Straken

Twelve

Dreams, bits and pieces of incomplete thoughts and unfinished stories, came and went with the swiftness of shadows and light in a cloud–swept forest. They were bright and bold and filled with promise, and Bek Ohmsford rode them like a bird across landscapes that stretched away forever. Sometimes he was in motion for the duration of the dream without ever touching the earth. Sometimes he felt the solid ground just long enough to be reassured that it was still there before winging away again. Nothing of what he saw was familiar to him. People came and went in the course of his travels, but he did not know who they were or why they were there. He had left his waking life behind, he had gone ahead of those he once knew.

It could have been a time of peace and contentment, but the dreams were interspersed with nightmares, and the nightmares were horrifying. Some were memories of things in his past, of creatures and events that he could never forget. Some were dark prophecies of what lay ahead if he could not turn aside in time. All were populated with predators that pursued him relentlessly, hunters of a sort that lacked recognizable purpose or intent. They came at him in waves, and no matter where he fled or tried to hide, they meant to have him. Dreams and nightmares. There was no recognizable connection between the one and the other, and he transitioned between light and dark visions with distressing unpredictability. He slept, but his sleep was not sound or restful. The strange mix left him plagued with anxiety over which would appear next and how he would deal with it. He sought to combat them by gaining a measure of control, but his efforts fragmented and failed. He sought to wake, swimming upward through the waters of his sleep toward the bright surface of waking, but the distance was too great. Each time he felt himself getting close, the nightmares would come and drag him down again.

He did not know how long the ordeal continued, but it was a considerable time. At times, he came close to crying out his frustration at being unable to break the chains that bound him to a sleep from which there seemed to be no waking. Perhaps he did cry out. He couldn’t be sure. But no one came to help. No one reached to take his hand and pull him clear. He struggled on alone, battling to keep the dark from overshadowing the light.

Then something changed. He did not know what it was or how it came to pass, but suddenly the dreams and the nightmares withdrew, fading like wind–blown dust. He was left wrapped in warm silence, in a quietude he had not experienced before. He found solace in his isolation. He was able to breathe normally, to ease down into a comforting sleep that allowed him to rest in the way he needed, deeply and peacefully.

For he had been injured, he knew. He had suffered damage of some sort, though he could not put a name to it. He slept because his body was trying to heal, but the injuries were severe enough that it was not certain yet that he could do so. He knew that without being able to say how. He knew it without being able to remember the specifics of what had happened to him. What he knew was he was fighting to survive and the battle had been going badly.

But the tide had turned and the storm had receded and his damaged body was healing. He dropped deep into a place in which a sense of calm prevailed and no dark things were allowed. He was so grateful for it that he wanted to cry in happiness and relief. The possibility that he had died occurred to him, but he dismissed it. His physical state did not feel like death, unless death was something very different than he had imagined. It felt like living, as if life had found him again.

Time passed, his sleep stretched away like a deep blue ocean, and the world about him began to take shape again. It assumed color and definition in the way a landscape is revealed by the lifting of a fog. As it did so, he found himself in the most beautiful gardens he had ever seen. The gardens were of varying sorts, different shapes and sizes and formations. Some were carefully cultivated beds, each given over to a flower and a theme. Some were hanging, vines and blankets of moss cascading off walls and trellises. Some were hillside and some meadow. There were flowering plants and bushes and grasses. Great ancient trees with broad leafy canopies shaded portions of the gardens while bright sunshine flooded the rest. The colors were vibrant and shimmering like the bands of a rainbow after a storm, blankets of one color and quilts of many. Amid the radiance rose the buzzing of bees as they pollinated flowers and the bright whistle and chirp of birds as they did all the things birds do. Wisps of cloud floated overhead, passing across the sun, casting strange, fleeting shadows on the earth.

It was a vision of paradise. Bek Ohmsford stood in the center of it and marveled. The gardens weren’t real; they couldn’t be. They were only dreamed. Yet in his sleep, he found them as real as the flesh of his own body.

« Welcome, Bek Ohmsford,” a soft voice whispered from behind him.

He turned and found an old man staring at him, an ancient wearing a white robe and carrying a long, bleached wooden staff. White hair tumbled from his head to his shoulders and from chin to chest. His face was deeply lined and careworn in a way that suggested that he had been waging a long, hard fight. But his blue eyes were the eyes of a child, bright and interested and filled with expectation.

« This is my home,” the old man said, a smile deepening the wrinkles of his face.

Bek looked around, confused. He was asleep, he was dreaming. But he felt as if he were awake. Was he?

« You have never been here,” the old man continued, as if reading his mind. «But we have met before, a long time ago. Do you remember?»

Bek nodded slowly, realization dawning. «You are the King of the Silver River.»

The old man nodded. «I am the last of my kind, the last of the Word’s children. I am keeper of these gardens, guardian of the Silver River, and watcher over the Races. I am also friend to the Ohmsfords. Do you remember when I helped you?»

Bek did. He had been only a boy, dispatched on a quest he had barely understood to a land no one had ever visited before. He was called Bek Rowe then, and he did not yet know of his Ohmsford heritage. While his companions slept, the King of the Silver River had come to him to give him glimpses of the truth about himself and his sister, who was then the Ilse Witch and not yet Ard Rhys of the Third Druid Order. It was the beginning of a journey of discovery that would change the lives of brother and sister forever.

That had been a long time ago, in a different life.

« I have come to help you again,” the old man said. «I do so because I promised your son that I would, although I am late in keeping that promise.»

« Pen?» Bek asked in surprise.

« Penderrin, who has gone to find the Ard Rhys and bring her back to us. Penderrin, who is beyond our reach now.» The seamed face dipped momentarily into shadow. «Walk with me.»

Bek fell into step beside him, thinking again that what was happening wasn’t real, that it was only a dream come to him in his sleep, but knowing instinctively that it was important nevertheless. He was being given a vision, a fever dream. In this vision, he might be shown truths that would help him find his son.

« Why is Pen beyond our reach?» he asked, impatient with waiting for the other to speak.

The aged head lifted slightly, one hand gesturing in a quick, dismissive motion. «It only matters that he is. It only matters that he must be. I would have told you sooner. I would have come to you. I promised him I would, weeks ago, when I first appeared to him in the Black Oaks, while he was fleeing from the Druids. He relied on me to tell you, to warn you of the danger. But I could not risk it. Had I told you, you would have gone in search of him. You would have promised me not to, but you would have gone anyway. Had you found him and rescued him, everything that must happen in its own time would have failed to happen at all.»

Bek shook his head. «Are you saying you deliberately stopped me from helping Pen by not telling me what was happening to him?»

« I am saying that I stopped you fromthinking you were helping him when in truth you would have been doing the opposite.»

« I don’t understand. Why are you telling me this now, since you chose not to before?»

The childlike eyes fixed on him. «Because now your help is needed. But it is needed in an entirely different way from before. And it will not be so easy to give.»

They walked on, not speaking. Bek, floating within his vision, dreaming through his sleep, was a disembodied presence with thoughts and emotions, but a lack of substance. It left him feeling oddly removed from what was happening, even while participating. He experienced a need to grasp on to something hard and strong, something real and true. But the words of the King of the Silver River were all he had.

« This is what has happened, Bek Ohmsford,” the old man said finally. «Druids within the order have conspired against the Ard Rhys. They found a way to banish her to a place from which she cannot return without help. Your son has gone to find her. He was asked to do so by me because I knew he was the only one who could make the journey and return. He did not think himself equal to the task, but I convinced him otherwise, and now he has convinced himself. He has crossed a barrier that no other may cross to reach the Ard Rhys. When he finds her, he will bring her back through that barrier, and they must both face their destinies.»

He paused, looking over at Bek. The look seemed intended both to measure and to reassure. «Your son and your sister are inside the Forbidding.»

Bek turned sharply toward the old man, but the heavy staff struck the earth hard enough that he could feel the blow through his feet. «Don’t speak. Just listen. Shadea a’Ru and her minions believe they have orchestrated the imprisonment of the Ard Rhys through their own cleverness and skill, but they are mistaken. They have been tricked by one of the demons that dwell within the Forbidding. That demon is a warlock, a sorcerer of great power. Its goal was to exchange the Ard Rhys for another demon, bringing her into the Forbidding in order to free one of its own to come into this world. That exchange has taken place. The demon set free now seeks to destroy the Forbidding so that all those imprisoned since the time of Faerie will be freed. The demon must be stopped or the Four Lands are lost. You must stop it.»

Bek shook his head. The charge weighed on him like a set of chains. «How?»

The old man slowed and turned to face him. The childlike eyes were kind and reassuring. «1 did not come to you to tell you of your son or warn you of your own danger before this because Penderrin alone was needed to cross into the Forbidding, and you would have stopped him. Penderrin knows that he must find and rescue his aunt. He has the means and the will to accomplish this. I think he will succeed. But he does not know that when the Ard Rhys was sent into the Forbidding, a demon was sent into our world. He only knows that he must use the talisman he has been given to rescue your sister and bring her out again. He believes that is the extent of what is required of him. This was my decision, too. Telling him the rest would have crushed him.»

He turned and began walking again, his steps careful and measured. Bek stayed at his side, waiting impatiently to hear more. All around them, breezes rippled the petals of the flowers and gave the impression that they walked upon the surface of a multihued sea.

« The talisman Pen carries is called a darkwand,” the old man said. «Penderrin has already used it to cross into the Forbidding. Once he finds the Ard Rhys, he will use it to cross back again.» He paused. «But there is one thing more he must do. What has been done must be undone—not in part, but in whole. In order for matters to be put right, everything that the combined magic of the demons and the Druids has brought to pass must be put back. Therefore, not only must the Ard Rhys be returned to this world, but the demon must be put back inside the Forbidding. The darkwand possesses the magic to do this, but only Pen has the power to wield it. He must find the demon and use the darkwand against it.»

He looked at Bek. «You are the one who must see that he has the chance to do so.»

« What am I supposed to do?»

The old man looked away again. «Two things. First, you must find a way to protect your son when he crosses back through the Forbidding with the Ard Rhys. They must return to exactly the same place they went in—her sleeping chamber at Paranor.»

« Where Shadea and the others will be waiting,” Bek finished.

The old man nodded. «Second, you must find the demon. It will not look like a demon. It will look like something else. It is a changeling and takes the shapes of other creatures. This one is particularly dangerous. It absorbs its victims and becomes them. You must find out which disguise it has assumed and unmask it.»

***

Bek looked down at his feet. He couldn’t see them. He didn’t seem to have feet, even though he could feel himself walking.

« The darkwand will reveal the demon,” the old man said. «The talisman will respond to its presence. It will tell you who or what the demon is. If you get close enough.»

The scent of tuberoses filled Bek’s nostrils, sweet and heady. He shook off the distraction. «The wishsong told me that Pen was at Taupo Rough in the Upper Anar.»

« The wishsong did not lie. But now he is inside the Forbidding.»

« So I must go back to Paranor to find my son?»

The King of the Silver River turned to face him. «The path that leads to your son does not begin at Paranor. It begins at Taupo Rough, with Penderrin’s companions. The Dwarf, the Rock Troll, and the Elven girl will provide you with keys to the doors that you must open to reach him.»

He paused. «It is not within the Forbidding that Penderrin faces his greatest danger, it is here. The Druids will know where he has gone and be waiting for him when he returns. If they reach him before you do, they will kill him.»

« Nothing will happen to my son while I am alive,” Bek said at once.

He felt a subtle shift in his surroundings as he made that vow, a shimmering in the air, a ripple in the blankets and clusters of flowers, a whispering of breezes, and he knew he had committed himself in a way that could not be undone.

The old man nodded. «Do you feel the weight of your words, Bek Ohmsford? They have sealed your fate.»

He stepped aside, an effortless movement that belonged to a much younger man. His ancient face lifted and changed. He was something else now, an old man no longer, another creature entirely, not human, not of this world. Bek backed away involuntarily, hands coming up to ward off the thing that stood before him.

The King of the Silver River had become a monster.

« See the future, human!» the monster rasped, teeth showing, eyes bright with hate. «Look upon it! When the Forbidding falls, your world becomes mine!»

Then the gardens withered before Bek’s eyes, the flowers dying, their colors fading and their stalks wilting. The great shade trees lost their leaves, and their branches took on the look of bones blackened by fire. The grasses dried and cracked, and all sights and sounds of life disappeared. Overhead, the sky lost its brightness, its depthless blue becoming as gray as ashes, misted and empty.

Bek knew at once he was being given a glimpse of what his world would become if the demon set loose by the unthinking rebel Druids was successful in bringing down the Forbidding and setting free its denizens. When that happened, his world would become the world of the Forbidding. It would be the end of everything that mattered.

Do not jail.

The words echoed softly in the rapidly diminishing sweep of daylight, and Bek turned swiftly to seek the King of the Silver River, to protest that he would not, to give fresh voice to his promise to do as he had been asked, but found he was alone.

He woke with a gasp, jerked from his sleep by a sense of impending horror, his body racked by pain and fever and his mind roiling with wild, uncontrollable emotions that careened through him like tiny razors, jagged edges cutting. He tried to speak and could not. He tried to see, to discover where he was, but his surroundings were blurred and indistinct. He felt a slight rolling motion beneath him and heard the creak and groan of wood and metal fastenings, of lashings and the wind’s steady rush. He was aboard a ship, but he couldn’t understand how he had gotten there.

Penderrin is inside the Forbidding!

It was his first thought, and the realization all but stopped his heart. Pen, in that monstrous prison, where so much of what was evil in the world had been banished. That the King of the Silver River would send his son to such a place was impossible for him to understand. How could a mere boy have any chance at all of surviving?

How could he hope to find his aunt and bring her back again when everything he encountered would be looking to kill him?

But it is not inside the Forbidding that Penderrin faces his greatest danger.

« Bek, can you hear me?»

He took a deep, steadying breath and blinked against the haze that clouded his vision. A face swam into view, young and with skin ghostly pale, framed with a helmet of close–cropped black hair. A slender hand reached out to touch his cheek. «Can you hear me?»

He nodded, his mouth too dry to allow him to speak. Seeing his difficulty, she raised his head from the bedding on which he lay, brought a cup of water to his lips, and allowed him to sip.

Intense dark eyes peered into his. «Do you remember me?» she asked. «I’m Bellizen. I’m Trefen Morys’s friend.»

He nodded weakly, remembering nothing. «Where am I?»

« AboardSwift Sure. You have been very sick, Bek. You were badly hurt. A knife wound deep in your side and an arrow through your shoulder. You have been delirious for two days, fighting off a fever. I think it has broken finally.»

It all came back to him in a rush. His escape from Paranor with Rue, helped by the young Druid Trefen Morys, the battle to reachSwift Sure with the Gnome Hunters attacking from every quarter in an effort to stop them, his collapse moments after finally managing to reach the rope ladder, and then—nothing. This girl had been aboard the airship waiting for them. He remembered looking up into her face as they placed him on the deck and she bent to tend his wounds.

« You helped me,” he said.

« Healing is my Druid skill,” she replied, giving him a quick, reassuring smile. «Rue sails the airship, Trefen lends her a hand where it is needed, and I care for you. We each have our task. Mine seemed the harder for a time, I was afraid I was going to lose you.»

He thought back to the dreams and nightmares of his sleep, already growing distant and vague in his memory. He thought back to the fever dream, to his vision of the King of the Silver River. He had turned the corner into recovery then, he believed. He had been near death, but the dream had brought him back to life. He shivered at the memory of what the dream had shown him, the images of a desiccated, demon–invaded world still fresh in his mind.

Bellizen gave him another few sips of water from the cup and then laid him back down again. «You still need to rest.»

She started to rise, but he reached out for her arm. «Is everyone else all right?»

She turned back. «Rue was hurt, too, though not as badly as you. Several arrow wounds, but they were quick to begin healing once I cleaned them and applied the necessary salves. She moves slowly still, but she is able to sail the airship. Yours was the wound we were most worried about. I did not think we could save you unless we went to Storlock for help from the Healers, but Rue said that was the first place the Druids would look for you. I have some skill with infection and fevers. I worked the front on the Prekkendorran for a year in my early training. We decided not to chance going to Storlock.»

She stopped, her face turning somber. «I am talking too much. You need to rest. I will tell Rue you are awake.»

« Wait,” he said again. He swallowed against the tightness in his throat, against the urgency he was feeling at needing to act on his dream. «How long have I been like this?»

« A little more than three days.»

Three days. A lifetime.«Where are we?»

« Above the Streleheim, flying north along the western exposure of the Anar Mountains.» She hesitated. «We stopped last night so that I could collect plants to treat your wound. And to allow you a chance to sleep on solid ground for one night. But Rue said we had to go on this morning, that we could not afford to delay longer. The Druids would be after us, and we needed to find your son before they did. That’s where we are flying.»

« To Taupo Rough?»

« To Taupo Rough. You told us just before you lost consciousness that this was where the scrye waters showed him to be.»

But where he no longer was,Bek thought. Still, it was where they must begin their search for his companions, whose help the King of the Silver River had said they would need. Keys that would open doors to reach him—what did that mean?

« Rest now,” Bellizen said, touching his arm as she rose.

He exhaled slowly and lay back, and she was gone before he could say anything more. He lay in the ensuing silence and stared up at the beams of his cabin, at the underside of the decking, at the windows through which the heavy streamers of daylight shone. It was all so familiar. But he had the feeling that the familiar was rapidly vanishing, and that what lay ahead would be as strange and new as the idea of Penderrin and Grianne inside the Forbidding.

He closed his eyes for a moment, to rest them, and immediately fell asleep.