Sister of the Dead - By Barb Hendee & J. C. Hendee Page 0,45

than the winged one. In place of teeth, its jaws had sharpened ridges, and the final bones of its toes and fingers ended in sharp curved points. The creature, locked within the box, had tried to claw its way out.

All its bones and dried flesh were tarnished with streaks of red grime so thick, it made them look pitch black. Another sense of the familiar stirred in her mind. Keeping her back to the others, she pretended to lean in for a closer examination. Removing a loose toe bone with its claw, she palmed it along with the winged creature's finger.

The fifth body rested near enough that she did not have to move. Slender but solid of build like the elf, the creature had strange rows of spikes stuck out along the back side of its forearms, from each vertebra of its spine, and along its crested skull. The bones were cream-white and had not yellowed beneath its decayed filth. Its teeth were also ridged, but with regularly spaced points.

She made a hidden reach for one of the smaller spikes springing from the front of its shin. She took one of these off and added it to her collection.

Her gaze returned to the spikes on its spine, longer near the upper back but growing shorter toward the tailbone.

Like the fin of a sea creature.

Wynn stumbled as she got up and began shaking.

"We will leave you, zupan, to tend your own..., " Leesil started to say, and then his eyes widened as he looked at Wynn. "We're done. It's all done. There's no need for tears. "

Jan took a step toward her, suspicion and mistrust washed away with concern.

Wynn pulled away from him, suddenly afraid to let anyone near her in this place. She had not even been aware of her own tears, only that she could not stop shaking and found but one word for her thoughts.

"Uirishg!" she said in a whisper tinged with hysteria.

Her gaze passed over one remains to the next, out of control—elf, dwarf, a creature of the air, one of water, and the other... of fire?

'Take her out of here, you fool, " Cadell snapped. "This place has driven her beyond wits, as it might do us all. "

Leesil reached out and steered Wynn toward the entry way. She let herself to be pulled along, as her mind did little more than reiterate her earliest lessons in the structure of creation.

The elements are Spirit, Earth, Water, Air, and Fire...

Showing states in Essence, Solid, Liquid, Gas, and Energy...

To manifest as Tree, Mountain, Wind, Wave, and Flame...

And within the chamber were an elf of the forest, a dwarf of the mountains...

She did not know the names for the other three. They were so lost back beyond The Forgotten that no one knew them as more than part of the myth of the Uirishg, as the elves called them. The sages translated that word as akin to "Fay-blooded" or "Children of the Fay, " but the word was so old that its literal meaning was uncertain.

Old recovered texts revealed scant hints of a myth among her lands that humans were the oldest race. In primordial times, they mingled among the first Fay, and their offspring were the beginning of five new races. It was a legend that tried to explain their origin, perhaps with some hidden truth, though the elves of her continent found it little more than an amusing tale.

It should not become real, not like this... in blood and ritual sacrifice.

Before Leesil guided her all the way up the stairs, Wynn jerked free and ran the rest of the way to the keep's front doors. When the cold night of the courtyard outside wrapped around her, its numbness sank through to her own bones. She collapsed to her knees on the damp ground, sobbing. There was no sign of the two guards.

Leesil caught up to her, crouching to take her by the shoulders.

"Wynn... what did you find?" he asked, and then he saw the three bones in her limp hand. "Oh, for all the dead saints! What have you done?"

Wynn raised her head to look at him.

Leesil reached around her to pull up her hood. He closed the short robe's front more securely around her.

"You have to tell me, " he said. "I don't understand what's wrong. "

"Uirishg, " she whispered again, and held up the three bones.

With effort, she told him of the Children of the Fay who were the five forgotten races. Only two, the