"A hundred. Silver."

"Too much. Maybe fifty."

"Too little. How about a hundred?"

She gave him an annoyed look. "We've passed that point in the discussion. I can do seventy."

Abruptly, shouts broke out from across the field as a swarm of Home Guards appeared out of the trees. Seersha hesitated, and then hit the Elf so hard he was already unconscious when he struck the ground. Crace Coram scrambled aboard the two-man, and Seersha released the anchor ropes and followed him up. She unhooded the parse tubes, engaged the thrusters, and when the familiar sound of the diapson crystals heating up reached her ears, she grabbed the lifter levers and took the ship into the air with a series of lurches and jumps that sent her companion tumbling all the way to the back of the craft.

Picking himself up gingerly, Crace Coram made his way forward to sit behind her once more. "Very nice job of bargaining back there. That cost us much less than I thought it would."

They flew west through the Valley of Rhenn and out onto the upper Streleheim, casting anxious glances over their shoulders all the way. But no other craft appeared behind them. Possibly giving chase wasn't an immediate concern. Perhaps no one had orders about what to do if they fled the city. Any delay would help with their escape, so she accepted the lack of a pursuit as a gift and concentrated on what lay head.

"What are we doing?" her companion asked, leaning forward to be heard.

Good question. She thought about it for a moment. "We have a choice," she said to him, turning to catch his eye. "If we go to Paranor and I can get inside the Keep, I can read the scrye waters and might be able to determine where Aphenglow is. If we continue on, we can do what I said earlier and warn the Dwarves about the danger from the demons. Or we can do something else."

She waited. He said nothing for a moment. Then, "Seems as if we ought to find the sisters and warn them. We can't afford for anything to happen to them."

She gave him a quick nod of agreement. "Paranor it is, then."

They flew on through the remainder of the day, winging toward the sun, then beneath it as it passed overhead and finally beyond, as the light diminished and the night approached. By then they had reached the Dragon's Teeth and were close to their destination. Seersha still felt the grips of her fever, so she had taken time to show Crace Coram how to work the two-man's controls-not only to give him a chance to try his hand at flying the craft, but also to give herself an opportunity to rest and recover as she could. He had taken control reluctantly, cautious and a bit unsteady at first, but gradually gaining a sense of confidence. They switched places several times more during their flight, often enough so that she felt he could manage well enough at the helm if the need arose. It gave her a chance to rest her eyes and body; her fever had finally faded during their flight, chased by time and the defenses of her body, and she was feeling much better.

When they arrived at Paranor, she took the two-man directly over the top of the wall and close to the dark towers for a quick look. But the Keep seemed to be abandoned still, unchanged since Aphenglow had returned. Seersha maneuvered toward the landing platform and set their vessel down.

They climbed out of the cockpit and stood amid the clustered mix of wrecked and undamaged airships, taking a careful look around. The sun had gone behind the trees west, and its light was beginning to disappear. Shadows draped the stone and iron of the Druid's Keep, and the cool of nightfall infused the deepening dark.

Seersha took a long moment to be certain that nothing living was hiding in those shadows before satisfying herself that they were alone.

"Stay with the two-man until I get back," she told Crace Coram. "No one who isn't a Druid is allowed where I am going."

She left him behind looking irritable and went through the rubble and debris and heaps of ashes littering the ramp, past the wreckage of Arrow with its prow lodged in the collapsed doorway, and into the Keep proper. She followed the hall for a short distance to a stairway and then made her way upstairs. Two flights up, she stepped through an opening to a second hallway and followed it to the door that opened into the cold room, where she triggered a release of the protective locks.

Inside, the chill was bone-deep. Seersha shivered as she moved over to the elevated basin, stepped up onto the stone blocks that formed its base, and stood looking down at the broad, placid contents. Summoning the magic she had learned to command in the early days of her service to the order, she spread her hands and swept her open palms over the surface while not quite touching it, the motion stirring the waters to life. In the depths of the basin, the lines and shadings of the map of the Four Lands drawn on the stone brightened in a flaring of colors and sudden shimmers.

Then small flashes began to appear here and there across the face of the map. The most intense concentration was in the city of Arishaig, and it caught Seersha's attention immediately. The flashes were all blue, a sign of Elven magic, and she wondered right away if they were residue from use of the Elfstones. She could tell from the strength of the flashes that the magic was very recent and spread out all through certain sections of the sprawling city.

But what in the world would Aphen and Arling Elessedil be doing in Arishaig?

She scanned the remainder of the map as it shimmered and flashed within the waters of the scrye. There were strong indicators of the demons hordes assaulting the city. There were extraneous bits and pieces flashing here and there.

But nothing more noticeable than that.

She spent a few more moments studying the scrye. Then she wiped the images clean with sweeping motions of her palms, returning the basin to its former condition. Once finished, she left the room, locking the door behind her.

She stood for long moments in the empty hallway, mulling over what she had seen and what it meant for her plans. There was so much she didn't know and could only guess at. She wished she had the use of other tools with which to track her friends and their companions. She wished she had magic that would allow her to see beyond the horizons and into the hearts of those she worried for.

But she had none of this, only the skills and magic she had learned as a member of her order. Yet in her world, you worked with the tools at hand. These would have to do.

She pushed back strands of dark hair that had fallen over her rough features and stared off into space. She needed to decide what she was going to do. She had thought she already knew before she used the scrye, but now she wasn't so sure. The logical choice was to go into the Eastland and assist in the summoning of a Dwarf army to march to the aid of the Elves and the Southlanders, but something inside was tugging her another way, whispering that there were better, more important ways in which she could use her Druid skills.

She broke off the debate and returned down the hallway, descended the stairs, and went out the broken entry to the landing field where Crace Coram was pacing about restlessly, eyes scanning the tops of the walls that hemmed him in.

He turned at once at her appearance. "Can we go now? I don't mind telling you that all these walls make me feel like I'm locked in a cage. I don't know how you stand it here."

She nodded. Dwarves preferred the mountains and woodlands to fortress walls, felt more comfortable in open spaces than in confined ones. She felt the same way he did; it had taken her a long time to put aside her distaste and accept the presence of so much stone and iron shutting her in.

"You get used to it," she answered softly. Then she moved toward the two-man. "Come, we can go."

But once they were aboard their vessel, she found herself sitting in the pilot box undecided about what to do next.

"What's wrong?" her companion asked. He moved up beside her and bent close. "Not sure about where to go?"

She nodded. "I want to do something to help those people in Arishaig. I know I should go with you to muster an army from the Dwarf tribes to rally them to the fight, but ..." She trailed off. "I keep wanting to do something more immediately useful."

"You're a warrior, Seersha. A fighter." Crace Coram shrugged. "So you want to fight. You want to join the battle."

"That's it," she admitted.

He emitted an abrupt laugh, a hearty burst that made her smile. "Then do so! Fly to Arishaig and let's see if we can't help those trapped there."

She looked over her shoulder at him. "We?"

"You don't expect me to stay behind, do you? Miss out on a fight like this one?"

"What about warning the Dwarves?"

"Oh, come now. They don't need us to warn them. They keep watch on things just like everyone else. They'll already know what's taken place and have begun massing their fighters and making a decision about how best to use them. What can we add to that?"

She gave him a long hard look. "You're sure you want to come with me? You don't have to."

He laughed again, his huge arms reaching out to hug her. "Girl, I didn't have to come with you in the first place! I came because I wanted to. Nothing's changed about that. Fly the ship!"

She opened the parse tubes to the diapson crystals and powered up their vessel. She waited a moment for the levels to rise sufficiently and then engaged the thrusters.

"I'm glad you're coming with me," she said to him.

Moments later they were airborne over Paranor and flying south.

CHAPTER Seventeen

With Grianne Ohmsford now aboard, the Quickening and her passengers were riding the back of a huge storm down out of the Klu Mountains and along the northsouth corridor formed by the Charnals and the Lazareen. The storm had overtaken them shortly after they had lifted off from Stridegate and begun the long, slow journey back through the Northlands toward Callahorn. No more than gusting winds and distant clouds at first, the storm had quickly formed into a black wall of driving rains with intermittent hail. The temperature had dropped sharply, and the air grew so cold that it penetrated the heavy weather cloaks of the members of the airship's crew and began to form ice on the decks.