Daniel walked around the interior of the deserted mountain outpost.
It had been an incredibly eventful and extremely long day-even by Elfland standards. Luckily, he didn’t seem to get tired in this new form. He had found that the younger looking elf of the three in the Spindle had been Prince Filliu, the leader of the Elves in Exile. After proper introductions had been made between him and the two generals he was with, they showed Daniel the rest of their trapped war band, which was in as poor and anaemic state as they were, lying listlessly in side rooms and storerooms that had been converted into barracks. They were in a bad way. They had had no form of sustenance-their odd liquids they lived on in this land-for a very long time, and they were, literally, he found, fading. They didn’t starve to death, it turned out, but just became thin, in an existential sense. They stopped moving, lying as still as statues until revived.
Daniel was then introduced to a group of warrior wizards, who toiled over dispelling the enchantments that the enemy had cast around them. The grotesque web of elves was one of the enemy’s many sieging enchantments; if removed, it would potentially allow the war wizards opportunity to unravel the rest of the oppressive charms.
So Daniel studied magical charts and maps of the area and then did some reconnaissance. He floated down into the forests and hills that surrounded the burned-out crater that ringed the Spindle. There he spied on enemy soldiers-snipers, warlocks, and warliches-and reported back to the prince and his wizards on their positions. They then decided which webs were tactfully best to dismantle. After that, Daniel descended again and started taking one of them apart.
His actions were not unnoticed, he realised, when elfish arrows started raining down on him. His invulnerability proved itself again when he found the arrows-which were shot with stunning accuracy at the distance of over a mile-simply glancing off of him. He used their heads, which were long, thin, and made of bronze, to cut through the ropes that tied the dead elves together. Then he moved on to the other sections. As soon as he started working on the fourth-a deliberate tactical feint-the Elves in Exile made their escape.
Daniel watched them from the sky as they flooded out of the base of the tower under heavy fire. Even weak and wasted, they rallied in an impressive, united effort. The wizards created reflective planes around the tower that masked the true path of the elves’ egress, so it looked like five times more than their actual number were escaping. Some were lost in the dash from the tower to the start of the forest. There was an enemy outpost there that the escaping elves quickly overran, being caught ill-prepared. Taking only a short moment to plunder the storehouse of its provisions, the elves retreated back into the forest.
They went for miles, pausing just once, in order to divide and consume the plundered drink stores and give themselves the energy they so desperately needed to continue their flight. Daniel reappeared to Filliu and the generals again at that point, and they thanked him for his help. They agreed to meet again when they were free from the wrongful princes’ forces, at one of the places that they had agreed upon.
And so Daniel came here, to the complex of caves, many miles ahead of the elves and their pursuers. So far he was alone, and he had been for hours. He went to the entrance of the cave where pillars of stone created a forest-like cover. Looking out, he wondered when he would catch sight of his latest companions, and whether he could do anything to help. The dimming sky unnerved him. What would happen in the next hours? Would Night take him again? Or was that behind him?
“So, how was your day?” came a voice from behind him.
Turning, he saw the three murdered elves standing in the corridor behind him. It was Stowe who had spoken.
“Oh, you guys again,” he said with dread.
“More than that, how was last night?” Fiall said with a vicious grin.
“It was fine. I survived, obviously, and now I’m helping to restore the true king of these lands to his throne.” He looked at the dead prince, Lhiam-Lhiat, for a reaction, but his face showed nothing but pity. “So it hasn’t slowed me down any.”
“Admirable,” said Stowe.
“I haven’t learned anything either,” Daniel said, the heat rising within him. “Whatever you were trying to teach me, it’s not getting through. I still don’t regret what I’ve done, and I still say I’d do it again.”
Stowe grinned. Fiall raised an eyebrow. “You think it’s a lesson? An educational exercise?”
“What else?” said Daniel.
“We don’t control the Night. We experience it like you do.”
“What?”
“We are tortured by it, the same as you,” said Stowe.
“And we will continue to be tortured by it until it purifies us-burns us away, strips us into nothing.”
“So I am being punished.”
Lhiam-Lhiat tilted his head. “Punishment implies that you may learn from this experience-that you may be corrected by it, in an objective sense. That is not the case. You are being destroyed, piece by piece, as plain as that.”
“But I see things there,” Daniel said. “I have visions, there are. . two riders. .” His head tilted forward as he tried to remember details. The riders had appeared to him a second time; he knew it. And someone else. . “You!” he said, pointing to Fiall.
Fiall sneered back at him. “Nobody sees in the Night,” he said.
“He is not one of our kind,” the prince said, studying Daniel. “It may be different for him.”
“Delusions,” Fiall said. “Anything you saw are delusions brought by pain and terror. Humans are intellectually weak.”
“That’s not the only difference between them and us.” Lhiam-Lhiat’s eyes studied Daniel’s. “There are times when I feel as though I. .” He looked away, to the horizon, and then back to Daniel. “If you do see anything in the dark,” he said quietly, “if the dark is trying to teach you something-let it. I feel it also. There’s a part of me that the darkness wants, that it’s trying to strip away, to get at. I don’t know if it wants to destroy it, or make me give it up, or if it even knows what it’s doing, but if you can survive and not diminish. . If you can find some way through-”
“You heartless sadists,” Daniel spat. It was his turn to sneer now. “You are trying to teach me something. Well, fine. I’m up to the challenge. I’ll get out of it yet.”
“You have some time before Night falls. Do you really want to argue with us,” Fiall asked, “or do you want to start running? You may be able to delay the torture for a time, however short.”
Daniel looked at him and thought about the Night, and it did make him want to run. How much ground could he cover, and how much time could he buy in doing so? An hour? Two? Less? Days moved slower here, but then spaces seemed to be larger. Even if he could put off the Night for just a few minutes, it would be worth the effort.
Then he looked at the three dead elves before him and thought, Why give them the satisfaction?
“I’m not afraid of the darkness,” he said, spreading his arms. “Let it take me.”
The Night reached through the walls just then and grabbed him.