by Terry Brooks
Railing looked about in disbelief, aware the others were doing the same. He had heard that the Meade Gardens in the Dwarf city of Culhaven were wondrous, but he couldn’t imagine they were more incredible than these.
Mirai was back beside him. “Who do you think tends these gardens?” she asked quietly.
He hadn’t thought of that. Someone must. The grounds were immaculate. Everything was pristine, with no sign of wilt or decay—and nothing growing that didn’t belong. He felt the presence brush him again. More than one, he realized suddenly. Surely they had something to do with how these gardens came to be protected when everything else had been destroyed.
–Come–
“Who are you?” he whispered into the air.
–She waits–
They were urging him on, but they would not answer his question. He looked around doubtfully, seeking reassurance from the ring’s thread, but it had quit prodding him. It was gone, he realized.
“What are you doing?” Mirai was standing close to him, her voice deliberately low.
He shook his head. “Something is calling to me. I can’t see what it is, but it’s there.”
“The aeriads?”
“I can’t tell. But I think so.”
They stood together, looking ahead into the gardens, listening. A few paces behind them, Challa Nand and Skint waited, watching them. A hush had settled over everything.
–Come–
The voices. An entire chorus now. “They’re calling again,” he said to Mirai.
He reached for her hand, took hold, and started away once more. They continued walking in the same direction, through the hedgerows and bushes and flower beds, through the statuary and fountains, bright sunlight splashing everywhere as they walked. The minutes passed, but the voices did not return. The gardens continued to stretch out ahead of them with no discernible end in sight. Railing began to wonder if they had made a mistake of some sort. But if they had, wouldn’t the voices say something?
“Railing,” Mirai said suddenly, her hand tightening on his.
As they slowed, he followed her gaze to something off to the left. It was a formation of some sort, and at first he couldn’t decide what it was. But as they drew a little closer, he saw it was a bridge—an arch constructed of ancient stone blocks reaching across a broad ravine to a stand of huge old-growth trees and jagged rock formations. The trees rose hundreds of feet toward the sky, the branches meeting overhead to cast dark shadows on the earthen floor. It was impossible to see much beyond the perimeter, even though the trees were widely spaced and passage through looked unimpeded.
When they got closer still, he saw that the ravine was so deep and shadowed he could not find its bottom. It seemed to encircle the stand of old growth as the sea surrounds an island.
–Cross–
He shook his head. Instinctively, he knew that was a mistake. Crossing over that bridge would change everything. Something dark and dangerous waited there. Maybe it was the tanequil and maybe it was something else. But it wasn’t anything he wanted to face.
–Cross–
Yet the voices demanded it, and if he wanted to discover the truth about what had become of Grianne Ohmsford, he would have to do as they asked. The answer was there. Both the King of the Silver River and the Grimpond had said so. He had come all this way believing he would find what he sought. He had come to help his brother, and any thought of turning back now was out of the question. Whatever the risk, he would have to take it.
He reached down and pulled a second thread from the ring, its slender strand sliding free, flashing swiftly and disappearing. He asked this time where Grianne Ohmsford could be found. It was the only way of reaffirming that she was in the same direction he was being led. Sure enough, he knew at once that he would find her on the forested island on the other side of the ravine.
He knew as well he would find the tanequil there.
He looked at Mirai. “I have to cross that bridge.”
“I know,” she said. “I guessed as much. I’m coming with you.”
“You can’t do that.”
She was suddenly angry. “I can do what I want, Railing.”
“No, I don’t mean it that way.” He glanced back at Skint and Challa Nand. They were watching them, but keeping their distance. “I can’t take you any closer because I don’t want the tanequil to think I might agree to trade you for Grianne. She’s there, somewhere in that forest, but so is the tanequil. I can’t take anything for granted. Remember what happened to Penderrin and Cinnaminson? The tree took her in exchange for the staff. That sort of exchange isn’t going to happen. Either I find Grianne and bring her out or I don’t. But no one stays behind like Cinnaminson did.”
“Maybe you won’t have a choice. What if the tree demands that you stay?”
He shook his head. “I’ll find a way. Grianne will do the right thing; she will come because I will make her understand it is the right thing to do.”
“If you won’t take me, then at least take Skint or Challa Nand. You need someone with you.”
“But it would be the same, Mirai. I would simply be risking their lives instead of yours. I’ve done that for the last time. I won’t do it again. I have to go alone.”
Mirai studied his face, then slowly nodded. “You’re set on this, and I know I don’t have the right to stop you. I was the one who insisted you find yourself again, and you have. You’re the Railing I remember, and that’s who I want you to be. Who you need to be. But I don’t like letting you leave me behind.”
His smile was wan and brief. “I don’t like it much, either.”
“Your mother will never forgive me if something happens to you, too.”
“She probably won’t forgive any of us for anything that’s happened, if she ever finds out.”
Mirai smiled in spite of the tears in her eyes. “I’ll explain it to the other two. I’ll make them understand.” Then she put her arms around him and kissed him hard. “I’ll be waiting for you,” she said.
Wordlessly, he turned away and started for the bridge.
14
Railing felt the immensity of what he was about to do pressing down on him as he approached the steps leading up to the bridge and hesitated one final time.
The voices would have none of it.
–Cross–
He resisted the urge to look back at Mirai and her companions—to seek reassurance where no reassurance could be found—and instead obeyed the voices and began to climb. The world around him receded, the colors and smells and sense of peace all fading away. At the top of the steps, he felt the pull of the gloom and shadows that lay ahead. All around him, the voices wrapped him in their invisible whispers and soft caresses.
–Cross–
He made his way onto the bridge, allowing himself to take his time, working hard at staying calm enough to think everything through. The bridge arch provided a wide span for crossing, but there were no guardrails or walls. As he moved onto the walkway, he could see down into a ravine that fell steeply away below. It was an endless drop into blackness, and, after twenty feet of walls grown thick with vegetation and gnarled roots, it became a void.
He took a single glance to either side and did not take another. He forced himself instead to focus his attention on the stone pathway before him. He kept to the exact middle of the span so that he would not be tempted to go closer to the edge. The lure to do so was present; he could feel it. But because he was always taking risks, always tempting the fates—just as Mirai had said—he knew better than to put himself within reach.
As he neared the far side of the bridge and began looking up into the huge old trees that grew there, he heard singing. It was in the air around him, swirling about, drawing him in. The voices were soft and sweet, and while the words were indistinct, the music was soothing. He could feel his fears and doubts diminishing and his confidence growing. It was an unwarranted response to what was happening, but the voices were compelling.
He came down off the bridge and stood looking into the forest. The trees towered over him, their huge trunks more than a dozen feet across, their great limbs canopied overhead to blot out the sky, leaving the forest dark and layered in shadows. Nothing moved within the trees; no sounds came from the gloom.
Where was he supposed to go now?
–Come–
As if they had read his mind, the voices beckoned. Their music shifted and took him forward and slightly left of where he stood. The bridge disappeared behind him. His companions vanished. He was alone on his quest, and he was faced with discovering at last if his journey had been in vain or if it might provide some hope for finding Redden and putting an end to the threat from the Straken Lord. Even as he considered what he was trying to achieve, he was confronted anew with the foolishness of it. To think that he would be able to find a woman who had disappeared more than a hundred years ago alive and well and then persuade her to come back with him to face a monster that wanted things of her she could not possibly provide was the height of arrogance. He wondered at what had made him think he could do this.
And yet, right from the beginning, it had seemed to him that he could succeed. He had told himself that this was the path he must travel. Even knowing how impossible it seemed, he was drawn toward it. He wondered now, remembering how he had disdained the advice of the King of the Silver River, how he had ignored what his instincts told him about the Grimpond’s duplicity, how he had refused to allow common sense to intercede and the possibility of failure to color his hopes. The warnings had been given, the odds against him made clear, and still he had persisted.
He continued ahead, knowing only that he was moving toward something and whatever he found would bring about some sort of resolution. He told himself—insisted to himself—that it would be enough.
Questions crowded his mind as he listened to the music of the creatures leading him. Would he find Grianne Ohmsford here, somewhere in the ruins of Stridegate, as the ring suggested he would? Was she still alive? He felt from the tugging of the thread that she was, but he couldn’t be certain. The tugging might just as easily lead him to her grave.
“Who are you?” he again asked the voices leading him.
This time, they answered.
–Aeriads–
Aeriads. Spirits of the air. The creatures that served the tanequil. “Where are you taking me?”
–She waits. She knows–
“Who?”
–Come–
He felt them moving away, and so he followed. The thread seemed to be following them as well, prodding him in the same direction. He was deep in the forest now, surrounded by the great old trees, a part of the shadows, a tiny transient life-form among ancients. He glanced about for movement, but found none. There was no sign of anything present save for the voices.
As he advanced, he rehearsed in his mind what he would say to Grianne. What words would he need to persuade her to his cause? He had come so far and risked so much, and yet he had no firm idea of what it would take. Even now, after all this time, he was uncertain.
He felt a chill run through him. He wasn’t equal to this; he didn’t have what was needed. He was going to fail.
–Come–
But to turn back now was unthinkable, an act of cowardice and an admission of defeat. He must do what he came to do and find a way to succeed.
–Here–
He was in a clearing, dappled with sunlight and permeated with a warmth he had not felt before. The voices were singing loudly now, their music filling up his senses. He looked around for something he would recognize, for a sign of Grianne, for the “she” the aeriads had told him was waiting, but there was nothing to see. The clearing was empty.
Then, abruptly, everything went silent, and in that same instant he felt the tugging inside his head disappear.
–Railing. I am here–
A voice in the air, disembodied. “Grianne?” he whispered.
–I am what Grianne has become–
He hesitated, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. What she has become? “Are you one of them? An aeriad?”
–I am–
“You exchanged yourself for Cinnaminson?”
–I did. When I left Paranor, I came here to offer myself for the girl who would later become your grandmother. She had given herself for me, so that Penderrin could come into the Forbidding and free me. I chose to do the same for her and let her return to Pen–
He felt a rippling in the air and heard the soft voices of the other aeriads calling.
–My time to speak with you is short. Tell me why have you come, my brother’s great-grandson, child of my blood. Tell me what you seek–
So he did. Quickly and efficiently. He told her how he and Redden had accepted Khyber Elessedil’s request that they come with her to the Westland in search of the missing Elfstones of Faerie, of how their efforts had gone so badly awry and how Redden had become a prisoner of the Straken Lord and was trapped inside the Forbidding. He told her how Tael Riverine had demanded that Grianne be brought to him so she could become his Queen and bear his children. Finally, he revealed that the Ellcrys was failing and the wall of the Forbidding was coming down. The Straken Lord intended to bring his demon hordes into the Four Lands and take what he wanted, Grianne included, if she did not come back to him on her own. All of this had persuaded him to seek her out and ask if she would return to help them in their struggle—if she might not be able to show them a way that Tael Riverine could be destroyed. He had discovered her fate in the diary written by Khyber and had followed it here.
“I thought you might return with me because Redden is your blood descendant and you loved Penderrin and would want to help his grandson.” He exhaled sharply. “I came to find you, really, because I didn’t know what else to do to save my brother.”
–Railing, I cannot help you–
The words were tinged with regret, but were no less bitter for being so. Oddly, they were the words he had been expecting to hear all along, but had convinced himself she would not say.
“Is there nothing you can do?” he pressed. “Even if you came back long enough to face him and tell him what you have become, perhaps that would be enough. If he saw what you were, maybe he would no longer have interest in you and be persuaded to abandon …” He trailed off helplessly, aware of how foolish that sounded. “Or maybe you could just persuade him to let Redden go because his imprisonment serves no purpose.”
–The Straken Lord will be persuaded of nothing. He will be enraged. He is not human. He is a demon. He craves power, and when he cannot have me, he will turn his anger on others–
Railing felt the first twinges of desperation. “If you are an aeriad, you are beholden to the tanequil. But Cinnaminson was an aeriad, and you found a way to replace her and set her free. Can’t you do that now for yourself? Can’t you get free of the tanequil, at least long enough to come back with me?”
–I have been an aeriad for a lifetime, not for mere weeks. I am nothing of what I was and cannot impact the world of humans and Elves as once I did. I cannot come back with you–
“But you must!”
He blurted out the words in a paroxysm of frustration and dismay. The air around him went still in the aftermath, and for a second he thought she had left him, unwilling to listen to more.
“What about the Druid order? It is destroyed because of Tael Riverine! Would you let that happen? Would you do nothing to help preserve it?” He paused, waiting for an answer that did not come. “Grianne! Are you there?”
–I cannot help you, Railing. You must leave–
He took a deep steadying breath. He stood at the edge of a cliff, and she was pushing him from behind so that he would fall and all would be lost. He was devastated, but he was angry, too.
“I will go to the tanequil and speak to it! I will insist you be freed from your service and come back with me! My brother’s life is at risk, but so are the lives of everyone in the Four Lands!”
There was a rush of movement as the other aeriads whipped about him—or perhaps it was only Grianne, suddenly become aggressive and swiping at him repeatedly.
–Do not do this–
“What else can I do? Give up? Go back without you? Go back with no way to save my brother?” He gathered himself. “I won’t leave until I am sure there is no other way. Not until I’ve spoken with the tanequil. Will you help me or not? Will you persuade it to speak with me, just for a minute, just to hear what I have to say?”
–The tanequil already knows–
“Then take me to it!”
–Beware, Railing Ohmsford–
Her voice was soft, but there was iron behind the silk. For an instant, he was certain he had gone too far.
“Just … let me try,” he said finally.
–You risk more than you realize–
“I would risk everything for my brother!”
–So you do. So you will. Good-bye, Railing–
And she was gone. He could feel her leave-taking. He could sense the emptiness she had left behind and hear the silence that filled it.
“Grianne?” he called out anyway.
Nothing. And then …
–Come–
The voices of the other aeriads, calling him away. Where would they take him now? To the tanequil or back to the bridge? If the latter, he would refuse to cross. If they would not take him to the tree so that he would have a chance to say what was needed, he would not follow them.
He began a lengthy trek through the forest, weaving in and out of the great black trunks, shadows draping his way and shards of sunlight providing fragments of illumination to guide his footsteps. The aeriads sang to him so that he knew where to go, but there was no further communication with Grianne Ohmsford. If she was there with her sisters, she was keeping quiet. If she was monitoring his journey, she was doing so in secret. He hardened his heart against her, still disappointed and angry at her refusal to help, still frightened that he was going to fail in his efforts.