Straken (36 page)

He wondered when Pen had made his discovery. Had he known about it earlier and kept it secret from his parents? There was reason to think he might have done so, given his mother’s antipathy toward magic and Bek’s own reluctance to make use of it. It might also be that while Pen had known of it, he had not until recently fully explored its uses. It might be that he was still on a journey of discovery.

Of one thing Bek was quite certain. The King of the Silver River had chosen his son to make the journey into the Forbidding for a very specific reason, and it almost certainly had something to do with his heritage of the wishsong magic. The Faerie creature could have come to Bek to do what was needed, but he had gone to Pen instead.
That meant that something about Pen made him the more appropriate candidate for going into the Forbidding and rescuing Grianne. A boy, barely grown. It was almost impossible to understand. But the King of the Silver River had come to Ohmsfords since the time of Shea and Flick in the days of Allanon, and had always done so with unerring instincts for what each of them was capable of achieving.

Now it was up to Bek and Rue to find a way to help their son fulfill the charge that had been given to him. History was repeating itself, another instance of a similarity in the lives of the Ohmsfords, and more particularly in the lives of a father and son.

Bek paused in his thinking. Would history repeat itself? Would it repeat in every particular? He had come back alive from the expedition he had embarked upon. Would Pen have the same good fortune?

He hated thinking about such a question, but he could not help himself. In part, it was a reflection of his own sense of responsibility for his son. He had been given the task of seeing that Pen got safely back through the Forbidding. If he failed to do that, he would have failed his son. It was a possibility he refused to consider.

“What are you thinking about?” Rue asked him.

She stepped up into the pilot box and stood beside him, her green eyes inquisitive. When she saw the look that came over his face, she leaned over and kissed him. “What’s wrong? Can’t you tell me?”

He nodded. “I was thinking about how much Pen depends on us, even though he doesn’t know it.”

“He is supposed to depend on us. He is our son.”

“I don’t want to fail him.”

“You won’t. Neither of us will.”

They were silent a moment, watching the land slide away beneath the airship’s hull, the heavy weather west continuing to advance. Waterbirds from out of the Malg Swamp screamed eerie cries as they sailed across the skies. Far below, a cluster of Forest Trolls emerged from the trees and stalked in a line across the hills leading up to the mountains east.

“Is Tagwen any better?” he asked.

She shook her head. “He just isn’t meant for this.”

“I guess not.” He paused. “I’m worried about how much he really knows about getting into Paranor without being seen.”

“You ought to be,” she said. He gave her a sharp look. “I asked him about it, and he admitted that he hadn’t been inside those secret tunnels in several years and that his memory of them was sketchy at best.”

“So we can’t rely on him.” She shook her head again.

“How about Trefen Morys and Bellizen? Do they know anything that might help?”

“I don’t think so. They’ve only been a part of the order for a little over two years. They haven’t had time to do much more than complete the lessons assigned them as novice Druids. They are loyal to your sister, but they haven’t had the closeness with her that Tagwen has. They didn’t even know there were secret tunnels.”

He looked off into the distance. “So we have to depend on ourselves in this business.”

She nodded. “Pretty much like always.”

He didn’t say anything to that.

W
hen she awoke, Khyber Elessedil ached from head to foot, as if the cauterization had been applied across her entire body. She was not feverish, but she was disoriented and weak. She sat up, wishing she had something to eat or drink, and then remembered she was surrounded by wine and ale casks. She moved over to the closest barrel, opened the spigot, and took a long, satisfying drink of cool wine. She would have preferred water, but the wine would suffice.

She could do nothing about her hunger, though. She considered the possibility that there might be foodstuffs stored somewhere down in these cellar passageways, but she had no idea where they might be and no time to spend looking for them. She would have to get by on whatever she might scavenge along the way. What mattered just then was reaching the sleeping chamber of the Ard Rhys as quickly as possible.

Something, she realized, she did not know how to do.

It was bad enough that she did not have a clear idea of where she was so that she might have some sense of which direction to go. It was much worse that she had no idea how to reach her destination without being seen. She could find a way to disguise herself, she supposed,
just as she had done when she had freed Pen. But that was risky and, besides, even if she got that far the sleeping chamber would be heavily guarded.

Trying to decide where to begin, she considered her alternatives for a moment, but the task was hopeless. Everything she thought about trying was too dangerous. Once they found the dead Gnome Hunters, they would be looking for her anyway. Perhaps they already were. She needed to disappear, to become invisible.

She pondered the idea. There were secret passageways in the walls of Paranor. Ahren had told her so once. The Keep was honeycombed with them. The Druids had used them to reach one another when they wished their conferences kept secret. The Ard Rhys had used them from time to time, as well, to slip from her chamber without being seen when need or discretion warranted it.

If she could find a way into those …

She would be lost all over again, she finished dismally.

Unless …

Her mind raced. Unless she had a way to keep from getting lost.

Her hand strayed to the pocket in her tunic where the Elfstones were tucked away. The Elfstones could keep her from getting lost. They could show her a way into the sleeping chamber, just as they had shown Ahren the way to Stridegate and the tanequil.

She was suddenly excited, the aches and pains and hunger forgotten. But then she remembered that use of magic as powerful as the Elfstones was likely to be detected by the very people she was trying to avoid. It was the reason she had tried so hard not to use the Stones on the journey into the Charnals. Using them in the Druid’s Keep, right beneath their noses, would be madness. Besides, they thought the Elfstones destroyed, thrown into the furnace along with her body. Any release of the magic risked revealing that she was still alive.

Or did it?

If the Elfstones had been thrown into the furnace, would the intense heat and pressure destroy them? Would it serve to release the magic in doing so? No one knew, she suspected. There were no other Elfstones save the ones she carried, and little was known about their properties. It might well be that their destruction would unlock their magic in the same way as a user’s summoning.

Anyway, what other choice did she have?

She wondered suddenly how long she had been asleep. Did they know yet that she had escaped? Or did they think her dead and the Elfstones dead with her?

She rose and left the storage room, slipping cautiously through the door, and went back down the passageways of the Keep toward the furnace chamber. She picked up a torch on the way to provide her with the light she needed. She was hurrying by then, anxious to discover if her idea had a chance of working. It all depended on how much time had passed and what had happened in the interim. She moved quietly, listening for voices, for sounds that would indicate the bodies of the dead men had been discovered, that her deception was unworkable. But the passageways were silent and empty, and when she reached the place where the first two Gnomes had died, she found their bodies untouched. Farther down, within the furnace room itself, she found the third, as well. No one had missed them yet. No one had come looking.

She still had a chance.

One by one, she dragged the dead men to the edge of the fire pit and shoved them in. It would not conceal the struggle or the shedding of blood, but it would make it harder for those who eventually came looking to determine exactly what had happened. It might give her a measure of time and distance from discovery. She had to hope so because it was all she had to work with.

Exhausted from her efforts, she sat down with her back against the railing and took out the Elfstones. She had to try to use them, even if the release of the magic alerted Shadea and the other rebel Druids. She had to hope that they would register the source of the magic as the furnace room and attribute its presence to the destruction of the Stones in the fire.

She shook her head. She wished she had a better way. But she was stuck with things as they were, and there was no point wishing for something she couldn’t have.

She poured the Elfstones out of their pouch and into the palm of her hand, studying them a moment. Then she closed her fingers tightly about them, held up her hand, and summoned the magic.

It was easier this time than it had been before, perhaps because she was used to the process and more receptive to it. The familiar
warmth spread from her hand through her arm and into her body before looping back again. When she was infused with the magic of the Stones, her thoughts centered on what she needed, seeking a way into the secret passages of the Keep, a blue glow formed within her fist and began to seep through the cracks of her fingers. Then, abruptly, it shot from her hand in a thin, long streamer, penetrating the fiery atmosphere of the furnace room, burrowing through stone and darkness, illuminating the way forward.

She watched as her route revealed itself, a twisting of passages and stairways, cutting through the walls of the Keep, winding steadily upward until they ended at a wall that gave secret entry into the sleeping chambers of the Ard Rhys. A strange glow leaked through the seams of the hidden door, a suggestion of magic contained within the room.

Then the vision flared and was gone, the blue glow of the Elfstone magic disappeared, and the warmth within her faded away. She sat again on the catwalk with her back to the railing, her memory of what she had been shown sharp and clear.

H
igh in the north tower, several floors below the sleeping room draped with the lethal netting of the triagenel, the Druid on watch in the cold chamber for disturbances triggered by unauthorized uses of magic noticed a spike on the otherwise smooth surface of the scrye waters. He leaned forward as the ripples spread outward, wanting to be certain of what he was seeing.

The source of the spike was the Druid’s Keep.

He took a long moment to consider what that meant. Magic was in frequent use at Paranor, so disturbances of that sort were not unusual. Still, the spike suggested a usage more powerful than the conjuring normally done. He should report it, he knew. But he also knew that if he chose to do so, he must go before Shadea a’Ru, something no one wanted to do these days.

He tried to think the matter through. It was possible that the usage was one the Ard Rhys knew about. It was even possible that the usage was hers. The Druid on watch did not want to intrude where he was not welcome. Discretion was well advised where matters involving Paranor and the order were concerned—especially by
those who only served. Drawing attention to oneself was not wise. Others had disappeared from the Keep for much less.

Besides, what sort of magic could be called up within these walls that someone in authority did not know about?

He debated the matter only a moment more, then went back to his seat and resumed his watch.

D
awn was a faint glimmer in the east when Penderrin Ohmsford stirred from his sleep and peered from his shelter into the gray, hazy gloom of a new day. Mist clung to the land in deep pockets. Clouds obscured the sky, thick and dull blankets that formed a canopy from horizon to horizon and refused to reveal the sun. The air was windless and raw with unpleasant smells and the landscape wintry and bleak in the pale first light. The night’s rain had ended, leaving dark stains on the bare earth and rocks.