A Thief in the Night

Part V

The First Duty of Prisoners

Interlude

Aelbring climbed the stairs to the top level of the Vincularium, dreading what he would find. Like most elves, he hated the cemetery of the dwarves. The elves lived in a relatively small section of the lower levels and shunned the rest of the underground city, and for good reason. There were too many memories up high. When one got too close to the world outside the mountains, the ancestors refused to be quiet in one’s head. They remembered that world, even if Aelbring didn’t. They wanted so badly to escape the darkness and the dust. Maybe the Hieromagus could bear their whispering voices, but for a low-ranking soldier like himself, they threatened to overwhelm his senses. It just wasn’t fair.

And today of all days to draw this duty! There were humans down below—humans! After all this time. He wanted to see them. Wanted to know if they were as ugly as the ancestors said, or as hairy. Maybe the old legends were wrong. They said there was a female human among them. Aelbring had a secret yearning, a half-formed hope that maybe she would be different from the others. Maybe she would have an exotic beauty unfound among his own people. He burned with curiosity. Maybe he could arrange to have himself assigned to guarding her. Maybe he could show her some small kindness, some bit of unexpected compassion that would cause her to look on him with whatever humans had that resembled affection . . .

He had his orders, though. Something had stirred up the revenants on the top level. Well, of course it had—the humans who broke in through the seal, yes? But no, he had been told this was some new intrusion. The eternal guardians had calmed down since the humans arrived, but now some new excitement was brewing among them. The revenants did not speak, nor did they have any way of sending a message down to the lower levels. The queen, however, was in tune with them in some arcane fashion, and she said she’d felt their rage burning stronger than ever. Which meant something had set them off. And someone had to go up and find out what had so upset them.

And of course that someone had to be him.

At least it wasn’t nighttime up there. The red sun burned as it did every twelve hours, and this high its light went everywhere, illuminated every dark corner. Its beams were almost too much for Aelbring’s eyes to bear, accustomed as they were to the gloom of the lower levels. The geometric tombs of the dwarves draped long shadows along the far walls.

At first he could see nothing out of place, no horrid surprises waiting for him in that haunted region. No revenants waited to greet him, but of course they wouldn’t make it that simple, would they? He checked the bronze sword he wore at his side and went to look for them, intent on getting this over with as soon as possible.

Up ahead, just to the side of a tomb shaped like a marble column, he saw something scattered on the ground. Some refuse left behind by the invading humans, most likely. Animals that they were, they could hardly be expected to pick up after themselves. He jogged over to see what it was, but before he’d taken half a dozen strides he tripped and nearly fell on his face.

“Human bastards,” he said, catching himself with his hands. He got one knee under him and rose gracefully to his feet, then turned to see what he’d stumbled on. For a moment terror gripped him when he saw it was a length of bone, ending in a skeletal hand.

Then the hand twitched, the bony fingers contracting on rotten sinews, and he laughed out loud. “Did one of you fall down and hurt himself?” he called out, thinking to draw the revenants. It would not be the first time they had grown excited over nothing. One of them would walk too close to the edge of the central shaft and fall into the water below, and the whole lot of them would panic, thinking they were under attack.

The revenants were strong, and nearly indestructible, and they burned with a desire for vengeance. But they weren’t very bright.

Aelbring kicked the bony arm away and headed again for the columnar tomb. The smile on his face faltered—but only a little—when he saw that what he’d taken for human garbage was in fact all that remained of a revenant. Its skull had been smashed in and its rib cage broken into a hundred pieces. One of its legs still kicked feebly at the cobblestones. The other had been ground nearly to powder.

“You haven’t been fighting amongst yourselves, have you?” he called out. They’d never done such a thing before.

“I’m afraid not,” someone said. Someone standing very close.

Aelbring gasped in surprise and whipped out his sword. He’d had no sense of anyone nearby, had heard no footfalls, seen no movement. And that voice—it had a human accent. Another of them? Maybe the first three had just been the advance guard of an invading army. The elves had been living in terror of such a thing for centuries. “Show yourself!” he demanded.

“Certainly.” The human moved into view, and Aelbring was glad to see it was no knight in iron armor. Instead this one wore a colorless robe, with a hood to hide his features. This the human pushed back, and Aelbring was surprised to see not the savage ape-face he expected, but the refined features of a scholar.

“You’re a human,” he said.

“And you’re very perceptive. I see you speak my language, too. Wonderful! That will make things so much easier.”

Aelbring licked his lips in confusion. It had not surprised him when the human addressed him in the elfin tongue. It had never occurred to him before that there could be more than one language.

“Hark, I’m really very sorry about what I did to your guardian there.” The human gestured at the broken bones on the floor. “I did what I could to communicate with it, but it wouldn’t stop attacking me.”

“They have reason to want your blood,” Aelbring told the human. He lifted his sword. “As do I.” He readied himself to charge, to run this human through. He would need to strike hard and fast. The ancestors were quite clear on the fact that humans felt no pain, and that they could survive injuries that would slaughter three elves with one stroke.

“Wouldn’t you rather take me captive?” the human asked, his voice quite calm. He sounded as if he were asking if Aelbring would like his wine served hot or cold.

For a moment the elf could only stare at the human, unsure what was happening. Luckily for Aelbring, there were certain forms one followed, certain protocols one learned as a soldier, for dealing with just such situations. None of them were particularly complicated.

If you caught an enemy defenseless, for instance, you threatened him into submission. It was just how these things were done.

“You fear me? You should,” Aelbring shouted. “I will strike you down if you show me the slightest sign of resistance.”

“I will be as meek as a little lamb,” the human said. And then he smiled. It was a gentle, kindly smile, the kind of smile one would give to a child.

So then why did it make his blood run cold?

“You should take me to your superior officer,” the human said. “Right away. I have much to discuss with him.”

“I’m sure he’ll—he’ll want to—” Aelbring didn’t like this at all. “He’ll have questions for you, I can guarantee it.”

“And I hope I have answers he’ll like,” the human replied.

Aelbring tried to remember the protocol for this situation. Ah, right. “This way,” he barked. “Walk ahead of me, where I can see you, and don’t try anything!”

“But of course,” the human said, chuckling to himself.