The High Druid's Blade Read online

  “Pretty much. A weak usage might not even register, but we aren’t really looking at those incidents, in any case. We are mostly interested in the stronger ones because they indicate a more powerful form of magic and the possibility of greater danger to anyone close.”

  “The reaction to my fight with Arcannen must have been fairly dramatic.”

  Sebec cocked an eyebrow. “Enough so that the Ard Rhys was summoned immediately. The search to uncover the source of the magic was begun that very night. We found Arcannen quickly enough. It took a little longer to find you.”

  “How did you find me?” Paxon pressed. “How did you even know I had been to Dark House?”

  “Oh, that wasn’t so hard. At the direction of the Ard Rhys, I flew to Wayford and asked around. We have people living there—friends of the Druids—who keep us informed. Once we knew of Arcannen’s involvement, one of those friends advised me that the sorcerer had just that day flown in from Leah with a new girl for one of his pleasure houses. When I spoke with the airfield manager, he pointed me toward the boy Grehling. He told me about you.”

  Paxon pursed his lips doubtfully. “He didn’t seem the type to tell much of anything to anyone.”

  Sebec shrugged. “He isn’t. But I can make almost anyone tell me what they know, if I wish it. That’s part of what I can do with my magic.”

  Paxon wasn’t all that happy to hear that magic had been used against Grehling, but he supposed it was in a good cause if the end result had led the Druids to him and in turn brought him to Paranor. He didn’t think Sebec would do anything to hurt the boy. Still …

  “Sebec!” the other Druid called out, pointing at the basin waters, which were shimmering and giving off tiny ripples just above the outline of the rebuilt Southland city of Arishaig.

  Sebec and Paxon moved over for a look. “A medium disturbance, nothing too overt, but heavily concentrated on one area. Or person.” He caught the Highlander’s quizzical look and smiled. “Once you learn to read the waters—something all Druids have to learn how to do—you can pretty much tell what is happening when magic is used.” He nodded to the other Druid. “I will let the Ard Rhys know of this.”

  He left the room at once with Paxon in tow, and it seemed to Paxon they were departing with more alacrity than he would have thought necessary, given Sebec’s disclaimer about the disturbance. Then he remembered how Sebec had told him that his own use of magic had warranted summoning the Ard Rhys, and wondered if this instance wasn’t more serious than the young Druid was letting on.

  They went up to the top level and the quarters of the Ard Rhys. Sebec knocked, waited for permission to enter, and left Paxon outside to wait. The Highlander moved over to a bench on the other side of the hall and sat down, thinking it over. He supposed it wasn’t strange that Sebec would shade the truth about the seriousness of any particular magic’s use. Why should Paxon be allowed to know the truth of such things? He was only in training, and there was no guarantee he would still be around in a month or two. Even though he believed he would be, no one could be sure.

  He remained where he was until Sebec emerged and then rose. Sebec came straight over. “She seems to know what it means, but it doesn’t hurt to make certain. Are you hungry yet? Would you like to go to lunch?”

  That afternoon proceeded in very much the same way as the one before it. Oost started off with a short lecture about positioning and stance, then set him against the machine once more. This time Paxon felt he made Big Oost work a little harder, but the end result was pretty much the same. Though he strove mightily to break through the other’s defenses, he was blocked every time. The closest he got was when by accident, on a misstep, he struck back almost out of reflex and seemed to catch his sparring partner off guard, nearly getting past its belated block.

  It started Paxon thinking, and when the session was over he found himself wondering if he couldn’t take advantage of what he had learned that afternoon. Shouldn’t there be a way to catch Big Oost by surprise? A way that would allow him to break past the machine’s automatic defenses and strike off his protective helmet?

  Then late that night, when he was lying in bed still thinking about what might work, something occurred to him. He was looking at things the wrong way around. Oost himself had given him the clue he needed, and he hadn’t paid close enough attention to it at the time.

  But he was paying attention now.

  On the third day, he had the morning to himself. Sebec was otherwise occupied, and Paxon took advantage of the free time to explore the outside world from atop the walls of the Keep, viewing the surrounding forestlands and the distant mountains, orienting himself with his surroundings by direction and points of reference.

  Skipping lunch, he went straight to the practice yard. He sat through another short lecture from Oost Mondara and then picked up his sword. Standing toe-to-toe with Big Oost, he started his regular feints and cuts and slashes, and then stopped thinking about what he was going to do and just reacted. He wheeled about so that his back was to the machine, then finished the movement by coming full circle. As he came around, he thrust swiftly and without thought at the helmet atop the pole, broke cleanly past the defensive block Big Oost tried to employ, and sent the helmet spinning away in a bright flash of metal to slam against the stone wall twenty feet away.

  Oost Mondara climbed off his perch, grinning wickedly. “So, young Paxon, you figured it out, did you?”

  “You said early on that nothing is what it seems when you face an enemy in combat, and that you should be ready for anything. Then I started mulling over what you said about infusing a piece of wood and metal with magic. But wood and metal aren’t sentient, so how could you do that? It seemed more likely that you were operating Big Oost yourself, controlling its movements by thought. You could see what was coming; you could anticipate what I was going to do. So Big Oost was responding to your own instincts. I was fighting you, after all.”

  “Exactly. You were trying to break past my defenses, and I was trying to stop you. So it’s time we move on. Until now you hadn’t gotten to the place where you were ready to test yourself against an attack I might mount. That’s what we will work on next. Sit and have a drink of water, and we’ll start anew.”

  Starting anew, as it turned out, quickly washed away any lingering sense of accomplishment and thrust the Highlander directly into a fresh kind of suffering. Now Big Oost was free to attack him, and he was forced to defend himself. He was allowed to counter, but not to directly attack his adversary. This was the next phase of his training, Oost Mondara advised. Now he would be required to concentrate solely on defensive work and holding strategies until he mastered those sufficiently. His reward for this promotion was a body that ached all over from blows struck by his attacker that he failed to adequately block and that left him bruised and battered.

  When that day’s session had ended and he went back to his room and peeled off his clothes to bathe, he found his body was a rainbow of dark colors that formed intricate patterns over torso and limbs with barely a patch of skin untouched. Everything hurt from head to foot, and while nothing appeared to be broken, his muscles and joints were raw with pain. He bathed in salt water in an effort to ease his discomfort, then slept until dinner and went down to the dining hall.

  Neither Sebec nor Avelene, sitting across from him, said a word to him while he ate. When the meal was finished, he rose, nodded to them, and went directly back to bed.

  The days and weeks that followed were marked by further battering and bruising, but after a time it lessened as he slowly improved his responses to the attacks and his anticipation grew sharper and more effective. After two months, he was skilled enough to be able to block almost every blow Big Oost gave him and to keep the other not only at bay but also off balance with counterstrikes. His body toughened, and his confidence grew by leaps and bounds.

  Even his taciturn, acerbic trainer began nodding and voicing approval, and Paxon was starting to feel he might really belong
at Paranor with the Druids.

  By then, he was studying magic with Sebec in the mornings—classes that were informal and mostly a sharing of the young Druid’s information on how magic worked rather than actual practice.

  “Before you can learn magic, you have to understand it,” he told Paxon. “Not just in the raw, instinctual way that you came to discover the magic in your sword, but in an intellectual fashion. You have to appreciate the ways in which it can both help and hurt you. Because it can, sometimes without your meaning it to do so, sometimes without warning or reason, and mostly because you are too reckless and unthinking in your use of it.”

  “I didn’t feel any of that when I fought against Arcannen,” Paxon pointed out. They were sitting in one of the classrooms, just the two of them. “If anything, it felt exhilarating.”

  “Yes, and there’s danger in that, too. Magic can become addictive. Magic is addictive. You need to be aware of that and not let it become so much a part of your life that it comes to dominate it. All Druids run this risk. Every time they use magic, they chance crossing a line that they can’t cross back over. Brona, in the time of Allanon, was one such Druid—a man who delved too deeply into the arts and was consumed as a result. I’m not saying this would happen to you. But you need to know that magic is never safe and never predictable. It responds to you—to who and what you are inside. It adapts, and sometimes it wants to change you.”

  “How am I supposed to protect myself against that?” Paxon wanted to know. “How do I measure the amount of magic expended so that it doesn’t do me some sort of damage?”

  “Practice, mostly. But understanding the danger and being aware of it beforehand helps, too. You are less at risk than the Druids who use magic all the time and in varying forms. Your sword is a limited, recognizable sort of magic. There aren’t that many parameters to its use. Eventually, you will come to know them all. Unless you overengage in use of that magic, your exposure and the resultant danger isn’t so great.”

  So it went. They discussed how a nuanced use of magic could be mastered, how emotional control could help create the necessary balance between what was intended and unexpected consequences. Sebec explained how, over time, Paxon would come to understand uses of his sword’s magic that he could not even imagine now. The magic’s well was deep and cold, but its taste was sweet and life giving. Paxon’s choice to embrace it would give him strength and purpose; he need only be aware of its limitations and vicissitudes.

  Mostly, Paxon agreed with Sebec in his analysis and explanation of magic’s workings, though he longed to experiment and discover its limits. But the young Druid was adamant: He must be patient and he must wait. His concentration now must be on his weapons training. Oost Mondara would not stand for distractions that using magic at this point—even if it was only testing the limits of his sword—would cause.

  So more time passed, and more lessons were learned, and better results were achieved on the practice field, but Paxon’s patience was slowly, steadily eroding.

  Then, just over two months into his time at Paranor, he was summoned to the chambers of the Ard Rhys.

  NINE

  IT WAS SEBEC WHO BROUGHT PAXON THE MESSAGE AND WHO delivered him to the door of the room where Aphenglow Elessedil waited. But then the young Druid told him he was to enter alone and left him there. Paxon watched the other’s back recede down the hallway, not quite believing he was being left alone for this meeting. But then he took a deep breath and knocked.

  “Come in, Paxon,” the Ard Rhys called out from inside.

  He entered and found her waiting in the company of another Druid, a man of ordinary size and appearance, a Southlander by the look of him, one possessed of eyes that were of two different colors—one deep blue and the other lavender. The Druid nodded to him but said nothing.

  “Close the door, please,” the Ard Rhys ordered.

  He did so and stepped up to where she sat at her writing desk, its small surface cluttered with papers of all sizes, shapes, and colors. “This is Starks,” she said. “I’ve asked him to travel to the Westland to Grimpen Ward where there is evidence of a magic in use. I want you to go with him.”

  Paxon didn’t know what to say. “As his protector?”

  “That, but mostly as a student assigned to learn from a more seasoned member of the Order. I have spoken to Oost and he tells me you are well along in your training with weapons. He thinks you are ready for some practical experience. This particular journey should suffice. The magic the scrye has discovered is not large and is being applied in a haphazard manner. Whoever has it likely found it by accident and has no real idea how to use it. Or, perhaps, even of the danger it poses. To the finder, this is mostly an interesting toy. Starks will show you how to find such magic and how to retrieve it without calling attention to yourselves or causing harm to anyone else.”

  “Will I be allowed to take my sword with me?” he asked.

  She nodded. “But you are not to use it unless Starks tells you to or either of you is threatened in a way that absolutely requires it. Absolutely, Paxon. Do you understand why?”

  “Because I am still learning about magic? Because I don’t have enough practice with it?”

  “Because every time you use magic, you risk someone finding out about it. The Druids are not the only ones who scour the Four Lands in search of magic. Others, many not friendly to the order and not respectful of its goals, hunt it, too. We don’t always know who these people are or where they can be found, so we use caution in employing magic and avoid invoking it whenever we can.”

  “I’ll be careful,” he promised.

  “I’m counting on it.” She gave him a brief smile. “Now go along with Starks and let him explain more about the details. You’ll leave tomorrow.”

  She went back to sorting through her papers, and Paxon went out the door with the other Druid. As they walked side by side down the hallway, Starks asked, “How long have you been here, Paxon? It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?”

  “A little more than two months.”

  “Working with Oost the entire time?”

  “Mostly. In the afternoons. Sebec teaches me about magic in the mornings—about how it works and what to look out for when using it. How long have you been here?”

  The other shrugged. “Maybe six years. I’m impressed by the fact that you had a run-in with Arcannen and lived to tell about it.”

  Paxon suppressed a grin. “I was lucky. The sword’s magic saved me. How do you know about this?”

  Starks gave him a look, his bland expression shifting into something resembling amusement. “Everyone knows, Paxon. Everyone knew even before you arrived. The Druids keep few secrets from one another.”

  The Highlander frowned, looking off in the distance. “Apparently.”

  Starks laughed. “You didn’t think there wouldn’t be talk of you before you arrived, did you? Not when you are the first paladin selected by the Ard Rhys in five years. You did know that, didn’t you?”

  Paxon managed a sheepish smile. “I think Sebec said something about it. I guess the one before me didn’t last.”

  “Didn’t and shouldn’t have. You, at least, seem better settled and certainly more seasoned. Oost talks, too, you know—even if you don’t see him doing so. He likes you.”

  “He does?” Paxon was genuinely surprised. “I always believed he was pretty much just putting up with me.”

  Starks came to a halt. “If he didn’t like you or think you were adequately prepared for it, you wouldn’t be going with me. You can be certain of that.”

  He started away, and then he turned back. “You should also know that I asked for you to come with me. That ought to tell you something.”

  A moment later, he was gone.

  They set out at dawn, flying the familiar two-masted clipper crewed by a pair of Troll guards. One of them took the helm and the other managed the lines and light sheaths. Starks showed no interest in helping out; indeed, he placed himself squarely in fro
nt of the pilot box upon a folded blanket, his black robes wrapped about him, and disappeared into a book he had carried aboard. After stowing his bag, Paxon stood around for a bit, trying to decide what to do. He didn’t want to interrupt Starks, and the Trolls seemed fine without him.

  Finally, he moved to the bow of the clipper and started working through the list of exercises that Oost Mondara had given him to loosen up every afternoon before weapons practice. But he was free to use his own sword now, and he did. The blade felt so much lighter and more balanced in his hands than the wooden model he used in field practice that he practically flew through his exercises. When he finished the first run, he drank some water from the deck barrel and began again.

  Two hours later, he felt hot and vaguely light-headed, perhaps from doing so much at a higher altitude. In any case, Starks told him to break it off and have some lunch.

  They sat together with tins of hot vegetable stew and bread and washed it down with ale. Surreptitiously, Paxon watched the other man, trying to make sense of him. He seemed so removed from everything, as if he was always somewhere else in his mind. He showed no obvious concern for the mission on which they had been sent, having not once bothered to discuss it with his companion.

  Finally, Paxon said, “Do you think we’ll have any trouble with getting this magic away from whoever has it?”

  Starks smiled. “You want to know why I don’t seem worried about it. Maybe why I don’t even seem interested. It’s just the way I am. I don’t like to think too far ahead about what’s waiting around the corner. I like to be prepared, but not troubled. We’ve got two days before we reach Grimpen Ward. There is no point in fussing about it until then.”

  Paxon frowned. “I don’t know if I could do that.”

  “Most can’t. Other Druids wonder about me. I hear them talking sometimes when they think I don’t hear. But I’ve always been different from most of them anyway.”

  “What do you mean?” Paxon said.