Many Questions but Few Answers

They had slowed to a walk now: Jarlath, Astra 9 and Artizza. Or rather Jarlath and Astra 9 had, since Astra was carrying Artizza. When everyone else had turned to run, Artizza had been shocked into immobility by the strange and terrible thing that was happening to her husband of just a few days. She would surely have died with him had not Astra had the presence of mind to snatch her up and carry her away.

Now that they were safe, Astra set the dark elf down. Artizza just stood there - silent, white-faced, almost catatonic. Astra wondered whether saving her had really been a kindness.

"What the hell happened?" she asked her husband.

"I don't know," he said wearily. "I've never seen any magic that could produce an effect like that. I don't know enough about dark elves even to guess about what it was. The one person who might have some idea is Artizza, but it looks as though it will be a long time before she's in any state to talk about it... Did you see which way Annafrid went?"

"As I was picking Artizza up, I saw her disappearing with the other four elves up a passage on the opposite side of the chamber."

"I suppose we ought to try to find our way back to the room, and then try to track them down. Going back there will be gruesome, I'm afraid, but whatever was happening there must surely have finished by now, so it ought to be safe enough."

"But how could Fertal die? We Champions are supposed to be immortal, dammit! Have the Rules and Agents been lying to us all this time?"

Jarlath shook his head, not in disagreement but to indicate his own puzzlement. "I don't know," he said. "Maybe there's something so powerful at large that it can break the normal rules. Or maybe it was a rogue Demon or Angel who was responsible. But it fits in with a dream that I had last night. There were nine stars in the sky, but then something terrible happened - it wasn't clear just what - and one of them was snuffed out."

"You didn't tell me about that."

Jarlath shrugged. "What would have been the point? I would merely have worried you unnecessarily."

"A trouble shared is a trouble halved, they say. It's not like you to keep things from me."

"I'm sorry. I was frightened, not only by the content of the dream but in case it was a sign that my precognition was coming back. Even you can't wholly understand just how terrible it was for me when I could foresee the future."

Astra gave Jarlath a hug, and then they turned, ready to retrace their steps. But then Artizza startled them by speaking, in a voice that would have sounded harsh even coming from a human throat and which seemed even more so from that of an elf: "I'm not going back!"

"We can't make her go back to that chamber," Astra said. "Who knows how much more harm that might do to her? And we certainly can't leave her on her own in her current condition."

Jarlath sighed. "You're right," he admitted. "We had better carry on in the direction we were headed, then, and hope to meet up with the others later. I'm not sure that we could have managed to find our way back to the chamber anyway."

1. Staying with Jarlath, Astra 9 and Artizza.
2. The second group - Annafrid and the other four elves: Jenny, Tarin, Lueoth and Ia'adoire.
3. The third group - the slightly limping Fred, Checkers and the mute Astra.
4. Belboz/Minestus.

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