Wards of Faerie

6

Khyber slept little that night, her mind roiling with possibilities and the plans for bringing them to fruition. She walked the halls of the Keep alone, thinking of the missing Elfstones and how finding them might help the Druids in their efforts to bring the Races together in a peaceful alliance. They had been at war for so long—struggles like the war on the Prekkendorran, which had lasted for more than fifty years. If the magic of the Elfstones could in some way serve to contain such wars or even keep the Races from instigating such conflicts, she would have accomplished something that no Ard Rhys ever had.

She basked in the warmth of the idea one minute and went cold with her doubts about the reliability of the diary in the next.

Once, she came across Pleysia sitting alone in a nook writing at a small table, but Pleysia failed to see her and she turned another way to protect her solitude. This was not a night when she wanted to visit with others. This was a night to consider what she would do on the morrow.

At daybreak, after advising Garroneck what that was and asking him to make the necessary preparations, she washed, dressed, ate her breakfast alone, and then summoned the Druids to the courtyard that housed the airships. Woostra was there as well, restless and ill at ease as he waited to see what she intended. Garroneck had refitted the Wend-A-Way with supplies and a fresh store of diapson crystals, and was working with two of his guardsmen to fasten the radian draws to the light sheaths from their links on the railing to the parse tubes. The ship was already straining at its anchor ropes in response to the power running through the lines and filling out the sheaths.

“Young ones,” she said to her followers, her friends and fellow Druids, after drawing them close. “After thinking it through, I have decided I need to seek advice from those who know more than I, from those who have access to secrets kept from me. I go to the Hadeshorn to speak with the spirits of the dead. Perhaps one of the Elder Druids will know something more than we do and consent to speak to me.”

“That form of contact is dangerous, Mistress,” Seersha said at once. “You have never done this, and there is no one to teach you how.”

Khyber smiled at the young Dwarf’s concern. “All true, Seersha. And yet there is no need for you to worry. An Ard Rhys knows instinctively what is required to summon the dead. The spirits of the dead cannot physically harm the living. Nor can their words. I will be fine.”

“Which of us will go with you?” the other pressed. “You will need at least one or two.”

“Thank you, Seersha, but I will need no one save Garroneck and his guards for this journey. I want the rest of you to stay here and continue your discussions about the diary. Try to think of ways we might make use of its contents. Look for anything we might have missed. I will be back within two days’ time.”

“I don’t like the idea of you going alone,” Seersha insisted.

“Neither do I,” Aphenglow agreed.

“But I have to.” Khyber gave them each a hard look. “It is required of me. Garroneck will be enough. Now, go on about your work. Woostra!”

She dismissed them by turning away and joining her personal secretary at the fringes of the little gathering. He bowed deeply, waiting.

She pulled him upright. “Don’t forget. I want you to find out something about this girl, this Aleia Omarosian. I want information about who she was and what became of her. Am I understood?”

He nodded quickly. “Yes, Mistress.”

“Then do as I ask before I return. Find something. Anything.”

Then she turned from him, and because she didn’t want to prolong her leaving she walked over to where Garroneck stood waiting. The big Troll’s rough, impassive face revealed nothing of what he was thinking, and he was quick to offer her the rope ladder to climb. She went up it swiftly, still strong and nimble in spite of her years. She climbed through the slot in the railing and waited for Garroneck to join her.

“Are we ready?”

“On your signal.”

“Then lift us away. I’ll take the helm. I feel like doing something. Maybe I can still do this.”

“This, and a great deal more, unless I am mistaken.”

His deadpan voice made her smile. “Let’s hope so.”

She gave a quick wave to the members of her Druid order as she walked to the cluster of thruster levers and steering gears, but she did not stop to look closely at them. She didn’t trust herself with what she might see on their faces. Instead, she set herself in place at the controls. As the anchor ropes were freed, she eased the skimmer out of its berth and into the air, wheeling south toward Kennon Pass and the far side of the Dragon’s Teeth. The Wend-A-Way responded smoothly, flying over Paranor’s walls and battlements, her towers and spires, her courtyards and ramps, and finally the deep woods surrounding them all. Sunshine beamed down out of a cloudless sky, and the wind was soft and cool on her skin.

She glanced back once to see the other Druids disbanding and moving indoors until only a couple of the Troll guards remained.

She sighed, watching it happen. It was as if her leaving made no difference to anything, and yet she could not quite shrug away the feeling that she was about to begin a journey that in the end would be life changing.

They flew on through the remainder of the day, traveling south through the Kennon before turning east, then tracking the wall of the Dragon’s Teeth, brief glimmerings of the Rainbow Lake visible to the south through mist and haze, the land spreading away in a patchwork carpet. By midafternoon, they had crossed over the Mermidon River where it angled south through the valley formed by the Runne Mountains and could see the land ahead turn stark and bare as the mountains broadened and the woods disappeared.

Such a beautiful, wild place, Khyber thought as she surveyed the passing landscape in the winding down of the day. Ahead, the mountain peaks rose in jagged spikes, their slopes layered as far north as the eye could see. Night was sliding out of the east in a dark wave, swallowing everything as it advanced. Behind her, the sun was edging below a horizon dominated by the broad sweep of the plains of Callahorn and Streleheim south and north respectively of the Mermidon, the whole of it green and flat and still bright with sunshine.

She found herself thinking of other times, long since past, and other trips taken to faraway places on undertakings similar to this one. She could remember the details in spite of her age and time’s passing—especially those in which Grianne Ohmsford, who had been Ard Rhys before her, had been involved. If not for Grianne, her brother Bek, and his son Penderrin, Khyber would still be living in the Westland, gone home to Arborlon and her family, and not be Ard Rhys of the Fourth Druid Order. But the events surrounding the disappearance of Grianne into the Forbidding and the ill-fated efforts of the Druid Shadea A’Ru to take control of the order had changed everything for Khyber and all those who had stood with Grianne against Shadea and her allies.

In the end, Grianne had prevailed over Shadea, but the Druids had been decimated, and in the aftermath of Grianne’s disappearance Khyber had become Ard Rhys and leader of the Fourth Order. It was not a position she had sought, but one she had accepted out of a sense of obligation for the Druid future and toward those who had fought so hard to see it secured. She was more accomplished in the use of magic than any of the others by then, and she knew she was the most likely candidate. So it came down to whether she would accept the responsibility she was being asked to assume or turn away and leave it for another to shoulder.

She knew right away what her decision would be. Her friendships and her personal interest in and commitment to the study of magic persuaded her that she needed to do whatever she could to preserve the Druid Order. To have come so far and paid so heavy a price only to see it all have been for nothing was not something she could live with.

So she did what she had to do, what she was expected to do, and what she felt she owed to all those who had fought beside Grianne.

She smiled sadly, thinking of it. It seemed so long ago. All those she had known in that time, all who had been so influential in shaping her life, were gone—dead, save for Grianne, who had been transformed and was now something else entirely. She wondered about her sometimes, and how she had felt when she had given up her human form. She wondered if Grianne regretted it, if she felt her life now had fresh meaning, and if she still believed she had done the right thing in changing. Khyber couldn’t say, and it didn’t seem likely that she would ever know. But she would have liked it if she could.

She would have liked seeing Grianne one more time.

She would have liked seeing any of them.

Garroneck appeared beside her, caught her eye, and pointed ahead through the deepening gloom to where the mountains split apart. There a long, steep trail wound upward from the foothills to the summit of a distant ridge, where it formed an entry into the Valley of Shale and the Hadeshorn. She nodded her understanding and shifted the bow of the Wend-A-Way left toward the ascending slope. Pulling back on the thrusters, she brought the skimmer to a crawl and eased her skyward toward the split in the mountain rock. The other members of the Druid Guard were at the radian draws, ready to detach their ends and haul them in for stowing.

Garroneck gestured, indicating the helm. “Shall I, Mistress?”

She stepped away, giving him control, and walked forward to the bow where she could watch the high end of the pass appear. She searched the landscape for movement, but the terrain was barren and empty everywhere, nothing but boulders and scrub grass and rutted earth. It was miserable, blasted ground, forbidding enough that nothing that breathed or moved would give much thought to doing more than passing through quickly. Ahead, far beyond the entry, an odd glow rose from within the mountains, a strange greenish light that grew in intensity as the darkness deepened.

The Hadeshorn.

The entry to the world of the spirits of the dead.

Garroneck and his Trolls anchored Wend-A-Way just below the narrow defile that led into the mountains, dropped a rope ladder, and helped Khyber climb through the railing. She didn’t need their help, but didn’t want to refuse it, either. When she was down, she walked forward several yards to stand alone with Garroneck.

“Wait here for me. Keep watch. You are exposed on these slopes to anyone passing by, especially someone in an airship—at least until it gets darker than it is now.”

“I will keep watch, Mistress.” The big Troll cast a quick glance about the empty skies. “I think we will be safe enough.”

He handed her the black staff she preferred, and she took it from him with a nod. “I won’t be back before morning. Don’t worry for me.”

He blinked. “Should I stop breathing, as well?”

She put a hand on his arm, squeezed gently, and turned away. “I’ll be careful.”

She went up the steep slope using the staff for balance, picking her way over the loose rocks, taking her time so as not to slip and fall. She had discarded her Druid robes and was wearing pants and a tunic, a brace of long knives strapped to her waist. She commanded sufficient magic that she could protect herself if she was threatened in any way, although she doubted she would need to. The Valley of Shale was never visited by anyone but stray travelers eager to find a way out and Druids like herself who were intent on speaking with the dead. She believed she would encounter neither this night.

Within the hour she arrived at the head of the pass and began working her way through the long, twisting defile that led to the valley. The night was dark and still, and while there were stars visible in the ribbon of sky above the cliff walls, the moon was down. She stopped frequently to drink from her waterskin and took time when she did to listen to the absence of night sounds. Her senses sought the presence of other life, but each time they assured her she was alone. She created, organized, and reviewed the questions she intended to ask whatever spirits came to her, and then she revised them. She considered what it was she wanted to learn and how she could be assured she would get the answers she needed, knowing that phrasing was so important.

But in the end she let it all drift away, aware that it came down to the willingness of the spirits of the dead to speak directly. She knew they seldom gave clear answers—if they answered at all—because clarity for the dead was different than it was for the living. The dead knew more of life, for they had lived it and passed beyond it and could look back on it at their leisure. But their ability to speak of what they saw was limited. They often responded in riddles and asked questions in turn, and they almost never gave a clear and precise answer.

So she would have to work hard to find out what she needed to know about Aleia Omarosian and the missing Elfstones.

She would have to work very hard indeed.

The air was colder this high up, and she wished she had thought to bring a travel cloak to ward off the chill. She hunched her shoulders and clutched the black staff close against her body, but nothing helped much. She glanced up at the clear, bright sky, the cold so sharp-edged and penetrating that she could almost see it. When she exhaled, her breath frosted the air in front of her.

Too cold for her to continue for long, she decided. She had to do something to warm herself.

She held out her staff, used her magic to coat one end with pitch, and then set the pitch afire. It would reveal her to anyone looking, but she had already decided that chance encounters were unlikely. She trudged on, the flaming end of the staff held out before her, working her way down the defile, her path blocked repeatedly by boulders and landslides she was forced to either go around or climb over. It had been a long time since anyone had passed this way. Certainly no Druid had come through in the years that she had been Ard Rhys unless they had done so in secret.

Finally, midnight having come and gone, she reached the end of the defile and found herself looking down into the Valley of Shale. It was a broad, shallow depression perhaps a quarter mile wide, its walls littered with pieces of obsidian that shone like black glass beneath the light of the stars. At its center was the lake they called the Hadeshorn, its waters flat and still and vaguely greenish from light emanating far down within their depths. The light pulsed sluggishly, but the waters never moved.

She took a seat at the edge of the bowl, just beyond the beginnings of the field of obsidian, choosing a flat shelf of rock and wedging the black staff into a crevice off to one side, there to await the hour just before dawn when the shades of Druids dead and gone would be most likely to respond to a summons from the living. She watched the still waters of the lake and the glimmerings of the rock and the flat black of the sky and its stars until she fell asleep sitting up. She slept without dreaming, waking often to shift positions, trying to gain a small measure of warmth from the dying fire of the staff. Her mind felt sluggish and weary, and the muscles and joints of her body ached. A couple of times she drank from the waterskin, but never too much and only when she needed the hydration. She didn’t know how long she would be here or to what extent the water would sustain her, so conservation of her only source of fluids was important.

Drinking from the waters of the Hadeshorn was not an option. A single swallow was instant death.

When she sensed the night coming to a close, long hours and repeated wakings later, when the pitch had burned away and the staff had gone dark and the stars had shifted in the sky and signaled the morning’s approach, she climbed to her feet and began to walk down to the Hadeshorn. The slopes were made treacherous by the loose rock and the uncertain footing, so she took her time, leaning heavily on the staff. Her head had cleared and she felt oddly renewed even though she had gotten so little real rest. She was ready for this, she told herself. She was strong and determined, and she would find a way to achieve her goals.

At the base of the valley, close enough to see the waters of the Hadeshorn clearly, she stopped for a final survey of her surroundings. She was still alone, the valley empty of life, the air crisp and cool and very still. Satisfied that she was safe from interruptions, she continued on until she was standing at the very edge of the lake.

She looked out across a glistening expanse that was as still as stone.

I am here. Speak to me.

The waters sensed her presence and stirred ever so slightly.

She conjured a form of magic she had mastered long ago and sent it flowing through the black staff. When the staff was ablaze with light, she dipped one end into the Hadeshorn. Instantly the waters began to churn, the movement increasing, growing in power until there were waves crashing and spray flying everywhere. She held her ground when the waters came at her as if to attack. She ignored the spray that coated her face and the pulsing of the greenish light, which had grown in force.

But when she heard the voices lift out of the ether in wails and cries that chilled her to the bone, she began to shiver violently. It felt as if her skin were being scraped from her body, and she knew what it meant. The dead were coming to see who had disturbed them, and they were not happy. The cacophony of sound grew until it filled the valley and threatened to bury her. She could pick out individual voices, ones she thought she knew, even though she could not put names to them. The connection of living and dead was there, and the past was brought back into the present as memories were torn from the places in her mind where she kept them hidden.

Then the waters heaved wildly, and the dead surfaced. They burst from the waters in droves, thousands of them, rising into the still dark night, white and ethereal, drained of life and substance, re-formed as diaphanous shades, their voices joined in an endless scream.

She was close to breaking at that point, all her preparations and the steeling of her resolve shattered and vanished, and she felt naked and exposed. Everything about her was revealed in an instant and nothing left hidden. The dead knew her. The dead could see all she was and all she ever would be, and it was terrifying.

“Someone speak to me!” she screamed, trying to hold on, wanting this to be over.

Her words had reached compliant ears, and the spirits of the dead scattered like moths caught in a sudden wind, their wails following after them, switching like lizard tails. In the wake of their passing, the waters of the Hadeshorn thrashed with new fury, and a black form heaved upward from their center, a giant rising from the depths, growing in size until it dwarfed Khyber ten times over.

Silence returned, undisturbed save for traces of the wailings and the hissing of spray. The black figure, huge and forbidding, stood upon the waters as if their surface somehow provided it with solid footing.

–Do you know me–

She did. Instinctively, immediately, and unquestionably.

“You are Allanon,” she said.