"Not if they know it is a demon. But as Sen Dunsidan, it will get closer than it would otherwise. At any rate, we have to stop it. If we fly all night, we should intercept it by dawn."
"I might remind you," said Rue Meridian, who had come up quietly behind them while they were discussing what to do, "that we don't have any weapons on this ship except for a pair of rail slings. How are we supposed to intercept anything?"
Pen's father didn't seem to have an answer to that, saying that he would think about it.
Bek went back with Rue into the pilot box, leaving Pen with Khyber and Tagwen. Unable to get past his susceptibility to airsickness even on the calmest of days, the Dwarf was already starting to look a little green, and after grunting something about taking a nap he disappeared below. Pen talked with Khyber for a time, catching up on what had happened to her after he had gone into the Forbidding and telling her in turn what he had seen there. When they were finished with that, neither one wanted to talk about much of anything. They were exhausted from their struggles and in need of nourishment and rest. Khyber left to find something for them to eat, and Pen moved over to the bow and settled in.
Looking out over the countryside, he thought anew about what he was going to do when they found that warship and its demon commander. He was aware of how uncertain things were becoming once again, and the particulars of his own role in what lay ahead were the most nebulous of all. He had survived the Forbidding and a good deal more, but that didn't make him feel any better about his chances. He wished he had some idea of how the darkwand would work on the demon, but there was no one to tell him and no way for him to find out until the moment he was using it. He wasn't very reassured.
He found himself thinking about his aunt. Events at Paranor were in all likelihood already over. She had either regained control of the Druid order or she was dead. He didn't want to think like that, but he knew it was true. Thinking of what they had left her to face made him sick at heart. She seemed so frail and so vulnerable that he couldn't conceive of her surviving a battle with the rebel Druids. He told himself that she had survived in the Forbidding, so she might find a way to survive at Paranor. It would have been better, though, if they could have stayed to help. It would have been better if she weren't so alone.
Khyber returned with food and drink, and after Pen had consumed both, he went below and slept. His sleep was deep and untroubled until sometime around midnight, when he dreamed of a dark presence enfolding him so tightly that he couldn't breathe, and he woke sweating with fear.
After that, he didn't sleep at all.
It was two hours past dawn when the Moric saw the other airship approaching. By then, theZolomach had turned north along the silver ribbon of the Mermidon and was approaching the Valley of Rhenn on a day that was bright and clear and warm. The Moric didn't care what kind of day it was, it only cared that it was to be the last day it would have to spend in an unpleasant world. It hated the brightness and the smells. It hated the humans it was forced to live among. It was worse aboard this airship, where it was in proximity to them all the time and could not escape to its sewer refuge. Worse still, it had assumed the identity of a human who was never left alone for more than a few moments, even when sleeping.
It couldn't change the conditions of this world quickly enough.
But time was running out on the Moric. In spite of its success in avoiding detection by Elven airships, the atmosphere aboard this vessel was poisonous. Two days earlier, the Free-born army had overrun the Federation defensive lines on the Prekkendorran and sent that once seemingly invincible force fleeing back into the deep Southland in a reprise of what the Federation had done to the Elves some days earlier. Matters had turned about completely, and there was no changing them back. All attempts at rallying the remnants of the battered Southland army had failed, and the war, after decades of indecision, had turned decisively in favor of the allied Free-born. The Coalition Council was furious with Sen Dunsidan and had summoned him to appear before it, but the Moric was no fool. It knew, as Sen Dunsidan would have known, what that summoning meant.
So it simply ignored the Council, boarded theZolomach, and set sail for Arborlon. Its own plans were settled and in no way affected by anything that had happened on the Prekkendorran. Those aboard ship knew of their army's defeat, but had been assured that what they were doing would carry the war to the Elves and turn things around. They accepted that because they were soldiers and because they had no choice. No one wanted to question Sen Dunsidan, even when he was in disfavor with the Coalition Council. Sen Dunsidan had come back before, there was no reason to think he would not come back again.
They had been forced to travel cautiously, choosing a route that would keep them from being spotted by Free-born airships and would get them close enough to Arborlon and the Ellcrys that the Moric could implement its plan to get closer still. In a way, the defeat of the Federation army on the Prekkendorran had made its task easier. When finally intercepted by the Elves, the demon would say, in its guise as Sen Dunsidan, that it had come to discuss a plan for peace, to accede to conditions that would assure that the war would not resume. It would ask permission to fly to Arborlon to speak to the Elven High Council. It would give assurances that no treachery was intended and offer hostages as a show of good faith. It would demand that they let it remain aboard theZolomach because, in the face of so many of the enemy, no right-thinking commander would leave the only protection available. The Elves would accept his condition. The Federation ship would display no weapons and pose no visible threat. They would feel confident that they could deal with anything the Prime Minister might attempt.
If persuasion failed to win them over, then the demon would use the fire launcher, which was concealed inside what appeared to be a storage cabin on the foredeck. In the event of an attack, the front section of the cabin could be dropped away and the weapon armed and fired in seconds. The Elven airships would be burned out of the sky before they knew what was happening, and theZolomach would continue on its way. Once within range of the Ellcrys, a single direct hit was all it would take. It would be over before the Elves had a chance to do anything to stop it. In spite of having the fire launcher, theZolomach would be destroyed and its crew killed in reprisal, but the demon would escape because it would shed Sen Dunsidan's skin and take a new form. In the chaos, it would slip over the side of the ship. Once it was on the ground, they would never find it. But now an unfamiliar airship was approaching, and they were still too far away from Arborlon for it to be an Elven vessel. It was flying alone, as well, which suggested it had another purpose. The demon watched it grow larger, closing steadily, in no apparent hurry and with no indication that it meant any harm.
"Captain?" the demon said to the tall man on his right. "What ship is this?"
TheZolomach's Captain, who had been studying the vessel through his spyglass, shook his head. "No ship I know. Not a ship of the line. Not a warship." He looked again. "Wait. Her insignia is of a burning torch on a field of black." He trailed off. "She's a Druid ship."
The Moric stiffened. Shadea a'Ru? Come looking for him out here? The idea seemed preposterous.
"Who's aboard her? Tell me what you see."
The Captain put the spyglass up again and studied the ship. "Two Druids standing at the bow. A pilot.
Someone else. A boy, it looks like."
"Let me see."
The demon took the spyglass from the Captain and scanned the decks of the approaching airship. It was just as the Captain had said-four figures were visible on deck and no one else. No railguns were mounted, and no other weapons were to be seen. The demon lowered the spyglass and made a quick scan of the decks of theZolomach, reassured by the presence of Federation soldiers at every turn. There was no reason to be worried.
Still, it was uneasy. What was a Druid airship doing way out there by itself? It was not there by chance.
The encounter was not a coincidence.
"They're signaling to us," the Captain advised.
The demon glanced over at him in confusion. "Signaling?"
The Captain pointed to the line of pennants being raised along the other ship's foremast. "They wish to come aboard and speak with you. See the pennant with the silver and black on it? That's your pennant, Prime Minister. They must know you are aboard."
The demon's first impulse was to turn on the approaching airship and attack it at once. But the demon was trapped inside Sen Dunsidan's skin, and an unprovoked aggression against an ally would not be well received by the officers and men who crewed the ship. Worse, it might result in a battle they could not win. Although the Druid airship was not armed, the Druids themselves were formidable. If they were to damage theZolomach and force another delay, it might prove fatal to the demon's plans to reach the Ellcrys.
White-hot fury fed the Moric's sense of frustration, but it kept calm outwardly. It would have to deal with the situation in a diplomatic way. "Move alongside them and ask what they wish to speak to us about," he ordered.
The Captain raised his own line of pennants, then maneuvered theZolomach until she was close by her counterpart. The Druids stood at the railing, black-cloaked and hooded. The Moric glanced at the name carved into the ship's bow.SWIFT SURE. "Sen Dunsidan!" shouted one of the Druids, the taller of the two, a woman by the sound of her voice.
She kept her hood raised. "Shadea a'Ru sends greetings."
The Moric felt a twinge of panic. If Shadea had sent this ship and these Druids, then nothing good could come of it. After all, the Ard Rhys had already tried to kill it once. There was nothing to say that she was not about to try to do so again.
But then the demon remembered that it was no longer in the guise of Iridia Eleri, and it was the sorceress whom Shadea had sent assassins to kill. Sen Dunsidan was Shadea's ally. So far as the demon knew, nothing had happened to change that.
It calmed itself. "What does Shadea wish of me?" it shouted back in Sen Dunsidan's deep, resonant voice. "How can I be of service to the Ard Rhys?"
"She wishes to be of service to you," the speaker replied. "She wishes to present you with a gift that will be of use in negotiating with the Elves. She knows of the disaster on the Prekkendorran and wishes to mitigate the consequences. May I come over and present it?"
The Moric had no use for such a gift, but it understood that it could not afford to cast aside the offer out of hand. To do so would look suspicious. Worse, it would suggest that its motives in coming to the Westland were not peaceful. Shadea had allied herself and the Druids with Sen Dunsidan and the Federation. It made sense that she would want to aid the Prime Minister in his efforts at resolving the Federation dispute with the Free-born. She was as much at risk in this business as he was. The Moric wondered fleetingly how she had found out about where Sen Dunsidan was going and why, but it assumed she had spies at Arishaig who told her everything.
The Moric steeled itself. It would have to suppress its impulses and act as Sen Dunsidan would. This would only take a few minutes, and then it could be on its way. Better to placate the Druids than to irritate them.
"Let them board, Captain," it said to theZolomach's commander. "But watch them closely in the event this is something other than what it seems."
The Captain nodded wordlessly, and the Moric climbed down from the pilot box and walked over to the railing to await its visitors.
It won't work,Pen kept thinking.It will never work.
But it did. He could scarcely believe it when theZolomach's Captain ran up the line of signal pennants that invited the Druids aboard. He had been convinced that permission would be refused and they would be turned away without a second thought. But his father, who had conceived of the plan during the night and worked the details through carefully with his mother, had assured them all that the demon would relent. In its guise as Sen Dunsidan, it would be forced to do what Sen Dunsidan would do. It might want to turn them away, but it would realize that to do so would create suspicion and risk disruption of its efforts to reach the Ellcrys. Its overriding goal was to reach Arborlon as quickly as possible, Bek reminded them. It would do whatever was necessary to make that happen.
Under his father's steady hand,Swift Sure eased closer to theZolomach, and lines were thrown fromthe latter to the former and secured by Pen to the anchor stanchions so that the two vessels were joined.
Pen glanced up and down at the soldiers lining the other ship's railings and tried to reassure himself that they didn't matter, that the plan would work out as his father intended. His mother and Khyber, cloaked in the Druid robes his mother had stolen from Paranor and stowed aboard some weeks earlier, stood together at the bow, waiting patiently. They kept their hoods up and their features concealed. Sen Dunsidan didn't know any of them by sight save Tagwen, who was hiding belowdecks, but it didn't hurt to be cautious.
As he finished tying off the lines, Pen went over in his mind one last time the details of what was about to happen. If they were mistaken in any way about how the darkwand would react or if his aunt had guessed wrong about what he needed to do or, worst of all, if the King of the Silver River had deceived his father in his fever dream, then none of them were likely to return from theZolomach alive. But it was mostly up to him to make the plan succeed, and it was his own judgment that was likely to determine how things turned out.
His mother and Khyber were moving along the railing toward the ramp that had been lowered from the Zolomach to allow them to board. Unbidden, he fell into step behind them, carrying the darkwand in his right hand, the almost black, rune-carved surface gleaming in the sunlight. He sensed Sen Dunsidan's gaze-his demon's gaze-drawn to it. Cold and dead as deep winter, those blue eyes flared with sudden interest, and Pen felt a chill run up and down his spine.
Fighting down his repulsion and fear, he took a deep, steadying breath and stepped up onto the ramp behind his mother and Khyber as they walked slowly across to the other vessel. His father stood silently in the pilot box, showing no particular interest in the proceedings, a mercenary paid to do his job. But he would have already summoned the magic of the wishsong and be holding it at his fingertips. He would be watching carefully for any sign of treachery.
Pen paused to glance down. Below, the countryside spread away in a broad tapestry of mixed greens and mottled browns. They were several hundred feet in the air, suspended above the world with no place to run. Trapped, if things went wrong. But things would not go wrong, he told himself. He tightened his resolve and moved quickly off the ramp and onto theZolomach's decks.
Federation soldiers and crew surrounded him, crowding in until there was nowhere left to stand. Seeing what was happening, Khyber lowered her hood to reveal her Elven features, glanced disdainfully at the men, made a quick warding motion with one hand, and watched in satisfaction as they fell backwards like stalks of grass in a heavy wind. Only the demon was left untouched. It smiled Sen Dunsidan's smile, gave Khyber a small nod of approval, and came forward until it was only steps away.
The smile froze. "We have not yet met."
Khyber bowed. "I am a servant to my mistress, Shadea a'Ru, the true Ard Rhys. My name is of no consequence. Shadea sends greetings and asks that you accept her gift of this staff. She would have come herself, but her presence at Paranor is required while matters remain so unsettled within the order.
She sends my sister and myself in her place to offer reassurances of her commitment to the Federation.
The staff is a demonstration of her support for your alliance."
She gestured dramatically past Rue, who was still cloaked and hooded, to where Pen waited with the darkwand. As prearranged, Pen lifted the staff and held it out so that it could be clearly seen.
"The staff," Khyber said to the demon, whose eyes were riveted on it, "has a special use." She nodded to Pen, who turned his thoughts to the Forbidding and the creatures that lived within it. At once, his connection with the staff took hold and the runes blazed to life, a crimson glow that was blinding even in the bright morning sunshine. He saw that glow mirrored in the demon's gaze, hot and intense.
Khyber stepped close to the demon so that only it could hear. "The staff gives the holder the ability to command the attention of all who come into its presence. You can see that this is so. It also gives the holder small insights into the thinking of those with whom he negotiates, a window on their attitudes and concerns. It can be useful in knowing how best to persuade."
By now, images of the runes were dancing off the staff in wild patterns that flitted in the air all about Pen.
The Federation soldiers and crew muttered excitedly. The demon blinked and its eyes took on a new look, one both hungry and anticipatory. It wanted the staff, it needed to possess it.
"Will you accept my mistress's gift?" Khyber pressed gently.
Sen Dunsidan's anxious features tightened, and the demon's eyes glittered. "I would be honored to accept it."
Khyber looked once more at Pen, who came forward obediently, eyes lowered as much out of fear for what was about to happen as for the demon itself. When he got to within three feet, he stretched out his arm and canted the glowing staff toward the demon. The demon reached for it, and then, for just a second, hesitated. Pen felt his heart stop.
Then Sen Dunsidan's face broke into a broad smile and his fingers closed about the staff.
From the moment it saw the staff, the demon knew it had to possess it. It was not a rational craving. It was a compulsion that defied explanation and transcended reason. It was so overpowering that the demon barely heard what the Druid was saying as she explained the staff's uses. And when the boy held the staff forth and the runes carved into its burnished surface flared with hypnotic brilliance, the demon was lost. The staff must be claimed. The demon was its rightful owner and must possess it. Nothing else mattered. Not the destruction of the Ellcrys. Not its plans to bring down the Forbidding. Nothing.
Even so, it hesitated for just a second when the staff was extended, a glimmer of suspicion aroused by recognition of the intensity of its inexplicable attraction.
But it took the staff anyway, and the moment it did so it realized it had made a mistake. The runes blazed like tiny flames as the demon's hand closed about the carved wood, and another kind of fire exploded through the demon in response. It was a fire of possession, of transference and of magic, a fire meant to cleanse and to purify. The demon felt it instantly, and tried to pull away. But its fingers would not release.
They had taken on a separate existence, and no matter how hard it tried to loosen its grip, it could not.
It screamed then, a sound that rent the air and caused even the most hardened of the Federation soldiers to shrink away. It threw back its head and shrieked its defiance and fury. Some among the crew, the Captain included, came racing to its aid. The demon lashed out in response, its claws splitting the concealing skin of the human fingers, slashing and tearing at them until they fell bleeding on the deck of the airship.
The boy still gripped the other end of the darkwand, eyes wide and staring. He knew something of what was happening, the demon saw. Enraged, it snatched at him, trying to draw him close. But the boyducked away, and one of the Druid women shouted at him to let go of the staff. They understood what was happening, as well, the demon realized. It stumbled toward them, its limbs leaden and unresponsive, filled with the fire of the magic, throbbing with the molten heat of its workings. The boy backed away, stubbornly keeping hold of the staff, and finally the taller of the women flung herself atop him, dragged him to the deck, pried loose his fingers from the staff, and pulled him clear.
Instantly, the light of the staff bloomed until the demon was enveloped by its glow. It fought furiously to free itself, slamming the staff against the deck, twisting and flailing futilely. The skin of the human Dunsidan split wide and the clothes of the human Dunsidan ripped and tore. Both fell away, leaving it fully revealed.
Gasps and sharp hisses issued from the mouths of all who saw what it was, and there was a rush of booted feet on the wooden decks as men fled in all directions. The demon would have given chase, if it could have. It would have ripped their throats out. It would have drunk their blood. But it was consumed by its struggle with the staff and could do nothing but thrash and scream its hatred of them.
Then the light closed about it completely, and the world it had sought to subvert, together with the inhabitants it had come to despise, disappeared. The demon felt a crushing pressure on its chest and fought to breathe. It felt a shifting in time and place and realized in horror what was happening. It was going back into the Forbidding, back into the prison from which it had escaped. It was being returned to the world of the Jarka Ruus, a victim of the staff's magic, and there was nothing it could do to prevent it from happening.
It fought anyway, shrieking and spitting and thrashing, an insane thing, right up until the moment it blacked out.
Aboard theZolomacb, Federation soldiers and crew alike stared in shocked silence at the space Sen Dunsidan-or whatever had played at being Sen Dunsidan-had occupied only seconds before. Nothing remained but blood and shredded clothing and pieces of skin. None of them knew what had happened, and most didn't care to find out. All they wanted to know was whether there was any risk that the thing that had been the Prime Minister of the Federation was coming back.
Khyber swept the air in front of her with a sparkle of elemental magic to gain their attention, black Druid robes billowing out. "Back away!" she shouted at them, moving forward threateningly, occupying the space directly in front of what remained of Sen Dunsidan. She glanced down at those remains, and then up at dozens of frozen stares. "You didn't want him for a leader anyway, did you?"
Rue Meridian was hugging Pen, her face fierce. "What were you thinking, Penderrin?" she whispered.
"It would have taken you with it if I hadn't broken your grip on the staff!"
Pen was white-faced, both from the pressure of his mother's grip and the realization of how narrow his escape had been. He took a deep breath. "I wasn't sure what would happen if I let go."
She hugged him tighter still. "Well, whatever the reason, you hung on too long to suit me. You scared me to death!"
"I wonder if it worked," he said softly.
"You wonder if what worked?"
"Something I tried, right there at the end. The staff and I were joined. We were communicating. I wastelling it things. I was trying to make it understand me." He drew back and looked at her. "That was what I was doing, when I was hanging on, before you made me let go."
"Trying to tell the darkwand something?"
He smiled and nodded. "But I don't know if it understood."
It took a while for the Moric to regain consciousness after its struggle to resist being sent back into the Forbidding. As a result, it did not see the bright images projected into the air by the runes of the darkwand as it pulsated with light on the barren ground next to it. It did not see those images rise skyward to form intricate patterns that danced across the sullen clouds. By the time the demon stirred, the images had faded and the fire had gone out of the runes.
The Moric sat up slowly, knowing at once from the taste of the air and the smell of the earth that it was back inside its prison. It stared down at the staff, the once-gleaming surface become dusty and scarred.
The runes had gone dark and the magic had disappeared. It was just a length of wood, a useless thing.
When it became aware of the shadow looming over it and looked up to find the dragon, the demon had to stifle a gasp. A huge, scaly, armored monster, it was easily the biggest the demon had ever seen.
Freezing in place, the demon tried to figure out what to do, casting about in vain for a way to escape. The dragon was studying it intently, its lidded yellow eyes gleaming with a strange fascination.
And then it saw that the dragon wasn't looking at it, but at the staff that lay at its feet. The demon snatched up the staff and held it out to the beast, offering it eagerly. But the dragon didn't move. It was waiting for something. The demon laid the staff close by one of its huge, clawed feet and started to move away. But the dragon hissed at it in warning, freezing it in place.
The Moric turned back slowly, not knowing what to do, unable to determine what it was the dragon wanted.
The dragon, in no hurry, waited for the demon to figure it out.
Thirty-One.
The day was drenched in sunlight, and from high in the air where she rode aboard the Druid airship Bremen, Grianne Ohmsford could see the countryside for fifty miles in all directions. Huge, cottony clouds floated against the western horizon far out on the flats of the Streleheim, distant and remote, a soft promise of good weather. The airship sailed north on the first day of its expedition, and the woman who had once been Ard Rhys of the Third Druid Order was at peace.
She had known for a long time what she would do, she supposed. She had known from before she had come back through the Forbidding what must happen. The order would never heal while she was Ard Rhys, no matter how much she wanted to make it well, no matter how hard she tried to mend its wounds.