The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War) (17 page)

“Potluck piles?” Perklet asked hesitantly. He wasn’t sure he
wanted to know more details about what had obviously been a horrible childhood.

Nuse looked at Perklet with sad eyes.

“We huddled together at night to stay warm, but when nobody
has enough clothing to stay warm at night, no matter how many of us there were,
we huddled closely around each other, sometimes on top of each other, under
large blankets. Those were generally owned by a pile leader, who was respected
because of his efforts at keeping us alive at night, and you always had to
bring a bite of something to eat to join his pile, hence the name ‘potluck.’
The leaders of larger piles could accommodate as many as twenty people.

“I usually liked to be somewhere within the outer ring,
because then I didn’t have to worry about the wind and I wasn’t as closed in as
the people in the very center. In the morning, everyone went their own way and
tried to find enough food to last another day and night. The unwritten law was
you don’t touch the blankets in the morning, or else suffer the wrath of all
the people who would be left without the next night.”

“How can anyone stand to live like that?” Perklet said,
aghast. His own youth consisted mainly of trying to stay out from under his
parents’ feet as they managed a small shop in
Chake
.
“It sounds horrible and degrading.”

“But it was the only way we could survive,” Nuse said
calmly. “We had nothing to burn. We had precious little to eat, and money was
completely unheard of. Clothing and scraps of food became our modes of
currency.”

“How barbaric.”

“I don’t know; it had its moments,” Nuse said, his wry smile
returning. “There’s no other place in the world where death and life are found
so closely together, at least where people are so, um, friendly.”

“You don’t mean…” Perklet stared at him in shock.

“Well, it’s one way of creating body heat,” Nuse said with a
shrug. “I’ve seen nights where a new life was surely sparked even as one was
snuffed out by someone freezing to death on the outside of the pile or getting
smothered beneath someone. With that kind of shared intimacy and no concept of
personal space, I suppose it’s only natural to take the next step, even if it’s
with a total stranger. Though I must say, it’s quite disconcerting to have
three to four couples enjoying each other in the pile around you when you’re
trying to get to sleep. Not to mention a bit depressing when you haven’t been a
part of one of those couples for several weeks.”

Perklet gaped and Hoil spluttered in surprise.

“You?” Hoil asked.

“I was thirteen my first time, and there were only five of
us in the pile with too few blankets to make up the difference in warmth,” Nuse
said with a shrug. “She was little older than I was, and she was gentle. I was
lucky compared to some, even my best friend. At least my first was a woman.”

Hoil saw the green look on
Perklet’s
face and said, “I think I’d better not ask. Let’s just leave it there.”

Nuse glanced back, saw Perklet, and nodded.

“Did you get her name?”

They all glanced forward in surprise at Moreen.

“What?”

“What was her name?” Moreen repeated. “I was just curious.”

Nuse smiled slightly. “Elizabeth. I still think about her
sometimes.”

Maran leaned forward and murmured, “Gentlemen, I regret
disrupting the reminiscing, but our captain has just informed me we’re
approaching
El’aman’niren’a
. If you wouldn’t mind, stay
absolutely quiet and be surprised by nothing. If you even gasp in surprise, you
may cost us all our lives. Understand?”

They stared at him in surprise.

“I am quite serious.”

Maran turned and asked Birch to stop rowing. He explained
briefly that he might not have the
exact
timing and technique required
to see them safely to their destination, and they couldn’t risk his helping.
The Gray paladin readily agreed and held his oars clear of the water.

With a gulp of apprehension, Perklet turned his eyes to the
front and stared ahead, wondering what could possibly be so dangerous.

- 3 -

Danner and his friends later discovered there was at least a
small silver lining to the cloud the Prismatic Council had hung over the lives
of their friend and former instructor. Morningham was bound by his oath to obey
a lawful directive of the Council, and nothing about their decision regarding
him could be construed as outside their authority or as immoral or unlawful in
any way. He put his fist through a solid-oak closet door in frustration, but
grudgingly was forced to accept his new position.

Most of his demand had been posturing, a desperate bluff to
head off the injustice he saw taking place in the heart of his beloved Prism.
While the former Training Master was more than willing to inform everyone he
knew about the unjustness and blatant racism of the Council’s decision, it was
petty revenge compared to the knowledge of how lost his replacement would be –
whomever they chose. He hadn’t yet finished preparing a successor – not by any
stretch of the imagination – and no one knew the ins and outs of the training
process like Gerard Morningham, who’d been the Training Master for nearly a
decade. Still, under the circumstances, he regretted leaving it all behind.

In his writ of authority, however, he discovered that the
Council had given him near autonomy and complete authority in his command. He
was free to evaluate and proceed with their training as he saw fit, to plan and
execute their role in any military expeditions that became necessary, to mete
out reward and discipline as needed, and to work outside the normal chain of
command that might otherwise have had him answering to officers in the city’s
guard. The writ also gave him the authority to recruit his own officers,
including paladins who were willing to accompany him.

Someone at least on the Prismatic Council was still trying
to do right by him.

Gerard immediately chose Danner, Garnet, Marc, Michael, and
Flasch, and they accepted unhesitatingly. He gave them acting commissions as
captains, and promoted Trebor to the same rank. At first Trebor had been
opposed to following the “suggestion” of the Council, but when he found out
Morningham had recruited his friends, he walked wordlessly up to the Red
paladin and saluted him.

“Sir, Trebor Dok reporting for duty.”

In scaling the trees to create our homes, we brought ourselves that
much closer to the sun, the symbol of life. But in so doing, we forgot that the
tallest tree casts the largest shadow.

-
El’Maran
El’Eleisha
,

testimony given during trial (983 AM)

- 1 -

The boat slowed and for the first time Perklet realized the
sun was almost down. He’d been so enraptured by their travel and conversation,
however disturbing parts had been, he hadn’t noticed the sinking of the sun and
the rising of the moons. Sin and San were now visible in the dim sunlight
remaining in the sky. Crickets chirped lustily, and the air itself carried the
peculiar taste and scent of nighttime in the woods – the pure sensation of night,
as though the sun’s light itself somehow polluted the air, seasoned with the
bite of pine sap and the bitter scent of ash and elven oak.

When their boat was moving at a slow crawl, Maran and the
elf who commanded their boat both stood and glanced at each other. They nodded
and, with identical looks of intense concentration, they turned their backs on
each other and spread their fingers toward the front and back of the boat
respectively. Inky black tendrils of pure shadow slipped from their outstretched
fingertips and stretched to the ends of the boat. The shadowy lines thickened
and stretched until they touched, and soon the entire boat was encased in a
shadowy bubble.

Perklet was so stunned he couldn’t have cried out in
surprise if he’d wanted to. He could still see through the veil of shadow, but
it was like looking out on a world gone suddenly and permanently into a
moonless night.

“Remember, no sound,” Maran said, his voice less than a
whisper of wind. Their boat just barely cleared the space beneath a low-hanging
branch, and then suddenly the city of
El’aman’niren’a
came into view. The outer-most section looked little different to Perklet than
any of the elven cities and settlements they’d passed, although he did notice a
distinct increase in the number of stone dwellings on the ground. But the outer
rings of the city were the last thing on
Perklet’s
mind as he stared in open-mouthed astonishment at the towering pillars rising
above even the tallest of trees. They seemed half made of glass, half of pure
light, and they gleamed iridescently in the white light of the moons, rivaling
the celestial twins for dominance of the night’s luminescence. Their delicacy
was rivaled only by their perfection and beauty, and Perklet wasn’t surprised
when he found tears of awe brimming in his eyes. He glanced about and saw it
seemed to be affecting all the non-elves similarly, all except Birch, who gazed
up with his customary stoic expression. Maran’s face was perhaps tighter than
usual, and the one-eared elf stared fixedly at the tallest and most splendid of
towers.

During their river trek, Maran had indicated the elven
capital was supposed to be a combination of the four elven sects, even if only
three were acknowledged to exist. Stone, wood, and light blended openly in the
elven city; but as Maran had told them, where there was light there was shadow
as well, and the fourth elven sect was not unknown in the capital city.

“Theirs is a culture as real and rich as any the light has
to offer,” Maran had said, “if they’d only the wit and wisdom to see it.”

Then the glowing city was hidden from view as they drew
closer to the bank and the towering trees greedily devoured the sight as if
jealous. The foliage overhead was so thick that not a speck of the glimmering
light could be seen through the dense canopy.

They followed the river’s course, making less noise than the
wind over rippling waves as they slipped through the night. At last Perklet
began to see other vessels on the water, but they avoided these whenever
possible. Once they were required to slip between two neighboring boats, or
else risk detouring through a hopeless cluster of other vessels. They all held
their breaths as the two boats passed on either side, then Perklet forced
himself not to exhale explosively with pent-up nervousness. He finally realized
they were trying to slip into the city like thieves, and at first he was
repelled by the idea.

But then,
If Birch has no problems, who am I to complain?
he thought, and laid the matter to rest in his mind.

Eventually, the boat curved gracefully through the water
until it was pointed straight into a large stone on the side of a hill that
sloped down to the water’s edge. Perklet looked up just in time to see the
stone, then he saw the prow of their boat pass through the rock like so much
smoke. Remembering his promise, he kept silent. In seconds, the boat was fed
steadily to the greedy maw, and Perklet was consumed by darkness.

- 2 -

When the light came, Birch couldn’t seem to find the source
of the illumination. At first he thought it was merely another instance of his
unique night vision, but his surroundings had more color than his
orange-to-black relief. There was light on all sides of him, a steady,
violet-white color too steady and pure to come from torches. He was distracted
from his search by Maran’s silent motion for them to follow him. Birch checked
to see the others were all right, then he stepped from the boat, offered a hand
to help Moreen, and then followed the silent elf. The awkward footsteps of his
companions and near-inaudible stirring of the elves told Birch that nearly
everyone from the boat was following them. Moreen’s hand stole quietly to his
upper arm and she clutched his left bicep anxiously. Selti swooped down from
the air and landed carefully on Birch’s other shoulder. He twined his gray tail
around Birch’s neck and softly scolded him for disrupting his nap earlier.
Birch bore the berating squawk in silence, deciding it was better to ignore
Selti for now.

Maran paused briefly to speak with another elf, then he
continued down the passageway into a small room. He stopped in the room and
waited until the other humans were with them. Somewhere along the way, they had
lost their elven escort from the boat without Birch having noticed.

Birch forced his shoulders not to squirm as he glanced at
the low, earthy ceiling. It was like being on the inside of a giant
groundpup
tunnel, and he wasn’t particularly fond of the
sensation. Giant tree roots grew down from the ceiling, if it could be called
such, and intertwined seamlessly with the earthen walls all around them. For
all the space, however, Birch felt as though he was one short step away from
suffocating under a thousand tons of earth.

“I’ve been informed the
Do’Valoren
will grant me an audience tomorrow evening,” Maran said quietly.

“You’ve mentioned this
Do’Valoren
before,” Nuse said. “Who is he?”

“The master of the Do society in the elven nation,” Maran
replied crisply without looking at the Blue paladin. “His mere existence is hardly
more than a rumor, even among my people.”

“Let me guess,” Nuse said impudently, “we mention him to
others on pain of death?”

Now Maran did turn to Nuse and looked at him with an intense
stare.

“Yes.”

The Blue paladin’s smile faded.

“And you see him tomorrow? Not immediately as you’d hoped?”
Hoil asked, drawing the elf’s attention to him.

“No.”