Simralin was shaking her head. “No, I don’t think they’ve given up. I don’t expect them ever to give up. All we can do is make it as hard as we can to find us. Now that we’re coming up on Redonnelin Deep, I have a chance to make it almost impossible.”
Angel glanced over, her brow knitting. “What do you mean?”
Simralin stopped and pointed ahead to the broad stretch of the river. “I mean that if we can get across before they catch up to us, we can hide from them where we come ashore. It could take them days, maybe weeks to find the right spot. If they can’t track us to where we land, they won’t know where we are going.”
Angel shook her head. “I think they already know.”
Simralin and her brother stared. “How could they?” the Tracker asked. “We didn’t know ourselves until Kirisin used the Elfstones.”
“Just a hunch.” Angel handed back the waterskin. “Ever since this business started, they’ve been one step ahead of us. One of them tracked me all the way north from LA. It shouldn’t have been able to do that, but it did. The other seems to have known what Kirisin and Erisha were trying to do almost from the moment they did. I just have a feeling they know this time, too.”
Kirisin gave her an exasperated look. “Well, what should we do, Angel?”
She smiled unexpectedly. “We do what we are here to do. When the demons surface, they become my problem. Yours—yours and Simralin’s—is to find the Loden and use it in the way it is meant to be used and save your people.”
They traveled through the rest of that day and into the next, a long, torturous slog through hot, dry, open country denuded of plant life and filled with the bleached bones of humans and animals alike. It was a graveyard of indeterminate origin, a grim memorial to the presence of the dead and the absence of the living. Finally, when they were within a mile of Redonnelin Deep, Simralin turned them sharply northeast.
“We’re going to need help getting across,” she announced. “We require a boat.”
“Aren’t there bridges?” Angel asked. She was hot and tired and still sick at heart about the children she felt she had abandoned. She constantly found herself looking for some sign of them along the riverbank, even when she knew there wouldn’t be any, that there hadn’t been time for them to get this far. “A river this size, there must be one or two that would take us across on foot.”
“More than that, actually. But the bridges are in the hands of militias and some others that are even worse. We don’t want to fight that battle if we don’t have to.” She gestured ahead. “Better to use a boat. I know someone who can help us. An old friend.”
“No one who sees us looking like this will want to help,” Kirisin declared.
They were dust-covered and dirt-streaked from head to foot. They hadn’t bathed in almost two weeks, traversing the high desert and lava fields with only the water they carried for drinking and nothing with which to wash. Angel looked at the other two and could only imagine how bad she must look.
But Simralin simply shrugged. “Don’t worry, Little K. This particular friend couldn’t care less.”
They trudged across the flats approaching the river through the heat of the afternoon and by nightfall’s approach had reached it. There were houses along the lower banks, dilapidated and empty, docks to which boats had once been moored and now were crumbling, and weedy paths that meandered in between. There was no sign of life anywhere.
The river itself was swift and wide, the open waters churning with whitecaps and the inlets thick with debris and deadwood collected and jammed together by deep rapids. In the fading light, the waters were gray and silt-clogged, and from its depths emanated a thick and unpleasant odor that suggested secrets hidden below the surface of other creatures’ failed attempts at crossing.
“Are you sure about this?” Kirisin asked uneasily. “Maybe a bridge would be safer, after all.”
Simralin only grinned and put a reassuring arm around him before setting off anew. Angel wasn’t sure, either, but the Tracker had gotten them this far without incident. She thought briefly of the children whom Helen Rice and the other protectors were guiding north and wished she could do the same for them. She glanced up and down the banks, and then looked behind her for what she knew she wouldn’t see.
I can’t seem to help myself, she thought.
Afraid, as she thought it, that she would never see any of them again.
TWENTY-THREE
D ARKNESS CLOSED ABOUT the three weary travelers as they entered a stand of skeletal trees as bare and lifeless as the bones of the dying earth, bleached white and worn smooth. The woods seemed sparse at first, but the trunks stood so close together that two dozen feet in, it became impossible to tell which way led out. Simralin looked unfazed, picking their path without hesitating, taking them deeper in. After a time, they reached an inlet that had cut away into a ring of surrounding cliffs. Piles of jagged rocks broken off by time and upheaval lay all along the shoreline, their sharp-edged outlines suggesting the ridged backs of sleeping dragons. The travelers angled right along the shoreline, skirting the rocks when they could, climbing over them when they couldn’t. In the dark it was hot, arduous work, and Angel kept feeling that both time and opportunity were slipping away.
Finally, several hours after they had begun their inlet trek, they caught sight of a pinprick of light ahead, dim and hazy in a thick stand of ruined trees, burning out of the window of a small cottage.
“We’re here,” Simralin advised, giving them a quick smile.
They climbed over a tangled mound of fallen trees, forded a stream that branched off the inlet, and arrived outside the cottage with its solitary light. The sheltering harbor was so draped with shadows from the cliffs and trees that the gloom was all but impenetrable. Angel, who had excellent eyesight, could barely make out the details of the cottage and the surrounding landscape.
“Larkin?” Simralin called into the darkness. “Are you home?”
“Right behind you, Simralin Belloruus,” was the immediate response.
The answering voice was so close that Angel jumped despite herself. She wheeled about to find a solitary figure standing not three feet away. The nature of the speaker was not immediately identifiable. Male and grown, but the rest was a mystery. The face and body both were concealed by a long cloak and hood wrapped tightly about. A hand that was definitely human emerged from one sleeve and gestured.
“Heard you coming half a mile away.” The hand withdrew. “You made a lot of noise for a Tracker.”
“Hiding our approach wasn’t my intention,” Simralin declared. “If I didn’t want you to know I was coming, you wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t I?” A small laugh drifted through the dark. “Well, now that you’ve arrived, would you and your companions like to come inside and have something to eat?” There was a pause. “Traveled a long way to get here, didn’t you. Through the high desert, maybe? Not your usual route, Sim.” Another pause. “Um, a bath might be a good idea before you eat. Then straight to sleep. You all seem a bit used up.”
The speaker stepped around them carefully, started toward the cottage, and suddenly stopped short. “Oh, here’s something I almost missed!” The hand gestured toward Angel. “A human! Making friends with the enemy now, are we, Sim? Or is she something special?”
“This is Angel Perez,” Simralin replied, giving Angel a wink. “And she is something special. She is a Knight of the Word.”
“Ah, a bearer of the black staff. Pleased to meet you.” The hand extended, and Angel took it in her own. It was lean and hard. “And the boy? Is this your brother?”
“The very one. Kirisin.”
The hand extended again, and Kirisin gave it a quick shake. “Larkin Quill. Now we all know who we are. Come inside.”
He took them through the shadows and gloom and the door of the cottage. The solitary light they had seen earlier burned from a smokeless lamp set on a table, but there were no other lights in evidence, and the little house was
buried in darkness. Angel had to look carefully before moving so as not to bump into things. Kirisin wasn’t so fortunate and promptly ran into a chair.
“Put on some lights, Sim,” their host ordered. “Not everyone can see in the dark as well as I can.”
Simralin moved comfortably about the cottage, obviously familiar with its interior, lighting lamps with only a touch of her hand. Angel could see no power source and smell no fuel burning. She had never seen anything quite like it. She was also surprised by the deep, rich, loamy smell of the cottage, as if it were as much a part of the forest as the trees. She had even caught a strong whiff of that smell on Larkin.
But these were only small surprises compared with what followed. As the light chased back the dark, Larkin removed his hooded cloak and turned to face them. He was a lean Elf of indeterminate age with strong, sharp features and a shock of wild black hair. He looked strong and fit beneath his loose, well-worn clothing, and his slightly crooked smile was warm and welcoming. But his eyes, flat and milky and fixed, caused Angel to take a quick breath.
Larkin Quill was blind.
“I can always tell when someone first notices,” he said to her. “There is a kind of momentary hush that is unmistakable. Isn’t that how it was with you, Sim?”
“That was how it was,” she agreed.
Angel was stunned. How could this man find his way about in the tangle of the forest so easily when he was blind? How had he been able to tell who they were or of what sex without being able to see them? How had he known they were dirty or had traveled far?
Simralin gave her a knowing smile. “Hard to believe, isn’t it? He takes great pleasure in showing off his skills. He went blind about five years ago, but his other senses have compensated for it in an extraordinary way. He can see much better than you or I over short distances. Sometimes I wonder about the long distances, as well. He sees things that I don’t think sighted people even notice. That’s how he manages to live out here all by himself.”
“I was a Tracker like Sim,” Larkin said. “When I lost my sight, I lost my job. No one thought I could do it anymore. I wasn’t too pleased about that because I knew how well I could see. Better than they could, those who thought I had no further use. So I moved out here, away from everyone but the few like Sim who would take the trouble to come see me. It was my way of proving I was still whole, I suppose. Childish, in a way. But it suits me.”
He moved over to the tiny kitchen and without pausing or fumbling brought down glasses and poured out the contents of an ale jug until each was full.
“Long-range Trackers like myself know about Larkin,” Simralin continued. “We rely on him. He keeps a boat to ferry us across the Redonnelin Deep so we can avoid using the bridges. He takes us across and then comes back to get us when we’re done. He reads the currents of the river the same way he reads the faces of the Elves who think he can’t see.” She smiled. “Don’t you, Larkin?”
“If you say so. Who would know better than you?” He took a deep swallow from his glass. “She hasn’t told you yet that she was the one who saved me when I lost my sight. We were on patrol together below the Cintra and came across a mantis field.”
“The insects,” Simralin interjected. “Thousands of them.”
“Thousands, devouring everything in their path. But some of these had mutated. They spit out a poison that blinded me before I realized the danger. Poor instincts, that day. Simralin was lucky. They missed her, and she was able to get us both away. The Elves went out later and eradicated the mantis field. Too late for me, though.”
“He was my mentor before and after the accident,” Simralin said, continuing the story. “He taught me how to be a Tracker, taught me everything I know. He still teaches me. He still knows more than I do.”
“That’s because I’m older and I’ve had time to learn more. Now why don’t you go bathe, you and Angel Perez? Then we’ll wash down our junior member of the family. Meanwhile, Kirisin, you can keep me company and tell me everything I don’t know about your sister. Come on, now. Don’t be shy. I’m willing to bet that there’s lots you can tell me that she doesn’t want me to know.”
There was a rudimentary shower out in back of the cottage at the base of the cliffs that took its water from a narrow falls. Angel and Simralin stripped off their clothes and began to wash. The water felt icy cold as it splashed over Angel’s hot skin.
“I can’t believe anyone who is blind could live out here alone like this,” she said, scrubbing off the dirt. “In fact, I can’t believe that he can tell as much as he can about what’s going on around him.”
Simralin caught the bar of soap she was tossed. “He sees in ways none of us can. He won’t talk about it, but it’s there in the way he knows things no blind person should be able to know. Not even with enhanced senses. He’s a different breed.”
“But the Elves don’t know this?”
The Tracker shrugged. “Elves aren’t so different from humans. They make up their minds and pass judgment without knowing as much as they should. ‘Blind people can’t see. Blind people can’t do as much as sighted people.’ You’ve heard something like it. No one questions that it could be any different for him. Certainly, they don’t want to take a chance on him as a Tracker.”
They finished washing, and then sent Kirisin out to do the same. When they were all clean and wearing the one change of clothes they had brought with them as they fled Arborlon, they sat down to eat. Dinner was hot and tasty. Angel never even bothered to ask what it was she was eating; she just ate it and washed it down with ale and felt a little of the aching weariness seep from her body.
Afterward, they sat out on Larkin’s tiny porch while Simralin told him what had brought them north from the Cintra and what sort of danger he might be in if he agreed to help.
“We need a crossing,” she finished. “We need to get to the far shore without being seen and without anyone knowing you helped.”
The blind man said nothing, made no movement.
“In truth, you shouldn’t help,” she added as they stared at one another in the ensuing silence. “A smart man would tell us to take our troubles somewhere else.”
He nodded, and his Elven face wrinkled with amusement. “Good advice, I’m sure.”
“Arissen Belloruus will have sent his Elven Hunters looking for us. Those demons will come looking, too.”
“I expect so. They might even show up at the same time.”
Simralin gazed at him. “You don’t sound as if you are taking this seriously enough. You sound like you think this is amusing. But there are three dead people back in Arborlon who would tell you differently if they could still talk.”
Larkin brushed off her comments with a wave of his hand. “Do you want my help or not, Simralin? Did you come all this way to talk me out of doing anything or to talk me into it? You can’t have it both ways.”
“I just want to make certain you understand—”
“Yes, that this is dangerous business.” He leaned forward, his milky eyes fixed and unseeing, but his attention all on her. “What have we ever done as Trackers that isn’t dangerous? We live in a world that is filled with dangerous creatures, infected with plague and poison, and saturated in madness at every turn. I think I have the picture.”
She stared at him, her lips tight. “Sometimes you make me want to scream.”
“Please resist the urge. Now then. We should make the crossing at first light, when the tide is out and the world mostly still at rest. In the meantime, it looks to me as if young Kirisin has the right idea.”
They glanced over. The boy was asleep in his chair.
Larkin rose without waiting for a response to his suggestion and gestured toward one corner of the room. “We can make a place for all three of you right over there. A little crowded, but if you are as tired as you look, it shouldn’t matter. I’ll keep watch while you rest.”
He paused, his head cocking slightly in the silence that followed, his blank gaze fixing
on the space that separated them. “Have I been clear enough for you?”
ANGEL SLEPT POORLY that night, plagued by dreams of Johnny. In her dreams, he was still alive, walking the streets of the barrio, keeping watch over the people who lived there in the wake of civilization’s collapse. She was a child still, and he was her protector. She would sit in the doorway of their home and wait for him to return, scanning the faces of those who passed, searching for his, afraid until she found it.
And then one day, in her dream as in her life, she searched for him in vain.
The dawn was unexpectedly chill and damp as they set out across Redonnelin Deep, the air thick with moisture off the river and the sky gray with roiling storm clouds. A change in the weather was coming, something no one saw much of anymore. It might even bring serious rain, although Angel was doubtful. No one had seen more than a trace of rain in LA in almost a year. Could it be so different here?
“The higher mountains might even see snow,” said Larkin Quill, smiling brightly into the wind and the light as he steered the boat from the shelter of the inlet toward the open water. His face was lifted into the wind, as if he took direction from its feel. “Once, there was snow on the upper slopes year-round. I was told that. Imagine. Snowcaps all year long, brilliant veils of white. Wouldn’t that be something to see? Syrring Rise, draped in white?”
The boat that conveyed them northward was a blunt, heavy craft with a metal-reinforced bow, the cleats of her gunwales wrapped with old tires and lashed with protective fenders. She boasted a pilothouse, an open aft deck, a galley, and two berths below through a hatchway. Twin inboard engines thrummed softly and, in the same way as the lamps inside the little cottage, seemed to lack any source of fuel. When Angel asked Larkin how they worked, he just smiled and shrugged.
“Magic,” he said.
Not magic of a sort that she was used to, she thought. She had believed until now that the Elves had lost all their magic, but it seemed that a revision of her thinking was in order. She let the matter alone for the moment, but made a promise to herself to follow up on it later. For now, it was enough that they were leaving the land in which the demons prowled and the Elven King hunted and the dream of Johnny still haunted her in her sleep.