The High Druid's Blade

  But then he got angry with himself. He was not a coward, and he was acting like one. He could risk a quick look, couldn’t he? He had gotten this far. He was fast enough that he could slam the door shut again and flee down the hall and out of the building before anything in that room could get to him. Flashes of green light didn’t mean anything. Since when could that hurt you?

  Since the Federation had found a way to reshape rough-cut sets of diapson crystals to create flash rips, he answered himself.

  But what would something like diapson crystals be doing here? This was a witch’s lair, and magic was what would be waiting inside.

  He took a deep breath, tightening his resolve. He would crack the door, he told himself. Just a bit. He would peek inside and see if anything threatened. If it did, he would run out of there immediately.

  He could do this.

  Even so, he almost didn’t. He almost listened to his worst fears and turned around and left. He almost gave it up then and there because he couldn’t think of any real justification for taking the sort of risk that opening that door would likely yield.

  But then, almost on impulse, angry and impatient with himself, he pushed down on the handle and cracked open the door.

  What he saw was confusing and scary. Bands of light crisscrossed the room, running everywhere in irregular patterns before converging on a bed near the back of the room where they wrapped about someone who was lying there. He could tell it was a person, even in the indistinct greenish glow. A thin covering outlined a body that jerked and shuddered and writhed in response to whatever the light was doing to it.

  It was a surreal moment, and Grehling almost closed the door and fled. This was beyond anything he understood, and he needed to tell someone about it right away. But who would he tell? Who was going to come back here and go up against the witch? And likely face Arcannen, as well?

  So he hesitated, trying to make out the prisoner’s face in the dim light. He was unsuccessful until a twisting of limbs and body brought her face into view, and he found himself looking at Chrysallin Leah. He stared in disbelief. So Arcannen had recaptured her and brought her back to Wayford, after all. But what was being done to her? What were these bands of light intended to accomplish?

  Whatever it was, it wasn’t good. It was clear the witch’s magic was attacking her. He had to forget about getting help and get her out of there himself. There was no one else. A fourteen-year-old boy trying to get help with the story he would have to tell would only be laughed at. He would be ignored. Even the soldiers at the Federation army garrison would brush him off. Besides, he couldn’t let her continue to suffer like this. She was in obvious pain, in some sort of agony caused by the bands of light. She needed his help at once.

  But what was he supposed to do?

  He stood there, undecided. Time was running out. The witch would be returning. He had to act quickly. But anything he wanted to do began with entering the room. If he did that, would he be trapped in Mischa’s web, as well? Would he become bound up like Chrysallin?

  There was only one way to find out.

  He stuck his arm into the room. When nothing happened, he stepped inside the door all the way.

  Immediately he was assailed by images of Chrysallin in strange places, a gray-haired Elven woman nearby, and various dangers threatening. The images filled his mind, buckling his knees with their darkness and intensity. He took another step, and the force of the images pressed down harder on him. They scrambled his thoughts, and on the bed Chrysallin Leah thrashed violently.

  He closed his eyes to concentrate on steadying himself and took another two steps into the room. When he opened them again, the lines were fragmenting and losing focus, beginning in some places to curl up like burned threads and in others to fall away completely. There was a strange buzzing sound as the pulsing of the greenish light intensified.

  Keep going, he told himself.

  He continued on, moving with slow, steady steps toward the bed and the girl, trying to block out the images and to concentrate on what he knew he must do. The bands of light were collapsing altogether now, blinking into darkness, falling away. They offered no resistance as he passed through them, shredding and fading at his touch. Though the images continued, they were losing force, flickering in and out of his consciousness. His passage through the room was obviously disrupting the magic, and it gave him heart and persuaded him to continue.

  By the time he had reached the bed, the bands of light had disappeared almost completely. He knelt by the girl and shook her gently.

  “Wake up,” he urged. “Chrysallin? Can you hear me? Wake up!”

  And she did, her eyes opening to find his face, horror-filled and despairing. “Who are you?”

  “Grehling Cara. I’m a friend of your brother’s.”

  Then her look changed to one of hope, and she sat up quickly and threw her arms around him.

  “Thank you, thank you,” she whispered in his ear, holding on to him tightly. “Thank you for coming!”

  “We have to go,” he said. “Quickly. Can you walk?”

  He helped her stand, but she was clearly in a great deal of pain in spite of the fact that she seemed to have suffered no obvious injuries. He checked her over surreptitiously, conscious of her near nakedness and embarrassed to be looking, but he could find no wounds.

  “You have to walk. I can’t carry you. But I can help support you.”

  She was dressed in a night shift, and there was no sign of her clothes anywhere. He would have liked to find her boots, at least, but there was no time for a search. With one arm about her waist, he walked her toward the bedroom door.

  Midway there, she stopped, looking back, glancing around. “Mischa,” she said.

  “Back any minute.” He started her moving again. “We don’t want her to catch us here.”

  “But her head? What happened to her head?”

  He had no idea what she was talking about, and he didn’t want to take time to find out. So he just kept moving her toward the front door, helping her stay upright, one arm wrapped firmly about her slender waist. She was muttering to herself about things he couldn’t understand, every so often mentioning the Elven woman and Arcannen and her brother. It was enough to convince him that whatever was going on, it had to do with bringing Paxon back to Wayford. It also convinced him that the sorcerer and the witch were deadly serious about making this happen or they wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble to kidnap the girl a second time and then layer her with bands of magic intended to …

  He paused in his thinking. To do what?

  In point of fact, what were those bands? He really didn’t know. But he would find out, once he got somewhere safe and could talk to Chrysallin about it.

  “Keep moving,” he said. “You’re all right now. You’re doing fine.”

  She murmured something unintelligible, but gripped him more tightly with the arm she had slung across his shoulders. She was tall, taller than he was, and it was awkward trying to steer her. She was keeping upright, but it was taking everything she had to do so.

  “Don’t look at me,” she said at one point, and he thought she must be embarrassed by her lack of clothes and wished he could find a robe or shawl with which to cover her.

  But there was no time for that or anything else. He had to get out of the witch’s rooms and her building and safely away. Time was something he didn’t have to waste.

  He reached the door and flung it open and abruptly found himself face-to-face with the witch. There was no time to think, no chance to do anything but react. He slammed his fist into Mischa’s snarling face, catching her flush between her eyes. He was small and not much of a fighter, but desperation and fear lent him unexpected strength and the blow packed real force. Her head snapped back, her eyes rolled up, and down she went.

  Leaning Chrysallin against the wall, he bent over the witch, made sure she was unconscious, then pulled off her boots and put them on the girl. In less than a minute, he had his arm a
round Chrysallin once more, steering her down the hall to the stairs, down the stairs to the first floor, then down the passageway there and out the door to the alleyway.

  Whatever he was going to do now, he thought worriedly, he had better do it fast.

  EIGHTEEN

  EMERGING FROM MISCHA’S BUILDING INTO THE ALLEYWAY with Chrysallin clinging to him, Grehling was surprised to find that dusk was setting in. He’d paid no attention to the time of day while tracking Arcannen and then freeing the girl, and he was vaguely disturbed to find he no longer had much daylight left. He supposed this was an automatic reaction to a change he hadn’t anticipated, but he also knew it was a response to not wanting to be caught out in his present circumstances after dark.

  He slowed at the alley entrance and peered both ways down the street beyond. A solitary cart was ambling along from his right, pulled by a donkey and driven by an old man. No one was in view to his left, in the direction of Dark House. It was as much as he could have hoped for; one old man did not suggest problems. But he was still dizzy from punching Mischa in the face and having to half carry Chrysallin out of the house, and feeling less than able to deal with much of anything more.

  Especially Mischa.

  If she caught up to him now …

  He wondered suddenly if she knew who he was. He didn’t think so, but he couldn’t afford to take the chance. That meant he couldn’t haul Chrysallin back to the airfield and try to hide her there. If the witch had recognized him, she would bring Arcannen right to his front door. He had to get Chrysallin out of the city altogether if he wanted to be sure she was safe. He had to return her to her brother.

  But first he had to get them both off the streets of the city and out of sight.

  The cart with the old man and the donkey rolled past, and he turned to Chrysallin. “Can you walk yet?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  At least, she seemed a bit more lucid. She was no longer muttering to herself and sounding as if she were drunk, even if she still looked it. He eased her out of the alley and turned her down the street. She was doing better with supporting herself, not entirely able to let go of him and still staggering slightly, but making an effort at walking alone. Fortunately, this was a part of the city where a boy walking with an intoxicated girl wouldn’t attract much attention.

  But it was a long way to the airfield, if he intended to go there, and now he was thinking maybe he should, in spite of the danger. If Mischa had recognized him, she would come after him. But whether she did or not, Chrysallin Leah was not safe in Wayford and had to be taken somewhere else. To do that, he would need an airship to fly her there.

  Which meant going to the airfield.

  But afoot it would take forever.

  He was sweating heavily now, and the fear that had been temporarily submerged by his earlier excitement was resurfacing. What had he done? He still couldn’t believe it. He was risking his life for a girl he didn’t even know for reasons he couldn’t quite define. He knew it was the right thing to do, but it was so foolish it bordered on insanity. He had heard the stories of what Arcannen did to his enemies. He knew what was likely to happen to him if he were caught out at this point. And Mischa’s reputation was no less terrifying, and her response unlikely to be much different than Arcannen’s.

  “We have to walk faster,” he muttered.

  But Chrysallin was moving as fast as she could, and even after long minutes they had only gotten a few blocks away and were still on the main road. He was beginning to panic now, in danger of losing what little confidence he had left. He had to find a new plan, change what he was doing to something that made sense, and get off the street!

  Then he remembered Leofur Rai.

  She lived not two blocks away, just off this roadway, tucked back down a narrow pass-through. He didn’t see much of her anymore, but she might be willing to help him. Of the alternatives he could manage to conjure, this was the best one.

  Chrysallin had begun muttering to herself again, slipping in and out of lucidity, head drooping, body starting to sag. She wasn’t strong enough for this yet, and it further convinced him that getting her to a place where she could rest was essential. He moved her forward, speaking to her softly as he did, urging her to keep going, to be strong, to remember she was free and would soon reach her brother.

  They were just words and maybe even wishful thinking, but they kept her going. He could tell she heard him and was responding, but her focus was limited and her strength barely equal to what was required of her.

  Nevertheless, he got her to the side street and into the pass-through, and in moments they were standing at Leofur’s door. He tried to imagine for a moment what his reception would be like, but failed to manage an image that could do it justice. So in the end, he simply knocked, stepped back from the entry, and waited, doing his best to keep Chrysallin steady as she swayed drunkenly, trying to put together in his head the words he would need to persuade Leofur to help.

  When the door finally opened, there she was, exactly as he remembered her. Brilliant green eyes, honey-colored hair artificially streaked with silver, perfect features, not very big, sort of on the short side, but immediately unforgettable. He’d fallen in love with her the moment his father hired her to care for him—she only fifteen, he still a child and not yet even aware of what real love was, but spellbound even so. His mother was dead by then, and his father didn’t want him to grow up without a woman’s hand. So Leofur had been brought in to care for him in those years before his father remarried, and even at eight years of age he was smitten from day one.

  A hopeless infatuation, of course, but it was one he still remembered as if it had happened yesterday. When she left, he had thought he might follow her. But by then he was realizing how hopeless it all was, and so he had chosen not only to quit thinking about her but also to not see her again.

  That had been three years ago, and this was the first time he had been able to make himself come looking for her. She gave him a flat, expressionless look, her smooth face hiding the surprise that flashed momentarily in her eyes.

  “Can we come in?” he asked, trying his best not to give away his own feelings on seeing her again. “Please?”

  She stood where she was, her gaze shifting between the girl and him. “How bad is this?” she asked finally.

  “About as bad as it could be,” he admitted. “We need to get off the streets right away.”

  Without another word, she stepped aside, holding the door open to allow them to enter and then quickly closing it behind them.

  “Sit her down at the kitchen table,” she told him, hurrying ahead to move several stacks of clothes she had been sorting. She glanced back at him as she did so. “I wondered if I would ever see you again.”

  He nodded, his face gone flaming red. “I just couldn’t,” he said.

  At the end of things, he had told her he loved her. Just before she left them to go back to her own life. He thought maybe she might take him with her. But instead she sat him down and told him she couldn’t do that. He would have to stay with his father until he was old enough to be out on his own. What she was telling him, of course, was that she didn’t love him in the way he loved her. It was a terrible moment; he had felt destroyed.

  “Who is this you have with you?” she asked.

  “This is Chrysallin. She’s from the Highlands. Arcannen took her prisoner and locked her away in Dark House. He’s working with that old crone, Mischa.”

  He went on to tell her everything—all about the first kidnapping that was meant to lure Paxon Leah to Wayford, the rescue and escape that followed, the second kidnapping and how he had learned about it by chance, and his own rescue of Chrysallin that had brought him here.

  “I couldn’t leave her. I couldn’t let what was happening to her continue.”

  “Which was some sort of magic?” Leofur turned to the girl. “What were they doing to you?”

  Chrysallin looked s
tartled. “I asked! I begged them to tell me! But they wouldn’t answer. Not the Elven woman. Not any of them. They just kept hurting me! They cut me and broke my bones and pulled the skin from my body. They used metal tools to make the pain worse, and all I could think about was how they were taking me apart, destroying me. The way they were making me look …”

  Leofur shifted her eyes to Grehling questioningly. What? She mouthed the word soundlessly.

  He shook his head. I don’t know.

  “Where are you hurt?” Leofur asked the girl.

  “Everywhere! Can’t you see?” She was instantly hysterical, wildeyed. “Look at me! No one can see me like this.”

  Leofur moved over to sit next to her, taking her hands in her own. “But there’s nothing wrong with you, Chrysallin. Everything is fine.”

  The Highland girl gasped in disbelief. “How can you say that? Look at my hands, my fingers. Look at my body!”

  And she ripped open her nightshirt to reveal a perfectly flawless breast and shoulders.

  Leofur gently pulled her garments back together and took Chrysallin in her arms and held her as she sobbed uncontrollably. “I think it would help if you would lie down. But first let’s give you something to help you sleep.”

  She prepared some tea—or something that looked like tea—made of leaves she poured from a small pouch. Chrysallin drank the pungent liquid obediently, now and then glancing to make certain Grehling was still there. When she was finished, she allowed herself to be led over to the couch and placed on it. Leofur brought out a blanket and wrapped her in it, and in moments she was asleep.