"There," Rune said, setting her makeshift broom of broken branches aside. "That's as clean as it's going to get." She made a face at the piled debris on the other side of the ash tree; there had been too much garbage to simply sweep out the door.
"That's clean enough," Talaysen told her, from where he knelt just under the window, striking his flint and steel together as he had been the entire time she'd been sweeping. He had a knack for fires that she didn't; making a fire from sparks was a lot harder than village-folk (or especially city-folk) realized. "Now if I can just-there!"
He blew frantically at the little pile of dry leaves and shavings in front of him, and was rewarded this time with a glow, and then with a tiny flame. Carefully sheltering it from an errant breeze, he fed it with tiny twigs, then branches, then finally built a real fire with wood scavenged from the cottage's interior about his core-blaze. Just as well, as it was definitely getting darker outside. Hopefully the smoke would go out the window, and not decide to fill the cottage. The chimney of this place was choked with birds' nests and other trash.
Rune took a look around, now that she had more light to see by. This hadn't been a big farmhouse; one room, with a tiny loft just under the roof for sleeping. But the inside looked very odd for a place gone to ruin, and she puzzled over it as Talaysen picked up wood, trying to figure it out.
Then she had it: the cottage had been abandoned in a hurry. Nothing had been taken, not even the smallest stool. The wood that Talaysen was collecting had come from wrecked furniture. The doors and windows had been forced-but forced out, not in, and the shutters over the windows had been smashed at about the same time. Something got in here, then smashed its way out. But what could have been strong enough to do that-and nasty enough to keep the owner from coming back for his goods? She felt a chill finger of fear trace a line down the back of her neck. . . .
But then she shrugged and turned her attention to setting up their "camp." Whatever had done this was long gone, and not likely to return; there was no sign that anything had been living here except the owl.
He handed their nesting cook-pot and kettle to her; she dug out the dried meat and vegetables and the canister of herb tea. It was Talaysen's turn to cook, while she spread out the sleeping rolls and went to get water.
Well, that wouldn't be hard. There was a lot of water available right now.
She stuck the kettle, then the pot, out the window, holding them under the stream of water coming off the eaves. After all the rain they'd been having, the roof was surely clean. As clean as most streams, anyway. The presence of the owl probably kept birds from perching on the roof by day, and there wasn't much else that would matter.
Already it was hard to see across the clearing. She was profoundly grateful that they'd found this bit of shelter when they had. Now they'd be able to have a hot meal, warm and dry their clothing by the fire, check their instruments, maybe even practice a little.
As if he had followed her thoughts, Talaysen looked up from his cooking. "Get my lute out, will you, Rune? I think it's warm and dry enough in here that it won't come to any harm."
She nodded, and took the instrument out of its oiled-leather case, inspecting it carefully for any signs that the rain or damp might have gotten to it. Satisfied that it was untouched, she laid it on his unrolled bedding and did the same with her fiddle.
Like any good musician, she made a detailed examination of both instruments. So detailed, in fact, that by the time she was finished, the food and tea were both ready. She dug into her own portion with a nod of thanks, a little surprised at how hungry she was. The food evaporated from her wooden bowl, and she mopped every last trace of juice up with a piece of tough traveler's bread. The bowl hardly needed to be washed after she was through, and Talaysen's was just as clean.
Once they had finished eating, Talaysen was not to give her any time to brood over the thoughts that had caused her depression today, either. Instead, he insisted that they rehearse a number of songs she was only vaguely familiar with.
Odd, she thought, after the first few. He seemed to have chosen them all for subject-matter rather than style-every single one of them was about young women who were married off to old men and disappointed in the result. In a great many of the songs, they cuckolded their husbands with younger lovers; in the rest, they mourned their fates, shackled for life to a man whose prowess was long in the past. Sometimes the songs were comic, sometimes tragic, but in all of them the women were unhappy.
After about the fifth or sixth of these, she wondered if he was trying to tell her something. After the fifteenth, she was certain of it. And despite the message, she grew more and more cheerful with every chorus.
He had noticed how she'd been flinging herself at him! And this wasn't the reaction she'd been thinking he'd had to her. Was the message in these ballads that he was attracted, but thought he was too old to make her happy? It surely seemed likely.
Where did he get an idea like that? He wasn't that much older than she was! Girls in Westhaven got married to men his age all the time-usually after they'd worn out their first wives with work and childbearing, and were ready for a pretty young thing to warm their beds at night. Oh, at thirty-mumble, if he had been a fat merchant, or an even fatter Guild Bard, maybe she'd have been repulsed . . . but it would have been the overstuffed condition of his body that would have come between them, not his age.
At first she was too startled by what she thought he was trying to tell her to act on it-then, after a moment of reflection, she decided she'd better not do anything until she'd had a chance to plan her course of attack. She held her peace, and played the dutiful apprentice, keeping her thoughts to herself until they were both too tired to play another note. By then, the fire was burning low, and she was glad to creep into her now-warmed blankets.
But although she intended to ponder all the possible meanings of the practice session, though she did her best to hold off sleep, it overtook her anyway.
There. I think I've gotten my message across. Talaysen put his lute back in its case with a feeling of weary, and slightly bitter, satisfaction. Hopefully now his young apprentice would think about what she was doing, and stop making calf's-eyes at him.
What he was going to do about the way he felt was another matter altogether.
Suffer, mostly.
Eventually, though, he figured that he would be able to convince himself that their relationship of friendship was enough. After all, it was enough with all the other Free Bard women he'd known.
Maybe he could have another brief fling with Nightingale to get the thought of Rune out of his head. Nightingale had yet to find the creature that would capture her heart, but she enjoyed an amorous romp as well as anyone.
At least he'd given Rune something to think about. And the next time they met up with one of the gypsy caravans or another gathering of Free Bards, she'd start looking around her for someone her age. That should solve the problem entirely. Once he saw her playing the young fool with all the other young fools, his heart would stop aching for her.
He looked down at her sleeping face for a moment, all soft shadows and fire-kissed angles. Maybe I shouldn't have been so hard on Raven, he thought, dispiritedly. Maybe I should have encouraged him. He was one of her teachers before; he knows her better than I do. They might get on very well together. . . .
But though the idea of Rune with another was all right in the abstract, once he gave the idea a face, it wrenched his heart so painfully that his breath caught.
Dear God, I am a fool.
He slipped inside his own bedroll, certain that he was going to toss and turn for the rest of the night-
Only to fall asleep so quickly he might have been taken with a spell of slumber.
It was the sound of a harp being played that woke him; he found himself, not lying in his bedroll in the tiny, earthen-floored cottage, but standing on his feet in the middle of a luxuriously green field. Overhead was not a sky filled with rain clouds-not even a sky at all-but a rocky vault studded with tiny, unwinking lights and a great silver globe that shone softly down on the gathering around him.
Before him, not a dozen yards away, was a gathering of bright-clad folk about a silver throne. After a moment of breathlessness and confusion, he concluded that the throne was solid silver; for the being that sat upon it was certainly not human. Nor were those gathered about him.
Eyes as amber as a cat's stared at him unblinking from under a pair of upswept brows. Hair the black of a raven's wing was confined about the wide, smooth, marble-pale brow by a band of the same silver as the throne. The band was centered by an emerald the size of Talaysen's thumb. The face was thin, with high, prominent cheekbones and a sensuous mouth, but it was as still and expressionless as a statue. Peeking through the long, straight hair were the pointed ears that told Talaysen his "host" could only be one of the elven races.
There were elvenkin who were friends and allies to humans. There were more who were not. At the moment, he had no idea which these were, though the odds on their being the latter got better with every passing moment.
The man was clothed in a tunic of emerald-green silk, with huge, flowing sleeves, confined about the waist with a wide silver belt and decorated with silver embroidery. His legs were encased in green trews of the same silk, and his feet in soft, green leather boots. His hands, resting quietly on the arms of his throne, were decorated with massive silver rings, wrought in the forms of beasts and birds.
A young man sat at his feet, clad identically, but without the coronet, and playing softly on a harp. Those about the throne were likewise garbed in silks, of fanciful cut and jewel-bright colors. Some wore so little as to be the next thing to naked; others were garbed in robes with such long trains and flowing sleeves that he wondered how they walked without tripping themselves. Their hairstyles differed as widely as their dress, from a short cap like a second skin of brilliant auburn, to tresses that flowed down the back in an elaborate arrangement of braids and tied locks, to puddle on the floor at the owner's feet, in a liquid fall of silver-white. All of them bore the elven-king's pointed ears and strange eyes, his pale flesh and upswept brows. Some of them were also decorated with tiny quasi-living creations of magic; dragon-belts that moved with the wearer, faerie-lights entwined in the hair.
Talaysen was no fool, and he knew very well that the elves' reputation for being touchy creatures was well-founded. And if these considered themselves to be the enemies of men, they would be all the touchier. Still-they hadn't killed him out of hand. They might want something from him. He went to one knee immediately, bowing his head. As he did so, he saw that his lute was lying on the turf beside him, still in its case.
"You ventured into our holding, mortal," said a clear, dispassionate tenor. He did not have to look up to know that it was the leader who addressed him. "King" was probably the best title to default to; most lords of elvenkin styled themselves "kings."
"Your pardon, Sire," he replied, just as dispassionately. "I pray you will forgive us."
When he said nothing else, the elven-king laughed. "What? No pleas for mercy, no assertions that you didn't know?"
"No, Sire," he replied carefully, choosing his words as he would choose weapons, for they were all the weapon that he had. "I admit that I saw the signs, and I admit that I was too careless to think about what they signified." And he had seen the signs; the vegetation that tried to prevent them from entering the clearing until Rune drew her Iron knife; the Fairie Ring of mushrooms encircling the house. The ash tree growing right through the middle, and the condition of the house itself. . . .
"The mortal who built his house at our very door was a fool, and an arrogant one," the elven-king replied to his thought, his words heavy with lazy menace. "He thought that his God and his Church would defend him against us; that his Iron weapons were all that he needed besides his faith. He knew this was our land, that he built his home against one of our doors. He thought to keep us penned that way. We destroyed him." A faint sigh of silk told him that the king had shifted his position slightly. He still did not look up. "But you were weary, and careless with cold and troubles," the king said. His tone changed, silken and sweet. "You had no real intention to trespass."
Now he looked up; the elf lounged in his throne in a pose of complete relaxation that did not fool Talaysen a bit. All the Bard need do would be to make a single move towards a weapon of any kind at all, and he would be dead before the motion had been completed. If the king didn't strike him down with magic, the courtiers would, with the weapons they doubtless had hidden on their persons. The softest and most languid of them were likely the warriors.
"No, Sire," he replied. "We had no intention of trespass, though we were careless. It was an honest mistake."
"Still-" The elf regarded him with half-closed eyes that did not hide a cold glitter. "Letting you go would set a bad example."
He felt his hands moving towards his instrument; he tried to stop them, but his body was no longer his to control. He picked up his lute, and stripped the case from it, then tuned it.
"I think we shall resolve your problems and ours with a single stroke," the elf said, sitting up on the throne and steepling his hands in front of his chin. "I think we shall keep you here, as our servant, to pay for your carelessness. We have minstrels, but we have no Bards. You will do nicely." He waved his hand languidly. "You may play for us now."
Rune awoke to a thrill of alarm, a feeling that there was something wrong. She sat straight up in her bed-and a faint scrape of movement made her look, not towards the door, but to the back of the cottage, where it was built into the hillside.
She was just in time to see the glitter of an amber eye, the flash of a pointed ear, and the soles of Talaysen's boots vanishing into the hillside as he stumbled through a crack in the rock wall at the rear of the cottage. Then the "door" in the hill snapped shut.
Leaving her alone, staring at the perfectly blank rock wall.
That broke her paralysis. She sprang to her feet and rushed the wall, screaming at the top of her lungs, kicking it, pounding it with hands and feet until she was exhausted and dropped to the ground, panting.
Elves. That was what she'd seen. Elves. And they had taken Talaysen. She had seen the signs and she hadn't paid any attention. She should have known-
The mushrooms, the ash-tree-the bushes that tried to keep us out-
They were all there; the Fairie-circle, the guardian ash, the tree-warriors-all of them in the songs she'd learned, all of them plain for any fool to see, if the fool happened to be thinking.
Too late to weep and wail about it now. There must be something she could do-
There had to be a way to open that door from this side. She felt all over the wall, pressing and turning every rocky projection in hopes of finding a catch to release it, or a trigger to make it open.
Nothing.
It must be a magic door.
She pulled out her knife, knowing the elves' legendary aversion to iron and steel, and picked at anything she found, hoping to force the door open the way she had forced the trees to let them by. But the magic in the stone was sterner stuff than the magic in the trees, and although the wall trembled once or twice beneath her hand, it still refused to yield.
Thinking that the ash tree might be something more than just a tree, she first threatened it with her dagger, then stabbed it. But the tree was just a tree, and nothing happened at all, other than a shower of droplets that rained down on her through the hole in the roof as the branches shook.
Elves . . . elves . . . what do I know about elves? God, there has to be a way to get at them, to get Talaysen out! What do I have to use against them?
Not much. And not a lot of information about them. Nothing more than was in a half-dozen songs or so. She paced the floor, her eyes stinging with tears that she scrubbed away, refusing to give in, trying to think. What did she know that could be used against them?
The Gypsies deal with them all the time-
How did the Gypsies manage to work with them? She'd heard the Gypsies spoken of as "elf-touched" time and time again . . . as if they had somehow won some of their abilities from the secretive race. What could the Gypsies have that gave them such power over the elvenkin?
Gypsies, elves-
She stopped, in mid-stride, balancing on one foot, as she realized the secret. It was in one of the songs the Gypsy called Nightingale had taught her.
Music. They can be ruled by music. They can't resist it. That's what the song implied, anyway.
She dashed to her packs and fumbled out her fiddle. Elves traditionally used the harp, but the fiddle was her instrument of choice, and she wasn't going to take a chance with anything other than her best weapon. She tuned the lovely instrument with fingers that shook; placed it under her chin, and stood up slowly to face the rock wall.
Then she began to play.
She played every Gypsy song she knew; improvised on the themes, then played them all over again. The wailing melodies sang out over the sound of the storm getting worse overhead. She ignored the distant growl of thunder, and the occasional flicker of lightning against the rock in front of her. She concentrated all of her being on the music, the hidden door, and how much she wanted that door to open.
Let me in. Let me in. Let me in to be with him. Let me in so I can get him free!
She narrowed her eyes to concentrate better. She thought she felt something-or rather, heard something, only it was as if she had an extra ear somewhere deep inside, that was listening to something echo her playing.
Echo? No, it wasn't an echo, this was a different melody. Not by much-but different enough that she noticed it. Was she somehow hearing the music-key to the spell holding the door closed, resonating to the tune she was playing?
She didn't stop to think about it; obeying her instinctive feelings, she left the melody-line she was playing and strove to follow the one she heard with that inner ear. She felt a tingle along her arms, the same tingle she had felt when Gwyna had been transformed back to her proper form.
Not quite a match . . . she tried harder, speeded up a little, trying to anticipate the next notes. Closer . . . closer . . .
As she suddenly snapped into synch with that ghostly melody, the door in the wall cracked open-then gaped wide.
She found herself in a tunnel that led deep into the hillside, a tunnel that was floored with darkness, and had walls and a ceiling of swirling, colored mist. If she had doubted before, this was the end of doubts; only elves would build something like this.
The door remained open behind her. She could only hope it would stay that way and not snap shut to block her exit.
If she got a chance to make one.
She clutched her fiddle in her hand and ran lightly down the tunnel; it twisted and turned like a rabbit's run, but at length she saw light at the end. More than that, she heard music, and with her ears, not whatever she'd used to listen before. Music she knew; Talaysen's lute. But not his voice; he was not singing, and that lack shouted wrongness at her. There was a stiffness to his playing as if he was being constrained by something, forced to play against his will.
She ran harder, and burst through a veil of bright-colored mist at the very end of the tunnel. She stumbled onto a field of grass as smooth and close-clipped as a carpet, under a sky of stone bejeweled with tiny, artificial stars and a featureless moon of silver. Small wonder the songs spoke of elven "halls"; for all that they aped the outdoors, this was an artifice and would never look like a real greensward.
The elves gathered beneath that artificial moon in the decorous figures of a pavane stopped and turned to stare in blank surprise at her. Talaysen stood between them and her-and his expression was of surprise warring with fear.
She knew she daren't give them a moment to get over their surprise; if they did, they'd attack her, and if they attacked her, they'd kill her. The songs made that perfectly clear as well.
She grasped for the only weapon she had.
So you want to dance, do you?
She shoved the fiddle under her chin, set bow to strings, and played. A wild reel, a dance-tune that never failed to bring humans to their feet, and called the "Faerie Reel." She hoped there was more in the name than just the clever title-
There was. Or else the elves were as vulnerable to music as Gypsy legend suggested. They seized partners by the hands and began flinging themselves through the figures of the dance, just as wildly as she played, as if they couldn't help themselves.
She didn't give them a respite, either, when that tune had been played through three full sets; she moved smoothly from that piece into another, then another. Each piece was repeated for three sets; she had a guess from some of what the Gypsy songs said that "three" was a magic number for binding and unloosing, and she wanted to bind them to their dancing, keeping them occupied and unable to attack.
She played for them as fiercely as she had for the Ghost, willing them to dance, faster and faster, until their eyes grew blank, and their limbs faltered. Finally some of them actually began dropping from exhaustion, fainting in the figures of the dance, unable to get up again-
One dropped; then two, then a half dozen. The rest staggered in the steps, stumbling over the fallen ones as if they could not stop unless they were as unconscious as the ones on the ground seemed to be. Another pair fainted into each other's arms, and the elven-king whirled, his face set in a mask of un-thought.
Then she changed her tune. Literally.
She brought the tune home and paused, for just a heartbeat. The elves' eyes all turned toward her again, most of them blank with weariness or pleading for her to stop. The elven-king, stronger than the rest, staggered towards her a step or two. She set bow to the strings again, and saw the flicker of fear in their eyes-
And she launched into the Gypsy laments.
Before she had finished the first, the weariest of the elves were weeping. As she had suspected, the Gypsy songs in particular held some kind of strange power over the elves, a power they themselves had no defense against. By the time she had completed the last sorrowing lament that Nightingale had taught her, even the elf with the coronet was in tears, helpless, caught in the throes of grief that Rune didn't understand even though she had evoked it.
She took her bow from her strings. Now there was no sound but soft sobbing.
They're mine. No matter what they try, they're too tired and too wrought up to move fast. I can play them into the ground, if I have to.
I think. Provided my arms hold out. . . .
Elves, she couldn't help but notice resentfully, looked beautiful even when weeping. Their eyes and cheeks didn't redden; their noses didn't swell up. They simply sobbed, musically, perfect crystal tears dropping from their clear amber eyes to trickle like raindrops down their cheeks.
She looked for the one with the coronet; he was climbing slowly to his feet, tears in his eyes, but his chin and mouth set with anger. She strode quickly across the greensward to get past Talaysen as the elven-king brought himself under control, and by the time he was able to look squarely at her, she was between him and her Master, with her bow poised over the strings again, and her face set in an expression of determination she hoped he could read.
"No!" he shouted, throwing out a hand, fear blazing from his eyes.
She removed her bow a scant inch from the strings, challenge in hers.
"No-" he said, in a calmer voice. "Please. Play no more. Your magic is too strong for us, mortal. We have no defense against it."
About him, his people were recovering; some of them, anyway. The ones who could control themselves, or who had not fainted with exhaustion earlier, were helping those who were still lying on the velvety green grass; trying to wake them from their faint, helping them to their feet.
Rune said nothing; she only watched the elven king steadily. He glanced at his courtiers and warriors, and his pale face grew paler still.
"You are powerful, for all that you are a green girl," he said bitterly, turning a face full of carefully suppressed anger back to her. "I knew that the man was powerful, and I confined him carefully, wrapping his music in bonds he could not break so that he could not work against us. But you! You, I had not expected. You have destroyed my defenses; you have brought my people to their knees. No!" he said again, as she inadvertently lowered her bow a trifle. "No, I-beg you. Do not play again! Elves do not weep readily; many more tears, and my people may go mad with grief!"
"All right," she replied steadily, speaking aloud for the first time in this encounter, controlling her voice as Talaysen had taught her, though her knees trembled with fear and her stomach was one ice-cold knot of panic. "Maybe I won't. If you give me what I want."
"What?" the elven-king replied swiftly. "Ask and you shall have it. Gold, jewels, the treasures of the Earth, objects of enchantment-"
"Him," she interrupted, before he could continue the litany, and perhaps distract her long enough to work against both of them. "I want my lover back again."
Then she bit her lip in vexation. Damn. Damn, damn, damn. She had meant to say "Master," but her heart and her nerves conspired to betray her.
"Lover?" the elven-king said, one eyebrow rising in disbelief as he looked from Talaysen to her and back to Talaysen. "Lover? You-and he? What falsehood is this?" But then he furrowed his brows, and peered at her, as if he was trying to look into her heart. "Lover, no-" he said slowly, "but beloved, yes. I had not thought of this, either. Small wonder your music had such power against me, with all the strength of your heart behind it."
"You can't keep him," she said swiftly, trying to regain the ground she had lost with her inadvertent slip of the tongue. "If you can see our thoughts, then you know I am not lying to you. If you cage a songbird, it won't sing; if you keep a falcon mewed up forever, it will die. Do the same to my Master, and he'll die just as surely as that falcon will. He gave up everything for freedom-take it from him, and you take away everything that makes him a Bard. He'll waste away, and leave you with nothing. And I will never forgive you. You'll have to kill me to rid yourself of me, and the cost will be higher than you may want to pay, believe me."
The elven-king's eyes narrowed. "There's truth in that," he said slowly. "Truth in everything you have said thus far. But you, mortal girl-you're made of sterner, more flexible stuff. You would not pine away like a linnet in a cage. Tell me, would you trade your freedom for his?"
"Yes," she said, just as Talaysen cried out behind her, "No!"
The elf considered them both for a moment longer, then shook his head. "No," he said, anger filling his voice. "No, it must be both of you or neither. Cage the one, and the other will come to free it. Keep you both, and you will have my kingdom in ruins within the span of a single moon. You are too powerful to hold, too dangerous to keep, both of you. Go!"
He flung his arm up, pointing at the tunnel behind her. But Rune wasn't finished yet; the treachery of elves was as legendary as their power and secretiveness. She dropped the bow to the strings and played a single, grief-filled phrase.
"Stop!" The elven-king cried over it, tears springing into his eyes, hands clapped futilely over his ears. "What more do you want of us?"
She lifted the bow from the strings. "Your pledge," she replied steadily. "Your pledge of our safety."
She saw the flash of rage that overcame him for a moment, and knew that she had been right. The elven-king had planned to ambush them as soon as their backs were turned, and probably kill them. He had lost a great deal of pride to her and her music; only destroying them would gain it back.
"Swear," she insisted.
"By the Moon our Mother, the blood of the stars, and the honor of the Clan," Talaysen whispered.
"Swear by the Moon our Mother, the blood of the stars, and the honor of the Clan that you will set us free, you will not hinder our leaving; you will not curse us, nor set magic nor weapons against us. Swear it!" she warned, as the rage the elven-king held in check built in his eyes and threatened to overwhelm his self-control. "Swear it, or I'll play till my arms fall off! I played all one night before, I can do it again!"
He repeated it between gritted teeth, word for word. She slowly lowered her arms, and tucked fiddle and bow under one of them, never betraying by a single wince how both arms hurt.
She turned just as slowly, and finally faced Talaysen, just as fearful of what she might see in his eyes as of all the power the elven-king could raise against them.
He smiled, weakly; his face a mask that covered warring emotions that flickered behind his eyes. But he picked up his lute and case, and offered her his arm, as if she was his lady. She took it gravely, and they strolled out of that place of danger as outwardly calm as if they strolled down the aisles of a Faire.
But once they reached the cottage, the rock door slammed shut right on their heels, and she began throwing gear into her pack, taking time only to wrap her fiddle in her bedding and stow it in the very bottom for safety. He joined her.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" he said, over the steady boom of thunder from overhead. The fire was almost out, but they didn't need it to see; lightning flashing continuously gave them plenty of light to see by.
"I think so," she shouted, stuffing the last of her gear into her pack, with her tiny harp cushioned inside her clothing to keep it safe. "I don't trust him, no matter what he swore by. He'll find a way to get revenge on us. We'd better get out of here."
"This may be his revenge!" Talaysen said grimly, packing up his own things and slinging them on his back, throwing his rain-cape over all, then pointing to the storm outside the windows. "He didn't swear not to set the weather on us. As long as he doesn't touch us directly, he hasn't violated his pledge. A storm, lightning-those aren't strictly weapons."
She swore. "Elves," she spat. "They should be Churchmen. Or lawyers. Let's get out of here! A moving target is harder to hit!"
Talaysen was in perfect agreement with her, apparently; he strode right out into the teeth of the storm, and she was right behind him.
The trees didn't stop them this time; evidently the prohibition against using magic held the grasping branches off. But the storm was incredible; lightning striking continuously all about them. Rain lashed them, pounding them with hammers of water, sluicing over their rain-capes until they waded ankle-deep on the path. Talaysen insisted, shouting in her ear to be heard over the storm, that they walk down in the streambed next to the road; it was full of rushing water that soaked them to their knees, but with the rain lashing them from every angle it didn't much matter, they were wet anyway. And when lightning struck the roadway, not once, but repeatedly, she saw the sense of his orders. The streambed was deep enough that not even their heads were above the roadway. Lightning always sought the highest point; they had to make certain that point wasn't them.
But the streambed turned away from the roadway eventually, and ran back into the trees. Now the question was: follow the road, and take their chances with the lightning, or follow the streambed and hope it led somewhere besides into the wilderness?
Talaysen wavered; she made up his mind for him, pushing past him and following the streambed under the trees. People always built their homes beside water; with luck, they'd come across something in a day or two.
With no luck, at least they wouldn't be turned into Bard-shaped cinders. And they could retrace their path if they had to, until they met up with the road again.
The terrain was getting rockier; when she could see through the curtains of water, the streambed looked as if it had been carved through what looked like good, solid stone. And the banks were getting higher. If they couldn't find a house, maybe they could find a cave.
If they couldn't find either, maybe they could just walk out the storm.
It was awfully hard to think with rain beating her skull, and water tugging at her ankles, forcing her constantly off balance. She was so cold she couldn't remember being warm.
The thunder and lightning raged above their heads, but none of it was getting down to the ground anymore, not even the strikes that split whole trees in half. And the very worst of it seemed to be behind them, although the rain pounded them unabated. Her head was going to be sore when they were out of this. . . .
Maybe they were getting out of the elven-king's territory. How far could magic reach?
She found out, as there was a sudden slackening in the rain, a moment when the lightning and thunder stopped. Both she and Talaysen looked up as one, but Rune was not looking up with hope.
She felt only a shudder of fear. This did not have the feeling of a capitulation. It had the feeling of a summoning. The elven-king was bringing one final weapon to bear upon them.
That was when they saw the wall of wind and water rushing down on them, walking across the trees and bending them to the earth as it came. Not like a whirlwind-like a moving waterfall, a barrier of water too solid to see through.
Talaysen was nearer to shelter; he flung himself down in a gully carved into the side of the streambed. She looked about frantically for something big enough to hold her.
Too late.
The wind struck her, staggering her-she flailed her arms to keep her balance, then in a flash of lightning, saw what looked like half a tree heading straight for her-
Pain, and blackness.
Talaysen saw the tree limb, as thick around as he was, hit Rune and drop her like a stone into the water, pinning her in the stream beneath its weight.
He might have cried out; it didn't matter. In the next instant he had fought through the downpour and was clawing at the thing, trying to get it off her, as the wind screamed around him and battered him with other debris. She'd been knocked over a boulder, so at least her head was out of the water-but that was all that fortune had granted her. She was unconscious; she had a pulse, but it was weak and slow.
And he couldn't budge the limb.
Frantic now, he forced himself to calm, to think. Half-remembered hunter's lessons sprang to mind, and he recalled shifting a dead horse off another boy's leg with the help of a lever-
He searched until he found another piece of limb long and stout enough; wedged it under the one pinning Rune, and used another boulder for a fulcrum. There should have been two people doing this-he'd had the help of the huntsman before-
Heave. Kick a bit of flotsam under the limb to brace it. His arms screamed with pain. Heave. Another wedge of wood. His back joined the protest. Heave-
Finally, sweating and shaking, he had it balanced above her. It wouldn't hold for long; he'd have to be fast.
He let go of the lever, grabbed her ankle, and pulled.
He got her out from under the limb just as it came crunching back down, smashing to splinters one of the bits of wood he'd used to brace it up.
The wind died, and the rain was slackening, as if, with Rune's injury, the elven-king was satisfied. But the lightning continued, which now was a blessing; at least he had something to see by.
He bent down and heaved Rune, pack and all, over his shoulders, as if she was a sack of meal. Fear made a metallic taste in his mouth, but lent him strength he didn't know he had and mercifully blanked the pain of his over-burdened, aging body.
He looked about, frantically, for a bit of shelter, anything. Somehow he had to get her out of the rain, get her warm again. Her skin was as cold as the stones he'd pried her out of-if he couldn't get her warm, she might die-
Lightning flickered, just as his eyes passed over what he'd thought was a dark boulder.
Is that-
He staggered towards it, overbalanced by the burden he carried, and by the press of the rushing water against his legs. Lightning played across the sky overhead-he got another look at the dark blot in the stream wall. No, it wasn't a boulder. And it was bigger than he thought-
He climbed up onto the bank, peered at it in another flash of lightning-and nearly wept with relief. It was. It was a cave. A small one, but if it wasn't too shallow, it should hold them both with no difficulty. Pure luck had formed it from boulders caught in the roots of a tree so big two men couldn't have spanned the trunk with their arms.
And a pair of bright eyes looked out of it at him.
He didn't care. Whatever it was, it would have to share its shelter tonight. The eyes weren't far enough apart for a bear, and that was all he cared about.
Somehow he got himself up into the cave; somehow he dragged Rune up with him. Erratic lightning showed him what it was in the cave with him; an entire family of otters. They stared at him fearlessly, but made no aggressive moves towards him. He ignored them and began pawing through the packs for something warm and dry to put on her.
He encountered the instruments first. His lute-intact. Hers was cracked, but might be repaired later. Her penny-whistle was intact, and the tiny harp he'd given her. The bodhran drum was punctured; his larger harp needed new strings-
All this in mental asides as he pawed through the packs, pulling out soaked clothing and discarding it to the side.
Finally he reached the bottom of the packs. And in the very bottom, their bedding; somehow dry. Her fiddle wrapped in the middle of it, safe.
There wasn't much time, and he didn't hesitate; every moment she stayed chilled was more of a threat. He stripped her skin-bare and bundled her into both sets of bedding. Then he stripped himself and eased in with her, wrapping her in his arms and willing the heat of his body into her.
For a long time, nothing happened. The storm died to the same dull rain they'd coped with for the length of the Faire; the lightning faded away, leaving them in the dark. Rune breathed, but shallowly, and her body didn't warm in the least. Her breathing didn't change. She wasn't waking; she wasn't falling into normal sleep. If he couldn't get her warm-
Lady of the Gypsies, help me! You are the queen of the forests and wilds-help us both!
Finally he heard faint snuffling sounds, and felt the pressure of tiny feet on his leg and knee.
The otters' curiosity had overcome their fear.
They sniffed around the bundle of humans and blankets, poking their noses into his ear and sneezing into his face once. It would have been funny if he hadn't been sick with worry for Rune. She wasn't warming. She was hardly breathing-
One of the otters yawned; another. Before he realized what was happening, they were curling up on him, on Rune, everywhere there was a hollow in the blankets, there was an otter curling up into a lithe-warm!-ball and flowing over the sides of the hollows.
As they settled, he began to warm up from the heat of their six bodies. And as he warmed, so, at last, did Rune. Her breathing eased, and finally she sighed, moved a little-the otters chittered sleepily in complaint-and settled into his arms, truly asleep.
He tried to stay awake, but in a few moments, exhaustion and warmth stole his consciousness away, and he joined her and their strange bed-companions in dreams.
He woke once, just after dawn, when the otters stirred out of sleep and left them. But by then, they were not only warm, they were a bit too warm, and he bade the beasts a sleepy, but thankful, good-bye. One of the adults-the female, he thought-looked back at him and made a friendly chitter as if she understood him. Then she, too, was gone, leaving the cave to the humans.
Rune woke with an ache in her head, a leg thrown over hers, and arms about her. Behind her, someone breathed into her ear.
What happened? She closed her eyes, trying to remember. They weren't in the cottage they'd found; that much was for certain. . . .
Then she remembered. The elves, her one-sided fight with music and magic, then the flight through the storm. After that was a blur, but she must have gotten hurt, somehow-
She wormed one arm out of the blankets, reached up to touch the place on her head that hurt worst, and found a lump too tender to bear any pressure at all, with a bit of a gash across the middle of it.
That was when she realized that she wasn't wearing so much as a stitch. And neither was Talaysen.
He murmured in his sleep, and held her closer. His hands moved in half-aware patterns, fitfully caressing her breasts, her stomach. . . .
And there was something quite warm and insistent poking her in the small of the back.
She held very still, afraid that if she moved, he'd stop. Despite the ache in her head, her body tingled all over, and she had to fight herself to keep from squirming around in his arms and-
Suddenly he froze, one hand on her breast, the other-somewhat lower.
He woke up. And now he's going to go all proper on me.
"If you stop," she said conversationally, "I am going to be very angry with you. I thought you taught me to always finish a tune you've started."
Please, God. Please, whoever's listening. Don't let him go all formal now. . . .
"I-I-uh-" He seemed unable to form any kind of a reply.
"Besides," she continued, trying to think around the pain in her skull, "I've been trying to get you into this position for weeks."
"Rune!" he yelped. "I'm your teacher! I can't-"
"You can't what? What difference does being my Master make? You've only got one apprentice, you can't be accused of favoring me over anyone else. You haven't been trying to seduce me, I've been trying to waylay you. There's a difference." There, she thought with a certain satisfaction. That takes care of that particular argument. "It's not as if you're taking unfair advantage of your position."
"But-the pressure-my position-"
"I like the pressure," she replied thoughtfully, "though I'd prefer to change the position-" And she started to squirm around to face him. He choked.
"That's not what I meant!" he said, and then it was too late; they were face-to-face, cozily wound in blankets, and he couldn't pretend he didn't understand her. She could read his expression quite clearly from here. She smiled into his eyes; he blushed.
"I know that's not what you meant," she told him. "I just don't see any 'pressure' on me to drag you into my bed except the pressure of wanting you."
"But-"
"And if you're going to tell me something stupid, like you're too old for me, well you can just forget that entirely." She kissed his nose, and he blushed even redder. "I wouldn't drink wine that was a month old, I wouldn't play a brand new fiddle, and I wouldn't hope for fruit from a sapling tree."
"But-"
"I also wouldn't go to an apprentice in any Craft for anything important. I'd go to a Master."
"But-"
She blinked at him, willing the pain in her head to go away. "You're not going to try and tell me that you've been celibate all these years, are you? If you are, then Gwyna was lying. Or you are. And much as I'd hate to accuse my Master of telling falsehoods, I'd believe Gwyna on this subject more than I'd believe you."
His mouth moved, but no words emerged. She decided he looked silly, gasping like a fish, and saved his dignity by stopping it with a kiss.
He disengaged just long enough to say, "I yield to your superior logic-" And then the time for talk was over, and the time for a different sort of communication finally arrived.