by Terry Brooks
His suspicions of the old woman were warranted, and Dar did not question them. He knew there was no way to be sure how far they could trust her, given what she may have done. He was deeply troubled by the fact that she had survived when no one else had. Perhaps she was simply clever or lucky. But if it was something more, if there were still other secrets in play, it might be a good idea if one of them belonged to Drisker and himself.
The Druid had the scrye orb in hand, and Dar watched it brighten before his face. It lasted just long enough for the Druid to frown at it before it went dark again. There had been no words spoken, no communication exchanged.
The Druid tucked the orb into his clothing. “She is not responding.”
“Perhaps because she cannot? Could she have been found and killed?”
“It’s possible.”
“So what do we do?”
Drisker shrugged. “We try to find out. Quickly.”
—
Ober Balronen had barricaded himself in his sleeping chambers with Druid Guards stationed at the doorway, both inside and out. He was not so stupid as to think the Keep’s attackers, whoever they were, would not come for him. He was frantically trying to figure out a way to escape when the white-cloaked leader of the invaders dispatched the guards outside his chamber almost before they knew what was happening and was through the door, bloodied sword in hand.
The remaining two guards were quickly brought down, as well, and the Ard Rhys of the Fourth Druid Order was alone.
Tall and stooped in his white nightdress, he stood waiting, his sword held out in challenge. His gaunt features were twisted in a mix of rage and disgust. His black hair hung long and loose about his face. Shifting rapidly from side to side as he continued to seek freedom, his eyes glittered with the fear that was consuming him. Though he could not know it himself, he had the appearance of someone already dead. The white-cloaked leader advanced on him, weapon lifting. Balronen’s feeble attempt to defend himself failed, his sword knocked from his hand as if it were a toy. His attacker snatched at the front of his nightdress and hauled him close, then struck him on the side of his head and left him dazed and barely conscious.
As he was hauled from the room by his captor, shouts and cries rose from the hallway beyond where weapons clashed and flashes of light revealed the presence of Druid magic. Balronen peered ahead through eyes fogged by pain and tears. What was revealed was pretty much what he had feared. It was less a battle than an execution. The Druids were woefully unprepared for an attack undertaken in the dead of night inside their fortress. Sleep-drugged and confused, they died within seconds of waking, most never making it out of their bedrooms. Some few struggled to stand against their attackers, making a futile attempt to fight back. Prax Tolt, only partially dressed but well armed with sword and the blue fire of his magic, had rallied a few others to him, all of them possessed of similar magic and considerable fighting skills. They battled to hold the invaders back, but in the end were driven back and cut down.
Those Druids still fighting around them saw it happen and realized their fate. Several dropped to their knees and begged for mercy. Chu Frenk, his substantial girth pierced in a dozen places, was screaming for attention, claiming that he could help the invaders, that his services could be valuable. Ober Balronen felt a wave of disgust and fury as the invasion leader yanked him forward. A gesture and a sharp reply and all of those attempting surrender were killed on the spot—including the Dwarf who pleaded for his life even as it bled out of him.
His white cloak blood-spattered and soiled, the leader turned away, scanning a hallway emptied of everyone but the dead and dying as his soldiers worked their way from room to room, searching out the last survivors. There wouldn’t be many left by now. Bodies were sprawled everywhere, most of them Druids. The surprise attack had been a complete success. The Druids were all but annihilated. The invaders could do with Paranor what they pleased. What that might be may not have been decided yet, Balronen thought, as the invasion leader brought him to his feet and held him in place, but it was sufficient for now to know to whom the choice belonged.
—
Drisker Arc and Dar Leah hurried along the cellar passageways toward the archival vaults, where the Druid was convinced he would find Clizia waiting for them. Her plan to hide and wait for their arrival might easily have gone askew, forcing her to rush to their meeting place earlier than expected. Dar did not expect to find her there, however; if she were already in place, she still would have been able to answer the scrye orb summons. But as Drisker said, there was no way to be certain without having a look, so they would make the time for it.
But when they reached the passageway to the rooms that housed the archives, he found it empty and the vaults undisturbed.
Again, Drisker tried to reach her using the scrye orb. Again, she did not respond.
“I think we need to have a look upstairs for her,” Drisker said reluctantly.
Dar Leah shook his head. “Too dangerous. Too many chances of being discovered. Besides, you don’t need her, do you? Can’t we just retrieve the Black Elfstone, summon the Guardian, and get out of here?”
Drisker smiled. “We could. But that would mean leaving Clizia behind. I don’t think I want to do that. I think we need to make certain about her, one way or the other.”
“She might be dead already. The invaders may have saved you the trouble.”
“I know. But she’s a tough old bird. I think we have to be sure. I know a way to search for her that doesn’t risk that much. And I think I know where she might be.”
Dar was not at all happy, but he agreed to give it a try. He respected Drisker enough not to give up on him, or to engage in an argument he already knew he was not going to win. Drisker might be wrong, but he deserved the chance to find out. Dar was not going to let him do so alone, no matter the risks to which he would expose himself.
It was still quiet and deserted as Drisker took the Blade back along the cellar passageways and then up a rear staircase through a miasma of gloom and smoke that had seeped in from the floors on which the battle had been fought. The sounds of the carnage were winding down, but there was still considerable movement everywhere. They crept up the stairs carefully, passed the ground floor, and then went up two more flights before stopping again to listen. There were no sounds, but Drisker wasn’t taking any chances. He took them up still another level before they emerged.
The Druid Histories were housed on this floor, and Drisker believed that maybe Clizia had taken refuge here. It would be a logical choice; the room and its contents were concealed by magic, and it was unlikely the invaders had any means of negating the protective spells.
Drisker paused long enough to check the hall both ways before opening the doors to the room. Invoking his magic, he disabled the locks. But when they stepped through, there was no one inside. They took a moment to search the archival vault and the connected rooms, but the chambers were empty.
“I was sure,” Drisker muttered.
And suddenly the scrye orb brightened and warmed inside his cloak. When he pulled it out and peered into its glowing face, Clizia Porse appeared.
“Where are you?” she snapped. “I’ve been waiting.”
Drisker exchanged a quick look with Dar. “I’ve tried to reach you twice, without success. I’ve looked for you, too. I should be asking you where you are.”
Clizia shrugged. “No need for that. I’m on my way to the archives now. Meet me there.”
The orb went dark again, leaving Drisker frustrated and angry. “Let’s get back into the cellars,” he growled.
They went down a different staircase this time—one that twisted and wound through the walls and floors like a snake. This was a passage Dar not only didn’t know about but had never even heard mentioned. On the second floor of their descent, Drisker hesitated a moment before he motioned Dar ahead once more. They emerged into a hallway that opened out on one side to provide an overlook of the main entry at ground level. The
re was no one about, but calls and whistles and voices rose from below, so the pair crept to the edge of the overlook railing and peered down.
Below them, the full extent of the slaughter revealed itself. The entryway floor was littered with bodies, and the walls were painted with blood. Most of the dead were Druids, but a few soldiers of the invading force had died, too. The dead were being stacked in piles, while the wounded were being sought out and dispatched if Druids or carried off to be treated elsewhere for their injuries if they were invaders.
To one side, an eight-foot spear had been wedged between pieces of stone flooring like a flagpole. On the point of the spear, Prax Tolt’s burly head had been spiked.
Dar caught sight of Kassen Drue standing to one side, watching as the dead and wounded were collected. He grabbed Drisker’s arm and nodded toward Kassen. There, he mouthed. Kassen. The Druid followed his gaze, studied the one indicated for a moment, then nodded in response. The matter was settled. The man who had hired the Orsis Guild assassins to kill him and the betrayer of the Keep were one and the same.
The volume of voices suddenly quieted, and the white-robed leader of the army marched into the center of the room, dragging Ober Balronen by his hair. Almost as one, all the invading soldiers, Kassen Drue among them, went down on one knee. A trilling sound broke from their throats as heads bowed and the butt ends of spears and the pommel ends of swords hammered into the stone in a cacophony of wild sound.
Ajin, Ajin, Ajin! The cry echoed through the halls of the Keep in adoration.
When the cries had diminished, the white-cloaked leader motioned for his followers to rise. Then throwing Balronen to his hands and knees, he drew forth his sword. He waited for the Ard Rhys to lift his head and look at him, but Balronen kept his head lowered, perhaps sensing what was to come. His captor left him as he was, brought up his sword in a wide arc, and sliced downward in a single powerful motion. Ober Balronen’s head fell from his shoulders and rolled across the room, eyes wide open and mouth gaping from the shock of his dying.
Again, the cry went up from the invaders. Ajin, Ajin, Ajin!
Their leader acknowledged them by lifting his sword and letting the blood of the slain High Druid drip down its length and fall to the stone floor. Then he sheathed his weapon and beckoned to Kassen. Together they left the room, moving down the hallway so that they passed directly beneath the section of the balcony on which Drisker Arc and Dar Leah were crouched in hiding.
Drisker took Dar by the arm and pulled him away. Together they crept back along the hallway and into the stairwell, closing the door tightly behind them. “We’d better hurry,” he whispered.
Dar shook his head. “I’m going after them.” He gestured toward the two men below.
Drisker stared at him. “Why not leave that until another time?”
“I don’t want them getting away. They have too much to answer for!”
“You can’t go by yourself!” the Druid hissed. “You don’t have any idea what those two are capable of doing. You can’t risk it!”
“I can’t not risk it,” Dar insisted quietly. “It doesn’t matter what they are capable of. I’m capable of a whole lot more.”
The two stared at each other for long seconds, then Drisker nodded. “But listen to me. If you haven’t settled matters by the time you start to see trailers of green mist or hear the first screams it produces from those it touches—clear signals that the Keep’s Guardian has been released—drop everything and get clear of the buildings and back into the trees beyond the walls. No matter what, you go.”
Dar nodded. “If I can, I will.”
Drisker’s smile was grim. “Remember. There will always be another chance at those two. Don’t be reckless.”
Dar smiled back. “Don’t worry about me, Drisker. Watch out for yourself. I’ll meet you beyond the west gates of the Keep when this is finished. I promise.”
The two gripped hands and parted. Dar watched the Druid disappear down the stairs leading to the cellars and then turned the way Kassen and the white-cloaked invasion leader had gone and set off to find them.
THIRTY
Drisker Arc descended the back stairway he had come up earlier with Dar Leah until he again reached the entrance to the cellars and hesitated. Glancing back the way he had come, he experienced an odd feeling of leaving something important behind. The feeling was strong enough that it momentarily distracted him from proceeding, causing him to search for a reason for his reaction.
But there was nothing to be found, so he brushed it aside, opened the cellar door, and stepped through. The cellars were dark, and he again summoned a werelight, balancing the flame on the tips of his fingers, adjusting its brightness so he could tell where he was going as he started down the passageway toward the archival vaults.
It seemed to take much longer to reach them this time, as if they were much farther along than he remembered. But it had been awhile since he had been inside Paranor, and he knew better than to rely on memory where time’s passage could erase it so easily. He thought briefly about Dar Leah and wondered if he should have given the Blade further instructions. He had told him once he fled the Keep to find shelter in the forest trees and to stay put no matter what happened. He was not to delay his escape, no matter how matters stood with Kassen Drue or the invasion leader. Then he was to hide until either the Druid reappeared or it became clear that he wasn’t coming at all.
In case of the latter, he expected the Blade would know enough to return to Emberen and either wait there for Tarsha or set out to find her. The likelihood of the highlander choosing to wait was slim. It wasn’t in his nature to sit around, any more than it was in Drisker’s. He would go looking, and the best the Druid could hope for was that he would do so with good judgment. It seemed a safe bet. Dar Leah was the best of a ragged and uncertain Druid order, and if anyone could manage what needed doing in Drisker’s absence it was the highlander.
Long minutes later, Drisker was at the door leading into Paranor’s cellars, the huge iron portal worn and pitted by age and the elements, a barrier to a world he had been banished from and had not expected to return to. He paused, staring at it, and the past recalled itself in painful memories. Lost to him, all of it. Once, if he were caught inside the walls of the Keep without permission, the punishment would have been severe. Perhaps, it would even have been fatal. No more. Ober Balronen and the other Druids were dead, save Clizia Porse. The entire order was gone, and there was no one to catch him out and no one to administer any form of punishment.
The Druid order was destroyed.
The Druids were history.
All that was left were memories of what had been. It seemed impossible. It made Drisker Arc feel as if his life had no meaning and he had no place in the world. His investment in the Druids and in the furtherance of their lofty goals was like a mirage that had faded with a shifting of the light. Where was he to turn, once this was over, that would offer him a chance to rebuild and restore? He could not accept that this was the end of Paranor forever. Surely there had to be a rebirth of the Druid phoenix out of the ashes of the old, as had happened before. There could be a rebirth again. Another order must be founded, and a new beginning in the long and storied history of the Druids started.
He breathed out slowly, as if it were his last breath. He did not know if he was up to it. He could not imagine reconstructing something it had taken so long to create. He could barely accept the idea that it had all been swept away in the blink of an eye, one night’s disastrous undoing of so many thousands of years of progress.
Shades, I am getting old.
He brushed aside his musings and turned to the task at hand, proceeding cautiously along the ancient hallways, studying their maze-like confluence and the pools of overlapping shadows that filled them to be certain he was alone. He worried that some of the invaders might have come down into the cellars for a look around, but there was no sign of anyone. Satisfied, he moved over to a darkened corner of the widest passage
and brought out the scrye orb.
In seconds Clizia Porse was looking back at him. “Drisker.”
“Are you in place?” He did not try to hide his sense of urgency.
“At the entrance to the vaults.”
“I’m coming.”
It took him less than fifteen more minutes. He saw her step out of the shadows as he approached, all gray and hunched over. A crooked smile played across her thin lips. Her hands were clutched together, and her eyes glowed green in the darkness of her hood.
For one moment, he considered turning back. He did not like the way she made him feel. He did not trust her.
“Better we act quickly now that you are here,” she announced. “The Keep is in the hands of its invaders. None of the Druids, Troll watch, or students appear to have survived. The invaders were very thorough. We are all that remains, Drisker. We are all that is left to carry on.”
The Druid nodded. “So you would summon the Guardian and seal the Keep away until we can form a new order? Is that still your plan?”
“You have another?”
“I think we would be better served by summoning the Guardian and biding our time on sealing the Keep. It may be that what happens to those inside the Keep will be enough to discourage those without from attempting further entry. Then the Keep would stay abandoned until we formed a new order. We can always choose to close it later.”
“That hardly seems a better plan. Mine ties up all the loose ends and leaves nothing to chance.” She gave him a dark look. “Still, while I do not favor your approach, I will agree to it. But we should retrieve the Black Elfstone now and not chance the possibility of not being able to return for it later.”
He shook his head wearily. “It took something to convince me that coming here at all was worth it. The Druids have been fools. The Keep has fallen, and the order has been destroyed. I am in exile. I am no longer Ard Rhys. I have no official standing or place with the Druids, dead or living. Why should I care about any of this?”
