by Terry Brooks
She shook her head. “Magic is the foundation of the Orle family and the source of what keeps the Four Lands in balance, whatever anyone else might say or think. Men and women like Drust Chazhul would manipulate and deceive their way to power that is beyond them. They would gain their positions and then squander their opportunities. When Drust became Prime Minister, all he could think to do was to strengthen his hold on his office. He gave no thought to how he might use the chance he had been given productively. He simply decided magic was bad and science was good, and that he would seize control of the one and stamp out the other.”
Stoon finished his wine and set the goblet on a small table at his elbow. “He was obsessed with making certain no one would challenge his grip on the Prime Minister’s office.”
She sniffed. “It was a grip he would never have been able to hold, even had he lived. But here is my point. I align more closely with the Druids of Paranor than with the politicians of Arishaig and the Federation. I am kindred to the Druid order in my history and in my worldview. They would not accept this, but it is so. We seek the same ends. What separates us is their unwillingness to use their magic to take control of the Four Lands. It isn’t that I am suggesting they need to do this to gain further power; I am suggesting they need to do more to make the Four Lands safe from predators. Once a central government is established, there are better uses to which magic could be put than in fighting the constant civil wars that have raged since the time of the First Druid Order.”
“And you would be the one to make this happen?” he asked.
“Of course. Who better? I am well positioned for it. I command the strongest government in the Four Lands. I have the means and influence to bring the others into line. As Prime Minister, acting on behalf of the whole of the Southland people, I can make anything I wish come to pass.”
“So you have a plan?”
“I have a plan. But it does not involve seizing Paranor and tearing down its walls. It does not involve engaging in a war with the Druids and eventually with the Elves, who at some point will ally themselves. It means taking a different approach.”
She did not offer to explain what that approach was, and Stoon knew better than to ask. He simply nodded in casual agreement. “So I am not to go back into Paranor?”
She rose from where she was sitting, reached out and pulled him to his feet, and then pressed herself against him. “The wards might be down, but the Druids would never leave anything valuable lying around unprotected. Try to take anything out of Paranor and you will pay a price for your arrogance. Besides, going back into Paranor at this point will undermine everything I hope to accomplish. The order will associate all that has happened so far with Drust Chazhul. I hope to leave it that way. His time has come and gone, and I will do my best to make it clear that his actions were not mine. I wish to disassociate myself—and the Federation, as well, if it is at all possible—from everything he did. Am I clear about this, Stoon?”
He felt her fingers working at the buttons of his tunic. “You could not be more clear, Mistress.”
She slid her hands inside his clothing and ran them up and down his chest. “You can stop calling me Mistress now,” she said. “Think of something a little less formal, will you?”
Then she took him to her bed.
When the assassin departed her chambers some hours later, the first rays of the sunrise were just beginning to show on the eastern horizon, the light silvery and muted. Stoon returned the same way he had come, alone and unseen, his mind on fire with memories of his time with her. Edinja was like no one he had ever been with, and he did not want their relationship to end. Even knowing that one day it would—that she would have it no other way and he would not be able to prevent it—he did not want it to happen. So he would make the most of it while it lasted, and he would not give himself cause to look back on this time with even the smallest of regrets.
For now, he had other business to attend to. He must send word to their spy in Arborlon. He must dispatch Edinja’s birds to seek out the Druid and her Elven protector. It would be their assignment to find the pair and then to track them to wherever they might be going, all the while sending messages back to him.
Messages he could carry to Edinja.
Messages of sufficient import that she would allow him to come to her and be with her as he had this night.
Stoon was a practical man with few vices and dependable instincts. But he was not perfect; he was not without weaknesses. He knew that she was one. But he also knew that for all her talk about serving a higher purpose and seeking a peaceful unification of the Four Lands, she was every bit as bloodthirsty as her former rivals. Why else had she allied herself with him? Why else had she been so keen to dispatch both Arodian and Drust Chazhul?
He slowed outside the walls of the compound, checking to make certain he had not been seen. Then he began navigating a complex network of alleyways that would take him to his quarters nearby. It was best, she had told him early on, if they were never seen together, not even by chance. It would increase his effectiveness and diminish the chances of them being connected even in the smallest of ways.
It would make their clandestine meetings just that much sweeter, she had insisted. Didn’t he agree?
Oh, yes, he agreed.
His thoughts drifted. He had come a long way since his days as the son of a blacksmith. His father had been a big, strong man with a mean temper and a penchant for taking out his anger on his son. Stoon had been badly beaten on more occasions than he cared to remember, frequently for no reason other than his father’s mood. The beatings had continued right up until the moment he took a hammer to his father’s head while he lay passed out after a bout of drinking. Then he dragged the body to the river in the dead of night and sank it with weights. A street boy after that, he had allied himself with an assassins’ guild and learned the trade well enough that eventually he was smarter and more skillful than any of them and had set out on his own.
Years of practicing his chosen trade had provided him with distance from his childhood and safety from any who might try to mistreat him ever again. It had provided him with everything that had led to his meeting with Drust Chazhul and now Edinja Orle.
His future seemed assured.
But there was a nagging concern, one that had been with him since the ill-fated assault on Paranor. Aphenglow Elessedil. He had almost caught up to her in the courtyard between the Outer and Inner walls of the Keep, but had he done so he would be as dead as Drust Chazhul. He knew that as surely as he knew he must face her again. There was a certainty to it he could not shake. She should have been his; she should have gone the way of all the others he had dispatched. Yet she had turned on him, and it was only by the slimmest of margins that he had managed to escape her. A step here, a turn there, a bit of smoke and ash, a momentary distraction—almost any of these could have changed the outcome of their meeting.
Now he would have her tracked along with the other Druids, and while he did not fear the Druids as an order or even their formidable magic, he did fear her. He could not help himself. The fear had attached itself to him and would not release its grip.
Deep within the Fangs, the new day crept like a predator from out of the eastern horizon. On the precipice where they had made their stand the previous night, Railing Ohmsford was sitting with Mirai Leah, looking out over the clusters of dead attackers to the dark and silent sweep of the forest wilderness. Nothing moved in the shadows of the jungle of rocks and trees below. No sounds broke the silence. The last attack had ended more than six hours earlier with the arrival of the Rover Austrum aboard his armored flit. The dead lay where they had fallen, and what was left of the defenders huddled together in hollow-eyed anticipation of what might happen next.
“They’ll come again,” Mirai said, as if reading his mind. She was ragged and covered in blood and dust and might have been a stranger for all that he recognized of her.
“Why did you let him kiss you like that?” h
e asked.
He had kept the question to himself all night, even though he could barely contain it. It ate at him in a way that was unbearable. Now it was out there, released just like that.
She gave him a look. “I didn’t have a chance to stop him. I was as surprised as you were.”
“But you didn’t even try. You let him kiss you twice.”
She started to say something and stopped. Then she looked away. “It isn’t your concern, Railing.”
“I’m your friend.”
“That doesn’t mean you have the right to question me like this. I am the one who needs to deal with Austrum, not you. Let it go.”
He did not want to let it go. He wanted to see dismay and regret from her, not acceptance. She had been forcibly violated and did not seem much concerned about it. It was maddening.
He glanced over to where the Rover was sleeping next to Skint and Seersha. The Speakman was dead; there hadn’t been time to save him once their attackers dragged him out from under the overhang. The last of the Trolls had died during the night. Farshaun, however, had recovered. He was sitting off to the other side of the sleepers, just far enough away that he couldn’t hear what they were saying.
“They won’t come again before nightfall,” Railing said, trying to regain his footing. He did not want her to be angry with him. “Whatever they are.”
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t want to bet on that. We need to get out of here before then.”
“Maybe Austrum’s right. Maybe the Walker Boh will find us before then.” He glanced up at the thick blanket of mist and was immediately discouraged. Nothing could find its way through that. “Or maybe he has a way to signal her. He said the flashes of magic caught his eye and guided him down to us.”
But mostly down to her, he knew. He had come for her, and it made him crazy to know that she understood it as well as he did and was doing nothing about it.
“It’s a big place,” she responded absently. “The storm blew the airship off course. Austrum took a big risk when he left to come look for us. A foolish risk. I don’t know what the others will choose to do.”
“Maybe we should send him back up there to look for them,” he suggested.
“Maybe you should stop talking about him.”
Seersha was awake now, on her feet and stretching. Her black cloak was ripped and dirty, her face a mask of harsh lines and rough determination that made her look dangerous. She walked through the dead creatures to the edge of the precipice and looked over. Mirai rose and went to join her. Railing, hampered by his leg and exhausted from the struggle, stayed where he was. It was his turn to sleep after having kept guard all night. But it was Mirai’s time, too, and he stubbornly refused to lie down until she was beside him.
He closed his eyes against his weariness and dismay, feeling suddenly alone and abandoned. Redden was gone and Mirai felt removed and distant and he was sick at heart because of it. He hated that he had come on this expedition and hated even more that he had been the one who had pushed for all of them to come. He had thought it would be such a big adventure. Now he just wanted things back the way they had been before, with the three of them returned to Patch Run and the Highlands of Leah. He wanted Mirai’s attentions focused on him, and he wanted Austrum gone. He wanted them all safe, and he was beginning to think that might never happen.
Then he realized how he sounded and was instantly ashamed. This wasn’t like him. The brothers had never been the sort to feel sorry for themselves or whine about their situations. They had never despaired of being able to work things out.
What is happening to me?
Farshaun ambled over and sat next to him. He had a nasty wound on his head and bruises on his face. “You need to sleep, Railing. You look terrible.”
The boy nodded. “I know that.”
“You did well last night. You saved us all. You and Seersha.”
“Not the Speakman, we didn’t.”
The old man nodded. “No, not him. But I don’t think he expected to be saved. He came here to die. Maybe he believed his own prophecy enough to want it to come to pass. We did what we could to prevent it from happening, but sometimes there just isn’t any way. And maybe he was right and none of us is coming back from this.”
The boy stayed silent, watching Mirai return across the precipice. When she reached them, she knelt down and embraced him and kissed him on the cheek. “Let’s be friends again, Railing. Let’s not argue about things that don’t matter.”
He couldn’t help himself. He nodded and smiled gratefully. “I want that, too. I’m sorry about before.”
She leaned in again and this time kissed him on the mouth. “It’s forgotten. You told me how you felt. I understand. I worry about you, too.”
He wasn’t sure she did understand, but he didn’t want to say so. It was enough that they were talking again and not angry at each other. He knew he was being foolish; all this nonsense about Austrum would pass. Once they were out of this place and on their way home, things would go back to the way they had been.
Seersha had turned and was heading toward them when she abruptly stopped and looked back. A soft white glow was emanating from somewhere below the precipice. Seersha moved back over to the edge and then quickly beckoned to the others. Railing, in spite of his exhaustion and the damage to his leg, levered himself to his feet with Mirai’s help and hobbled over to where the Druid knelt. When he peered over he saw a bright splash of light spilling out of a cleft in the rocks.
“Shades!” Mirai Leah hissed.
A moment later Crace Coram passed through the light and stood looking up at them.
12
With the new day brightening in a haze of gray mist and dull light and the remnants of the Druid expedition gathered about him, Crace Coram told his story. He had climbed up to the ledge to join the little company, the light through which he had passed having disappeared the moment he emerged from it. Now they were arrayed in a tight circle—Railing, Mirai, Seersha, Skint, and Farshaun Req—listening intently to the Dwarf Chieftain.
Oriantha was still inside the place in which they had all been trapped, he began, but he would get to that in a minute.
When the dragon lifted off in the midst of its battle with the members of the expedition, the Dwarf Chieftain, still riding its back and trying to bring it down, was caught by surprise. He tried to jump clear, but his clothing was tangled in the dragon’s spikes, and by the time he had torn himself free the dragon was already too high up. All he could do at that point was to hang on and try not to fall off.
It helped that he was immensely strong, but even so it took everything he had to keep his balance as the dragon’s wings rose and fell and its long body undulated like a snake’s. The wind whipped at the Dwarf, threatening to tear him loose, and he flattened himself against the scaly body to reduce its force.
At some point during his flight, he became aware of someone else clinging to the dragon, a flash of movement or color drawing his attention. When he glanced back down the dragon’s body, he found a creature he didn’t recognize plastered against its hindquarters, a thing that looked half human, half wolf. Its face lifted to find his, and for just an instant he saw the girl Oriantha looking back at him. Then the green eyes narrowed and the creature’s jaws drew back in a snarl, and what he might have thought was human disappeared.
But the creature did not try to advance on him, and so the Dwarf let it be and used his energy to fight back against the wearing demands of keeping his seat. He did his best to try to get a fix on his position during his flight, sighting various landmarks that he thought he might be able to use to find his way back once he got down off the dragon—something he never doubted would happen eventually. There were distinctive mountain peaks and a huge lake and a large stretch of rugged wilderness, and he could determine where he needed to go by noting where these lay.
But heavy clouds stretched from horizon to horizon, hiding the sun and making it impossible to determine the directio
n in which he was moving. When the dragon underwent an unexpected shift in its flight pattern, his landmarks disappeared into a range of mountains that eventually obscured everything he had memorized and left him totally turned about and unable to determine how he had gotten to where he was.
The dragon flew on until finally it reached a forested lake and made an abrupt downward plunge. Crace Coram barely had time to register what was happening before the dragon was diving into the lake waters and he was forced to fling himself clear. He landed with an enormous splash, struggled back to the surface gasping for air, and immediately began swimming toward a spit of land several hundred yards away. Burdened by his mace, which was shoved into his belt, and by his heavy clothing, he nevertheless completed the journey in record time, looking back only once when he heard the dragon surface with a thrashing that sounded like a thousand waterbirds taking flight.
But the creature began moving in another direction, and once the Dwarf Chieftain was certain it was not coming back, he continued his swim until his feet were again on solid ground. He collapsed momentarily but quickly hauled himself upright and off the exposed shoreline until he was hidden in the trees. Out on the lake, the dragon had reached a small island and was disappearing into a rocky stretch at its center—a place in which the Dwarf assumed it might have its nest.
He lay back, his heart pounding, exhausted by what had happened, safe for the moment but wondering how he was going to find his way back to the others.
