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  All who resided in the Four Lands knew the legend of the King of the Silver River, though not all believed it. He was said to be a Faerie creature, as old as the Word itself, come into being at the same time and made part of the world in its infancy. The last of his kind, he was caretaker of wondrous gardens hidden somewhere in the Silver River country, a place where no humans were allowed. He was seen now and then by travelers, always in different forms. Sometimes he would give aid to them when they were lost or in peril. He had done as much for several generations of Ohmsfords, going all the way back to Shea and Flick, in the time of the Druid Allanon. Others in the Four Lands might doubt his existence, but those like Bek, who had encountered him, and Pen, who had heard his father's story, did not.

  «Well spoken, Penderrin," the old man said. «You are clearly your father's son. What we must determine now is if your courage is a match for his.» He came forward in a sort of half shuffle, stopping at the pilot box steps. «Are you brave enough to undertake a journey to find your missing aunt and bring her safely home again?»

  Pen glanced quickly at Tagwen, searching for reassurance and finding only surprise and confusion. It was what he should have expected. No one could answer such a question for him.

  «She badly needs you to do this," the King of the Silver River assured him. «She is trapped in a very dangerous place, and she cannot get home again without your help. No one can save her but you, Penderrin. It is an odd set of circumstances that makes this so, but it is the way of things nevertheless.»

  Tagwen grunted. «This boy is the only one who can help the Ard Rhys? No one else? What about his parents? What about his father, Bek Ohmsford? He has the same magic as his sister, a very powerful magic, to assist him. Surely, he should be the one to make this journey.»

  The old man leaned more heavily on the black staff and cocked his head as if seriously considering the question. His gaze was distant and just a little sad.

  «Often, it is the least likely among us who is in a position to accomplish the most. It is so here. Bek Ohmsford cannot help his sister this time. Penderrin is just a boy, and it would seem impossible that a boy would be best able to save so powerful a wielder of magic as Grianne Ohmsford, Ard Rhys and Ilse Witch. Certainly those who have sent her to her prison would never think it possible. Perhaps that is why they have overlooked him. In truth, they think it is his parents they need to fear, and so seek them out, just as you do.»

  «I knew it!» Tagwen exclaimed angrily. «It was Shadea a'Ru and Terek Molt and the rest of them! They've done this to her!»

  He was practically beside himself, and Pen felt compelled to put a cautioning hand on his shoulder, but the Dwarf barely seemed aware of him. He stamped his foot furiously. «Vipers! Treacherous snakes! Kermadec was right all along! She should have rid herself of the lot of them long ago and none of this would have happened!»

  The King of the Silver River passed his hand in front of the Dwarf's eyes, causing him to sigh heavily and grow calm again. «It isn't as simple as that, Tagwen. In fact, there are others responsible, as well, others who are from different places and pursue different goals. But the most dangerous of those who would see the Ard Rhys destroyed is someone of whom the others are not even aware. That one plays the others as a master does his puppets, pulling the strings that guide their actions. Wheels within wheels, secrets yet unrecognized. The danger is far greater than it appears, and it threatens far more than the life of the Ard Rhys. Yet she is the key to restoring a balance, to making things right again. She must be returned to the Four Lands in order for everything else that is necessary to happen.» He looked at Penderrin. «You, alone, can bring that to pass.»

  Pen sighed, thinking that only a day ago he was wondering how to best pass the time in Patch Run until his parents returned. He had been anxious for an adventure, eager to be with them in the Wolfsktaag, to be a part of their lives as guides of an expedition. Now he was being recruited to undertake an expedition of his own, one that appeared to be far more dangerous than theirs. How quickly things changed.

  «What is it you want me to do?» he asked.

  The King of the Silver River climbed the steps to the pilot box, not in a weary shuffle, but in a smooth, effortless glide. One wrinkled hand came to rest on the boy's shoulder. «You must abandon your efforts to find your parents; they cannot help you in this. If it were possible for them to do so, I would have gone to them first. I shall speak with them in any case to warn them of the danger from your enemies. But your parents' time is past, Penderrin; it is your time now. You must go in search of your aunt without them, and you must do so at once.»

  «Then I shall go with him," Tagwen declared bravely. «Finding the Ard Rhys is my responsibility, too.»

  The King of the Silver River glanced at him appraisingly, then nodded. «You will make a good and loyal companion, Tagwen," he said. His eyes shifted back to Pen. «Such companions will be needed. Find them where you will, but choose them with caution.»

  He leaned forward, and his thin, aged voice lowered until it was almost a whisper. «Listen carefully. A potion has been used against the Ard Rhys, a magic of great power. The potion is called liquid night. It has imprisoned your aunt in another place, one that cannot be reached by ordinary means. A talisman to negate its magic is needed. The required talisman is a darkwand. It is a conjuring stick and must be fashioned by hand from the limb of a tree called a tanequil. The tanequil is sentient; it is a living, breathing creature. It will give up a limb only if it is persuaded of the need for doing so. It must act freely. Taking the limb by force will destroy the magic that it bears. Someone must communicate with the tanequil in a language it can comprehend. Someone must explain to it why its limb is so important. Penderrin, you have the gift of magic, the talent with which you were born, to do this.»

  Pen was speechless. He was being told that his little magic, which he had repeatedly dismissed as being virtually useless, was suddenly his most important possession. He could hardly believe it, but the old man's words bore weight, and he could not bring himself to dismiss them out of hand.

  «How will I know what to do?» he asked. Even if he wasn't sure yet whether he would go—and he most certainly wasn't—he had to know what was needed if he did. «How will I know what language to speak to it or how to shape this darkwand from its limb?»

  The King of the Silver River smiled. «I cannot tell you that. No one can. But you will know, Penderrin. When it is time, you will know. You will understand what to do, and you will find a way to do it.»

  «Well, we have to find this tree first," Tagwen interjected, huffing doubtfully. «How do we do that? Is it far away?»

  «The tanequil grows in a forest on an island in a lake deep in the Charnal Mountains. To reach it, you must pass through gardens that were once the center of an ancient city called Stridegate. Trolls and Urdas inhabit the surrounding forests and foothills. They will know the way to enter and pass through.»

  Pen shook his head. «I don't know if I can do this.» He looked at Tagwen. «I've never even been out of the Borderlands.»

  «I don't know if you can, either," Tagwen replied. His bearded face was scrunched up like crumpled paper. «But I think you have to try, Pen. What else can you do? You can't abandon her.»

  He was right, of course, but Pen was beset with doubts. The Charnal Mountains were more dangerous than the Black Oaks, and to try to penetrate them with as little experience as he had and not even a sense of where to go seemed foolish.

  The King of the Silver River sighed with what seemed deep regret. «Life offers few certainties, Penderrin. This journey is not one of them. Hear me out, for there is more to know. What I have told you is only a first step. Your journey begins with your search for the tanequil. It begins with your shaping of a darkwand. But it ends in another place altogether. The darkwand must be taken to Paranor and the chamber of the Ard Rhys. There, the talisman's magic will give you passage through the curtain of liquid night to where the Ard Rhys has been imprison
ed. Only you, Penderrin, and you alone. No other may go with you. Not even Tagwen. When you find your aunt, the darkwand will give you passage back again—you, because you bear the wand, and your aunt, because the magic of the wand negates that of the liquid night.»

  He paused. «But remember, no other may pass. The magic's thread is slender and fragile, and it cannot be rewoven or lengthened to accommodate others. Passage over allows passage back, but there can be no deviations. There can be no exceptions.»

  Pen was not at all sure why the other was making such a point of this, but he thought it was in reference to something very specific, something that the old man did not want to reveal in greater detail. That was in keeping with what he knew to be true about the ways of the ancients, the Faerie creatures who were the first people. They spoke in riddles and always held something back. It was in their nature, very much as it was in the nature of the Druids, and that would never change.

  What should he do?

  He looked into the eyes of the old man, then at Tagwen's rough face, and then off into the night, where possibilities were still shaping themselves and dreams still held sway. He had never been put in a position where so much depended on a decision and the decision must be made so quickly.

  Then, almost without thinking about it, he put aside his objections and concerns as secondary to his aunt's needs. He stood staring down at the wooden deck of the pilot box for a moment, measuring the depth of his commitment. It all came down to the same thing, he supposed. If their positions were reversed, would his aunt do for him what he was being asked to do for her? Even without knowing her any better than he did, he was certain of the answer.

  «All right," he said softly, «I'll go.»

  He looked up again. The King of the Silver River nodded. «And you will come back again, Penderrin. I see it in your eyes, just as I saw it more than twenty years ago in your father's.»

  Pen took a deep breath, thinking that what was mirrored in his eyes was probably more on the order of bewilderment. So much had happened so quickly, and he was not sure yet that he understood it all or even that he ever would. He wished he had more confidence in himself, but he supposed you got that only by testing yourself against your doubts.

  «Where has my aunt been imprisoned?» he asked the old man suddenly. «Where do I have to go to find her?»

  The King of the Silver River went very still then, so still that at first it seemed as if he had been turned to stone and could not speak. He took a long time to consider the boy's question, his ancient face a mask of conflicting emotions. The silence deepened and turned brittle with suspense.

  The longer Pen waited for a response, the more certain he became that he would wish he hadn't asked.

  He was not mistaken.

  * * *

  When the King of the Silver River had gone, Penderrin slept, exhausted by the day's ordeal. He woke again to sunshine and blue sky, to soft breezes blowing off the Rainbow Lake, and to birdsong and crickets. Tagwen was already hard at work, clearing away the debris from their landing. Pen joined the Dwarf in his efforts, neither of them saying much as they labored. They cut away the mast, then found a suitable tree from which to fashion a new one. It took them most of the day to shape it, then set it in place. By the time it was firmly attached to the cat, the sun had gone west and the shadows were lengthening.

  They ate dinner on the deck of the airship, a patched–together meal of foodstuffs left aboard from an earlier outing, fresh water and foraged greens. Fish would have helped, but they would have had to eat it raw since neither was willing to risk a fire. They had not seen the Galaphile since the previous night, and they believed themselves safe from it there in the lands of the King of the Silver River, but there was no point in taking chances.

  Dinner was almost finished before Pen spoke about the previous night. By then, he had spent the better part of the day thinking it through, repeating the words of the King of the Silver River in his mind, trying to make them seem real.

  «Did it all happen the way I think it did, Tagwen?» Pen asked finally, almost afraid of what he was going to hear. «I didn't imagine it?»

  «Not unless I imagined it, too," the Dwarf replied.

  «Then I agreed to go find my aunt?»

  «And me with you.»

  Pen shook his head helplessly. «What have I done? I'm not up to this. I don't even know where to make a start.»

  Tagwen laughed softly. «I've been giving it some thought, since I saw how dazed you were last night. One of us needed to keep a clear head. You may have the means to secure this darkwand, but I have the means to look out for us. I think I know what we need to do first.»

  «You do?» Pen didn't bother to hide his surprise. «What?»

  The Dwarf grinned and pointed toward the setting sun. «We go west, Penderrin, to the Elven village of Emberen.»

  TEN

  She awoke to the sound of weasel voices, raspy and sly, the words indistinguishable one from the other. The voices giggled and snickered, little taunts intended to disparage her, to make her feel vulnerable and weak. She listened to them from within layers of cotton that wrapped about her like a chrysalis. The voices hissed with laughter. She was a nameless corpse, they whispered, an empty shell from which the life had been leeched away, a body consigned to the earth's dark breast for burial.

  She fought against a sudden stab of panic. She was Grianne Ohmsford, she told herself in an act of reassurance. She was alive and well. She was only dreaming. She was asleep in her bed, and she remembered …

  She drew a sharp, frightened breath, and her certainties were gone as quickly as the voices, disappeared like smoke.

  Something had happened.

  Still wrapped in cotton that filled her head and mouth, that bound up her thoughts and clogged her reason, she tried to move her arms and legs. She could do so, but only with great effort. She was terribly weak and her body was responding as if she had slept not for one night but for a hundred. She brought one hand to her breast and found she was still wearing her nightclothes, but no blankets covered her. The air smelled stale and dead, and she could not feel even the smallest trace of a breeze. Yet where she slept within the towers of Paranor, there was always a breeze and the air smelled of the trees, fresh and green.

  Where was she?

  The softness of her sleeping pad and comforter were gone. She felt hard ground beneath her bare arms; she smelled the earth. Her panic returned, threatening to overwhelm her, but she forced it down. She had no patience for it and no intention of giving it power over her. She was not harmed; she was still whole. Deep breaths, one after the other, calmed and steadied her.

  She opened her eyes, peeling back the layers of deep sleep into which she had sunk, squinting into hazy gray light. It was night still. She was staring at a darkened sky that domed overhead in a vast leaden canopy. Yet something was wrong. The sky was cloudless, but empty of moon and stars. Nor was the sun in evidence. The world was cast in the sullen tones of a storm's approach, shrouded in layers of silence, in hushed tones of expectation.

  It must be twilight, she decided. She had slept longer than she thought. The sun was down, the moon not yet up, and the stars not yet out—that would explain the strange sky.

  The weasel voices were gone, a figment of her imagination. She listened for them and heard nothing, either in her mind or in the real world. But there was no birdsong either, or buzzing of insects, or rustle of wind in the trees, or ripple of water in a stream, or any sound at all save the pounding of her heart.

  It took her a while, but she finally forced herself to move, rolling to her side and then into a sitting position, wrapping her arms about her drawn–up knees to keep herself in place. Slowly, her vision sharpened from a watery haze to clarity, and the spinning that had begun when she levered herself upright faded.

  She looked around. She sat in a ragged, blasted landscape, surrounded by trees that were wintry and thick with withered leaves. The trees had the look of blight about them, sic
kened so that they could no longer thrive. Because she was sitting on a high piece of ground overlooking several valleys and, further out, a river, she could see that the forest extended for miles in all directions, bleak and unchanging. Farther out still, at the edges of her vision, mountains loomed stark and barren against the skyline.

  Paranor was nowhere in evidence. Nor was there any sign of anything else man–made—no buildings, no bridges, no traffic on the river, not even a road. No people. No life. Seemingly, she was alone in this empty, alien world.

  And yet …

  She took a second look around, a more careful look, seeing her surroundings with a fresh eye and, to her surprise, recognizing what she saw. At first, she couldn't believe it. She was still struggling with the idea that somehow she had been transported in her sleep—drug induced, she was certain—to a strange and terrible place, all for reasons that were not yet apparent. Disoriented and confused, she had misread what was now patently clear. The land she was looking at, although now turned lifeless and empty, was the land she had gone to sleep in last night.

  She was still in Callahorn, in the Four Lands.

  Yet it was not the Callahorn she knew and, from what she could see of it, only a ruined shell of the Four Lands.

  She sat staring off into the distance, her gaze shifting from feature to feature to make certain. She took note of the Dragon's Teeth, their jagged outline unmistakable, as familiar to her by then as her own face. And there, a glimpse of the Mermidon, south and west where the mountains broke apart. The plateau on which she sat was where the Druid's Keep had stood. North, south, east, and west, the geography was just as it had been for thousands of years.

  But blasted and leeched of life, a corpse of the sort she had thought herself to be on waking.

  And where was Paranor?

  She could reach only one conclusion. Either she had awakened in the aftermath of the Great Wars or gone into a future in which a similar catastrophe had occurred. But that was impossible.