The sight of the ghostly form froze even the sorceress herself.
But then Shadea broke free of her momentary shock and sent Druid Fire streaking into the black-cloaked form, burning it to ash. Fire from the other two Druids followed on the heels of her own, disintegrating even the ash. Shouts of encouragement rose from the Gnome Hunters, who leapt up and down in response to the destruction.
Then silence settled over the hallway, and everyone went still again. Shadea moved out to the center of the corridor, peering cautiously through the haze.
"I am not where you thought me to be," Grianne Ohmsford said from somewhere off to the right.
All three rebel Druids froze where they were, staring at nothing but wall and smoke and ash as they tried to find her.
"You are not my equal, Shadea," Grianne continued quietly. "You never were. You never will be. You are banished from the order and from these walls. All of you are. If you leave now, I will let you live. I have seen enough of killing and vengeance and do not wish to see more. You deserve much worse than banishment, but if you go now, that will be the end of it. You have my word."
A dozen responses went through Shadea a'Ru's mind, all of them pointless. "I don't think banishment will suit me," she said finally. "And it remains to be seen if I am your equal or not. Show yourself, and let's find out."
But Grianne Ohmsford stayed invisible, speaking out of shadows and smoke. "Do you have any idea of what you have done? Do you have any idea at all? You sought to confine me to the Forbidding. To do so, you enlisted the aid of demons. One demon, in particular. You never stopped to consider why that demon would want to help you. You never thought that it might be using you as you were using it. What you did, Shadea-what all of you did-was to release a demon into this world by imprisoning me in the Forbidding. That demon remains free. It has a purpose in coming here. It seeks to destroy the wall of the Forbidding and set free all the demons it contains."
What nonsense,Shadea thought at once. "Where is your proof of that, Grianne?" she snapped angrily.
"Do you think us fools to believe such lies?"
"I think you fools not to. You have set free a changeling, Shadea. You have set free a creature that can disguise itself as anything or anyone. It will have already assumed the identity of another and begun seeking ways to destroy the Ellcrys. If we don't stop it, it will succeed."
"We? You would enlist us? Even as we are banished?" Shadea straightened to her full height. "Come out of hiding and persuade us better, Grianne."
But even as she spoke, she was thinking of Iridia. Iridia, who had not seemed herself in that last encounter and who had gone to Sen Dunsidan to be his adviser when Shadea would have bet anything against that happening. Iridia, who had subsequently disappeared completely.
Could it be? In an impulsive response to a possibility she could not bring herself to face, and disregarding her own safety, Shadea sent a scattering of illumination specks all across the facing of the wall fronting the bedchamber, trying to uncover Grianne's hiding place. The glittering specks coated everything, leaving a clear outline of what lay concealed within the shadows and smoke.
Grianne Ohmsford was nowhere to be found.
"Show yourself, you coward!" Shadea screamed in fury.
"Turn around."
Shadea stiffened, and then did so. Grianne Ohmsford stood a few yards away against the wall behind Shadea and to the right. She mirrored the wraith that had appeared in the doorway, cloaked and hooded in black, the Eilt Druin clasp at her throat. Her face and hands were pale and ravaged. She looked beaten and tired, she did not look up to a confrontation. Shadea took her measure and recognized the truth. The demon business and the offer of banishment were all a bluff.
"You don't look well, Grianne," she said. "You look as if a strong breeze might topple you. I don't imagine it was very pleasant inside the Forbidding, was it?"
Her enemy said nothing, but those strange blue eyes never left her own. They were watching her, waiting to see which way she would go. Whatever else Grianne was, she wasn't a fool.
"I think you have come to Paranor for the last time," Shadea continued softly. "I think you have just wasted your one chance at escaping with your life."
"Don't mistake what you see," the other whispered. "Take my offer. Go now. Banishment is not the worst of what can happen to you."
"I'll burn your eyes out first," Shadea responded.
"Shadea, wait!" Traunt Rowan stepped forward, hands stretched out in a gesture of supplication.
"Enough of this. It's over. We've lost. Don't you see?"
"Be silent!" she hissed.
"To what end? The time for silence is past. Look at what's before us. Anyone who can survive the Forbidding and come back alive to the Four Lands and then break free of a triagenel is no one I care to challenge. If she can do all she has done to get back here and confront us like this, she has magic and luck beyond anything we possess."
He looked at Grianne. "I told you once that you should resign for the good of the order. I have not changed my mind about that. I still think you should. I still think you are too divisive to ever bring the order together in the way that will serve the greater good. I took sides against you because of it. Maybe I was wrong to do so, but I was not wrong about you."
He shook his head. "You must make your own decision. I have made mine. I accept this offer. I accept banishment. I've had enough."
He gave Shadea a hard, searching look, and she returned it with enough venom to poison a city. But he would not look away, and he did not blink. "Do the right thing, Shadea. Give it up." He turned away from her and stalked down the hall, brushing aside a cluster of Gnomes that barred his way.
Shadea stared after him in disbelief, and then screamed in rage. "Traitor!"
She sent an explosion of Druid Fire into his back, white-hot and corrosive. The force of the blow lifted him off his feet and flung him against the far wall, where he slid to the floor, a lifeless, burning wreck.
In the next instant, Pyson Wence attacked Grianne Ohmsford.
Kermadec had climbed almost two flights into the Keep before be realized Atalan was following him. He wheeled back instantly. "What are you doing?" he shouted at his brother in dismay. "Go back and wait with the others!"
Atalan kept coming and shoved past him as if he weren't there. "Go back yourself, brother."
Kermadec reached for him angrily and then stopped himself. Getting into a fight with his brother would serve no useful purpose. If Atalan wanted to come, it was because he wanted to help. What was the point in being angry with that?
The point, he knew, was that he was afraid for Atalan. But he also knew that their relationship was well beyond a time and place where he could do anything about that.
He forced his concerns aside, caught up with Atalan, and without looking at him said, "We'll go back together when this business is finished and done with."
They passed knots of Druids who stood looking at them in surprise, books and scrolls cradled in their hands, dark robes gathered close. A few recognized him and nodded. They didn't seem to know what was happening. One or two moved quickly away when they realized he had been in a fight, and he shouted after them to go to the Assembly and stay there. He assumed that most of them would; he was still convinced that they would not fight for Shadea if they were not threatened themselves.
The hallways came and went as the two Rock Trolls raced ahead. Only once did they encounter anything resembling resistance, and that was an unexpected run-in with a knot of Gnome Hunters who fled the moment they saw what they were up against. Kermadec had not been inside the Keep in years, but he remembered it well from his time as Captain of the Druid Guard, and he found his way without difficulty. Almost all of the Gnomes were on the walls, fighting to hold against the onslaught of Rock Trolls pouring through the north gates.
As they neared the upper reaches of the north tower, Kermadec grew increasingly uneasy. He did not like the Keep's empty feeling. He did not like the unusual quiet. His battle instincts were finely tuned from years of fighting, and he knew better than to ignore them. There was an edge to his anticipation this time that was unusual. He had the strange sensation of wanting to hurry and at the same time needing to slow down. Perhaps it was the nature of the mission or what was at stake. Perhaps it was the place and time.
He could not explain it. But he did not slow. His concerns must be for his mistress. She had come back to them, he believed. She had escaped the Forbidding. The explosion in the north tower told him Penderrin had succeeded. She was there, and he knew in his heart that she needed him. As he neared the upper hallway and the sleeping chamber of the Ard Rhys, the sounds of a desperate struggle convinced him that he was right.
Grianne Ohmsford was caught off guard by Pyson Wense's attack. She had assumed that any attack would begin with Shadea, to whom the others clearly looked. On coming out of the sleeping chamber and using the false image to distract the Druids, she had placed herself in a position where she could best defend herself against the sorceress. She had not forgotten about Pyson or Traunt Rowan, but she had focused her attention principally on Shadea.
But Shadea's unexpected attack on Traunt Rowan had surprised her, and for just a moment she had taken her attention away from the Gnome. Perhaps he had been watching for that. His attack came just as she realized the danger, but she was too slow to deflect it entirely. The Druid Fire slammed into her, nearly shattering her defenses. It scorched her hair and the skin of her face, and if not for the protective magic already in place, including that woven through her Druid robes, she would have been incinerated.
Even so, the force of the attack knocked her off her feet and sent her sprawling down the hall, tangled in her black robes. Furious at herself for her inattention and desperate to regain control of the situation, she sprang up again, but a second explosion immediately knocked her down once more. Pyson was moving toward her by then, leveling a steady barrage of incendiary magic, trying to keep her down long enough to finish her. She rolled and twisted, using the wall to lever herself back to her knees, and launched her own Druid Fire in response. But her efforts were weak and unsustained, and the Gnome kept advancing.
Then Shadea wheeled back, and Grianne was forced to turn her attention to the new threat, lashing out at the sorceress before she had a chance to join the attack. Shadea screamed in fury as the magic of the wishsong knocked her backwards. But Shadea was physically much stronger than Grianne and was quick to regain her balance. Within seconds, Grianne was under attack from two sides.
Just as it seemed that she had exposed herself too quickly and would pay the price for her impatience, Kermadec came charging down the hallway with a second Troll right behind, slamming into a cluster of Gnome Hunters that tried to slow him, scattering the gnarled figures as if they were made of paper.
Roaring with a ferociousness that froze the blood, the big Troll went right at Shadea.
But Shadea a'Ru had fought on the Prekkendorran and was no stranger to hand-to-hand combat.
Moreover, she was very nearly as strong as the Troll. She met his rush with a howl as ferocious as his own, slipped his grasp, and let his momentum carry him into the wall. Then she wheeled back on him, able to bring her magic to bear now, and sent the Druid Fire burning into him.
Just as she did so, the second Troll came at her, as well. "Kermadec!" he roared in what seemed more a battle cry than a warning.
Down went Shadea a'Ru and the second Troll in a tangled, thrashing knot, rolling over and over on the stone floor. Kermadec was struggling to rise, but Pyson Wence joined the attack and searing Druid Fire slammed Kermadec back against the wall, knocking the breath out of him and leaving his thick hide steaming from the heat. The Gnome struck at him again and again, shouting for his Hunters to move in and finish him.
But Pyson made the same mistake now with Grianne that she had made earlier with him. He forgot about her. She surged to her feet in a white-hot fury, summoned the power of the wishsong, and struck out at him with every ounce of strength she could manage. Sensing his danger, the Gnome turned fromKermadec toward her just in time to receive the full brunt of the attack. She had a glimpse of his terrified face as he fought to protect himself. For just a second, his defenses held. Then they fell apart, and Pyson Wence simply exploded.
So damaged by the Gnome Druids attack that flames were licking at the burned places on his body, Kermadec was trying to get up again. "Atalanl" he called desperately.
Shadea a'Ru broke free of Kermadec's brother, wheeled away, and went into a crouch. When she came out of it, she was holding a long knife at waist level. Atalan came at her fearlessly, his massive arms reaching out to crush her, but she sidestepped him easily in a practiced, fluid movement and drove the knife hilt-deep into his chest. Atalan sagged from the blow and dropped to his knees, gasping.
Shadea kicked his body aside and turned back to Grianne. Hands lifting, she attacked anew, sending a hail of Druid Fire into her enemy. Grianne was able to fight off the attack, but only barely. The force of it knocked her backwards once more, and she struggled to keep her feet as she sought to defend herself, trying in vain to mount a counterattack.
She felt her defenses crumbling. She felt the heat of the Druid Fire beginning to break through.
Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kermadec, his great body bloodied and steaming, lurch to his feet. One hand grasped a spear he had taken from one of his Gnome attackers. Bracing himself against the wall, he gripped the spear in one huge fist, set himself, and heaved it at Shadea.
Too late the sorceress realized the danger. She wheeled to protect herself, but the spear caught her in the chest and drove her back against the wall, the force of the throw pinning her fast. Her body jerked and her head snapped back. Her eyes went wide with shock and disbelief. She screamed and flailed, trying to break free. She sprayed Druid Fire everywhere. But the blow was fatal, and a moment later she collapsed and did not move again.
The remaining Gnome Hunters were already in flight, disappearing down the hallway as fast as they could manage. Grianne stood alone among the wounded and the dead. She lowered her hands, dispersed the magic she had summoned to defend herself, and stared at Shadea a'Ru. The sorceress was staring back at her, eyes blank and unseeing, face twisted in a death mask. Grianne looked iway, sickened, then walked quickly over to Kermadec. The big Rock Troll slid down the wall into a sitting position, his chin sunk on his chest. Blood and burned patches were everywhere on his massive body.
She knelt before him and gently raised his head. "Kermadec?" ;he whispered. "Can you hear me?"
His eyes opened and fixed on her. "Mistress," he replied, his /oice thin and reedy. "1 told you they were vipers."
She bent forward and kissed his face, and then cradled him against her and whispered, "You great bear."
Thirty.
Pen Ohmsford, his parents, Khyber Elessedil, and Tagwen descended through the corridors of Paranor to the furnace room, then back down along the hidden passageway that led to the outside world. Theyencountered no one on their way. The silence of the Druid's Keep was deep and pervasive and gave the false impression that it was deserted save for them.
But once they were outside, they heard the sounds of the battle being fought at the north wall, and although they hadn't seen the Trolls arrive, they could pretty well guess at what was happening.
"That will give Shadea something else to think about!" Tagwen grunted, a smile on his bearded face.
"Kermadec won't rest until he has the Ard Rhys safely out of there!"
That knowledge seemed to give him some sense of peace, and he quit muttering about how he should be back in the north tower trying to help her. Pen was grateful for that because, given that he was the only one sympathetic enough to permit it, most of the muttering was being done in his ear. While he appreciated Tagwen's concern for his mistress, he was struggling with his own problems.
Pen was beginning to contemplate in some detail the task that lay ahead of him. He had thought he would be safely out of danger once he returned to Paranor with his aunt, so the news that he must go off and find a changeling demon and confront it with the darkwand had come as an unpleasant surprise.
Once again, he was being asked to do something without being told exactly how he was supposed to do it. Only this time, he was being asked to confront a very dangerous creature. It was one thing to go into the Forbidding and bring back the Ard Rhys, who was ready and willing to come. It was another to force a demon to go back into a place it did not wish to go.
At least he had his parents to help him. And Khyber, as well. They were much more self-possessed and experienced than he was. His father and Khyber had the use of magic, as well. That should give them an edge once they found the demon. Still, it was his responsibility to use the darkwand to return the demon to the Forbidding, and no amount of reassurance could disguise the fact that he didn't know how to do that.
As they moved away from the base of the cliffs on which Paranor rested, slipping quickly and quietly into the forest towardSwift Sure, Pen found himself wondering what demons were like. He hadn't really seen any in the Forbidding, unless you counted Weka Dart, and he didn't. The Ulk Bog didn't seem like a demon to him, he envisioned demons as being something much more fearsome and threatening.
In any case, he didn't know what he was going to do once he met a real one, but he thought it might be a good idea to figure out something before the moment arrived.
They passed through the trees to the clearing whereSwift Sure was tethered, climbed up the rope ladder, and set about releasing the anchor ropes. His parents did most of the work, his mother taking the helm and his father working the lines. In minutes they were airborne, lifting away from the woods, rising swiftly into the air. He stood with Tagwen and Khyber at the railing and looked down on Paranor. The north wall of the Druid's Keep was under attack by huge numbers of Rock Trolls, their size and build unmistakable from any height. The Trolls were spread out all along the wall, but the greatest number were bunched together at the gates, and from the surge pushing inward it seemed clear that the gates had been taken.
ThenSwift Sure was moving away too rapidly for them to follow the action below any further, and Bek was calling out to Khyber as he moved toward the ship's bow. The trio moved away from the railing in response and joined the elder Ohmsford in front of the foremast.
"Will you use the Elfstones now?" he asked Khyber. "What am I looking for?" She already had the Stones out and was holding them in the palm of her hand.
"I don't know what a demon looks like. I don't know what sort of creature I ought to tell the Stones to find."
Perplexed by the problem, they stared at each other in silence for a moment. None of them, after all, had ever seen a demon or had any clear idea of what one looked like. If they didn't know what they were looking for, how were they supposed to find it?
Then Pen said, "Try holding on to the staff, Khyber. It helped me find Grianne in the Forbidding. If its purpose now is to find the demon, it might help you here."
He handed her the darkwand, which she took from him and held out in front of her in one hand while gripping the Elfstones in the other, summoning their magic. The moments crept by. Nothing happened.
"It isn't working," she said, a hint of panic in her dark eyes.
Pen took the staff back from her. "I guess it only responds to me. Let me try. If it showed me how to find Grianne, it should show me how to find the demon, as well."
He gripped the darkwand and turned his thoughts to the demon and the Forbidding. Instantly, the runes began to brighten all up and down the length of the staff, their glow soft at first and then building in intensity. When they began to dance off the staff like fireflies, Pen said quickly, "Now, Khyber! Put your hand over mine and use the Elfstones!"
She did so, gripping the staff with her left hand and lifting her right fist to call forth the magic. The response was immediate. The Elfstones brightened like blue fire, their light flooding from between her fingers in brilliant shards and exploding away toward the southwest. The light showed miles and miles of plains and hills, green expanses of grasslands and farms, then tightened to a point where a single airship sailed steadily west across the landscape. The craft was huge, a great warship, its decks thick with the black-and-silver uniforms of the Federation but stripped of any visible weapons. The vision tightened and settled on one man, an imposing patriarch with flowing white hair and a strong, imperious face, who stood in the pilot box as if to oversee its workings, his arms folded across his chest as he stared off into the distance where the thick forests of the Westland spread away from the broad, gleaming surface of a sunlit lake.
Seconds later, the image flared once and went dark, and the magic faded.
"Sen Dunsidan," Tagwen declared, loathing in his voice. Then he realized the implications of what that meant. "Shades!" he breathed, his face going pale.
"You're sure about this?" Bek asked, putting a hand on the Dwarf's broad shoulder.
Tagwen nodded firmly. "There's no mistaking him. He's come to Paranor enough times that 1 should know. Prime Minister of the Federation, but a snake of the first order. I would have been willing to bet everything I own that he was Shadea's ally in sending the Ard Rhys into the Forbidding. He's always hated her, ever since she manipulated him as the Ilse Witch. She made it up to him, but he never forgave her. He isn't the type to forgive anyone."
"But now he's the demon?" Rue interrupted. "What's going on?"
Bek shook his head. "The demon crossed over when Grianne was sent into the Forbidding. It must havetaken another form right away. It probably switched identities more than once. Now it pretends to be Sen Dunsidan. A good choice, it gives the demon tremendous power."
"It's going into the Westland," Khyber said. "That lake was the Myrian and those forests the Tirfing. It must think it's found a way to destroy the Ellcrys."
Bek nodded. "Flying west below Callahorn, away from the Prekkendorran and the normal routes of travel. It's trying to sneak in from below. It knows it will be seen eventually, but perhaps not right away.
It must have a plan for what it will do when the Elves intercept it. Negotiation first, perhaps, then force if all else fails. That warship looks formidable, even if it doesn't seem to be carrying any weapons. There must be something aboard that will allow the demon to destroy the Ellcrys."
"The Elves will never let it get close enough to threaten the tree," Khyber insisted.