“He planned to take me back to the Cintra and use the Loden to imprison Arborlon, the Ellcrys, and the Elves,” he explained. “Once he had all of the Elves in one place, the demons could take them out at their leisure and do what they wanted with them. He would use me as his tool for accomplishing this, and I don’t think anyone would have stopped him. No one would even have known what was happening.”
He glanced down at the bulge in his pocket—the bag that contained the Elfstones. “You know something, Sim. I hadn’t thought about it before, but the Stones are as dangerous to the Elves as to anyone else. The magic doesn’t recognize race or measure intent; it treats everyone the same. All Culph had to figure out was how to find an Elf who could be persuaded to use it.”
Simralin’s smile was tight and bitter. “Don’t be too quick to blame yourself, Little K. None of us understood the rules of the game being played. Not until now. None of us even understood the nature of the magic being put to use. That ghost in the Ashenell, Pancea Rolt Gotrin, she knew. She understood. That was why you were given those warnings. If Angel had died on the slopes and Culph had killed me, you would have been left on your own and not been master of your own behavior. And we almost let this happen. All of us.”
“Well, it won’t happen again,” Kirisin declared softly. “I promise you that.”
“I’ll hold you to your word. We still have a ways to go before this is over. First we’ve got to get back to Arborlon.”
“Wait a minute!” Kirisin exclaimed suddenly, his eyes widening. “I just remembered something. Culph said that he—the demon said that it had summoned an army to Arborlon to make sure no one escaped before it returned with me to imprison the city in the Loden! It bragged about it while it was busy using that cord and those rings to hypnotize me! An army of demons and once-men, Sim! It’s probably already there, waiting!”
Simralin straightened, winced from the resulting pain, and quickly lay back again. “All right. Then we need to warn Arissen Belloruus and the High Council. We need to tell them to get everyone out of there.”
“How are we going to do that?” Kirisin demanded. “The King and probably the entire Council think that we killed Erisha! They think we’re some sort of traitors! They won’t believe us!”
His sister stared at him a moment, then said, “We’ll make them believe us.”
“Oh, that shouldn’t be too difficult.”
“Wait a minute, Little K. Maybe we don’t have to tell anyone. Think about it. An entire army moving on the Cintra? The Elves probably know about it already. Their scouts and sentries will have told them. They’ll have seen something that big coming from miles away.”
Kirisin shook his head. “Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know how they planned to do this. Maybe the army isn’t supposed to get close until the Elves are trapped in the Loden.”
His sister nodded. “Maybe. Maybe nothing is supposed to happen until you get back. The other demons can’t know that Culph is dead. Or his four-legged companion, either. They have to wait to see what happens. That gives us a chance.”
“A chance to get ourselves thrown into the cells by the King,” Kirisin said. “I still don’t know how we’ll ever convince him that we’re speaking the truth. Even if he sees the army coming, he’ll probably think we had something to do with it. I bet he’s already made up his mind about that, too.”
Neither said anything for a moment, looking at each other across the silence of the cavern chamber, the darkness and cold pressing in around them. Kirisin was thinking that they were all alone in this; there was no one they could turn to, no one who would help them. He was thinking that it wasn’t likely anything would change this.
“We’ll be all right,” his sister said softly.
Sure we will, Kirisin thought. Assuming we can learn to fly and disappear into thin air.
“I know,” he said instead. He yawned. “I’m exhausted, Sim. I’m going to get some sleep. Maybe you should, too.”
Simralin didn’t say anything. She just sat there, staring at him. After a moment, she said, “You’ll see, Little K. We’ll be fine.”
She was still sitting there, staring, when he fell asleep.
HE AWOKE TO SHARDS OF DAYLIGHT spilling down the cavern passageway through ice-frozen cracks in the ceiling. Simralin was moving quietly about the chamber, gathering up their gear and redistributing it into two packs. She looked pale but steady as the light caught the planes and lines of her bruised, ravaged face.
“Sleep well?” she asked without irony. She still had her makeshift bandage wrapped about her forehead and her all-weather cloak wrapped about her shoulders. She looked like a wraith. She caught him staring at her and said, “What’s wrong?”
“Well, you are, for starters. You look like you’ve been blood-drained. Are you all right?”
“Right as can be under the circumstances. Better get yourself up. We leave as soon as I’m finished.”
He pushed himself up on one elbow, and the residual effects of yesterday’s struggle recalled themselves painfully. “Leave for where?”