Barb Hendee - Thief of Lives

The elf held Leesil's stiletto in one hand, the handles of the garrote gripped in the other. When Leesil freed his remaining stiletto, the elf didn't even blink.

"Who taught you our ways?" the elf asked.

"First, tell me what you mean," Leesil replied. "Whose ways? The elves?"

For an answer, the elf flicked his wrist, and the stiletto spun through the air.

Leesil sidestepped and snatched the handle midflight. Before he'd righted the blade in his hand, the cloaked figure leaped through the door at him. He slashed crosswise with both blades to ward off his attacker. But the elf instantly ducked and rose up inside the arcs, palm striking out toward Leesil's face.

Leesil collapsed to the floor, and his right leg shot along the left of the elf's feet. He swirled his arms over himself, blocking the elf's descending fist, and slashing with the blades. Something lashed sharply across his right hand, tangled around the stiletto, and ripped it from his grasp. Leesil hooked his right foot behind the elf's ankle as his other leg shot up.

There was no impact.

Though Leesil's foot connected, it was more a touch than a strike, and the elf merely arced backward into the hallway. He landed, watching Leesil intently. The same stiletto he'd thrown a moment ago was now snared in the garrote wire's loops between his fingers.

"Who taught you Map am'a Fiar ?" he asked flatly.

On his guard, Leesil stared blankly at him. "What?"

"Cat-in-the-Grass," he said. "The ground fighting."

"My mother," Leesil replied cautiously. "And my father. But I don't know what you're talking about."

The elf slowly pulled Leesil's stiletto from the wire loops.

"You mother is a traitor. No outsider is taught the ways of an anmaglahk. "

Leesil stiffened. Before anger came, the word settled in his mind.

"What does that mean?" he asked. "What is anmaglahk ?"

The elf's eyes widened, and Leesil saw puzzled suspicion in that gaze. The elf then relaxed upon the realization Leesil truly didn't understand the word.

"You are no more than a renegade who cannot even speak his own language. Finish your task and leave here."

"Leesil?"

Magiere's voice came from down the hallway. And with it was the low, rumbling growl of Chap. Leesil had been gone too long, and they'd come looking for him. He inched forward toward the figure beyond the doorway.

"Touch them, and I'll gut you right here," he warned. "Whatever it takes."

With but a side glance, the elf bolted down the hall, and Leesil ducked out the door behind him.

A flash of metal flew toward his legs.

Leesil threw himself toward the hallway's far wall as his own stiletto, snatched from him by the elf's garrote, struck home into the doorjamb. Chap lunged forward, snarling. The elf merely leaped over the dog and against the right wall.

For a blink, the man seemed to cling there like a spider, hands and feet flat against the surface with his head near the ceiling. He pushed off into air and arced to the floor behind Magiere, who whipped around to follow his movement.

Chap tried to reverse and Leesil grabbed him and held fast, arms slipping around the dog's chest.

"Shhhh," he said. "Stop it."

Chap's struggles ceased, but he continued growling. Down the hallway past Magiere, the "visitor" had vanished. Magiere looked back and forth in confusion and then dropped to Leesil's side.

"What's going on?" she asked. "Was that an elf? Your neck-did he attack you?"

Leesil instinctively touched his throat, still burning from the wire's slip.

"The wire in his hand…" Magiere added more calmly. She looked at the blade stuck in the door frame, and recognition that it was Leesil's spread across her face. "And he moved like you."

Leesil dropped his gaze.

"He's a hired killer, like you were. Isn't he?" she insisted.

Leesil hesitated. "Anmaglahk," he whispered toward Chap.

The dog looked down the hallway, and his growl became a low rumble. As he looked back to Leesil, he yipped once.

"That's a ‘yes, " Magiere said, hard and angry. "Why does a supposed Fay react viciously to an elf, if they're supposed to be related? And what's that word?"

Leesil felt her eyes upon him now.

"That word, Leesil," she repeated. "Assassin?"

When Leesil couldn't even understand the word, the elf had seemed astonished at his ignorance. He had called Leesil a traitor, then the same for his mother. One could only be a traitor to a service, a cause, a nation, or a people. The fact that the elf hadn't killed him because he wasn't acting as part of the man's own people meant that fealty wasn't the issue. That ruled out nation or people. This was about the skills his mother had taught him-for which she'd been marked as a traitor? Skills of an assassin and spy not to be taught except to an anmaglahk .

"I think it's a caste," he said quietly. "The anmaglahk are some caste among the elves. And my mother was a part of it."

Magiere shifted around in front of him. He saw on her face the pieces coming together, and like everything else in their lives, the revelation brought more questions than answers.

"Why would elves have a caste of assassins?" she asked. "And even so, why did one come after you? We have nothing to do with them."

Leesil had no answer for her.

His mother had taught him their ways, but nothing of their kind, made him one of them but wholly apart from them. She'd kept all other aspects of her people a secret, down to the very language they spoke. The elf's judgment of her had been a broad statement, condemning her for all time, even though she was now dead.

But the anmaglahk had said his mother was a traitor. Not had been , but was .

Sgaile watched the old barracks from a rooftop across the street. He had let the half-blood live. He had questioned the wisdom of his elders and Aoishenis-Ahare , Most Aged Father. To take the life of one of their own people was forbidden, and a half-blood, though polluted, was still part of them in a twisted way. To break their law meant a grave and serious issue was at stake.

It was true this one had been trained in their ways, though not as well as most. Still, the half-blood knew nothing of his kind, not even the language of his mother's people. How and why could this be?

Aoishenis-Ahare foresaw so much, so why had he not spoken of the majay-hi ? Did he not know? The Fay so seldom appeared anymore, even to his own people, so why here and now to this misbegotten child of a traitor? It had taken flesh in one of the old forms not seen since ancient times, as told to Sgaile in the tales of his grandmother.

The majay-hi's presence troubled Sgaile as deeply as his own failure to obey, and he sat upon the roof long into the night, watching.

Any preconceptions Magiere had of how the day would unfold crumbled at breakfast. Wynn was convinced that the day's search held great promise for finding the undeads' lair, and so Leesil insisted they be fully prepared.

By breakfast's end, several sages had finished boiling garlic. Leesil prepared short torches, wineskins of garlic water and oil, fresh tinder, and one large and one small quiver of quarrels soaked in garlic water. Domin Tilswith donated a light crossbow. Leesil strapped Vatz's larger one across his back, and then stunned Magiere by handing the smaller bow and quiver to the boy.

"We can't leave him," Leesil whispered to her. "He'll just follow on his own. This way, if things go awry, I can stuff him in a coach and send the driver off before he can get out."

Having Vatz in tow wasn't among Magiere's considerations, but she reluctantly conceded that Leesil was correct about the troublesome little whelp.