Angel, for her part, slept the entire way, drugged by the sleeping potion Simralin had prepared and trickled through her lips and down her throat, a powerful medicine meant to keep her unconscious until well into the following day. It might have been dangerous to give her such a strong potion, but Kirisin understood that it would be more dangerous still to have her awake and struggling to change their minds about not taking her with them. However determined she was, however well intentioned, she was not capable of helping them in what they had to do. He understood how she felt about carrying out the mission given to her by the Word, of fulfilling her duty as one of its Knights, but that alone was not enough to see her through what lay ahead. Simralin was right: Angel had to stay behind.
Once they arrived at the meadow, they lay Angel down on a soft patch of grass and went to work on enabling the balloon. No one had disturbed its various parts, and within a short time they had the blower operating and the bag filling with hot air. Simralin worked to secure all the stays and ties while Kirisin monitored the blower. The meadow and its surroundings remained otherwise empty and quiet, but the sky overhead continued to darken. It seemed odd to watch a storm develop; it had been years since weather this threatening had come to the mountains of the Cintra. A little rain now and then, but nothing like this. Still, Syrring Rise was special, and the work of the Elven caretakers on the forests and plants had created a climate peculiar to the mountain. Kirisin found himself wondering what it would be like to live and work here, to be one of the caretakers rather than a Chosen. Here the challenges were greater and the skills needed to keep the mountain free of disease and poison more demanding. Kirisin knew he was good at healing and possessed both learned and innate understanding of the ways in which he could protect the native vegetation. Working here on the slopes of Syrring Rise would be a thoroughly satisfying experience.
Though now, it seemed, he would never have a chance to find out, since the Elves would be leaving the mountain and the world of Syrring Rise was ending.
How much of that world, he wondered, would survive in the aftermath of the predicted destruction?
He thought about that as he worked, about how it would be for the Elves once they were no longer living in the Cintra—or perhaps anywhere else that they knew about or could even imagine. The new world might be entirely foreign to them. He wondered how life would change when the disaster foretold by the Ellcrys came to pass. He didn’t bother using the word if in reference to the prediction. He accepted the inevitability of the world’s passing in the same way he had come to accept everything else the tree had told him. The presence of demons among the Elves had convinced him that a new way of looking at things was necessary. The deaths of Ailie and Erisha had only reinforced that conviction, providing sharp reminders that the life he had once taken for granted was coming to a close. This period in the history of the Elves was over, as much so as that long-ago time when magic had ceased to be a part of their lives and humans had become the dominant species. No Elf wanted to think this way, least of all Kirisin, who still wanted to believe that the Elves, as the first people, would one day regain their elevated position in the order of things.
But in the world of the present, the world of demons and once-men and things so terrible that they belonged in the darkest of nightmares, no one species or race or civilization mattered more than another. What happened to one would ultimately happen to all, and no amount of healing skill or Elfstone magic or wishful thinking would change this.
“Little K,” Simralin snapped, interrupting his ruminations. “The storm is coming. We need to leave. Help me with Angel.”
Together they lifted the unconscious Knight of the Word into the basket and settled her comfortably, her body braced with packing, strapped in place, and wrapped in several cloaks so that she would be stable and warm for the flight. Loading their packs and what remained of their supplies, they released the anchors that secured the balloon and lifted off.
This time, Simralin took them east over the mountains, tacking on the prevailing winds that blew through the craggy peaks, angling the balloon this way and that to carry them across. Kirisin stayed out of the way and watched Syrring Rise slowly shrink against the darkening horizon. The storm clouds were coming down from the north in heavy banks, more weather than he had seen in a long time, and soon the entire peak was enveloped.
Gone, as if it had never existed. As if it were lost to all of them forever.
He didn’t like thinking that way, didn’t like imagining anything gone forever. Yet that was what was going to happen. That was the future.