“Who knows? Perhaps touching them is taboo.” He pointed to the skirted elf. “This one looks like a priest.”
“He sounds kindly,” Catchflea said. Riverwind agreed, though for all he knew, the two elves could be arguing over who'd get to execute them.
The soft-spoken “priest” elf reached into a hidden pocket in his skirt and brought out two bits of jewelry. The girl bowed her head with great deference and took both pieces. She approached Riverwind and held one up for him to see: it was an amulet, wrought in gold, which fit neatly in her small hand. At first Riverwind thought it was made to represent a butterfly, but upon closer inspection he saw it was actually a likeness of two elfin ears joined in the center.
“You want me to wear this? A gift?” he asked. Riverwind had to bend far down to get within the small girl's reach. She dropped the chain over his head. He straightened, and the heavy amulet swung against his chest.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You are welcome,” she replied.
“I understand you!”
“As you should. You wear the Sign of True Hearing, which makes our words known to you.” The girl's eyes were bright on his face. “My name is Di An.”
“I am Riverwind, son of Wanderer, of the Que-Shu.”
Catchflea tugged impatiently on his sleeve. “What is it?” Riverwind asked.
“Gug murga lokil la” said Catchflea. Riverwind stared. He couldn't make out a thing his companion said. “Grom sust idi wock!”
“Let me give him a Sign also,” Di An said. She hung an identical amulet around Catchflea's neck.
“-supposed to get by with no one to talk to? I'll go mad, yes?”
“Ho there, old one; can you understand me now?” Riverwind said.
Catchflea blinked rapidly. “By my ancestors! So I can.”
“This is not proper,” the elf leader said darkly. “The intruders would have been easier to control if they didn't know what we were saying.”
“If you cannot persuade, you cannot control,” said the skirted elf. He faced the Que-Shu men and smiled. “I am Vvelz. I greet you in the name of the Hall of Light.” The head soldier harumphed. “And this impatient person is Karn, lieutenant of the Host.”
“Who are you people?” Riverwind said.
“We are the people of Hest,” Vvelz said.
“What is this place?” asked Catchflea.
“We are near the city of Vartoom. We shall all be going there soon.”
More questions formed on Riverwind's lips, but Karn said, My mistress awaits our return.” To Vvelz he muttered, “I shall tell Her Highness of your meddling.”
Vvelz dismissed him with a wave. “Do what you will. It is I who sits at Li El's right hand, not you.” Karn snorted and pushed Riverwind and Catchflea into motion.
A few yards down the terrace steps a horseless wagon stood on level ground. Karn, his soldiers, and the two humans mounted the open back. Vvelz stood by the empty trace poles. After a nod from Karn, he raised thin white arms over his head. Though his lips never moved, Vvelz's voice rang inside Riverwind's head, commanding: Come hither, diggers, and take up your burden. Riverwind's head reeled as the command was repeated. He felt as if he'd been struck a blow. To Catchflea he said, “Did you feel that?”
“Not only us,” the old man replied. “Look!”
One by one, small elven figures clad in black appeared. Di An joined them. They approached Vvelz like sleepwalkers, their eyes glazed, their arms limp at their sides. At additional commands from Vvelz, the elves arranged themselves at the handles attached to the twin trace poles. Ten black-clad elves, male and female, filled the spaces at the handles. Vvelz climbed in the wagon with the others.
“Where to, Karn?” he said cheerily.
Karn gave him a sour glare.
Vvelz shrugged and lifted his hands. To the palace, and be quick! The elves bent their backs, and the wagon lurched forward. Riverwind had a strong urge to leap over the side and join them, for Vvelz's words resonated in his mind with awful persistence. Only as miles passed beneath the wagon's wheels did the strange compulsion fade.
Catchflea was likewise gripping the side rail tightly, looking dazed. Karn studied their reactions closely. Riverwind mastered himself, and focused his mind on the black-garbed elves hauling the wagon along.
“Are these people slaves?” he asked. “I loathe slavery; it is a wicked institution.”
“They are diggers,” Karn said laconically.
Catchflea said to Vvelz, “You are a sorcerer, yes?”
Vvelz inclined his head. “I am a fellow of the Hall of Light, just as Karn is a fellow of the Hall of Arms. Those who do not qualify for either house remain diggers.”
Riverwind was outraged. Turning his gaze from the straining backs of the diggers to Vvelz, he said, “Who speaks for the diggers? Who protects them and champions their needs?”
Karn laughed. “They get what they need,” he quipped.
“We look after them,” Vvelz said calmly. “They are very important to us.”
“As a farmer tends his beasts?”
“More like a father tending his children.” Vvelz glanced at the diggers. “Every Hestite has the chance to enter the Hall of Light or the Hall of Arms, once they reach adult age. Those with strength and agility take up the sword; those with wit and magical talent apprentice as sorcerers. Those with none of these traits work as diggers.”
Riverwind was not mollified. Before he did serious harm by insulting their captors, Catchflea interrupted.
“Am I correct in thinking you are elves?” he asked.
Vvelz recoiled so sharply that his flowing silver hair lashed across his shoulders. “You must not speak that word!”
“It is forbidden!” added Karn. His hand moved toward his sword.
Riverwind and Catchflea exchanged a glance. “You will forgive me, yes?” the soothsayer said. “I did not know.”
Riverwind noticed that while Vvelz was agitated, the diggers pushed the wagon faster. Somehow his will acted like a spur to drive them on. Some of the diggers stumbled trying to keep up. The plainsman saw Di An, the smallest elf present, slip from her handhold as larger diggers outstripped her effort. She grabbed futilely at the handle as it tore away. She fell. The diggers behind her trod mindlessly over her.
Riverwind vaulted over the side and ran ahead of the iron-shod wheels. He shoved his way through the diggers and snatched up Di An mere seconds before the front right wheel would have cut her in two.
Vvelz halted the wagon. “Is she hurt?” he inquired.
Riverwind brushed grit from the girl's face. She was feath-erlight in his arms. “Bruises only. I will put her in back.”
“No,” Karn said sternly. “Diggers do not ride with warriors.”
“Then I shall carry her.”
And he did. The diggers reformed and fell to heaving the wagon again. Riverwind strode alongside with Di An cradled in his arms. Shamed to ride, Catchflea stepped down and shuffled ahead to keep pace with his companion.
“If you walk, tall man, I walk,” he said.
Di An groaned and stirred. She came to, and when she saw where she was, she thrashed wildly.
“Please! Put me down!” she cried.
“It's all right,” Riverwind said gently. “I have you.”
“No! I must pull with my brothers!” She squirmed out of his grasp.
“You were hurt, child. Take your ease a while, yes?” Catchflea said.
“I cannot! The High Ones command us serve, and I must-” Tears streaked her face. “You're hurting me.”
Riverwind opened his arms, and Di An dropped to the ground. Before the astonished men could say anything, the elf girl was back in her place, hunched over the trace pole of the heavy wagon.
“You see,” called Karn from the wagon, “Hestites know their place.”
Catchflea grabbed Riverwind's arm. The plainsman was taut with barely suppressed anger. “Be prudent, tall man,” he hissed. “We are strangers in a very strange country. Let's listen twice before we answer once, yes?”