Blood Of The Wizard (Book 1) by Thomas Head Page B

inches. 
    Suddenly, I had one of those strange, reasonless intuitions that pop into one’s head, but are never asked aloud:  Was this an elvish, dwarven halfbreed?  In truth it had to be.  I had long known that men and elves could produce a child.  But dwarves and elves?  I had never even considered the idea, and I had hardly spelled out my own suspicions when the measured beatings of a drum rang out. 
    There was a low, tuneless chant, like the voices of the forest.  The elves began to tread a mazy, winding pace.  In a strange way the motions brought up memories of a naked drunken dwarven bar maid I had once taken to bed with me.  Perhaps some part of my mind was still stuck on the interbreeding of the races.  I focused.  The drums beat faster.  The suppressed voices were breaking in shrill, exultant strains, and the measured tread had quickened.  The boisterous antics of these children of the forest fascinated me.  They were swaying now, dancing in a way that could only be likened to the wiggling of a bird under leafy cover.  The coiling and circling and winding of the dancers became bewildering, and in the center, laughing, shouting, tossing up his arms and gesticulating like a maniac, was the elf with the braided beard. 
    The performers broke from their places and gave themselves with utter abandon to the wild impulses of the drums.  And there was such a scene of uncurbed, animal hilarity as I never dreamed possible.  Savage, furious, almost animal-like, it seemed like at any time they could fall upon each other with bared teeth and destroy the weaker ones like wolves.
    Even Uncle Jickie, who watched now from the flaps of his tent, seemed unsure what to make of it. 
    Filled with the curiosity that lures many to their undoing, I rose and went across to the thronging, shouting, shadowy figures.  In the next instant, a figure darted out of the woods full tilt against me. It was the fellow with the braided beard. 
    Q uick as a hiccup, I thrust out my foot and kicked his knee.  Then I dropped him with a punch.  His comrades only watched as I put a foot in his chest and looked down.  The moonlight, only just visible through a break in the clouds, fell on his upturned face.  He snarled out something angrily.
    “Help you up?” I asked.
    Extending my hand to give him a lift, I felt that his palm was deathly cold. 
    A s I let him up, he gathered himself in a sitting posture.  Then he seemed shocked at the sight of me.
    “Cold!” he answered my thoughts.  “Cold as an old tomb!” With an absurdly elaborate bow, he reeled back among the dancers.  “Frigid as a seal’s arse!   Frosty as the death’s-head of your dreams!  Farewell, grave skull!”
    I looked him over.  “What the devil is the matter with you, fellow?”  I asked, pretending not to noticed that he had not answered me.  I was determined to follow my uncle’s advice and play a rascal at his own game.  I was curious—they say there are elves who can see into another’s soul, and that some can even see the future. 
    Again, his reaction was delayed for a curious moment before he spoke.  “ With me! ” he muttered beneath his breath, momentarily silenced with astonishment.  “Is it not you who seeks the Black One?”
    “ Who have you been talking to, you sneak!”
    “ Ha!  I took you and your company for adventures, not fools!” he said.  Then the tall dwarf went skipping madly back to his companions, drinking and dancing.
    And that was that.  The encounter was over.  I drew back toward our camp.
    “Get up, Delthal,” I urged, rushing back to where he still sat on his knees.  “Get up.  He’s an oracle!  Talk to him.  Find out what you can!”
    “ Oracle,” he muttered, throwing aside the hand I offered down to him.
    “ Yes!  An oracle.  A seer.  What do you call them… A shaman .”
    “ I think his name is Mad Hila.  He and his troupe make it up to Goback now and again.  Do you not remember