Jarka Ruus - Терри Брукс

It would help that she had the services of Aphasia Wye. But something more was needed.

She descended the winding stairways of the Keep into its depths, into the cellars and dungeons that lay far underground in the bedrock, dark places where the Druids seldom ventured. Her destination was known only to her, now that Grianne Ohmsford was gone, a place she had discovered some years ago while shadowing the Ard Rhys in an effort to discover her secrets. She had been good at shadowing even then, having developed the skill in her early years when the uses of magic were first revealing themselves to her. It was dangerous to challenge Grianne Ohmsford's instincts, but she managed it with the aid of a fine–grained, odorless dust that rendered the other's tracks visible in a wash of prismatic light. Layering the dust in the dark places she knew the other sometimes went, she would wait for her return before sneaking back down to read the trail. She had gotten lucky once or twice, but never again as lucky as with what she now sought to retrieve.

She entered the deep center of the Keep, the heart of the fortress, down where the earth's heat lifted out of its churning magma to warm the rooms above. She found it interesting that the Druids would build their home atop a volcanic fissure that might erupt and destroy them one day. But the Druids lived in harmony with the earth's elements and found strength in what was raw and new. She understood and appreciated that. A proximity to the sharp edge that divided life and death was compelling for her, as well.

The passageways narrowed and darkened further. So far down, there was no need for space or light. She thought that some of the corridors had not been walked in a thousand years, that some of the cells and rooms they fed into had not seen life in thousands more. But she sought nothing of life that day, only of death. She moved in silence, listening for sounds of the spirit creature that lived in the pit beneath the Keep and warded Paranor and its magic. It slept now and would slumber until awakened. So long as the Druids kept occupancy and life, it would lie dormant. She knew the stories of its protective efforts. The stories were legend. They did not frighten her, however. Rather, they intrigued her. One day, she would come down to take a closer look at it. Spirits were something she understood.

She pondered for a moment the circumstances that had led her to that moment. She had no regrets about how she had achieved her position, but she would have preferred that it be otherwise. She wasn't evil, just practical. She was the right choice to be Ard Rhys, the better person for the title, but that did not mean she was happy with the way she had obtained it. Climbing over the backs of others to get what you wanted was suited more to politicians and to royalty than to students of magic. She would have preferred to face Grianne Ohmsford in combat, but a decision based on the outcome of trial by magic would not have been accepted by the others—neither her allies nor her enemies. Druids, for all their examination and study, were conservative by nature. History had taught them that independence and disobedience led to disaster, so they preferred that matters progress in an orderly fashion.

That couldn't happen here. Not with the Ilse Witch as Ard Rhys and the fate of the order hanging in the balance. Shadea had understood that from the beginning. Unlike the others, she had chosen to act.

She reached a heavy iron door at the end of a corridor and stopped. Placing her fingers on a set of symbols cut into the metal, she closed her eyes and pressed in deliberate sequence. It had taken her a while to unlock the puzzle, but in the end she had done so. Tumblers clicked and a bolt slid back. The door opened.

Inside, the room was round and dark save for the light cast by a single lamp set in a raised stanchion at the chamber's center. Heavy stone blocks encircled a mosaic floor in which runes had been carved in intricate patterns that suggested story panels. There was only the one door leading in and no windows. There were no openings in either the walls or floor. The ceiling domed away in shadowed darkness.

A tomb for the dead and their possessions, Shadea thought. A space where things were placed with a strong expectation that one day they would be forgotten.

She walked to the stanchion, stood with the heel of her right boot pressed against one edge of its square base and fitted into an invisible depression beneath, then walked straight ahead until she reached the wall. Placing the palms of both hands flat against the stone at waist height, she worked the tips of her fingers around until she found the hidden depressions in the stone, then pushed.

A heavy panel swung open on hidden hinges, revealing a deep, ink–black chamber.

Her smile said everything about her expectations for what waited within.

She entered without the use of fresh light, relying on the faint glow of the lamp behind her. Her eyes adjusted quickly, and she saw what she had come for. She walked over to a low pedestal set against one wall, opened the iron box sitting on top of it, and took out the velvet pouch that rested within. She handled it carefully, the way she might a deadly snake, taking care not to grip it too strongly but to balance it in the palms of her hands. Even more carefully still, she reached inside to extract what was hidden there.

Slowly, gingerly, she drew out the Stiehl.

It was the most deadly weapon in the world, a blade forged in the time of Faerie in the furnaces of the Grint Trolls. Infused with lethal strains of arcane fire magic, it could penetrate anything, no matter how thick or strong. Nothing could stand against it. It had been in the hands of the assassin Pe Ell in the time of the Shadowen and Walker Boh, and he had used it to kill the daughter of the King of the Silver River. The Druid had recovered it afterwards and hidden it here. No one had known where it was since. No one, but Grianne Ohmsford and now Shadea.

She held it by its handle, feeling the markings that signified its name where they were carved into the bone plates. The blade gleamed silver bright, its surface smooth and flawless. It had survived thousands of years without a mark. Grianne had kept it concealed for the same reasons as Walker Boh—it was too dangerous to reveal. It was an assassin's weapon, a killer's tool.

It belonged, Shadea told herself, in a killer's hands, in an assassin's sheath. It belonged in the hands of a master. She would see that it found its way there. She would see that it was put to the use for which it was intended. The lives it snuffed would be well spent.

She sighed. She wasn't being evil, she told herself for a second time that afternoon. She was just being practical.

She put the Stiehl away, closed the chamber anew, and climbed out of Paranor's dark cellars to the light above.

FIFTEEN

With the decision made to go in search of the tanequil, Ahren Elessedil arranged for horses to transport the party on the first leg of their journey, and within an hour they were mounted and riding out of Emberen. Seemingly unconcerned about its contents, the Druid didn't even bother to close up his cottage, leaving everything pretty much the way it was. Pen had the feeling that the Druid wasn't much attached to possessions and, in the tradition of Druids who did service in the field, thought them mostly superfluous. The boy didn't pretend to understand this, having worked hard for everything he had, but he supposed that his own attachments were mostly the result of habit and not because he valued his belongings all that much. Still, he had to fight a strong urge to go back and lock up.

They rode south along the main roadway, stopping frequently to say good–bye to the villagers, Ahren making a point of telling everyone he spoke to that they would be gone for several weeks. Pen thought it odd that he would make the information public and was further confused when they departed in the wrong direction and a dozen miles outside the village turned not east toward the Charnals, but west.

When he finally gathered up courage enough to ask what they were doing, Ahren Elessedil smiled. «Confusing the enemy, I hope. If they come to Emberen, which I expect they will, the villagers will tell them we left heading south. If they track us that way, they will find that we have turned west. But they will lose our trail when we reach the Rill Song because we will leave the horses there and catch a barge downriver to the Innisbore and the inland port of Syioned. At Syioned, we will find an airship to take us where we really want to go.»

«An airship?» Pen asked.

«An airship offers speed on a direct line and doesn't leave tracks. If I'd had one at my disposal in Emberen, we would have taken it from there. But horses will have to do for now.» He laughed. «You should see your face, young Pen!»

They rode all that day and most of the next through the Westland forests before reaching the Rill Song and a way station that offered the use of barge transport downriver. The weather stayed warm and bright, the storm that was lashing Paranor and the Druid's Keep having passed north a day earlier. They rode steadily, stopping only to eat and sleep, and in that time Pen managed to find discomfort in ways he hadn't dreamed possible. Horses were not a regular part of his life, so riding for such long stretches left him aching from neck to ankles. Having done little riding himself, Tagwen didn't fare much better. Both Elves seemed untroubled by the effort, but on the first evening Khyber took time to give the Dwarf and the boy a liniment she carried in her pack to ease their pain.

Leaving the horses behind at the way station, they boarded the barge late in the afternoon of the second day and set out anew. The Rill Song was deep and wide at that time of the year, and they had no trouble making headway on its turgid waters. When darkness set in, they navigated by moonlight so bright it might have been the middle of the day. Ahren could have tied up on the river–bank and let them all sleep, but he seemed anxious to continue on while light permitted and so they did. Pen was just as happy. He did not care to chance another run–in with Terek Molt.

The following day, they passed below Arborlon, its treetop spires just visible over the lip of the Carolan. The storied Elfitch, the heavily fortified ramp that gave access to traffic coming in from the west, rose like a coiled snake from the eastern bank of the river to the bluff. Elves worked their way through the switchbacks and gates, a steady stream of commerce coming from and going to the Sarandanon. Pen found himself thinking about the battle fought between the Elves and their allies and the demons from the Forbidding almost five hundred years earlier. He stared at the Elfitch as they sailed past, trying to imagine the strength of its iron being tested against the frenzy of the demons. Thousands had died in that struggle. The legendary Border Legion had been decimated. The Elves had lost one out of every three able men. Their King, Eventine Elessedil, had been killed.

Pen wondered if another battle of the same sort was waiting down the road—if in spite of what Khyber said, the Ellcrys was failing again and the demons had found another doorway out of their prison.

They passed other boats on the river, and now and again they saw airships sailing overhead, a mix of warships on their way to the Prekkendorran and freighters on their way to less angry places. The weather stayed sunny and warm. There was no sign of the Galaphile. There was no sign of trouble of any sort. Pen began to think that maybe things weren't so bad.