by Terry Brooks
She gave him a smirk. “So I can nurse you back to health, no doubt. What does Seersha have in mind for your leg?”
“I don’t know. She hasn’t said.”
“Are you rational today?”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that during the entire trip back here, you did nothing but rant and rave about how you were going back for Redden and no one could stop you and anyone who tried would regret it. That, and a lot of other wild nonsense. I was tempted to agree when Austrum threatened to bind and gag you.”
At the mention of the big Rover’s name, Railing felt his mood sour quickly. He remembered Austrum kissing Mirai. He remembered how she had failed to do anything about it afterward, not even warn him against trying it again.
“He would have regretted it,” he muttered.
She gave him a quick nudge. “Why don’t you stop trying to be so fierce? I like you better when you’re gentle.”
“I don’t feel like being gentle.”
“Which is something you should work on. Like Redden has.”
He didn’t know where that came from, but he didn’t feel like pursuing it and let the matter drop.
When they reached the Elessedil sisters’ cottage, they found Arling gone and Aphen packing clothes and making up a list of supplies for the journey. She told them she had already visited with Cymrian, who had appeared not long after Seersha left and was already off collecting an airship crew for their flight. She greeted Seersha effusively, and they apologized to each other. Railing stood by awkwardly until the conversation turned to him.
“Railing needs his leg repaired if he’s to be of any use either to himself or to the rest of us,” Seersha announced. “We can’t afford to wait around for it to heal normally, so I think a little magic is in order. You are the best at this sort of thing. Will you give it a try?”
Aphenglow looked at him, and Railing at once felt the difference in their ages and maturity. She wasn’t that much older, but her confidence and poise so far surpassed his own that it made him feel like a child.
“Is that what you want?” she asked him. “For me to use magic on your leg?”
He nodded. “If you can heal it, yes.”
She glanced at Seersha and then at him again. “Magic of this sort works best on others. I can heal you more easily than I could heal myself when I was injured at Paranor. Unfortunately, it won’t hurt any less.”
They placed him on Mirai’s bed in the spare room, loosening his clothes and making him comfortable. Aphenglow cut away his pant leg all the way up above the knee of his bad leg and took off the splints and bindings. When his leg was completely revealed, she gave him something to drink and then a bitter-tasting root to chew that immediately made his mouth go numb and eventually his body and limbs as well.
“Just be still while I do this,” she told him. “No sudden movements. There will be some pain. To help you stay still, I’ll have both Mirai and Seersha hold you. Don’t panic. It won’t take long. When it’s over, you will sleep.”
He nodded, waiting impatiently, the first twinges of doubt starting to erode his confidence. “Just do what you have to. I’ll be fine.”
She placed a cloth over his eyes and stroked his face. Then she placed both hands on his broken leg and began to move them lightly over the surface. She worked at this for a long time, and he could hear her murmuring softly. Once in a while her fingers probed.
Then a slow, steady ache began to build deep inside the bones of his damaged leg, rippling through him from thigh to ankle. The medication Aphen had given him dulled it, but did not prevent it. He could feel Seersha’s and Mirai’s hands tighten on his wrists and ankles. He held himself as still as he could manage, the pain building on itself in slow waves until eventually it was all he could do to keep from screaming. He clenched his teeth and focused on an image of Mirai—the image strong and alive in his mind. The murmuring and touching continued and the pain raged on, but he forced it all away and went down inside where his heartbeat gave him a lifeline to grasp and Mirai’s voice whispered over and over, I like you better when you’re gentle.
Then, finally, he lost consciousness and slept.
For Arling Elessedil, it was a traumatic day on several fronts. Her visit to her grandfather and Uncle Ellich, followed by her sister’s argument with Seersha, had been troubling enough, but later she was forced to call a meeting of the Chosen to discuss the deterioration of the Ellcrys. It was becoming apparent that there were problems with the tree. The first signs of wilt and decay had begun to appear, and while the Chosen worked diligently to heal the damage, all of them suspected the same thing. The tree was failing and needed to be renewed.
They knew, as well, that for a renewal to happen, one of them must be given the Ellcrys seed and sent in search of the Bloodfire.
Once, such knowledge had been carefully hidden from virtually everyone, the myth of immortality part of the old legends of the creation of the Forbidding and the locking away of the demonkind. But that had changed during the reign of Eventine Elessedil, when the last Ellcrys had failed and the truth about her regeneration become common knowledge.
Now there were enough who knew the truth of things that pretending the tree could never die or need replacing was pointless.
Arling and Aphen had discussed earlier in the day how the meeting should be handled, and they had agreed that Arling should keep the fact that she had been selected to go in search of the Bloodfire to herself. Doing so would provide another of the order the opportunity to step forward and volunteer to do what she could not.
She was still not ready to accept that she was the right choice to become the tree’s successor. She had talked with the Ellcrys nightly after Aphenglow’s departure for the Breakline, trying to convince the tree that choosing her was a mistake. But the Ellcrys had deflected her efforts, continuing quietly to insist that she was the only one who would do. Nothing Arling had said during their discussions seemed to make any difference at all.
But now, perhaps, confronting the other Chosen with the enormity of the need facing them all might cause one among them to step forward and indicate a willingness to act as bearer of the seed.
This turned out to be wishful thinking. The other members of her order listened patiently, but none of them offered to be the one who bore the seed to the Bloodfire. If anything, they were reluctant to believe that the need was immediate. Surely there was more time than Arling believed. Shouldn’t they examine the tree more thoroughly? Weren’t there healing skills and medicines that could be employed? Objections were raised and questions asked, and the dismay that settled over those assembled seemed to inhibit any of them from doing more than listening.
By the time they had disbanded to go home for the night, not a single Chosen had seemed ready to accept what she had told them.
They were not so different, she realized afterward, from herself. She had been no more willing to believe when the tree had revealed its condition. She had been no better prepared for it, no more anxious to act on the tree’s behalf, no more eager to wish for selection. Oddly, she was not surprised. If anything, it only deepened her growing sense of fatalism.
At midnight, when the rest of those staying in her little cottage were asleep, she slipped out the door and went through the nighttime darkness to the Carolan and down into the Gardens of Life. She crept through the flowering shrubs and bedding plants, through the trellis vines and ornamentals to where the Ellcrys stood alone, shining crimson and silver in the moonlight. She knelt beneath her canopy.
“I am here, Mistress,” she whispered.
A slender branch lowered and came to rest on her shoulder.
–You are still afraid, child. You are feeling so alone. No one wishes to take from you the burden I have given you to carry–
“I told them what is happening. They could not bring themselves to believe it. I wanted one of them to say they hoped they would be the one you selected. I wanted just one to show a little of th
e courage I lack. It did not happen.”
–At the time of your choosing, when I laid my branches on each of your shoulders, I sensed there was something that set you apart. Even then, I knew–
Arling did not believe she could be the only one; she had never believed it, although the tree had said so repeatedly during their nighttime discussions. In her efforts to reassure Arling, the Ellcrys had said this was always so. The choosing was the time in which she was best able to determine who should serve as her successor should she become too ill to continue. It was no different for her as a sentient tree than for Elves or Humans: The elders of a species always measure the fitness of the young to take their place.
“I did not tell them the whole truth,” Arling said after a moment. “Only that you were failing—something they could already see for themselves—and that a renewal must take place. I did not tell them you had already selected me.”
–You still hope one of them will ask to be the bearer–
“Yes.”
On her shoulder, the Ellcrys’s branch shifted slowly to stroke the back of her neck.
–I cannot wait for that to happen, child. There is no time for it. I am infected with my illness, worn down by my age, and fated to pass into history. I have served for so long. It has been my privilege to do so, but my service is ending. My seed must be carried to the Bloodfire and quickened–
“We are not yet ready for that,” Arling said at once, a surge of fear penetrating all the way to her heart. “There are still preparations to be made.” She swallowed hard. “I can’t do it.”
The silence that followed was as cold and hard as ancient stone. Arling bowed her head and closed her eyes. Don’t ask this of me! Don’t tell me I must!
–Would you leave me bereft of hope? Would you abandon your people and the Races of your world to their fate? I do not see that in you–
“I cannot do this!”
She screamed the words, their sound so piercing that she flinched in shame and dismay. But the branch on her shoulder did not lift away or cease its steady stroking of Arling’s neck, a soft and soothing touch, a calming presence.
–You can do this and much more, child. You are strong–
Arling shook her head, tears filling her eyes. “I am a coward!”
–You are what I was all those years ago. You struggle as I did. You require courage and peace of mind in order to believe–
Inwardly, Arling collapsed. She could barely bring herself under control, the weight of what was happening crushing her. She fought back against her tears, against the wall of fear moving inexorably toward her, against her base and shameful instincts. She did not want to be like this. She did not want to appear desperate and weak. But she could not seem to help herself.
–There is no other to help me but you. You have the courage and the resilience that is required. There is no other to do what is needed if you refuse. Child, you are all there is, and I am only seeking that which I saw in you when you entered into my service–
Arling shook her head, wiping at her tears. “What you saw wasn’t really there. You were mistaken about me. I am not what you hoped I would be. I am just a girl, and I want to live out my life!”
She shuddered and clutched at herself, shoulders heaving as she cried. The tree did not respond, but seemed to wait on her. “I want to be brave for you,” she whispered. “I want to be strong enough and willing enough to be the bearer of your seed. I want to save the Elves. I want it, but I cannot make it be true. I cannot!”
The Ellcrys moved the end of one branch until it was touching her cheek.
–We never know what we can be or do until the need is there and we are tested by it. I thought as you did. I was afraid, and I fled with my fear to where I thought I would be safe. But necessity will always find us, and our sense of right and wrong will always find a way to make what is seemingly impossible the reality of our lives–
“No. Not here. Not with this.”
–Yes, Arlingfant Elessedil, with this and even more, should the need be there and the call sounded to embrace it. Yes, best of my Chosen, strongest and bravest of my children. Hold out your hands to me–
Arling could not speak. She shrank back inside herself. She shook her head no.
–Hold out your hands–
The command was spoken again, and this time the words touched something inside Arling that she found she could not turn away from or ignore. Still riddled with pain and fear, she did as she was asked, whispering to herself as she did so, No, no, no.
She felt the tree stirring, sensed a gathering of its limbs. She had closed her eyes, and she kept them closed against what she knew was coming. She held her hands cupped before her, trying to hold them steady, trying to keep herself strong. It was surreal and terrifying, a contradiction of what she knew she must not allow and what she also knew she must accept.
She felt a weight settle into her hands—smooth and round and warm. She knew without looking what it was, and a moment later, when she opened her eyes, she found a small, silvery egg-shaped sphere resting in her hands.
The tree’s branches drew back, and the Ellcrys went motionless and silent in the darkness and did not speak or move again.
16
In that same darkness, in Arishaig, the assassin Stoon slipped down mostly empty streets and alleyways, avoiding the drunks and homeless who huddled in the shadows, staying clear of the voices that whispered now and then from doorways and alcoves where men like himself carried on their business. He was wrapped in his cloak and hooded against the possibility of being recognized, and his tall, lean frame gave him a sinister appearance to the one or two who caught sight of him on his way to his meeting with Edinja, causing them to move quickly away.
Why she had decided on a meeting at this time of night was troubling. Why she had asked that it be conducted at her home rather than in the quarters of the Prime Minister was equally so. She had invited him there only once before, when Drust Chazhul was newly dead and she was still in hiding. But since then, all of their meetings had taken place in the bedchamber of her official living quarters, and he had come and gone through the secret passageways he had used when in service to the unfortunate Drust.
A less confident man, a less skilled professional, might have thought twice about the change in meeting places, might have read into it that it signaled a shift in the direction of the wind, one that might sweep him away. But Stoon was not such a man, and to refuse to meet with her as she asked or to seek a change of venue would only demonstrate weakness. So here he was, creeping along through the city well after midnight to the spectral, forbidding tower whose black stone façade and gargoyles were recognizable—and religiously avoided—by everyone who resided in Arishaig.
The grounds lacked walls and gardens to distance the tower from the streets that bordered it on two sides, leaving it close up against the corner crossing, casting its black shadow. There were stories about Edinja’s residence: of screams and shrieks emanating from within, of foul smells and strange rumblings, of moving shadows glimpsed behind the curtained windows—things that were clearly not entirely human.
He had seen none of this in his single visit. Nor heard the sounds or smelled the scents. Stories whispered by superstitious people, he had decided after he had departed. Rumors that perhaps she herself had created to warn off the curious.
He skirted the tower’s rough edges when it came into view, avoiding the front entry, moving instead to a tiny door just off the street that was sheltered by shrubbery. He moved quickly and without hesitation, resisting the urge to stop or give further thought to what he was doing. There was no point. If her intentions were bad, he would not be able to tell from out here.
Once through the door and inside, he climbed a spiraling stairway that took him to the rooms at the apex of the tower where she made her bedchamber. As he neared the end of his climb, he saw the soft glow of candlelight emanating from her open door and felt a small measure of relief. If she had meant h
im harm, she would not have bothered providing him light with which to see. Not when she saw so much more clearly than he in the dark, and had the services of Cinla to help dispatch those she suddenly found too troublesome to bear.
His footsteps were soundless on the stone steps, his passage less evident than a breeze, yet before he reached the doorway she was calling to him.
“Come, Stoon. Don’t keep me waiting. Isn’t this just like old times?”
The corners of his mouth twitched in response—the closest he ever came to a smile. He went through the door and found her reclined on her lounger, the big moor cat that served as her protector and familiar sprawled in front of her. Given its position, he decided he was not being invited to go directly to her, so instead he moved to a chair that had obviously been prepared for him. A comfortable throw was draped across its arm and a glass of wine set next to it on a small table. A candle sat beside the wineglass, its flame a bright flicker of light in the near darkness. A second candle burned on the table next to her.
“Mistress,” he greeted, giving her a small bow.
As always, he was dumbstruck by her beauty. Dusky skin, silver hair, slender limbs, and angular features gave her an exotic look. She was distinctive and stunningly lovely. But as with those snakes whose bite was instantly fatal, it would be a mistake to venture too close without exercising caution.
“Try the wine,” she said to him, sipping at her own. “It is quite wonderful, and we are celebrating this night.”
He picked up the glass and drank. He didn’t hesitate. Life was a risk when you consorted with venomous creatures. The wine slid down his throat easily and warmed him deep in his belly. “Extraordinary,” he said, keeping his eyes on her.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what we are celebrating?”
He shook his head. “You will tell me when you are ready. I would not presume to rush you.”
