Finally, the elf continued. 'You've held Angul. So you know the overwhelming nature of his personality. When you wield the Blade Cerulean, remaining in possession of your own thoughts is difficult. Everything seems decided already, and Angul believes himself the final arbiter. Frankly, I can't believe you resisted running through everyone in that bar. Angul would see them all as dissolute wastrels crying out for his special loving attention.'
'Only because I made a deal with it-him-before I picked him up. The second time, anyway. The first time, he ignited one of my gauntlets.' Gage raised his left hand, red and blistered, and flexed it. Pain flitted across his face.
'He's that way, now,' sighed Kiril. 'Punishing. He doesn't like that I've discovered ways to temper his influence. He wants total control-he believes such is his right. But I wasn't always so resourceful. Nor did I see a need to be. Angul seduced me to his will by being in some ways identical to Nangulis.'
Gage nodded. 'I sensed he was trying to take over my mind.'
'After the Traitor was remanded back to Stardeep's most secure dungeon cell, I stayed as the Keeper as I had been, now wielding Angul. I spent most days in constant contact with the blade, so I could mingle with his sense of certainty, what I thought was his glorious revealed knowledge. His absolute distinction between good and evil. While I was out on patrol one day, that distinction fell on the wrong side of the dividing line.'
When Kiril's pause threatened to become a full stop, the thief asked, 'What do you mean?'
'I mean Angul decided that a group of unruly children who had wandered too near Stardeep, when they should have known better, were no longer worth tolerating. Before that day was over, while wielding Angul, I. .'
An oft-thumbed memory swept up from the abyss of Kiril's soul, as it sometimes did when her defenses were most fragile. In her mind's eye, she saw she was dressed as a Keeper of Stardeep; her mail was black, trimmed with silver thread. In her hands, Angul burned, shedding the warm certainty of the truth. A promise soon to be shattered forever. She began to tell Gage about the worst day of her life.
'I was patrolling beyond Stardeep, in the daylight world, looking for spies on the perimeter. .'
The swordswoman walked beneath a dark pine canopy. The burning sword she held aloft illuminated her path, as if she were an avenging angel. And wasn't she? Her cause was just and good. Her blood was fired with Angul's conviction, her mind focused with his clarity, and her heart hardened with his faith. Nothing could stand in their way, and while she gripped the burning blade, fear was an emotion unknown to her, and more; an emotion reviled.
Prowlers camped near the Causeway Gate. Too near. If the Causeway emerged from the interstitial mists that cloaked it, the intruders would see Stardeep's main entrance. Considering the recent escape attempt by the prisoner, the encampment's sudden appearance was too suspicious to let pass. After the sacrifices made to ensure the Traitor's continued captivity, Kiril was determined not to take any chances. Angul, new to her hands, agreed emphatically.
Sneaks and cutpurses coddled fear, and used it to inform their bloodless deceits, retreats, and ambushes. Worry was fear's watchword, and it nudged and pushed the timid into the grave just as surely, if not as quickly, as a fearless attack that failed to win the day. At worst, the eulogy of the warrior who bravely fell in conflict would be remembered for centuries, whereas those whose fear preserved them would die unremembered in cold beds, alone.
Not that death was likely with a magical blade of Angul's strength in her keeping. Joined, hilt to hand, she and Angul would be together forever. After all, the blade's power made certain little could permanently harm her flesh.
Kiril spied the camp. Two hide tents, finely cured, with subtle sigils cut into the surface. The interlopers were apparently not orcs or the other coarse peoples. No, these must be wood elves who ranged yet in Aglarond. They should know better than to camp so close to the megaliths! It was part of the compact established when the Yuir elves first moved out of Aglarond and into their artificial realm. Had the remnant elves forgotten?
Ignorance is no excuse, Angul imparted to her conscious mind, their presence is in violation of the compact of Yuireshanyaar.
'Yes,' she breathed, 'of course.' The intruders must be induced to leave. Immediately.
Kiril moved to within five or so paces of the tents. She saw no movement, despite the warning her blade's light provided.
'Come out and be judged!' she bawled in Elvish.
Whispers broke from the tents, and a moment later, four or five lithe forms emerged. As she'd guessed, wood elves, or half-elves most likely, members of the degraded fey race that remained behind after the Yuir departed. She hadn't guessed these would be children, or nearly so.
The oldest, a youth of no more than fourteen or fifteen suns, stepped forward. His hair was strung with garlands, his torso inked with patterns of leaves and acorns. He responded in the same language. 'We are on a quest, and mean no harm. We-'
'You have broken the compact,' interrupted Kiril. 'Why?'
'We. .' the youth's initial confidence began to collapse in the face of her asperity.'. . We seek to discover a truth. Our seer spoke of a prophecy.'
'What prophecy?'
'About the megaliths. She said the Yuirwood's 'salvation or destruction lies beyond stony bounds of the ancient rings.' '
Kiril frowned. She'd never liked prophets. The riddles they spoke were too easily decoded in a manner convenient to the interpreter. And true prophets irked her more; she had a visceral distaste for the concept of predestination.
'Who is this prophetess?' demanded Kiril. If some hoary old tribal shaman was able to determine which among the hundreds of stone circles in the Yuirwood opened onto Stardeep, well, that was a real security hazard.
Instead of answering directly, the boy said, 'We came here to see if the words she spoke were true. Who are you?' The last was asked with a tremulous waver, as Kiril's stony expression hardened into a scowl.
'Your judge,' she responded. 'And I judge you've overstayed your welcome. Be gone.'
They have disregarded the treaty upon which the realm of Sild?yuir was born, and on which the security of Stardeep depends.
Kiril's sword spoke the truth. It saw past all distractions to the heart of the matter, she was learning. She lowered the tip of the sword to point at the interlopers. The boy's companions shrank away.
Not the boy. He held his ground, screwed up his courage once more, and said, 'You are not of the tribes, are you? I see you are a full-blood elf, but not of these woods, or even those far to the north. Have you come from behind the menhir circle? Is it true star elves roam there, in a realm apart?'
These children guess too much. Stardeep's defense is imperiled.
'Yes!' she agreed aloud with her blade, not the child. The sword lent her a focus completely new to her experience. It was almost like having Nangulis himself at her side. When he was alive, he had called her his Bright Star. .
'You are? But that's wonderful!' exclaimed the boy, misunderstanding her response. He had no inkling of the death sentence silently handed down by the Blade Cerulean.
She closed the distance between them with five quick steps and brought the sword around. When the blade swept through the space beneath the boy's jaw, she hardly felt a tug on the hilt. The youth's head rolled into the underbrush. Fluids sprayed. She blinked blood from her eyes.
The murdered elf's companions stood frozen in soul-stopped horror. She continued moving, making one harvestlike motion after another, taking advantage of the interlopers' shock. Sword in hand, she moved to eliminate Stardeep's liability.
Her lips moved, too, but Angul's words were in her mouth. 'We do not suffer abominations.'
She learned that day that Angul impelled where dry reason faltered. Angul excited where debate and philosophy failed to motivate. With Angul in hand came purpose, exaltation, and the ultimate high of being part of a spectacular moment. A moment in which Angul delivered triumph in the face of insurmountable odds. .
The screams of the children, as she cut them down, penetrated her blade-given conviction. She paused, wiping blood from her face with the back of one gauntleted hand, her eyes blinking. Abominations. .? What in the
