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wasn't whispering. Her voice was hard and crisp, making i.
clear that she wasn't making small talk; she wanted a factuai
report on Sandy's current physical condition.
"I'm on my feet," Sandy replied. "I feel like I want to
die, but I bet I could walk to the grave without any assis
tance."
"You'll be doing enough walking, soon." Amanda's face
was stone, black stone chips where human-colored eyes should
have been. "The children may be alive." There was no pre-
amble to soften the statement. "I believe they are,"
"You believe." Sandy checked herself from saying any-
thing more. This was no time for sarcasm.
"Yes, I believe!" Amanda's shout made the electri;
lights seem to flicker like candle flames. "I'd like to say I
know, but I thought it would sound too arrogant. But if it means
convincing you, all right, then: I know they aren't dead!"
Sandy darted a look at her husband. Lionel's deep sigh
trembled in the shadowy air between them. He sat like an old
man. Amanda would need to do more than offer those few
flimsy words of hope if she would reach him. Sandy's eyes fell
to Cass for confirmation or denial.
"Amanda is most likely right. Sandy," he said. His
fingers were worrying something. When they unclenched, she
saw the charred runesign necklaces that had hung around Jef-
fy's and Ellie's neck. She touched the elven-gifted bloodstone
pendant at her own throat without being aware that she did so.
"I can't believe that my father would feel such deep hatred,
such a hunger for vengeance, that he'd kill children to punish
their parents."
"Wouldn't he?" To Sandy's surprise, it was Amanda
who spoke so bitterly. "Is that why we've been running away
from him for so long, keeping Jeffy safe from him at your
urging! when all the time there was never any danger to my
son?" She slashed the air with her hand, cutting the past away.
"If it had been just my life at stake, I could have faced Kel-
erison ages ago! I am afraid of him, but I could have dealt with
that rear and covered it. I'm no coward. But when it was fear
for Jefiy's safety . . . You were the one who kept at me, kept
ELF DEFENSE 161
telling me we had to flee for the child's sake. For which child's
sake, Cassiodoron?"
The Prince of Elfhame Ultramar stood up, tall and beau-
tiful by lamplight. He acted as if Amanda had not spoken at
all. "I'll be in the garden, getting our equipment together. Join
me there when you've persuaded them as you must. Sandy,
for your daughter, believe Amanda." He went out into the
night. Davina put down the tea things and followed him, glid-
ing unnoticed form the room.
Amanda leaned back on the sofa and released a long
breath. "He can't help being as he is. I shouldn't have said
that. We need his goodwill more than before, and there's no
guaranteeing he won't turn as petty and malicious as his father
if I push him too far."
Sandy protested. "I don't think Cass would ever "
"He's an elf." Amanda rapped out the word like an in-
sult. "They're immortal. You'd expect them to be noble and
serene and utterly steeped in the wisdom of the ages. They're
not. I know. I lived in the halls of Elfhame Ultramar, and I
know. They're children: children too powerful for punishment,
children with nothing to do all day and all the days of the earth
to do it. Do you come from a big family. Sandy?"
"I'm an only child."
"You, Lionel?"
"I had a brother." Lionel did not recall Richard warmly,
though thinking about the way his brother had died always
made him ill.
"Then you will know. Even when there are just two of
you, the squabbling starts. When there's nothing to do, you
fight. It takes a parent to stop you, and sometimes that doesn't
work. Well, imagine a whole world of children who are im-
mune to punishment, who can gratify their every whim, who
don't even have the possibility of natural death to make them
do something constructive or creative or special with their lives
so that they'll be favorably remembered after they're dead.
Then imagine how one of these children might react the first
time he doesn't get his own way."
"But they can be killed." Lionel's hands grasped one
another so tightly that the tendons stuck out and the knuckles
whitened. "With any weapon?"
"Iron works fastest." Amanda gave him a look of ap-
proval. "That much hasn't changed, though they don't run and
hide at just the mention of the word. Oh yes, iron kills them.
! Esther M. Friesner
They are strong and sly. You don't want them dying slowly,
or they'll find a way to take you with them."
"I have an old sword. I used to collect those sorts of
things "
"Lionel!" Sandy exclaimed. "What are you planning to
do? Go to Elfhame Ultramar and hunt them all down? Strap
Kelerison to your fender after a sword fight, which of course
he'll have no way of winning? Even if it weren't impossible to
confront Kelerison on his home ground " *
"It's not impossible," Lionel burst in. "That's where
we're going now. That's what Cass and Amanda came over
here to tell us. We're going to Elfhame Ultramar to find the
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Dobre pomysły nie mają przeszłości, mają tylko przyszłość. Robert Mallet
De minimis - o najmniejszych rzeczach.
Dobroć jest ważniejsza niż mądrość, a uznanie tej prawdy to pierwszy krok do mądrości. Theodore Isaac Rubin
Dobro to tylko to, co szlachetne, zło to tylko to, co haniebne.
Dla człowieka nie tylko świat otaczający jest zagadką; jest on nią sam dla siebie. I z obu tajemnic bardziej dręczącą wydaje się ta druga. Antoni Kępiński (1918-1972)
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