The Shattered Land_ The Dreaming Dark - Keith Baker [99]
Here, there was no pressure at all. He seemed to have no body. Trying to move an arm—there was no struggle. It wasn’t cold, because he couldn’t feel any sort of temperature. There was nothing at all. All he had were his thoughts.
His next thought was am I dead?
Before confusion could turn fully to fear, he heard a sound. A distant voice, raised in song. At first, it was pure music. Slowly Daine began to make out individual words, though he could not understand the language. As he concentrated on the song, he began to feel sensation returning, as if his spirit was flowing back into his body. There was no strength in his limbs, but at least he could feel his arms and legs again, his heart beating in his chest. The song continued, but now he realized that it wasn’t a song at all—it was a conversation. There were two voices, alternating and pausing. The language was fluid and lyrical, but the patterns weren’t those of music, and though the accent was strange, the cadence too quick, he recognized the language.
Elvish.
Daine had never learned the Elvish tongue, but he’d fought Valenar soldiers on the southern front, and he’d learned to fear the sound of an Elvish battlecry. The shadows that attacked them—slender, swift, and now he thought about it, shorter than most humans—elves. He was certain of it.
Feeling had returned to his arms and legs—enough that he could sense what an uncomfortable position he was in. He was lying flat on his stomach, with his face pressed against moist earth. His arms were stretched behind his back, his legs pulled up, and his wrists and ankles bound together. He tried pulling at the bonds, to no avail; the cord was strong, the knots tight. As slight as this motion was, he apparently attracted some attention; the singing voices broke off, and he heard someone kneel down next to him. Taking a deep breath, Daine lifted his head and opened his eyes to look at his captor.
He’d expected to see an elf: pale skin, pointed ears, fine features, large eyes with green or violet irises.
He was half right.
It was still deep night, but there was a clear path to the sky above, and the moons cast their light on the man kneeling over him. The figure staring down at him looked like an elf—at least, in silhouette, but his eyes were blank white, with no trace of veins, pupil, or iris. Half his face was missing. No, his skin was jet black, darker than any man Daine had seen, and almost invisible in the shadows, but it was covered with corpse-white patches, patterns that were too regular to be natural. The left half of the man’s face was a white mask, a stylized skull that covered much of his skin. As Daine’s eyes adjusted to the dim light, he saw that the stranger had markings on the right side as well—fine white traceries running under his right eye and out to his long, black ear, than dropping down the side of his neck. Words, perhaps, or some sort of mystical inscription.
From his vantage point with his chin in the dirt, Daine could see little beyond the stranger’s head. The man had pale, silver-blond hair drawn into thick braids, and he wore an odd cap over his forehead, apparently made from the iridescent shell of a white lobster.
“You’d better let me go. Now.”
“Why do I do this?” It was the voice from the previous battle; this was the man who had thrown the curving stick at him. As before, his words seemed to flow together, and Daine had to struggle to make sense of it: whydu’Iduthis.
Daine tested his bonds again. “When I get mad, I … bite people.”
A smile flickered across the lips of the strange elf. He sang a phrase in his liquid tongue, and Daine heard hisses around him—apparently the laughter of the other elves.
“Tell me of yourself,” the man said. “What you come to steal, your oath to the firebinders. Tell me and your death will be swift.”
“Tempting offer.”
“No offer,” said the elf, pale