And so, every time Lydia deemed it safe to stop, Kevin worked feverishly to extract the spell from the manuscript,, making as many copies as he could, hiding one each time the party had to move on—The trackers can’t possibly discover all our shelters. And hopefully someone will find the spell and be able to complete it if we’re caught or—or failed.
But what a weird spell it seemed to be! Kevin, curious, showed Naitachal one elfish glyph, and wasn’t really surprised when the Dark Elf shook his head.
“It looks something like elfish, yes, but you must have made some mistake. That odd notation just to the left of the glyph doesn’t belong to any dialect of elfish I know!”
“That’s just the way it’s written in the manuscript!” Kevin protested. “See—Ah, never mind, I forgot I’m the only one who can see it”
Just what he needed; another worry, this one that somehow he was copying the whole thing wrong, making the spell useless! But there wasn’t anything to do but continue.
And at last, at their next brief sanctuary, Kevin breathed a great sigh of relief. “It’s done. I’ve got the whole spell copied out. Naitachal, now you can. Naitachal?”
The Dark Elf was sagging against a tree, as though all at once coo weak to move. “It’s nothing ... a moment’s dizziness.”
“Nothing, hell!” Lydia erupted. “It’s that arm of yours, isn’t k?”
She made a move towards it, but Naitachal waved her away. “We don’t have the time for this.” He stepped away from the tree, now quite steady on his feet “Let me see the spell,” Taking the scrap of parchment from the bardling, he added, “Once I have it memorized—”
The Dark Elf stopped dead. “What in the name of all the Powers is this thing? This matches no spell I’ve ever seen! All these weird notations ...”
Kevin straightened so suddenly he nearly rapped his head on a low branch. “Notations,” he echoed. “Regular notations in front of every word—.. what if ...?” Suddenly wild with suspense, the bardling cried, “Let me see that again! Yes ... yes ... Dear Powers, yes! I never stopped to really think about what I was copying but: do you know what these notations are? They’re music notes’. This isn’t elfish at all. No, no, it’s Bardic Magic, and this spell is meant to be sung!”
Naitachal’s eyes flashed with excitement. “0f course it is! I should have realized—But it’s also untried. You realize what that means, don’t you?”
“That it’s dangerous ... ?”
“Oh, indeed. You will have to get very close to Carlotta to even try it. And then, if it backlashes, as some spells do, it could kill you. If it doesn’t work at all, Carlotta certainly will kill you!”
After all that had happened so far, Kevin knew he no longer thought of himself as a hero. not even as being very brave. But bravery had very little to do with this. Carlotta had killed a friend, and would surely kill many, many more people if she made her bid for power.
“I’ll deliver the spell,” the bardling said quietly, “no matter what it costs.”
“Sure, but how?” Lydia asked. “We’re stuck here in the forest, and even though we haven’t seen a trace of (hose damned persistent trackers—”
“We’ve shaken them,” Tich’ki interrupted—
“You dunk. I’m pretty sure they’re still after us.”
“And we cannot risk letting ourselves be captured.” Naitachal’s voice was all at once so thick with strain that Kevin stared at him in alarm.
“Are you—”
“Yes, yes,” the Dark Elf said impatiently. “I’m fine. As fine as one can be without enough to eat or enough time to rest.” Naitachal made what was obviously a mighty effort to rouse himself. “If we are taken, there is a good chance none of us will live long enough to even see Carlotta.”
“True.” Lydia shrugged. “What will be, as the saying goes, will be. It looks like the only thing we can do is just go on, and hope we meet up with someone along the way who can help us.”
“Time for scouting duty!” Tich’ki said wryly, and darted ahead.
As Kevin and Lydia followed on foot, Lydia whispered in the bardling’s ear, “I don’t like the looks of Naitachal. If he isn’t ill, I’ll trade my sword for a loom.”
