Zystyl nodded, knowing the human would observe the gesture, accept it as a positive response. In the heart of his mask, the metal jaws twisted into a cruel smile.
15
Scar Tissue
Skin healed bone mends; flesh restored, body tends.
Spirit’s gouge torture’s deeds; wounded spirit ever bleeds.
From the Lore of the Healers
Belynda tried to take some encouragement from the columns of figures on the pages before her, the tallies of recruits and armaments that should have been good news. She saw the proof of a growing army, a force that steadily gained might, confidence, and experience. Every cycle, more elves made the decision to join the Nayvian forces-seventy-four of them in the last forty days alone, most drawn from right here in Circle at Center. When added to the goblins recruited by the loquacious “Captin” Hiyram, the giants who steadily emigrated from the Greens and crossed the lake by raft in the dark of the night, and the young centaurs who rallied in answer to Gallupper’s entreaties, Natac’s army had gained another two hundred souls in this, the third interval of the twenty-fifth year of the war.
But then there were pages with other columns, different figures, such as the dolorous list of thirty-two brave elves who drowned when their caravel had been shattered by giant-thrown boulders, the four giants who had perished in recent skirmishes on the causeway, and the dozens of goblins who were killed during the routine brawls that rocked their camp with inevitable frequency. Always the gains were balanced against the losses, as they had been since the Battle of the Blue Swan. Even if that balance showed that the army defending the city was continuing to grow, as it had in nearly every interval of every year of the war, it amazed her that she could muster even the pretense of dispassion as she pondered such matters of life and death.
And to what purpose?
It had fallen to her to be the organizer, to gather the mortal fodder that Natac, and his lieutenants such as Tamarwind, Karkald, and Rawknuckle Barefist, sent into battle. Often they won, and sometimes they lost. Always warriors died, and others were recruited to take their places.
The sage-ambassador sighed, and rose from her writing table. She went to the window, looked across the Center of Everything, saw the great loom rising from its base in the shallow valley. Her colorful songbirds regarded her from their branches, still and silent. Beyond the garden and the valley she was aware of the teeming city, for the most part still going through the days as though nothing had changed. Music reached her ears, the tune wafting from some idle street-corner concert within a nearby elven neighborhood.
Even farther beyond, past the outskirts of the city and the once-placid lake, Belynda felt-though she could not see-the presence of the Knight of the Crimson Cross. Her hatred flared unbidden as the awareness seeped through her mind, burning in her breast and surging with all the force of that brutal night so long ago. She caressed that malice with her thoughts, holding it close, breathing the fetid smell of his sweaty flesh, remembering the anguish that had pierced her when he pressed home his brutal assault. Sometimes it seemed to be all that kept her going, that hatred, and so in her own way she cherished it, recalled it willingly, knowing that amid the inaction and apathy of Circle at Center she, at least, had a powerful cause, a reason for waging this war.
The knock at her door startled Belynda. She drew a breath and tried to stem the trembling in her hands, the tremors that arose, unbidden, every time she was surprised or frightened. Only after several deep breaths was she able to control her voice enough to speak calmly.
“Enter.” She turned as the opening door revealed the worried face of her assistant and friend. “Oh hello, Nistel.”
“Hello, my lady,” the gnome said, rising from a deep bow. His eyes wrinkled in concern as he surreptitiously studied the sage-ambassador. “How are you feeling?” he asked nervously.
She laughed-or tried to laugh. The sound that emerged was more of a bark, she realized. Short, nervous, warning. “As good as ever, I guess,” she admitted. “What about you… any word from Thickwhistle?”
Nistel’s face fell. “Thickwhistle is no more-there are only giants there, and so what was once Thickwhistle is just Granitehome now.”
Belynda knew that the gnomes of Thickwhistle had simply moved to a different part of the hill country, and she found it hard to share the gnome’s palpable sadness. Instead, she made vague noises of sympathy and turned back to the window.
“Did you see the war today?” Blinker asked.
“No… for once I stayed inside, thinking, trying to rest. I know the war will be there tomorrow-that’s one thing that doesn’t seem to change.”
“It changed a little today,” offered the gnome, advancing into the room, chattering enthusiastically. “Tamarwind went out there with a new weapon-and the caravels burned up a big galley, and sent the others packing back to port!”
Belynda sighed. “There’s always a new weapon. One side or the other burns up, or is torn to pieces. How is that a change?”
“The war has changed Circle at Center a lot,” Nistel continued. “I can remember when we didn’t have fortress towers by the causeways, didn’t have any warships on the lake.”
“But we still have concerts on every corner, people laughing and going about their lives like there’s no danger, like nothing’s wrong!” she retorted bitterly.
Now it was Nistel’s turn to slump his shoulders and hang his head. “You’re right-in so many respects the war hasn’t changed anything at all.”
Belynda spoke harshly, determined to prove her point. “The Senate meets once every interval, and during those forty days most of the city’s leaders seem to work very hard to ignore the danger. If it was up to them, we’d have simply let the Crusaders march in here, invited the Delvers to dig their tunnels under the Center of Everything.”
Indeed, many elves still hosted fabulous parties, and every day there were celebrations and festivals throughout the city. Some foods, and especially wines from the outlying realms of elvenkind, had been scarce or nonexistent, but most of the elves had preferred to make do with substitutes rather than make any changes in their lives that might acknowledge the difficulties raised by the war.
Of course, Belynda admitted, there had been some awakening. Many individual elves had rejected their clans’ complacency and joined Natac’s army. These included outlander companies from Barantha, Kol’sos, and other realms, as well as a number of recruits from Circle at Center. And still no elven land had sent as many companies as Argentian, the sage-ambassador thought with a touch of pride-pride tinged with sadness, for by the same token no realm had given as many lives to the war as her own.
Another knock sounded at the door, and Nistel hopped up to answer. He came back to speak to Belynda.
“Tamarwind is here to see you… maybe he wants to tell you about the battle. It was his ship, you know, that burned up that galley!”
Belynda shook her head, suddenly irritated. “I told you… I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Can he come in?”
The elven warrior was standing behind the gnome, and Belynda saw the eagerness, the high spirits in his expression. Tiredly, she nodded.
“It was a great day!” the warrior exclaimed, rushing into the room with un-elflike haste and taking the chair nearest to Belynda. She saw again how he was dark, weathered, hardened in ways that centuries of his earlier travels could never have done.
