But she had come this far and would not turn back no matter how forbidding the land appeared, no matter the nature of the dangers that waited there, no matter her personal reservations. The lure of the Elfstones was too strong, the chance to recover so great a treasure overriding any thoughts of abandoning her quest. The Druids were equal to the task. Their magic and their experience would protect them.

No one other than Farshaun and herself knew of the Speakman’s prediction. She had forbidden the old man from saying anything about it to the others and had instructed him to tell the Speakman the same. The musings of a seer were not always to be trusted, and even if his prediction were to come true it might do so in a way that was different from what it seemed on the surface. What mattered were his skills and experience as a guide, not his abilities as a seer.

So she told herself.

They had departed at sunrise. Before doing so, she had taken herself away from the others and, using her magic, called up anew the vision skived from Aphenglow’s memory, so she could be certain of the landmarks she had been shown. In a deep trance, she saw again the familiar pinnacles of the Kensrowe and the blasted emptiness of the Breakline stretching ahead, then saw the triad of rock columns and beyond that the giant fissure gape open like a mouth that would swallow them all.

By the time she had returned to the others, the Speakman had come down from his cave to join them. Communicating only through Farshaun, he had signaled his readiness to proceed. Khyber let Farshaun act as interpreter, let him ask the Speakman the necessary questions and convey whatever answers were given. What she wanted was to make certain he concentrated his efforts on searching for the landmarks in Aphenglow’s Elfstone vision.

So now they were under way, and in truth, she felt as if they were already halfway to their goal. They had passed the rock formation she had come to think of as the three sentinels—the trio situated in an open stretch of flatland, towering over their surroundings like guards at watch.

Khyber assigned Farshaun and the Speakman the task of spying out the huge fissure that was the next recognizable landmark in their search. Then she decided to follow up on the promise Pleysia had made to her days ago: to reveal the reason why she had chosen the girl Oriantha to accompany them. Either it had slipped Pleysia’s mind or she had chosen to ignore it, but in either case it was time the promise be kept.