Barb Hendee: Child of a Dead God

The elves here still treated Magiere like a savage outsider-a human- though more discreetly than their inland brethren. She had long since grown accustomed to thinly veiled loathing, but the greater part of her drive to leave came from something more unsettling.

A dream-and the polite urgency of an old sage in Bela.

The journey's next leg was a search for a long-forgotten artifact. Magiere was determined to keep it out of the hands of a murdering Noble Dead- her half-brother, Welstiel. Wynn's old master sage, "Domin" Tilswith as he was titled, was the one who'd first requested help from Magiere and Leesil. He feared letting an ancient device from the Forgotten History fall into any such hands.

Until recently, Magiere had put aside the master sage's concern. In addition to not knowing where to search for the artifact, she'd had other goals which meant more to her. Then black-scaled coils appeared in her dark dream on the first night within the city.

Taller than a mounted rider, the creature showed her a six-towered castle locked in ice, and a voice whispered…

Sister of the dead, lead on .

Magiere had awoken in a cold sweat, crying out for Leesil.

She'd seen the coils once before in far-off Droevinka, but she'd been awake that time, outside the dead village of Apudalsat. She and her canine companion, Chap, fought to escape from the decrepit necromancer Ubad. When they gained the upper hand, that madman had called upon something by name.

il'Samar .

Turning black coils materialized ghostlike among the dank trees around the clearing. The voice that came like a whisper throughout the forest ignored Ubad's plea and left him to Chap's savagery. Earlier that same night, while Magiere had been lost within her dead mother's spirit-memories, she'd witnessed her half-brother, Welstiel, whispering in the night… as if to something no one else could see or hear.

Perhaps that something was the same black-scaled thing that had whispered in Magiere's dream-and in the clearing with Ubad. Perhaps it was the same ancient force behind the old necromancer's scheming of her birth by Welstiel's undead father. In the days following her dream, Magiere remembered a few words Wynn and Domin Tilswith had translated from an old scroll out of the Forgotten. It mentioned an ancient enemy called "the night voice."

And Wynn had translated "il'Samar" as a name or title akin to "conversation in the dark."

In Magiere's time in the Elven Territories, she'd learned that no undead had ever entered elven land, not even in the faraway sanctuary on Wynn's continent, where the last of the living had fled in the war of the Forgotten. But she, daughter of a Noble Dead, had entered here. Her very touch drained life from its trees, and she had taken to wearing gloves, avoiding any direct contact with the elven forest.

Magiere feared all these connections closing in on her. And since the night of her dream, she'd learned to fear sleep as well. As always, fear made her angry-enough to find this forgotten artifact, be done with it, and go home.

And in the dream's wake, she knew where to go, or at least in which direction to start. It pulled at her from within. Magiere hoped the elven ship's crew finished quickly with their cargo.

"We were not in the shop too long! I barely had time to glance about before you pushed me out the door!"

The familiar high-pitched voice drew Magiere from her heavy thoughts to see a silver-gray dog and a tall elf in dark gray-green coming down the dock. Chap led the way, tail high but head low as he glared blankly ahead with an occasional twitch of jowl that exposed sharp teeth. Brot'an walked behind him.

Unlike his people, Brot'an was broad and solid, built almost like a human, but tall even for an elf. His white-blond hair was rather coarse, and its gray streaks turned silvery under the sun. As he neared, four long scars stood out upon his faintly lined face. They ran down his forehead's right side, jumped his eye, and continued across his cheekbone. He was dressed like Sgaile in the monotone cloak, tunic, and breeches of the Anmaglahk, the caste of elven spies and assassins-though they wouldn't describe themselves as such.

Anmaglahk feared little, yet Brot'an strode swiftly, as if trying to flee pursuit without being obvious. Even Chap quickened his lope at the berating voice harrying them both.

"We must go back!" the high female voice insisted. "I have not finished my notes. Are you listening to me?"

Brot'an's large stature blocked his pursuer from view-until Wynn Hygeorht scurried around his side, trying to catch up.

"And stop calling me 'girl'! Just because you are longer-lived-and a hulk among your own kind-does not make me a child by comparison."

The little sage took two quick steps for every one of Brot'an's, and her head barely reached his midchest. Somewhere past twenty years of age, Wynn's light-brown hair hung loose and blew wildly about her oval, olive-toned face. Dressed in borrowed yellow breeches and a loose russet tunic made for a youth of Sgaile's clan, her pant legs were rolled up to keep her from tripping. The faded man's cloak she wore, with its poorly hemmed bottom, made her attire even more ridiculous.

"Did you hear me?" she demanded, grasping at Brot'an's cloak.

Anmaglahk were difficult to read, and more so with the so-called masters among them, such as Brot'an and Urhkar-but not today. Brot'an's stoic expression bore a silent plea for assistance.

Magiere couldn't suppress a smirk. "Wynn, leave Brot'an alone. You've dragged him about enough for one day."

Chap growled with a short bark of agreement and thumped his haunches down on the dock beside Magiere. Wynn glared back in disbelief.

"Elves were using a strangely shaped clay oven to smoke-dry salmon in a fish house. I have never seen the process work so quickly. This is useful information to record… and I foresee no opportunity to return here anytime soon. Do you?"

"She was-" Brot'an cut in sharply then regained his polite tone. "She was asking many questions. I felt it best that we leave."

Magiere understood both their frustrations. Neither she nor Wynn nor even Leesil could walk about unescorted. No human had ever been welcome in this part of the world, let alone left it again. Wynn was a scholar and a sage, and thus fluent in the elven dialect from her own continent. But she always had to stick her little nose into everything new and strange that she stumbled upon.

"Look, there's our ship," Magiere said, and pointed, hoping to distract the sage.

Wynn's scowl faded. "The large one?"

Chap pricked up his ears, and Magiere scratched between them. He whined and looked back toward the city. Or was he peering to the forest beyond it? He'd done that a good deal of late, often disappearing for long periods and leaving Magiere to wonder what he'd been up to. Chap swung his long muzzle back toward the approaching ship, and sunlight caught in his blue crystalline eyes and silvery fur.

"Beautiful…," Wynn whispered. "Look at its sails! How does a cargo vessel ride so high and swift?"

More questions, and Brot'an let out a deep sigh.

"Beautiful?" Leesil scoffed. "We'll see how beautiful it is… after you've sloshed about in it for a few days."

Wynn arched an eyebrow at him. "I never get seasick. I enjoyed the voyage across the ocean to Belaski."

Leesil's mouth tightened, and Magiere wished Wynn would just stop talking.

"You will adjust, Leshil," Sgaile said, pronouncing Leesil's name in Elvish. "It took days for me as well. But after enough voyages, I no longer succumb to a vessel's rocking at sea."

Brot'an slipped around to Magiere's far side, perhaps using her as a barrier against Wynn. Chap slunk the other way around Leesil and wrinkled his jowls at Brot'an. The dog still didn't care for the master anmaglahk's presence.