“Narusin was devastated about it for weeks.” Shebin giggled to herself with a strange gurgling sound. “It still galls her that I’ve got you to play with-and I remind her of it every chance I get.”
By the gods! Drakis thought. This can’t be happening to me! Mala! He had to get away, but he could not. His body remained unresponsive to his mind, the nerves working, his heart beating, his lungs dragging in air, but he could not willfully move. None of this made sense to him-it was a bad dream from which he could not awaken.
The dwarf! His world had turned upside down ever since they found the dwarf. Perhaps the dwarf was the key to ending this horrible nightmare. Maybe the dwarf was cursed or was a wizard or a deity or demon who came into the world to plague him.
“I know you’ll come to me tonight when you’re better healed-it takes time to knit the tissue back together properly,” Shebin cooed. The young elven woman reached down and began to unwrap the sash at her waist. “But we have a little time right now. . and you’ve been away too long.”
The sash fluttered down out of her hand. The silken robe parted slightly, revealing the skin of the young elf female from her narrow neck down past the hollow of her stomach.
“I know I should have waited until after House Devotions,” she said through a sigh. “But why wait?”
Shebin pulled her knees up under her, kneeling next to the human warrior’s immobile form. She unpinned her hair, which fell down around her shoulders, revealing the long bald strip typical of her race between her forehead and the back of her elongated crown. Shebin laughed darkly, then slipped the robe from her shoulders.
Drakis drew in a sharp breath.
Shebin was easily numbered among the greatest elven beauties in all the Western Provinces.
To Drakis, her wraithlike, angular, and bony form appeared hideously cadaverous-a living corpse whose fingers now lightly stroked his chest and body.
“Tell you what, Draki,” she murmured. “Why don’t you just think of that hoo-mani woman you’re always going on about-that precious Mala of yours-and know that I was the first to have you. . that I am always the first to have you!”
Drakis could not-dared not-scream.
Drakis stepped furtively through the archway and into the ornate hallway beyond. He noted with shocking clarity the pastel-colored walls curving upward from the polished stone floor. He felt the stones cool beneath his feet. Drakis concentrated on each of these aspects in turn with fierce single-minded determination, because if he did not, he would start to think. .
“Has she quite finished with you?”
Drakis looked up into the face of Tsi-Timuri, Timuran’s wife and the mother of Tsi-Shebin. He shook at the sight of her.
“Answer me, slave!”
“Yes, Mistress,” Drakis mumbled.
The older elven woman folded her narrow arms across her chest, her long fingernails, filed to sharp points, digging slightly into the flesh of her upper arms. She leaned back slightly, her face all angular plains of displeasure around tight lips and glistening, featureless eyes of black. Her iron-gray hair may have been luxuriously long, but it was tightly constrained into an almost rigid form close to her long head.
“Can you walk?” she asked at last.
“Yes. . no. . I think I can, Mistress.”
“Go on, then. Walk,” she said, nodding down a long, curving hallway.
The elderly elf woman gave him a shove, pushing him down the curve of the hallway. He saw clearly the disdainful curl of her withered lips and her accusing eyes. He tried to navigate the hall, but his legs were still weak and required his full attention to remain under him. The best he could manage was a staggering gait as he moved painfully before the contemptuous elf prodding him forward.