“I wish I could have done it myself,” she had muttered before settling back and dozing off. He had worried about her falling asleep with a head injury, but had been too preoccupied with treating Angel to do anything about it until after he had finished. Now and then he had paused in his healing work to call over to her, waking her from her sleep long enough to force her to grunt angrily and mutter something about leaving her alone. But at least he could be certain each time that she was still alive. Even so, he had been relieved when she finally woke up for good and began speaking with him again.

“He planned to take me back to the Cintra and use the Loden to imprison Arborlon, the Ellcrys, and the Elves,” he explained. “Once he had all of the Elves in one place, the demons could take them out at their leisure and do what they wanted with them. He would use me as his tool for accomplishing this, and I don’t think anyone would have stopped him. No one would even have known what was happening.”

He glanced down at the bulge in his pocket—the bag that contained the Elfstones. “You know something, Sim. I hadn’t thought about it before, but the Stones are as dangerous to the Elves as to anyone else. The magic doesn’t recognize race or measure intent; it treats everyone the same. All Culph had to figure out was how to find an Elf who could be persuaded to use it.”

Simralin’s smile was tight and bitter. “Don’t be too quick to blame yourself, Little K. None of us understood the rules of the game being played. Not until now. None of us even understood the nature of the magic being put to use. That ghost in the Ashenell, Pancea Rolt Gotrin, she knew. She understood. That was why you were given those warnings. If Angel had died on the slopes and Culph had killed me, you would have been left on your own and not been master of your own behavior. And we almost let this happen. All of us.”

“Well, it won’t happen again,” Kirisin declared softly. “I promise you that.”

“I’ll hold you to your word. We still have a ways to go before this is over. First we’ve got to get back to Arborlon.”

“Wait a minute!” Kirisin exclaimed suddenly, his eyes widening. “I just remembered something. Culph said that he—the demon said that it had summoned an army to Arborlon to make sure no one escaped before it returned with me to imprison the city in the Loden! It bragged about it while it was busy using that cord and those rings to hypnotize me! An army of demons and once-men, Sim! It’s probably already there, waiting!”