Terry Brooks: Bloodfire Quest

Once outside the Keep, they rushed across the courtyards to the Outer Wall. Bodies lay everywhere, scattered like windblown stalks of corn in an abandoned field. No birds pecked at them, and no four-legged scavengers fed. Nothing had disturbed them since they had died. They were twisted and broken, but their remains had been left alone.

“Nothing living wants any part of these poor dead creatures,” Woostra muttered as they hurried past.

Aphenglow was looking around, searching the shadows and listening for the voice, but everything was silent and blanketed in soft, white light. The night was clear and empty of everything but a quarter moon and stars. Shadows cast by the towers, the walls, the parapets, and the trees of the forest themselves draped the stones of the Druid’s Keep.

Climbing to the battlements where they could peer over the side of the Outer Wall, they crouched in silence while Aphenglow used both her senses and her Druid skills to layer a skein of magic over the surrounding forest. She found no evidence of a human presence. She found scant evidence of any life at all.

She looked at Woostra when she was finished and shook her head. Nothing. Nodding, he motioned for her to follow him down again. Together they descended the battlement steps.

They were halfway across the courtyards and heading back toward the Inner Wall when tendrils of greenish mist began seeping out of the stone ahead of them. The mist advanced toward them, reaching the clusters of dead, penetrating the lifeless bodies and turning them to dust. Aphen and Woostra began to run, skirting the mist until they had passed once more into the Keep. Winding through a series of secondary corridors, they found their way back to the furnace tower and its metal catwalk.

That was when they both heard the voice.

Aphen.

They stopped as one, looking at each other.

None can leave.

Aphen felt her heart catch in her throat. We are not like the others.

All the living are the same. All must become the dead.

She saw Woostra close his eyes in mute acceptance of his fate. He knew this was the risk they had taken. As did she, but she refused to embrace it.

Your task is finished here. The Keep is intact. The Druids are safe. Let us be.

Then release me!

Its scream shook her to the soles of her feet, reverberating through her body like a shock wave. She could feel pain and rage emanating from the words. But what was it asking of her? She had released it already.

You are released already.

No!

She hesitated, having no idea what her response should be. What was it seeking from her? She could feel its presence now, pushing closer, drawing near. She glanced down into the pit and saw the greenish mist rising from the depths. Instinctively, she backed away, flattening herself against the stone of the chamber wall. Woostra was beside her, his face drawn and gray.

The voice screamed again. Release me now!

It was coming for them, and there was little doubt of what it intended once it reached them. She started to summon the magic she could use against their attacker. Release it? Release it how?

Then abruptly, she saw what it was asking of her. She rushed to the railing, looking down at the approach of her own death.

“I release you back into your resting place! Listen to me. The Druids are returned!” She screamed the words, the sound echoing off the walls of the Keep. “I release you from your task and send you back!”

There was a long, deep, endless sigh, and the greenish mist began to recede back into the gloom, withdrawing into the depths, a roiling haze slowly losing color and presence until it was gone.

Aphenglow felt the tension and fear recede within her, and she exhaled slowly in response.

“Hurry,” she told Woostra.

She was thinking of the future now, of what it meant to leave Paranor. The Druid’s Keep would be abandoned, with no Druids in residence and no immediate prospect of any returning. With the magic that warded the Keep sent back into seclusion, all of Paranor was again at risk. But there was nothing to be done about it. Not when so much else was at stake, as well.

Unspeaking, they made their way down the circular stairway to the entrance of the underground tunnel, passed through, and went back out into the world.

Aboard Wend-A-Way, Arling Elessedil waited all night for the return of her sister and Woostra. She did not sleep much, but sat with Cymrian on the forward deck of the airship, staring out into the darkness and worrying about Aphen. She was dismayed that she was the cause of everything that was happening, but at the same time was grateful that Aphen had come to her aid.

She was not meant to be a Chosen; she had decided that some time ago. She was meant to go to Paranor and become a Druid like her sister. The heart-stopping news that she had been chosen to replace the tree—a fate she could not have imagined in her wildest dreams—simply reinforced her conviction. If Aphenglow could find a way to help her walk away from this, everything could be as it was meant to be. It wasn’t that she felt no obligation toward the Chosen order or her service. It was just that there was a limit to what could be expected of a person no matter what you had agreed to do or how much you wanted to do it. She had found hers yesterday at sunrise.

There would be others among the Chosen who would better serve the needs of the Ellcrys in this business. If she was truly dying—a conclusion that Arling was not yet ready to accept—another descended from the Omarosian bloodline could carry her seed to the Bloodfire and make the transformation to replace her. Another who was more devoted and spiritual than Arling and better prepared to do what was needed.

She cringed at her own thoughts, but at the same time could not shake the certainty that she was not ready for this. She was still a young girl with her whole life ahead of her. She had entered into the Chosen order with the expectation of serving a single year. It was a much-sought-after honor, and she had embraced it readily enough. But never with the expectation that more would be required of her than was required of anyone else.

“Are you all right?” Cymrian asked her at one point. “It’s cold out here. Would you like a blanket?”

She was wrapped in her travel cloak, but even so she was shivering. “I would,” she admitted.

He left her side to retrieve one and was quickly back again, placing it about her shoulders then sitting close with his arm around her to help keep her warm. She leaned into him, grateful for his reassuring presence. She wished Aphen would return. She felt so much better when her sister was close.

“You must not think much of me right now,” she said.

“Because you don’t want to be a martyr for our people? Because you don’t want to transform into the Ellcrys?” He shook his head. “I don’t know anyone who would want that. I certainly wouldn’t.”

“But I have been asked, and there is so much at stake. What if there is no one else who can do this? Or no one who will?”

“We don’t know enough yet to be certain of anything. Give Aphen a chance to see what she can discover.”

She lowered her face against his shoulder. “I’m just so scared.”

The hours slipped away, and for a time she dozed. She felt Cymrian holding her, never moving. Each time she drifted awake he was there, keeping her warm and safe, protecting her as he had promised he would. One day, she thought drowsily, she would find someone like Cymrian to love.

It was still dark when she heard voices whispering and sensed movement on the deck of the Wend-A-Way . She opened her eyes to find Aphen smiling down at her with Woostra looking on.