As Aaron and Serena entered the outermost area of Norwynne's ruins, the wind and rain lessened, then faded altogether. They stumbled through a field of cut, rectangular stones, some broken into pieces, others whole, and all having come from Regrok's leveling. Once, the wall had encircled the entire keep. No longer. In some places it still reached to its full height, though more often than not it was marked by breaches where only the foundation stones remained. Aaron had not fully witnessed the extent of the keep's destruction until now. As they climbed over and through an opening in the once proud wall, he looked on what remained of his home. His breath caught in his chest. No structure remained undisturbed. Nothing remained whole. Standing atop a pile of Regrok's rubble, Aaron tried to form a picture in his mind of what it had once looked like, but the destruction laid out before him was so complete it overwhelmed his senses, rendering such imaginings impossible to conjure. Still, once he had established his bearings, bits and pieces came back to him. He remembered apartments where folk had lived. The great arches marking entryway into the Underkeep. The merchant's bazaar with its magnificent, gaily-colored tents. The main street lined with the best shops in Norwynne. It was all gone now. Caved-in, smashed, or toppled. Though most of the floodwaters had receded or at least drained away into the Underkeep, puddles as deep as their knees were scattered at irregular intervals and the bare earth, where exposed, was soft. Even the cobbled avenues, whose care Norwynne's street wardens had always taken great pride in, were marked by ruts, cracks, and, in some places, great gaping holes. Such obstacles, many of which remained unseen despite the crimson luminosity bathing the city, made the going slow. It was with careful steps that they passed through the city and into the inner keep.
The place had changed. Broken rock, splintered roof timbers, and other debris littered the edges of its expanse. Pillars lining each side of the yard had been snapped like twigs, the arches they'd once supported crumbled into chunks of plaster, rock, and dust. The backdrop of the yard, the eastern wing of Lord Vuller's palace, with its high windows, wide balconies hanging over the square, and streaming draperies, was gone. Disparate clumps of rubble attested to its final fate. The centerpiece of this wasteland of destruction was something that had not been there a week ago and which had pushed the other wreckage aside: a great piling of dirt and rock and debris that rose into the sky like an earthen pyramid. At its top, Aaron knew he'd find Erlek's disciple.
Aaron exchanged glances with Serena before they started in. The soil they trod over was unsettled, as if a massive plow had been worked through it. They had to pick their way around or over great chunks of rock or smatterings of debris just to reach the edge of the great mountain. With no way of knowing if Erlek's apprentice had witnessed their approach, they began their ascent. Loose dirt and rocks threatened to send them sliding back down at every footfall. Working together, they fought for every step, crawling when necessary or setting feet and hauling the other up, only to have to switch places and repeat the exercise in order to continue ascending. At last, dripping with sweat and soiled with mud, they reached the top.
The first and only thing Aaron saw was Shanna.
It mattered not that she did not face them, for Aaron recognized instantly the curve of her figure, the slender shoulders, the darkness of her hair. An earthen brown robe that was soaked through clung to her body like a second skin and her hair, hanging wet and loose, caught the otherworldly sheen of the crimson sky as her head turned to stare over one shoulder. Her expression—narrowed brows, pursed lips, and a piercing stare that Aaron did not like at all—softened the moment she saw him. She whispered his name in disbelief. Turning around all the way, she asked, "What are you doing here?" The last word had barely escaped her lips when the softest whisper of rain began to fall.
Shanna stood higher than either Aaron or Serena, on a great slab of stone that was smooth at its top. Aaron could just see across its length. Something—a cupped depression—was at its center, just behind her. The depression had a golden glow emanating from it. Leaving Serena standing at the mountaintop's edge, Aaron scrambled onto the rock platform. Standing there, nearly face-to-face, he almost ran to her. But there was something in her bearing so unlike the Shanna of just a week ago that it gave Aaron pause. She stood taller and straighter, with an air about her that Aaron had never seen before. She'd always been cocky, confident, but this was different. Her face, aglow with the sky's eerie firelight, possessed a seriousness wholly uncharacteristic. Even the robe she wore was unlike anything he'd seen on her before. But for the color, it almost reminded Aaron of the robes of a sorcerer.
The disbelief and surprise at seeing her alive faded as words flooded Aaron's lips. So many he wasn't sure which ones to say first. But he found he didn't need to say anything at all. They'd known each other most of their lives. Looked out for one another. Shared adventures. Made vows to always be friends. Something unspoken passed between them. In that moment, Aaron saw it in her face and in her eyes. It was there in the turn of her head, in the way she reached up to smooth her wet hair behind her ears, and in the slight slouch that exemplified her defiance at anyone who dared to tell her how, where, or when she should do something. Here, at last, was the Shanna he knew so well.
Shanna flashed him a smirk. "You look like Hell."
Aaron glanced down, at the mud caked over torn pants, at his shirt, stained with grime and blood and shredded from thorns, scrapes, and a week in the wild, and at his hands and bare feet, for he'd lost his shoes a second time at Wildemoore. His hair was a mess, his lips blistered, he knew he stank, and, now that Shanna mentioned it, he felt like Hell, too. Still, Aaron returned a smile. "It's been a long week."
For a brief moment, Aaron thought that was it. That Shanna would laugh or at least giggle, then they'd run to each other, meeting halfway before exchanging stories about everything that had befallen them. But Shanna's smirk did not blossom into a full smile, but instead faded into an expression neutral, dispassionate, and—Aaron felt a wrenching in his gut—pained. For the first time, he noticed the blood staining the front of her robe and just how ashen her face looked. Also, he noticed that she was not entirely alone. Set close at her other side was a machine that in too many ways resembled Ansanom's extraction engine.
"I knew this place from before," she said. "I found it after you let me go."
Aaron's excitement at their reunion, already fading, plummeted at her words. He remembered their ordeal in the Underkeep all too well. Evidently, so did Shanna. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean for you to… it's just that… I couldn't hold on. I'm sorry."
"Oh, Aaron," Shanna said. Her head turned in that way that always made his heart flutter. The smirk almost returned to her lips. "I don't blame you." Shanna turned her back to him, so that she faced the depression. "I didn't know what it was at first. I thought it was just some stupid place where people used to do… whatever. But now… now, I know what it is."
"What do you mean?" Aaron asked, his own curiosity inching him forward. A sudden stare from Shanna, shot from over her shoulder, stopped him in his tracks.
"Don't come any closer, Aaron." Thunder rumbled overhead.
"Shanna," Aaron said, choosing his words carefully, "I don't know what Erlek told you—"
"You know about Erlek?"
"Yes. He's dead. We—I—killed him."
Shanna's gaze drifted back to the emanation of power. "Yes, I know. Erlek deserved to die. I would have killed him myself, but… . He used the Elements to destroy our home, Aaron. He was an evil man. I should have killed him. But, now, at least he's gone." Shanna turned. "Erlek wanted the Four Elements. But only because they are a key that unlocks an even greater power. He may have wanted the Four Elements, but he was always only ever interested in the Fifth."
Aaron's gaze narrowed. "Elsanar mentioned a fifth Element, but he never did more than that. When we told this to Ansanom, he claimed to know nothing about it. In fact, he tried to force information from us when…" Aaron swallowed. The memo
ries were still too fresh. His pause gave Shanna the opportunity to smile knowingly. She knew what the Fifth Element was. He saw in her face that she would tell him whether he asked or not. He chose to ask. "What is the Fifth Element?"
Shanna spread her arms wide. "Everything around you. The rock beneath our feet. The sky above us. The falling stars we used to wish upon from the top of Graggly's Tower." She stepped away from the glowing depression, her voice taking on new enthusiasm as she went on. "It is the birds we—I—used to try to hit with a sling. The whales we spied from Regrok. The leaves on the trees and the wind sweeping through our hair and the waves of the ocean. The Fifth Element is everything, Aaron. Everything!" She paused, looking out over the edge of the mountain. "And, now, it's mine."
"Yours?" Aaron was still trying to digest her words when her last statement bubbled up to the top of his thoughts. Erlek may have started this, but Shanna meant to finish it. "This isn't right, Shanna. You don't know—"
"Don't know what I'm doing? I know exactly what I'm doing."
"Shanna, if you're right about the Fifth Element, if it is what you say, it's more fundamental than how you described it. It's energy. Earth energy. You're right, it's what Erlek wanted. But it's not what he was truly after."
"What? Why do you say that? He wanted the Fifth Element. I know he did."
"Yes, but if that was all he wanted, why construct this engine?"
Shanna glanced at the great metallic thing. "How do you know about that?"
"Because Erlek was working with someone who had one just like it."
"Do you know how it works?"
Aaron turned away. Not because he meant to discard Shanna's question, but because, finally, the pieces were falling together.
"Answer me!"
The ground beneath Aaron's feet shook so that he felt compelled to turn to her.
"Shanna, how did you learn you were a descendant of Tarn Galangaul?"
That stopped her from saying anything.
"It doesn't matter. After the attack, we fled from the city. Ensel Rhe and I. We were pursued, Shanna, by dogs. They were led by a master. They were trying to kill me. They almost did."
Shanna screwed her face in a look of puzzlement. "Why would anyone send dogs after you?"
"Because the ones who sent them thought I was you. They weren't really trying to kill me. They were trying to kill you."
"What are you talking about, Aaron? If this is some sort of trick—"
"No! It's not a trick. Don’t you see? It all finally makes sense. Erlek was the one who attacked Norwynne. Ansanom hired the assassins. But they summoned the dogs. After all this time, they're still hunting the elementalists and their descendants. They thought I was one of them. Probably because I was Elsanar's assistant. But, you…" Aaron saw that he had Shanna's attention, at least for the moment. "They wouldn't have noticed you. You wouldn't have caught anyone's attention. You were—"
"Nobody?"
"No! That's not what I was going to say. You were hidden from them. Inconspicuous. They wouldn't have known about you. So instead they sent the dogs after me."
"Aaron, what are you talking about?"
Aaron wasn't listening. "They wanted me—you!—dead. When Erlek attacked, there was too much confusion or else they knew I'd fled, so they summoned the hounds. I always assumed it was Erlek who'd sent them, but I was wrong."
Aaron saw that none of this was making sense to Shanna and that she was quickly running out of patience.
"Aaron, I have no idea what you are talking about. You keep speaking as if I know who 'they' are, but—"
"The druids."
Shanna went silent.
"'They' are the druids, Shanna. They've had unfinished business with the elementalists for five hundred years now. They must have learned how to alchemically prolong their lives just like Erlek. Prolong their lives so they could wait."
"Wait for what?"
Aaron took in a breath and held it. He exhaled slowly. "For Erlek to find the Elements. They couldn’t find them themselves, but they must have known Erlek was searching for them. While Erlek spent his time looking for the Elements, the druids searched for Tarn's remaining descendants. They must have killed them, one-by-one, until you were one of the only ones left. Of course, they were trying to kill me, which would have then left only Erlek's apprentice. Once Erlek had the Elements, they'd kill him, and Erlek too. But they would have needed someone close. Once Erlek's apprentice had all four of the Elements, it would be far too dangerous to just…" Aaron stopped. He looked at the dark splotch front and center on Shanna's robe. "Shanna, what happened?"
Shanna looked down, inspecting the stain. As she lifted that part of the robe, Aaron just saw the paleness of her skin through the knife slit at the center of the fabric. "Mirna happened, that's what. She tried to kill me."
"She was one of them, too, then. A druid, or a servant of theirs. What happened to her?"
Shanna inhaled sharply. "She's dead. She tried to kill me—to stop me!—so I killed her instead." There was sadness, perhaps remorse, in her tone.
"Shanna—"
"She wasn't the only one," she said in nearly a whisper. Her whole body slumped then, and in that moment she suddenly seemed more vulnerable than Aaron had ever seen her before. "I didn't want to Aaron, but they wouldn't stop. I told them to just go away, but they came here, just like you, and tried to stop me."
It was Aaron's turn to express confusion. "Who tried to stop you?"
Shanna didn't say anything right away. Instead she turned her gaze from him to stare out across the fiery sky. The winds whipped her hair about her face. She grabbed hold of it, keeping it still with a single clenched fist. "I always thought I was meant for the Underkeep. That someday I'd be as worn out as Nora, walking around with a hunch and a limp and burns from the hot oils she used to make me stir. Everyone would know I was there, making their soap, but no one would ever visit. When I went aboveground, no one would look at me or even thank me. They did it to Nora and so they'd do it to me too." Shanna, letting go of her hair, allowed the wind to whip it about her face as she bowed her head. "They killed Nora, Aaron. Threw her to the ground and stuck a spear in her. There were others…" A pause. "Corrin. Erlek sucked him dry. Used him up. I didn't know what they were doing to him, I swear, but I found him after." She shuddered. "Poor Corrin," she whispered.
"Shanna…"
"I'm sorry, Aaron. I warned them, but they wouldn't stop." She sighed, looking not outward now but inward. Ruins of the keep were there, limned in flame, but there was nothing else. "I warned them."
Aaron followed the line of her gaze, not entirely sure at first what he should be focusing on. He had to blink and look twice before he realized what was missing. Ellingrel. It was gone. No, only obscured, Aaron tried to tell himself. Yet there stood what remained of Lord Vuller's keep. Right next to it, rising into the sky, should be… Aaron's knees went weak. The Tower wasn't there. Aaron turned to Shanna. "What happened to Rufia and the other apprentices? What happened to…?" Aaron, remembering all of the people who'd come to the Tower seeking refuge, looked on Shanna with a look of horror he made no attempt to hide.
She took a step away from that look. "I…" she started to say, but then fell silent. Remorse and regret played out across her features. She looked at Aaron, a silent plea reflected in her eyes. She'd stepped over a precipice, Aaron knew, but hadn't hit bottom yet. Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe there was still time to throw her a rope. But with the empty space where Ellingrel once stood blotting out all other thought, he simply stood there and offered nothing.
It was Serena, who'd hung back listening, who caused Shanna's stare to sharpen as she came to stand next to Aaron. In an instant, Shanna's mood changed. Her features darkened, her lips grew tight, and her hands, hanging loose at her sides, clenched into fists.
"Who's this?" Shanna asked.
Aaron glanced sidelong at Serena. Aaron saw the trembling in her shoulders and in the line of her jaw. But she'd
stepped forward to remind Aaron of why they'd come. She’d fought back her own fear to lend him what strength she had left.
"This is Serena," Aaron said. "She's—"
"Why are you here, Aaron?"
Aaron felt Serena's hand slip into his. The gesture did not go unnoticed by Shanna, whose stare darkened further. The ground trembled again.
Aaron took a deep breath. "We came to stop Erlek's apprentice. We—I didn't know it was you."
"I'm not Erlek's apprentice. I never was. So just go away. Go back to—"
"Go back to where? Where am I supposed to go, Shanna? This was my home. This was our home."
"No. This hasn't been my home for a long time. Erlek may have been an evil man, but he showed me who and what I truly am. I'll never go back to being what I was. I'll never go back to being nothing."
"You were never nothing, Shanna! Not to me!"
"What about everyone else?" Anger lit her face. "You don't know what it was like! How they looked at me! How they treated me!"
"There isn't anyone else, Shanna! You saw to that. Everyone is gone!"
"No, not everyone," Shanna said. "Some escaped. Go to them, Aaron. Please."
Aaron stayed put.
"You can't stop me."
Aaron swallowed. She was right. His plan had been simple: turn the pack loose, let them kill Erlek's apprentice just as they'd slain Erlek himself. Aaron felt the hounds even now, prowling the periphery, waiting to be summoned. But after what they'd done to Erlek… Aaron couldn't stand to watch them tear Shanna apart like that. He doubted how effective they might be against her, anyway. She was much more powerful than Erlek had ever been and would probably brush them aside as if they weren't there. Aaron suddenly felt tired, exhausted. So much had happened, and for what? He shouldn't have had a part in any of this. He was neither sorcerer, druid, nor elementalist. At best, he was nothing more than an alchemist.
"I know, Shanna," Aaron said. "I know I can't stop you. But I also know I don't have to. The druids are coming, Shanna. They're coming to finish things."
The Five Elements Page 31