Alfred’s voice came to him from below. It was indistinct, he couldn’t understand the man’s words, yet something about the tone or the rhythm brought back to his mind the hazy memory of when the tree had crashed down on top of him. Bane didn’t pay much attention to it. They were nearing the elves, coming closer by the moment. He could see faces upturned, looking at him and pointing. He started to shout again, when suddenly both the elven ships broke apart, disintegrating before his eyes.
Slender figures toppled into the nothingness around them, and Bane was close enough now to hear the screams that would end when they were swallowed up in the Maelstrom. Here and there fragments of the two ships, held aloft by their own enchantment, floated in the air, and he could see elves clinging to them or, on the larger pieces, some still battling.
And Bane and his small ship were plunging down right into the center of the chaos.
Kir monks do not laugh. They see nothing funny in life, and like to point out that when humans laugh, it is often at the misfortune of others. Laughing is not prohibited in a Kir monastery. It simply isn’t done. A child, when first taken into the halls of the black monks, may laugh for a day or two, but not longer.
The black monk holding Hugh by the hand did not smile, but Hugh saw laughter in the eyes. Furious, he fought and struggled more fiercely against this one opponent than he had fought against any in his life. This opponent was not flesh and blood. No wound left its mark on it. No jab slowed it down. It was eternal and it held him fast.
“You hated us,” said the black monk, laughing at him soundlessly, “yet you served us. All your life you served us.”
“I serve no man!” shouted Hugh. His struggles were lessening. He was growing weak, tired. He wanted to rest. Only shame and anger kept him from slipping into welcome oblivion. Shame because he knew the monk was right. Anger that he had so long been their dupe.
Bitter, frustrated, he summoned all his waning strength and made one final attempt to free himself. It was a weak and pitiful blow that wouldn’t have made tears come to the eyes of a child. But the monk let loose.
Astounded, bereft of the support, Hugh fell. There was no terror in his heart, for he had the strangest impression that he was not falling down, but up. He was not plunging into darkness.
He was plunging into light.
“Sir Hugh?” Alfred’s face, fearful and anxious, floated above him. “Sir Hugh? Oh, praise the Sartan! You’re all right! How do you feel, sir?”
With Alfred’s help, Hugh sat up. He glanced swiftly around him, searching for the monk. He saw no one other than the chamberlain, nothing except a tangle of ropes and his harness.
“What happened?” Hugh shook his head to clear it. He felt no pain, only a kind of grogginess. His brain seemed too large for his skull, his tongue too big for his mouth. He’d awakened in an inn, on occasion, with exactly this same feeling, an empty wineskin at his side.
“The boy drugged you. It’s wearing off now. I know you’re not feeling too well, Sir Hugh, but we’re in trouble. The ship is falling-”
“Drugged?” Hugh looked at Alfred, trying to bring him into focus through the fog. “He didn’t drug me! It was poison.” His eyes narrowed. “I was dying.”
“No, no, Sir Hugh. I know it might feel that way, but-”
Hugh leaned forward. Catching hold of Alfred by the collar, he dragged the man near him, staring into the light-colored eyes in an effort to see into his very soul. “I was dead.” Hugh tightened his grip. “You brought me back to life!”
Alfred returned Hugh’s gaze calmly. He smiled, somewhat sadly, and shook his head. “You are mistaken. It was a drug. I have done nothing.”
Bumbling, oafish, how could this man lie and Hugh not know it? More important, how could Alfred have saved his life? The face was guileless; the eyes looked at him with pity and sadness, nothing more. Alfred seemed incapable of hiding anything. Had Hugh been anyone else, he must have believed him.