Lillandra

Although he couldn't read it, he thought the map might be useful, so he bought the book with the three copper coins Tal had given him back in Ada. He stepped out onto the street and looked up at the sky.

"We're a very long way from home," he said sadly.

"We already knew that," Lillandra said, coming up behind him.

"You don't understand. It could take us years to get back to Velon. And we're on the wrong side of the Scarred Lands -- do you have any idea what that means?"

"Not really," she admitted.

"My father visited the Scarred Lands several times. He told me all about them. The desert is four hundred miles across, crawling with powerful monsters, and split in two by a high mountain range. Whole armies have been wiped out trying to cross the Scarred Lands."

"What was your father doing there?"

"He worked as a caravan guard for a while, before he formed the Steelmen. He went as far as the Riven Mountains."

"A caravan guard?"

"Caravans do attempt the crossing, from time to time," he said. "But it's rare. Most of them never return." He whirled on Lillandra, suddenly angry. "This is all your fault."

"My fault?"

"It was your magic that got us here. If you hadn't tried to cast that spell--"

"You were trying to kill me. What was I supposed to do?"

Arai fumed. Things would have so much simpler, so much easier, if he had managed to kill her back in Velon. With the death of the Night Queen, and the success of the rebellion, Arai could have returned to that little meadow on the banks of the Tuv, rebuilt his father's house, and lived quietly for the rest of his life. He could have married Maya, perhaps. Odo could have gone back to pulling barges up the river, Vex could have returned to his studies, and Grizz and the Steelmen could have returned to the Holy Empire. A happy ending for everybody.

As things stood now, he had no idea whether he would even live to see his home again. And that was Lillandra's fault.

Frustrated, and angry, he stormed off down the street. "Where are we going now?" she asked.

"We spent all our money on this book," he said.

"So?"

"So I'm not planning on sleeping in the gutters tonight. It's time we sold that bracelet of yours."

Lillandra's bracelet, which Arai had confiscated earlier, was a gold-gilt band encrusted with little rubies. Some time ago he had used the tip of his knife to pry the rubies out the bracelet; now he intended to sell them.

"That bracelet belongs to me," she grumbled. "You have no right to sell it."

"Perhaps you'd like to spend the night on the street."

She crossed her arms and glared at him, looking for all the world like a petulant teenage girl.

It took a few minutes of asking around, but Arai eventually managed to find his way to a jeweler, who gave them four silvers and three coppers for the rubies, and three more silvers for the bracelet itself. "Very unusual," the jeweler commented, eyeballing it. "Where did it come from?"

"Velon," Arai provided. "It's a country on the other side of the Scarred Lands."

The man gave him a look which suggested he thought he was a fool or an idiot, but he handed over the coins anyway. Lillandra was so upset about his selling off the bracelet that he finally found himself apologizing to her, despite himself. "I'm sorry," he said. "We didn't have a choice. We can't expect to survive in this land without money."

"You could have sold your sword."

"Are you out of your mind? This is Silus, the Radiant Blade. It's thousands of years old; it was forged before the Harrowing. I'm not going to sell it off to an ironmonger. Besides, it's the only insurance I have against you and your magic."

She gave that one of her characteristic snorts.

By now the sun was beginning to set, which meant they needed to find a place to stay for the night. They left the jeweler and began making their way up the street, looking for an inn or a common-house that might put them up. They walked in silence -- Arai was fed up with Lillandra, with her petulance and her bad attitude, and no doubt she was fed up with him as well. After a few minutes, however, she pointed something out to him that he hadn't noticed.

"We're being followed," she said.

He looked around. The streets were not particularly busy at this time of day, but there were a few people passing by here and there. "Who?"

"A little elf girl. She started following us after we came out of the jewelry shop."

Arai glanced over his shoulder. He spotted the girl, but only for an instant; she disappeared into an alley almost the second he laid eyes on her. She was a quick little blonde thing, wearing a ragged-looking yellow shift. "What do you think she wants?"

"No idea."

"She's probably just curious." Arai's dark-gray gambeson and Lillandra's strange black outfit especially had already earned them several stares from passersby -- the Addish themselves wore colorful doublets, robes, or strange skirt-like costumes that showed off their legs.

"I'm not so sure."

They didn't see the girl again after that, and Arai quickly forgot about her. A few minutes later, just as the lights were going out around the city, they found an inn -- it was a rather shabby-looking place, and there were seedy-looking characters loitering all over, but Arai had no idea how long their coin would last them and he didn't want to spend any more money than he had to.

The proprietor was a fat, sweaty man wearing a huge leather apron and snacking on fried onions. "My wife and I would like a room," Arai told the man.

"Two coppers," he grunted, not looking up from his onions.

Arai placed the money on the counter. The man swiped it up and dropped it into his pocket, and pointed to a set of stairs at the other end of the room. "We've got one room left at the end of the hall." He eyed Arai's sword. "And I'd better not see that thing come out of its scabbard."

"Fair enough. Do you serve food here?"

"My wife can whip something up for you, for another copper."

"Thank you." He put the copper on the counter, and the man swept that one up as well.

Lillandra pulled him aside. "I'm your wife now?" she hissed.

"A lot of places have taboos about unmarried men and women sharing the same room. We'll get fewer questions this way."

"You could have told him we were brother and sister."

He frowned at her. Lillandra was dark-haired and dark-eyed, with a heart-shaped face and unusually pale skin. Arai, on the other hand, was a tall, blue-eyed youth, with sandy blond hair and a ruddy complexion. They looked absolutely nothing alike. "That's hardly believable."

"Whatever you say," she grouched, sitting down at a table and crossing her arms over her chest, in that petulant way she had.

Arai rolled his eyes and sat down across from her. A few minutes later a matronly woman arrived with fresh bread and a couple of bowls of stew. There was too much pepper in the stew, but the bread was delicious and both of them ate it eagerly.

Satisfied, they headed up to their room. Like the rest of the inn, it was pretty shabby, with creaking wooden floors and a single bed with a straw mattress. The room also had a window facing west; the moonlight was streaming through it.

"You can have the bed," Arai told Lillandra, setting down his rucksack and rolling his bedroll out on the floor.

"It smells in here," she commented.

"It's better than sleeping outside. Does that door have a lock on it?"

It did have a lock, so she locked it. She then tested the bed, bouncing on it a bit. "I suppose it'll do," she said.

Arai shook his head in exasperation -- her bad attitude was really starting to wear on him -- and settled down on the floor, with his head facing the window so that he could look out at the night sky. Though he had a great deal on his mind, he had little trouble falling asleep.

* * *

He awoke only a few hours later, after having a very strange dream. He couldn't remember the details, but it had had something to do with his sorcerer friend Vex, and something about it had unsettled him. The last time he had seen Vex he had been desperately fighting off the Night Queen's guards, and he found himself wondering, for the hundredth time, whether the poor lad was still alive.

He exhaled slowly and opened his eyes.

The moon had moved out of view; he could no longer see it through the window. He spent a few seconds studying the night sky, but then frowned, because he had just noticed something: the window was open.

Had Lillandra opened it, to get some fresh air? He propped himself up on his elbows and looked around.

The room was very dark, but he could make out the shapes and shadows, still, and he could see Lillandra lying on the bed. On the other side of the bed, though...

There was someone else in the room with them.

It was a small, furtive figure, probably a child. The figure was digging through Arai's rucksack; they hadn't noticed yet that Arai was awake.

"Hey!" Arai shouted, scrambling for his sword.

The dark figure looked up, and then, with a quickness that Arai found astonishing, raced back to the window, slid over the sill, and disappeared into the darkness. Arai heard a faint jangling of coins as the figure darted off; the little burglar had obviously made off with their money.

Swearing, Arai grabbed his sword and, without even bothering to pull on his boots, exploded out of the door and raced down the stairs, hoping to catch the thief before he or she could get very far. Ignoring the confused shouts of the innkeeper, who was apparently still awake, he shouldered open the door of the inn and raced around to the west side of the building. There were several alleys running off in several directions, and all were so dark he couldn't make anything out, so he picked one at random, his bare feet slapping against the pavement.

He must have chosen the right alley, because he saw some movement at the end it -- a shadow, flowing into other shadows. He followed the movement, turned a corner, looked around...and stopped. The alleyway was empty.

He swore again. But then, just as he was turning to leave, he stopped again, because he had just heard a noise coming from behind a row of ale casks that had been lined up along the edge of the street. He pretended to walk away, out of the alley, but then suddenly stopped, turned, and kicked over one of the casks. The thief jumped up and immediately made a break for it, but Arai managed to grab the little shadow by the collar.

He dragged the struggling figure out of the alley and into the moonlight. He was not particularly surprised to discover that the thief was the little elf girl who had been following them earlier. "Let me go!" she yelled.

"I'll let you go when you give me back my money."

She stopped struggling, and with considerable reluctance, handed over his coin purse, which he tied to his belt. He released her then. He expected to her to flee, but she didn't -- instead, she looked into his eyes, sniffled once or twice, and burst into tears before him.

"Are...are you all right?" he asked.

"What am I going to do?" she wailed. "I can't...without that money...how am I supposed to save him?"

"Save who?"

"My brother," she blubbered. "He's in trouble. He left the guards, and now Captain Rainer and his men are after him, and if he shows his face around Northwall they'll hang him."

"Slow down," Arai said. "And quiet down, will you? You're going to wake up the whole neighborhood with that bawling."

She sniffled a few more times, and Arai took the opportunity to get a good look at her. If she were a human child, he would have guessed she was about ten years old, but as she was an elf, he had no idea what her true age might be; for all he knew she was older than he was. She was very skinny, obviously malnourished, and she looked like she hadn't had a bath in weeks. Her shift was dirty and her cheeks were smudged. For all that, though, she was a pretty little thing, with green eyes and a cherubic face framed by long, straight blonde hair. Her ears, emerging from out of those blonde tresses, were almost comically long; in fact they made her look rather ridiculous. Did all elf children have such long ears? He wondered if she would grow into them.

Though she had broken into his room and stolen his money, and though he had no reason to do her any favors, he felt bad about leaving her here. She was clearly distraught. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Shell," she said.

"Shell," he repeated. "You look like you could use a good meal."