Bloodfire Quest (The Dark Legacy of Shannara, #2)(69)

“This won’t be pleasant!” he shouted over the wind’s whistle to where Arlingfant and Aphenglow huddled together forward of the pilot box.

Neither had to be told. Both knew enough of airships and storms to recognize what was coming, but Aphenglow, as the more experienced flier, was especially concerned. The size of the front and the strength of the wind told her this would be very bad, and they might even have to put down somewhere until it passed. If that proved necessary, it would remove any advantage they might have gained by leaving Arborlon in secret and under the cover of darkness.

But there was no help for it. The weather wasn’t something anyone could control—not yet, at any rate, although there were rumors of efforts aimed in that direction by the newly emboldened scientists of the Federation, who claimed to be on the brink of developing a way to use diapson crystals to manipulate natural forces. Aphenglow hoped that wasn’t true. If it were, it would open the door to the possibility of a power struggle that would eclipse anything the Four Lands had seen since the time of the Great Wars.

She took a moment to consider the possibility, a dark forewarning of something she had thought about before. The Druids had feared for some time now that diapason weapons even more destructive and dangerous than those already employed by the Federation were on the horizon. How could it not happen, with the Races and governments of the Four Lands constantly at war, each seeking a way to gain the upper hand? A confrontation between those who cultivated and employed magic, mostly Elves, and those who embraced science, mostly Men, was inevitable. She did not know what form that confrontation between past and present would take, and did not think she would be there to see it, but it would come.

Overhead, the mainsail billowed under the thrust of the wind, and the radian draws sang like discordant harp strings.

“Some wind,” Arling said, leaning close. Her dark eyes were big, and the concern on her oval face gave her the look of a child.

“Are you all right?” Aphenglow asked, looking deep in her sister’s eyes. “About what you are setting out to do, I mean?”

Arling shook her head. “I don’t know. I guess so. I’ve come to terms with things. I know what is needed if the Ellcrys is to live, and I want her to. I know what it means to all of us. Not just to the Elves, but to everyone in the Four Lands. She has to be renewed if the Forbidding is to hold, and it must hold. What else is there to say?”

“That you don’t want it to be your responsibility. That you don’t want this to happen.”

“Too late for that. It’s happened already. I have been given the seed. So now it’s mine. I am settled on that, Aphen. I am.”

“But you don’t want this. You’ve said so repeatedly.”

Her sister reached out and put an arm around her, pulling her close. “I don’t think any of us wanted most of what’s been given to us these past few weeks. We didn’t want any of it to happen. But it has. I think I understand what that means. It means we must exercise grace in the face of fear and doubt and loss of belief. It means we must understand that this is how life works—that it challenges us; it tests us. It gives us burdens to bear, and the measure of who we are is how we manage those burdens. I don’t wish mine. Of course I don’t. But what sort of person would I be if I refused it? Or cast it away?”

Aphen said nothing, letting the matter drop there, not sure if her sister had convinced herself that she could transfer the seed to a different successor. Something else was at work here, but it seemed clear that Arling didn’t want to talk about it.

She leaned into her sister. “That was well said,” she said. “I admire you for it.”

Arling bent her head into her arms. Her shoulders shook. She might have been laughing or crying, Aphen couldn’t tell which. “You admire me? Don’t you have that backward?”

“No. You have courage and determination and great heart.” She gripped her sister’s arm and squeezed hard. “Do me a favor. Lend me some of each. All three have been drained away from me.”

Arling snorted. “I doubt that!” Then, without looking at her, her sister punched her hard on her arm. “There. Now you have them. All three. Use them wisely.”

“Aphen!” Cymrian shouted down at her from the pilot box. “Get up here!”

She left Arling and groped her way around the walls of the box and climbed inside. Rain as well as wind was lashing Wend-A-Way by this time, the storm’s fury building steadily. Cymrian gestured behind him, and she turned to see an enormous black cloud bearing down on them rapidly—a massive giant that would engulf them within minutes.

“Where are we?” she shouted.

He pointed. She could just make out the pillars that framed the pass at the far end of the Valley of Rhenn. “If we can make that and get safely through, we will have some shelter on the lee side of the hills when we swing south. But we’ll have to hurry!”

Wend-A-Way lurched ahead, running at the front of the storm, her crew scrambling like madmen to keep her aloft and steady. The force of the wind increased, howling with fresh fury, the rain pummeling the decks of the airship and her passengers with droplets that stung like needles. Aphen crouched next to Cymrian, who had to stand in order to maneuver the controls and keep the vessel from smashing into the valley walls. She peered through the shroud of gloom and rain, watching the pillars appear and then vanish as if everything were a mirage and nothing was real.