« Khyber! How did you find me?»
The obvious relief mirrored in his boyish features made her smile broaden. «I saw what happened, slipped aboard one of the other airships, and flew into Paranor with you. Are you hurt?»
He shook his head. «Just get me free. I’ll tell you everything.»
She did so, using the dagger to cut through his bonds, then told him to wait while she hauled her three captives inside the cell and dumped them in a far corner. None of them moved even once while this was happening. «Let’s see howthey like being locked away in here,” she muttered. «Come on, Pen.»
« Help me walk, Khyber,” he asked, struggling to rise.
They went out of the cell as quickly as his legs would permit, but his mobility was severely restricted by leg cramps and stiffness. He had been bound up in the airship for much of the flight back, then brought directly to the cell and left as he was. He had lost all the feeling in both legs and feet in that time, and it was slow to return.
« I thought I was finished,” he admitted as he limped down the corridor, leaning heavily on her for support. «They caught me out, Khyber. I told them lies about what I was doing, but they saw through me and took the darkwand away. You saw that I had it, didn’t you? From across the ravine? I took it with me from the tanequil’s lair, kept it from that thing that tracked us from Anatcherae to Stridegate, kept it safe to use as I was instructed by the King of the Silver River, and they took it away!»
He was so distraught that he was practically crying. Khyber gave his shoulders a rough squeeze. «Then we’ll just have to get it back, Pen.»
They reached the end of the corridor, and she lowered the boy into the chair formerly occupied by the Gnome jailer, kneeling before him to rub some life back into his legs. «Now tell it all to me,” she said.
He did, beginning with his crossing to the island of the tanequil with Cinnaminson and his efforts to communicate with the tree and hers to form a bond with the aeriads. He continued by describing his ordeal in gaining possession of the darkwand from Father Tanequil, Cinnaminson’s seduction by the aeriads, his futile efforts to free her from the tree roots of Mother Tanequil, and his battle with the creature from Anatcherae. Finally, he explained how he had decided to surrender to the Druids both to help his captive friends and to reach Paranor, where he could use the darkwand at last to go into the Forbidding.
« I thought I could do it, Khyber. I thought they wouldn’t know what the staff was, even if they took it from me. I was stupid. They knew it to be a talisman at once. They pretended ignorance, then mocked me for my foolishness.»
« We will live to see them mocked for their own foolishness,” she muttered, still rubbing his leg muscles. «Any better?»
He nodded. «I didn’t know what had happened to you, except that I knew you were free. I thought you would be able to help Tagwen and Kermadec and the rest, even if the Druids took me. I never thought you would come after me.»
« Let’s hope the Druids were fooled, too. I don’t think they know I’m here yet, but they will soon enough. Someone is bound to come looking to see how things stand. Or for a change of guards. We have to get moving right now. Can you stand?»
She helped him to his feet, where he took a moment to stretch his legs and stamp his feet. «That’s better. The feeling’s back.» His face was drawn and weary, but determined, as well. «Traunt Rowan says Shadea will be back late tomorrow. I have time to get into the Forbidding before she does.»
The Elven girl brushed back her short–cropped hair and grimaced. She had only been told by the Druid that Shadea was away. «There are a lot of others we have to worry about in her absence, though, so we don’t want to get complacent. What is it you have to do, Pen?»
He moved close, then put his hand on her shoulder to steady himself. «Two things. I have to get the darkwarid back from Traunt Rowan, and then I must get inside the chamber of the Ard Rhys in order to enter the Forbidding, It shouldn’t be too hard, except that I don’t know how the magic of the darkwand works.»
She exhaled heavily. «It sounds pretty hard to me. Which part do you view as being easy?»
« No, no, you don’t understand. Now that I’m free, things are much easier. I can get to the darkwand and to the chamber of the Ard Rhys—I know I can do that much. Especially with you to help me.» He grinned at the consternation that registered on her sharp features. «Really, I can. Listen a moment. Something happened in the shaping of the darkwand. Or maybe even before, when the tree broke off its limb and took my fingers, but certainly by the time I was done carving its runes into the wood. There was a joining of sorts, a binding of the staff to me. I didn’t know about it, at first. I didn’t realize what it was. But I do now. I am connected to the darkwand in the same way I am connected to the parts of my own body. I can feel its presence. I can feel its responses to my needs.»
She shook her head. «I don’t know about this, Pen. You’re talking about a wooden staff—”
« I know where it is right now,” he said, cutting her short. «I knew it as soon as they took it away from me and brought me down here. The runes are like a voice in my head, calling to me. They want me to find the staff. No matter where the Druids take it or how hard they try to hide it, the runes will tell me how to find it. I will always know where it is. All I have to do is follow its voice.»
She wanted to say something about the reliability of voices in your head, but she forced herself to accept that what he was saying might be true. There had to be some kind of special connection between the boy and the staff or he wouldn’t have been summoned to receive it in the first place.
« So you can go right to it, now that you’re free?» she pressed.
« lean.»
« And then take it to the chamber of the Ard Rhys, where she went into the Forbidding, and figure out how to go in after her?» Khyber gripped his face in both of her hands and squeezed. «This doesn’t sound easy at all. We’re inside Paranor, and every Druid in the Keep is looking for you—or will be soon. We have no friends here, Penderrin. We have no allies, only enemies and potential enemies. We have no magic that counts. I can use the Elfstones once we’re backed into a corner and it doesn’t matter anymore, but by then we’re probably done for.»
« We can do it, Khyber,” he answered softly.
She stared into his eyes. «I think you believe that,” she said. She shook her head and sighed. «In any case, what does it matter? We both know we’re going to try. That is what we have been given to do and all we have left to do unless we try to go back to homes that aren’t even ours anymore.»
His enthusiasm faded suddenly. «My parents! What about my parents? The Druids still have them!»
« As a matter of fact, they don’t. Your parents fled or escaped or whatever, but they’re gone. I got that information from the Druid who brought me down here. So you don’t have to worry about them.»
His smile returned. «Then this is going to work. I know it.»
She wanted to tell him that he was right, that it would. But it was a stretch to accept that all the steps he must take to reach Grianne Ohmsford and return with her would be the right ones and none missteps that would doom them both. He saw things in simple terms, in the terms of a boy who believed everything was still possible and no reach too great. She knew better. She had a stronger sense of the possible than he did, and that made her cautious of embracing rarefied hopes too warmly.
She took her hands away from his shoulders and tucked them into her robes. «Let’s give it a try, Penderrin,” she said.
Outfitted in Druids’ robes, with weapons concealed and hoods pulled over their heads to shadow their faces, they went back up the stone stairwell to the upper corridors of Paranor. If Khyber had read the position of the stars correctly, it would be dawn in a few hours. She felt strongly that they had to complete their efforts by sunrise if they were to have any chance of succeeding. Once it grew light, they would have to hide. By the time it was dark again, everyone in the Keep would know that Pen was free and be looking for him. There would be little chance of succeeding after that.
Not that there was all that much chance of succeeding now.
She tried not to be negative in her thinking, but the odds against them were so enormous that she could not help herself. She reminded herself that the odds had been enormous from the beginning, and yet the two of them were still moving ahead, however slowly, still working their way toward their goal. They had lost good friends and strong allies, but even that hadn’t been enough to stop them. She must take heart from that. She had come a long way from her forbidden Druid studies with her uncle in Emberen—and a longer way still from her rarefied life as an Elessedil Princess in Arborlon. She could barely remember what the latter had been like. Her worries at the prospect
