The Gypsy Morph

NINETEEN

THE SKRAILS FLEW SOUTH through the starlit night for several hours, winging their way along the eastern slopes of the Cintra Mountains with Kirisin Belloruus gripped firmly in their talons. Blood ran down his back from puncture wounds to his shoulders, and his body was racked with the pain. It did no good to try to struggle, because getting free of the skrails would mean falling to his death. It was bad enough that any sort of movement exacerbated his injuries, but the cold added measurably to his discomfort–enough so that his hands and feet quickly grew numb and there was nothing he could do about it. Stoically enduring, he hung limp and silent, listening to the steady beat of the great leathery wings and the occasional squawk from his captors that passed for communication.

At least he had managed to get rid of the Loden, he told himself. Whatever happened to him–and he had a pretty good idea what that would be–the Elfstone was safe.

It was a small victory given his present situation, but he took what comfort he could from it. Half a loaf was better than none at all. Even if the Loden had fallen to the ground undetected, if Praxia, running after him as he was carried away, had failed to glimpse it falling, it would still be safe from the demons. Someone would find it eventually. The Elves would be safe inside it until then, protected from whatever happened to the rest of their world and its inhabitants.

But his doubts persisted. He couldn’t help wondering if his reasoning was skewed. How could he know if the Loden would withstand the destruction that was coming? How could he know how long the Elves could survive inside the Loden before needing to be released? How could he know that the Elfstone would ever be found?

He closed his eyes. The many boiled down to one: How could he be sure of anything?

Exhaustion overcame discomfort and pain, and the steady beating of skrail wings and the rush of the wind lulled him to sleep. The events of the previous day–the flight from the Cintra and now the battle with his captors–had drained him of his strength. He dozed on and off as they flew, always jerking awake in what seemed only moments. But finally he drifted away in a long, sweeping glide, and time stopped altogether.

The jarring impact of a hard surface brought him awake again. It was still night. He lay on a barren patch of earth, freed of his captors, who winged about him in watchful sweeps, cautious against any attempt at escape. He made no effort to challenge them, his body numb clear through, his senses still sleep–fogged and confused. He lay where he was, waiting for something to make sense, drawing in his arms and legs, hugging himself against the intrusions of the waking world.

“Get up, boy!” a voice snarled, and a heavy boot kicked him in the ribs.

He did not move immediately, the numbness from the cold making him immune to the pain of the blow.

He rolled from his back onto his side and then onto his elbows and knees, trying to think what to do.

An impatient growl followed the kick, and strong arms hoisted Kirisin to his feet and a pair of skrails held him upright while the speaker began to search him, staying behind him and out of sight, fingers rummaging through his pockets and under his clothing, missing nothing in their efforts to unmask what might be hidden. Finding nothing, the speaker struck him a sharp blow to the head and ordered the skrails to drop him. He collapsed a second time, barely managing to cushion his fall, the feeling just beginning to come back into his limbs.

“Bind him,” the speaker ordered, walking away.

Rolling onto his side, Kirisin caught just a glimpse of the other, a thin, gnarled figure, limbs and body all twisted, head hunched deep into shoulders so bony they were defined mostly by the blades that jutted against the fabric of an old tunic like ax heads.

Then the skrails were on him once more, bearing him to the ground, forcing his arms behind his back. He tried to create some slack in the cords that were wrapped about him, but the skrails just hissed and yanked his bonds tighter. They secured his ankles, as well, crossing them and wrapping them in another set of cords, leaving him thoroughly trussed. Their fingers were long and thin but very strong. Struggling was pointless.

When they were finished, they left him lying on the ground by himself in the dark, unable to do much more than wriggle, unable to stand or even to sit up. The minutes crawled past and no one came to check on him. He could sense the skrails watching him from the darkness. Maybe they were afraid of what he could do if they got too close. The idea came and went in the blink of an eye. If they had caught and bound him when he was still free, they weren’t likely to be afraid of him now. It was more reasonable to assume that their minder was keeping them away.

He lay quietly for a time, miserable and frightened. His wounds throbbed, but the bleeding had stopped. He tried to ignore the pain, but it was an insistent presence. He wished he could have a look at the punctures to see how bad they were. He wished he could have something to eat and drink. He wished he had dropped to the ground when Praxia shouted at him instead of trying to reach the AV. He wished he were smarter and stronger and quicker and a whole lot of other things that might have allowed him to escape.

In the end, he just wished he weren’t so alone–that Simralin would come for him.

His wishes surfaced like ghosts and fled into the night.

He dozed for a time, lying on his side in the dark, hearing the skrails moving about nearby with a soft skittering and muted squawks. He woke often from his uneasy rest, and each time the pain from his wounds and his bindings felt worse than the time before. He tried to think of a way to escape, but with his hands and feet so securely bound there was little hope.

He had just fallen asleep when talons grasped his shoulders roughly and pulled him to his feet. A pair of skrails stood one on either side, and a third knelt to release his ankles. They shoved him ahead, and he tried to walk, but they had to hold him up for a dozen paces before the feeling returned to his feet. He stumbled ahead after that with the skrails guiding him, their leathery wings flapping softly as they walked, their reptilian faces bent close to his own. He could smell the swamp on them, fetid and raw, and he could feel the coldness of their talons where they gripped him.

Ahead, a fire was visible through gaps in a cluster of skeletal trees that were silhouetted against its glow like the bones of the dead. Shadowy forms moved through the firelight, winged and hunched. More skrails. Kirisin wondered what was happening. His stomach knotted and his throat tightened.

The minder was waiting, all bent and bony, looking like a smaller version of the trees. At the boy’s appearance, he wheeled back from where he knelt before the fire, and then rose and walked over to greet him. Without a word, he struck Kirisin across the face with one callused hand, the blow sharp and hard and painful. Kirisin cried out and tried to pull away. The minder struck him again, harder.

“Now, then, boy,” he hissed, “where is the Elfstone?”

Kirisin shook his head, tears running down his face. “I don’t have it.”

The minder struck him again. “Tell me something I don’t know, you little fool! Where is it?”

Kirisin gritted his teeth in rage. “The Knight of the Word has it.”

The gnarled creature hissed at him like a snake and struck him again. “You lie! Where is it?”

Kirisin thrashed in the grip of the skrails and almost succeeded in tearing free. He spat at the minder. “I told you!”

He met the other’s gaze and held it, taking in the weathered face that was all collapsed hollows and jutting bones beneath wrinkled skin. The strange green eyes were lidded and bright, the nose flatted to little more than nostrils, and the mouth a sucking hole devoid of teeth. His stench was almost unbearable, but the boy refused to flinch from it.

“Well, maybe so, maybe not.” The mouth twisted. “We’ll ask another for advice on this.”

He motioned, and the skrails holding Kirisin marched him to the edge of the fire and forced him to his knees. For a single terrifying instant, the boy thought they were going to throw him in. But then the minder stepped to the very edge of the fire and tossed something else into the flames. The fire exploded in a shower of sparks and changed to a wicked green color that spread to everything around it–the minder, the skrails, the boy, and the closest of the trees. Even the night itself seemed changed.

Then the minder began to gesture, chanting something in a language Kirisin had never heard. The skrails fell back, even the ones that had been holding his arms, and their squawking took on a new urgency. Kirisin was suddenly free, but he stayed where he was on his knees. He was surrounded by his captors, weakened to the point of collapse, wounded, and somewhere in the middle of country with which he was only marginally familiar. He might think of trying to flee, but such an attempt at this point seemed completely unrealistic.

He felt a presence at his shoulder. One of the skrails had moved closer again, perhaps sensing what he was thinking. His chance to escape, however slim, was gone.

His eyes shifted back to the fire. Something very strange was happening within its heart. A figure was taking shape, growing in size and rising out of the flames. At first it appeared to be a spirit formed of smoke and fire, peppered with ash and steaming from the heat. But then it began to take on definition, assuming the shape and visage of an old man cloaked in gray robes. Eyes as cold and implacable as a snake’s peered out of the haze of smoke and flames, shifting from the minder to Kirisin and back again.

This is the one, the boy thought with a shiver that ran from his neck down to the base of his spine. This is the demon that leads all the others, the one that hunts the Elves and the Loden.

The demon in the flames hissed softly.

— Is this the boy-

“Yes, Master,” the minder answered, inclining his head slightly in deference.

— Did you take the Elfstone from him-The minder shuddered. “He didn’t have it on him.”

— Has he told you what he did with it — “No, Master.”

A long silence left the air stark and empty of life. The specter never moved as it regarded the minder carefully.

— Has he told you of the fate of our spies within the Elven city- The minder shook his head.

— Of Delloreen and her hunt for the Knight of the Word- The minder shook his head again, but less certainly this time.

— Of anything at all, you fool — “Master, I tried to—”

The other cut him off with a wave of his arm. A fresh column of steam rose from his ethereal form, a white cloud against the darkness.

— Tried, did you? How very fortunate for me that you didn’t try too hard. You do try too hard sometimes, Calyx! And it causes you to do too much of what you want so much to do. Doesn’t it-

“Yes, Master,” the minder answered meekly.

The wintry gaze shifted to Kirisin and settled on him like a great weight. There was the promise of suffering and death in that gaze, of agonizing hours of traveling from the first to the second, hours that would steal his sanity and leave him a mindless husk. The boy wanted badly to look away, but the other’s eyes held him in shackles he could not break.

One cloaked arm gestured slightly, beckoning him.

— Rise—Though Kirisin had no intention of doing so, though he wasn’t even sure his legs would let him, he jerked to his feet obediently, a puppet dangling from invisible strings, trembling in the specter’s presence.

— What of Culph, boy-

“Dead,” Kirisin answered at once, unable to help himself.

— The Tracker, Tragen — “Dead.”

— Delloreen, too- Kirisin hesitated.

— The one who tracked the female Knight of the Word — “Dead,” Kirisin replied.

There was a long silence as the old man studied him, a shadowy image that had something of the substance and presence of flesh and blood. Power radiated from the specter, power born of experience gained, skill acquired, battles survived, and enemies overcome. Power born of years of staying alive while others died.

The gaze shifted back to the minder. A smile twisted the old man’s mouth, cold and frightening.

— That wasn’t so hard, was it, Calyx? Simple answers to simple questions. An understanding reached by a meeting of eyes and minds. You should try it-He turned back again to Kirisin, the smile still in place.

— You’ve done well, boy. Another few moments of your time and you may sit down again. You are the boy who retrieved the Elfstone that they call the Loden—Kirisin fought back the urge to scream his frustration. “Yes.”

— What have you done with it-

“I dropped it when the skrails took me.”

Another long silence, and then all at once a terrible vise closed about the boy, a slow crushing force that threatened to break his bones and explode his flesh. He tried to scream out his pain and found he couldn’t. He could only stand where he was; he could only endure.

Then the vise was released, and he crumpled to the ground in a quaking heap, gasping for air, fighting for consciousness.

The old man’s voice was a whisper in the ensuing silence.

— You dropped it-The question hung like a blade above Kirisin’s neck. A wrong answer and it would fall and his head would be severed from his body. But he had answered truthfully, and giving another answer now would do him no good.

“I dropped it,” he repeated, his voice dry and hoarse.

He waited for the end, but the old man turned away from him and looked once more at the minder.

— Keep him safe until I reach you. Do not question him further. Do not harm him in any way. But watch him carefully. I will speak with him again when I arrive-The old man’s image hung within the flames a moment longer, and then in a sharp burst of sparks it was gone. The fire fizzled and went out.

In the aftermath of its disappearance, Kirisin huddled by the cooling ashes and fought to stay calm.

THEY LEFT HIM WHERE HE WAS, and he slept for a time, exhausted from his ordeal, happy to find any escape from his waking nightmare. But his nightmare followed him, a series of sharp images and frightening sequences that had him running and being caught and hiding and being found, always by things that were intent on his destruction.

He awoke in a sweat, curled into a ball on the hard earth, his hands and wrists aching and stiff from their binding. The heat from the leavings of the fire that had summoned the old man washed over him in suffocating waves. Using what strength he could muster, he rolled over so that he was facing out into the cooling darkness. He lay without moving for a time, letting his eyes adjust to the night, taking deep breaths of air to clear his lungs and mind. He was still traumatized by what the demon had done to him, how it had crushed him mercilessly with little more than a thought. He had been so helpless, unable to protect himself, a plaything for his enemy.

He closed his eyes as rage and shame washed through him. He would do anything to prevent a recurrence of such abject subjugation.

When his eyes reopened, he was thinking of only one thing. If he stayed where he was, that old man–that demon–would arrive and do much worse things to him in person than it had done through its avatar if it meant finding out exactly what he had done with the Loden. And Kirisin would tell because he wouldn’t be able to help himself.

He knew he had to escape before that happened.

He tested his bonds. To his surprise, the skrails hadn’t retied his ankles in the aftermath of the demon’s appearance. Cautiously, he tried moving his legs. The feeling was back; he thought he could stand if he needed to, and if he could stand he could walk. Maybe he could run.

He took a deep, steadying breath. If he could slip away now, if he could disappear before they realized he was gone, he might be able to elude them. He might have a chance after all.

A fresh wave of determination hardened into resolve. He tested the bonds that secured his wrists. They were still intact, but not quite so tight as before. Heat and sweat had dampened and stretched the leather. He twisted his wrists experimentally. He pulled hard against the tough cords in an effort to gain a little more space. The leather cut deep into his wrists, but gave slightly. He worked his hands back and forth, gritting his teeth with the effort.

Then he stopped and went still, peering out into the darkness, searching for movement, listening to the night. Had he heard something? He couldn’t see anything of the skrails or their minder. But wouldn’t someone be keeping watch over him? Didn’t someone have to be on guard to prevent his escape?

It took him a long time, but eventually he found what he was looking for: a bulky shape settled back within the shadows, hunched over and unmoving. Kirisin studied the skrail carefully, waiting for it to do something. But it seemed chiseled from stone; it simply sat there, a motionless lump.

Then he heard it snore, a low, guttural, but unmistakable sound. He waited, and it snored again.

He renewed his efforts to get free, twisting and turning his wrists, working the bonds to loosen them. The leather stretched a little more, and he redoubled his efforts, slowly working the leather bindings down over his wrists to his hands.

And then all at once the cords dropped away, and he was free.

He stayed where he was for a long time after that, resting himself, listening to the snoring of the guard, to the night, to the silence. He waited as he gathered his strength and his courage. He would have to move quickly and quietly to get clear of the camp and its inhabitants. He would have only one chance, and he would have to make the most of it. He thought again of the old man, and the dryness in his mouth intensified.

A careful scanning of the stars told him which direction was north. He would head back toward Logan Tom and the others, retracing his steps, following the path they were certain to take to reach Redonnelin Deep and Angel Perez. He would use his skill as an Elf to hide his passage, to remain hidden while he traveled, to prevent an almost certain pursuit from finding him. He could do this, he told himself. He was free, and he could do this.

Then, in a single smooth motion, he rolled to his feet, crouching momentarily as he watched the dark shape of the skrail guard, and began creeping across the clearing, away from the ashes of the dead fire. He went quickly and silently, hardly daring to breathe, looking all around him as he went for any sign of other skrails, for any indication of danger. His wounds from the skrail talons ached, and his wrists were cut and bloodied from the cords, but he barely paid attention to them, his concentration centered on his escape.

He pictured the look in the eyes of the old man when he arrived and discovered Kirisin was gone. He imagined his rage. The image gave him immense satisfaction. He was sorry he wouldn’t be there to witness it.

When he was clear of the camp, screened now by the skeletal trees that grew along its borders, he straightened and began walking toward the hills beyond. He was smiling with satisfaction and relief, the tension draining away, as he walked from the trees and into the shelter of a deep ravine. He had gone a dozen steps down its narrow passageway when a winged shadow fell across his path.

“Leaving us so soon, boy?” a familiar voice asked quietly.

Kirisin froze, his heart in his throat. He could not make himself look up at the speaker, knowing what he would find.

“Did you think escape would be so easy?” the minder teased.

A second winged shadow appeared beside the first, and from the opposite side a third skrail dropped down into the ravine in front of him, effectively blocking any chance of flight. Kirisin looked up into the wizened countenance of the minder, unable to help himself.

“You wouldn’t want to miss your meeting with Findo Gask, would you?” The other’s voice was edged with expectation. “You won’t believe how much pain he can cause you. It will be interesting to discover how much of it you can withstand.”

Kirisin felt himself sag in defeat. There hadn’t ever been any real chance of escape. “My sister will save me,” he said softly. “Simralin will come for me.”

“No one will come for you; no one will save you.” The minder brushed the suggestion aside. “You are all alone in this, boy.”

The skrails beat their wings softly, and the familiar squawking ensued, a sound Kirisin knew with terrible certainty could only be laughter.