn’t push herself up; she felt the snow on the back of her neck, and then nothing.
In the darkness the first elf mistook her snow-covered body for a drift of snow, and stumbled over it. His muffled curse disturbed the pony, huddled in a thicket nearby, and she snorted.
Quickly the next elves found the pony and soothed her, whisking the snow from her back, and running deft hands over the pack straps. Meanwhile the first elf felt what was under the drift, and called for more light. Torches flared in the windy darkness.
“A human.” Contempt laced the silver voice.
“A robber by the look of it—her,” said another, holding out the patched cloak.
“Robber indeed,” said one of the elves near Star. “This little one is loaded with such treasure that she can hardly walk. And more than that, it comes from the banast taig.”
“Mother of Trees! I had not thought even the humans bold enough to rob there. Or skilled enough to escape.” The leader of the group looked at a dagger and sheath from the pack and shook his head. “With such to carry, it must not be escape, but something worse.”
“She is alive,” said the first elf, after finding a pulse.
“Not for long,” said the leader. “We may not be able to challenge that evil, but we can deal with its minions. We can leave—”
“Look at this,” said one of those going through the pack. He held out to the leader the sealed message from the Halveric. “Is this stolen as well?”
“We must know what we have here, before we decide what to do,” added the one at Paks’s side. “I feel no great evil in her.” He had brushed the snow off her, and now caught his breath as he saw the rings on her hand. He worked off the one with the Duke’s seal, and read the inscription inside. “This is no common robber, cousins. Here is a ring given for honor to a soldier of the Duke Phelan—Halveric’s friend, and—”
“And we all know of Kieri Phelan. Yes. If she did not steal that as well. We shall wake her, then, and see what she says. I doubt that any fair tale can be told resulting in such as this bringing treasure out of the banast taig. But we shall see.”
Paks was vaguely aware of voices talking over her head before she woke fully. They were strange-sounding voices, musical and light but carrying power nonetheless. Light glowed through her eyelids. She struggled toward it, and finally managed to raise her heavy lids.
“You waken at last,” said one of the strange beings before her. He turned to speak to another, and Paks saw torchlight play over the planes of his face. It was clearly unhuman, and in it she saw full strength the strangeness that Macenion had shared. These must be elves. He looked back at her, his expression unreadable. “You were very cold. Can you speak now?”
Paks worked her jaw around, and finally managed to say yes, weakly.
“Very well. We have many questions for you, human warrior. It would be well for you to answer truthfully. Do you understand?”
“Who—are you?” Paks had no idea of elven politics, if any.
“Do you not know elves, human, when you see them?”
“I thought—elves—but who?”
Arched eyebrows rose up his forehead. “Do humans now concern themselves with the genealogy of elves, having so little themselves? If you would know, then, I am of the family of Sialinn—do you know what that means?” Paks shook her head. “Then you need know no more of my family. Who are you, and what lineage gives you the right to question elves?”
Paks remembered now Macenion’s pride, and how Bosk had always said elves were haughty and difficult.
“I am Paksenarrion Dorthansdotter,” she began. “Of Three Firs, far to the north and west—”
“Far indeed,” said one of the other elves. “I have seen that place, though not for many years. Is there a birch wood, a day’s ride west of it, in the side of a hill?”
“I don’t know, sir; I never traveled so far before leaving to join the Duke’s Company. Since then, I have never been home, or near it.”
“Whose company was this you joined?”
“Duke Phelan’s. He has a stronghold in northern Tsaia, and fights in Aarenis.”
“A red-haired man?” Paks nodded, and the elf went on. “This packet sealed by the Halveric, in your baggage: how came you by that?”
“I was given it, by the Halveric, to take to his home.” Even as she spoke, Paks felt the cold darkness rolling over her again. One of the elves exclaimed, and she felt an arm under her shoulders. A cold rim touched her lips, and fiery liquid trickled into her mouth. She swallowed. Warmth edged its way along her bones.
“Not too much of that,” said the first elf who had spoken to her. “In case we must—” He broke off and looked at her again. “You have come to a strange place, soldier of Duke Phelan and messenger of the Halveric. You have come to a strange place, and you seem—forgive me—weaker than I would expect such a soldier to be. Give us now an account of how you came here, and what you were doing in the valley of the banast taig.”
Paks found it difficult to tell a coherent story. Events and places were tangled in her memory, so that she was hard put to distinguish the encounters of the last day or so from those in the Valley of Souls. Still she managed to convey the call she and Macenion had received, and the outline of their adventures underground. The elves listened attentively, interrupting only to ask for clarification. When she finished, they looked at each other in silence. Then a burst of elven; it sounded to her like an argument. The leader turned to her again.
“Well, Paksenarrion Dorthansdotter, you have told an unlikely tale, to be sure. Yet on the chance that it is true, I am sending one of my party into the banast taig to find out. Should he not return, or return in jeopardy, it will go hard with you.”