The Black Elfstone
His voice was soft and calm but insistent, so she shook off her lethargy and rose without argument. With the dawn still an hour away, they trudged down to the lobby with their belongings in hand and went out into the mostly deserted city, heading for the airfield and the little two-man. Walking was a drudgery Tarsha could have done without, but there were few public carriages working at this hour.
“Who do you think that boy was?” she asked him after they had gotten barely fifty feet from the inn.
“Shea Ohmsford, apparently,” he answered.
“So he says. But not the real Shea Ohmsford, who’s been dead since the time of Allanon. So how did he get his name? Is he family?”
The Druid stared out into the dark, thinking about it. “He might be. Or he might simply have been given the name at birth. Some people still remember the story and revere the name. Parents like to name children after famous historical figures. Or perhaps he decided to take the name for himself. It could have happened like that.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment. “Big coincidence that he was the boy you chose to guide us, though.”
“Coincidences are not unheard of. What difference does it make? Do you think he has use of the wishsong? Or magic of any sort? It didn’t seem so to me. Smart, quick, and eager to work but not gifted with magic. I would have sensed it.”
She nodded. “Me, too. But it’s still strange.”
He didn’t argue the point, and she took that to mean that he agreed with her. Of all the names to run across while on this expedition to find the mystery man who had hired the Orsis assassins, nothing could have been more unexpected. At some point, she imagined Drisker would want to return and find out about this boy. He hadn’t said anything to suggest it, but by now she knew how his mind worked. More to the point, she knew the ways in which he was like her. If she wanted to find out more about this “Shea Ohmsford,” it was a good bet he did, as well.
They walked for a time in silence, Tarsha thinking of how much she enjoyed the silence of the very early morning and how much she missed Emberen. She missed the forest—the smells of new leaves and grasses and fresh-cut wood. She hated the city—the raw and acrid burn of ash smoke from factory furnaces, the stench of the rivers where the inlets and bays gathered refuse and waste, the streets littered with trash and strewn with filth, and the dying embers from wood fires smoldering in a thousand barrels where the poor gathered to stay warm.
“Where do we go from here?” she asked him finally, hoping it wouldn’t be another city.
“We fly north,” he said quietly.
His dark eyes were intense. “To Emberen, you mean?” she asked hopefully.
“No, not to Emberen. We’re flying to Paranor.”
She felt a twinge of anger. “Why there? They won’t let you in, won’t talk to you, won’t acknowledge you at all. You said so yourself. What’s the point?” She stopped where she was and waited for him to turn back. “Is this about finding the man who hired the Orsis assassins to kill you?”
“Yes, Tarsha. I have good reason to think we might find him there.”
She stared at him, a look of confusion on her face. “What do you mean, we might? You told me that Tigueron gave you his name. Did he or didn’t he?”
“He didn’t know the man’s name. But he gave me a very good description of him. And something just as important. Our mystery man told Tigueron he could be found at Paranor.”
“So we can go after him. We can find him from his description. If he’s a Druid, we’ll know soon enough. We’ll finally have him!”
The Druid walked over and placed both hands on her shoulders. “You are a spitfire, Tarsha Kaynin. I like it that you never see any barriers so thick they can’t be breached or walls so high they cannot be climbed. But you are getting ahead of yourself. A description alone is not enough. I need something more.”
“What? What else could you possibly need?”
“Well, for one thing, I need you to be able to distance yourself from your fixation on gaining revenge for the attacks and try to look at the larger picture.”
“What larger picture is that? Hired assassins tried to kill us! I don’t think the picture needs to get all that much larger for us to figure out what is needed!”
“Think about what we know for a moment. Twice, these assassins came after us. They burned my cottage to the ground the first time without hurting either of us, and then they came back almost immediately to try to complete the job. So the question becomes this. Who would want me dead that badly? What enemy is so determined?”
“And you think the answer lies at Paranor?”
“I think it is a good place to start. Someone might know something useful—especially once we provide a description of the man who hired those assassins. But we have to ask in the right way.”
“Ask, nothing. We should demand the truth!”
“Realities are sometimes very inconvenient.” Drisker turned and started walking again, forcing her to follow. “How nice it would be if we could always do just what we wanted without stopping to worry about how to actually make it happen.”
“You’re making fun of me.”
He shook his head. “I just want you to be realistic about the situation. I don’t have the standing in the Druid order that I once did. I have few friends left at Paranor. I have fallen far enough that certain men and women feel they can do me harm with impunity. So they try to discredit me and perhaps even send assassins after me. What friends I have and what relationships remain I cannot afford to lose. I have to use good judgment in deciding what questions to ask and whom to ask them of. No amount of wishing will change this. At some point, Tarsha, you will have to learn the importance of moderation. You will have to learn when to back away or at least to bide your time.”
She studied him a moment. “I hope you’re wrong. I hope I never have to back away when my instincts tell me not to. I don’t want to be like that. But maybe it’s the wishsong that makes me think this way. Magic is a powerful weapon, and I don’t have to back down from anyone or anything.”
“Be that as it may, for now you are my student and I am your teacher,” he replied, giving her a look. “So you will do as I tell you. We will go to Paranor and we will ask our questions in a disciplined and cautious manner.”
A wagon passed them, but it was laden with goods and not made for transport of people. The city was coming awake. A scattering of men and women on their way to work filtered out of the shadows, ghosts in the near dark wrapped in cloaks and jackets, heads lowered against the weight of the coming day’s burdens.
Tarsha glanced at those who passed by closest, trying to read something of their lives in their faces. No one looked back.
When they came in sight of the public airfield, Drisker turned to her again. “I know that the chance of Ober Balronen agreeing to speak with me is virtually nonexistent. But there are others who will. The identity of the man we seek might be revealed in the course of this investigation. My path is clear. I have to go, but I want you to come with me.”
She straightened, pushing back her white-blond hair from her face. “Well, I am your student, after all.”
He smiled. “It does you credit that you honor your commitments. I will try not to keep you away from your real concerns for much longer.”
She knew at once what he was talking about.
Tavo.
Drisker understood that her brother was her most immediate concern. She needed to get to him before much longer. Drisker might have imposed a yearlong apprenticeship on her as a precondition of teaching her to expand and manage the uses of the wishsong initially, but he had promised her, as well, he would give her a chance to find her brother before then and make certain he was safe. He had even said he would come with her.
She strode ahead of him, shoulders drawn back, head lifted. She knew the way to the airfield, which was not that much farther ahead; she remembered it from earlier. No damage to her memory as yet, she thought, but her concern
about where her life was going was another matter.
—
They reached the airfield and boarded their craft just before sunrise. Lifting away, they had the pleasure of greeting the sun’s appearance as it crested the Wolfsktaag Mountains far to the east in a brilliant display of pink and red turning slowly to gold. The sky flooded with light that revealed a clear blue, cloudless expanse and no suggestion of anything but good weather in any direction. Drisker was at the controls, steering their two-man away from Varfleet and north toward the Dragon’s Teeth. Shadows still draped the jagged peaks of those mountains, giving their towering cliffs a scarred, empty look where they rose above the tree line in ragged clumps.
To the west, the leading edges of the emerging sunlight were beginning to creep across the plains country toward the homeland of the Elves. The Druid took a moment to wonder about a people that had been so closely allied to the Druids in years past. Where were the Elves now? An enemy army was invading, battles had been fought and lost in the Northland Troll country, and the Elves might as well have migrated to another continent for all the involvement they’d had. What had become of them?
He sighed ruefully, thinking about it. He would have to address this mystery, as well. Had word not reached the Elves about what was happening? Surely that couldn’t be possible. Yet why hadn’t they made some sort of response? Why hadn’t they acted on a threat that was directed at them, as well, and come north to see what was happening?
Unable to answer any of these questions at present, he turned his attention to deciding whom he could persuade to meet with him. Even that would be hard, for only a few would be likely to listen to anything he had to say. Members of the Druid Guard would be easy enough; the Trolls had always liked and respected him. But it was the Druids who would be most likely to know anything of value regarding enemies and their identities. And it was the Druids he needed to reach.
Drisker shook his head. It was an impossible situation. Aside from Dar Leah and one or two others, he couldn’t think of anyone who would disobey the Ard Rhys and speak freely to him, no matter how persuasive he was. The consequences of doing so would likely be severe if Balronen found out, and there were few within the order who would be willing to risk that under any circumstances.
—
Beside him, Tarsha Kaynin was considering what she would do if her mentor’s efforts failed and he decided to postpone the search for her brother once again. He would want her to stand with him or to accompany him on whatever path he chose to take. She did not think she could do this. Not going in search of Tavo would be more than she could bear. He was too important to her. For her, the magic had never been the source of anguish it was to her brother. She was not haunted by it, as he was. She was not given to fits of rage and despair that threatened to destroy the user. And others. All because he could not control it the way it needed to be controlled.
She pictured his face, sad and frightened of what he was, of what he could do without intending it, of how vulnerable he was in the face of such raw power. He must find ways to control those powers. Perhaps by now, even in this short time period, she had learned enough about her own use of the wishsong from Drisker to help Tavo with his. Not to try would be an unbearable failing, and she did not think she could live with the consequences. Her parents were helpless to do much more than talk with Tavo, not having use of the wishsong and not even really understanding what it meant to be its victim rather than its master. She was the only one who understood. She was the only one who could have a positive effect on his life.
She would go to him, she promised herself. Whatever happened at Paranor, afterward she would go to him.
—
They flew all day through blue skies and sunshine, and by dusk they were nearing Paranor’s black towers, which were visible from where they sat upon a broad open rise within miles and miles of dense forestland. Shadows spreading with the slow slide of the sun west layered the battlements and parapets of the Keep, and from atop the walls torches were lit against the coming night. Tarsha felt a menace exuding from the ancient fortress that was troubling. She could not pinpoint its source, only sense it. It seemed to come from everywhere, as if the entire structure and all those housed within were cursed.
Drisker landed their two-man in front of the south wall, and they climbed out and walked over to the huge ironbound gates. From there, the Druid called up to the Druid Guard on sentry duty and asked to speak with Ober Balronen, saying it was urgent. Discretion would be appreciated, he quickly added. The guard on duty greeted him warmly and asked him to wait while his message was delivered, promising to keep it between them. Drisker smiled. The Trolls, at least, still seemed to think he was worth the risk.
He stood next to Tarsha in the failing light and neither spoke, the darkness deepening all around them, the silence a close and vaguely threatening presence. From within the walls came the comforting sounds of life—voices in conversation, laughter, dishes and pans rattling and clanking, the boots of the Troll watch passing across the walkways on the battlements. But out where the Druid and the girl waited, the world felt dangerous.
When the sentry returned, he did not bring good news. He told Drisker that the Ard Rhys refused to speak with him. All within the Keep were forbidden from speaking to him. These were not words he would have chosen to say, he added, if the choice were his. But the choice was not. It would be better if Drisker left now and did not return. It would be better if he left them all with memories of better times.
The words were spoken in the guttural Troll language, but Tarsha understood the gist of it. The rough edges of the words lent them a poignancy that was unmistakable. The Troll who delivered the message did so reluctantly and with no apparent ill will. He was a messenger who clearly wished things could be different.
“Is there no one who would speak with me?” Drisker called back in disbelief. “No one at all?”
The Troll did not respond; then he nodded once and disappeared. They waited expectantly for a few minutes. Drisker shook his head. “Someone will come. We will wait by our airship.”
She did not feel the confidence he did and wondered why anyone would speak to them when Balronen was so set against it. She followed him back to their two-man, which by now was little more than a desultory lump swathed in darkness, and they sat down in the shadow of its hull to wait.
Half an hour passed, and no one came.
Another half hour. Still Drisker remained where he was, and because she understood that he was decided on this, she sat with him in silence.
It was an endless vigil that she became increasingly sure would lead to nothing.
Until, finally, she heard a secondary door opening at the base of the walls and saw a momentary sliver of light escape from inside. A shadowy figure appeared in the doorway, silhouetted by the light. They had only a glimpse, and then the door closed and the darkness returned.
Drisker got to his feet and stood waiting. Tarsha did the same.
The figure coming toward them, revealed by the light of moon and stars, was a gray thing, hunched at the shoulders and cloaked head-to-toe. Its gait was a shuffle more than a walk, and the insubstantiality of its body was recognizable even through heavy outer garments. A woman, tall and slight of build, bent perhaps with age and perhaps with something more, face lifted within the cowl so that she was able to watch them closely. She came at her own slow pace, unwilling or perhaps unable to do otherwise, arms lowered to her sides so that she presented no overt threat.
“Clizia,” Drisker greeted as she reached them.
“You are surprised, Drisker Arc, that I would speak with you when no one else would? Haven’t I always done those things that no one else would dare to do?” The gaunt woman’s gaze shifted to Tarsha. “Who are you, girl? What is your name?”
Drisker immediately stepped in front of her. “She is my charge, responsible for helping me with small tasks that would otherwise prove too time-consuming and distracting. Her name is Tarsha. Tarsha, th
is is Clizia Porse, one of our oldest and wisest Druids.”
He said it quickly, cutting off the introduction that Tarsha was about to make. Tarsha didn’t miss the warning behind the gesture. Be careful of this one, he was saying.
“A helpmeet, is she?” Clizia Porse snorted openly in disdain. “And I am the Queen of the Silver River. You’re teaching her magic, aren’t you, Drisker? Still a mentor to magic wielders, even if you don’t find them here at Paranor anymore. What are your skills, girl? What sort of magic do you have that would interest a man like Drisker Arc?”
Tarsha stayed silent. Drisker took a step closer to Clizia, almost as if to diminish Tarsha’s presence. “Why have you chosen to speak with me? There is no love lost between us, and you were pleased enough to see me gone from Paranor. If you could have managed it, you would have succeeded me as High Druid. Your ambitions for advancement are well known. Where is Dar Leah? Surely, he would have been a better choice.”
Clizia Porse gave a small shrug. “Once, perhaps. No more. Zia Amarodian is dead, along with Ruis Quince, and Dar Leah is dismissed from service because of it. The truth is this, Drisker. I thought it rude and shameful that no one would come out to speak with you. I despise cowardice. I have no love for Ober Balronen, even though he seems to find my presence in his inner circle comforting.”
“Yet you voted with the majority to exile me.”
“An entirely different matter. And it does not speak to how I feel about our new Ard Rhys. As you say, I would have preferred that I succeed you. It would have been better for everyone.”
“You find him ill suited for the position, too?”
“A fair assessment.”
“His decision to dismiss Dar Leah is certainly evidence of this. He was the best protector Ober could have hoped for. What happened?”
“The Blade accompanied Zia and Ruis on a mission to make contact with an invading army to the north, after it had destroyed several Troll tribes. The mission went badly wrong, and the entire delegation save the Blade was killed. He alone escaped to tell the tale. Ober didn’t like it that he had lived when all the others had died. Or perhaps he simply wanted a scapegoat to shift the prospect of any blame attaching to him, once wiser heads began to recall that the mission was his idea. A brave man, Dar Leah, but constrained by the nature of his position. He departed two nights ago, at my suggestion. I told him to seek you out. Perhaps he intends to do so. Perhaps he can be your helpmeet, too?”