The Gypsy Morph

FIVE

SIMRALIN WAITED until the boat carrying Larkin Quill and Angel Perez was well out on the water and heading for the far shore before turning to the task of reinflating the hot–air balloon so that Kirisin and she could set out for the Cintra. Kirisin, who had been cleaning up the campsite, packing away their foodstuffs and supplies, was glad to begin preparations for setting out. Movement helped ease his discomfort with leaving Angel behind, focusing his thoughts to the particulars of what was needed to get under way.

It took them less than an hour to set up the balloon, fill the bag, load their supplies, and cast off. The day remained bright and welcoming as they lifted into the sky, empty of clouds and filled with sunshine. Kirisin glanced down several times to see if he could spy Larkin Quill’s boat, but it had disappeared somewhere along the far bank, back in the heavy trees and the inlets, safely out of sight.

Good luck, Angel, he mouthed silently.

He glanced over to see Simralin watching him, and he blushed despite himself.

They sailed across Redonnelin Deep and the beginning of the Cintra Mountains, reaching the northern edge of the chain by midday. Kirisin expected them to continue on immediately, but Simralin told him they were taking the balloon down again and anchoring where they were until dark.

“Can’t risk traveling farther south in the daylight,” she said as they worked together to leak the air from the bag and land the balloon in a meadow at the foot of the mountains. “We’re too easy to spot up there against the sky. They might not know who we are, but they will be quick to want to find out. They can track our silhouette and be waiting when we land. At night, we won’t be so visible.”

Kirisin had to agree, even though he wanted to set off right away. Delays of any sort at this point were frustrating. But he didn’t argue. Instead, he helped her land the balloon, pull in the deflated bag, and anchor the basket. Then he offered to keep watch so that she could sleep for a few hours.

“Much appreciated, Little K,” she told him, yawned, stretched out, and went right to sleep.

He watched her for a time, smiling inwardly at how quickly she could make the transition. Then his attention wandered to the countryside surrounding them, bleak and withered and dominated by the barren craggy peaks of the mountains. Having just left a mountain so different from these, a mountain on which trees and grasses and flowers still grew in lush profusion, green and fresh and thriving, he was dismayed anew at the devastation that had taken hold of his world. No number of Elves could change this, he thought darkly. The sickness and rot were too pervasive and deep–seeded. It made him angry all over again at the humans who had been so careless with their caretaking, at their failure to act more quickly and reasonably when they still had a chance to stem the tide. But he guessed they hadn’t been any more successful at saving themselves, and the price exacted for their foolish inattention was far greater than he would have wished on them.

Except that the Elves were paying the same price. Every living thing was paying it. When a massive failure to preserve the integrity of an ecosystem occurred, no one escaped the consequences.

The hours slipped by. Simralin slept, her breathing deep and even. Kirisin pondered the world’s destiny along with his own, and after a time drifted into memories of Erisha. He found himself wishing he could see her once more, to tell her how much knowing her had meant to him and how sorry he was that he couldn’t have done more to protect her. He thought about how they had played together growing up, in a time when everything happening now would have seemed impossible. It still seemed impossible. Erisha dead. Simralin and himself fugitives. Culph a demon that had betrayed them all.

He was particularly bitter about the old man. He could see his face, smiling and reassuring. He could hear his voice, could feel it make him want to shake his head in blind agreement. He hated that he had thought Culph was his friend, but he hated even more that he had liked him. Nothing would ever change the sense of outrage he felt at knowing how badly he had been deceived. He would live with that memory until he died. It might even go with him to wherever he went afterward.

The recognition burned like fire, and he tamped it down and shoved it away. In the aftermath of its fading, he found himself staring off into middle space, seeing nothing but the past, and then seeing nothing at all. His thoughts wandered like children lost, seeking peace and comfort in the presence of the familiar.

His thoughts strayed, and without thinking about it or even wanting it he followed after.

Who told you that?

The voice whispered through the darkness, sharp and accusatory. He looked around and found himself in the stone gardens of the Ashenell. Massive sepulchres and blocky vaults cast their shadows over a forest of smaller markers. The night was quiet, a shroud over the graves of the dead. Yet a voice had spoken to him.

He saw Erisha then, standing less than ten feet away, her clothing torn and bloodied, her slender white throat sliced open to the bone. She stood solitary and ethereal in death, cast out into the Void by the loss of her life. She looked at him and tried to speak, but no words came.

Erisha, he said. I’m sorry.

She tried again to speak, and again she failed.

Who told you that?

The voice again. Not her voice, but another’s. He searched for the speaker and found him standing close to the girl. Old Culph, his grizzled face and gnarled body unchanged from life. Yet he was a ghost, too. The boy could see it in the translucence that radiated from him, in the way the starlight shone through him.

He could see it in the silhouette of his bones through his skin.

The old man was grinning, his lips curled in disdain, his sharp old eyes fixed and staring.

Who told you that?

Kirisin did not understand. Told him what? What was the old man talking about? The demon, he corrected. What was the demon saying?

He looked again at Erisha, who did not seem to see the demon. She was speaking once more, but still no words would come. Her mouth opened and closed, and there were tears in her eyes.

Then a third figure appeared, cloaked and hooded, dark and forbidding, hovering back in the deep shadows at the edge of his vision. A wraith, perhaps. But no, not this one. This one was alive, was of flesh and blood. It stared at him from out of the folds of the hood, and while he could not make out its features, he could feel its gaze.

Kirisin started toward it, and the ground seemed to give way beneath his feet. Suddenly he was falling, pitching forward into blackness, leaving Erisha and Culph and the Ashenell behind.

Only the dark figure stayed with him, one hand reaching. Its voice hissed in warning.

Who told you that?

Kirisin’S EYES SNAPPED OPEN, and his slumped body jerked upright. He had been dreaming. Daydreaming perhaps, but maybe something more, something deeper. A vision? He couldn’t be sure. He wet his lips and stared out into the sun–drenched day. How much time had passed? Only moments, it seemed. But then he looked at the sky and saw that the sun had moved far to the west. He had been sleeping or daydreaming or whatever it was for hours.

And what had the dream been about?

Who told you that?

The words echoed faintly in his memory, vaguely recognizable, and for a moment he almost had a grip on their origin. But then the link faltered, and his grip was gone. He tried to regain it and failed. For the moment, it was lost to him.

But not forgotten. At some point, he would remember.

He sat quiet and unmoving for a long time, coming back to himself in bits and pieces. The dream had disturbed him in a way that transcended his memory of the images or even the words. It was the feel of it, the way it pressed down on him like an oppressive weight. It was also in his recognition that it meant something that he could not decipher.

What had prompted the dream?

Simralin woke. Her eyes blinked at him, and she smiled. “Time to set out again, Little K. Are you ready?”

He smiled back, cold inside. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

They drew out the air bag and refastened its lines to the basket. Then Simralin engaged the blower and began filling the bag anew. As she did so, she glanced over to where her brother sat staring into space. “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. Well, maybe nothing. I dozed off and had a dream of sorts. About the Ashenell and Erisha and Culph. It was disturbing. Still is, thinking about it.”

“Well, try not to think about it, then. Dreams have a way of mirroring our doubts and fears. They suggest things that might be true, but usually aren’t.” She waited a moment for his response. When he failed to give it, she said, “Want something to eat?”

Leaving him to direct hot air from the blower nozzle into the slowly inflating bag, she reached into their supplies and pulled out some bread and cheese. Together they ate their meal and marked time. Kirisin tried hard not to think of the dream and ended up thinking about it all the more. Telling him not to think about something was tantamount to ensuring that he did. He didn’t blame Sim, though. She was just trying to be helpful.

Once they were airborne, he was able to shift his attention to the sweep of the countryside below, from the high desert to the mountain peaks, whiling away time searching out their route. The sun had moved farther to the west and south, and daylight was fading fast. The loss of light cast the shadow of the mountains far out across the high desert, layering it in dark, uneven stains. The moon was rising on the eastern horizon, a white crescent against the blackening sky. Kirisin gazed out over the landscape for a long time, saying nothing.

“Don’t worry, Little K,” his sister said suddenly, giving the air bag a fresh burst of heat from the blower. “We won’t get lost. The moon and stars will guide us, and I know this part of the country well enough to stay clear of trouble.”

“Will we reach Arborlon tonight?” he asked.

She nodded. “Early tomorrow morning, while it is still dark. Then we will have to decide where to land and what to do after that.”

Kirisin looked away. He had no plan to offer. It seemed that their only chance was to change minds already made up against them, and he had no idea of how to do that. For a long moment, he considered a radical approach. Upon reaching the Elven home city, he could put the magic of the Loden to use without telling anyone what he was doing. Just trap the Elves and their city and the Ellcrys inside and take them away to where they needed to go to be safe. But in doing so, he would be condemning an entire city and its population to indefinite imprisonment without giving a single one of them a chance to walk away. He would be using the magic of the Loden in an arrogant and cowardly manner. If his efforts to save them failed, he would have killed them all with his precipitous decision. No, he would need to tell them first, would need to seek the support of the King and the High Council. No matter where that led.

They flew on through the twilight into night, the darkness deepening steadily, the stars and crescent moon brightening overhead. Kirisin’s thoughts drifted and the hours slipped away. He was conscious of their general progress, but did not have enough flying experience to be able to judge how far they had come. After a long time, Simralin turned them into the mountains, tacking back and forth along the wind riffs between the peaks, angling the balloon through gaps and up and down valleys and defiles. At times, they were so close to cliff faces that the boy was certain they were going to collide. But Simralin kept them clear, always steering them away just when it seemed she might not be able to, staying on course.

Finally, they were deep in the mountains on the western side, the forests of the Cintra a dark spiky carpet below. The silver ribbons and bright splashes of the rivers and lakes caught the moonlight and reflected it back from out of black folds. The air was cool and sweet, free on this night, at least, of the smell of the poisons and rot that infected so much of the earth below.

“That’s Arborlon ahead,” Simralin called over to him, pointing.

He peered downward and caught sight of the flicker of tiny lights. They seemed a long way off still, but already he was feeling a sense of dread seep through him.

“What do we do?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “I can’t tell what’s down there in the darkness. If there are demons present, they could be anywhere. All I can think to do is land high enough up on the mountainside that they won’t notice us coming down. The backdrop of the peaks will hide our descent.”

Kirisin peered groundside some more, the balloon slowly descending toward the upper slopes. If they just had some way of making sure what was down there …

“Wait, Simralin!” he called out sharply.

He was so excited that he grabbed her arm to make sure he had her attention. She turned at once, and he could feel her body tense in expectation of trouble, her face ribbed with worry lines beneath the bandages. “No, it’s all right,” he said hastily. “I’ve got an idea. What if I use the Elfstones to find out if demons are hiding in the forests! Wouldn’t the Stones tell us where they are? Wouldn’t that give us a better idea of where to land?”

She studied him a moment. “I don’t know. I’ve been thinking since that last night on Syrring Rise what using the Elfstones means. Remember how we wondered how Culph and that four–legged monster managed to track us? How did they know where we were going? Even we didn’t know until we used the Elfstones. Yet they were always right behind us. At the end, they even managed to get ahead. I’m guessing, but I think it’s possible they had the ability to detect any use of magic. I think that’s how they knew where to find us, and I’m worried that the same thing might happen here.”

Kirisin hadn’t thought of that. If the demons could sense his use of the Elfstones, they would be quick enough to pick up on where he was. It was a possibility he couldn’t ignore. On the other hand, it was his best chance of finding out if they were down there waiting.

“What should I do, Sim?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Take a chance, I guess. Go ahead. Use the Elfstones. But be quick about it. Even if it alerts them to our presence, we’re moving and they might not be able to figure out exactly where we are. We just don’t want to give them any better chance than we have to.”

He nodded his understanding, wondering at the same time what that meant in practical terms. How long was too long? How closely could he afford to look at what was down there before he gave them away completely? There was no way of knowing, of course. He would just have to do the best he could.

He brushed back his wind–tangled dark hair and reached deep into his pocket. He found the blue Elfstones easily enough and pulled them out past the larger bulk of the Loden. Then he leaned over the side of the basket. Arborlon was just ahead, the number of visible lights increasing steadily as they neared.

“Hurry up, Little K!” his sister urged. She was working the vents and flaps with quick, rushed movements. “Much closer and we won’t have any option but to land farther down the slope!”

Which was where the greater number of demons was likely to be concentrated, she was suggesting. He tightened his fingers about the Elfstones and extended his arm in the general direction of the city. He kept his eyes open this time, concentrating his attention on the middle space between the balloon and the earth, in the vast sprawl of the night’s darkness, envisioning the demons and their followers, spying out an army hidden from view. He pictured that army as he thought it might be, an army of creatures of the sort Culph and the four–legged demon had been, humans become monsters. He imagined their dark intention of hunting down and destroying the Elves. He reached out as he had on the slopes of Syrring Rise when searching for the ice caves.

The response was instantaneous and completely unexpected. Whatever he had been prepared for, it wasn’t this. The blue light blazed from his closed fist in a brilliant ball and then exploded in a swath so wide and all–encompassing that it seemed to flood the landscape for miles. When it settled, the light had formed a wide, jagged curve that wrapped the lower slopes of the Cintra. The magic heightened and clarified the faces and bodies of myriad creatures, each a point of light within the band, allowing them to take shape, giving them form and identity.

Kirisin caught his breath. It was the demon army they had feared, and it was gathered just below the Elven home city. It was thousands strong. The numbers seemed endless.

“Sim,” he whispered.

“I see,” she replied in a high, tight voice. “Call back the magic, Little K. Quickly!”

He did so, and the light of the revealing magic died at once. They were left wrapped in darkness and star glow and in disbelief.

“So many,” he murmured.

“Too many not to be noticed.” Simralin was already working the ropes, bringing the balloon slowly downward. “Something’s wrong. How can the Elves not know about them? There’s no sign of anything happening anywhere. No defensive preparations, nothing.”

“Is it possible that we’ve come too late?”

She glanced at him. “There wouldn’t be any lights if we were too late. There would be fires and screams and much worse.”

“But what are they doing?” he asked. “What are they waiting for? Why haven’t they attacked?”

She handed him one of the ropes to help her steady the basket. “Only one possible answer, Little K. Culph told you he had summoned an army that would be waiting for his return because he would have you in tow. So they’re waiting on you. They want the Elves inside the Loden and the Loden under a demon’s control.”

Kirisin felt a chill run down the back of his neck all the way to his heels, the sort you have when you’ve encountered the freakishly impossible. He stiffened momentarily, then shook his head.

“They’ll wait a long time for that to happen,” he muttered. “I can promise you that!”

Simralin gave him a doubtful glance, but didn’t say anything more.

Deep IN the FORESTS of the CINTRA, in the midst of his army, the demon that called itself Findo Gask blinked twice as he caught the first whiff of the magic’s use. At first he thought he had been mistaken, that his senses were deceiving him, but as the magic steadied and sharpened, he could feel its proximity and recognize it for what it was. The sharp old eyes fixed on a point in space, and his senses drank in the full extent of what they were experiencing. He shut out everything happening around him–the noise, smell, and movement, and the creatures that generated them–and he began to search.

Quickly, quickly…

But he wasn’t quick enough. There wasn’t enough time. The magic was there for a few seconds, tight and strong and recognizable, and then it was gone. He was unable to determine its source.

Still, a smile crossed his lips, deepening the lines of his face.

Someone was being very careful.

He rose and stood looking off into the darkness of the trees. It didn’t matter, really. He knew what was happening. He knew why and he knew how. In the end, it would all turn out the way he had planned.

The boy was back, and he had found the Elfstones. The nature of the magic he had sensed was unmistakable. Elfstone magic was distinct from any other kind of magic, different from that of the gypsy morph or the Knights of the Word. Magic was not of a single kind; if you knew it was there, you could teach yourself to identify its nature.

And this was unquestionably Elven.

So the demon that called itself Culph had succeeded in tracking the boy to the Elfstones, gaining control over the magic, and bringing both back to serve the demon cause. He wondered briefly if Delloreen had played any part in this, if she had somehow tracked the young female Knight of the Word to the Elves and dispatched her. That would have made her very happy, and he would never begrudge her happiness of that sort. On the other hand, it would be convenient for him if she had failed and was dead. Increasingly dangerous, she needed to be eliminated in any case. If the Knight hadn’t done so, he would have to.

He banished Delloreen to the back corners of his mind and pondered momentarily what the use of the Elfstones meant beyond the obvious. Why had the magic been summoned now? There didn’t appear to be any point in it.

But then it occurred to him that perhaps it was a way of letting him know how matters stood–that the boy was back and the Elfstones recovered. The message might be that it was time to prepare for the jaws of his trap to close. Once the Loden was employed and the city and the bulk of its population imprisoned, it would be time for his army to complete the eradication process.

Still, it seemed an unnecessary use of the magic. He would know that it was time to act, after all, when the city and its population disappeared. And there were other ways for his ally to inform him of his return.

Why allow the boy to invoke the magic and risk its detection?

Vaguely dissatisfied, he stood alone without moving for a long time, carefully avoided by his followers as he pondered the matter, his ancient visage dark and troubled.