It was almost certainly not the same hut that I had been given when I first came to the Wolfwood – I remembered it as smaller, for one, though that might have just been perspective – but it was similar enough. Wooden construction, roughly circular, the dirt floor about fifteen feet across, with a south-facing opening and a leather curtain that served as a door. There was a small firepit in the center and a small round hole in the roof through which smoke could escape. There was plenty of space for us to sit or lay at our ease.
“An excellent speech, your grace,” I said.
She turned to me, examining my face for any hint of irony. I hadn’t intended any, but I knew that my scar made my face uncharitable.
“Thank you,” she said after a moment. “Do you think I convinced them?”
“You have convinced them to discuss it,” I said, “and to treat us as a higher quality of guests. Which is more than I am confident that I could have achieved, given their mood when they admitted us.”
She nodded.
One by one, we dropped our bags and pulled out our bedrolls to make the ground more comfortable. Orland and Veralar took posts by the door, leaving the rest of us to distribute ourselves around the space. I settled in by the fire pit, facing the door, and went about lighting the fire to make us tea. To my surprise, Elana settled in on one side of me and Khanaarre on the other.
“What did you intend to offer them,” Khanaarre asked.
I chuckled darkly.
“Magic,” I said. “One of the treasures I keep with me in case I need to barter. Other people’s secrets. What else does a wizard have to offer?”
The laughter that filled the hut was also dark. There was a clear answer to that, though it could be considered a subset of “magic”. A wizard could offer violence. Me, more than most.
“Do you also carry such treasures,” Elana asked Khanaarre.
“Yes,” said Khanaarre. “Though I have few left, now, two years since I left my tower. And precious few secrets that I am prepared to part with.”
She had a tower? Once more I examined her face, trying to guess her age. Who had her master been? How had she come into the prince’s service? Surely she had not, as she said, simply met Elana on the road to Tanirinaal.
But what if she had? What if what little she had said about herself was all completely true, and I was looking in all the wrong places for the mystery? I put that thought away for later.
“I had not realized that my service has been so expensive for you,” said the prince, uneasy.
Khanaarre shrugged.
“Say, rather,” she said, “that I have not made the best use of my time in replenishing my stores. And that I have been extremely generous with the friends I have made in the court-in-exile.”
She smiled when she said the latter.
“This Rrii`aa you have told me of,” asked Elana. “Your favorite Sister of Amalai?”
Now Khanaarre actually blushed, her ears flapping up and down vigorously.
“Her, in particular, yes.”
Well, now. I knew who the Sisters of Amalai were, and the services – emotional, medical, sexual – that they performed in elven society.
Rennin coughed.
“You have offered the Children of Enhyl a great deal,” he said. “The court will not be well pleased.”
“No,” said Elana. Then she looked at me. “How many of these people speak our language? How do any of them speak our language? Do we need worry about listening ears? Should we speak in Elven?”
I shook my head.
“As to the first,” I said, “I am uncertain. I taught Songlover and his apprentices. They appear to have taught more, but I cannot say how many. As to the latter …”
I shrugged.
“Songlover promised us privacy,” I said. “So long as we do not shout, or plot to threaten anyone, we can trust that whatever is overheard by passing ears will be kept in trust.”
She nodded.
“Everything I said about the Usurper is true, to the best of my knowledge.” Elana looked at me again. I nodded. He had spoken to me of his designs on Naal. And of his disinterest in doing anything one way or the other about the uurnigath. “I know that many in the court hold the same biases today that they did when my father and grandfather overlooked the Wolfwood settlements. But I think that what I have offered them is the right thing to do in any case. If they accept our offer, it becomes both the right thing and the expedient thing, which is always a good combination.”
Rennin and Orland exchanged a look, then looked back to the prince.
“I agree,” said Rennin. “This is the right course, both strategically and ethically. Master Derrek?”
I sighed, and held up my hands again.
“I know no more now than I did when we crossed the river,” I told them. “We have done all that we can to win over the Children of Enhyl. Now we must await their judgement.”
Rennin grunted, but nodded.
“I suspect that the Prophet of Enhyl is here, in this clanhold.” I continued, drawing everyone’s eyes. “I suspect that decision-making representatives of other clanholds are here, as well, or Songlover would have asked for more time to deliberate. I am both hopeful and terrified that we may have the opportunity to meet the prophet tomorrow.”
The Vencari murmured prayers to their gods. Khanaarre looked as eager as I felt. Veralar Tann, however, looked confused.
“What is a prophet?” she asked. “I think that I have heard this word, before, but I don’t understand. What makes this person so significant?”
Khanaarre looked to me. I looked back, gesturing for her to take the field. Her ears flicked back and for a moment her eyes flattened. She was growing tired of my little tests. Good. I liked that she had a spine. I let the silence draw out. Khanaarre caved, and answered.
“A prophet is a messenger from the gods,” she said. “They are usually sent at times of great crisis. The Prophet of Es came to my people long, long ago, when we and the dwarves were suffering the wake of the Withering Plague. More than half our entire species had died. Our ancient friends, the dwarves, were suffering the same. Then the Prophet came, with her wives and husbands. They raised up the first Queen and Sorceress’ Council. They instructed us in writing and medicine, and taught us to cultivate silk from both worms and spiders. When the ogre hordes came, they led the first firedancers into battle.”
Veralar listened, wide-eyed with fascination. So did Elana. I nodded along point for point.
Then Khanaarre looked back to me. I shrugged. Fair was fair.
“I understand,” I said, “that a Prophet of Dal came to the dwarves at the same time. The prophets of Shii and Astennuu came to the Illustrians some two or three generations later. There is some debate whether the prophets of Althaeruh and Enhyl came to the Rasyri before or after that. Sun cultists favor an earlier date; their detractors favor a later. I’ve never been able to make heads or tails of the calendar, myself. The Prophet of Torh came to Vencar at the beginning of the fourth century of Vencari rule, to help end the Plague of Revenants. The Prophet of Dalthuu came to Georg at the end of the fourth century, and the Prophet of Venthiir came to Vencar at the beginning of the fifth. Each of these events could be a discussion of some hours, even in brief.”
No prophet had ever come to the lands of Namora – unless the Sea of Dalaan had spat up a prophet on the far western shores and we had just never heard of it, here in the east. The question of why that was – a question I could not answer, even to speculate – hovered behind Veralar’s eyes. Fortunately, she did not ask.
Elana’s hand drifted up to her chin. Her eyes were distant, thoughtful.
“There are those who say that the prophets are the gods in disguise,” she said quietly. “That the children they leave behind when they come are a divine legacy. That was the reasoning by which the sons of the Prophet of Althaeruh were set to rule over a’Rasyr. The descendants of the Prophet of Enhyl continue to oversee monastic city-states across the Sacred Desert.”
I nodded. I suspected that there was some truth to those claims.
“Yes,” I said. “The Children of Enhyl born in the coming years will be even stronger and wilder than the ones we speak to, today. I think forming an alliance now will serve Vencar very well.”
Elana and Rennin nodded their emphatic agreement.
The rest of the afternoon passed in companionable quietude. Orland and Veralar maintained their posts by the door. Elana and Rennin settled themselves against the wall, plotting quietly. Khanaarre and I mirrored them, discussing our theories on the nature of prophets. The six of us took turns making tea. Occasionally, Elana and Rennin would ask us to clarify a point of history, or expand on our knowledge of the nature of the uurnigath, or some other thing they thought might help them prepare Elana for whatever the Children of Enhyl might say, or do.
As the light began to fade, the uurnigath brought us a young boar, a basket of acorns, and a basket of withered apples. Khanaarre, knowing best how to prepare such fare, took charge of cooking our dinner. The uurnigath also brought us several gallon jugs of water, and still another of woody ale.
Finally, as we smothered the fire and prepared to try to sleep, Elana asked the question I had been waiting for since we had met with Songlover.
“If the Children of Enhyl refuse us,” she asked, “what can we do?”
“There are ways and there are ways,” I said. “This route is our best chance of success, but not the only one. If the packleaders who have gathered here deny us passage, I will lead us back down the Wolf River, and we will try to find our way north and east through the Fens of Drigga. The packs in that direction are more hostile, and there are monsters I would prefer not to meet, but it is a chance. If they deny us utterly … then I will do everything in my power to get us clear.”
And so we slept. And for the first time in years, I dreamed of an icy forest, and a knife blade on my face. Of hard running and of bright pain and of vivid color. Of the vast, strong arms that had carried me long, and far, to a place where I might be warm again.
Morning came. We ate a hasty breakfast of boiled oats fortified with what apples and acorns we had not eaten for dinner. Either our timing was excellent, or we were being more carefully watched than I had suspected, for we were just cleaning up when one of Songlover’s apprentices – a small dark woman, who went bare breasted but preferred a skirt to a loincloth, and whose name I could not remember, though I did remember her brilliant mind for language – appeared to summon us to the square.
“The packleaders and huntleaders have spoken,” she said in the language of the Compact, over-emphasizing her gutturals and aspirations, but speaking very clearly for all that. “They would speak with you again.”
“Thank you,” said Elana, standing. “We will come.”
“No,” said the apprentice – Crescent, I remembered the name now – “Just you. One of your hunters, if your dignity requires it, but not your wizards.”
Well, shit, I thought.
That gave Elana a pause, but only a brief one.
“Veralar,” she said. “But leave the big sword.” She locked eyes with Crescent. “As a sign of trust.”
The woman really did have good instincts. She would make a good emperor. It was a shame that this venture was doomed to fail.
Veralar acceded without argument, and the three women left us alone in the hut.
“Well, shit,” said Sir Rennin Ösh.
I laughed darkly.
“My thoughts, exactly,” I said.
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