These were not mice.

Frantic, the mage looked around on the floor for the other mouse. "Who are you really? What do you want?"

He finally spotted the mouse as it skittered under the doorway to Balcombe's chamber and the castle beyond, disappearing from the mage's sight. He had no hope of catching the frightened mouse.

Unless the dwarf and half-elf had somehow escaped and taken the form of mice, two others now knew he had the bracelet. But there were two others: the woman and the kender who had escaped his web! The dwarf and half-elf were safely locked away in the castle jail. Balcombe had assumed his shadow monster had done its work on the other two. Could they be powerful enough or lucky enough to have escaped it?

Worse still, they undoubtedly heard his conversation with Hiddukel. Though they could have no clear idea where the altar was, beings with the power to poly-morph could undoubtedly discover its location. To be safe, he must get to the altar, make the transfer, and take LaDonna's place on the conclave immediately, thereby raising himself above the influence of any provincial mage in Tantallon or beyond.

Balcombe prepared for his departure as hastily as possible, but two questions burned in his thoughts like a flame that could not be extinguished.

Who were the woman and the kender, and how much did they know?

PART III

Chapter 14

After turning into a sparrow once again, Selana hovered out of sight and observed Balcombe as he leaped from a parapet outside his window, the bracelet plainly visible on his wrist. Obviously employing a spell of flying, he soared just above the treetops north of the village, mingling among the gray clouds that had descended since morning. He seemed headed deeper into the mountains, following the banks of the large mountain stream that cut between the castle and the pristine town of Tantallon.

Selana counted the passage of two minutes, then flew after him, maintaining a distance she hoped was beyond the range of any detection spells he might have cast.

So close! She'd held the bracelet in her teeth! Her heart ached at the memory.

The sea elf felt a momentary twinge of guilt over leaving Flint and Tanis behind in the jail. The dwarf, a fatherly sort, seemed as kind as anyone she'd met since coming to the surface, in spite of his occasional grumpiness. She suspected much of it was bluff and bluster, since he seemed sincerely anxious to make amends and retrieve the bracelet. She was sorry to cast him to the fates.

The half-elf was a different sort… She had never met anyone like him before. Fire and ice. Infuriating. Impatient. Intriguing… A great flame, stoked from the soul, burned in his elongated eyes. He was a young man driven by extremes, by the best and worst passions. For some reason she could not fathom, she seemed to bring out the worst in him, which saddened her.

She knew that her real responsibility was to her brother and her kingdom, and if she did not follow Balcombe immediately, before the potion wore off and the evil mage got away, the cause for which they all had struggled would be lost.

With any luck, the kender would manage to rescue his friends. Under any circumstance, he seemed the type to always land on his feet, no matter how dire the situation. The kender was resourceful and undaunted, though this was tempered by a streak of… irresponsibility wasn't quite the right word, she thought. He was easily distracted. Still, she had a flicker of hope that he could help his friends, and she felt there was little more she could do on that score than hope.

Hope, it seemed, was the mainstay of her strategy now. She could only hope that her potion would last long enough to track Balcombe. She could hope that when the potion did expire, she would have enough warning to reach the ground without getting killed. She had to hope that Balcombe was not aware he was being followed. And she had to hope that, if and when she found Balcombe in his lair, she could retrieve the bracelet and escape.

As they traveled, they seemed to be following the same valley consistently. They had not yet veered away from the main branch of the stream that ran through Tantallon. If I do lose him for some reason, Selana decided, I will continue following this stream. It seems to be Balcombe's navigator, and at least I won't get lost.

She found herself watching the mountains more and more. Selana had never seen peaks like this before. In her native kingdom, anyone could swim above the undersea mountains easily, but they were largely barren and their peaks and ridges were worn smooth by the tireless motion of the water. These were bold, jagged, and vibrant with life. Still, more than anything else since leaving the sea, this curious flight reminded her of home.

Castle Tantallon was perhaps thirty minutes behind her when Selana began to feel oddly heavy and her vision grew clouded. The potion! She knew in a flash that it must be wearing off. Unable to still a stab of fear, a pulse pounding in her ears, the sea elf immediately dipped her feathered head, tucked her wings, and nosedived straight toward the moss-covered earth.

She nearly made it.

Past the top branches of firs and budding aspens, just above a grassy glen near the banks of the stream, the sparrow turned back into a panic-stricken sea elf. She tumbled more than eight feet through the air, indigo cloak fluttering behind her, and crashed into a large, prickly thicket.

With a scream of searing pain, Selana sprang from the shrubbery, but her robe was caught up in pointy thorns. Tears streaming from her eyes, nearly hysterical, she tugged frantically at her robe, which was already in tatters from the encounter with the satyrs and the chase through Tantallon. She managed to finish the job and tear it beyond repair. Flailing, thrashing, yanking on the shredded cloth, she screamed with the frustration and exhaustion that came from days on the road with little sleep and even less food. The small bit of cape that remained around her neck she tore loose and flung into the malevolent bush, venting her anger slightly.

Her silver-pale hair was tangled and hung in limp strands about her sweaty, dirty, scratched face. Wearing nothing but a thin, dun-colored tunic that came to mid-calf, the princess of the Dargonesti elves dropped to her knees and wept great sobs.

"Now what am I to do?" she wailed skyward. Balcombe was long out of sight, and she had only a slim idea of where he was headed: a hideaway upstream, though it could be miles and miles away. Curled into a ball, her head cradled in her scratched hands, Selana cried until her tears were spent and she felt an eerie calmness overtake her.

She had no food, no shelter, and no magic spells left to cast; weary to the bone, she needed sleep to restore her magic. If she had any hope of reaching Balcombe before it was too late to either retrieve the bracelet or save Rostrevor, she would have to travel overland on foot. She could scarcely face the prospect. Vexed, Selana snatched up a fistful of pebbles and hurled them into the stream with tremendous frustration.

The young sea elf felt lost, far from her people, farther still from anything the least familiar to her life beneath the sea.

Selana touched her tongue to a salty tear that pooled above her lips and smiled sadly, remembering the days spent frolicking in the sea with her family, especially her elder brother. Semunel loved to tease her; just as she got close in a game of tag, he would shapechange into a dolphin, the form all Dargonesti had the natural ability to assume, but used mostly to flee from predators. He always swam faster than she, dodging through coral reefs and the many shipwrecks that littered the sea floor, always one length ahead, eluding her grasp.