'Yes, Elder,' she replied, in a voice that sounded stifled.
'Very well,' he said. 'Go, then.'
*Chapter Seven ELSPETH
' Elspeth?' Despite the anxious tone of Skif's voice, Elspeth didn't look up from her book. 'What?' she said, absently, more to respond and let Skif know she'd heard him than a real reply. She was deep in what was apparently a firsthand description of the moments before Vanyel's final battle.
It was then that we saw how the valley walls had been cut away, to widen the passage, and the floor of the vale had been smoothed into a roadway broad enough for a column of four. And all this, said Vanyel, was done by magic. I knew not what to think at that moment.
'Elspeth, don't you think we should be getting out of here?' Skif persisted. 'On the road, I mean.' She looked up from her page, and into Skif's anxious brown eyes. There was no one else to overhear them; they were the only ones in the library archives, where the oldest Chronicles were stored.
Sunlight damaged books, so the archive chamber was a windowless room in the center of the library. Smoke and soot damaged them as well, so all lighting was provided by smokeless lanterns burning the finest of lamp oil, constructed to extinguish immediately if they tipped over. No other form of lighting was permitted-certainly not candles. Elspeth realized, as she looked into Skif's anxiety-shadowed face, that she didn't know what time it was. If any of the Collegium bells had rung, she hadn't noticed them.
Her stomach growled in answer to the half-formed question, telling her that it was past lunchtime, if nothing else.
She rubbed her eyes; she'd been so absorbed in her reading that she hadn't noticed the passage of time. 'Why?' she asked, simply. 'What's your hurry?' He grimaced, then shrugged. 'I don't like the idea of riding off south with just the two of us, but since you seem so set on it-I keep thinking your getting the Council to agree was too easy. They didn't argue enough.'
'Not argue enough?' she replied, making a sour face. 'I beg to differ. You weren't there. They argued plenty, believe me. I thought they'd never stop till they all fell over from old age.'
'But not enough,' he persisted. 'It should have taken weeks to get them to agree to your plan. Instead-it took less than a day. That doesn't make any sense, at least, not to me. I keep thinking they're going to change their minds at any minute. So I want to know why we aren't getting out of here before they get a chance to.'
'They won't change their minds,' she said, briefly, wishing he'd let her get back to her researches. 'Gwena says so.'
'What does a Companion have to do with the Council changing its mind?' he demanded.
That's what I would like to know, she thought. Gwena's playing coy every time I ask. I don't know, but ask yours. I bet she says the same thing.'
'Huh.' His eyes unfocused for a moment as he Mindspoke his little mare; then, 'I'll be damned,' he replied. 'You're right. But I still don't see why we aren't getting on the road; everything we need is packed except for your personal gear. I should think you'd be so impatient to get out of here that I would be the one holding us back.' She shrugged. 'Let's just say that I'm getting ready. What I'm doing in here is as important as the packing you've been doing.'
'oh?' He shaded the word in a way that kept it from sounding insulting, which it could easily have done.
'It's no secret,' she said, gesturing at the piles of books around her.
'I'm researching magic in the old Chronicles; magic, and Herald-Mages, what they could do, and so forth. So I know what to look for and what we need.' if he noticed that some of those Chronicles were of a later day than Vanyel's time, he didn't mention it. 'I suppose that makes sense,' he acknowledged. 'Just remember, the Council could change their decision any time, no matter what Gwena says.'
'I'll keep that in mind,' she replied, turning her attention back to her page. After a moment, Skif took the hint; she heard him slip out of his chair, and leave the room.
But her mind wasn't on the words in front of her. Instead, she gave thought to how much Skifs observations mirrored her own.
This was too easy. There was no reason why the Queen should have agreed to this, much less the Circle and Council. The excuse of the magical attack on Bolton, the Skybolts' deeded border town, was just that; an excuse. She had checked back through the Chronicles of the past several years, and she had uncovered at least five other instances of magical attacks on Border villages, all of which looked to her as if they showed a weakening of the Border-protections. The records indicated no such panic reaction as she'd seen in the Council Chamber; rather, that there was a fairly standard way of responding. A team of Heralds and Healers would be sent to the site, the people would be aided and removed to somewhere safer, if that was their choice, then the incident was filed and forgotten.
