Earthmother, let my outward form reflect my inner misery. Squeeze me of excess. Make me little, as I have no desire to be great.
The sweat dripped from her fingers. In a moment, in her despair, she found herself sufficiently diminished to feel the grip of her iron bonds soften for an instant Chauntea had heard her. Below, the Savage struggled with the angel. The red sword rang against the white one, and the air trembled with the force of the electric charge. Momentarily revealed, the golden elf s fiendish nature was now obscured in the storm of battle, which had taken on an elemental quality. Under her, a devil raised his sword against an angel of vengeance, and which side was she on? The devil, the daemonfey, surely he fought for her, to free her and Kip from their imprisonment on the altar of the Beastlord. Surely he had climbed down this winding tunnel to release her from the pit of death, swung his blade against the army of her enemies, whose smoking and disemboweled corpses lay around him the rest of the lycanthropes had pulled back against the walls to watch the red sword press against the white one. Marikke could see their eyes shining in the circles of conflicting light, and some of the awestruck lycanthropes had laid their heads down on their paws.
How could the Savage have hid himself from her for so long and so successfully? With what intolerable and astonishing effort of will had he kept that cast of red out of his green eyes, kept that pretty elf delicacy in his hands and movement? Even when he was asleep his fingers had not relaxed into claws, and spines of bone had not protruded from his skin she had seen him aboard the Sphinx, wrapped in slumber and his black robe. Even now, when the angel s wings shone above him, an effect more of light and shadow than of flesh, there was no trace of competing bat wings, no sign of a scaly or barbed tail protruding from his trousers. Was it possible she was mistaken? No, but she had seen his demon s eyes when the light of the angel s sword crossed his face, and she had recognized in his terrible beauty the wide forehead and high cheekbones of House Dlardrageth itself. And surely it was no ordinary elf that could press Malar s avenging angel down against the stone table, hammering and pounding the red sword against the white.
Her hands aching, her arms insensible, Marikke prayed:
Great Mother, help me to choose wisely
Better yet, you make the choice.
Finally it was as if the goddess had acquiesced, had bowed her head, and Marikke s tightly folded palms slipped through the manacles, and she was falling, just at the moment when Argon Bael parried the red sword and flung it upward in a last desperate attempt. The Savage staggered back, his sword point flailing wide. But before the angel could leap on his advantage, Marikke had tumbled onto his back. She felt the burning, shining skin. She had fallen perhaps twenty feet onto his back, which was enough to knock him to his knees, while at the same time she heard the goddess s voice the same impertinent little girl whom she had seen in her distorted recollection of the guildhall in Callidyrr, as if through a shard of broken glass, a little girl in a green dress who spoke into her ear as she rolled, stunned, from the angel s back and slid down to the floor: Malar doesn t need him.
The Savage stood above them. The red blade hammered home. The white one flickered and went out. Extinguished suddenly, it left the cavern rinsed in darkness, except for the guttering red flame along the blade of the demon elf. The torches were all out. Some of the lycanthropes were whimpering, other screaming softly in the sweating air. Marikke rolled onto her side.
She had fallen away from the table and lay on the greasy floor. Her arms were hot and numb. Raising her head, she saw a glow on the stone tabletop, a sphere of radiance. She imagined the black bulk of the unconscious god, and Kip s discarded body, while at the same time she listened to the voice in her ear, the muddy little urchin from the slums of Alaron.
Good and bad, evil and kind, the girl lectured primly. They re just words in the Common tongue. Maybe they mean something to you. But I can t be described that way. I am bigger than you can imagine. We all are we that you call gods. If we create, then we destroy. If we destroy, then we create. Look Great Malar lives.
Marikke didn t turn her head. Instead she saw clearly in her mind s eye the little girl with her tangled hair, freckled face, chapped lips, snot-caked nose, stained teeth. At the same time she was looking at the daemonfey who leaned wearily upon his sword above the body of his defeated enemy. His face was lit with a reflected radiance. He bowed his head, then lifted one hand as if in supplication.
All around the table, the lycanthropes had pressed their cheeks against the agate tiles of the cavern floor. Tense and immobile at the same time, they showed in their various postures the submissive urgency of beasts. From time to time Marikke could hear a little whimper of excitement, quickly suppressed. Something was rising from the surface of the stone tabletop. She had seen images of Malar in the pantheon of gods, an enormous panther with red eyes, and claws as long as swords. But Marikke, as she turned her head, already knew she wouldn t see anything like that. Instead she saw Kip, the little cat-shifter, standing with his legs apart, his flesh transfigured as if lit from within, a tiny smile on his lips, and a black kitten struggling in his hands.
Chapter Seven — The Climbing Rose
In the old human capital of Caer Moray, Lukas moved among the beasts. During the battle on the ridgetop an orc had cut him in the side and broken three ribs. His life had never been in danger, and he was healing. The previous night he had slept on an actual straw mattress on an actual bed, and in the afternoon he toured the battlements.
He leaned forward on his elbows on the old stones, looking out over the sea of Moonshae with its white- capped waves. A fresh wind blew from the north. Lady Amaranth stood beside him, dressed in a gray wool cape the day was pretty, though the air was cold. In places, arrows of sunlight split the clouds and struck the dark water underneath, making it tremble and glisten.
Thank you, said Lukas, finally. You saved our lives, my friend and me.
Captain, we have you to thank. Without you, we would have come too late. Those women would have died.
She meant the Northlanders. The orcs had raided and burned a settlement along the coast, poor fishermen and crofters growing potatoes in the stony soil. They had killed the men and children, and stolen the women. Idly, briefly, Lukas wondered if it was merciful to salvage the lives of people who had lost so much. But life is always precious and the mind can heal. He knew this from experience. Besides, it didn t matter. Stupid evil like those orcs must always be confronted and attacked if the world was to continue turning.
Amaranth glanced at him. You must forgive me, she said, if I don t know what to say. I have lived for a long time alone among my people, separate from my own kind. And I thought there were things I understood. You are a man, isn t that so? A human male?
Last I checked.
She did not smile. I determined this as I was tending you, the night before last. It came as a surprise. You must forgive me, but my life has been sheltered in some ways, and there is much I do not understand. I must ask you why did you attack those creatures at such risk to yourselves?
The orcs? I hate them.
She nodded as if satisfied. It was from hatred. And if you had chased them away, despite the odds, and found those women still alive, what would you have done?
Lukas shrugged. I hadn t gotten that far.
Because you were blind from hatred. I see that. So you would have taken them for yourselves. Mated with them.
Startled, Lukas turned to face her. I don t think you understand. These women, they aren t my concern. I was glad to help them. But I have friends who are in danger, and I blame myself. I was stupid to bring them to this island, stupid not to follow them, stupid to have lost them. Even now, if I felt I could run, and if my friend wasn t so hurt, I would be after them.
Amaranth looked puzzled. Her brow furrowed, and she rubbed her nose. Your friend I think I am the stupid one, she said. If you didn t want the women, why did you attack the orcs? Oh, blind hatred, I think you said
Like all eladrin she was beautiful, an impossible, mournful beauty. Because they lived so long, even young they had no springtime in them, no sense of freshness or urgency. When Lukas was an old man she would look like this. For hundreds of years after his death, she would look like this, her skin clean as paper, her red hair blowing
