Bloodfire Quest

18

It was just after midnight when Wend-A-Way lifted off, a sleek and silent shadow silhouetted against a sky rapidly filling with dark clouds that already blocked away the quarter moon and stars. Cymrian was at the helm, and the crew of three worked the lines and sails, channeling the power from the diapson crystals nestled in their parse tubes port and starboard, drawing down stored power in the absence of direct light. They rode a southeasterly wind that blew chill and brisk from out of the deeper darkness of an approaching storm that promised heavy weather within the next several hours. Cymrian ordered the light sheaths rolled back and the radian draws made fast as the wind quickened and the yaw of the vessel increased from slight to heavy.

“This won’t be pleasant!” he shouted over the wind’s whistle to where Arlingfant and Aphenglow huddled together forward of the pilot box.

Neither had to be told. Both knew enough of airships and storms to recognize what was coming, but Aphenglow, as the more experienced flier, was especially concerned. The size of the front and the strength of the wind told her this would be very bad, and they might even have to put down somewhere until it passed. If that proved necessary, it would remove any advantage they might have gained by leaving Arborlon in secret and under the cover of darkness.

But there was no help for it. The weather wasn’t something anyone could control—not yet, at any rate, although there were rumors of efforts aimed in that direction by the newly emboldened scientists of the Federation, who claimed to be on the brink of developing a way to use diapson crystals to manipulate natural forces. Aphenglow hoped that wasn’t true. If it were, it would open the door to the possibility of a power struggle that would eclipse anything the Four Lands had seen since the time of the Great Wars.

She took a moment to consider the possibility, a dark forewarning of something she had thought about before. The Druids had feared for some time now that diapason weapons even more destructive and dangerous than those already employed by the Federation were on the horizon. How could it not happen, with the Races and governments of the Four Lands constantly at war, each seeking a way to gain the upper hand? A confrontation between those who cultivated and employed magic, mostly Elves, and those who embraced science, mostly Men, was inevitable. She did not know what form that confrontation between past and present would take, and did not think she would be there to see it, but it would come.

Overhead, the mainsail billowed under the thrust of the wind, and the radian draws sang like discordant harp strings.

“Some wind,” Arling said, leaning close. Her dark eyes were big, and the concern on her oval face gave her the look of a child.

“Are you all right?” Aphenglow asked, looking deep in her sister’s eyes. “About what you are setting out to do, I mean?”

Arling shook her head. “I don’t know. I guess so. I’ve come to terms with things. I know what is needed if the Ellcrys is to live, and I want her to. I know what it means to all of us. Not just to the Elves, but to everyone in the Four Lands. She has to be renewed if the Forbidding is to hold, and it must hold. What else is there to say?”

“That you don’t want it to be your responsibility. That you don’t want this to happen.”

“Too late for that. It’s happened already. I have been given the seed. So now it’s mine. I am settled on that, Aphen. I am.”

“But you don’t want this. You’ve said so repeatedly.”

Her sister reached out and put an arm around her, pulling her close. “I don’t think any of us wanted most of what’s been given to us these past few weeks. We didn’t want any of it to happen. But it has. I think I understand what that means. It means we must exercise grace in the face of fear and doubt and loss of belief. It means we must understand that this is how life works—that it challenges us; it tests us. It gives us burdens to bear, and the measure of who we are is how we manage those burdens. I don’t wish mine. Of course I don’t. But what sort of person would I be if I refused it? Or cast it away?”

Aphen said nothing, letting the matter drop there, not sure if her sister had convinced herself that she could transfer the seed to a different successor. Something else was at work here, but it seemed clear that Arling didn’t want to talk about it.

She leaned into her sister. “That was well said,” she said. “I admire you for it.”

Arling bent her head into her arms. Her shoulders shook. She might have been laughing or crying, Aphen couldn’t tell which. “You admire me? Don’t you have that backward?”

“No. You have courage and determination and great heart.” She gripped her sister’s arm and squeezed hard. “Do me a favor. Lend me some of each. All three have been drained away from me.”

Arling snorted. “I doubt that!” Then, without looking at her, her sister punched her hard on her arm. “There. Now you have them. All three. Use them wisely.”

“Aphen!” Cymrian shouted down at her from the pilot box. “Get up here!”

She left Arling and groped her way around the walls of the box and climbed inside. Rain as well as wind was lashing Wend-A-Way by this time, the storm’s fury building steadily. Cymrian gestured behind him, and she turned to see an enormous black cloud bearing down on them rapidly—a massive giant that would engulf them within minutes.

“Where are we?” she shouted.

He pointed. She could just make out the pillars that framed the pass at the far end of the Valley of Rhenn. “If we can make that and get safely through, we will have some shelter on the lee side of the hills when we swing south. But we’ll have to hurry!”

Wend-A-Way lurched ahead, running at the front of the storm, her crew scrambling like madmen to keep her aloft and steady. The force of the wind increased, howling with fresh fury, the rain pummeling the decks of the airship and her passengers with droplets that stung like needles. Aphen crouched next to Cymrian, who had to stand in order to maneuver the controls and keep the vessel from smashing into the valley walls. She peered through the shroud of gloom and rain, watching the pillars appear and then vanish as if everything were a mirage and nothing was real.

Time slowed, and for a few desperate minutes their flight toward the pillars seemed endless. Aphen was certain they were going down, and she shouted to Arling to get off the deck and inside the pilot box with her. But her sister didn’t seem to hear, hunkered down forward of the wall, her head lowered and her shoulders hunched, wrapped within her cloak.

Abruptly, they were abreast of the cliffs, the stone monoliths stark and jagged to either side. The ship yawed heavily and then, with breathtaking suddenness, catapulted through the opening as if shooting rapids on a raging river.

Wend-A-Way rode the tide of wind and rain and, once clear of the pass, Cymrian swung the bow sharply starboard and down along the forested heights beyond. Wend-A-Way shuddered, then lurched ahead into a patch of diminished turbulence where she found her footing and steadied once more.

Impulsively, Aphenglow leapt to her feet and threw her arms around Cymrian, laughing like a child.

A short distance farther south, concealed within a defile that opened deep into the cliffs bordering the pass and with a clear view of it, Stoon stood on the foredeck of a Federation warship and watched the first gusts of windblown rain sweep past the opening of his hiding place. With him waited the warship’s captain and crew, a rough bunch that he had accepted without question, all of them chosen by Edinja Orle and presumably loyal to her. They seemed competent enough as sailors, and they handled the airship with experienced hands. So as long as they obeyed his orders, he was content to let them go about their business.

The mutants were another matter. Tucked away down in the hold, they were out of sight if not out of mind. If Stoon had his way, they would stay that way until the end of time. They might have started out as men, but now they were beasts of a sort that made him shiver when he was near them. So far they had followed his directives on the few occasions he had given orders—but he was not convinced he could depend on them to do so when it mattered. They reminded him of hunting dogs—reliable when they were in their kennels, but unpredictable when they sensed prey.

In spite of Edinja’s reassurances, he had reason to worry that at some point they might turn on him.

The captain of the warship came up to him. “This storm is much worse than what I thought it would be. It might be wise to stay here safely until it passes.”

Advice Stoon did not think the man should be giving him, but he only nodded and said, “If the ship we track passes us, storm or no, we will go after her. That is a direct order, Captain.”

The other man nodded, tight-lipped and sullen, and stalked away. He knew who was in charge here. That much was certain. Stoon was confident Edinja would not undercut his authority deliberately. Not when she wanted so badly to discover what was happening with the Druids and their mysterious search. The shrike’s message had made it clear that the Elven airship was coming their way. She would have to pass through the Valley of Rhenn before setting any further course. Odds were good that she was heading east or south. From their position in this defile, he would be able to tell which.

He lifted the spyglass to his eye and scanned the mouth of the pass, his tall, lean form bending forward out of habit as he did so. No sign of her yet. Sometime soon she would appear, unless the storm grew so bad it obscured everything. That was a risk, of course, but there was nothing he could do about the storm. Not that Edinja would see it that way if he lost his quarry now. But positioning themselves directly in front of the pass made no sense at all. It was dangerous enough to get this close. He still didn’t like it that he was tracking the Elessedil girl. Even the idea of it was unsettling. But he could not go against Edinja, no matter how he felt. So he had resolved to make the best of it.

He lowered the spyglass and rocked back on his heels. He wondered again about the spy Edinja had placed in the Elven camp. He understood better now where her spy might have come from after having watched her change those three men into mutants. Perhaps it, too, was a form of mutant answerable only to her. But who could get close enough to the Elessedils and their friends to gain access to the information she was now privy to and still not draw suspicion? How had she managed that?

There was no way of knowing, of course. Not unless she chose to tell him, and she was unlikely to do that. Perhaps at some point he might meet this mysterious person. But for now, the spy was little more than the sum of the messages sent by the shrikes.

In the distance, something moved against the deep blackness of the storm. He brought up the spyglass quickly and studied the murky roil at the mouth of the pass.

An airship.

Smaller than his own and sleeker, a vessel built for speed and maneuverability.

He turned at once. “Ready the ship, Captain. We’re going out.”

Aboard the Wend-A-Way, Aphenglow had relieved Cymrian at the helm and was steering the airship on a steady course south along the Westland forests bordering the Streleheim. The storm had swept through the pass behind them, rolling across the whole of the upper Westland in the process, all blackness and fury as it gave chase. Aphen could tell already that they were not going to be able to outrun it; the best they could do was ride it out. Failing that, they would have to set down somewhere along the way and wait until it passed.

But the plains offered little in the way of shelter, and trying to set down in the forest during a blow of this magnitude was dangerous. She had already resolved that unless they were in danger of crashing, they would do neither.

“Arling, get up here!” she shouted at her sister.

This time Arling responded, climbing to her feet and making her way around the pilot box to the opening that allowed her to climb inside. Cymrian was gone by now, out working the lines with the crewmen. Fearless, that one. Aphen smiled at the memory of the look on his face when she had hugged him. Shock and pleasure both—she liked that. He hadn’t known what to make of her impulsive gesture, but he had clearly welcomed it. She thought about how far they had come in their once-strained relationship, how much more comfortable they had grown with each other. They were friends now, and their friendship transcended the mistrust and suspicion that had kept them at odds before.

She could almost imagine having him around on a regular basis.

Almost.

But she was wary of getting close to people just now, even as friends. She was still hurting from the loss of Bombax. She was still devastated by the destruction of the Druid order and the decimation of its Troll guard. She had been close to all of them, and the pain of their deaths had discouraged her from seeking new friendships of any sort. Now there was Arling to worry about, as well. It was difficult for her to let herself become close to others, and she thought it would be a long time before she could do so again.

Not that she didn’t appreciate having Cymrian there. Not that she would have wanted it to be any other way.

She watched him move among the other Elves, swift and sure-footed, his white-blond hair plastered against his head in the rain, his clothing already soaked. He seemed tireless to her, impervious to exhaustion and weakness. She marveled that he could always seem so fit and ready when she felt so worn.

As the wind blew with fierce purpose and the rain sheeted in torrents across the decking, she stood at the helm in the darkness and wished again that things could be different.

Arling nudged her arm. “We should put down, Aphen. We’re going to rip apart!”

But Aphenglow shook her head. “She can take it. Wend-A-Way is built to withstand this.”

She said it, but she wasn’t entirely sure it was so. The storm was on top of them now, a monstrous force of nature, and it felt as if every wire and plank and nail were rattling. It was taking everything Aphen had to hold the ship even marginally steady as she jerked and yawed sideways and underwent sudden, breathtaking drops. She found herself wondering how much power was left in the diapson crystals; a storm like this one would drain their power quickly. If they had to try to change out the crystals in this sort of weather, it would be an unbelievably treacherous job.

Arling was clinging to her arm, holding on as if doing so were the only way she could stay safe. Aphen let her, finding fresh strength in her sister’s touch, in the clear sense of dependency. It made her want to wrap Arling in her cloak and shelter her from the world. It made her want to find a way to keep her safe forever from the dark things that were coming to steal her away.

“Aphen!”

Cymrian was beside her suddenly, pressing close to be heard. His face was slicked with rain and drawn with tension. “There’s an airship tracking us. There.”

He pointed beyond the stern of Wend-A-Way into the blackness. Aphen peered into the gloom.

“I don’t see it.”

“Wait for the lightning!”

A second later a jagged streak lit up the sky, and she saw it. A warship, she thought, big and black within the roiling center of the storm. “What do we do about it?”

He gave her a puzzled look. “What do you think? We lose it.”

Stoon realized too late that the Federation warship was overtaking the smaller craft. Sensing the danger, he screamed at the captain to slow her down, and when the captain failed to respond quickly enough, he raced back from the bow to confront the man. But by then the damage was done. The Elves had seen them, and their airship had put on a burst of speed and was flying west toward the cover of the forest.

Raging at the captain for his stupidity, Stoon ordered the warship to give pursuit. They had lost the advantage of surprise, their identity and likely their intent revealed. The best he could hope for now, even after all his care and planning, was to force the other vessel down and make prisoners of her passengers. What the chances were of that, he had no idea. At least, it would give him a chance to see firsthand how effective his hunters were, how obedient to his orders. He almost hoped it would end with all of them dead, Elves and mutants alike. He would risk what that would mean when he returned to Edinja, just to have this business behind him.

But maybe it would all go another way. Maybe the mutants would prove more than a match for the Elven girl. Maybe they would be stronger than her magic. Maybe they would dispatch the crew and overpower her, she could become his prisoner, and he would cart her off to face Edinja in the privacy of her dungeons.

Staying close now to the captain, afraid to leave his side for fear that he would do something else stupid, Stoon searched the blackness ahead, peering through sheets of rain and shifting phantasms of gloom and mist. The edges of the forest loomed, vast and sprawling, just visible as the warship drew close.

Then lightning flashed anew, and the assassin saw everything ahead of them clearly revealed.

The Elven airship was gone.