He nodded, unruffled. «You always had that, Shadea, from the moment you told me what you intended and recruited me to your cause. I am as committed as you will ever be.»
Perhaps, she thought. But we will never know for sure because there is no way to test such a claim. For her purposes it was sufficient that he was committed to support her as the new Ard Rhys after Grianne was dispatched. Once she held that office, and despite what she had told them to gain their support, they would all become expendable. Her plans were greater than they knew and did not include them.
«We are agreed then,' she said, looking from face to face, seeking again any sign of hesitation.
«We are agreed,' Traunt Rowan affirmed. «Now tell us where you intend to imprison the Ard Rhys. Where can you send her that she cannot find a way back to haunt us?»
Shadea a'Ru smiled at the looks on their faces when she told them.
FOUR
Sen Dunsidan was a cautious man. He had always had reason to be cautious, but he had more reason these days since he had more to lose. His life's accomplishments were impressive, but the price exacted in exchange had been severe and permanent. It wasn't the sort of price one could measure in terms of wealth. If it had been only money, he would not have been as cautious as he was. The price levied against him was a piece of his soul here and a part of his sanity there. The price was psychological and emotional, and it left him bereft of almost anything resembling peace of mind.
Not that he had ever possessed much of that in any case. Even in the days when he was only Minister of Defense of the Federation and in the thrall of the Ilse Witch, he had compromised himself in almost every way imaginable to advance his position and increase his power. Peace of mind was a benefit that did not accrue to those who lacked moral restraint. He was cautious back then, as well, but not nearly as much so as now. He saw himself as invincible in those days, too clever for anyone to outsmart or outmaneuver, too powerful to be challenged. Harm might come to lesser men, but not to him. Even the Ilse Witch, for all her disdain and aloofness, was wary of him. He knew how she saw him—how most saw him. A snake, coiled and ready to strike. He did not take offense. He liked the image. Snakes were not cautious. Others were cautious of snakes. It was beneficial to instill a sense of uneasiness in those with whom he was compelled to deal.
Caution came to him after he broke off his relationship with the Ilse Witch—betrayed her, in fact—and allied himself with the Morgawr, her warlock mentor. It was the smart thing to do. The Morgawr was the more powerful of the two and the more likely to succeed in their battle to destroy each other. Moreover, the warlock was the one who was willing to give Sen Dunsidan what he wanted most in exchange for his support—a chance at becoming Prime Minister. Two men stood in Sen Dunsidan's way, and the Morgawr had them killed in what appeared to be for one an accident, and for the other, natural causes.
But what the Morgawr claimed from him in the bargain was much more than he had ever expected to pay. The Morgawr forced Sen Dunsidan to watch as he turned living men into the walking dead, creatures without wills of their own, things that did only as they were told. Worse, he forced Sen Dunsidan to participate in the atrocity, to bring the men to him under false pretenses and to witness their destruction. When it was finished and the Morgawr had gone, Sen Dunsidan was a changed man. Even after becoming Prime Minister, even after gaining enough power that no one dared to challenge him, he never felt safe. Devastated by watching what had been done to those men, by being an accomplice to it, he could not regain the sense of invincibility he had once thought he would never lose. Worse, he could not take any comfort in what he had gained. He could not stop thinking about those men. He became obsessed with his own vulnerability; his need to protect himself against falling victim to what he had witnessed dominated his thinking. Emotions already blunted by his lesser crimes were turned to stone. His heart hardened and his soul shriveled. He no longer felt anything for anyone other than himself, and what he felt for himself was mostly fear.
With the passing of the years, he grew steadily more unsettled, responding to fears he could not control.
Tonight was one of those times.
He sat waiting impatiently in a reading chair that did not face the doorway of the room, but a blank wall. The room itself was in a place he had never thought he would visit. He was at Paranor, a guest of the Druids and, more particularly, of his onetime nemesis, Grianne Ohmsford. Twenty years ago, when she had returned from the airship voyage she had undertaken in search of a lost magic from another time, he had thought himself a dead man. She had destroyed his ally, the Morgawr, and would certainly have determined that he had supplied the Federation ships and men under the warlock's command. Had she been the Ilse Witch still, had something not happened to change her while she was away, she would have killed him at once. Instead, she had ignored him, retreating to the confines of Paranor, secluded with the shades of dead Druids, and had done nothing.
At first, he had thought she was playing a game with him and had waited stoically for the inevitable. But after a time, he began to hear rumors of a new Druid order and an Ard Rhys who would lead it. He heard that the Ilse Witch had forsaken her name and disclaimed her past, that she was no longer who or what she had been. It was too outlandish to credit seriously, the sort of rumor that invariably proved false. But men and women from all the Races were traveling to Paranor to seek a place in the Third Druid Council, and he began to wonder.
And then the impossible happened. She summoned him to a meeting on neutral ground to discuss their relationship. He went because he saw no reason not to. If she wanted him dead, she would find a way to make him so and hiding in his compound in Arishaig, or anywhere else in the Four Lands, wasn't going to save him. To his astonishment, she told him that the past was behind them both and it was time to consider the future. There would be no more dealings of the sort that had taken place before. There would be no recriminations for what was done. She sought instead to open lines of communication between Paranor and the Federation that would facilitate a productive sharing of ideas and solutions to problems of mutual concern—like the war on the Prekkendorran, for instance. She would give him what help she could in his new position as Prime Minister, sharing knowledge that would aid the people he led. In turn, he would help her restore the credibility and effectiveness of the Druids throughout the Four Lands.
It had taken him a while to adjust to the new relationship, but in the end it gave him back the life he had thought forfeited and so he was willing to make that adjustment. There had been other meetings over the years, many of them, with visits to Paranor by him and to Arishaig by her. Discussions had been held and trades made and, all in all, they had gotten along well enough.
Which never once stopped him from trying to find a way to kill her, of course. It was impossible for him not to think of doing so. Whoever she claimed she was, Ilse Witch or Ard Rhys, she was too dangerous to be allowed to live; nothing prevented her from reverting at some point to the creature she had been, casting off her new guise, her new identity. More to the point, he knew he could never control her. If he couldn't control her, he couldn't control the Druids, and controlling the Druids was essential if he was to govern the Four Lands. That was his ambition and his intention, and he meant to see it fulfilled. Only the Free–born stood in his way, but eliminating the Free–born meant finding a way to subvert the Druids. They claimed not to be siding with anyone in the Federation–Free–born conflict, but it was clear enough that however the war on the Prekkendorran turned out, the Ard Rhys was never going to allow either side to crush the other.
Sen Dunsidan had decided long ago that crushing his enemies was the only way to survive them. Leaving them alive after you had defeated them only gave them another chance to come after you. If they were dead and gone, you had nothing to worry about. So he was in Paranor for yet another meeting with Grianne Ohmsford, for discussions concerning the Prekkendorran and the war with the Free–born and whatever else she cared to talk about, and none of it mattered to him because the meeting would never happen. It was scheduled to take place in the morning, but by then the Ard Rhys would be dead. Or would wish she was.
It had taken a long time to find a way to eliminate her, and it had come about in a most unlikely way from a most unlikely source. Assassination had always been an alternative, but her instincts were so acute that she could sense that sort of thing almost without making an effort. Her magic was formidable, the wishsong of the Ohmsford legends, passed down through the bloodline, stronger in her than in almost any other member of her family, made so by her training and her life as the Ilse Witch. You might try to catch her off guard and kill her, but you would have a better chance at growing wings and learning to fly.
