were on fire.
He tried to speak and found he couldn’t.
Etan Orek appeared next to him and bent close. «Don’t bother trying to say anything, Sen Dunsidan. I removed your vocal cords while you were unconscious.»
Sen Dunsidan stared. Etan Orek was speaking, but it wasn’t the engineer’s voice he was hearing. It was a voice he had never heard before, a raw and whispery croak that seemed dredged up from the rough depths of a rock quarry. The eyes weren’t right, either. They were India’s eyes. Or were they? They reminded him of eyes he had seen somewhere else, somewhere he had all but forgotten. Eyes that belonged to the Ilse Witch. Or to the Morgawr.
Suddenly, he was more afraid than he had ever been in his life. He was terrified. It wasn’t Etan Orek he was looking at. It was someone or something else entirely. In spite of what he had been told, he tried to scream. He opened his mouth wide and screamed with everything he could muster. But no sound came forth—only a tiny bubbling and a spray of his own blood.
« You waste your energy,” his captor whispered. «Better save what is left. You will need it.» He smiled. «You have no idea what has happened to you, do you? No idea at all. Listen to me, then, for the time you have left. I am not Etan Orek, and I was not Iridia Eleri, either. I killed them both and took their skins to hide what I really am. I am something from another place, Prime Minister. I am what you and your foolish Druids released from the Forbidding when you sent your Ard Rhys there to be imprisoned. It was not your fault that you did so, how could you know what you were doing when we were so careful not to let you discover the truth?»
He glanced over his shoulder at the door, and then bent close again. «Your fate is your own doing, Prime Minister. You could have avoided this if you hadn’t been so insistent on attacking the Prekkendorran. Had you done as I suggested and gone to Arborlon, you would have preserved your life for at least a little while longer.»
Sen Dunsidan stared at the other in horror, the full impact of those words settling in. Desperate to free himself, he surged upward violently against his bonds, but he might as well have been wrestling against iron chains.
« It is time for you to die, Sen Dunsidan. I doubt that many will miss you. I have watched how you are received, and there is no love for you. There is only hatred and fear and a sense it would be better for everyone if you simply disappeared.»
His captor moved to the head of the workbench, standing where Sen Dunsidan could not see what he was doing. His mind fought to accept what was happening, to make sense of his situation, but all he could think about was getting free. He jerked his head back and forth violently, hammering it up and down against the table, trying to draw the attention of his guards who waited for his call from just outside the doorway of the workroom. Why had he left them out there? Why had he been so confident that he was safe?
Fool!
Hands grasped his head and held it firmly in place. The hands were scaly and clawed, and he shuddered at their touch. A face bent close, a face like none he had ever seen.
« Hold still,” the creature whispered. «Breathe deeply, and it will all go much easier for you.»
It leaned forward slowly, still holding Sen Dunsidan’s head firmly in place. The clawed fingers reached into the corners of his mouth and pried it open. Sen Dunsidan tried again to scream and again failed. The creature’s face was dissolving as it lowered toward his own, and he felt something bitter and sharp fill his mouth and worm its way down his throat. It was like inhaling a steaming mist thick with the taste of iron and sulfur. He gagged, but the mist continued down his throat and into his body, working its way all through him.
When the pain started, he began to shriek soundlessly, over and over again. His body heaved and bucked and twisted in a futile effort to gain relief. Nothing helped. The invasion continued until the pain became unbearable.
He never knew if his heart or his sanity gave out first, but either way, it was the end of him.
It was well after sunset, the sky beginning to fill with stars, a quarter moon rising in the east and the lights of the city of Arishaig glittering in the distance, when the Prime Minister reached the airfield. Accompanied by his personal guard and a wagon with its bed covered in a canvas, he arrived in his carriage. The Captain of theZolomach was waiting for him, his airship ready and his crew trained as ordered to prevent against attacks on the vessel’s steering. All that was needed was the order to depart.
The Prime Minister strode over wordlessly, wrapped and hooded in a heavy travel cloak, his face concealed in shadow.
The Captain came to attention and saluted. «My lord.»
« Ready, Captain?»
« Yes, my lord.»
« The weapon is in the wagon. Carry it aboard and set it in place. Make sure it is properly tightened down and the swivel mechanism working as it should. Take as much time as you need. Our departure is at dawn. Any questions?»
His guards were already unloading the weapon from the wagon bed and setting it carefully on the ground. «No questions, my lord,” the Captain replied. «We will be ready at dawn.» He paused. «You will be sailing with us?»
« I will.»
« Engineer Orek?»
« Engineer Orek will not be coming back with us. He met with an accident. A fire. His workroom and all of his projects and plans were destroyed. A terrible loss. He was careless, and it cost him dearly. A good lesson for us all. Let’s remember it when we set sail tomorrow. We can’t afford any mistakes on the Prekkendorran.»
« No, Prime Minister, of course.» The Captain didn’t like the way the other’s eyes glinted from within the hood. «There will be no mistakes.»
« I will hold you to your word,” the Moric advised from within the skin of Sen Dunsidan, and turned away.
Twenty–Four
She had intended to close her eyes for only a few moments, but Khyber Elessedil knew she must have fallen asleep for much longer: When she woke her thinking was fuzzy and lethargic and her mouth dry. She was slumped down against the railing where she had taken the reading with the Elfstones some time earlier, and the Stones were still clutched in her hand. She looked around, trying to get her bearings, trying to clear her head, and slowly her memory returned.
The Ard Rhys. Penderrin.
She reached down and touched her wounded side gingerly. The bleeding had stopped, but the entire area burned and throbbed. She tried not to think about what that meant, and instead shoved the Elfstones back in her pocket. Then, using the railing for support, she hauled herself to her feet. She had no idea how much time had passed, inside the furnace room of the Druid’s Keep, there was no change of daylight for night from which to tell. At least no one had discovered her. Perhaps, if she was lucky, no one even knew she had escaped.
But time was slipping away.
She closed her eyes and in her mind retraced the hidden passageway that led to the sleeping chambers of the Ard Rhys. She had to get there quickly if she was to find a way to help Pen and Grianne Ohmsford before they attempted their return from the Forbidding.
Whether by warning them or by damaging the triagenel, she must give them a chance to escape the Druids waiting for them.
She looked down at herself and saw rags and dirt and blood. She saw that her hands were shaking. It had taken almost all her energy to get so far. She didn’t have much strength left, and there was still a long way to go. She wanted to go back to sleep, but she knew that if she did, she might not wake up.
She had to get out of there. She had to keep moving.
She looked around the room. Her journey began at the door at the top of the stone stairway behind her. She took a deep breath, tottered from the pit railing to the steps, and began to climb, leaning against the wall on her
