Without waiting for them to grant him permission, he began to speak. He described the real traitor, the demon who had posed as Culph, watching and waiting for its chance. He explained the reason for Erisha’s and Ailie’s deaths. He told of their flight afterward, of racing to reach the Loden in time to save the Elves, of the battles with the demons on Syrring Rise, of how both Angel and Simralin had very nearly died—the former so badly injured that she could not return with them to the Cintra to support their cause. He skipped through the details of how he had nearly been subverted by the power of the silver cord and rings, moving quickly to an explanation of what the demons intended once Culph brought him back.
“They know everything of what the Ellcrys means to us. They know what it means if she is destroyed. But what they really seek is to encapsulate the Elves within the Loden, choose a place and time, and then release them to be destroyed. All of them. A massacre of our people—Culph revealed it all to me before Sim and I killed him.”
“This is the worst load of nonsense I have ever listened to!” Basselin interrupted, almost screaming the words he was so outraged. “Do you expect us to believe any of this? Your lies are transparent!”
“But what is the purpose of offering them up for your consideration if they are lies?” Simralin asked him. “What is the point in our coming back if all we intended to do is tell you lies? What do you think we hope to accomplish?”
“Culph has disappeared,” Ordanna Frae offered. “No one has seen him since Kirisin and Simralin disappeared from the city. Nor have we heard any better reason for why the demonkind do not attack us than the one offered by the boy.”
“You speak like an old fool!” Basselin snapped. “You seem intent on believing these two!”
“Maybe there is reason to do so,” another minister ventured guardedly.
Basselin wheeled back toward the King. “My lord, think what this boy is asking of us! Placing our city and our people inside the Elfstone—if indeed that is even possible—is too dangerous. Entrusting the Elfstone to the boy is suicide! Even if he didn’t betray us—something of which I am not at all convinced—he is still only a boy. How can we even think of doing what he suggests?”
“We had better at least consider it, Basselin,” said the tall, sharp-featured woman the first minister had been talking to earlier. “Our only other choice is to flee this army that surrounds us. Thousands of Elves would perish in any escape attempt. There is no chance that all of us can hope to elude an army of the size and swiftness of the one that threatens.”
“Some would die, yes,” Basselin conceded. “Better some than all. We must make that sacrifice.”
“Basselin is making a hard choice, but it may be the right one,” another of the Council declared.
There were murmurs of assent from some of the others. The discussion went on, and Kirisin found himself studying the faces of the men and women speaking, trying to read what was behind their words. As they talked, the King sat stone-faced atop the dais, and although he had said little since his initial outburst, he was clearly unconvinced of what needed doing.
Simralin stepped close. “I don’t like how this sounds,” she whispered, as if reading his thoughts.
“They don’t trust me,” he whispered back. “I don’t blame them.”
“Maybe. But they have no choice. If they want to save the Elven people—all of them, not just some—they must trust you.” She paused. “Besides, not everyone has to be put inside. Elven Hunters can be kept out to help protect you.”
“Maybe no one’s thought of that yet.”
“Maybe we better say something.”
But before they could do so, Maurin Ortish moved in front of them, dragging a reluctant Tragen with him. “My King, this is the Tracker who was in the enemy camp and has returned with his report. Perhaps it would help to hear it now.”
The King glared at him, but then he gestured for Tragen to step forward. “Tracker, what have you to say?”
Tragen’s face flushed deeply at the sudden attention. “My lord.” He bowed, looking uncertain. “As the captain said, I was sent to see what I could learn of the enemy’s intentions,” he began. “With five others, who are now all dead.”
As he continued speaking, Kirisin found himself recalling how much Tragen had helped Angel, Sim, and himself when it seemed as if there was no one left to turn to. He had risked himself more than once for them, probably out of love for his sister, but surely out of a sense of doing what was right, as well. Kirisin had never thought much of Tragen before, but he was revising his thinking now.
The Tracker was explaining how he had tried to get close enough to learn something of the enemy’s plans. Elves were good at becoming invisible even when it might seem impossible. Because he knew both Kirisin and Simralin well, he had already decided that they were not responsible for the deaths of Erisha and Culph. He had hoped he might overhear something that would tell him who was.
He was careful not to say anything about his involvement with the escape of the Belloruus siblings from the city, which Kirisin thought was a wise decision. It was still uncertain how the King and the High Council would react to such a revelation. Nor did Tragen say anything of his efforts to shelter them or of how, at their behest, he had gone in search of Culph to warn him that he was in danger and then found him dead . . .
And suddenly, in that way the mind has of jumping of its own accord from one thought to another, of making connections unasked, he heard himself in the ice caves of Syrring Rise, speaking with what had seemed at the time a ghost:
“I thought you were dead!”
“Well now, what led you to believe that, Kirisin?”
“Tragen found your body!”
“Is that what he told you?”
As if he were surprised. As if he were amused. The tone of voice had been unmistakable, but Kirisin, caught up in the moment, had paid no attention. Tragen found your body. But apparently he hadn’t. So whose body had he found?
Had he found any body at all?
Then he remembered his dream of the dark cloaked form standing in the Ashenell and asking, over and over again, Who told you that?
He found himself staring at Tragen as if seeing him for the first time, newly revealed, finding something odd about him, something strange. He could not quite bring himself to embrace fully what he was thinking because it was too terrifying.
“Sim,” he said quietly.
She glanced at him. “Shhhh.”
Tragen had finishing giving his report and was answering questions from the members of the High Council. Kirisin didn’t listen. He didn’t do anything but stare, and then he repeated everything he remembered, and then he again tried unsuccessfully to get Simralin to listen to him.
You can’t be right about this, he told himself. Don’t be stupid. You’re imagining things.
He hugged himself, ran his fingers through his tousled hair, and then jammed his hand deep into his pocket where the Elfstones nestled, seeking reassurance from their presence.
Tragen found your body!
Is that what he told you?
“Tragen!” he called out suddenly, not really meaning to do so, acting impulsively and without thought. The Tracker turned. “Whose body did you find if it wasn’t Culph’s?”
Everyone was staring. “What are you talking about?” an irritated Arissen Belloruus asked him.
Kirisin ignored him, watching Tragen. “You said you found Culph’s body. But he wasn’t dead. So whose body did you find?”
The big man shook his head. “You’re mistaken. I said I found evidence of a struggle. I said it looked like someone had been killed in Culph’s house. Just remains. No complete body.”
“No,” Simralin said quietly. “You told us you found Culph’s body. You said that he was dead.”
There was a hushed silence as the members of the High Council, not quite sure what was happening, looked at one another in confusion. The King was leaning forward, dark gaze intense. “W
hat body do you mean? What is this all about?”
“Whose body did you find?” Kirisin pressed, his eyes locked with Tragen’s. “There wasn’t one, was there?”
Tragen sighed. His smile could not quite hide the trapped look reflected in his eyes. “You always were a bright boy, Little K.”
Then he produced a long knife as if it had been conjured by magic and drove it into Maurin Ortish. The captain of the Home Guard gasped in shock and dropped to his knees, hands reaching futilely for the killing blade. Tragen was already leaping toward Kirisin and his sister. He was much quicker than either had expected and was on top of them before they could react. He backhanded Simralin so hard she was sent sprawling, her head snapping back as she crashed into the far wall. A moment later the Tracker had Kirisin in an iron grip, his arm about the boy’s neck as he yanked him off his feet and pinned him to his chest.
The Home Guards were rushing forward by now, weapons drawn. But Tragen produced a handgun, an automatic weapon hidden within his clothing, black and short-barreled and wicked-looking, and shot all four in a span of as many seconds. Kirisin had a second or two to recognize that having a weapon of this sort confirmed his worst fears—that Tragen wasn’t what he appeared to be, wasn’t Elven, likely wasn’t even human. Then the Tracker was dragging him over to the Council chamber doors and throwing the locking bar that kept anyone else from entering. As the members of the High Council rose, yelling for help, Tragen leveled his weapon and sprayed them indiscriminately. Kirisin watched Basselin and the sharp-featured woman and several others collapse. The King was hit and knocked backward. Blood splattered on the walls and dais and chairs in a red mist. Bodies tumbled in heaps and lay unmoving.
Kirisin fought to break free, but the arm that pinned him was like a band of iron across his neck, and he couldn’t begin to loosen it.
“Stop struggling, Little K,” his captor hissed in his ear. “You have a duty to fulfill, and you’re going to fulfill it! You mustn’t disappoint all those who depend on you!”
Kirisin screamed at him, calling him something unmentionable, something he had never called anyone, furious and almost in tears. Across from him, not ten feet away, Maurin Ortish knelt with his hands locked on the knife handle where it protruded from his chest, his body limp. In front of the dais, one of the Council members moaned softly. Fists pounded on the locked chamber doors, and voices yelled in fear and frustration.
“Enough of this foolish pretense,” Tragen muttered, eyes on the door. “Time for you and me to be going, Kirisin.”
In the next instant Simralin slammed into him, all three of them sprawling across the floor. Tragen, caught off guard by the attack, lost his grip on the handgun and on Kirisin, as well. While he didn’t let go completely, he did release the boy enough that he almost twisted free. Almost. One hand clung to him by its fingertips—a hand that had shed its skin and become scaly and clawed—fighting to retain its grip as the three combatants tumbled across the stone floor of the chambers and rolled to a stop. But Simralin landed on top and began tearing at the Tracker’s face and eyes. Roaring in fury, Tragen let go of the boy and struck out at Simralin, missing her head but landing a blow to her shoulder that was more than sufficient to dislodge her.
Rolling free, he came to his feet with a second long knife in his hand and scrambled toward her.
But Kirisin was quicker. Freed of Tragen’s grip, he reached into his pocket and snatched free the blue Elfstones. Having discovered what they could do in the ice caves of Syrring Rise, he knew they were his only hope. Tragen wasn’t an Elf and he wasn’t human. He was a demon, and only magic was going to be enough to stop him.
“Tragen!” he screamed.
The Tracker half turned, slowing only marginally, but it was enough. He caught sight of the blue fire that exploded out of the boy’s hand just before it struck him full on. The impact knocked him backward, off his feet and onto the stone flooring. Then it followed him down in a blazing arc, burning into him. Tragen screamed, thrashing to break free. But the magic enfolded him, directed by Kirisin’s rage and determination, set upon its course and unalterable. It burned through skin and scales. It burned down to the bones and then through the bones themselves. Tragen became a fiery stick man, a blackened husk, and finally a pile of steaming ashes.
When it was finished, Kirisin stood looking down at the remains, the Elfstones gone dark and cool in his hand. His face reflected the mix of horror and excitement that using the magic had wrought. Feelings he could only barely recognize as his own coursed through his body, hotter than his lifeblood.
Simralin climbed back to her feet and hobbled over to stand next to him, staring at his twisted features. “Shades, Little K,” she whispered.
ARISSEN BELLORUUS SAT SILENTLY atop the dais as healers worked on his injuries. He had been struck twice by handgun bullets, once in the shoulder and once in the side. Neither wound was life threatening. Neither would do more than cause him pain in the days ahead. Four other members of the High Council were not nearly so fortunate. Three were dead, including First Minister Basselin, and the fourth was likely to be so before the day was out. Maurin Ortish was dead, as well.
Kirisin and Simralin sat nearby, watching as Elven healers bandaged the King’s wounds, their backs to the wall, their arms wrapped about their drawn-up legs.
“He doesn’t look good,” Kirisin observed quietly.
“He’s in shock,” his sister said. “No different from you or me.”
No arguing that, Kirisin thought. Who would have believed that an attack of the sort they had just witnessed could ever have taken place in these chambers? Such things didn’t happen. Tragen had gone berserk. Or the demon had, he corrected. Gone mad. Determined to do what Culph had failed to do, to convey him to the demons and make him use the Loden to imprison the Elves. Was there ever any chance of him doing that? Any chance of making an escape from these rooms with Kirisin in tow? Clearly the demon had thought so. It would have killed everyone to make it happen.
“I should have waited,” he said. “I should have kept quiet.”
His sister looked over. Her face was bruised, and there was blood smeared on her forehead. She looked a wreck. “Let’s not revisit what you or I should have done. I probably have more regrets on that subject than you do.”
He thought about her involvement with Tragen, thinking that she must feel violated in a way he could never understand. In any case, she was right. It was a waste of time to wish that things had happened differently. It was easy in retrospect to think that he should have held off exposing Tragen until it was safer to do so.
“What do you think will happen now?” he asked.
Simralin shook her head. “What we want to happen, I hope.”
The boy nodded. His gaze wandered over the blood-drenched room. The bodies had been removed, but the evidence of their fate was still there for everyone to see. The cleanup would begin when the King gave his permission. For the moment, it seemed, Arissen Belloruus seemed intent on burning the image into his memory.
Ordanna Frae reappeared, still shaken but otherwise unhurt. He stopped in front of them. “That was very brave of you, Kirisin. To fight back like you did. Very brave. You saved our lives. I think we all believe now that you are more than capable of protecting the Elves, should it come to that.”
He moved away, joining the King on the dais, bending close to speak with him. “You were brave, Little K,” Simralin agreed.
The King was on his feet now, his healers moving away. With Ordanna Frae trailing, he walked over to where they sat, looking angry and determined. He shouted to his attendants to clean up the room, and they moved quickly to comply.
Kirisin and Simralin got to their feet at once. The King faced them, his strong features set.
“Erisha loved you,” he began, speaking directly to Kirisin. “She believed in you, and she trusted you. I know you fought from time to time, but you played together as children and have been each other’s friend since birth. You we
re—you are—a member of our family. I never wanted to think that you could harm Erisha. Even now, when I saw you again, come back to Arborlon, I didn’t want to believe it.”
For a moment, he couldn’t continue. It took everything he had to compose himself, but he managed to subdue his grief. “I have not been thinking clearly on this. Not for some time. I realize that now. I have been a fool. What I’ve witnessed here has convinced me of that.”
He paused, his eyes still locked on Kirisin. “When my daughter came to me about the Ellcrys and the Loden Elfstone, I turned to Culph for help. I asked him to look into the Elven histories to see what was recorded. He did so and told me that he had researched the histories front-to-back, as well as all the notes that might possibly bear on the matter of the missing Elfstones, and had found nothing. He lied, of course, but I did not realize it. He insisted there was nothing, even when I pressed him to look harder. But he said there were rumors he had heard as a child from other, wiser heads. Rumors warning that using a Loden Elfstone was dangerous. The user of such a magic, he had heard, was bound to it. What that meant, he warned, was that if this Elfstone were recovered and the Ellcrys placed within, the user must carry the Stone until the tree could be released. He cautioned that the weight of such responsibility was too much for my daughter to bear, too much for any child of Erisha’s temperament, and that I must do what I could to protect her. He suggested that it would be best if I discouraged her from being involved and left the matter to you.”
He shook his head. “I did as he suggested. I chose to sacrifice you in order to protect my daughter. I didn’t see it that way at the time. I convinced myself that it didn’t matter, that none of this would ever come to pass. I convinced myself that the danger to the Ellcrys was exaggerated. I convinced myself that you were on a hopeless mission to find something that didn’t exist. I persuaded myself that I could not risk my only daughter.” He took a deep breath and exhaled. “I am ashamed for this, and I apologize.”