Straken (53 page)

“But now he’s the demon?” Rue interrupted. “What’s going on?”

Bek shook his head. “The demon crossed over when Grianne was sent into the Forbidding. It must have taken another form right away. It probably switched identities more than once. Now it pretends to be Sen Dunsidan. A good choice; it gives the demon tremendous power.”

“It’s going into the Westland,” Khyber said. “That lake was the Myrian and those forests the Tirfing. It must think it’s found a way to destroy the Ellcrys.”

Bek nodded. “Flying west below Callahorn, away from the Prekkendorran and the normal routes of travel. It’s trying to sneak in from below. It knows it will be seen eventually, but perhaps not right away. It must have a plan for what it will do when the Elves intercept it. Negotiation first, perhaps, then force if all else fails. That warship looks formidable, even if it doesn’t seem to be carrying any weapons. There must be something aboard that will allow the demon to destroy the Ellcrys.”

“The Elves will never let it get close enough to threaten the tree,” Khyber insisted.

“Not if they know it is a demon. But as Sen Dunsidan, it will get closer than it would otherwise. At any rate, we have to stop it. If we fly all night, we should intercept it by dawn.”

“I might remind you,” said Rue Meridian, who had come up quietly behind them while they were discussing what to do, “that we don’t have any weapons on this ship except for a pair of rail slings. How are we supposed to intercept anything?”

Pen’s father didn’t seem to have an answer to that, saying that he would think about it.

Bek went back with Rue into the pilot box, leaving Pen with Khyber and Tagwen. Unable to get past his susceptibility to airsickness even on the calmest of days, the Dwarf was already starting to look a little green, and after grunting something about taking a nap he disappeared below. Pen talked with Khyber for a time, catching up on what had happened to her after he had gone into the Forbidding and telling her in turn what he had seen there. When they were finished with that, neither one wanted to talk about much of anything. They were exhausted from their struggles and in need of nourishment and rest. Khyber left to find something for them to eat, and Pen moved over to the bow and settled in.

Looking out over the countryside, he thought anew about what he was going to do when they found that warship and its demon commander. He was aware of how uncertain things were becoming once again, and the particulars of his own role in what lay ahead were the most nebulous of all. He had survived the Forbidding and a good deal more, but that didn’t make him feel any better about his chances. He wished he had some idea of how the darkwand would work on the demon, but there was no one to tell him and no way for him to find out until the moment he was using it. He wasn’t very reassured.

He found himself thinking about his aunt. Events at Paranor were in all likelihood already over. She had either regained control of the Druid order or she was dead. He didn’t want to think like that, but he knew it was true. Thinking of what they had left her to face made him sick at heart. She seemed so frail and so vulnerable that he couldn’t conceive of her surviving a battle with the rebel Druids. He told himself that she had survived in the Forbidding, so she might find a way to survive at Paranor. It would have been better, though,
if they could have stayed to help. It would have been better if she weren’t so alone.

Khyber returned with food and drink, and after Pen had consumed both, he went below and slept. His sleep was deep and untroubled until sometime around midnight, when he dreamed of a dark presence enfolding him so tightly that he couldn’t breathe, and he woke sweating with fear.

After that, he didn’t sleep at all.

I
t was two hours past dawn when the Moric saw the other airship approaching. By then, the
Zolomach
had turned north along the silver ribbon of the Mermidon and was approaching the Valley of Rhenn on a day that was bright and clear and warm. The Moric didn’t care what kind of day it was; it only cared that it was to be the last day it would have to spend in an unpleasant world. It hated the brightness and the smells. It hated the humans it was forced to live among. It was worse aboard this airship, where it was in proximity to them all the time and could not escape to its sewer refuge. Worse still, it had assumed the identity of a human who was never left alone for more than a few moments, even when sleeping.

It couldn’t change the conditions of this world quickly enough.

But time was running out on the Moric. In spite of its success in avoiding detection by Elven airships, the atmosphere aboard this vessel was poisonous. Two days earlier, the Free-born army had overrun the Federation defensive lines on the Prekkendorran and sent that once seemingly invincible force fleeing back into the deep Southland in a reprise of what the Federation had done to the Elves some days earlier. Matters had turned about completely, and there was no changing them back. All attempts at rallying the remnants of the battered Southland army had failed, and the war, after decades of indecision, had turned decisively in favor of the allied Free-born. The Coalition Council was furious with Sen Dunsidan and had summoned him to appear before it, but the Moric was no fool. It knew, as Sen Dunsidan would have known, what that summoning meant.

So it simply ignored the Council, boarded the
Zolomach
, and set sail for Arborlon. Its own plans were settled and in no way affected by anything that had happened on the Prekkendorran. Those aboard ship knew of their army’s defeat, but had been assured that what they
were doing would carry the war to the Elves and turn things around. They accepted that because they were soldiers and because they had no choice. No one wanted to question Sen Dunsidan, even when he was in disfavor with the Coalition Council. Sen Dunsidan had come back before; there was no reason to think he would not come back again.

They had been forced to travel cautiously, choosing a route that would keep them from being spotted by Free-born airships and would get them close enough to Arborlon and the Ellcrys that the Moric could implement its plan to get closer still. In a way, the defeat of the Federation army on the Prekkendorran had made its task easier. When finally intercepted by the Elves, the demon would say, in its guise as Sen Dunsidan, that it had come to discuss a plan for peace, to accede to conditions that would assure that the war would not resume. It would ask permission to fly to Arborlon to speak to the Elven High Council. It would give assurances that no treachery was intended and offer hostages as a show of good faith. It would demand that they let it remain aboard the
Zolomach
because, in the face of so many of the enemy, no right-thinking commander would leave the only protection available. The Elves would accept his condition. The Federation ship would display no weapons and pose no visible threat. They would feel confident that they could deal with anything the Prime Minister might attempt.

If persuasion failed to win them over, then the demon would use the fire launcher, which was concealed inside what appeared to be a storage cabin on the foredeck. In the event of an attack, the front section of the cabin could be dropped away and the weapon armed and fired in seconds. The Elven airships would be burned out of the sky before they knew what was happening, and the
Zolomach
would continue on its way. Once within range of the Ellcrys, a single direct hit was all it would take. It would be over before the Elves had a chance to do anything to stop it. In spite of having the fire launcher, the
Zolomach
would be destroyed and its crew killed in reprisal, but the demon would escape because it would shed Sen Dunsidan’s skin and take a new form. In the chaos, it would slip over the side of the ship. Once it was on the ground, they would never find it.

But now an unfamiliar airship was approaching, and they were still too far away from Arborlon for it to be an Elven vessel. It was flying alone, as well, which suggested it had another purpose. The
demon watched it grow larger, closing steadily, in no apparent hurry and with no indication that it meant any harm.

“Captain?” the demon said to the tall man on his right. “What ship is this?”

The
Zolomach
’s Captain, who had been studying the vessel through his spyglass, shook his head. “No ship I know. Not a ship of the line. Not a warship.” He looked again. “Wait. Her insignia is of a burning torch on a field of black.” He trailed off. “She’s a Druid ship.”

The Moric stiffened. Shadea a’Ru? Come looking for him out here? The idea seemed preposterous. “Who’s aboard her? Tell me what you see.”

The Captain put the spyglass up again and studied the ship. “Two Druids standing at the bow. A pilot. Someone else. A boy, it looks like.”

“Let me see.”

The demon took the spyglass from the Captain and scanned the decks of the approaching airship. It was just as the Captain had said—four figures were visible on deck and no one else. No railguns were mounted, and no other weapons were to be seen. The demon lowered the spyglass and made a quick scan of the decks of the
Zolomach
, reassured by the presence of Federation soldiers at every turn. There was no reason to be worried.

Still, it was uneasy. What was a Druid airship doing way out there by itself? It was not there by chance. The encounter was not a coincidence.

“They’re signaling to us,” the Captain advised.

The demon glanced over at him in confusion. “Signaling?”

The Captain pointed to the line of pennants being raised along the other ship’s foremast. “They wish to come aboard and speak with you. See the pennant with the silver and black on it? That’s your pennant, Prime Minister. They must know you are aboard.”

The demon’s first impulse was to turn on the approaching airship and attack it at once. But the demon was trapped inside Sen Dunsidan’s skin, and an unprovoked aggression against an ally would not be well received by the officers and men who crewed the ship. Worse, it might result in a battle they could not win. Although the Druid airship was not armed, the Druids themselves were formidable. If they were to damage the
Zolomach
and force another delay, it might prove fatal to the demon’s plans to reach the Ellcrys.

White-hot fury fed the Moric’s sense of frustration, but it kept calm outwardly. It would have to deal with the situation in a diplomatic way. “Move alongside them and ask what they wish to speak to us about,” he ordered.

The Captain raised his own line of pennants, then maneuvered the
Zolomach
until she was close by her counterpart. The Druids stood at the railing, black-cloaked and hooded. The Moric glanced at the name carved into the ship’s bow.
SWIFT SURE
.

“Sen Dunsidan!” shouted one of the Druids, the taller of the two, a woman by the sound of her voice. She kept her hood raised. “Shadea a’Ru sends greetings.”

The Moric felt a twinge of panic. If Shadea had sent this ship and these Druids, then nothing good could come of it. After all, the Ard Rhys had already tried to kill it once. There was nothing to say that she was not about to try to do so again.

But then the demon remembered that it was no longer in the guise of Iridia Eleri, and it was the sorceress whom Shadea had sent assassins to kill. Sen Dunsidan was Shadea’s ally. So far as the demon knew, nothing had happened to change that.

It calmed itself. “What does Shadea wish of me?” it shouted back in Sen Dunsidan’s deep, resonant voice. “How can I be of service to the Ard Rhys?”

“She wishes to be of service to you,” the speaker replied. “She wishes to present you with a gift that will be of use in negotiating with the Elves. She knows of the disaster on the Prekkendorran and wishes to mitigate the consequences. May I come over and present it?”

The Moric had no use for such a gift, but it understood that it could not afford to cast aside the offer out of hand. To do so would look suspicious. Worse, it would suggest that its motives in coming to the Westland were not peaceful. Shadea had allied herself and the Druids with Sen Dunsidan and the Federation. It made sense that she would want to aid the Prime Minister in his efforts at resolving the Federation dispute with the Free-born. She was as much at risk in this business as he was. The Moric wondered fleetingly how she had found out about where Sen Dunsidan was going and why, but it assumed she had spies at Arishaig who told her everything.

The Moric steeled itself. It would have to suppress its impulses and act as Sen Dunsidan would. This would only take a few minutes,
and then it could be on its way. Better to placate the Druids than to irritate them.

“Let them board, Captain,” it said to the
Zolomach
’s commander. “But watch them closely in the event this is something other than what it seems.”

The Captain nodded wordlessly, and the Moric climbed down from the pilot box and walked over to the railing to await its visitors.

I
t won’t work
, Pen kept thinking.
It will never work
.

But it did. He could scarcely believe it when the
Zolomach
’s Captain ran up the line of signal pennants that invited the Druids aboard. He had been convinced that permission would be refused and they would be turned away without a second thought. But his father, who had conceived of the plan during the night and worked the details through carefully with his mother, had assured them all that the demon would relent. In its guise as Sen Dunsidan, it would be forced to do what Sen Dunsidan would do. It might want to turn them away, but it would realize that to do so would create suspicion and risk disruption of its efforts to reach the Ellcrys. Its overriding goal was to reach Arborlon as quickly as possible, Bek reminded them. It would do whatever was necessary to make that happen.

Under his father’s steady hand,
Swift Sure
eased closer to the
Zolomach
, and lines were thrown from the latter to the former and secured by Pen to the anchor stanchions so that the two vessels were joined. Pen glanced up and down at the soldiers lining the other ship’s railings and tried to reassure himself that they didn’t matter, that the plan would work out as his father intended. His mother and Khyber, cloaked in the Druid robes his mother had stolen from Paranor and stowed aboard some weeks earlier, stood together at the bow, waiting patiently. They kept their hoods up and their features concealed. Sen Dunsidan didn’t know any of them by sight save Tagwen, who was hiding belowdecks, but it didn’t hurt to be cautious.