Pleysia gave him a look. “Because that is how people get killed, Carrick—by trying foolish things and taking needless risks. Druids are not exempt from such fates.” She paused. “Or so our histories tell us.”
There was an uneasy silence as the three glared at one another across the table. Aphenglow thought she should say something, but she was at a loss as to what that might be. The lines were drawn, and everyone knew what she wanted just by the fact of her having returned with the diary in hand. But in truth she wondered if Pleysia might not be right about the slimness of their chances of finding the Elfstones after so long.
Carrick walked back to the head of the table and sat down again, his fingers steepled in front of his face. “We must wake the Ard Rhys.”
The others stared at him. “We are not to wake her unless an emergency requires her presence,” Pleysia reminded him. “Where is the emergency here?”
“You might argue that there isn’t one, and I might be inclined to agree with you under other circumstances. But the twin attacks on Aphenglow indicate a clear determination on the part of someone to find out what she knows.” Carrick leaned back. “I think that makes this an emergency.”
“Well said, Carrick!” a familiar voice boomed out from behind them. “We must wake the Ard Rhys at once!”
All heads turned. The four Druids already in the room had been so deeply involved in their discussion that they had failed either to hear or see the entry doors open to admit the fifth. Bombax stood in the opening, Garroneck looming just behind him.
“I’ve been standing outside the door for some time, listening. I didn’t want to interrupt Aphenglow’s report.” He grinned broadly—that devastating smile that left her undone every time she saw it. “But now I think I must. Aphenglow might not want to say so openly, but I expect she brought the diary back with every intention of seeing the Ard Rhys awakened. Because a decision on a matter of this sort requires that she be consulted and directly involved. Am I wrong, Elfling?”
Aphenglow hated it when he called her that, but she could not seem to stop him from doing so, even after expressing her dismay to him in private countless times. “You are not wrong. I did think it necessary.”
“Well, there you are.” Bombax came all the way into the room and stood looking from face to face. He was a big man, much taller and stronger than she was and almost as tall as Garroneck, though more limber and rangy. His thick mop of black hair fell to his shoulders in a tangle, and his travel-worn cloak was dusty and weathered. He had the look of a man who had journeyed hard and fast.
“Nice of you to drop in on our discussion,” Pleysia purred. “But you might want to learn all the facts before you offer an ill-advised opinion. Though I realize that is not your way.”
“No, it really isn’t,” the other readily agreed, giving her a quick sideways glance. “But then I know something about this that you don’t. So I might say the same about you.”
She glared at him. “What are you talking about?”
He moved over and sat down beside Aphenglow, taking a deep, slow breath as he faced her, as if trying to breathe in her scent. “Just this. We have a new Federation Prime Minister as of midnight yesterday, and it isn’t good news for us.”
“Drustan Chazhul,” Seersha guessed, leaning forward to look past Aphenglow and meet his gaze. “Isn’t it?”
“Chosen last night after only one ballot. No opposition besides the few who have always opposed him—And their number steadily dwindles. Unfortunate things keep happening to them. So we are left with the worst possible choice. He has sworn he will see the order disbanded and Paranor razed. I fully expect him to try to carry out that threat.”
Carrick shrugged the threat away. “What happened to the old Prime Minister?”
“One of those unfortunate accidents I mentioned. He poisoned himself. Perhaps with help.”
Even Pleysia laughed at that, all of them aware of how desperately Chazhul wanted to be Prime Minister and how blind his predecessor had been to the duplicity of those around him. It was difficult to overestimate the machinations engaged in by the Ministers of the Federation High Council in their efforts to advance their positions. And Drustan Chazhul was the worst of the lot.
“He is a dangerous man,” Seersha said quietly, and gave each of them a look.
“Well, we can’t do anything about the Federation’s choice of a new Prime Minister,” Carrick said. “But beyond the obvious, how does this impact the business at hand?”
“Drust Chazhul’s reach is long and sure. He will have at least one spy in the Elven camp. Which suggests in turn the possibility he might have had something to do with the attacks on Aphenglow.”
Everyone went silent, thinking. “That’s a stretch, isn’t it?” Pleysia said finally. “How would he have found out about the diary quickly enough to order an attack? Besides, he has no interest in magic. He mistrusts and dislikes it. He wants it eliminated.”
“A good reason for seeing to it that no new discoveries come to light, don’t you think? As for the attacks, he might have planned for that a long time ago, thinking the day might come when they would be needed and needed quickly. Don’t underestimate him. He intends to rule us all. And now he has the means to find a way to do so.”
“He’s ambitious, but not flawless.” Seersha made a dismissive gesture. “He will have trouble finding allies.”
“We’re not here to discuss the Federation or the boundless ambitions of its Ministers,” Pleysia snapped. “We are here to decide whether or not to awaken the Ard Rhys from the Druid Sleep. Again, I do not think we have an emergency that requires it. How do the rest of you vote?”
The five Druids stared at one another, waiting to see who would speak first. Finally, Carrick came to his feet. “You are outnumbered four to one, Pleysia. I will wake the Ard Rhys.”
“No, I will,” Aphenglow said at once. “This is mostly my doing. I will take the responsibility.”
Without waiting for a response, she pushed back her chair, rose, and went out the chamber door, feeling the weight of their eyes against her back.
5
Her sleep was deep and endless, a long slow unwinding of time and space. She floated on the air currents of the world, riding the back of the wind, gliding like a bird across the sky from light to dark, day to night. Her journey was smooth and undisturbed, and she drifted in her dreams from the real to the imagined and back again. At times, she dwelled in the past amid memories of what had once been and now was forever gone, as if she were paging through a book in which pictures captured perfectly the years of her life. At times, she was cocooned by blackness with no pictures, no memories, and no sense of what had been or might be; only a warm, comforting sense of well-being.
But at other times, she could hear and see and smell and taste the world about her, the one that was real and present and active even though she lay dormant. She could see the faces of those she knew and hear their words as they lived their daily lives while she slept. The voices whispered and buzzed and told her of the fears and hopes and joys and promises of the people she monitored in her subconscious, tracking their movements and reading their thoughts in a slow, languid unraveling that was able to penetrate even the deepest layers of her sleep. The effort came unbidden and as a consequence of the magic that shaped her half-life sleep, so it was always there, weaving its way through the stretches of darkness and sudden bursts of dreaming and small moments of remembering. It was there in the way that her breathing was there, a function of her body, a necessary reaction to her need to stay alive and informed within the confines of her strange and special sleep.
She drifted and spun, waiting for the time when she would be awakened. She flew unfettered, knowing that one day, when it was time, waking would come, brought about by a hand on her shoulder or a voice in her ear.