Lisa Smedman - Heirs of Prophecy

Clambering up onto the rumpled blankets, he peered inside the cabinet. The object that had caught his eye was a quill pen, the shaft of the feather gilded and set with a row of bright diamonds. It looked to be of elven make-perhaps even something that was sacred to the Winged Lady. What was it doing there, in a human home?

As he leaned to the side to get a better look at it, sparkles of red and blue fire danced in the depths of the gems. None of the other trinkets inside the cabinet-tiny gold bells, a silver dagger, ceramic statues, two gold rings, and an enameled locket-even came close to it in beauty.

Unable to resist, Leifander turned the latch on one of the cabinet doors. Something stung his finger, and he jerked his hand back. The cabinet door swung open. Leifander stared in surprise at shelves that had suddenly become empty.

A feeling of dizziness passed over him, then was gone. Leifander peered at his fingertip and saw a bead of dark blood welling there. Angrily, he shook it away, then felt inside the cabinet. The shelves were indeed empty-and though he could still see objects through the glass of the cabinet door that remained closed, his questing fingers found nothing but bare shelves. He had been fooled by an illusion-and, judging by the numbness of his punctured fingertip, nearly laid low by a trap.

Cursing all humans and their devious natures, he sprang down from the bed. In that same instant, the door began to open, spilling a crack of light into the room. Leifander hurried to the balcony, crouched there, and began the chant that would transform him back into a crow.

Before he could complete the spell, light washed over him, and a woman’s voice hissed, “Ebeian! What took you so long? I was worried that … Oh! Who are you?”

Leifander shot a look over his shoulder, and saw a human holding a flickering lamp. She looked to be in her second decade of life, and had dark hair and eyes as green as the emerald that glittered in the ring on her finger. Dressed in tight, black leather pants and shirt, she was slender for a round-ear-and pretty, Leifander grudgingly admitted. A rapier hung at her hip, and the hilt of a dagger protruded from one boot. She made no move toward either weapon.

Leifander rose slowly to his feet, turning to face her.

“Did Ebeian send you?” she asked. “Is he in trouble? Did something go wrong?”

For a moment, Leifander considered trying to pass himself off as a friend of this Ebeian fellow, whoever that was, but he decided against trying to satisfy what was only idle curiosity. The schemes of humans were not his concern. More to the point, this woman seemed singularly unconcerned to have discovered a forest elf in her bedchamber. She might be the best one to ask where Thamalon Uskevren could be found.

“My name is Leifander,” he said simply. “I am an elf of the Tangled Trees. I have come to speak with Thamalon Uskevren. I bring him a message.”

“Do you, indeed?” she asked with an arched eyebrow. “So, messenger, do you always sneak in through second-story windows when delivering your messages-or do you sometimes knock at the front door?”

This woman was truly exasperating. “Will you show me to Thamalon Uskevren or not?”

She did not answer at once. Instead she hung her lantern on a long hook attached to the ceiling and pointedly glanced at the open cabinet above the bed. Leifander stiffened, but when she turned back to him, amusement sparkled in her eyes.

“I see you couldn’t resist a little pilfering while you were waiting to deliver your message,” she said, clucking her tongue in mock reproach. “It’s lucky for you that you’re an elf and immune to that drug-otherwise I’d have found you asleep on my bed. Exotic looking as you are, I’d have been forced to ravish you. As it is …”

She strode forward suddenly and planted a kiss on his lips. Startled, Leifander pushed her away. Were all human women so forward with strangers? He shook his head. It was time to get on with what he had come there to do.

“The message I bear is an urgent one,” he told her. “I would deliver it at once.”

“Give me your message, and I’ll deliver it for you.”

Leifander shook his head. “No. I must speak to Thamalon Uskevren in person … and in private.”

A slight change in the woman’s posture told Leifander that she had grown wary of him. “Why in private?” she asked. “So you can stick a dagger in his ribs?”

Leifander deliberately kept his hands away from the dagger at his hip. “You think me an assassin,” he said bluntly. “I am not. I wish only to speak to Thamalon Uskevren about a political matter. The elves sent me because I have a … personal connection with him.”

His explanation didn’t help. Somehow he had compounded his earlier blunder. The woman’s eyes narrowed with suspicion, and her hand came gently to rest upon the hilt of her rapier.

“You have no ‘personal connection’ with Thamalon Uskevren,” she said, running the fingers of her free hand through her short hair in a nervous gesture. “If you did, you’d have known he was my father.”

The rapier hissed out of its scabbard. “I think you are an assassin,” she added in an icy voice.

Leifander raised his hands in what would seem a placating gesture. In fact, his fingers were already beginning to weave a spell. Before the woman could move to skewer him, he barked out three quick words in his own tongue. Sparks of magic energy crackled from his tattooed fingers-but instead of flying toward the woman’s head, they struck an invisible shield and scattered in all directions. In the same instant, the ring on the woman’s finger flared as its gem was illuminated from within. The woman stepped forward, and the tip of the rapier was at Leifander’s throat. He swallowed carefully and held perfectly still. The woman had the poise and grace of someone who knew how to use a blade.

“I think I will take you to see my father,” she said. “It should prove an interesting diversion while I’m waiting for Ebeian. But I warn you: Make one move against him, and it will be your last.”

The prick of the rapier against his back sent Leifander forward into a large room filled with foliage. Enormous ceramic pots crowded the floor, each planted with a small tree or flowering shrub. Smaller pots hung from the ceiling or sat on shelves, their greenery spilling down. A fountain in the middle of the room bubbled water into a trough that snaked its way across the floor between the pots. This artificial stream was filled with tiny, silver-blue fish. Banks of windows along the two outside walls of the room gave a view of the evening sky.

Leifander was surprised to see several plants he recognized-plants he had thought grew only in the shade of the Tangled Trees. Lady’s Lace moss, Burlbush heavy with ripening nuts, a tangle of Honeyfruit vine, and the delicate white blossoms of the triple-leafed Lady’s Promise. In the moist air scented with growing and blooming things, he felt a sudden pang of familiarity, then he reminded himself that this was all artificial-that humans must have stolen these plants from his forest and transplanted them to their stinking city. With an added snort of disgust, he noted tiny fingers of choke creeper growing out of three pots whose other seeds appeared to have sprouted and died. The human gardeners didn’t even recognize a dangerous infestation when they saw one.

Through the greenery, Leifander could see a man dressed in knee-high boots, blue hose, and a gold doublet with sleeves slashed in blue and white. He stood in profile at one of the windows, the finger of one hand tapping his clean-shaven chin as he stared at the northern horizon with a troubled expression. He was taller than Leifander, but only of average height for a human, with a trim, muscular build. Had he been an elf, his white hair and slightly stooped posture would have caused Leifander to guess his age in the middle hundreds, but this was a human, to whom a single century comprised a lifetime. Leifander pitied their race. By the time he was this man’s age, Leifander would still have the reflexes and appearance of a youth.