1:7 At the edge of a spell.

It took me nearly a half an hour to find the laurel.  I cut a few branches with blossoms and a few branches with fruit, then began hustling back toward Silveredge.  About thirty yards away from the spot where I'd left her, I felt the strangest thing I'd ever yet experienced.

The farthest breath of an ice spell.

I began moving carefully, crouched in the grass, to try to discover precisely why the spell was necessary without being discovered myself.  As I drew closer, the spell's intensity increased, and I noticed that it seemed to be cast over and over again, in waves.  It was certainly chilling, but more so was the self-important laughter that followed each wave.

"No, no; I'm enjoying myself," the tenor voice crooned.  "Admit it, this is amusing, even for you.  Let us enjoy it for a while longer."  Arrogance dripped like sewage water through his words, and it irked me almost more than the haughty words themselves.

I climbed into a nearby tree, hoping to catch an idea of precisely what Silveredge was up against.  I was greeted with the daunting sight of ten kobold archers, six Elven warrriors armed with bows and shortswords, and two very different Eladrin.  One of them was very rosy, and paced between the ranks of its servants.  The other was an odd shade of sea green, and had his feet planted firmly on the ground.

The rosy one seemed to jump away from the ice spell's effects just as quickly as the nearest kobolds, but the sea green jerk didn't budge an inch.  Right in front of them, Silveredge sat, head down.  Between them was a blue glyph that glowed brightly, dimmed, then glowed brightly again.

I had to work hard to ignore the imagination that the glyph had been painted with her blood.

"She seems trained," the sea green Eladrin said offhandedly.  I had to strain my ears to catch his words.  "She won't speak, won't even lift her head.  We should find her master; he's bound to be around here somewhere."

"No, the dominance ring is sleeping," the rosy one replied.  "I checked.  There's no enchantment on her, not even a meager binding.  Used she may be, but she's unowned right now.  Perhaps her master recently died- we should be careful."

I didn't like how close they were getting to the truth.

Some idiot kobold shifted into the zone of the ward, only to jump back and whine about his nearly frostbitten hand.  The bow dropped from his hand gracelessly, rocking for a few moments on the ground before flopping on its side.  The other kobolds, no stronger in resolve then their recently crippled cousins, began to shift from foot to foot or do some other nervous dance.

"Careful of what, Ylyssa?" the sea green Eladrin said laughingly.  "Of that?  It's a broken slave sitting, hurt and alone, in an open field.  If her master is dead, the tiarnaí will already be ready to flay her down to the bones for not properly defending him.  She'd probably thank us, if she could, for keeping us out of their clutches."

"They've left her quite alone for the glyph," the rosy one- who I supposed was Ylyssa- replied.  "It can't possibly be hers, unless she was sold into slavery, instead of born into it.  A Shadar-kai who deserved to draw this mark would have slaughtered many warriors, or bested some horrible proving, or robbed a Shadovar palace blind.  Such women don't ever learn to be this docile; she'd be crowing our ears off."

I wondered precisely how Ylyssa knew so much about Shadar-kai culture, and paid much more attention to her explanation than I should have.  Her actual audience, in stark contrast, seemed completely bored with every word she said.

A twitchy kobold tripped and shoved his partner directly in front of the glyph.  The poor sap's eyes lit up with terror, then froze solid.  He fell dead right there, and the kobold troops became more unruly.  With rolled eyes, Ylyssa reached out her hand and fried the kobold who'd given the fatal push by merely snapping her fingers.

"Stop moving around!" she demanded as she glared around herself.  "I'll think nothing of consuming your whole little underground hutch!"

"Alright, alright, I suppose I've had enough entertainment for the day," the sea green eladrin growled, moving directly past the glyph and taking Silveredge up by the arm.  The glyph blazed its bluest and did its worst, but all the Eladrin did was wince and look down at it.  The two kobolds closest to the affected area howled of cold and retreated, only to be burned by Ylyssa.

"I am your master now, and I will dominate you," the sea green Eladrin stated flatly.

Silveredge said nothing, her arm limp in his hand and her gaze steadfastly pinned to the ground.

"Insubordinate, despite her meek looks," Ylyssa instantly hissed.  "The skinmasters must be losing their touch."

"Oh, so?" the male Eladrin teased.  "I'll do this one myself."

Apparently to his rosy partner's distaste, he grabbed Silveredge's chin with his free hand and shook it around gently until she finally looked him in the face.  I thought some physical harm was eminent, so I climbed down from the tree in the attempt to get to the other side of the unhappy pair.

"I claim you.  You are mine.  You will go where I send you, come when I call. You will do as I command you.  You will not contradict me.  You will not question me.  You will not leave me.  You will not resist me.  I claim you..."

He droned on and on like that while I tried to find a good position.  When I climbed up into another tree, I discovered that there were Elves already perched in it.  One smiled wickedly at me before hacking off the branch that I was climbing on.

"A prize!" he hollered ungraciously as I fell.  "One of Dis's daughters!"

Before I could blink, Elves and kobolds swarmed me, confiscating my knife and binding my arms, legs and tail.  When they'd finished, I was presented to Ylyssa herself.  Meanwhile, the male Eladrin was still at work, chanting his drivel for maybe about the fourth time.

"...You will not question me.  You will not leave me.  You will not resist me.   Now, speak."

And without a single twitch, Silveredge's empty, emotionless voice shocked me to the bone.

"You have claimed me.  I am yours.  I will go where you send me, come when you call.  I will do as you command me.  I will not contradict you.  I will not question you.  I will not leave you.  I will not resist you."

"Good, good girl," the Eladrin marveled.  "You will call me Syjenge.  You will tell me your name."

"Jyklihaimra," Silveredge replied without pause.

"Ye gods, that's revolting," Ylyssa spat, looking from me to Silveredge and Syjenge.  "Ask her if she was owned by a Drow, or knew one."

"That is my mate," Syjenge smiled regally.  "You will call her Ylyssane.  Tell her what relations you had with the Drow."

"My mother had a Drow slave who nursed and raised me.  My master had me serve Drow soldiers in exchange for his safe passage into the Underdark on three separate occasions.  I belonged to one of them when he defaulted on a payment to one of the higher houses.  I was held and used until he paid everything he owed, with interest-"

"Enough dealings to last a lifetime, to be sure," Syjengen cut in.  "You will tell me whether or not you speak Undercommon."

"I do not," Silveredge replied immediately.

"As much as I enjoy watching you toy with your new pet, may I remind you that we have another piece of cargo to deal with?" Ylyssa asked, a little too politely.  "Fire is to this one what ice is to that one."

I must have bristled at Silveredge being called a pet, because Syjengen instantly turned brilliant green eyes upon me.  "Behave properly, you, or I'll freeze and dominate you."

"Try it, and it'll cost you more blood than breath," I dared.  "The demons themselves bar their gates against Tieflings."

"Don't worry, I'm smarter than any common demon," Syjengen smirked, pulling a small dirk out of his belt.  He handed it to Silveredge, who took it like a mindless zombie.  "You will threaten the Tiefling."

And automatically, Silveredge raised the dirk, arm extended, right to my eye level.

I would have been angry, had I not felt the waves of a spell suddenly engulfing me.  Strange as it is to say it, the enchantment hung around me like some coat- heavy, palpable, gelatin-like.  As I caught her eyes, she blinked and staggered backward slightly.

"Careful!" Ylyssa barked immediately.  "Your pet was already broken, and thus easy to subdue; her will must be horrifyingly weak compared to this- creature."

"You will tell me what the Tiefling just did," Syjengen commanded, all levity gone from his face and tone.

Without hesitation, Silveredge replied, "She repelled me."

"So think twice before you turn your 'new pet' loose on me," I sneered quickly, even though the words were sour in my mouth.

There were a few moments filled with conversation that I couldn't understand, after which Silveredge and I were switched- Syjengen grabbed hold of my arm and Ylyssa grabbed a fist full of Silveredge's hair.

"I will dominate you," Syjengen assured me in a seductive tone, even though it was a threat.  "It's what I do."

"I'll incinerate the lot of you," I replied with a grimace.  "I'll take that poor girl with me for pure spite.  She'll make a fine thrall, down in the hells."  In my peripheral vision, I watched Silveredge drop the weapon and her gaze automatically, as though she were a living doll.  While I knew that I didn't know any repelling magic, I also knew that we were in no position to chat freely about who had truly cast what on whom.