"5 : An Agreement" by Milla Lindqvist

Sares looked up at the elf quizzically. “What do you mean?”

“My sister and I wish to leave this desert, and quickly, but circumstances have made it impossible for us to use the amplifier at Castle Caran. If you would lend us some energy for a long-distance teleportation spell, we would give you a modest sum of Caran gold.”

It took only a second for Sares to put the clues together: Skyfrost’s physical resemblance to Windsong, the lack of access to Caran facilities. He wasn’t about to help someone who had just tried to kill him. “There’s a bit of enmity between me and--your sister. It steepens my price.”

Skyfrost drew out a pouch from inside his robes and poured some coins into the palm of his black-gloved hand. The glitter of gold was far outnumbered by the dull shine of iron. “We have very little.”

Given this neat excuse, Sares was about to refuse, when he had an unlikely idea. “It’s not what you have that matters. It’s what you can get me. I want something similar to a honor sword.”

Skyfrost stared at him, his dark features drawn tight in concerned surprise

“I need it for a spell,” Sares continued, at once feeling a desperate need to have this elf understand and a fear that he sounded like a naïve amateur. “A spell involving the transfer of energy through the bond with the sword, or whatever.”

Skyfrost lowered and then raised his eyes. “The honor swords are the responsibility of the Oracle, and I doubt they will do favors for a human. But you can certainly try: my sister and I are headed for their Sanctuary, and you could accompany us.”

“If I help you along the way.”

“Yes.”

“And I suppose there’s a high chance I’ll be less my head at the end of it.”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“But you will try to prevent that outcome, won't you?”

The elf hesitated, then, his iron-black eyes fixed on Sares's sand-gold ones, said, "It would not be honorable of us to do otherwise."

Sares closed his eyes, thinking. It would be an odd and risky arrangement, but there was no other way he could acquire an implement to use in his spell. He opened his eyes.

“All right. I’ll put my magical skills at your disposal, in return for passage to the Sanctuary.”

Skyfrost nodded. “Shall we depart, then? If scouts from Castle Caran discover us, we may never be able to reach the Oracle at all.”

“Are you a fugitive from them, too?” Sares dared to ask as Skyfrost slid past him in the narrow space and started toward the bottom of the ravine.

The elf looked back, a mirthful quirk at the corner of his mouth. “They are not yet aware of it, but I am no longer welcome among their number.” His smile disappeared. “Come. We must find my sister.”

Sares was about to follow Skyfrost down the ravine when a hawk’s scream reverberated through the air above, strangely shrill. “Stop--a dragon hawk--” he began, but the elf had already spun around. Brushing past Sares, he said, “Wait here.”

Sares stood watching until Skyfrost had disappeared over the corner that the converging cliffs made against the sunset-stained sky, then he silently picked his way up the ravine. Peering out onto the clifftop, he saw Windsong in only tunic and breeches, pulling on her boots. As she dressed, she spoke rapidly in a lilting, indecipherable dialect of Elvish. She snapped a short iron chain around her neck and added a string of rune amulets, while Skyfrost slung an elven broadsword across his back. Then he rose fluidly, as Windsong leapt to her feet and pulled her chain-mail over her head. She sheathed her hands in her gloves and threw a long light-blue robe around herself, and they picked up their packs.

Skyfrost turned toward the ravine. Windsong’s gaze followed. Her eyes met Sares’s, and her face contorted in a snarl as she threw herself toward him.

Skyfrost was in front of her before she reached the ravine, however, and he held her by the shoulders and spoke to her softly in rapid Elvish. Standing up, Sares strode over to the two gold-tinted figures in time to hear Skyfrost say something containing the North Desert Elvish words "desert mage."

Windsong’s obsidian eyes leapt over to Sares, this time spearing him and holding him up for examination. He met her gaze, waiting for the blow, but instead she just nodded. “We had best go, then. Scouts from Castle Caran are on their way.”

Sares glanced back and forth between the two elves. “How far do you want to go?”

“The edge of the desert.” Skyfrost regarded him expectantly. “To Dalaida if possible, though if that is too far--”

“Too far! To Dalaida! It’s over seven thousand kilometers to the mountains; even with Caran’s amplifier it’s difficult to get there, and no one’s ever gone straight from here to the city.”

“So basically we have no way out of this accursed desert,” Windsong said, eyes narrowed to blade thinness. “I swear if this isn’t hell then it’s as close as one can get without dying. Though dying, at this point--”

Skyfrost waved his hand for silence. “Windsong, please...”

She didn’t cease ranting about how she hated the desert, but she did turn away, allowing Skyfrost to address Sares without shouting over her. “Supposing we combined all our energies.”

Sares shook his head, squinting at the ground in frustration. “No. It would take a colossal amount of energy -- ” Inspiration jolted him, and he released it in a long “oh.” Raising his sand-colored eyes to Skyfrost’s dark puzzled ones, he said. “I think I know where we can get a whole lot of energy, though.”