Death of a Darklord

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  Elaine sat on a log by the fire, Blaine beside her. He was on his second sandwich. Silvanus and Averil sat across the fire, eyeing the morning fare.

  “How are you this morning?” Elaine asked.

  “I feel quite myself again.” Silvanus gave her a small nod.

  Konrad had convinced the strangers not to mention anything to Jonathan of Elaine’s new talent, fearing that one more magical ability would make the mage-finder send her packing. Elaine had told no one of what she and Jonathan had discussed before the fire last night. She doubted Jonathan could think less of her than he already did, nor she of him.

  Fredric and Randwulf reclined before the fire, wrapped thickly against the cold. Konrad had bandaged the wounds that still bled. Silvanus had been too weak to heal them yesterday, so Elaine had volunteered, but the elf thought she was too new. He had helped her heal himself. Neither of the warriors could do that.

  Fredric took a small bite of the kangaroo sandwich. He rolled it around, tasting. Then a broad smile spread across his face. “This is wonderful.” He finished the rest in three bites. Randwulf matched him, bite for bite. Being wounded clearly hadn’t affected their appetites.

  The elf and his daughter took smaller bites, but seemed to enjoy the food. Anyone who had eaten Blaine’s dinner of gray stuffing, herb-sauced sausages, and rock-cake cookies was grateful for the simpler but more edible meal. Thordin had no gourmet pretensions, but he could cook anything and make it tasty. On really long trips, it was best not to ask what was in the stew. There were some meats that, despite their pleasant flavor, turned the knowing stomach.

  Elaine glanced back at Silvanus. There was something different about him, some change overnight that her eyes noticed but her mind could not make sense of. What was it? Something had changed in his appearance. Not that she had become an expert on what elves, even this particular elf, should look like.

  Silvanus had no trouble eating the sandwiches one-handed. Had Thordin made them knowing the wounded could eat them easily? Probably. Thordin was thoughtful and courteous, when he could be so quietly.

  “Which one are you staring at?” Blaine asked. He spoke low, face nearly touching her hair.

  She felt the heat climb up her face and knew she was blushing. It was like an admission of guilt though she was entirely innocent.

  “It is impolite to stare at people,” she said. She was now staring fixedly at the ground. No matter what had happened between them, Silvanus was a near stranger, and she had been staring. It would be too awful if Silvanus thought as Blaine did, that she was staring at him.

  Blaine grinned. “Then what were you staring at?” His grin was the crooked one he wore when he was determined to tease.

  “There is something different about the elf this morning, but I can’t figure out what it is.”

  Blaine glanced across the fire. Averil caught him looking and smiled. He grinned back, not upset in the least to have been caught looking at a pretty girl.

  “You two look a fine pair, whispering before the fire.” The voice made her whirl. The wizard was behind them. He had come quiet as a cat, unheard through the snow.

  He smiled. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  Elaine wanted to say he hadn’t, but her heart was beating in her throat, and she didn’t trust herself to speak.

  “I’ve never heard a man move like that. Silent as a spy,” Blaine said.

  The wizard shrugged. “Live long enough and you learn a few useful tricks.”

  “That was no trick,” Elaine said softly.

  “Nor was it magic,” the wizard said.

  She frowned at him. She didn’t believe him.

  “We all have inborn abilities, Elaine. I was called Gersalius Catpaw in my youth. I once thought of being a thief, but my mother said she’d cut off my ears if I disgraced the family.” He laughed. “She was always threatening such dire things. I don’t think she ever took a switch to any of us.”

  The wizard sat down next to them. Thordin handed him food. “I hope your old bones find this traveling easier than mine,” the fighter said.

  The wizard nodded. “It isn’t only age, Thordin. I have hidden away in my own cottage for years. I haven’t gone on a long journey for over a decade.”

  “You don’t complain much,” Thordin said.

  “Complaining about hardship doesn’t drive it away, though it does drive away one’s companions.”

  “True.”

  Elaine leaned close to the wizard and whispered. “Is there something different about the elf? I think there is, but I can’t quite see it.”

  Gersalius nodded, mouth too full to speak. He swallowed and said, “Observant girl. His arm’s longer.”

  She sat very still, looking at him. “What do you mean, his arm’s longer?”

  “The wounded arm is growing back.” He ate more sandwich, smiling and happy as if what he had just said were perfectly possible.

  “But the arm was torn off, completely. It’s gone.”

  The wizard finished his sandwich, wiping his hands on his robe. “You saw him call the dead back from the beyond. Why shouldn’t the arm grow back?”

  “I … don’t know, but … but …” She just stared at him. She wanted to sputter and say it was impossible. She had half convinced herself that the two men hadn’t really been dead, just gravely injured, and he had healed them. That was miracle enough. But the elf’s arm was longer. The arm had been missing above the elbow, now there was almost a whole joint there. It was a hand-span longer.

  Was the skin still smooth and thick with flesh? Elaine had an almost overwhelming urge to unwrap the arm, to see it bare. Was bone poking through the skin? Did it bud like a flower?

  Silvanus met her gaze. “Do you have a question for me, Elaine?” His liquid-gold eyes were calm and smiling. There was about him an aura of peace that Elaine found intriguing.

  “I didn’t mean to stare.”

  “It is all right to stare when your intentions are to learn. I see a question in your eyes. Ask it.”

  She took a deep breath and asked the question quickly, as if it would sound less strange if she rushed through the words. “Is your arm truly growing back?” No, even fast, the question seemed ridiculous. And yet … she could see for herself that the arm was longer.

  He smiled. “Yes, it is growing back.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “No, but it does itch abominably.” He gave a small laugh like the distant ringing of bells. Human throats did not sound like that.

  “How does it grow back? I mean …” Elaine tried to think how to phrase the question.

  “Elaine, just ask, the perfect words for such questions are never found,” Gersalius said.

  “Is the arm growing back in stages? Is the bone growing first, then the flesh covering it, or does it grow all at once like a tree limb?” It sounded a very personal question, but she wanted to know. Her hands itched to touch the growing stump.

  Elaine looked down at the ground, afraid he would see the eagerness in her eyes and mistake it for something else.

  “Would you like to see it?” Silvanus asked.

  She looked up at him, studying his face. Was he teasing her? No. His face was pleasant, but serious.

  “Yes, very much.” Elaine was surprised by the eagerness in her own voice. She had to learn magic, for it would control her otherwise, but healing … she wanted to learn healing, too.

  Blaine was looking at her strangely. She had not told him she might be a healer, like Silvanus. It wasn’t that she had tried to keep it from him. It was more that she herself didn’t believe it yet. It was both too wonderful and too frightening to share, even with Blaine.

  She touched his arm, leaning close to whisper. “I’ll explain all later. I don’t want Jonathan to know.”

  Blaine tipped back from her to see her face, then leaned in, breathing words against her skin. “Is it another magic?”

  She nodded.

  He hugged her briefly. “You must tel
l me everything later.” His face was very serious when he said it.

  “Promise,” she said softly. She caught movement from the corner of her eyes. Jonathan was walking toward them, his cloak held close to his body against the cold. It was hard to see his expression with the hood up, but Elaine thought he was scowling.

  Of course, that could have been her own insecurity. She hadn’t realized she did anything differently, but Blaine touched her arm. “What’s wrong?”

  What could she say—that Jonathan was afraid of her? That he hated what she was? Elaine shook her head. “Jonathan is unhappy with me.”

  “With the magic?”

  She nodded.

  Blaine squeezed her arm. “It’ll be all right. He’ll come around.”

  She looked into his face, trying to see if he were just saying something to comfort her, or if he believed what he was saying. His eyes, his face, his touch were utterly sincere. He believed. Elaine wished she did.

  Silvanus’s sleeve was tied up with string. He undid the string and began to push back the cloth.

  “What are you doing?” Jonathan asked.

  “Elaine wishes to see my arm. She is curious about how it grows,” the elf said. He said it as if it were an everyday occurrence.

  Jonathan stared down at him. “What do you mean, your arm is growing?”

  “It is growing back,” Silvanus said.

  Jonathan shook his head. “I do not think I can face another miracle before breakfast.”

  Silvanus smiled and continued to roll up his empty sleeve.

  Jonathan put a hand outward as if to push something away. “Please, I do not wish to look at your … injured arm while I eat.”

  Silence fell on the little group. An appalled silence. Thordin stood, spoon dripping stew on the ground. “Jonathan, the cleric is a guest at our fire.”

  “I have no problem with him as a guest, but surely it is rude even in your homeland to show wounds at a meal.”

  Put like that, Jonathan might have a point. Yet he should have let it go. They were guests. You did not make a guest uncomfortable, not deliberately.

  Silvanus gave a small bow from the neck. “I have no desire to be offensive.” Averil had to help him refold his sleeve and tie it in place.

  Elaine felt her face burn with shame. Silvanus didn’t seem offended, but she didn’t know him well enough to know if it were just a polite act.

  She stood. “I asked him to show me his arm.” She faced Jonathan across the fire, not flinching from the disapproval in his eyes.

  “Then you should have gone to a tent. I do not see why you would want to see it.”

  “It doesn’t bother you that the arm has been cut off. It bothers you that it is growing back. That it is magic.” There was scorn in her voice, scorn bordering on hate. She still loved Jonathan, but she was beginning to detest his narrow-mindedness.

  Jonathan stared at her. His expression was unreadable.

  “You’re afraid of it,” she said.

  “What do you want of me, Elaine?” His voice was suddenly tired.

  She suddenly realized what she wanted. She wanted him to be someone else. To be fair. Elaine was beginning to realize that he might not be able to be fair, might not be able to move beyond his vision of evil. Her eyes stung with unshed tears.

  “I need to finish healing Fredric’s and Randwulf’s wounds,” Silvanus said.

  Jonathan and Elaine looked at him as if he had just appeared before them. They had been intent on each other. The elf’s voice was an intrusion. Whether a welcome one or not, Elaine wasn’t sure.

  “I had planned to heal them out here in the open, but if it will make you ill, we can retire to a tent.”

  Jonathan shook his head abruptly. “No, heal them. It was unfair to protest just a moment ago. I am unaccustomed to such strange magic. It is … uncomfortable for me.”

  Silvanus looked at him, his face thoughtful. “Thank you, Jonathan. I will heal them here by the fire. It is warmer here than in most of the tents.”

  Jonathan gave a curt nod. He took his sandwich from Thordin and sat down on the opposite side of the fire, his back to them so he could not see. But Elaine could see his face. That one look was enough to know what it had cost him to let the elf heal by the fire. He was trying. Maybe he was sorry about last night, too?

  He glanced up and caught her eye. They stared at each other. Elaine gave a small smile, and Jonathan answered it. The first stirrings of “magic” tickled over her skin. She turned from Jonathan’s smile to the cleric, the healing. She wanted to see the wounds close, instant healing. It was the stuff of legends. Hopeful stories told round winter fires when the wolves howled at the door.

  Elaine stood and took a few steps toward the cleric. She did not glance back at Jonathan. She was afraid he’d be frowning. She didn’t want to lose what good will they had gained, but she didn’t want to miss seeing this miracle, either.

  Silvanus clasped Fredric’s bandaged arm in his one good hand. He did not throw his head back, as he had to raise the dead. It was a simpler task he set himself. He merely touched the wound and drew power.

  Elaine felt the power breathing along her body, but something was wrong. She wasn’t sure what, but it felt different. Incomplete.

  Silvanus hunched his shoulders. She could see the tension in his body. The effort shuddered along his collarbones. His hand trembled. He lifted his palm from the bandaged area.

  “Take off the bandage,” he said.

  “What’s wrong, Silvanus?” Fredric asked.

  “Please, just take off the bandage.”

  Fredric didn’t argue again, but did as he was told. When the bloody bandages came away, the wound was still there. It had not healed.

  Fredric’s eyes widened. “Silvanus, what has happened?”

  The elf shook his head. “Randwulf, bare one of your wrist wounds for me, please.”

  The younger man had no teasing words, he simply unwrapped his right wrist. The wound no longer bled, but it was still an open bite, nasty to look at and painful. Without a word, Randwulf offered his arm to the cleric.

  Silvanus touched the wound, delicately, fingertips alone. He traced the laceration as if exploring it. Randwulf winced, but made no sound.

  The elf closed his hand over the wound and bowed his head, concentrating. Again the soft, growing magic built, fluttering in the air like a trapped bird, a bird that had no where to fly. Something was very wrong. Elaine had no words for exactly what, but she knew it shouldn’t happen like this. Even without the ability to sense the healing, the looks on the two fighters’ faces were enough. They were shocked, frightened.

  Averil knelt by her father. He was still shuddering, struggling to heal. She touched his shoulders, gently. “Father, Father, please.”

  He shook her hands off and half fell to the ground. His cloak trailed into the fire. Elaine knelt and rescued the cloth. It hadn’t begun to burn yet.

  He turned to Elaine. “I cannot do it. I cannot heal them.” His face was raw with anguish.

  “Of course you can,” she said. It was a lie, even as she said it, she knew that, but she said it anyway.

  “Wizard,” Silvanus said, eyes searching for Gersalius.

  Gersalius came to stand in front of the elf. “Yes, my friend.” His voice was full of a deep pity.

  “You said I should not be able to heal here in Kartakass. Why was that?”

  “I do not know why, Silvanus, but I know that it is so.” He turned to Thordin, who was kneeling by the fire, stirring his stew but watching the cleric. “You had a cleric friend who came over. Did she know why she could no longer heal?”

  “Kilsendra said she could no longer reach her god, that she was somehow cut off from her deity.” Thordin’s voice was heavy; he didn’t like saying it.

  Silvanus shook his head. “That is not possible. Bertog cannot be separated from his clerics. No, that is not it.”

  Thordin shrugged. “I can tell you only what Kilsendra told me. I was
never a healer.”

  Silvanus turned to Elaine. His glittering eyes searched her face. “Elaine …” He let the sentence trail off. He did not look to where Jonathan still sat. He did not have to. Konrad had explained some of Elaine’s plight, and the cleric had promised not to reveal that she, too, knew some magic.

  Elaine glanced back. Jonathan was watching. His squeamishness forgotten in the novelty of it all. His face was watchful, curious. If he hadn’t been so terribly afraid, he might have been nearly as curious as she was, as he was curious about everything else. But his fear stood like an unbreakable wall.

  If Jonathan knew what she had done, she would be even less human to him. She turned back to Silvanus. He watched her with quiet eyes. He would not berate her if she refused. She knew that. If he had argued, or threatened, Elaine could have said no, but those quietly patient eyes … she could not say no to them. More than that, she didn’t want to say no. She wanted to know if she could do it, if she could close a wound with a touch.

  She nodded. “Show me how.”

  Silvanus flashed her a smile that warmed her like the glow of the sun itself. “Touch Fredric’s wound.”

  “What are you saying?” Thordin asked. “Elaine is no healer.”

  “Oh, but she is,” Silvanus said. “She helped heal me yesterday.”

  “Elaine,” Gersalius said, “that is wonderful.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us,” Thordin said.

  Elaine glanced at Jonathan.

  Thordin said, “Oh.”

  They all turned back to the cleric, determined as far as possible to ignore the mage-finder—if one could ignore a storm that might break any minute.

  “Touch the wound, Elaine, explore it. Memorize the feel of it in your fingertips,” Silvanus said.

  Elaine hesitated, hands just above Fredric’s bare flesh. Her skin ached to touch the wound, to explore it, but … “Won’t it hurt him?”

  “A little, but you are new at healing. You must understand the nature of the injury before you can heal it. You must be free to touch the wound as much as necessary.” He glanced up at the big warrior’s face. “Fredric takes pain well. He won’t hold it against you.”