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.It was anhonest mistake.""Still-" The elf regarded him with half-closed eyes that did not hide a cold glitter."Letting yougo would set a bad example."He felt his hands moving towards his instrument; he tried to stop them, but his body was nolonger his to control.He picked up his lute, and stripped the case from it, then tuned it."I think we shall resolve your problems and ours with a single stroke," the elf said, sitting upon the throne and steepling his hands in front of his chin."I think we shall keep you here, asour servant, to pay for your carelessness.We have minstrels, but we have no Bards.You willdo nicely." He waved his hand languidly."You may play for us now."Rune awoke to a thrill of alarm, a feeling that there was something wrong.She sat straightup in her bed-and a faint scrape of movement made her look, not towards the door, but tothe back of the cottage, where it was built into the hillside.She was just in time to see the glitter of an amber eye, the flash of a pointed ear, and thesoles of Talaysen's boots vanishing into the hillside as he stumbled through a crack in therock wall at the rear of the cottage.Then the "door" in the hill snapped shut.Leaving her alone, staring at the perfectly blank rock wall.That broke her paralysis.She sprang to her feet and rushed the wall, screaming at the top ofher lungs, kicking it, pounding it with hands and feet until she was exhausted and dropped tothe ground, panting.Elves.That was what she'd seen.Elves.And they had taken Talaysen.She had seen thesigns and she hadn't paid any attention.She should have known-The mushrooms, the ash-tree-the bushes that tried to keep us out-They were all there; the Fairie-circle, the guardian ash, the tree-warriors-all of them in thesongs she'd learned, all of them plain for any fool to see, if the fool happened to be thinking.Too late to weep and wail about it now.There must be something she could do-There had to be a way to open that door from this side.She felt all over the wall, pressingand turning every rocky projection in hopes of finding a catch to release it, or a trigger tomake it open.Nothing.It must be a magic door.She pulled out her knife, knowing the elves' legendary aversion to iron and steel, and pickedat anything she found, hoping to force the door open the way she had forced the trees to letthem by.But the magic in the stone was sterner stuff than the magic in the trees, andalthough the wall trembled once or twice beneath her hand, it still refused to yield.Thinking that the ash tree might be something more than just a tree, she first threatened itwith her dagger, then stabbed it.But the tree was just a tree, and nothing happened at all,other than a shower of droplets that rained down on her through the hole in the roof as thebranches shook.Elves.elves.what do I know about elves? God, there has to be a way to get at them, toget Talaysen out! What do I have to use against them?Not much.And not a lot of information about them.Nothing more than was in a half-dozensongs or so.She paced the floor, her eyes stinging with tears that she scrubbed away,refusing to give in, trying to think.What did she know that could be used against them?The Gypsies deal with them all the time-How did the Gypsies manage to work with them? She'd heard the Gypsies spoken of as"elf-touched" time and time again.as if they had somehow won some of their abilitiesfrom the secretive race.What could the Gypsies have that gave them such power over theelvenkin?Gypsies, elves-She stopped, in mid-stride, balancing on one foot, as she realized the secret.It was in oneof the songs the Gypsy called Nightingale had taught her.Music.They can be ruled by music.They can't resist it.That's what the song implied,anyway.She dashed to her packs and fumbled out her fiddle.Elves traditionally used the harp, butthe fiddle was her instrument of choice, and she wasn't going to take a chance with anythingother than her best weapon.She tuned the lovely instrument with fingers that shook; placed itunder her chin, and stood up slowly to face the rock wall.Then she began to play.She played every Gypsy song she knew; improvised on the themes, then played them allover again.The wailing melodies sang out over the sound of the storm getting worseoverhead [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]