Working on the reasonable assumption that Winterflower had fled back to her kin and the rest of the rebels, Orchtrien had marched his army into the forest where they dwelled, only to find their treetop towns and fortresses deserted. The Count of Duskmere had led his allies to some hidden stronghold deeper in the wood, and if the king wished to retrieve his stolen secrets, he had no choice but to pursue and attempt to track his enemies down.
As the trees and brush grew thicker, and the way more difficult, the royal army had to stop more and more often to rest and regroup. Whenever it did, Rhespen, cloaked in the image of a human spearman, slipped away by himself. His comrades thought nothing of it. They'd grown used to what they took to be his odd and solitary disposition.
The reality, of course, was otherwise. He needed solitude to perform his divinations. It would hardly do for the other warriors to catch him engaging in occult ritual.
With the tip of his staff, which now appeared to be a common lance, he scratched a mystical figure in the loam then stared at the round empty space at the center. It was a window, through which he hoped to glimpse the objects of his search. But nothing appeared, and when it became apparent that nothing would, his mouth tightened in frustration.
After carrying the copybooks away from Orchtrien's keep, he'd placed a ward on the forbidden texts that would warn him if anyone else found and touched them.
Winterflower, or one of her fellow rebels, had discharged the enchantment while Rhespen lay insensible in the dungeon. But he'd hoped that a trace of the link connecting the volumes to himself remained, and that the connection might enable him to scry for them where even the dragon monarch had failed.
But evidently not. He rubbed out the magical figure with the toe of his boot, looked up, and discovered a raven, head cocked, beady eyes bright, perched on a branch above his head. He caught his breath.
Anticipating that his divinations might fail, he'd convinced some of his friends among the birds to scout for him. The most difficult part had been making them understand that they needed to keep their distance until such time as they actually made a discovery. He couldn't let his fellow soldiers observe him conversing with ravens, either.
'What is it, Thorn?' he asked. After so many years of practice, the croaks and chirps were fairly easy.
'What do you think?' the raven snapped. 'I found them!'
In his excitement, Rhespen nearly asked where, but caught himself in time. Thorn wouldn't be able to tell him, because he had no conception of the units of measurement elves and humans used, and Rhespen lacked any familiarity with the landmarks in this portion of the forest.
He glanced around, making sure once again that no one watched, then whispered an incantation, brandished a talisman, and dwindled into a creature virtually identical to the black bird overhead.
He beat his wings, rose into the air, and rasped, 'Show
As it turned out, the rebel stronghold was nearby. But it was well hidden, and Rhespen suspected that without the aid of sorcery and flying scouts, the royal army could blunder about for a long while before discovering it.
It was a crude place compared to the settlements the elves had abandoned. Their former habitations were works of art, conceived for beauty as much as utility, constructed with painstaking care, and polished and perfected through the centuries. In contrast, it was plain that they'd fashioned their new treetop bastions in haste, and that concealment and defense had been their sole considerations.
Wearing his true body, and a shroud of invisibility, once more, Rhespen scrutinized the fortress, forming an impression of the general layout, then inscribed another scrying pentacle in the dirt. Because he was so close to the copybooks, a vision appeared where none had manifested before.
He beheld a number of elf mages absorbed in study of the pilfered texts, in a room where golden sunlight spilled through tall, narrow windows. The magic likewise gave him a sense of the chamber's location high in a shadowtop. At first glance, the gigantic tree, like its companions, resembled a pure manifestation of nature, untouched by artifice. But if a knowledgeable observer peered for a while, he began to notice the ramparts, the stairs, the places where the shadowtop had obediently hollowed itself to make halls and galleries, until he discerned that it was in fact the equivalent of a mighty keep, and the hub of a network of fortifications.
I know everything now, Rhespen thought. I can lead Orchtrien straight to the books. I should go back, reveal myself, and tell him so.
Yet he wasn't certain of that. The king had expressly refused him the opportunity to attempt to atone for his crimes, and if he simply offered information, might continue to treat him as a traitor. Orchtrien might believe that his own magic or aerial reconnaissance would have led him to the elves' stronghold in another day or so, and indeed, that was entirely possible.
But if I present him with the books themselves, Rhespen reasoned, surely that will constitute such an impressive act of restitution that he'll have no choice but to forgive me.
It would, moreover, afford him an opportunity to strike at some of the cursed rebels directly, not just slink about and spy on them. Since Winterflower had forsaken him, he'd had no opportunity to avenge himself on anyone, and his anger was a clenched, choking weight inside him.
He murmured an incantation. The world shattered, restored itself in a different configuration, and he stood in one corner of the elf wizards' sanctum. Thus far, he was still invisible, and despite the puff of displaced air, no one noticed his arrival. Thank the gods for open windows, and the breezes that blew through them.
He whispered words of power, brandished his rod, and power blazed from the end. The force was psychic in nature, incapable of disturbing physical reality but devastating to the ethereal substance of the mind. Some of the assembled scholars immediately fell unconsciousness. Others thrashed in the throes of epileptic seizures.
Either way, they no longer posed a threat, and he felt tempted to slaughter them all while they lay helpless. But perhaps that would be dishonorable, and in any case, it would be reckless to linger here any longer than necessary.
Instead, visible once more, he scurried about collecting the copybooks, making sure he found them all, shrunk them, and stuffed them in his backpack. Then he chanted the opening words of the spell that would whisk him back to the royal army.
During a necessary pause, he heard another voice whispering an incantation of its own. Alarmed, he tried to pick up the tempo and finish first, but the other spellcaster had too much of a lead.
She bobbed up from behind a table on the far side of the chamber, thrust out her hand, and a shaft of green light leaped from her fingertips. Rhespen tried to dodge, but was too slow. The beam struck him, and he experienced a momentary feeling of crushing weight, as well as a fleeting sensation that his feet had taken root in the floor.
He recognized what had happened. His foe had laid an enchantment on him, and while it lasted, it would keep him from fleeing the scene by magical means.
He lifted his staff to blast the female mage and so prevent her from hindering him any further. But before he could act, she flopped backward and sprawled motionless on the floor. Evidently, in the wake of the psychic assault, she'd needed a supreme effort just to cast the one spell.
Still, unlike her colleagues, she'd clung to consciousness, which suggested that she possessed more willpower and sorcerous ability than any of the rest. It seemed a bad idea to allow her to gather her strength a second time, and in any case, he was furious with her for complicating his escape. Still intending to smite her as soon as he had a clear line of sight, he stalked closer.
Then he froze, because the wizard was Winterflower. He hadn't noticed her presence hitherto because she hadn't been in current possession of one of the forbidden books.
Her sapphire eyes fluttered open. 'When the staff disappeared,' she whispered, 'I feared you might try to find me. But I hoped that the wards from the dragon grimoires would keep anyone from scrying for us, as you promised they could.'
'They did,' he said. 'I found you by another means, and now you're going to wish I hadn't.'
'I didn't want to abandon you. It was just that the books were more important than anyone's life, yours or mine, and if I'd delayed for even another moment, Maldur might well have stopped me from taking them.'
Rhespen laughed, though it made it feel as if something were grinding inside his chest. 'You can't stop lying even when you know there's no longer any point.'
'I'm not lying. After you fought Maldur to protect me, and I realized you were trying to help our people in
