They slept that night within a cave on a high ridgeline overlooking the dark curve of the river, dryer and warmer than they had been on previous nights, free of the extreme discomfort that had plagued them in the open forest. It was on this night that Jair again came to speak with his captor. They had finished their meal of ground roots and dried beef and drunk a small measure of the bitter ale; now they sat facing each other in the dark, huddled down within their cloaks against the night’s chill. Without, the rain fell in a slow, steady drizzle, spattering noisily against trees, stones, and muddied earth. The Mwellret had not replaced the gag in the Valeman’s mouth as he had done the past two nights, but had left it loose about his neck. He sat watching Jair, his cold eyes glittering, his reptilian face a vague shadow within the darkness of his cowl. He made no move, nor did he speak. He simply sat and watched as the Valeman crouched across from him. The minutes slipped by, and at last Jair grew determined to engage the creature in conversation.
“Where are you taking me?” he ventured cautiously.
Slitted eyes narrowed further, and it was then the Valeman realized that the Mwellret had been waiting for him to speak. “We go into the High Benss.”
Jair shook his head, not understanding. “The High Bens?”
“Mountainss below the Ravensshorn, Elfling,” the other hissed. “Sstay for a time within thosse mountainss. Put you in the Gnome prissonss at Dun Fee Aran!”
Jair’s throat tightened. “Prison? You plan to lock me in a prison?”
“Guesstss of mine sstay there,” the other rasped, laughing softly.
The Valeman stiffened at the sound of the laughter and fought back against the fear that washed through him. “Why are you doing this to me?” he demanded angrily. “What do you want from me?”
“Hss!” A hooked finger pointed. “Doess the Elfling truly not know? Doess he not ssee?” The cloaked form hunched closer. “Then lissten, little peopless. Hear! Ourss wass the gifted peopless, lordss over all the mountainss’ life. Comess to uss the Dark Lord many yearss gone passt now, and a bargain wars sstruck. Little Gnome peopless ssent to sserve the Dark Lord if he leavess our peopless be, lordss sstill within the mountainss. Doess thiss, the Dark Lord, and in hiss time passsess from the earth. But we endure. We live!”
The crooked finger twisted slowly. “Then comess the walkerss, climbed from the dark pit of the Maelmord, climbed into our mountainss. Sserve the magic of the Dark Lord, they ssay. Give we up our homess, they ssay. Give we up the little peopless that sserve uss. Bargainss mean nothing now. We refusse the walkerss, the Wraithss. We are sstrong alsso. But ssomething done to uss. We ssicken and die. No young are born. Our peopless fail. Yearss passs, and we weaken to a handful. Sstill the walkerss ssay we musst go from the mountainss. At lasst we are too few, and the walkerss drive uss forth!”
He paused then, and the green slitted eyes burned deep into the Valeman’s, filled with rage and bitterness. “Left me for dead, did the walkerss, the Wraithss. Black thingss of evil. But I live!”
Jair stared at the monster. Stythys was admitting to him that the Mwellrets in the time of Shea Ohmsford had sold to the Warlock Lord the lives of the mountain Gnomes so that they might be used to fight against the Southland in the aborted Third War of the Races. The Mwellrets had done this in order to preserve their lordship over their mountain kingdom in the Ravenshorn. It was as Foraker had told him and as the Dwarf people had suspected. But then the Mord Wraiths had come, successors to the power of the dark magic of the Warlock Lord. The Eastland was to be theirs now, and the Ravenshorn would no longer belong to the Mwellrets. When the lizard things had resisted, the Wraiths had sickened and destroyed them. So Stythys had indeed been driven forth from his homeland to be found by the Dwarves and brought into Capaal…
“But what has all this to do with me?” he demanded, a sinking suspicion settling through him.
“Magicss!” the Mwellret hissed instantly. “Magicss, little friend! I wissh what you posssess. Ssongss you ssing musst be mine! You have the magicss; you musst give them to me!‘
“But I can’t!” Jair exclaimed in frustration.
A grimace twisted the other’s scaled face. “Can’t, little friend? Powerss of magicss musst again come to my peopless—not to the Wraithss. Your magicss sshall be given, Elfling. At the prissonss you sshall give them. You will ssee.”
Jair looked away. It was the same with Stythys as it had been with the Gnome Sedt Spilk—both had wanted mastery over something that Jair could not give them. The magic of the wishsong was his, and only he could use it. It would be as useless to the Mwellret as it had been to the Sedt.
And then a chilling thought struck him. Suppose that Stythys knew that? Suppose that the Mwellret knew he could not have the magic, but that he must make use of it through Jair? The Valeman remembered what had been done to him in that cell in Capaal—how the Mwellret had made him reveal the magic…
He caught his breath. Oh, shades! Suppose Stythys knew—or suppose that he even suspected—that there were other magics? Suppose he sensed the presence of the vision crystal and the Silver Dust?
“You can’t have them,” he whispered, almost before he realized what he was saying. There was a hint of desperation in his voice.
The Mwellret’s reply was a soft hiss. “Prissonss will change your mind, little peopless. You will ssee.”
Jair Ohmsford lay awake for a long time after that, gagged and hobbled once more, lost in the darkness of his thoughts as he listened to the sounds of the rainfall and the breathing of the sleeping Mwellret. Shadows lay all about the entrance to the little cave; without, the wind blew the stormclouds above the sodden forest. What was he to do? Behind him lay his quest and his shattered plans for saving Brin. Before him lay the Gnome prisons of Dun Fee Aran. Once locked within their walls, he might never come away again, for it was certain that the Mwellret meant to keep him there until he had revealed what he knew of the secrets of the Elven magic. But he would never give up those secrets. They were his to use in service to the King of the Silver River in exchange for the life of his sister. He would never give them up. Yet he sensed that, despite his resolve and whatever strength he could muster to resist his captor, sooner or later Stythys would find a way to wrest those secrets from him.
Thunder rumbled in the distance somewhere, rolling across the forestland, deep and ominous. More ominous still was the despair of the Valeman. It was a long time before exhaustion overcame him and he at last fell asleep.
Jair and the Mwellret resumed their march north with the coming of dawn on the third day, plodding through rain, mist, and sodden woods, and at midday they passed into the High Bens. The mountains were dark and rugged, a cluster of broken peaks and crags that straddled the Silver River where it washed down out of the high forestland below the Ravenshorn. The two climbed into their midst, swallowed by mist that clung to the rocks until at last, as the day waned and the night began to fall, they stood upon a bluff overlooking the fortress of Dun Fee Aran.
Dun Fee Aran was a sprawling, castlelike complex of walls, towers, watches, and battlements. The whole of the fortress had a gray and dreary cast to it as it materialized out of the rain before them, one that would have been there, Jair sensed, even in the best of weather. Wordlessly, they trudged from the trees, the tall, cloaked Mwellret leading the hobbled Valeman, and passed through the brush and scrub of the bluff face into the sodden camp. Gnome Hunters and retainers of all ranks and standings plodded past them across the muddied grounds, cloaked and hooded against the weather and caught up in their own concerns. No one questioned them. No one gave them a second look. They passed over stone parapets and walkways, over walls and causeways, down stairs, and through halls. The night began to deepen and the light to fail. Jair felt as if the world were closing in about him, shutting him away. He could smell the stench of the place, the closed and fetid reek of cells and human bodies. Lives were expended here without much thought, he sensed with a chill. Lives were locked away within these walls and forgotten.