“She cares for you so much that she would let no one else do anything at all on the surgery table,” Kestrel looked up at the sound of Silvan’s voice in the hallway, Giardell and another guard standing in front of him.
“Unbuckle the straps on my legs,” Kestrel hissed at Alicia.
“I can’t. The blade is too tight,” she gasped at him.
He slightly released the pressure he exerted on the knife, and twisted her lower down his body, so that she could reach the straps that still held him to the operating table.
For thirty seconds nothing happened until she had set him free, then he maneuvered down off the table, holding her in front of him and holding the knife against her throat, as he backed into a corner.
“Look at that,” the unknown guard said as Silvan and his escort entered the room. “Make him look like a human and he starts to act like a human too.”
“You piece of dung!” Kestrel shouted in fury, and he used his human combat training to flip the blade away from Alicia’s throat, towards the guard who had spoken. The blade whirled momentarily through the air, then landed solidly in the guard’s shoulder, making his scream in pain.
Kestrel wrenched the crook of his elbow up around Alicia’s throat in place of the blade.
“She was as careful and gentle as I’ve ever seen her,” Silvan said, coming a step closer. “She clearly felt very close to you and wanted to make the operation as successful and painless as possible.”
“She tricked me! She was another one of your spies! Another manipulator!” Kestrel shouted back.
“I really care for you Kestrel,” Alicia spoke up suddenly, her voice only a croak as he kept pressure on her throat. “You made yesterday unlike any day of my life. You were not at all what I expected, and you reacted so wonderfully, so thoughtfully and kindly, toward me and towards the sprites and the imps. If I weren’t married, I might have tried to seduce you a time or two!
“I gave you the best opportunity anyone could ever ask for to pass as a human, so that you can help Silvan save us from the next attack,” she pleaded. “I know it seems like a trick, but I did what I could to do everything in my power for you!”
“Let her go Kestrel,” Silvan said firmly. “She’s not the one you’re angry at; I am. This is all my doing. You know that. Let her go. I told you this was my plan yesterday; you know it wasn’t her fault,” he repeated, and Kestrel saw what seemed to be genuine concern in Silvan’s eyes, anguish over the danger he had put his subordinate in.
“He cares for you almost as much as he cares for her,” Giardell spoke for the first time. “Kestrel, I’ve listened to him anguish over this plan, and I know he has your safety high on his list. Let Alicia go, Kestrel, and let’s all work together to move this forward.”
Kestrel gave a great wail of frustration and resignation, then released his hold on Alicia and shoved her forcefully away, into Silvan’s arms, who grabbed her and enfolded her in a tight hug.
“Get her out of here. I never want to see her again!” Kestrel said bitterly, lowering his head and wiping tears from his face.
“Kestrel, please, know that I want to help you. Don’t feel this way, please, my friend,” Alicia broke free of Silvan’s grasp and walked back towards Kestrel, her hands held together in a pleading gesture before her.
Kestrel’s hand shot out and slapped her cheek, the sound as loud as the crack of a whip, and a red handprint immediately forming on her skin. “Get out!” He shouted. “Go away!”
She stared at him in shock, and in sadness, as her hand rubbed her cheek, and tears started to fall down her face. “I’m sorry, Kestrel,” she told him, then turned and walked back to Silvan, who tenderly kissed her before she left the room.
“She’s married to you!” Kestrel said suddenly in a blinding moment of intuition. “You used your own wife to seduce me into being one of your agents!”
“We are married, but if anything, I think you nearly seduced her away from me,” the colonel replied.
“Kestrel, I know how dramatic this is. Your life had just been turned upside down, I know. You’ve had the most eventful past twenty four hours I can imagine any elf living through,” Silvan said, gently perching himself on the edge of the table Kestrel had been strapped to. Giardell hovered very close by, while the guard Kestrel had injured had been taken away by other attendants, leaving just the three of them in the room.
“You know how desperate our situation could become if the humans decide they want to really wipe us out. They could just keep flinging fireballs at our trees, and then advancing and taking our land, and starting flinging more fireballs at us again — over and over and over,” Silvan warned.
“They’ve shown that they’ve got a new weapon that gives them new tactics, new ways to defeat us handily. You’ve already lost friends to them.
“We must find out what their plans are, so that we can be ready to defend ourselves next time. And try as I have, scratch my head as much as I have, I can come up with only one feasible plan for protecting our people — that’s to send you among the humans to ferret out their secrets,” the colonel spoke passionately as Kestrel slumped disconsolately in his corner, his back sliding down the wall until he was sitting on the floor.
“I’d like to send you immediately back north to Firheng, so that you can finish your training, and we can prepare to transport you to the human lands,” he went on.
“What it I go and decide I’ll just be a human?” Kestrel asked, frustrated by the trap that enclosed him. “I’ll look human, I’ll talk human. I can just live among them and not have to worry about being used by my own people.”
“And not have to worry about Cheryl and Vinetia and Arlen and Belinda. You can forget them all. You can forget Alicia, for that matter, who spent so many hours operating on you, soothing your brow, dabbling the magic water on you to take away the pain, even dripping it into your mouth so you wouldn’t be hung over,” Silvan said a little more sharply.
“For my part, I think she became a little too attached to you through yesterday’s adventure and the operation. I’ve often worried that she made a mistake when she agreed to marry me, someone old enough to be her father. But she is so extraordinary that I couldn’t bring myself to be noble enough to ignore the foolish hero- worship in her eyes,” the colonel continued reflectively, “and so we are married.
“Remember Kestrel, this is not permanent. Your ears will slowly grow back to their natural form. You’ll have the adventure and satisfaction of carrying out this assignment for a few months, and then you’ll have to come back to us. You won’t be able to pass for a human any longer,” Silvan slid off the table and walked over to Kestrel, then slowly knelt, to look at him eye-to-eye.
“Come on. The shock is over. You’re strong enough to do this. And you’re still the only elf I know with a personal relationship with two sets of gods and friendship with one of the lesser races — maybe two of the lesser races if I understood Alicia to say that you took care of water imps too.”
Silvan stood, then reached his arm down and held his hand out to Kestrel, waiting for long moments as the humanized elf looked at the hand, then pressed his palms against the floor and pushed himself up without assistance.
“Giardell will take you to get a cowl you can wear on your trip back to Firheng. Keep the hood up and keep away from folks and you shouldn’t have any problems along the road,” Silvan told him, also standing erect. “We can give you an escort, if you’d like to have an elf or two with you to help vouch for you along the way. That might not be a bad idea. Would you like for your friend Vinetia to travel with you again? We can have her ordered over here in less than an hour.”
“No,” Kestrel said sharply. “I don’t want her to see me like this. I don’t want anyone to see me this way. I’ll wait here for the hood, and a sack of supplies,” he answered.
“I’d like to wait alone,” he added, as the others stood silently observing his anguish.
“Good luck Kestrel,” Silvan said, walking towards the door. “I’ll send orders up to Firheng for you in a few weeks. I know you’re going to help us, all of us. And when you come back with your ears regrown to their usual elven shape, who knows, you may find out you’re so good at this work that you’ll be willing to go back sometime.”
“Don’t bet on it,” Kestrel muttered as the Colonel and his guard left the room. He sat on the table, then reached for the mirror he had used to disable the guard, and held it up to carefully study his new features. Alicia had done a superb job, he agreed. He saw no trace of elven heritage in his face, and he wondered at how quickly it had been erased by the woman who had duped him into passing out for his own operation.
Giardell returned minutes later, and Kestrel hastily dropped the mirror. He took the cowl and sack of supplies without comment. Giardell had brought Kestrel’s own bow and quiver of arrows as well, somehow fetched
