She heard someone clearing his throat behind her and turned to find that Pree-Var-Us had returned.
“I bring excellent news, Your Highness. I have managed to squeeze in an audience with Sil-Then for you. He will see you immediately.”
Of course he was available. These children weren’t doing anything critical. They were playing with maps and weapons but seemed no closer to being real soldiers than … well, than that bumbling idiot Lieutenant Marcus.
She followed Pree-Var-Us down the torch-lit stone corridors, the sounds of their passage echoing around them. She concentrated on memorizing the layout of the tunnels should she have the need to fight her way out of here. Not that it would be much of a fight.
The tunnel opened up ahead to brightly lit antechamber. As they approached, Pree-Var-Us cleared his throat again.
“I must caution you, Your Highness,” he said, his voice tight. “The pressures of leadership have left their mark on Sil-Then. You may find his behavior somewhat … erratic.”
Terrific. He was beginning to sound like a lunatic.
“Of course,” she said. “I understand completely.”
The antechamber was rectangular and about fifty feet long. Scattered throughout the room were statues of elven warriors, replete with armor and shields. The artistry was masterful and the detail impressive. Chins were cleft, biceps bulged, chests were broad.
“The work you see were all done by Sil-Then’s hand. He is a brilliant sculptor.”
“Impressive,” agreed Willow.
They passed through the ranks of the statues as though walking through a moment frozen in time. When they reached the other end, a pair of large wooden doors barred their way.
Pree-Var-Us glanced at Willow, and then approached the doors. Each door had a large bronze knocker, and he used one. The knock echoed throughout the antechamber.
After a few moments, there was a shuffling sound on the other side, and then a tremulous voice said, “Pree-Var-Us, is that you?”
“Yes, Lord. I am here with Princess Waeh-Loh.”
“I … I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to see her. Send her away!”
Pree-Var-Us looked pained. “Lord …” He lowered his voice. “Sil-Then … you promised you would see her. You cannot change your mind now.”
“I don’t care.” The voice was petulant now. “I don’t want to see her.”
“I’ll be with you, Lord. I’ll be right beside you.”
There was silence on the other side of the door for a long time, and then finally, “Very well. Send her in, Pree-Var-Us. I would look upon this woman.”
Pree-Var-Us stepped back from the door. “Remember,” he said to Willow, “he’s under a lot of pressure. Please do not take offense if he says something you find insulting. No insult is intended.”
Willow rolled her hand in an impatient let’s-get-on-with-it gesture.
Pree-Var-Us grabbed one door handle in each hand and began to pull.
“Princess Waeh-Loh, I present to you Lord Sil-Then, leader of the elven resistance.”
The doors swung open to reveal a bearded elf in long, flowing white robes. His eyes were that of a deranged child, full of a mad combination of fear, pride, and just a hint of naughtiness.
“Ah, my child,” Sil-Then said. “Come forward so that I might better look upon you.”
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding,” muttered Willow.
Chapter 32
“Come, my child,” Sil-Then said beckoning. “Come in. I shall grant you audience.”
Pree-Var-Us cleared his throat. “Lord, should I … uh … should I remain?”
“No, my friend, that shall not be necessary. You know what must be done.”
What must be done? That had a particularly nasty ring to it. Trying not to appear too obvious about it, Willow moved so that she could keep both elves in her field of vision.
“Are you sure, Lord? I would stay out of the way, perhaps take notes of your meeting?”
“Go,” Sil-Then said with a fatherly chuckle. Then by way of explanation, he added to Willow: “My people, they worry about me constantly.”
Willow mentally bit her tongue. “Of course, Lord Sil-Then.”
Pree-Var-Us backed out of the room. “I’ll be outside if you need me, Lord.”
Sil-Then did not reply, his eyes staring into Willow’s. There was almost a mesmeric quality to his gaze. His eyes seemed to radiate confidence, and it was tempting to believe them.
“Princess Waeh-Loh,” Sil-Then said.
“Just Willow, Lord Sil-Then.”
She glanced around the room. It was an elaborate chamber that seemed to serve as a combination meeting room, command center, and bed chamber. Scattered about were more statues like the ones she had seen outside. Beside the large canopy bed was one statue in particular that seem to strike a chord in her memory. If only she could get a closer look without appearing to invade his personal space.
“Ah, a nickname! ‘Willow.’ How informal. Then you must call me Sil-Then. No wait, call me Sil. That sounds even less formal, does it not?”
This elf was as crazy as one could get without drooling. How in the Icy Inferno had he been appointed their leader?
“Pree-Var-Us said that you worked out some sort of deal with Tamlevar for your assistance?”
Sil-Then snapped his fingers. “Straight to the point. I like that. Come, let me show you something.”
He led Willow to the statue that had caught her eye. As she approached, the feeling of recognition grew until a lump formed in her throat.
“Father?” she croaked.
“You recognize him!” Sil-Then said with pleasure.
How had she not recognized him sooner? The lean face, youthful-looking despite its few wrinkles. Those wide shoulders and slender hips. Those hands … those hands that once had held her.
“It’s …” She fought to get the emotion out of her voice, to sound impassive. “It’s a good likeness.”
“Oh, I’m so pleased, Your Highness. I’ve loved your family for as long as I can remember, and your father in particular.”
“You knew my father?”
“Alas, I regret that I only saw him from afar. I am not of noble blood. My father was one of your father’s personal assistants. I was permitted to attend some of the classes offered to the nobility, though, as a personal favor from your father to mine. In fact, I was in your fencing class.”
Willow tried unsuccessfully to place his face. Nor, for that matter could she remember ever taking a fencing class.
“I’ve become a bit of an amateur historian of your family. Might I ask you a few questions?”
Willow couldn’t tear her eyes from her father’s face. It had been so long since she had last seen him. Just being near his image was like a salve to a wound she hadn’t realized she’d had.
“For instance, what happened after your family was sent to Kardán?”
She knew that she and her parents had been sent to the homeland of the Kards, but she could remember nothing about it. That was odd. One would think she’d remember something that important, yet she couldn’t recall even the slightest detail.
“Nothing?” said Sil-Then, noting her blank expression.
“I … I don’t remember.”
Strangely enough, Sil-Then accepted this at face value. “Very well, let me see … can you tell me who attended the War Council meetings during the invasion?”
“War Council?”
“Yes, your father’s war council. Do you remember?”
She shrugged helplessly.
“Do you remember anything that happened to your family? Anything at all?”
This was getting creepy. She probed her memory for something, anything that had happened before she joined the King’s Guard of Bryanae. Nothing. Nothing whatsoever.
Dismayed, she shook her head.
Sil-Then sighed, crestfallen. He stared at the statue of her father for a long time, his eyes roaming up and down the stone image.
Then he put a hand on each of her shoulders and kissed her on the mouth.
The action was so unexpected that Willow began to cough, her hands pushing on Sil-Then’s chest.
“Are you out of your mind?” She said between coughs.
Sil-Then wouldn’t give up. His hands kept groping for her, his puckered lips kept weaving in and out, trying to land on hers. “It’s necessary, my child. The realm depends on us! I am the future!”
“What you are is insane.” She grabbed him by his biceps and drove her knee into his groin.
Sil-Then’s eyes bulged, first with shock, then with pain, but ultimately, it seemed, with horror. He collapsed to the ground, curling into his body as tightly as he could.
“No,” he gasped after a minute or so, and tears were streaming from his eyes. As he regained his breath, he began to wail plaintively. “No! No! Not that. Anything but that. The future! The future!”
The doors to the chamber burst open, and Willow spun to face the intruder, her hands already coming up into an unarmed fighting stance.
Pree-Var-Us ran into the room. “Sil-Then!” he cried. Then to Willow, he shouted, “What have you done to him?”
Willow snorted. “What have I done to him?”
“Preever,” moaned Sil-Then. “She’s harmed the future!”
Pree-Var-Us dashed past Willow and slid to the floor next to Sil-Then.
“Oh, my dearest,” Pree-Var-Us said, stroking Sil-Then’s hair. “What has she done to you?”
Willow was astonished to see Pree-Var-Us tenderly kiss up and down Sil-Then’s face.
“The future,” Sil-Then kept moaning. “Oh, Preever, the future. She’s killed it.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Willow said.
Pree-Var-Us glared up at her, fury ablaze in his glistening eyes. “Don’t you understand anything? Sil-Then is the future. He’s the last elven male in the world capable of having children. Those human bastards castrated every last one of us except for him!”
Chapter 33
“You have to understand,” Pree-Var-Us whispered to Willow. “Sil-Then wasn’t always like this.”
Sil-Then had gotten increasingly hysterical and calming him down had taken Pree-Var-Us an extensive amount of comforting, and a fair amount of alcohol, too. Sil-Then had eventually allowed himself to be soothed and at length, he fell into a deep slumber. Now he lay in bed, an angelic expression on his face.
Pree-Var-Us gazed down at him lovingly. “I know he seems insane to you, but you have to understand how hard his life has been. He’s always been a bit theatrical at times, but deep down he’s extremely sensitive, and the Warlord’s little ‘joke’ has been more of a burden on him than he has been able to bear.”
Willow felt a chill run down her spine at the mention of the Warlord. Unbidden, the memory returned of her nightmare of the vampiric Warlord stroking her thigh. She felt a cold pit of nauseous terror in her belly. “What kind of … what kind of joke?”
“Well, I guess you’ve figured out by now that he and I are …” Pree-Var-Us trailed off, searching for the right word.
“Together?”
“Yes, together.” Pree-Var-Us smiled. “As a general policy, the Kards castrate the men they conquer and then impregnate their women.”
“Yes, I see,” Willow said. “Mix the bloodlines and it becomes hard to stage a rebellion. Who wants to fight a war against his own father?”
“Exactly. It’s a horrible practice, but it makes a kind of sick sense if you think about it.” Pree-Var-Us patted Sil-Then’s shoulder and then led the way from the room.
“Were you … affected by this policy?” Willow asked.
Pree-Var-Us’s eyes seemed to burn more intensely than the torches in the corridor. “Do you mean, was I forcibly brought into a room where two humans pulled my trousers down and held my legs while a third human hacked off my genitals with a small, sharp knife? Yes.”
“I’m sorry,” Willow said and then was surprised she had said it. First she starts making jokes and now she was expressing sympathy? What was happening to her? She sought inside herself for some mental piece that felt out of place or damaged—something to explain this unusual behavior—but she found nothing. In fact, all things considered, she felt better now than in any time in recent memory.
“So while this … this process is going on, word somehow gets out that Sil-Then and I are … together. No doubt, some poor elf tried to preserve his own manhood by offering information. It seems extremely unlikely to me that he succeeded. But the word reached Warlord Rackal, and he—”
“That’s enough,” Willow said, and pushed Pree-Var-Us against the rough stone wall. “Rackal was the warlord nearly two hundred years ago, and you can’t be more than seventy years old. You’ve been lying to me. Why?”
But deep down, she wasn’t angry because she thought he was lying. Though she hated to admit it, she felt a superstitious dread that that fiend Rackal had somehow managed to survive across the centuries. Perhaps, he remained as some kind of revenant, remaining animated through pure force of malice. But that was just nonsense, wasn’t it?
“I’m not lying!” Pree-Var-Us rubbed the spot on his chest where she had shoved him. He fixed her with a sullen gaze. “You don’t know much about elves, do you?”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that when an elf is deprived of his manhood, he no longer ages.”
“You mean … mean all those boys in that room with the maps?”
“Yes, they’re much older than they look.”
This was just sickening, and it increased her sense of urgency. Right now, Prince Vazerian was in the hands of those butchers. Who knew what they were doing to him while she and Pree-Var-Us were touring the tunnels and discussing the good old days? If she were to redeem herself, she had to bring Vazerian back intact.
And what about Snyde? He and his rescue party would be arriving any day now—could in fact already have arrived. He couldn’t know of the vast numbers of Kards that awaited him here. By the seven hells, a hundred thousand! Snyde would be marching blindly to his death. The realization scared her more than she wished to admit to herself. Involuntarily, she recalled the warmth of Eric’s lips pressed against hers, the breadth of his back beneath her hands.
She shook off the image and looked around the tunnels, trying to get her bearings. She had no more time to waste. “I have to find Tamlevar.”
Pree-Var-Us nodded and changed course, turning down a side corridor. The torchlight flickered fiery reflections in his eyes.
“When the Warlord learned that Sil-Then was attracted to men,” Pree-Var-Us continued, his voice bitter, “he thought it hilarious. Oh, wouldn’t it be a grand old joke if the only elven male left in the entire world who was capable of giving a child to a woman … wouldn’t it be the funniest joke ever if that elven male wasn’t even the slightest bit attracted to women? Wouldn’t that just leave the whole room roaring with laughter?”
“I get it,” Willow said. Just thinking of the Warlord made her ill, even after all these decades. The world was a better place for him having left it. And he had to have left it. No human could live this long. He was dead and that was that.
“I don’t think you do,” he said. “The fate of the entire elven race has fallen on his shoulders. We smuggle women in whenever we can in the hopes that he can produce children with them. And produce children he has: three boys and two girls. And the whole while, he and I have loved only each other. Can you imagine what that can do to someone like him?”
“I said I get it,” Willow snapped. “Now quit your whining. He has his duty: to have children. You have yours: to protect him and bring him women. So show some discipline and do what needs to be done. You’re supposed to be soldiers. Act like one.”
Pree-Var-Us’s face colored.
“And what about you?” he said, his mouth a tight line.
“I have my own mission, and it doesn’t involve you. I don’t know how long I was unconscious he
re—”
“Six and a half days.”
Six and a half days? That was worse than she had imagined. The Prince and his captors may already have landed on the island! She pressed on: “—but time is of the essence. I need to get back to Tamlevar now.”
Pree-Var-Us said nothing, but pointed at a cell door down the hall.
Willow wasted no more words on him. Sure, things hadn’t worked out well for him and his “leader”, but lots of people had it rough. There was no reason he should be allowed the luxury of self-pity.
Chapter 34
Tamlevar was still sleeping when she returned to the cell, his head and shoulders draped across the stone table in the darkness. The light shone in from hallway behind her, covering him with her enormous shadow.
His ribcage expanded and contracted slowly with his breath, but otherwise, he was motionless.
The last thing she remembered was her fight with the overseers. She had sustained multiple wounds and they had surrounded her. They had been about to finish her off. And then …
And then what? She had heard Tamlevar’s voice. It seemed that she had heard it in her mind and not with her ears. Perhaps she had merely been delusional.
She smiled. So Tamlevar had rescued her again. He was like a devoted mastiff, fiercely protecting his master.
The thought seemed unworthy, and her smile faded. Was that what he was to her? A loyal pet?
Tamlevar had shown slavish devotion to her. He had risked his life for her on numerous occasions, and had thrown away the career that his mother had worked hard to establish for him. He fought for her, carried her, healed her—
Healed her! An electric tingle ran through her body at the recollection of her resurrection. The feeling was not an unpleasant one.
Tamlevar had somehow … she guessed entered her was the only word that came close to describing it, though it sounded obscene. He had entered her, and he had mended her from within. He had touched and explored her in the most intimate way. What had he seen? How much did he know about her? Had he read her mind, seen her memories, learned of her fear, her pain?
Prince of Bryanae (Bryanae Series) Page 13
