Bloodfire Quest

22

Seersha stood at the front of the room, arms crossed, watching with her one good eye as Mirai Leah took a seat next to Railing. She was the last of them to arrive. The Druid had called them all together—those returned from the ill-fated expedition to Arborlon and Woostra—in the house the men and the boy shared as communal lodging.

Railing, assessing the situation, believed from the urgency of her summons and now the serious expression on her bluff face that she had something important to tell them.

He glanced from Crace Coram seated right across from him, to Skint sitting next to the Dwarf Chieftain, to Woostra tucked back in a corner by himself, and finally to Mirai beside him. He couldn’t be sure from their faces, but he guessed they probably thought the same as he did.

“I’ve finished an audience with the King, Aphenglow’s grandfather, and with his brother, both of whom are aware of what is happening to the Forbidding. I have asked to return there, and the King has agreed to it.”

“Finally!” Railing exclaimed, unable to contain himself.

“Better hear me out,” Seersha said, cutting him short. She took a moment to be sure he was listening. “The King will provide a company of Elven Hunters to go with me. Or perhaps it’s me going with them, depending on how you read things. Sian Aresh, who is Captain of the Home Guard, will lead these men. We will travel back into the deep Westland until we reach the Breakline. The Elves are under strict orders to stay outside the walls of the Forbidding, even if an entry presents itself. They are to keep watch for an attempted breakout by those trapped within. Reports are to be sent back to Arborlon, but the Elves are to hold their position until a more significant force can be assembled, equipped, and flown west in warships to join them. At that point, any attempt to invade the Westland is to be met with force and thrown back.”

Railing felt his heart sink. There was no mention of a rescue attempt, no suggestion of anyone going in after either his brother or the Ard Rhys.

“A significant force,” Crace Coram repeated carefully.

Seersha made a face. “We all know the history. The war between the creatures of Faerie ended with the creation of the Forbidding. Until then, the two sides had been evenly matched. But the Forbidding gave the edge to the Elves and their allies. If the Forbidding collapses, as it appears it is in danger of doing, it will probably take all of the Races working together to keep from being overrun by the dark creatures imprisoned within. We’ve already had a taste of what that would require—all but Woostra, and I am sure you will agree he is much the better for having avoided it. So, no, the Elves alone—even a ‘significant force,’ whatever that means—won’t be enough.”

“So we’re buying time for something else to happen?” Skint guessed.

Seersha nodded. “We are, in part at least, and that is what we are here to discuss.”

“I want my brother back,” Railing declared.

Seersha nodded impatiently. “We all know how you feel. But getting your brother back is no more important to you than getting back Khyber Elessedil is to me. We are both looking for the same resolution. The question is, how do we get it?”

“But if you have to stay outside the Forbidding and hold your ground, like you say …”

Seersha held up one hand quickly. “The Elven Hunters have to hold their ground and stay outside. Not me.”

“So you will go in after them?”

“Just as soon as I am able to do so. Will you let me finish, please?”

“I’m going with you.”

“Let me finish, Railing.”

He went still again, biting back the rest of what he wanted to say, tamping down the frustration and impatience that ruled his every waking minute, reining in his fears and doubts regarding his brother’s safety. What he wanted to do was to commandeer a sprint, fly into the Forbidding, find his brother, and spirit him out. Now.

But he knew it wouldn’t be that easy. And he knew that Seersha had already decided what it was they were going to do.

“Let’s get this out of the way, Railing,” she said to him suddenly. “I am going back into the Forbidding, but you are not.”

He started to leap up and object, but she put him back in his seat with a look and a quick gesture. Again, he tried to speak, but he was pinned in place and now he found he couldn’t speak, either.

“There are reasons for this,” she continued, ignoring his thrashings. “Good ones.” She paused. “You are going to hear them whether you want to or not. Do you understand me?” She waited until he quieted and gave her a brief nod. “Then pay attention. You are not fit enough to make this journey. Aphen’s magic is healing your broken leg, but it still has a way to go. The time required for the healing to become complete is uncertain. I can’t put others at risk by gambling that it will hold up if we are attacked. Yes, you have the magic of the wishsong to aid you, and it is a powerful weapon. But be that as it may, you still need time to finish mending, and I intend that you should have it. As well, you are the wrong person for this effort. You are brave and committed, but you are not experienced enough. So I am giving you something else to do, something every bit as important and perhaps more so.”

Everyone was listening closely now, intrigued by this unexpected possibility. Railing, rendered silent and immobile, seethed at his predicament, but listened anyway.

“The Ulk Bog who found Crace Coram and Oriantha was very insistent that the Straken Lord seeks a way to bring Grianne Ohmsford back into the Forbidding so he can breed with her. He has retained this fixation for more than a hundred years, and it appears to remain undiminished. This is not a rational expectation, but the Straken Lord does not appear to me to be a rational creature. So what if we could find a way to make it happen? What if we could produce Grianne?”

“Wouldn’t she be dead and buried by now?” Skint asked doubtfully.

“Not if she used the Druid Sleep. Not if she retains her magic and her Druid skills. She could still be mentally and physically strong enough to be every bit as effective as she was when she escaped him before. If so, she becomes a very potent weapon we could use against him. We have two considerations here. First, saving our friends, and second, putting an end to the threat of an invasion by the Jarka Ruus into the Four Lands. What if Grianne Ohmsford could provide both?”

She looked around the room, ending with Railing. “I want you to find out if this might be possible. Go with Woostra and search the records at Paranor to see if we can find out what happened to her. Take Mirai and Skint with you. If you find anything that tells you where she can be found, go to her and tell her what is happening. If half of what I’ve read about her from the Histories is true, she will want to help us. You are her descendant—you and Redden. You are all Ohmsfords. Talk to her. Persuade her. Bring her back and let us face him together.”

There was a long silence.

“This seems something of a stretch,” Skint said finally.

Seersha nodded. “Everything we try at this point will be something of a stretch. Even finding a way back into the Forbidding and into the Straken Lord’s fortress to free the Ard Rhys and Redden Ohmsford seems unlikely. But it’s too late for what’s possible and what’s not to suddenly become a concern.”

“But hasn’t Woostra already studied the Druid Histories at length?” Mirai asked. “Is there is anything new to find?”

Seersha gestured at the little scribe. “Woostra and I have already discussed this.”

Woostra shrugged. “The Druid Histories say nothing about what became of Grianne Ohmsford after she left Paranor. But there are writings from both Grianne and Khyber Elessedil in the archives from that time period. I have not researched all of these. There might be something there.”

Skint was not persuaded. “But no one’s heard anything about her—anything—for more than a hundred years. Is this even a possibility?”

“I’ll admit it feels like the beginnings of the search for the missing Elfstones all over again,” Seersha replied. “A hunt through old journals, diaries, writings of people dead and gone, lost to us for too many years. But maybe this time we can make something good come of it. The Elfstones are still lost to us, but maybe Grianne isn’t. She was a powerful witch and a fierce Ard Rhys during her life. Perhaps she’s still something of both.”

She moved to an empty chair and plopped down. “What else do we have to do but find out? Go back to the Forbidding and try to get inside again? Go back into that madness that has already killed most of us and hope it does not take the rest?” She gestured at Railing. “What do you want to do, Railing?”

The boy discovered he was free of his restraints. He could move again, and he could talk. Still, he hesitated. “What I want to do is whatever it takes to save Redden. Do you really think this might be the way?”

“I think if it isn’t, there’s still time to try another. The Straken Lord made prisoners of the Ard Rhys and your brother for a reason. Whatever we do, we have to hope that means he wants to keep them alive and well long enough for us to save them. We have to hope there’s a way. While you search for Grianne Ohmsford, Crace Coram and I will search for a way back inside the Forbidding. We will attempt to bring your brother and Khyber out. We won’t just be sitting around with the Elves.”

“Remember that Oriantha is still in there, as well,” the Dwarf Chieftain added. “I saw what she could do when that dragon carried us off. She is someone to be reckoned with, and she is looking for your brother, too. I think Seersha is right. Nothing you could do at this point by way of searching for him would add to our chances. Stay here and look for the Ilse Witch.”

Seersha looked at him sharply. “Don’t use that name. The Druids don’t call her that anymore.”

Crace Coram nodded. “Doesn’t matter what the Druids call her. That’s who she was, like it or not. That’s who she still is—if she’s still alive—somewhere deep down inside. Maybe that’s who you want to find if you expect her to stand up to the Straken Lord.”

Railing was thinking it through. He had listened to the Dwarf Chieftain relate the story of his experiences inside the Forbidding several times. He had heard him speak of Tesla Dart and of what she had insisted was true about the Straken Lord and his obsession with Grianne Ohmsford. It seemed clear enough that he would do anything in his power to bring Grianne back, and that almost everything else was secondary. It was a fresh form of madness, and it might make him vulnerable. They needed to find a way to breach his defenses and undermine his control over the Jarka Ruus, and perhaps by doing so disrupt things enough to allow them to reach Redden and Khyber Elessedil. All that was true.

But it was also true that every day he was kept away from his brother left him riddled with guilt. Every day seemed to increase the chances they would never be together again. The Speakman’s prediction still haunted him. Only one would return. Only one. What if that one was Crace Coram, and those still left inside the Forbidding—his brother included—would not be coming back?

The others were talking again, Skint questioning Woostra further on the chances of finding anything new about Grianne Ohmsford and Seersha adding something about Aphenglow’s experience with the Elven writings. But Railing wasn’t listening.

“If you go,” Mirai said quietly, leaning close to him, “I will go with you.”

He nodded without looking at her. He knew she would. He would have been surprised if she’d said anything else.

But this felt like such an impossibility that he couldn’t make himself believe there was any real chance of it coming to pass. Could he abandon his plans, however ill formed, for rescuing his brother immediately? Could he put off what needed doing yesterday and gamble on finding someone missing and long presumed dead, hoping she could alter the course of events if she appeared, but not knowing if she would even consider doing so? Did this make any sense at all?

“What do you say, Railing?” Seersha repeated.

But nothing was clear to him anymore. Everything that had made sense in his life had been left behind at Bakrabru when he had flown west into the Breakline with the ill-fated Druid expedition.

“I’ll go,” he said, just like that.

“And I,” Mirai said at once.

Skint gave a curt nod of agreement, and Woostra said, “I’ve already said I would go. How soon do we leave?”

“An airship will be arranged for you,” Seersha said, getting to her feet. “You can leave as soon as you want.”

When she left, Seersha took Crace Coram with her for a meeting with Sian Aresh to discuss preparations for their departure for the Breakline. The two old friends walked side by side in silence toward the city proper and the compound that housed the Home Guard. Elves passing by gave them covert glances, these two Dwarf warriors, scarred and worn from hardship and years. “You don’t believe anything you told that boy,” the Dwarf Chieftain said finally.

“A little of it,” she answered. “Enough of it that I could speak the words without feeling they were a lie.”

“Do you really think that Grianne Ohmsford is still alive? What chance is there of that?”

“What chance is there that his brother is still alive? Or Khyber? It’s all the same.”

“But you gave him hope.”

“Hope is all we have.” She stopped and faced him. “I told Khyber—I promised her, when she left with the rest of you to go through that waterfall that wasn’t a waterfall at all—that I would not let anything happen to Railing Ohmsford. He already had a broken leg and she was taking his brother with her. She knew it would be dangerous and she might not come back, and that Redden Ohmsford might not come back, either. She did not want both brothers to die. She had told their mother she would bring them back, and if she could not bring them both back, she would at least bring one. She was insistent about this. She would make certain at least one of them returned home.”

“So you’re sending him on this hunt for ghosts and shadows to keep him safe? To keep him from going into the Forbidding?”

She reached over and tapped him lightly on the forehead. “And to think they say you’re slow-witted.”

They started walking again, moving off the smaller pathway they had been following onto the main road. “He won’t appreciate it once he finds out what you’ve done.”

“He’ll appreciate it if we bring his brother out of the Forbidding,” she said. “And if we don’t, likely we won’t be around to hear about it, will we?”

They walked the rest of the way in silence.

Still sitting in the common room with his companions after the Dwarves had departed, Railing watched dust motes floating in the sunshine that streamed through the window. “You think trying to find Grianne Ohmsford is a waste of time, don’t you?”

Skint grunted. “If we thought this was a waste of time, we wouldn’t be going with you.”

“Seersha was adamant that I do this,” he said.

“She does seem to have made up her mind that you’re not going into the Forbidding with her,” Mirai agreed.

“She thinks I would be underfoot. She worries I would do something foolish because I want to help Redden so badly. She thinks I’m young and impulsive and don’t have enough experience.” Railing shook his head. “I can see her point, even though she’s wrong.”

“I’ve always wondered about the Ard Rhys Grianne,” Woostra said quietly. “What happened to her?” He was still sitting at the back of the room, separated from the others by more than the distance between them, an outsider suddenly pressed into service with them. “She vanished completely after Shadea a’Ru and the rebel Druids were dispatched.”

“She must have said something about her intentions to someone,” Mirai said.

“Not a word. She gave over the leadership of the order to Khyber and a couple of others, then boarded an airship and left. It’s all in the Druid Histories. But there’s nothing written about what happened to her after that. Not that I’ve been able to find, and I’ve read it all at one point or another.”

“So this is a waste of time, after all.”

Woostra got up and came forward to join them, taking the seat vacated by Crace Coram. “I don’t think so. She kept a journal; Khyber once told me so. Grianne gave it to her for safekeeping when she left the order. But Khyber put it away, and no one ever saw it afterward. I asked her about it once, and she said it was where it belonged. It’s worth taking time to look for it.” He shrugged. “And there might be other writings. Khyber kept a journal, as well, tucked in a drawer in her sleeping chambers. I’ve never read it—never thought I had to right or the need to do so. But I’m willing to take a look at it now.”

“But even if you find something, even if Grianne Ohmsford is still alive out there somewhere, what sort of shape is she in?” Skint pressed. “I heard what Seersha said about the Druid Sleep and the magic and all that, but even so Grianne would be more than a hundred and fifty years old. I don’t care what you do to help yourself, what sort of magic you command, you aren’t going to be as fit and strong as you were a hundred years earlier. What help is she going to be able to give us?”

“I considered that,” Railing said quickly. “But then I thought, maybe she knows something about the Straken Lord that would help us get Redden back. Maybe she knows a weakness that even now, a hundred years later, she could use to destroy him. Or maybe she knows a way to outwit him. Or confuse him enough to give us a chance.”

He threw up his hands. “What I know for sure is that I can’t sit around here doing nothing! If I can’t go into the Forbidding with Seersha, I’ll do this.”

“I just think we need to be realistic about our chances,” the Gnome Tracker muttered.

“Maybe we should talk about who else is going,” Mirai said, clearly anxious to turn the conversation in another direction. “We should take a crew to man the airship and maybe a few Elven Hunters for protection.”

“No,” Railing said at once. “I don’t want anyone to go with us. It should just be the four of us.”

Skint made a rude noise. “That’s just nonsense, boy. Woostra and I don’t know anything about airships, and if something happens to you, Mirai would be left to manage alone. You’re supposed to be healing, remember? We need a crew to keep things running smoothly. And a little protection wouldn’t hurt.”

“He’s right,” Mirai cut in before Railing could object further. “We don’t want to try this without help. We don’t know where our search will take us. Let’s be smart about this.”

“How do we know who to trust?” Railing replied. “Look what happened to Aphenglow.”

“That was about something else—probably to do with the search for the missing Elfstones and that journal she found. We’re on a different mission entirely.”

“We can be careful about who we take with us,” Skint said. “We can find people we can trust. That Rover fellow. Farshaun Req. Why don’t we send word to him and ask to come with us? He’s someone you trust. He can bring his own crew of Rovers, too. Skilled fliers, those fellows. Then we can spend our time worrying about what it is we’re trying to do and let them fly the ship and watch our backs.”

Railing immediately thought of Austrum and Mirai, and he almost dismissed the idea out of hand because of what he feared might happen if the two were brought back together. But that was foolish thinking; if Mirai wanted to be with the big Rover, it would happen one way or another. She would make it happen.

“Getting him here will take time,” he said instead.

Skint made a dismissive gesture. “A day, maybe two, at the most, if we send word now.”

Railing looked from face to face, seeking and finding approval. Still, he hesitated. This search was what he had agreed to, yet he remained uncertain. There were reasons to reject it, even now, even after he had verbally committed to the idea and made it his own. Layers of doubt clouded his confidence, making him wonder if he shouldn’t take this last chance to abandon the plan and try something else.

But what else was there to try? What other road was there left for him to travel?

“Send word to Farshaun,” he said finally. He was speaking to Mirai. “Tell him to bring Quickening. Tell him we’ll be waiting.”