The Titan of Twilight by Troy Denning Page B

large as when he had visited Castle Hartwick.
    The size change did not surprise Tavis as much as it might have. His mentor, Runolf Saemon, had once known an entire tribe of firbolgs to grow two feet in a single day. For a time, Tavis had pleaded with every firbolg he met to show him the trick, but they had all refused. The scout had finally given up, concluding that their law forbade sharing the secret with an outcast
    Tavis knelt at Galgadayle’s side and reached out to move the seer’s hand. “You’re smaller than I remember.”
    “I’ve lost blood.” Galgadayle pushed Tavis’s arm away. “Finish me quickly… nothing to gain with torture.”
    Tavis half-smiled at the attempt to change the subject. The seer was more afraid of breaking the law than of dying.
    “I won’t torture you—or kill you.” The high scout did not blame Galgadayle for trying to capture Brianna. The seer was acting on his conscience. As wrong as he might be, that did not make him evil, and Tavis was not in the habit of killing people for their mistakes. “I’d rather help you, if you’ll allow me.”
    Galgadayle glared at him with one white eye. “I have brought harm to your… family,” he said. “Why show me mercy?”
    “Because you’re no longer a threat,” Tavis replied. “Killing you would make me a murderer.”
    “Perhaps,” Galgadayle groaned. “But the law does not require… nowhere is it decreed you must help an enemy.”
    Tavis shrugged. “I have learned a different kind of law with the humans,” he said. “It comes more from inside than out, and it can be as nebulous and shifting as a cloud, but I must obey it nonetheless.”
    Galgadayle considered this, then took his hand away, revealing a large, mangle-edged hole in his cloak. Though it was too dark to see more, Tavis smelled fresh blood. It was heavy with the scent of urine, a sure sign the seer would die without help.
    “You’ll have to lie down so I can reach the wound.” Tavis gently guided Galgadayle onto his stomach.
    “This changes nothing.” Despite Galgadayle’s words, there was a note of gratitude in his strained voice. “When the child is born… Raeyadfourne must still— arrghh!”
    Tavis began to probe the wound, bringing Galgadayle’s sentence to a harsh end.
    “What happened to my wife?” Tavis continued to work. His fingers came across the stub of sword blade that had been broken off just below Galgadayle’s kidney. “Who has her?”
    The seer shook his head. “That I will… not tell you,” he groaned. “Leave me, if you wish. I’ll probably die anyway.”
    “No, you won’t,” Tavis said. “I have a healing elixir.”
    Galgadayle craned his neck to glance up at Tavis, his eyes flashing with a brief hope that quickly vanished behind dark clouds of despair. The seer gave Tavis a wry smile, then shook his head. “Keep your potion,” he said. “The cost is too dear.”
    “I’m not trying to buy your knowledge.” Tavis had watched Brianna deal with her earls often enough to know there were more effective ways than bribery to learn a person’s secrets. “The potion is yours, but it won’t do any good unless I pull that broken blade out of your back. To do that I’ll need light.”
    “All—all I have is a sparking steel.” Galgadayle sounded forlorn. During the time it took to start a fire and make a torch, the seer could well bleed to death.
    “I have a magical light,” Tavis said. “But I don’t want to attract fire giants.”
    Galgadayle sighed in relief, and when he spoke, he sounded like a dead man to whom the gods had given a second life. “You won’t,” he said. “There’s no need to worry about that.”
    “How do you know?” Now that the seer’s thoughts were on saving his own life, Tavis could try to draw out the information he needed. “If a straggler attacks while I’m pulling out the steel, there won’t be much I can do.”
    “There… aren’t any… stragglers.” Galgadayle sounded as though