The Black Elfstone

  Either way, Kassen would be made to serve a use.

  Dar held himself ready as the other came toward him. He would leap out and overpower Kassen before the other could react. Silencing him quickly would be crucial. If Kassen got off a cry for help, others would hear and come to his aid, and that would likely be the end of Dar Leah.

  He held himself ready, poised to attack.

  But then everything went wrong at once.

  While planning his attack, he had failed to notice that the color of the air had begun to change. As the seconds had passed, it had begun to turn greenish. An ugly mist was filling the hallway, swirling idly as it thickened. If his intense desire to take Kassen prisoner had not distracted him, he would have seen it sooner. But now it was too late.

  Screams rose from farther down the hallway, where the bulk of the invaders were gathered in the south entry to the building. High-pitched and terror-filled, they exploded through the near silence of the passageway in which Dar was hiding behind a pillar. Instantly Kassen stopped where he was, his face a mix of confusion, fear, and indecision.

  Dar did not give the man the chance to act. He leapt from hiding, sword in hand, and rushed to attack. But Kassen was nothing if not quick, and his experience and survival skills allowed him to block the highlander’s initial rush. They came together in a frenzied crush, the impact of their bodies knocking the breath from both of them before they skittered apart. Dar wheeled back, waiting for Kassen to call for help, but the other man simply smiled and went into a defensive crouch. Perhaps he realized that his cries would not be heard in the volume of screams. Perhaps he saw no reason to call for help or break for freedom. There was a calm recognition in his eyes that suggested he had known this moment was coming and he was ready for it.

  Dar held back, still looking for a way to end this without bloodshed, circling to his left to block the other’s escape route. “How goes your training, Kassen?” he asked softly.

  The screams nearly drowned him out. The cacophony of voices was deafening, mingled with the sounds of men fighting and dying in their futile efforts to stop what was happening.

  Kassen shrugged calmly. When he spoke, it was in the Southland tongue he had so clearly mastered. “We’re about to find out, aren’t we?”

  “You have a lot to answer for. I might give you a chance to do so if you throw down your sword.”

  “You’re awfully sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

  “It comes with years of practice. But you should know. So clever in tricking your way into Paranor, so eager to betray it.”

  He made a rush, a feint with his sword. Kassen barely moved, recognizing it for what it was. “You might be overmatched, Dar Leah. Have you thought of that?”

  “Not by you I won’t be. Why don’t you try your disappearing trick? Let’s see if I can find you.”

  Kassen smiled but did not reply. He knew why Dar was taunting him. The air was filled with ash and tinged green by the mist. Some of it would cling to him, even if he tried to conceal himself. It would outline enough of him that Dar would be able to tell where he was.

  “What is it you want?” he asked instead, attempting a quick feint of his own, circling left to try to get past Dar. “You can’t undo any of what’s happened. Is it just my death you seek, Blade?”

  “I would take that.” Dar blocked his way again. “But what I really want is to find out what’s going on. Why don’t you tell me?”

  The other man shook his head. In the distance, the screams were growing in volume, the sounds more intense, more frantic. The mist was turning a darker green, and there were other ominous sounds beginning, deep and raw, that signaled the coming of something more substantial.

  “I think maybe this is where you belong, here among your dead friends and companions,” Kassen hissed at him. “Why don’t you join them?”

  “Not without you for company.”

  Dar had no idea what made him say this. Maybe it was an attempt to convince the other he was not afraid to die. Maybe it was his determination not to allow himself to be frightened by this man.

  Whatever it was, it had an unexpected effect.

  “I think you might just be willing to trade your life for mine, Dar Leah. I worry about such mindless commitment. Hold me here long enough, you might be thinking, and whatever’s gotten to my companions will get to us, too.”

  He straightened and sheathed his sword. “The next time I see you, I will kill you. Remember that.”

  And he disappeared.

  Just like that.

  Dar couldn’t believe it. He stood rooted in place, searching the haze, but he could not see anything. He shifted swiftly right and then left, blade carving through the mist, seeking a target and finding nothing.

  But Kassen Drue was gone.

  It took Dar Leah a few more seconds of anxious expectation and quick changes of position to realize he was alone. The other man must have chosen to flee rather than stand and fight. The greenish mist was roiling so wildly by now that the ash floating in its midst that might otherwise have clung to him was tumbling everywhere. If he had fled in the opposite direction, any impression he might have otherwise made would have been swallowed up almost immediately.

  Dar took a moment to assess his situation—but only a moment, because that was pretty much all he had. Drisker had released the Guardian from the Druid’s Well; the screams and greenish mist confirmed it. So the Druid was still free and likely on his way to somewhere safer. And everyone else inside Paranor—himself included—was in danger of being consumed by what had been set free if they did not flee.

  Both Kassen and the invasion leader were now beyond his reach, gone somewhere deeper into the Keep or more likely out of it entirely. He felt a moment of deep regret and surging anger. His efforts had failed. There was no reason to stay longer.

  He turned away from the encroaching mist and the sounds of the screams and bolted for the nearest exit.

  —

  It seemed to Dar Leah, thinking back on it, that it took him no time at all to get clear of Paranor and out into the comparative safety of the surrounding forest. He escaped through a service door cut into the west wall of the Keep, scrambling down hallways to reach it, refusing to look back, closing his ears to the sounds that tracked after him. Once outside the building and across the central courtyard, he made his way through another service door in the Keep’s massive outer wall and into the trees. He saw no one on this journey, and even afterward, when he was crouched in the concealment of a stand of conifers, well back from any light cast by moon and stars, no one appeared. He kept thinking someone would—Drisker Arc, in particular.

  But the minutes passed, and he remained alone.

  Before him, Paranor rose against the eastern skyline, towers and battlements and wind-blown pennants etched against the sky, a lifeless and solitary tomb. The shouting from earlier, loud and frantic enough to penetrate the Keep’s walls and reach his ears even within the trees, was gone. Long minutes passed as the silence deepened, and from behind the thick glass of the tower windows, high enough that the walls did not block his view, the dull roil of the greenish mist persisted, spreading from window to window until the entirety of the Keep reflected its sickly hue.

  Where was Drisker? What had become of him?

  What do I do now?

  Dar hesitated within his concealment, unsure.

  Seconds later Clizia Porse climbed through the tunnel exit—visible to him from where he was hiding—surfacing from beneath the earth to stand silently in the gloom. Alone. No Drisker. She hesitated, looked around for a moment, and then closed the trapdoor. With a quick motion of her hands, she sealed it. Her movements were hurried and furtive, her constant glances back at the Keep telling.

  Something was very wrong, but even though he wanted badly to confront her and ask what had become of Drisker, Dar hesitated. Everything about what he was seeing suggested caution was advisable. So he waited and watched.

  It was fortunate he did.
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  Clizia had turned back to the walls of the Keep, raised her hands above her bent form. Dark clouds formed about her, swirling clutches of mist that hissed and sang of snake poison. From out of their mist, strange forms appeared. They were winged and tiny, but there was no mistaking the red glint of their eyes or the white of their teeth. They surrounded her protectively—a swarm of darting black forms providing a wall between their creator and everything beyond where she stood. As they did so, Clizia began to chant softly, her fingers weaving runic symbols on the night air. Clizia Porse was working a spell, but the Blade had no idea what it was. The casting appeared to require her complete concentration, and for long minutes she was lost in her efforts, paying no attention to anything around her. The black miasma of mist and winged forms bloomed larger, shrouding her completely. Wrapped tightly within its shifting folds, she disappeared, a necessary consequence perhaps of her need to perform her magic.

  Then, her conjuring finished, the blackness fell away and she was gone.

  Dar searched the darkness for her and then started for Paranor’s walls. If Drisker was still inside, Dar needed to find a way to get him out. The mist was dissipating rapidly, the darkness of the night and something more, as well, seeping over everything. But whatever the danger, he was going back.

  Then, abruptly, an odd shimmer enveloped the entirety of Paranor—gates, walls, towers, battlements, buildings, even the pennants that flew from their stanchions at the highest levels in tiny flutters on the night breezes. A blast of cold air blew into the Blade, knocking him backward with such force it caused him to stumble and drop to one knee.

  He bent his head before its fury and closed his eyes until he felt it pass. Even then, he was cautious about looking to see what had happened. He had reason to be. What he found was so monstrous, so wildly impossible, it took him long minutes to accept that it was real.

  By then, his hands were shaking and there were tears in his eyes.

  Paranor had disappeared.

  Impossible, he thought. But it wasn’t there. Nothing was. Only the rise on which it had stood, only the ground on which it had been constructed all those centuries ago. A huge patch of raw, torn earth revealed the imprint of her foundations, still visible at the edges of the dark emptiness where the cellars had once burrowed deep within the earth.

  Everything else had vanished into the ether.

  A small movement to his left caught Dar’s attention. A solitary figure stood outside the edge of the forest almost at the base of the rise, staring at what a few minutes earlier had been there and now wasn’t. Wondering, no doubt as he did, what had become of everything, wondering how it was possible for it all to be gone.

  The white-cloaked leader of the invaders.

  Dar rose from where he was kneeling and started ahead. No reason not to risk it at this point. No reason even to think of doing anything else. All the Druids were dead. All the invaders were dead. Drisker was likely dead, as well. No one was left but Clizia Porse and himself. So now, perhaps, he would get the answers he had sought earlier from Kassen. Now, perhaps, he would find some closure to this devastating turn of events.

  His sword came out of its sheath soundlessly, and he was on top of the invasion leader before the other knew he was there. Helmeted and cloaked as before, the leader faced him, Dar’s sword pointed at his throat. He made no move to fight or run. He stayed where he was, waiting on Dar.

  “We meet again,” Dar said, taking the other’s measure.

  The other man said nothing. He was as tall as Dar, slender overall, not as imposing as the Blade had believed him.

  “Who are you?” Dar demanded.

  Still no reply.

  The highlander was angry now, the adrenaline pumping through him with such force he believed it would take very little for him to do something violent to his passive prisoner.

  “Take off your helmet!” he snapped, his voice little more than a rough hiss. “Show me your face.”

  The other did as he ordered, hands moving to loosen restraining straps in order to lift the helmet away. A splash of moonlight revealed his captive’s face with unmistakable clarity.

  Dar exhaled sharply.

  The leader of the invaders was a young woman.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Inside Paranor, all was still. The shouts and screams and cries had been silenced, and the halls no longer echoed with the voices of dying men and women. Nothing moved. The dead sprawled here and there, but none of the living remained. The Keep’s Guardian had done its work and gone back into the pit, where it would wait for the Druids to return. Gone as well was the greenish mist that had accompanied its passing, leaving the air clear and free of its presence once more. Beyond the walls of the fortress, the new day was breaking. Darkness was giving way to the coming sunrise, and the sky was brightening. If you looked through the glass of the tall hallway windows, you could see it.

  Drisker Arc lay slumped against the wall in the corridor where Clizia Porse had left him and wondered why he was still alive. After all, he should be dead. The Keep’s Guardian had killed the invaders and should have killed him, as well. Wasn’t that how it was supposed to happen? Wasn’t everyone found within the Keep supposed to be eradicated when it emerged from its lair? Hadn’t he summoned it himself with that intent, and hadn’t he been there when it rose and filled the hall with its greenish presence? Hadn’t he been lying there helpless before it, tricked by Clizia into thinking she was his ally instead of his betrayer?

  Yet the dark magic had passed him by, the greenish mist rolling over him with no effect and that black thing within it taking no notice. It was impossible to imagine, but it had happened.

  He was aware of the rumors of the Guardian’s inconsistency and unpredictability, how it didn’t always know friend from foe and everyone was at risk. So if everyone might be at risk, the corollary was that maybe everyone might not be.

  Druids, for instance, whom the magic was there to ward, might be immune.

  He couldn’t know for sure. He might never know. What he could be sure of was that its sweep through Paranor’s halls was at an end, and he was still alive and beginning to feel the strength return to his body. His bitterness toward Clizia Porse was intense. He should have been more careful and less confident he could protect himself from her. But he had let himself be distracted while summoning the Keep’s Guardian from the tower depths. He had left himself vulnerable. And now he was paying the price. He had survived, but she had escaped.

  And she had taken from him the Black Elfstone.

  He had checked his clothing soon after finding he was not destined to die this day after all. It had been tucked inside his cloak, and now it was gone. But he would catch up to her and take it back. And he would administer a deep measure of revenge…

  The scope of her treachery was mind-boggling. It had taken him only seconds after she betrayed him to recognize how far it stretched and how deep it burrowed. The signs of its presence were always there. Clizia had been chief examiner on the panel when Kassen Drue was admitted. She had probably arranged to have him admitted swiftly, skirting any of the usual precautions. She would have known all the ways in and out of the Keep, including the tunnel. She would have advised Kassen of this and he in turn would have informed the invader. Once that was done, the Keep and the Druids were doomed.

  But there was more. Much more.

  She used her potions to alter Balronen’s behavior in order to keep him dangerously off balance and unable to function. She would have used them again on Ruis Quince. The reason she was still alive when everyone else in the Keep was dead was because she was directly responsible for everything that had happened.

  What had she been trying to achieve? Destruction of the current Druid order so she could rebuild it to her own specifications? An alliance with invaders she believed so powerful it was worth sacrificing Paranor in order to become one of them? Hard to know at this point, but whatever she was seeking was now within her grasp.

  Which made
him wonder if she had anything to do with Orsis Guild and its efforts to assassinate him. It would make sense, if she had. He was the only one likely to try to stop what she was planning, maybe the only one who might recognize what was intended with the Keep and its Druids before it happened. So she would have let Kassen know where he could be found, and then Kassen sent Tigueron and his cutthroats off to finish him.

  Most galling of all was how she had used him to help her achieve her goals. Probably she had always planned to steal the Black Elfstone from him and seal him in the Keep. She had never intended that they should work together to stop the invaders. He was the one who needed stopping.

  What a fool he had been. How blind. How gullible.

  She must have been planning this for a long time. How long, he wondered, since she had first made contact with the invaders and agreed to betray the Keep? There was no way of knowing without asking her, and he had serious doubts about that happening anytime soon. If ever.

  He stopped thinking about it and with great effort forced himself to his feet, standing with his back pressed against the wall for support. A terrible thought occurred to him—one so terrifying that any consideration of it was almost impossible. But the taking of the Black Elfstone, coupled with the continued presence of the curious haze that infused the whole of the Keep, suggested he must.

  He looked down at himself, trying to see his arms and legs and body clearly. He could not do so. His vision seemed blurry, as if what she had done to him had affected his eyesight. He looked around. Everything within view was blurry and colorless. He had thought it was the predawn light before, but now he could tell the haziness was everywhere, inside and out of the Keep. As if he were in a different world. As if everything was.