“Before she left this last time, she flew back to Paranor and apparently went into the Keep. The birds you set on watch after we withdrew brought word only hours ago; she was seen on the south wall, inside the Keep.” He paused. “Those birds. How do you get them to report to me like that?”
Somehow, in a way that was a mystery to him, she had trained ravens not only to keep watch for her but also to report what they had seen by a form of communication that projected images into the mind. It was magic, of course, but magic of a sort he had never before encountered. Edinja was the possessor of many such skills, and it only served to strengthen his belief that abandoning Drust Chazhul had been the correct choice.
She shook her head dismissively. “I just do. Now finish what you were saying.”
He backed off at once. “On returning, she resupplied her vessel, bid good-bye to her sister, and flew off with her bodyguard. Just the two of them. So perhaps she searches for the Ard Rhys, but perhaps she found something at Paranor that sent her west. We can’t know.”
Edinja smiled. “Not right away, we can’t. But perhaps soon. Our source in Arborlon has nothing more to add?”
“I received a message about the Elessedil girl’s return and subsequent departure. Nothing more. She seems to have spoken to no one about why she either went back to Paranor or later flew west.”
“Her sister will know,” Edinja said softly.
Stoon hesitated. “Do you wish me to find out?”
“What interests me is the reason behind the Ard Rhys’s departure and the nature of her destination. There is something important happening.”
She walked over to stand beside him. She was small, but it always seemed she was the larger and stronger of the two when he was in her presence. He had never felt that way with Drust Chazhul.
“I want to know the moment any of the Druids return or are sighted in any part of the Four Lands. I want to find them and I want to track them. Send more of my birds to search them out. Send word to my creature in Arborlon. I want to know what is going on. All of it.”
“I will see that it is done, Mistress.” He paused. “Do you wish to have Paranor occupied now? Perhaps the protective wards have been removed.”
She reached out and stroked his cheek gently. Then she sat down across from him. “Do you know why I wanted Drust Chazhul dead? Not because he was Prime Minister when I should have been. Nor because he was any real threat to my ambitions—certainly no more than Arodian was. I could have killed them anytime and gotten what I wanted. No, it was because Drust was so determined to put an end to the use of magic in the Four Lands.”
She got up again, crossed the room, poured wine into goblets, and returned, handing one to him. She smiled as he hesitated in accepting. “It is only wine, Stoon.”
He took it from her, and she sat. “Drust believed that magic had run its course and that once again science had become a viable alternative. He ignored history and common sense, believing that the advent of the Great Wars and the destruction of the Old World were things of the past and that the future should not be shaped by what had happened several thousand years ago. The discovery of diapson crystals and the inventions that were generated as a result led him to embrace this theory. Magic seemed dangerous to him. He perceived it as a threat—not only to himself because he had no use of it, but to the larger world as well, because its power rested in the hands of a few, and that could never change. Magic wasn’t an object that anyone could master and command. It was genetic and therefore elitist. It could be studied and learned or it could be acquired by chance and sometimes diligence, but never possessed by more than a few.”