by Terry Brooks
She was the last, hovering momentarily as she whispered to him.
–Brave boy. You must do this alone–
Then she was gone, and the silence that settled like dust from a passing wind was deafening.
HE STOOD where he was for the longest time. It seemed that hours might have elapsed when he thought back on it later, but he knew that it was only seconds. He was thinking about what she had said, about how he must do what she had asked of him. She had been so insistent, so certain. She had dismissed the possibility that his sister or Erisha or Angel Perez would play any part. He couldn’t understand it. How could they not be involved in what he was supposed to do?
He felt the cold of the chamber seep into him, a different cold from the touch of the shades, a different burn. He could smell the rock and the water, the scent of minerals and earth, of old stale darkness in a place where the living had not come for centuries.
He could sense how badly he had intruded and how little he belonged.
Then his three companions were surrounding him, gripping him, calling his name, scattering his thoughts into memories.
“Little K.” Simralin spoke his name sharply, one strong hand fastening on his shoulder. “Are you all right?”
He nodded, meeting her gaze. She looked decidedly unsettled and distressed in a way he had seldom seen her. He smiled reassuringly. She was worried for him. “What about you, Sim? She threw you a long way.”
His sister shook her head. “I don’t remember. I blacked out, and when I woke up she was gone—the others with her—and you were standing here alone.”
He glanced at Erisha and Angel, and they nodded, as well. “I have never had anyone do that to me,” the latter said, a note of bitterness tinging her words. “I don’t want it to happen ever again.”
“The Elven dead have great power,” Simralin said. “Especially when they possessed magic in their former lives. I’ve heard Father speak of it. Pancea Rolt Gotrin was a sorceress. She took some of that magic with her to the grave.”
“Can we leave now?” Erisha asked sharply, hugging herself. Her smooth features were twisted with distaste. “We’ll just have to try something else, find some other way to recover the Elfstones. But not tonight. I don’t want to be here anymore tonight.”
Simralin put an arm around her shoulders. “I don’t blame you. I’m still cold from what the shades made me feel.” Her grip tightened. “But we came here to find the Elfstones, and if we leave without them—”
“We don’t have to leave without them,” Kirisin interrupted. His hand rested against the pocket of his tunic, pressing against something inside. He fumbled with the flap for a moment, then drew out a small leather pouch.
He held it out to them. “I just realized it was there. I just felt it. I know what it is. Look!”
He opened the drawstrings and dumped the contents into the palm of his hand. Three perfectly formed blue gemstones twinkled and glimmered in the faint rays of the torches, bright beacons against the darkness.
“The Elfstones!” Simralin whispered.
“She said she would give them to me. It was the bargain she struck in return for my promise to help persuade the Elves to recover their magic. She said she trusted me to do what I promised.”
Angel stepped forward quickly and looked down at the gems. “Are you sure of what they are?”
Kirisin shook his head. “No one living has ever seen an Elfstone. But I know. These are Elfstones. Blue, for seeking, just as the books and the Ellcrys promised.” He looked down at the stones and then up again at her. “We have what we need to find the Loden.”
They were in a much better frame of mind as they started back into the tunnel toward the stairway leading up, their hushed voices excited and eager as they talked about what they would do next. Because they had the Elfstones in hand, Erisha thought they should take them before the High Council and her father and demand that they be allowed to use them to search for the Loden. Angel agreed. It was better if they had the support and approval of the Elven community and better still if they had help with their search. Surely with the blue Elfstones as evidence that what the Ellcrys had asked of Erisha and Kirisin was possible, help could not be denied.
But Kirisin and his sister were not so sure. Both had reason to question how supportive Arissen Belloruus would be. Both worried about the King’s reaction to their discovery. What if he chose to lay claim to the Elfstones on behalf of the Elven people? Once they revealed that they had possession, they couldn’t very well keep the King from taking them away. Arissen Belloruus was a strong personality and a powerful ruler; if he decided that the Stones should be under the control of the throne, whatever the merits of his reasoning, even the High Council would find it difficult to override him.
But there was an even more troubling problem, one that none of them wanted to consider. What if the King was the demon Ailie had sensed in the High Council chambers? What would their chances of keeping the Elfstones be then?
They were still mulling over the matter as they climbed the stairs toward the exit from the underground. Kirisin gave momentary consideration to how they were going to get out again if the heavy slab was still closed, then decided that if the shade of Pancea had given them the Elfstones, she would surely provide them with a way out. Sure enough, they reached the top of the stairs and found moonlight shining down through the opening, the smells of the forest and the night reaching out to welcome them. Kirisin breathed in deeply as they stepped back out into the Ashenell, the cold of the cavern stone giving way to the softness of the forest breezes.
Behind them, the stone slab slid back into place, closing off the stairs and the underground. Almost immediately, fresh debris blown in on a small gust of wind covered it over; in seconds, no evidence of its existence remained.
Kirisin, in the lead, turned to the others. “We can meet again—”
He stopped in midsentence, his eyes drawn suddenly to Angel Perez. The Knight of the Word had gone into a crouch, her eyes shifting everywhere at once. He realized what was happening an instant before she cried out.
“Demon!”
She wheeled in a circle, black staff sweeping the darkness, and Kirisin saw that she didn’t know where the demon was. Erisha and Simralin had just turned back in response to her cry when the monster burst from the shadows in a dark rush. Long and sleek, its body that of a nightmarish four-legged beast, it catapulted into their midst. Simralin, a pair of long knives appearing in her hands as if by magic, lunged at it as it vaulted past. The monster shrieked and twisted its head to one side. Erisha was knocked spinning; she threw up her arms in shock, a gasp issuing from her lips. The beast came on, straight for Kirisin now. He dropped into a protective crouch and fumbled frantically for his dagger.
Then Angel was between them, bringing up her black staff, its magic exploding into the demon. The force of the blow knocked the demon to one side, changing its course of attack just enough that it missed the boy. It tried to renew its assault, but its movements had become erratic, as if chains were dragging at it. It staggered, straightened, and then staggered again.
When it wheeled back again and the moonlight bathed its ferocious countenance, Kirisin saw what was wrong. One of Simralin’s knives was buried to the hilt in its eye socket, black blood pouring out over the handle.
The demon shrieked one final time, the sound harsh and chilling, freezing them all in place. Then it was gone into the night.
Angel started after it, face contorted in fury, and stopped. It was useless. The demon was gone, and she wasn’t going to catch it.
Simralin’s remaining knife caught the moonlight as she whipped it back into its sheath.
“Shades!” she hissed. Her face was pale and tight. “My blade should have killed it. How can it still be alive?”
Then Kirisin saw Erisha. She was sprawled on her back, her throat a red smear against her white skin. Blood pumped from a terrible wound that opened all the way to her neck bones. She tried futilely to speak, her ha
nds groping for her ruined throat. Kirisin rushed to her side, Angel and his sister a step behind. Erisha’s eyes found his, a mirror for her desperation and fear, for her realization of what had just happened to her.
Then the blood ceased to pump, her hands fell back against her sides, and her eyes fixed sightlessly in place.
“Erisha,” he whispered in horror.
From back toward the gates they had come through, shouting arose. Home Guards, alerted to their presence. Kirisin blinked. How could that be? How could they have appeared so quickly? He had just enough time to realize that it was impossible unless someone had alerted them earlier, and then Simralin was yanking him about.
“We have to go, Little K,” she said.
He looked at her in disbelief. “But we can’t—”
“They’re coming!” she spat at him furiously, practically throwing him ahead of her. “We can’t let them find us! Run!”
Angel was already in flight, heading away from the voices. Kirisin took one final look at Erisha, felt everything he had hoped for slip away as he did so, and then began to run.
THIRTEEN
A NGEL PEREZ had no idea where she was running to, only what she was running from—Erisha, lying on the ground, bleeding out her life, surrounded by a swarm of Feeders drawn to the smell and taste of her death, dark shadows that her companions could not see. The shouts of the Elven sentries spurred her on, a clear reminder of how horribly wrong things had gone. Still stunned by what had happened amid the tombs of the Gotrins, still wrestling with the inescapable implications of what it meant—implications that perhaps only she yet realized—she was reacting more to her emotions than to reason.
Simralin overtook her, long legs eating up the distance between them. “You don’t know where you’re going!” she shouted as she surged past. “Follow me!”
Ashenell was huge, and it all looked the same to Angel, clusters of stone markers and tombs, mausoleums and crypts, memorials to the dead amid a scattering of trees and flowering bushes, everything shrouded by cold white moonlight that flooded down out of a deep blue sky. She listened to the sound of her breathing and her footfalls as the cries of their pursuers slowly faded into the distance. She clutched her black staff and agonized in dismal silence over how sometimes even a Knight of the Word could do so little.
“Angel!”
She turned at the sound of her name and saw Kirisin desperately trying to catch up. She slowed and stopped. Ahead of her, Simralin glanced back, saw what was happening, and wheeled around, as well.
Kirisin came to a ragged halt in front of her. “Wait,” he panted. “What about Ailie?”
There was blood on his hands and the front of his tunic. Erisha’s blood, from his vain attempt to stop her bleeding. His eyes were empty and haunted, staring without really seeing, blinking rapidly, as if trying to adjust. He looked to be on the verge of collapse, chest heaving, face sweat-streaked and dusty, his body all bones and sinew seemingly in danger of flying apart, a ragged scarecrow cut down from its post in the field and set loose in the world, struggling to learn how to move.
“What about her, Angel?” He dropped to one knee, breathing hard. “We can’t just leave her!”
Tears filled Angel’s eyes, and she shook her head. Little Ailie, her self-appointed conscience, her companion and friend. Thinking of the tatterdemalion made her hurt in a way she thought she would never get past. “She’s dead, Kirisin.”
Simralin appeared beside her, confusion mirrored on her strong features as she looked from one to the other.
“Dead? How can you say that?” Kirisin was aghast.
Angel tightened her lips. “Because if she weren’t dead, she would have warned us. That demon never would have gotten past her.”
“But we can’t be sure!” Kirisin insisted.
From the way he said it, Angel knew that he needed to believe it. He needed to believe that he was right, that there was still some hope for Ailie. Perhaps it was because there was none at all for Erisha, and losing both would be too much for him to bear. But Angel was a veteran of the streets, and she had lost others she had cared about as much as Ailie. Losing Johnny had nearly finished her, but she had gotten past it. She would get past losing Ailie, too. She had to. The living could not bring back the dead. Memories of the dead were all they could hold on to.
She started to say this to Kirisin, but he was already looking back over his shoulder. “You could be wrong. What if you’re wrong?”
She started to say that she wasn’t and stopped herself. What if she were? What if, despite what she knew in her heart, Ailie was still alive? It didn’t feel to her as if that were possible, but she had been wrong before.
She took a deep breath. “All right. I’ll go back and look.”
“No,” Simralin said at once, stepping in front of her. “You are the last one who should go. They are probably already looking for you. I’ll go. Another Elven Hunter won’t draw any special attention.”
She turned to Kirisin. “Take Angel to the house. Wait inside. Don’t light any lamps. Don’t do anything to draw attention. If you see anyone coming, get out of there. If we lose each other, we’ll meet up at the north crossroads by Tower Rock.” She reached out and hugged him to her. “Be careful, Little K.”
Then she raced away, heading not directly back in the direction from which they had come but angling off to the right, choosing a roundabout approach that would allow her to slip out of Ashenell and come up on the searchers from the rear. Angel hoped they didn’t know exactly who they were looking for, or Simralin would be in trouble.
Then the boy turned to her. “That demon. It knew—”
“Those demons,” she interrupted quickly. “There were two. But not now. After we reach your house. We can talk then.”
They set out once more, Kirisin leading the way. Angel stayed close to him, warding him like a protective shield. He was still in danger, more so perhaps than she was. She was still working through what had happened back there, why the demons had concentrated on killing Erisha, why they hadn’t tried instead to kill her. She was the one who presented the greatest danger to them, especially with Ailie gone. If she were really gone. If.
But she knew. She knew it the same way she knew that Johnny was gone when he didn’t come back that night so many years ago.
They cleared Ashenell shortly afterward and made their way through a stretch of cottages and gardens along winding paths that took them close to the surrounding wilderness. There was no indication of anything out of the ordinary. No lights burned in the houses; no one walked the paths. Once, a dog barked. Once, an owl flew close. Nothing else. Here, at least, the Elves still slept.
When they reached Kirisin’s home, they paused to make certain that no one was waiting in the shadows, then slipped through the door and closed and locked it behind them. Kirisin led her into the kitchen, which was set at the rear of the home, and without asking poured her a glass of ale. After pouring one for himself, he led her back through the house to a place near one of the front windows where they could sit and talk while keeping watch.
Kirisin tried to speak first, struggling to find the words. “Angel, I don’t know…”
Angel seized his wrists and squeezed them.
“Let me tell you what I know before you say anything. It isn’t everything, but we can make a start.” She leaned forward, keeping her voice lowered. “There were two demons waiting for us. I detected them when we came out of the underground, but I was confused because I wasn’t expecting any and then I couldn’t figure out why they seemed to be on both sides of me. The one that attacked us was the one that tracked Ailie and me north on our journey to find you. The other, the one that stayed hidden, must have been the demon Ailie sensed in the chambers of the High Council. Somehow, they found each other and learned what we were doing.”
Kirisin tried to interrupt, but Angel squeezed his wrists anew, harder this time. “Wait. Let me finish. Just listen.” She relaxed her grip but did not r
elease it. “Those demons were waiting for us. They knew how to find us and they were waiting. That was a carefully planned attack, Kirisin. They knew exactly what they were doing. They were on top of us the minute we emerged from underground. Killing Erisha wasn’t an accident. She was their victim all along. She was the one who was meant to die.”
Their eyes locked. “I know this,” she said, “because of how quickly her killer got to her and away again, even with your sister’s dagger in its eye. No hesitation in its choice of victims. No interest in anyone else, not until it had made certain of Erisha. That demon has tracked me a thousand miles. It has tried twice to kill me. It was that determination that brought it all the way into the Cintra. But something happened to change its focus. That other demon, the one disguised as an Elf, somehow managed to influence the one tracking me. It has a different plan, a more complicated one, one that doesn’t appear to be focused on killing me. What do you think that plan might be?”
She nodded at him, telling him it was all right to speak now. Kirisin hesitated, then said, “To stop us from finding the Loden?”
“Then why not kill you both? Why kill only Erisha? You were the one who stirred things up before Ailie and I got here. You seem the more determined. Why was the attack made on Erisha rather than on you?”
Kirisin stared at her. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t know, either, but I don’t like it. Erisha is dead, and you still have the Elfstones. You can still use them to try to find the Loden and do what you set out to do. Attacking us in the graveyard seems almost pointless.”
She saw the look reflected in his eyes and grabbed his wrist once more. “But it wasn’t. It wasn’t pointless. There was a reason for it. We just have to figure out what it was.”
Kirisin shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t understand any of this. Why kill anyone? Why not just steal the Elfstones so that none of us could use them?”
There was movement in the shadows at the edge of the trees near the front of the house, and Angel held up her hand in warning. Seconds later, Simralin slipped from the darkness and trotted across the lawn, then onto the porch, crouching low in the gloom of the overhang.