DragonSpell (8 page)

“I owe you an apology,” Leetu began, and Kale caught her breath. She started to interrupt, but Leetu held up a hand. “Yes, it is I who must apologize, though I will wrest one from you, as well.

“Granny Noon reprimanded me on being lax in my obligation to you. She is right, as usual.”

Leetu shook her head slowly and shrugged. “I’ve never seen myself as an instructor, and when given this assignment, I agreed with my lips but not with my heart.” She looked away from Kale and then back. Leetu focused on Kale’s face, deliberately making eye contact. “Just now I was angry because you experimented with your untrained talent and intruded on my privacy. Had I taken the time to guide you, this would not have happened. I apologize.”

Kale stood looking at the emerlindian’s colorless face. Her eyes were earnest. Her pale lips twisted in a slight grimace, showing her distaste for this conversation.

Dar tugged at Kale’s sleeve. She jumped a little. She had not seen him come close.

“Accept,” he urged her.

Kale nodded and looked back to the leader of their quest. “I accept.”

Leetu let out a sigh. “Now for the intrusion. You have realized, have you not, the error of seeking the thoughts of a comrade to idle the time away?”

“Yes,” said Kale. “It made me feel awful when I realized what I’d done. I
am
sorry, Leetu.”

“Fine. Finish your sandwich as we walk. Dar can lead. You and I will discuss etiquette, among other fine points of your talent. Dar, keep an eye out for mordakleeps. Rumor has it they’ve been spotted near waterways farther and farther from the swamps.”

         
12
         

S
HADOW IN
T
HE
B
OGS

The first thing Kale noticed as they went from Fairren Forest into The Midways, an area surrounding The Bogs, was the change in the scent of the air. Fairren Forest had smelled fresh with a breeze carrying the fragrance of tropical flowers. Now warm air lifted a musty smell of rich humus from the black ground beneath their feet. Not a whisper of wind cooled the sweat on their faces as the three stepped over hummocks and around knots of tumpgrass.

The trees in Fairren Forest had been alive with brightly colored birds and small furry animals of so many types Kale had only been able to name one or two. Dar offered to tell her the names of all the plants and animals, but Leetu hushed him.

“On another trip, Dar,” the emerlindian had said. “Now Kale and I must work to equip her for this journey.”

Leetu did not get distracted during the uncomfortable hike in the sweltering afternoon sun. She drilled Kale on the contents of her cape hollows, making sure Kale knew the identity and use of all the things Granny Noon had provided. Leetu also put Kale through some exercises in mind conversation, inserting from time to time the proper way to do things in a mindspeaking society.

Kale and Leetu communicated exclusively through mindspeaking. Leetu apologized to Dar, saying they did not mean to talk behind his back, but she wanted to give Kale as much practice as possible. Where Leetu had been negligent before, now she was conscientious, to the point Kale’s head ached from all the mental exercise.

Bedderman’s Bog began as abruptly as Fairren Forest had ended. After they had crossed the wide-open space of The Midways, the land dipped, and marshy patches squished under their boots. Kale gladly accepted the hazardous swamp as a reason to concentrate on where she put her feet instead of Leetu’s lessons.

Massive swamp trees surrounded them. Their roots, partially entrenched in mud and murky water, made up a portion of the travelers’ walkway. When the soggy ground gave no footing, Dar led them across the roots humped above the water like steppingstones.

In Fairren Forest, the vines had been crowded with thick green leaves. In The Bogs, large swamp vines with sparse, pale leaves roped around tree trunks. Tangles of thin, willowy vines draped over all the larger branches in gray-green clouds that looked like dripping foam. Dar said it was moss and burned well in a campfire.

Leetu took over the lead. As gracefully as she had climbed a tree before the grawlig attack, the emerlindian stepped from root to root and hillock to hillock. Dar adroitly followed. Kale, at the end of the procession again, hoped she would not land face first in the marshy water.

As Kale passed under a cluster of low-hanging moss, she heard a hiccup behind her. She turned abruptly, caught her foot on a vine, and sat down hard on the root of a cygnot tree. As much as the knobby wood hurt her backside, her main concern was the hiccup she heard again. She looked toward the sound, heard a definite hiss, and thought a shadow moved among the shifting shades of green a few feet away.

“What’s wrong?” asked Dar just behind her.

“I thought I saw something.”

“So you sat down to watch for whatever it is?”

Kale took hold of a vine roped around a tree and pulled herself to her feet. Balancing on the root, she still stared at the trailing moss.

“Kale.” Dar tugged at her sleeve.

“What?”

“There’s nothing there.”

“I heard a hiccup.”

“A hiccup?”

“Two, and a hiss.”

“Two hiccups and a hiss.” He put a hand in the crook of her arm and pulled her around to face the direction they should be going. “Come on, Kale. It was probably a beater frog.”

“I saw something move, and it was too tall to be a frog.”

“Okay.” Dar’s tone said he was going to be patient. “Use your mind. Reach out and see if there is anything besides Leetu Bends and myself close by.”

“I don’t think I know how to do that.”

Dar shrugged and started after Leetu.

“Wait,” Kale called, and he stopped. “Couldn’t you smell something? I mean, you smelled the grawligs coming.”

“Everything in this swamp smells the same.” Dar wrinkled his nose.

“Well, I suppose I’d smell a grawlig. Nothing can disguise the smell of a grawlig. But right now, Kale, all I smell is wet and mildew and stagnant water and decaying vegetation.”

Kale sniffed the air and looked around. “It doesn’t smell
that
bad.”

Dar clicked his tongue and shook his head. Once again he started after Leetu, speaking over his shoulder, “Oh, to have the horribly deficient olfactory equipment of an o’rant.”

Kale gave one last look at the place she thought she’d seen something and followed Dar. After only a few minutes, she felt the little hairs on the back of her neck rise.

Someone is watching us.

She stopped and listened. She heard the footfalls of Dar ahead of her but nothing from the nimble-footed Leetu. Insects and birds sounded natural enough. Occasionally, she heard a distant splash as if a small fish had jumped, or something fell in the water. Nothing like the human hiccup and the snakish hiss she’d heard before. As if conjured up by her thoughts, a shiny green snake slithered along a tree limb to her right. Her eyes went from the snake to Dar many yards ahead of her. Kale gave up trying to figure out anything but how to keep up with the doneel.

The trees grew thicker and the water deeper. Less land poked up through the marsh, and Leetu led them upward to walk through The Bogs on the lowest branches of the cygnot trees. At regular intervals on each huge trunk, limbs stuck straight out and twined with the limbs of neighboring trees. This made floors of tightly woven greenery in a network of strong branches.

Walking over this network was actually easier than walking among the roots and water below. Usually the space from one layer of branches to the one above was five or six feet. Dar and Leetu were both short enough not to be bothered much by the limbs above. Dar, surefooted as he was, had no problems. And of course Leetu’s foot landed without fail on a strong branch.

Kale struggled. Her skirt and cape caught on twigs and wrapped around her legs. She was just tall enough that her hair got snagged, and occasionally she had to crouch. Between watching where to put her feet and keeping her head out of the upper layer of branches, she fell behind.

Each time she approached the trunk of the next tree, the thicker limbs provided easier steps, and she hurried. Most often the trees grew close enough together that it was hard to tell where one tree left off and the other began. But a few cygnots were spaced far enough apart that thin limbs interlaced in a shaky floor. Here Kale knew one misstep would send her crashing through to the water below. She had just eased herself over one of these areas when she glanced up to see how far ahead Leetu and Dar had gone.

A dozen feet ahead, a man stood in her way. She saw his feet first. The brown boots sagged around his ankles. Green-gray robes hung like wrinkled bark from narrow shoulders. His head disappeared into the cygnot branches of the level above. A long moss-colored beard and wisps of scraggly gray hair tumbled over his chest.

Kale blinked. The man was still there.

She retreated one step and lost her footing. She fell backward toward the thinner branches. They gave way but snagged her clothing so she hung suspended.

Kale struggled to hold on to the swaying structure and managed to hook an arm over a branch. Sunk beneath the level of most of the leaves, her vision was obscured, but she could hear.

“Oh dear, oh dear, tut-tut, oh dear.” The muttering came from the man she’d seen.

“Help me!” she demanded.

“Oh dear.”

Kale managed to get her hand through the foliage and grab a branch to hoist herself higher. She looked in the direction where she’d seen the old man and saw only a tree trunk with a massive cascade of moss where she thought she’d seen a beard.

Dar and Leetu were running back through the cygnots.

In moments they lifted her, Dar pulling her up while Leetu unsnagged her clothing.

“Did you see him?” Kale gasped.

“Who?” asked Dar.

“The old man.”

Dar and Leetu looked around.

“Where?” asked Dar.

“He was there.” Kale pointed to the tree trunk.

Leetu shook her head. “Just a trick of the light. No one’s around.”

“He spoke!” Kale insisted.

“What did he say?” asked Dar.

“Well, he said, ‘Oh dear.’”

“Is that all?”

Kale felt her face grow warm in a blush. “He said, ‘Tut-tut.’”

Leetu reached down and helped Kale to her feet. “Sounds like bird noises to me.”

“It wasn’t a bird. It was a man. An old man. A tall old man.”

“Where did he go, then?” asked Leetu, once more scanning the area.

Kale looked around hopelessly.
Where did he go?

A bird fluttered through the canopy and landed close to the trunk Kale had believed was a man. It preened a moment, running its bright yellow bill over ebony wing feathers.

“Tut-tut,” it twittered.

Kale stamped her foot on the thick branch beneath her, and the leaves shook in protest all around.

“Oh dear, tut-tut.” The bird bobbed its head and looked askance at the people invading its territory. “Tut-tut-tut-tut-tut-tut…”

“Oh, go away, you stupid bird.” Kale balled up her fists and then folded her arms in front of her.
I will not cry.

Dar took a step toward the bird and gave it a speculative look. “Maybe it’s Fenworth,” he said.

“The bird?” asked Kale.

“No, not the bird,” said Leetu, and she began examining the area more closely. “But Wizard Fenworth has a reputation…”

The bird flew away as she walked up to the tree trunk and placed her palm on the bark. Dar took Kale’s hand and pulled her to stand beside Leetu.

“Fenworth?” Leetu’s voice sounded soft and persuasive.

“Wizard Fenworth,” said Dar. “We really do need to speak to you.”

Kale felt she must add to their pleas, but couldn’t think of a thing to say. “Sir?” she croaked.

From a distant branch the bird watched. “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, tut-tut-tut.”

“I think we’re talking to a tree,” said Dar and turned away.

Leetu sighed. “He’s the master of The Bogs. We won’t find him unless he wants to be found.” She went to pick up the pack she’d dropped when she ran to rescue Kale.

“So what are we going to do?” asked Kale.

“Keep walking,” answered Dar.

“Where to? For how long?”

“It doesn’t matter where. And how long? Until Wizard Fenworth decides we can find him.”

“Aren’t there any other choices?”

“No,” said Leetu and Dar in unison.