Bloodfire Quest (20 page)

She felt a weariness seep through her. Maybe it was the stalking that was wearing her down. Maybe it was the expectation and worry over what they were about to do. Maybe it was the enormity of what she was undertaking.

And maybe she should just stop trying to make excuses.

She forced herself to pick up the pace.

It was dark and close inside her mother’s home, the windows closed, the curtains drawn, the air stale and dry, and the silence deafening. Arling’s mother was huddled on a couch set well back in the shadows, her presence apparent by little more than the rough sounds of her breathing and the dark outline of her body.

In Afrengill Elessedil’s world, inside the home she almost never left, time had stopped advancing long ago.

Arling fidgeted, searching for a place to begin. She had left Aphenglow and Cymrian waiting outside, her sister’s insistence on letting her go in alone unshakable. She knew it was meant to be a gift, a way of removing herself from the meeting so that she would not prove a distraction. If Aphen were to try to come inside with Arling, she would be refused as always, and immediately her mother would become mired in one of her darker moods. Aphen wanted Arling to be able to speak to her mother without that happening, to make this visit be something as close to pleasant as was possible.

But just at the moment it didn’t seem in the least possible. Her mother had greeted her with a sullen grunt, clearly less than happy to have her here at this hour. She had motioned Arling to her usual chair, settled herself on the couch, and waited in silence. She had not said one word to her daughter.

Arling now believed that Aphen had been right and that coming here, no matter the depth of her need to see her mother, had been a mistake.

Nevertheless, she resolved to make the best of things.

“Mother, I have to go away for a while,” she said finally. “Perhaps for as long as several weeks.”

Her mother did not respond, but simply sat there staring at her. Her eyes glittered in the gloom like tiny flecks of starlight.

“I’m sorry to have to come so late at night and with so little notice, but I just learned of my leaving. I didn’t want to go without saying good-bye. I didn’t want you to worry about me.”

She watched her mother’s eyes shift slightly, a flicker of movement, and then her mother said, “Is this your sister’s doing?”

It caught Arling by surprise, but she was quick to recover. “It has nothing to do with Aphen,” she lied. “This is work for the Chosen, a pilgrimage the order requires I undertake.”

“Your sister is a bad influence, Arling. She is not to be trusted. I wish it weren’t so, but it is. You should stay away from her.”

Arling shook her head in denial. “Aphen is a good person, Mother. She doesn’t try to influence me or ask things of me.” She felt tears fill her eyes. “And she loves you.”

“She loves herself and her Druid friends. She loves the power that being a Druid bestows on her. False beliefs and foolish endeavors are what she embraces. She betrayed us all when she chose such things over us.”

“Mother, please …”

“Stay away from her, Arling. Open your eyes to what she is, and shun her as she has shunned us.”

Arling took a deep breath. “Can we speak of something other than Aphen. I came to say good-bye. I just want to tell you …”

She trailed off. What did she want to tell her mother? What could she tell her?

Her mother gave a dismissive snort. “Well, go then. Leave me like your sister left me. Abandon me to my sorry, empty life.”

“Mother, please! I am not abandoning you.”

“By leaving me, you abandon me. Who else will come to see me? Who else will bother to look after me?”

“Uncle Ellich will come. Aunt Jera, too. They’ll keep watch over you until I return. If you will let them.”

Her mother seemed to draw farther into herself, pulling up her legs and tucking in her arms, becoming a dark, shapeless ball on the couch. “I will miss you, child,” she said softly.

The depth of feeling in her words caught Arling by surprise. They emerged sudden and unexpected from amid the anger and sadness, bright and welcome.

“I will miss you, too,” she replied quickly. “I will think of you every day until I return.”

She got to her feet and went to her mother, enfolding her in her arms in a gentle hug. But her mother was rigid and unresponsive, and Arling held her only for a moment before releasing her again and stepping away.

“I have to go now,” she said, desperately wishing she could avoid the need for doing so. It was more than her reluctance to be the bearer of the Ellcrys seed, more even than her fear of what might be required of her once the seed was quickened. Her mother was so alone and needed her so badly; what would she do if Arling failed to return? What would become of her?

“What is you go to do?” her mother asked suddenly, still huddled on the couch. “What is so important that you would leave me like this?”

Arling almost told her. Why shouldn’t she know? Why shouldn’t she be made aware of what her daughter faced? Why shouldn’t she think well of her for making a sacrifice that would possibly save them all?

“I can’t tell you that, Mother,” she said finally, backing away from her impulse to say more. “I am sworn to secrecy by the order.”

“Yes,” her mother said after a long silence. “Like your sister.”

Arling felt stung. “This isn’t—”

“Go!” Afrengill Elessedil shouted, springing up suddenly from the couch and advancing on her. “Get out of my house! Lies! You tell me lies! Go join your sister and become what she is! That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”

Arling shrank from her mother’s fury, tried to say something to defend herself and failed. She couldn’t find the words, couldn’t make herself respond. Instead she turned and fled from the home and her mother, back through the door and into the night. She ran blindly down the pathway until Aphen stepped out of the shadows and caught her up, wrapped her arms around her and held her close.

“Shhh, shhh,” her sister whispered. “It’s all right. I have you.”

Arling nodded, tears streaming down her face. “I know.”

But it wasn’t all right and might never be again. Even her sister’s comforting presence couldn’t change that.

On the other side of the darkened house, tucked up under the eaves and close by the window through which it had been listening to Arlingfant and her mother converse, the creature that served Edinja Orle watched as the sisters moved down the walkway and out of sight. Then it dropped to the ground. Long and lean and feral, it flexed its limbs, relieved to be back in its natural state. Or at least the state to which it had been rendered during one of Edinja’s ongoing experiments. It had been an Elf once but had fallen under the power of the Federation witch and now served as her eyes and ears within the Elven home city, believed by all to be the one whose identity it had assumed.

But it wasn’t that person, of course. That person was long since dead and buried with no one the wiser.

The creature would have preferred to return to its nest. It would have liked to lie down and sleep, but it had a chore to complete first. So it crawled into the trees that crowded up against the back of the house, slinking through the long grasses and between the mossy trunks, safely hidden from prying eyes and chance discovery, until it had reached the cottage where the sisters lived.

Fully reverted to its natural physical state by now, the creature nevertheless retained the memories and intelligence of the Elf it pretended at being. It knew how to act the part. It understood it must remain safe when it was not necessary to go out. It knew to protect itself when its identity was threatened, but to otherwise stay hidden. It knew to report whatever it heard from or about members of the Elessedil family, particularly the old King and the young Druid, back to its mistress. It was instinctive by now; it was an effort that required almost nothing of it.

So it crouched in the darkness and waited, and after a while the sisters emerged carrying packs and weapons, cloaked and hooded and moving cautiously so as not to attract attention.

Too late for that, the creature thought with a sense of satisfaction. Way too late for that.

It began tracking them through the city.

Aphenglow walked with her arm about her sister’s shoulders, consoling and reassuring her following their mother’s verbal assault. Arling had stopped crying, but seemed beaten down and was leaning against her, head lowered. Sometimes Aphen forgot how young she was. Still so vulnerable. In the distance, storm clouds were mounting an assault, dark thunderheads filling the skies north and west in huge banks. Cymrian had been right about a change in the weather.

Preoccupied with her sister and not really believing that anything would happen when they were this close to the airfield, Aphen failed to sense the creature’s presence until right before it attacked.

They were passing through a grove of elm and oak when a black shape hurtled out of the darkness ahead of them and slammed into the sisters. Because Cymrian was trailing, he couldn’t respond quickly enough, and the creature was on top of its victims before he could stop it.

All three—the sisters and the creature—went down in a tangled heap. The darkness within the trees was so complete that it was impossible to tell one from the other. Aphen’s magic exploded out of her in a flash of brightness that catapulted both the creature and Arling away. The creature had hold of Arling’s cloak and tore it from her as it tumbled away. But it was up again almost instantly, coming at the girl once more, trying to get at her a second time. Aphen howled in despair and threw her Druid magic at the creature, knocking it off stride, staggering it. Arling was trying to crawl away, to reach her sister, but she was clearly stunned and seemed unable to make her limbs move.

Then Cymrian flew into the attacker, knives flashing, hammering it backward and away from Arling. The combatants thrashed and twisted as they fought each other, and Aphen saw Cymrian bury one of his knives in the creature’s back.

But then the two broke apart, and the creature regained its feet, took a quick look over at Aphen, and raced away into the woods.

Cymrian started to give chase, but Aphen shouted to him. “No! It wants to get you alone!”

The Elven Hunter halted, turning back. “Then let’s get to the airship. Now!”

Aphen helped Arling back to her feet. She might have lost her cloak, but her sister had a death grip on the leather pouch that contained the seed. She gave Aphen a determined smile. Other than scratches and bruises to her face and arms, she seemed to be all right.

The three raced ahead through the woods and out into the open road that led to the airfield. Though they watched for the creature, anticipating a further attack, it did not return.

At the edge of the airfield, the creature watched as the sisters and their protector raced over to the Druid airship. A crew of Elves was already aboard, raising light sheaths and fastening radian draws. A flurry of activity ensued as the newcomers boarded and the last of the baggage and supplies were loaded. The anchors were released seconds later, and the airship began her slow steady ascent into the night sky.

Within minutes, she had turned east toward the Valley of Rhenn.

Which was what the creature had been looking to discover all along, and what its attack had been designed to reveal. It had counted on the attack to disrupt the concentration of the three and cause them to react rather than think.

That way they wouldn’t bother trying to hide their choice of escape routes.

The creature bounded away, moving swiftly into the deep woods. Less than a mile away, a distance it covered in less than ten minutes, it reached a small, windowless blockhouse. The building was constructed of heavy stones, its walls sealed up save for a single iron door that was chained and barred. The roof consisted of heavy metal grates that could be removed if you knew where the locking devices could be found and if you could avoid the poison darts that would be triggered if you stepped wrong. Inside, a clutch of arrow shrikes—the messenger birds favored by magic wielders since the days of the Warlock Lord—huddled together, waiting to be dispatched.

The creature leapt onto the roof, lifted off one of the grates, and chose a bird from the second pen. There were two pens; the birds in the first were meant for the mistress and those in the second for her man. How the bird managed to find either, the creature neither knew nor cared. Holding the bird gently, the way it had been taught, the creature told the bird without speaking but with images formed in its mind what it wanted the bird to tell the man.

Then it released the bird, waited until the winged messenger was out of sight, and silently bounded away, back toward the city.

It was just after midnight when
Wend-A-Way
lifted off, a sleek and silent shadow silhouetted against a sky rapidly filling with dark clouds that already blocked away the quarter moon and stars. Cymrian was at the helm, and the crew of three worked the lines and sails, channeling the power from the diapson crystals nestled in their parse tubes port and starboard, drawing down stored power in the absence of direct light. They rode a southeasterly wind that blew chill and brisk from out of the deeper darkness of an approaching storm that promised heavy weather within the next several hours. Cymrian ordered the light sheaths rolled back and the radian draws made fast as the wind quickened and the yaw of the vessel increased from slight to heavy.

“This won’t be pleasant!” he shouted over the wind’s whistle to where Arlingfant and Aphenglow huddled together forward of the pilot box.

Neither had to be told. Both knew enough of airships and storms to recognize what was coming, but Aphenglow, as the more experienced flier, was especially concerned. The size of the front and the strength of the wind told her this would be very bad, and they might even have to put down somewhere until it passed. If that proved necessary, it would remove any advantage they might have gained by leaving Arborlon in secret and under the cover of darkness.

But there was no help for it. The weather wasn’t something anyone could control—not yet, at any rate, although there were rumors of efforts aimed in that direction by the newly emboldened scientists of the Federation, who claimed to be on the brink of developing a way to use diapson crystals to manipulate natural forces. Aphenglow hoped that wasn’t true. If it were, it would open the door to the possibility of a power struggle that would eclipse anything the Four Lands had seen since the time of the Great Wars.

She took a moment to consider the possibility, a dark forewarning of something she had thought about before. The Druids had feared for some time now that diapason weapons even more destructive and dangerous than those already employed by the Federation were on the horizon. How could it not happen, with the Races and governments of the Four Lands constantly at war, each seeking a way to gain the upper hand? A confrontation between those who cultivated and employed magic, mostly Elves, and those who embraced science, mostly Men, was inevitable. She did not know what form that confrontation between past and present would take, and did not think she would be there to see it, but it would come.

Overhead, the mainsail billowed under the thrust of the wind, and the radian draws sang like discordant harp strings.

“Some wind,” Arling said, leaning close. Her dark eyes were big, and the concern on her oval face gave her the look of a child.

“Are you all right?” Aphenglow asked, looking deep in her sister’s eyes. “About what you are setting out to do, I mean?”

Arling shook her head. “I don’t know. I guess so. I’ve come to terms with things. I know what is needed if the Ellcrys is to live, and I want her to. I know what it means to all of us. Not just to the Elves, but to everyone in the Four Lands. She has to be renewed if the Forbidding is to hold, and it must hold. What else is there to say?”

“That you don’t want it to be your responsibility. That you don’t want this to happen.”

“Too late for that. It’s happened already. I have been given the seed. So now it’s mine. I am settled on that, Aphen. I am.”

“But you don’t want this. You’ve said so repeatedly.”

Her sister reached out and put an arm around her, pulling her close. “I don’t think any of us wanted most of what’s been given to us these past few weeks. We didn’t want any of it to happen. But it has. I think I understand what that means. It means we must exercise grace in the face of fear and doubt and loss of belief. It means we must understand that this is how life works—that it challenges us; it tests us. It gives us burdens to bear, and the measure of who we are is how we manage those burdens. I don’t wish mine. Of course I don’t. But what sort of person would I be if I refused it? Or cast it away?”

Aphen said nothing, letting the matter drop there, not sure if her sister had convinced herself that she could transfer the seed to a different successor. Something else was at work here, but it seemed clear that Arling didn’t want to talk about it.

She leaned into her sister. “That was well said,” she said. “I admire you for it.”

Arling bent her head into her arms. Her shoulders shook. She might have been laughing or crying, Aphen couldn’t tell which. “
You
admire
me
? Don’t you have that backward?”

“No. You have courage and determination and great heart.” She gripped her sister’s arm and squeezed hard. “Do me a favor. Lend me some of each. All three have been drained away from me.”

Arling snorted. “I doubt that!” Then, without looking at her, her sister punched her hard on her arm. “There. Now you have them. All three. Use them wisely.”

“Aphen!” Cymrian shouted down at her from the pilot box. “Get up here!”

She left Arling and groped her way around the walls of the box and climbed inside. Rain as well as wind was lashing
Wend-A-Way
by this time, the storm’s fury building steadily. Cymrian gestured behind him, and she turned to see an enormous black cloud bearing down on them rapidly—a massive giant that would engulf them within minutes.

“Where are we?” she shouted.

He pointed. She could just make out the pillars that framed the pass at the far end of the Valley of Rhenn. “If we can make that and get safely through, we will have some shelter on the lee side of the hills when we swing south. But we’ll have to hurry!”

Wend-A-Way
lurched ahead, running at the front of the storm, her crew scrambling like madmen to keep her aloft and steady. The force of the wind increased, howling with fresh fury, the rain pummeling the decks of the airship and her passengers with droplets that stung like needles. Aphen crouched next to Cymrian, who had to stand in order to maneuver the controls and keep the vessel from smashing into the valley walls. She peered through the shroud of gloom and rain, watching the pillars appear and then vanish as if everything were a mirage and nothing was real.

Time slowed, and for a few desperate minutes their flight toward the pillars seemed endless. Aphen was certain they were going down, and she shouted to Arling to get off the deck and inside the pilot box with her. But her sister didn’t seem to hear, hunkered down forward of the wall, her head lowered and her shoulders hunched, wrapped within her cloak.

Abruptly, they were abreast of the cliffs, the stone monoliths stark and jagged to either side. The ship yawed heavily and then, with breathtaking suddenness, catapulted through the opening as if shooting rapids on a raging river.

Wend-A-Way
rode the tide of wind and rain and, once clear of the pass, Cymrian swung the bow sharply starboard and down along the forested heights beyond.
Wend-A-Way
shuddered, then lurched ahead into a patch of diminished turbulence where she found her footing and steadied once more.

Impulsively, Aphenglow leapt to her feet and threw her arms around Cymrian, laughing like a child.

A short distance farther south, concealed within a defile that opened deep into the cliffs bordering the pass and with a clear view of it, Stoon stood on the foredeck of a Federation warship and watched the first gusts of windblown rain sweep past the opening of his hiding place. With him waited the warship’s captain and crew, a rough bunch that he had accepted without question, all of them chosen by Edinja Orle and presumably loyal to her. They seemed competent enough as sailors, and they handled the airship with experienced hands. So as long as they obeyed his orders, he was content to let them go about their business.

The mutants were another matter. Tucked away down in the hold, they were out of sight if not out of mind. If Stoon had his way, they would stay that way until the end of time. They might have started out as men, but now they were beasts of a sort that made him shiver when he was near them. So far they had followed his directives on the few occasions he had given orders—but he was not convinced he could depend on them to do so when it mattered. They reminded him of hunting dogs—reliable when they were in their kennels, but unpredictable when they sensed prey.

In spite of Edinja’s reassurances, he had reason to worry that at some point they might turn on him.

The captain of the warship came up to him. “This storm is much worse than what I thought it would be. It might be wise to stay here safely until it passes.”

Advice Stoon did not think the man should be giving him, but he only nodded and said, “If the ship we track passes us, storm or no, we will go after her. That is a direct order, Captain.”

The other man nodded, tight-lipped and sullen, and stalked away. He knew who was in charge here. That much was certain. Stoon was confident Edinja would not undercut his authority deliberately. Not when she wanted so badly to discover what was happening with the Druids and their mysterious search. The shrike’s message had made it clear that the Elven airship was coming their way. She would have to pass through the Valley of Rhenn before setting any further course. Odds were good that she was heading east or south. From their position in this defile, he would be able to tell which.

He lifted the spyglass to his eye and scanned the mouth of the pass, his tall, lean form bending forward out of habit as he did so. No sign of her yet. Sometime soon she would appear, unless the storm grew so bad it obscured everything. That was a risk, of course, but there was nothing he could do about the storm. Not that Edinja would see it that way if he lost his quarry now. But positioning themselves directly in front of the pass made no sense at all. It was dangerous enough to get this close. He still didn’t like it that he was tracking the Elessedil girl. Even the idea of it was unsettling. But he could not go against Edinja, no matter how he felt. So he had resolved to make the best of it.

He lowered the spyglass and rocked back on his heels. He wondered again about the spy Edinja had placed in the Elven camp. He understood better now where her spy might have come from after having watched her change those three men into mutants. Perhaps it, too, was a form of mutant answerable only to her. But who could get close enough to the Elessedils and their friends to gain access to the information she was now privy to and still not draw suspicion? How had she managed that?

There was no way of knowing, of course. Not unless she chose to tell him, and she was unlikely to do that. Perhaps at some point he might meet this mysterious person. But for now, the spy was little more than the sum of the messages sent by the shrikes.

In the distance, something moved against the deep blackness of the storm. He brought up the spyglass quickly and studied the murky roil at the mouth of the pass.

An airship.

Smaller than his own and sleeker, a vessel built for speed and maneuverability.

He turned at once. “Ready the ship, Captain. We’re going out.”

Aboard the
Wend-A-Way,
Aphenglow had relieved Cymrian at the helm and was steering the airship on a steady course south along the Westland forests bordering the Streleheim. The storm had swept through the pass behind them, rolling across the whole of the upper Westland in the process, all blackness and fury as it gave chase. Aphen could tell already that they were not going to be able to outrun it; the best they could do was ride it out. Failing that, they would have to set down somewhere along the way and wait until it passed.

But the plains offered little in the way of shelter, and trying to set down in the forest during a blow of this magnitude was dangerous. She had already resolved that unless they were in danger of crashing, they would do neither.

“Arling, get up here!” she shouted at her sister.

This time Arling responded, climbing to her feet and making her way around the pilot box to the opening that allowed her to climb inside. Cymrian was gone by now, out working the lines with the crewmen. Fearless, that one. Aphen smiled at the memory of the look on his face when she had hugged him. Shock and pleasure both—she liked that. He hadn’t known what to make of her impulsive gesture, but he had clearly welcomed it. She thought about how far they had come in their once-strained relationship, how much more comfortable they had grown with each other. They were friends now, and their friendship transcended the mistrust and suspicion that had kept them at odds before.

She could almost imagine having him around on a regular basis.