by Terry Brooks
The Captain nodded wordlessly, and the Moric climbed down from the pilot box and walked over to the railing to await its visitors.
It won’t work, Pen kept thinking. It will never work.
But it did. He could scarcely believe it when the Zolomach’s Captain ran up the line of signal pennants that invited the Druids aboard. He had been convinced that permission would be refused and they would be turned away without a second thought. But his father, who had conceived of the plan during the night and worked the details through carefully with his mother, had assured them all that the demon would relent. In its guise as Sen Dunsidan, it would be forced to do what Sen Dunsidan would do. It might want to turn them away, but it would realize that to do so would create suspicion and risk disruption of its efforts to reach the Ellcrys. Its overriding goal was to reach Arborlon as quickly as possible, Bek reminded them. It would do whatever was necessary to make that happen.
Under his father’s steady hand, Swift Sure eased closer to the Zolomach, and lines were thrown from the latter to the former and secured by Pen to the anchor stanchions so that the two vessels were joined. Pen glanced up and down at the soldiers lining the other ship’s railings and tried to reassure himself that they didn’t matter, that the plan would work out as his father intended. His mother and Khyber, cloaked in the Druid robes his mother had stolen from Paranor and stowed aboard some weeks earlier, stood together at the bow, waiting patiently. They kept their hoods up and their features concealed. Sen Dunsidan didn’t know any of them by sight save Tagwen, who was hiding belowdecks, but it didn’t hurt to be cautious.
As he finished tying off the lines, Pen went over in his mind one last time the details of what was about to happen. If they were mistaken in any way about how the darkwand would react or if his aunt had guessed wrong about what he needed to do or, worst of all, if the King of the Silver River had deceived his father in his fever dream, then none of them were likely to return from the Zolomach alive. But it was mostly up to him to make the plan succeed, and it was his own judgment that was likely to determine how things turned out.
His mother and Khyber were moving along the railing toward the ramp that had been lowered from the Zolomach to allow them to board. Unbidden, he fell into step behind them, carrying the darkwand in his right hand, the almost black, rune-carved surface gleaming in the sunlight. He sensed Sen Dunsidan’s gaze—his demon’s gaze—drawn to it. Cold and dead as deep winter, those blue eyes flared with sudden interest, and Pen felt a chill run up and down his spine.
Fighting down his repulsion and fear, he took a deep, steadying breath and stepped up onto the ramp behind his mother and Khyber as they walked slowly across to the other vessel. His father stood silently in the pilot box, showing no particular interest in the proceedings, a mercenary paid to do his job. But he would have already summoned the magic of the wishsong and be holding it at his fingertips. He would be watching carefully for any sign of treachery.
Pen paused to glance down. Below, the countryside spread away in a broad tapestry of mixed greens and mottled browns. They were several hundred feet in the air, suspended above the world with no place to run. Trapped, if things went wrong. But things would not go wrong, he told himself. He tightened his resolve and moved quickly off the ramp and onto the Zolomach’s decks.
Federation soldiers and crew surrounded him, crowding in until there was nowhere left to stand. Seeing what was happening, Khyber lowered her hood to reveal her Elven features, glanced disdainfully at the men, made a quick warding motion with one hand, and watched in satisfaction as they fell backwards like stalks of grass in a heavy wind. Only the demon was left untouched. It smiled Sen Dunsidan’s smile, gave Khyber a small nod of approval, and came forward until it was only steps away.
The smile froze. “We have not yet met.”
Khyber bowed. “I am a servant to my mistress, Shadea a’Ru, the true Ard Rhys. My name is of no consequence. Shadea sends greetings and asks that you accept her gift of this staff. She would have come herself, but her presence at Paranor is required while matters remain so unsettled within the order. She sends my sister and myself in her place to offer reassurances of her commitment to the Federation. The staff is a demonstration of her support for your alliance.”
She gestured dramatically past Rue, who was still cloaked and hooded, to where Pen waited with the darkwand. As prearranged, Pen lifted the staff and held it out so that it could be clearly seen.
“The staff,” Khyber said to the demon, whose eyes were riveted on it, “has a special use.”
She nodded to Pen, who turned his thoughts to the Forbidding and the creatures that lived within it. At once, his connection with the staff took hold and the runes blazed to life, a crimson glow that was blinding even in the bright morning sunshine. He saw that glow mirrored in the demon’s gaze, hot and intense.
Khyber stepped close to the demon so that only it could hear. “The staff gives the holder the ability to command the attention of all who come into its presence. You can see that this is so. It also gives the holder small insights into the thinking of those with whom he negotiates, a window on their attitudes and concerns. It can be useful in knowing how best to persuade.”
By now, images of the runes were dancing off the staff in wild patterns that flitted in the air all about Pen. The Federation soldiers and crew muttered excitedly. The demon blinked and its eyes took on a new look, one both hungry and anticipatory. It wanted the staff; it needed to possess it.
“Will you accept my mistress’s gift?” Khyber pressed gently.
Sen Dunsidan’s anxious features tightened, and the demon’s eyes glittered. “I would be honored to accept it.”
Khyber looked once more at Pen, who came forward obediently, eyes lowered as much out of fear for what was about to happen as for the demon itself. When he got to within three feet, he stretched out his arm and canted the glowing staff toward the demon. The demon reached for it, and then, for just a second, hesitated. Pen felt his heart stop.
Then Sen Dunsidan’s face broke into a broad smile and his fingers closed about the staff.
From the moment it saw the staff, the demon knew it had to possess it. It was not a rational craving. It was a compulsion that defied explanation and transcended reason. It was so overpowering that the demon barely heard what the Druid was saying as she explained the staff’s uses. And when the boy held the staff forth and the runes carved into its burnished surface flared with hypnotic brilliance, the demon was lost. The staff must be claimed. The demon was its rightful owner and must possess it. Nothing else mattered. Not the destruction of the Ellcrys. Not its plans to bring down the Forbidding. Nothing.
Even so, it hesitated for just a second when the staff was extended, a glimmer of suspicion aroused by recognition of the intensity of its inexplicable attraction.
But it took the staff anyway, and the moment it did so it realized it had made a mistake. The runes blazed like tiny flames as the demon’s hand closed about the carved wood, and another kind of fire exploded through the demon in response. It was a fire of possession, of transference and of magic, a fire meant to cleanse and to purify. The demon felt it instantly, and tried to pull away. But its fingers would not release. They had taken on a separate existence, and no matter how hard it tried to loosen its grip, it could not.
It screamed then, a sound that rent the air and caused even the most hardened of the Federation soldiers to shrink away. It threw back its head and shrieked its defiance and fury. Some among the crew, the Captain included, came racing to its aid. The demon lashed out in response, its claws splitting the concealing skin of the human fingers, slashing and tearing at them until they fell bleeding on the deck of the airship.
The boy still gripped the other end of the darkwand, eyes wide and staring. He knew something of what was happening, the demon saw. Enraged, it snatched at him, trying to draw him close. But the boy ducked away, and one of the Druid women shouted at him to let go of the staff. They understood what
was happening, as well, the demon realized. It stumbled toward them, its limbs leaden and unresponsive, filled with the fire of the magic, throbbing with the molten heat of its workings. The boy backed away, stubbornly keeping hold of the staff, and finally the taller of the women flung herself atop him, dragged him to the deck, pried loose his fingers from the staff, and pulled him clear.
Instantly, the light of the staff bloomed until the demon was enveloped by its glow. It fought furiously to free itself, slamming the staff against the deck, twisting and flailing futilely. The skin of the human Dunsidan split wide and the clothes of the human Dunsidan ripped and tore. Both fell away, leaving it fully revealed. Gasps and sharp hisses issued from the mouths of all who saw what it was, and there was a rush of booted feet on the wooden decks as men fled in all directions. The demon would have given chase, if it could have. It would have ripped their throats out. It would have drunk their blood. But it was consumed by its struggle with the staff and could do nothing but thrash and scream its hatred of them.
Then the light closed about it completely, and the world it had sought to subvert, together with the inhabitants it had come to despise, disappeared. The demon felt a crushing pressure on its chest and fought to breathe. It felt a shifting in time and place and realized in horror what was happening. It was going back into the Forbidding, back into the prison from which it had escaped. It was being returned to the world of the Jarka Ruus, a victim of the staff’s magic, and there was nothing it could do to prevent it from happening.
It fought anyway, shrieking and spitting and thrashing, an insane thing, right up until the moment it blacked out.
Aboard the Zolomach, Federation soldiers and crew alike stared in shocked silence at the space Sen Dunsidan—or whatever had played at being Sen Dunsidan—had occupied only seconds before. Nothing remained but blood and shredded clothing and pieces of skin. None of them knew what had happened, and most didn’t care to find out. All they wanted to know was whether there was any risk that the thing that had been the Prime Minister of the Federation was coming back.
Khyber swept the air in front of her with a sparkle of elemental magic to gain their attention, black Druid robes billowing out. “Back away!” she shouted at them, moving forward threateningly, occupying the space directly in front of what remained of Sen Dunsidan. She glanced down at those remains, and then up at dozens of frozen stares. “You didn’t want him for a leader anyway, did you?”
Rue Meridian was hugging Pen, her face fierce. “What were you thinking, Penderrin?” she whispered. “It would have taken you with it if I hadn’t broken your grip on the staff!”
Pen was white-faced, both from the pressure of his mother’s grip and the realization of how narrow his escape had been. He took a deep breath. “I wasn’t sure what would happen if I let go.”
She hugged him tighter still. “Well, whatever the reason, you hung on too long to suit me. You scared me to death!”
“I wonder if it worked,” he said softly.
“You wonder if what worked?”
“Something I tried, right there at the end. The staff and I were joined. We were communicating. I was telling it things. I was trying to make it understand me.” He drew back and looked at her. “That was what I was doing, when I was hanging on, before you made me let go.”
“Trying to tell the darkwand something?”
He smiled and nodded. “But I don’t know if it understood.”
It took a while for the Moric to regain consciousness after its struggle to resist being sent back into the Forbidding. As a result, it did not see the bright images projected into the air by the runes of the darkwand as it pulsated with light on the barren ground next to it. It did not see those images rise skyward to form intricate patterns that danced across the sullen clouds. By the time the demon stirred, the images had faded and the fire had gone out of the runes.
The Moric sat up slowly, knowing at once from the taste of the air and the smell of the earth that it was back inside its prison. It stared down at the staff, the once-gleaming surface become dusty and scarred. The runes had gone dark and the magic had disappeared. It was just a length of wood, a useless thing.
When it became aware of the shadow looming over it and looked up to find the dragon, the demon had to stifle a gasp. A huge, scaly, armored monster, it was easily the biggest the demon had ever seen. Freezing in place, the demon tried to figure out what to do, casting about in vain for a way to escape. The dragon was studying it intently, its lidded yellow eyes gleaming with a strange fascination.
And then it saw that the dragon wasn’t looking at it, but at the staff that lay at its feet. The demon snatched up the staff and held it out to the beast, offering it eagerly. But the dragon didn’t move. It was waiting for something. The demon laid the staff close by one of its huge, clawed feet and started to move away. But the dragon hissed at it in warning, freezing it in place.
The Moric turned back slowly, not knowing what to do, unable to determine what it was the dragon wanted.
The dragon, in no hurry, waited for the demon to figure it out.
THIRTY-ONE
The day was drenched in sunlight, and from high in the air where she rode aboard the Druid airship Bremen, Grianne Ohmsford could see the countryside for fifty miles in all directions. Huge, cottony clouds floated against the western horizon far out on the flats of the Streleheim, distant and remote, a soft promise of good weather. The airship sailed north on the first day of its expedition, and the woman who had once been Ard Rhys of the Third Druid Order was at peace.
She had known for a long time what she would do, she supposed. She had known from before she had come back through the Forbidding what must happen. The order would never heal while she was Ard Rhys, no matter how much she wanted to make it well, no matter how hard she tried to mend its wounds. The past is always with us, and more so with her than with most. She had accepted that she would never be free of that past.
She could chart the important phases of her life: as a child of six hiding in the cellar of her home with her baby brother while her parents were slaughtered in the rooms above; as a young girl subverted by the Morgawr into believing that the Druid Walker Boh had been responsible; as the Ilse Witch working to destroy Walker until a chance meeting with the brother she had thought dead revealed the truth; and as Ard Rhys of the Third Druid Order struggling to find a way to gain acceptance as a force for good within the Four Lands. She could see the path her life had taken and comprehend the reasons for all that she had done. But she could never explain it satisfactorily to anyone else. She could try, but most would dismiss her words as clever attempts at self-justification or worse.
She understood the truth of things. Some would always see her as the Ilse Witch, and would worry that beneath the surface of the image she projected, a monster lurked. That would never change; the roots of mistrust had grown too deep. Traunt Rowan had been right about that. Had he been more patient and less foolish, he would have lived to see her admit it.
She glanced back at the pilot box, where one of Kermadec’s Rock Trolls stood at the helm. Kermadec himself was seated on a box below the side wall, deep in conversation with Penderrin. She wondered what they were talking about. Even in the short time since the big Troll’s recovery from the battle in the north tower, the two had grown close. After returning the Moric to the Forbidding, the boy had come back to Paranor with his parents and had remained to help her restore some semblance of order to the Druid’s Keep. His parents had stayed, too, for a little while. But they had grown uncomfortable, as they always did with Paranor, and—seeing that she had matters well enough in hand, and missing their home and their old life—they had decided to go home to Patch Run.
But Pen had stayed on, his friendships with Kermadec, Tagwen, and Khyber Elessedil influencing his decision at least in part. All were aware of the transition Grianne was working; all were anxious to help her see it through. Pen could do no less, he told his parents. Bek understood; Rue accepted
. They made him promise he would not stay past the end of the month. They wished Grianne and the others well, said good-bye, and flew Swift Sure home. Grianne never told them all of what she intended, although she would have liked to tell Bek. But it was best if she didn’t, she told herself. It would be easier on them if they didn’t know.
She had dissolved the order and dismissed those still in her service. As Ard Rhys, she had the power to do this, and there was no one who would question her now. She gave Paranor into the keeping of Khyber, Bellizen, and Trefen Morys. When the time was right and when they had found a way to do so, they would re-form the order. A handful of others who had remained loyal were invited to stay, as well. But she charged the three she trusted most with spearheading the task of carrying on, the ones she believed would work the hardest. All three had asked her to reconsider. All had pleaded inexperience and limited skills. They were not equal to the task. Others could do better.
But there were no others she could rely on, and there were covenants to monitor, a part of the agreement that she had forged with the Federation and the Free-born. Her young successors would struggle at first, but they would learn from their mistakes and they would grow from their experiences. They would survive, protected as they were by Paranor and their magic, by the mystique of the Druids, and by their own perseverance and determination. She had thought this through carefully after talking with each. It was the right choice.
In the end, persuaded that she would not accept their refusals, they had acquiesced. They would select those men and women who would make up the next generation of Druids at Paranor. Perhaps, in time, the governments and peoples of the Four Lands would come to accept them as a good and necessary force for the furtherance of peace and cooperation among the Races. Certainly, they would have a better chance of achieving that goal than Grianne did.
Just then the Elves and the Federation were in the difficult process of putting themselves back together. Arling Elessedil would serve as Queen regent until her eldest daughter grew to adulthood and assumed the throne. There was a rumor she would remarry and seek to put a son on the throne instead, that she would never permit her daughters to follow in the footsteps of their father and grandfather. She was a strong-willed, at times intractable woman, and she did not look back fondly on her marriage to Kellen Elessedil. With the war on the Prekkendorran ended, she was seeking ways to assure that madness of the sort he had displayed as King would never happen again. She would never achieve that goal, of course. Perhaps she knew that. But it did not stop her from trying.
