"Do you have it?" she said. She was anxious, but happy, too, like a woman on her wedding day. "Do you have that which will save me, sweet Matty?"
He swallowed. "I do." He reached into his pocket and found the swaddled flask. He had replaced the kelp leaf in which it had been wrapped with a square of velvet he had stolen from Puzzle, but it still studied of the sea,
She wrinkled her nose. "What is it?"
"It does not matter. It is what you wished, my lady. My Elan." He him¬self was as fretful as the most callow bridegroom. She looked so beautiful in her white nightgown, even though he could scarcely see her through his tears. "I will administer it for you. I will hold your head."
She had been staring at the tiny flask with horrified fascination, but now she looked up, confused. "Why?"
He had not thought about this, and for a moment he was flustered. "So that it does not stain your gown, my lady. So your beauty is not… is not spoiled…" He gasped, a sob stuck in his gorge that was so big he feared he would not breathe again.
"Bless you, Matt, you are so sweet to me. I know I am… I know I am not fit for you or any other gods-fearing man… but… but you may love me, if you wish." She saw that he did not understand. "Make love to me. It will make no difference where I'm bound, and it would be sweet to have such love from you before… before…" A single tear rolled down her cheek, but she smiled and wiped it away. She was the bravest thing Tin-wright had ever seen.
His heart squeezed him. "I cannot, Lady. Oh, gods, my beloved Elan! I would like nothing… have thought of… I…" He paused and wiped his forehead, sweaty despite the evening chill. "I cannot. Not this way." He swallowed. "I hope one day you will understand why and forgive me."
She shook her head, her smile so sadly sweet it was like a knife in his chest. "You do not have to explain, dear Matthias. It was selfish of me. I had only hoped…"
"You will never know the depth of my feelings, Elan. Please. Let's not speak of it anymore. It is too hard." He squinted, wiped fiercely at his eyes. "Just… let me hold your head. Here, lie against me." As she nestled against him, her back against his belly, her head against his shoulder, he could feel every place she touched him, through both her clothes and his, like a hot nail through a blacksmith's glove. "Lean back," he whispered, feeling as though he were a monster worse even than Hendon Tolly. "Lean back. Close your eyes and open your mouth."
She shut her eyes. He marveled at her long lashes, which cast shadows on her cheeks in the candlelight. "Oh, but first I must pray!" she said in a
small voice."It is never too late for that, surely? Zoria will hear me, even if she decides to spurn my request. I must try."
"Of course," he said.
Her lips moved silently for a while. Tinwright stared. "I am done," she said quietly, her eyes still tight shut.
He leaned forward then, letting her breath swirl gently against his face, then kissed her. She flinched, expecting something else, then her lips soft¬ened and for a moment that seemed like an hour he let himself vanish into the astonishing truth of what he had dreamed so often. At last he pulled back, but not before one of his tears splashed on her cheek. So sweet, so trusting, so sad!
"Oh, Elan," he whispered, "forgive me for this-for all of this."
She did not speak again, but lay with her mouth open like a child who waited, fearful but bravely patient, for some terrifying physic. He used his sleeve to pull the stopper from the flask, then used the needle ever so care¬fully to lift a single drop and let it fall into her mouth.
Elan M'Cory gave a little gasp of surprise, then swallowed. "It does not taste like so much," she said. "Bitter, but not painfully so."
Tinwright could not speak.
"I could have loved you well," she said, and a smile played around her lips. "Ah, what a strange sensation! I cannot feel my tongue. I think…"
She fell silent. Her breath slowed until he could not perceive it any longer.
One moment Ferras Vansen was there and the next moment the guard captain was gone, tumbled into nothingness without even crying out, torn away so quickly that, like a man whose leg had been blasted off by a can-nonball, Barrick Eddon had only perceived the shock but not the loss itself.
The demigod Jikuyin was bellowing with both his voice and his thoughts, making the air of the cavern shudder and Barrick's bones throb inside his flesh. "OH! OH, THEY ARE FREE, THE CURSED LITTLE TRICKSTERS!" The giant swung his shaggy head toward Barrick, who crouched panting at the base of the massive doorway, dropped by his guards as they fought Vansen. The demigod's great eye narrowed and he turned to
his lieutenant, the gray man; even the Dreamless seemed to have been caught by surprise. "Ueni'ssoh!" Although he spoke less harshly, the demigod's words still rattled Barrick's skull. "Carry on, you bloodless fool!" For the first time, Barrick could hear the actual words Jikuyin spoke, a rumbling, spiky tongue that bore no relation to what he heard in his head. "The gate is still open! Finish the invocation!"
Ueni'ssoh glided toward him and Barrick stumbled to his feet, but three more guards had fallen in behind the Dreamless, two of them armed with jagged-bladed axes, and he knew it was only a matter of moments until they would have him bleeding like a hung pig all over the threshold of the god's gate. But his shackles were gone, he realized in wonder: somehow Vansen had struck them off before the darkness took him.
Down! The warning in his head seemed so close, so powerful, that for an instant he thought it must be the voice of the demigod himself pounding in his skull. Get down! Now!
Barrick looked around in confusion. Gyir was free of his shackles, too. The fairy-warrior stood on the top of a small rise of stone with half a dozen dead guards sprawled at his feet and something burning brightly in his hand-a flaming skull…?
If you want to live another moment, boy, the fairy's voice trumpeted through his thoughts, THEN LIE DOWN!
Barrick threw himself toward the ground even as Gyir's arm swept for¬ward and what seemed a tiny comet hurtled across the cavern. For a mo¬ment everything seemed to stop-the faces of guards and prisoners lifted and turned like sunflowers as they followed the path of the blazing thing- then a blast of heat and light crashed across the cavern and rolled Barrick violently before dropping him again. He lay in a vibrating silence, unable to get up, as if lightning had struck only a short distance away.
The rush of ideas into his head was so violent that at first Barrick could make no sense of the demigod's angry burst of words and thoughts-he felt only a huge hammer of noise pounding at his ears and mind until he felt sure his head would collapse like an eggshell.
"… HOW DID THAT MONGREL CREATURE, THAT FACELESS SLUG, GET HIS HANDS ON MY PRECIOUS FIREPOWDER…?"
Stunned and limp, Barrick thought it might be easiest simply to lie here on his back and let the world end, but a small, nagging voice in the back of his mind kept suggesting that perhaps a prince should meet his death sit¬ting up. He rolled over, trying to get his legs under him.
Another thunderous crack, farther away this time and followed not. by ringing silence but by hoarse screams, proved that at least there was still sound and direction and distance. Barrick sat up and brushed something wet off his arm-a rag of bloody skin, but not his own. The rest of the shaggy guard and his two companions, victims of the first of the flaming things Gyir had thrown, were scattered across several yards of cavern floor. Even in such chaos, Barrick was glad the lights were dim: it was madly strange to see things that were so small and yet obviously part of a person who had been alive only moments before.