by Terry Brooks
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?”
She stepped away, giving him control, and walked forward to the bow where she could watch the high end of the pass appear. She searched the landscape for movement, but the terrain was barren and empty everywhere, nothing but boulders and scrub grass and rutted earth. It was miserable, blasted ground, forbidding enough that nothing that breathed or moved would give much thought to doing more than passing through quickly. Ahead, far beyond the entry, an odd glow rose from within the mountains, a strange greenish light that grew in intensity as the darkness deepened.
The Hadeshorn.
The entry to the world of the spirits of the dead.
Garroneck and his Trolls anchored Wend-A-Way just below the narrow defile that led into the mountains, dropped a rope ladder, and helped Khyber climb through the railing. She didn’t need their help, but didn’t want to refuse it, either. When she was down, she walked forward several yards to stand alone with Garroneck.
“Wait here for me. Keep watch. You are exposed on these slopes to anyone passing by, especially someone in an airship—at least until it gets darker than it is now.”
“I will keep watch, Mistress.” The big Troll cast a quick glance about the empty skies. “I think we will be safe enough.”
He handed her the black staff she preferred, and she took it from him with a nod. “I won’t be back before morning. Don’t worry for me.”
He blinked. “Should I stop breathing, as well?”
She put a hand on his arm, squeezed gently, and turned away. “I’ll be careful.”
She went up the steep slope using the staff for balance, picking her way over the loose rocks, taking her time so as not to slip and fall. She had discarded her Druid robes and was wearing pants and a tunic, a brace of long knives strapped to her waist. She commanded sufficient magic that she could protect herself if she was threatened in any way, although she doubted she would need to. The Valley of Shale was never visited by anyone but stray travelers eager to find a way out and Druids like herself who were intent on speaking with the dead. She believed she would encounter neither this night.
Within the hour she arrived at the head of the pass and began working her way through the long, twisting defile that led to the valley. The night was dark and still, and while there were stars visible in the ribbon of sky above the cliff walls, the moon was down. She stopped frequently to drink from her waterskin and took time when she did to listen to the absence of night sounds. Her senses sought the presence of other life, but each time they assured her she was alone. She created, organized, and reviewed the questions she intended to ask whatever spirits came to her, and then she revised them. She considered what it was she wanted to learn and how she could be assured she would get the answers she needed, knowing that phrasing was so important.
But in the end she let it all drift away, aware that it came down to the willingness of the spirits of the dead to speak directly. She knew they seldom gave clear answers—if they answered at all—because clarity for the dead was different than it was for the living. The dead knew more of life, for they had lived it and passed beyond it and could look back on it at their leisure. But their ability to speak of what they saw was limited. They often responded in riddles and asked questions in turn, and they almost never gave a clear and precise answer.
So she would have to work hard to find out what she needed to know about Aleia Omarosian and the missing Elfstones.
She would have to work very hard indeed.
The air was colder this high up, and she wished she had thought to bring a travel cloak to ward off the chill. She hunched her shoulders and clutched the black staff close against her body, but nothing helped much. She glanced up at the clear, bright sky, the cold so sharp-edged and penetrating that she could almost see it. When she exhaled, her breath frosted the air in front of her.
Too cold for her to continue for long, she decided. She had to do something to warm herself.
She held out her staff, used her magic to coat one end with pitch, and then set the pitch afire. It would reveal her to anyone looking, but she had already decided that chance encounters were unlikely. She trudged on, the flaming end of the staff held out before her, working her way down the defile, her path blocked repeatedly by boulders and landslides she was forced to either go around or climb over. It had been a long time since anyone had passed this way. Certainly no Druid had come through in the years that she had been Ard Rhys unless they had done so in secret.
Finally, midnight having come and gone, she reached the end of the defile and found herself looking down into the Valley of Shale. It was a broad, shallow depression perhaps a quarter mile wide, its walls littered with pieces of obsidian that shone like black glass beneath the light of the stars. At its center was the lake they called the Hadeshorn, its waters flat and still and vaguely greenish from light emanating far down within their depths. The light pulsed sluggishly, but the waters never moved.
She took a seat at the edge of the bowl, just beyond the beginnings of the field of obsidian, choosing a flat shelf of rock and wedging the black staff into a crevice off to one side, there to await the hour just before dawn when the shades of Druids dead and gone would be most likely to respond to a summons from the living. She watched the still waters of the lake and the glimmerings of the rock and the flat black of the sky and its stars until she fell asleep sitting up. She slept without dreaming, waking often to shift positions, trying to gain a small measure of warmth from the dying fire of the staff. Her mind felt sluggish and weary, and the muscles and joints of her body ached. A couple of times she drank from the waterskin, but never too much and only when she needed the hydration. She didn’t know how long she would be here or to what extent the water would sustain her, so conservation of her only source of fluids was important.
Drinking from the waters of the Hadeshorn was not an option. A single swallow was instant death.
When she sensed the night coming to a close, long hours and repeated wakings later, when the pitch had burned away and the staff had gone dark and the stars had shifted in the sky and signaled the morning’s approach, she climbed to her feet and began to walk down to the Hadeshorn. The slopes were made treacherous by the loose rock and the uncertain footing,
so she took her time, leaning heavily on the staff. Her head had cleared and she felt oddly renewed even though she had gotten so little real rest. She was ready for this, she told herself. She was strong and determined, and she would find a way to achieve her goals.
At the base of the valley, close enough to see the waters of the Hadeshorn clearly, she stopped for a final survey of her surroundings. She was still alone, the valley empty of life, the air crisp and cool and very still. Satisfied that she was safe from interruptions, she continued on until she was standing at the very edge of the lake.
She looked out across a glistening expanse that was as still as stone.
I am here. Speak to me.
The waters sensed her presence and stirred ever so slightly.
She conjured a form of magic she had mastered long ago and sent it flowing through the black staff. When the staff was ablaze with light, she dipped one end into the Hadeshorn. Instantly the waters began to churn, the movement increasing, growing in power until there were waves crashing and spray flying everywhere. She held her ground when the waters came at her as if to attack. She ignored the spray that coated her face and the pulsing of the greenish light, which had grown in force.
But when she heard the voices lift out of the ether in wails and cries that chilled her to the bone, she began to shiver violently. It felt as if her skin were being scraped from her body, and she knew what it meant. The dead were coming to see who had disturbed them, and they were not happy. The cacophony of sound grew until it filled the valley and threatened to bury her. She could pick out individual voices, ones she thought she knew, even though she could not put names to them. The connection of living and dead was there, and the past was brought back into the present as memories were torn from the places in her mind where she kept them hidden.
Then the waters heaved wildly, and the dead surfaced. They burst from the waters in droves, thousands of them, rising into the still dark night, white and ethereal, drained of life and substance, re-formed as diaphanous shades, their voices joined in an endless scream.
She was close to breaking at that point, all her preparations and the steeling of her resolve shattered and vanished, and she felt naked and exposed. Everything about her was revealed in an instant and nothing left hidden. The dead knew her. The dead could see all she was and all she ever would be, and it was terrifying.
“Someone speak to me!” she screamed, trying to hold on, wanting this to be over.
Her words had reached compliant ears, and the spirits of the dead scattered like moths caught in a sudden wind, their wails following after them, switching like lizard tails. In the wake of their passing, the waters of the Hadeshorn thrashed with new fury, and a black form heaved upward from their center, a giant rising from the depths, growing in size until it dwarfed Khyber ten times over.
Silence returned, undisturbed save for traces of the wailings and the hissing of spray. The black figure, huge and forbidding, stood upon the waters as if their surface somehow provided it with solid footing.
–Do you know me–
She did. Instinctively, immediately, and unquestionably.
“You are Allanon,” she said.
7
THE SHADE OF ALLANON GLIDED CLOSER ACROSS THE HISSING, roiling waters, black robes pulled close, hood covering everything but his terrible face. In life Allanon was said to have been frightening, a man with a dark temper and a darker history who had no hesitation about using either to intimidate. That he could reinforce his reputation with a command of magic unequaled in the annals of the Druid Histories cloaked him with the trappings of legend.
To Khyber Elessedil he seemed no less intimidating in death than the stories reported he had been in life.
–Speak to me, Ard Rhys–
So he knew her. Khyber felt exposed and vulnerable before him, helpless to protect herself even though there was no reason to believe she needed to. The spirits of the dead were said to reflect the substance of their lives, and no one had been more of a presence in life than this man. Strong features shaded by a short black beard and eyes that seemed to look right through you—there was nothing of weakness apparent in Allanon, nothing to suggest that he would ever equivocate or doubt himself. Even now, when she compared him with the other more transparent and ephemeral spirits, he seemed whole and unchanged.
“I would speak with you about the missing Elfstones, Allanon,” she managed finally.
–Speak to me then–
“Do you know, from there in the dark world into which you have passed, where in this world of light the Elfstones may be found?”
–Where they have been for countless centuries–
“But where exactly?”
–Hidden. Shrouded from all eyes. Ask me something else–
“There is a diary, found by one of our order, that tells of a theft of all the Elfstones but the seeking-Stones, back in the time of Faerie. A girl wrote it. It was her Darkling lover who stole the talismans from the Elves. What do you know of this?”
–Nothing–
He had gone motionless now, hanging there in the darkness, illuminated by the strange light that emanated from the depths of the Hadeshorn. When he spoke, his voice did not reflect the weakness of those spirits who wailed and bemoaned their fate. Instead it was strong and hard-edged.
“We would go in search of these Elfstones for the Druid order so they could be used in our efforts to secure a lasting peace in the Four Lands. They would be used to protect the Races from the creatures of the Void, from the demons that escaped the initial creation of the Forbidding.”
The shade’s hiss seemed to reflect the sounds of the waters over which it hovered, its breath exhaling in a cloud of steam.
–Foolish talk, Ard Rhys. There is no lasting peace. There is no protection you can offer to those who will not help themselves. All our struggles do is hold back a tide that will finally and inevitably sweep us away–
She felt her heart sink. Allanon’s dark worldview did not allow for hope. He saw the end as inevitable and the battle of good and evil as nothing but a holding action. He might not even accept that the struggle was worth the effort. Yet even so, even though his words were flat and empty of emotion, she could sense something more behind them.
“That may be,” she said finally. “But does that mean we should quit trying? Should we give in?”
–Answer your own question, Ard Rhys. Should you?–
“I don’t think so.”
–But you are not certain–
“I am certain. I won’t quit. The members of my Druid order will not quit. Have you, in death, decided we should? Do you tell us we must follow your lead?”
–I tell you nothing. The dead can only question or suggest–
“Then I say again we do not quit. Nor should you, if that is what you intend. Instead, you should help us.”
–You must help yourself, Ard Rhys. You are more able than I–
There was a challenge in his words, a veiled threat. But she sensed that he was still waiting, hoping for something more. Her mind raced, trying to discover what it was.
“I am willing to do that,” she answered. “To do whatever is necessary. I would begin my search, but I don’t know where to start. I have a story and the name of a girl and nothing more. I don’t even know if any of what is written is real. The tone suggests it is, but there are questions anyway. There cannot help but be questions.” She paused. “Do you know of this girl? Aleia Omarosian—that is her name. She is the one who wrote the diary. Do you know her?”
For the first time, the shade of Allanon did not answer right away.
–I know something of her–
She waited. “What is it you know?”
The shade did not answer. She contained her exasperation as the delay lengthened. “Did she write the diary? Is the diary true? Is there more that she can tell us of the Darkling boy who stole the Elfstones? Is there anything at all?”
Still the shade was silent, perhaps contemp
lating, perhaps weighing what answering might cost, perhaps doing something else entirely. She kept her peace, not wanting to disturb whatever debate was taking place, not wanting to do anything that would cost her a chance to learn even one new thing that could be useful.
When he spoke again, he surprised her.
–Have you considered the cost of your questions? To yourself? To others you care about? To the people you hope to save?–
She had no idea what he was talking about, and she hesitated before answering. “The Druids are prepared to give up their lives if it will help advance the efforts of the order. You know this. As for those we seek to help, I think that doing nothing might cause them more grief still.”
–What if your efforts in this undertaking are for nothing? What if you are doomed to fail?–
“Then at least we will have tried and not let fate and chance dictate the outcome.”
–Fate and chance may do so anyway–
“I know that. To some extent, I am sure they will. But there will be some things we can influence, that we can change or make better or illuminate in ways that teach and guide us.”
–Brave words–
“Would you have us do nothing, Allanon? I’ll ask it again.”
It was a bold, almost accusatory question, but she could not help herself. She wanted a better response from him, a more positive and encouraging one. She would not leave here burdened with doubt and guilt. She would not leave it so. If that were all he had to offer, she would have been better off not coming.
“Speak to me!” she demanded.
But the shade said nothing. The seconds slipped past, and she wondered if she had lost her chance, if she had angered him sufficiently that he would refuse to help at all. There was nothing to make him do so. He was of the dead, and the dead cared little for the living, resentful and jealous that the living still possessed what had been taken forever from them.