She had gone all the way down the length of the hall and was turning up the stairs that led to the cold chamber and scrye waters when she realized she could have had Krolling carry her and been there in half the time. But she didn’t want anyone carrying her, didn’t want to be reminded of her weakness, and liked being close again to Arling, so she let it be.
They climbed two levels of stairs and turned down the passageway that led to the cold room. It was hard going because Aphen was still exhausted from her encounter in the pit, and her leg ached from the hard use to which she had put it. But she pushed ahead wordlessly, letting Arlingfant provide support and encouragement, thinking as she did so how much she loved her. She hated herself for snapping at her sister; even those few words were too many. She would not do that again, she told herself. No matter how angry or upset she got, she would not take it out on Arling.
They reached the cold room, and she turned to her sister. “I have to do this alone. No one who isn’t a Druid is allowed in the cold room. Will you wait for me here? I shouldn’t be long.” She paused, seeing the look on her sister’s face. “Don’t worry. I’ll be all right.”
Arlingfant gave her a hug and stepped away. “I’ll be waiting.”
Aphen slipped inside and closed the door behind her. The room was draped in shadows that resisted the intrusion of even the small amount of light filtering through the windows high up on the only exterior wall. The air in the room was chilly and damp, and Aphen shivered involuntarily.
She moved as quickly as she could to the stone basin set at the center of the room, climbing onto the platform that supported it so she could read its strange greenish waters. She had not used the scrye since she had sought to find traces of Bombax when he had failed to return to the Keep, but now she would attempt to determine the whereabouts of the Ard Rhys and the expedition she led. If the Druids must abandon Paranor—no matter the cause—the others must be told. She and Bombax must find them and give them warning. To do that, she must read the waters and determine from traces of magic expended approximately where they were.
She stood over the basin and stared down into the scrye, watching as the greenish waters stirred sluggishly in their familiar clockwise manner around the walls of the stone container. The basin was shallow, and she could see the extended map of the Four Lands and surrounding territories etched in its base. Extending her arms so that her hands were poised just above the surface of the waters, she began her search, reading the lines of power that stretched across the earth, probing for any disturbance. Concentrating on the Westland, where the Ard Rhys would ultimately have gone, she quickly found what she was looking for. Traces of expended magic could be traced across miles of unsettled country far west of the Breakline.
Attacks of some sort, Aphenglow concluded. Some of the traces were older than others, so the attacks most likely had taken place on separate occasions over a series of two or three days. She marked in her memory where the last of them ended. That would be the starting point for those fleeing Paranor.
Then she cleared her efforts with a wave of her hand, and the waters of the scrye returned to their former state, their movement slow and steady and placid once more.
When she departed the cold room, closing its door one final time, she knew she might be closing it on a part of her life, as well. It was almost more than she could bear.
Night had fallen, the sunset an hour gone.
“If we can’t walk out of here, we’ll have to fly,” Bombax announced.
Aphenglow had returned from the cold room and the company of defenders had gathered once more in her sleeping chamber. It seemed odd to her that her private space had become their war room, but by unspoken mutual consent that was what it was.
“How do we do that without an airship?” she asked. “Ours are all in the hands of the Federation.”
“We steal one back,” Cymrian answered. “Bombax and I have been talking it over. We think we can manage it. Especially now that it’s dark, we won’t be so easy to spot. If we can get out onto the landing platform we can take control of at least one airship before they have a chance to stop us.”
“The Federation still guards the platform and our ships, but they aren’t putting much into the effort,” Bombax continued, leaning forward, his expression eager. “They’ve got maybe a dozen guards up there, and they’ve blocked off the ramp leading out of the Keep. They think that’s enough to keep us off the landing platform, but they’re wrong. There’s a metal catwalk attached to the underside of the ramp, and if Cymrian and I can sneak across it we can come up on them from behind.”
“You and Cymrian,” she repeated.
The Elf nodded. “Bombax and I are best suited for the job. Everyone else will be needed to help the injured Trolls onto the ship once we’ve seized it. We’ll have to move quickly. Once they see us—”
“I know,” she interrupted. “But it’s not the Federation we have to worry about.”
“The thing in the pit,” the other guessed.
“It won’t take long for it to reach the Keep proper once it starts to come out.”
“When will that happen?” Bombax asked.
Aphen shook her head. “I don’t know. It might be happening already. Woostra? What do the Histories tell us?”
The keeper of the records shrugged. “Not much. It takes a summoning to release the ancient magic, and you’ve already provided that.”
“Surely it won’t do anything until we’re safely out of here,” she said. “It made a point of warning us to go. Won’t it wait until we do?”
Woostra fixed her with a baleful eye. “Would you like to risk finding out? Delay long enough, and you might.”
They moved quickly after that, gathering everyone together at the north end of the Keep just inside the doors that opened onto the ramp leading to the airships. They pulled the last of the able Druid Guards off the walls and brought the injured ones up from the sickroom. Since the Druid airships were kept well supplied, they took nothing with them but their weapons, personal possessions, and the clothes on their backs.
“I cannot believe we are doing this,” Aphenglow said to Bombax at one point, standing close to him in the midst of the chaos surrounding their efforts to prepare for departure. There were tears in her eyes and her face was stricken. “How did we let this happen?”
The big man put his hands on her shoulders. “No one let this happen.”
“I think maybe I did. I think maybe I caused it when I brought that diary back.”
“You’ve had a rough time of it, Aphen. You’ve been forced to take on a lot. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
She hugged him to her, feeling his arms enfold her as she did. “You’ve been through a lot, too.”
“We’re Druids,” he said. “And these are extraordinary times.”
She shook her head. “No, these are terrible times.”
They were close again, at the beginning of a fresh start in their too-often strained relationship. Her life partner, her love; she wanted his support. She needed him to be with her when they were forced from their home and had everything they knew taken away from them.
That it was necessary to leave was difficult enough. That she should have to endure it without him would have been unbearable.
“We’ve been given no choice,” he told her. “If there had been another way, you would have been the first to recognize it.”
“There is no other way. I know that.”
“You didn’t want to be the one to do this,” he added.
“I didn’t want any part of it.”
His arms tightened about her. “Nor I. But here we are. And we can’t change things, no matter how much we might wish we could. Which reminds me.”