Prince Trellis wandered through the thick foliage at the base of Demon's Head Mountain, fording streams, stumbling across rocks and tripping over protruding roots. The fog from the day before was starting to dissipate thanks to the sun, which was shining down through breaks in the leafy canopy above. The ancient trees—twisted and gnarled with age—seemed to reach out in an attempt to grab him, and the enormous umbrella mushrooms stood on their soft, fleshy stalks. One stream he forded was rather large, almost wide enough to be a small river and populated with species of fish that were completely alien to him. They nosed his ankles curiously, and one even tried to bit him, without success, and he used his stone to ward them off.

Finally, he stumbled out of the trees and into a small meadow. Looking up, he saw a flock of snowdips emerge from a nearby tree. The small white birds were named so for their winter habit of "dipping" into the snow; this, combined with their pure-white feathers, made them almost invisible. Shading his eyes against the sun's glare, he watched them rise into the blue sky and disappear beyond the edge of the canopy.

He yawned. He'd been walking all night long, trying to find his way out of the endless expanse of plantlife, and now he was tired and hungry. He'd managed to find a handful of tart berries on a bush that gave him enough energy to get this far. He knelt beside the stream, shaped his hand into a bowl and scooped up a handful of water, which brought to his mouth and slurped up greedily. After several handfuls, he felt sufficiently able to continue his journey. But just as he turned to go on, he spotted a set of footprints. Deciding his escape from this living prison could wait, he followed the trail.

It led deeper into another part of the forest. As the trees thickened and the light from the sun diminished, he realized the footprints headed into a cave even darker than the gloomy part of forest he'd been led to. He hesitated, trying to decide whether he should follow the footprints into the cave. And that's when he heard it. Crack! Crack! Crack! His curiosity now piqued, he entered the cave, though common sense told him to do otherwise. His stone sensed the darkness, and lit up to illuminate his way.

Trying to discern which direction the cracking sound was coming from was difficult to say the least. It echoed off the walls, seeming to come from everywhere at once, but he eventually found its source. A bald, naked man knelt before him, seemingly oblivious to his presence, bringing the rock in his hands down on a small stone again and again. The man was thin almost to the point of emaciation, and he had an elf's ears. It could only be…

"Luger," Trellis said.

Luger froze, then slowly turned and looked up to see the elf Prince standing there. "Trellis!" he gasped, his eyes wide with fear. "Have you come to finish me off?"

The stone's power over him has been broken, thought Trellis. His eyes showed no malice as he beheld the pathetic figure. "I have no intention of killing you, Luger," he answered. "Unlike my father, I don't view failure as a capital crime."

Luger visibly relaxed. "Thank heavens for that." Then, indicating the shattered remains on the ground before him, he said, "Look! I destroyed the stone."

Trellis knelt down and inspected the remains for himself, peering closely at them. Noting the lack of chips, buffs and scrape marks, he gave his assessment. "No, it wasn't you that broke the stone; it couldn't have been. It must have been the young Stonekeeper. If it was, then she is the only one other than the king capable of such a feat."

Luger's voice fell. "The king…" Then he became panicked and put his hands to his head in despair. "He'll surely kill us now! He'll have us hung by our entrails and made examples of!"

"He won't get the chance," Trellis said. Luger looked at him. "We're not going back."

"What!" Luger was hysterical. "But we'll be hunted! They'll hunt us down like animals!"

"Like the animals they are," Trellis added, his voice thick with disdain and resentment.

"Trellis, we'll be fugitives. Outlaws. Hunted men. They'll not stop until we're caught and killed!"

Trellis produced his personal communicator, which he used to touch base with his father in Stengard, the elves' capital city. "So be it." An image of the king's masked face swirled into existence, floating before Trellis in a mass of amorphic yellow light. The king was silent for a moment, regarding Trellis with what he knew to be wicked eyes, even though he couldn't see them.

Then the king spoke. "Trellis." If he sounded mean face to face, now he sounded downright sinister. "I hope for your sake that you bring me good news. Did you kill the girl?"

Trellis shook his head. "No. She's more resourceful than we thought; we'll need more time."

Thought his face was hidden by the mask, Trellis could see his father's snarl. "Why must you be so difficult?"

Trellis felt his temper rising, and strove to keep it in check. "Are you so paranoid that you can't recognize a potentially useful ally?" he asked. "Has your fear blinded you?"

The king growled. "Watch your tongue, boy," he warned.

Trellis had been feeling hot resentment toward his father for a long time, and now the strain to keep it under wraps was getting to him. "Surely you can recognize a potential asset."

"She's too dangerous to be left alive."

Trellis snorted. "Then you're even more foolish than I was led to believe."

"You dare insult me?!" Though his face was hidden by the mask, Trellis could feel his angry eyes boring through him. "This was your last chance; you understood this. You've failed me countless times, and you'll fail me again."

"Your mistake was failing to realize that not everything goes according to plan the first time around," Trellis pointed out. "You expect too much; we need more time."

"What makes you think I would give it to you?"

"The fact that we're not coming back until we finish the job. I'll kill the young Stonekeeper myself, and bring you her head."

"You've tested my patience long enough. Come back right away. I mean it."

"No. I'm not leaving the job undone."

"Don't make me track you down again. Return to Stengard immediately."

"You couldn't track anything if you had the nose of a crawler hound. And I'm not coming back until the mission is complete."

The king growled. "Return immediately, Trellis, or suffer the consequences."

Trellis glared back and snarled, "You couldn't care less one way or the other. You'd punish me whether or not I came back."

"Don't defy me, boy. I'm still your father."

But Trellis' eyes showed defiance nonetheless. "No, you're not. Not anymore." Then he let the communicator drop to the ground.

"I'm not warning you again, Tre—"

Trellis stomped on the device, breaking it into a hundred pieces, severing the connection and cutting off the king. "I'm sick of hearing his voice," he said as he stomped on it several more times, then pressed his heel into it and ground it to dust. "He's hardly worth talking to if he won't listen."

Luger looked at Trellis in pure horror. "What have you done?" he demanded. "You've sealed our fates for sure, now!"

Trellis looked at him. "Are you really that naive?" he asked. "He'll kill us whether or not we return. We never meant anything to him; we were just pawns in his stupid chess game. At least we stand a chance of surviving if we stay on the run." He found a ragged blanket and picked it up. "There's a small town just beyond the eastern edge of the forest. We'll hunker down there until we're sufficiently rested, and you need some food."

"But his troops are everywhere," Luger pointed out. "And they're concentrated in the populated areas, including towns. They'll find us easily."

"You need food and water," Trellis argued, draping the blanked over Luger's shoulders.

Luger gazed at the younger elf. "Why are you doing this?" he asked timidly. "Why help me when I'll just slow you down?"

Trellis' face lost its seemingly permanent scowl. "I don't know," he admitted. "I just feel I have to."

Luger glanced at Trellis from the corner of his eye, and saw that there was something there that was nonexistent in the king's eyes. Though exactly what it was, he didn't know. "Thank you," he said as Trellis led him out of the cave and into the sunlight.

Meanwhile, back in Stengard, an elven assassin arrived at the palace gates on the back of his mount, an eaglowl. Eaglowls are large, bipedal birds of prey with a long, sharp, double-hooked beak filled with razor-sharp teeth and eyes that resided in the ends of short, boneless stalks, giving their heads the appearance of a clawknife. The stalks could swivel in any direction, giving the eaglowls unmatched visibility of the area around them. Their feet have four toes, each with a hooked claw that tapers to such a lethal point that an eaglowl can kill its prey before its presence is even made known.

The thunderbird's wings span twenty-five feet and are thickly covered in tough, spongy feathers, which are arranged in such a way and pressed so close together that the air travels right over them, and are covered in an oily secretion to make them waterproof. Special glands at the base of each feather spray a type of gas through them to keep ice from forming when the eaglowl flies at stratospheric altitudes. Trans-parent lids cover its eyes when in flight.

A small deformed elf named Logi met the assassin at the gate. He appeared to be old, but no one could really tell. His eyes were bulbous, his nose was almost flush with his face, his ears were a bit droopier than the common elf, and his teeth were larger than normal. He addressed the assassin. "Master Gabilan," he said. "Thank you for coming on such short notice."

"The timing of my arrival is hardly consequential," Gabilan said, his voice flat and emotionless.

"May I say that it is such an honor to meet you," Logi added.

"Skip the pleasantries," Gabilan rasped. "Just take me to the king."

Logi bobbed his head. "Yes, of course, right this way." The assassin dismounted and followed Logi into the throne room, where the king sat on his tall marble throne. "Sire," he announced, "Gabilan the assassin has arrived."

"Thank you, Logi," the king said, dismissing the little elf with a slight flick of his hand. "And Gabilan, welcome. I trust you've been informed of your targets?"

Gabilan nodded. "Yes, sire. A young female Stonekeeper and her companions."

"That is not all." The king held out his hand and an image of Emily and Trellis appeared side by side in a flaming orb.

Gabilan was surprised, but years of killing and hard living had taught him to hide his emotions. "Prince Trellis?" he asked, his voice as flat as before. "You wish to have him removed?"

The king clenched his hand into a fist, and the flaming orb vanished. "Despite fair warning," he said, "he has decided to betray me outright. And as we both know…" He leaned forward. "…treason is punishable by death."

"Sire, you ask me to kill your son."

"I'll destroy anyone and anything that impedes our progress, regardless of relation." He leaned back in his throne. "Think of it as a sacrifice for the greater good."

Gabilan flipped his hood back. "Your cause means nothing to me," he said. "I simply require payment."

"Very well," said the king. "Logi waits by the gate with half your fee."

Gabilan's eyes turned a bright gray with surprise. "Half?!"

"The rest will be delivered up completion of your assignment."

Gabilan glowered at the king. "I've never failed to kill my marks," he said very matter-of-fact. "You have no reason to doubt me."

The king chuckled. "Better men have failed, Gabilan."

"Very well, sir," Gabilan reluctantly agreed, turning to leave. "How would you like them disposed of?"

"Free range, Gabilan," the king said. "Use your imagination. Just kill them."

Gabilan went back to the gate, where Logi was waiting with a small wooden box. "Your payment, sir," he said, handing the box to the assassin.

Gabilan took the box and placed in one of his several saddle bags. "Do you enjoy working for your master, Logi?"

Logi's answer was hardly surprising. "It's not about enjoyment, sir, but survival. For my services, he allows me to live."

"A most unfortunate arrangement," Gabilan said. "I promise to offer you a better wage." He climbed onto his thunderbird's back. "When I am king."

The eaglowl cried out with a loud, ear-splitting shriek, then spread its wings and leapt into the air, flapping them to gain altitude and speed to stay airborne, and disappeared into the night.