Turning back to Bane, Jarre placed two fingers on the boy’s arm, pinched him hard.
“I’m alone,” she said to him. “And don’t you forget it.” Bane opened his mouth to cry out. Taking one look at Jarre’s face, however, the boy decided it was best to keep silent. Nursing his bruised arm, he scooted away from her and was now sitting quietly, either sulking or plotting some new mischief.
Jarre couldn’t help but think that, somehow, this was all his fault. She decided she didn’t like Bane.
Nothing much was happening now. The other elves paced restlessly about the statue, guarding their prisoners and casting nervous glances down the stairs. The elf captain and Haplo did not return. And there was no sign of Limbeck. Time crawled when you were caught in situations like this. Jarre knew that and made allowances. And even with allowances, it occurred to her that she’d been sitting here a long, long time. She wondered how long those magic symbols Haplo had put above the arches to show the way out would last, didn’t think it could be as long as this.
Limbeck wasn’t coming. He wasn’t coming to rescue her. Or join her. He was going to be ...sensible.
Booted footsteps rang on the Factree floor. A voice called out, the guards snapped to attention. Jarre, hope in her heart, prepared to run. But no respectable, bespectacled leader of WUPP appeared.
It was only an elf. And he was coming from a different direction, from the front of the Factree. Jarre sighed.
Pointing to Bane and Jarre, the elf said something in elven mat Jarre didn’t understand. The guards were quick to respond. They appeared relieved, in fact. Bane, looking more cheerful, jumped to his feet. The dog bounded up with an eager whimper. Jarre stayed where she was.
“Come on, Jarre,” the boy said, with a smile that magnanimously forgave all.
“They’re taking us out of here.”
“Where?” she asked suspiciously, standing up slowly.
“To see the lord commander. Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be all right. I’ll take care of you.”
Jarre wasn’t buying it. “Where’s Haplo?”
She glowered at the approaching elves, folded her arms across her chest, braced to stay put, if necessary.
“How should I know?” Bane asked, shrugging. “The last I saw of him, he was down there, about to let loose some of that magic of his. I guess it must not have worked,” he added.
Smugly, Jarre thought. “It didn’t. He was hurt. The elf threw a knife at him.”
“That’s too bad,” said Bane, blue eyes wide. “Was... um... was Limbeck with him?”
Jarre stared at the boy blankly. “Limbeck who?”
Bane flushed in anger, but before he could badger her, a guard broke up the conversation.
“Move along, Geg,” he ordered in dwarven.
Jarre didn’t want to move along. She didn’t want to see this lord commander. She didn’t want to leave without knowing what had happened to Limbeck and to Haplo. She looked defiant, was about to make a stand that would have probably earned her a blow from the guard, when it suddenly occurred to her that Limbeck might be hiding down there, waiting for exactly this opportunity. Waiting for the guards to leave so that he could make good his escape. Meekly, she fell into step beside Bane.
Behind them, one of the elves shouted a question. The newly arrived elf answered with what sounded like an order.
Uneasy, Jarre glanced back.
Several elves were gathering around the statue.
“What are they doing?” she asked Bane fearfully.
“Guarding the opening,” said Bane, with a sly smile.
“Watch where you’re going! And keep moving, maggot,” ordered the elf. He gave Jarre a rough shove.
Jarre had no choice but to obey. She walked toward the Factree entrance. Behind her, the elves took up positions near the statue, but not too near the forbidding opening.
“Oh, Limbeck.” Jarre sighed. “Be sensible.”
17
Haplo woke in pain, alternately shivering and burning. Looking up, he saw the eyes of the elven captain gleam red through a shadowed dimness. Red eyes.
The captain squatted on his haunches, long, thin-fingered elven hands hanging between bent knees. He smiled when he saw Haplo conscious, watching him.
“Greetings, master,” he said pleasantly, his tone light and bantering.
“Feeling sickish, are you? Yes, I suppose so. I’ve never experienced the nerve poison, but I understand it produces some remarkably uncomfortable sensations. Don’t worry. The poison is not deadly, its effects wear off soon.” Haplo gritted his teeth against the chill that made them rattle in his head, closed his eyes. The elf was speaking Patryn, the rune language of Haplo’s people, the language that no elf living or dead had ever spoken, could ever speak.
A hand was touching him, sliding beneath his wounded shoulder. Haplo’s eyes flared open, he instinctively lashed out at the elf... or that was what he intended. In reality, he flopped his arm around a little. The elf smiled with a mocking compassion, clucked over Haplo like a distracted hen. Strong hands supported the injured Patryn, eased him to an upright, sitting position.
“Come, come, master. It’s not that bad,” said the captain cheerily, switching to elven. “Yes, if looks could kill, you’d have my head hanging from your trophy belt.” Red eyes glinted in amusement. “Or should I say, perhaps, a snake’s head, don’t you agree?”
“What... what are you?” At least, that’s what Haplo tried to say. His brain shaped the words clearly, but they came out mush.
“Talking’s difficult just now, I fancy, isn’t it?” remarked the elf, speaking Patryn again. “No need. I can understand your thoughts. You know what I am. You saw me on Chelestra, though you probably don’t remember. I was only one of many. And in a different body. Dragon-snakes, the mensch dubbed us. Here, what would you say? Serpent-elf? Yes, I rather like that.”
Shape-changers... Haplo thought in a vague kind of horror. He shivered, mumbled.
“Shape-changers,” agreed the serpent-elf. “But come. I’m taking you to the Royal One. He’s asked to speak with you.”
Haplo willed his muscles to respond to his command, willed his hands to strangle, hit, jab, anything. But his body failed him. His muscles twitched and danced in erratic spasms. It was all he could do to remain standing, and then he was forced to lean on the elf.
Or, he supposed he should start thinking, the serpent.
“Suppose you try standing, Patryn. Oh, I say, that’s quite good. Now walking. We’re late as it is. One foot in front of the other.”
The serpent-elf guided the stumbling Patryn’s footsteps as if he were a feeble old man. Haplo shuffled forward, feet falling over each other, hands jerking aimlessly. A cold sweat soaked his shirt. His nerves flamed and tingled. The sigla tattooed on his body had gone dark, his magic disrupted. He shook and shivered and burned, leaned on the elf, and kept going.
Limbeck stood in the darkness that was so extraordinarily dark—far darker than any darkness he could ever remember—and began to think that he’d made a mistake. The sigil Haplo had left above the arched passageway still glowed, but it cast no light, and, if anything, its solitary brilliance so far above the dwarf only served to make his own darkness darker.
And then the light of the sigil began to dim.
“I’m going to be trapped down here in the dark,” said Limbeck. Removing his spectacles, he started to chew on the earpiece, a habit of his when nervous.
“Alone. They’re not coming back.”
This possibility had not occurred to him. He’d seen Haplo perform marvelous feats of magic. Surely, a handful of elves wouldn’t be a problem for a man who had driven away a marauding dragon. Haplo would scare away the elves, then come back, and Limbeck could continue investigating that wondrous metal personage inside the room.