ready have found Coil. They would track the Spider Gnomes
and come for him. They would find him and rescue him.
He shook his head. He was just kidding himself, he knew. It
was almost dark when the Gnomes had taken him and the rain
had been a hard one. There would have been no time for a search
and no real chance of finding a trail. The best he could hope for
was that Coil had been found or revived himself and gone to the
others to tell them what had happened.
He swallowed again against the dryness. He was so thirsty!
Time slipped away, turning seconds to minutes, minutes to
hours. The darkness outside brightened minimally, bringing a
barely penetrable daylight, choked with heat and mist. The faint
sounds of the Spider Gnomes disappeared altogether, and he
would have thought them gone completely if not for the two who
sat hunkered down by the cave’s entrance. The fire went out,
smoking for a time, then turning to ash. The day slipped away.
Once, one of the guards rose and brought him a cup of wa-
ter. He drank it greedily from the hands that held it up to his
mouth, spilling most of it, soaking his shirt front. He grew
hungry as well, but no food was offered.
When the day began to fade to darkness again, the guards
rebuilt the fire at the mouth of the cave, then disappeared.
Par waited expectantly, forgetting for the first time the ache
of his body, the hunger and the fear. Something was going to
happen now. He could feel it.
What happened was altogether unexpected. He was working
again at his bonds, his sweat loosening them now, mingling with
traces of his blood from the cuts the ties had made, when a
figure appeared from the shadows. It came past the fire and into
the light and stopped.
It was a child.
Par blinked The child was a girl, perhaps a dozen years of
age, rather tall and skinny with dark, lank hair and deepset eyes.
She was not a Gnome, but of the Race of Man, a Southlander,
with a tattered dress, worn boots, and a small silver locket about
her neck. She looked at him curiously, studied him as she might
a stray dog or cat, then came slowly forward. She stopped when
she reached him, then lifted one hand to brush back his hair and
touch his ear.
“Elf,” she said quietly, fingering the ear’s tip.
Par stared. What was a child doing out here among the Spider
Gnomes? He wet his lips. “Untie me,” he begged.
She looked at him some more, saying nothing. “Untie me!”
Par said again, more insistent this time. He waited, but the child
just looked at him. He felt the beginnings of doubt creep through
him. Something was not right.
“Hug you,” the child said suddenly.
She came to him almost anxiously, wrapping her arms about
him, fastening herself to him like a leech. She clung to him,
burying herself in his body, murmuring over and over again
something he could not understand. What was the matter with
this child, he wondered in dismay? She seemed lost, frightened
perhaps, needing to hold him as much as he …
The thought died away as he felt her stirring against him,
moving within her clothes, against his clothes, then against his
skin. Her fingers had tightened into him, and he could feel her
pressing, pressing. Shock flooded through him. She was right
against him, against his skin, as if they wore no clothes at all,
as if all their garments had been shed. She was burrowing,
coming against him, then coming into him, merging somehow
with him, making herself a part of him.
Shades! What was happening?
Repulsion filled him with a suddenness that was terrifying.
He screamed, shook himself in horror, kicked out desperately
and at last flung her away. She fell in a crouch, her child’s face
transformed into something hideous, smiling like a beast at
feeding, eyes sharp and glinting with pinpricks of red light.
“Give me the magic, boy!” she rasped in a voice that sounded
nothing of a child’s.