He just wished he could discover what it was.
He dozed for a bit, lost in a flow of imaginings that jumbled together in a wash of faces and voices, teasing him with their disjointed, false connectings, lies of things that never were and could never be.
He drifted into sleep.
Then a hand came down over his mouth, cutting off his exclamation of surprise. A second hand pinned him to the floor. He struggled, but the grip that held him was unbreakable.
“Quiet, now,” a voice whispered in his ear. “Hush.”
Morgan went still. A hawk-faced man in a Federation uniform was bent over him, peering into his eyes intently. The hands released, and the man sat back. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, and laugh lines wreathed his narrow face.
“Who are you?” Morgan asked softly.
“Someone who can get you free of this place if you're smart enough to do as I say, Morgan Leah.”
“You know my name?”
The laugh lines deepened. “A lucky guess. Actually, I stumbled in here by chance. Can you show me the way out again?”
Morgan stared at him, a tall, gaunt fellow who had the look of a man who knew what he was about. The smile he wore seemed wired in place and there was nothing friendly about it. Morgan shoved his blanket aside and came to his feet, noticing the way the other backed off as he did so, always keeping the same amount of space between them. Cautious, thought Morgan, like a cat.
“Are you with the Movement?” he asked the man.
“I'm with myself. Put this on.”
He tossed Morgan some clothing. When the Highlander examined it, he found he was holding a Federation uniform. The stranger disappeared back into the dark for a moment, then reemerged carrying something bulky over one shoulder. He deposited his burden on the pallet with a grunt. Morgan started as he realized it was a body. The stranger picked up the discarded blanket and draped it over the dead man to make it look as if he were sleeping.
“It will take them longer this way to discover you're missing,” he whispered with that unnerving smile.
Morgan turned away and dressed as quickly as he could. The other man beckoned impatiently when he was finished and together they slipped out through the open cell door.
The corridor without was narrow and empty. Lamplight brightened the darkness only marginally. Morgan had seen nothing of the prisons when they brought him in, still unconscious from his beating, and he was immediately lost. He trailed after the stranger watchfully, following the passageway as it burrowed through the stone block walls past rows of cell doors identical to his own, all locked and barred. They encountered no one.
When they reached the first watch station, it was deserted as well. There appeared to be no one on duty. The stranger moved quickly to the corridor beyond, but Morgan caught a glint of metal blades through a half-open door to one side. He slowed, peering in. Racks of weapons lined the walls of a small room. He suddenly remembered the Sword of Leah. He did not want to leave without it.
“Wait a minute!” he whispered to the man ahead.
The stranger turned. Quickly Morgan pushed at the door. It gave reluctantly, dragging against something. Morgan shoved until there was enough space to get through. Inside, wedged against the back of the door, was another dead man. Morgan swallowed against what he was feeling and forced himself to search the racks for the Sword of Leah.
He found it almost immediately, still in its makeshift sheath, hung on a nail behind a brace of pikes. He strapped the weapon on hurriedly, grabbed a broadsword as well, and went out again.
The stranger was waiting. “No more delays,” he said pointedly. “The shift change comes just after sunrise. It's almost that now.”
Morgan nodded. They went down a second corridor, a back set of stairs supported by timbers that creaked and groaned as they descended, and out through a courtyard. The stranger knew exactly where he was going. There were no guards until they reached a post just inside the walls and even then they were not challenged. They passed through the gates and out of the prison just as the first faint tinges of light began to appear on the horizon.
The stranger took Morgan down the roadway a short distance, then into a barn through a backdoor where the shadows were so thick the Highlander had to feel his way. Inside, the stranger lit a lamp. Digging under a pile of empty feed sacks, he produced a change of clothing for each of them, woods garb, indistinguishable from what most Eastland laborers wore. They changed wordlessly, then stuffed the discarded Federation uniforms back beneath the sacks.
The stranger motioned Morgan after him and they went out again into the first light of the new day.
“A Highlander, are you?” the stranger asked abruptly as they walked eastward through the waking village.
Morgan nodded.
“Morgan Leah. Last name the same as the country. Your family ruled the Highlands once, didn't they?”
“Yes,” Morgan answered. His companion seemed more relaxed now, his long strides slow and easy, though his eyes never stopped moving. “But the monarchy hasn't existed for many years.”
They took a narrow bridge across a sewage-fouled tributary of the Silver River. An old woman passed them carrying a small child. Both looked hungry. Morgan glanced over at them. The stranger did not.
“My name is Pe Ell,” he said. He did not offer his hand.
“Where are we going?” Morgan asked him.
The corners of the other's mouth tugged upward slightly. “You'll see.” Then he added, “To meet the lady who sent me to rescue you.”
Morgan thought at once of Granny Elise and Auntie Jilt. But how would they know someone like Pe Ell? The man had already said he was not a part of the Free-born Movement; it seemed unlikely that he was allied with the Dwarf Resistance either. Pe Ell, Morgan thought, was with exactly who he had said he was with—himself.
But who then was the lady on whose behalf he had come?
They passed down lanes that wound through the Dwarf cottages and shacks at the edge of Culhaven, crumbling stone and wood slat structures falling down around the heads of those who lived within. Morgan could hear the sluggish flow of the Silver River grow nearer. The houses separated as the trees thickened and soon there were few to be seen. Dwarves at work in their yards and gardens looked up at them suspiciously. If Pe Ell noticed, he gave no sign.
Sunlight was breaking through the trees ahead in widening streamers by the time they reached their destination, a small, well-kept cottage surrounded by a ragged band of men who had settled in at the edge of the yard and were in the process of completing breakfast and rolling up their sleeping gear. The men whispered among themselves and looked long and hard at Pe Ell as he approached. Pe Ell went past them without speaking, Morgan in tow. They went up the steps to the front door of the cottage and inside. A Dwarf family seated at a small table greeted them with nods and brief words of welcome. Pe Ell barely acknowledged them. He took Morgan to the back of the cottage and into a small bedroom and shut the door carefully behind them.
A girl sat on the edge of the bed.
“Thank you, Pe Ell,” she said quietly and rose.
Morgan Leah stared. The girl was stunningly beautiful with small, perfect features dominated by the blackest eyes the Highlander had ever seen. She had long, silver hair that shimmered like captured light, and a softness to her that invited protection. She wore simple clothes—a tunic, pants cinched at the waist with a wide leather belt, and boots—but the clothes could not begin to disguise the sensuality and grace of the body beneath.
“Morgan Leah,” the girl whispered.
Morgan blinked, suddenly aware that he was staring. He flushed.
“I am called Quickening,” the girl said. “My father is the King of the Silver River. He has sent me from his Gardens into the world of Men to find a talisman. I require your help to do so.”
Morgan started to respond and stopped, not knowing what to say. He glanced at Pe Ell, but the other's eyes were on the girl. Pe Ell was a
s mesmerized as he.
Quickening came up to him, and the flush in his face and neck traveled down his body in a warm rush. She reached out her hands and placed her fingers gently on the sides of his face. He had never felt a touch like hers. He thought he might give anything to experience it again.
“Close your eyes, Morgan Leah,” she whispered.
He did not question her; he simply did as she asked. He was immediately at peace. He could hear voices conversing somewhere without, the flow of the waters of the nearby river, the whisper of the wind, the singing of birds, and the scrape of a garden hoe. Then Quickening's fingers tightened marginally against his skin and everything disappeared in a wash of color.
Morgan Leah floated as if swept away in a dream. Hazy brightness surrounded him, but there was no focus to it. Then the brightness cleared and the images began. He saw Quickening enter Culhaven along a roadway lined with men, women, and children who cheered and called out to her as she passed, then followed anxiously after. He watched as she walked through growing crowds of Dwarves, Southlanders, and Gnomes to the barren stretch of hillside where the Meade Gardens had once flourished. It seemed that he became a part of the crowd, standing with those who had come to see what this girl would do, experiencing himself their sense of expectancy and hope. Then she ascended the hillside, buried her hands in the charred earth, and worked her wondrous magic. The earth was transformed before his eyes; the Meade Gardens were restored. The colors, smells, and tastes of her miracle filled the air, and Morgan felt an aching in his chest that was impossibly sweet. He began to cry.
The images faded. He found himself back in the cottage. He felt her fingers drop away and he brushed roughly at his eyes with the back of his hand as he opened them. She was staring at him.
“Was that real?” he asked, his voice catching in spite of his resolve to keep it firm. “Did that actually happen? It did, didn't it?”
“Yes,” she answered.
“You brought back the Gardens. Why?”
Her smile was faint and sweet. “Because the Dwarves need to have something to believe in again. Because they are dying.”
Morgan took a deep breath. “Can you save them, Quickening?”
“No, Morgan Leah,” she answered, disappointing him, “I cannot.” She turned momentarily into the room's shadows. “You can, perhaps, one day. But for now you must come with me.”
The Highlander hesitated, unsure. “Where?”
She lifted her exquisite face back into the light. “North, Morgan Leah. To Darklin Reach. To find Walker Boh.”
Pe Ell stood to one side in the little cottage bedroom, momentarily forgotten. He didn't like what he was seeing. He didn't like the way the girl touched the Highlander or the way the Highlander responded to it. She hadn't touched him like that. It bothered him, too, that she knew the Highlander's name. She knew the other man's name as well, this Walker Boh. She hadn't known his.
She turned to him then, drawing him back into the conversation with Morgan Leah, telling them both they must travel north to find the third man. After they found him they would leave in search of the talisman she had been sent to find. She did not tell them what that talisman was, and neither of them asked. It was a result of the peculiar effect she had on them, Pe Ell decided, that they did not question what she told them, that they simply accepted it. They believed. Pe Ell had never done that. But he knew instinctively that this girl, this child of the King of the Silver River, this creature of wondrous magic, did not lie. He did not believe she was capable of it.
“I need you to come with me,” she said again to the Highlander.
He glanced at Pe Ell. “Are you coming?”
The way he asked the question pleased Pe Ell. There was a measure of wariness in the Highlander's tone of voice. Perhaps even fear. He smiled enigmatically and nodded. Of course, Highlander, but only to kill you both when it pleases me, he thought.
The Highlander turned back to the girl and began explaining something about two old Dwarf ladies he had rescued from the workhouses and how he needed to know that they were safe because of some promise he had made to a friend. He kept staring at the girl as if the sight of her gave him life. Pe Ell shook his head. This one was certainly no threat to him. He could not imagine why the girl thought he was necessary to their recovery of the mysterious talisman.
Quickening told the Highlander that among those who had come with her to the cottage was one who would be able to discover what had become of the Dwarf ladies. He would make certain that they were well. She would ask him to do so immediately.
“Then if you truly need me, I will come with you,” Morgan Leah promised her.
Pe Ell turned away. The Highlander was coming because he had no choice, because the girl had captured him. He could see it in the youth's eyes; he would do anything for her. Pe Ell understood that feeling. He shared something of it as well. The only difference between them was what they intended to do about it.
Pe Ell wondered again what it would feel like when he finally killed the girl. He wondered what he would discover in her eyes.
Quickening guided Morgan toward her bed so that he could rest. Pe Ell departed the room in silence and walked out of the cottage into the light. He stood there with his eyes closed and let the sun's warmth bathe his face.
8
Coll Ohmsford was a prisoner at Southwatch for eight days before he discovered who had locked him away. His cell was the whole of his world, a room twenty feet square, high within the black granite tower, a stone-and-mortar box with a single metal door that never opened, a window closed off by metal shutters, a sleeping mat, a wooden bench, and a small table with two chairs. Light filtered through the shutters in thin, gray shafts when it was daytime and disappeared when it was night. He could peer through the cracks in the shutters and see the blue waters of the Rainbow Lake and the green canopy of the trees. He could catch glimpses of birds flying, cranes and terns and gulls, and he could hear their solitary cries.
Sometimes he could hear the howl of the wind blowing down out of the Runne through the canyons that channeled the Mermidon. Once or twice he could hear the howling of wolves.
Cooking smells reached him now and then, but they never seemed to emanate from the food that he was fed. His food came on a tray shoved through a hinged flap at the bottom of the iron door, a furtive delivery that lacked any discernible source. The food was consumed, and the trays remained where he stacked them by the door. There was a constant humming sound from deep beneath the castle, a sort of vibration that at first suggested huge machinery, then later something more akin to an earth tremor. It carried through the stone of the tower, and when Coll placed his hands against the walls he could feel the stone shiver. Everything was warm, the walls and floor, the door and window, the stone and mortar and metal. He didn't know how that could be with the nights sometimes chill enough to cause the air to bite, but it was. Sometimes he thought he could hear footsteps beyond his door—not when the food was delivered, but at other times when everything was still and the only other sound was the buzz of insects in the distant trees. The footsteps did not approach, but passed on without slowing. Nor did they seem to have an identifiable source; they might as easily come from below or above as without.
He could feel himself being watched, not often, but enough so that he was aware. He could feel someone's eyes fixed on him, studying him, waiting perhaps. He could not determine from where the eyes watched; it felt as if they watched from everywhere. He could hear breathing sometimes, but when he tried to listen for it he could hear only his own.
He spent most of his time thinking, for there was little else to do. He could eat and sleep; he could pace his cell and look through the cracks in the shutters. He could listen; he could smell and taste the air. But thinking was best, he found, an exercise that kept his mind sharp and free. His thoughts, at least, were not prisoners. The isolation he experienced threatened to overwhelm him, for he was closed away from everything and everyone he knew, without
reason or purpose that he could discern, and by captors that kept themselves carefully hidden. He worried for Par so greatly that at times he nearly wept. He felt as if the rest of the world had forgotten him, had passed him by. Events were happening without him; perhaps everything he once knew had changed. Time stretched away in a slow, endless succession of seconds and minutes and hours and, after a while, days as well. He was lost in shadows and half-light and near-silence, his existence empty of meaning.
Thinking kept him together.
He thought constantly of how he might escape. The door and window were solidly seated in the stone of the fortress tower, and the walls and floor were thick and impenetrable. He lacked even the smallest digging tool in any event. He tried listening for those who patroled without, but the effort proved futile. He tried catching sight of those who delivered his meals, but they never revealed themselves. Escape seemed impossible.
He thought as well about what he might do to let someone know he was there. He could force a bit of cloth or a scrap of paper with a message scrawled on it through the cracks in the shutters of the window, but to what end? The wind would likely carry it away to the lake or the mountains and no one would ever find it. Or at least not in time to make any difference. He thought he might yell, but he knew he was so far up and away from any travelers that they would never hear him. He peered at the countryside unfailingly when it was light and never saw a single person. He felt himself to be completely alone.
He turned his thoughts finally to envisioning what was taking place beyond his door. He tried using his senses and when that failed, his imagination. His captors assumed multiple identities and behavioral patterns. Plots and conspiracies sprang to life, fleshed out with the details of their involvement of him. Par and Morgan, Padishar Creel and Damson Rhee, Dwarves, Elves, and Southlanders alike came to the black tower to free him. Brave rescue parties sallied forth. But all efforts failed. No one could reach him. Eventually, everyone gave up trying. Beyond the walls of Southwatch, life went on, uncaring.