Thunder – normal Terran thunder – pounded the walls and tapped the roof as the companions, but for the Baroness, shared breakfast. "I do not wish to sound harsh," said Zoar the thaumaturge, sprinkling hearth-warmed water into the magickal mixture and wiping her hand on her pale white dress, "but after hearing your tale, Lady Val’ha, I should wonder if it will be possible for your friends to remain like joined twins with you all the time."
"Until we reach the shoreline of the Loran confluence, there are not many other choices," Tarl-Cabot said, rubbing and flexing his arms.
"From what father and I witnessed from the turret window last night, Sir Tarl-Cabot, it is a mighty risk." Zoar’s yellow eyes widened. She took three sprigs of dried sweetpea hanging from the hearth and tapped the mortar containing her potion, then threw them into the fire. "Add to that the wilding Sword, five hundred who traveled this road…"
"Five hundred?" Porcie asked. "Five hundred, you say? Val’ha, you told us Lord Joel had given his authority for only two hundred!"
"Many days I have looked out my window out over the trees, Sir Porcie, toward the road I do not travel. In all this time, and in study of my magic, there is one thing I have learned to do, and that is count. I tell you there were five hundred."
Porcie scowled. "I regret my offense. Lord Joel must have taken new consideration after Val’ha’s flight: Even if dimwitted Feukpi brings Dop-splythe to action and turns the Apocanians against each other, the strength it takes to wield Dop-splythe may prove his undoing."
"Two Swords against one it may be, if the Dark God allows for his – Not-nibab, the Love Sword – to tesseract back into our realm, like he did for K’aleb."
Zoar took the mortar and three sprigs of dried arbutus to the front door, crushed the flowers into the wood, set them aside and rubbed the mixture – again, three times – around the doorjamb, then fetched the pail of water and dashed three scoops over her work. "After hearing of this K’aleb elfling, it surprises me that any god would let such a prize as one of the Nine fall into the hands of an ordinary Terran."
"There is little that we know of K’aleb, but that his main goal was to lure one of our journeymates, Tarnac, to his death," said Val’ha.
"The appearance of the creature may have been only a mask. From my father’s teachings, it could have been the mask of a god."
"Loki? The God of Trickery?"
"No! Of course not, nor possession through the Song, Sir Quigley," said Zoar. "There is one demon, however, who travels the Terran realm and whom Xorus may have trusted to catch and wield Not-nibab."
"Aentfroghe!"
Zoar gathered their bowls and set them aside before putting some more wood on the fire. "That may be."
"By the way, and not that it is my business," Mecnoarv said, "but what, dear acolyte, were you doing at the entryway of this charming manse?"
"Restrengthening the banishing powers of our front door, Master Mecnoarv, three times each ritual to keep the demon who may follow you at bay. One, though we are on sacred ground, can never be sure of the gods’ whim and will. The paste I created is similar to my father’s. Ten years ago when we took this place, it was inhabited by harpies, and after they were exorcised from the grounds, Father Ziegler convoked the grace of our God-Queen upon this land and no Terran demons have entered since."
"What makes your paste, my lady?"
"Mintleaf, arbutus, the ashes of a piglet and incantations of three."
"Yes, three, what is the Oath of the Thaumaturge? Ah! I recall – ‘Three cants a potency, seven and nine – five weights the balance of justice divine…’"
"’One are the heavens from which all was wrought – ten forms the triangle, powers be brought.’" Zoar paused when Ziegler and the Baroness, who had found her way to him during the drumbeat of the rain-soaked night, both pink-faced and fresh, made their way down the stairs. "Good morning, Father."
"Good morning, daughter! Good morning to you all." Brother Ziegler fetched a bowl of soup for Baroness Val Tress and himself and smiled at Quigley, Tarl-Cabot and Ma’teus. "The three of you look very hale and ready for the day ahead, but I insist that you nonetheless take some of my remedies…daughter?" Zoar filled a small sack with arbutus powder and handed it to Val’ha. "Mix it well with water always, Lady Val’ha," instructed Ziegler. "Daub three times, and dash three extra dollops of water afterward. Now come, daughter, and prepare yourself to pack, we are going to visit your aunt."
"Baroness Rae? She lives in…but, Father…"
"We leave for Zcembrota today, until this danger has passed, my lovely girl. You will not be subjected to the growing storm as long as I wear these Clerickal robes, for I will not fill Convah with any more spirits beyond the many lives already lost."
"If you should travel by way of Flooher’ty City, know that the regent Prince has moved to blockade the straits with his undead navy and likely fortified Flooher’ty illegally with his Black Dogs. This was," the Baroness said, the skin at the bottom of her neck rising as she spoke, "his intention." She nodded at Val’ha.
"That we shall do, Valerie, for even the hallowed ground of our home, which until yesterday was our refuge from the world, may soon not be so."
**
After the thunderstorm broke and Terr’Sol peeked through the clouds, the journeymates decided it was in their best interest to travel under the wet cloak of rainfall and made for an inviting blanket of ficus trees that occupied a corner of one of the mud-soaked vineyards along Bylikania Pass. "It is a testament to the textiles of your kingdom, Lord Pivrax," said Sir Quigley, jumping from Desire, "that it so resists the rain – my skin is as dry as a lizard."
"T-t-tiss D-dark-kw-wood f-f-iberr." Pivrax alit from Vuvu and helped Porcie and Ma’teus tend to the animals.
Only he and Val’ha had ridden alone, and she amused herself watching the warriors among them hold their pride in their chins as they rode – the Baroness with Ma’teus on Firedancer, Quigley with Porcie, and Tarl-Cabot with Mecnoarv on Creed. "I would like to know what your wizard used in the cloth of his robe and offer you anew my gratitude and life, master halfling," said Tarl-Cabot.
"Please do not!" said Mecnoarv. "You have told me now a dozen times, Sir Tarl-Cabot – I could not have guessed in my maddest thoughts that after all of Elftime’s lies and fashions that the one truth he spoke was the robe’s charm. Now I must ask Lady Val’ha here – how may I help you in Apocania?"
"What did you have in mind, Master Mecnoarv?"
"For one, I know the city like the back of Creed’s head, to its very end-blocks."
"Pardon me, but you offer yourself as our guide? I cannot, even in fever, see that to be the Sagest course…"
"Lady Baroness!" Mecnoarv flushed deep pink.
Baroness Val Tress scratched the ground. "If you can find us provisions, that would be honorable, master merchant – but we can discuss the challenge ahead on the pass. We should resume our travel before the day turns blue."
"That we have come to this, dreading bright skies and Terr’Sol’s shine."
"Lord Frippe!" the Baroness interrupted Ma’teus, for clad in rain-drenched cape and silks, Lady Frippe’s troth stood in front of them. As she gestured several of the companions’ swords down, Val Tress bowed to him. "Lord Frippe."
"Baroness Val Tress." He nodded at each of them. "I am so glad to have found you!"
"You were seeking us? How?" demanded Tarl-Cabot. "And why did you flee at the Old Church on Holy Hill?"
The nobleman joined them under the ficus tree, wrinkling his nose at Tarl-Cabot. "Have you forgotten fear, sir knight? In my flight, I did not stop to assess who had entered the church. And yes, I did seek you out."
"They said your mind had gone feeble with delusion," Sir Porcie said.
"In truth, it was complete jest, to escape from there." Lord Frippe shuddered and held up his trothal-ring. "After my lady was poisoned, I could not see any alternative to protect my own life. I have been in hiding since, crouching in whatever abandoned buildings I can toward the nameless capital."
"Be off, then, on your way!" raged Tarl-Cabot. "What poltroonery brought you to leave your troth’s body lying in a meeting-room, that you could not even await her burial rites? Explain or fly off with your chicken’s heart!"
Lord Frippe cowered and appeared for a moment as if he would indeed take flight until Val’ha interceded with a hand on his, bade him to sit and sternly but quietly recommended that Tarl-Cabot regather his wits. "We offer you our sympathy for the loss of Lady Frippe – she was a good friend."
Frippe began to sob for the death. "Pull yourself together, Man," the Baroness said. "Why are you after us?"
Lord Frippe withdrew a cloth from inside his shirt to daub his eyes. "I want to bring you to the Oomarouge Mansion."
"Mansion Perilous? That which Bylikania Pass had to be built around?"
"The very one. I fled there, always just hours behind the Black Dogs as they neared Apocania. I was in the Oomarouge resting when twenty-five, perhaps thirty of them and their mercenaries returned, with five hostages that they locked in the mansion’s turret, early this morning."
"Hostages?"
"Guildleaders, merchants…" Lord Frippe talked until he was at the end of his breath, and his lips flapped when he inhaled. "Whatever you may call them – there were two Men, two Women and a she-Dwarf, or half-Dwarf, I could not tell which. They were being held there, outside the city, in secret, for return of the thief Trisahn and surrender of the insurgents who have barricaded the Apocanian mayoral structure."
Little did the companions need to be convinced to remount their horses, Lord Frippe accompanying Val’ha. "There was, last night, a passel of guards who fled the intelligent tornadoes and white lightning – I knew from their conversation, and from the description of the attack, that you were not far away."
"How did you escape from the mansion, by the way?" Val’ha said.
Before the lord could answer, Mecnoarv piped up. "I shall lead you there! The City of Merchants has, over the course of years, quite obviously attracted a large thieves market, an extensive underground, and I do mean just that, underground, for there runs beneath Apocania what the local folks call The Tunnels. Not a very glamour-filled name, but there you are."
"My mother once spoke of visiting the thief mines, Master Mecnoarv," said Porcie. "On one of her guild trips she was given a courteous tour."
"The guides were – are – my Wiiws’ parents, Abii and Strom, yes indeed!"
"I thought that the escapements and causeways had been sealed."
"Some, yes! By any course, I am certain this was the route which our good Lord Frippe took."
"It was, it was, Master Mecnoarv."
"The Tunnels end beneath mansions, the mayoral structures, merchantries and – most important to the Apocanian thieving guild, and us if we want to find Master Trisahn – under the jail."
After a stretch of time in which Val’ha recounted the most recent part of their journey, she asked Lord Frippe, "A question has loomed in my mind for many fortnights – why was your troth poisoned?"
"She knew who was plotting to kill King Joel and Queen A’gren," he answered without delay. "My lady and I spoke in bed every night – as you may surmise – of the happenings around Castle Moncrovia. Being in the position she held of assistant to the High Wizarder, Lady Frippe trusted only me with her thoughts and secrets and one night – the night before Sir Tarl-Cabot here’s betrothal to Princess Igri – my troth was working in her office late. The High Wizarder, you see, had vanished from the castle grounds…"
"Go on, Man, please," said Tarl-Cabot. "Tell us what the Prince said."
"That isthe rumor about the countryside, that Prince Joel in all his villainy had his parents killed, hiring mercenaries or who knows else to shoot arrows into them with him bearing false witness and you to take the blame. There are few I have met who believe any other."
"We have never claimed that he had any part in summoning the three of us to Castle Ohrt," corrected the Baroness. "That was the discretion of the King."
"No, that is not what I attest, but the Prince did discover your meeting time and place, and took his High Advisor and Joh’oprinian guards to Ohrt, or he would not have been waiting for you there. The night before the betrothal…"
"King Joel had a private dinner with only his most immediate family – the Queen and the five children," Tarl-Cabot said.
"During those hours, Lady Frippe heard voices from within the meeting-room that lies near the offices of the High Wizarder. When she entered the hallway to investigate who was conferring there at such an odd hour, she ran into High Advisor Arpon-Altraine and thus was brought about his downfall as well, for the two of them eavesdropped on the conspirators."
"What did they hear? Who were they?" The journeymates plied their questions upon the ragtag lord.
"The voices were hushed behind the door, such that Lady Frippe could not distinguish anything but snatches of their scheming for the King and Queen’s end. It is from this that she alerted King Joel later that night, amid the clamor of High Wizarder Oromasus’ flight. Whoever listened to the King and Queen discuss their course of action also found out that it was Lady Frippe and Arpon-Altraine who alerted them. The day after the four of them died (my troth was killed in the same meeting-room just before your notorious encounter at Ohrt) and some of the nobles had been imprisoned, I knew I would be on the Prince’s short list of those next, and so devised my ruse of madness."
"Did Lady Frippe repeat any of the fragments from the assassins’ conversation?"
"Other than the references to the actual murders, ‘birthstone’ is all I can recall."
The entrance to The Tunnels, though large, was well hidden by trees and only discernible from Bylikania Pass by the tour trail that had been laid over the preceding decade. Val’ha was grateful to be out of the rain, as helpful as it was, if only that her friends were not stuck close to her for protection from Xorus. She was further gladdened when Mecnoarv told her that the central artery of The Tunnels could accommodate their mounts. Ma’teus lit torches for herself and Pivrax in the cool and well-carved, packed-sand tunnel and led their fellows to save the merchants and Trisahn.
**
"If there is only a score of guardsmen at the Oomarouge," said Tarl-Cabot, "that would still mean a half thousand at the barricades."
"Both sides sound as if they have dug in their boots," the Baroness said. "I hope that with the added fire of taxes, the Apocanian merchants will not capitulate as they once did in the Great Battle."
"Did they not fight?" asked Val’ha.
"No," said Porcie. "Their tenets of Flooher’tian sa’aphism and insipirility mean that they little travel the road of risk. They have a profound belief in the powers of the crown, or barring that, their sheriffs and posse-going mercenaries, whom they have always had abundant treasure to hire for security and protection. They have no cause themselves to fight."
"Few – Dwarven or Human – have even a club or dagger in their homes," Mecnoarv said.
"Lovely Flooher’tian way of life – pheasants sitting in wait of the hunter."
"Who, let us not forget," said Ma’teus, "wield the Diamond Sword."
"Dop-splythe remains ever-present in my mind," Tarl-Cabot assured her. "With what powers we and a few sheriffs have against Joel’s force and the threat of the Sword turning the Apocanians against each other, I should like to hear if anyone has conceived of what we will do after we free Trisahn." None could answer him and they continued in silence.
Val’ha was saddened. Apocania, all gaiety and commerce, seemed to have formal security and could easily be on fire by the time they reached it but, she asked herself, who during King Joel’s time would have dared predict such horrible times as these?
"They – the Apocanians," Mecnoarv said, breaking her thoughts, "they must be shaken of their habits if ever we reach the other side of this night. They and all of Asch’endra must cease their flight from the fog, the demon, the guards of the stolen throne."
"Please light the way then, Master Mecnoarv," Porcie said, "for there is no potion or scroll that I am aware which could instill in the hearts of the kingdom mettle enough to cause peace-lovers like the Apocanians to rise to battle."
"Can we not summon the navies of Zcembrota and Azimq’haadrin, do you think, Lady Val’ha? I cannot believe that the fortifications you have told me about – Taramas, M’trossmyph’, Flooher’ty City – have gone unchallenged by their people."
"I have no answer for that, but if Moncrovia and Bylikaegra are lessons…"
"Do you think that Prince Joel will eventually lay siege to every city, town and settlement, whether or not they defy him?" persisted Mecnoarv. "I cannot believe he could get away with it. If now Apocania, it is only a matter of time before Yogurtville, Toyuut-halprin, Denlineil, even Zehdr City!"
"With success in Apocania, master halfling," Lord Frippe said, "the discussion among the Prince’s men focused next on Andovil’age, further north. I cannot imagine that Zehdr City, a city of a hundred thousand, would come under fire; it is, by far, the largest, and with the Pope’s Leictanian Guard, most fortified city in the world!"
The Tunnel broke off to their right. "Do not go that way," warned Snooteliicore. "It leads only to a dead end."
"What was it used for?"
"Loot storage, Lady Val’ha, but it is empty now."
"I wonder if the Oomarouge Gem could be hidden there," said Porcie.
"G-g-gemm?"
"Gem, Lord Pivrax. After the dreadful Oomarouge clan died off from disease, the stone vanished. It is a yellow, magickal stone."
"How deep is that tunnel?" asked Ma’teus.
"As I say, it was for loot storage," said Mecnoarv. "Perhaps a thousand yards."
Ma’teus waved her torch around the entrance of the impasse, to no avail; Porcie took several steps inside. "Come, friends, it will only take a moment…" Several low growls from somewhere beyond him echoed from the dark.
"Come now! Take off your idiot’s cap and keep your course," said the Baroness, proceeding along the main corridor. "I am in no mood to dally with bears!"
**
"What is that sound?" A mild acrid breeze fluttered Quigley’s hail.
"It seems, dear friend, that more than just bears have wandered into these tunnels," Porcie said.
"Master Mecnoarv," scolded the Baroness, "did your trothal parents take any precautions against creatures occupying these places?"
"Lady Baroness, even the best castles have rats in their granaries!"
The breeze was a full-blown wind by now, and the smell reminded Val’ha of Inez’ sulfur pit. She pushed Dragonslayer’s head toward Ma’teus and took her sister’s torch. "Keep him here." Mecnoarv took Pivrax’ torch and with the Grey Troll, Lord Frippe and Ma’teus minding the mounts, the others crept forward with the creature silent.
"If it is what I suspect…What, again, lady Elf, is your word for the Human mind?" the Baroness asked.
"Dandruff."
"That is what this creature is." The dandruff must have considered its course of action, for its sound resumed in Val’ha’s ears, a combination of grated whooshing and the Song of Terra. "These things were an unintended result of the Swords of Ariadne," said the Baroness. "Before she first gifted Terra with the Book and the Nine, Ariadne visited Nirvana, realm of Oflomemnon and his children. He glazed the magickal Swords with his braindrops – fluid from his mind, which also gave birth to the ten Emotions – but as Dervish was being granted to Queen Zilog, Asch’endra’s crownbearer at the time, some of the Feel-God’s sweat dripped from Dervish and landed in the Apocanian forest, creating the dandruff."
"Then perhaps it is time to reintroduce one of the Nine to this thing." Tarl-Cabot focused his Sword on the sky-blue light that emanated from around the corner and filled the windy tunnel with the brightness of day. By the movement of his lips Val’ha knew he was invoking the flame of Crundin.
"It hovers near," said the Baroness. Val’ha and Mecnoarv’s torches blew out; Val’ha unsheathed her scimitar and began to focus her will on stirring the tingling green-light in her blood.
The dandruff was at least four yards wide and just as tall, from the glowing cylindrical legs that billowed out air so forcefully that it left trenches in the hard sand along the tunnel walls, to its head, which resembled a giant version of a birdbrain Val’ha had once seen (to her horror) Ma’hadrin drying for use in one of his potions. There was not much more than that – a large green brain on two oscillating light-blue cylinders that made such a pillow of air on the ground, the dandruff could move without ever touching Terra. Though Val’ha did not detect eyes, she was aware that it was fully cognizant of their presence and number. Two sections of the dandruff began to shape themselves into arms from which projected a pair of light-blue talons the size of daggers; at the center of its head, the dandruff opened a pore to reveal two rows of sharp red and yellow teeth. Acid from its talons dripped to the caveway floor and bubbled in the sand. The dandruff floated nearer, causing granules to fly into the companions’ eyes. "By Keith," cried Porcie, putting his hand over his face, "watch its claws!"
"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" The creature’s caterwaul felt to Val’ha as if a thousand children screamed directly into her ear at their highest pitch, and she lost her balance, her free hand gripping the tunnel wall. She fell against Mecnoarv and the Baroness, all of them beneath the full windstream of the dandruff, which had come to linger over them. Val’ha felt her ears shut; she could no longer concentrate on her willpower, and the torrential air ripped against her skin even as it swept away the ground beneath her.
She shielded her face against the onslaught, and it was only barely that Val’ha heard Mecnoarv’s painful scream and forced her eyes open long enough to see the dandruff’s claw drip its poison into the halfling’s ears. Tarl-Cabot, complete your cant! Crundin’s power was at last unfurled. Tarl-Cabot pushed its hilt into Terra, leaving the Empathetic Sword standing upright at the center of the whirlwind. Silver-yellow flame crackled an inch from his hands, electrifying its way past the mystickal Elven cant on Crundin’s blade, the lettering gleaming for an extra moment, and shot from the Sword-tip into the gut of the dandruff, penetrating the creature and spreading through and around it.
"OOOOOOOOO!" The dandruff’s legs grew fainter, then brighter, then fainter before, in a POP!that brought instant headaches to the journeymates, the beast was gone in a glamour of pink sparks, wood shavings and sand.
The full effect of the dandruff’s poison had taken hold of Mecnoarv, leaving him unable to stand as he flapped his arms, gibbered and drooled on Val’ha. "What do we do now?" asked Tarl-Cabot after they rejoined Pivrax, Ma’teus and Lord Frippe. "The halfling is as useless as a baby. We shall wander past this false-walled tunnel and never reach the Oomarouge Mansion."
"The poison will wear off after a time," the Baroness, wiping sawdust from her silver ringlets of hair. "Until then, I suspect that either Sir Porcie or Lord Frippe may land us in the general vicinity." With Pivrax and Ma’teus lighting the way, the companions several hours later were using their swords, hatchets, hands and feet to tear away a false wall, though not until Mecnoarv had forced them to share respite.
**
Pivrax ascended the wide ramp and pushed up the trapdoor to bring the companions and their mounts, properly enough, into an emptied stable behind the Oomarouge Mansion. "There it is," said Mecnoarv, just tall enough to peek out the upper crack of one of the horse-doors. There were no Black Dog guards or mercenaries in the back of the three-story greystone; to their right, Bylikania Pass curved abruptly right in a half-circle before resuming its course on the other side. "You see why it was called Mansion Perilous – one would have been hard-fought to convince Lord Oomarouge of anything, much less forcing an easement through his property. He made them go directly around his residence so that he did not have to toil one extra foot when he wished to do business in Merchant City."
"Blasted army," said Lord Frippe, gazing through the crack. "They locked the back door through which I stole."
Val’ha, herself at the next stable, listening to the guards’ conversation through the lightened downpour, frowned when she saw the padlock to which Frippe referred. "Shall we ask the Dogs for the key?" jested Porcie in her ear. In a jolt of inspiration, she tapped her sister on the shoulder and Ma’teus gave her the sapphire neckwear on which hung the Vampire Key. "Clever Elfwomen!" said Porcie. "The Vampire Key just might be the skeleton-key it was claimed to be." The companions closed the trapdoor so that their horses and Vuvu could not escape before stepping into the drizzle. Weapons drawn, they reached the mansion. Val’ha stuck the Vampire’s Key into the keyhole; to her surprise, the key vibrated in her hand and when it touched the Oomarouge lock, adjusted its size to accommodate entry, pulled itself in and turned smoothly in a light click that broke the lock open. Porcie, Pivrax and Quigley remained outside.
The rain sounded like wind when they were inside. Like the stable, Mansion Perilous was emptied but for the strewn discard of wayfarers and ashes of a half-burned log in one of the fireplaces. "There are five prisoners, you say?" Sir Tarl-Cabot queried.
Lord Frippe nodded. "We can spirit them away into safe passage underground once they are free." He led them to the round stairwell of the mansion’s southwest turret, for its isolation from the rest of the building quite spacious, and they were able to tiptoe up in pairs, with Val’ha and Tarl-Cabot’s blades leading the way.
Ten steps from the third story the journeymates poked their eyes up to see a small hallway; on either side of a closed red door were two Black Dogs, one standing, one hunched in sleep. "Mate-mmph…" By the time the sleeping sentry stirred from his comrade’s warning, Ma’teus had put a silver knife through his heart. The Baroness’ arrow flew into the other’s forehead and he slumped to the floor.
Tarl-Cabot turned the lock and inside the cobwebbed, dusty, broken-crated turret-room they found the merchants scraped, bruised and frightened, but otherwise unharmed. The Men and the she-Dwarf had pointed short black beards; the Women were both plump and wore lace-frilled dresses. When one of the Men rose with a mixture of fear and defiance on his face, Tarl-Cabot said, "Do not worry, folks."
The Man’s eyes flitted to Val’ha and the Baroness. "You are the outlaws! The ones accused of killing the King and Queen! Come, dear troth, meet our rescuers!" The companions introduced themselves to the merchants. "I am Daniel and this is Ruth, proprietors of the Ogre Power Inn. These are Pelvam and Odebee, who run Pelvam’s Leather, and Lady Farillon the city’s wagonmaker…" At that moment sounds of tussle rattled the wooden shutters of the turret.
Val’ha smacked them open to see Quigley below, swinging his swords against a circle of Black Dogs. "They have found our friends! Mecnoarv, Lord Frippe – stay with the Apocanians." The rest of the fellowship flew down the stairs by threes and fours, but by the time they were outside, the battle was over.
Thirty of Prince Joel’s Men lay dead. "Sir Porcie!" cried Ma’teus, running to the wet-faced knight to rest her green curing-light upon his gored left shoulder.
Sir Quigley resheathed his swords, his own shoulders hung in despondence and when he waved toward a lilac bush next to the Oomarouge, Val’ha saw why. "Such valiance I have never seen. He fought so bravely that even when they broke his staff, Pivrax was able to kill two more before they slew him. When we saw what they had done, by the gods did our blades convoke justice!"
The companions raced over to the fallen Grey Troll. "NO!" Everything that had happened to her – from Castle Ohrt to Insipirility Pass – overwhelmed Val’ha and she held Pivrax’ limp body, a dark bloodstain from the stabwound in his heart, to her, rocking and inconsolable. "Why, why, why?" She dismissed the inner specters of hatred, revenge and fury within her only to be filled with a profound sense of dread and futility.
Ma’teus had healed Porcie and moved toward Pivrax, but the Baroness stopped her. "There is nothing you can do, dear girl, a Troll’s spirit does not linger as ours do." By now Mecnoarv, Lord Frippe and the merchants had joined them; the Baroness, Porcie and several of them crossed themselves and said silent prayers to the fallen Joh’oprinian hero.
One of the stable doors had swung open during the melee, and they never found Vuvu the goat again.
**
Wet, exhausted and weighted with dread and loathing for Xorus, Val’ha adjusted her feet in the branches of the red ficus, chopping at the smaller ones and dropping them for Porcie and Quigley to catch. She tried to keep her mind blank, but her family curse, only a few days away to coincide with Ma’teus’ quarter-century birthmark, continued to insinuate into her consciousness. "Val’ha! You cut yourself!" Ma’teus, on a nearby branch with her knife, threw her wood down into Quigley’s arms and reached over for Val’ha’s hand: She had put it in the way of her hatchet, and the pain from the gash suddenly shot up Val’ha’s arm and through her aching cry.
"What is happening?" their friends said below. "Are you injured?"
"We are fine, I am fine."
Ma’teus’ warm hand begin to vibrate and tingle around her own, the green-light and also love pouring into the wound until the slicing hurt was gone. A scar remained, however, after Ma’teus curing-light faded. "Dear sister, I am sorry I could not do more." She touched the disfigured skin.
"I am not. It will always recall Lord Pivrax and this time." They jumped down and helped the Men complete the stacking of the pyrewood. The companions, after wrapping Pivrax’ body in whatever cloth they could spare and piling the Black Dog corpses in the Oomarouge Mansion, had traversed the field west of Bylikania Pass with the horses and merchants and found a clearing in the Apocanian woods where they now prepared for his funeral rites. The Baroness, Tarl-Cabot and Mecnoarv started a warm campfire against the drizzling rain, passing food and drink to those they had rescued.
Val’ha practiced to herself the proper sequence of Elven death rituals taught by Ma’hadrin and when it was time, assembled everyone around a crude bier. The four knights retrieved the shrouded Grey Troll and with great care put him upon the ficus branches, then took their places around the circle; even the horses drew nearer. "Zeus himself cries at our hero’s death," lamented the Baroness.
None had given Val’ha any dispute over the rituals she proposed for Pivrax, though their practical effect was gone with the immediate departure of his spirit (a remnant of Troll blood). She thought of this as she covered her journeymate’s body with bushy birch branches, also red with the turning autumn. Though at first she felt vaguely embarrassed that they might be coddling her grief, she realized that her friends were engaging in the sending ceremony as much for themselves. "Nefant." Ma’teus knew the Elfsong from Gregarcantz and when she sang their word for "newborn" it was drawn long, in a low note that recalled and honored the Song, wavering at times to remind of life’s fragility. The sisters began to slowly clap their hands and the others joined in, responding, "Viv’circ," for the circle of life.
"Peu’rch-il." Val’ha picked up Pivrax’ broken aspen rod and placed the pointed javelin end across his left shoulder, then the silver pikestaff across his right: "Viv’circ."
"Ad’losage." "Viv’circ." Val’ha stepped back and with the rest joined hands, taking Quigley and Ma’teus’ tightly. "Terr’mond, shela’i-mond." "Viv’circ."
"Vi’eil." "Mort’err." Ma’teus lit five tinder-candles – for the stages of infancy, childhood, youth, life’s prime and old age – and together with her companions lit the pyrewood while the others continued their solemn beat. The fire burst to grey life, incinerating the bier and Pivrax’ body within a minute. As it burned, Val’ha delivered his elegy, which her father had called "The Song of Terra."
"Who fills the air that blows across the seas?
Who makes the waves of the oceans?
Who is the god whisp’ring songs in the meadow?
Who is the goddess of lightning?
Who brings the rock of the mountain to boil?
Who lights the Night Moon and Terr’Sol?
Who shares his love in her valorous fire?
Who tends the fish in the stream?
Who casts the rain on the vale and the plain?
Who with the skills of the gods was cast out?
Who is the life-giving Queen of their house?
And who at the heat of the spear-point gives battle?
"He is the god who creates the fire of thought,
Who enlightens the sages upon the mountaintops, if not him?
Who speaks the ages of the stars, if not him?
Who shows the place where Terr’Sol goes to rest, if not him?
Who calls the children from the house of Terra?
To whom do the children of Terra journey?
