by Terry Brooks
Carrick nodded. “That’s true, Aphen. Who knew you had found the diary and taken it out of the archives?”
She shook her head. “No one, so far as I know. I was alone in the storerooms the entire day, except for my uncle Ellich. But I hid the diary before he got close enough to see what I was doing, and I didn’t take it out again until after he had left. There was no one else down there.”
“So this girl, Aleia, takes this Darkling boy as her lover, changes her mind about the relationship when he insists she must leave Arborlon and come to live with his people, and then after refusing him discovers too late that he has stolen all but the seeking-Stones, leaving them behind so she will have a way to track him down.” Seersha grimaced. “Then she tries to do so, but can’t—even with the seeking-Stones to aid her—returns empty-handed and lives out the rest of her life. And you’ve no idea what happened to her?”
Aphenglow shook her head. “She wrote she had found a way to help set things right, but didn’t say what it was. She died shortly after, according to the genealogy charts of the Elven Kings and Queens. The Elfstones were gone for good after that. If there was any record of the specifics of their disappearance, it has been lost. The records as a whole are incomplete, of course, going that far back. All we know for certain is that the Elfstones disappeared during the age of Faerie, and it now appears it might have happened in the way the diary relates.”
Pleysia frowned “What exactly are we supposed to do with this?”
“That is what we are here to discuss,” Carrick declared. “What do you think, Aphenglow?”
“I’m not sure. I suppose we need to decide if there is a way we can track the missing Stones that hasn’t been tried before. Does the diary offer any clues that might help us with a fresh search? If it does, I haven’t found them. But I would like us to consider any possibilities. For instance, do we know if anyone other than Aleia has tried using the blue Stones to track the others? I can’t believe someone hasn’t, but the Elven histories don’t say.”
“If no one else has been able to find them in all this time,” Pleysia pointed out, “why do you think we can?”
Carrick stood up and started walking around the table. “The point is, Pleysia, that even if others have tried, we haven’t. And Aphen is right. We have to. Think what’s at stake! The Four Lands stand at a crossroads. Science and magic are pressing up against each other, both seeking dominance and the welcoming embrace of all the Races. We have been a long time with only magic to empower and fuel civilization’s advancement. Now science has begun to reemerge as a force to be reckoned with. It surfaces everywhere, and where once it was reviled and disdained as the instrument of humanity’s near destruction during the Great Wars, now it gains increasing favor—and it is magic that is mistrusted.”
“It is not our duty or obligation to sort out whether magic or science will empower future development in the Four Lands,” Pleysia snapped. “Our job is to employ magic in the present and to see that it is used wisely and to the benefit of all equally. The future will take care of itself.”
“Then you would resist any search for the missing Stones?” Carrick pressed.
“Talk of a search is premature. We have other work to occupy our time—equally important work.” Pleysia shook her head. “This feels like an exercise in futility. There was nothing in Aphenglow’s reading that offered even the smallest clue about where or how the Elfstones could be found. Are we to set aside everything and just go off blindly hunting? I don’t think so. Not without something more to convince us that a search will actually yield something.”
“We have nothing ‘to occupy our time,’ as you put it, that is even remotely as important as finding the Elfstones,” Seersha declared. “If there is a chance they might be recovered, we have to take it.”
“We are the caretakers of magic in this world, are we not?” Carrick leaned forward across the table toward Pleysia. “As such, we have a responsibility to find, retrieve, and safeguard any magic that might impact the people we serve. They may not appreciate our efforts, but that has never been the measuring stick of our commitment as Druids. I think we have here the sort of challenge we cannot refuse to accept. I think we have been given a responsibility of proportions impossible to measure. Finding the missing Elfstones might initiate changes that would dictate an entirely new future for the Four Lands. To pretend otherwise is foolish.”
“Yes, think what it would mean if we found them,” Seersha added quickly “Power of the sort that five sets of Elfstones would bestow could offer solutions to so many problems. I am not yet ready to toss aside magic in favor of new science. All I have seen so far from what’s been recovered are killing machines and weapons. I’ve seen the chronicles compiled on the new forms of destruction introduced during the war on the Prekkendorran. I’ve seen the Races grow increasingly hostile toward one another, all of them ready to do battle at the first challenge thrown.”
“That might well have come about even without the advent of the new science,” Pleysia pointed out. “It might have come about in the presence of magic alone. You are conjecturing.”
“But what if the missing Elfstones are out there waiting to be found, and we have a chance to do so,” Carrick pressed. “Why not try?”
Pleysia gave him a look. “Because that is how people get killed, Carrick—by trying foolish things and taking needless risks. Druids are not exempt from such fates.” She paused. “Or so our histories tell us.”
There was an uneasy silence as the three glared at one another across the table. Aphenglow thought she should say something, but she was at a loss as to what that might be. The lines were drawn, and everyone knew what she wanted just by the fact of her having returned with the diary in hand. But in truth she wondered if Pleysia might not be right about the slimness of their chances of finding the Elfstones after so long.
Carrick walked back to the head of the table and sat down again, his fingers steepled in front of his face. “We must wake the Ard Rhys.”
The others stared at him. “We are not to wake her unless an emergency requires her presence,” Pleysia reminded him. “Where is the emergency here?”
“You might argue that there isn’t one, and I might be inclined to agree with you under other circumstances. But the twin attacks on Aphenglow indicate a clear determination on the part of someone to find out what she knows.” Carrick leaned back. “I think that makes this an emergency.”
“Well said, Carrick!” a familiar voice boomed out from behind them. “We must wake the Ard Rhys at once!”
All heads turned. The four Druids already in the room had been so deeply involved in their discussion that they had failed either to hear or see the entry doors open to admit the fifth. Bombax stood in the opening, Garroneck looming just behind him.
“I’ve been standing outside the door for some time, listening. I didn’t want to interrupt Aphenglow’s report.” He grinned broadly—that devastating smile that left her undone every time she saw it. “But now I think I must. Aphenglow might not want to say so openly, but I expect she brought the diary back with every intention of seeing the Ard Rhys awakened. Because a decision on a matter of this sort requires that she be consulted and directly involved. Am I wrong, Elfling?”
Aphenglow hated it when he called her that, but she could not seem to stop him from doing so, even after expressing her dismay to him in private countless times. “You are not wrong. I did think it necessary.”
“Well, there you are.” Bombax came all the way into the room and stood looking from face to face. He was a big man, much taller and stronger than she was and almost as tall as Garroneck, though more limber and rangy. His thick mop of black hair fell to his shoulders in a tangle, and his travel-worn cloak was dusty and weathered. He had the look of a man who had journeyed hard and fast.
“Nice of you to drop in on our discussion,” Pleysia purred. “But you might want to learn all the facts before you offer an ill-advised opinion. Though I realize that is
not your way.”
“No, it really isn’t,” the other readily agreed, giving her a quick sideways glance. “But then I know something about this that you don’t. So I might say the same about you.”
She glared at him. “What are you talking about?”
He moved over and sat down beside Aphenglow, taking a deep, slow breath as he faced her, as if trying to breathe in her scent. “Just this. We have a new Federation Prime Minister as of midnight yesterday, and it isn’t good news for us.”
“Drustan Chazhul,” Seersha guessed, leaning forward to look past Aphenglow and meet his gaze. “Isn’t it?”
“Chosen last night after only one ballot. No opposition besides the few who have always opposed him—And their number steadily dwindles. Unfortunate things keep happening to them. So we are left with the worst possible choice. He has sworn he will see the order disbanded and Paranor razed. I fully expect him to try to carry out that threat.”
Carrick shrugged the threat away. “What happened to the old Prime Minister?”
“One of those unfortunate accidents I mentioned. He poisoned himself. Perhaps with help.”
Even Pleysia laughed at that, all of them aware of how desperately Chazhul wanted to be Prime Minister and how blind his predecessor had been to the duplicity of those around him. It was difficult to overestimate the machinations engaged in by the Ministers of the Federation High Council in their efforts to advance their positions. And Drustan Chazhul was the worst of the lot.
“He is a dangerous man,” Seersha said quietly, and gave each of them a look.
“Well, we can’t do anything about the Federation’s choice of a new Prime Minister,” Carrick said. “But beyond the obvious, how does this impact the business at hand?”
“Drust Chazhul’s reach is long and sure. He will have at least one spy in the Elven camp. Which suggests in turn the possibility he might have had something to do with the attacks on Aphenglow.”
Everyone went silent, thinking. “That’s a stretch, isn’t it?” Pleysia said finally. “How would he have found out about the diary quickly enough to order an attack? Besides, he has no interest in magic. He mistrusts and dislikes it. He wants it eliminated.”
“A good reason for seeing to it that no new discoveries come to light, don’t you think? As for the attacks, he might have planned for that a long time ago, thinking the day might come when they would be needed and needed quickly. Don’t underestimate him. He intends to rule us all. And now he has the means to find a way to do so.”
“He’s ambitious, but not flawless.” Seersha made a dismissive gesture. “He will have trouble finding allies.”
“We’re not here to discuss the Federation or the boundless ambitions of its Ministers,” Pleysia snapped. “We are here to decide whether or not to awaken the Ard Rhys from the Druid Sleep. Again, I do not think we have an emergency that requires it. How do the rest of you vote?”
The five Druids stared at one another, waiting to see who would speak first. Finally, Carrick came to his feet. “You are outnumbered four to one, Pleysia. I will wake the Ard Rhys.”
“No, I will,” Aphenglow said at once. “This is mostly my doing. I will take the responsibility.”
Without waiting for a response, she pushed back her chair, rose, and went out the chamber door, feeling the weight of their eyes against her back.
5
HER SLEEP WAS DEEP AND ENDLESS, A LONG SLOW UNWINDING of time and space. She floated on the air currents of the world, riding the back of the wind, gliding like a bird across the sky from light to dark, day to night. Her journey was smooth and undisturbed, and she drifted in her dreams from the real to the imagined and back again. At times, she dwelled in the past amid memories of what had once been and now was forever gone, as if she were paging through a book in which pictures captured perfectly the years of her life. At times, she was cocooned by blackness with no pictures, no memories, and no sense of what had been or might be; only a warm, comforting sense of well-being.
But at other times, she could hear and see and smell and taste the world about her, the one that was real and present and active even though she lay dormant. She could see the faces of those she knew and hear their words as they lived their daily lives while she slept. The voices whispered and buzzed and told her of the fears and hopes and joys and promises of the people she monitored in her subconscious, tracking their movements and reading their thoughts in a slow, languid unraveling that was able to penetrate even the deepest layers of her sleep. The effort came unbidden and as a consequence of the magic that shaped her half-life sleep, so it was always there, weaving its way through the stretches of darkness and sudden bursts of dreaming and small moments of remembering. It was there in the way that her breathing was there, a function of her body, a necessary reaction to her need to stay alive and informed within the confines of her strange and special sleep.
She drifted and spun, waiting for the time when she would be awakened. She flew unfettered, knowing that one day, when it was time, waking would come, brought about by a hand on her shoulder or a voice in her ear.
Or come instead when her own monitoring of the world told her that it was time …
Time …
Time …
Her eyes blinked open, and Khyber Elessedil, Ard Rhys of the Fourth Druid Order, came awake.
She lay wrapped within coverings in a chamber whose walls were layered with tapestries and whose windows were covered and sealed with heavy drapes. There were no lamps or candles in the room, and the light that seeped through past the edges of the drapes was pale and gray. It was either early morning or evening. She did not move at first, but lay collecting her thoughts and recovering her memories from where she had shelved them when she first entered the Druid Sleep. Years ago now, she guessed, but it was impossible to tell without talking to someone who had been awake and monitored time’s passing while she slept.
How much had changed? How different was the world into which she had awoken from the one in which she had slept?
Something had summoned her from her sleep, a thought or a dream, a voice or an act, but a thing of such power and immediacy that it commanded her attention and demanded that she be present. No one had come to her; no one had disturbed her sleep. This was something else. This was raw instinct telling her it was time to come awake.
And so she had obeyed.
She sat up slowly, taking her time, lifting the covers away so she could sit on the edge of her bed and determine that her sense of balance and the strength of limbs and body were sufficient to allow her to function. When she was satisfied, she stood up and walked to the closest window and looked out. She was facing west and could see the sun just slipping behind the horizon as the shadows of the forest trees stretched toward Paranor’s walls and towers with inky fingers.
She turned away and stood looking into the darkness of her chamber. She must discover why was she awake, what it was that in her dreams or subconscious musings had been so compelling.
She closed her eyes, centered herself, and waited.
Elfstones.
The word came unbidden, but she couldn’t know its portent.
She walked to the dressing table, shedding her sleepwear as she went, soaked the washcloth that was always waiting next to the basin of water that was always kept fresh, and began to wash herself. When she was finished, she dried and dressed in fresh clothing chosen from her closet. Her Druid Sleep was ended. She was back in the real world to deal with whatever real problem was waiting.
She walked to the mirror and began to brush her long, once-dark hair, streaked now with gray, the years having caught up to her in spite of the temporary reprieves granted her by the Druid Sleep. She had used it five times since becoming Ard Rhys, each period chosen carefully and with consideration for how matters fared both within and without the walls of the Keep. She had been alive for almost 110 years, yet she looked 50. She glanced at the reflection of her mostly unlined face. Possibly even younger, she corr
ected herself. But she did not take the sleep out of vanity or a desire to prolong her life; it was out of need and worry. Before she could give herself over to the death that awaited them all, Druid Sleep or no, she needed to find the next Ard Rhys. Among the members of the order, among those who had come late into her service but had stayed true to their vows, she must find a new leader.
She wondered suddenly how many remained of those she had left behind.
She would know soon. She hoped all had stayed. Bombax, Aphenglow, Pleysia, Carrick, Rendellin, and Seersha—they were among the best of those who had served. All of those with whom she had begun the new order in the time of Grianne Ohmsford were gone. Age and circumstance had caught up to them. None slept the Druid Sleep save the Ard Rhys, so it was inevitable that at some point she would find herself alone.
But others had traveled this path before her, and so she did not complain. She had made the choice all those years ago. It was pointless to harbor regrets now.
She finished with her brushing and stood looking at her face: Elven to the core with all of the defining, distinctive features. An Elessedil, like Aphenglow, and it had made her think now and again that the young woman was the best choice to lead those who remained. But Aphenglow was conflicted and troubled by what she had done in choosing a life in the Druid order over one in the Elven community. The resentment and disappointment of the Elves shrouded and haunted her. She was not at peace, and Khyber did not think she could lead until she was.
The others were a mix of raw talent and dangerous flaws. But she did not care to consider the matter just now and so pushed it aside.
She was wrapped in her Druid robes and standing just inside the door, preparing to go out, when she heard the latch release and quickly stepped back.
Aphenglow appeared in the doorway and on seeing her was so startled she gave a small cry. “Mistress! I didn’t … I thought …”
Khyber extended her arms in greeting. “It’s all right, Aphen. I came awake on my own. Is that why you are here? To wake me?”