She waited on it, but eventually it disappeared and the night was empty of everything but what was usually there. She found herself wondering how long she could stay in Drisker’s house and remain safe from the creatures she now realized were watching her.
She shook her head as she rose and went inside. Sleep now, worry later. Tomorrow would be a big day. For her. For Tarsha.
When she woke, she would know better what the future held.
THIRTEEN
In the shadow-layered passageways of Paranor, in the gloom of a halfway world, Drisker Arc walked alone, wrapped in dark thoughts. All around him the silence was an intense, suffocating presence. Only the scrape of his boots on the stone flooring and his own measured breathing broke its spell. Time had passed, but it was difficult to know how much. There was nothing by which to measure it. There was no day or night, no full dark or light, no sun or moon. The shadows did not alter, frozen in perpetual twilight and so fixed they might have been painted on the walls and floors of the Keep. While Drisker moved about the buildings, the courtyards, the towers, and the walls, he could feel growing within him the certainty that he was losing ground. Chances were slipping away. Opportunities remained hidden and secretive, and still no solution for escaping his prison had presented itself.
Shades knew he had tried to find one. He had tried to use the Black Elfstone over and over again. He had done everything he could think to do to bring its magic to life. He had willed it to surface; he had threatened and cajoled. He had pictured what it would do if it were triggered and when that failed had given himself over to a blind faith and desperate plea that it would do anything at all.
And still nothing had happened, and he remained imprisoned. He began to imagine that like the Keep he was fading away. He could tell he was becoming less substantial, more ephemeral, the longer he remained trapped in this endless limbo. He wondered if eventually he would lose everything that made him who he was and become a shade that would wander endlessly in search of meaning. It did not feel unlikely. He had kept despair at bay until now, but he was beginning to feel it press against him with inexorable determination. And once it took hold, he knew he was finished.
Helplessness was already an insistent presence in his life. He found himself struggling with visions of what might be happening back in the Four Lands. Clizia Porse was free to carry on with her machinations, the Skaar were relentlessly foraging deeper into the lands south of Paranor—perhaps preparing to challenge the might of the Federation itself—and Tarsha Kaynin was searching for her brother with no one to protect her against her own bad judgment.
All of it was maddening.
That Dar Leah might have located Tarsha and be looking after her as she searched for her brother—since by now it was clear that Drisker and Paranor were gone—provided some small consolation. But nothing changed the fact that there was nothing he could do about any of it while he remained trapped within the Keep.
He slowed for a moment, thinking once more of the archives, wondering for what must have been the thousandth time if there might be something in there that could help him. But he could think of no artifact or talisman or magic that would free him from his prison and return him to the Four Lands other than the Black Elfstone. His frustration surfaced anew. When he could call upon so many forms of magic to serve him, why couldn’t he find a way to call upon this one? What was he missing?
He revisited his efforts—every one of them. He took his time, cataloging and examining each carefully. Was there something he hadn’t tried? Was there another summoning spell, another method of conjuring he had failed to remember? Was there something he could do differently? Cogline had seemed to suggest there was, that he was not doing something that was needed to make the magic respond.
What was it the old Druid had said to him? It requires something of you to command such magic. It demands a price.
But what sort of price?
He looked around, almost expecting to find Cogline watching him in his struggles, thinking perhaps to ask him for more information. But shades rarely helped the living, and when they did it was always in an enigmatic way. They gave hints at solutions, but it was up to the one who needed the answers to unravel them. In any case, there was no sign of his ghostly companion. For the moment, at least, Cogline had chosen to let him reason things through on his own.
As if that were possible.
His emotions overcame him—frustration, rage, and despair—and tears filled his eyes. His dark face grew darker, and he hunched over as if in pain. For an instant, he was overwhelmed. He was never getting out of Paranor. He was never going to find a way to return it or himself to the land of the living. He would never see Tarsha or Dar Leah or Fade or even Flinc again. He was going to remain trapped within the Keep’s walls until he simply faded away.
He was going to die here.
It was this last conclusion that proved intolerable and brought him back to himself. Calm once more, he cast off the negative feelings and began tightening his resolve. There would be no giving up, no quitting, no acceptance of a fate he could not envision for himself. He would simply keep searching for a way out of this prison until he found it. He stared around at the shadowed walls, searching for what he knew was hiding there.
An answer to his problems, a way out of the Keep.
Cogline.
There had to be something more the old man could tell him, even if only speaking in riddles.
But that isn’t the only way he can communicate with me, Drisker realized suddenly.
He raced for the stairs leading to the higher floors, heart pounding. The Druid Histories. Why hadn’t he thought of them earlier? All of the long and storied writings of the Druids were chronicled there. Surely something about Cogline must be included, and perhaps something about how the Black Elfstone was employed to open the Keep while he was imprisoned all those centuries ago.
So anxious was he to get there, he slipped twice on his way to the third level, where the Histories were stored, barking his shins. All of the despair and depression had dropped away, and while he knew he could not be certain what he would find or how much help it would provide, at least he had a place to begin.
The pounding of his boots on the stone energized him, the rhythm urging him to go faster, but he slowed as he reached the third floor, winded and not wanting to get ahead of himself. Before him, lounging in the hallway, he could see the ghost of Cogline waiting for him, an expectant look on his withered face.
“I was curious to see how long it would take you to figure it out.”
Drisker gave him a look. “Not all that long. But you could have told me to come here in the first place.”
“Life is an education, Drisker. It is learned mostly through what you discover on your own and not through what others tell you.”
“So you don’t have anything new to reveal, I gather?”