but had retained several others secreted around her body, protected from discovery by a layer of misdirection.
Lately, also, in the darkness, when the lanterns had burned low, Suka had taken the habit of singing to the lycanthrope in her hoarse alto voice to keep her own spirits up and to make some kind of contact, under the general supposition that two females of any race or species would have to have something in common, as long as both wore tattoos.
She sang ballads from the highlands above Myrloch Vale where she d been born. She sang the songs her father had composed for her, altering the words to popular melodies in order to fit some specific occasion, a naming day, or a broken tooth. Her father had been a drinker, probably still was if he was still alive she d left him after her brother died, sick of the tyranny of the leShay. She d shipped out to Alaron, where eventually she d met Lukas and the others. Now she was back.
On the fifth night of her captivity the lycanthrope had surprised her by speaking in the Common tongue: Sing that other one, the one about the girl who died young.
She was referring to Oh, Father Dear, the only sad song in Suka s repertoire, a story so melancholy it was almost a joke, or at least her own father had thought so. The girl had died of consumption pretty much at the exact moment when her lover, a bold sea captain whose leg had been blown off in some episode of Northlander skullduggery, arrived at her door.
Suka s father, in between grimaces and smiles, had always managed to squeeze out tears over this piece of sentimentality displaced tears, for he was never able to weep at the mess he had made of his own life. And perhaps the lycanthrope, also, could respond to it this way Suka sang it for her twice in a row, and the second time she found herself inventing, as her father had, new and more preposterous details the lover, subsequently, had his other leg blown off after he had agreed to marry the girl s younger sister, who had died of heartstop upon hearing the news, and so on, and so on, and by the end Suka herself was crying also, as her own situation at that moment didn t seem so good. Lukas was on a fool s errand on the island of Moray, which presumably was full of lycanthropes less soft hearted than this one.
Oh, father dear, don t curse and sigh when I am dead and gone, / I m going to a better place that I will call my own.
Hmm maybe not. Her father s sense of the ridiculous was almost his only good quality. But this would have been too much even for him, unless he was really drunk.
Tears in her eyes, she laid her cheek against the bars of the lycanthrope s cage. She missed her friends, missed Lukas especially, though in many ways he was the most harebrained captain who ever lived, willing to risk all of their lives, endlessly, for trifles. Or else not trifles, exactly, but for his own exaggerated sense of loyalty; to redeem the golden elf out of prison, he had agreed to follow the stupidest mortal in the history of humanity into an obvious trap. And now, for her own sake, Suka had no doubt, he had embarked on a half-baked and utterly unplanned assault on the most star-cursed island in the Moonshaes, in the service of an evil queen who would not hesitate to double-cross him and probably had already. Even so, Suka knew, he would return for her or else die trying. He was an old-fashioned fellow, with a sense of honor and all that. And he had given his word.
Only in a universe where the gods did not exist, he d once remarked, would mere cleverness or ruthlessness ever find their own reward. Real gods, he imagined, would reward transparency above all things, transparent motives, a transparent heart. And of course so far they had rewarded him, he claimed, if not with riches, then at least with friends.
Remembering him, missing him, the little gnome rubbed her pink hair against the bars. Without even listening to herself she had come to the end of her song. But now she hesitated, first frightened and then amazed, as the lycanthrope s hand slipped through the gap left by the missing bar, and touched her cheek where the tears had fallen, the sharp edge of her cloven fingers scraping them away.
Do not be sad, said the lycanthrope in her low, grunting, distorted voice. You have nothing to fear from me.
And then wonder of wonders from the other side of the gnome s cell, where the fomorian giantess was sprawled against the bars, came another voice, also speaking in the Common tongue. You have nothing to fear. We saw you lay down your life for your friends. Her voice was soft and even, beautiful, almost. Now they are starving us for your sake. What are we going to do about that?
Suka couldn t think of anything, at least not right away. She thought it was a good idea to change the subject. Misdirection was her skill, and soon the giantess was telling her story, which, as it turned out, was every bit as melancholy as Oh, Father Dear. Her name was Marabaldia, and although Suka mightn t necessarily have guessed by looking, she was the most beautiful fomorian in the entire Underdark, and certainly on Gwynneth Island. A girl from a powerful family, renowned for her artistic and musical talents, she had convinced her mother to allow her to marry her deserving sweetheart, a boy from a different tribe. The date had been set, and Marabaldia was the happiest girl in her cave or tunnel or whatever Suka, listening, had to keep reminding herself that everything was happening by torchlight, underground when fate intervened. Her own father dear, who had abandoned her when she was small or at least smaller, Suka thought, not willing to believe she had ever been the size of, say, a gnome now reappeared with a new bridegroom, who was as rich as he was old and ugly though, again, Suka wondered how anyone could tell, especially in the dark.
But the lovers had run away, and after a series of hair s breadth escapes had found their way up to the surface, following a seam of some precious, glinting mineral up from the Underdark and into the deepest cellars of Citadel Umbra in Winterglen forest, the palace of Lady Ordalf s son and heir, the leShay Prince Araithe. Initially welcoming, he had betrayed them like the scum-sucking piece of dragon shit he was, selling Marabaldia s lover to their pursuers while keeping her hostage for the sake of some scheme she had never known or understood. Araithe had shipped her here, as far away from Umbra as he could manage, where she d languished in captivity for a long, long time. She imagined the leShay had forgotten all about her.
Hidden by the flickering lamplight, Suka had squirmed and rolled her eyes for the first part of this story. At the beginning it was hard for her to feel much sympathy for someone she had been afraid might rip her arms out of her sockets later in the month, and maybe snack on her dead body. Her father had always told her the fomorians ate people like her, though as the narrative went on, Suka found herself less and less sure. It s not as if anything else her father had told her had turned out to be true. Perhaps that was just lore left over from when fomorians used to keep gnomes as slaves down in the Feywild. But surely it was just as possible that they ate mushrooms and other nocturnal vegetables, bulging white tubers harvested in the dark. And at the end, when the sense of the story was dissolved in tears, Suka moved to the other side of her cell and sat beside the giantess as she wept, for comfort s sake.
And your wedding feast, what was it going to be? Suka wanted to ask but didn t, not just because it might be awkward if the giantess had described a roast gnome with a tuber in her mouth, but also because it might be unkind to remind her, when she was crying so hard.
The new gap in the bars was too small for the giantess s hand, but she could slip hers through, and did, because of a general feeling that it is harder for someone to devour a friend than an enemy. She found herself patting the giantess s enormous shoulder, picking at the threadbare and ruined brocade of her blue dress, while at the same time examining as best she could the iron and leather headdress Marabaldia wore clasped over her right eye, a simple mechanism as it turned out, though impossible to unlock with her big fingers. For Suka it would be a snap, and immediately she glimpsed the possibility of a plan.
A fomorian s evil eye is a peculiar thing with a distinctive yellowish cast and unusual properties. Chief among them is the ability to affect the perception and the will of anyone who looked at her, to freeze or slow his thoughts, reflexes, and responses. It was because of this capacity that all those gnomes had been imprisoned and/or (maybe!) eaten, all those years ago. Stupid fomorians, Suka had heard, could barely slow you down. Clever ones could stop you in your tracks. She wondered if this was one of the clever ones. So far it was hard to tell, though Suka had a well-worn prejudice against the females of any race who boasted of their beauty. Particularly if they had purple skin, and warts.
But already she was wondering if, when Marabaldia described her family s power and influence, instead of boasting she was being tactful and discreet this sounded more like a dynastic dispute, in which case Prince Araithe s interest was easier to understand.
Don t cry, Suka said. Let s get you out of here.
Her plan was pretty hazy, and it was already morning, which, again, you couldn t tell by looking. No windows. But the Ffolk wardens came in with their half bowls of gruel actual gruel, Suka thought. How exotic. She d heard of
