When that disappeared and the island of the tanequil was nothing more than a dark lump silhouetted by starlight against the horizon, Traunt Rowan appeared at his side to take him below.
On the deck of the ship flying to starboard, Khyber Elessedil sat quietly in the concealing shadow of the aft port rail sling, watching theAthabasca. Pen had gone down the main hatchway and was no longer in view. The ruins of Stridegate had disappeared into the distance, and her companions with them. The glow of the fire had faded, and the position of the stars told her they were flying south along the edge of the Klu toward the Upper Anar, the vast sprawl of the Inkrim a dark lake below.
There was nothing she could do but wait.
When she was twelve, she had run away for the third time. On that occasion, intent on escaping her family and their dictatorial ways, she had stowed away aboard an airship flying to Callahorn. It wasn’t that she didn’t love them. It was that she didn’t love what they had planned for her. Her brother and her father before him had very definite ideas about the ways in which an Elessedil Princess should conduct herself, and Khyber had trouble even seeing herself as a Princess. Her station in life was an accident of birth, and she could never quite bring herself to accept it as her due. She was always more comfortable with being someone and something else. Her family didn’t like that. Her family let her know that rebelliousness would not be tolerated.
Her response had been to run away. She started at eight. At twelve, after two failed attempts, she had determined that this time she would succeed, that she would put herself permanently beyond their reach. Callahorn was Free–born land, and people of all Races were welcomed and accepted no matter who they were or where they came from. Everyone was treated the same. Royalty had been gone from the Borderlands for hundreds of years and wasn’t likely to be coming back anytime soon. If she could get that far, she could disappear into the mix and never be found. At least, that was the way she saw it at twelve.
She got as far as her destination, but she was discovered by the Captain before she could disembark and was hauled back kicking and screaming yet again to her family. It was not a pleasant reunion. But she learned something valuable from that effort. She learned how to hide in plain sight. She learned that if you looked enough like you belonged, you stood a pretty good chance of being accepted. On that outing, she took on the look of a cabin boy or a very young crewmember, and to her surprise the crew never stopped to consider that she might be something else. Admittedly, she kept her exposure to a minimum, staying out of sight most of the time. But when she did surface, for food and water or just to breathe fresh air, she was able to move about without being stopped or questioned.
Aboard the Druid airship, she resolved to put this knowledge to good use. She had already appropriated one of the short cloaks worn by the Gnome Hunters who served as crew, using its hood to conceal her face. At night and in the absence of close scrutiny, she looked like one of them. She had already determined that by day, she would hide below, somewhere out of the way, somewhere the crew didn’t often go. There were no Druids aboard the ship, so she had only the Gnomes to worry about. She knew airships well, and the configuration of the one she was on was familiar to her. Because the Athabasca was a warship, she offered plenty of hiding places. Because she was a Druid ship, everyone was trained to do their job and not ask questions.
Sitting by the rail sling as the ship flew into the night, pretending at inspecting its mechanism as the Gnome Hunter crewmen went impassively about their business, she considered her resources. She had the use of her Druid magic, although she possessed only a small arsenal and was largely unskilled in its use. She had the Elfstones, too. But, although powerful, they were of limited use. Mostly she had her wits and her determination, and she thought that those would probably end up serving her best.
Around her, things were settling down. The ship’s course was set, her sails aloft, her rigging in place. Night enfolded all three vessels, rendering them starlit silhouettes against the horizon. She wished she were aboard Pen’s ship so that she might reach him long enough to let him know he was not alone. But she knew that she was not likely to see him again before they reached Paranor. Even then, getting to him would be problematic. He would be celled and guarded, and he would be taken before Shadea a’Ru quickly once she knew he was there.
She leaned back against the rail sling. She realized she would have to reach Pen quickly once they landed or it might not be worth trying to reach him at all. The Druids would discover what he was up to, what he had come north to accomplish, and it would all be over quickly.
If he lived that long. Traunt Rowan and the other Druid might decide to dispatch him while they were returning. They might even have orders to that end.
She could not bear to think about it. Anyway, there was nothing she could do just yet. She could only wait. And hope.
She moved over to the provision hold, dropped through the hatchway quickly, found a shadowed place of concealment back among the spare light sheaths, and waited for sleep.
Three
They took Pen Ohmsford to a storeroom that had been converted on one side into a sleeping space and told him that he was to stay there during the flight back to Paranor. His half of the room was furnished with a hammock, a clothes chest, a bench, a small table, and a lamp. The other half was piled high with coils of radian draws, spare light sheaths, casks of water and biscuits, and several crates of tools and caulking.
« Sorry we can’t do better, but this is a warship and there isn’t much in the way of accommodations,” Traunt Rowan said.
They had sent three such airships to find him, Pen thought in response, which said more about their intentions for him than did the supposed dearth of decent accommodations. But he nodded because there wasn’t much to be gained by doing anything else. He was their prisoner whether they said so or not.
They left him then, disappearing back through the doorway into the hallway beyond and closing the heavy storeroom door behind them. Pen heard the dull snick of the lock, further proof of his status. He waited until their footfalls had receded into silence, then sat down on the bench to think things through.
They had not taken away the darkwand, an oversight that surprised him. Having had it snatched away once already by Pyson Wence, he had been expecting to lose it again. But neither Druid had shown any further interest in the staff. He promised he would make them regret their carelessness, but then warned himself against making threats—even to himself—that he was in no position to carry out.
After giving it some consideration, he decided against trying to hide the staff. He could tuck it away amid all the stores, but they would notice it was missing the first time he limped about the room without it—and he would have to limp, at least for a day or two, to keep up the pretense that he was injured. No, hiding it would only call attention to it. They would find it quickly enough anyway, if they decided to look for it. It was better to just leave it lying out in plain sight and hope they paid no further attention.
He stuck it under the bench in a careless fashion and forced himself to pretend it didn’t matter.
After a time, one of the Gnome Hunters brought him a plate of food and a cup of ale. He consumed both hungrily, realizing he was starved. It had been more than a day since he had eaten, and the rush of events was all that had kept him going. He needed sleep, too. After finishing the meal, he lay down to nap and was asleep in seconds.