strong and muscled, though, and certainly not like the few elves he’d ever met. The face was toward the ground, but the black, tangled hair glistened wetly. Probably blood, he thought. Whoever it was, it wasn’t human, of that he was almost sure.
Teldin poked at the body with the handle of his hoe. Nothing moved. He prodded again. There was still no movement. Satisfied, Teldin scrambled over the remains of the log wall, cleared away some of the shingles and rafters, and knelt beside the body. Ignoring the fact that he had scraped his shin on a jagged bit of chimney stone, Teldin breathlessly rolled the body over, succeeding only with difficulty, since a long, purple cloak was twisted around the arms and legs. One arm was bent at an odd angle, apparently broken. The shirt was dark with bloodstains.
As he had guessed, the intruder clearly was not human. The bones were too light and long, the fingers too narrow. To his embarrassed surprise, Teldin discovered as he loosened the shirt that the stranger was female. Her breasts left no doubt about that. The almost triangular face was drawn, yet kept a compelling aspect. Everything about the face was thin-narrow lips, sharply cut nose, pointed ovals for eyes. Bands of dark makeup ran above and below the eyes and were drawn out in whorls at the outer corners. She was exotically handsome, vaguely masculine, yet clearly not, and, even unmoving, seemed endowed with more grace than any man.
A sticky, warm wetness dripped through Teldin’s fingers as he lifted her head. Dark blood matted her hair from a gash in the side of her skull and ran down Teldin’s arm as he tried to lay out the body. The cloak, coiled and tangled, again interfered, but Teldin could only fumble unsuccessfully at the silver clasp around her neck. As he did so, the painted eyelids weakly opened and the dark eyes beneath still showed a spark of life.
“What?” Teldin pressed, astonished to find the stranger still alive. So startled was he that he almost dropped her head, which he held cradled in his arms. Finally he drew closer, almost pressing his face to hers. “Who are you?”
“What? I don’t understand,” Teldin answered with excessive slowness, as if that would make him understood. He fumbled again with the clasp of the cloak, trying to remove it.
With her good arm the woman-thing weakly tried to push Teldin’s hands away.
“Now we may speak,” she whispered, somehow in words Teldin could understand. Her voice was more musical than any he had heard. “Yes?”
“Yes,” Teldin quickly answered, taken aback by this sudden transformation. “What-who are you?”
“I am dying, I think,” the woman-thing continued, ignoring the human’s question. “Are all my crew dead?”
Teldin, who had not seen a living soul since the crash, nodded.
The alien closed her eyes. “Then I am resigned to die.”
“Who are you? What happened? Where did you come from?” Teldin demanded. The ability to communicate uncorked a stream of questions in the farmer’s mind. He let them flood out, trying to get all his answers before it was too late. As her eyes dimmed, Teldin patted her cheeks, hoping to keep her conscious.
“The …the neogi did this,” was her weak reply. Her eyes barely opened. The color was fast draining from her already pale cheeks and her eyes were growing duller. “They want the-” She stopped abruptly, her eyes suddenly opening. “You must take this. Take this!” the woman- thing said with a forcefulness greater than before. With her good hand she tore at the clasp to her cloak. What he could not open, she sprang free easily. “Take the cloak. Keep it from the neogi.” The alien pulled Teldin’s hand onto the fabric. “Take it to the creators.'
“The who? The what?” Teldin queried. None of this made any sense and he wasn’t getting any answers. He easily shook off her grip. “Why? What are the neogi?” he practically shouted.
“Wear it. Now,” the stranger insisted. With her one hand, she tried to place the cloak around his neck, wincing in pain to roll free of the purple fabric.
“What are you doing?” Teldin was more puzzled than frightened by her determination.
“Take it,” she demanded even more urgently.
“Why-no, explain why,” Teldin said, refusing her, as his prudent nature asserted itself.
“Take the cloak!” the woman-thing said more fiercely than before. She bared her teeth with a certain savage fury, but the fire in her eyes grew even weaker.
The effort was killing her, Teldin realized in dismay. “Stop. I’ll take it,” he assured her. Taking the silver chains, Teldin laid the cloak around his shoulders, though he did not fasten the clasp. The purple gleamed richly in the leaping firelight. “I have it. Now what’s going on here?”
The female gave a rattling sigh. “No more questions. I am dead.” Her hand dropped limply and the light went finally from her eyes.
“What? You can’t just die now!” Teldin blurted, even though he knew it was futile. He had seen enough dead to know it was too late for her. He sat amid the wreckage of his house, the dead female in his arms, and felt indignant, used, and mystified. The creature had no right to die now, he fumed. He had only accepted the cloak to keep her alive. “What, by the gods, is going on?” he asked aloud to no one. He held up an edge of the cloak, looking for mystical symbols or anything. He saw nothing but dark purple cloth. “Why kill yourself to give it to me? It can’t be worth much.” Teldin looked down at the female as if expecting an answer. 'And just who are the neogi? By the Abyss, who are you?” He paused, as if to hear her reply.
“Stand, assassin, so I may kill you!” boomed a voice behind him.
Like a flushed fox, Teldin sprang to his feet and spun about, hoe in hand, the cloak flapping over his arm. The farmer choked back an enraged outcry, for on the opposite side of the wall stood a massive form half-concealed by a tangle of spars and deck planking. The blazing debris grotesquely illuminated the bestial creature-so unlike any Teldin had seen-that lurched from the wreck.
It stood stiff and upright like a seasoned knight, though it was a good seven feet tall and almost half that in width across its shoulders. Thick shadows marked its heavy jowls, its large sagittal crest, and the deep pits of its nostrils. The creature had a face like a hippopotamus, but the skull was flatter, with pert little ears at the top of its head. It was difficult to tell in the firelight, but Teldin thought the creature’s skin looked bluish gray. Its two legs were like tree trunks and its chest was as big around as the old water barrel that used to stand beside the house.
The thing wore trousers and a tight-fitting blouse adorned with ribbons; the whole outfit was now badly ripped. A broad, orange sash was wrapped around its thick waist, and in it was tucked a collection of mismatched knives and a worn cutlass. As Teldin stared dumbly, the beast stumbled forward over rubble, not taking its small, dark eyes off the human. It kept one arm stiffly outstretched and pointed directly at the farmer at all times. In this hammy, blue fist was a strange, curved stick of metal and wood, aimed at Teldin’s head.
“Assassin and thief, before you die, know that your slayer is Trooper Herphan Gomja, Red Grade, First Rank, First Platoon of the Noble Giff,” the creature gloweringly intoned. “When your soul gets to wherever it goes, remember my name!”
“No, wait!” shouted Teldin in a desperate attempt to explain. “I didn’t kill-”
“It is too late, groundling!” the big blue-gray beast bellowed back. His thick finger squeezed down on a small lever on the underside of the stick. Paralyzed more by astonishment than fear, Teldin was rooted in place. A scorching wind from the blazing wreck sucked up a rain of cinders and ash and swirled it around them. The cloak fluttered and flapped in the breeze. The stick gave a mighty flash and roar, dazzling Teldin but breaking the spell
