Straken (27 page)

She spoke in a whisper, so that they were forced to bend close. She spoke as if she were in fear of being overheard. In truth, she simply wanted them to think she was taking them into her confidence. Which, in a way, she was. She just wasn’t doing so for the reasons they thought.

“We know that the staff’s magic will bring them to these chambers. We must be waiting for them if that happens. More to the point, we must find a way to make certain that they will be rendered helpless. Even if we are not here, personally, to intercept them, we must make certain that it doesn’t matter, that they are caged and stripped of their power and made prisoners. They must be given no chance to use their magic—especially Grianne Ohmsford. They must be disarmed.”

“You make this sound so easy, Shadea,” Pyson Wence sneered. “As if disarming a Druid of Grianne Ohmsford’s power were easily within our means. But it isn’t, is it? Catching her off guard and vulnerable was our best chance. She won’t be caught napping a second time. She will come back through that doorway like a whirlwind and we will all be swept away!”

Shadea gave him a pitying smile. “Such dramatics, Pyson. You would think she frightened you. Are you frightened of her?”

“We both have a healthy respect for what she will likely do to us if she gets the chance,” Traunt Rowan answered for him. “As should you.”

She gave him a quick shake of her head. “I don’t respect anyone who misuses power as she has. I don’t respect anyone with her history. She is an animal, and I will see her caged or put down.”

“Brave words, Shadea.” He looked less than convinced. “How do you intend to give them weight?”

She shrugged. “We’ll create a triagenel,” she said.

For the first time that afternoon, she saw agreement reflected in their eyes.

“F
irst,” she declared, when they had finished discussing how the triagenel would be achieved, “we have to dispose of the girl. She’s told us what we want to know about the boy. She has no further use. Sooner or later, someone will come looking for her, and I don’t want them to find her here.”

Pyson Wence shrugged. “What do you want done with her?”

“Have your Gnome Hunters take her down to the furnaces and throw her in.” She glanced at the girl, who still lay unconscious on the floor. “She won’t be much trouble, but bind her anyway. Here, take these and throw them in, as well.”

She handed the pouch with the Elfstones to Traunt Rowan. He stared at them in disbelief. “But, Shadea—”

“They’re useless to us,” she interrupted quickly. “Only Elves can make use of their magic. We’re not Elves. If we can’t make use of them, let’s see to it that no one else can, either. Besides, they are markers. If anyone finds them on us or at Paranor, they will have found a link to the girl. We don’t want that. No, throw them into the furnace and be done with it. Come back here when it is finished, and we will begin building the triagenel.”

When they were gone, taking the girl and the Elfstones with them, she slipped from the room and went down through the corridors and stairwells of the Keep to a small guardroom that sat near the back of the north wall.
A triagenel is strong enough to hold even Grianne Ohmsford
, she was thinking as she moved along the passageways. Traunt Rowan and Pyson Wence recognized this and so were willing
to offer their talents to form it. Three magics from three separate sources, combined in the right way, created a net that would contain and neutralize even the most powerful magic wielder. It took time and effort to build a triagenel, but she had never heard of anyone who was able to overcome one once caught in it. Stringing it about the perimeters of the room would assure them of snaring anyone who entered. There was no escaping a triagenel, once caught in it. Only its creators could undo it. Grianne Ohmsford and the boy would be snared like rabbits—or more like wolves—but snared nevertheless. By the time the triagenel was released, their lives would be over.

She considered the possibility that the triagenel would disintegrate before they were ready to attempt their return. It enjoyed only a limited lifetime, only a finite period of existence because the magic was so powerful that eventually it became unstable and collapsed. But another could be built. And another after that, should the need arise. At some point, it would be clear that her victims weren’t coming back after all, and the effort to create further triagenels could be abandoned.

She was satisfied that her plan would work. She was confident that she could undo the damage that her inept allies had created.

She reached a heavy wooden door at the end of a darkened passageway set in the recesses of the northeast tower. She rapped sharply on it and heard a murmur of voices and a furtive scuffling from the room beyond. Then the lock released and a bearded face thrust into view. Eyes that were mean and piggish fixed on her, then looked quickly away. The man’s head disappeared back inside the chamber.

“Gresheren!” he hissed.

She waited until a second man appeared, this one big and hulking, but with a sharper, more cunning look to him. He bowed to her immediately and stepped outside the room and into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

“Mistress,” he greeted. “You have need of me?”

She took him away from the door and into the shadows. “I have a job for you. I want you to select four of your best men to dispose of someone. They will have the advantage of numbers and surprise, but that is likely all. They must strike quickly and surely. There will be
no second chance. If they succeed and return alive, I will give them a year’s pay for their efforts.”

“Fair enough, Mistress,” he rumbled. “More than fair. Who is it that you want killed?”

“A traitor, Gresheren,” she told him. “A Druid traitor.”

W
hen Traunt Rowan threw her over his shoulder and carried her from the room, Khyber Elessedil was not unconscious. She was pretending to be, as she had pretended to be for most of the time after Shadea had thrown her down. But she was awake.

It was a trick of elemental magic she had learned from Ahren. If she was suffering too much pain, whatever the reason, she could distance herself from her anguish. She could quite literally go outside her body; she could disconnect her emotional self from her physical self. She couldn’t do it for long, only a couple of minutes at a time. When the ruse worked, it gave her the appearance of being unconscious or asleep. In the past, the attempt was sometimes unsuccessful because her concentration failed. She had good reason not to let it fail here—the pain Shadea was inflicting on her was excruciating.

Once she appeared unconscious and Shadea lost interest in her, she slipped back inside her pain-racked body, hoping the Druids were preoccupied enough that they would let her be. She listened to what they had to say, though. She listened carefully. Some of it was inaudible to her, the words whispered too softly and from too far away to be heard clearly. But she heard enough to get the gist of what they were deciding, especially when it came to the part about disposing of her.

All she could think about after that was,
They’re going to kill me
.

She had to do something to save herself—anything—but she had no idea what that might be. She was without weapons, including the Elfstones, and weak with pain and fear. The ordeal at Shadea’s hands, while not breaking her, had left parts of her physically and emotionally drained. She had thought herself tougher than she was; Shadea had been right about that. It was a sobering experience to discover how badly mistaken she had been.

She lay limp over Traunt Rowan’s shoulder, her eyes closed, but her mind racing. She heard the tall Druid’s breathing as he carried her. She heard the sound of Pyson Wence walking next to them, his gait just different enough from his companion’s to be distinctive. There were only the two of them; it was probably the best numerical odds she would get. But she knew that favorable odds alone weren’t going to be enough to save her.

At that point, she didn’t know what was going to be enough, and she was trying hard not to panic.

She had been confined to a cell in the depths of the Keep since they had broken into the chambers of the Ard Rhys two days earlier and overpowered her. Penderrin was gone into the Forbidding by then, swept away by the magic of the darkwand, and when they discovered she was alone, they tried to make her tell them where he was. She had feigned ignorance, as if his disappearance were as confusing to her as it was to them. She had suggested every false possibility she could think of, and they had seemed all too willing to accept that somewhere in the web of her deceptive explanations they would find the truth.

They had not tortured her or mistreated her in any way to discover if she lied, which had surprised her. She had come to understand why; they had saved her for Shadea a’Ru. They had saved her for someone who understood how to employ torture in the most effective way. Still racked with pain, still humiliated by her collapse, she knew that she would have told the sorceress anything.

In fact, she had told her more than enough. Shadea was now aware that Pen was inside the Forbidding, searching for the Ard Rhys. She knew that if the boy found his aunt, they would return with the aid of the darkwand to the chambers of the Ard Rhys. Shadea would be waiting for them. The damage to the chamber
entry in the battle of two days earlier had been repaired. It would be an easy matter to seal off the room. Once that was done, Shadea could implement a triagenel.

Even an apprentice Druid like Khyber understood what a triagenel was. Every practitioner of magic in the Four Lands aspired to a level of excellence that would allow his or her participation in the creation of such a wonder. Triagenels were the most difficult form of magic to employ because they required the talents of not one, but three practitioners of equally advanced abilities. Druids were the only ones she had ever heard of who even thought about trying to create triagenels. Even then, under current Druid law, it could not be done without the authorization and supervision of the Ard Rhys. Few attempts at a triagenel had been made in her lifetime, and she did not know the details of any of them. Most such attempts were little more than forms of practice to give credence to the belief that a Druid had advanced far enough in his or her studies to combine talents with others with similar aspirations. A successful attempt was proof of mastery of a certain level of magic.

There was little doubt in Khyber’s mind that Shadea and the other two were sufficiently talented to create a triagenel that could imprison, if not completely incapacitate, even as gifted a magic wielder as Grianne Ohmsford. A combination of three strong magics was just too much for one, even if the one was immensely powerful. If Grianne and Pen returned through the Forbidding after the triagenel had been set in place, they would be caught in a deadly trap.

And she was the only one who could prevent it. Aside from the three who would create the triagenel, she was the only one who knew about it. If she died in the furnace, as they intended, the chances of the Ard Rhys and Pen making a successful return were narrowed to almost nothing.

She had been carried down several levels by them, the Druids taking the back stairs to avoid being seen, keeping to the little-used parts of the Keep. She hung limply over Traunt Rowan’s broad shoulder, still pretending at unconsciousness, trying to devise a plan. The idea of challenging two powerful Druids at the same time was not a consideration. She had to wait until they had delivered her to the Gnome Hunters before she could act.

She did not have to wait long. They quickly reached the ground level of the Keep and took her into a room filled with racks of
weapons and armor. She risked a quick look around and caught glimpses of heavy wooden benches scarred by blades and fire, boxes of cutting tools, and grinding machines clamped in place. Bits and pieces of metal lay scattered across the worn surfaces of the benches and stone floor, and the air smelled of oil and was thick with dust.

Traunt Rowan slid her off his shoulder and onto the floor and left her in a heap. She lay without moving, eyes closed.