“I am very sorry to hear that Ahren Elessedil is dead,” he said to Tagwen, changing the subject.
The Dwarf looked down at his hands and shook his shaggy head slowly. “He was a brave man, Bek Ohmsford. He gave his life so that the rest of us could go on. We would not have reached Kermadec and Taupo Rough, let alone Stridegate and the tanequil, if not for him.”
“And the Elven girl is his niece?”
“Khyber Elessedil. Tough as old leather, that girl, though nearly as young as Penderrin. She has the Elfstones. Took them from the Elessedils and brought them to Ahren so that he would teach her how to use them. Turned out he had no choice. She used them in the Slags to sink the Galaphile, then again later to help us on our journey here. She had them with her when she disappeared in Stridegate.”
“But you think that she boarded one of the Druid airships that took Pen to Paranor?” Rue asked.
Tagwen looked at Kermadec and came to some unspoken agreement. “Something might have happened to her in the ruins after she left us and went in search of Penderrin, but I don’t think so,” the Dwarf declared. He looked up. “She was very close to the boy and determined to help him reach the Ard Rhys. I think she found a way, and that’s why he was able to get into the Forbidding after the Druids took him prisoner.”
“Well, the fact that the King of the Silver River told Bek in his dream that an Elven girl is one of the three who will help us reach Pen suggests you are right. But where is she now?”
“She must be at Paranor,” Kermadec answered with another shrug. “Waiting for us.”
“Then we must go there to help them,” Tagwen declared firmly. “It was the promise I made to young Penderrin before they took him, and I intend to fulfill it.”
“As do I,” Kermadec agreed.
“How, exactly, are you going to go about doing that?” Bellizen asked suddenly. Starlight reflected in her ink-black eyes. “Do you have a plan?”
Neither of them did, of course. No one did. There was a long silence as they pondered her question. They had been so consumed with reaching Paranor that none of them had given much thought to what they would do once they were there. It wasn’t at all clear, they realized as they reflected on the possibilities, what their course of action should be.
“What are we up against at Paranor?” Bek asked finally, looking from Bellizen to Trefen Morys. “How much support does my sister have?”
Trefen Morys shook his head. “Very little, I’m afraid. There are a handful of Druids who openly support her and will stand with her when she returns, but most have been dismissed from the order. Those who remain support Shadea. It isn’t that they believe so strongly in her; it’s more that they mistrust your sister. She has never been able to shed her image as the Ilse Witch, not entirely.”
“Some will stand with her when she returns,” Bellizen added. “But only some, and I do not think we can count their numbers with any degree of certainty. Some will stand with her because, like us, they believe in her. Some will stand with her because they have seen how badly Shadea a’Ru has dealt with her power. But most will take no stand at all.”
“That works both ways, of course,” Kermadec pointed out. “They do not choose to stand with her, but will not stand with Shadea, either. That gives us a chance.”
“Why do you support her?” Rue asked Bellizen, glancing at Trefen Morys, as well. “Why have you taken her side?”
Bellizen blushed. “It is not easy to explain. I do so in part because she was kind to me when others were not. She brought me to Paranor at the suggestion of another Druid, from a village in the Runne where my talents were considered abnormal and my safety threatened. I do not know how she found out about me, but she told me that I belonged with her. I believed that. She has never given me cause to think badly of her or to want her gone. I think she is the Ard Rhys we need. I think she understands the purposes of magic better than anyone.”
“I came from a village close to Bellizen’s,” Trefen Morys added. “We did not know each other before Paranor, but have become friends since. I came to Paranor on my own, seeking a chance to study with the Druids. My mistress gave me that chance. She gave me responsibilities and taught me herself on more than one occasion.”
“She is a great lady.” Bellizen bit her lip, glancing quickly at her companion. “Those who follow her are mostly younger and never knew her as the Ilse Witch. The others, the older ones, cannot seem to forget. They think of her still as a dark creature, capable of reverting without warning. They do not know her as Trefen and I do. They are less forgiving because their lives are too deeply rooted in the past.”
“They are not alone,” Bek said quietly. “Perhaps that is just the way of things.” He surveyed the faces of the others. “Very well. We know what we have to do. We have to find a way into the Keep and the sleeping chamber of the Ard Rhys. That is where Penderrin and Grianne will reappear when they return from the Forbidding.”
He almost added, if they can find a way back, but he caught himself just in time. Rue didn’t need to hear him saying anything about the odds. She understood them well enough.
“It is more complicated than that,” Trefen Morys interjected quickly. “We have to find a way to be inside the sleeping chamber at just the right time. We have to devise a way of knowing exactly when Pen and my mistress will reappear. If we don’t choose the right moment, Shadea and her allies will find us out.”
The little company went silent, dismayed at the prospect of being stopped after they had come so far and endured so much. But the task the young Druid had just described seemed impossible.
Bek turned to Tagwen. “The King of the Silver River said that the keys to helping Pen were in the hands of his companions—Kermadec, Khyber Elessedil, and yourself. Maybe we should start there. Can you think what he might have been talking about? Is there some special kind of help that you can give us?”
Tagwen considered the question. “Well, there is one possibility,” he said after a moment. “I know a way into Paranor using tunnels that run beneath the bluff to the furnace room and continue all through the walls of the Keep. The Ard Rhys showed them to me once, a maze of passages. She used magic to block those leading to her rooms, but perhaps your own magic can undo hers.”
“So we can reach the sleeping chamber unseen if I can remove my sister’s safeguards?” Bek asked.
The Dwarf nodded rather reluctantly. “Perhaps. If Shadea hasn’t discovered the tunnels as well and set traps of her own.”
“We’ll have to risk it,” Bek declared at once. “We’ve risked worse already to get where we are. Kermadec, what of you?”
The Rock Troll knotted his great hands and looked at Atalan. “Brother, I think the Trolls need to show the Four Lands where we stand in this business. Marching against the Urdas is a waste of time and purpose. We need to march on Paranor and the Druids instead. They attacked Taupo Rough and drove our people out. The attack was unprovoked. Dismissing the Troll guard while it was still in service to the Ard Rhys is insult enough, although we could have endured it. But attacking our home is beyond acceptable. Perhaps we should repay their visit with one of our own.”
Atalan’s response was a slow, wicked grin. “Let’s pull down the walls around their ears!”
“Or at least pull the wool over their eyes—a distraction to give you time to get into place.” Kermadec glanced at the others. “Several thousand Rock Trolls gathered at the gates will be something that not even the Druids can ignore. If we must, we will come through those gates to your aid, but at the very least we will keep those snakes pinned down within their own fortress for the time it takes for our mistress to deal with them as she chooses.”
“And deal with them she will, you may be sure,” Tagwen grunted, looking almost happy.
“That leaves Khyber Elessedil,” Bellizen said. “What of her?”
“Her purpose seems easier to divine,” Bek responded quickly. “She carries the Elfstones given her by Ahren Elessedil. They are s
eeking-stones, and I think finding the demon that has crossed over from the Forbidding will be our first order of business after my sister returns. The Elfstones will make that task much easier.”
He looked from face to face in the darkness. “We have at least the beginnings of a plan. I think that is the best we can hope for.”
“What I don’t understand,” Rue declared suddenly, “is why the King of the Silver River didn’t make this business of the keys and the companions clearer to you in your dream, Bek. He could have told you what purpose Kermadec and Tagwen and Khyber Elessedil were to serve. Why didn’t he do that?”
“Faerie creatures and shades are secretive and seldom speak the whole truth,” Bellizen ventured.
But Bek shook his head. “I think it is something else. I think we were given a starting point, but nothing more. The future remains undecided. Things may change as events unfold, and we must be ready to change with them. If the King of the Silver River had told me in my dream exactly what the keys were, we might have become too reliant on his words. As it is, we remain uncertain that we have it right. He wants that. He wants us to find our own way. He wants us to understand that the way is not yet determined.”
There was a long silence as the others contemplated his words. They knew where they must go and what they must do, but they still did not know how they would accomplish it. The future was a mystery. It was the way the world had always worked. It was the way it would work here.
“We must leave at once,” Tagwen declared. “We have no idea how much time remains before the Ard Rhys and young Penderrin cross back.”
But Bek shook his head. “No, Tagwen, we need to rest first. We’ll stay where we are until dawn, sleep while we can, and fly north tomorrow to Kermadec’s people. Once the Trolls are safely delivered and can begin their preparations for a march on Paranor, the rest of us will go ahead to search for Khyber Elessedil.”
“And to discover when my mistress and your son will reappear within the Keep,” Bellizen added quietly.
It was a disturbing reminder of how difficult the days ahead were going to be.
One by one the members of the company rose and went off to sleep. Most had not slept in days and were exhausted. Bek was the exception. Better rested than the others, he went back up into the pilot box to keep watch.
He was surprised when he found that Rue was following him.
“You should go to sleep,” he said, turning back to stop her, reaching out to touch her cheek. “You’ve slept less than anyone.”
She nodded. “I’ll sleep soon enough. But I have to say something to you first. Whatever else happens, Bek, I intend to make certain that once Penderrin gets free of the Forbidding, he is kept safe. I intend to protect him from Shadea a’Ru and the rest of those monsters. I don’t care what it takes. I don’t even care what happens to me.”
She was almost in tears as she finished. He tried to hold her, but she pushed him away, refusing to be comforted, defiance on her features. “Promise me that you will do the same.”
“You know you don’t have to ask me this,” he said. “You know I feel the same way you do.”
Tight-lipped, she nodded. “I do know it. But I also know that your sister is involved, and that her interests may conflict with ours. Her plans for Pen may not be acceptable. So I need to hear you say it, just in case that happens. I need to hear you promise that if a choice is necessary, you will choose our son.”
A sadness inside left him hollow and sick at heart. He knew he would never be able to resolve his wife’s feelings—her mistrust and her suspicions—for his sister. He understood why, and he did not blame her. Had he been in her shoes, he would have felt the same.
He reached for her hands, and this time she did not back away. “I promise,” he said. “Nothing bad will happen to Pen. No chances will be taken with his safety. His needs come before those of Grianne and the Druid order.”
She came into his arms then, reaching to hold him close, her cheek placed against his, her mouth so close to his ear that he could hear her breathing.
“I’m sorry I had to ask that,” she whispered.
“Don’t be. Don’t be sorry for anything.”
“I wish Big Red were here.”
“I wish Quentin were here.”
But her brother was somewhere off the coast of the Blue Divide, flying his airship in service to whoever had paid him most recently, and Quentin Leah was dead two years, never fully recovered from the wounds he had received in Parkasia. Bek thought often of them both, and thinking of them made him wish he could turn time back far enough for them all to be together just once more. But life didn’t give you second chances at such things. Life just swept you along and never took you back to where you had been.
“It will be all right,” he whispered.
He had said that to her once before and had not been certain it was true. This time, for reasons he could not explain, he felt that it might be.
FIFTEEN
When he was finished speaking, Shadea a’Ru studied Pyson Wence as if studying an interesting insect, glanced momentarily at Traunt Rowan, and then turned her back to both of them and looked out the window into the fading afternoon light.
“Tell it to me again,” she said softly.
She managed to keep the rage from her voice, but it radiated from her body like heat off sunbaked earth in midsummer. She sensed their trepidation, their uncertainty, but she let them live with it as the silence between them lengthened.
“I really don’t see the point in going over it a second time,” Pyson Wence replied.
She could picture his exchange of looks with Traunt Rowan, could picture as well the sullen, gimlet-eyed stare, the one that waffled between boredom and disdain, he was giving her back. She could picture the way his sharp Gnome features were tightening, eyes narrowing and mouth twisting into a crooked line. She had seen that look often enough to have it memorized. She knew when to expect it. Even thinking of it enraged her further.
“I just want to be sure I didn’t miss anything,” she said.
She remained turned away so that they couldn’t see her face. The silence returned and lengthened slowly as she waited to see which of them would speak next. Until then, Pyson had done all the talking. That was unusual, given the fact that it was Traunt Rowan who normally did the talking for them both. He was the one who stayed calm when there was bad news to deliver or an untenable position to defend. He was the steady one. Pyson was the weasel, the sly one, the manipulator, and perhaps they had decided that his skills were what would work best in their current predicament.
If they had possessed an ounce of sense between them, they would have realized that nothing would save them.
Pyson cleared his throat. “There is nothing to be gained from going over it all—”
“Tell it to me again!” she screamed, wheeling now to fix him with her white-hot glare.
Her tall, muscular body was taut and flexed, as if she might attack him. He blanched at her words, at her posture; he wilted under her glare. He turned small and insignificant. But he was quick-witted and adaptable, and he could return to form in a moment’s time, so she gave him no hint of compassion, no suggestion that his lifeline would extend beyond the next moment.
“Cat got your tongue, Pyson?” she spit, taking a quick step toward him, causing him to take several back. “Is the task too difficult for you? Is repeating the words you just spoke too onerous, too demanding? I want to hear them again, Pyson. I want to hear you tell it all to me again! Now!”
“Let him be,” Traunt Rowan said, speaking for the first time.
She shifted her angry gaze instantly. “Oh, so you would speak in his place, then? Do so, Traunt Rowan. Amuse me.”
“No one is amused, Shadea. Your sarcasm is wasted. We are as angry as you are about what has happened. But it isn’t anything we could have avoided. We thought the boy safely locked away.”
“Yes, I’m sure you did!” she snapped. “Very much the way
you thought his parents were safely locked away. But they escaped as well, didn’t they? In fact, they escaped first! Odd. You were given some indication that your security was not all that tight, but that doesn’t seem to have made any difference because you didn’t change anything and so the boy escaped, too!”
Traunt Rowan shook his head. “The parents escaped because two of our number, misguided believers in the right of Grianne Ohmsford to be considered Ard Rhys even past all reasonable hope, helped them escape. Young Druids—Trefen Morys, whom we mistrusted already, and a girl about whom I know almost nothing. If not for them, the boy’s parents would still be here, locked away. But we will get them back again.”
She laughed at him. “You sent out word that you have their son, thinking that they will march right back to Paranor when they hear the news. You are deluded. They know what will happen if they return. Even to save their son, whom we don’t, in fact, have anyway! You underestimated them once and you are doing so again! Besides, it makes no difference now whether we have them or not, does it?”
She stalked across the room to where the door to her sleeping chamber stood closed, flung it open, and knocked the Gnome guard who crouched with his ear to the door all the way across the hall and into the wall beyond, where he lay stunned and bleeding.
“Try to listen in on my conversations again, and I will cut your throat,” she hissed, speaking to him in his own tongue, her voice thick and guttural in the Gnome way. “No one is to come near this door again until I open it!”
Without waiting for a response, she slammed the door shut, wheeling back on the other two. “They listen to everything, your trusted followers, Pyson. They listen and report to you, but that’s going to stop right now.”
Terror flickered in Pyson Wence’s yellow eyes. She watched it shift into a hint of desperation and shook her head in disgust. “You are hopeless.” She glanced disdainfully at Traunt Rowan. “Both of you.”