by Terry Brooks
She did. “You mean if I were dead, the matter would be settled. Tasha thinks Isoeld might be intending to kill me, too.”
He nodded. “But she would call it a suicide, Tasha says. In such despair over what you had done to your father, you took your own life. Something like that. Tasha sees these things a lot better than you do, Phryne.”
She couldn’t argue the point. It would make sense that Isoeld would dispose of her as quickly as possible. Especially if she viewed Phryne as a rival for the Elven throne. It was probably only her stepmother’s desire to find the missing Elfstones that had kept her alive this long.
It was scary, but it was depressing, too. Things had not been good since her father married Isoeld, but she hadn’t realized how bad they had gotten. She hadn’t paid enough attention to what was happening. She had been too self-absorbed when she should have been thinking of her father and the possibility that Isoeld’s intentions were more dangerous than he knew. Isoeld wouldn’t have done this without having thought about it for a long time beforehand. An opportunity might have presented itself or desperation might have pushed her over the edge, but she had to have been planning this terrible thing long before that.
It made Phryne wonder anew about the fate of her grandmother and the Elfstones. Isoeld would not have stopped with her father if she thought it would cement her hold on the throne.
“Has there really been no word at all about Mistral?” she asked Xac. “She’s just disappeared and no one’s seen or heard anything?”
“I told you what I saw when I went to her house. I don’t know anything else, Phryne.”
They walked in silence for a time, approaching the eastern borders of Arborlon now, drawing closer to her grandmother’s cottage. It was getting much darker as the lights of the city faded and the heavy woods loomed ahead, the pathway narrowing and twisting. Phryne found herself growing more uneasy, listening for every noise, searching the shadows.
“Why are we doing this?” Xac whispered suddenly. “I don’t see what you think you’ll find.”
“I know. I don’t, either.” Phryne felt defeated. “I just have to go there and see for myself. I have to try to understand what happened.”
She didn’t say anything about the Elfstones. There wasn’t any reason to discuss that part of things with Xac Wen. Although their fate was at the back of her mind, she wasn’t sure what she would do even if she found them. Keep them from Isoeld, she guessed. Keep them out of her hands.
“I just think this is a mistake,” Xac added unhelpfully.
She decided to change the subject. “How did you manage to get that note to me? How did you get into the kitchen long enough to hide it?”
“What note?” he said.
She stared at him. “The note you put in the hard roll that came with my dinner! The one that said HELP IS COMING.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t send you any note.”
She grabbed his arm and pulled him around to face her. “Wait a minute. Say that again.”
“I didn’t send you any note. Will you let go of my arm, Phryne? For cat’s sake!”
The chill that ran through her now was much worse than anything she had experienced in the cold air of the high passes leading out of the valley. She had been so sure that it was Xac, after he had set her free, that she hadn’t since considered the possibility that it might have been someone else.
And if it was someone else …
Quickly, she told the boy what had happened and how she had assumed the note must have been his. By the time she had finished, he was looking around wildly.
“It was her!” he hissed. “Isoeld! It must have been!”
“Probably,” she agreed. “It makes sense. It was just coincidence that you showed up when you did. If you hadn’t, I imagine I would have discovered the door was unlocked or something of that sort and been allowed to get free on my own, except that they would be waiting for me.”
“So they could kill you,” the boy finished. “They’d have an excuse.”
Or follow me to see if I would lead them to the Elfstones and then kill me. She thought that the more likely possibility but didn’t say so. She looked around at the darkness, half expecting someone to jump out of the shadows. But everything was quiet. Nothing moved.
“We have to forget this!” Xac Wen was saying. “We have to find somewhere to hide right now!”
Phryne put her hands on his shoulders, but gently this time and with no intention of trying to hold on to him. “Listen to me. I can’t do that. I have to go to my grandmother’s. I have to. There are reasons I can’t talk about just yet. But I have to go. Isoeld doesn’t know I’ve escaped. Not yet. That guard might still be sleeping. You closed the door, so even after he wakes he might not realize I’m gone. Not right away.”
She paused, took her hands away. “I’m going. But you don’t have to. You know that. You’ve done enough.”
He stared at her as if she had lost her mind, and then abruptly shrugged. “Let’s stop talking about this. Let’s just go.”
They entered the heavy woods, following the pathway that led to Mistral’s cottage, working their way slowly through the darkness, aware now the danger they had supposed existed before was suddenly much greater. Phryne knew she should have insisted that the boy go back without her. There was nothing to connect him to her escape at this point, but if they caught him now he would be in as much trouble as she was. She knew he didn’t want to go with her, but she also knew his pride and his loyalty to the Orullians would not let him turn back. He was not the sort to give in to his doubts and fears; he would face them down and overcome them. There was no point in suggesting he do anything else.
“I wish we had better weapons,” he muttered. “All I have is a knife.”
All I have is nothing, she thought. But weapons probably weren’t going to be of much use at this point. If this was a trap, if Isoeld was waiting for them, she would have brought help to make sure that Phryne couldn’t fight her way free. She shuddered to think of whom her stepmother might have found that would be willing to see her dead. Elves? Something or someone else? She was suddenly very scared.
But she kept going anyway, intent on reaching her grandmother’s. It took awhile, the combination of darkness and forest slowing her sufficiently that she couldn’t be sure exactly which of the many paths that crisscrossed the woods she was on. Then, all at once, the forest opened up ahead to reveal the clearing and the cottage.
She stopped just within the fringe of the trees. The cottage was dark and silent. The front door hung open, its hinges torn loose at the top. The windows were broken out, glass shards glinting in a shaft of moonlight on the porch decking. The house had an empty, dead feeling about it, even from where she stood.
She glanced over at Xac Wen, who shrugged. He couldn’t detect anything, either.
“I’ll go first,” she whispered to him. “If something happens to me, you can go for help.”
She didn’t really think he would find any, but it was a way to keep him safely back from whatever was going to happen next. This way, he might have some small chance of escape. She didn’t try to fool herself about how small that chance might be. It was the best she could offer.
He gave her a reluctant nod.
Taking a deep breath, she stepped out of the shelter of the trees and walked toward the house.
PHRYNE HAD NOT GONE A DOZEN STEPS BEFORE she slowed, then stopped altogether. Suddenly she could not go on. Mistral’s cottage was a malignant shell, empty and dark and so forbidding that it seemed impossible that anything good could come from going inside. The feeling was so intense that for a moment the girl considered turning back. Mistral was gone, but something else might be waiting.
But then she tightened her resolve and kept walking. She had come this far, and if Isoeld had set a trap for her it was already too late to back away. If whatever minions her stepmother employed to kill a King and husband had come for her, as
well, she would not give them the satisfaction of seeing her attempt to flee. She might be terrified, but she would not back down.
Head up, she started forward once more.
She stepped onto the porch, eyes searching the shadows, ears pricked for any sounds. What she saw was an impenetrable blackness that obscured everything. What she heard was a deep and pervasive silence. The wooden steps and floorboards of the porch creaked softly beneath her feet. When she reached the open entry, the door splintered and hanging crookedly off its hinges mute evidence of the violence that had taken place, she stopped again. She could smell traces of things that testified to the nature of the emptiness that had claimed the house in her grandmother’s absence. Dust, wilted flowers, and stale air mixed with the metallic scent of blood.
Turning sideways to avoid the edges of the collapsed door, she edged through the opening, taking each step carefully, trying not to make any noise. By now she was pretty sure that no one was lurking inside, waiting to strike her down. But while she felt certain the house was empty, bereft of its owner and her friends, there was something …
She stifled that line of thinking and moved into the darkness, letting it envelop her. She wasn’t a particularly brave person; she knew that about herself. But she was brash and reckless in situations where sometimes that was enough to get you through. She felt it might be so now. She let her eyes adjust, all the while searching the shadows, listening for what might be hidden within their silent covering.
Nothing.
She took another step and suddenly dozens of dark shapes flew out of the blackness, wings beating madly all around her, swerving and diving, cries wild and shrill, before flying out the door and into the night. Phryne gathered up the shattered remnants of her resolve, so badly startled she had almost turned and fled. Birds. Just birds, roosting in the abandoned house, seeking food and shelter.
She had just managed to take a fresh step forward when a disembodied voice from almost right behind her said, “Phryne? What was that? Are you all right?”
She was startled all over again, instantly riddled with fear, but she held herself together when she realized it was Xac Wen speaking to her. Somehow he had managed to come up on her without her hearing. She wheeled on him angrily.
“I thought I told you to wait for me!” she hissed.
“You did, but I thought …”
“You thought you would creep up on me and give me the fright of my life, that’s what you thought!”
She glared at him in the dark, realizing that he probably couldn’t see the look on her face, but certainly couldn’t mistake the tone of her voice. He took a step back and made a warding gesture.
“Just trying to help!” he snapped. “I thought you were in trouble or something! I didn’t realize you were just fooling around with birds!”
She almost laughed, it sounded so ridiculous, but managed to keep a straight face. “Oh, never mind. Thanks for worrying about me. You just scared me, that’s all.”
“I know. But I didn’t mean to.” He looked past her into the darkened interior. “Find anything yet?”
“No. But I haven’t started looking. I was making sure no one else was here but me.” She brushed back a few strands of auburn hair from her eyes and instantly regretted it. Her battered face was not yet ready to be touched, and she winced in response to the gesture.
“Doesn’t look to me like anyone’s here,” he said.
She appraised him critically. “I suppose now that you’re here you want to help me look?”
The boy shrugged. “Depends. What am I looking for?”
“Anything that looks interesting. Any sort of clue that my grandmother might have left that would tell me what happened to her.” She threw up her hands. “I don’t know. Just look.”
They prowled through the empty cottage, moving from room to room, searching the darkness, afraid to light a lamp or even a candle because anyone watching or passing by would know there was someone inside in an instant. Phryne moved cautiously but confidently, familiar with the layout of the cottage, pretty much knowing where things were. Xac Wen didn’t seem bothered by unfamiliarity or darkness, slipping sure-footedly through the shadows, and Phryne found herself wondering if he had been here more often than he let on.
Their search was thorough, but there was nothing much to be found. Furniture was overturned, vases smashed, cabinets kicked in, and bedding thrown everywhere. Not only had Mistral been attacked, her cottage had been searched—which would suggest Isoeld was indeed looking for the blue Elfstones. Phryne knew Mistral had retained possession of them after their last meeting and apparently had hidden them again. Perhaps she had done so only as a precaution before the King’s murder, but afterward she would have understood that she might be in danger, too. Mistral was no fool. If she had hidden the Elfstones, it was unlikely that Isoeld would find them here.
Or that Phryne would, for that matter.
Still, she kept looking, taking time to study everything. Xac Wen trailed after her, searching the same places, examining the same things. But neither of them saw anything helpful.
“This is a waste of time,” the boy said finally. They had reached the back porch and were staring out the window into the old woman’s gardens. “We could search this cottage from now until doomsday and never find anything. Whatever it is you think you’re looking for, I don’t think you’ll find it. Let’s go. It will be light soon.”
She knew he was right, but she was feeling stubborn about this. If her grandmother had felt threatened, she would have made preparations. She would have done something either to get word to Phryne or to leave her a clue as to where she had gone. She would have been prepared when Isoeld and her minions came calling. She wouldn’t have been caught off guard.
“We’ll look a little longer,” she replied.
She had just decided to go back to Mistral’s bedroom and start over when she spied the flowers. They were sitting in a vase by the open window, their petals caught in the faint starlight, radiating a soft crimson. Beautiful, she thought suddenly. But then she realized that flowers in a vase in an abandoned house should be wilted and dying, not fresh and new. She walked over to them, reached down and touched them experimentally.
To her surprise, they began to glow with a soft, steady light that suggested somehow they were lit from within.
“Um, Phryne,” she heard Xac whisper.
When she turned to face him, she found him staring fixedly at something off to one side, his mouth hanging open. He tried to say something more and couldn’t.
She followed his gaze and found herself face-to-face with Mistral Belloruus. Except that it wasn’t her grandmother exactly—it was something that approximated her. This Mistral Belloruus was vaguely transparent and so washed of color she was reduced to various shades of gray. She stood in place facing Phryne, but not exactly seeing her, eyes staring at a point somewhere in between where they each stood.
Phryne, listen to me.
The voice was as pale and insubstantial as her image, and Phryne was certain in that moment that her grandmother was dead and this was her ghost. She sobbed audibly, and it was more than the night’s chill that made her shiver. Her grandmother had always seemed so indestructible. That she was gone seemed impossible.
“Grandmother,” she whispered.
This avatar will not last more than a few minutes, but I wanted you to be certain that it was I who was speaking to you. Isoeld and her creatures will come for me soon. It is inevitable. She knows about the Elfstones. Your father made the mistake of confiding in her. When she finds them missing from the palace, she will know who has them. With you imprisoned, there is no one to stand with me. My faithful will try, but they are old and lack even my strength. So the outcome is settled.
Phryne was confused anew. If this was not a ghost, but an avatar created by some form of magic, then there was a chance that her grandmother was still alive.
I regret I did not have a way of rescuing you. I have sent w
ord to others who might. One way or another, you will be set free. When that happens, you will come here to look for me and for the Elfstones. But we will both be gone.
Xac Wen edged forward to stand closer to Phryne. His voice was a harsh whisper as he said, “I don’t think that we should …”
But the avatar was already talking over him.
To keep the Elfstones safe for you, I am taking them to a place that I know even Isoeld will not think to find me. If I hide the Elfstones here, they will be found. If I choose to remain behind, I will be found. So I am leaving. When you find the cottage empty, you will touch the flowers, and this avatar will awaken. In departing, it will tell you where I am. Read it on the air. Come to me after you do, and I will give you the Elfstones. Your destiny is settled. It has arrived much sooner than either of us expected and comes cloaked in misfortune and grief. But it cannot be turned away; it cannot be denied. Embrace it, child.
Then she was gone, disappeared back into the night. Like smoke on a stiff breeze, the avatar shimmered and faded away. Phryne kept staring at the place it had last been, waiting for something more to appear. Read it on the air. She was trying, but there was only darkness and the memory of her grandmother’s words.
Finally, Xac pulled at her arm. “We have to go, Phryne! I hear voices!”
Still, she lingered, unwilling to give up. If she left now, she would know exactly nothing of where her grandmother had gone. She would never find the Elfstones. Everything would be lost. Read it on the air. Shades! She was trying!
“Phryne!”
Xac Wen’s voice had changed to a harsh whisper. She could hear the voices now, too. They were coming from outside the front of the cottage, soft and guarded. Men’s voices—Elven Hunters or something much, much worse.
Then the gloom right in front of her blazed to life, filling the darkness with huge words written with flames in bright red letters that sizzled and popped as if the air itself were burning.
