Straken

Thirteen

When Bek Ohmsford woke, he was alone. He lay in his bed staring up at the same patch of the decking’s underside that he had been looking at when he fell asleep— crossbeams, rough planking, wooden dowels, and iron nails all fitted into place. He felt the sway of the airship and knew she was still flying. Outside, the light was pale and washed of color. It was twilight, he guessed. Or the gray of a new dawn. He wondered how much time had passed. He wondered how far they had come.

For a while he lay without moving, allowing himself to come fully awake, taking time to test the limits of his strength. He found bound about his waist the compress that protected the knife wound, as well as the bandage to his shoulder. Both wounds ached, but no more than he might have expected them to. He moved his arms and legs without difficulty and even managed to lift himself up on one elbow, although the effort caused a sharp twinge in his injured side. He lay back, feeling appreciably better than he had when he had first regained consciousness. Still, he accepted that he was not yet at full strength. He reached for the cup of water that Bellizen had left at his bedside and drank deeply. The water was sweet and cool, and it helped clear his head of sleep. He thought he might be able to get out of bed and up on deck if he took his time. But he would have to try standing and he would have to dress. It would not be easy.

He was working his way into a sitting position when the door to his cabin opened and Rue appeared.

« What do you think you’re doing?» she snapped, rushing over and pushing him down again. Her face reflected a mix of concern and irritation, but it softened almost at once as she leaned down and kissed him. «Wait a bit. You’re not ready yet.»

« I feel better,” he said.

« Apparently. But how you think you feel doesn’t necessarily reflect how you really are.» She sat down beside him. «Didn’t Bellizen tell you how worried we were? You lied to me about that knife wound. It was much worse than you said.»

« I just wanted to get out of there. I wasn’t thinking about the wound.»

« We almost lost you, Bek.»

He smiled. «You can’t lose me as easy as that.»

« I hope not.» She ran the tip of one finger across his cheek. «Losing you would be too much for me.»

She kissed him again, and he kissed her back, holding her close, even though it hurt both his side and shoulder to do so. When she pulled away, she brushed back her short–cropped hair and shook her head in despair. «You risk too much, Bek Ohmsford. You take too many chances.»

« I must have learned that from you,” he answered, laughing. «Let’s be honest for a moment. Who in the world ever took more chances than you?»

She nodded, conceding the point. «But you feel better, do you?» She held her hand against his forehead for a moment. «Your fever has broken, you’re much cooler. Earlier, you were burning up. And delirious. Thrashing and talking about things none of us could understand. You were dreaming. Or having nightmares. Do you remember any of it?»

« I remember what matters,” he said quietly.

Then he told her of his vision and of the words of the King of the Silver River. He was surprised to see her cry when she learned that Pen was inside the Forbidding. But immediately afterward she was angry and quick to blame Grianne. «If not for her, none of this would be happening.» Their lives were caught up in hers, snared in her Druid machinations and political maneuverings, held prisoner by her web of intrigues and subterfuges. She might not be the Ilse Witch any longer, but as Ard Rhys she inspired the same hostility and enmity. Anyone connected with her, whether by blood or by alliance, suffered as a result.

None of them would ever be free of her entanglements.

Bek tried to reason with her, but there was no doing so while her son was in such terrible danger and her anger so great because of it, so he quickly gave it up, instead turning the discussion a different way.

« You did the right thing by keeping us flying toward Taupo Rough. If the King of the Silver River is to be believed, our chance for helping Pen lies in first finding his companions.»

She frowned at him.«Are we to believe him, Bek? Are we to believe any of those who harbor secrets? We know better than to trust the Druids. Should we trust a creature like the King of the Silver River any farther?»

Bek shrugged. «I think we have to. Pen trusted him.»

« Which put our son inside the Forbidding. You make my point.»

« But maybe we have to extend our trust a little farther in order to get him out again. After all, what other choice do we have? We haven’t another way of reaching Pen.»

« I hate this!» she snapped. «I hate that everything we do is dictated by these secret keepers, Faerie and Druid alike. Everything that has happened is their doing. We are just their pawns!»

He nodded. «I know what we are. But we are thinking pawns, and in the end we will make our own decisions. For now, we have to follow the path we have been put upon and hope that it leads us to where we want to go. That path takes us first to Taupo Rough.»

She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. «All right. Taupo Rough.» She looked out the window at the graying light. «Dusk comes. You’ve been asleep for more than a day, but we traveled on while you slept. We should reach the village before dawn. You should go back to sleep while you can. Or would you like something to eat first?»

He chose to eat, and she sat with him while he did. He was heartened to find that her anger gradually lessened and her mood lightened, and he did not argue with her when she told him to go back to sleep afterward. She kissed him and told him she loved him, and he told her that he loved her, too. It was as much as they needed to say. It was enough to leave things at that.

He slept then, surprised to discover that sleep came again so quickly and easily. He was still sleeping when Rue reappeared to tell him that they were almost at their destination. She helped him sit up and then stand, and when he found he was strong enough to do more, she helped him dress and walked him up on deck. It was night still, but the first tinges of dawn were visible east along the crest of the mountains. The land they sailed through was stark and barren, a vast sweeping plain to the west that climbed into foothills east, which in turn rose to the jagged majesty of the Charnals. Small clumps of trees, tiny silver–web streams, and small lakes that reflected the moonlight brightened an otherwise rocky terrain. Bek knew that country. He had explored it with Rue once upon a time. But few expeditions went that way, and he had not been there in years.

Trefen Morys was at the helm and nodded to him as he climbed into the pilot box. «Good to see you looking well again,” he said.

Bellizen came over from the port railing and joined them, her pale oval face shining with moonlight. «Are we close, Rue?»

Rue Meridian nodded, then said to Bek, «Tell them everything you told me. They need to hear it from you.»

Bek did so, his words floating away from him as he spoke them in the soft rush of the wind, the night air swift and cool, the world vast and dark about their little circle. He covered everything, making certain to include the words of the King of the Silver River that suggested the Ard Rhys was alive and that Pen could reach her.

When he was finished, Bellizen spoke first. «It sounds so impossible. A boy is the only one who can bring the Ard Rhys back? A boy with no magic, no special skills?» She looked quickly at Rue. «I do not doubt his determination, but I do question the reason for the choosing of him.»

« No more than I,” Rue said. «But Bek keeps nothing from us, the secrets for which we seek answers belong to the King of the Silver River. If we wish to discover those answers, we will have to discover them another way. Pen might know some of them. The Ard Rhys might know the rest.»

« We will seek those answers with you,” Trefen Morys assured her quickly. «We will do whatever is necessary to find my mistress. If your son can lead us to her, then we will find him and help him as best we can. But first, it appears, we need to find his companions. Three were named. The Dwarf would be Tagwen. The Rock Troll would be Kermadec. Once, he was Captain of her Guard, and he remains her close friend. Taupo Rough is his home.» He paused. «But who is the Elven girl?»

Bek shook his head. «I wish 1 knew.»

He wished he knew as well why the King of the Silver River had made no mention of Ahren Elessedil. The Druids had said Tagwen had gone to him for help first before going to Penderrin. Shouldn’t there also have been some reference to him?

But he said nothing of his worry to the others.

He stood at the railing and watched the ground sweep away asSwift Sure sped onward along the line of the mountains. Rue took several compass readings and directed Trefen Morys, whom she had allowed to keep the helm. She must have been working with him, Bek thought. The young Druid had no flying skills, no experience with weapons, and he had learned both in a very short time under less–than–ideal circumstances. But he was doing better than many would have.

The sky continued to brighten slowly, the darkness giving way to a silvery wash that gradually turned golden. Ahead, the buildings of a fortified settlement came into view, a village built back against a cliff wall. But there were no fires in the village and no signs of movement. Dark smears dotted the plains fronting the village walls, and the village itself had a ragged, neglected look. As they drew nearer, he saw that sections of the walls had been breached and the greater number of buildings were collapsed and blackened by fire.

« Are we in the right place?» he asked Rue.

She nodded, her face dark with concern. «This is Taupo Rough. Not what we expected, is it? Someone has been here before us.»

Bek did not care to speculate on who that someone might have been. It was possible that the Druids had gotten to the village ahead of them, but the destruction did not look recent. There were no fires burning, no lingering curtains of smoke, no battle smells, nothing to suggest that anything had happened here for days.

They landed the airship at the edge of the walls, and while he stayed at the helm, the other three went down the rope ladder to have a look around. He hated being left behind, but as Rue sensibly pointed out, he was too weak to be making long treks. So he contented himself with watching their progress and trying to fit together in his own mind the story of what had happened here.

By the time the sun was fully up, white–hot in a cloudless sky, they were back, grim–faced and empty–handed.

« A battle was fought here perhaps two weeks ago,” Rue reported. «At least one Druid warship was brought down in the fighting and burned. The remains lie out on the flats. So the battle was probably between the Rock Trolls of the village and the Druids. There are Gnome weapons and pieces of armor, so Gnomes probably fought in the service of the Druids. Hard to tell for certain what happened, but in the end the Trolls fled into the cliffs. There are caves in those cliffs, and I would imagine tunnels that connect to the far side of the mountains.»

« This must have all happened because of Pen,” Bek said. «This is Kermadec’s home. Pen and the others would have come to him for help. The Druids tracked them here while we were imprisoned at Paranor and tried to take Pen prisoner. Kermadec refused to give him up. So the village was sacked.»

Rue nodded, brushing back loose strands of her auburn hair. «But where did Pen and his protectors go from here? What route did they take?»

« They went in search of the darkwand,” Bellizen answered her.

« Somewhere in these mountains,” Trefen Morys added.

« Or somewhere beyond.» Bellizen looked at Bek. «Can you track your son’s passage from here as you did at Paranor?»

Bek shook his head doubtfully. The battle had happened days ago, and Pen had been gone from there a long time. He wasn’t in the mountains anymore, he wasn’t even on the same world. In any case, Bek’s connection was with his son, not with those who had accompanied him. His magic might not allow him to track them as he had Pen.

But he knew he had to try.

« There’s nothing here for us,” he said. «Not unless we try tracking them through the tunnels. Why don’t we fly to the other side of the cliffs and see if we can pick up a trail?»

They did so, Rue taking the helm, not trusting anyone else to navigate in a place where the winds could prove unpredictable and a moment’s inattention could send an airship into the rocks. Keeping Bek beside her in the pilot box, she sent the young Druids to the starboard and port forward draws to work the lines by hand in case of heavy turbulence. But they were lucky that day. The winds were mild and the way into the mountains clear.Swift Sure sailed through gaps in the jagged peaks unhindered and unchallenged, and by midday they had reached a valley that lay between the peaks of the Klu.

While the airship hovered midway across the valley, Bek used the wishsong to seek out some sign of Pen or his companions. He had learned the trick from his sister years earlier. As the Ilse Witch, she had used the wishsong to track him. Later, on the long voyage home, she had showed him how. He would see if it could be made to work the same way for him.

It was something of a gamble to do so. Any use of his magic would alert Shadea and her Druids to their presence and remove any doubt about where they were. On the other hand, she would know already where they were going and what they were trying to do, so he really wasn’t giving all that much away. And if she had discovered that Pen was inside the Forbidding, she might have lost all interest in pursuing them anyway. Whatever the case, without the use of the wishsong they had no way of knowing where to go.

Eyes closed for better concentration, he sang the magic, slow and smooth, like a carpet being spread across the valley floor, searching for traces of passage. He found several, all of them more than a week old and none distinct enough to identify. Frustrated, he spread his net a little wider, reaching deeper into the peaks ahead, into the mountains of the Klu that fronted the huge forests of the Inkrim.

There, far beyond anywhere he could see, he found traces of his son, tiny beacons in the ether. But the traces were unlike anything he had ever come across before, and for a moment he didn’t trust what the wishsong was telling him. Still, his certainty that it was Penderrin and not someone else was so strong that he could not ignore it.

He broke off his efforts, the wishsong dying into silence. His breathing quieted and his eyes opened once more.

« I found him,” he said. «Traces of him, anyway. Deeper into the mountains ahead, east.» He paused, looking now at Rue. «But something’s wrong. What I found wasn’t familiar to me, it wasn’t what I know of Pen. What I found of his passing was tinged with magic.»

She stared at him. «Magic? Whose magic?»

« His own.»

She shook her head. «That isn’t possible. He doesn’t have any magic. He’s never had any magic. We both know that.»

He held her gaze. «Nevertheless.»

« You must be mistaken. You have to be.»

He could tell from the way she said it that she needed him to be wrong, that she was frightened at the prospect that the Ohmsford heritage might have been passed on to her son after all. He could discern her thinking. She had believed Pen safely removed from the wishsong’s influence, the bloodline dying out with Bek. What if she had been mistaken? What if the magic had simply lain dormant? It had done so with Bek. Was it so strange that it should do so with his son, as well?

« I don’t think we can decide about this until we talk to Pen,” he said carefully. «What matters is that I feel certain I’ve found his route of passage. We can track him now.»

« What if what you’ve found is his passage coming out, rather than going in?» Trefen Morys asked suddenly.

It was an uncomfortable thought. There was no way to determine the answer from where they stood.

There might not be a way to determine the answer once they reached the source. It might be a long, dangerous journey to their destination, and the journey might well yield nothing.

But it was all they had to work with. It was the only lead they had been given.

« I think we have to try following it for a time, at least,” Bek offered, looking to Rue for support.

His wife studied him, her fine, clear features masking what she was feeling, keeping hidden the wash of doubts and fears he knew she must be experiencing. She stayed silent for a long time, considering. Then she nodded. «Bek is right. We have to try.»

They turned Swift Sure’s bow toward the Klu and flew east for the remainder of the day into peaks wrapped in storm clouds and layers of mist, buffeted by heavy winds. Swift Sure was battered and tossed and her occupants thrown from side to side. Bek was sent below to help protect his wounds, and the other three strapped on safety harnesses while on deck. By the end of the day, all three were drenched and freezing, their bodies aching and their minds numb from the effort of holding course and staying aloft. Snow was flying all about them in thick gusts, threatening whiteouts at every turn, cloaking cliff walls and passages alike so that the way forward remained an ever–changing mystery.

As darkness approached, Rue Meridian began to despair. If they did not get clear of the mountains quickly, she would have to set down, and there was nowhere for her to do that. Flying blind at night could have only one result. She called Bek back up on deck and had him use the wishsong again, searching for a way to go. But the magic failed Bek this time, refusing to give up anything at all that would help, leaving them adrift and at risk.

Finally, when it seemed that no help was to be had from any quarter and the outcome of their efforts unavoidable, the storms subsided and the peaks ahead opened into the Valley of the Inkrim. Rue took Swift Sure through as the last of the day’s light gave way to a scattering of stars and no visible moon, just a faint brightening that allowed her enough illumination to set down at the edge of the trees at the rim of the valley.

They slept then, exhausted from their efforts. All but Bek. Awake and awash in fresh doubts, he sat alone in the pilot box, wrapped in a blanket, thinking about what they were doing. He understood the need for it, he understood as well the reasons. What bothered him was the number of uncertainties. Trefen Morys had been right about tracking Pen’s passage. It was probably impossible to determine which way the boy was going, absent some physical evidence. He told himself that if they could locate just one of his companions, they would have a way of finding his son.

But he was bothered most by something he had kept from Rue. The traces of Pen he had found had been infused with wishsong magic. Not just any magic, but wishsong magic. He hadn’t thought Rue needed to know that just yet. She was distressed enough about the presence of any magic where their son was concerned and would have been beside herself to learn that the magic had its origins in the Ohmsford bloodline. But there was no mistaking its nature. He should have felt a measure of relief, if Pen had the use of the wishsong, he was in a better position to protect himself. But in fact Bek was as upset about the prospect as his wife. He didn’t want Pen to have the burden of the wishsong any more than she did. Too many generations of Ohmsfords had struggled with it. Too many had seen their lives altered irrevocably as a result—and not always for the better. It had been so with him. He had hoped that his son might have an easier road.

He thought about it for a long time. He tried to picture Pen within the Forbidding and failed. How could anyone imagine what that must be like? He knew what sort of creatures the Forbidding contained, but no one knew what it would feel like to be a human trapped there. That Penderrin should have been sent to find and retrieve Grianne was still something he could not fathom. The King of the Silver River had given him no reason for the choice of his son as rescuer. There would be a reason, he knew. And the reason might have something to do with Pen’s use of the wishsong. Yet if that was so, why hadn’t the Faerie creature come to Bek, who had more experience and better command of the magic? Why had Pen been chosen?

It had to be something else—something about Pen that wasn’t true of Bek.

He fell asleep at some point and woke to the sound of the others coming up on deck. He was stiff from sleeping upright, but overall he felt better than he had the day before. He felt stronger, more ready. He was mending; he was coming back to himself.

The day was clear and bright ahead of them, the storms of the Klu left behind. After they had eaten from their steadily dwindling stores, Bek used the wishsong to seek anew the traces of Pen he had found the other day. He found them with little trouble. They were stronger, and he was better able to read them. The magic that had infused them a day earlier was more diverse than he had believed, a mix of couplings that involved his son and someone or something else. The source of the traces lay ahead, deep within the Inkrim.

After checking the radian draws and light sheaths for breaks and tears and finding everything intact, Rue took Swift Sure off the ground, pointed her east across the sweep of the forested valley, and sailed in search of Bek’s findings.

It was nearing midday when Trefen Morys, who had been keeping watch at the bow for the better part of an hour, called back, «There are ruins down there!»

Rue dropped Swift Sure into a slow descent toward the canopy of the trees, following the young Druid’s shouted directions. Within minutes, the ruins were visible to them all. Remnants of buildings sprawled for miles, a jumble of broken walls, columns, and battlements. What little remained had been overgrown by trees and scrub, enveloped by the foliage of the jungle. In places, wildflowers formed bright patches amid the blanketing shadows.

« There are people down there!» Trefen Morys shouted suddenly.

Bek went forward at once, picking his way gingerly across the decking to where the Druid stood. They were only a hundred feet above the canopy by then and able to see the whole of the valley clearly. As Bek came up beside him, Trefen Morys pointed. Gnarled, string–thin forms darted about the rubble at the edges of the ruins, creatures similar to Gnomes but clearly something else.

« Urdas,” Bek said aloud.

He recognized them from earlier expeditions he had made into the Charnals. He saw them look up as Swift Sure hove into view, repositioning themselves to meet the newly perceived threat, brandishing slings and bows and arrows.

« Keep us flying, Rue!» he shouted over his shoulder.

« What are they doing?» Trefen Morys asked him.

He shook his head. «I don’t know. Keep your eyes open.»

He went back to the pilot box and climbed up beside Rue and Bellizen, telling them what he had seen. «They’ve ringed the ruins. I think they’re looking for something. Maybe the same thing we’re looking for.»

He decided to use the wishsong again, to seek anew the traces of Pen’s passing he had sensed that morning. He found them immediately, strong and clear and just ahead in the ruins. The magic was diffuse and fading, days old and no longer clearly defined. But its use had been powerful and reflected both determination and clear intent. Pen had experienced an epiphany or confrontation of major proportions. If he had survived that, Bek thought, then there was some reason to believe he could survive the Forbidding.

« Ahead, five degrees east southeast,” he told Rue, pointing for emphasis.

Swift Surealtered course slightly and flew on, Rue holding the airship’s speed down so that they could scan the ruins below for other signs of life. They were flying along the southern perimeter, and there were Urdas scattered all along it. They seemed reluctant to go farther in. Bek remembered that the Urdas were superstitious about places they considered sacred, the ruins might well be one such place. But the Urdas were clearly there for a reason. If they could not enter, then they were waiting for something that had.

« Smoke,” Rue said suddenly, pointing off to the right.

From just beyond the main body of the ruins, separated by a series of deep, wooded, rifts, a column of black smoke rose from a crumbling blockhouse and tower. The Urdas were all about it, three and four deep within the cover of trees and rocks, showering the fortifications with darts and arrows and spears.

« I’d. say we’ve found something,” Rue offered, giving Bek a quick glance.

But it was not something that tracked to the traces of Pen’s passing that Bek had detected. It was something entirely apart. He hesitated, wondering how advisable it was to become distracted by something that might have nothing at all to do with what they were looking for.

« All right,” he said finally, «let’s have a look.»