the partner was a troll, the flesh would combine and a new troll would grow like a tumor. If the partner wasn’t a troll, the piece left behind would simply grow into a twin of its troll parent, consuming parts of its host until it was big enough to violently erupt from the ‘mother.’
“Can we talk about something else?”
“As long as it’s interesting. You know I get mean when I’m bored.”
Obviously, thought Will. “I have a question about Selene.”
“Leave me out of your marital problems.”
“No, about something she told me. When Aislinn gave us our half an hour together, we found out that she had only been through six months of time, while I’ve had a whole year pass by. Do you know where she could be?”
“Holy hell!”
“What?”
“Shut up, let me think,” said Arrogan. Will waited patiently, walking in silence, until finally the ring began muttering to itself. “That sneaky, conniving, wily bitch, that’s how she’s keeping Lognion from finding her.”
“How?”
“The heart-stone enchantment creates a bond that can enforce the master’s will even across the boundaries between dimensions, but it won’t easily cross multiple planes, and if there’s a temporal difference the connection gets even more muddled.”
“That clears up everything for me,” said Will snidely.
“Don’t be an ass. Of course it doesn’t. There could be any number of planes that have a temporal difference like that, but I only know of a few. The real key is that I know a lot about her past, which narrows things down considerably.”
“Aislinn’s past?”
“No, Selene’s, you idiot! Yes, of course, Aislinn’s past. Her teacher was from another world, one which Lognion couldn’t reach even if he knew which one.”
“And you’re about to tell me, right?”
“I’m not sure that would be safe,” said the ring cautiously.
Will didn’t feel like taking no for an answer. “She already told me about it and described everything. She even has a friend there; his name is Sylandrea. So you might as well explain the rest.”
“Sylandrea? She told you she was friends with an elf?”
He remained silent, waiting to see if Arrogan would reveal anything else. After a moment, the ring sighed. “Damn it. You only knew the name, didn’t you?”
“And you fell for it,” said Will, trying to ignore the painful ache in his chest. He had learned the name in what he had thought to be just a dream. Now it was apparent that he had actually travelled astrally. And my hope that I was just imagining her with someone else is getting thinner all the time. Whatever the truth was, he still had important questions. “If Aislinn decided to do something, like trying to keep her for good—is there a way for me to get there?”
“Nothing is impossible, but this might as well be. You could try to sneak aboard an elven trading vessel in Trendham, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Plus, you’d have to wait a long time; they only show up there every four or five years. They’re also very wary of that sort of thing and their magic is nothing to sneer at.”
“How did she get from there to our house so quickly, though?”
“I don’t know,” said the ring honestly. “Within Faerie, Aislinn can probably teleport freely, which means she can get from anywhere there’s a congruence to any other plane in almost no time at all. So she either knows where the entrance to the elven lands is, or she knows of another path through a different realm altogether.”
“And you said her teacher was from there?”
“Graylin was his name,” said Arrogan. “Well, that’s not his full name of course. They all have ridiculously pompous names that take way too damned long to say. Graylin is what he was called by those he was familiar with.”
Will stopped suddenly as a tall form stepped out from behind a tree. The troll’s shadow fell over him, and he felt his mouth go dry. “There’s one in front of me now,” he announced quietly.
“An elf?”
“A troll.”
“Oh, time to go