So she did what she had to do, what she was expected to do, and what she felt she owed to all those who had fought beside Grianne.
She smiled sadly, thinking of it. It seemed so long ago. All those she had known in that time, all who had been so influential in shaping her life, were gone—dead, save for Grianne, who had been transformed and was now something else entirely. She wondered about her sometimes, and how she had felt when she had given up her human form. She wondered if Grianne regretted it, if she felt her life now had fresh meaning, and if she still believed she had done the right thing in changing. Khyber couldn’t say, and it didn’t seem likely that she would ever know. But she would have liked it if she could.
She would have liked seeing Grianne one more time.
She would have liked seeing any of them.
Garroneck appeared beside her, caught her eye, and pointed ahead through the deepening gloom to where the mountains split apart. There a long, steep trail wound upward from the foothills to the summit of a distant ridge, where it formed an entry into the Valley of Shale and the Hadeshorn. She nodded her understanding and shifted the bow of the Wend-A-Way left toward the ascending slope. Pulling back on the thrusters, she brought the skimmer to a crawl and eased her skyward toward the split in the mountain rock. The other members of the Druid Guard were at the radian draws, ready to detach their ends and haul them in for stowing.
Garroneck gestured, indicating the helm. “Shall I, Mistress?”
She stepped away, giving him control, and walked forward to the bow where she could watch the high end of the pass appear. She searched the landscape for movement, but the terrain was barren and empty everywhere, nothing but boulders and scrub grass and rutted earth. It was miserable, blasted ground, forbidding enough that nothing that breathed or moved would give much thought to doing more than passing through quickly. Ahead, far beyond the entry, an odd glow rose from within the mountains, a strange greenish light that grew in intensity as the darkness deepened.
The Hadeshorn.
The entry to the world of the spirits of the dead.
Garroneck and his Trolls anchored Wend-A-Way just below the narrow defile that led into the mountains, dropped a rope ladder, and helped Khyber climb through the railing. She didn’t need their help, but didn’t want to refuse it, either. When she was down, she walked forward several yards to stand alone with Garroneck.
“Wait here for me. Keep watch. You are exposed on these slopes to anyone passing by, especially someone in an airship—at least until it gets darker than it is now.”
“I will keep watch, Mistress.” The big Troll cast a quick glance about the empty skies. “I think we will be safe enough.”
He handed her the black staff she preferred, and she took it from him with a nod. “I won’t be back before morning. Don’t worry for me.”
He blinked. “Should I stop breathing, as well?”
She put a hand on his arm, squeezed gently, and turned away. “I’ll be careful.”
She went up the steep slope using the staff for balance, picking her way over the loose rocks, taking her time so as not to slip and fall. She had discarded her Druid robes and was wearing pants and a tunic, a brace of long knives strapped to her waist. She commanded sufficient magic that she could protect herself if she was threatened in any way, although she doubted she would need to. The Valley of Shale was never visited by anyone but stray travelers eager to find a way out and Druids like herself who were intent on speaking with the dead. She believed she would encounter neither this night.
Within the hour she arrived at the head of the pass and began working her way through the long, twisting defile that led to the valley. The night was dark and still, and while there were stars visible in the ribbon of sky above the cliff walls, the moon was down. She stopped frequently to drink from her waterskin and took time when she did to listen to the absence of night sounds. Her senses sought the presence of other life, but each time they assured her she was alone. She created, organized, and reviewed the questions she intended to ask whatever spirits came to her, and then she revised them. She considered what it was she wanted to learn and how she could be assured she would get the answers she needed, knowing that phrasing was so important.
But in the end she let it all drift away, aware that it came down to the willingness of the spirits of the dead to speak directly. She knew they seldom gave clear answers—if they answered at all—because clarity for the dead was different than it was for the living. The dead knew more of life, for they had lived it and passed beyond it and could look back on it at their leisure. But their ability to speak of what they saw was limited. They often responded in riddles and asked questions in turn, and they almost never gave a clear and precise answer.
So she would have to work hard to find out what she needed to know about Aleia Omarosian and the missing Elfstones.
She would have to work very hard indeed.
The air was colder this high up, and she wished she had thought to bring a travel cloak to ward off the chill. She hunched her shoulders and clutched the black staff close against her body, but nothing helped much. She glanced up at the clear, bright sky, the cold so sharp-edged and penetrating that she could almost see it. When she exhaled, her breath frosted the air in front of her.
Too cold for her to continue for long, she decided. She had to do something to warm herself.
She held out her staff, used her magic to coat one end with pitch, and then set the pitch afire. It would reveal her to anyone looking, but she had already decided that chance encounters were unlikely. She trudged on, the flaming end of the staff held out before her, working her way down the defile, her path blocked repeatedly by boulders and landslides she was forced to either go around or climb over. It had been a long time since anyone had passed this way. Certainly no Druid had come through in the years that she had been Ard Rhys unless they had done so in secret.
Finally, midnight having come and gone, she reached the end of the defile and found herself looking down into the Valley of Shale. It was a broad, shallow depression perhaps a quarter mile wide, its walls littered with pieces of obsidian that shone like black glass beneath the light of the stars. At its center was the lake they called the Hadeshorn, its waters flat and still and vaguely greenish from light emanating far down within their depths. The light pulsed sluggishly, but the waters never moved.
She took a seat at the edge of the bowl, just beyond the beginnings of the field of obsidian, choosing a flat shelf of rock and wedging the black staff into a crevice off to one side, there to await the hour just before dawn when the shades of Druids dead and gone would be most likely to respond to a summons from the living. She watched the still waters of the lake and the glimmerings of the rock and the flat black of the sky and its stars until she fell asleep sitting up. She slept without dreaming, waking often to shift positions, trying to gain a small measure of warmth from the dying fire of the staff. Her mind felt sluggish and weary, and the muscles and joints of her body ached. A couple of times she drank from the waterskin, but never too much and only when she needed the hydration. She didn’t know how long she would be here or to what extent the water would sustain her, so conservation of her only source of fluids was important.
Drinking from the waters of the Hadeshorn was not an option. A single swallow was instant death.
When she sensed the night coming to a close, long hours and repeated wakings later, when the pitch had burned away and the staff had gone dark and the stars had shifted in the sky and signaled the morning’s approach, she climbed to her feet and began to walk down to the Hadeshorn. The slopes were made treacherous by the loose rock and the uncertain footing, so she took her time, leaning heavily on the staff. Her head had cleared and she felt oddly renewed even though she had gotten so little real rest. She was ready for this, she told herself. She was strong and determined, and she would find a way to achieve her goals.