Twenty feet up the rocky slope, her injured foot snagged on a tree root, and she passed out from the pain. Reviving minutes later in the cool air, she drew a shaky breath, dug her fingers into the stony ground, and resumed her agonizing crawl. Lord Burnond Everride would have expended his last breath carrying out his mission. His daughter could do no less.
The preparations were lengthy and obscure. After bringing the Speaker back from the brink of death, Sa’ida sequestered herself in a tent on the edge of camp. There she remained for two days, seeing no one, speaking to no one, and ignoring the food and water left outside the tent. They had no victuals to waste, so morning and evening the untouched food and water was taken away and distributed elsewhere.
At dusk on the second day, the priestess finally broke her silence, asking for water. The warrior on guard outside her tent brought her a cup and brought the old general as well.
The tent flap parted a few inches. From within the dark interior, Sa’ida said, “I shall need more water than that. Much more.”
She conveyed her requirements to Hamaramis. His brows lifted, but he agreed without argument. The human priestess had brought the Speaker of the Sun and Stars back from death and promised to free him of the terrible illness. If water she needed, then water she would have.
A motley collection of buckets, jugs, and pots was filled from a nearby spring and gathered outside the priestess’s tent. Several hours after dark had fallen, Sa’ida asked Hamaramis to summon the Speaker. She still had not come out of the shelter.
The Speaker arrived in his palanquin. He had slept much of the day. Between the priestess’s ministrations and Gilthas’s own strength of will, he arrived sitting up in the woven chair rather than lying propped by pillows. Most of his remaining army and a great many ordinary elves were already there, waiting silently. Sa’ida stood just outside her tent, her back to the crowd, her head bowed. The bearers arrived, but they did not lower the palanquin to the chill ground. Hamaramis announced the Speaker’s presence.
“You have brought me to the deepest graveyard in the world, Great Speaker,” Sa’ida murmured.
“It’s our home. Or will be. Can you help us?”
She turned to face him. Those closest in the crowd gasped at the alteration in her appearance. A robust human woman of fifty years with a typically dark Khurish complexion, Sa’ida seemed to have shrunk. Her face was sallow, and her lips were blue as with cold. In her white robe, she seemed a pallid ghost herself. She looked nearly as ill as Gilthas.
“In my service to the goddess, I have communed with many spirits: peaceful and restless, howling mad and serenely content. I have never encountered any like those who dwell in this valley. They have been crowded into this place as salted fish are packed into barrels in the
She swayed unsteadily. Gilthas called for a chair. Hamaramis supported her until the stool arrived. Sa’ida sank onto it gratefully. Despite his anxiety to hear what she had to say, Gilthas was concerned for her welfare. But she turned aside his offers of food and drink.
“There are at least four layers of captive spirits here.”
“Four?” Gilthas was surprised. “We thought two—the beast-people and the will-o’-the-wisps.”
She shook her head. “Deep in the primeval warp and weft of this land are imprisoned the souls of an ancient colony of your race.” Grimacing in pain, she pressed a hand to her forehead. “Deeper still are voices so old and so awesome I dared not try to speak to them.” She regarded Gilthas with burning eyes. “This is no place to live, Great Speaker.”
Murmurs arose from those nearest in the crowd. The mutterings spread as the priestess’s words were passed back to those farther away.
“We have no choice,” Gilthas told her, raising his voice. The crowd fell silent again. “All other realms have refused us. We must endure here or die.”
Sa’ida lifted both hands to knead her forehead. “Then in spite of my misgivings, I shall try to help you.”
Gilthas’s sigh of relief was nearly soundless. He smiled.
“Protect us from the floating lights, holy lady. Those they touch are transported deep into tunnels beneath the valley never to wake.”
“That can be done.”
“Our next urgent need is food. Animals must be allowed to live here, and edible plants allowed to thrive.”
“Ah, that requires doing battle with a great power. There is a mighty spell on this place. Life is severely constrained.”
“By whom?” Hamaramis asked.
She managed a weary smile. “Spells are not signed like poems. The magic here is so ancient, all telltale marks of its origin have worn off. I can tell you it was the work of
Exclamations came from the crowd. Their survival was being hampered by magic cast by their own race? The irony was very bitter.
