Destiny

beauty of Qualinost likewise dissolved, becoming a confusing welter of gray and brown before gradually resolving into the patchwork roof of his tent in Inath-Wakenti. Above him floated the face of a human woman. Tendrils of white hair curled around a face creased by concern.

The woman’s lips moved, but he couldn’t make out the words. Drawing a shuddering breath, he croaked, “What?”

The woman moved abruptly out of his line of sight, and her place was taken by someone Gilthas did know. Kerian, looking windblown and sunburned, knelt by his bed and took his face in her hands.

“Who told you you could die?” she said, voice breaking. Tears glistened in her eyes, and Gilthas was concerned. The Lioness never wept in public.

“Don’t cry, my love,” he rasped. “I met Balif. He told me his true tale.”

She called him a fool and he smiled, pleased he had cheered her.

The intimate moment was broken by the human woman’s return. She laid damp cloths on his brow. Kerian introduced her as Sa’ida, high priestess of the Temple of Elir-Sana.

“She saved your life,” Kerian added.

He felt strangely ambivalent about being rescued. The eternal glory of Qualinost had been within his grasp. Now he had only the sterile despair of the Silent Vale.

No, not only that. He took Kerian’s hand. His own was cold, but hers was warm as sunshine.

“Did you hear me call you?” he asked. “I used the stone platform.”

“Of course. I came as fast as I could,” she said, smiling.

His eyes closed, and Kerian looked to Sa’ida. The priestess was gripping the pendant she wore around her neck. Normally the gold-and-sapphire amulet was kept hidden within her robe, but she held it tightly in her right hand. The Eye of Elir-Sana, the symbol of the goddess of healing.

“He will rest. His soul had almost departed, but he is back.” Sa’ida regarded the Speaker’s wasted frame. Elves were a naturally slender, willowy race compared to humans, but the Speaker of the Sun and Stars appeared no more than a skeleton beneath the heavy blankets. In sleep he looked far worse than many corpses she had seen. She shook her head. “Consumption is dreadful among my people. It is an abomination in yours.”

Kerian looked away. Sa’ida’s reaction had caused her to see Gilthas through new eyes. Merciful E’li, they had only just arrived in time!

The Speaker’s tent was filled with people. Kerian nodded to Truthanar, and he returned the gesture with a look of dawning relief. Turning, he herded the rest back to a more respectful distance. The air of terrified suspense was replaced by one of cautious optimism.

Kerian touched her husband’s face. It was bathed in sweat but noticeably cooler than it had been when she’d arrived. Sa’ida gently but firmly pulled her away from her sleeping husband. They emerged from the close confines of the tent into cool morning air.

“Is he healed?” Kerian asked.

The high priestess rubbed her hands together, flexing her fingers stiffly as if they pained her. “That was no healing, lady. The Speaker was on the edge of a chasm; I guided him back home, that’s all.”

She explained the course of treatment the Speaker would require. Healing him would be a long and complicated process. Consumption was a deep-seated malady. It had to be destroyed root and branch, or it would recur.

“Have you told him?” Sa’ida asked.

Kerian, still digesting what the priestess had just said, was lost. “Told who? What?”

“Of the child you carry.”

Shock rocked the Lioness back on her heels, and Sa’ida immediately realized she had not known her own state. The priestess apologized for having delivered the news so bluntly.

“How can you know?” Kerian asked hoarsely.

Sa’ida shrugged. “I am the high priestess of Elir-Sana.”

Kerian walked on trembling legs to a nearby log and sat down. A child! Her head moved in a denial, but she knew Sa’ida wouldn’t mislead her about so important a fact.

The priestess’s hand rested on her shoulder. “Don’t look so frightened,” she said kindly. “It’s the most natural thing in the world.”

Natural for some, but for the Lioness? The foundations of her world were shifting under her feet, and Kerian wondered how she would cope.

“Motherhood,” she said, and the word sounded as strange to her as anything she’d encountered in Inath- Wakenti.

* * * * *

Outside the ring of standing stones and bonfires, unfriendly eyes surveyed the camp. Black tongue lolling, the beast who was Prince Shobbat crouched by a small tree. His belly ached with hunger. Before he’d come into the valley, he’d hunted rabbits and squirrels. In the valley there was nothing. He was sure the laddad would have food. Sneaking in would not be easy. Laddad senses were far keener than a human’s, but so were his, and he was much stealthier than when he’d been human.

He did not debate the question long. His empty belly overruled any qualms. Rising from his crouch, he trotted through the widely spaced trees. It was very early in the morning, and the high mountains shadowed the valley, but he kept to the low places so as not to risk showing a silhouette to elf eyes. Unfortunately, he could find no easy access. The ramparts surrounding the laddad camp were uniformly patrolled.

At a barricade spanning the gap between two lofty monoliths, the pair of elves on watch leaned casually on their spears. Their attention was half-hearted at best. Since the Speaker’s encounter with the will-o’-the-wisps several nights back, the ghosts of Inath-Wakenti had not reappeared. Eerie silence still cloaked the valley, but the absence of specters went a long way toward lulling elf fears. For the civilian volunteers, guard duty became routine. The hardest part of the job was staying awake.

One sentinel stood straighter and pushed his helmet back from his forehead.

“Did you see that?” he asked.

His comrade had seen nothing but his own drooping eyelids. “What?” he mumbled.

The first sentinel pointed at a gully about thirty yards away. “It went in there,” he said. “It looked like a dog. A big one!”

An argument ensued. Both elves knew there were no dogs in Inath-Wakenti, but the first insisted he had not been mistaken. Whatever it was, he had seen something. The discussion grew heated, but he remained adamant. He went to find the captain of the night watch and report the sighting.

The beast noted the departure of the sentinel. Only one elf remained, and the barrier at that spot was only chest-high, made of loose stones. He couldn’t hope for better odds than that. Belly low to the turf, he crept forward. Soon he was close enough to hear the crackle of bonfires and to smell wood burning. He could smell laddad too. Unlike the pungency of unwashed humans, laddad scent was redolent of dry grass, like a haymow.

Gathering his long legs beneath him, Shobbat sprang.

He hit the laddad sentinel in the back, and the two of them went down in a heap. Shobbat’s jaws locked Onto the laddad’s throat. How easy it would be to tear the elf apart. Part of him wanted to taste the hot blood flowing, but enough of his humanity remained to resist that savagery He held on until the laddad succumbed to lack of air and lost consciousness.

Pressing on, Shobbat kept to the shadows, avoiding bonfires and the packs of alert laddad patrolling the camp. His keen nose detected the aroma of smoked meat. He tracked the tantalizing odor. Once he almost blundered into the path of several mounted warriors. The riders didn’t notice him, but their horses did. The front pair reared and lashed out with their shod hooves. Shobbat withdrew quickly into the deep shadows between two large tents. The riders calmed their mounts and moved on.

Shobbat’s nose led him at last to a round tent with a conical roof. It was guarded by a pair of spear-armed laddad who walked around it in opposite directions. Getting past them was simple He