When they arrived at Paranor, she took the two-man directly over the top of the wall and close to the dark towers for a quick look. But the Keep seemed to be abandoned still, unchanged since Aphenglow had returned. Seersha maneuvered toward the landing platform and set their vessel down.
They climbed out of the cockpit and stood amid the clustered mix of wrecked and undamaged airships, taking a careful look around. The sun had gone behind the trees west, and its light was beginning to disappear. Shadows draped the stone and iron of the Druid’s Keep, and the cool of nightfall infused the deepening dark.
Seersha took a long moment to be certain that nothing living was hiding in those shadows before satisfying herself that they were alone.
“Stay with the two-man until I get back,” she told Crace Coram. “No one who isn’t a Druid is allowed where I am going.”
She left him behind looking irritable and went through the rubble and debris and heaps of ashes littering the ramp, past the wreckage of Arrow with its prow lodged in the collapsed doorway, and into the Keep proper. She followed the hall for a short distance to a stairway and then made her way upstairs. Two flights up, she stepped through an opening to a second hallway and followed it to the door that opened into the cold room, where she triggered a release of the protective locks.
Inside, the chill was bone-deep. Seersha shivered as she moved over to the elevated basin, stepped up onto the stone blocks that formed its base, and stood looking down at the broad, placid contents. Summoning the magic she had learned to command in the early days of her service to the order, she spread her hands and swept her open palms over the surface while not quite touching it, the motion stirring the waters to life. In the depths of the basin, the lines and shadings of the map of the Four Lands drawn on the stone brightened in a flaring of colors and sudden shimmers.
Then small flashes began to appear here and there across the face of the map. The most intense concentration was in the city of Arishaig, and it caught Seersha’s attention immediately. The flashes were all blue, a sign of Elven magic, and she wondered right away if they were residue from use of the Elfstones. She could tell from the strength of the flashes that the magic was very recent and spread out all through certain sections of the sprawling city.
But what in the world would Aphen and Arling Elessedil be doing in Arishaig?
She scanned the remainder of the map as it shimmered and flashed within the waters of the scrye. There were strong indicators of the demons hordes assaulting the city. There were extraneous bits and pieces flashing here and there.
But nothing more noticeable than that.
She spent a few more moments studying the scrye. Then she wiped the images clean with sweeping motions of her palms, returning the basin to its former condition. Once finished, she left the room, locking the door behind her.
She stood for long moments in the empty hallway, mulling over what she had seen and what it meant for her plans. There was so much she didn’t know and could only guess at. She wished she had the use of other tools with which to track her friends and their companions. She wished she had magic that would allow her to see beyond the horizons and into the hearts of those she worried for.
But she had none of this, only the skills and magic she had learned as a member of her order. Yet in her world, you worked with the tools at hand. These would have to do.
She pushed back strands of dark hair that had fallen over her rough features and stared off into space. She needed to decide what she was going to do. She had thought she already knew before she used the scrye, but now she wasn’t so sure. The logical choice was to go into the Eastland and assist in the summoning of a Dwarf army to march to the aid of the Elves and the Southlanders, but something inside was tugging her another way, whispering that there were better, more important ways in which she could use her Druid skills.
She broke off the debate and returned down the hallway, descended the stairs, and went out the broken entry to the landing field where Crace Coram was pacing about restlessly, eyes scanning the tops of the walls that hemmed him in.
He turned at once at her appearance. “Can we go now? I don’t mind telling you that all these walls make me feel like I’m locked in a cage. I don’t know how you stand it here.”
She nodded. Dwarves preferred the mountains and woodlands to fortress walls, felt more comfortable in open spaces than in confined ones. She felt the same way he did; it had taken her a long time to put aside her distaste and accept the presence of so much stone and iron shutting her in.
“You get used to it,” she answered softly. Then she moved toward the two-man. “Come, we can go.”
But once they were aboard their vessel, she found herself sitting in the pilot box undecided about what to do next.
“What’s wrong?” her companion asked. He moved up beside her and bent close. “Not sure about where to go?”
She nodded. “I want to do something to help those people in Arishaig. I know I should go with you to muster an army from the Dwarf tribes to rally them to the fight, but …” She trailed off. “I keep wanting to do something more immediately useful.”
“You’re a warrior, Seersha. A fighter.” Crace Coram shrugged. “So you want to fight. You want to join the battle.”
“That’s it,” she admitted.
He emitted an abrupt laugh, a hearty burst that made her smile. “Then do so! Fly to Arishaig and let’s see if we can’t help those trapped there.”
She looked over her shoulder at him. “We?”
“You don’t expect me to stay behind, do you? Miss out on a fight like this one?”
“What about warning the Dwarves?”
“Oh, come now. They don’t need us to warn them. They keep watch on things just like everyone else. They’ll already know what’s taken place and have begun massing their fighters and making a decision about how best to use them. What can we add to that?”
She gave him a long hard look. “You’re sure you want to come with me? You don’t have to.”
He laughed again, his huge arms reaching out to hug her. “Girl, I didn’t have to come with you in the first place! I came because I wanted to. Nothing’s changed about that. Fly the ship!”
She opened the parse tubes to the diapson crystals and powered up their vessel. She waited a moment for the levels to rise sufficiently and then engaged the thrusters.
“I’m glad you’re coming with me,” she said to him.
Moments later they were airborne over Paranor and flying south.
Seventeen
With Grianne Ohmsford now aboard, the Quickening and her passengers were riding the back of a huge storm down out of the Klu Mountains and along the north–south corridor formed by the Charnals and the Lazareen. The storm had overtaken them shortly after they had lifted off from Stridegate and begun the long, slow journey back through the Northlands toward Callahorn. No more than gusting winds and distant clouds at first, the storm had quickly formed into a black wall of driving rains with intermittent hail. The temperature had dropped sharply, and the air grew so cold that it penetrated the heavy weather cloaks of the members of the airship’s crew and began to form ice on the decks.
Mirai Leah was in the pilot box working the controls with Austrum standing at her shoulder, one spelling the other when weariness and cold threatened to affect performance. Neither had spoken a word since they had set out. They had barely glanced at each other. Farther back, the Rover crew was clustered along the aft railing with Skint, staring off into the darkness.
Railing Ohmsford was hunkered down against the front wall of the pilot box next to Challa Nand, tightly wrapped in his weather cloak and trying to find what little shelter he could by using the other’s huge frame as a shield against the heavy winds and rain. He was thoroughly miserable, but his misery had more to do with the misfortune he had brought upon his friends and companions than with the storm. No matter how you looked at things, everything was his fault. His pigheadedness, his pride, his overconfidence, and his unwillingness to listen to anyone but himself—they had all contributed to his failure to realize that he was making a mistake.