Elvenborn

31

Dusk—and Shana looked up through the gloom and the drizzle at the mountain of rubble marking the site that Keman swore hid a major cave-complex.

Well, if it did, the original cave-mouth must have been bigger than anything Shana had ever imagined, much less seen. It looked from this perspective as if half the side of the mountain had come down over the years, and it wasn't a small mountain. Steep, though; very steep, covered with trees and brush that clung to the slope with vegetative stubbornness, and probably kept the rest of the mountain from losing its outer skin.

The most recent fall had been quite recent indeed, and had added bulk to the pile on the left-hand side. There were trees, large trees, crushed under all that rock, with the remains of dead leaves still clinging to the branches.

Mage-lights hovered over the pile as Kyrtian's men looked on apprehensively. Keman—back to human-form—and Kyrt-ian climbed the rock-pile to the single opening that Keman had discovered near the top of the mound.

"Is he going to be safe?" one of the men asked dubiously, as Keman offered Kyrtian a hand-up over a tricky bit. Shana was dead-certain that he wasn't worried about Keman.

"Keman's a dragon," she reminded him. "They don't know rock, they live rock. Keman feels where each pebble is rubbing and might be loose. He'll know if something is going to slip before the rock knows."

"You'd better be right," Lynder muttered darkly. "I climb—I explore caves all the time—and I wouldn't go up there without spending weeks checking my path."

"You're not a dragon," she retorted, and turned her own attention to the base of the pile. There, in a place where rock had been melted and reformed to stabilize the area (the indisputable mark of dragon stone-shaping), was where Keman had found the strange piece of metal. Shana examined the spot on her hands and knees with her own little mage-light, and in a few moments, there was no doubt in her mind that what he had found was not a random bit of something that might have been dropped by a curious Elvenlord long ago. There was more of the stuff under that original rock-fall. As she brought her pinpoint light in close to the ground, she saw a thin edge of something squashed along the boundary of rock-pile and dirt that didn't look anything like the fractured edge of a rock. What it did look like was another sheet of metal. Just what was under that pile of rock?

Just what is inside this cave? That's what I should be asking....

She looked back up again. At that moment, Keman turned and waved back down at her. They must have found the entrance. A mage-light left the formation and swung purposefully towards the two figures up on the pile, then vanished, seemingly into the rocks. There was some activity up there, as the two bent over something. A moment later, the first figure followed the light into the tumbled rocks. Keman remained bent over while Kyrtian's men fidgeted restlessly, then eventually started back down the pile. Clearly Kyrtian had gone down inside the cave by rope, and Keman had remained just long enough to see that he was safely down.

"Now what's Kyrtian thinking?" the man beside Shana murmured, fretfully. "We ought to be making camp, not climbing around in caves."

"Kyrtian's probably seeing if we can camp in the cave," one of his fellows pointed out. "It would be a lot drier, and we wouldn't have to worry about—Things."

"Unless, of course, those Things have been coming out of the cave," Shana warned, darkly. The more Kyrtian had explained what he hoped to find, the less she'd liked the idea of crawling around in there. So far, every sign had pointed to the conclusion that Kyrtian was right, and this was the site of his race's entry into this world. What if that Great Portal hadn't quite been closed—or had been reopened? From what Lorryn had told her, Evelon was hellish at best; there was no telling what kind of horrors lived back there. The ambush beasts and the other weird things in this forest could be coming out of Evelon—or been sent by the Elvenlords' enemies, the ones they had fled here to escape.

Fire and Rain! If they were the losers in their fight, I don't want to meet what the Elvenlords we know thought was so bad they would risk running into an unknown world rather than face it or surrender to it.

Kyrtian's men didn't look very happy with her observation, so she didn't share any more of her thoughts. Forewarned was forearmed, but no point in making them too nervous.

Keman came down the slide a great deal faster than he had gone up; more sure-footed than any goat, since he needn't trouble himself about the stability of the surface he trod on. He looked as gleeful as only a dragon could, with the prospect of a new set of caves to explore. "The outermost cavern has a lot of things in it, but they all look like personal belongings that people dropped while they were running away. Kyrtian wants to camp in there," he told them, as he leapt down from the last boulder. "Right now, we need some ropes to get down inside."

"And just how are we going to get the horses up that mess?" one of the men demanded. "They won't go, and I don't blame them."

"Oh." Keman clearly hadn't thought of that, and obviously, neither had Kyrtian. "I could stabilize it, but that would take time—"

"And then what are you going to do? Lower them on a rope? Hobie and Lynder can go with my lord, and the rest of us will stay out here," the man replied firmly. "They're the ones that go mucking about in holes, not us. You just put some of those magics on our camp to keep the horrors away, and we'll be fine waiting in the open."

Keman looked at Shana, who just shrugged. These weren't her men to command. "Go see what Lord Kyrtian has to say about that," was her only advice.

So back up the pile went Keman, and back down again, just as quickly. "He says it's all right, but camp away from the rock-fall area," he called as he leapt from rock to rock. "So we need to scout a secure area—Hobie and Lynder, though, he wants you to bring up the climbing gear he asked for."

"What about the camping stuff?" Lynder asked immediately. "How are we going to get that down?"

Keman just laughed.

"Leave that to Shana and me," he said; so the two men Kyrtian called for gathered up a pack apiece, and several coils of rope, and began the climb while Shana and Keman and the rest went to look for a good place for the others to set up.

They found it soon enough, an indentation in the side of the hill, too small to be called a valley, too large for a ravine. More of a pocket in the hillside that Shana could fence off with magic for them to keep the horses confined and screen the camp from view.

That was easy enough for her to do; an illusion of solid hillside and vegetation, layered onto a barrier that would only let people pass. She kept the mage-lights going while they set up camp, then once they had a fire and their own lanterns going, dismissed all but one of her lights. Then she and Keman collected all of the gear they were going to need inside the cave. He had taken the form of something rather grel-like, with a broad, flat back to carry a great many packs, and four strong, limber legs ending in claws.

It was a very good thing that he had taken all the gear, because Shana had a hard enough time getting herself up that slope. It was as much of a scramble as a climb, testing each foothold only to find her feet skidding as loose scree dislodged, grabbing desperately for a handhold until she could get her feet firmly planted again. Fortunately, once they reached the top, Hobie and Lynder were waiting with ropes set up to bring down everything a bit at a time. Keman himself carried Shana, pick-a-back, with her arms wrapped around his neck, legs wedged under the muscles where wings met shoulder. He was in his own shape, of course, climbing down with the agility of a fly on a wall, disdaining the use of rope. She kept her eyes shut; if anything, it was a lot farther to the floor of the cave than it had been to the ground outside, and the rock-fall had piled up into a much nastier barrier on this side.

Once they were down on firm soil, though, she opened her eyes to take her first look around.

Mage-lights up near the vaulted top of the cave imparted a soft glow that was as good as daylight. There was rubbish everywhere, about half of it being wood, leaves, branches, and other detritus that had blown in or washed in before the cave was so totally sealed up. But the other half of the litter wasn't. It looked, just as Keman's brief description had suggested, as if a great many people had come through here laden down with personal belongings, and for one reason or another, had simply dropped them or left them here.

Quite clearly, the mess had been poked at, dug through, and nested in by all manner of animals over the course of several centuries. Anything of fabric or leather had long since gotten so close to the point of disintegration that all you had to do was poke it and it fell apart, leaving only bits of metal and less-identifiable substances that had been used as ornamentation or fastenings. Some of it was armor; recognizable breastplates and greaves, helms and vambraces poked up here and there among the wreckage. There were boxes that fell to bits at a touch, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of what their contents might have been before those, too, fell into piles of dust and fragmented flakes. There were swords and knives and axes, but also less recognizable objects and some that Shana couldn't make out at all.

It wasn't so much the metal objects themselves that were fascinating, it was the metals that they were made of. Living among the Elvenlords as she had, Shana was familiar with the ways in which they made bronze, brass, copper, silver, and gold serve any number of purposes—but the objects she found weren't made of any of those metals. Most were constructed of the dull grey stuff that Keman had found, very light and strong, but clearly nothing familiar. Other objects were made of something equally light and thin, and looked like ceramic or glass, but whatever it had been it was brittle and shattered when flexed. It couldn't always have been that brittle; presumably age had rendered it friable.

This sad litter lay among the leaves and sticks that had blown or been carried in over the years, the mounds of dirt, of dust and cobwebs, the bones of little animals who had lived and died here or had been brought in and eaten.

But there were other bones here as well that were not of animals—and when Shana accidentally kicked a helmet and it rolled and disgorged a skull, she decided that she'd had enough of exploring and hurried back to the spot that Hobie and Lynder had cleared of debris and were making into a camp. Kyrtian had already gathered a small pile of things there, and was going through them while the other two put together a fire and the makings of a hot meal. There was certainly no shortage of fuel for the fire, anyway.

"It's a pity nothing of the books survived," Kyrtian said, looking up, as she approached the friendly warmth of the fire. "They've all gone utterly to bits that not even Moth could reconstruct."

"I don't think it's a pity at all," she retorted. "Kyrtian, it looks as if these people were running for their lives, and something made sure that not all of them got out of here. That Evelon of your ancestors must have been worse than even you thought, and I'd rather not know anything about it."

"They're your ancestors, too, Lashana," Kyrtian pointed out with surprising gentleness. "Many of them were arrogant and selfish creatures who, as soon as they got away from those who were exploiting them, turned about and oppressed others—but some were like me, like my father, and like your friend Valyn. And they knew a very great deal that we would find useful, if we could rediscover it."

"All that great learning doesn't seem to have done them much good here," Lynder observed, looking around the cave, and shuddering. "Do Elvenlords leave ghosts behind when they die?"

Shana knew exactly how he was feeling. She had spent a great deal of her life in caves, and normally she felt quite comfortable in them, but this one had an atmosphere that she could only describe as "haunted." Every word they spoke whispered and echoed in a way that was quite unnerving, with bits of their own conversation lingering long past the time when Shana would have expected the sounds to die away.

And now that they were all gathered in around the fire, Kyrt-ian had thriftily canceled his mage-lights. She was used to the way that a fire made moving shadows on cave-walls, but here were shadows that moved within the shadows, and places where blots of darkness were there when she looked, but gone when she looked again. As for the smell—under the usual damp "cave" scent, there was a hint of something metallic and harsh.

It was only the first in a series of caves, as Keman had described, for in the wall opposite the rock-fall, a dark maw of a further entrance gaped. She guessed that this cavern had been water-carved at some point, but where the water had gone was anyone's guess. Perhaps it had sunk further into the depths of the hills, and they would encounter it as they got deeper into the caves. It was a half-dome now, the rock-fall covering what had been a vast entrance; the "ceiling" was a good three or four stories above their heads. Under all the debris, the floor was of sand, which at least had the virtue of being dry and softer than rock.

But this cave was not what Kyrtian had come to hunt, not really. The relics here were nothing more than the sign that this place was what Kyrtian's father had been looking for. There was no sign of the Elvenlord himself—unless some of those bones—

No, he would have found something to recognize his father by, I should think.

There was also no sign of his "Great Portal," or anything like it; no sign of the complex devices Kyrtian had described when he'd told Shana what he was looking for. How long before Kyrtian decreed that it was time to move deeper into the complex? The only concession to "making camp" so far was the fire and a few rocks as seats around it.

Kyrtian saw her glancing reluctantly towards the open entrance at the rear, and caught her eye. "Whatever is in there has waited for decades," he said—sadly, she thought. "It can wait another night. We rode like fools to get here, we're tired and wet and cold. We'd be further fools to go climbing around in an unknown cave in this state. People get themselves killed doing stupid things like that."

Lynder let out his breath; clearly he'd been holding it the moment Kyrtian began to speak, dreading being told they were going to have to gather their strength and be off again once they'd eaten. "Thank you for that, my Lord," he said stoutly. "You've prevented me from having to say the same thing. I was afraid if I did, you'd be angry, and if I didn't, Sargeant Gel would have the hide off me when we got back."

"I would hope I would never be the kind of leader to put you in that sort of untenable position, Lynder," Kyrtian replied, but a weary sparkle came back into his eyes, at least for a moment. "Food and sleep, my lads—and my lady—" he added, bowing to Shana. "That's what's called for here. And perhaps a little narrative from your friend on what it was like to eavesdrop outside my tent. I am curious to hear about that."

Keman bowed in his turn. "The only difference between us and your usual guards, Lord Kyrtian, was that we have much sharper hearing—and one of us was a lady herself."

"Oh really?" Kyrtian leaned forward. "Please go on...."

Hours later, the fire died down to coals. Keman had gone out to catch himself something of an appropriate size for a dragon's dinner. Before he left, Shana and Kyrtian had both taken the time—comparing notes the while—to fence in their little camp with protective magic. Interestingly enough, neither of them had chosen to use magic-shields. Instead, they had both opted for something that would trigger an alarm if crossed, clearing a circle that Keman could easily see so that he wouldn't trigger the alarm by tripping it when he returned. After all, he could simply shapeshift into a boulder, and nothing would disturb his rest; he didn't need alarms to warn him of danger, since danger would pass by without noticing him.

Despite those precautions, despite being weary, Shana was having a hard time getting to sleep. If conversations had echoed uncannily around the walls, the little sounds the others made as they moved or sighed or mumbled in their sleep were worse. Someone would cough a little, or turn over—moments later the sound came back, much distorted, into something that sounded like a footstep, or a whispered word. Sometimes multiple echoes came back, a breath, a murmur of not-quite-intelligible conversation.

She didn't actually fall asleep until after Keman finally returned. He entered as a dragon—a thin, snake-like dragon, the only way he could fit himself in through that tiny opening. He remained as a dragon, curled up just outside the boundary. His solid presence, bulking large so close at hand, finally made her feel safe. And in that moment, sleep came.

Triana's people had pitched a secluded camp at a discreet distance from the site that was evidently Kyrtian's goal. Rain dripped steadily on the canvas of her tent as she plied the forester with questions, a soft glow from a mage-light suspended above them shining down on his face and highlighting rough-hewn features that Triana had begun to take a liking to. The rugged looks of all of these men were beginning to grow on her; by comparison, her carefully-sculpted and trained slave-toys, though more defined and muscular, actually seemed rather boyish and immature.

"So, five of them entered, and the rest are—where?" Triana asked her scout.

"Gracious Lady, I couldn't find them." He didn't shrug, but she wondered what his impassive expression hid. Probably nervousness, fear of her anger; he was definitely sweating, just at his hairline. "I stayed to watch, then remained once they had been inside for some time and darkness had fallen. I climbed to the entrance to make certain that Lord Kyrtian and the four who accompanied him intended to set up camp there; they had gear down there enough to do so, and such seemed to be their intentions. When I went to look for the others, however, they could not be found."

"I can't believe he would have sent them back," she mused aloud. "No, I'm sure he must have created an illusion to cloak their camp—it is what I would have done in his place. Or else they themselves are taking no chances on the creatures lurking in this forest, and have hidden their camp...."

"It was quite dark by that time, my lady," he said diffidently.

"And you correctly remembered your orders to keep track of Kyrtian, not his slaves." She nodded. "Did you make any effort to see what was within the cave itself?"

He shook his head. "Lord Kyrtian had mage-lights all through the place, but it is very large, and a hard climb down. The floor is littered with debris, but I could not tell you what it was at that distance. The usual trash one finds in a cave, I suppose."

So he had come straight back here; that showed a fine balance between obedience and good sense. She smiled at him, and thought that his nervousness ebbed, a little. "You've done well; I would rather that you came back here to tell me what happened than waste time in trying to discover the whereabouts of a lot of men who will probably do nothing until their master returns." She laughed, then, and her man relaxed a little further. "As I have said before, what Kyrtian can do, I can do. I have no need of you men inside that cave; I have no intention of confronting Lord Kyrtian, I only wish to discover what he is up to. I can do that being careful and using my own powers of illusion to cloak my presence once one of you has helped me climb down. You, meanwhile, have managed to outflank Aelmarkin and get us here only a little behind Lord Kyrtian's men. I believe you deserve a bit of a holiday."

Now the slave unbent entirely. "Thank you, my lady," was all he said, but she saw the expression in his eyes change to one of wary gratitude, rather like a somber, alert coursing-hound offered an unexpected treat. She offered him a cup of her wine; he accepted it with a profound bow and drank it off at a gulp. A pity; it was a good vintage, but likely he wouldn't know good from bad. Perhaps she would educate him.

"I will go into the cave tomorrow to follow Kyrtian. Before I do, I would like you to find a good, out-of-the-way place to camp that is unlikely to be stumbled across by Aelmarkin's men. I'll cloak it with illusion and you all can disport yourselves as you will until I return." His eyes absolutely lit, and she laughed. "And yes, this means you may help yourselves to any of the provisions, the wine included. I don't expect to have to spend much time in that hole, and when I return, our business will be to make all speed back. Too many provisions will only slow us down."

She would take the precaution of changing the wine so that it made anyone who drank it tranquil rather than rowdy. She could always change it back when she returned. Better that they laze a little while she was gone; it would ruin her plans entirely for Aelmarkin's people to discover hers because they were carousing and singing or fighting behind her cloak of illusion.

If something else came across them and they were incapacitated, well—there were other ways she could get home. If they didn't take the precaution of setting a sober sentry, they weren't worth the money she'd paid for them.

"Have another cup," she said, with a dazzling smile, refilling his goblet. "Then go and tell the others what I just told you. I'll want climbing gear ready for me first thing when I wake; you can see me safely down, then return here to the others to wait for my return."

A few hours past dawn, Aelmarkin stood looking up at a vast pile of tumbled rocks; the trail apparently ended there, according to his forester. As usual, the skies dripped. He shook rain out of his eyes with irritation; was there never a break from the wretched stuff here?

And Kyrtian, Ancestors curse him, had found a way out of the wretched stuff. "A cave?" Aelmarkin said incredulously. "There's a cave up there? And Kyrtian crawled in there?"

"Yes, my Lord," the forester said into the ground at Aelmarkin's feet. "It is a very, very large cave; the opening is near to the top of it. I could not tell how many of his men went in with him, but the main trail ends here, and I can clearly see where a number of people went up that slope and entered into a gap at the top. Without light I cannot see what is inside, but if they were still immediately inside it, I must suppose they'd have lights of their own, so I presume they've gone in deeper."

"By the Ancestors." Aelmarkin began to chuckle. "Well, it's pretty clear that, whatever is here, it's not Wizards. Unless this is some forgotten entrance into their lair."

"Forgotten, my lord, or no longer in use because of the rock-fall," the scout said, head still bent. "But I dropped a torch within, when I could see no signs of Lord Kyrtian or his men down below, and before it guttered out all I saw was litter. It appears that if this place was ever in use as an entrance, it has not been used so for a very long time."

"That's good enough for me!" Aelmarkin replied. He considered the situation. "I'll take you with me; the rest can camp here. We'll see if we can't discover what Kyrtian thinks he's up to."

"It will be very difficult to conceal ourselves in a cave, my lord," the man began.

Aelmarkin cut him off with a gesture; the water from Ael-markin's sodden sleeve spattered him from head to toe, and Aelmarkin felt a bit of sour pleasure as the slave winced. "Not for a mage, you fool! Get whatever gear we'll need—we're already hours behind him." He looked around at the rest of his slaves. "And you! Put up a proper camp this time! When I get back, I expect to see something other than a half-pitched tent and a fire that won't start! And get moving!"

He put a sting of warning in his voice to remind them of the sting of his punishments, punishments that he had inflicted frequently through their collars each time they bumbled a task. It got them going, although sluggishly.

Well, no matter. In a few moments, he was going to be inside a dry cave. If they couldn't manage to put a camp together properly by the time he got back, on the way home he'd start crippling them and leaving them behind on the trail to attract the horrors that seemed to stalk these forests. That would give his dear cousin something to have to deal with on his way back to civilization. At the least, Kyrtian would be delayed in returning to his patron, Lord Kyndreth.

And at the most—Aelmarkin would no longer have anything standing between himself and everything he wanted.

This must be that fabled Portal to Evelon, with all of the things that had been left behind scattered about. The Wizards, if they existed at all, certainly weren't here. Opportunity waited and Fate smiled on Aelmarkin at last. And depending on what he found in that cave—well, by the time he returned home, Aelmarkin might even be able to give Lord Kyndreth himself a little healthy competition for ascendancy on the Great Council.