The High Druid's Blade

  She shook her head. “There is no help for things like me. Father has been searching for a cure for years. Neither of us wanted this life. This curse. We change without warning. We do it together and separately both. We can’t stop it.”

  She was dying, he realized. He fought down a sudden wave of anguish. “I know this. I know you wouldn’t hurt me if you could help it.”

  Her voice was surprisingly strong. “It was the gemstone. Father found it two years ago buried beneath the house—beautiful and mysterious and glowing, like nothing he had imagined possible. He believed it to be a treasure of great worth. He thought we could sell it and become rich. He brought it inside the house and showed it to me. While he stood there, holding it in his hands, he was compelled to kiss it. It poisoned him. He didn’t know it at the time, but he found out soon enough. The urge to kill consumed him after that. He tried to fight it, but it was too strong. He needed the relief the killing gave him. In those early days, he made his kills far away from Eusta, traveling to other villages. But after a while he couldn’t manage to wait until he was far away and began killing our neighbors.”

  She coughed, and there was blood on her lips. “For a long time, I knew nothing of what had happened to him. The killings were still taking place far away, and he never spoke of them. And the change never came to me, even though I had kissed the gemstone, too. My father thought I might not have the curse. But eight months ago, it showed itself. I changed for the first time. It happened while Father was away, and the urge to kill overcame me and I acted on it. I didn’t know what to do; I was terrified. When finally I admitted it to my father, he told me the truth. He and I were the same.”

  She was crying softly. “He tried to protect me. But he couldn’t even protect himself. We were the same, and we killed together, father and daughter. We shared in the bloodlettings. Neither of us could stop; neither of us could help the other.”

  She closed her eyes. “It hurts,” she whispered, and he knew she was speaking of the pain her memories caused her.

  He took her hands in his and held them. It was raining again, the droplets running down her anguished face. “Just rest a moment.”

  “Father is dead, isn’t he?”

  “I think he is.”

  “This will end it, then. Once I’m gone.” Her eyes opened. “Find the gemstone, Paxon. Don’t touch it. Just take it and destroy it. Promise me.”

  He nodded. “I will.”

  Her blood was soaking into the ground all around her, and her skin was growing whiter. “I could have loved you. I did love you. You were so nice. I just wanted you to be my friend. I didn’t want to hurt you, even when I knew I would. I tried not to, Paxon.”

  Her eyes fixed in an unseeing stare, and she quit breathing.

  “I know you did,” he whispered, and released her hands.

  He carried her body back to the mill and found Starks just getting ready to come after him. Together, they buried father and daughter in the deep woods, and then they began searching the cottage for the gemstone Iantha had warned about. It took them a long time to find it. Joh had hidden it well, perhaps because he was afraid of its power and wanted to protect against anyone else stumbling on it. They had to conduct their search cautiously because they didn’t want to touch it accidentally in the process of finding it. They located it finally at the back of a cabinet in the miller’s bedroom beneath a false drawer bottom. It was a wicked-looking thing, an irregularly shaped black orb with dozens of facets, their mirrored surfaces flecked with gold shards that glimmered and sparked like bits of dancing fire.

  “A passive magic,” Starks said, studying it carefully without touching it, using Druid magic to probe and reveal. “That’s why it didn’t register on the scrye. It only comes awake when the stone is touched. Otherwise, it lies dormant.”

  “Where did it come from?” Paxon said. “Who would have made such a thing? Or is it just an aberrant magic?”

  Starks shook his head. “I doubt that we will ever know. What matters is what we do with it now.”

  He pulled the cabinet drawer all the way out and dumped the gemstone onto the cottage floor. He used the toe of his boot to roll it into a leather pouch, which he then stuffed into a worn feed bag he found in the mill. He rolled up the feed bag and its deadly contents into a tight ball and bound it with twine.

  “That should keep it safe until we get it back to Paranor.”

  “What do we tell the townspeople?” Paxon asked.

  Starks shook his head. “Not the truth. They wouldn’t accept it. They wouldn’t want to live with it. They would spend the rest of their lives wondering who else might be infected.”

  Paxon understood. “Well, we’ll have to think of something to tell them that explains both the creature and the disappearance of Iantha and her father.”

  They talked about it at length as they rode back to the village. Finally, Starks said they would offer a version of the truth. They would say they found out the miller and his daughter were the creature’s next victims and tried to save them, but failed. Both died, but the creature was distracted long enough for the Druids to kill it. The creature was a changeling that assumed the shape of a wolf, as the witnesses had described. But it was dead now, and there was no further danger to anyone.

  So they rode back into Eusta and returned the horses to Joffre Struen, giving him the details of the agreed-upon explanation and leaving it to him to tell the rest of the townspeople. Starks made it a point to remind him they were always available to come help should the need arise, and to tell the others not to be afraid or suspicious of the Druids. They were friends, and they would help if they could.

  “About two out of five will believe that,” Starks commented as they walked back to the spot where they had left the airship. “But that number’s up from what it was before, and at the end of the day the problem is the same. We have to win the doubters, the disbelievers, and the antagonistic over one at a time.”

  They found the airship with no problem and boarded for home. Starks went back to his station in front of the pilot box and to his reading. After moving aimlessly about the decking for a time, Paxon settled down by the bowsprit to mull over what had happened. He kept thinking he should have realized the truth sooner; he could not shake the feeling he must have missed something he should have seen. Mostly, he thought of Iantha’s young face and her eagerness to be liked—nothing you wouldn’t find in any ordinary young girl. She hadn’t been much older than Chrysallin, and it haunted him that a young girl’s life could be cut short so easily and without any fault on her part. He realized anew how lucky he was to have gotten his sister free of Arcannen before something evil had happened to her.

  He wished he could have done the same for Iantha.

  He found himself wondering what the Ard Rhys would do with the deadly stone that had cost the girl and her father their lives. He hoped she would smash it into a thousand fragments and throw them into the sea.

  Below him, the countryside passed away in a rolling carpet of plains and forests and fields with rivers angling through it all. The rain, which had started much earlier and continued to fall throughout the day, abated finally, but the gloom and a misty haze remained. Long before it became dark, they were enveloped in low-slung banks of clouds. Far away, distant from where they flew, lights began to appear in the towns and villages, fireflies against the closing darkness.

  They spent that night in the Tirfing aboard ship. Paxon was unable to sleep, and he took the watch, sitting forward by the bowsprit once more, looking out over a countryside moonlit and calm beneath a clear sky, still troubled.

  He was there only a short time when Starks came over to join him.

  “Not happy with things, are you?” the Druid asked.

  Paxon shook his head. “I should feel better about this than I do.”

  “You were sent to protect me, and you did. You were sent to help me find and destroy the creature that was killing the people of Eusta, and you did. You were sent
to bring back whatever magic was at work, and you have.” Starks nodded to himself. “That’s as much as you can expect, Paxon. You might wish it made you feel better, but that isn’t always how it is afterward. You have to accept that.”

  “I know. But I can’t forget how she looked when she was dying. She was a victim of what that gemstone had done to her. She wasn’t a bad person. She was a victim. She shouldn’t have had that happen to her.”

  “No one should. But life isn’t fair, and the right thing doesn’t always happen. You know that.”

  Paxon didn’t respond. He did know. But he didn’t like it, and he wasn’t happy about how it left him hollowed out and dissatisfied.

  “It just doesn’t feel like we did as much as we could.”

  Starks gave him a nod. “This is how it is. Sometimes, it isn’t so satisfying. Sometimes, people die. We do what we can, Paxon. You have to be at peace with that. If you think you need more, you shouldn’t be doing this.” He paused. “Maybe you should give that some thought.”

  He rose. “But I think you are doing exactly what you should be doing. You did well back there. You showed courage and intelligence. You have my approval even if you don’t have your own. I’m going to bed. You should do the same.”

  He disappeared below, leaving Paxon to consider how much of what he had just heard he believed.

  They reached Paranor by midafternoon of the following day. Starks told Paxon to go clean up while he gave his report and the sack containing the dangerous gemstone to the Ard Rhys. She would want to see him later, but he might as well look and smell a little better before that happened.

  So Paxon washed and dressed in fresh clothes, then walked down to the dining hall to find something to eat. He was midway through an especially wonderful potato leek soup when Starks reappeared.

  “She would like to see you right away,” he said. He did not look happy.

  Paxon didn’t miss it. “What’s wrong?”

  “It would be better if she explained. Go to her working chambers. She’s waiting for you there.”

  Paxon left the table and his half-eaten meal and went down the hallways and up the stairs of the Keep until he reached the door that opened to her chambers. He paused, a premonition already telling him that this was bad.

  When he knocked, she called out at once. “Come in, Paxon.”

  He did, and found her at her desk, immersed once more in paperwork. The trussed-up feed bag containing the gemstone sat to one side. His eyes went to it immediately, and she gave him a tired smile. “You want to know what I will do with it?”

  “Yes,” he admitted.

  “It will be sealed away in a special compartment in the catacombs beneath the Keep. We have others of this sort down there, as well.” She paused. “We would destroy it, if we could, but such magic released from the confines of the stone would spread to other places and take other forms. We could end up with more than one dark magic, and it might even prove more dangerous than it is now.”

  “So you can’t destroy it?”

  She shook her head no. “Only contain it. But that’s usually enough. Sit down.”

  He sat, waiting for her to say something more.

  “As you know, we sent someone to keep watch over your sister and mother, just in case Arcannen returned. Sebec made the arrangements himself. He sent one of our own, a young Druid with only a year’s experience in using magic, but life skills that made him a good choice. He was to shadow your sister and mother, and he was to make sure nothing happened to them.”

  She paused. “Yesterday, he was found dead on the streets of the city. It was made to appear as if he was the victim of a theft, but those who found him and reported back to us say it was something more. Whatever else it was, it wasn’t a robbery. There were signs of magic in play. He was deliberately killed.”

  “My sister?” he asked quickly.

  She gave him a steady look. “She’s disappeared.”

  THIRTEEN

  CHRYSALLIN LEAH WOKE TO A ROOM FILLED WITH SHADOWS and emptiness, the only light seeping in through narrow cracks in a tightly shuttered window, the only sounds those she made when she stirred far enough to discover she was chained to the bed she was lying on. Her head was filled with cotton and her mouth was dry, but there was no cure on hand for either condition. She tested her limbs against the chains and found the former drained of strength and the latter secure. She was not going to change either condition right away no matter what she tried.

  She lay back reluctantly, stretching her long legs and torso and waiting for her lethargy to fade, wondering where she was.

  Or how she had gotten there, for that matter.

  The events leading up to her present situation were far from clear. She remembered going to the Brew Tide to help Jayet. That had been later in the afternoon, when the tavern was just starting to fill up. The crowd had been boisterous and impatient. Everyone wanted to get served at once, and no one was prepared to wait. She was flying around the room, caught up in the excitement and laughter of the drinkers, smiling and joking with them, and loving every minute. Later that night, she and Jayet would go down to the river for a private swim. The cool water would wash away the sweat and the smoke and the tavern smells, and the day would come to a pleasant, relaxing close.

  But the swim had never happened. What had? She had been serving the customers, carrying trays with tankards of ale and bowls of soup and plates of bread, and then …

  She had gone outside. Just for a moment, to get a breath of fresh air, to escape the din.

  And that was the last thing she could remember.

  Now she was a prisoner in a dark room, snatched away from her friends and home without explanation, brought here for no apparent reason, chained to a bed in this dark room.

  Except that right away she thought of Arcannen and the last time this had happened. Even if it had happened in a slightly different way, it still felt the same and she could not help thinking that once again this was the sorcerer’s doing. She pondered the idea for long minutes. If it was Arcannen, was this still about the gambling debt she hadn’t settled? Or was this an attempt to get at her brother? Was the sorcerer using her to get revenge on Paxon for what had happened at Dark House? She still wasn’t sure what it was all about the first time. Had the sorcerer been after her for making a bet she couldn’t pay and wanting to teach her a lesson, or was he after Paxon for reasons that were never made clear?

  Whatever the case, she was beginning to grow steadily more certain that it was the sorcerer who had snatched her away.

  She glanced down at herself in dismay, aware suddenly of a chill she hadn’t noticed before. Sure enough, beneath the thin sheet that covered her, she was naked. Every last stitch of clothing had been removed. She gritted her teeth. Very likely she was back in Dark House, and whatever Arcannen’s intentions, it would be a lot more difficult for Paxon to come to her rescue this time.

  Chrysallin might have been only fifteen, but she was tough-minded and confident, more a young woman than a girl. She had grown up wild and reckless, and there wasn’t much she hadn’t tried. Constantly in trouble for one thing or another, she had learned much of what she knew the hard way. She had taught herself how to stand up to anyone, how to behave when she was threatened, and how to accept punishment when it was unavoidable. So she was not about to start panicking now. She was less than pleased that her clothes had been removed, but it was not cause for losing control.

  Not yet, at least.

  She took a deep breath and released it with a shudder. Someone was fumbling with the door handle. A key was being fitted into a lock and turning. She heard the lock release and watched the door open.

  Sure enough, Arcannen stood in the opening, wrapped in his black robes and backlit by the hall light. He studied her momentarily in a casual, indifferent way and then came into the room, closing the door behind him. A quick touch to smokeless lamps on either side of the door chased the darkness away sufficiently that he and his prisoner
could see each other.

  “You seem to be doing fine,” he observed. There was a touch of humor in his voice. “For someone chained naked to a bed.”

  “My brother will come for you,” she said quietly, keeping her gaze locked on his.

  “I certainly hope so. That’s been my intention all along.”

  “So you were never really interested in collecting that gambling debt? That was just an excuse for luring my brother to Wayford?”

  He crossed the room and sat down next to her on the edge of the bed, then reached out and ran his hand over her leg and up her thigh to her breast. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Having you here promises to be lots of fun.”

  She felt a chill sweep through her, but managed to keep from showing what she was feeling. “You made that threat before. This is probably the best someone like you can do. A girl chained to the bed is the only way you’ll ever get close to any woman.”

  He pursed his lips, a sneer forming. “Or in your case, any girl. But don’t worry. I won’t do anything to you. I won’t make you work in the pleasure stalls or scrub the floors or service my guards. That’s not for you. I want you in perfect shape for when your brother comes to trade for you.”

  She stared at him, the pieces suddenly coming together. “You want his sword. That’s what you were after before, but you didn’t get it. So you are still trying, aren’t you? Me for the sword—that’s the bargain you’re hoping to make.”

  The hawkish features tightened. “The bargain I will make, Chrysallin. Your brother will give anything to get you back in one piece. Only this time I won’t be caught off guard by his promises. And you won’t be taken away quite so easily. This time things will be a little different.”

  She gave him a look, her resolve tightening. “Can you hurry it up? Or can you at least give me some clothes and take off these chains? How much trouble do you think a fifteen-year-old girl can be?”

  “I’m not sure I want to find out. Chained to this bed and stripped of clothes, I don’t think you can be much trouble at all. Dressed and let loose, perhaps a whole lot.”