Wards of Faerie: The Dark Legacy of Shannara (10 page)

She went back to reading the diary, finished a short time later, and leaned back in her chair. “I think this is real, Aphen.”

Aphenglow allowed herself a relieved smile. “I’m pleased. But what are we to do with it? Pleysia is right. It doesn’t give us any clue as to where the missing Elfstones might be found. The Darkling boy might have taken them to his home city, but he could just as easily have taken them somewhere else. If Woostra doesn’t find a mention in our records of a sighting of the Elfstones at a later time, we have nowhere to start a search. Perhaps I should go back and search the Elven histories again, this time looking for a mention of Aleia.”

“Perhaps.” Khyber thought a moment. “But I don’t want to risk you being attacked again.”

“I’m not afraid.”

Khyber smiled in spite of herself. “I know that. You are braver even than Bombax and twice as brave as me.”

Aphenglow blushed. “I doubt that. You must be thinking of Pleysia.”

“Pleysia?” She kept to herself the first words that came to mind. Better that her thoughts remained hidden. “Sit here a moment while I move about a bit, Aphen. The Druid Sleep has left me stiff and achy.”

She rose and walked to the far end of the chamber, looking out the window at the coming night. It was almost fully dark now, the sky gone deep blue, the first stars coming out to the north, shadows overlapping across the parapets and towers of the Keep. Torchlight blazed in tiny pockets atop the walls, and in the distance the horizon was a blood-red band of light fighting off the night’s descending blackness. She could hear the sound of the night birds and the soft tinkle of wind chimes.

What should she do?

To ignore the diary was unthinkable. She had to discover if the
lost Elfstones still existed and, if they did, where they might be found. She had to gain possession of them for the Druid order before they fell into hands that would not use them well. Elfstones were a powerful magic, and while she had given back the seeking-Stones long ago, believing when she did so that the Elves would keep them safe and use them wisely, she had kept the Black Elfstone—the most powerful of them all and the only other Stone that had ever been recovered—believing its magic better off in the hands of the Druids.

Which was what she believed about all magic.

It wasn’t that the other Races were incapable of good judgment and clear thinking. It wasn’t that the Druids possessed special insight or better reasoning, though she believed they did. The difference lay in the depth and breadth of commitment to a way of life that respected what magic could do and how it should be managed. Only the Druids had given their lives to this cause. Only the Druids understood and respected the power that magic offered, both good and bad. Only the Druids studied endlessly what history had to teach about the mistakes and misuses that had doomed so many before them.

To abdicate magic of any sort to a political entity or even to any one of the Races that populated the Four Lands, no matter the promises offered or the feelings expressed, was a failing of monumental proportions, and she would not be part of it.

Everyone who knew of the missing Elfstones, Races and individuals alike, had been seeking them since their disappearance in the time of Faerie. But no one had found them. No one had found even a trace. Not a word written. Not the briefest glimpse. Nothing.

What made her think it would be any different this time?

She walked back to where Aphenglow sat watching her and stopped in front of her.

“Do you know what to do?” Aphen asked softly.

Khyber Elessedil shook her head. “But I know who to ask.”

6

K
HYBER 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?”