Jarka Ruus - Терри Брукс

He turned for the door. «Stay a moment," she said. «I have more to say to you. Heed me well. Are you listening, Terek?» The Dwarf turned back slowly, brow darkening in anticipation of what he knew was coming.

«Speak your mind, woman.»

«First," she said, walking over to stand directly in front of him, «don't come into this room again until you are invited. Not for any reason.» She waited for his response. He grunted and shrugged. «Second, don't fail me again. I would not be pleased if you did.» He laughed. «I am less concerned about pleasing you than pleasing myself, so spare me your threats. The matter of finding and dispatching the boy and the old man has become personal. I don't like to be tricked. They used magic of some sort or I would have had them. I intend to see that accounts between us are settled.»

She held his fierce gaze a moment, then nodded. «Fair enough. But that may not prove to be so easy now that you must contend with Ahren Elessedil, as well. Dispatching him may prove troublesome, even for you. So I am sending someone to help.»

The Dwarf glowered at her. «Who? If not Iridia …»

«Another Druid would only muck up the waters. You don't need another Druid to get this business settled.» She paused. «I'm going to send Aphasia Wye.» Terek Molt turned his head aside, though barely, and spit very deliberately on her carpet. «No.» «This isn't open to debate.» «I won't put that monster on any ship I command. Get someone else, if you think you can.» «I don't want anyone else. If I wanted someone else, I wouldn't be talking with you! Where is your backbone? Are you afraid? Think how it will it look if you stay behind after failing so badly the first time. Some will see it as a weakness, and you can't afford that.» She drew her robes about her in a dismissive fashion. «Be smart about this, Druid. You are the best of the lot and you know it. I depend on you. Don't make me question my faith in you.»

«You've never had faith in anyone but yourself, Shadea.» «Think what you want. What matters is that you understand that Aphasia Wye is coming with you. Stop worrying. He won't dare to cross you.»

The Dwarf snorted derisively. «Aphasia Wye will cross anyone if opportunity allows for it. He's a monster, Shadea. There isn't anything that creature won't door anyone he won't do it to. Shades, we don't even know what he really is!»

She laughed. «He's the most efficient assassin I have ever seen! What more do you want him to be? I don't care what sex or race or breed he is! I don't care how loathsome you find him! You're not partnering with him! You're putting him to work! Stop whining!»

Terek Molt was seething, his chiseled face turned red, the muscles of his forearms knotted. He was as dangerous at that moment as she had ever seen him, and if she was foolish enough to give him an opening, he would kill her before she could blink. But she faced him down, keeping his eyes locked on hers and making him see that no matter how dangerous he was, she was more dangerous still.

«Don't even think it, Dwarf," she hissed softly. «Remember who I am.»

He glared at her a moment longer, then looked away, furious still, but no longer threatening. «Someday you will go too far with me, Shadea.» His voice was eerily calm. «Be careful of that day.»

«Perhaps," she replied, reaching past him to open the door. «But until then, you will listen to me when I tell you what to do. Go ready the airship. When the storm passes, you will sail at once.»

His big hands tightened into fists as he considered saying something more. Then, without doing so, he turned his back on her and walked away.

* * *

She waited until he was well away and her frustration with his recalcitrance had faded before she departed for the cold chamber to find Iridia Eleri. The sorceress would not be happy with what Shadea intended to tell her. Unfortunately, disappointing Iridia was unavoidable, because the sorceress was only as reliable as her control over her feelings about Ahren Elessedil, which meant she was not reliable at all. Iridia had set her mind on the matter long ago, and Shadea was not going to be able to change it, even if she tried.

Love was like that.

Denial only sharpened its edges.

Shadea entered the cold chamber and found Iridia standing at the broad stone basin set in its center, bending close as she read the movement of its contents. The scrye waters were shallow and deep green, shielded from the elements by the walls of the tower and the sides of the basin. Disturbances came solely from magic channeled through the earth's lines of power. Just then they manifested themselves as concentric ripples fanning out from a point just west of center. Iridia's slender hands moved in time to the ripples, as if to trace their liquid ridges back to her doomed love. Her perfect features radiated her intensity, a mix of light and dark, pale skin and black hair. Her Elven features were drawn taut by her concentration, emphasizing what could be both passionate and cruel about her. Shadea stood in the doorway and watched her for a long time, observing. Iridia, captive to her memories and her dreams, didn't even know Shadea was there. It was possible that the madness Iridia had always seemed so close to embracing was finally coming to her.

«Iridia!» she called sharply.

The sorceress turned at once. «Have you heard?»

Shadea walked over to her. «Terek told me of it. Is there no chance that you are mistaken?»

The delicate features hardened. «What do you take me for? I don't make mistakes of that sort. It was Elfstone magic, which means it could be him. I want to make certain of it, Shadea. You will have to send someone in any case. It should be me.»

Shadea shook her head. «It should be anyone but you. What will you do if you find him and he looks at you and you cannot act? Don't tell me it cannot happen because I know better. I was there, Iridia, when you lost him. You were inconsolable for weeks. He was the one you wanted—the one you will always want.»

«I don't deny that!» she snapped. «But that part of my life is over. I am committed to our efforts here. If he stands in our way, if he acts to help her, then I want him dead! I have the right to watch him die. I ask nothing more than that. If he is to be killed, I want to be there to see it. I want my face to be the last face he sees in this life!»

Shadea sighed. «You only think you want that. What you want is for him to take you back again, to tell you that he loves you still, despite what has happened. If he were to do so, you would abandon your cause and us in a heartbeat. No, wait, Iridia—don't lie to yourself. You would, and you know it. Why wouldn't you? I don't condemn it. I would do the same in your place.»

«You would do nothing of the sort.» the other woman sneered. «You have never loved anyone but yourself. Don't pretend to understand me. I know love compels me, but it compels me in ways other than those you seem so quick to attribute. Love doesn't compel me to embrace him; it compels me to see him suffer!»

«Yes, but not at your hands.» Shadea moved away, gazing out the tower window at the enfolding darkness and roiling storm clouds. Outside, the wind began to howl and the rain to fall in heavy curtains that lashed the stone walls.

«Better at my hands, where we can be certain of the result, than at the hands of Terek Molt, who has already failed us once!»

«Better at another's hands entirely. I am sending Aphasia Wye to make certain the job is done right.»

She glimpsed Iridia's face out of the corner of her eye, and the look confirmed what she had already decided about the other's feelings for Ahren Elessedil.

«Iridia," she said softly, turning back. «Distance yourself from this matter. Leave it to others to determine what is needed. You have suffered enough at the hands of the Elven Prince. He has betrayed you already and would do so again. His loyalty is to her, not to you. That will never change. To place yourself in a position where you must test your resolve is foolish and dangerous. It asks too much of you.»

The sorceress stiffened, her lips tightening to a thin, hard line, her perfect features cast in iron. «And you think too little of me. I am not a fool, Shadea. I am your equal and in some ways your better. I have experiences you do not; don't be so quick to dismiss me as a lovesick child.»

«I would never do that.»

«You not only would, you do!» Iridia's glare would have melted iron. «If Ahren Elessedil has used the Elfstones to try to help that woman, I want him dead as much as you do. But I want to see it happen. I want to watch him die!»

«Do you?» Shadea a'Ru paused. «I would have thought you'd had enough of that sort of thing.

How many more of those you profess not to love, but secretly do, must you watch die before you are satisfied?»

Iridia's face went white. «What are you talking about?» There was an unmistakable warning in her words.

Shadea ignored it, her gaze cold and empty. «The baby, Iridia. You remember the baby, don't you? You didn't love her, either.»

For a long moment Iridia neither moved nor spoke, but simply stared at Shadea, the look on her face one of mixed incredulity and rage. Then both drained away with frightening swiftness, leaving her features calm and dispassionate. «Do what you want," she said.

She turned and walked away without looking at Shadea. As she went through the door, she said softly, «I hate you. I'll see you dead, too.»

As Iridia disappeared down the tower stairs, Shadea glanced after her, thinking for just a moment that she should go after her, then deciding otherwise. She knew the sorceress. Iridia was quick to anger, but she would think the situation through and realize she was being foolish. It was better to let her be for now.

She looked down at the scrye waters in the basin. The ripples had disappeared; the surface had gone completely still.

Ahren Elessedil would be made to vanish just as swiftly.

* * *

One last task remained to her, the one she dreaded most. She had no more love for Aphasia Wye than did Terek Molt, but she found him useful in carrying out assignments that others would either refuse or mishandle. She had already seen enough of the latter in the hunting down of Grianne Ohmsford's family, and the task would get no easier with Ahren Elessedil added to the mix. Terek Molt might protest her decision, but it was a matter of common sense and expediency. One Druid of her inner circle was all she cared to spare for the venture, and one was probably not enough.

As she passed through the towers and hallways of the Keep, by sleeping rooms and meditation chambers, the resting and the restless, her mind focused on the task ahead. She wanted the business over, but not before she had accomplished what was necessary. She had given the matter considerable thought since Terek Molt's return. It was a mistake—her mistake, unfortunately—to have thought of the Patch Run Ohmsfords as ordinary people. The boy and his parents might not be Druids, but that did not render them commonplace. The magic that was in their blood, and their long history of surviving against impossible odds, made them dangerous. It would require a special effort to overcome both, one that she would not underestimate again.

It would help that she had the services of Aphasia Wye. But something more was needed.

She descended the winding stairways of the Keep into its depths, into the cellars and dungeons that lay far underground in the bedrock, dark places where the Druids seldom ventured. Her destination was known only to her, now that Grianne Ohmsford was gone, a place she had discovered some years ago while shadowing the Ard Rhys in an effort to discover her secrets. She had been good at shadowing even then, having developed the skill in her early years when the uses of magic were first revealing themselves to her. It was dangerous to challenge Grianne Ohmsford's instincts, but she managed it with the aid of a fine–grained, odorless dust that rendered the other's tracks visible in a wash of prismatic light. Layering the dust in the dark places she knew the other sometimes went, she would wait for her return before sneaking back down to read the trail. She had gotten lucky once or twice, but never again as lucky as with what she now sought to retrieve.