A Wizard's Price

[Chiroptera]

(Closed to wolf.)

Eltarri’s gaze fastened onto the mouth of the woman who, with a companion, had stopped a few feet in front of her.

“Have you ever seen anything more pathetic?”

Nobility, she decided, judging by the slow speech of the woman and the way she clearly articulated each syllable. The half-elf’s eyes moved from the mouth of one woman to the other to follow their conversation.

“No, I can’t say I have. It is quite sad.”

“Makes you glad you are not in her shoes, eh?”

“Ever so. I don’t think I could stand to live in such squalor. I would kill myself first.”

The two women stood facing each other, turned slightly towards the object of their scorn, the cloak-wrapped person that sat in a heap on the side of the road. Their silk clothes were conspicuously out-of-place in the crowded market street, but the air of superiority that surrounded them kept hecklers away, a protective ambience that was aided by the hulking man that stood a few feet behind them, eyes focused protectively on them and fingers resting on the hilt of the sword at his side. Eltarri sneered as her eyes drifted away from their conversation to focus on his weapon. Sword? Ha! That puny little knife?

Two silver coins fell into her lap suddenly and she looked back at the women, one of which had stepped forward and was now retracting her hand, wiping it against her leg as if she had touched something dirty.

“There you are, poor thing. Go buy yourself something to eat. I would give you more, but charity breeds-,” the woman turned her head away to look at her companion and Eltarri lost sight of the woman’s lips. She ground her teeth in frustration and closed her eyes to dull the anger. When she opened them again, the two ladies had moved away, standing this time in front of a booth whose cloth-selling merchant was sycophantically showing them the finest of his wares.

I’m not a beggar. Eltarri thought angrily after the women. She’d long since given up trying to actually talk to people. The strange looks and pitying expressions had convinced her that whatever it was that was coming out of her mouth, it wasn’t intelligible. And since staring at people’s mouths as they spoke seemed to unnerve them, the deaf girl was reluctant to attempt what little communication she needed or desired. It was easier to sit silently in the corner and sip a mug or to blend into the cobbled streets under a dirty cloak. But the city of Scara Brae had paid little attention to Eltarri since her coming two weeks before; there were more important things to deal with than the addition of one more handicapped beggar to the bazaar streets. She hadn’t yet even encountered the city guard; it was the native beggars that she’d had to deal with.

The memory of her first few days in town made Eltarri subconsciously shift her shoulder so that her elbow rubbed against the sword, comforting her with the assurance of its presence. The rich who passed her by thought she was just a deaf and mute hunchback, but the brazen vagabonds who’d hassled her for “sitting dues” during her first few days in town were more than aware of the blade on her back, and the wide berth they still gave her held testament to the impression it had made on them.

Eltarri pushed one hand out of the cloak to grab the coins and tucked them into her pocket. She wasn’t a beggar, but she wasn’t too proud to accept gifts from mistaken rich people who assumed that she was impaired, drunk, or irreparably half-witted. She wasn’t completely out of money yet, but it didn’t hurt to live off the excess of others rather than to use her own limited supply. And once she’d gotten used to the frequent pitying and distasteful looks, Eltarri found that life on the streets wasn’t so bad. Her lip-reading had improved considerably since she’d taken up this spot, spending day after day just sitting on the side of the road, watching people talk as they shopped. She was certain that the next shop-owner she tried to get work from wouldn’t laugh and brusquely wave her away. Assuming that he spoke clearly enough for her to read, of course.

The girl sighed quietly as she looked up at the fading light. Another day gone by and nothing accomplished. But what could she hope to do without her hearing? Walking down the crowded street was nightmarish without the comforts that she had always taken for granted, the ability to hear people she walked behind, the pattering of footsteps that warned of someone approaching from behind. She even missed the songs of street performers and the raucous calls of venders proclaiming their wares. The silence was suffocating, and it only compounded the helpless anxiety that constantly nagged at the girl. She should have been looking for a wizard who could help her mother. She should have been looking for a healer who could help herself. Instead she sat alone on the side of the road, wrapped in a smelly cloak and accepting coins from philanthropic snobs as if she had no more purpose for her life than a common guttersnipe.

Eltarri’s head dropped to rest in her hands, an unheard moan escaping her lips. What the heck am I doing?

[Chiroptera]

The loss of her hearing had done wonders in augmenting her other senses, so when the reek of sweat and tobacco hit her nostrils she was prepared for the hand that descended onto her shoulder. She jerked out of the hand’s grip and rolled sideways, springing to her feet and throwing a punch before she’d even clearly seen the person’s face.

Her tightly-clenched fist smacked into the cheek of a man who was only a few inches taller than her, dressed in stained linens and dirty enough to be mistaken for a coal miner. His mouth dropped open and he stumbled back at the blow, lips moving too quickly for the half-elf to catch what he was trying to say.

“ . . . That for . . . you no . . . can’t just go . . .”

Eltarri quickly got sick of trying to understand him and she wordlessly raised her fist, glaring at him furiously. Her knuckles stung from the impact of hitting his cheekbone, and she was fairly certain that she recognized him as one of the vermin who’d tried to attack her on her first night in town. The man’s hands went up defensively and he smiled, revealing rows of rotten yellow teeth.

“Hey, hey, calm down, there’s no need for . . .” He said a word that Eltarri couldn’t recognize. “I’m here to make you an offer.”

The girl wanted to tell him what he could do with his offer, but she didn’t want to open her mouth and babble like a halfwit, so she kept it shut and glared.

“We notice that you’re making quite a good . . . there, with the blank stare and the hunched back and all. The other boys in the . . . want to invite you to join us.”

Eltarri stared at him in confusion. What was that word? The other boys in the . . . hill? Build? Guild? She shook her head, trying to show that she didn’t understand. The man’s smile faded.

“Yeah, everybody loves a dumb hunchback. I’m the . . . for the Scara Brae Street-Dweller’s Guild. We’re a little short on girls and we think a . . . could be . . . for both of us.”

Eltarri ground her teeth in frustration and blinked rapidly to keep herself from crying. She couldn’t afford to look weak in front of this kind of man, but it was so hard to seem capable when she couldn’t even understand what he was saying.

The man’s smile was beginning to look forced, impatient showing in his eyes. “You,” he said slowly, articulating his words as though speaking to a child. “Work with us. Look stupid, get money. Share money with us. We protect you.”

Eltarri threw back her head and laughed, hoping it was as loud and rude as she suspected his voice to be. Looking back at the man with a mocking grin, she reached up and unfastened her cloak, letting it fall to the dirty street. She snidely reached one hand over her shoulder to rest it on the hilt of the sword that she was sure he remembered, tilting her head to one side.

Do I look like I need your protection?

The man’s smile had disappeared completely and he glared at the girl with unconcealed anger. He pointed one finger at her and spat through twisted lips,

“You think you’re tough now, hussy, but even . . . like you fall asleep!”

Ditches? Riches? Eltarri wrapped her hand around the hilt, but the man was already moving, storming off down the street without a backwards glance. Her nerves faltered and she quickly reached down to pick up her cloak, glancing around to see if anyone was watching. The scene had caught some attention, including that of the two women who’d “taken pity” on her earlier. They stared at her aghast, flabby mouths hanging open with self-righteous indignation. The merchants nearby were looking at her angrily, probably afraid that she and her sword would hurt their business.

Eltarri sighed as she refastened her cloak. It would probably have been about time for her to find a new spot anyway. The man’s final words lingered in her thoughts as she set off down a back alley, head constantly turning to make sure that no one was sneaking up on her. She walked without direction, turning down the streets that were the least occupied until she found herself in another section of town, the artists’ market. Seeing a patch of free wall-space between two merchant booths, Eltarri walked quickly through the crowd and sat herself against the wall. The owner of the booth on her left rolled her eyes as Eltarri went past her, but the girl ignored the look and leaned back against her wall. Potters were always uptight. The booth on her right had box-like contraptions hanging from its roof, hollow rectangles that had long stems on one end and string stretched tightly from the top of the stem to the bottom of the box. Eltarri thought that it was some kind of weapon until a man stepped up to the booth and took one down, holding it horizontally and flicking his fingers across the strings as he bit his lip in concentration. She recognized the motion and closed her eyes, remembering the beautiful music her mother had made at her harp, the rich melodies echoing across the stone of their cave. A bitter smile turned up the corner of her mouth at the irony.

[wolf]

Pacco lay curled in a tight ball, trying to seal in his own warmth. Sleep was slowly drifting away from him, and he desperately beckoned it back, but to no avail. He slowly opened his eyes and sat up, yawning. He lay in a little bed of leaves midst a small group of trees. Beyond the trees was a rather large hill which ran down onto the city of Scara Brae.

Pacco shifted his shoulders, adjusting the sheep skin which rested on his back. He lazily stretched out his arms and legs. It was good to be on land, where he had steady footing and wasn't worried about toppling over. He flexed his paws, and his claws stuck out, digging into the hard dirt beneath him. The sky was a boring white with fluffy clouds, and he couldn't help but notice there were no birds.

Pacco had gotten to Scara Brae by sneaking onto a trading boat from the east. He loaded with the sheep, keeping his head low so as not to be seen. The sheep had been restless and jumpy, but none had been smart enough to notice the wolf. The long journey had taken three days. Three, long, horrible, stomach jostling days were Pacco was left to eat scattered bits of hay and an occasional slip of grass. The humans didn't bother to check on them, which made it even easier for Pacco. He had been tempted to eat one of the sheep at one point, but just as he was putting his plan into action the boat stopped at the dock and they where loaded off. Once back on land Pacco made a run for it, and safely fled to a miniature forest without followers, which was were he was now.

Pacco's stomach growled loudly, begging him for food. He licked his chops and slowly trotted to the breaking line of the trees, where he gazed down the hill at Scara Brae.

"They should have food there." He spoke out loud, deciding he'd go and check it out. I'm a sheep. He told himself mentally, still trying to make himself believe it. No, I'm really a wolf in a sheep's skin, but same difference. He corrected himself. After two years of being a wolf he had come to accept it. He actually didn't mind the wolf's life. Most animals fled him, and he had quite an enjoyable time hunting. Nevertheless, it was his mission to find a wizard, or someone who could possibly transform him back into his original, human state.

Pacco crept down the hill swiftly, not liking being in the open. He was very wary about being seen by humans for multiple reasons. One, usually humans shot at him. Two, it was slightly embarrassing, especially when he saw people he knew. Another species he looked out for where dogs. They could be so rude sometimes.

The noise from the city grew as Pacco got closer, and before he knew it he found himself in between two large, ugly looking buildings. A little brown dog came trotting from behind him, and stopped at the sight of him. It watched him, head tilted to the side for a few minutes, then snorted,

"What's wrong with you?" Pacco ignored the mutt and continued walking. He must think I'm a dog. He concluded, knowing that a dog would never talk to a wolf in that manner unless it was very foolish, or very big.

The dog stepped towards Pacco.

"Hey, I'm talkin' to you." He growled, his voice squeaky, despite his attempts to sound tough. Pacco stopped walking, but didn't turn. "You're sick. Why are you wearing a sheep skin? What type of mangy mutt wears a sheep skin? Do you want to be a sheep?"

Pacco rolled his eyes and turned around, advancing towards the little dog who's eyes widened. He cowered back, whimpering pitifully.

"First of all, do I look like a dog to you?" Pacco asked. The little brown dog shook his head vigorously. "Second of all...I want to wear it, so leave me alone."

With a yelp the little dog turned and bolted out of the alley. Pacco watched him, and once he was out of sight he continued walking the way he had been. Stupid dogs. He got to the corner and poked his muzzle out just enough so he could see. The bumbling movement of the crowds made him wary, but he kept looking anyways.

Not far to the right a girl sitting against the wall caught his eye. She looked mysterious and suspicious, and a hopeful though ran through Pacco. Maybe she's a witch! He decided to watch her to see what she did.

[Chiroptera]

The only things that came out at night in Scara Brae were criminals, beggars, and stray dogs. Then again, the first two could probably be put into the same category. Alternately, so could the last two. Eltarri looked up at the darkening sky with sadness. The promise of dawn was such an insignificant comfort when dreading the night to come. She had managed to doze through most of the afternoon in preparation for the sleepless night ahead, but the sun was already setting and the girl was still too tired to move. Her head rested against the wall behind her, eyes lowered to watch the venders on either side of her as they closed their booths for the night.

You’re being stupid, she scolded herself. What are you afraid of? Why would the beggars attack you again tonight?

Her mind went back to the morning’s confrontation. What the heck was a “Beggar’s Guild” anyway? The man had been angry, that was obvious. She should have been more polite.

Eltarri caught sight of a city guard strolling down the walkway, his gaze resting curiously on her. The half-elf quickly pushed herself to her feet and walked nonchalantly away, letting her hood fall back so that she wouldn’t look suspicious. Curiosity was a good incentive for movement, especially when it came from a man with a sword. A shrimpy sword, but a sharp blade nonetheless. The truth was that Eltarri had no idea what fighting would be like without her hearing. When attacked by the beggars, all she’d had to do was pull her sword out and wave it around, and her attackers had fled like rats. But against an armed man?

She shook her head and grimaced, turning down a side alley and trying to make her frequent over-the-shoulder glances seem natural. The streets were sparsely populated and the light had faded significantly. Night had arrived. Eltarri wanted to laugh out loud as she looked down at her trembling hands, but the point would have been to gain comfort from the noise.

You don’t need comfort, she told herself fiercely. You have eyes that can see, a sword that can kill, and two legs that can run very fast.

The girl forced a big smile onto her face, waving cheerily at a passerby who gave her a second look. Her eyes continued to warily pick out people she thought might be beggars, but none looked back at her, and as she walked out of the bazaar district she felt some of the tension leave her. It was foolish to be afraid of silly men who made empty threats. Besides, she could see better than most in the dark, and even if she couldn’t hear an attacker . . .

Stop it! She stopped walking and closed her eyes for a few seconds, letting the dark silence wash over, bathing away her anxiety. Everything will be fine.

[wolf]

Pacco wandered aimlessly around the city for most of the day. He ate a small meal of a leftover sandwich and some fries he found in a trash can outside a tavern. Not many people stopped to give him a second look, and for that he was grateful. He didn't have an escape plan for if he was discovered, so he decided to lay low, slinking around mainly in the alleys, though poking his head out every once in a while to watch something or to cross a street.

As the day pulled on, Pacco found he was extremely bored. He'd fortunately only run into three dogs since the time he had arrived, and all of them had been small and easy to take care of. Each conversation he had with them ended the same way, with the dog scampering off, yelping at the top of its lungs.

Trying to entertain himself, Pacco had decided to do something daring. Although he'd been a wolf for over two years, he still longer for human interaction. A couple of burley looking men had gathered together in one of the alley's Pacco happened to be traveling through, and instead of running in the different direction, he decided to watch and listen in.

"I'm telling you boss, we don't want to mess with this one. She's a psycho!" A short fellow with ragged clothes said. He had black hair, an ugly face, and was wearing a little hat. To hide his growing bald spot. Pacco thought amusedly. He stood behind a trash can hidden in a dark shadow. The men didn’t seem to notice him there.

"Shut up." snapped a tall man with rotten teeth. He held a cigarette in one hand, and fingered a long, metal pipe with the other. His beady little eyes looked angry, even from where Pacco watched. "We're going to teach her a lesson, and that's that." A groan came up from one of the other men.

"But boss. You saw that weapon she carries. With just my luck, I bet she knows how to use it too." The man said, shaking his head. "You're crazy if you're expecting me to fight her." The boss turned to the man sharply and held up his pipe threateningly, taking a step towards the man who had spoken last.

"I don't like that cocky, stupid little elf girl roaming my streets. We're going to put her in her place whether she likes it or not." He roared angrily, spitting his cigarette from his mouth as he spoke. A glob of drool bungee jumped from his lip as he stared at the man. All was silent for a moment, before it was split by a chorus of,

"Yes sir." The men shuffled around cautiously, waiting for the boss's next instructions. He used one of his grimy hands to wipe the spit from his mouth, and then looked down the alley. "Let's go." He ordered. The group bustled off.

Pacco's breath came easier now that they were gone. He stepped out into the light and looked distastefully down at the cigarette that lay on the cobblestone road. An elf girl? He wondered as he put his nose to the ground and trotted in the opposite direction. He hadn't recalled seeing any elves that whole day. Wait. There was that one girl wrapped in that large cloak which looked like it was hiding something. His head snapped up in recognition. A big sword.

Pacco's mind raced. Who are they? Why do they want to hurt her? Could she help me? Maybe she practices some sort of magic and can free me from my current state. He grew dizzy, his mind full of unanswered questions that he was determined to have answered. Putting his nose back to the ground, Pacco raced off in the direction of the elf’s scent, one he couldn't have forgotten if he'd wanted to.

Five minutes later Pacco pulled to a halt, panting. His golden eyes scanned the empty street, and rested on a tall figure. She was immobile, and he could see her eyes where closed, and her face gave a sense of deep thought. She had beautiful almond shaped eyes, and a petite face that looked experienced. Her beauty stunned Pacco, and he couldn’t seem to break his gaze from her face.

Pacco began second guessing himself. Are you just going to run up to her and start talking to her? She's not going to believe you. She might even kill you. He began to make up excuses for himself and why he shouldn't do anything. After finally convincing himself, he turned to leave, when he saw the figures of the men, walking down the street behind her. Oh no.

Pacco leapt out onto the road, right in front of the elf.

"Elf, you must go, quickly." He whispered harshly. He didn't want to be heard by any other passerby's. He glanced behind her at the men who where getting closer. "Elf, there are men coming to get you. They will hurt you. You must go now. Run. Hide. Do anything." He urged. His heart was racing in his chest, and he prayed that elf would understand him and take his advice and flee.

[Chiroptera]

Air moved against Eltarri's skin and her eyes flew open at the sign of movement. She jumped back with one hand over her shoulder, then stopped when she realized what it was in front of her. She stared for a few seconds at the creature, blinking in surprise.

Before her stood a rather large canine that had a sheepskin draped over its back. It stared at her with eyes as golden as her own, and its lower jaw moved spasmodically, as if it were chewing. Eltarri's face broke into a smile. This was the first street dog she’d seen that hadn't looked as though it was carrying multiple strains of rabies. Despite the odd skin on its back and its weird mouth movement, or perhaps because of them, Eltarri felt an immediate kinship with the animal, a sentiment of companionship that she had yet to experience in the presence of other people. Who said dogs had to be a man's best friend?

Eltarri looked at the alley in front of her, searching for its owner, but there were only a few people, and all were walking hurriedly in the opposite direction. She crouched down in front of the dog and cautiously reached out to scratch its head. Poor thing. Are you all alone too?

The hair on the back of her neck rose and Eltarri cast a habitual glance over her shoulder. She jumped to her feet, mouth dropping open at the sight that met her eyes. A group of men were advancing in disordered formation, all dressed in tattered clothes and carrying some sort of bludgeon. She recognized three of the beggars from their earlier moonlight encounter, and the one that led the gang wore a wide smile that clearly marked him as the man she'd met that morning.

Eltarri took a step backwards, regretfully waving a hand behind her to shoo the dog away. She didn’t want to have to add him to her list of guilt-causing casualties. Her gaze darted among the faces of the men, fixing them all with furious glares that she hoped conveyed at least a smidgen of the annoyance she was feeling.

They stopped walking about five meters away from her, the rotten-toothed man in front tapping his metal pipe against the palm of his other hand.

“This is your last chance, wench.” He spoke with a snarl that made his words easy to read. “You have two choices. You either work for me, or you get out of my city.”

Eltarri stood as tall as she could, planting her feet wide for balance and giving the man a sneer filled with confidence she didn’t feel. The men behind the one in front seemed to lose a little of their eagerness as she dropped her cloak to the ground and reached up one hand to grasp the hilt of her sword, the other resting against the clasp on her chest. I think you forgot one of my options, pig.

Four faces blanched as the men compared the sizes of their weapons to hers. One man took a hesitant step backward, another glanced fearfully at his comrades. Eltarri let them waver, hoping their cowardice would overcome their loyalty. She really didn’t want to fight them. Her lack of hearig tipped the scales in their favor, and five-on-one didn't seem all that fair to her in the first place, even if she was the only one who was properly armed. The man in front whipped his head from side to side to glare angrily at the men behind him, mouth opening wide as said,

“Don’t move! Any . . . buggers run and . . . won’t be . . . week!” He faced her again, eyes burning with hatred, and raised his metal pipe into the air. “Get her!”

They charged in an uneven line, loyalty winning over the fear that lurked just beneath their bravado. Eltarri moved one foot back as they tore forward, bracing herself for the momentum that she’d come to expect from the sudden release of her sword. She glanced down to see if the dog had left and caught a glimpse of dark blue cloth and tanned skin, and then something slammed into the side of her head.

The half-elf went down with a stifled cry, rolling quickly onto her back to see her attacker. She cursed herself silently when she saw the man standing over her. Of course they wouldn’t send just five. How could she have been so stupid, to fall for their distraction? He stood in a tense crouch, a long, gleaming scimitar in his left hand. But his cold eyes weren’t looking at her. The beggars had stopped their charge, their faces confused as they stared at the newcomer.

“What the heck are you doing?” The leader’s face was purple with rage. Eltarri whipped her head to look at the man, wincing as the sudden movement made the growing lump on the side of her head throb, but she could only see his profile and in the faint light from the darkening sky overhead, visibility was next to nil. He spoke through barely-moving lips, glancing at her once with a turn of the head so quick that Eltarri only caught the words “wants her.” That was enough. Pulling her legs beneath her the girl jumped to her feet and darted down the street in the direction that the man had come from.

She had barely gotten two feet before a large hand clamped onto her wrist and jerked her to a painful stop. She turned to see the interfering man, who glared at her before turning back to the other men. He kept a tight grip on her right arm, and she realized with chagrin that the only thing she could do with one hand was make her sword drop to the street. His jaw was moving, but she had no idea of what he was saying. As he spoke, however, the rotten-toothed man’s face changed. He glanced at her once with surprised appraisal, then looked back to the scimitar-carrier with grudging acceptance. “Take her then. We’ll not fight the will of the great . . .” Eltarri couldn’t make out his last two words. Fat tizzer? Plaque whezzered? It must have been a name.

The leader glanced at the ground near Eltarri and then looked back to her captor, eyes glinting with greed. “I suppose we’ll get to keep that sheep then?”

The man turned his head slightly and frowned at the animal, finally facing Eltarri enough so that she could read his lips.

“It’s a wolf.”

Eltarri looked away from the shocked expressions on the men’s faces and stared in dismay at the animal at her side. He'd only been in her company for a few minutes, and already she'd endangered his life. She looked angrily back to the beggars, wishing she could shout intelligible threats.

“Money in the hand, boys!” The rotten-toothed man brandished his pipe and sprang forward, followed closely by his subordinates, mouth open as he bore down on the wolf.

[wolf]

Pacco’s desperateness grew with the elf’s reaction to him. He had expected her to listen to him, thank him, and run, maybe even ask him to come along. His mind had begun to weave together tales of great adventures they could endure and experience together. She was a disappointment. As he spoke she looked down at him as though he were nothing more than a wolf in a sheepskin. Though he was, he still felt insulted.

It was even worse when she showed him her sympathy by scratching his head. Though the contact did feel nice, he was appalled. A thought hit him like a train wreck. Well, you are a wolf…in a sheep skin. It seemed it had never actually occurred to him in that way before, and his mind felt opened to a new perspective of things.

He snapped back into the real world as the men arrived and the elf turned to face them. He wanted to cower and run, but he knew he couldn’t bring himself to do that. He stepped up boldly, standing beside the elf and baring his teeth at the men. Now is not the time to run He reminded himself.

“This is your last chance, wench. You have two choices. You either work for me, or you get out of my city.”

The leader of the men said. Pacco recognized him right away. He couldn’t forget those teeth. The weapons the men held created a bitter taste in Pacco’s mouth. He glanced up at the elf girl. She didn’t look disturbed by the men. She actually looked like she planned on fighting them. Pacco knew elves where stronger than mere humans, but he also knew there where five of them against one, and she was a girl…

Pacco was busy trying to glare down the men when suddenly the elf stumbled over, stepping on his paw. He retreated back a few paces with a yelp. When he looked up and saw yet another elf. Confusion blurred his mind, and he felt himself longing to be human once again, to be able to run on two legs once more. He had long forgotten the taste of strawberries, lying naked in the dark…

“Money in the hand, boys!” The words cut through his thoughts like a razor to a chicken’s head. Pacco’s heart raced in his chest, faster, faster, until he thought he might explode. Me? Why me? He wondered. He saw now that the newer elf seemed to ave a hold on the girl elf, and seemed to be hauling her away. I’ve got to stop letting my mind get away from me. Before I know it...

A large pipe suddenly crashed down onto Pacco’s back. His legs buckled beneath him, and he flopped onto the ground. He felt weak and useless. Thoughts of home began to flood his mind. He mentally began distributing his things in his mind. He decided his arrows would go to…Stop it! Pull yourself together! You’re not dying…not today!

The courageous voice came from some hidden source, but he accepted the words and used them to quickly pull himself back onto his paws. By that time the group of men had surrounded him, and he could no longer see the elves.

“Come on, wolfy, wolfy, wolfy.” One man snickered. The group slowly moved in a circle around him, no one making the first move to advance. Pacco glared at the men with his golden gaze, trying to form a plan in his mind.

It was no use. No thought even close to a plan was there. He was still in the middle of deciding who would get his hunting spear. It’s not your time. The voice said again. He snapped his jaw together hard. He had considered reasoning with the men, but he knew that talking would only get him into a deeper mess. Instead he slowly curled his upper lip and allowed a ferocious growl to escape his mouth. It started in the pit of his belly, and traveled up his throat. The fear and doubt he had had clug on and left with the growl as well, leaving only rage. A fire seemed to ignite in his eyes that hadn’t been there only a second ago.

Fight! Fight! He thought, while still thinking, Run! Run! Summoning all the strength he had at the moment, he pushed hard off the ground and lunged for the man nearest to him, snapping his jaws wildly and snarling like a beast. Then men quickly jumped away, creating a gap which he quickly passed through. His legs flew as he covered ground, diving around trash cans, turning sharp corners, jumping pot holes, and more.

The footsteps behind him soon began to grow faint, and he was grateful. He panted like a pregnant mongoose, slowing his stride to a trot. His long tongue drooped from his mouth, and his eyesight blurred.

With a grunt he flopped onto the ground. He felt as if he’d been running for hours. He glanced around and saw that he was in an abandoned alley. A street light could be seen down at the end of the alley, and it’s flickering light cast faint shadows across the walls and floor.

With heavy eyes, Pacco began to think about the elves. Who where they? What did they want? Did the man elf save the girl elf, or did he take her as a prisoner too? “Why don’t you ever pay attention? You always have to get caught up in your own thoughts and feelings, and you’re never paying any heed to anyone else in the world. You’re so selfish.” The haunting words of his mother returned. He shook his head of the memory, and slowly but surely drifted off to sleep.

[Chiroptera]

Eltarri watched with anguished eyes as the wolf in sheepskin tore from the alley, shouting beggars in hot pursuit. She yanked against the hand that held her arm, desperate to stop the men that were hunting down the innocent dog. Her arm felt as though it were being pulled from its socket when the man jerked her back. She darted a furious glare at him but he met her gaze with an icy stare that made her fall instantly still, cowed like a scolded child.

“Stop it.” His thin lips barely moved, but the annoyed look on his face conveyed the message clearly enough.

Eltarri glared at him and tugged resentfully at his hold. He barely had to tighten his bicep to hold her still. She glanced at his other hand, but he held the scimitar with a loose grip, ready to use it but without the tenseness that would warn her of an impending attack. When her gaze returned to his face, his blue eyes were fixed on hers, arching eyebrows lowering as he scanned her features. Eltarri did her best not to blush under his blatant scrutiny, still pulling against his grip. She lifted her chin and glared at him, trying to look imposing even though she was a good half-foot shorter. Finally he met her eyes, frowning with distaste that was pronounced enough to see even in the unlit alley.

“You’re not Elven.”

Eltarri stopped struggling. Unable to hear his tone of voice, she had no idea of how that comment was supposed to be taken. He turned his head to look after the vanished beggars, and for a few seconds his face was highlighted by moonlight. He had a long, unlined face with jutting cheekbones and a scar across his jaw that marred his otherwise-perfect complexion. His hair was long and blonde, pulled into a ponytail at the nape of his neck that left long, pointed ears easily visible as they arched almost to the crown of his head.

Eltarri’s eyes widened and she stared at him with a mixture of fascination and horror as he turned back to her. A high elf? He was the first that she had ever seen, and the shock of meeting one of her mother’s natural people took the fight right out of her. Thoughts of the wolf fled, replaced with memories of the stories that her mother had dreamily told of her beautiful and transcendent kin.

“Not full-blood, at least.” She saw his disdain in the curl of his lip and couldn’t stop the angry flush that spread across her face and neck. Her mother had always said that they were a proud race; it had partially been her own pride that made her move underground with her daughter after being transformed, pride and shame of the reaction her new appearance would beget from her faultless family and friends. Eltarri had grown up knowing that she would never be accepted by the high elves, but she hadn't expected the deep and unconcealed scorn that this one was showing. She scowled and jerked her arm, but his hold only tightened as he frowned down at her.

“Screw it. He won’t be able to tell the difference anyway.” Before Eltarri was sure of what he’d said, the elf suddenly twisted his grip around her wrist and shoved her hand up towards the sword on her back. Eltarri spun to keep her arm from breaking and ended up on her tiptoes facing away from the elf, teeth clenched to keep from crying out at the pain. She turned her head and glimpsed his lips moving as he spoke inches away from her ear, and then he took a step back and swung the hilt of his scimitar at her head.

[wolf]

Pacco slept heavily, his mind seeming to be locked away in a dark room with no escape. His body had seemed to shut down without allowing itself to reawake until it was fully replenished. He would have liked it to do that on a regular basis, but not under the current circumstances that were underway.

Pacco's eye lids parted slowly, followed by a series of blinks to brush the sleep away. He stretched his jaws apart wide with a large yawn. Everything around him was dim. He stared for a moment as his eyes readjusted to the new light.

He was in a room. A rather, dark room, and the floor, which he found he occupied, was made from cold, hard concrete. The walls and ceiling were of marble, a deep rich blue. From first glimpse Pacco could tell this was no ordinary villager's basement. The marble was fine quality, though the room was so cold it seemed it could be used as a freezer.

Pacco's memory jolted in a flash, flooding his mind of the elves, the men, and the run. Pacco's senses grew active as his nose surveyed the air. The men had chased me, and I had fallen asleep in an alley. Where am I now? He wondered, looking down at his body hopefully. Nope, he was still a wolf.

Standing cautiously, Pacco's claws clicked against the concrete as he eased along the wall. There seemed to be no sign of a door of any kind. No crack, not even an air vent lay along the ground. Where am I?

After exploring and inspecting, Pacco soon found that the room was about ten by ten feet with a low ceiling, only about five feet tall. Curiosity gripped his stomach, turning it over uneasily. He began to feel stuffy, and longed for the open air. So this is what it's like to be caged. He thought gloomily as he sat on his haunches. A pitiful whine escaped his mouth, followed by a series of howls. He raised his head to the ceiling and let it all flow out.

[Chiroptera]

Eltarri could feel a hand on her face, but the side of her head was hurting too much to make opening her eyes seem worthwhile. Then a warm finger pushed against her cheek and pulled back one of her eyelids, and a flash of bright light burned into her retinas, making her flinch away and swat at the offending hand. Closing the eye that had been temporarily blinded by the light, Eltarri opened the other eye and rolled it around, trying to see where she was without aggravating the throbbing in her skull. The ground beneath her felt gritty and unlike the floor of any building she’d ever been in. She could see a human man crouched beside her, his attention directed at something higher on her other side.

“ . . . hit her harder than you had to, I think.” He spoke in an enunciating, almost exaggerated manner, as though he considered his audience too dim-witted to understand normal speech. Eltarri turned her head, opening the burnt eye and blinking to clear away bright dots of color. Her gaze landed on the tip of a thin sword and traveled up to blond hair and pointed ears.

With a startled gasp Eltarri lurched away from the high elf, pushing back the human as she jerked into a half-sitting position and scrambled backwards across the gravelly floor. He looked down at her with clear dislike, not moving as she frantically slid away from him. The human had caught his balance despite her shove and remained in a crouch, hands extended as he moved after her, face calm and jaw moving.

Eltarri was too preoccupied with getting away to bother with reading his lips. The room was only about six paces long and there were no windows. The only light came form a dim lantern that hung above a sturdy-looking table in the middle of the room. The floor beneath her scrabbling hands was simply hard-packed earth, and the walls were the same, crossed with roots and lacking any sort of finish.

I’m underground?

Eltarri’s head hit a wall and she struggled to stand, desperately looking for a doorway. The high elf still hadn’t moved, but now the man had risen to his feet and was again moving towards her, hands still outstretched soothingly. The girl had no desire to find out what he was saying. She didn’t have to reach over her shoulder to know that her sword was gone, and anyone who would take her weapon obviously wasn't going to say something she wanted to hear. But where was the exit?

She rushed along the wall, running her hands over the grainy dirt in search of a hidden doorknob. She looked at the high elf, but he stood implacably, arms crossed loosely over his chest. Eltarri wanted to scream with frustration. What was going on? Why had he brought her here? What did that blasted human want?

The girl reached the corner that was the farthest away from the high elf and turned to face the robe-clad man, staring at him distrustfully as he drew nearer, mouth still gabbing away. He didn’t stop until he was close enough for Eltarri to smell some kind of spice that clung to his robe.

“all right . . . I need your . . . so listen . . .” he put a hand towards her shoulder. Eltarri snarled and jumped at his face, hoping to at least give him some scars to remember her by.

Her attack never landed. The charge was arrested suddenly when something heavy slammed into her from the side, knocking her against the wall. Before she could react, a cold hand was wrapped around her neck and an iron-like arm stretched across her torso beneath her ribs kept her hands at her sides. She stared up with horrified fear at the high elf’s impassive visage. How had he moved so quickly across the room? His lips parted and Eltarri could feel the heat of his breath as he spoke.

“Just listen.”

I can’t!

Hot tears burned in her eyes and she cursed herself for being so weak. The situation was almost in her favor. They didn’t know that she was deaf! She wasn’t exactly sure of how that would help her, but the triumph of their ignorance gave her the strength she needed to force back the ears. She nodded once and turned her head towards the human to show her compliance, hoping the elf would release her neck. She wasn’t exactly surprised to see that the man’s lips were still in motion, his face moving animatedly as he spoke.

“ . . . not exactly sure that was . . . necessary, Bell, she didn’t pose a real threat and you know how I hate . . . violence. Oh well, what’s done is done.” He turned sharp eyes to her. “I don’t suppose you’d sit quietly if he lets you go, eh?”

Eltarri was still staring at his mouth and processing what he’d said when she realized that he’d asked her a question. She had to stifle a hysterical bubble of laughter at the elf's name, but she sobered with a glance at his icy visage. She nodded vigorously against the fingers beneath her chin and the wizard beamed.

“There, you see, Bell? This one’s so much more . . . than you were.”

The high elf didn’t respond, but his hands retracted slowly from her neck and he took a step away from her. Eltarri wanted to watch him to make sure that he didn’t try to assault her again, but the man had turned and walked to the table at the center of the room, where he pulled out a chair and waved graciously towards it.

“ . . . a seat, please.”

The girl went to the wooden chair and sat down, relieved when the human went to sit in the chair on the opposite side and chagrined when the high elf moved out of her peripheral vision to stand a few feet behind her.

The human sat forward in his seat, resting his elbows on the table and templing his fingers in front of his chin. The hair on his head was neatly groomed and graying, the same color as the beard that lightly covered his cheeks and jaw. His eyes were dark and they bored into her face, flickering over her features in the same appraising manner that the high elf had shown before. He was shorter than the elf and bore a slight paunch, but his posture was rigid and he carried himself with an air of command that made his leadership position obvious. The high elf was working for a human?

“Her features aren't as defined as Bell's, but I suppose the bloodline is being . . .” His face went suddenly stern. “Now listen . . . because I have a lot to say and I don’t like to repeat myself. My name is Alanus Gamen, but around Scara Brae I’m more . . . as the Black Wizard. Heard of me?” He quirked his eyebrows as if he expected her to recognize the title. It took her a second to piece together what he had said, but when she saw that he was still waiting for some kind of affirmation, she shook her head to show that she’d never heard of him, even though the revelation that his clear speech provided made her head spin. This little man was a wizard? He seemed so unimpressive!

The wizard looked a little insulted. “Well, you’re new in town. Or so my horses tell me.” Eltarri was puzzling over his words. Horses . . . Sources!He had paused expectantly again, and this time she nodded. Her arms lay in her lap, but her fingers moved restlessly, venting the energy that she wanted to use running away from the high elf.

The human eyed her speculatively. “Not very talkative, are you? It seems to me that you’re being a little rude to not share your name after I’ve been so polite. I am the Wizard Gamen, my friend behind you is Bell the elf, and you are . . .?”

Eltarri’s mind froze in a flash of panic. She couldn’t let them know! Forcing air through her unused voice box, the half-elf hoped that whatever came out of her mouth wasn’t a garbled yell or a whisper slur.

The man’s nose scrunched disapprovingly and Eltarri’s heart stopped. “El? That’s it? Not very Elven, is it? I’m sure I can come up with something better for you. Either way, the important thing is that you are an unclaimed elf who . . . into Scara Brae looking for the . . .of a lifetime, and you’ve found it!” His eyes sparkled with merriment and his head lowered so that his mouth was hidden behind his steepled fingers, visible only in flashes when he moved his hands to emphasize a point.

“I am . . . you . . . chance . . . great and . . . mission . .. save the whole of . . . Brae.”

Eltarri gritted her teeth to control her frustration. She’d lose her edge if she couldn’t figure out what it was he wanted her for! She glanced over her shoulder and saw that the high elf was still immobile behind her. When she looked back at the wizard, he was still talking, but now his hands were waving in the air and his mouth moved wildly as if he was getting louder.

“ . . . forced to wage war on the evil that runs through my city. I will not stand by and watch as the most necessary battle – good against evil – goes unfought because of the cowardice of the guards. If they have not the . . . to take action, I will fight this war on my own!” His last statement was punctuated by slaps on the table that sent vibrations through the wood. His fervor was obvious, but Eltarri was still confused by his words. If his intent was to fight evil, they shared a common goal, one that she wouldn’t be opposed to fighting for with him. His method of recruiting wasn’t exactly laudable, but if his intentions were noble, she could forgive a bumbled invitation for the sake of the cause.

The wizard stood with a distant look in his eyes, savoring his own passionate speech. Then he turned back to her. “And this is where you come in. I am a great wizard, no doubt, but even I cannot . . . accomplish this great task on my own. Even men as great as myself need onions.” Eltarri blinked, then realized what he’d actually said. Minions!

“I heard rumors of a new beggar, a short female who carries a large sword, and given my . . . for the Elven race, my curiosity was . . . piqued. Bell’s been tracking you for the last few days. I’ve brought you here to invite you to join me in my quest, to fight with my army against the forces of evil.” His hands were planted on the tabletop and he leaned towards her, staring intently into her face. Eltarri stared uncertainly back. What kind of good guys kidnapped people to fight with them? She turned in her chair to look at Bell, but his face was a studied neutral, his eyes cold and unimpressed by the wizard’s speech.

She turned back to the wizard. If the creepy, lame-named elf was the kind of person she’d have to fight beside, she definitely didn’t want to join this army. She was trying to think of a way to communicate her demure when the wizard started talking again.

“I can see that you’re not quite convinced by the . . . but my battle is too important to let word of my secret . . . reach the ears of my enemy. I suppose you should know that if you refuse to fight with me, I can only assume that you are one of his spies and working against me. You . . . the dilemma this puts me in.” His face was a mask of superficial reluctance and he spoke with lips protruding in a pout, even though his eyes gleamed. “I have such a fondness for elves, and it would pain me so to have to ensure your silence.”

A shiver went down Eltarri’s spine. Did he mean he’d cut out her tongue? Or would he just kill her? She wasn’t sure which was the less preferable. To be deaf and incontrovertibly mute . . . She smoothed her features to hide her dreluctance and nodded. It wasn’t as if he was really giving her much of a choice.

Gamen smiled and sat back. “You will join me then? Excellent. I’m quite sure that you will not regret your decision, El. There is only one thing left before we leave this place and take you to meet the rest of our army. It is ironic that I am called the Black Wizard, because the name my army carries is the Lesion of Light-,” Lesion . . . he must have said Legion . . . “—and this is our symbol.”

He rolled back his left sleeve to reveal a two-inch sign that had been painted onto his forearm. It was the Elvish symbol for light, intersected long ways by the narrow outline of a dagger. Eltarri had only a moment to look at it before he started talking again.

“All of my soldiers bear this mark as a sign of their loyalty. You can see that mine is done merely in ink, but that is of course because I must venture out in disguise and cannot afford to be identified. But those in my army must show their devotion proudly and permanently.” Still piecing together the last words of his speech, Eltarri missed the slight nod he gave when he raised his eyes to look over her head.

A moment later she was suddenly lifted up and forward and slammed face-down onto the rough tabletop. A heavy weight pressed on top of her, pinning her arms between the table and her abdomen. Eltarri twisted her head to look back frantically and tried to jerk her shoulders to dislodge the weight, but by then the high elf had moved. She tried to move but found that she had been bound tightly to the table with robes that bit into her arms and back. Her legs dangled free of the table, but when she swung them the only thing she hit was the edge of a chair. The wizards stood beside the table, speaking with an empathetic look on his face.

“ . . . simple spell I learned from Elven herders, actually. You won’t . . .”

Her bangs fell over her eyes as a hand grabbed the stem of her braid and twisted her head so that her face was pressed into the rough surface of the table. Cold hands held her head still, one clamped tightly over each ear as the collar of her shirt was pulled away from the nape of her neck. Eltarri felt as though she could hear the pounding of her heart, and she struggled to no avail against the hands and ropes that held her captive. Then a sharp, fierce pain sprang up on the back of her neck and the smoke of cooking flesh hit her nose. Her throat's spasmic clenching was the only indication she had of the scream that was coming out of her mouth.

[wolf]

"Shut your trap you mangy mutt!" A harsh, stubborn voice broke through the noise. Pacco had been on his fourth chorus of his howling, and was quite surprised with the new sound that he heard other than himself. He quickly lifted himself off his rump and stood tall, his ears high and his head cocked. There was a brief pause, where muttering and shuffling around could be heard, and then the ceiling of his 'cage' flew open. A bright light broke through the dim area, collecting shadows on the walls and causing Pacco's eyes to burn. After a few moments of rapid blinking and head shaking, his vision returned and he looked up.

A man stood in the opening, looking down on him. A lantern branched off one of his muscular arms, and a big head looked down at him. Giant horns, about the size of full grown bulls protruded from his head. His eyes were enormous and brown, and his face was wide and hairy. Pacco realized that he was not in fact a man, but a Minotaur. His large, bull snout had a gold ring between the nostrils, and at the moment he looked down at Pacco with a displeased complexion. Pacco could make himself do nothing but stare.

"What are you looking at?" His deep, rumbling voice asked. By his tone it was obvious he was not really expecting an answer, so Pacco kept his mouth shut. With a huff, and a great pile of steam rising from his nostrils, the Minotaur reached into the pit with a large pole. At the edge where two pinchers, and between the pinchers was a buzzing wave of electricity. Pacco slithered into the far corner, as far away from the pole as he could get. A look of amusement played across the beast’s disheartening features as he followed after Pacco with the pole. "Get out of here. Come on." He commanded, nearing Pacco's backside. Scrambling to his feet, Pacco scurried to the opening where he easily jumped out from the ditch and onto the ground.

He found, that in fact he had been in an underground, marble cell. Though as it turned out, he was still underground, but now in a basement type looking place. The walls were made from cheap cement, and the floor was nothing but sandy dirt. Bookshelves were scattered about the room in no particular order, and there was a layer of oldness over everything. The place made Pacco uncomfortable.

"Ah, there you are." A cheery voice called. A man of about fifty stepped into the room from a hidden doorway. His cheeks where plump and rosy, and he had only a few wisps of hair covering his scalp. Colorful, expensive cloth he was wearing and a robe made of fine silk. The man was larger than what was healthy, and when he walked he wobbled. "I have been waiting to see you."

He was speaking to Pacco. Me? Why? He wondered as he looked up at the bull-man, who was already watching Pacco closely. The fat man seemed to notice, and smiled nonchalantly.

"Thank you, Bartonious, you may leave." He said with a quick wave of his hand. Bartonious gave one last glaring look at Pacco before leaving the room, the clumping of his footsteps following him out and down the hall. Pacco stood there awkwardly, waiting for the fat man to make a move.

"I am called Oromis." He said with a warm yet strange smile. "I am the most great and powerful wizard in all of Scara Brae. It's a pleasure to meet you." He laced his stubby fingers together, and giggled in a most unmanly like way. His cheeks shone bright, and his soft brown eyes glimmered in the candle light. "The sheepskin you wore, it was unusual. I am very fond of animals, and when I heard of a wolf in a sheep skin I said to myself, 'I must have him!' And so here you are, in my presence. I know I may seem like a fool, talking to a mere canine, but frankly I do not care." His voice sounded confident, on of a child who's just said something important.

Pacco's ears twitched and the man's eyes caught that. He watched Pacco intently, as a sly smile made its way across his face.

"You understand me, do you not? You seem most intelligent." Pacco's tail wagged slightly and his eyes met the man's. I can trust him. Pacco decided for no particular reason. He was itching to talk, and it just turned out that this man was a wizard. Perfect.

"I can, actually." He said finally, after a hesitating moment. As the words slipped from his mouth, the wizard's eyes widened, and his smile grew larger. He clapped his hands together.

"I knew you could. I'm such a powerful wizard, aren't I? I can speak to animals. They love me." He bobbed his head, tickled by what he thought he knew. Pacco tilted his own head to the side. This man thinks...never mind, I suppose I should allow him. Now, to get to the point...

"Oromis, I need your help." Pacco said in an urgent voice, glancing over at the door. He felt his skin tingling, and just knew there was magic in the air. A sense of exposure filled him as he realized he wasn't wearing his sheepskin. "I need you to--"

"No more, no more. Follow me, dear friend. We have much to discuss." The man said in a bubbly voice as he motioned Pacco after him. He scurried over to the door and slipped through, holding it open for Pacco. Should I? He wondered. He had thought he could trust the wizard, but things were getting stranger by the second. After another persistent, "Come!" Pacco slowly made his way to the door, and walked through. The door shut behind him.

[Chiroptera]

It was hours before Eltarri was fully cognizant of her surroundings, so consumed was she with the agony on her neck. She lay on her stomach, face pressed into the straw beneath her as even the still air seemed to grate against her fresh wound. The pain brought back sharp memories of the day she’d lost her hearing, bringing to mind the strange little creature that had torn her world apart with its shrieking voice. The pain on the back of her neck was comparable to the misery of mutilated eardrums, but even this searing throb fell short of the pain her ruined ears had endured.

The thought was only a little comforting.

She distantly remembered what had happened after the branding. The ropes were loosened and she’d been dragged up a flight of stairs that had seemed to appear miraculously from out of the ceiling. A rough wooden floor and a long carpet later, she had been set down relatively gently on the pallet that she was still on and the burn on her neck had been generously doused with cold water. She’d closed her eyes and wallowed in misery, shutting herself into the dark, silent world that had become her refuge. No one had bothered her, and with her eyes tightly shut it was easy to convince herself that she really was in some safe, non-threatening world.

A soft kick in the ribs brought that fantasy to a crashing demise. Eltarri started to lift her head from the hay, but the screaming of her skin made her stop only an inch off the ground. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the room around her, an unadorned chamber of nondescript grey with only a glass-covered window and her straw-covered pallet to break the monotony. Looking past her shoulder, she saw brown boots that were small and faded, fitted to the curve of a feminine ankle. What if this woman was talking to her? Biting her tongue to keep any strange noises from coming out of her mouth, Eltarri rolled onto her side, tears springing to her eyes at the pain even this simple motion caused. Her eyes trailed up to a wide, dark face framed by honey-colored hair and filled with luminous hazel eyes that peered curiously down at her. The face was youthful and unlined, possessing the same timeless quality that she'd always admired in her mother. She was dressed in an oversized tunic that was belted at the waist and loose pants that were tucked into knee-high boots. She stood over Eltarri with her brow furrowed, though her large eyes remained clear and untroubled.

“Aw, she’s crying! I think you hurt her, Bell.” The head whipped around and Eltarri’s gaze jerked to follow hers, landing with a rush of fear on the high elf, who stood in the small room’s doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. His eyes were focused on the dark-skinned girl, and though he barely moved his mouth when speaking, Eltarri could see what he was saying because of the smallness of the room.

“I told you not to call me that, Shira.”

The girl turned completely around with her hands resting cockily on her hips, and Eltarri saw that the girl was even shorter than she was. She turned back suddenly, mouth still moving as she gestured towards Eltarri.

“ . . . elves were supposed to protect each other or something. Why’d you let him take her?”

“Don’t be a fool. She’s no more Elven than you are.” Eltarri could almost hear the loathing in his voice.

Shira kept her bright gaze on Eltarri, dropping into a crouch so that she could pat her head gently. “Don’t listen to him, little elf-girl. He’s just jealous because I’m older than him and Gamen still likes me more.” She threw a snide look over her shoulder, the loose waves of her golden hair falling forward as she turned so that Eltarri caught sight of one of her ears. It was round and large for her head, shaped like half of an upside-down heart so that even though the lobe was rounded the top came to a slanted point. Two small silver hoops rounded the cartilage of her ear near the point, probably because the lower part of the ear was too thick to pierce. The strange girl turned back and smiled down at her.

“Don’t worry, El, I’ll look after you.” She paused, her nose wrinkling as she shook her head and continued, “Wait, sorry, I can’t call you that anymore. Gamen renamed you Eye-air because he said your old name wasn’t Elvish enough.” Eltarri ran the word through her head until it matched an Elvish word she recognized. Aier? Short One?

Her indignation must have showed on her face, because Shira sympathetically nodded. “Yeah, he’s pretty weird that way. He calls me Lira-mere, but Bell-, she tossed a grin over her shoulder, “I mean, Bella-jure, is the only one who can call me by my real name, ’cause he’s Gamen’s right-hand man.” Eltarri’s head began to hurt as she hurriedly tried to keep up with the talking girl while translating the Elvish. Lirimaer, Lovely One, and Beleger, Mighty One. Go figure that she would get the only even moderately insulting name of the bunch.

Shira’s head turned and Eltarri quickly looked to the high elf.

“. . . what you say, dryad. Those earrings aren’t just for decoration.” He cast a scorning glance at the half-elf before turning and striding away from the doorway, leaving the room somehow brighter from his absence. Dryad? Eltarri looked again at the agile figure before her, noticing with astonishment the fourth joint in each finger that she had heard characterized the sylvan Fae-folk. How could the wizard be dumb enough to mistake her for an elf?

Shira’s eyes clouded for only a moment as a hand went up to the silver hoops in her ear. Then her face cleared and her eyes sparkled as she spoke through a grin. “He’s such a worrywart. Gamen doesn’t listen in on us unless we’re on a mission.” Her face lit up even more. “Speaking of which, you’re supposed to come with us on our next adventure!” Quicker than lightning her face fell into a sorrowful pout. “But it’s tonight and you don’t really seem up to it. Maybe I’ll ask Gamen if he’ll let you sit this one out, it being your third day with us and all . . .” She looked questioningly at Eltarri, as if waiting for her response.

The half-elf tried to ignore her neck for long enough to formulate coherent thoughts. A mission? Her curiosity was piqued as to what kind of mission this Black Wizard considered worthy of his “Legion of Light,” but more than anything she just wanted to curl into a ball and sleep until the pain went away. But if they were going on a mission, she’d have the chance to see where this place was, and there might even be a chance of escape. Meeting the dryad’s eye, she made a weak attempt to shake her head, but the motion proved too painful and she helplessly fell still.

“Gamen said you didn’t talk much, but you’ve been whimpering all day, so you can’t be mute. And that’s a really big sword for a person who’s not right in the head . . .” Shira continued her muse, but Eltarri rolled back onto her stomach and forced herself to her knees, closing her eyes to fight a wave of nausea. She felt a long-fingered hand rest against her shoulder, steadying her as she sat back on her heels. When she opened her eyes the dryad was gone, but then a soft, cool hand touched the back of her neck. The dark girl was at her side, smiling encouragingly.

“Lucky you, yours is a good inch above your collar, which is good. When he did mine he put it right at my shirt line, which hurt like -,” she tilted her torso to get a better look at the brand and Eltarri lost sight of her mouth. The pressure of her fingers on the burn sent jolts down her spine, but the coolness of her hand counterbalanced the pain and made the probing bearable. A few seconds later she scooted around on the ground to sit in front of Eltarri, mirroring her pose and folding her hands on her lap, long fingers wiggling.

“Looks like you’re up, then, and coming on our adventure tonight! This will be so much fun.” She glanced warily over her shoulder at the open door, then turned back to Eltarri with gleaming eyes. “I’m not sure how much I can tell you, because I’m not actually supposed to know this myself, but we’re going to deliver justice to a family that was betrayed by our enemy! We’re going to rescue them from him. Isn’t that exciting?”

Eltarri managed a slight nod, amazed at the dryad’s energy. She was older than the high elf? Beleger looked a good many years older than herself, but if the dryad was older even than him, why did she act so childish?

Her thoughts were distracted as a figure stepped into the doorway, his tall frame and the thin sword at his side identifying him as the high elf.

“Shira, shut up and get ready. You need to learn to guard your tongue before Gamen tells me to cut it out.” Eltarri couldn’t hear his tone, but the hurt on the dryad’s face told her enough. The dryad rose wordlessly to her feet, giving Eltarri a half-smile before she half-ran out of the room, hugging the doorpost to avoid contact with the elf. Eltarri hated to see her go. She kept her eyes on the floor, but she watched Beleger's face out of her peripheral vision, looking up only when he spoke again.

“Don’t put too much stock in her words. She’s old in human years but she’s still a stupid child to her own kind, much like you to yours, I’m sure.” Eltarri flinched at the words. Her kind? What was her kind?

“When you’re up to it, go to the dining room at the end of the hall, your sword should still be on the floor. And get over your mark so that you don’t slow us down with your bawling, we’re leaving at sunset, with or without you.” He’d turned and left again before Eltarri had finished deciphering his words. Why did everyone talk so bloody fast?

The thought of having her sword again made her fingers itch with anticipation, and the thought of hunger made her even more inclined to move. She sat on the pallet for a few minutes, making sure that the high elf had plenty of time to get far away from her, and then gingerly pushed herself to her feet. Her neck screeched when she tried to stand up straight, so she kept her neck bent, feeling as though she looked ridiculously like a vulture as she stepped out of the room. The floor was carpeted in a worn brown rug that stretched from one end of the hall to the other. She went towards her left and reached a stone staircase going up, then turned and went the other way, which led her into a large room with a wooden table that ate up most of the floor space. Small windows lined the walls near the top of the high walls, and below them hung woven banners of different colors and designs.

Eltarri stepped into the room gingerly, looking around tentatively for any occupants, and was relieved to see that she was alone. Her face broke into a smile when she saw her black sword resting on the floor behind one of the chairs, still trapped in its sling. She went to it and quickly strapped the harness across her chest, relieved to feel the weight of the iron on her back. The smell of warm food hit her nose, and she turned to see the diminutive dryad stepping out of the doorway on another wall, two loaded plated in her hands and a triumphant smile on her lips. A long cloak was draped over her clothes, dragging against the floor, and a quiver of arrows was strapped onto her back, the feathers on the bristled ends the same golden color as her hair.

“I brought us dinner! I don’t care about what old Belly says, eating before a mission is a good idea.” She set the plates down onto the table and climbed into a chair, motioning at the plate next to her own. Eltarri picked up the plate and moved around the table to sit on the other side, using her free hand to shift her sword so that Shira wouldn’t think she was just trying to get away from her. In reality, she wanted to make sure that she had a good view in case the dryad said anything useful.

“So that sword is yours, huh? I measured myself against it and it’s the same size as me. Isn’t that funny?” She began to eat and continued talking at the same time. Eltarri too began to eat, but her attention was on the dryad. “Gamen’s really excited about this . . . . . . this will be a turning point in his war ‘cause . . . . . . and when his enemy . . . . what we’ve done . . . .”

Eltarri sighed and focused on her food. There was no point in trying to understand if she couldn’t see half of what the girl was saying. When she looked up again, she jumped visibly at the sight of Beleger standing beside the table, cloaked and pulling a pair of dark gloves onto his hands.

“ . . . learn, will you? Gamen’s waiting in his study. He wants us to leave now to make sure we get there in time.” He turned and walked to the doorway that Eltarri had come in through. Eltarri felt her stomach twist. He hadn’t even looked at her once. She pushed her half-eaten plate away, and as she did so her eyes landed on a bundle on the table. Shira was already standing, racing towards her own entrance to pick up a longbow that rested against the wall. She slung it over her shoulder and turned back to the half-elf, eyes shining as she pulled a pair of gloves onto her own hands.

“Are you ready? Come on, let’s go!" She whirled away and skipped towards the high elf. Eltarri quickly shook out the bundle, revealing an ankle-length black cloak and a pair of black gloves like the ones the other two were wearing. She carefully draped the cloak over her shoulders, surprised to find that a long slit had been cut in the back so that her sword and its sling could rest outside of the cloak for easy access. The gloves were of fine leather, stiff with newness and a little too large. As soon as she’d pulled them completely on, however, the material of the gloves grew warm and shrunk to perfectly fit her hands like a second skin. She was still staring at her black fingers when she saw Shira begin to jump up and down excitedly. A motion from Beleger stilled her, but Eltarri hurriedly fastened the clasp on the cloak and stepped towards them, still in awe over the magical gloves. Beleger didn’t spare her a glance as he turned and went down the hall, cloak fluttering behind him as he strode imperiously towards the stairs. Shira gave the half-elf a grin, then turned and chased after the high elf in a skipping run. Eltarri reached back to make sure that the neckline of the cloak wouldn’t rub against her burn, then hesitantly followed after the Legion of Light.

[wolf]

It was black. Pacco's heart pounded wildly in his chest, threatening to crawl up his throat. He felt as if he'd stepped off the edge of the world. His head spun, and his claws uselessly attempted to grip the floor. A second later, a small, orange, flickering flame entered the room. With it, came a soft shadow. Pacco calmed, and after a quick movement and a muffled snapping of fingers, the room was light.

"Sorry about that." Oromis muttered, stepping forward. Pacco's golden eyes widened as they hungrily soaked up the room. It was about the same size and shape as the one he'd just left, but this one was nicer. Large candles burned, their flames born from the simple demand of the wizard. The floors were a dark, black marble, etched with white, wispy layers. On the walls hung ancient pictures of maidens and dragons, colorful landscapes, enchanted castles. One wall was lined with book shelves that carried a musty scent, and were obviously worn out. A door lay in the corner of the room, draped with fine purple silk cloth that played as a covering of a sort.

The room was indeed, a sight for sore eyes, but it wasn't its elegance which brought fear into Pacco’s strong body, and threatened his limbs to give out underneath him. It was the room's inhabitants.

"Forgive my rudeness," Oromis turned to face Pacco, brown eyes dancing across the wolf, "Let me do the introductions." With a knobby finger, he motioned to the first one. She was sitting down, on one of the chairs, legs crossed. A cigarette burned casually in her mouth, and it had been, Pacco realized, the source of the flame. Her skin was a dark, bronze color, and her stately green, almond shaped eyes scrutinized him skillfully. Her red hair was long and thick, falling about down to her knees. She wore rather skimpy clothes which showed more skin than necessary, though it did not fail her. From her back, protruded large, feathered wings. The upper half was a glossy black, and the lower half was a glowing white. Her face was sharp, her nose small and delicate, and her lips, the bottom fuller than the top, a cool pink. Pacco blinked in amazement at her beauty.

"This is Aphrodite." Oromis's deep voice stated, pounding on the moment and leaving it to wither in the dust. Pacco's eyes flickered to him, and the man smiled like a child who'd just found candy on the floor. "She's a harpy, obviously. Don't get on her nerves, or you'll end up at the bottom of a sewer with a broken spine and no activity in your brain except the thoughts of what you shouldn't have done." He chuckled and winked at Pacco, before politely gesturing to the next.

Beside Aphrodite sat another harpy, looking almost exactly the same, except this one had blonde hair and a lighter looking face. Brown eyes gazed at Pacco curiously, and her parted red lips showed white, glimmering fangs. A chill crept up his spine, and he shifted on his paws uncomfortably.

"That would be Izalexbrianque, called Izalex." Oromis's eyes glittered with pleasure. He's enjoying this, isn't he? Pacco thought listlessly, though keeping his face blank. " And last, but certainly not least, I give you Garstisienfunklestein III." His voice rose enthusiastically, and he made the effort to raise both flabby arms to gesture towards, as Pacco assumed, his most prized possession. Tilting his head to the side, his golden eyes peered into the darkness in which the third supposedly was. There was a brief moment of silence, where unseen crickets seemed to gladly chime their song louder than all else. The air grew thick, and a musty smell arose.

Pacco's body shook, and he began taking cautious steps back. The darkness was growing. Its web like fingers groped the walls, ceiling, and floor as it stretched, and from behind it a tall shadow loomed. A grunt came from one of the harpy ladies, but it was drowned out by a low, hoarse growl.

I'm too young to die. The impetuous thought bounced through Pacco's head. And then the darkness stopped. The room was completely still. One second it was there, and then, it was suddenly gone, and in its place crouched a mouse. Pacco blinked stupidly a couple of times, and then a roar of laughter erupted from the wizard, Aphrodite, and Izalex. Questioning eyes of the wolf turned to Oromis, who was leaned against the wall, one hand on his chest, shoulders trembling from laughter. The mouse squeaked, almost as if in reply, and then leapt into the air, landing on four hooves as a goat. A bleat filled with mockery followed as it looked at Pacco, who was still involuntarily shaking. Shapeshifter.

"Forgive me." Oromis managed to choke as he wiped tears from his eyes. "Garst, go and make yourselves useful. You two too. I need to talk to Wolfy alone." Pacco glared at the wizard. Wolfy? That has got to stop now. The three quietly left the room, all still smiling. Pacco rolled his eyes. It wasn't that funny. He tried to convince himself. They must get bored around here.

"Now, have a seat, have a seat." Oromis ordered. Pacco sat, and watched the fat man as he hobbled around the room, realizing he did have a bad habit of not closing his chubby lips. "So, Wolfy, tell me once again what you were saying. I wasn't listening." The wizard's tone was curt and frank, and Pacco found himself cursing the oaf under his breath. "I know I'm special," the wizard continued, "Not many wizards can hear animals talk." He placed himself in a chair close by to Pacco, and it creaked painfully in objection.

"I said I need your help." Pacco began. "I--"

"As I told you before, I am the great Oromis of Hypernikoi. My minions and I are known around town as The Dark Knights. We are the doers of old." His chest puffed proudly, and he smiled to the side in attempt to look dashing, or so Pacco assumed. "I am a wizard of the world, Wolfy." Oromis said as his gobble of fat jiggling as he spoke. "I am the most powerful wizard in all Scara Brae. My army is made up for magical creatures, such as yourself." The fat man looked eagerly at Pacco, who took it as a sign to speak.

"Yes, but what--"

"And then there is Gamen." Oromis shuddered, and clasped his hands together with a hollow smack. "The Legions of Light." He said the name as though his tongue tasted bitter, and rolled his eyes afterwards. "I mean, that fake of a wizard has the audacity to tell me he's better then me. Can you believe it? No, you can't. I can't either. It's preposterous I say!" He raised his hands in the air as he spoke to help his speech. Pacco kept his mouth shut, already exasperated on being interrupted so many times. What a nut. He thought stiffly.

"So I've been building an army." Oromis continued. "One that will take him and his sorry meat sack of an army down." Meat sack? What have I gotten myself into? Oromis's eyes blazed, not so much as with anger than determination. He pounded a fist on his hand. "I will bring him down."

Silence, once more. He'd obviously finished what he had wanted to say, and now there was a very uncomfortable silence. I suppose I should...

"So where do I come in?" Pacco asked, his voice filled with controlled curiosity. Must not seem to eager. Though in fact, he was very interested in why the wizard wanted him. He was nothing big. Just a talking wolf...

"My army consists of magical creatures." Oromis repeated. "You are a creature who can talk! I cannot have measly elves or humans working for me. You will help me much." He nodded stupidly, and reached over to a silver tray which sat on the edge of the table, stacked with food. A large, juicy turkey leg met the fat man's fingers, and he pulled it back to himself. He took a large bite of the meat, juice running down the sides of his mouth, and he chewed without closing his mouth. Pacco stared in disgust.

"You'll be fed," he raised his turkey leg and smiled a dirty, meat-filled-tooth smile, "And taken care of. What more could you ask for?" He chuckled, little bits of food flying from his mouth. I think I'm going to be sick. Pacco thought, tilting his head.

"Why should I stay? Why should I fight for you?" Pacco pondered aloud, stepping back quickly as a chunk of chewed meat flew towards him from the man's mouth. Oromis let out a throaty laugh and replied,

"Because I can help you. I wasn't listening, so I don't know what you need, but I know I can help you." Pacco was unsure. How does he know? He must be powerful to be able to ensure such a thing. But then if he's so powerful, why does he want me? Questions raced through his mind, and he hesitated, eyeing the man eat with cold gold eyes.

"I want to be a man again." Pacco finally said. Now it was Oromis's turn to hesitate. He stopped mid mouthful, and slowly lowered the food from his face. Pacco's body froze. He was suddenly hanging off the edge of a cliff, his fingers grasping the ledge tightly, though slowly slipping away. Darn.

"I...I can do that." Oromis said, though his voice was filled with uncertainty. He glanced over at the door in the corner, then quickly back to Pacco. "You, err, you used to be a human?" His tone was unreadable, besides the fact that the man had suddenly gotten secretive. What is it? Is he scared? Mad? What?! Pacco nodded slowly, glancing at the door himself. "Tell me the story. Tell me everything." Oromis's eyes lightened and he threw the bone to the side to lean forward in his seat, studying the wolf closely.

And so Pacco told.

[Chiroptera]

The staircase didn’t last as long as Eltarri had thought it would. It only curled twice in its rail-less encasing before opening to a large, unlit foyer of dark stone. Beleger led the way towards the dark wooden double-doors at the far end, but he was still a few feet away when they began to open, swinging slowly inwards without any visible sign of force. Shira turned to the half-elf behind her and rolled her eyes, pointing upwards with a shrug. Her earlier words echoed in Eltarri’s mind. Gamen doesn’t listen in on us unless we’re on a mission. Was he watching them now? Eltarri shuddered and quickly stepped after the pair as they swept through the doorway and into the darkening street. The sky was a hazy mix of pink and dark blue, about the same color that it had been the last time she was outside. She glanced down at her gloved hands and felt a twinge of pain at the bending of her neck. How could so much have happened in just three days?

A small, long-fingered hand landed on her arm and Eltarri jumped guiltily, looking up to meet the worried gaze of the dryad, whose mouth was already moving.

“ . . . feeling all right? If you’re not ready, I’m sure Bel will let you-,” Her head whipped around and Eltarri followed her gaze to the high elf, though he stood too far away for her to read his mouth in the dim light. A moment later Shira’s head turned back and she gave the taller girl a sympathetic shrug. “Then again, maybe not.” She turned and raced off down the street after the already-moving high elf and Eltarri went after them, quickening her pace when they turned down a side street. Shira had stopped and impatiently beckoned Eltarri when she turned the corner before running again after Beleger.

Eltarri sighed and broke into a jog, fighting anxiety as the sky continued to darken. Looking around at the large buildings that surrounded them, Eltarri recognized with surprise that they were in the upper district of Scara Brae, which meant that the wizard’s headquarters were nestled somewhere among the mansions of the richest and most influential people of the city! He’d said that he had to “venture out in disguise,” but did that mean he actually socialized with normal, everyday people who didn’t know he was a wizard? Was that legal?

The girl turned her attention back to the two in front of her, wondering how far they would have to go at this pace. She was already short of breath, and the jouncing of the sword on her back was beginning to hurt her shoulder.

The blond head of the high elf swiveled and he was glaring at the girl almost before he’d even come to a complete stop. Eltarri skidded to a halt and breathed deeply, hoping that she wasn’t wheezing. It’d been a while since she’d last had to exert herself like this. Beleger stepped up to her, frowning as he spoke.

“You sound like a peasant army on the rampage,” he muttered as he approached. Before she had even finished processing what he’d said he was behind her, jerking and twisting at the sling that held her sword. His rough fiddling pulled her off balance and she stumbled backwards, but the high elf just used his grip on the sling to shove her back upright. Eltarri worked at tightening the buckles on the front of her harness, keeping her eyes down and hoping her face wasn’t as red as it felt to be. Why did everyone insist on treating her like a baby?

A moment later Beleger stepped around her and looked to Shira, mouth moving too quickly for Eltarri to catch what he said. Eltarri experimentally bounced on her toes and found that whatever the high elf had done had secured her sword into its sling so that it barely moved at all. Shira nodded, grinning impishly, and took a step towards Eltarri.

“Here, let me teach you. You don’t want to run, ‘because that’s always loud. Don’t focus on stepping so much, and think of yourself as water gliding down a hill.” She took a few slow steps sideways, exaggerating a gait that Eltarri had never seen before, crouching low and stepping so that her feet barely lifted off the ground. “I call it 'the lope.'”

Eltarri took a tentative step, trying to imitate Shira’s pace. Beleger stood with his arms crossed and frowned with characteristic humor.

“Got it? Good job!” Shira enthusiastically clapped her hands and turned shining eyes to Beleger.

“As long as she stops stampeding, we’re fine.” He said before turning and heading off again down the street. Shira trailed him and Eltarri grudgingly followed as well, determinedly trying to “lope” while attempting to ignore her troubled thoughts. Beleger’s mouth barely moved when he last spoke, as if he was keeping his voice down and aiming for secrecy. How could she keep up the guise if she couldn’t catch any of his orders? She’d have to make a fast escape if she was going to get away before he figured out that she couldn’t hear him.

The sky was completely dark and only a sliver of moon sat in the clouds to shine weak light onto them. They had left the residential district and moved into the merchant’s quarters, where the streets they went through were lined with shops and stores. They passed few people, mostly retiring labor men who were too weary to notice their abnormally dark dress and rag-wrapped beggars who were wise enough not to call out for charity. Beleger had kept up a steady pace, turning it seemed at random in a snaking pattern that left Eltarri thoroughly confused as to where they were going and where they’d come from, which may have been the point.

Thirty minutes later Eltarri’s thighs were aching, but she was barely breathing hard when Beleger stopped in an alley and turned towards the girls. His face was hard as he spoke, eyes flickering between the two as if making sure that they didn’t get distracted. Eltarri’s gaze was fastened onto his mouth, but his quick speech and the dark light made it difficult for her to see. “Let’s do this quickly. We need . . . . . . . and . . . . Shira, you’re playing look-out on the roof, I think . . .” he turned to point up towards the roof of the two-story building behind him and Eltarri lost his train of words until he turned back around and fixed his glare onto her. “. . . inside, but we’ll need to find the safe or whatever he uses to . . .”

With a mock salute Shira grinned and raced off, darting down the street that they had come down. Beleger glared after her until she turned the corner, then spoke again to Eltarri.

“We should have as much time as we need, but I still want this done . . . . . . . and try not to do anything stupid. Your job will be to . . . .” He spoke too quickly for the girl to understand and she stared at him blankly in what she hoped was an uncomprehending-but-not-idiotic manner. “Understand?”

Eltarri shook her head. The blond elf scowled down at her, eyes narrowing dangerously, but Eltarri held his gaze, too afraid to risk losing sight of his mouth. When he spoke next, she watched his mouth as well as she could without making her gawk obvious, but she still missed some of what he said.

“You’re going in with me. Find . . . . . . . . . . . . . to me. Understand?”

Afraid of what he would do if she showed her ignorance again, Eltarri dumbly nodded and Beleger turned away without another word, motioning with one hand the way one would with a trained dog or a child. She petulantly considered ignoring his summons, but decided not to aggravate him any more than her deafness made absolutely necessary.

The two dark-cloaked figures stepped out of the alley and onto a wide, empty street. The cobbles beneath Eltarri’s feet told her that this was the nicer part of the merchant’s district; the poorer part of the area was paved only with hard-packed dirt. Beleger turned left and crossed the street to stand at the door of a two-story building. Eltarri paused in the street to read the large wooden sign that hung over the doorway. A jeweler?

Fighting confusion, the girl went closer to the high elf to see what he was doing. He stood upright, but his hands were moving busily from the padlocked handle of the door to his belt, fiddling with pin-like tools and jostling the latch. His face was still, his eyes focused unseeingly on the wooden door in front of him. A moment later, one corner of his mouth lifted and the door sprang open under his hand. He slipped into the dark interior and held the door as Eltarri went into the shop after him, then shut it firmly behind her. She saw his lips moving as he went past her again, towards the stairs along one wall, but it was too dark and he moved too quickly for her to see what he said.

Sighing in frustration, she looked around at the room in front of her. It was a smaller shop than it had appeared to be from outside, a room without carpet whose only furniture was a long counter along the wall farthest away from her that stretched from one side of the room to the other. Eltarri stepped further into the room and went to the counter. The wall behind it was covered in an ornately-carved relief of twisting trees and sprawling vines. Eltarri stared in awe at the wall, struck by the magnificence of the work. Even in the darkness, the fruit hanging from the trees looked real enough to eat!

Looking down over the counter, Eltarri was surprised to see that there was an inconspicuous branch sticking out of the wall on the side of a tree that the counter hid from view. Glancing up the stairs told her that the elf was already on the second floor, so Eltarri awkwardly vaulted the counter, wincing when she felt her sword smack against the wooden edge. She paused on the other side, but Beleger remained unseen. Bending down to look closer, Eltarri saw that the branch was actually some kind of handle, disconnected from the rest of the wall. She experimentally twisted it and nearly fell back in surprise when a section of the wall swung suddenly towards her.

The door was smaller than the one that led to the outside, but it was made of a thick wood. She stepped past it and peered curiously into a windowless room that was sparsely filled with loaded tables and chests. She bent over one table and saw that it held a large glass box with a cushion inside of it, a number of ornate bracelets on top. Beside it was another glass box, this one containing rings on a similar cushion. Looking out across the small room, Eltarri saw that all of the tables held display cases that were filled with jewelry.

So what are WE doing here?



((Wolf has decided to leave this quest, so from here on out it'll be solo. Full bunnying rights, however, were granted.))

[Chiroptera]

The chests on the floor were all locked, but there was a counter along the back wall that was short and covered with metal shavings and tools. Down the front of the counter was a row of drawers, all of which resisted her pull when she tried to open them. The darkness was beginning to wear at the girl’s nerves. She shrugged and turned to leave the room, weaving back through the tables to open the door that had apparently shut itself behind her. The sight that met her eyes on the other side made her stop in the doorway.

Beleger stood on the public side of the counter with his sword drawn, the other hand grasping the collar of a fat and obviously blubbering man who waved chubby hands and shook his head in denial. Blood gushed from his nose and mouth, and as Eltarri watched the high elf brought the hilt of his scimitar down and slammed it into the man’s face. She jumped forward involuntarily, reflexively moving to stop him from hurting the man. But she wore the same dark material that he did. Wasn’t she helping the Legions of Light? Weren’t they the good guys?

Beleger’s head jerked up at her movement and his eyes widened as they landed on the doorway she stood in. He dropped the fat man and moved towards her.

“Make sure he doesn’t go anywhere.”

Eltarri’s heart was pounding as she went back over the counter and stood uncertainly over the man. He was dressed in a long purple gown that seemed to be sleepwear and his hair was a disheveled mess. He turned a tear-streaked face up to her, eyes wide with fear.

“Please, I’m sorry! I didn’t have any choice in the matter; the price of mithril has been rising for months! Tell Gamen I’ll give him his price. I’ll do anything, I swear! Please . . .”

Not knowing what to do and still feeling sick to her stomach, Eltarri turned away from his pleading in time to see Beleger reappearing from the secret room, sword still drawn but now carrying a small sack in the other hand. His face was dark as he shoved the bag at her and grabbed the merchant’s collar. The girl could only follow as he dragged the man across the floor. He threw the door open wide and went on into the street, the larger man’s kicking and squirming unheeded as he pulled him to the center of the street and then let him fall again. The elf turned again and looked back at the shop, and Eltarri could have sworn that she saw a flicker of regret, but then his gaze landed on her and the old coldness was back.

“Keep him here.”

Eltarri wordlessly watched him go back into the building, not bothering to look at the merchant, who seemed too traumatized to do more than mumble into the stones. She bit her lip and watched the doorway anxiously, wondering what it was Beleger had gone to get. The bag in her hand was light, and when she peeked inside all she saw was a handful of silver loops and trinkets. They hadn’t come out all this way to steal jewelry, had they?

Unexpectedly, something small and hard bounced against the back of Eltarri’s head. Turning in the direction that the projectile had come from, she saw that the street was still deserted. Her confusion cleared when another pebble smacked onto the top of her head. Looking up, her gaze landed on the barely-discernable protrusion of a head from the roof of the taller building across the street. A short arm waved, and Eltarri almost smiled as she waved back to the dryad. Shira didn't seem the kind to condone unjustified violence. Regardless of how brutal Beleger was, the merchant must have done something to deserve it.

If she ignored the sick feeling in her stomach, Eltarri could almost believe it.

It was only a few minutes later when Beleger stepped again through the doorway, his mouth set in a hard line. He walked to the merchant and roughly kicked him onto his back, then reached down to draw the man’s face closer to his own by the collar of his gown. Eltarri discreetly edged around until she had a view of both of their faces.

“. . . if you think that the Black Wizard lets anyone take advantage of him. You think he doesn’t know about your side-dealings with Oromis?”

“I swear to you, I’ve never sold or bought anything from any wizard other than Gamen! I am loyal, I swear! Please have mercy!”

Beleger’s face could have been carved from marble. “It’s too late for mercy.”

Eltarri didn’t hear the explosion, but she saw the flash of light that came suddenly from the jeweler’s shop. The stillness of the night was shattered as purple flames sprang up within the windows and burst through the doorway, leaving trails of black ash along the walls and illuminating the interior of the shop with a glowing, writhing mass of flames.

Eltarri stared in horror at the lavender inferno, cowering when the windows exploded in a shower of glass fragments. Beleger wasn’t watching the fire. His icy gaze was focused on the merchant, whose head whipped back and forth between his store and Beleger, eyes gaping, mouth churning, and hands gesturing frantically.

“You can’t! You . . . . to listen to . . . my life . . .”

Eltarri felt her empathy for the man disappear. Why was he blubbering? Even if he had lost everything he owned, at least he was still alive. She had no doubt that Beleger was capable of worse things than a simple shop-burning. He should be glad to still have all of his extremities.

“They’ve been taken care of.”

The words from Beleger made the merchant fall still, staring stupidly at the high elf with horrorstruck eyes. Eltarri glanced back and forth from the man to the elf, hoping for some kind of explanation.

They?

Movement at one of the upper windows of the burning shop drew Eltarri’s attention, and with crushing dismay she saw that the motion wasn’t, as she’d been hoping, the fluttering of a curtain in the heat.

It was a boy whose mouth was open in a scream as he smacked his palms uselessly against the glass.

[Chiroptera]

The air left Eltarri’s lungs in a gasp and she felt her mouth moving, struggling to make words that could express what she wanted to convey. Her garbling was missed in the fire that consumed their attention and the jeweler’s home. The merchant was once again frenetically motioning, screaming and struggling against the high elf’s iron grip. Beleger was looking at the window as well, and though Eltarri could only see a small part of his face, she read his muttered words as though he were yelling at high noon.

“No . . . I got them all . . .”

Swallowing a scream, Eltarri moved before she had time to think through the impulse. She raced across the street and had barreled into the open doorway before she knew what she was doing. The heat bit into her skin, but the girl was moving too quickly to do more than distractedly notice it. Flames danced across the floor, climbing the walls and hanging from the ceiling. The staircase was burning, but Eltarri climbed it in leaps, one arm holding her cloak in front of her face to shield herself from the heat. The purple fire had already reached the upper story, eating away at the wooden floor of the hall and at the two doors that faced each other, one on either side.

Eltarri grabbed the handle of the door that led to the room on the side closest to the street, then reflexively jerked her hand back before she had even felt the heat of the metal through her glove. But there was no way she’d be able to ram her way through the door.

Gritting her teeth, Eltarri wrenched the handle and pulled open the door, distantly noticing that even though she felt the heat, her hand felt completely unharmed. The door swung open and Eltarri went through, coughing at the cloud of black smoke that greeted her within. With watery eyes she saw that the room had four beds, three of which were occupied by small figures like the one that was kneeling on a window seat, still banging against the glass. But why were the other children still asleep?

Stepping up to one of the beds, Eltarri pulled back the blanket, preparing to wake the child up. A puddle of blood met her gaze, a young girl with open, lifeless eyes at its center.

He . . .? The thought was too ghastly to finish. Her throat closed as she fought nausea, unable to tear her eyes away from the gaping slit across the child’s neck. A wave of heat washed over her from the burning ceiling overhead and the small part of her mind that was still functional screamed for movement. But who would have killed a child?

A hand clamped suddenly onto her shoulder, jerking her backward just as a burning piece of the ceiling fell where she had been standing. The purple flames obscured the girl's bloodless face, and Eltarri turned her head to see the shouting mouth of Beleger. He was yelling something, his face flushed from the heat of the fire, and he shoved her towards the door. Eltarri’s thoughts were too jumbled for rationality. She squared her jaw and turned back, facing the high elf with a hate-filled glare. How could you?

“Get your ass out of here!”

Eltarri stormed past him, kicking a burning chair out of her way and dodging to avoid the arm that he shot out to stop her. She may not have been a full-blooded elf, but she had at least half of their reflex speed. Sweat soaked her shirt and her lungs burned as she reached the window and grabbed the boy around his waist, tightening her arms into a firm belt and hugging the child to her chest. His body was limp, but she ducked and ran for the door, not pausing to look at the livid face of the high elf. Her eyes were watery and she nearly tripped going down the stairs, but then she was through the door and outside, sucking air into her dry lungs and fighting the hoarse coughs that racked her body. She fell to her knees and laid the boy on the street, realizing with fear that his eyes were closed and his limbs were still.

Eltarri’s hands fluttered helplessly over the boy’s face, slapping his cheek and pressing her fingers against his neck in search of a pulse. Was he breathing? She couldn’t tell. His chest definitely wasn’t moving, but . . .

A familiar hand shoved her sideways, and Eltarri scrabbled out of the way as Beleger kneeled beside the boy and tipped his head back, opening the boy’s unmoving mouth. He pulled a vial out of his belt and uncorked it with his teeth, then emptied it into the child’s mouth. He tossed the vial to the side and turned furious eyes onto her.

“What the hell is wrong with you? Didn’t you hear the ceiling crack?”

Eltarri was saved from having to respond when the boy’s chest began to rise and fall swiftly, his mouth gaping open and tears streaking once again down his cheeks. He sat up and looked sideways, and his mouth opened and his face became redder than Eltarri’s shirt as he screamed a long, breathless siren. Eltarri followed his gaze and saw the merchant lying face-down on the street, only a few paces from where she’d left him, golden-fletched arrows sticking out of his back.

Beleger’s face was red, too, but his was flushed with anger. She saw him curse as he slammed his elbow into the boy’s face, knocking him back to the street.

“Let’s go.” He stood and moved away. Eltarri rose shakily to her feet, eyes fixed on the boy. He laid quivering, blood pouring from his nose and down the sides of his pale face. Large brown eyes fixed onto her face, filled with terror.

No, she thought to him weakly. I’m the good guy.

A lithe figure darted into her peripheral vision, and Eltarri looked up as Shira jogged towards her, face wrinkled in as unhappy a frown as she seemed capable.

“Tub of lard took four arrows, can you believe it?” Her face cleared in an instant. “Come on, Bell’s mad as a branded bull. We gotta go before he blows a vessel!”

Eltarri pointed questioningly to the boy. Shira shrugged and shook her head.

“Gamen won’t want him if he isn’t Elven. Just leave him, I’m sure someone will take care of him.”

She darted off towards Beleger, who was standing beside the merchant’s body, impatiently frowning at them and darting his sharp gaze around the street. She couldn’t just leave the boy . . . but she couldn’t take him with her. If anything, he’d probably end up being killed by the Legion of Light like the rest of his family. Surely there were some kind neighbors who would take him in, but there was nothing more she could do for him.

I’m sorry, she mouthed at the boy, then turned and fled to her team.

[Chiroptera]

Shira was pulling her arrows out of the merchant, wiping the heads on his nightgown before tucking them into the quiver on her back. Beleger had been looking down the street, but his eyes moved to her as she got nearer, his face still set in a scowl.

“They’re coming.”

Shira’s head jerked towards him, her eyes wide. “For us?”

“No, for the other people who set purple fire to a house.”

“I like the color,” she announced. “It adds a nice touch.”

Eltarri was too sick to her stomach to do more than watch them speak. The body at her feet, the boy behind her, and the radiating heat of the fire weighed on her conscience, pushing her to do something, but she was too befuddled for action.

"They're faster that I thought they'd be," Beleger muttered. The purple light made the planes of his face ever harsher than they had seemed before, rigid and unmoving and merciless. He glanced at Eltarri, a quick, questioning look that lasted for only an instant before changing back into the dislike that she was accustomed to.

“Keep quiet and stay close.” He took one last look down the street and then broke into a run down the alley they had arrived from. Shira sprinted after him, but Eltarri followed his look down the street. She saw what looked like two huge birds with wings that spanned the street, less than three blocks away and approaching quickly. Her eyes dropped to the boy, who still lay trembling on the stones. A rush of guilt closed her throat and she ran to the alley, where Beleger and Shira had stopped and were conversing. Shira glanced at her and then took off down the street, her bow slung over her shoulder. Beleger jerked his head after her and Eltarri obediently followed the dryad, the hairs on the back of her neck rising at the thought of the high elf behind her. Her thoughts were soon focused on keeping the tiny girl in sight as she darted down streets, leaping nimbly over puddles and slowing her pace every once in a while to do a cartwheel or a flip, grinning back at the elves when she did.

Eltarri’s lungs were ready to burst when Shira finally stopped at the door of the wizard’s mansion, hands resting on her hips and a smile splitting her face. Eltarri did her best to muffle her heavy panting. The little thing wasn’t even out of breath!

“Aier, you’re funny,” Shira declared. “ And you’re weird, Bell.”

Eltarri turned sideways so that she could see the high elf, who was standing behind her with his lips pressed firmly together in a frown. How unexpected.

He spoke as he walked past her to the door, but it was still too dark for her to see clearly. “The only thing that’s . . .”

Shira laughed at whatever he had said, her green eyes glancing conspiratorially Eltarri. Her mouth moved animatedly when she talked, so Eltarri could read what she said even without good lighting. “She is a little odd, but at least she knows how to make a quiet exit, and how to ignore weird elves who call people’s names when they’re trying to run. How come you wanted me to lead if you were going to make all that noise in the back?”

Eltarri’s blood ran cold. Her eyes jumped to Beleger and met his as he looked suddenly at her, chagrin pulling down his brows. He’d been calling names? She hadn’t looked back at him once.

He knew.

Without a thought she tore into a run, diving sideways to avoid the high elf’s lightning-fast lunge that she had subconsciously been expecting. His hand brushed her wrist, but she shot past him and was running harder than she ever had before. She could have sworn that she heard her heartbeat pounding in her ears, but even as her feet hammered against the street she knew her cause was lost. She was just a half-elf; she would never be as fast as one of her full-blooded relatives.

Beleger juggernauted into her back with enough force to knock the breath out of her lungs. He slammed her face-first onto the ground and pinned her shoulders with one arm while the other grabbed her wrists. Eltarri bucked and squirmed, fighting him and the resignation that told her she was already defeated.

You deserve to be caught. You’re evil.

The boy’s weeping face flashed in her mind and Eltarri stopped struggling, filled with self-loathing at the memory of the part she had played in his family’s murder. I didn’t know!

You were too selfish to care.

Her wrists were tightly bound, the rope cutting into her skin. A piece of cloth descended over her eyes – it must have been Shira; Beleger was still holding her down – and was wrapped tightly around her head.

I saved the boy’s life . . .

You left an orphan to live on the streets. Don’t even pretend that by putting the boy into a hard, lonely life you’ve somehow vindicated yourself for your wrongs. You’re STILL evil.

Tears soaked into the blindfold as Eltarri was pulled to her feet. Beleger’s hand stayed on her back and shoved her forward, back down the street and up the steps to the foyer of the wizard’s mansion. Her secret was out. What would the wizard do to her when he found out that she was flawed? Would Beleger tell him that she wasn’t even a pure elf?

Eltarri was aware of the carpeted ground beneath her feet, the rough hand on her shoulder, and the taste of dirt in her mouth. Her eyes were wide open, searching for even a hint of light through the cloth. She followed Beleger's herding like a lamb being led to the slaughter, doing her best to keep from panicking at the silent darkness that drowned her mind.

[Chiroptera]

The ground beneath her feet was carpeted for a while before it changed suddenly to downward-leading stairs. Eltarri stumbled forward blindly, outstretched hands smacking once against something horizontal and flat as she descended. Then the ground was soft and gritty, sand or hard-packed dirt. Panic swelled in her throat as she was pushed down onto a wooden chair before the guiding hands disappeared. Was she back in the room where they’d branded her? What were they going to do that required soundproof walls?

Ever cell in her body seemed strained to sense something, anything that would give her an idea of what was going on. Her hands lay in her lap, trembling uncontrollably. Her stomach twisted and her left calf was cramping from being clenched so tightly.

Calm down. Panicking isn’t going to help you. She forced herself to breathe normally, sucking a huge breath into her lungs and holding it as long as she could before releasing it.

Look on the bright side. Now you don’t have to pretend not to be deaf anymore. The thought did little to cheer her. What did bring a little relief was the knowledge that she would no longer be a member of the Legion of Light. Gamen had said that they were trying to protect the city, but how could killing entire families be beneficial for anyone? Making an example of the merchant didn’t seem a likely explanation, for even though his shop and home had been burnt with purple fire, the deed had been done at night; anyone with the slightest magical talent could have set the fire. And heroes definitely did not manifest the kind of disregard for life that Beleger had demonstrated, leaving Eltarri to conclude that the Legion of Light were no more heroic than the villains that antagonized the heroes of her stories. Picturing the sweet-faced dryad as a baddie was hard, but Eltarri reminded herself that she'd shot the merchant full of arrows without a thought of his son's welfare. She may even have known that Beleger was going to massacre the family. Had they planned to kill all of them? She couldn't believe that anyone who claimed to be good could do something so evil.

And yet you are one of them. With revulsion Eltarri realized that she still wore the cloak and black gloves that Beleger had given her before they’d left. They were so light and fitted that she’d forgotten their presence. Taking off the cloak was more trouble than it was worth, but she tore the gloves off her hands and hurled them into the air in front of her, hoping she would hit whoever might be in the room with her.

But . . . was there anyone? She’d been sitting alone on the chair for the last fifteen minutes and hadn’t even felt a stirring of air. Her hands tentatively rose and pushed the blindfold off her head. Darkness still flooded her vision, but there was a sliver of light coming from the ceiling over her head a few feet in front of her. As her eyes grew nominally more adjusted to the darkness she saw the vague outline of a familiar table in front of her and nothing else.

She stood and slowly spun a complete circle, scanning the darkness to see if anything was hiding. When she was satisfied that she was the room’s only occupant, she went and stood beneath the trapdoor and futilely tried to locate some kind of handle. When she failed to find one, she blundered across the room to the corner farthest from the trapdoor and sat on the ground, tilting the sword on her back so that it leaned against the floor. Pulling her knees against her chest, she rested her chin on her forearms, keeping her eyes focused on the slice of light and trying to keep herself from falling asleep as she waited for the reappearance of her captors.

[Chiroptera]

She jerked awake when the stairs above her were being pulled back up into the ceiling. The room was still dark, but her heart was pounding again, her tiredness instantly gone. What had happened while she slept? Did they put something into the room with her? She stood slowly, pushing against the wall behind her and turning her head in search of movement. Maybe the room wasn’t so much a prison as it was an arena . . .

A lantern hanging from the center of the ceiling flared to life, casting an incongruously warm light over the room. Eltarri flattened herself against the wall as the room’s other occupants became visible. Beleger stood a few paces away from her near the wall on her right and the wizard was beside the table, hands on his hips and mouth moving beneath a puckered brow.

“. . . couldn’t believe it when Bel told me, but I guess it must be true. I’m sad that you didn’t trust me with the truth before you were sent to do my work, but I suppose that your performance made up for the lack of honesty.”

My performance? Eltarri’s gaze flickered to the high elf, who stood impassively with his arms folded across his chest. His blue eyes bored into her and she quickly turned back to the wizard.

“Yes, Bel told me what you did, and I must say that I am terribly impressed with your loyalty. It is not often that one will face the most fearsome of my enemy’s warriors . . . and come out completely . . .” He beamed at her like a proud parent, seeming completely unaware of her confusion. Eltarri tried to keep herself from looking as foolish as she was deaf, but she was having trouble. Loyalty? The only person she’d “faced” was Beleger, and that was by directly disobeying his orders.

“Since you saved Lirimaer from the harpy,” the high elf said, his face perfectly still “Master Gamen has decided to let you remain in his army.”

Eltarri’s mouth dropped open. He was going to let her stay in the legion even though was deaf? She hadn’t done anything to warrant his approval, so why had Bel lied? The dryad wouldn’t have wanted her to get in the way if she was under attack. She was more of a burden than a help, and . . . a harpy? She’d never even seen one before, unless those massive bird-things she’d seen coming down the street . . .

“There is one thing, however, that I should make clear to you.” The wizard was no longer smiling. His face was stern as he said, “If I give you hearing, I expect you to understand that your commitment to the Legion of Light is lifelong, and . . .”

Eltarri stopped watching his mouth, her eyes jumping to Beleger as if to verify the wizard’s words. Give me back my hearing? She hadn’t even believed that it would be possible. Did he really have that power?

“. . . right now, if you wish.” He was looking at her expectantly, waiting for some kind of response.

Lifelong commitment. No doubt whatever he did would make it so that he could track her wherever she went, eliminating her chances of escape. If she agreed and got back her hearing, she’d be a virtual slave to the will of the wizard, and regardless of how terrible his orders were she’d have to obey them. On the other hand, if she refused to be healed – and assuming that she wouldn’t just be killed on the spot – she’d spend the rest of her life a handicapped wanderer, useless to her mother.

There could be other wizards who could heal you. But would this one even let her leave? How much worse would it be if she was forced to stay as a deaf slave?

Eltarri nodded before the tumultuous thoughts in her hand had the chance to be clarified. The wizard smiled.

“Very good. I look forward to making you a permanent part of my army.” He looked to Beleger and spoke too rapidly for Eltarri to understand. Beleger pulled a tiny drawstring bag from his belt and laid it on the table. Gamen went and stood by the chair, once again gesturing for her to take a seat.

Swallowing fear, Eltarri edged cautiously forward and sat hesitantly in the chair. Beleger stood beside the table this time, in her range of vision. Gamen, on the other side of the table, was shaking small, shiny objects out of the bag.

“This,” he began, holding up a ring too small to fit on even her small fingers, “is mythril. It’s a powerful metal for weaponry, but its most useful skill for our purposes is its ability to hold spells for extremely long periods of time. Think centuries.” He smiled fondly at the ring, then looked back at her. She noticed that he spoke more clearly now than he had before, enunciating as if he were teaching a child how to speak. “This particular set of rings I’ve been working on since Beleger brought you back with the truth of your condition. I used a spell that I’m quite fond of normally, but I also modified it somewhat to fulfill our specific needs.”

Eltarri wished he would stop talking and get on with whatever he was going to do before her conscience won over her yearning to hear and made her change her decision. She nodded quickly and tried not to look at the ring in his hand. That’s what the boy's family died for . . .

“All right, then, I want you to relax and don’t move, no matter what you feel.” Gamen set the bag down with a ring grasped between the index finger and thumb of each hand. He came and stood before her, resting his rear against the table as he bent down to peer at the sides of her head. For a moment while he was examining her ears, his face looked troubled, as though he’d observed something that didn’t quite catch his fancy. Eltarri felt a simultaneous rush of apprehension and hope. Her ears were smaller than most elves, so maybe that was what he’d noticed. He probably wouldn’t heal her if he knew she wasn’t full blood, but she couldn’t decide whether that would be good or bad.

“Bel’s going to help you make sure you don’t move, all right, Aier?” His paternal gaze was more frightening than it was reassuring, but Eltarri nodded again. Gamen patted her cheek and disappeared from view, but he was replaced by the high elf, who kneeled in front of her and rested his hands diagonally on either side of her head so that his fingers surrounded her ears. His skin was cold and Eltarri shivered, but she forced her eyes to stay fixed on his icy face.

Why did you lie for me?

The wizard’s warm fingers pushed something hard into each of her ears, and then his hot palms came to rest against them. Her only warning was a tightening of Beleger’s hands, and then the hard objects shot into her head, driven closer together with a force that made her jump.

She was still waiting for the pain when Beleger looked up, nodded, and then moved away. Gamen came to sit against the table again, looking intensely pleased with himself.

“I must say, whatever you had done to your eardrums really did quite a number on them. Completely mutilated! Perhaps when you can speak again you’ll tell me what weapon is so powerfully effective against an enemy’s senses, eh?” He seemed to be joking, but Eltarri shuddered at the memory of the little animal. It wasn’t an enemy that had deafened her, it had been an ally, and she wouldn’t tell him anyway if he was planning to inflict her condition on someone else. No one deserved to endure the helplessness that she had.

“Well, that was part one of the repair. Those rings in your ears are even now performing the spell that I cast upon them. To put it in relatively simple terms that you could understand, they’re suspending a magical web between them to act as a new and improved eardrum. Just one thing left to do, and then you’ll be whole.”

Eltarri bit her lip. Whole? She’d left a boy to die alone on the streets. She didn’t think she’d ever be really whole again.

Beleger handed the wizard another drawstring bag, and this time Gamen shook three slightly larger rings onto his palm. Staring hard at them, he mumbled a chant, lips barely moving, and then dropped his hand to his side. The three rings remained in the air. Eltarri noticed then that they were not full circles, that each had a small gap that prevented them from being complete.

Gamen looked soberly at the high elf. “Sorry to do this to you again, Bel.” Then he smiled at Eltarri. “Aier, brace yourself.”

One moment the rings were floating in the air, and in the next things with sharp teeth were biting into the lobes of her ears. With a cry she threw her hands to the sides of her head, but by then the pain was already receding to a throb. But now there were three hard little rings piercing her earlobes, two on her right ear and one on her left. A quick glance at Beleger showed her that he was sporting a fourth silver hoop and an annoyed expression that hadn’t been there the last time she’d looked. Her own ears were smarting, but she knew that full elves' ears were even more sensitive than her own. She winced, hoping the high elf wouldn't blame her for the pain.

“Sorry for the scare; I found the procedure hurts less if you don’t know the pain is coming.”

Eltarri felt for a moment as though she were going to break down and cry. Her eyes were still on the high elf, and even though someone had said something and her brain had recognized the words, his lips hadn’t moved.

[Chiroptera]

“It looks like you’ve been healed then.”

Eltarri turned to look at the speaker, the wizard, whose voice was like oil. She stared at him, overcome with gratitude. She wanted to thank him aloud, but she was afraid that her voice would still come out sounding strange. She nodded instead.

“Good. I will leave you to Beleger’s care, so that you may rest well before your next mission.” He turned away, then stopped and turned back. “I want you to realize, my dear Aier, that I am greatly pleased to have you in my army. But I must also tell you that I take your vow to stay in my army very seriously. I have given your life a purpose and returned your hearing to you, but if you betray me, I can take it all away in an instant.,” Eltarri had been watching him talk out of habit, and it was only because of this that she was able to catch the last three words of his warning. For a brief moment, her hearing was once again gone, and even though the silence lasted for only a few seconds, the terror that struck nearly made her scream aloud.

“So, I will see you again soon.” The wizard smiled and left, ascending the staircase that had once again magically lowered itself from the ceiling. Eltarri was caught up in the world of sound. The creaking of wood, the rustling of clothes, even the noise of her own breathing filled her ears and made her heart lift joyfully. She could hear! Sure, she’d practically sold her soul to the devil to do it, but at the moment it seemed more than worth it. She rubbed her hands together, the whisper of her palms against each other like a song to her sound-hungry ears.

“When you’re finished playing with your fingers . . .” Eltarri’s eyes rose to the high elf. He stood impatiently beside the staircase, eyes fixed distastefully on the girl. His voice was almost what she would have expected it to be, cold and filled with loathing, but it was also deep and melodic, the kind of voice one would expect from a minstrel or a singer instead of a cold-blooded killer.

“Why . . .” the word croaked out, sounding loud and scratchy, and Eltarri cleared her throat to try again. “Why did you lie for me?”

Beleger frowned. “What the hell are you talking about?” His hand rose and fingered the silver loop-filled new hole in his earlobe, and he gave her a hard, pointed look.

The earrings. Blushing at her error, Eltarri shook her head and stood, walking across the room like a child about to be punished. She always acted so stupidly when she was around the high elf. “I mean, I didn’t do all that much. You helped Shira . . . too.” The sound of her own voice was something she’d never expected to hear again, though the dumb words were approximately what she was accustomed to.

“Don’t be modest.” Even the chiding semi-compliment sounded like an order to be immediately obeyed. She walked quickly up the staircase, still nervous of the high elf behind her even though now she could hear his footsteps fall on the wooden stairs.

“Is . . . is Shira all right?” She had been trying to think of a covert way to ask to speak to the dryad, but that was the best she could come up with.

“You’re in your own room.” It didn’t quite answer the question, but it told Eltarri how he felt about idle conversation. At the top of the stairs he brushed past her and set off at a swift pace down the hall, turning the corner with a short glance to see if she was following. He needn’t have bothered; she was trailing on his heels like a well-trained puppy, afraid of sparking his temper and having to deal with his audible ire.

Beleger stopped suddenly in front of a door and turned to her. “Shira will come when you’re needed. Until then, I suggest you stay in there and out of trouble.”

Eltarri nodded hard and pushed open the door, recognizing the sparse chamber that she had been kept in before. The straw mat on the floor made her brand itch, reminding her of the miserable hours she’d spent on top of it.

“Could I possibly-,” she stopped herself when she turned and saw that Beleger had disappeared. Looking down both sides of the hall to make sure that he was really gone, Eltarri shut the door and went to sit on the mat. For a moment she merely sat and stared at the wall across from her, listening to the air as it moved and the straw as it crunched beneath her. Why had she never appreciated such mundane pleasures before? She had always been comfortable in places where sound was scarce, but she was now suddenly finding that the world was never silent! Bright sunlight filtered in through the glass of her window and made shapes with the shadows from the outcropping rocks on the wall. She rested her back against the cool stones behind her and watched the light dance, dozing in the warmth until a soft knock on her door broke the silence.

[Chiroptera]

“Come in,” she called, smiling at her own voice. The door cracked open and the golden mane of the dryad appeared a moment before her face did, green eyes bright with mischief.

“Still alive, eh? Guess that means Gamen fell for it!” Her voice was bubbly and light, as Eltarri had expected, but it was not really the voice of a human child. It was somehow like a full-grown woman attempting to imitate a child’s falsetto, or even vice versa. The dryad skipped into the room and plopped herself down on the floor in front of Eltarri, her long fingers entwining to sit in her lap.

“Thank you for helping me,” Eltarri whispered, grabbing her ear to stifle the earring. Shira’s gaze flickered to the side of the half-elf’s head and she giggled.

“Don’t worry, Gamen’s not here, and he can only use the earrings in his study because he’s too scared to pierce his own ear. The only one who can hear us is old Belly, and he’s on our side.”

Her words struck a cord in Eltarri’s mind, reminding her of just what being “on their side” entailed.

“Shira,” Eltarri asked, her voice still low, “why did we do what we did last night?”

The dryad tilted her head and rocked back and forth on her rear, her face nearly serious. “What do you mean? That merchant was evil. He was on his side.” She jerked her head towards the window as if Eltarri should know who she was referring to. “We just needed to make sure that he didn’t betray us anymore, and I really wouldn’t have killed him if he hadn’t tried to run away for help.”

Eltarri’s stomach twisted. “Who is ‘he?’”

Shira rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Gosh, El, don’t you know anything? Oromis the Evil? He’s the reason Gamen needs us, to keep him from taking over the city.”

“He’s a wizard too, right?”

“Yep, but he’s evil. He does all sorts of horrible things to people.”

“Like burning down their homes and killing their families?” The question came out sharply accusing, and Shira’s smile dimmed.

“El, we did what we had to do. We’re a legion; this is a war,” she spoke with all the patience of a mother to a slow child. “Every war has casualties, right?”

Eltarri shook her head and rested her forehead in her hands. “Good guys don’t kill innocent people.”

"The merchant betrayed us. He was far from innocent!"

"What gives us permission to judge?"

Shira pointed with a smirk at the sword that was strapped to the half-elf's back. “Don’t worry too much about it, El.” Her long hand came to rest empathetically on her shoulder. “You just let old Belly and Gamen do all the thinking, and we’ll just do the fun stuff, okay?”

“Fun? Killing people is supposed to be fun?”

Shira sat back with a giggle. “You’re so funny, El. Why do you carry that big black sword if you’re against using it?”

Eltarri’s mouth opened, but she couldn’t think of an answer. She’d never actually killed anything with the weapon, but if the situation arose, her ownership of it indicated that she’d be willing to use it to save her life. Carrying the sword made her a impending killer, so how could she consider herself any different from Beleger and Shira?

[Chiroptera]

Shira suddenly sat up and glanced at the open doorway, then leaned conspiratorially towards the half-elf. “Can I show you something?” At Eltarri’s nod, she grabbed the girl’s hand and jumped to her feet. Eltarri followed, and Shira led her quickly out of the room and down the hall. She threw excited smiles as Eltarri as she went, her steps light and energetic. Eltarri wished she’d taken off her sword before she’d left her room, but she followed the dryad with curious suspicion. Beleger had told her to wait until Shira came for her, but if Bel had sent her then why was she being so secretive?

“In here.” The golden-haired dryad stopped in front of a door, her eyes dancing and a huge smile on her face. “I’m going to introduce you to someone who’s very special to me, so be nice to him, even if he is a little scary, okay?”

Eltarri nodded, and Shira threw open the door and darted inside. The half-elf followed at a slower pace, poking her head around the door to look inside before she entered.

“Shut the door,” Shira called from within, “you’re letting out all the good air!”

It was warm and moist inside and smelled like rotting logs, a sharp contrast to the city-smelling air on the other side of the door. Eltarri stood just past the shut door and searched the room for the dryad. The chamber was large and had a glass ceiling high overhead through which light beamed down to the greenery below. The floor was covered in a thick layer of brown dirt, and small plants grew indiscriminately across the ground. On the other side of the room, Shira was pulling off her boots beneath the gnarled branches of a good-sized tree. Eltarri had had very little exposure to forestry in her lifetime, but even with her limited experience she could tell that there was something wrong with it. The naturally brown bark on its miserably drooping trunk was blemished with sickly white patches, and what few leaves there were on the branches were splotchy with brown and red. It was almost frighteningly ugly, and though Shira was barefoot and scampering up its trunk, it looked ready to collapse beneath even her paltry weight.

Eltarri stepped gingerly across the dirt and stood a few feet away from beneath the tree, steering clear of the trunk just in case it did decide to fall over. She peered up into the branches and saw Shira climbing about like a squirrel, humming softly as she plucked diseased leaves and pulled off swatches of leprous bark, dropping them to the ground below, which was already literred with rotting samples from the boughs.

“What is this?” she called up. Shira looked down at Eltarri as if she had forgotten that she was there.

“Not what,” she corrected blithely, “who! This is my tree!”

“Is it – I mean, is she . . . all right?”

Shira dropped to the ground in front of Eltarri, landing like a cat and bouncing back to her feet. She turned to beam lovingly at the sad-looking tree.

“He’s wonderful,” she said firmly. “And as soon as Gamen’s done with the cure, he’ll be all better and ready to go home.”

“Gamen can heal trees?”

Shira nodded. “He sure can! At least, he’s trying to. It’s taken him a long time to figure out a cure, but he says it’s almost finished, and then we’ll be able to go home. Isn’t that right?” She patted the tree’s trunk.

“What . . . happened to him?” Eltarri knew something about dryads from her childhood reading; each was bonded to a certain tree that became their life’s companion and the measure of her own days. A dryad couldn’t be far from her tree for very long, and her health and lifespan was determined by the trees. But how could Shira be as healthy as she was with her tree looking like . . . this?

“He used to be a huge, humongous tree in the . . . Raieran Forest, I think you call it. Then one day he got sick, and started to die.” Shira’s voice was solemn and her emerald eyes welled up with tears. “I was so weak I could barely move, and he kept getting sicker and sicker . . .” She shuddered, but brightened almost immediately. “But then Beleger found us! Gamen cast a spell on my tree so that he could be moved here, where Gamen could work on a cure.”

“How did you get better?”

“With this,” she said, proudly tilting her head and fingering one of the mythril loops that pierced her ear. “Gamen found a way to heal me really fast, but I have to wear this all the time, or else I’ll be just as sick as my tree.”

“How long has he been working on this cure?”

“Oh, I dunno,” she shrugged. “Two years or so. But my tree’s disease is very serious, so I don’t mind waiting.”

Eltarri looked at the tree, frowning in thought. Gamen had the dryad’s tree, so she could never get back to the forest without his help. As long as the tree remained in his mansion, Shira would have to stay as well, which wasn’t a bad thing for the wizard whose legion was sorely lacking membership. And as long as the tree was sick, Shira would stay, and her usefulness was unhindered thanks to the disease-curing earring. A fortunate set of coincidences for the wizard . . .

“Shira-,” Etarri began dubiously, but the door on the other end of the room suddenly flew open and Beleger stepped onto the dirt-covered floor.

“Shira, Gamen wants you in his study now.” He didn’t even have to yell for his voice to be plainly heard by the room’s other occupants. The dryad obediently pulled on her boots and was gone before Eltarri could object to being left alone with the high elf. She stayed near the tree, keeping her eyes lowered as if by not looking at him he wouldn’t know she was there. The seconds in the muggy air stretched by silently.

“I’d be careful,” Beleger finally said, “about the kinds of questions I ask. I guess you couldn’t hear me when I said it before, but Shira says a lot more than is safe for you to hear.”

Eltarri’s head lifted, her eyes flashing. “Oh, you mean I’m not supposed to know that Gamen’s poisoning her tree on purpose so that she stays in his pathetic little legion?”

The door slammed shut though Eltarri hadn’t seen his hand move. His long strides carried him to the half-elf in a heartbeat, and then he was standing directly in front of her, meeting her gaze with eyes that burned with anger and . . . fear?

“Stay out of things that don’t concern you, half-blood.” His voice was a low, threatening snarl, the hiss of a snake a moment before it struck.

“The wizard does concern me.” Eltarri kept her head tilted back, glaring at him even though her knees were shaking. “He used Shira’s tree to enslave her and he’s using my hearing to keep me. What kind of ‘savior’ has to assemble his team by force?”

“The kind you really don’t want to mess with.”

She met his eyes until she lost her nerve, then dropped her gaze to the ground between their feet. Beleger made a sound, something between a snort and a laugh, and then turned and left as swiftly as he had arrived.

Eltarri wanted to sit in the dirt and cry. Between tiredness, the turmoil of her thoughts, and the terror of the high elf’s presence, hopeless confusion was robbing her of her wits. She wanted to punch Beleger, just to convince herself that she wasn’t as helpless as he made her feel. His voice was neutral, but there were currents of something under his steely voice. Was it guilt at being involved with such a conniving man, or maybe fear of the wizard who held their lives in his hands? Eltarri, raising her head to stare after the high elf, lifted a hand to finger her right earlobe. Each member of the Legion had an earring that let the wizard eavesdrop on their lives, and a similar means let Beleger keep tabs on the females as well. One earring in each ear gave her back her hearing, and one of the rings in Shira’s ear broke the link that bonded her to her tree. That accounted for her own four earrings, Shira’s three, and three of the high elf’s.

Eltarri bit her lip, her brow wrinkling in thought as she left the sick tree's presence to find her way back to her own room. What was Gamen doing with Beleger’s fourth earring?

[Chiroptera]

_ ____ _ ____ _ ____ _ ____ _ ____ _


A thin trail of sweat was dripping down the side of her neck, but Eltarri focused on putting one foot softly in front of the other, keeping her breathing as regular as she could. She stepped forward on bare feet, grateful that she didn’t have the heels of her boots to click against the wooden floor. There was a carpet stretching down the center of the passageway, but Eltarri kept her back pressed against the wall, hoping to minimize visibility by hiding herself in shadow even though it was dark enough to keep her fairly concealed. The hall was silent, but still her heart was racing and her eyes darted nervously as she went.

Three more doors.

The countdown was mercifully and disappointingly drawing to a close. There were no windows to show her the sky, but she was certain that it was almost dawn, and for some reason the thought of being caught alone in the halls during the day terrified her. She wanted to be safely back in her room before any sunlight could illuminate her whereabouts.

After having seen Shira’s tree, she’d been doing her best to keep a low profile, going out of her way to avoid contact with the high elf, and luckily for her he hadn’t done anything to indicate that he minded her avoidance. She kept company with Shira when she wasn’t sleeping or just sitting in her sparse room, and though Shira was always willing to talk the girl’s ear off about whatever topic the younger girl brought up, Eltarri was careful to keep the conversations safe and unrelated to anything that might disturb the peace. Beleger, it seemed, used the magical eavesdropping earrings regularly, and she wanted to make sure that she gave him no more reason to distrust her. Having the high elf breathing down her neck wasn’t a pleasant prospect even if she wasn’t hoping to attempt another escape.

A thrill went down Eltarri’s spine at the thought of freedom. She wasn’t technically a prisoner, but she didn’t have the courage to risk a venture outdoors. She hadn’t left the mansion in at least a week, but at least she hadn’t had to deal with the wizard at all in that time. The hours of inactivity had dragged on intolerably at first, but boredom had finally moved her to learn all she could about the mansion and its other occupants. So far her exploring had yielded little results, showing just the usual sumptuous décor of noble houses, though tainted by an unnatural but completely understandable penchant for Elven artifacts and weaponry. She’d come to a fairly comprehensive knowledge of the layout of the mansion’s lower three flours and had been in every room that wasn’t locked. She knew where Gamen’s private quarters were and where the dryad slept when she wasn’t with her tree. The only bedroom she hadn’t yet found was the high elf’s, and her chance had come when she’d awoken only a few hours after nightfall at the noise of someone rushing past her door, heading towards the stairs that led to the dining hall and the front door. Opening the door just enough to peek through, Eltarri had caught a glimpse of a tall sword-bearing figure, blond hair, and jutting golden ears that disappeared swiftly down the staircase. She'd had stayed behind her cracked doorway for several itchy minutes, waiting to make sure that he was really gone, and then had slid out of her room and down the hall in the opposite direction, towards the stairs that led to the upper floors.

She had decided, after several clumsy attempts to “follow at a distance,” that the high elf lived on one of the higher levels, and since she had yet to explore these, she’d spent the night going from room to room on the fourth and fifth floor, her progress slow as she tried to keep as silent as possible, keeping her breathing deep and regular just in case Beleger used the earring even when he wasn't in the mansion to keep track of them. She was only now reaching the end of the sixth floor, and considering that there were only three unlocked doors left in the house that she had not been in, she had begun to regretfully consider the possibility that Beleger’s room was one of those that was kept locked.

That would be just my luck.

[Chiroptera]

Eltarri stopped her crouching walk in front of the third-to-last door and tried to twist the handle. Locked. Thinking a curse that she wouldn’t say aloud, the girl moved on to the next door. It was unlocked, but when she peeked inside there was only crates and boxes stacked high; another storage room. With sweaty palms she shut the door and moved to the last one, forcing herself to stay calm as she reached for the knob. Why was she so desperate to find the high elf’s room? She was hoping to find some kind of hint as to what made Beleger work for the wizard, but she didn’t want to think about why she was so hopeful to find an excuse as justifiable as her own. Perhaps it was the thought of her mother, who’d raised Eltarri with a reverence and admiration for the High Elven race, an intrinsic appreciation for the half of her heritage that she'd gotten from her mother. She didn’t want to consider the possibility that a high elf could be evil by choice, that one of the "greater people" could choose the evil that was taking over her mother by force.

Elves can be like humans, she tried to tell herself, pausing with her hand on the knob. Some are good, and some are evil.

But she didn’t really believe it. Humans were weak and volatile, given to inexplicable anger and undeserved desire for power. How could one of her mother’s people willingly choose to be like them?

Maybe it’s time to find out.

With that grim thought, the girl twisted the handle and pushed the door open. It swept aside soundlessly, not uttering a creak the way many of the unused doors down this same hall had. Blood pounded in her temples as she stepped into the room, easing the door shut behind her. The room had a window, and the faint light of daybreak was already dribbling in to make viewing the chamber easy. Eltarri felt the urge to bolt back to her own room, but she shook it away. She’d come too far to lose this opportunity.

A thin pallet identical to her own lay in one corner, and next to it was a black wooden chest with a padlock. There was another, larger chest against another wall and a desk and chair beside it. Eltarri smiled triumphantly; the immaculate, meager sufficiency of the chamber perfectly embodied the high elf’s cold personality. This had to be his room.

“I guess I know who did the decorating in my cell,” she muttered with a smirk, then slapped a hand over her mouth, mortified that she'd spoken aloud. If Beleger was listening, she hoped that he'd attribute the comment to sleep-talking. She stepped across the stone floor to the large chest and kneeled in front of it, lifting the lid cautiously to look inside. Stacks of parchment greeted her eyes on one side of the container, the top one covered in writing that was either in another language or too messy to read, and on the other side there lay a stack of neatly folded clothes. A search of the room showed that there was nothing more to the room; not even the desk have a clue of the high elf's mind. Eltarri swallowed her disappointment and cast a hateful glance at the locked chest beside the pallet. She crawled across the floor to reach it, nervous about standing upright in front of the window just in case someone unwelcome was looking up from the street below.

The padlock was heavy and the chest was of good quality, though only about the size of a small traveling bag. Eltarri experimentally pushed at it, but the thing was too heavy to budge. She was certain that the answer to Beleger’s earring was in the chest, and to reach a dead end this close to an answer was frustrating beyond words. Tiredness and disappointment made her close her eyes for a moment as she struggled to hold back tears.

“Heya, El, whatcha up to?”

[Chiroptera]

In a flash the half-elf was on her feet and facing the door, one hand on her chest and the other over her shoulder before she realized that she wasn’t wearing her sword and that the speaker was Shira, who stood in the center of Beleger’s room with a impish smile on her face.

“Shira, what are you doing here?” Eltarri spoke in an accusatory hiss to combat the guilty blush that spread across her face. How had she snuck in so quietly?

“Oh, just . . . you know . . . wandering around, going through people’s stuff,” the dryad replied airily. Her face broke into a sly grin. “Same as you, I see.”

“I’m . . .” Eltarri searched her mind frantically for a good excuse for being in the high elf’s bedroom, “looking for something.”

“And you think you’ll find it in old Belly’s room?” Shira’s voice was doubtful and still teasing.

“Call it a hunch,” Eltarri answered shortly. Shira’s grin widened and she unclasped her hands from behind her back and stepped closer to the half-elf.

“Want some help breaking into that little black one?” Her hazel eyes danced with mischief. Eltarri stared at the dryad in shock and managed a nod. The shorter female giggled and, after dropping to her knees in front of the box, picked up the padlock in one long-fingered hand. She dropped it immediately with a startled cry of pain and sat back, bringing her fingers to her mouth and giving Eltarri a startled glance.

“What happened?” Eltarri knelt next to the dryad and looked at the padlock, which remained unopened. She cautiously tapped one finger against the metal, but when nothing happened she wrapped her whole hand around it, still with no detrimental effects. Why had it hurt the dryad? She turned a questioning look to the golden-haired creature.

Shira was pouting, but she took her fingers out of her mouth for long enough to say, “It’s iron,” before sticking them back between her lips. When Eltarri’s face remained blank, she continued, “and iron hurts us,” showing Eltarri her tapered fingers. At the places where skin had met metal, angry red splotches stood out from the brown calluses of her archery-callused hand, wounds that looked like the start of blisters from a burn.

“I’m sorry, Shira, I didn’t know it would do that to you.” Eltarri turned her eyes remorsefully away from the painful-looking sores.

“Well, duh, because we’re friends, so you wouldn’t have hurt me on purpose.” The dryad seemed to already have gotten over her injury. “Wish I could say the same for Bel.” She brought her face closer to the padlock and inspected it carefully. “Maybe we can still find the key.”

“He probably wears it on a string around his neck,” Eltarri muttered, hopelessly resting her cheek in her palm.

“Tucked away in his underwear, more likely,” Shira snorted, still examining from a distance. “If he got an iron lock, it’s probably because he didn’t want me specifically to get into this chest. The silly boy thinks he can keep me out of things I want to get into.”

Eltarri refrained from mentioning that getting into the chest had been solely her mission a short while ago; it was good to have an enthusiastic ally. She watched as Shira took off one of her shoes and removed a few short, thin utensils that had been strapped to the inside of her boot. She set to work on the lock, careful to keep her fingers a safe distance away as she pried at the chest.

Eltarri sat fitfully for the first few minutes of relative silence, with only the clicking of Shira’s tools to keep her company. The light coming in through the window was growing steadily brighter, and the lighter it got, the more nervous she began to feel.

“Shira, do you know where Beleger is today?”

“Nope.”

The reply was too nonchalant for the half-elf’s comfort. “Don’t you think it’s sort of relevant?”

“Not really. Gamen probably sent him to do something important and secret. He’d probably be pissed as hell if he found us in here,” she darted a conspiratorial grin at Eltarri, “but he’s too much of a sissy to do anything about it. He’d just give us his ‘I’m an angry elf who could remove and eat your ovaries before you noticed they were missing’ frown and then threaten to tell Gamen that we were naughty. We’d live.”

Eltarri wasn’t so sure. Her stomach churned with worry. “Please hurry anyway, okay?”

“I’m hurrying, I’m hurrying! Gosh, you act as if this was easy or something. This is a quality lock we’re working with here. But too bad for Mr. Nose-in-the-Air, I stole my lock-picking tools from him.”

With a triumphant flourish the dryad used the pin in her hand to give the lock a final wrench, and the metal contraption snapped open and clattered to the floor.

“Ooh, the anticipation’s killing me,” Shira giggled. “Go ahead and open it, I still can’t touch the seal.”

Her breath catching anxiously in her throat, Eltarri reached out and used both hands to throw back the small chest's lid.

[Chiroptera]

As soon as the lid of the chest was removed from the sides, a stench fouler than any other that Eltarri had ever smelt permeated the room, an odor so foul and pervasive that it made her wish she would faint just so that she wouldn’t have to smell it.

“Oh, dear gods, save me,” Shira groaned, her fingers tightly grasping her nose. Eltarri was too sick to open her mouth. She fought nausea as she leaned over to peer into the chest. Lying on a bed of slimy, rotting grasses was an oblong-shaped rock that was a violent purple hue. It was a foot across at its widest girth and had the smooth texture of quality glass.

“How can something so beautiful smell so bad?” Shira murmured dreamily, taking her fingers off her nose and reaching for the object.

“Don’t touch it!” Eltarri’s warning came too late. The dryad’s hand was already stroking it gently, her face fixed in a soft, tender smile. Eltarri would have sworn that the thing moved under her hand, but when she opened her mouth to say so, another voice beat her to the punch.

“I don’t know why I bother with giving you orders since you never actually bother with obeying them.”

The high elf’s voice shot from the doorway and both of the females jumped like doused cats, Shira spinning to face him and Eltarri twisting to stare up at him from the ground. She’d completely forgotten about the earrings! Beleger was still wearing his black cloak and gloves, and with his swords at his sides Eltarri desperately wished that she were anywhere other than in his bedroom. She dropped her gaze to the floor, her face going crimson. He’d caught them red-handed! Shira was still clutching the pin and sticks of her lock-picking kit, and even though Eltarri wanted to melt into the floor, the dryad actually had a bashful half-smile on her face.

“What orders?” She queried innocently. “You never told me we couldn’t go into your room.” Her voice took on a mock-serious tone. “Besides, you have some explaining to do, young elf-boy. What are you doing with iron when you know I don’t like it?”

The look he gave her could have turned a bonfire into a block of ice. “What are you doing in-,” his gaze landed on the instruments in her hand, and his face went pale as he stepped forward, glancing around the dryad to the open chest on the floor. “You . . .”

Eltarri was stunned to see the high elf at a loss for words. He blinked once, and his voice was urgent as he said, “Shira, please tell me that you and the girl didn’t-,”

His words were interrupted by a sudden, high-pitched keening that began to flow from the chest behind the girls. The cry sent a burst of pain through Eltarri's head, bringing back the memory of the tiny creature that had stolen her hearing just a few short weeks ago. She could smell the strawberries, feel the sun beaming down on her as it had that misfortunate afternoon. Hands clutched over her ears, she wished that she had control of the earrings that gave her hearing so that she could turn them - and her hearing - mercifully off.

[Chiroptera]

“WHO TOUCHED IT?”

The high elf’s roar carried even over the object's painful wail. Eltarri took one hand away from her ear long enough to point at Shira before slapping the hand back onto the side of her head. He had his own hands pressed over his ears and was bent away from the noise, obviously fighting the same pain that plagued Eltarri. Shira stood with a perplexed frown, glancing with bewilderment back and forth between the two agonized elves. She said something, her voice at a normal pitch, but Eltarri had no idea of what it was. Her head felt as if it were about to split open, and the prospect seemed like it's be a pleasant relief from the pressure the sound was putting on her skull.

Beleger didn’t waste more time trying to talk. He charged across the room and reached into the chest to scoop out the object, then shoved it roughly into the dryad’s arms.

Instantly the keening stopped.

Eltarri let her hands fall from her head, her breathing harsh to match that of the high elf’s, who stood in front of Shira with a murderous scowl on his face. Shira held the thing in her arms, her face curiously neutral.

“Geez, Bel, what’s wrong with you two?”

Beleger turned away from her in disgust, pulling off his cloak and throwing it over the back of the chair.

Eltarri's voice trembled as she asked, “Didn’t you hear that noise, Shira?”

“No. What noise? Did this thing make noise?” She lifted the violet object and looked at it as if it would have writing to explain itself.

“That ‘thing’ is a harpy egg.” Beleger’s voice was strained and barely controlled. He stood with his back to the females, his hands tightly clutching the back of the chair. Eltarri had the distinct impression that if he loosened his grip at all the intruders would find themselves with those hands around their necks.

“An egg?” The thrilled pleasure in Shira’s voice made Eltarri wince. How could the dryad have so little clue of what was going on around her, namely the high elf's fury? The half-elf sat with her legs tense, ready to spring into a roll in case the dryad's inanity pushed the high elf over the edge.

“Harpies are like birds; they lay eggs and the babies imprint onto the first living thing they come into contact with, which is why Oromis is able to control the devils he has in his army.” Beleger spoke in a low, monotonous drone, as if he were venting his rage through the facts that poured from his lips. “Harpy eggs, however, have an extra feature. After being laid, they won’t develop or grow until their shells come into contact with a female, regardless of species. It’s something of a pre-birth imprinting. Now that you’ve touched the egg, Shira, you’ve set off the thing’s growing stage by making it think that it's safe. In about ten weeks, you’re going to hatch a little harpy baby who’s going to think that you’re its mother.”

Shira’s brow wrinkled with confusion. “But-,”

“The worst part,” Beleger interrupted in a steely voice, “is that the egg won’t want you to ever leave it, so if you stop touching it for more than a period of . . . six seconds, I believe . . . it starts up a din that goes out about twenty miles, alerting every creature that can hear its frequency of its exact location.”

“Oh, good,” Shira said with a relieved smile. “Then its real momma can come and get it.”

Beleger didn’t turn, but he dropped his head with a disgusted sigh.

“Shira,” Eltarri murmured from behind, hoping to save the dryad from her own slowness. “Oromis is probably the only person around who has harpies. If his harpies now know exactly where their egg is . . .”

Shira’s mouth dropped open and she looked with horror at the smooth egg in her hands. “But . . . how will they know it’s us?”

“They won’t have to,” Beleger said. “It's not their egg, and they'll probably be aware of that. They’d come to investigate the possibility of a rival flock even if they weren’t working for Oromis.”

Shira bit her lip anxiously, holding the egg in her hands as if she wished she could smash it against the wall. Eltarri’s heart dropped to the pit of her stomach. It was her fault that Shira had gotten a hold of the egg. If she hadn’t been so eager to find some dirt on the high elf . . .

Beleger suddenly moved, whirling to turn his icy glare onto the females “Aier, go tell Gamen what’s going on. He should be in his study. When you’re finished, meet us in the foyer. Got it?”

Eltarri nodded dumbly and scurried to her feet as Beleger turned to Shira. “And as for you . . .”

Eltarri was already in the hall and racing for the stairs, swallowing her apprehension at having to be in the wizard’s presence. If a flock of harpies was headed for the mansion, now was definitely not the time to be feeling nervous about her boss. Her mind balked at the thought of an impending battle. If the wizards were going to duke it out, Eltarri would have to fight with the Legion to defend Gamen. But if Shira was right about Oromis being evil, fighting his army wouldn't be something she'd have to wrestle her conscience over.

Harpies were always the bad guys, right?

[Chiroptera]

The stone of the stair was cold against her bare feet and Eltarri wished that she had stopped by her room to put on her coat and boots. She felt improperly clad, as if she should have dressed up in finery before going to the wizard’s study. Not that she had any finery to dress up in, but tights and a bodice weren’t exactly favorite articles among higher social circles.

Why the heck am I worrying about my clothes when there’s a harpy army coming to kill us?

Eltarri knocked hard at the wooden door of the wizard’s study on the fourth floor, which had been locked last night when she’d been making her sneaky rounds. She’d seen the wizard disappear into this door often enough to she knew it was his, however, so she wasn’t surprised when it swung open to reveal a cluttered mess of desks, shelves, and stacks of parchment and books. The wizard stood behind a high table, his attention focused on a huge tome that sat dustily atop the counter.

Eltarri wondered whether he recognized that he'd opened the door as she stepped over paper and jars to get nearer to the table, wishing she had her boots to make her approach more obvious. She reached the other side of the table and stood awkwardly in front of it, then cleared her throat to announce her presence.

The wizard’s graying head lifted and he smiled at her for a moment before returning to his work.

“How may I help you, dear Aier?”

His oily voice made her want to shudder, but she pushed away the feeling. What was it about him that she found so repulsive? “There’s a problem. Shir- Lirimaer touched Beleger’s harpy egg and set off its scream, so now Beleger thinks Oromis’ harpies are going to come for it.” Her announcement came out in one breathless rush, but Gamen’s eyes were fixed on her intensely by the end of it, and his smile had faded into a grim line.

“Is he sure the egg went off?”

Eltarri nodded. “I heard it myself.”

“That’s right, you have that famous Elven hearing too.” His eyebrows were knit with worry and he turned to scan the shelves behind him, muttering under his breath. Eltarri was afraid that he had forgotten that she was there, but then he turned and tossed her something, which she barely managed to react in time to catch. “Take this to Beleger and tell him that I’ll meet you there. He’ll know what I mean.”

Eltarri looked down at the drawstring bag in her hand, feeling a touch of nausea at the reminder of the night of the shop-burning. Then she gave the wizard a nod and left the room quickly, heading back for the stairs. She held the bag tightly in her fist and refused to even consider opening it. Her curiosity and nosiness had gotten her into enough trouble already. Only now it was Shira who was taking the fall for her blunder.

Why do I always manage to hurt all the people I befriend? Faces swarmed before her eyes, the visages of all those who’d suffered for her mistakes. How could any one person inadvertently cause so much suffering?

The half-elf stopped by her room and quickly pulled on her boots and jacket, then strapped on her sword after a moment’s consideration and grabbed the Legion of Light’s trademark black cloak and enchanted gloves. If Beleger wanted to meet in the foyer, it implied to Eltarri that he was planning on making a speedy exit. As she clattered down the stairs, Eltarri hoped that he wasn’t planning to try to outrun the attackers. Who knew how swiftly the harpies could move?

Beleger and Shira were already in the foyer when she arrived, both sporting their black gear and weapons. Shira had a dazed look on her face and was carrying a large, oval-shaped leather bag on her back. Beleger’s face was set in a frown, but when he looked at her Eltarri was relieved to see that the anger wasn’t directed her way.

“Gamen said to take this,” she said, handing him the bag, “and that he’d meet you there.”

Beleger looked down for a moment at the bag in his hand, then nodded and turned to the door. Eltarri felt a rush of panic. They were going outside in their black outfits in broad daylight? She was too scared of Beleger to speak, but Shira’s voice piped up instead.

“Bel, is it safe to be on the move outside now?” Her high voice was uncharacteristically worried.

“No more dangerous than sticking around,” he answered shortly. “Unless you were planning to greet the harpies when they got here?”

He threw open the door and stepped into the sunlight, not looking behind himself to see if they followed. Eltarri glanced at Shira questioningly, but the dryad was already moving after Beleger. Eltarri had little choice but to follow them out onto the street.

[Chiroptera]

Loping through the streets in the warm sunlight was just as unnerving as Eltarri had expected it would be. Frowning women moved to the other side of the street as they came, children paused at their play to watch the armed trio pass, vendors paled and shoved their carts as far away as possible. Eltarri could feel the eyes on her, prickles of heat on her neck and shoulders that were hotter than the sunlight. She tried to stare straight ahead as the high elf and Shira were doing, but every time her eyes landed on the leather bag on the dryad’s back, a flush of guilt made her quickly look away. Being out in daylight made it hard for Eltarri to recognize their whereabouts from the night of her first mission, but she was pretty sure that they were going to a different location. The morning seemed mockingly innocuous, the kind of bland summer day that passed by in the ignorable blink of an eye. It seemed wrong that people could be walking to market, babbling about what they would have for dinner, completely unaware of what was going on so nearby. It made her wonder how often she herself had carried on stupidly in unheeded ignorance of her surroundings.

Shira glanced back once when Beleger led them around a corner, her face pale but smiling in a scared and guilt-ridden way that made Eltarri’s throat tighten. She was trying to force herself to smile back when she saw, out of the corner of her eye, a bodiless shadow that swept down the center of the street. Walkers that it fell upon turned curious eyes up to the sky, and with a sinking dread Eltarri followed their line of vision.

“HARPIES!”

The screech that tore from her mouth made every eye in the street turn immediately to her, but only for a second, because then the approaching creatures were diving, and the ominous majesty of their freefall was a sight that no witness could ignore or forget.

There were five, all in a perfect pentagram-shaped formation, their colorful clothes and long hair streaking like banners in the wind. Their bodies were lithe and muscular, the bared teeth of their menacing smiles beautiful despite the danger they promised. There was something entrancing about them, something fascinating in the beauty of their movement and the menacing fierceness of their black-taloned claws . . .

“Get down!” Something heavy tackled Eltarri to the cobbled street a moment before a harpy claw ripped through the air where her head had been. Eltarri had the breath knocked out of her from the weight of the high elf, but he had barely landed before he was up and gone, racing down the street and yelling orders over the din of the panicked pedestrians who screamed and scattered like flies.

“Keep moving and don’t meet their eyes; if you stand still you’re an easy target!”

Eltarri rolled to her feet and took off after Beleger, but she skidded to a halt a few hundred yards down the street and turned back, her heart sinking as she realized that the only footfall she could hear were those of the high elf and herself.

Only one of the harpies had aimed for Eltarri, and it had already swooped back into the air and was preparing for another drop. The other three had all moved in on Shira. The dryad dropped into a sideways roll at the first harpy’s lunge, bow off her shoulder and ready in hand by the time she came up on one knee. She jerked back to avoid the swipe of another, then rolled forward again when the third charged her from the side. The fourth made a clumsy lunge from behind, but the dryad’s small form leapt nimbly out of the way. All three were then in the air, circling in preparation for another round of dives, giving Shira enough time to whisk arrows out of her quiver and to shoot them after the bird-women, her hands blurring as they whipped from her quiver to her bow. The harpies were fast, and they wove and spun through the air so quickly that few of the projectiles even came close to hitting them. Eltarri broke into a run back towards the dryad, jerking the clasp on her chest and swinging her sword out in front of her as she ran.

“I’m coming, Shira!”

Her shout was loud, intended to distract at least one of the harpies and to let Shira know that she wasn’t alone. Two of the harpies were screeching, batting with unwieldy claws at feathered arrows that protruded from limbs and wings. The uninjured harpies dived simultaneously at Shira, but their punctured companions took heed of the half-elf’s cry and changed courses, suddenly heading for the still-running girl.

[Chiroptera]

Eltarri slowed her run as the harpies approached, and a moment before contact she fearfully shut her eyes. The bracers on her arms tightened and jerked her hands up, whipping the sword into a diagonal shield in front of her face against which hard talons slammed a moment later. Then the bracers jerked her arms sideways, pulling the blade into a position at shoulder level that was parallel to the street. Harpy claws scraped along the length of the blade, giving off a terrible squeal that set the girl’s teeth on edge. She guiltily opened her eyes and saw that the two were swooping up and preparing to dive again.

Staying on the defense isn’t going to keep them away! The thought was troubling, but she knew she didn’t have a chance of hitting them. They were too fast, too mobile, too smart to let a dumb girl like her touch them. But Shira didn’t have time for her to sit here defending herself . . .

The harpies dove again, this time towards her back. Eltarri kept her eyes open this time as she whirled to face them, holding the blade tightly with both hands, waiting for an opportunity. The one on her left had been hit in the thigh and the injured leg hung lower than the other. The harpy on her right was bleeding from the shoulder, and her flight was just a smidgen slower than the other. Was it enough?

The bracers moved her sword only when the harpy on her left was close enough to see the glisten of sweat on her pixie-like face. The arm extended, unfurling a multi-colored wing that slowed her flight just enough to give her time to aim her clawed hand at Eltarri’s face, but just before her talons could sink into soft flesh, black iron intercepted the blow and deflected her claws into the palm of her own hand.

Eltarri heard painful screeching from her left, but then the one on her right drew near, and as she did she spun onto her side so that she could swing out both claws and her bird-like feet at the girl. But Eltarri saw that the harpy had learned from its earlier mistake. Instead of attacking her right away, the golden-haired harpy waited until her chest had pulled even with the half-elf’s head before snapping out her wings and sinking her talons towards the back of her head while simultaneously bringing up her feet to slice at her face. It all happened in less than a second, not giving Eltarri enough time to comprehend the danger, but as Eltarri’s sword rose to block the harpy’s feet, there was a flurry of movement at her back and the harpy’s hand-blows never landed.

“Go help Shira!”

Eltarri jerked her head around and was as close to glad at seeing the high elf as she had ever come. He had both of his scimitars unsheathed and one had a fresh red wetness on its edge. His attention was focused on the two harpies who were already preparing for another attack, his face set in a frown.

He can look after himself. Get Shira! Eltarri looked quickly around for her companion and darted towards her as soon as she laid eyes on her.

Shira was fifty feet away, her bow and empty quiver on the ground a few feet away and a small dagger in each of her brown hand. The street was deserted outside of the Legion and their assailants, but despite all the room that had been cleared by the evacuated civilians, the uninjured harpies had changed their tactics. They weren’t diving anymore, but had landed and stood before the dryad, two in low crouches that put brought them down to only a few inches over her height. Their fangs were bared and the tightening of their muscles could be seen through their bright clothes even from a distance. The third stood between them, her head held high with silky black hair trailing down between gold- and white-feathered wings. One of her arms was outstretched towards Shira, and Eltarri could hear the velvety hiss of her voice.

“Jusst come with uss. Then you and your friendsss will live.”

Shira rolled her shoulders, an indolent retort that made the leather bag on her back whisper against her cloak. Her eyes danced, her face fixed in a roguish sneer that bore more than a touch of malice.

“You want me and my egg, birdbrain?” she said in a sharp, contemptuous snarl. “Come over here and try to take us!”

[Chiroptera]

With an angry hiss the crouching harpies obliged, bounding towards the dryad with the speed of hunting cats. The dryad leapt forward to meet them, her daggers swinging in wide arcs towards their faces. Neither hit the other as the dryad moved faster than they had expected, but her daggers were too short to reach their faces. Still wearing a fierce grin the dryad hurled one of her knives at the torso of a harpy and jumped into a flying roundhouse towards the head of the other. Eltarri heard satisfying thumps, but her attention was distracted as she reached the third harpy and clumsily turned her run into a charge, swinging her sword from over her shoulder towards the speaker’s back.

A shout of warning came from someone behind her, and the dark-haired harpy ducked into a kick when Eltarri’s sword was still six inches away from her. The heel of the harpy’s foot hit her high on her stomach, instantly making her feel sick and driving her forcefully backwards and down. She fought nausea on her back, tears filling her eyes as she tried to force herself to move and couldn’t find the will.

She doesn’t need a weakling like me. She needs Beleger.

A non-harpy cry of pain gave her the strength to sit up, her stomach clenching in pain as she did. Shira was now fighting three of the harpies, and from Eltarri’s seat it was obvious that she fought a losing battle. Each of the harpies was half-again her weight and a foot or even two above her height, and all worked in perfect unison, defending each other and coordinating attacks so that they always had the upper hand. Shira’s defense was admirable. She spun and kicked and swiped with her daggers, ducking to grab rocks that she flung at one harpy while she swung her leg towards the neck of another. The fight had been progressing for less than ten seconds, and even as Eltarri scrambled to her feet she could tell that it wouldn’t last for that much more time. An over-powered swipe with her dagger gave a harpy at her back the opening she needed to rake her claws across the dryad’s shoulder.

“Shira!” Eltarri’s hoarse yell echoed in the street, but even as she ran the fight was ending. The dryad’s hazel eyes met Eltarri’s in the gap between two of the harpies, her lips parted as if she were about to ask a question. Then the harpy that was facing her jumped forward and brought her hand in a splayed-fingered uppercut against the dryad’s belly. The black claws slid easily into her as the harpy pushed her fingers into the small creature’s chest cavity, digging up and lifting until the dryad was pulled off her feet, suspended from the bird-woman’s hand. Her eyes stayed fixed in Eltarri’s, widening with what seemed more like surprise than pain. Her blood ran freely down the harpy’s arm and streamed into the white-and-gold feathers of her wings.

“Thanksss, dear,” the harpy murmured with a smile as she reached with her other hand to rip the leather bag off her back. “I think I will.”

[Chiroptera]

Eltarri was like a statue, the tip of her sword resting against the ground and her eyes staring blankly at the bloody scene before her. She wanted to blink, as if by doing so she could undo what she’d just seen happen, maybe go back and get there in time to stop it, but her eyes remained open and fixed on Shira’s bleeding form.

The harpies gave her presence as much attention as it deserved. The dark-haired leader lowered her arm and let Shira slide off her hand, still smirking as she shook flecks of blood of her fingers and slung the bag over one of her shoulders. She turned, and her green-eyed gaze settled with scorn on the frozen half-elf for only a second before moving past her, focusing with a frown on what was going on behind the girl.

“Idiotss,” she muttered before tilting back her head to give out an eagle-like caw and crouching low to push herself into the air. Her thighs were corded to spring and she had already unfurled her wings when a flash of silver swept by Eltarri’s head and a thin scimitar jammed itself into the dark-haired harpy’s chest. She was falling before the others knew what was going on. Another weapon sang through the air and then another harpy was falling with a silver blade jutting from her neck. The third was bent over, grappling with the handle of a dagger that stuck out from beneath her collarbone, but when she saw her comrades fall, she took off into the air with a screech. Eltarri heard a flurry of wings and one more harpy shot overhead after her, but still Eltarri couldn’t bring herself to move. She’d been too slow. She’d taken too long. She’d been completely useless and now Shira was . . .

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Beleger roughly bumped his elbow against the half-elf’s back as he walked past her, barely pausing to retrieve his scimitars from the harpy corpses before he was moving towards the prone figure of the dryad with the blades once again sheathed as his sides.

The high elf’s nudge sent Eltarri off-balance and she stumbled forward, dropping her sword and staggering forward until she was close enough to fall to her knees a foot away from the fallen dryad. She had been so close, close enough to count the feathers on the harpy’s wing, close enough to smell the carrion that had made up their last meal. Why hadn’t she done something?

“Shira, can you hear me?” Beleger’s voice was a low, urgent murmur. He cradled the dryad’s head in one arm, the other holding a bundle of cloth against the gaping wound in her stomach. He stared at her, eyes burning holes into the dryad’s pale face. Eltarri sat uselessly on her other side, too stunned even to cry. She saw a streak of blood on the high elf’s arm; it looked as though one of the harpies had grazed him. Blood soaked the dryad’s clothes, leaking out onto the black cloak beneath her.

“Hold this, half-breed.” Beleger jerked his head towards the bundle of clothes in his hand. The harshness of his voice made Eltarri respond automatically, even though her mind was still blank from shock. Beleger moved his arm and she set her gloved hands against the compress, feeling the hollows beneath her palms and the warmth of the blood.

“Shira, I need you to wake up.” His voice held no sign of fear or worry, but his mouth was set in a hard line and his face was nearly as pale as the dryad’s. Eltarri’s breath rushed in and out of her body. She willed her life to rush out of herself, to slide down her arms and into the limp body of the dryad. She deserved it so much more . . .

The muscles beneath Eltarri’s hands contracted suddenly as Shira began to choke and splutter, her coughs interjected with yelps of pain and gasping breaths. Her eyes flew open, red-rimmed and filled with agony. Blood began to gush out of the wound and into the compress, the force of its flow almost pushing the compress out of the half-elf’s hands.

“Belly . . . I . . . my . . . it hurts,” the dryad whimpered, tears and blood rushing down the sides of her face. A second later the high-pitched keening of the harpy egg sang through the air, ripping through the fog that had descended onto Eltarri’s mind and making the high elf across from her flinch away, moving Shira so that the dryad’s face clenched in pain.

Eltarri wanted to cover her ears, but she couldn’t take her hands off the compress. Instead she gritted her teeth and used the noise to wipe away all the self-pity and helplessness that had made itself at home in her mind. Her eyes were shut, but her head was beginning to pound when something pushed against her arm. She opened her eyes and saw Beleger’s hand extended with two small, strangely-shaped objects in his hand. He had two more in the other hand, and once Eltarri had hesitantly took the proffered one, he demonstratively stuck one into each of his ears. Eltarri followed suit, and the moment she did, a glorious silence descended over the world. She could hear the thud of blood in her temple, but the harpy egg’s screech was gone.

“Come on, we need to get her to safety.” Eltarri read Beleger’s lips and nodded in reply. She looked down and saw that Shira’s eyes were closed, but a pinkish tint in the dryad’s cheeks told her that she was still alive.

Hang in there, Shira. Eltarri had convinced herself that if they could take her to wherever they were going to meet Gamen, he could heal her and she’d be all right. She took a strip of cloth that Beleger tore from the skirt of the dead harpy and wrapped it tightly around the dryad’s stomach, binding the compress to her wound. Then Beleger lifted the small figure in his arms and set off down the street at a smooth walk. Eltarri picked up her sword and set it back into its sling, then gingerly reached under the dark-haired harpy’s body to pick up the leather bag with the harpy egg inside it.

She had to run to catch up with Beleger, and when she did she reached around him to deposit the bag onto the dryad’s lower stomach. Beleger took one look at the bag and his eyebrows rose with surprise, but then he glanced at her and his face darkened.

“Better late than never?” The quirk of his lips told her that he was being sarcastic, so Eltarri just frowned in reply and took a step back before pulling the earplugs out of her ears. She hadn’t realized that he’d thought the harpies had taken it. Beleger shook his head in exasperation and kept walking.

For once Eltarri wished that he would move more quickly, but he continued through the streets at a steady gait, even when teams of city guards rushed past him in formation and when curious beggars and disapproving nobles stared for longer than was polite. He held the dryad with a gentle tenderness that he had never once shown Shira before she was injured, and the change just made Shira’s wound seem all the more dangerous. Eltarri trailed a few feet behind, her mind running incessantly over the last ten minutes of her life. But no matter how many times she tried to change her outlook, she ended every rendition with the same depressing conclusion:

This is all my fault.

[Chiroptera]

Their destination was located in a run-down part of town, close enough to the coast that the smell of salt drifted in the air. They’d walked for what felt like hours to Eltarri, but Beleger’s smooth stride had never faltered. When he suddenly turned in the street and stepped up to a cracked and worn wooden doorway, Eltarri almost felt like cheering.

It was a two-story, windowless, and dilapidated building, with long jagged cracks running up the sides and a drooping roof that hung over the façade. The buildings surrounding it didn’t look much better, and Eltarri had been recognizing too many of the lounging beggars for her comfort. She had her hood pulled up and tried to make herself seem as tall and invulnerable as the high elf, whom beggars only took one look at before fearfully averting their gaze.

Beleger stood in front of the doorway and turned his head until his eyes landed on the half-elf. She was fairly certain that it was the first time that he had bothered to concern himself with the assurance of her presence throughout the walk.

“Get my lock-picking tools of the side-pocket on my belt,” he ordered. “You should know what that they look like by now.”

Eltarri blushed, remembering the stolen utensils that Shira had used that morning. Beleger stood with the arm that held Shira’s shoulders lifted so that his cloak was pulled back from his side. She stepped forward and lifted the flap over the indicated pouch on his belt and pulled out the three shiny instruments that Shira had had that morning. Were they the same ones that she had stolen from him? The girl kept her eyes down guiltily as she thrust them into his hand and stepped away.

The high elf carefully shifted Shira so that she rested in the crooks of his elbows, barely seeming to feel her weight as he stepped forward and crouched slightly to bring himself low enough to stick the tools into the keyhole without shifting Shira. This door took him longer than the shopkeeper’s had, Eltarri noticed, but it might have just been the cut on his arm, or an attempt to avoid jolting the dryad. The sun was high overhead, and sweat trickled down between Eltarri’s shoulder blades.

“Walk quietly,” Beleger muttered over his shoulder as the door creaked open. He stepped into the dark interior and Eltarri trailed after him, pushing the door shut behind her once she was through. She turned around and stood blinking until her eyes grew accustomed to the dimness, but by then Beleger was halfway across the large room on her left. A staircase leading to the second floor stood on her right, and the empty room that Beleger was in had a wide, uncovered doorway, an empty fireplace, and a bar that stretched across one wall. Eltarri followed him into the room in time to see him going through the swinging door on the far side of the room, facing her so that he pushed the door with his back. Eltarri jogged across the wooden floor after him. What were they doing in an old inn?

The kitchen was similarly out of use, with huge, rusty ovens covered in white ash and rat droppings spattered copiously across the tables, counters, and floors. Beleger was still moving, though. He walked right through the kitchen and pushed backwards again through another swinging door, and Eltarri followed. The room they were in now was carpeted and had furniture in it that was not covered in dust. In fact, the room looked more lived-in than had Beleger’s quarters at the wizard’s mansion.

“Try not to mess anything up,” Beleger instructed as he set Shira down on the only bed in the corner of the room. Eltarri decided against mentioning that the dryad’s blood would do more damage than anything she could do, and instead waited until the high elf had stepped away from the bed before taking his place at Shira’s side. Blood had soaked through the compress and was even staining the cloth that she had used to bind the wound. Her face was paler than Eltarri would have thought her dark skin could go, and her skin was clammy.

“Beleger, she doesn’t look good.” The statement sounded stupid as soon as it left her mouth. Of course she didn’t look good; who would look good after getting impaled by a harpy? “I mean, I think she needs a healer . . .”

Eltarri turned and saw that Beleger was only now taking his earplugs out of his ears. He had his back to the females and was looking at the papers that were scattered across the desk next to the doorway. He cast an irritable glance over his shoulder at her.

“Is Gamen meeting us here?” Eltarri tried to find a question that wouldn’t state the obvious or sound stupid. “He can heal her, right?”

Beleger turned wordlessly back to the desk with a jerk of his head that could have been a nod or a shake. Eltarri gazed helplessly at Shira’s form. She pushed the leather bag off of the dryad’s stomach and set it in the crook of her arm. Through a tear in the leather Eltarri could see the glassy purple egg, and a wave of hatred swept up from the pit of her stomach. It was that thing that had caused all the trouble they were in now. Why did Beleger even have the harpy egg in the first place? It seemed like the very presence of the thing was a liability when harpy attention was exactly what they wanted to be avoiding the most, so why would Beleger keep Gamen’s weakness at such a close proximity? He couldn’t have been trying to use it to take down Gamen . . . he’d sent her to tell the wizard when it’d gone off. Something nagged at Eltarri’s memory, and then Shira’s devious voice echoed in Eltarri’s mind.

The silly boy thinks he can keep me out of things I want to get into.

The half-elf’s face went pale.

What are you doing with iron when you know I don’t like it?

With a gasp Eltarri whirled to the high elf, who now sat at the chair in front of the desk, examining his wounded arm with a tight-lipped grimace.

“You wanted her to find the egg, didn’t you?”

[Chiroptera]

Beleger lifted ice-blue eyes, his face expressionless.

“You knew she couldn’t resist a challenge and you set up that iron box and planted that egg inside because you wanted it to imprint to her!” Eltarri felt hot tears threatening to spill, but she blinked them away furiously, refusing to allow herself to be weak in front of the high elf.

“How would binding the egg to Shira benefit me in any way?” His voice was sneering and dismissive. “You think I like having to fight off harpies?”

He had a point. He knew the dryad better than she did; he would have known that she probably wasn’t responsible enough to maintain contact with the egg indefinitely. It would only have been a matter of time before the dryad forgot the egg in her room and set the thing off screaming until she remembered it. How would Beleger benefit from a harpy invasion?

Eltarri turned angrily back to Shira, refusing to look at the violet globe at her side. She didn’t have an answer for the high elf, but she knew her theory wasn’t just a groundless fabrication. She heard cloth tearing and a stifled grunt of pain as Beleger bound the gash in his arm and wondered how he was tying it with only one hand, but she stubbornly refused to offer her help. He probably would have turned her down anyway.

“Shira, can you hear me?” Eltarri whispered near the dryad’s ear. “Gamen’s on his way. Just hang on.”

She didn’t like having her back to the high elf – she trusted him even less now than she had before – but she kept her eyes on Shira’s face and her fingers against the faint pulse in the dryad’s neck.

Don’t worry, Shira, she promised silently. I’ll get us out of here somehow.

[Chiroptera]

Eltarri spent the afternoon dozing at Shira’s side, waking only when Beleger bent over the bed to check on the dryad himself and when he tossed her dried fruit and meat that she ate automatically without tasting. She left the room only when her bladder demanded it and hurried back, fearing each time that when she returned the dryad’s weak pulse would have stopped. It seemed, however, that every time she returned to the room the dryad seemed a little better, her face a little more colored and her breathing steadier. Beleger left the room periodically as well, but he was never gone for as long as Eltarri would have liked him to be, and he never said anything about where he had been. In fact, he didn’t say anything at and just sat at the desk, reading various parchments with a effortless frown.

Halfway through the afternoon, Shira’s eyes flew open, her large pupils staring unseeingly at the ceiling. Eltarri opened her mouth to say her name when the dryad’s pupils suddenly contracted, narrowing to tiny dots in the sea of her murky green eyes before the dryad blinked and turned her head to meet Eltarri’s gaze, her breath rushing heavily past her lips.

“El, where’s my tree?” The dryad’s voice was a thin whimper, but it was filled with an urgency and fear that made the hair on the back of Eltarri’s neck stand up.

“It’s still in Gamen’s-”

“El, where is he?” Her hand shot out and grabbed Eltarri’s forearm, her fingers wrapping around her wrist and tightening in a grip that was surprisingly strong for an injured girl. She sat up, wide eyes filling with tears and sheer terror tightening her face. “What are they doing to my tree?”

Beleger cursed from behind her. Eltarri turned to see him staring at the wall with a faraway look in his eyes, his attention focused on something beyond the inn.

“What is she-”

“It’s the harpies,” Beleger said in a low growl. “They’re in the mansion.” His eyes came back into focus and he turned his frown onto her. “I’m going up to the roof. Stay with her.”

He spun and was gone so quickly that if not for the swinging door Eltarri would have thought that he simply disappeared into thin air. Shira’s hand tightened on her arm and Eltarri turned back to the dryad. In the brief moment that she had been turned away, the dryad’s face had become unnaturally flushed. Sweat streamed down the sides of her face and soaked into her golden hair as she gasped like a drowning asthmatic.

“El . . . El . . . don’t let them . . . please, don’t!” Her eyes were unfocused but her screams were piercing and desperate. Eltarri shifted her arm until the dryad’s fingers were wrapped around her own smaller hand and she squeezed the long-fingered hand back, wincing at the tightness of her grip but refusing to let her go.

The swinging door slammed open and Beleger flew in, grabbing his sword belt and strapping it quickly to his waist. His face was grim and anger rolled off of him in tangible waves.

“They’re burning the mansion,” he said curtly. Eltarri’s breath caught in her throat. “Try to keep her calm.”

Shira’s back arched off the bed, her cries became wordless screams and incoherent blubbering as she wept and kicked and rolled as if trying to evade a merciless attacker. Eltarri held her down, tightening her clamp on the dryad’s hand and trying to hold back her own tears as she heard the dryad’s wails change from fearful to agonized. She felt as though she were the dryad’s enemy, holding her down and forcing her to endure whatever it was she was feeling. Shira’s movement tore open her wound and blood again poured into the compress, but Eltarri realized that bloodless probably wouldn’t have killed the dryad anyway, as long as she had her tree to draw strength and life from.

The dryad’s shrieks told her that blood loss was the least of her worries.

“Hang on, Shira,” Eltarri murmured through her tears, fighting the desolation that had already settled on her mind. If the tree was already on fire, how could Beleger get there in time to save it? She inexplicably smelt smoke, and as Shira’s screams were interrupted by hacking coughs, Eltarri found her hope dribbling away with her friend’s life. Her hazel eyes were red and watery, her face contorted with agony that she had never known existed. She fought to escape the all-pervasive pain that drowned her senses and overwhelmed her skin with the icy burn of a thousand salted daggers.

And then, suddenly, she was quiet.

Shira’s body slumped to the bed, her eyes open and her skin slowly draining of blood. Her body still radiated heat, and when her hand slipped out of the half-elf’s grip she left a smear of bloody sweat on the girl’s palm. Eltarri starred into the still face of the dryad and wished that she could have taken her place.

[Chiroptera]

“She’s dead.”

Eltarri spoke as soon as she heard the high elf return, though she didn’t turn to look at him. She’d sat in the silence of death all afternoon, and even Beleger’s soft footfalls had been like pounding drums in the quiet. He stopped inside the doorway and exhaled heavily. She could smell smoke on his clothes.

“They got Gamen,” he said wearily before moving to the desk. She could hear the shuffling of leather as he took off his cloak and gloves and unstrapped his scimitars. A hot rush of anger clogged Eltarri’s throat and she turned her eyes away from the corpse in front of her for the first time in hours.

“Shira. Is. Dead,” she repeated, glaring at the high elf. How could he be more concerned with the death of the wizard than with the dryad’s? Beleger stared immovably back.

“I heard you the first time,” he answered softly, “but there are more important things to worry about right now.”

Eltarri’s eyes widened with disbelief and tears rose to her eyes. The smells of smoke and death seemed to grow stronger and the room was suddenly stifling. The food she’d eaten was threatening to fight its way free of her stomach and she jumped to her feet and rushed to the door, running outside to stand in the street, breathing deeply of the salt-tinged air and fighting the lump in her throat. She looked up at the sky, which was already getting darker from the setting of the sun. Purple clouds floated lazily overhead.

Eltarri blinked and craned her neck to see more of the sky.

Purple clouds were floating in a slowly-dissipating line from one way, the direction of the mansion.

Purple smoke . . . purple fire?

How likely was it that there would be more than one case of arson this day in this part of the city? And how likely was it that there was more than one arsonist with a penchant for violet flames? Eltarri’s neck complained and she brought her head down, looking away from the sky.

Why would Gamen set fire to his own mansion?

[Chiroptera]

Eltarri slipped quietly back into the inn, stopping in the kitchen when she saw part of a blanket sticking out from one of the closed ovens. She hurried on into the room, her skin going cold when she saw that the bed was now empty. Even the covers that Shira’s blood had stained were gone, and though Eltarri was a little relieved at not having to face the corpse again, she didn’t want to think of the dryad’s body in the oven. She stepped further in and moved towards the chair. Beleger was gone, but the atmosphere was no warmer for his absence.

“Half-breed,” The high elf’s voice cracked through the air from the kitchen behind her, and Eltarri disgusted herself by turning automatically at his call. “Catch.”

Her arms jerked out reflexively in time to catch the spinning purple globe that he’d chucked at her. It was smooth and hard and radiated a soft heat, and as soon as it had touched Eltarri’s hands her heart stopped.

The harpy egg.

Her head whipped up, her eyes wide as she looked at the high elf, who stood in the doorway with the leather bag empty in his hands, his face blank.

“What . . .” she didn’t know what she wanted to ask. She held the egg gingerly, her fingers beginning to tremble. “Why did you . . .”

“Somebody has to take care of it,” he replied with a shrug. “You helped Shira unlock this little mess, you can play your part in fixing it.”

“But . . . it was quiet all afternoon even though Shira was-”

“Do you expect me to keep a rotting carcass around indefinitely?”

Eltarri flinched. How could he dismiss Shira so easily? Putting the dryad’s egg into her care felt like a slap across the face. Her friend had died for this, and now he was just carelessly handing it over to the next best option?

“Well, you can put your earplugs back in,” she scowled, “because I am definitely not going to be carting this thing around until it hatches.”

“Don’t do something you’ll regret.”

Eltarri looked up at the high elf, but his face was still expressionless. His posture was relaxed, but if he decided to kill her he could probably do it before she realized she was dead. Of course, he’d always been able to, and had yet to do it. In the face of Shira’s death it seemed silly for her to have been as afraid of him as she was. At least a demise by his hands would probably be faster than Shira’s had been. And she probably deserved it anyway.

Eltarri’s lips curled in a humorless smile. She pleasantly flipped him the bird and then put the harpy egg onto the counter with a less than gentle smack. Her own earplugs were in her back pocket and she pulled them out as soon as the egg was on the counter. They were halfway to her ears when Beleger spoke.

“You choose your own-”

She looked up to see why he’d cut himself off, but his lips were still moving. The evening bustle of the streets had gone still. A bird’s trill had been interrupted mid-song. She jammed her earplugs back into her pocket and covertly snapped her fingers.

Nothing.

Her mouth was open then, her throat clenched, but Eltarri couldn’t hear the shriek coming out of her mouth. Beleger’s frown deepened as he pulled one hand away from the earrings that lined one lobe. He was staring at her with a pitiless expression. Then he walked forward and slapped her across the face.

Eltarri kept screaming. She felt the pain in her cheek, but she hadn’t heard the sound of his hand against his face, couldn’t hear herself breathing, couldn’t tell whether or not the wind was blowing through the broken windows. Beleger grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a rough shake, his mouth moving.

“Shut . . . hell . . .

She couldn’t stop. She screamed harder, her throat raw and hurting, as if by getting louder she might shout hearing back into her ears. She didn’t want to read his lips, didn’t want to know what he was saying. She was back in her own personal hell, and no amount of unheard chatter could-

Spots of light burst into the girl’s vision, and when they cleared enough for her to see she found herself on her stomach, jaw aching and blood dripping from her mouth onto the ground beneath her. Her tongue burned; she’d bitten it when Beleger had punched her. Her mouth was shut, though, and her eyes rose almost involuntarily to his moving lips.

“ . . . want your hearing back,” he said slowly, extending the harpy egg towards her with one hand, “[/i]you’re going to have to go on one last mission for me.[/i]”

A better person would have spat in his face. Eltarri knew that, and still she sat motionless, staring like an emaciated beggar at the last unclaimed morsel of food in the city. She knew she would do it to get back her hearing, whatever it was he wanted. Already the silence was overwhelming, panicking. She could feel herself nodding, her vision growing blurry at the desperate tears that flooded her eyes as she reached up to take the egg. There was no way she would let herself go back to being deaf. She would do anything he told her to.

[Chiroptera]

_ _____ _ _____ _ _____ _ _____ _ _____ _ _____ _

It took a while for Eltarri to get used to the added weight of the egg. She carried it strapped to the small of her back in a rope harness of Beleger’s designing. It lay close to the edge of her sword, and if she twisted her torso too far or jerked her shoulder the two met with a disharmonious clang. She was doing all she could to keep that from happening.

Beleger had let her sleep for a few hours before she departed on her “mission,” sleep that only seemed to have whetted the half-elf’s desire for rest. Her eyes itched even though adrenaline was making her movements quick and jumpy. Her mind was too tired to dwell on the events of the day, too weary to consider the implications of the fact that it was Beleger who seemed to be controlling her hearing. The sky overhead was dark and star-studded, and the silent emptiness of the streets was welcome. Standing in the dark with her gloves and cloak to keep her warm, pushing away thoughts of the egg and Shira and the high elf and the harpies . . . it could almost be considered peaceful.

She stood outside of an impressive stone building, her eyes drifting lethargically over the façade. Rows of bright flowers lined the walkway leading up to the double doors, doors that were tightly locked and guarded by a pair of alert guards who not only carried their weapons unsheathed, but who also periodically walked up and down the path, their eyes keenly scanning their surroundings. The building stood alone; there wasn’t another in a hundred yard. Well-tended grass grew in that space, taking up coveted ground in a city that was over-crowded with buildings and people alike. But it was a nice building – a nice mansion, that is – a pleasant break from the dilapidated and cramped parts that she’d been in. It occurred to Eltarri that even though she’d been in the city for weeks, she hadn’t actually done all that much sight-seeing.

At least not by daylight.

“Can I help you, miss?”

The sharp voice of one of the guards broke Eltarri’s reminiscent trance and she turned her startled jump into an exaggerated yawn, stretching her arms over her head and exhaling heavily with a sleep smile.

“Actually, I think you can.” She did her best to make her voice as feminine as possibly. She slurred her words and spoke through a coy smile, a trick she’d seen a prostitute use during her early days in the city. “Is this the home of Talien Rekthiel?”

Eltarri hoped that she’d at least said the name right. Beleger had made her repeat a number of times, but the girl’s knees were threatening to shake and her palms were definitely sweaty. The human guard stood a few feet away from her, a lamp in one hand and the hilt of his sword in the other, with a wary frown on his face. Eltarri was getting tired of being frowned at by males. “It is. Do you . . . have an appointment?”

Eltarri took a few sauntering steps forward, one hand on her hip and the other behind her back, holding the egg away from her sword so she could move her shoulders to match her gait.

“Actually,” she said in a murmur, leaning forward so that she could look up at the guard through her lashes, “I’m late for one.”


“Rekthiel’s known among some circles by his weakness for Elven women. You don’t really count, but it should be dark enough to get you get past the guards.”


Eltarri remembered Beleger’s words and tilted her head so that the light from the guard’s lamp could illuminate her ears. Not for the first time she wished that she had inherited more of her features from her mother’s side.

The guard glanced back at his partner, who was probably too far away to have heard the exchange. He turned back and eyed her suspiciously, then stepped aside so that she could precede him on the path. Eltarri’s breath caught in her throat.


“The glamour should prevent people from being able to see your sword, so it should remain undetected unless you do something stupid like letting it make noise or banging it against a doorway, which I’ve seen you do before. Do you think you can handle not being a klutz for a few hours?”


The guard stopped to mutter in his partner’s ear, then opened the door and led her into the wealthy home. The hall was lined with scented candles and tapestries, but Eltarri kept her eyes on the guard in front of her, who often glanced back to make sure she was following. He led her down the hall and knocked softly on one of the doors.

“Who is it?” The voice from within was timid and querulous.

“Sir, there’s a maiden here to see you, and she says she has an appointment.” He glanced back at Eltarri and added, “She’s Elvish.”

“It’s Elven, dear boy,” the voice answered as the door swung open. A short human with graying hair stood in the doorway, wearing plain clothes that hung off his thin frame. “Come on in, darlin’, come in.”

Eltarri stepped past the guard into the room, and the man shut the door behind her before stepping around her to get into the room, eying her openly as he passed. He smelled of whiskey and fresh linen and walked with a slight limp. The room seemed to be a kind of study, with books lining two of the walls, a lit hearth with couches before it along one wall, and a large desk taking up the remainder of the room.

“Well, m’dear, what’re y’here for?” He sat down on the edge of the desk and smiled eagerly at her. “Are you, perhaps, a gift from a colleague?”

[Chiroptera]

Eltarri’s heart was beating fast. Now came the hard part. “Actually, I’m not here for . . . that. I’m . . .” she swallowed hard and stepped back, reaching behind her to lock the door. “I’m here to . . .”


“I need you to go in there and kill him.”
“Kill him? Why?”
“Don’t worry about it. You get in, you kill him, you come back, and your hearing’s yours. If he’s dead by the end of the night, you have my word that I’ll relinquish complete control of your hearing into your hands. Understand?”


“Yes, dearie?” Rekthiel’s face was expectant, his eyes bright with anticipation. Eltarri stepped forward and reached one hand to the hilt of the sword on her back. The other hand lifted to rest at the clasp on her chest. If she did it quickly, maybe . . . his eyes curiously followed her hands’ movement.

“I’m sorry.” The words rushed from Eltarri’s mouth a moment before she pulled the clasp. The sword swung free and back into visibility, judging by the shock on the face of Rekthiel. Not daring to think, Eltarri pulled the sword back and ran forward, clenching her teeth to keep from screaming as she drove the blade through the man’s stomach.
Oh, gods. Her breath rattled from her body as she lifted her eyes to his face, the tip of her sword protruding from the man’s back. The blade was so wide that it nearly slit the man in half, and the surprise on his face didn’t fade as he looked down at the red hilt and black iron jutting from his chest.

“Oh . . . my,” he said in a murmur. His head slowly rose and his face split into a wide, yellow-toothed grin. “I knew it was big, but up-close and personal like this it’s downright massive, isn’t it? How’s a little thing like you manage to carry a honker like this? Looks ’bout the size of a dragon’s wanger, don’t it?”

Eltarri dropped the hilt of the sword and fell back with a cry. Why was he still talking? Why wasn’t he bleeding? Without the bracers to hold it up, the sword’s weight pulled it down through the man’s torso, sliding down as if through pudding, leaving a gaping hole in its wake that Rekthiel was watching with a wide smile. Eltarri’s hands shook and the length of her backwards steps increased until she bumped into something solid and tall.

“Hello again, ssweetie.”

[Chiroptera]

Her head throbbed even before she was fully conscious, but when she tried to hold her skull with her hand, she found that she couldn’t move her arm. Twitching the other one yielded the same results. Her legs were loose, though, and when she pushed downward her feet hit the ground. She slid open her eyes as she set her feet onto the ground to take the weight off her wrists. It was still dark outside, and she knew that because there was a small vent a few feet above her head on the wall perpendicular to the one she was suspended from. Rusty manacles at the end of chains kept her hands stretched over her head and her back against the stone wall. Empty wooden shelves lined the wall on her other side, and a decrepit staircase led to a door across from her.

A cellar?

Her sword was gone, probably still in that man’s study, but the egg remained strapped to her waist, pressing against her back beneath the black cloak that still graced her shoulders. She flexed her fingers within her black gloves and rolled her head to stretch the muscles in her neck, trying to distract herself from her current circumstances and the guilty thoughts that surfaced in her mind.

You killed him.

The statement from her conscience didn’t deserve a reply. It actually didn’t even invite one. She couldn’t truthfully say that she hadn’t, and protesting that she hadn’t meant to or that she hadn’t wanted to would be hollow and meaningless. Her intentions were irrelevant. She’d made the decision that her hearing was more important than a man’s life and she had destroyed the one to gain the other.

It was just a human . . .

Eltarri’s hands clenched into fists. Where had that thought come from? Her jaw clenched and she wished she had the means to dig into her head to find the source of that thought. She’d never considered herself racist, but a thought like that had to come from somewhere, didn’t it?

My father is a human, she reminded herself sternly. I am half human. I killed an equal.

Her mind drifted back to the conversation she’d had with Shira after her first mission with the Legion of Light.

“Good guys don’t kill innocent people.”

Her own words reverberated in her skull, her self-righteous voice burning through her thoughts.

That’s right. Good guys don’t kill innocent people. And Talien Rekthiel had done nothing to attack or provoke her. She’d sought him out and killed him, and she’d done it for purely selfish reasons.

Having decided that and accepted the burden of guilt, Eltarri’s mind drifted onto other meandering paths as she dozed in her chains. Though not the kind of thing she was accustomed to witnessing, the murder seemed to have been a very odd one. She’d never killed before, but it didn’t seem normal to her that a dying man would be smiling and chatting merrily as a sword slipped through him – a sword that he inexplicably seemed to recognize – and then there was the curious aspect of the complete lack of blood . . .

And since when did the city guard employ harpies?

[Chiroptera]

_ _____ _ _____ _ _____ _ ______ _


“Rise and shine, legionnaire!”

A bucket of cold water doused her head, thrown from far enough away that the icy droplets hurt her face and brought her instantly and fully awake.

“There’s a good little elfling.”

Two figures stood on the stairway, one a red-headed harpy who smiled at her with bared incisors and the other a fat human who seemed to be in his fifties or sixties, pudgy fingers clutching the handle of a bucket and his round face fixed in a devious smile. The man clumped down the stairs and approached Eltarri, setting the bucket down as he came forward.

“I am called Oromis,” he said without preamble, “and you are in my dungeon!”

Oromis the Evil? The man before her looked more like the kind of person you’d find handing out candy to children at festivals. Eltarri held back a smirk. Maybe poisoned candy . . .

“It seems that I have in my grasp one of the members of the famed ‘Legion of Light.’” He waved his hands in the air mockingly. “See me quivering with fear?”

His jowls quivered profusely as he laughed.

“Yes, I have you right where all your wicked little friends belong,” he gloated, cheeks distorting as he smiled. “And since I’m pretty sure that the tree I roasted yesterday belonged to that little dryad—whoops! – it seems to me that two-thirds of the L.O.L. are out of commission. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Eltarri jerked against her manacles, wishing she could slice the smile right off the man’s face. What right did this fat idiot have to mock Shira’s death? Her rage bubbled high in her throat as she yanked futilely against the iron.

“I’d say that you’re in a whole boatload of trouble if you think this is over,” she hissed.

Oromis’ eyes widened with feigned fear. “Oh my, the chained puppy is barking threats. Let me get my rolled piece of parchment to bop it on the head, eh?”

Eltarri growled aloud in reply, her eyes narrowed slits of fiery malice. If she ever got her hands around that man’s fat neck . . .

What’s this? The ill-timed sarcasm from her conscience was not at all welcome. Already ready to kill again? We really do have quite the taste for blood now, don’t we?

The half-elf forced her hands to go limp. She shut her eyes and looked away from the wizard. It was pointless to get angry. She couldn’t do anything to anyone, no matter how loudly she shouted. Not without her sword, anyway.

“Aw, has the puppy gotten tired? Does the widdow doggy wanna take a nappy-wappy?”

Eltarri shut his voice out of her mind. Oromis stood in front of her for a few more minutes, babbling away and laughing at his own cleverness before he grew tired of her unresponsiveness and left, promising another visit shortly.

“So that’s my fate, is it?” Eltarri asked the empty cell. “I have to put up with Oromis the Obnoxious until he gets bored enough to kill me?”

It seemed a fitting sentence for her crimes.

[Chiroptera]

Her eyes were closed and she was trying once again to fall asleep when the door at the top of the stairs creaked open and a dark-clothed figure came tumbling head-over-heels into the dungeon. Oromis had left not fifteen minutes ago, and Eltarri squinted warily into the darkness to see who her new visitor was. He stood up with a groan and dusted himself off before he turned to face her.

“Dear gods, it’s Aier! What a miserable pleasure to see you here.”

“Gamen?” Eltarri couldn’t quite believe her eyes. The wizard’s face was bruised and his fine clothes were torn, but his dark eyes were as cunning and sharp as ever. “I mean, Black Wizard, sir?”

“No, no,” he waved one hand towards her, “we can dispense with the formalities down here. My life will soon be over anyway. Might as well spend what remains in the relaxed presence of friends.”

Eltarri had to bite her tongue to hold back her opinions on their friendship. Gamen walked a few times around the cell, looking up at the walls and mumbling to himself before he sat down in a corner of the room.

“So . . . what’s the word on my Legion?”

“Shira’s dead.” It was almost easy to say this time, and she didn’t even have to fight hard to push away the lump in her throat. Gamen’s eyebrows drooped.

“Oh,” he said with a blink. “That’s . . . untimely.”

“Is that the best you can do?” Eltarri spoke before she could stop herself, hating even the sight of the wizard who just as chatty and jovial as he’d been before all of this mess began. “You force her into your service and she devotes every ounce of her energy to your stupid Legion and the best you can say for her horrible death is ‘untimely?’”

Gamen just shrugged in reply. “She would have been dead in a week or two anyway. Harpy eggs grow by sucking life away from the person they imprint on. It’s why there are so few harpies in the world even though they make such excellent warriors, because of how difficult it is to fuel them enough to hatch. Shira was practically dead as soon as she touched the egg.”

The hard lump of the violet globe pressed against Eltarri’s back. Her throat was suddenly dry. “It kills . . . everyone who touches it?”

“No,” Gamen rested his head against the wall behind him. “Just the people it imprints on, its victims. It does that screaming thing whenever the prey leaves it alone, but once the meat’s dead it’s perfectly happy to be left alone until it finds another magical creature to feed it. I think Beleger’s egg was a young one, but who knows how many more times it’ll need to feed before it hatches? He found it in the Raieran and-“

“The Raieran Forest?” Eltarri felt as though something heavy was resting on her chest. “The same forest he found Shira in?”

“Finding her was a stroke of luck, actually.” Gamen idly cleaned his nails as he spoke. “Bel was going to leave the egg in a gryphon’s nest – the life of the mother and all the other little eggs is usually enough to hatch it – but then he saw Shira’s sick little tree and the dear girl dying at its roots, and he had quite the stroke of inspiration. Why not remove the hassle of catching prey for the egg when there were certainly people stupid and gullible enough to be tricked into feeding it willingly? So he brought the sick little darling and her tree back to Scara Brae, and the Legion of Light was born.”

“Wait, you mean . . .” Eltarri’s head began to hurt with the painful realization that she was one of those stupid and gullible people. “The purpose of the Legion of Light is to provide people to feed that egg?”

Gamen sat forward and peered through the darkness at the half-elf.

“Don’t tell me you believed that it was a real army,” he scoffed with a pitying snicker. “There were only three of you, for mercy’s sake, doing all those bogus ‘missions’ that Beleger came up with to keep you occupied. We just needed you two to stick around until it was your turn to feed the darlin’ egg. Of course, not just any thing can feed it, the prey has to have some kind of magical properties or innate capacity for it, you know.”

“What about the branding? And the cloak and gloves . . .”

Gamen grinned. “All a show of bells and whistles to make y’all feel loved and needed. Which you were, actually. Humans just don’t cut the bill, and . . .”

Eltarri’s breath grated from her throat in harsh bursts and she stopped listening. She could feel the purple globe strapped to her torso and imagined that she could feel the thing sucking her life out of her even as it lay so warm and docilely against her back. She squirmed against the manacles that held her arms away from her body, arching her back as if she could shake the thing loose from its ropes.

“Hey, hey, calm down, Aier. You’ve got at least a few more days before you’ll start to feel it draining on you. Just enjoy your health while it’s still yours.”

“Gamen, we’re Oromis’ prisoners! Why are you letting him do this? What do you think he’s going to do with the egg once it’s eaten me?”

Gamen blinked slowly, his black eyes rolling back as he said, “Strap it onto me, of course. I may not have quite the longevity of you elves, but I’ve got enough magical ability to fuel a small country.”

“But I’m only half Elven,” Eltarri protested. “And I don’t have any magical ability!”

Gamen wagged a finger at her. “Now, now, Aier, don’t be modest. You still would’ve had a good long life. I hear even the Elven mutts get that. And yes, I have know that you’re not fully Elven. It never really mattered, though Bel seemed to dislike you for it. Can’t speak certainly for the fool, though. As for magical ability . . . most elves have at least the capacity for something. I wonder if your human blood dilutes that.”

“But . . . they can’t see us through these walls.” She searched her mind desperately for a way to convince him to help her. How could he be so resigned to death when he wasn’t even chained up? “They can’t force you to feed the egg, so maybe we could just leave it in the corner of the room and find a way-”

“To escape? No, I’m afraid not. As you said, they just won’t bother with us. They’d let us starve to death and then we’d be dead anyway in a much slower and more painful manner.” He grinned and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Unless you just wanted to duke it out for eating rights here and now?”

Eltarri considered agreeing for a few seconds, but she was unarmed and had the obvious disadvantage of not being able to wield magic. Besides, it would be difficult to fight with the egg attached to her, but if she set it down it’d screech and distract her from the fight. And since Gamen was human, the cry would be a disadvantage that was distinctly her own.

“What about Beleger?” She knew she was reaching for straws now. “Couldn’t he still come and save us?”

Gamen shrugged with a grimace. “Yeah . . . maybe, but I wouldn’t count on it. I’m afraid that warrior is actually more of a selfish prick than a damsel-rescuing knight. Besides, if he isn’t dead yet, he’s probably already looking for a new hiding place, concocting some new scheme to beat Oromis and the harpies.”

“He already has a new hiding place,” Eltarri snapped without thinking. A second later she regretted the revelation. Gamen turned to her, his face in a bland, somehow fake-looking expression of surprise.

“Is that so?” His eyes revealed how eager he really was even though his voice was only mildly curious. “Where is it this time?”

An alarm went off in Eltarri’s mind at the innocent question. Why would it matter if you were already resigned to dying in this cell?

“Um . . . I’m not really sure of the address exactly,” she lied. “And I’m pretty bad at giving directions.”

“But you know where it is? You could lead me there?”

Eltarri nodded hesitantly. Gamen’s face broke into a toothy grin.

“If you have still have the harpy egg and Beleger already has a new hideout . . . Oh, I like you, Aier. I like you very much.” He jumped to his feet and began to pace, rubbing his hands together as though he were trying to start a fire. “You’ve put some energy back into this old man, and suddenly he’s wanting to have another go at defeating his arch nemesis. Darling, I think we should start working on an escape plan.”

[Chiroptera]

It was a simple plan, once Gamen had finished concocting it. Eltarri tried to help, but she’d been unconscious for the trip to the prison and had no idea of where they were. Gamen, on the other hand, said that he’d been walked around the building above, escorted between several rooms as Oromis had tried to decide immediately how to kill him. In the end, the fat wizard had chosen to sleep on it and decide the Black Wizard’s fate in the morning. Eltarri watched him brainstorm, his eyes bright and his hands gesturing wildly as he devised an escape. Eltarri felt rather useless, especially since getting her out of the manacles was just going to be another obstacle, but by the time he was done she was feeling excited and even a little hopeful.

“First things first,” Gamen said sharply as the first light of dawn began to light up the dungeon. “We have to get you out those chains.”

He stepped over to her and stood on tiptoe to examine them, then chuckled gleefully and reached into his pocket. “Oh, aren’t we just lucky that Oromis is a great, stupid moron? Where did he get these manacles, an antique store?”

The wizards hands rose and he fiddled with the manacle around her wrist while muttering unintelligible words, and then the manacle sprang open. Eltarri’s arm dropped to her side, fingers tingling, but by the time the blood had really begun to return to her fingers, her other hand was free and Gamen was beaming at her proudly. Eltarri bit her lower lip to stifle groans of pain as her arms began to burn and freeze at the same time.

I wish I could say that I don’t deserve this torture, she thought as she rubbed her arms, then shook her head to keep away the depressing thoughts of her guilt. There would be time to brood later, but for now, she had a jailbreak to worry about.

“Aier, one quick thing,” Gamen said seriously when she’d recovered enough from the pain to stand upright. “If something should happen to me . . . I want you to go on alone, all right?” He spoke shame-facedly, unable to meet her eyes. “Last night I remember telling you a lot more than you were ever supposed to know, but Oromis likes his truth spells and I wouldn’t have said as much as I did if I was in my right mind. Anyway, I want you to know that I really have appreciated your presence, and if I . . . die, or something, I want you to go straight back to Beleger and help him defeat Oromis. Can you do that?”

Eltarri wanted to laugh bitterly in his face. “You ensured that I would go back to Beleger when you gave him control over my earrings. If I don’t go back to him, he’ll just make me deaf again. Don’t worry, I’m not going to run away.”

“There’s my girl,” Gamen grinned. Eltarri shuddered.

[Chiroptera]

Five minutes later, Eltarri’s heart was pounding as she crouched beside the staircase, her eyes fixed on the door above. The air around her was still and silent – the only sound she heard was the roar of the blood in her head – but this deafness was caused by the earplugs that were jammed tightly into her ears. The purple harpy egg sat on a step near the bottom of the staircase, and though Eltarri couldn’t hear its screeching wail, she hadn’t touched it in a good fifteen seconds, and she had no doubt that every harpy, elf, cat, and dog in the vicinity was aware of its existence.

The door overhead burst open as a flurry of feathers, hair, and clothes that poured into the small cellar. Eltarri saw enraged faces with mouth open in livid shouts as the harpies swept in. Her throat tightened when she counted six, all swooping in to land on the ground or to hang from the beams of the ceiling overhead. Their eyes scoured the room and touched on her more than once, but every time they kept looking, shuffling around with tense claws and shouting at each other in high-pitched voices. Eltarri looked over the stairs and met Gamen’s eyes. He was standing on the other side of the staircase, pressed equally closely against the wooden beams that held it up. He flashed her a grin and motioned with his head towards the open door at the top of the stairs.

This is almost too easy, Eltarri thought grimly as she stood and edged around the stairs. Gamen said that the invisibility would last as long as he could hold it, but it was still unnerving to be in a room full of murdering bird-women who’d rip her to shreds if they caught wind of her . . .

Wait, could harpies smell?

Stifling a yelp Eltarri scooped up the harpy egg and dashed up the stairs, relieved to hear Gamen’s clumsy footsteps coming after her. They might not be able to smell, but they definitely could hear, and the clomping of boots on wood would definitely be audible.

Eltarri was running as soon as she’d reached the top of the stairs. She recognized the hallway and stopped in surprise and confusion. She was still in the house of Talien Rekthiel! Her head whipped to the left and she recognized the path she’d taken the night before to get to the study. She didn’t have to consider her options before she was sprinting down that hall, pulling the plugs out of her ears as she threw open the door and entered the room.

Her sword was still in the room, propped up against the desk as though it had slid straight through the man and then been abandoned. Other than her weapon, the room was spotless, as un-like a crime scene as she had ever seen. But that was where she’d killed a man, where she’d pushed her sword through a living person’s-

“Aier, what are you doing?”

The wizard’s voice shook her out of her stupor. She ran forward and picked up her sword, then spun to face him as she set it back into its harness.

“All right, we can go now.”

The door to the study burst open. Three harpies stepped in and grinned at her with open mouths. Eltarri hazarded a guess that the invisibility had worn off.

“Aier,” Gamen muttered to her with wide, somber eyes fixed on the harpies. “The window, on my signal.”

Sunlight was coming in through the glass panes behind Rekthiel’s big desk. Eltarri nodded and began to edge backwards, away from the harpy-filled doorway.

“NOW!”

Eltarri burst into motion. She vaulted onto the table, hugged the harpy egg to her chest, and threw herself backwards at the closed window.

[Chiroptera]

Glass shards that had gotten into her clothes pricked at her as she picked herself up off the grass, wincing at the pain in her hip and shoulders. A hole in cloth and skin had been torn into her shoulder, but for the most part she had come out unscathed. She heard the shouts of guards, but Gamen had yet to come after her through the window that was luckily only a few feet off the ground. Then his face popped into view.

“Go, Aier, go without me!”

One part of her wanted to refuse, to play the hero and to run back to save the wizard. The rest of her laughed. You aren’t even a good guy anymore, remember? You’re a cold-blooded killer. Besides, he’s the one who branded you, and who let Shira die, and. . .

She ran.

She hadn’t been sure that she would remember how to get back to Beleger’s hideout, but the route came to her as she went and the trip passed quickly. People stared at her dark clothes, huge sword, and the bruises on her face, but the half-elf was too intent on her return to care. The one thing she noticed was the sudden superfluity of small black mice that she observed as she ran – it might even have been the same mouse – but she dismissed the glimpses as irrelevant, maybe even as figments of her imagination. Her mind was screwed up and she knew it.

She was out of breath and exhausted by the time she reached the ramshackle inn, but she stormed in and stomped through the front room and kitchen, shoving open the swinging door to stand in front of Beleger with her chin held high. The high elf was seated on the chair in front of the desk, and he barely looked up at her as she came in.

“You’re late.”

“He’s dead. I killed him.” The declaration slid easily from her mouth. Or maybe it was a confession . . .

“Killed who?”

The cheery call came from behind Eltarri and chilled the half-elf’s blood. The swinging door was pushed aside and a grey-haired man stepped into the room, his hands tucked into his belt and a pleased smile on his face. Beleger’s face stayed neutral but for the tightening of a muscle on his jaw. His eyes flicked to Eltarri, then fixed back onto the man.

“You, Rekthiel,” he said casually.

“Oh no, really? You mean I’m dead?” The man feigned wiping away tears and then turned so that his gaze landed on Eltarri. He pretended to jump back in surprise and then blew her a kiss. “Hello there, darlin’. It’s good to see you again.”

Eltarri had to force herself to breathe. How . . . she’d seen her sword sliding around in his intestines! How could he be . . .

“Oh, darlin’, your face is all pale. Has my visit disturbed you? Were you not expecting to ever have to see the man you killed again?” His mocking voice rang through the room. “Or maybe it’s just the ugliness of my face that disturbs you so. Lemme help ya out.”

Rekthiel jumped into the air, and as he did his whole body shifted. When he hit the ground again, he was taller and his face was sharply angled. His clothes had changed and spiky ears poked up from white-blond hair, framing eyes that were piercingly blue.

“Is this better, or do you dislike old Belly as much as everybody else does?” The voice was a close match, but the smile on his face made him sound too jovial to be a perfect reproduction of the high elf. Eltarri stepped back with a gasp, looking to the real Beleger, who stared unimpressed at his replica.

“Maybe I’ll just choose a form that you’re more familiar with,” Rekthiel’s Beleger continued. He jumped again and landed as a human, a man that Eltarri had left for dead not even a full hour ago.

“You’re . . .”

“The wizard Gamen?” He grinned in obvious enjoyment of her distress, his oily voice rich with mirth. “Is, was, but probably won’t be again.”

[Chiroptera]

Eltarri felt her stomach knotting. “What did you do with the real Gamen?”

His grin stretched. “There never was a ‘real Gamen,’ little elfling. It’s always been me, myself, and I, yours truly, Garstisienfunklestein the third, Shapeshifter and Mastermind Extraordinaire! Me and Bel have been in cahoots probably since before you were born. We’re old buds, ain’t we, Bel?” The grin he turned on the high elf looked more like a snarl.

“You’re no friend of mine, pissbrain.”

Gamen feigned a hurt expression. “So rude! And after the little elfling invited me into your home and everything. She’s quite the obedient little sport, killing people just because you tell her to. What was going on in that dark little cellar when I left you two alone? I knew I didn’t spend nearly enough spying time as a fly.”

Eltarri’s jaw dropped before she could catch it. A shapeshifter?

“You look so confused, little elfling,” Garst said sympathetically. “I guess Beleger hasn’t told you any of the truth? Naughty, naughty, little elf-man. You made her take the egg, so don’t you think you owe her a little explanation before she dies?”

If angry looks could kill, the shapeshifter would have been dead.

“Fine, I’ll tell her,” Garst said with a relishing laugh, sitting down on the edge of the bed. His movements were relaxed, but at the same time he looked just as tense as Beleger. Eltarri could tell that there was no love lost between these two, and their eyes never left each other’s faces. “You see, Aier, I’m not really a wizard. Beleger’s the one with the magical talent. I’m just a humble shapeshifter, and I’ve been passing myself as both the head honcho of the Legion of Light and second-in-command to ‘Oromis the Evil,’ who was, until last week, actually just a stupid, non-magic-wielding fool.” Garst sneered with a dismissing wave of his hand. “A fool . . .but a rich fool. We kept him alive because he had good connections in the city guard and made sure that our little harpy-training base remained uninvestigated. In return I kept him occupied with atypical pets and made him think he was a wizard and that all of us were his servants, there to help him fight a wicked rival.” Garst chuckled with victorious pleasure. “I wish I’d told him that his great opponent was actually just his right-hand man before I killed him.” He sighed tragically. “At least it was fun to watch him try to cast spells on me without Beleger there to actually make them work. Poor, stupid fat man.”

Eltarri blinked, wishing she could sit down. Beleger was the wizard? Oromis was just a front . . . and Gamen had never really existed?

She licked her lips and halfheartedly asked, “Who is Talien Rekthiel?”

“What’s this? You tried to kill a man whom you didn’t even know? Dear me, it seems that you elves have quite the deficiency in the ethics and morals department,” Garst tsked chidingly. “Rekthiel was the last owner of that deliciously large house you visited last night, but he’s been dead for a couple of weeks too. I needed a new public face, and Oromis’ lardly body just wasn’t cutting it for me. Besides, Elven girls were apparently his ‘thing,’ and with those chains in that excellent cellar, who needs willing victims when sycophantic nobles will send over their lovely little slaves for free?”

“But . . . why?” Her voice trembled and she backed up against the doorway, wishing she could run away from these horrible men but too filled with questions to make herself leave.

“Oh, you know,” Garst answered. “Different branches of the same company, that kind of thing. Harpy eggs are hard to come by, but willing victims are even more scarce. If we tried to keep you feeders with all the adult harpies, even you stupid females would have started to get suspicious eventually. And harpies can’t resist a good taunting every now and then, so it’d only be a matter of time before they spilt the beans.”

“At least,” Beleger spoke up for the first time, his voice an iron whip, “that was the initial idea. But it seems that not all partnerships are destined for success.”

Garst shrugged modestly. “What can I say? I’m a being of great aspiration. Why split something good when I can have it all to myself?”

“You turned the harpies on me, dirtbag,” Beleger growled. “I had to kill three of them yesterday because they tried to steal my egg.”

“Yes, well, sorry, old boy, but as I said before, this partnership thing isn’t working out. And now that the harpies have come to accept that they’re working just for me and your little magical demonstrations aren’t useful anymore, it seems that your life no longer serves any purpose. Will it hurt your feelings if I kill you?”

One corner of Beleger’s mouth turned up in a mirthless smile. “You’re welcome to try.”

[Chiroptera]

For a few minutes, the two could have been carved from stone. They sat unblinking, each with an insincere smile on his face. Eltarri stood against the doorway, not daring to breathe. It was almost as if a spell had been cast over the room, freezing everything in preparation for something. Unable to help it, Eltarri blinked.

When her eyes opened, Gamen was gone. In his place stood a massive tiger with unnaturally long fangs and claws of steel that dug into the mattress beneath him. Beleger was still seated, and his eyes flickered disinterestedly over the cat.

“Nice, Garst,” the high elf said sarcastically. “Very intimidating.”

The tiger roared and sprang towards the seated high elf. Beleger moved in a blur, rising to his feet and lifting his hand in front of his face with fingers outstretched, and the cat froze, suspended in mid-air.

“Come on, Bel,” The tiger growled. “Do you really think that I don’t know every trick in your bag?”

The cat’s tail lashed, suddenly growing longer and whipping past its head to wrap around the high elf’s neck. Beleger’s hands flew to the striped noose and the tiger’s lunge continued. Its claws sank into Beleger’s shoulders and slammed him to the ground, landing on top of him and biting at his face.

Eltarri stood by the door and stared, feeling stupid because she didn’t know which one she should help. Gamen – Garst – was the leader of the harpy mob and was an unrepentant murderer, but Beleger had remorselessly killed Shira and the shopkeeper’s family, and it’d been his idea to trap stupid girls like herself into dying for a harpy egg. She couldn’t decide which was the lesser of two evils.

A sharp feline scream came from the tiger a moment before it flew back through the air to slam into the wall over the bed with an audible crack. Blood dripped from its fangs as it fell to the mattress, but it landed as a giant boar with razor-sharp tusks and stood panting, pawing the bed with its hoof. Beleger was struggling to his feet, blood dripping from six holes along his collarbones. His face was gashed but still he frowned as he muttered, one hand pulled back to his shoulder and the other thrown out towards the boar. The air in the room grew suddenly cold. White fog poured from the boar’s nostrils as it charged forward. Beleger’s outstretched hand tightened into a fist, and a wave of hot energy rolled to meet the boar, charring the carpet and ceiling as it rushed forward. The heat of the wave made Eltarri turn away, but when she looked back she saw that the boar was gone. In it’s place was the smell of roasted meat and a billowing cloud of darkness that seeped across the room to surround the high elf’s body.

“Can ya see me, Bel?” The darkness’ voice was inexplicably like a shouted whisper. Grunts of pain came from within the roiling darkness, accompanied by the sounds of flesh being repeatedly struck by something heavy. A scream echoed in the room, and then the darkness suddenly dissipated, exploding outward like a cloud of sand. The particles flew apart and stuck to the walls, sliding stickily down to the floor. Beleger was down on one knee, his shirt in tatters and blood dripping from a number of wounds, arms outstretched to either side. His limbs trembled with weariness, but his arms dropped and he stood to stagger towards Eltarri, who cowered away at his approach.

Run, idiot! But her legs were frozen. Blood poured down the side of his face, and Eltarri saw with a wave of revulsion that his hoop-studded ear had been ripped off and was attached by only a strip of flesh. Just the sight of it made her own ears ache.

“Listen to me,” He said in a grating whisper, barely able to talk through the pain. Eltarri’s eyes stayed fixed on his ruined ear. “Listen to me now, you stupid-”

The world went silent. The sudden deafness made her eyes snap reflexively to his moving lips.

“I need you to destroy the egg. Quickly,” He stumbled forward and put one bloody hand against her forehead. Even drenched in blood his palm was cold, and Eltarri was too stricken by her deafness to pull away. Every time her ears stopped working it was as if the punishment was a novel infliction. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to the horrible feeling of going deaf. Beleger still spoke, his lips moving quickly and his blue eyes feverish. He was muttering in another language, but a moment later he took his hand off her head and spoke more clearly, though just as quickly. His trembling seemed worse and he could barely focus his eyes on her face.

“He’s going to reform soon, and if he kills me he’s going to take you and that egg and you’ll be dead in two weeks. I augmented your sword, use it quickly, and-”

He cut off with a wince, putting a hand over his one intact ear and reeling away from her and the violet egg in her hands. What was he hearing? It couldn’t be screeching, she was still hanging onto the egg. But he hadn’t restored her hearing, and the tiny black dots on the floor were amassing into a muscular figure that towered over the high elf.

I can’t let him kill Bel before he gives me back my hearing! It was a selfish motivation, but it gave her the push she needed to toss the egg onto the ground and release her sword from its sling. She stepped forward, towards the now eight feet tall tiger on the other side of the room who seemed to be having trouble staying intact. The beast’s muzzle drooped and one of its eyes was sliding down the side of its face and it struggled to remain upright. Beleger flung out a shaking arm and glanced at her with a frown, his jaw clenched in pain, then began to murmur words and turned his face back to his opponent, who barely had to leap to reach the high elf.

Obey him. One last time.

[Chiroptera]

She turned back to the egg and lifted her sword high, but before she could bring the weapon down she was struck in the back and knocked onto her face, barely managing to keep hold of her sword. She rolled over and sat up in time to see the cat’s impossibly long tail wrapping around the egg, lofting it high as the rest of the cat remained preoccupied with slashing at Beleger, who was fending him off with one arm while he pushed himself upright against the wall.

Blast. Eltarri didn’t look at the high elf, afraid of what his reaction would be to another one of her botched jobs. The egg was probably still screaming, but now it was too far out of Eltarri’s reach to be quieted. Out of the corner of her eye Eltarri saw the high elf twisting in her direction, and she jerked her head towards him just as he turned to look at her. Their eyes met, and he mouthed three words at her before the giant cat knocked him again onto his back.

“Get my scimitar.”

Eltarri was up and moving, reaching beneath the desk to pick up Beleger’s belt. She pulled out one of his thin, curved blades.

“Beleger,” she tried to scream, hoping it wasn’t garbled and that it’d be heard over the egg’s din, then drew her arm back and hurled the weapon at his head.

Not surprisingly, her aim was off. The blade spun through the air, heading towards the wall on a course that would miss the high elf’s back by a good two feet. His head twitched her way in response to her call, and she saw his eyes land on the badly-thrown sword. With a grimace the high elf pushed a suddenly flame-covered hand into the tiger’s reaching maw and muttered a word that made the cat jerk back, tongue licking at blackened lips for an instant before it was once again bounding for him. Beleger turned his back on the tiger, snatched his scimitar out of the air, and threw the blade in one smooth motion at the tiger, who ducked with a catty smirk.

The sword was still spinning through the air, but this time it was horizontal, and it flew over the tiger’s back and slid cleanly through his elongated tail a foot above its base. The blade didn’t cut the tail off so much as it divided the shapeshifter’s body. It converged into a bloodless black mass and slapped wetly onto the ground before oozing across the floor to merge with the cat’s leg.

The egg hit the floor and rolled beneath the bed, and Eltarri dived after it. She grabbed the violet orb and was about to get out when the fight moved to the ground directly in front of the bed. She clenched her jaw in annoyance as feet and paws flashed in front of her. She needed to destroy the egg, but there was no way she could get the leverage to use her sword while under the bed!

With a slam that vibrated through the floor, Beleger was flat on his back again, though Eltarri saw that this time he had one of his scimitars in hand. His face was covered in cuts and bruises , but when he saw her he rolled the opposite way, jumping to his feet and leading the cat towards the other side of the room. Eltarri took the opening and crawled out, then, carrying the egg in one hand and her sword in the other, she ran out of the room.

The kitchen was mercifully still, and she set the egg onto the ground and took hold of her sword in both hands.

This one’s for you, Shira.

She lifted the weapon and brought its sharpened edge down as hard as she could onto the globe. Her hit was wide and the black blade wedged itself into the stone floor, sending a jar up her arms that rattled the girl’s teeth.

Just kidding. THIS one’s yours.

She lifted the sword again and slammed the flat of the blade onto the purple egg.

[Chiroptera]

The world lit up in an explosion of white light. Eltarri felt a wave of icy heat pour over her, and when the afterimage faded from her eyes she saw that the kitchen around her was completely unharmed. Nothing moved, but the egg was gone.

She set the tip of her sword into the ground so that she could lean against it as she stared at the place where it had been. Not a single purple fragment remained, no hint that the harpy egg had ever existed. How could she have so completely destroyed it?

The silence was ominous, and Eltarri kept her sword in hand as she went back through the swinging doors. The room was utterly motionless. Furniture lay in strewn fragments across the room, burn marks scarred the floor and ceiling, and nearly every wall had claw marks etched into the plaster. Dark, viscous fluid dripped off a melting mound of a gooey black substance on the bed. The heap had three protrusions that looked to the half-elf like a head and arms, and smoke drifted from the growing puddle on the ground. Eltarri swallowed hard and looked away. In the corner farthest away from the door lay the high elf with his back against the wall, his eyes closed and his chin resting on his chest. Every inch of exposed skin was covered with ghastly red wounds that looked like terrible burns.

Eltarri’s heart sank. He was dead. He’d died before he could give back her hearing. She’d failed once again. Air rushed heavily out of her mouth as her sword dropped from her hand to the floor. She couldn’t hear it land, but as soon as it did the high elf’s head jerked up, his abraded eyelids opening to reveal blood-covered orbs that rolled sightlessly in their sockets.

“Is that you, half-breed?”

Eltarri’s throat closed with a mixture of relief and repulsion. The high elf was a mess, and blood still poured from the side of his head, but he was alive! She was only a little ashamed that his life cheered her because it meant she could get her hearing back. When did I become so selfish? She had to fight nausea just to keep looking at him.

She knelt beside him and cleared her throat. His head turned towards her, but his eyes never really settled on her. Beneath the blood, Eltarri could see that his once brilliantly blue eyes had been burned by the same force that’d destroyed his skin and that had probably killed the shapeshifter.

“Good. That means Garst’s dead.”

Eltarri cleared her throat again, more urgently this time.

“What are you,” he paused. “Oh. I don’t know if I can still . . .” He stopped again. “I need my earrings.”

Eltarri’s stomach clenched. The ear was completely torn off, undoubtedly lying somewhere in the room. He expected her to bring it back to him?

You’ll do it if you want to hear again.

She searched the floor on her hands and knees and found it beneath the bed. Surprisingly, it didn’t have the same burns on it that the rest of the elf was covered with. She wondered if the harpy egg had somehow only targeted living things. But if that were the case, why was she unscathed?

Glad for her gloves, Eltarri looked away from her hand as she carried the ear by its tip and dropped it into the high elf’s lap. He swallowed visibly and slowly felt along the earrings, his burnt fingers stopping at the last one on the lobe and somehow taking it off without breaking the ear. He held it in his palm and Eltarri saw that there was a small break in the circle.

“I need to . . .” His raw hand rose in the air, feeling blindly towards her. She took his hand and, acting on instinct, guided it to her ear. His finger ran along the lower ridge of her ear, and then stopped moving as his lips began to move in what Eltarri had recognized as spell-casting. The ring in his other hand floated into the air and flew at her head, and this time Eltarri clenched her muscles in preparation for the piercing.

Gamen had been right; it did hurt less when she didn’t know the pain was coming.

“Stop that whimpering,” he ordered, his voice hoarse and irritated. “Giving you that one makes the earrings’ magic self-sustaining, so they should last a few thousands years unless you do something stupid to break them. As long as you keep those earrings in, you’ll be able to hear. Got it?”

Eltarri nodded dumbly. Beleger’s hand fell away from her face and he rested his head against the wall behind him, his breathing shallow.

“Thanks,” she said softly. It was good to hear the wind again.

[Chiroptera]

Beleger didn’t reply. His face was blank, his red eyes painfully vivid against the splotched pinkness of his skin. Eltarri wanted to leave, to put as much distance between herself and all of this as possible. But unanswered questions screamed in her mind, and she knew she’d never be at peace if she didn’t get some answers.

“What happened to the egg?” She demanded.

Beleger’s clenched face relaxed slightly into something that hinted at a smile. “I augmented your sword, made it about as powerful as a dragon’s tooth. It fades, though, so don’t try something like that again. Breaking the egg made it release all the life energy that it’d sucked from all of its victims.”

“Why didn’t it hurt me?”

“I blocked your connection to it, which is why it started screaming again even when you were holding it. It made you impervious to its drain, but also to its outpour.”

Eltarri glanced back at Garst’s runny corpse. There’d been enough energy in that little thing to kill off a shapeshifter?

“Then why are you still alive?” The questions sounded rude, especially considering the state that he was in now, but Eltarri was past the point of politeness. She glared at him with unyielding resolve, refusing to be put off by the horror of his face.

“Don’t be too disappointed; I shouldn’t last long,” he answered sardonically. “I knew that I would have had to kill Garst eventually, and the blast from an egg is the best way to take out morphing creatures like him. One of my earrings had an enchantment that was supposed to protect me from it.”

Despite the determination that kept her there, tears welled up in her eyes. She’d been right. In a way, the chest had held the answer to Beleger’s fourth loop. But the knowledge just brought a bitter taste to her mouth.

“You knew that Rekthiel was really Garst, didn’t you? You sent me to kill him because you wanted me to get caught.”

“Stop with the indignation,” he ordered waspishly. “I knew he wouldn’t kill you if you were feeding the egg, and I knew he’d find a way to trick you into bringing him back here.”

Eltarri thought back to Gamen’s “invisibility spell” and his noble-seeming self-sacrifice, and she realized that the harpies had probably only pretended to not be able to see them to trick her into thinking she’d gotten away. The little black mouse . . .

“You wanted to fight him?”

“He needed to die. A shapeshifter with harpy subordinates is too dangerous to have on the loose.”

For a few seconds, Eltarri almost felt respect for the high elf, for the altruism that had motivated his actions. But then she remembered Shira.

“Why did you set the mansion on fire?”

“I didn’t. That little bag Gamen told you to give to me had some of the powder that he uses to color flames. It was his way of warning me that he’d switched sides. I didn’t . . . I wasn’t fast enough.”

“But that night at the jeweler’s shop, that was you who . . . why did you . . . why did we . . .” Eltarri couldn’t find the words to finish.

Beleger’s breathing was becoming more labored. “I need mythril for my spells.”

“You killed a man’s entire family for metal?”

“The missions were for your sake, too,” he reminded her.

“But you . . . we killed those people!”

His sightless eyes slowly closed. His breathing was becoming more labored, and the last words she heard him utter were said with such flippant conviction that her blood ran cold in her veins.

“They were . . . just . . . humans.”

[Chiroptera]

_ _____ _ _____ _ _____ _ ______ _ _____ _
_ _____ _ _____ _ _____ _ ______ _ _____ _


Eltarri’s dragging steps took her to the nearest guard tower, where she reported the possible presence of a harpy army at the home of a certain human noble and several mysterious bodies at an abandoned inn in a less-than-reputable part of town. It wasn’t fair to the neighbors to wait until the rotting corpses of the Legion of Light announced their own presence. Beleger had been alive when she left, but blood had still been pouring from his wounds, and his breathing had only been less than promising of a recovery.

She spent the rest of the day wandering through the streets, buying and eating food from vendors that she almost immediately threw up in dark alleys. Scare Brae was a busy city, and the bustle and hum of daily life was much more pleasant when she was able to hear it, yet the city held no joy. Every street reminded her of Shira’s bouncing run, every fancy house made her think of the mansions, and every shop and inn were like cold slaps in the face. Her head couldn’t wrap around all that had happened in this city. Every time she tried to sit down and think through the betrayals and the chicanery and the deaths, her mind froze and her stomach twisted nauseatingly, as if the memories themselves were enough to make her physically ill.

She spent the night curled up on the street in her black cloak, and the next morning she walked to the docks and approached a gristly-looking man standing near the gangplank of the ugliest vessel at the port.

“Is this boat yours?”

“It’s a ship,” he corrected indignantly. “And yeah, she’s mine.”

“I need a one-way ticket off the island, please.”

The rotund man scratched his belly and eyed her sleek cloak and gloves appraisingly. Eltarri made a mental note to keep the gear stowed in her bag from there on out. The rich blackness of the material would probably attract souls as dark as her own.

“Where d’ya wanna go?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Eltarri replied wearily, her hand creeping up to rub unconsciously at the brand on the back of her neck, “as long as it’s far away from Scara Brae.”








SPOILS:

Moderately temperature-resistant black cloak (thick, tightly-woven cloth with a slit that allows her sword to hang on the outside)
Moderately temperature-resistant black gloves (soft leather, enchanted to fit whatever hands put them on)
Six hoop earrings (mythril, only four visible) that allow her to hear

[Witchblade]

This is by far the longest solo I have ever read, in fact it ranks up there in the longest quest I have ever judged and I’m not exactly sure if I can classify that as a good thing. I’m only going to do the judgement on Chiroptera as the other character Wolf was not around long enough and I do not believe is even on the site anymore.

Story

Continuity: - 5 I know where this story left of, only because I read and judged the previous quest in which Eltarri lost her hearing. You briefly give mention the creature that did this to your character, if I remember correctly some kind of strange bat-like thing, but that’s it. If it weren’t for the simple fact that I have read the previous quest I would know nothing of her hearing loss.

Now, the storyline of this quest was just messed. I’m not sure what your intended story was, or if it changed along the way. All I do know was that it was an extremely elaborate tale woven for the sheer fact of Eltarri getting her hearing back and a few other items. All the business with the harpies and warring wizards who weren’t really wizards and a pissy high elf just seemed very unnecessary. I did not enjoy reading the majority of this, I kept waiting and hoping for it to end soon because the found the whole thing a little ludicrous.

Setting: - 7 For the most part, the settings were described with enough detail to let the reader know where the characters were. There were a few instances during the thread where setting was forgotten and towards the end you seemed to grow lazy over describing it. Also, keep in mind the interaction with your setting, as there was very little of that going on. Just, this is the hallway and this is what’s decorating it. The one thing I really did like was the descriptions without sound. I thought you did a marvellous job describing the world around Eltarri without the use of any kind of noise. As the reader, it was very easy for me to jump into this world of hers and not be able to hear a thing.

Pacing: - 4 You really suffered here. The quest was just way too long for what was going on with it. I’m sure it either could have been condensed or it could have been divided into two parts. It was a roller coaster ride of ups and downs where the reader always expected more to happen and was left rather disappointed in the end. Even the climactic moment of the thread kind of lost something and just fell flat. I think by the time the climax finally came around, the reader was just too tired of being told all these different things over and over again that they just wanted the damn thing to finally end.

Character

Dialogue: - 8 The dialogue between characters and NPC’s was good. It was always easy for the reader to pick out which characters were saying what even if you didn’t tag them, because all of the main characters in the story had specific ways of talking. Beleger was always short, curt and right to the point. Shira was very jumpy and bubbly and Eltarri, well she was some kind of neutral, curious thing really. You did a good job bringing the characters to life through their dialogue.

Action: - 5 For the most part, the NPC’s all seemed to stay true to their characters through their actions. There was one part that kind of left me scratching my head in terms of NPC’s though. And that was when Beleger seemed extremely concerned over the fact that Shira was dying. By your own description, the emotions on his face seemed genuine and he seemed worried about her. Then in the next post she was dead and he didn’t care anymore. I get it that he was just using her to feed the harpy egg, but it seemed like you were trying to go somewhere else with Beleger and then changed your mind and continued on with the murdering bastard aspect of him.

As for Eltarri, most of her actions throughout this quest were things I would never think her capable of. When she ran back into the burning building I was cheering for her, when she tried to run away I was cheering for her. When she so easily submitted to becoming one of these legions all for her hearing the cheering stopped. Eltarri has always classified herself as a hero and heroes are thrown into strange circumstances where they have to do things they don’t always like, but Eltarri seemed to do a heck of a lot of that in this quest. I kept waiting for her to try and escape again, or actually do it. Screw her hearing, innocent people aren’t worth that, she can find another healer. But even in the end, after everything she still accepted Beleger’s last gift of her hearing fully restored.

Persona: - 5 The personality of the NPC’s was great. I especially liked Shira how she could seem so innocent and bubbly and yet think so little about killing people. Beleger was a liked character, even though he was a prick and an asshole I was kind of hoping he’d show some redeeming quality by the end of the thread and was a little disappointed when that didn’t happen. I even question why he returned Eltarri’s hearing, she was after all just a half-breed to him and he never thought too highly of her.

Eltarri’s personality seemed to stay true to her character; it was mostly her actions that went against her personality. She cared about the innocents and she cared about saving people and being the hero she wants to be. The only problem was she just seemed too interested in her own selfish concerns. This is even mentioned by the character several times throughout the quest and yet she never dwells on it for very long or nothing ever comes of it. It’s like ‘oh, I’m becoming selfish, but who cares’, well the reader does.

Writing Style

Mechanics: - 7 There were a few grammar and spelling mistakes. The majority of them started to show towards the end of the quest, especially on the last half of the second page and on the third page. For the most part they were extra words added in, ‘they had to had’ something along those lines. It detracted from the flow of your writing and caused me to pause a few times. I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but reread your work, it’s never foolproof but it’ll help.

Technique: - 5 I didn’t really notice any techniques used throughout this quest. This is where I wonder if you changed any of the storyline from the quest while you were going through it because there was no foreshadowing about what happened at the end. The reader was just led by the hand through the whole thing.

Clarity: - 7 The story itself could have been a lot clearer, but the writing was fine. Besides those few spelling and grammar mistakes that forced me to reread the sentence, there wasn’t any problem.

Wild Card: - 5 It looks like you had something really interesting in mind for this quest, but I’m not entirely sure what happened along the way. There was too much storyline going on and too many different stories being thrown at a reader who was waiting for Eltarri to stand up and fight for the good side she kept saying she was on. The reader just grew tired of her feeling sorry for her and was waiting for her to do something about her situation.

Total: 58

Reward:

Eltarri receives 900 experience 300 GP!
Wolf receives 100 experience and 50 GP!

Eltarri also receives six mythril hoop earrings that have restored her hearing and the moderately temperature resistant black gloves and cloak.

[Cyrus the virus]

EXP and gold added!!

Chiropetra levels up!

EDIT: The corrected amount of EXP is 2200 EXP, and it has been added.

Letho