6. The Demon in the Tirfing

You know, for someone who is as sly as Cephelo is, he isn't very smart.

We've been hearing rumours all day about the Devil in the Tirfing, but Cephelo has just brushed off these warnings, refusing to give them even a moment's consideration.

It occurs to me that another Demon may have managed to cross through the weakness in the Forbidding. But what can I do? Wil refuses to leave without Artaq, and I can't very well leave on my own if every Demon currently walking the Four Lands is going to be chasing me. I did not leave my students in Havenstead simply to get myself killed before ever seeing Arborlon again.

And suddenly, while we are sitting around the campfire, it appears—a monstrous Demon that is everything that I have ever feared.

It is strange, the things that happen to you when you are so close to death that you can nearly taste it. I do not see its body or its claws or its face—I only see the dead man in its jaws. I see the thick hide turn away most of the blows of the Rovers' pikes and swords. I see Cephelo, selfish as he is, nonetheless throw himself into its path. He will defend the caravan at all costs, for it is his home.

All of them will. It is all that they have.

And then, Wil is there, grabbing my arm and dragging me away. I see Cephelo fall, unconscious as the Demon hits him over the head. Seeing a pike lying near a fallen Rover, I pick it up. I know it to be nearly useless, but I have to feel that I can do something to protect myself. Wil cannot always be my keeper.

Eretria is here now, too, and Wil shoves us both behind him. He takes a step forward.

Idiot! This is no time for heroics! I tug at his arm, trying to get him to move away. He does not. All he does is watch the struggle before us.

He looks at me, and somehow I know that he intends to use the Elfstones. I let him go; they will probably be useless, but they are now all the chance that we have. Around us is all chaos and confusion; dead Rovers, smashed wagons, screaming horses, and the Demon that Cephelo was too stupid to avoid.

The stones are in Wil's hand now, and he closes his eyes.

Nothing happens.

The look on his face promptly fills me with fear. He cannot use them! His Elf blood is too thin, or he cannot unify heart and mind and body, or some other disaster has fallen. Regardless, it looks as if it is the end for us unless we have a miracle.

I close my eyes, tightening my hands around my pike. I will have to feel my death, but I do not want to actually have to see it.

Eretria gasps. "Look, Elfling!" she whispers to me, and my eyes fly open. The stones are glowing bright blue in his hand, and a single beam of light is stretching forth to touch the Demon. Its form is outlined for a moment in blue flame, and then it erupts into a column of blue fire reaching to the sky.

Silence.

The weasel is awake now; he came to in time to see Wil's impressive blue bonfire. He appears to be in shock, as are the rest of the surviving Rovers.

I must admit that I am in shock as well. I do not hear his words; I only know the gist of them, that we are to take Artaq and go.

I see Eretria watching us as we leave. There is jealousy in her eyes, for she is chattel; she cannot leave in full view of the thief who calls himself her father. But there is something else as well.

I do not like her. The life she's had has turned her into a brazen little hussy; I suspect that it is a way of coping with being sold as a child and the knowledge that she is to be sold as a woman as well. She has no freedom, and yet she has found a way to give the illusion of it. Perhaps she even managed to fool herself for a time. It does not matter now, for she is a prisoner to the Way which Wil explained to me after my brief lecture about Why It's Not Nice To Leave Your Assistant To Clean Up After You When You've Been Healing Rovers All Afternoon. I suspect that she knows it only too well.

I think that what I see reflected in her eyes is a proud heart that has been wounded, if not broken, for the first time since her worthless first father sold her to Cephelo.

A/N: So, does this make up for two months of neglect? )

Note, May 21, 2005: I'm still around, and this story will eventually be completed. I lost all of my recent notes when my computer crashed for the final time a couple of weeks ago; I've borrowed my brother's laptop so I could leave this little note. In any case, once my own laptop comes in I'll start posting my "reconstructions" of what I had written before that thrice-damned contraption finally gave up the ghost.