Most Aged Father drifted into sleep-but, as always, a fitful one. Among all other dreams, one had come each night for centuries.

Broken corpses lay strewn across a bloodied land as far as he could see. Numb in heart and mind, he stood unmoving until the sight was slowly swallowed by dusk. Only then he turned away, stained spear dragging in his grip and his quiver empty.

Somewhere in the growing dark, he thought he heard something struggling to get up.

Wynn flinched each time Leesil mimicked anyElvish word she pronounced.

He would never become conversant by the time they reached the elves-if they reached the elves-but he insisted that she teach him. And she had agreed.A bad decision, upon reflection.

At least it passed the time, as they climbed ever downward through the mountain toward an uncertain destination. Chap had convinced them to follow him, and as they walked, Wynn suffered through the attempt to assist Leesil with his Elvish. What started as distraction from doubts and fears became a lesson in futility rather than language.

"Soob!" Leesil said again.

Wynn cringed.

"No." She tried not to sigh. "The ending is like the V in your language, but the lips close on its termination, like a B."

"So which is it?" Leesil snapped. "B or V?"

"Just"-Wynn started to snap-" listen carefully… suv'."

"That's not yourElvish word for your bisselberries," Leesil sniped.

Wynn gritted her teeth. "It is a general reference for any type of berry."

She carried his pack slung over her good shoulder. He paused ahead of her without turning and shifted the lashings holding the chest of skulls to his back, trying to resettle his burden.

Wynn did not like that vessel constantly before her eyes.

"Everything in Elvish," she continued, "has its root word to be transformed to noun, verb, adjective, adverb-and so on. But there are general terms for things of like kind."

"So, 'eat a berry' is…" Leesil mumbled, trying to remember. "La-hong-ah-jah-va… soob?"

Wynn clenched her teeth. "Only if the berry is eating you!"

"Leesil, please," Magiere growled behind Wynn. "Enough! You're not going to learn it like this. Just leave the talking to Wynn, if… when we find the elves."

He glanced over his shoulder with the cold lamp crystal held high like a torch. Its light turned his glower into a misshapen mask that would frighten small children. Wynn did not care.

They had traveled downward for more than a day, perhaps two. And yet they had stopped only three times. She was cold and hungry all the way.

Leesil sidestepped a twisted angle in the passage, and a jagged outcrop caught his shoulder.

"Valhachkasej'a!" he barked.

Wynn stiffened, then grabbed the shoulder flap of his hauberk and jerked him about.

"Do not ever say that around an elf!" she snapped at him. "Or is profanity the only thing you can pronounce correctly?"

Leesil blinked. "It's something my mother said. You've heard me use it before."

"Your mother?" Wynn's voice rose to a squeak.

The last thing they needed was Leesil's ignorant expletives offending someone, especially one of those bloodthirsty Anmaglahk.

"Smuan'thij arthane!" Wynn snapped at him. She pushed past as Leesil wrinkled his brow in confusion.

Chap waited out in front and stared at her with his ears ridged in surprise. He cocked his head, glanced at Leesil, then huffed once in apparent agreement with her outburst.

Wynn was too miffed to even feel embarrassed that Chap understood exactly what she had called Leesil… though it hadn't been half as offensive as his own utterance.

"Time for another rest," Magiere said.

"No," Leesil said, his expression cold and pitiless. "We keep moving."

She ignored him and unstrapped her pack to drop it with the saddlebags she carried.

In their early days, Wynn had never seen such a look on Leesil's face. Lately she had seen it too often. Hardness overwhelmed him from within whenever he was pushed any way he did not want to go. And he did not wish to stop this journey for anything.

Chap padded back up the tunnel and plopped down. Clearly outvoted, Leesil sighed and lowered the chest off his back.

Wynn dropped too quickly in exhaustion and got a sharp pain for it in the seat of her pants. She let Leesil's pack slide off her shoulder in a heap as

Magiere dug out what remained of their rations. The last of the bisselberries were nearly gone, and they had discovered no more such gifts along the way. Magiere held a few crumbling biscuits and a handful of venison jerky strips.

"That cannot be all of it," Wynn said.

Magiere uncorked a water flask and dropped down beside her. "We'll find more once we're out of this mountain."

Wynn divided the biscuits and tossed a jerky strip toChap. He caught it with a clack of his jaws. Leesil muttered to himself as he inspected the chest's rigging. Wynn turned her eyes from the grisly vessel.

"What was that Elvish you just said?" Magiere whispered.

"It was… nothing," Wynn whispered back. "I was tired and irritated."

"Yes, I got that." Magiere rolled her eyes and bit into half of a dry biscuit, still waiting for a better answer.

Wynn dropped her head, voice hushed even more. "It means something like… 'thoughts of stone'."

Magiere coughed up crumbs and covered her mouth."Rock-head? You called him a rock-head?"

A flush of shame heated Wynn's cheeks, but the look on Magiere's face cooled it with surprise. She knew Magiere well enough to gauge her dark moods and acidic nature. The tall woman was often caustic even at her friendliest. But this expression was almost something new.

Was Magiere trying not to grin?

"I'll remember that one," Magiere whispered back.

"I heard that," Leesil growled.

He sat on the chest with his back turned to them, like some monstrous guardian statue perched the wrong way upon a castle parapet.

Wynn quietly ate her half biscuit and two berries. She pulled a tin cup out of Magiere's pack and poured some water for Chap. When she set the water flask down, it teetered on the tunnel's uneven surface, and she made a grab for it. She tried to settle it more firmly, but something grated beneath its bottom.

She felt the tunnel floor beneath the flask, and something soft shifted beneath her fingertips. When she took hold with a pinch, it felt light as a feather. She lifted it up into the light…

It was a feather.

Mottled gray, it was longer than her outstretched hand, with downy frills at its base. It seemed familiar, and that was unsettling, for she could not think why.

Where had she seen it before?

Chap's rumble startled her. He glared intently at the feather and then lifted his muzzle high to gaze about overhead. Wynn cast her own gaze upward and saw nothing but the uneven tunnel roof.

"There's a quill in the making," Magiere said, and reclined on the cold stone. "All you need now are ink and paper. Get some rest while you can."

She rolled onto her side, eyes open, watching Leesil perched upon the chest.

Wynn lay back as well with Leesil's pack as a pillow. She rolled over to face away from him and Magiere. Chap lay with his head on his paws, but he was not trying to sleep either. He studied the feather in her hand, but without the talking hide, she could not ask him why.

Cuirin'nen'a… Nein'a… Mother…

Memories flickered through Leesil's thoughts as he followed the others down the passage. He hadn't slept during their last pause, even after the crystal waned and went out. How long did he sit in the dark before waking the others to move on? It had been hard to meet Magiere's eyes when he finally shook her by the shoulder.

She might see him for what he really was. It hadn't been long since he'd realized it himself.