Pryddian stood pale and shaking with rage, his lips pressed into a bloodless line.
"So. Because I am the victim of an attack by magic I am to be punished."
"You are not being punished, you are being released."
"And what of the Sparrow, the one who attacked me? What happens to him?"
The giant wizard regarded Pryddian as if he had just crawled out from beneath a damp log. "The affairs of the Mighty are none of your concern, boy. You have until the sun’s setting to be gone from this place." He turned his attention back to the scroll.
"Ebrion will have something to say of this."
"Ebrion is not here."
Pryddian frowned. "Well, when he comes back then."
Bal-Simba looked up. "If Ebrion or any of the other wizards wish to speak for you they may do so. But until they do you are no longer required here."
"I will wait then."
"You may wait. Outside the walls of the Keep."
"I…"
"Do you wish to provoke me now?" Bal -Simba rumbled. "I warn you, you would find me harder sport than the Sparrow and perhaps not as forebearing." He smiled, showing off his pointed teeth.
Pryddian snapped his mouth shut, spun on his heel and stalked from the room.
What would Ebrion have to do with that one? Bal-Simba wondered as he listened to the ex-apprentice slam down the corridor. He made a mental note to ask him when he returned.
The clouds rolled in during the morning, light and fleecy at first, but growing grayer and more threatening as the day wore on. Wiz and his companions trudged onward.
At last, just as the threat of rain became overwhelming, they found a rock shelter, a place beneath an overhanging cliff where the rain could not reach. They were barely inside when the skies opened and the summer rain poured down in torrents.
It was still so warm they did not need a fire and Wiz didn’t feel like dashing in to the rain without a cloak to gather the wood for one. He and the brownies settled down with their backs to the cliff and watched the rain drape traceries of gray over the forest and the hills beyond.
Scant comfort," Lannach said as they settled themselves among the rocks.
"At least we’re dry," Wiz told the brownie. "The last time I came this way I got soaked in one of these storms." He thought of the trek through the dripping forest and the peasant who had sheltered them that night. The one who had gained a farm in the Wild Wood at the cost of his wife and three children dead and a daughter given as a servant to the elves.
Meoan plopped herself down on one of the rocks and yanked at the ties of her bodice.
"We must be grateful for small comforts," she said bitterly. "Those who are driven from their homes had best take what they can find and be happy with it." She pulled down her bodice and offered a breast no larger than the first joint of Wiz’s thumb to her baby.
"I’m sorry for what happened to you," he said tentatively.
The little woman looked up at him. "I know you are, Lord. But sorry does not heal what it hurts." Then she sighed deeply. "And I apologize to you. Since we met you have shown us nothing but kindness. I should not blame you for what those others did."
"We’re not all like that, you know. Where I come from we learned the hard way that you’ve got to protect non-human things, to try to live with them."
"Would that the mortals of this world were so wise," Meoan said.
"Maybe they can be. It’s just that they’ve been oppressed by magic for so long they’re afraid of it and they want to exterminate it."
"Whether it hurts them or not," the brownie woman sniffed.
"When you’re afraid of something it’s hard to make fine distinctions. Humans suffered a lot because they had no protection against magic."
Meoan nodded. "I have heard the mothers lamenting for their children, struck down or stolen away by magic." She held her infant to her breast. "Life has been hard for mortals."
Wiz looked out at the rain. The sun had broken through at the horizon to paint the bottom of the clouds red and purple with its dying rays. The trees of the forest were tinged a glowing gold above, shading to deeper green out of the light. Already the shadows were beginning to thicken and take on substance.
"It’s going to be too dark to travel soon," Wiz said. "It looks like we stay here tonight."
He looked around ruefully. The ground was hard and full of sharp rocks fallen from the ceiling with almost no drifted leaves which could be used to make a bed. There were leaves aplenty out on the slope, but they were soaked.
"Well, it won’t be our most comfortable night, that’s for certain."
"Unless you would care to share other quarters," said a musical voice behind them. "Welcome, Sparrow."
Nine: Meeting by Moonlight
Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.
…and sometimes the real trick is telling the difference.
Wiz whirled and saw an elf standing in the gloaming at the edge of the overhang.
He was tall and straight as a forest pine. His skin was the color of fresh milk. His white long hair was caught back in a circlet of silver set with pale blue opals. Although the forest was dripping and the rain still fell in a light mist, he was completely dry.
"Duke Aelric?"
The elf duke nodded. "The same." Then he smiled and stepped aside to reveal another elf standing behind him.
"And this is Lisella."
She was nearly as tall as Aelric and her skin as milk-fair. But her hair was black and glossy as a raven’s wing where Aelric’s was snow white and her eyes were green as emeralds rather than icy blue. Her gown was old rose with a subtle embroidery of deeper red. Her figure was slender and elegant.
Wiz gulped and bowed clumsily.
"I discovered you were in the area and thought you might do us the honor of dining with us this evening," Aelric said. He looked around the rock shelter. "Perhaps you would care to guest the night with me as well."
"Why, uh, yes," Wiz said, managing to tear his eyes away from the elf duke’s companion. "Thank you, Lord."
"Well, then," Aelric said. "If you would care to accompany us. And your friends, of course."
The brownies had dived for cover as soon as Aelric appeared. Now they poked their heads out from behind rocks or from the crevices where they had gone to earth.
"Come on," Wiz said. "He won’t hurt you."
Reluctantly the brownies came out and gathered tight around Wiz. Lannach wasn’t clinging to his pant leg, but Wiz got the feeling he wanted to.
"Shall we go?"
Aelric and Lisella strode to the back of the shelter and the elf duke made a gesture to the blank stone. Soundlessly the rock dissolved and there was an oak door, magnificently carved and bound with silver. The door swung open and warm golden light flooded out.
Wiz had no idea where he was in the Wild Wood, but he was pretty sure he was a long way from where he and Moira had entered the elf duke’s hold the first time they met.
Time and space run strangely in places the elves make their own, Moira had told him then. He shrugged and followed Aelric and Lisella into the hill with a gaggle of brownies close on his heels.
Once again Wiz sat in Aelric’s great dining hall. The magical globes floating above the table cast the same warm light onto the scene. The food was as superb as it had been before and the soft music in the background was as enchanting.