She came to her feet, ready for another attack. “Are you coming with me or not? Make up your mind.”
He hissed at her like a snake, his face twisted into a grotesque mask, and his fingers extended like claws. She was so astounded by the transformation that for a moment she thought she had better summon the magic and immobilize him before he lost all control. But then he seemed to get hold of himself, going so still that he was frozen in his bizarrely aggressive pose. He took a deep breath, blew it out, wrenched his fiery gaze away from her and directed it out onto the flats.
“Do what you want, Grianne of the foolish heart,” he said quietly. “Go to whatever doom awaits you, whatever fate. But I will not be caught up in the net, as well. No, I will not come with you.”
Without another word, he stalked away, moving off at a rapid pace, no longer darting from side to side as he had done all the way there, but proceeding straight ahead, south into the Pashanon. She watched him incredulously, not quite believing he was giving up so easily, certain he would turn around and come back after he had gotten far enough away to make his point.
But he did not turn around or come back. He kept walking, and she kept watching him until he was out of sight.
She found a stream from which to drink, then began retracing her steps west. She was near exhaustion from her encounter with the shade of Brona, but she didn’t think she should try to sleep until she reached less open country. She was hungry, as well, but as usual there was no food to be found. She thought she might find some ground roots when she reached the forests again, but there was no way to be certain. Grudgingly, she admitted that having Weka Dart along would have solved the problem, but the Ulk Bog just wasn’t worth the trouble. It wasn’t entirely his fault, of course. He couldn’t understand what she was trying to do, and that frustrated him. It was better that he was gone.
Nevertheless, she couldn’t help puzzling over his extreme reluctance to return to where he had found her. He was adamant about avoiding that place, and she thought there was more to it than his fear of encountering the tribal members he had fled. Something else was going on, something he was keeping to himself. Had she wanted to, she could have used her magic to force it out of him, but she no longer did things like that just to satisfy her curiosity. That approach to problem solving belonged to the Ilse Witch, and she was careful to keep it in the past.
Her trek, though across open, mostly unencumbered ground, quickly tired her, and by midday she was having trouble concentrating. The oppressive grayness closed about her in a deep gloom, and tracking the sun through the screen of clouds took more than a little effort. Sometimes, there was no indication of where it was in the sky, and she could only guess at its progress. Sometimes, she felt as if there were no sun at all.
It was wearing on her, this prison to which she had been consigned. It was breaking down her confidence and her determination. The erosion was incremental, but she could feel it happening. Even the prospect of rescue seemed remote and gave her no real encouragement. Too much relied on chance and the efforts of others. She didn’t like that. She had never trusted either.
She was approaching the hill country where they had encountered the Furies two days earlier, and she decided to turn north toward the mountains again. Her memories of the death of that ogre were too fresh to ignore, and she thought that if she stayed close to the base of the cliffs, she might have better luck escaping notice. She didn’t know enough about Furies to have a clear idea of how to avoid them, but she suspected that staying out in the open was not wise. Better to take her chances where there was a chance for finding cover if the need arose.
Her choice yielded unexpected benefits. She found fresh water and an odd tree that bore a round orange and yellow fruit that, while bitter, was edible. She ate the fruit, sitting by the stream in the shadow of the tree and looking out into the blighted landscape. She felt light-headed and heavy-eyed afterwards, a condition she attributed to lack of rest. She would feel better by the next morning. At least, she reminded herself, she was still alive.
Did any of those she had left behind believe her so? Or did they think her dead and gone?
She took a moment to picture what it must have been like when she disappeared. Tagwen and Kermadec would have been frantic, but there would have been nothing they could do. Nothing anyone could do, the Druids included. Only a handful, at most, knew what had really happened, those few who had orchestrated her imprisonment. But how much did they understand of what they had done? Not as much as they thought, perhaps. The shade of the Warlock Lord had called them pawns. It was the creature from the Forbidding who controlled them all.
A creature of immense power and great cunning, an enemy perhaps even more dangerous than the Morgawr, it had found a way to reach across the barrier of the Forbidding and subvert at least one of her Druids to its cause. It had tricked that Druid into helping it make possible the exchange of an Ard Rhys for a monster. Perhaps she had been party to the effort, as well. It was possible that her journey to the ruins of the Skull Kingdom with Kermadec was prompted by the thing’s need to connect with her. It was possible she had been lured there to make that happen. She could remember the malevolent, dark look of it when it had shown itself. She could still feel the evil that emanated from it. It was not difficult to believe that it had gained a hold over her just from that single, brief encounter.
What did it intend to do, there in the Four Lands, outside the Forbidding for the first time in thousands of years? That it had escaped would not be enough. It was after something more.
Before she set out again, she used her magic to probe the surrounding countryside. It was a precaution, nothing more. She hadn’t seen anything move all day, not even in the sky. She felt alone in the world, and the thought was immensely depressing because for all intents and purposes, that was exactly what she was. It didn’t make any difference who or what she encountered; the best she could hope for was another Weka Dart. Everything locked within the Forbidding was a potential enemy, and that wasn’t going to change.
She walked on through the remainder of the afternoon without incident, and her spirits lifted marginally. Perhaps she would find a way out of this situation in spite of her doubts. Perhaps someone really was coming to rescue her.
Nightfall was approaching when she heard a strange metallic chirp that reminded her of birdsong. She was so surprised by the sound that she stopped where she was and listened until she heard it again, then started to walk in the direction from which it had come, curious. She reached a grove of shaggy, moss-grown trees when she heard it a third time and saw a flash of something bright red within the shadows. She didn’t care for the sickly color of the gnarled trunks, almost a fire-scorched black and gray, or for the way in which the moss draped the limbs like a badly torn shroud, but the sound and the flash of red were simply too intriguing to ignore.
She moved into the grove warily, and almost at once she caught sight of the bird, a fiery crimson splash in the gloom. What was it doing here? It was tiny, too small to be obviously dangerous, but she knew better than to take anything for granted. She eased closer, probing with her magic for hidden dangers. The bird sang again, a quick, high note that was so pure and true she almost cried at the sound.
She was right underneath it, peering up into the branches, when the ground beneath her feet was yanked out from under her and a net whipped tightly about her flailing arms and legs and hauled her up into the trees in a collapsed, gasping bundle. She fought to break free, tearing at the netting, screaming in rage and frustration. But almost instantly fumes flooded her nostrils and mouth, thick, toxic and mind numbing.
Her last thought before she lapsed into unconsciousness was that she had been a fool.
She woke to a rolling, shaking motion that jerked her back and forth against the chains that secured her arms and legs to wooden walls and iron bars. The chains allowed her to move just enough to turn from side to side, but not completely around. Nor was there enough play in the length
s to allow her to reach her head or body. She rested on a bed of straw inside a wheeled wooden cage being pulled by two huge, broad-back horned animals that looked a little like bulls but were clearly something more. A second cage preceded her own and a third jolted along behind. There might have been more; she couldn’t see.
Her joints ached and her head throbbed. When she tried to clear her mouth of its dryness, she found she was securely gagged.
She closed her eyes, gathering her strength, taking a moment to remember how she had come to this. The birdsong. Then the bird itself. A lure, she realized now, clever and seductive. She had let herself be trapped by one of the oldest tricks in the world. Her magic had failed to detect the snare. That was odd, but not impossible. The snare was sophisticated. Whoever had set it had taken great pains to hide it. That suggested that the trapper was expecting its prey to have the use of magic, which in turn suggested the trapper was looking for someone like her.
She opened her eyes and peered around. The landscape was blighted and gray with shadows, and the air smelled of deadwood and old earth. Through the bars, she could see a handful of lupine forms loping silently through the graying daylight, massive four-legged beasts with shaggy ruffs. Tongues lolled and breath steamed, even though the day was warm. When one of them caught her looking, it lunged at her, snapping at the iron bars and snarling furiously when it failed to reach her.
A tall, rawboned creature wearing leather half-pants and a tunic appeared suddenly at the side of the cage, peering in at her. Coarse black hair formed a topknot on a nearly pointed head, and a beard fringed a face that was as elongated and sharp-featured as a child’s drawing of a Spider Gnome. It chattered at her with high-pitched sounds that reminded her vaguely of Weka Dart. But the language was different. She stared at it mutely, and the creature stared back. Then it was gone.
She glanced around, trying to get her bearings. To her dismay, she saw the Dragon Line fading into the gloom and mist behind her. She was headed south, away from her original destination.
Away from the mysterious boy who was coming to save her.
To the Big Island Book Bunch—
Abby, Amanda, Beth, Brian, Eric, Gerard, Judine, Kathy,
Kevin, Lloyd, Nan, Paul, Russell, Val, and Yvette—
who still believe that a good book
is the best entertainment of all.
ONE
Sen Dunsidan, Prime Minister of the Federation, paused to look back over his shoulder as he reached his sleeping chambers.
There was no one there who shouldn’t be. His personal guard at the bedroom doorway, the sentries on watch at both ends of the hallway—no one else. There never was. But that didn’t stop him from checking every night. His eyes scanned the torchlit corridor carefully. It didn’t hurt to make certain. It only made sense to be careful.
He entered and closed the door softly behind him. The warm glow and sweet candle smells that greeted him were reassuring. He was the most powerful man in the Southland, but not the most popular. That hadn’t bothered him before the coming of the Ilse Witch, but it hadn’t stopped bothering him since. Even though she was finally gone, banished to a realm of dark madness and bloodlust from which no one had ever escaped, he did not feel safe.
He stood for a moment and regarded his reflection in the full-length mirror that was backed against the wall opposite his bed. The mirror had been placed there for other reasons: for a witnessing of satisfactions and indulgences that might as well have happened in another lifetime, so distant did they seem to him now. He could have them still, of course, but he knew they would give him no pleasure. Hardly anything pleasured him these days. His life had become an exercise conducted with equal measures of grim determination and iron will. Political practicalities and expediencies motivated everything he did. Every act, every word had ramifications that reached beyond the immediate. There was no time or place for anything else. In truth, there was no need.
His reflection stared back at him, and he was mildly shocked to see how old he had become. When had that happened? He was in the prime of his life, sound of mind and body, at the apex of his career, arguably the most important man in the Four Lands. Yet look what he had become. His hair had gone almost white. His face, once smooth and handsome, was lined and careworn. There were shadows in places where his worries had gathered like stains. He stood slightly stooped, where once he had stood erect. Nothing about him reflected confidence or strength. He seemed to himself a shell from which the contents of life had been drained.
He turned away. Fear and self-loathing would do that. He had never recovered from what the Morgawr had put him through the night he had drained the lives from all those Free-born captives brought out of the Federation prisons. He had never forgotten what it had felt like to watch them become the living dead, creatures for which life had no meaning beyond that assigned by the warlock. Even after the Morgawr had been destroyed, the memory of that night lingered, a whisper of the madness waiting to consume him if he strayed too far from the safety of the pretense and dissembling that kept him sane.
Becoming Prime Minister had imbued him with a certain measure of respect from those he led, but it was less willingly bestowed these days than it had been in the beginning, when his people still had hope that he might accomplish something. That hope had long since vanished into the rocks and earth of the Prekkendorran, where so many had shed their blood and lost their lives. It had vanished with his failure not only to end the war that had consumed the Four Lands for the better part of three decades, but even to bring it closer to a meaningful conclusion. It had vanished in his failure to enhance the prestige of the Federation in the eyes of those for whom the Southland mattered, leaving bitterness and disappointment as the only legacy he could expect should he die on the morrow.
He walked to his bed and sat down, reached automatically for the goblet that had been placed on his bedside table, and filled it from the pitcher of wine that accompanied it. He took a long drink, thinking that at least he had managed to rid himself of the intolerable presence of Grianne Ohmsford. The hated Ilse Witch was gone at last. With Shadea a’Ru as his ally, even as treacherous as she was, he had a reasonable chance of ending the stalemates that had confronted him at every turn for the last twenty years. Theirs was a shared vision of the world’s future, one in which Federation and Druids controlled the destinies and dictated the fates of all the Races. Together, they would find a way to bring an end to the Free-born–Federation war and a beginning to Southland dominance.
Although it hadn’t happened yet, and nothing he could point to suggested it would happen anytime soon. Shadea’s failure to bring the Druid Council into line was particularly galling. He was beginning to wonder if their alliance was one-sided. She had the benefit of his open support and he, as yet, had nothing.
Thus, he was forced to look over his shoulder still, because doubt lingered and resistance to his leadership grew.
He had just emptied his goblet and was thinking of filling it anew when a knock sounded at his door. He jumped in spite of himself. Once, an unexpected silence would have startled him. Those he feared most, the Ilse Witch and the Morgawr, would not have bothered to knock. Now every little sound caused the iron bands that wrapped his chest and heart to tighten further. He gave them a moment to loosen, then stood, setting the empty goblet carefully on the table beside him.
“Who is it?”
“Apologies, Prime Minister,” came the voice of his Captain of the Guard. “A visitor wishes a word with you, one of your engineers. He insists it is most urgent, and from the look of him, I would judge it to be so.” A pause. “He is unarmed and alone.”
Dunsidan straightened. An engineer? At this time of night? He had a number of them working on his airships, all of them assigned to find ways to make the component pieces of his fleet work more efficiently. But few, if any, would presume to try to talk to him directly, especially so late at night. He was immediately suspicious, but reconsidered as he realized that an attem
pt to see him under these conditions indicated a certain amount of desperation. He was intrigued. He put aside his reservations and irritation and stepped to the door.
“Enter.”
The engineer slid through the doorway in the manner of a ferret to its hole. He was a small man who lacked any distinguishing physical characteristics. The way he held himself as he faced Sen Dunsidan suggested that he was a man who recognized that it was important not to overstep. “Prime Minister,” he said, bowing low and waiting.
“You have something urgent to speak to me about?”
“Yes, Prime Minister. My name is Orek. Etan Orek. I have served as an airship engineer for more than twenty years. I am your most loyal servant and admirer, Prime Minister, and so I knew that I must come directly to you when I made my discovery.”
He was still bent over, not presuming to address Sen Dunsidan as an equal. There was a cringing quality to his posture that bothered the Prime Minister, but he forced himself to ignore it. “Stand up and look at me.”
Etan Orek did so, though his effort at meeting Sen Dunsidan’s practiced gaze failed, his eyes preferring to fix on the other’s belt buckle. “I apologize for disturbing you.”
“What sort of discovery have you made, Engineer Orek? I gather this has something to do with your work on my airships?”
The other nodded quickly. “Oh, yes, Prime Minister, it does. I have been working on diapson crystals, trying to find ways to enhance their performance as converters of ambient light to energy. That has been my task for the better part of the past five years.”
“And so?”
Orek hesitated. “My lord,” he said, switching to the more formal and deferential title, “I think it best if I show you rather than tell you. I think you will better understand.” He brushed at his mop of unruly dark hair and rubbed his hands together nervously. “Would it be too much of an imposition to ask you to come with me to my work station? I know it is late, but I think you will not be disappointed.”