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Dunsidan, that it had come to discuss a plan for peace, to accede to conditions that would assure that the
war would not resume. It would ask permission to fly to Arborlon to speak to the Elven High Council. It
would give assurances that no treachery was intended and offer hostages as a show of good faith. It
would demand that they let it remain aboard theZolomach because, in the face of so many of the enemy,
no right-thinking commander would leave the only protection available. The Elves would accept his
condition. The Federation ship would display no weapons and pose no visible threat. They would feel
confident that they could deal with anything the Prime Minister might attempt.
If persuasion failed to win them over, then the demon would use the fire launcher, which was concealed
inside what appeared to be a storage cabin on the foredeck. In the event of an attack, the front section of
the cabin could be dropped away and the weapon armed and fired in seconds. The Elven airships would
be burned out of the sky before they knew what was happening, and theZolomach would continue on its
way. Once within range of the Ellcrys, a single direct hit was all it would take. It would be over before
the Elves had a chance to do anything to stop it. In spite of having the fire launcher, theZolomach would
be destroyed and its crew killed in reprisal, but the demon would escape because it would shed Sen
Dunsidan s skin and take a new form. In the chaos, it would slip over the side of the ship. Once it was on
the ground, they would never find it.
 But now an unfamiliar airship was approaching, and they were still too far away from Arborlon for it to
be an Elven vessel. It was flying alone, as well, which suggested it had another purpose. The demon
watched it grow larger, closing steadily, in no apparent hurry and with no indication that it meant any
harm.
 Captain? the demon said to the tall man on his right.  What ship is this?
TheZolomach s Captain, who had been studying the vessel through his spyglass, shook his head.  No
ship I know. Not a ship of the line. Not a warship. He looked again.  Wait. Her insignia is of a burning
torch on a field of black. He trailed off.  She s a Druid ship.
The Moric stiffened. Shadea a Ru? Come looking for him out here? The idea seemed preposterous.
 Who s aboard her? Tell me what you see.
The Captain put the spyglass up again and studied the ship.  Two Druids standing at the bow. A pilot.
Someone else. A boy, it looks like.
 Let me see.
The demon took the spyglass from the Captain and scanned the decks of the approaching airship. It was
just as the Captain had said four figures were visible on deck and no one else. No railguns were
mounted, and no other weapons were to be seen. The demon lowered the spyglass and made a quick
scan of the decks of theZolomach, reassured by the presence of Federation soldiers at every turn. There
was no reason to be worried.
Still, it was uneasy. What was a Druid airship doing way out there by itself? It was not there by chance.
The encounter was not a coincidence.
 They re signaling to us, the Captain advised.
The demon glanced over at him in confusion.  Signaling?
The Captain pointed to the line of pennants being raised along the other ship s foremast.  They wish to
come aboard and speak with you. See the pennant with the silver and black on it? That s your pennant,
Prime Minister. They must know you are aboard.
The demon s first impulse was to turn on the approaching airship and attack it at once. But the demon
was trapped inside Sen Dunsidan s skin, and an unprovoked aggression against an ally would not be well
received by the officers and men who crewed the ship. Worse, it might result in a battle they could not
win. Although the Druid airship was not armed, the Druids themselves were formidable. If they were to
damage theZolomach and force another delay, it might prove fatal to the demon s plans to reach the
Ellcrys.
White-hot fury fed the Moric s sense of frustration, but it kept calm outwardly. It would have to deal
with the situation in a diplomatic way.  Move alongside them and ask what they wish to speak to us
about, he ordered.
The Captain raised his own line of pennants, then maneuvered theZolomach until she was close by her
counterpart. The Druids stood at the railing, black-cloaked and hooded. The Moric glanced at the name
carved into the ship s bow.SWIFT SURE.
  Sen Dunsidan! shouted one of the Druids, the taller of the two, a woman by the sound of her voice.
She kept her hood raised.  Shadea a Ru sends greetings.
The Moric felt a twinge of panic. If Shadea had sent this ship and these Druids, then nothing good could
come of it. After all, the Ard Rhys had already tried to kill it once. There was nothing to say that she was
not about to try to do so again.
But then the demon remembered that it was no longer in the guise of Iridia Eleri, and it was the sorceress
whom Shadea had sent assassins to kill. Sen Dunsidan was Shadea s ally. So far as the demon knew,
nothing had happened to change that.
It calmed itself.  What does Shadea wish of me? it shouted back in Sen Dunsidan s deep, resonant
voice.  How can I be of service to the Ard Rhys?
 She wishes to be of service to you, the speaker replied.  She wishes to present you with a gift that will
be of use in negotiating with the Elves. She knows of the disaster on the Prekkendorran and wishes to
mitigate the consequences. May I come over and present it?
The Moric had no use for such a gift, but it understood that it could not afford to cast aside the offer out
of hand. To do so would look suspicious. Worse, it would suggest that its motives in coming to the
Westland were not peaceful. Shadea had allied herself and the Druids with Sen Dunsidan and the
Federation. It made sense that she would want to aid the Prime Minister in his efforts at resolving the
Federation dispute with the Free-born. She was as much at risk in this business as he was. The Moric
wondered fleetingly how she had found out about where Sen Dunsidan was going and why, but it
assumed she had spies at Arishaig who told her everything.
The Moric steeled itself. It would have to suppress its impulses and act as Sen Dunsidan would. This
would only take a few minutes, and then it could be on its way. Better to placate the Druids than to
irritate them.
 Let them board, Captain, it said to theZolomach s commander.  But watch them closely in the event
this is something other than what it seems.
The Captain nodded wordlessly, and the Moric climbed down from the pilot box and walked over to
the railing to await its visitors.
It won t work,Pen kept thinking.It will never work.
But it did. He could scarcely believe it when theZolomach s Captain ran up the line of signal pennants
that invited the Druids aboard. He had been convinced that permission would be refused and they would
be turned away without a second thought. But his father, who had conceived of the plan during the night
and worked the details through carefully with his mother, had assured them all that the demon would
relent. In its guise as Sen Dunsidan, it would be forced to do what Sen Dunsidan would do. It might want
to turn them away, but it would realize that to do so would create suspicion and risk disruption of its
efforts to reach the Ellcrys. Its overriding goal was to reach Arborlon as quickly as possible, Bek
reminded them. It would do whatever was necessary to make that happen.
Under his father s steady hand,Swift Sure eased closer to theZolomach, and lines were thrown from
the latter to the former and secured by Pen to the anchor stanchions so that the two vessels were joined.
Pen glanced up and down at the soldiers lining the other ship s railings and tried to reassure himself that
they didn t matter, that the plan would work out as his father intended. His mother and Khyber, cloaked
in the Druid robes his mother had stolen from Paranor and stowed aboard some weeks earlier, stood [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]