The human drew his cape around himself in a quick, angry motion. “A thousand pardons, noble prince,” he said, vexed. “Wait but a moment. I will speak to the ambassador.”
The human went inside the tent.
Sithas put one foot on the port set of chains that ran from the ferry to the halter encircling the turtle’s shell. The links were as thick as the prince’s wrist. No one but an elf could have walked the fifteen feet along the swaying length of chain in the rain, but Sithas did it easily. Once he reached the turtle’s back, he was able to move briskly over the shell to the beast’s head. The turtle, placid as all his kind were, paid no mind as the elf prince stepped gingerly on its head.
The human appeared again. This close, Sithas could see he was a mature man; his red-brown hair and full beard were sprinkled with gray. He was richly dressed in the vulgar Ergothian style—which meant he was clad in strong, dark colors, wine-red and black, with a golden torc at his throat and a fur-lined cape.
“Well?” Sithas demanded from his lofty perch atop the turtle’s head.
“The ambassador asks if you would care to come in out of the rain for a short time, while preparations are made to go,” said the human more solicitously.
Using the deep creases in the skin of the creature’s neck as hand and footholds, Sithas descended the twelve feet to the ground. Once down, he glanced up at the turtle; a huge eye regarded him benignly.
The bearded human was tall for his race. His gray eyes were hard as he bowed. “I am Ulvissen, seneschal to Ulwen, praetor of the empire,” he said with dignity.
With a sweep of his arm, Ulvissen indicated Sithas should precede him. The prince strode into the tent.
It was the size of a largish house. The first room Sithas entered featured the imperial standard of Ergoth, a golden axe crossed with a hammer, on a field of dark crimson. The second room was larger and far mare elaborate. Thick carpets covered the ground. In the center of the room, a fire burned on a portable blackiron hearth. Smoke was carried out through a metal chimney, made of sections of bronze pipe jointed together. Couches and chairs covered with purple velvet were scattered around the room. A lap desk full of rolled maps lay open to Sithas’s left, and a table laden with decanters of drink stood on his right. Glass-globed oil lamps lit the room as bright as day. Wind howled outside, and rain drummed on the varnished silk roof.
A flap across the room was pulled back, and four thick-armed servants entered, carrying a chair supported by rods through its armrests. Seated in the chair was an ancient human, far older than Ulvissen. His bald head was hunched deep between his shoulders. His skin was the color of egg yolks, and his rheumy eyes seemed to have no distinct color. Sithas did not need to know much about human health to recognize that this was a sick man.
The prince was about to speak to this venerable man when another person entered, a female. She was altogether different from the frail figure in the chair. Tall, clad in a deep red velvet gown, she had dark brown hair that fell just past her shoulders. More voluptuous than any elven maiden, the human woman appeared less than half the age of the man in the chair.
When she spoke, it was with a velvety voice. “Greetings, Prince Sithas. On behalf of my husband, Praetor Ulwen, I greet you.” She rested her hands on the back of the old man’s chair. “My name is Teralind denCaer,” she added.
Sithas bowed his head slightly. “In the name of my father, Speaker of the Stars, I greet you, Praetor Ulwen, and Lady Teralind,” he said respectfully.
She came out from behind the chair and went to the table where the decanters were. Teralind poured a pale white liquid into a tall glass goblet. “We did not expect anyone to meet us. Not until the storm was over,” she said, smiling slightly.
“I received the ambassador from Thorbardin this morning,” Sithas replied. “It was only proper that I come and greet the emperor’s envoy as well.”
The old man in the chair still had said nothing, and he remained silent as Teralind drank. Then she passed in front of Sithas, gown rustling as she walked. By lamplight, her eyes were a foreign shade of brown, dark like her hair. Teralind sat and bade Sithas sit down, too.
“Excuse me, Lady, but is the praetor well?” he asked cautiously. The old human’s eyes were closed.
“Ulwen is very old,” she said with a tinge of sadness. “And it is very late.”
“I can’t help but wonder why the emperor did not choose a younger man for this task,” Sithas ventured softly.
Teralind combed through her thick, wavy hair with the fingers of one hand. “My husband is the senior praetor of the empire. Also he is the only member of the ruling council to have dealt with Silvanesti before.”
“Oh? When was that?”
“Forty-six years ago. Before I was born, actually. I believe he worked on what was called the Treaty of Thelgaard,” she said distractedly.
Sithas tried to remember the obscure treaty, and could only recall that it had something to do with the cloth trade. “I’m sorry I did not have the pleasure of meeting the praetor then,” he said. “I must have been away.”
Teralind looked at the elf oddly for an instant. Humans never could adjust to elven life spans. “In deference to the age of the ambassador,” Sithas added, “I would be willing to stay the night here and escort you all to the city tomorrow.”
“That is acceptable. Ulvissen will find you a suitable place to rest,” Teralind agreed. She rose suddenly to her feet. “Good night, Your Highness,” she said courteously, then snapped her fingers. The servants hoisted Ulwen up, turned ponderously, and carried him out.
Sithas was given a bed in a private comer of the great tent. The bed itself was large enough to sleep four grown elves and far too soft for the prince’s taste. It seemed strange to him that humans should prize comfort so excessively.
The rain struck the roof of the tent with a rhythmic beat, but that did not lull Sithas to sleep. Instead, his mind wandered to thoughts of Hermathya. He would have to work harder to reconcile their differences, he decided. But his wife’s face did not remain long in Sithas’s thoughts. Kith-Kanan soon pushed to the forefront. His twin would probably have enjoyed Sithas’s little gesture of bringing turtle and barge to the ambassador’s very door.
Kith was a long way off now, Sithas thought. So many miles and so much time lay between them. As the prince closed his eyes, he felt the faint but persistent tie that had always existed between him and Kith-Kanan, but now he concentrated on it. The rain grew louder in his ears. It was like a pulse, the beat of a living heart. Feelings began to come to him—the smell of the woodland, the sounds of night animals that no longer lived in the more settled parts of Silvanesti. He opened his mind further, and a flood of sensations came to him.
He saw, as in shadow, a dark elven woman. She was strong and deeply connected to the Power, even as the high clerics and the Speaker of the Stars were said to be. But the dark woman was part of an ancient group, different from the gods, but almost as great. Sithas had an impression of green leaves, of soaring trees, and pools of still, clear water. And there was a battle raging inside this woman. She was trying to leave the Power, and it did not want her to go. The reason she wished to leave was clear, too. She loved Kith, and he loved her. Sithas felt that very strongly.
A word came to him. A name.
“Anaya,” he said aloud.
The link was broken when he spoke. Sithas sat up, his head swimming with strange, unexplained impressions. There was a struggle going on, a contest for possession of the dark elf woman. The struggle was between Kith-Kanan and the ancient powers of nature. The storm…not the work of human magicians, or any magicians. The storm was a manifestation of the struggle.
As Sithas lay back on the ridiculously large bed, a twinge of sadness entered his heart. The short connection had only emphasized how truly far from home his twin had journeyed.