Her relief proved short-lived, though, for her question about his companions’ disappearance jolted the sleepiness from Billy’s eyes as completely as if she had splashed him with icy water.
For every image Billy Shank held of Mitchell since they came to this world led him inescapably to one frightening conclusion. He looked grimly at Sylvia, her innocent and hopeful smile heightening his suspicions, and his anger. “Go find Arien, and quickly,” he instructed. Sylvia hesitated, waiting for more details, but Billy couldn’t bring himself to tell her that Mitchell and Reinheiser, his companions, were probably on their way to betray her people.
Sylvia had a good idea where her father would be on such a fair morning. She bade Billy accompany her, and he agreed, though he dreaded confronting the elf-lord with such grim news. They came upon Arien a short time later on a back balcony of the house overlooking the great gorge. He and Ryell sat quietly, enjoying the serenity of the ever wondrous spectacle of dawnslight on the Crystals.
Arien recognized immediately that something was terribly wrong when he saw his daughter, her face flushed and pained. He grasped Sylvia’s hands to steady her. “What is it?”
“They are gone!” Sylvia cried. “Captain Mitchell and Martin Reinheiser are not in their room!”
“Treachery!” Ryell yelled. “I knew that no good would come of these men.” He started threateningly toward Billy, but Arien intercepted him with an outstretched arm.
“Find Erinel,” a very calm and composed Arien said to his daughter. “Gather your friends together at once and search the tunnels to Mountaingate. Until we know more, those two are to be considered as guests and not enemies. But I want them found and brought to me.”
“They might yet be in the city,” Sylvia offered.
“Doubtful,” Arien replied, “but leave a group behind. Instruct them to search the whole of the valley and even Shaithdun-o-Illume. Now go and hurry. We will await your findings here.”
Sylvia nodded and was gone. The two guards remained at Billy’s side, unsure now of his status among their people and a bit nervous about him being so close to their Eldar. Arien, though, waved them away, steadfastly refusing to let the actions of Mitchell and Reinheiser detract from his trust of this man who had done them no wrong.
“Where have they gone?” Ryell snapped, his suspicions bubbling over and showing him to be certain that Billy must be in on some conspiracy.
Billy shrugged his shoulders and looked away, wisely withholding his theory until more information could be gathered and calmer heads prevailed.
Ryell didn’t wait for an answer anyway. Seeking outlets to vent his fury, he turned on the guards.
“And what of you two?” he scolded. “You were supposed to be guarding them!”
“We remained at their door throughout the night,” replied one of the unfortunate elves with strained conviction.
“Ha!” Ryell scoffed. “If I discover that you fell asleep, I shall-”
“Oh, hush hush! Hush up, I say!” came a voice from behind the guards, and Ardaz stepped out onto the terrace, Desdemona the cat wrapped in peaceful slumber like a boneless stole about his neck. “I, too, had eyes posted to watch the ancient ones: Desdemona here.” He lifted the limp cat off his shoulder and held her close to his face. “And she wouldn’t let me down, would she? No, she wouldn’t!
“She kept watch on your house from just outside and saw no one leave, no one at all, not a one,” Ardaz assured Arien with complete confidence. “Never sleeps, either. Not at night anyway. Sleep all day, bother everyone at night; rule of cats, you know.” He gave an amused snort and turned his attention back to the cat, petting her affectionately to make up for his last comment.
“But they are gone,” Ryell insisted, the simple fact challenging the wizard’s reasoning.
“I know that, of course I know that!” a flustered Ardaz replied. “Sylvia told me just a moment ago out in the hall.”
Ryell shook with frustration. “If they are not here,” he asked with deliberate sarcasm, “and that cat assures you that they did not leave, then where are they? Might it be that they simply disappeared?”
“Oh, yes, I see your point,” Ardaz replied, enlightened and confounded all at once. “And a very good point it is!” He again pulled the cat from his shoulder and shook her awake. “Des, did you fall asleep, you nasty little kitty!” He gave her another shake and eyed her suspiciously, then, as if talking to her in her own tongue, he uttered a series of varying “meows,” and Desdemona replied with an emphatic “Meow!”
The wizard flopped her back over his shoulder and seemed appeased.
“Says that she didn’t fall asleep,” he explained to the astounded onlookers. “Doubt that she did, too.” His gaze drifted absently out across the gorge. “Couldn’t have disappeared, no no,” he continued, talking more to himself than the others. “There are ways, of course, but they were just, ordinary men. Certainly not wizards, after all!” He paused to scratch his bearded chin. “Unless…”
Arien and Ryell waited for him to let them in on his apparent revelation, but as the moments slipped by and an expression of dark worry crossed the wizard’s face, Arien’s patience ran thin.
“What is it?” he demanded.
“I am not sure,” Ardaz replied, his voice suddenly sobered. Shaken from his contemplative trance, he looked back at the Eldar. “Not sure. But I shall find out!” he asserted, and headed for the door.
“Wait!” Arien called. “You cannot leave now.”
But Ardaz kept moving.
“Things to do,” he called. “Things to do!” And he scurried away.
“Why do you allow him to stay in Illuma?” Ryell groaned. “He is of no use to us at all.”
Arien knew better than that. He knew the side of Ardaz that was the wise and kind Glendower, savior to the elves at the dawn of their race, when Ben-rin ruled Pallendara and Umpleby would have had them killed. Arien recognized that the compassion and power of the wizard remained, hidden beneath a bumbling facade, but ready to come forth as a shining light of hope in their darkest moments.
“Blame not Ardaz for our troubles,” he warned Ryell.
“But what are we to do?” Ryell asked softly, the cutting edge of his anger diminishing with the growing realization of their potentially disastrous position.
“We wait,” Arien replied grimly. “And hope.”
The Eldar sent the guards away to join in the search, and he, Ryell, and Billy remained on the balcony, staring out at the towering mountains, seeking refuge from their worldly concerns in the profound contemplations so glorious a landscape oft inspired. They spoke little, each of them finding solace in his private meditation, and a semblance of hope budded among them as the initial shock of the escape faded. Though they did not track the time, it seemed like hours later when Sylvia and Erinel finally returned.
Then their hopes were dashed.
“They are not in the city,” Sylvia said.
“Nor in the tunnels,” Erinel added. “I traveled as far down as the lower trails above Mountaingate.” He looked over at Billy and gave a sympathetic shrug, for he knew that what he was about to say would reflect badly on his new friend. “I found two sets of footprints in several places-less than a day old.”
“And were these tracks known to you?” Ryell growled, intent on tearing from reluctant Erinel confirmation that his own mistrust of the humans had been justified.
“They matched the strange boots of our visitors,” replied Erinel.
Ryell eyed Arien smugly, confident that the Eldar could no longer reprimand him, then turned his fury on Billy. “What have you to say of this?” he snapped.
“They’ve gone to Calva,” Billy declared firmly, in a voice that trembled just a little from embarrassment.
“How do you know this?” Ryell shouted accusingly before benevolent Arien could react. “And why did you keep it from us?”