by Terry Brooks
Then even the smallest traces of Arcannen abruptly ended, and his trail vanished.
Paxon slowed, hesitated, then quickly took them off the trail they had been following and into the shelter of a half-formed wall.
“He’s deliberately hiding his trail now,” he whispered. “Likely because he’s decided to make a stand.”
She looked around. “Why here?”
As if in answer, the ground where they had just been standing erupted in a forest of long, thin spikes, which then dropped away into a black hole. Had they still been there, they would have been skewered.
Paxon was already moving. He threw himself on top of Miriya, bearing her to the ground. An instant later a bolt of fire slammed into the wall next to them. The Highlander rolled one way and Miriya the other as they tried to find shelter from the attack. Earth and stone exploded all around them as Arcannen lashed out from his concealment. Paxon brought up his blade to deflect the sorcerer’s fire, and Miriya wrapped herself in her shielding magic.
In seconds both were pressed up against the remains of walls that offered some small protection from their adversary.
They couldn’t determine where he was. There was nothing to indicate where the attacks had originated. Paxon scanned the ruins unsuccessfully. He brushed dirt and grit from his head and shoulders and looked over to where Miriya was crouched. He gave her a searching look and she shrugged. She couldn’t find the sorcerer, either.
After a few moments, they rose cautiously. When nothing happened, Miriya moved over to study the blackened marks the fire had left and then backtracked their trajectories. There were no footprints to be found, but a series of small scrapes and crushed weeds marked their assailant’s escape route.
“We’ll never catch him at this rate,” Miriya hissed angrily. “He will hold us back long enough to find a way clear if we don’t force him to turn and fight.”
Paxon nodded. “I’m open to suggestions.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I was hoping you might have one.”
“One of us goes ahead. The other hangs back. When he attacks again, the one trailing slips around behind him before he can run off.”
She made a rude noise. “Not very imaginative. Why don’t we separate and come at him from two sides? Then we’d have twice the chance of catching him off guard.”
“And twice the chance for him to catch us off guard, too. Besides, if we separate, we might not be able to find each other again.”
“All right. Your way, then.” She looked disgusted. “Just remember to keep your guard up.”
She left him to go on alone, and soon she was out of sight. He followed at a steady pace, searching for sign, spying out enough small details to suggest Arcannen was somewhere ahead.
His suspicions were confirmed when he heard a series of explosions. He rushed ahead, managed several dozen yards, and then abruptly encountered a massive wall where the way had been clear only minutes earlier.
He used his sword on it, thinking it a mirage, but the wall deflected his blade easily. Beyond its twelve-foot height, he could hear further explosions erupting. Miriya was under attack, and she was alone. His temper and frustration boiled up. He had to get through. He peered down the wall’s length in both directions. It seemed to go on forever. But that wasn’t possible, even for Arcannen. There was more than one sort of magic at work here—a merging of reality and appearance. He reached out to feel his way along its rough surface, hoping to find a weakness, but his hand passed right through the wall. He stood staring in surprise, then shoved his whole arm through and walked all the way through himself. The wall repelled magic, but not flesh and blood. A trick to slow him, and it had succeeded.
He rushed toward the sound of the explosions, which had ceased by now, but when he came upon piles of newly created rubble and blackened stone he found no sign of the sorcerer or Miriya.
Just a single scorched Druid’s boot.
—
Arcannen moved silently through the ruins, Miriya’s body slung over one shoulder. He could have left her for Paxon Leah to find, but the troublesome Highlander would be more unsettled if he couldn’t find her at all. Let him retain hope that she lived. Let him think she was a prisoner. It would make him more likely to be careless and thereby more easily dispatched. The Druid had been the more dangerous of the two. Now Paxon was alone, the only obstacle left in Arcannen’s path, the only one that could prevent his escape. Paxon would see it as his duty to stop Arcannen, but he would fail this time just as he had failed every other time.
The sorcerer reached a collapsed building where the cellar level lay open to the sky and threw the Druid down into it. She had been strong, that one, her strength fueled by rage over what had happened to her partner. But she had not been strong enough to defeat him. No one man or woman was that strong.
He studied her remains for a moment, thinking suddenly of Leofur, lost to him forever. While at Paranor, he had learned of her foolish decision to go searching for Chrysallin Leah. She would already have fallen into the hands of the Murk Witch if she wasn’t already dead, and Melis would not treat her kindly. Leofur had always been an impulsive child, never obedient, never rational. She had doomed herself years ago when she had decided to forsake him and abandon his protection.
He moved away, already thinking of how he would go about ridding himself of Paxon Leah. He had stashed his treasures in the hold of the airship, certain his pursuers would not pause to look for them, too intent on finding him to bother. Once the Highlander was eliminated, he could return to his vessel and set out for home with his treasures intact. He had already decided not to bother with either Chrysallin Leah or his daughter, both of whom were more trouble than they were worth. He would leave them for the witch to dispose of. She would be more than happy to do so once she tired of the little games she was obsessed with playing.
What he would do instead was spend uninterrupted time studying the artifacts he had stolen from the Druid vault, determining what each one did and how best he might make use of it. His time for hiding within the Druid order and sowing dissension while disguised as Isaturin had been cut short by the arrival of the Federation, but it was more important that they be at each other’s throats. If he could keep them warring with each other for long enough, he would eventually find fresh opportunities to bring them both down.
Ahead, he sensed movement. He slowed his approach and listened. Footfalls, slow and cautious. It was the Highlander, come looking for him.
He smiled.
Time to let his adversary find him.
—
Paxon had only just stepped out from between the walls of the two collapsed buildings when the familiar green fire lanced out at him from above. His blade was ready, and he deflected the attack easily, finding the window of the tower in which the Druid was hiding. He rushed toward it instantly, attacking rather than waiting, his patience exhausted. There was no sign of Miriya, so he had no choice but to go after Arcannen Rai on his own.
No choice but to corner and put an end to him.
Because he was no longer thinking about taking him alive. He knew now that this would be impossible. Better to forget such a lofty ambition and just make sure the sorcerer could never trouble anyone again. Better to rid the world of him once and for all.
He reached the door and charged inside, blade at the ready, green fire racing up and down its length, the snakes of magic that inhabited it alive with anticipation. Dodging left and right as the sorcerer’s magic struck out, he gained the stairs and charged for the second floor.
But Arcannen Rai was no fool, and if Paxon had stopped to consider, even for a few seconds, he might have wondered why his enemy had allowed himself to become trapped in a building when there were so many more sensible choices. But he was eager to reach the sorcerer, so he was reckless and unprepared when a section of the stairway beneath him gave way and sent him crashing twenty feet to the rubble below.
He lay stunned, the wind knocked out of him. He had manage
d to hang on to his sword, but the magic had gone dark during his fall. Before he could recover, the sorcerer’s magic found him—and this time without his defenses in place. It slammed into him as he tried to roll away, and pain ratcheted through his body. Ignoring all thoughts of the damage he might have suffered, he brought up his blade. The Sword of Leah flared awake, blocking Arcannen’s next attack and providing a momentary respite.
The sorcerer came down the stairs, stepping carefully past the section he had weakened, the green fire burning at his fingertips. By the time he reached the bottom of the stairs, Paxon was on his knees, trying to rise.
“Let’s finish this, boy,” Arcannen said quietly.
He expelled a fresh surge of magic from his fingers and knocked the Highlander backward once more, pinning him up against the wall. Then he advanced slowly, clearly watching for a response. Paxon was disgusted with his inability to act more quickly, angry that he had failed to recognize a trap that should have been obvious, thinking that maybe this time he wouldn’t be lucky enough to escape the sorcerer, let alone subdue him. In those few seconds he found himself remembering the many tells he should have recognized when he was traveling with the man he had assumed to be Isaturin.
How Arcannen, masquerading as Isaturin, had instantly known the name of the Sleath—the demon he himself had conjured.
How the demon had come out of Karlin Ryl to save them from the plant creatures when there was no clear reason for it to do so—unless at someone’s command.
How the man he believed to be the Ard Rhys had been acting so strangely, never acknowledging Karlin’s death or attempting to take command.
These memories and others flashed in rapid succession and were gone—a brief kaleidoscope of images. His vision steadied. Arcannen had stopped approaching and was looking down at him. His enemy, waiting to strike the killing blow, and he did not think he could stop it from happening. He did not believe he had the strength.
He readied himself in anticipation. His sword came up, the fire dim but still potent enough to respond.
Then he threw himself at Arcannen. It was a final desperate effort, and it failed miserably. The sorcerer deflected his attack, throwing him aside. Paxon stumbled and fell against the stairwell wall, gasping for breath, beaten.
But in that instant of angry despair and lost hope, a shadow appeared in the doorway behind Arcannen Rai, a ghost backlit by the light of moon and stars, a wraith emerged from the afterlife. It was a terrible apparition, blackened and bloodied—a mauled and ragged thing, its clothes in tatters and its skin streaked with dirt and ash. How it managed to walk even the few steps it took to reach the sorcerer was impossible to imagine. Sheer will, Paxon would tell himself later. Enormous determination.
Incandescent rage.
Miriya, upright and alive, moving with stiff, awkward steps, came up behind Arcannen Rai, lifted the jagged steel rod she was carrying, and drove it through his back with such force that the tip emerged from his chest, covered in his blood. The spray showered Paxon as he bore witness at last to the death he had envisioned for so long, finding it in the sorcerer’s shocked, furious expression.
In response, he dragged himself to his feet, swung the Sword of Leah with strength dredged up from a place he didn’t know he had, and cut off his enemy’s head in a single sweeping blow.
—
In the silence that followed, Druid and Highlander staggered toward each other and fell together like rag dolls before sinking then to the floor in exhaustion. Neither spoke. There were no words for what they were feeling; what they shared in those moments went beyond words. They held on to each other, heads bowed, lost in a mix of relief and weariness and something that approximated joy but also felt like sadness.
Long minutes passed, and then the good feelings dulled and were eclipsed by pain and an urgent need to find a way out of the moment. Miriya said quietly, “When you try to kill someone, it’s a good idea to make sure you finish the job. You shouldn’t take it for granted.”
They trudged back through the ruins to their airship and collapsed in the pilot box, treating each other’s injuries as best they could, putting healing creams on burns, splinting broken bones, and sewing closed deep gashes. Then, exhausted, they slept until morning, their bed open to the sky with its canopy of bright stars and moon, their sleep uninterrupted.
And in the morning, they talked in low, reassuring voices about what they had experienced and how it had left them. Most of what they said Paxon would forget over time, but not all. He would always remember Miriya’s fiery determination not to give in, even after being tossed in the pit and left for dead. He would always remember how she cried again for Karlin Ryl. He would always remember her praise for him as she insisted no one else could have done what he did to hold the sorcerer at bay until she could reach him.
He wasn’t sure it was true, but her words stayed with him.
They retrieved the stolen artifacts from Arcannen’s Sprint and flew back to Paranor on a day as clear and blue as Paxon could possibly imagine a day being. Only once did he think of the Federation army that waited and the threat it presented to the Druids. Only that once did he glance back to where the head of Arcannen Rai rested on the pilot box floor, tucked inside a canvas sack.
Paxon was back home where he belonged, and his life was slowly returning to normal. Arcannen Rai was dead, and the Federation was appeased, if not fully convinced that he had acted alone. It had taken a delegation of Druids meeting with the commanders of the Federation airships besieging the Keep to settle matters. At that meeting, the Druids had provided a detailed account of everything that had happened as related to them by Paxon and Miriya upon their return. Both the Highlander and the Druid had wanted to be included as members of that delegation, but they were in such bad shape that wiser heads decided it would be best if they were placed under the care of healers immediately. Yet whatever the Druids who ultimately spoke to the Federation commanders said, it proved sufficient to break the siege. It probably hadn’t hurt that they ended up handing over Arcannen’s head in the bargain, providing at least that much in the way of physical proof. Probably not everyone would be convinced of what had happened, but those of the Federation who listened to what the Druids had to tell them had been happy enough to haul anchor and fly home.
All of the stolen artifacts recovered from Arcannen’s airship had been locked away again, back in their niches and cubicles and boxes in the artifact vault, tended now by a new keeper—a Druid of long and trusted service who had stepped in to fill the void left by Keratrix’s death.
Chrysallin and Leofur were safely returned, too, although almost as beat up and ragged as Paxon and Miriya. The women had returned a day after Paxon, accompanied by the Keep’s stable manager, who had gone with Leofur on her quest. Why this had happened was something of a mystery, and as yet no one had heard the full story behind his involvement.
Paxon had been given only a brief overview by Chrysallin, and neither Leofur nor the stable manager was saying anything at all.
The Highlander had gone to Leofur on her return, but she had said little, and since then had secluded herself in the healing center, permitting no visitors save Chrysallin—and even his sister had been allowed only a single visit. Whatever had transpired during that visit left his sister looking troubled. She refused afterward to talk about it, and when he asked her to speak to Leofur about making an exception so he could visit, too, she was quick to say no.
His efforts at getting further details were unsuccessful. He was worried Leofur might be more badly hurt than he knew. He even considered the possibility she might be dying. But Chrys told him this was not the issue and to let things be. Leofur was not ready for other visitors, and he should wait for her to come to him.
Which earlier that morning she had sent word she was ready to do.
He glanced up to see her arriving as promised. It felt odd even now to have waited for her to come to him. But he didn’t know what she had been through or how
it had affected her, so he was willing to allow her almost anything. Perhaps now, at last, he would find out what was troubling her.
He smiled as she drew near, squinting against the sunlight that backlit her slender form, noting the familiar tousled hair, cut short and looking a bit ragged around the edges, the brilliantly sharp eyes with their steady gaze, and the sure, firm stride. She seemed the same as ever, except for the serious expression that sat uncomfortably on her sculpted features.
“Sit with me,” she said, and taking his hand she led him farther into the gardens to a bench deep within overlapping stands of fuchsia and hydrangea, both of which provided a concealing screen of kaleidoscopic colors.
“How are you feeling?” she asked him as they seated themselves next to each other.
“Much better than my caregivers think. What about you? I was worried when you refused all visitors. I was imagining terrible things. You’re not badly hurt or ill, are you? That’s not what’s wrong, is it? Because I can tell something is. Are you all right?”
She gave him a wan smile. “That’s hard to say. I’ll be better after we talk, I hope. I asked not to see anyone—especially you—because I wasn’t yet prepared to talk about what happened. Maybe I’m still not ready. But I don’t think it is right to put it off any longer.”
“Put what off?”
She leaned forward and took his hands in her own. “Just this. I love you, but I’ve realized that I don’t love you enough. I have to leave you, and I am doing so now. I am releasing you from your vows. And me from mine.”
He stared at her, a sense of the unreal overriding any chance of accepting what he was hearing. “This seems awfully sudden. Why would you do this?”
“The short answer is that I met someone else. Someone I love more than I love you. More, I think, than I ever have or ever will love anyone.”
“You met someone? How?” He paused, understanding flooding through him. “The stable hand. Is that who you’re in love with? I don’t understand. How can you be in love with a stable hand?”
