She walked back to where Aphenglow sat watching her and stopped in front of her.
“Do you know what to do?” Aphen asked softly.
Khyber Elessedil shook her head. “But I know who to ask.”
6
Khyber slept little that night, her mind roiling with possibilities and the plans for bringing them to fruition. She walked the halls of the Keep alone, thinking of the missing Elfstones and how finding them might help the Druids in their efforts to bring the Races together in a peaceful alliance. They had been at war for so long—struggles like the war on the Prekkendorran, which had lasted for more than fifty years. If the magic of the Elfstones could in some way serve to contain such wars or even keep the Races from instigating such conflicts, she would have accomplished something that no Ard Rhys ever had.
She basked in the warmth of the idea one minute and went cold with her doubts about the reliability of the diary in the next.
Once, she came across Pleysia sitting alone in a nook writing at a small table, but Pleysia failed to see her and she turned another way to protect her solitude. This was not a night when she wanted to visit with others. This was a night to consider what she would do on the morrow.
At daybreak, after advising Garroneck what that was and asking him to make the necessary preparations, she washed, dressed, ate her breakfast alone, and then summoned the Druids to the courtyard that housed the airships. Woostra was there as well, restless and ill at ease as he waited to see what she intended. Garroneck had refitted the Wend-A-Way with supplies and a fresh store of diapson crystals, and was working with two of his guardsmen to fasten the radian draws to the light sheaths from their links on the railing to the parse tubes. The ship was already straining at its anchor ropes in response to the power running through the lines and filling out the sheaths.
“Young ones,” she said to her followers, her friends and fellow Druids, after drawing them close. “After thinking it through, I have decided I need to seek advice from those who know more than I, from those who have access to secrets kept from me. I go to the Hadeshorn to speak with the spirits of the dead. Perhaps one of the Elder Druids will know something more than we do and consent to speak to me.”
“That form of contact is dangerous, Mistress,” Seersha said at once. “You have never done this, and there is no one to teach you how.”
Khyber smiled at the young Dwarf’s concern. “All true, Seersha. And yet there is no need for you to worry. An Ard Rhys knows instinctively what is required to summon the dead. The spirits of the dead cannot physically harm the living. Nor can their words. I will be fine.”
“Which of us will go with you?” the other pressed. “You will need at least one or two.”
“Thank you, Seersha, but I will need no one save Garroneck and his guards for this journey. I want the rest of you to stay here and continue your discussions about the diary. Try to think of ways we might make use of its contents. Look for anything we might have missed. I will be back within two days’ time.”
“I don’t like the idea of you going alone,” Seersha insisted.
“Neither do I,” Aphenglow agreed.
“But I have to.” Khyber gave them each a hard look. “It is required of me. Garroneck will be enough. Now, go on about your work. Woostra!”
She dismissed them by turning away and joining her personal secretary at the fringes of the little gathering. He bowed deeply, waiting.
She pulled him upright. “Don’t forget. I want you to find out something about this girl, this Aleia Omarosian. I want information about who she was and what became of her. Am I understood?”
He nodded quickly. “Yes, Mistress.”
“Then do as I ask before I return. Find something. Anything.”
Then she turned from him, and because she didn’t want to prolong her leaving she walked over to where Garroneck stood waiting. The big Troll’s rough, impassive face revealed nothing of what he was thinking, and he was quick to offer her the rope ladder to climb. She went up it swiftly, still strong and nimble in spite of her years. She climbed through the slot in the railing and waited for Garroneck to join her.
“Are we ready?”
“On your signal.”
“Then lift us away. I’ll take the helm. I feel like doing something. Maybe I can still do this.”
“This, and a great deal more, unless I am mistaken.”
His deadpan voice made her smile. “Let’s hope so.”
She gave a quick wave to the members of her Druid order as she walked to the cluster of thruster levers and steering gears, but she did not stop to look closely at them. She didn’t trust herself with what she might see on their faces. Instead, she set herself in place at the controls. As the anchor ropes were freed, she eased the skimmer out of its berth and into the air, wheeling south toward Kennon Pass and the far side of the Dragon’s Teeth. The Wend-A-Way responded smoothly, flying over Paranor’s walls and battlements, her towers and spires, her courtyards and ramps, and finally the deep woods surrounding them all. Sunshine beamed down out of a cloudless sky, and the wind was soft and cool on her skin.
She glanced back once to see the other Druids disbanding and moving indoors until only a couple of the Troll guards remained.
She sighed, watching it happen. It was as if her leaving made no difference to anything, and yet she could not quite shrug away the feeling that she was about to begin a journey that in the end would be life changing.
They flew on through the remainder of the day, traveling south through the Kennon before turning east, then tracking the wall of the Dragon’s Teeth, brief glimmerings of the Rainbow Lake visible to the south through mist and haze, the land spreading away in a patchwork carpet. By midafternoon, they had crossed over the Mermidon River where it angled south through the valley formed by the Runne Mountains and could see the land ahead turn stark and bare as the mountains broadened and the woods disappeared.
Such a beautiful, wild place, Khyber thought as she surveyed the passing landscape in the winding down of the day. Ahead, the mountain peaks rose in jagged spikes, their slopes layered as far north as the eye could see. Night was sliding out of the east in a dark wave, swallowing everything as it advanced. Behind her, the sun was edging below a horizon dominated by the broad sweep of the plains of Callahorn and Streleheim south and north respectively of the Mermidon, the whole of it green and flat and still bright with sunshine.
She found herself thinking of other times, long since past, and other trips taken to faraway places on undertakings similar to this one. She could remember the details in spite of her age and time’s passing—especially those in which Grianne Ohmsford, who had been Ard Rhys before her, had been involved. If not for Grianne, her brother Bek, and his son Penderrin, Khyber would still be living in the Westland, gone home to Arborlon and her family, and not be Ard Rhys of the Fourth Druid Order. But the events surrounding the disappearance of Grianne into the Forbidding and the ill-fated efforts of the Druid Shadea A’Ru to take control of the order had changed everything for Khyber and all those who had stood with Grianne against Shadea and her allies.
In the end, Grianne had prevailed over Shadea, but the Druids had been decimated, and in the aftermath of Grianne’s disappearance Khyber had become Ard Rhys and leader of the Fourth Order. It was not a position she had sought, but one she had accepted out of a sense of obligation for the Druid future and toward those who had fought so hard to see it secured. She was more accomplished in the use of magic than any of the others by then, and she knew she was the most likely candidate. So it came down to whether she would accept the responsibility she was being asked to assume or turn away and leave it for another to shoulder.
She knew right away what her decision would be. Her friendships and her personal interest in and commitment to the study of magic persuaded her that she needed to do whatever she could to preserve the Druid Order. To have come so far and paid so heavy a price only to see it all have been for nothing was not something she could live with.