Author's Note: I had hoped for a quicker update, but alas, it was not to be.

Ch. 4…In the Grove

When I first woke, I didn't know where I was. There was a warm presence at my back and my arm was around a slim waist. I opened my eyes to see Ulene. I just blinked at her in the dim light and then memories began to return.

"Sune help me," I whispered as I began to tremble. Ulene pulled my head to her soft breast. Behind me, Cania stroked my back. I don't know how long I lay there.

"I'm sorry," I said at last. "I don't…" I don't think I can bear it. I don't think I can take any more horror.

But of course, you never know what you can bear, until you do so.

I had finally stopped trembling when the door opened and the third sister entered. For a moment, I could not remember her name. Normally I have a good memory for names.

"You must come, Ulene, and bring Lorian."

"Where?" Ulene asked.

"To the grove," Elyme said. That was her name, Elyme. The sisters exchanged frightened looks.

The grove?

We pulled on our clothes and then Ulene led me past Irenicus' suite and through a tunnel I had never been down. The passage opened into a huge cavern, brightly lit with mage lights. It was like a little world of its own, with trees and shrubs, masses of flowers and a trickling stream that ran over rocks to form a miniature waterfall cascading into a deep pool. The cavern could have been beautiful if only the plants had been healthy. The shrubs were straggly, the flowers carried but a few pale blooms, and the trees were almost leafless.

Irenicus waited for us and beside him were three gray-skinned dwarves of the race known as duergar. I had never seen their kind before but had heard them described in tales of the Underdark. They were about the same height as other dwarves I had met, but much thinner, with a sense of wrongness to their appearance that I could not quite put my finger on. Two were unarmed and the third held an axe. All three wore chain shirts. Ulene clutched at my arm and my wits were so dull that I had no idea why she was suddenly so afraid.

Many emotions passed through me at the sight of my torturer, but fear was predominant. I could almost hear echoes of Dynaheir's screams. My steps faltered but I approached him and made a slight bow.

"What do you wish of me?" I asked. At least my voice did not tremble although I quaked inside.

"Your attention," he said, with a tiny smile. He certainly had that. He had all of my anxious and fearful attention. He nodded to the dwarf with the axe, who then strode to one of the trees. Oh, sweet Sune. There were three oaks in this cavern. These were the dryads' trees.

"No, Ilyich, don't!" Ulene cried and then she threw herself on her knees before Irenicus. "Please, my master, stop him!"

The axe hit the tree with a dull thud. Ulene shrieked in pain. Blood ran from her side as a wound opened.

"Ask Lorian to stop him," Irenicus said. "If he has the power, he can save you from the duergar."

The axe struck again and Ulene fell backwards. I caught her before she hit the ground.

"Please," she whispered.

"Tell me what you wish of me!" I said. Irenicus waved his hand towards the dwarves.

"It is simple enough," he said. "Stop them by any means at your disposal." The dwarves grinned at me, obviously eager for a fight.

Any means at my disposal? I had no weapons and no spells. I took a step toward the dwarves. I have fought with a blade, with a bow, but rarely with my fists. I'm a musician, after all, and no warrior. The duergar with the axe, Ilyich, said something to the others in Dwarven, which I can recognize but not speak. They laughed.

I sprinted past the two dwarves, taking them by surprise, and barreled into Ilyich. I had hoped to knock him down, maybe even disarm him. He staggered backwards when I slammed into him, but despite my greater size and weight, he managed to keep his footing. He struck me a vicious blow in the side with the haft of his axe. The resulting white explosion of pain made me fall to one knee.

"I told you no weapons," Irenicus warned. Ilyich muttered what I took to be a curse and threw the axe back behind him. He slammed my ribs a couple of times with his fists, and I backed away, right into the reach of the two other dwarves. I was already starting to feel sick and the kidney punch I couldn't avoid did not help matters. If I let them ring me I was going to be their punching dummy.

I slipped past Ilyich and ran back towards the spot where he had thrown his axe. I've only used an axe for chopping firewood but it had to be better than my fists. If I had the axe, then they couldn't attack the tree. I heard the dwarves pounding after me. To my panicked frustration, the axe had landed somewhere in the shrubbery. I couldn't find it. Someone barreled into me and I went flying. I skidded on my hands and knees and almost ended up in the pool.

The pool was deep with a very steep drop-off. The duergar obviously did not know what I was, for they grinned, thinking I was trapped. One of the duergar grabbed me by the shirt to pull me away from the edge. I hooked my hands into his chain shirt and threw myself backwards into the water, dragging him in with me.

I don't have gills but I'm half-triton and a singer as well. I can hold my breath a very long time. It didn't appear that the dwarf could swim at all. His chain shirt weighed him down and I dragged him the rest of the way to the bottom of the pool. I held him there until he stopped struggling. I watched his expression as he fought, as he panicked, as he gave up hope, and as death came for him.

It had never occurred to me to try to save him.

Something ran through me when he died. I can't describe it but I felt his spirit leave him and I felt—stronger.

I have killed men before, many times. Sometimes it seemed that after Gorion's murder, my life had become little more than a series of skirmishes, with death their inevitable outcome. Sometimes it seemed I would never be free of the stench of blood and entrails or the cries and curses of the dying. To some extent, I had become inured to the spectacle of death and yet the wastefulness, the ugliness, the sheer stupidity of these endless conflicts filled me with sadness and regret.

My brother Sarevok's death had been the first to make me feel not just relief that the fight was over or thankfulness at my own survival, but a fierce joy. And now I felt that joy again, at the death of this stranger.

What was happening to me?

I surfaced to find two furious dwarven faces staring down at me. I reached for the closest beard but both duergar backed away from the water when they saw me.

I was safe in the water but it didn't matter, for Ilyich immediately went back for his axe. Ulene was still vulnerable. I surged out of the water and raced after him. I tackled him and we both hit the ground hard, him on the bottom with me grinding my weight into him. He twisted beneath me and we rolled and wrestled, with the other dwarf beside us, kicking me in the back and the legs when he got a chance. I slammed Ilyich's head several times against the cavern floor as hard as I could. He sank his teeth into my upper arm and worried at me like a dog.

The second dwarf grabbed me by the hair and the shoulder, and with Ilyich bucking beneath me, managed to drag me off. I drove my elbow back into his face in a blow that made my arm go numb, but I did manage to break his nose. Blood poured down his face with a metallic smell that instantly reminded me of licking the blood from the mage's hand. The duergar's death had sent me to a place beyond fear, but the blood scent sent me into a frenzy. I started pounding away with my fists, striking his face again and again and panting from the exertion.

There was a flash of magic behind me and I turned. Ilyich, axe in hand, went flying back away from me. In my distraction, he could have killed me if the mage had not intervened. The other dwarf backed away, but I stood still as Irenicus, his face set in a cold fury, strode past us.

"I told you no weapons," he said, his voice a quiet threat. Ilyich dropped the axe and slowly came to his feet, shaking his head as if to clear it. His brows drew down and he stared up at Irenicus.

"He killed my clan brother!"

"I have no interest in your excuses."

"He killed my brother!" Ilyich repeated. "He owes me a blood price for that, mage."

"He is worth more to me than a hundred duergar," Irenicus said icily. Ilyich stared up at him with cold and cunning eyes.

"Say what ye like, mage, ye be needing us here and ye be owing me blood for my brother's death."

"Do not whine to me for blood, cur, if three of you cannot protect yourselves against one unarmed bard. You claim to be warriors."

Ilyich raised his clenched fist, not quite shaking it in Irenicus' face, but close.

"Ye owe us."

"No," Irenicus said. "Touch him without permission and I will ensure that your suffering lasts for decades." The two dwarves exchanged a rather sly look.

"If ye be unwilling to pay the blood price, then gold might suffice." Irenicus raised his brows in a haughty expression.

"I will not pay you for your own failure." The dwarves scowled.

"Ye will regret this, mage," Ilyich said.

"Take your bluster and get out," he replied.

Ulene still lay on the ground with her hand pressed to the wounds in her side. Blood still seeped between her fingers.

"She must be healed," I said as the two duergar slowly left, muttering in their own tongue and casting me a look that held promises of future retribution.

"Then do so," the mage snapped.

"Me? I am no healer."

"You are the son of a god," Irenicus said impatiently. "You have the power to do this."

How could he have known of the gifts of my heritage? Had I told him myself? It was true that I could occasionally heal wounds with a touch but it was not a power I liked to use. It made me feel…strange. Still, I approached Ulene and knelt beside her. Her eyes held a mix of gratitude and dread.

"It is the tree you must heal," Irenicus said.

"Ah, of course."

I placed my hand on the trunk where the sap still oozed, thick and sticky. I closed my eyes and reached down to the dark, unwholesome core within me, a place where neither music nor beauty could touch. Sometimes this place was empty of power but today it was there to be called. The death of the duergar had energized me. My fingers felt warm as the energy flowed into Ulene's tree. When I opened my eyes, the trunk had healed flawlessly and so had Ulene.

I helped her to her feet. She smiled at me and pressed my fingers.

"Lorian. Fetch the body out of the pool before it fouls the water." I looked at the mage, startled, then nodded and dove into the water.

Dragging the dwarf's body to the surface was an unpleasant task. It was not hard to pull him to the surface but actually getting him out of the water was awkward and difficult to do by myself. Irenicus watched, apparently rather amused, and did not offer any aid. Eventually I got him out, with little dignity to either myself or the corpse.

I crouched beside the body of my victim, for lack of a better word. All his maliciousness and anger had been washed away by death, and what remained seemed pitiable. I had killed him, not out of self-defense, but to protect Ulene. But had she been truly in danger or had this all been a staged production, performed to elicit a response? I looked up at the mage, my eyes filled with questions. He gave his secretive half smile. I stood when he approached me.

He put his cold hand under my chin. Whatever he saw in my face seemed to satisfy him.

"Get him cleaned up," he told Ulene. "I will expect him in my rooms after dinner."