by Terry Brooks
They did so, and the Druid and the Ulk Bog locked gazes. “You won’t take her without me!” the latter hissed. “I won’t allow it!”
“Hush!” Grianne cautioned. “No more talk.”
She began to summon the magic. They clung to the staff in the manner of drowning sailors clinging to a lifeline. Grianne said nothing more to either of them, concentrating on conjuring. Little was required. The runes carved into the darkwand’s surface began to glow and then abruptly burst into bits of flaming light as though the staff itself were afire. But there was no actual burning, nor was there any pain for either Drisker or the Straken Queen, as both kept a tight hold.
It was not so for the Ulk Bog, however, who screamed and wrenched his hand away, burns evident all over his skin. “It isn’t working!” he gasped. “It won’t let me keep hold of it!”
“Then hold on to me!” Grianne ordered.
But when Weka attempted to do so, the glow from the staff was already beginning to enclose her and he experienced the same scalding and again was forced to let go.
“You cannot leave the Forbidding, Weka Dart!” the Straken Queen said quickly. “I warned you this might happen. Step away and let us go!”
But the Ulk Bog was beyond any reasoning or recognition—and especially any intention of accepting what was clearly inevitable. His face contorted into a mask of desperation, his rage so intense the heat of it was coming off his body. “You did this!” he screamed at Drisker Arc. “But if I cannot leave, neither can you!”
Drisker saw the attack coming but could not act quickly enough to prevent it. Pulling a dagger from somewhere within his clothing, the Ulk Bog drove the blade into Drisker’s stomach and chest three times in rapid succession, and the third time he left it buried there.
Grievously wounded, the Druid dropped to one knee. With one hand clinging to the darkwand, he wrenched the blade free and cast it away.
There was blood everywhere. He looked at Grianne. “Leave me,” he gasped, feeling the cold of his own death rushing through him. “Help Tarsha…”
“Help her yourself!” the Straken Queen snapped, her face gone white, her anguish evident. She kicked a flushed wild-eyed Weka Dart out of the way. “You fool!” she spat at him. “You had no reason! None!”
She wrapped one arm about Drisker, holding him up. “Do not let go. Your Tarsha is waiting for you.”
A moment later the glow sharpened and expanded to enclose them both. Everything around them disappeared, the gray world of the Forbidding diminishing behind the wall of the staff’s magic. Drisker felt the unexpected weight of its fiery light settle on him, crushing him, smothering him, shutting off the air he struggled to breathe.
Then he was enveloped in darkness and the weight pressing down on him lifted away.
* * *
—
When the magic’s power faded and the fiery light surrounding her disappeared, Grianne Ohmsford found herself standing alone. She breathed clean air she had thought she would never breathe again. She closed her eyes against a brightness that had been denied her for so long, she could no longer bear it. She kept her eyes closed, waiting for them to adjust to this new intensity. She gripped the darkwand tightly as she did so, seeking reassurance, leaning on it for balance, the strength gone out of her.
Finally, she opened her eyes again, blinked against the light, squinted to protect them, and looked around for her companions.
Drisker Arc lay sprawled on the ground beside her, looking up at the sky. She knelt beside him at once, one hand reaching out quietly to touch his cheek, then pass in front of his eyes, and over his mouth. Nothing. She felt for a pulse, then sat back. Drisker Arc was gone, his great heart stilled.
She stared at him a moment longer, and then she looked around for Weka Dart. Just to be sure. But he was nowhere to be found.
Using the darkwand, she lowered herself back to her feet, remembering the letter Drisker had given her. She carried it now, tucked away in a pocket beneath her blouse.
Kept safe, in case the worst happened.
And the worst had.
But she could keep her promise and find Tarsha Kaynin. She could help her stand against Clizia Porse. She could let her know the awful truth about her mentor’s passing. She could give her the note and try to make her understand.
All these she could do, and the promise she had made to Drisker Arc would be kept.
She looked around again. She had wished for the magic to convey her to the Westland village of Emberen, where the Druid made his home and the girl might be found. Off to one side, she could see the roofs of a village amid a wide stretch of forestland. She was in the Westland, unless she missed her guess.
She wrapped Drisker’s body in his cloak and fastened the garment in place using its ties and his belt. Knowing what was needed, she set off to begin her new life.
THIRTY-FIVE
Darcon Leah and Brecon Elessedil left the Behemoth by flit immediately after making their decision to go after Ajin. The day was already half gone, the light from the sun a weak glow in the sky overhead, masked behind heavy clouds. They flew upriver until they were perhaps a mile from the Behemoth before finding a small clearing in which to land. Then, concealed within a stand of trees, Dar waited as his friend extracted the Elfstones from their pouch, clasped them tightly in his fist, stretched out his arm, and pointed them in the general direction of the still-distant city.
Brecon closed his eyes, concentrating on Ajin’s face and waiting for the magic to come alive. It did not take long. Almost immediately the stones began to emit their brilliant-blue glow, brightening the gloom. Brecon’s eyes opened again, and together the Elf and the Blade watched the intensity increase until a jagged blue streak shot into the trees toward the Skaar city, working its way over the rough winter terrain—over drifts of snow and icy ground, past trees painted white with frost, and hills and ridgelines barren and stark. The light continued on over the white-capped landscape until it reached its destination—a city turned grim with cold and bitter winds and a never-ending winter. Walls and parapets, towers and battlements, capstones and gates—all had become victims of the cold and lack of sun. Into the city the beacon raced, through clusters of frigid, dark buildings, down streets shadowed and empty, past the huddled bundles in doorways and alcoves that were all that remained of the people who had frozen in the night—or even the night before—and had yet to be collected by the corpse gatherers to be buried or burned.
The vision was stark and raw and frightening, and both suddenly understood just why the Skaar had been so desperate for a new home. Dar flinched away in spite of himself, his fears for the Skaar princess already spiking simply from witnessing the grimness of the world into which she had disappeared.
The beacon continued on, heedless of the despairing vision it was portraying, intent on finding the person that Brecon’s image had shown it. It moved to an even more derelict portion of the city, where warehouses clustered like prisons, dark and deserted-looking. Here no one moved through the streets—not even at midday on the broadest of avenues. It was abandoned and forsaken, a barren wasteland of dead industry.
Then the light angled sharply toward a particularly grim monstrosity, passing through heavy metal doors and down into a cellar in which only a single light burned. Vast and cavernous, it had an abandoned look to it at first glance, but then shadows began to move and the watchers could see monsters that were half men, half wolves lurking against the walls, slinking about like scavengers, huge and ferocious.
And then…Dar gasped. A barred cell stood in the exact center of the chamber—a cage in which two women huddled together. Their arms were wrapped about each other and the looks on their faces revealed the extent of their weakened condition.
“Ajin!” Dar gasped in shock.
For it was indeed the Skaar princess with a woman he did not know, but whose resemblance to
the princess was unmistakable and whom he immediately knew to be her mother. In seconds, it all became clear to him. Ajin had overreached or been betrayed. Ajin’s stepmother had taken both women prisoner and shut them away in this monster-infested building to be dealt with later in ways he did not care to contemplate. This was why she had not returned.
The blue light held the vision fast for a few seconds longer, then disappeared, leaving the watchers cloaked in gloom once more.
“What were those things?” Brecon asked, his horror at having seen the wolf-men twisting his features in a grimace.
Dar didn’t know. He only knew that Ajin—the enemy he had once thought he might have to kill and the woman he had now, against all odds, grown to love—was in terrible danger, and it was up to him to rescue her. She would be waiting for him, knowing he would come for her, but time was slipping away quickly. He could not forget the despair he had seen in her face, the trapped look in her eyes.
He gave his friend a hard look. “We can’t afford to take the time to walk in, Brec. We have to use the flit, whether they see us or not.”
Brecon nodded his agreement, already returning the Elfstones to their pouch and stuffing them back in his tunic. He pulled his cloak more tightly about him. Snow was beginning to fall again. “Let’s hurry.”
They climbed back into their small airship and lifted off. The pair had already informed Rocan Arneas of their intentions, and to his credit the Rover leader had not objected. Engaged in helping his fellows and Tindall prepare the weather machine, he had not had the time or energy to argue. And he could see clearly enough the determination reflected in the Blade’s eyes. He asked only that they watch out for themselves, because he didn’t have the men to come searching for them, and to remember they intended to employ Annabelle later that day. A swift journey in and back again would be advisable. They would wait if they could, but if their purpose in coming to Skaarsland was placed in jeopardy or their efforts to achieve their goals were put at unnecessary risk, they would have to leave them behind.
Dar and Brecon understood, but the former was too distraught by Ajin’s continuing absence to be deterred and the latter refused to let his friend undertake this journey alone.
Now they flew inland rapidly, with Dar at the controls. Fearful and angry, his need to do something demanded he not sit idly by but rather take action. So he would not settle for being a passenger when he could be a pilot. Brecon understood and was quick to step aside.
They encountered no other airships on their way in, and saw no patrols or work parties on the ground. The snow was falling harder by then, their vision obscured beyond a few yards and the danger of flying into something substantially increased. Dar kept the flit well off the ground while still staying in sight of the treetops they were passing over. They flew in silence, their concentration entirely on keeping watch. Ahead, the world was a filmy white vision materializing out of snowfall and rising mist.
When the walls of the city finally appeared, Dar steered away automatically to avoid being seen by watchers on the parapets. He took them in a slow circle that kept their destination in sight, but only barely. He was looking for an entry point where they might approach on foot and gain access without being stopped. But it was Brecon, with his sharp Elven eyesight, who found what they were looking for and pointed it out.
“There, where the wall is crumbling, by that tower.”
Indeed, much of the city was breaking apart, and the walls in particular. Decay and instability had beset the city with the debilitating onslaught of the endless winter, and efforts to shore up the damage had apparently been abandoned. Dar took their small craft down into an open space still back within the trees, keeping one eye on their newfound access to the city as he did so. Once landed, they climbed out and stood looking at the bits and pieces of the wall they could see through the snowfall. From where they were standing, the city appeared dead.
Brecon took out the Elfstones and again summoned their magic. It appeared instantly, flying into the snow and mist, through the walls and along the streets and byways to the by-now-familiar warehouse where Ajin and her mother were being held. They did not need to look further once they had determined it was not all that far from where they stood. It sat at the backside of the city a short distance from the walls, surrounded by similar buildings—all of them dark and apparently abandoned.
The Elf and the Blade exchanged a look. “How do we do this?” Brecon asked.
Dar shook his head. “We go there, we get inside, we find a way through or past those wolf-things, and we free Ajin and her mother.” He paused. “I will take the lead. If something happens to you, your mother will never forgive me.”
“You say that like a threat!” Brecon laughed. “I can take care of myself—even if my training isn’t as thorough as yours.”
“Your training isn’t the issue. Lack of experience is. Anyway, try to stay safe, will you?” He looked toward the city. “We need to hurry.”
They set out through the woods and were soon close to a section of the wall not far from the tower they had marked out as their guidepost. Skirting through the last of the trees, they arrived at a point just across from the crumbling part of the wall Brecon had spied earlier. A gap had opened that was partially repaired with timbers set crosswise. The repair would keep out a large animal, but not much of anything else—and certainly not two determined men.
Dar nodded to Brecon and led the way to the gap. Farther down, a sentry stood staring out into the weather, his cloaked form barely visible through the falling snow. He never glanced their way as they squirmed through the opening and into the city. Fortune favors the bold, Dar thought as they stood just inside the barrier and looked ahead toward the dark shapes of the buildings. They made their way from one patch of shadows to another, from one concealment to the next, all the while watching for passersby or sentries. They found some of the former and none of the latter. Those few they did find were frightened, furtive creatures, ragged and worn, creeping through the back streets in search of food and shelter. The city had been built to house thousands, but now the dead were everywhere, their bodies sprawled in failed shelters, abandoned or simply lost.
Dar was appalled. From the look of the populace, all the able-bodied men and women must have gone with the king into the Four Lands.
They used the Elfstones twice more to find the building they had been shown, and quickly located it. They stood outside its walls, with the front doors directly across from them, and studied it. There were other, smaller doors on the sides of the building, but no windows anywhere that weren’t shuttered or blacked out by boards nailed tightly in place. No light from within was visible.
They risked one final look using the Elfstones so they could track Ajin and her mother once they were inside. The Blue Elfstone’s light took them through the heavily barred front doors to an interior corridor and another door, which in turn took them down heavy wooden steps and into the cellar that housed the prisoners. Nothing about their situation had changed. Nothing suggested there would be any way to free them without fighting an uncertain number of prowling wolf-men.
“The new queen should be there, too,” Dar muttered once the light had flared and disappeared. “Why aren’t we seeing her?”
“We would see her if she was there,” Brecon said. “The Elfstones would show us. She must be somewhere else.” He smiled. “That might help.”
Dar doubted anything would help at this point. “Doesn’t look like there is any clever way to do this, does it?”
His friend shook his head. “Break the locks on the front doors and go in, just as you said. Are you sure about this? Maybe we should try to get help. Ajin’s a Skaar princess and her mother a former queen. They must still be popular with some in the city.”
“But with whom?” Dar shook his head. “We have no idea whom to ask. We know no one in this place.”
�
��You do know that once we’ve done this, the city watch—or possibly whatever army remains—will come after us. We may be jeopardizing everything Tindall and Rocan are attempting with their machine.”
“But they said they were doing it today. The weather is getting worse, and they can’t risk waiting. Anyway, even if a search is mounted, it won’t matter. No one will know where to look. The others are far enough away they won’t be found. Not for a while.”
“You hope.”
Dar’s smile was tight and swift. “I don’t have anything else to fall back on. Besides, I can’t leave Ajin in that cage.”
Brecon pocketed the Elfstones, then thought better of it and brought them out again. “If there’s magic involved, the Stones will help protect us. Your blade, too. Once we’re inside, we need to find out—as quickly as we can—what those creatures are.”
“They don’t look natural,” the Blade agreed. “Not like anything I’ve ever seen. Stay ready, Brec.”
He started to unsheathe the Sword of Leah, then hesitated. Instead he reached into his pocket and brought out a packet, unwrapping it swiftly. Brecon stared down at a lump of gray material—not quite clay, but similar. “What’s that?”
“Rocan gave it to me. He said it might be useful. Shea used it to free Tindall from his cell in Assidian Deep. Let’s try it on that door.”
They crossed through the heavy snowfall like ghosts, crystalline flakes gathering on their heads and shoulders as they hunched within their cloaks. In moments they were standing before the front doors of the building where Ajin was imprisoned. The heavy doors were metal-clad, and the locks were formidable. Brecon shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Dar nodded wordlessly. “Let’s see what it can do. It can’t hurt.”
He extracted a wad of the material and slapped it on the cover plate that shielded the locking mechanism, forcing as much as he could through a wide keyhole entry. The lock was ancient and primitive, a relic of another time, but it was effective enough. No one without the key could ever get inside the building without breaking down the housing and getting at the works it protected.