THE TWO ELF COUSINS RAN SWIFTLY over the rocky, sparsely grassed terrain. They’d left the road some time ago, using the cover of the surrounding hills and trees to avoid being followed. They’d ditched the pursuers from Bordell while still within sight of the city, which was only yesterday, yet they’d already crossed into Darim. Glancing up at the sky, Rush noted that it was darkening, with clouds swirling and bringing an early sunset, a sullen herald of the approaching rain. He hoped they could reach the city before it started, because it became difficult to sneak about undetected through someone’s house when you were dripping wet.
Looking over at Dart, the blond elf could see that his cousin, like himself, tired rapidly. Dart peered back at him, and Rush signed that they would stop at the next copse of trees. Dart nodded and signed that was acceptable, using a language of hand gestures the two had developed many years ago.
They came to the top of a hill and saw a suitable place to camp not too far ahead. Pushing on, they reached the trees right as the sun, presumably, sank below the horizon. They couldn’t actually see it descend, but from its last visible position and the darkness of the clouds they judged that night had come at last.
Gratefully entering the trees, the two sank to the ground. It was Rush’s turn to ask the Great God to bless their meal and their journey, so he said a short, breathless prayer as Dart rummaged through their provisions. After catching their breath, they ate a cold meal of dried meat and cheese, not wanting to risk revealing themselves with a fire.
Rush nudged his cousin. “We should reach Darim early tomorrow.” Dart nodded but said nothing. He gazed at the branches above them and pointed meaningfully, and Rush nodded. “Aye. We’ll sleep in the trees tonight.”
After finishing their meal, the two elves climbed wearily into the high branches, Rush taking a position that faced toward Darim, and Dart looking back the way they’d come. They slept lightly, wanting as much sleep as possible without exhausting themselves more by exchanging turns at watch, yet also not wanting to be surprised. They most likely had nothing to fear, but they were always cautious. Both fell asleep to the chirping of scores of night insects.
The cousins rested until just before daylight, rising and eating a hurried breakfast before continuing their journey. Several hours before noon, they came within sight of the large seacoast city of Darim and, like everyone else who saw Darim from a distance, were awestruck at its unexpected beauty. The buildings had obviously been carefully constructed to please the eye and were nearly immaculate in cleanliness. That’s what surprised visitors the most.
Typically the dirtiest of places, Darim was the exception among coastal towns. The inhabitants of the city took an almost obsessive pride in their devotion to neatness, and the straight, even walls surrounding the city and the almost perfect squares and rectangles of the dwellings only emphasized their diligence. Nearly all the buildings were whitewashed and plain, the citizens having discovered that the sea air made it difficult to keep decorations clean and neat. Tall masts of ships bobbed along the docks, the wind stirring up the waves and blowing salt-scented air into the cousins’ nostrils. Dart commented he could probably smell every sailor and every fish on the docks. The two slowed their pace and joined a large caravan winding its way into the city, using the crowd as cover.
Once they passed within the city gates and entered the wide main street, the cousins broke from the caravan and headed into the smaller side streets. With little or no trash strewn on the ground, the streets were as clean as dirt could be and still be called dirt. The elves turned frequently and irregularly and even doubled back once. They didn’t think their pursuers had made it this far, but they took no chances.
Just after midday, with the clouds still rolling in and looking ready to empty themselves on the helpless city below, Rush and Dart stopped at a tavern frequented more by people of their own race than any others. Traslandar, the owner, was himself an elf, hailing from Rush’s own Darquin Forest.
On the rare occasions that elves ventured out of their forest homes, they usually enjoyed visiting the human towns, the seacoast ones being the most popular. The sea fascinated elves the world over. An extremely unique elf, Traslandar had decided to live among humans for the rest of his life, so he opened a tavern in one of the elves’ favorite coastal towns to provide a comfortable place for other traveling elves to gather. This was mainly because the people of Darim treasured neatness almost as much as elves did.
A small building, the Wandering Elf had tables neatly spaced about, providing room for a little more than a score of patrons. About half of it was full, and only a few of those present were not elves. No dwarves occupied the common room, though despite the hostility between the two races they would’ve hardly been unwelcome. Elves and dwarves who traveled tended to realize how ridiculous interracial bickering was. Vaun had called it prejudice, a word unfamiliar to Dart, but once the youth had explained it he understood it was essentially the same thing. It seemed some people in Vaun’s world tended to act just as silly as some in theirs.
Rush and Dart moved left and took seats at the bar, ordering chilled wine and a light meal. They chatted amiably with Traslandar, who came out of the kitchen at the familiar sound of Rush’s voice. They talked mainly of what each had been doing in the seventy years since they’d seen one another. Traslandar bid them farewell once their meal arrived, making them promise they wouldn’t wait so long before visiting again.
The cousins ate slowly, savoring the hot stew made by the Wandering Elf’s highly skilled cook. It would be a crime to hurry through such a fine meal. They sipped sparingly at the wine, wary of becoming intoxicated.
An elven minstrel played in the far corner, and the cousins enjoyed his telling of the battle that finally drove the humans from their forest homes. Not a song of animosity, it spoke only of pride at the ability of the elves to remain a free people and the wisdom of the humans at stopping a useless war. It also gave thanks to the Great God for preserving His favorite creation, the elves. The few humans in the tavern, sailors naturally, enjoyed the story almost as much as the elves, although when the bard launched into the refrain, in elvish, they didn’t join the rest of the patrons in singing it.
Dart liked to see the people of his race mixing with those of another without hostility, glad to see the elven reputation of prejudice—he hoped he used Vaun’s word correctly—toward all races was what he thought it was, a fantasy. He felt sure Vaun would love this place and made a silent promise that, when all this was over, he would make sure the Swordsman came here.
After finishing their meal and joining in three traditional elven songs of travel, the cousins went back into the streets and strolled toward the marketplace. It had grown ominously darker but hadn’t yet started raining. Dart could smell it in the clouds overhead, and the increased air pressure made his ears pop. Darim smelled strongly of the sea. It wasn’t an unpleasant aroma, and it was not accompanied by the usual odors of garbage, waste, and other refuse that made some towns almost impossible to breathe in.
Rush and Dart planned to rest a little in one of the many comfortable inns before going to the palace, for they couldn’t go in until well after dark, and it was still a couple hours until sunset. They needed equipment for their mission, anyway. The pair had unwillingly left behind what they had bought in Landsby and Bordell, deciding speed was more important and knowing they could purchase the things they needed in Darim. They wandered through the cloud-darkened streets, wrapping their cloaks tighter as the wind turned suddenly colder.
As they walked, they conversed mostly in their own tongue and did not chatter as they usually did when with the others. They still wagered back and forth a little, but they spent most of the time planning their strategy for getting inside the palace, finding what they needed, and getting back out. Their companions, particularly Vaun, would have been a little surprised to see the normally light-hearted elves looking as serious as they did now.
Soon the elves took themselves and th
eir new equipment into an inn called The Sleeping Galley to catch a few hours’ rest. The rain still held itself off, driving Dart crazy with impatience to have the pressure finally eased, though like his cousin he hoped it would wait until after they’d finished their job. Or it could drench the city after they made it inside the palace, for the storm would help cover their escape.
The equipment they’d bought consisted mostly of various lengths of rope. Neither of them had been in Darim recently, and while things normally didn’t change very much, they weren’t sure how much climbing they might need to do. Rush had only broken into the palace once before, and that was years ago with no purpose other than to prove he could do it. Dart had never stepped inside King Celos’ home without invitation. They remained confident, however, that they would be able to get in and out without anyone noticing. It was what they did best.
The other items they’d purchased were some metal spikes and a grappling hook, which they padded with thick cloth they had bought from a weaver who had stared at them as if she could not figure out why the two elves had wanted the thickest woolen robe she had. To her knowledge, elves despised excessively heavy clothing. The elves had also bought some fruit, which they ate before resting to top off the meal they had eaten several hours earlier. When all lay ready, they slept, wagering who would be the first to rise.
Rush won. He smiled down at his cousin as he shook the brown-haired elf awake, and when Dart opened annoyed eyes, Rush held his hand out before his kinsman’s face. Fishing the four silvers from his money pouch, Dart tossed them over Rush’s head. Rush scrambled after them.
Dart chuckled as he rose and outfitted himself, taking care to strap everything down tightly and cover it well. He didn’t want anything to hinder his movements, to make noise, or to reflect light. Rush did the same, and just as King Celos fell asleep, the two elven thieves crept out the window of their room and headed stealthily toward his palace two blocks away.
Stalking along the darkened city streets, for the clouds thankfully covered the moon, Rush and Dart approached the wall surrounding the royal estate. Dart was struck again at the effort it must take to maintain the level of cleanliness this town had. Not once did they pass by an unbundled or uncovered piece of trash…not counting Rush, of course. The air was so clean he could smell the guards inside the palace grounds marching through their rounds.
The castle was not near as large or lavish as King Dobry’s, though it did contain some fairly valuable items that may have tempted the elves on any night but this, such as King Celos’ collections of Yardan crystal and Tarquonese silver. The cousins’ fingers twitched at the thought of such wealth, but the secret of the Jaga’s origin interested them much more. From what they’d gathered in Bordell, their answers lay somewhere within the walls they now crouched beside.
Not needing the grapple, for the whitewashed, rough-cut stone wall provided more than enough handholds, the two elves quickly scaled the outer obstacle. Dropping lightly onto the palace grounds, they moved back against the wall, Dart looking around and listening intently for the sounds of guards. His nose lifted as he tested the air, not detecting anything immediately.
Small trees dotted the space between the wall and the main building in what for Darim was a random order. That is, they weren’t in perfectly straight rows and neat little copses, but rather had been allowed to grow almost on their own. The gardens did show the Darim tendency toward cleanliness, for not a single dead leaf littered the stone-paved walkways. What the castle gardeners didn’t discard they used as fertilizer for the wide variety of bushes and flowers spread about. Dart’s nose did pick up the smell of the most common fertilizer in the garden, and he grimaced, thinking of Landsby and how it had tortured his sensitive nose. His night-piercing eyes identified a wide variety of bushes and shrubs, many of which still bore a few flowers. He could almost hear them dying, though, as the cold weather moved closer and closer to the city. Thankfully, enough leaves remained on everything to provide concealment for him and his blond kinsman.
Rush elbowed his leaf-brained cousin and signed to him to stop gawking at shrubbery. They had much more important work to do.
Dart frowned but left his remark out of his signing. There are two out of sight to our right. Rush nodded. They are not coming this way, but two more to our left are. They are just now coming around the corner. One of them wears too much cologne. If we hurry, we can get into those bushes by the castle before they see us.
Rush nodded again and bolted from the wall, his skin already shifting and blending with the terrain he passed over. Dart followed him, and as they moved soundlessly into somewhat larger trees he turned back to watch the two guardsmen pass the spot they’d just left. The guards showed no sign that they’d sensed the elves’ presence.
Hurrying now, as thunder boomed distantly overhead, the two elves stopped under a balcony overlooking the palace grounds. Dart concentrated, blocking out the sound of the surf on the other side of town almost half a league away, but could hear no one breathing in the room above them. The hundreds of bugs gleefully chirping in the darkness could be hindering his hearing, but he’d grown fairly adept at isolating the sounds he wanted. He did hear someone walking the halls outside the room, but no one appeared to be inside it at this time. He caught no scent of a person coming from the room, most likely because of the distant smell of the sea and the closer scent of the garden and that guard’s fire-burned cologne, along with the smell of the rain in the clouds. But he assumed it was safe.
When Dart had nodded to him, Rush uncoiled one of the ropes and quickly attached the padded grappling hook. Dart looked around and listened, then motioned for Rush to hide. Someone was coming. They waited tensely for several minutes before those same two guards passed by not more than twenty paces away. Dart shook his head, wondering how the man’s wife withstood that horrible cologne.
After the guards had turned the corner and all was clear, Rush hurled the grapple over the rail fifteen feet above their heads. It thudded quietly onto the stone and stuck solidly in the railing when Rush pulled on it. Satisfied, he swiftly ascended the rope.
Dart watched him go up, smiling at the way the rope and building behind it seemed a part of his cousin’s skin. He thought of how useful such an ability was but didn’t think it quite so good as being able to see that person who thought he was so clever. Dart had spoiled many a game of Hide the Elf when they’d been younger. Smiling broader at the thought, he followed once Rush had reached the balcony.
Dart had judged correctly, for they found the room unoccupied. While Rush gathered up their rope, Dart crept to the door and listened. He heard footsteps far off, measured footsteps like a guard would make, but detected nothing nearby. He didn’t smell anyone, either, though he did pick up a couple aromatic scents, as of flowers.
Signing to his cousin, he cautiously opened the door and crept into the hall, scanning either way to make sure it was empty. The corridor extended some distance in both directions, and branched off in several places where doors or archways were set into the walls. Torches were spaced far apart in sconces high up on the walls, most of them unlit, but otherwise the hallways were bare. A strong aroma of flowers permeated Dart’s sensitive nose, making it itch violently, and though it did mask the scent of the ocean, which he could never bring himself to like, it also made him want to sneeze so badly he had to grit his teeth to stop himself.
Rush came up behind Dart and peered over his shoulder, looking both ways and trying to decide which way to go. Neither knew exactly where to find the answers to their questions but figured the back of the castle contained most of the important rooms. Nodding decisively to himself, Rush took the lead down the hallway to the right, even though he couldn’t see as well in the dimness as his cousin.
The blond elf periodically glanced back at Dart creeping along some distance behind him, so that in case of trouble the other elf’s enhanced senses could warn them both without Dart having to catch his attention. He thought suddenly how
useful Dart’s abilities must be but knew they paled beside his own amazing gift.
The two elves moved quickly and quietly through the palace, always heading toward where their instincts told them all the secrets were hidden. The information they’d obtained in Bordell intimated that the man who’d hired the Jaga hailed from Darim, and was quite possibly King Celos himself. Their dislike of that idea had brought them personally to the seacoast city to find more definite information. You didn’t accuse a monarch of treason without solid evidence, unless you wanted to be hanged for it alongside him.
They took side passages that suggested they might lead in the direction they needed to go and had to stop and hide several times to avoid the guardsmen patrolling the halls. They soon came to a juncture with passageways leading off to both sides and straight forward. Dart listened and looked down each one but couldn’t detect anything that might tell him which turn to take.
Not wanting to take the wrong turn and waste time doubling back, Rush signed that he would check each hall before they made their decision. Dart agreed and moved back into the deep shadows of a corner as Rush hurried down the left-hand corridor.
Dart constantly scanned the hallways around him. Far back the way they’d come, he could see guards passing along a hallway that ran perpendicular to theirs. A sudden cool draft told him one of them, by the smell of his breath, had been drinking prior to going on duty. Looking the other way, he could see where the passageway turned sharply to the right. He noticed paintings and tapestries displayed on the walls and could smell their musty age but paid them no more mind than he had the others since he knew he couldn’t take one. Rush wasn’t standing in front of it, either, and that would’ve been the only other reason to admire it.
Checking the hall opposite the one Rush had taken, his sensitive grey eyes could detect where the hall turned back into the part of the palace they’d just left. Side passages opened on the left side of the hall, but he couldn’t tell what was down them. No distinctive smells caught his nose, and no sounds reached his ears.
The Bonding (The Song and the Rhythm) Page 22
