Elfshadow - Elaine Cunningham [132]
"Need help these days, do you?" Arilyn asked.
Kymil regarded her weapon with dismay. "Where is the moonblade?" he demanded.
"If you're here, the elfgate must be nearby. Surely you didn't think I'd bring the moonblade with me."
Kymil stared at her, not sure whether to believe her or not. His noble plan, his grand design, could not be thwarted by a mere halfbreed. It was impossible. His handsome bronze face gleamed with righteous wrath. "Where is the sword?" he repeated.
"Where you cannot get it," Arilyn responded, smiling.
The gold elf's narrowed eyes glittered with malevolence as he changed his tactics. "This is a surprise. You've been so malleable all these years. Who would have thought that you could be as stubborn and stupid as Z'beryl?"
The comment caught Arilyn off guard, just as Kymil had intended it to do. A cold hand of sorrow clutched at her heart. "What do you mean?"
"What else could I mean?" he taunted. "After I learned the secret of the moonblade, it took me fifteen years-fifteen years!-to discover that Amnestria and the elfgate were in Evereska. I might still be looking, had I not encountered some students who had studied under Z'beryl of Evereska."
"I doubt any of Mother's students knew her identity. I can't believe any of them would betray her," Arilyn said.
"Not intentionally, perhaps. In their admiration for your departed mother, they tried to mimic her unusual two-handed fighting technique." He spread his arms wide. "Imagine my chagrin to finally find elf and sword, only to learn that the moonstone was gone and the elfgate still denied me. Naturally, your mother refused to tell me where the stone was, so I ensured that the blade would pass to someone who promised to be more reasonable."
The color drained from Arilyn's face. "You killed her."
"Of course not," Kymil retorted, his voice tight with self-righteous scorn. "She was, as the watch reported, killed by a couple of cutpurses, though perhaps I sold the men some en-spelled weapons. Perhaps I also informed them that she carried a heavy purse."
Arilyn hurled an elven curse at Kymil Nimesin like a javelin. He curled his lip in a show of disdain. "If you must be vulgar, by all means speak in Common and do not sully the elven language."
"You filthy murderer," she spat. "Now I have one reason more to kill you."
"Don't be tiresome. I did not kill Z'beryl," Kymil reiterated calmly. "I merely passed on some information to the cut-purses who did. Of course, I don't mourn the use they made of that information." Kymil paused and swept a hand toward the gold elven fighters behind them. "Soon you will join her in whatever afterlife awaited her."
Arilyn saw a familiar face among the elves. "Hello, Tintagel. Still Kymil's shadow after all these years?"
"I follow Lord Nimesin," Tintagel Ni'Tessine corrected her with cold disdain, "as did my father before me."
"Making a family business out of being assassins, are you?"
"Can one use the term assassination to refer to eradication of gray elves? Extermination would be a more likely term," he sneered.
"That is apt," Kymil agreed. "Once we open the gate, my Elite will slip in and kill every member of the so-called royal family. With the moon elf usurpers gone, the proper order and balance will be restored."
"I see," said Arilyn slowly. "And Kymil Nimesin will reign in their stead, I imagine."
"Hardly." Kymil gave a patrician sniff of scorn. "The high elves, the true Tel'Quessir, do not require the vulgar trappings of royalty. I will restore the ruling council of elders, as it was in the days of Myth Drannor."
"Will you, now?" Arilyn taunted him. "It seems to me that you'll have to get to the moonblade first. How you're going to remove it from Khelben Arunsun's safe is a marvel to me."
"That is a lie," the quessir snapped. "You cannot lay aside the moonblade on a whim. With the sword whole once more, you are tied to it like mother and newborn. If the sword were truly so