Undying Ch. 16-21

The tent flap closed. She had already begun to fade into sleep when she was startled awake by someone pulling a blanket over her.

Olthon unrolled a mat partly overlapping hers in the small tent and lay down looking at her peculiarly. "Batran looks out for you because you are occasionally too stubborn or too proud to take care of yourself."

"Sometimes." Syr could see what he was trying to do, even half asleep. The elf had decided to build trust. It would be something she could use at least, to find out more about the weapon he intended to use on Syv.

"Go back to sleep. I will be here, Syreilla."

Sleeping so close to an elf wasn't ideal, but she didn't have much choice. She turned her back on him drawing her boot knife and he laughed quietly. The quiet, indecipherable conversations outside the tent lulled her back to sleep after a time. It was the middle of the night when someone moved the tent flap and hissed for Olthon. It brought her bolt upright ready to defend herself, to the surprise of the elf at the end of her knife.

"I did warn you she sleeps lightly, Dolthidir. Put your knife away Syreilla. Go back to sleep if you can." Olthon sounded amused. He was smiling when she turned her head to look at him.

"No, I'm awake now." She slipped the knife back into her boot sheath. "You're supposed to take a turn with the watch or was he just checking to make sure I hadn't murdered you in your sleep?"

"The watch. I will be back in a few hours." He looked very pleased with himself as he sat up.

"I think I'd rather get up." Syr rolled her shoulders and stretched her legs out.

"You'd like to keep me company?" Olthon looked dubious.

"I'm not planning on trying to escape again, not until we're out of the forest, if that's what you're concerned about." Her mischievous grin seemed to annoy him. Good.

He made a gesture toward the tent flap. Syreilla climbed out of the tent with her satchel of food and found herself face to face with a scowling Dolthidir. She gave him a bright smile.

"Someone should have disarmed you."

"Try it and you'll lose the arm, elf. My husband gave me that knife." Her smile became more of a baring of teeth and the elf blinked.

"No one will take your knife, though, I would like to see it." Olthon's smile was resigned. "She's not going to harm me or run tonight. Go rest, Dolthidir."

She watched Olthon settle on the log that had been dragged near their fire. The elf patted the place next to him and she snorted and shook her head instead settling on the ground across the banked fire from him.

"Will you show me your knife?" He asked after a few moment's silence.

"Will you show me the chunk of metal you used to hunt me down?" Syr inquired with a shrug.

"Of course." He patted the place beside him again with a smug smile.

"You and Vezar must have gotten along well, I can see the similarities." She couldn't help but give him a smile as she stood to come sit on the log. Not as close as he'd suggested but the elf looked pleased.

"We did. For a time." He drew a lump of metal from a pouch. "This is the 'chunk of metal' you asked about." She could feel his sharp gaze on her as she looked at it, deliberately not reaching for it. "You don't wish to touch it?"

"No. That's what I pulled power from. I can feel it has some kind of-" Syreilla gestured with a partly curled hand. "There's something sneaky on it."

Olthon began to laugh. "You could be trained so easily. I'm not surprised Zylius enjoyed teaching you. I've spent centuries working with this metal knowing I would someday need to bring it to bear on Vezar. The seer gave me warning that I would have my chance."

"Why didn't you make it into a different shape?"

"Vezar can only be killed by a weapon of his own hand. He tried to destroy all weapons he had used but this piece of metal managed to survive. I worried reforging it would make it into a weapon of my hand. I hope it will be enough."

"So it's not something you're going to get close and hit him with, you're going to kill him from a distance." Syr leaned forward and pulled her boot knife, turning it in her fingers.

"You disapprove. You'd prefer I had to get close."

She glanced at the amused elf. "If you're going to kill my brother the least you can do is look him in the eye."

"I will, Syreilla. I have to touch it to him to catch his threads. It didn't work as well as I had hoped at a distance." Olthon held out his hand to take her knife.

Reluctantly, she offered it to him. "Kaduil does beautiful work. He made it for me while I was away."

"I see he does. The runes are almost poetic."

Feigning embarrassment, she decided to play the fool a bit and build a little trust of her own. "I haven't learned dwarvish as well as I should have by now."

"Loosely translated; My golden-haired girl with fire in your eyes, let the heat of my forge draw you home."

"I want to go home to him more than I've wanted anything in all my life, Olthon." Syreilla reached for her knife and ran her fingers over the runes lovingly when it was given back.

"I will do all I can to return you, Syreilla. Though, I wish you had been raised in my house. The potential you have will be wasted in a mine."

"Olthon, I wouldn't be who I am if I were raised in your house. I wouldn't have gotten to learn from Zylius either." She gave him an impish grin patting her pouches. "I can teach you how to make dragon's fire if you don't know. All I need for it I carry with me."

The elf laughed and eyed her pouches with interest. "I haven't made it myself but I've read how it's done."

"It's beautiful. Here, let me show you." Pulling out the shallow ceramic bowl, she started reaching for the powders.

"No!" He covered the bowl in her hand. "Thank you," he took a breath, "for the offer but I must decline. Dragon's fire is too volatile to create just for a display."

"It's the only way to learn. If you wait until you need it to try you might make a mistake. Practice makes it easier, it's a risk but-"

"You enjoy risks." Olthon smiled at her warmly. "Batran warned me. He seemed to think if you had known of the prison Vezar was held in you'd have gone into it just to see if you could make it to the middle."

Syr grinned broadly, "He's usually right. That tomb was a challenge, I could have built it better though."

"Of that, I have no doubt. How did you injure yourself? Not one of the traps, I take it?"

"No, those wards were nasty. I didn't even see the one that sent bricks down the corridor when I spoke to myself and I'm usually good at seeing them." Wards that could hide completely from the sight of her circlet were incredibly few.

The elf beamed. "You followed the corridor?"

"Once the bricks moved I was running back the way I came, you had a fall trap too close to the corridor. I managed to swing into it and get under the wave of- I don't even know what that was, but it burned my hands." She winced at the memory. "It took some time before I was brave enough to reach up and haul myself out."

He looked immensely pleased with himself. "I spent a great deal of time on those. But what stopped you from following the corridor? Too many wards were still intact?"

"Yes and no. I had to have a look at the corridor and think. I was going to go back the way I came and go down the other side. If I'd made the maze I'd have put up wards on places I wanted people to go because who would make the effort to ward nothing? But when I saw the hole in the wall, the maze within the maze," Syr threw up her hands. "That was promising. You should have put some of those nasty wards in there. Toward the end, just past the point you couldn't get away safely if you tripped them."

"I didn't want to make someone think there was anything worth finding in the walls." Olthon frowned. "Wards within them would have made it obvious."

"Olthon, at a certain point you have to stop caring about making it obvious and just try to kill the thief. Overly clever people are always less of a challenge than they think they are."

The look on his face reminded her very strongly of Vezar, amazed and disbelieving. "I will remember that in the future."

"I'll look forward to dying in a maze someday, then." She stowed the bowl with a grin.

"Tirnel may have been right. You, my dear girl, are mad." He was grinning back at her.

"Enamored of danger and stupidity is what Batran says. Apparently, trying to beat it out of me would be like trying to beat the wood out of a tree." Syr stretched her arms up and bent her head side to side stretching her neck. "It makes me good at what I do. I live for the challenge of it."

"If you weren't half elf I imagine you'd be dead several times over." Olthon stood and moved to one of the saddle pouches pulling out some dried strips of something and two breads. "Would you humor me and taste some of what I've brought?"

Eyeing it distrustfully, she gave a tentative nod. "If you tell me what it is. You're welcome to try what Batran sent. Dwarf bread is good, it has a flavor different from any other bread I've tasted. Earthy and-"

Olthon shuddered. "If you insist I'll taste it, but not the sausage."

Syr shook her head, "I don't understand why you don't eat it. It's mostly ground meat and spices."

The elf offered a dried strip to her and she looked it over dubiously.

"Dried fish. Try it."

Biting into it, it wasn't as bad as she expected it to be. Compared to the heavily spiced dwarvish sausage it was almost tasteless. "It doesn't taste like much."

"Your tongue is accustomed to the heat and heaviness of dwarven foods. Elves prefer delicate flavors." He looked disappointed.

"I like things that are solid." Syr smiled at him as if she were apologizing. "Here," she broke off a piece of the flattened dwarf bread, "A small piece, I'm told elf bread dissolves and you don't need teeth to eat it."

"Dwarves. You may not be fond of the waybread but I am certain you'll enjoy the mead cake." His faint smile was smug.

"Mead cake?" The breads in his hands were now more interesting.

"Waybread first." He took the bite of dwarf bread from her and put it in his mouth making a disgusted face as he broke off a small piece of pale thin bread.

The waybread was soft and tasteless, nearly dissolving in her mouth. She gave Olthon a reproachful look. "This is awful. How can you eat this?"

"I could ask the same of the dwarf bread." He looked a little green.

Bringing the cider out of her bag she took a long swallow and then offered him the bottle. "Cider, from the last cellar I was in."

He took it looking resigned and drank. "I'm not usually fond of cider, but this isn't too sweet."

"Cider should have some bite. If it's sweet you're drinking juice."

Olthon handed the bottle back with a smile. "I thought you had mead?"

"Traded it." Syr winced. "Wish I hadn't. I prefer mead to anything else."

"Taste." He broke the thicker golden bread in half taking a bite himself as he handed her the other.

The mead cake was rich and sweet. Syr ate her piece and licked her fingers as Olthon watched with amusement.

"I liked that one."

"I can tell. Your manners are so dwarvish as to put your paternity in doubt." His tone was dry but his eyes were sparkling with amusement.

That earned him a genuine grin. "Sadly, I'm not pretty enough to be half dwarf." She stroked her beardless chin.

Olthon laughed, putting his face in his hands. "Syreilla. I see clearly why Vezar intends to steal you away. You should try to be less charming when you see him next."

*Twenty*

"You are a difficult man to find."

Vezar frowned at the sibilant rasp that came from the figure leaning against the wall at the mouth of the alleyway.

"When Syreilla spirited you away and left me to the elves I had to resort to scrying."

"Syreilla intended to give you the amulet, I prevented her." If the lich could survive two elf attacks he was formidable. "She did not realize that your intention was to free me, and I would not risk my sweet Syreilla being killed because her usefulness to a lich was at its end."

"Sweet Syreilla?" The incredulous hiss turned to something like a wheezing laugh. "That is not something I would have called her, not even when I was alive and she was fond of me. And there is no end to that girl's usefulness."

"She can be impressive when she wishes to be." Vezar observed him cautiously. "Why is it you have sought me out?"

"I need your gifts. I need to know how to replenish myself, this body is failing despite my will."

"Ah." His gifts couldn't be taught, they had been bestowed. The lich might well be aware and intend to try to devour him. One had made the attempt before and Vezar had consumed him. "They are not something that can be taught."

"Perhaps they can be bestowed?" The lich took a step forward.

"I've never had a reason to make the attempt." Truthfully, he had never considered sharing them with anyone else. Healing was one thing, but to extend another's life or to change them into what he was... He'd never had the desire to try.

"Perhaps I could give you a reason. There are things I could teach you." The lich paused. "I have gifts of my own."

"I have no doubt. It takes a formidable will and considerable power to survive, especially when elves are trying to end you."

"Are you trying to flatter me, King Undying?"

"No, simply assuring you I am not ignorant of the danger you pose." Vezar curved his lips in the approximation of a smile. "I do not know if what you ask is possible or if I would be willing to grant it to you if it were. You say my Syreilla knows you?"

"She knew me once. After my death, she emptied my home of everything of value. I woke to a plundered library and empty coffers."

"That does sound like my Syreilla." The memory of her stealing his crown came to mind unbidden. "She left you respectfully laid somewhere safe?"

The lich wheezed again. "Laid out like a man at rest. Courteously covered after she robbed my corpse."

"She carefully placed me back into my coffin after she stole the amulet. And then stole my crown." He smiled as the lich wheezed in delight.

"A shame she didn't speak of what she learned before she disappeared on you."

The lich began making the faintest of sounds and Vezar felt the wards forming around him. This might be painful and distasteful, but a mere lich would not be able to kill him no matter the strength of his gifts.

"A shame you didn't live long enough to learn what happens to those who threaten the ones I love, Zylius." Syreilla's voice came from above. She was leaning precariously over the side of the rooftop overhead, holding a small bowl as if it held something truly horrible. The lich paused and peered up at her wheezing for a moment.

"I didn't think you were capable of love, 'sweet Syreilla'. You're going to rain dragon's fire down on me?"

"Only if you don't back down, Zylius. I was fond of you once." Syr's eyes were focused on the lich, Vezar thought she seemed frightened.

"You fear the lich and not me?" It was almost a slight.

"I can show you why." The lich hissed and his power focused on Syreilla.

Vezar rushed forward, the lich would suffer. His eyes were on the lich, his senses filled with the hum of power. Brilliant liquid fire rained down and the hum turned into a scream. He sank to his knees covering his head. The power released was disorienting and made the air vibrate. The burst left blurs across his vision. It took a moment to realize the dancing light was the remains of the lich burning to ash.

Syreilla. Vezar staggered to his feet and lurched forward, she was on the ground outside of the mouth of the alley. "Syreilla." Her pale eyes stared and she didn't seem to be breathing. "Syreilla!" Taking hold of the bond he tried to pour his own life into her fading threads. He lifted her off of the filthy roadway. Life, he needed life to heal her.

Curious onlookers approached and Vezar grabbed hold of the closest, clawing and draining him, pouring all of his life into Syreilla. Screaming began as Vezar hunted the streets clawing and biting, anything he had to do, to fill the life draining from her. Guards made it easier, backing him against a wall. Men throwing themselves at the bottomless hunger trying to take her from him.

Finally, she shuddered and breathed, "Vezar. What have you done?"

Looking down, her eyes had changed, her hair and features. Pouring life into her, he had not tried to keep her features as they were. He remembered the first time he had changed himself how his body felt so strange, so foreign. "I saved you, sister. I had to change you to do it." He touched her very human ear and she shuddered again.

He helped her stand on her new, unsteady legs as another wave of guards threw themselves at him. Lashing out, he began to replenish himself. Syreilla should be safe if she stayed against the wall. The hum of power returned as she began throwing down startlingly vicious wards. Men freezing and burning at once as they crossed them heedlessly, some with skin bubbling and turning black before sloughing off. The screams echoed and the men who would have faced Vezar fled in terror from Syreilla.

"Sister, I did not need saving." Vezar frowned at her. He needed replenishing.

"Elves are coming, brother. This isn't the time for pride. Olthon has a nasty trick up his sleeve for you."

"Sweet Syreilla. Come. Tell me as I replenish myself on our departure." Vezar stalked back toward the lodging. He had once underestimated the elf, the black mist had taught him never to do that again.

Syr hurried to keep up with him, occasionally stopping to turn and cast wards that seemed to mushroom out with tendrils and then fade to lie in wait. He eyed her curiously as she cast them down streets they did not use.

"Give them a reason to stay and search." She explained with a shrug and a cold look.

"Are you angry with me, sister?" Vezar found himself amused at the thought that she could kill and maim for him and still be upset with him.

"We need to have a talk about you adjusting my threads to suit your tastes, Syv. If you were anyone else my boot would be on your throat right now." The look she gave him was full of daggers.

"Ah. If it is any consolation I regretted it almost immediately. You were perfect as you were, my... ill-advised alterations have brought me no joy." He offered his hand with an apologetic look.

She snorted at him. "You're an ass, Syv. Aside from the fact you don't do that to someone you care about, I'm not here to bring you joy." Syreilla took his hand as he was starting to pull it back. "You're an ass but I love you, brother. I wouldn't change you. Is it so much to expect the same from you?"

"No, sweet sister. I adore you. I will put your threads back the way I found them if you wish me to." If she willingly allowed him to manipulate her threads he could pull her from the dwarves so thoroughly she would never think of them again.

"Ha! I'm pretty sure Kaduil hammered them back into place before I left. I'd rather you didn't undo his hard work." The way she spoke of the dwarf made him want to devour the creature.

"You and a dwarf. That is wrong, sister." Vezar gripped her hand.

"Wrong would be going to bed with my brother." She rubbed his wrist and he relaxed his grip. "I know you would prefer I didn't feel that way. But I have a husband now and I'm-" He heard the sudden realization in her voice.

"You are changed. He may not wish a wife with my gifts." He tried to keep the sharpness from his voice but he felt a flare of anger as she winced. "You seemed to admire my gifts before, sister."

"I did and I do. But the thought of sharing them is terrifying."

Vezar felt her squeeze his hand as if it were a rope attached to an anchor keeping her from getting lost in the turmoil and fear he could feel her forcing down.