Ilse Witch

“Strange day,” the Elf remarked, sipping at the ale he shared with his traveling companion. “Makes you wonder about the way life works. Makes you wonder why anyone would want to be King.”


Walker nodded, straight-backed within his black robes, eyes distant. “The Wing Hove must have thought the same thing a long time ago.”

“It’s true. It’s one reason we have a council to make our laws and decisions for us, not just one man.” The Wing Rider shook his head. “Killed by his own people. He wasn’t a bad man, Walker. Why would they do it?”

Walker’s gaze fixed on him. “They didn’t. I saw their eyes. Whatever their motives in acting against the King, they were not the men they had been even a few days ago. They had been mind-altered in some permanent way. They were meant to attack the King, to kill him however they could ma1nage it, and then to die.”

Hunter Predd frowned. “How could a man be made to do that?”

“Magic.”

“Elven?”

Walker shook his head. “I’m not sure yet. If they had lived, I might have been able to tell. Dead, they could give me nothing.”

“Who were they? Not gardeners, surely?”

“No one could identify them. Elves, but not of Arborlon. Hard men, who had led hard lives, from the look of their hands and faces. They would have killed other men before this.”

“Still.”

“Still, they would have needed some incentive to kill an Elven King. Whoever recruited them provided that incentive using magic.” Walker held the other’s gaze. “I’m sorry to drag you out again so suddenly, but there wasn’t time to wait. I think our castaway is in danger. And it won’t stop there. I’m going to need you to fly me a few more places in the next week or two, Hunter Predd. I’m going to need your help.”

The Wing Rider drained the rest of the ale from his cup and poured himself another serving from the skin pouch beside him. “Tell you the truth, I was ready to leave anyway. Not just because of the King’s dying, but because cities and me don’t much agree. A few days are more than enough. I’m better off flying, whatever the risk.”

The Druid gave him a wry smile. “Nevertheless, it appears you are knee-deep in something more than you bargained for when you decided to carry that map and bracelet to Arborlon.”

The Elf nodded. “That’s fine. I want to see where all this is going.” He grinned suddenly. “Wouldn’t it be a shame if I didn’t give myself the chance?”

They slept undisturbed and by sunrise were winging their way south once more. The weather had changed during the night, with heavy clouds rolling inland off the coast and blanketing the skies from horizon to horizon. The air was warm and still, smelling of new rain, and in the distance, farther west, the sound of thunder echoed ominously. Shadows draped the land they passed over, a cloaking of movement and light that whispered in their thoughts of secrets and concealments not meant to be revealed.

Walker was already beginning to suspect the identity of the enemy who was trying to undermine his efforts. There were few in the Four Lands who could command magic strong enough to alter minds—fewer still with a sufficient number of well-placed eyes to know what was happening from Bracken Clell to Arborlon. He was afraid that he had acted too slowly in this matter, though he accepted at the same time that he could not have acted any faster. He was only one man, and his adversary, if his suspicions were correct, commanded a small army.

Obsidian flew them through the jagged defiles and down the deep canyons of the Rock Spur Mountains, angling to keep low enough for cover, high enough to clear the ridges. They passed over the dark bowl of the Wilderun, home to castoffs and outcasts who had come from everywhere to that final refuge. At its center, the Hollows was a pool of shadows, dark and forbidding, a quagmire that might swallow them up should they fly too low. Beyond, at the south end of the wilderness, they passed through the deeper maze of the Irrybis Mountains and came in sight of the Blue Divide.

Rain had begun to fall in a slow drizzle, soon soaking their clothing through, and it was approaching nightfall when they arrived at the seaport of Br1acken Clell. In darkness unbroken by the light of moon or stars, they proceeded slowly along muddied, rain-slicked pathways, hooded and cloaked, wraiths in the night.

“Not much farther,” the Wing Rider advised from the darkness of his cowl, when the lights of the seaport came in view.

They came to the healing center where Hunter had left the castaway less than a week earlier. They mounted the steps of the covered porch, shaking the rain from their cloaks, and knocked on the door. Waiting, they could hear a low murmur of voices from inside and see shadows move across the lighted, curtained windows.