by Terry Brooks
She felt vulnerable amid the Federation soldiers—out of place and exposed. She knew she would do better back in Emberen with Flinc and Fade and perhaps Drisker, should he have managed to escape the Forbidding by now. She also felt certain that she had damaged Clizia sufficiently that her enemy would not be coming for her again right away. Clizia, too, would need time to heal, and Tarsha had sensed a weakness in her enemy that had not been there before.
But now that she was back in Emberen, she was growing increasingly anxious while waiting for Drisker to contact her. She spent a portion of every day reading the Druid’s books of magic in an effort to find an alternative to the darkwand that might free him from the Forbidding, but so far she had located nothing useful. She was fully aware of how much danger the Druid was in and how little control he had over his life until he recovered the darkwand. That he might not be successful in his efforts was not something she would let herself consider. He would recover it, no matter what it took. He would ally himself with Grianne Ohmsford so that, when she summoned the staff’s magic, he would be transported back into the Four Lands. Then he could stand beside Tarsha when she again faced Clizia Porse.
Which was another concern. She had not heard anything from the witch, either. This was good, but it only meant postponing the inevitable. The witch would come again at some point, enraged at how Tarsha had managed to stand against her, furious at the damage that had been done to her, and Tarsha would have to face her—Drisker or no Drisker. Revenge was a powerful motivator, and Clizia was not immune to its call. Tarsha would have help from the forest imp and the moor cat, but not the sort of help that Drisker could offer. Still, she was resigned to the fact that she could change nothing of what was going to happen. Especially where Drisker was concerned.
Because Drisker had not come to her in dreams for almost two weeks, and she was beginning to wonder what had happened to him.
She devoted a portion of each afternoon to sitting at Tavo’s gravesite and reading to him. She liked the sense of closeness it gave her; she liked thinking he might somehow be hearing her. Usually, Flinc sat with her, keeping her company, listening to her read. But on one such day, he grew restless and began to complain.
“I’m rather bored with all this sitting around. I have a headache. Maybe we should take a walk down to the stream to watch the beavers build their dam. Now, there’s a worthy task. There is an effort to admire for the work and the skill that goes into it. Much more so than what you are doing. And look at your hands! Filthy! You keep digging at the boy’s grave, soiling your pretty fingers. Why do you do that, lovely Tarsha? Is this a habit you cannot break? Maybe it would help if I put gloves on your hands. At least it would help keep your hands clean. Did I mention how hungry I am? Aren’t you hungry? Can’t we have something to eat? Just a little something…”
On and on until she thought she would scream. She would have preferred the company of Fade, but the big moor cat was off keeping watch. Flinc, on the other hand, had nothing better to do than sit with her. But usually he did so quietly and uncomplainingly. She had suggested he read with her more than once, but the forest imp was quick to point out that this wasn’t the sort of thing his people did.
She would have liked to know exactly what they did do, other than sit around commenting on other people’s efforts, but she doubted she would get a forthright answer. Flinc was not the sort to discuss his life. She knew next to nothing about his people—not even how long they had been around, or how many they were, or what sorts of powers they possessed as descendants of an ancient Faerie folk. Everything they talked about was of the here and now.
After a time, she grew tired trying to read over his incessant complaints and sat back on her heels to stare off into the forest. The shadows cast by the great old-growth giants were lengthening as the day began to wane, and the sun to drop into the horizon. Flinc was still nearby, but he had gone silent. She found herself thinking once more of Drisker, wondering if there was a way for her to reach out to him—to project her astral self to him as he did to her. But she didn’t know how to do it, and so was reduced to waiting. Her sense of helplessness troubled her. She then thought about Shea Ohmsford and the others aboard the Behemoth, somewhere off in Skaarsland—either already arrived at or close to reaching their destination. She wondered about the machine they had taken with them, the marvelous invention that perhaps could change the weather.
And by doing so, maybe change the course of history.
Her thoughts drifted to all that had happened since she had first come to Drisker’s cottage, then without warning she was crying. It happened regularly and all at once these days—a grieving process she could not control and knew she must work through. Losing Tavo had all but destroyed her. Losing him after finding him again. Losing him after so much had happened to bring them back together.
And losing him this time for good.
She was crying hard, and Flinc was at her side, a hand on her shoulder. For once he was not saying anything. He was offering reassurance simply by being close enough to touch her, to let her know he was there.
She reached up to put her hand over his and cried herself out with nearly silent sobs, head bent to hide her tears.
Hidden from her, as a result, was the war shrike sitting high in a nearby tree, watching.
* * *
—
Five days earlier, Clizia had decided to summon and dispatch shrikes she commanded into the Four Lands to hunt for Tarsha, concentrating her efforts on the areas where she suspected the girl might be found. It wasn’t that much of a stretch to think she would return either to Paranor or to the Westland—the two parts of the country with which she was most familiar—but she started first with the Federation encampment. Once she discovered the girl was no longer there, Clizia went back to her first impulse and sent her birds into the Westland and to Paranor. If they could not find the girl there, she would expand the search to other regions. But she needn’t have worried. The seventeenth shrike to return brought the news she was seeking. Tarsha was living once more in Drisker’s cottage in the Westland village of Emberen—a place both familiar and comforting for a young girl who had lost everything.
But maybe her choice of a safe haven was something more as well. Was it too much to believe she might have gone back there to find the Druid’s books of magic and perhaps unearth a spell or conjuring that might allow her to help Drisker return to the Four Lands?
She knew at once this was exactly what the girl was doing. Unable to help her mentor in any other way, she would seek his books and find within their pages a magic that would give him a path back home. Whatever else happened, Clizia knew she could not allow this to happen. Twice, she had rid herself of Drisker and thought him gone for good. She had failed the first time, and she had no intention of failing again. She had no idea if a way existed to bring the Druid back, but she knew immediately she must go to Emberen and make certain it didn’t happen.
It might be that Tarsha was only waiting for him to find his own way back, but she couldn’t risk the girl’s interference. Her intelligence and her magic were too dangerous. If the girl were silenced for good—as Clizia had thought she had managed to do at Cleeg Hold and again at the Federation camp—any risk of her helping Drisker Arc or interfering with Clizia’s plans would be eliminated. Clizia did not underestimate the danger of confronting Tarsha yet again, or the chances of failure, but she was convinced that her abilities and her magic were superior to Tarsha’s—at least for the present.
Besides, she had no intention of handling the matter herself. She had already faced the girl several times, and each time had not only failed but also risked herself needlessly. She could not risk using the Stiehl, and if she could not rely on the best weapon she possessed, why should she tempt fate yet again? No, Tarsha Kaynin was too dangerous. So instead of confronting her directly, she would send the Jachyra. Whatever risk Tarsha might present t
o her, she could be no match for the demon. The Jachyra would tear her to pieces.
Once that was decided, Clizia could rest easy. With no help from the girl, Drisker would be well and truly trapped in the Forbidding for all time—or for as long as it took for something else to kill him. That was the nature of life in that world; everything that lived there was lethal in one way or another. No matter the Druid’s skills and determination, sooner or later he would make a mistake or be caught off guard or simply overpowered.
Tarsha Kaynin was his only chance to escape, so Clizia needed to snuff her out like a candle. Then she would be able to continue her efforts to rebuild the Druid order with herself as High Druid, and Paranor would be open to her again, the Guardian of the Keep resigned to her presence as the last of the Druids. She would form the alliances she needed and begin the task of assembling her followers and consolidating her power base and her control over the magic she knew was her rightful inheritance.
She called back and dismissed all the war shrikes but the one who had found Tarsha and prepared it to lead the Jachyra to its prey. But at the last minute, she had second thoughts about her decision to send her pet alone. Tarsha had proven resilient every time Clizia had thought to finish her in the past. Why did she think it would be different this time, even with the demonkind as her weapon? No, the only way to be sure was to go witness the girl’s death herself—as dangerous as this might prove to be. She must accompany her pet to make certain it did what it had been told to. She would allow the Jachyra to do the killing, but she must be there when it happened if she wanted to make certain.
If she ever expected to enjoy peace of mind on the matter again. If she ever expected to not always wonder if she were mistaken in her belief that the girl was gone for good.
The decision made, she called the Jachyra to her and prepared to set out for the village of Emberen. At the last minute, she pulled the Stiehl from its hiding place and tucked it into her robes. Just in case.
THIRTY-THREE
When Grianne Ohmsford shook Drisker Arc awake again, it was as if no time had passed. But it clearly had since it was daylight now—or as close to daylight as it ever got in the Forbidding—the skies clouded and gray across a sunless sky, the landscape an empty, mist-shrouded expanse, the larger world sullen and silent. He lay in his cloak without moving after he had muttered a response and the shaking had stopped, his waking a slow and somewhat tenuous process. The warmth within his cocoon and a deep lethargy inhabiting his limbs made it difficult for him to decide that moving at all was necessary. When he looked around, he heard the Ulk Bog snoring loudly and found the Straken Queen kneeling next to him.
Her eyes fixed on his. “Are you better today?”
And he realized he was. He didn’t believe it at first, but his body was free of pain and his wound was no longer inflamed. Grianne Ohmsford’s powerful wishsong magic had managed to restore him.
He took a deep breath and exhaled. “I think I am.”
He sat up and decided he was indeed feeling stronger. He waited a moment longer then stood, letting the normal feeling of waking flood through him. Better! He allowed himself a smile of satisfaction and relief. Grianne was standing next to him, smiling back crookedly.
“You are better,” she said quietly. “And you will need to be. We still have a day’s journey ahead. Are you ready? Can I depend on you?”
He nodded. “I’m as eager to leave this land as you are.”
“Then I’ll wake the Ulk Bog and we’ll get started. The Chule and their allies may still be hunting us.”
They paused for a hasty breakfast, and then they were on their way, a ragged procession of three fugitives in a land where everything was hunting them.
The country they passed through was still swampland, and so they moved furtively, paying close attention not only to anything that might be tracking them but to anything in the fetid waters, be it enemy or predator. But nothing showed itself, and Drisker allowed himself to think of escape once more. He pictured returning to the Four Lands, being reunited with Tarsha Kaynin. He would see Clizia Porse eliminated and the Four Lands set right again. Grianne Ohmsford would be returned to her former safehold and reunited with Mother Tanequil. He imagined this and much more, and his thoughts buoyed him as he traveled.
There was little talk. There was nothing much to say, anyway. Drisker knew the overriding need was to get through this wasteland and put themselves beyond the reach of their pursuers. They had to return to Kraal Reach and retrieve the darkwand, wherever Weka had secreted it. And then Grianne and he would discover if the staff really would provide them with the escape they hungered for—if it could indeed transport both of them out of the Forbidding. He suspected Weka Dart might be left behind, the darkwand’s magic unable to break him free of the prison to which his kind had been consigned for so long, and he knew the Ulk Bog would come to accept this. After all, he had been left behind before when Grianne had escaped, and he understood the rules that might forbid his release. He would have to find comfort in knowing his sacrifice had helped return his mistress to the life she had been yearning for. The Ulk Bog was a survivor. Look at the way his arm had regenerated itself. He would manage.
They walked only a short time—perhaps a little more than an hour—until they came to an open stretch of relatively flat, dry terrain, backed up against a solitary cluster of large boulders. There Grianne brought them to a halt, looking pleased. “At last! Now we can summon our transport.”
“What transport?” Drisker asked with a frown. There was no way her bone coach could make it through this bog, despite this stretch of dry ground.
“One you yourself suggested, Ard-Rhys-That-Was,” she answered, almost playfully. “After all, we no longer need to worry about preserving the secrecy of our approach.”
She motioned them back toward the boulders, which formed a sort of makeshift shelter. When she decided they were sufficiently tucked away, she spread her arms and called out into the windy, gray void overhead. She finished in a bone-chilling howl and immediately began murmuring in a voice so low and indistinct as to be barely audible. Her hands moved in accompaniment to the rise and fall of her voice, and the air about them turned suddenly as black as a starless, moonless night.
Drisker stared. What is she doing?
He could feel the magic rising, the spell she had cast working its will, the space about them charged with the stench of its raw power. Weka Dart shrank against him, pressing close. The Ulk Bog was terrified, and perhaps Drisker should have been terrified, too, but he did not understand yet what was about to happen. Weka Dart, apparently, did.
“What is it?” the Druid whispered, but the Ulk Bog simply cringed against him more insistently.
Then an explosion of light filled the weir and a rain of fiery light-shards descended, spreading out all around the Straken Queen. She was instantly encapsulated, bound, and held fast by summoned protections as a shriek rent the darkness and something so massive it defied belief descended from out of the skies to land before her.
Drisker peered through half-blinded eyes to see what it was.
A dragon!
A dragon so massive that it dwarfed everything about it. It was so terrifying with its spikes and horned ridges and teeth and claws that it left even Drisker searching for a way to escape. But the creature was looking at him and at Weka Dart and the witch that had summoned it, yellow eyes aglow and head lowered to where it was face-to-face with all three, and there was no possible avoidance. Just by its presence, it commanded them to look.
Somehow Drisker held his ground, eyes fixed on the monster. Then Grianne was moving forward to place a hand on its massive snout, letting it rest there, inches from teeth that could shred her in an instant. The great body—glistening with moisture that steamed off its bulk—rippled in response. It was in her thrall, and yet Drisker sensed it would require only a moment’s distraction�
�just a small movement or sound—to shatter the connection. And he found himself holding his breath against such a frightening possibility.
“Cho’disen’ra, olst dragent.” She spoke the words clearly enough in the deep silence to be heard by the others. “Kase’ta roi coous.”
The dragon responded with a sudden nod—a quick sharp movement of its head as it knelt before her.
“The Crush’ton dragent is ready now,” she called over her shoulder. “Mount her from just behind her wings, once she unfolds them. Do not hesitate once you begin. Hesitation breeds doubts, and you do not want this one doubting you.”
“We are expected to ride this dragon?” Drisker asked in disbelief. “I thought you said riding dragons was a bad idea because they tended to eat their riders.”
“This one might not, now that I hold sway over her.”
Drisker was not reassured. “Is there no other way for us to reach our goal?”
Grianne never took her eyes off the dragon as she answered. “There are other ways, but I do not intend to take them. I have no desire to remain in this bog—and in this place—any longer than necessary. And this beautiful creature will hasten our journey home.”
“Perhaps it would be better simply to walk faster?” Weka Dart ventured, his voice quavering.
“Do not be foolish, Ulk Bog. Climb on now, as I ordered you to do, or leave and go your own way. Make your choice.”
Drisker was already moving. There was nothing to be gained by delay or doubt at this point. He had to believe Grianne Ohmsford would do the best she could to keep them alive. He had to believe that the dragon would give them the best chance of surviving those that hunted them.
He reached the dragon’s side and found himself facing a wall of black scales that defied any attempt to ascend. “Wait, Druid,” the Straken Queen called to him.