So his training progressed, and the three weeks passed swiftly.
He was still in the middle of his education at the beginning of the fourth week when he was summoned once again before the Ard Rhys.
Climbing the stairs to the upper levels of the Keep and the offices of the Ard Rhys, he paused when he reached the closed door behind which she waited, taking a deep breath. He remembered the last time he had come at her summons, brought to her by Sebec to be sent on his first assignment as a protector away from Paranor.
Was this to be his second?
He knocked, heard her bid him enter, and opened the door. Aphenglow Elessedil was bent over her writing desk once more, fussing with several stacks of paper, her ink–stained fingers clutching a quill pen. He bowed in greeting, and she waved him toward a chair to one side. “Sit down,” she ordered. “Pour yourself a glass of ale.”
He found a pitcher and two glasses on a small table beside his chair and did as she had instructed. Sipping the ale, he glanced at the other glass, a possible indicator that someone else was expected.
Five minutes later, the knock came again. “Come,” the Ard Rhys called out, and the door opened to admit Starks. The Druid was dressed in his black robes, and his sleepy expression suggested the summons might have caught him napping. With Starks, it was hard to tell. He smiled and nodded at Paxon.
“I have something new for the two of you to look into,” Aphenglow announced, rising from her desk to face them. She motioned Starks into a second chair, and he sat down at once. “This one involves traveling into the deep Southland below Arishaig to a small farming community called Eusta. Five killings have taken place in a little over a month, all of them by what the community elders are describing as a wild animal. But this animal has been seen and walks upright on two legs. It also seems able to disappear into thin air. It may be a shape–shifter or a changeling or something else entirely, but it is not a normal creature. What we know from reading the scrye waters is that it has the use of magic.”
“Why have we waited so long to respond to this?” Starks asked her.
“Deep Southland, Starks,” she pointed out. “They hate us worse than they hate whatever’s killing them. If the killings hadn’t come so close together, they might have continued to ignore us.” She shook her head. “Such fools. We offered help when we took the first reading, weeks ago. They turned us down. Now they’ve changed their minds.”
“So the magic might come from this thing changing appearances?” Paxon asked. “Or do you think it comes from something else?”
Aphenglow smiled. “I don’t think anything. It’s up to you and Starks to find out the truth. But see that whatever it is, it gets dealt with. Don’t leave it alive. Bad enough that we are shunned when we could help; imagine the reaction if we can’t help once we’ve been asked. The protocol is the same as before. Starks commands, Paxon protects. Don’t get it mixed up.” She sighed heavily. “Be careful with this one; I don’t like things that hide behind false faces. Watch your backs.”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with Arcannen, does it?” Paxon said.
The Ard Rhys cocked an eyebrow. “You can tell me that when you return. Leave in the morning. Travel safe.”
It was a long night for Paxon, who had trouble falling asleep. The idea of another assignment so soon was troubling. He didn’t think he had done all that well the time before, and he had wanted to complete his training before having to go out again. But Starks told him they had no one else to act as protector for the Druids save other Druids, and he believed the Ard Rhys thought additional practical experience would be good for him.
He also pointed out that there had been a sharp increase in the number of readings of magic throughout the Four Lands in the past half a year.
“It all began about the time the scrye orb disappeared,” he told Paxon before they parted that afternoon. “The orb was a companion magic to the scrye waters–different, yet serving the same purpose. Aphenglow found it in the wake of the events surrounding the breakdown of the Forbidding more than a century ago. It happened after she returned to re–form the Fourth Druid Order and build upon its work. The orb allows its holder to view magic of any sort if it manifests itself. It can let the holder know the nature and location of that magic.”
“It disappeared?” Paxon repeated. “How did that happen?”
Starks gave him a look. “Not by accident, I can tell you, but the details are fuzzy. One day it was there, the next it was gone. Stolen, of course. But by whom? And who has it now?”
“But it’s a magic,” Paxon pointed out. “Wouldn’t the scrye waters reveal it at some point? Surely it’s been used.”
“Yes, well, there’s a problem with that. The one doesn’t reveal the other. One magic negates another–a rare but sometimes unavoidable event–so we can’t pinpoint where it is. We are still waiting for something or someone to let us know what happened.”
He didn’t have anything more to add to what he had told Paxon, and the Highlander realized how hard it would be to track something like that once it was gone. But he found himself wondering if whoever stole the orb might not be the same person who had given them away to Arcannen at Grimpen Ward. It would be odd if it weren’t. There couldn’t be two spies within the order, could there?
They set out the following morning aboard the fast clipper and with the same two members of the Troll guard as before. Starks was soon back in his favorite position in front of the pilot box, buried in another book, reading as if there were nothing better to do. Paxon moved to the bow, thought about doing his exercises, then abandoned the idea in favor of a nap. Sleep seemed more important.
They reached Eusta the same day, but very late at night. There was a small airfield occupied by a couple of worn–looking skiffs and one two–masted transport moored up alongside a maintenance shack, and no one around. They spent the night aboard their vessel, then rose at dawn, washed and ate breakfast, and walked into the village.
Eusta was small and worn down by age and weather. Most of the buildings were wood–sided and thatch–roofed, patched and crumbling. A handful of men stood outside a grain storage bin, talking in low voices, and Starks approached them, Paxon at his heels.
“Well met,” he said. “My name is Starks. My companion is Paxon. We’re here about the killings.”
Because he was wearing his Druid robes, there wasn’t much doubt about either who he was or why he was there. But it forced the men who were gathered to engage in conversation with him.
“Two more just last night,” one answered. The man was big and strong, with huge forearms and hands. “Ellice and Truesen Carbenae, on their farm, a mile south of the village. Thing’s not satisfied with taking just one anymore. Now it wants two.”
Last night, Paxon thought. While we slept.
“Anyone see it happen?” Starks asked. “Anyone get a look at this creature?”
“Just those that are dead,” growled a second man, his ferret features sharp and narrow, his eyes challenging. “They didn’t have much to say about it.”
Starks ignored him, eyes on the first man. “Can you take me there?”
“What’s the point?” snapped Ferret–face. “You think you can catch a ghost? You think you’re up to it, Druid? This thing is smart and dangerous. It will end up eating you for its next meal.”
Starks turned. “If you are so concerned about me, why don’t you come along? You can help.”
The man smirked. He glanced at his fellows knowingly, then back at the Druid. “I don’t help Druids.”