"Well?" she demanded.

"We have much to do. I will ponder the mystery of evil some other day."

She looked puzzled, then astonished. For a moment he thought she would dispute his assessment. But Kiva was no jordain, and apparently she did not share his passion for either disputation or truth.

Or perhaps, he realized, his opinion simply did not matter to her.

Without further speech they unwound the vines that tethered them to the mazganut branch. Kiva quickly braided her hair into two plaits, and they drank some of the dew that collected in the large, almond-scented leaves.

As they scrambled down the tree into the deeply shaded clearing beneath, Andris noted that the elf seemed stronger. She seemed to be absorbing strength from the teeming life of the forest. An image flashed into Andris's mind-the hideous laraken gaining flesh as it drained magic and life. Like mother, like child. The analogy sent a shudder of revulsion through Andris. He dropped the last few feet onto the thick carpet of moss, suddenly eager to put some distance between himself and the elf woman.

As Kiva's foot touched the forest floor, an arrow flashed into the clearing. It pierced one of her jade-colored braids and pinned it securely to the tree.

The elf woman's eyes went wide, but she did not struggle. She called out in a language that was more akin to wind and birdsong than to human speech.

Five elves stepped into the mazganut clearing, soundless as shadows. All were male, and none stood taller than Andris's shoulder. Their sharp-featured faces were beautiful, their skin ranging in hue from copper to polished sandalwood, their hair rich shades of brown or green. These were not primitive folk, as Andris had always heard, but people who possessed artistry, even riches. They wore finely woven linen, and the arrowhead that pinned Kiva to the tree was carved from a gemstone.

These thoughts flicked into Andris's mind and were gone, chased by a growing sense of awe as the elves stalked in. They moved with the taut, deadly grace of jungle cats. Never had Andris beheld warriors who filled him with more admiration or more foreboding. And these wondrous people were his kin!

Of course, that didn't mean they wouldn't kill him where he stood.

With great reluctance, he reached for his sword.

"Put away your weapon, karasanzor," one of the elves said in heavily accented Halruaan. "We mean no harm."

A moment passed before Andris realized the elf was speaking to him, not Kiva. The former magehound was weaponless, yet the elf fixed his gaze upon her as he spoke.

Because he wanted to believe them, and because he really had no choice, Andris accepted the elf's pledge. He slid his sword away and lifted both hands in a gesture of peace. Still no one met his eyes.

"You are of the People," the elf said to Kiva, "and your voice knows the song of the jungle. Yet you wear human clothes and travel with a human… companion."

Kiva started to speak in Elvish, but the male cut her off with a few sharp words. She went pale, but her chin lifted. "Very well, I will speak the human tongue until I have earned the right in your eyes to speak as one of the People.

"I have lived among the humans of Halruaa for many years, but once my name was sung in these forests as Akivaria, a daughter of the Crimson Tree."

The elves exchanged glances. "Yes, I am that Akivaria," Kiva said tartly. "A survivor of the village you patrol-the only living survivor. My kinsman Zephyr was slain by the humans."

A moment of profound silence met this news. Tears burned in one elf's eyes and ran down his face, unchecked and unashamed. Andris felt the elf's grief as if it were his own, yet mingled with it was a strange sense of joy. Zephyr was Kiva's kin, and this warrior wept a kinsman's tears over the old jordain. Perhaps these elves were his family in fact, and not just through distant bonds of shared race.

Family-it was a word he had never thought to employ in his own service. He turned it over in his mind, trying to fit what he knew of such things to the watchful, wary elves with their alien eyes and ready weapons.

"Why have you come back now?" There was no kinsman's welcome in the elf's copper face. Andris would not have noticed Kiva flinch had he not felt an identical pain.

"Is it not enough that I want to come home?" asked Kiva.

"If that were true, you would have come sooner." The elf tipped his head toward Andris. "You would have come alone."

Kiva let that pass. "We are still several days' walk from the Crimson Tree. You found us quickly."

"Our scouts brought word of humans in the forest pass," offered another, younger elf. "Several hunting parties. The latest had only three men, but unlike the others, they found and followed the karasanzor's path."

A deep foreboding came over Andris. "Were they dressed in white, and did they wear medallions like mine?"

The elf leader and Kiva shot identical quelling glares at their companions. But Andris took his answer from the glint of surprise in the young elf's eyes.

So Matteo had come looking for him. That was not completely unexpected, but it was distressing nonetheless. There was no friend whom Andris valued more and no enemy he would rather avoid.

"We remember Akhlaur," the elf spokesman said. "We remember the raid on your village. Later, many of us lost friends and kin to Akhlaur's swamp monster. We want nothing to do with Halruaa or with People who love the humans enough to live among them and their foul magic."

"Do you love the boar, the river eels, the swamp dragons?" demanded Kiva. "If you intend to hunt a creature, you must first stalk it and observe its habits. I know Halruaa better than she knows herself."

The elf folded his arms. "So?"

"Knowledge is a deadly sword. I offer it to the People of Mhair."

"We're to hunt wizards, are we?" demanded the elf leader with knife-edged sarcasm. "With what? The weapons of the jungle?"

"With their own weapons," Kiva countered. "We will fight with wizardly magic."

The elf sniffed derisively. "You might as well offer to bring sea-going ships into the jungle! What value are weapons we cannot use?"

"I can use them. I am a wizard," Kiva said. She grimaced, then amended, "Or so I was, until the laraken drained away my spells."

A moment of profound and respectful silence fell over the elves. "You have faced the laraken? And it took no more from you than your human spells?" demanded the speaker.

"I am weakened," Kiva admitted, "but I still live."

"How is this possible, when the monster ripped so many elves from life so swiftly that they left holes in the very fabric of the Weave?"

"My wizardly magic was strong," Kiva said. "The laraken drank and was satisfied. What was taken from me can be restored."

The elf leader glanced at the ghostly jordain. "And the karasanzor?"

"He is called Andris. He also survived the laraken. He is a jordain, a name humans of Halruaa give to their lore-masters. He is also a battlemaster, resistant to wizardly magic and skilled at fighting against it"

The elf looked puzzled. "He is these things, you say?"

"Yes. Is."

Andris was not sure what this cryptic exchange meant, but he noted that Kiva had neglected to mention his elf blood. He ached to claim what kinship he could. Before he could speak, Kiva stabbed him with a glare, eloquently and unmistakably warning him to silence.

The elf spokesman was not yet done with his questions. "Let us say that you have these weapons of magic. Let's assume that we could prevail against the humans. Why would we want to fight them again, when peace was so hard-earned and long in coming?"

"Because if we don't, Akhlaur could return."

Stunned silence met her words. Andris felt as shocked and skeptical as the elves looked.