by Terry Brooks
“You mean something besides saving her own skin?” Cymrian said.
“She likes controlling things. And people. Yet she just gave us this ship and let us go. It doesn’t feel right.”
Aphen had to agree. It didn’t. But she couldn’t figure out either what Edinja had to gain by letting them go, or how she thought she could manage to gain it. They had escaped Arishaig, had possession of the Elfstones, were on their way to finding the missing Ellcrys seed, and had told Edinja nothing that would help her find them if for some reason she decided to come after them.
“She’s a complicated person,” she said quietly.
“She’s a dangerous person,” Cymrian declared with a snort. “She’s probably behind the attacks you suffered in Arborlon. She’s probably responsible for us being shot down by that Federation warship in the first place.”
“She told me she had taken me and was keeping me to lure you to Arishaig,” Arling added. “She drugged me to make me tell her everything about what we were doing.”
The other two said nothing for a moment. “But she didn’t say why she was doing this?” Aphen’s hands rested lightly on the controls as she turned around to look at her sister. “She didn’t say what it was she was trying to accomplish?”
Arling looked miserable. “No.”
“Maybe everything changed once she found out about the collapse of the Forbidding and saw the demonkind knocking on the gates of her city,” Cymrian offered. “She didn’t know about any of that before, and it might have made her change her plans. Not because she wanted to, but because she had to.”
“Cymrian’s right,” Aphen agreed. “Nothing’s the way it was a week ago. Even Edinja Orle would have to take a second look at what she was thinking to see if it still had relevance.”
Arling nodded, but didn’t say anything in response, and Aphen let the matter drop. She could tell her sister was not convinced, her doubts and fears of Edinja Orle deep-seated and troubling. Letting a little time pass was probably best. Arling had been through a lot—and unless Aphen was badly mistaken, the worst was still to come. Edinja was likely to turn out to be the least of her sister’s problems.
They piloted the Sprint for several more hours through the darkening night. Close to the southern fringes of the Duln Forests, Aphen decided they should stop; none of them had slept for more than a few hours in days, and all were exhausted. They would moor their vessel for the night, take turns standing watch, and set out again at daybreak.
Arling curled up in the aft cushions of the cockpit and was asleep within seconds. Aphen sat with Cymrian in the bow, looking out at the night. The Sprint was anchored perhaps two dozen feet off the ground, and the landscape about them was grassy and flat and open for miles. The sky was clear this night, its dark bowl bright with stars in the absence of moonlight. The madness they had witnessed in Arishaig had begun to recede into the background.
“She’s handling all this better than I would,” Cymrian whispered, nodding toward Arling. “I don’t know how.”
“She’s stronger than she looks.”
“A lot is being asked of her.”
Aphen didn’t respond.
“What do you think is going to happen once we get the seed back and find the Bloodfire?”
“I don’t know.”
“She’ll have to decide.”
“I know.”
“If there’s even a decision left to be made.”
“Stop talking about it.”
“Because maybe there isn’t.”
She glared at him. “I’m aware of all this. I’m sure she’s aware of it, too. It doesn’t help to talk about it further. There’s no point in speculating. We don’t even know what’s going to happen when we find the Bloodfire. We don’t know how the quickening of the seed works.”
Cymrian was quiet for a few moments, speculating. “I didn’t think about that.”
“Well, I did. I’ve thought about everything that could possibly happen and then some. I’ve thought about everything I might do to try to help Arling. Everything. But there’s nothing to be done until we reach the moment of reckoning.”
“I guess not.” He went silent again, and this time he stayed silent. They sat together, shoulder-to-shoulder, looking back at the sleeping girl and thinking their separate thoughts.
“Remember when this all began?” she said finally. “You were my protector against whoever was attacking me in Arborlon. That seems a lifetime ago. It doesn’t even seem connected to what’s happening now.”
“Like the missing Elfstones. This started because of them, and now they don’t have anything to do with anything.”
She shook her head. “We don’t even talk about them anymore. We don’t even think about them. But hunting for them destroyed the Druid order. Hunting for them changed everything.”
“It seemed the right thing to do at the time.”
“It was a mistake.”
He glanced over. “Hard to know that for sure. Events are connected—sometimes in ways we don’t see. One thing leads to another, but the path isn’t always recognizable. I don’t think you can second-guess yourself.”
“I can do anything I want. Especially second-guess myself.”
“It’s pointless, Aphen.”
“I’m feeling pointless. Everything in my life is feeling pointless—in spite of what I’m trying to do for Arling and the Elves and the Druid order and everyone else in the Four Lands. Pointless and hopeless and overwhelming.”
“You’ve done pretty well so far.”
“Have I?”
“As well as you could. Anyway, that’s the past, and what matters is the future. That’s how life works, because it’s short and precious and kind of doubtful.”
She looked over at him. He met her gaze and held it. “You constantly surprise me,” she said.
“You mean that in a good way?”
“I do.”
“Then shall I continue to try to surprise you some more?”
“Like you did that first night in Arishaig?” She smiled, then leaned in and pressed her mouth against his, taking her time, making sure he understood what she was feeling. Then she broke the kiss, cocked an eyebrow, and grinned. “There. I feel much better. Now I’m going to sleep.”
She rolled into her travel cloak, shifted on the Sprint’s cushions until she was comfortable, and started to drift off. Her last memory before sleep took her was of his voice saying, “I feel pretty good, too.”
They rose at dawn and flew throughout the day over the vast stretch of the Tirfing. By nightfall, they had just passed its northern fringes. Though they could have kept going through the night and made their destination by dawn, exhaustion claimed them shortly before midnight, so they once more made camp.
When Aphen finally brought out the blue Elfstones the following morning and summoned their magic, she no longer had to stop and think about what she was doing. By now she was familiar with the process and prepared for the magic’s response. When the tingling began in her fingers and the heat washed through her body and out again in swift, insistent waves, she was neither frightened nor intimidated. She didn’t even bother with closing her eyes when she conjured the image of what she wished the Elfstones to find for her.
She might have chosen to focus her efforts on the silver seed that was the object of their search, but she chose instead to find the two people who had taken it. Her memory of their faces was clear enough that she was able to visualize both easily, and she could tell from the magic’s response that it recognized what it was she was looking for and knew where to find it.
Thus, she was carried out of her body and across the countryside, through woods and over grasslands, down roadways and paths to where the buildings of a tiny village were scattered in either singular isolation or tiny clumps all about a cluster of shabby businesses that included a stable and harness repair, a blacksmith, a mercantile and grocery store, two taverns, a tiny inn, and a meeting hall. Men and women moved through the
shadows of trees canopied overhead, and horses stamped and nickered softly in their traces where they were hitched to posts.
There, right in the midst of it all, the man and the woman who had found Arling and taken her to the Federation walked beside their little wooden cart and donkey on their way up the road and out of town.
Aphen dismissed the magic and the images. “We have them,” she announced, a grimness to her voice. “Let’s get flying.”
They flew on throughout the morning, then, somewhat past midday, set the airship down at the edge of a small clearing. Leaving it safely tucked into its leafy concealment, they set out on foot.
The afternoon was winding down by now, shadows lengthening as the gray day threatened to bring more than brief showers, dark thunderheads beginning to form to the west and move in their direction. They picked up their pace in response, walking more quickly, anxious to reach the shelter of the village before the worst of the storm caught up to them. Hoods lifted and the collars of their cloaks pulled tight, they bent their heads against the wind and rain and slogged on through the deepening dark like wraiths, as faceless and voiceless as the shadows through which they passed.
Aphen managed to keep them moving in the right direction, even after the road had disappeared in a muddy smear and they had to reach the village by following a cow path that wound upward through the surrounding hills and came down on the far side. She began searching for the cottage she had seen in her vision, the one the couple had been traveling toward. Sora, she remembered suddenly. That was the man’s name. But she couldn’t remember the woman’s, only the sound of her voice—kind and filled with concern.
She darkened her heart against such feelings. These people had taken Arling and given her to the Federation. They had stolen the Ellcrys seed.
They were not entitled to any consideration.
They were perhaps a quarter mile outside the village when they came upon the cottage Aphen had been looking for. Leading the way, she entered the yard and walked up to the door. She was aware of how poorly constructed the house was, how shabby the few outbuildings. She looked for farm animals and saw several chickens and the donkey looking out the door of a small shed. She saw a tiny vegetable garden.
These people had very little. They were just barely getting by on foraging and whatever they could grow.
She felt her dislike softening.
She knocked on the door, and heard a voice call out to her. “Coming!” When the door opened, the woman with the kind voice was standing there. She was wearing an old dress and apron, and her hair was done up in a farm wife’s bun.
“Oh!” she gasped in genuine shock. She took a step back and then caught sight of Arling peering at her over Aphen’s shoulder. “Oh, my goodness, child—it’s you! Are you all right?”
Arling nodded, smiling uncertainly.
“Thank goodness! I’m so sorry for what we did. We didn’t know. Sora said you needed medical care and we didn’t have any to offer. Not even here, in our village. No Healer, not even a midwife. But look at you! You seem fine. And your sister and her friend have brought you safely back. I’m so relieved.” She glanced from face to face. “Come in, come in. I have hot tea on the stove.”
They stepped inside, where the girls were ushered to seats at a tiny kitchen table. There were only three chairs, so Cymrian declined the offer of the third and said he would stand, moving off to warm himself in front of a small stone fireplace. The woman poured them each a mug of tea and then joined the girls at the table.
“Sora had business at the tavern, but he should be back soon.” She seemed genuinely pleased that they were there. “He will be so surprised. How did you find us?”
Then she saw something in Aphen’s face and hesitated. “What’s the matter? Something’s wrong, isn’t it? That’s why you’ve come. Something’s wrong.”
Aphen nodded. “My sister was carrying a silver stone when you found her. It was taken while she slept but before she was given over to the men on that Federation warship. Do you have that stone?”
The woman stared. “A stone? No. I never saw a stone. It was taken, you say …”
She trailed off abruptly, and right away Aphen could tell what had happened. “Your husband has it, doesn’t he?” she said.
The woman was trembling. “He’s a good man, really. But he thinks things should belong to him just because he’s found them. He’s been trying to sell something in the village for several days now. When he left today, he said he thought he had a buyer. I don’t pay much attention to that sort of thing. Mostly, it never comes to anything, even when he thinks it will.”
She shook her head, flushed and angry. “But stealing! I’m so sorry. I would have made him give it back if I had known.”
She was crying freely now, her face streaked with tears.
Aphen and Arling exchanged a quick glance. Arling looked as if she might cry herself.
Not so Cymrian. “Where can we find him?” he asked.
The tavern was a single room with a bar, some stools, a few tables and chairs, and not much more. It didn’t even have a fireplace. What heat there was emanated from a small wood-burning stove in one corner and from the bodies of the men clustered about the tables and pressed up against the bar. Tankards of ale were being passed around, and voices were loud and insistent.
But the voices died into mutterings and the eyes of the patrons shifted to the doorway when the Elessedil sisters and Cymrian entered. They were Elves in a community populated mostly by Southlanders who had drifted west to find a better life and only found more of the same. There was a Dwarf in one corner, bent over his drink. There was a handful of Rovers at another table. But no Elves.
A Borderman leaning against the bar a few feet away from Aphen took one look at her black Druid robes, pushed away from the bar, and left without a word. Another, a hunter dressed in leather, followed him out.
At a table near the back of the room, Sora was seated with a pair of men. Another four stood just behind the two in what appeared to Aphen to be a protective circle. As she watched, Sora counted coins from a stack that had been shoved in front of him, taking his time, not even bothering to look up from his task when they entered and the noise level dropped.
But as Aphen and her companions started across the room, one of the men seated said something to Sora, who looked up, saw who was approaching, quickly produced the leather pouch in which the Ellcrys seed had been placed, and shoved it across the table to the man who had spoken. The man snatched up the pouch and tucked it into his jacket.
“There, now,” Sora said, rather too loudly, “our business is concluded! I must be on my way. A pleasure seeing you.”
He scooped the coins off the table and into his pockets and rose hurriedly, nearly tripping over his own feet as he tried to move away.
Cymrian was on top of him before he’d taken his second step, seizing him by his shoulders and shoving him back down into his chair. “Your business isn’t quite finished,” the Elven Hunter said, reaching down and extracting the hunting knife from Sora’s wide leather belt and flinging it across the room.
“Don’t move,” Aphen said to the men seated at the table, her hand stretched out in warning. Her eyes lifted to take in the bunch clustered at the back of the table. “Don’t any of you move.”
She tried to keep Arling behind her, out of harm’s way, but Arling had other ideas and pushed forward. “Where is the seed you stole from me?” she snapped at Sora. “While I was injured and unconscious, you took it. Where is it?”
The big man squirmed. “I was owed something for saving your life,” he snapped. “You would have died without Aquinel and me!”
“You were owed much for saving me, but you had no right to steal what wasn’t yours,” Arling persisted. “Give me the seed!”
Sora’s mouth tightened. “I can’t. I sold it to this gentleman right here. He’s the lawful owner now. You’ll have to take it up with him.”
He tried once again to get to
his feet, and again Cymrian shoved him back down. “He is not the lawful owner if he bought stolen property,” the Elven Hunter pointed out, eyes fixing on the man in question.
Arling’s gaze, white-hot with anger, shifted to the man with the pouch. “Give it back to me.”
The man was not intimidated. He was long and lean and had the look of someone who had not willingly given up much in his life. “What about my money? I paid for that silver orb. I’m owed.”
Cymrian reached down and pulled the coins from Sora’s pocket, casting them across the table. “There. We are even. Give back the seed.”
The man looked down at the coins and shook his head. “I don’t want the money. I want the seed. I bought it. It’s mine.”
“You have no right to it!” Arling shouted, her voice shrill enough to make Aphen flinch. “It was sold to you by someone who didn’t own it! You have to give it back. You don’t understand what’s at stake!”
“Arling,” Aphen said quietly, making a calming motion. “They don’t need to know everything.”
One of the men standing behind the pair seated at the table started to reach beneath his cloak. Aphen gestured, snapping her fingers as she did, and the man dropped to the floor, writhing in excruciating pain. The knife he had been reaching for clattered on the wooden floorboards.
The men at the table backed up, muttering and looking left and right at their fellows. They clearly anticipated doing something, but were undecided as to what that should be. Their leader kept watching Aphen, making no move to interfere. She didn’t like the look on his face. He was enjoying this.
“Let’s be fair about this,” he said, not sounding as if he intended to be fair at all. “You.” He pointed to Sora. “You sold me the orb for a fixed amount and I paid that amount. Isn’t that so?”
Sora nodded reluctantly. “That’s so.”
“Did you steal it from them?”
“I … It sort of just dropped out of the girl’s pocket while we was helping her. I actually saved it from being lost.”