Jarka Ruus (25 page)

Khyber, from less than six feet away, threw the pitcher of ale all over him.

The room exploded with shouts, its occupants leaping to their feet in a whirl of sudden movement. Chairs and tables were overturned, and glassware went crashing to the floor. The Troll had his mace free and was swinging it at Terek Molt, who rolled out of the way just in time. But when he came to his feet to strike back, Ahren's Druid magic threw him across the room and against the wall, where he lay in a crumpled heap, screaming in fury. Gnome Hunters came at Khyber, but her hands were already lifted and weaving, and the Gnomes stumbled all over themselves in their efforts to stay upright.

“This way!” she shouted at Pen and Tagwen, and broke for the kitchen.

The boy and the Dwarf didn't stop to ask if she knew what she was doing; they just went after her. The room was in chaos by then, its occupants surging up against one another in their efforts to get clear, most of them trying to reach the front door. The Gnome Hunters, still fighting to regain their equilibrium after Khyber's attack, were bowled over in the rush. A moment later, the lights went out, and the room was engulfed in blackness. Pen and Tagwen were in the kitchen by then, with Khyber just ahead, flinging open the back door that led to the street. Without a backward glance, they plunged into the rain and fog and darkness.

The streets were crowded, and it was difficult to move ahead at a brisk walk, let alone a run. Pen struggled to keep Khyber in sight, Tagwen pushing up against him from behind, both of them jostling and shoving to break free of the knots of people hindering their flight. Ahren Elessedil had disappeared, but Pen thought he must be somewhere close. Behind them, Fisherman's Lie was still in an uproar, shouts turning to cries of pain and anger, the windows breaking out, the entire place in blackness. Pen realized they had left everything behind in their escape, but knew there was no help for it. What mattered was getting away. What counted for something was staying alive.

A burly dockworker shouldered Pen aside effortlessly. As the boy staggered, he felt something rip through his cloak, scoring his left arm. He heard the dockworker gasp and felt him clutch at his arm. As he tried to wrench free, he saw a dagger protruding from the man's chest, the blade buried to the hilt. The man fell heavily into the boy, his dead eyes open and staring.

Pen looked around in shock and caught sight of something big scurrying along the peaks of the roofs, something cloaked and hooded and shadowy. Terek Molt, he thought at once, then realized that there hadn't been time for the Druid to get out of the inn and come after them. The figure on the roof was much larger than Molt in any case, and it didn't move like him. It moved like some huge insect.

It was coming down, toward the dead man and Pen.

“Penderrin!” Khyber called back to him.

He turned at the sound of her voice and began to run anew. Behind him, he heard gasps as the crowd realized what had happened to the dockworker. He didn't glance back to see if they were looking at him. He wasn't about to stop anyway. He wasn't going to do anything but keep running.

They angled down a maze of narrow side streets, grunting and shoving their way clear of passersby, until they finally reached the waterfront. Pen's arm was throbbing, and he glanced down in the light of the dockside lamps and saw blood soaking through his sleeve. The dagger had cut him from shoulder to elbow, the blade so sharp that even the heavy cloak had failed to blunt it.

Who had attacked him? He knew he had been the target, not that dockworker. If the worker hadn't shoved him aside at just the right moment, Pen would be the one lying in the street back there.

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the shadowy figure giving chase, working its way swiftly along the warehouse roofs, scuttling along in the manner of a spider, arms and legs cocked out from its low-slung body.

It was coming too fast for him to outrun it.

“Khyber!” he shouted in sudden fear.

The girl wheeled back, saw the figure, as well, and thrust out both arms in a warding gesture. The magic caught the figure in midleap and sent it spinning out of sight.

“What was that?” she shouted at him.

He didn't reply. He had no idea what it was. He just knew he didn't want to see it again. Maybe he wouldn't. Maybe the fall had killed it. Or injured it badly enough that it couldn't keep after them.

As they began to run again, he glanced back worriedly. He was right to do so. His pursuer was atop the roofs once more, leaping and bounding from one building to the next, coming fast.

“Khyber!” He grabbed her arm and pointed.

She turned a second time, saw the figure, lifted her arms to summon the magic, and immediately it disappeared. They stood looking for it, but it was as if the night and rain and mist had swallowed it whole. That hadn't happened, of course; it was still out there, coming for him. Only it was on the ground, lost in the shadows.

The hairs on the back of Pen's neck pricked up. He backed toward the water, away from the buildings.

“Run!” Khyber hissed at him.

He did so, Tagwen beside him, their boots pounding on the wooden planks of the docks, the rain and mist a thick curtain all about them. Pen glanced toward the warehouses as he fled, searching for his pursuer. There was no one to be seen. But it was there, still chasing him. He could feel it. If it got close enough, it would use that dagger again. Or another like it. It would send its blade hurtling out of the darkness, and he would be dead before he knew what had happened. His lungs burned and his legs ached from running, but he didn't slow. He had never been so scared. It was one thing to stand up to an enemy in the light, face-to-face. It was another to be stalked by something he couldn't even see.

They reached the
Skatelow
and clambered aboard in a rush. Not until they were crouched down behind the pilot box did Pen quit feeling as if a fresh blade was already winging its way out of the gloom toward his unprotected back. Scanning the lamplit shadows of the docks, he found no sign of his mysterious hunter. But he was scared enough that he was going to stay right where he was, with his back to the open water.

“What
was
that?” Khyber asked him for the second time, her breathing quick and labored.

Pen scanned the darkness, searching. “I don't know. I don't even know where it came from. Did you see what it did?”

“Killed that man,” she whispered.

“But it meant to kill you, didn't it?” Tagwen's rough face pressed forward so that their eyes met.

“I think it did,” Pen answered, watching the mist shift along the dock front and down the side streets like a serpent. Shadows moved everywhere he looked. “I think it's still out there.”

Ahren Elessedil, already on board, was speaking heatedly with Gar Hatch. Ahren's clothes were disheveled and rain-soaked and his face flushed. He glanced over at the three hiding behind the pilot box wall, a hint of uncertainty in his blue eyes, then turned back to the Rover Captain, ordering him to cast off their mooring lines. But Hatch refused to do so, folding his arms across his chest and planting his feet. They weren't ready, he said. They hadn't finished their repairs.

“They've found you, haven't they?” he sneered. “The Druids? You think I don't know who you are or what you are about? I want no part of this. You can't pay me enough to take you farther. Get off my ship!”

His Rover crewmen moved closer, ready to act on his behalf. From somewhere farther down the docks, shouts arose. The other pursuit—Pen had forgotten about Terek Molt and his Gnome Hunters.

“There!” Tagwen hissed suddenly, pointing left. “Something moved by that building!”

They peered into the gloom. Pen's heart was hammering in his chest, blood pounding in his ears. He was cold and hot at the same time, so afraid that he was holding his breath.

Then a huge shadow burst into view, leaping from the dockside onto the deck of the airship in a single bound, an impossible distance. It landed in a skid, its crooked limbs scrambling to find purchase on the smooth, damp wooden planking. Ahren Elessedil and Gar Hatch, startled, turned to look at it, both of them frozen in surprise. Pen caught the sudden flash of a blade, wicked and bright, but he couldn't make himself move, either. It was Khyber who leapt up, screaming in challenge. Hands outstretched, she summoned elemental magic in the form of a wind that picked up the dark form while it was still trying to regain its balance and threw it back over the side of the vessel into the cold lake waters.

Pen and Tagwen rushed to the side of the airship and peered down. The dark figure was gone.

On the dockside, the shouts were coming closer. Torchlight flickered through the mist. “Cast off,” Ahren Elessedil snapped at Gar Hatch, “or I'll put you and your crew over the side and do it myself!”

The Rover Captain hesitated for just an instant, as if perhaps he would test this threat, then wheeled about, ordering his men to release the lines. The ropes fell away, and the airship began to drift from the dock. Pen continued to scan the waters into which the dark thing had fallen, not convinced it had given up, not persuaded it wasn't going to come at him again.

“Safety lines!” Gar Hatch snapped.

The
Skatelow
began to rise and the lake to drop away. Pen exhaled sharply. Still nothing. He glanced at Tagwen. The Dwarf's rugged features reflected his fear. His eyes shifted to find the boy's and he shook his head.

“Safety lines!” Hatch repeated angrily. “Young Pen! If you can spare the time, would you bring Cinnaminson into the pilot box before you secure yourself?”

Pen waved his response. He took a final look over the side before heading for the hatchway. The lake had disappeared beneath a sea of shifting mist.

Then they were flying into the night, a solitary island in the deepening gloom, leaving Anatcherae and its horrors behind.

Twenty-three

Darkness had fallen, stealing away the last of the daylight. Heavy fog closed on the airship, enfolding it in a swirling gray haze. There was no difference now between up or down or even sideways to those who sailed aboard the
Skatelow
. Everything looked the same. The day had been dreary to begin with, washed of color and empty of sunshine, but the night was worse. The clouds were so thickly massed overhead that there was not even the smallest hint of stars or moon. Below, the waters of the Lazareen had vanished as if drained from an unplugged basin. The lights of Anatcherae had vanished minutes after their departure. The world had disappeared.

Pen brought Cinnaminson to her father. She squeezed Pen's hand as he led her along the corridor from her cabin and up the stairway to the deck, but neither of them spoke. There was too much to say and no time to say it. In the pilot box, she moved obediently to her father's side, saying as she did so, “I'm here, Papa.” Pen was dismissed, told to go below, and he moved away. But he lingered at the hatchway with Khyber and Ahren, staring out into the impenetrable fog, into the depthless night. If Cinnaminson wasn't able to navigate blind, he was thinking, they were in trouble. There wasn't even the smallest landmark on which they could fix, no sky to read, no point of reference to track. There was nothing out there at all.

“She's her father's compass, isn't she?” Ahren asked him quietly. “His eyes in the darkness?”

He nodded, looking at the Druid in surprise. “How did you know?”

“It was nosed about at the docks in Syioned. Some say she's his good-luck charm. Some say she can see in darkness, even though she's blind in daylight. None of them have it right. I saw the way she moved the first few days we were aboard. She can sense the position of things in her mind, their location, their look and feel.”

“She said she sees the stars in her mind, even in mist and rain like this. That's how she navigates.”

“A gift,” Ahren Elessedil murmured. “But her father thinks it belongs to him because she is his child.”

Pen nodded. “He thinks
she
belongs to him.”

They could hear her speaking softly to her father, giving him instructions, a heading to take, a course to follow. His hands moved smoothly over the controls in response, turning the airship slightly to starboard, bringing up her bow as he did so, easing ahead through the gloom. In a less stressful situation, he might have noticed them watching and immediately ordered them below so that they would not discover his secret. He might have refused to proceed at all. But that night he was so preoccupied that he didn't even know they were there.

The mist thickened the farther away from land they flew, swirling like witch's brew around the airship, alive with strange shadows and unexpected movement. There was no wind, and yet the haze roiled as if there were. Pen felt uneasy at the phenomenon, not understanding how it could occur. He glanced again at Ahren Elessedil, but the Druid was staring straight ahead, his concentration focused on something else.

He was listening.

Pen listened, as well, but he could hear nothing beyond the creaking of the ship's rigging. He looked to Khyber, but she shook her head to indicate that she didn't hear anything, either.

Then Pen froze. There was something after all. At first, he wasn't sure what it was. It sounded a little like breathing, deep and low, like a sleeping man exhaling, only not that, either. He furrowed his brow in concentration, trying to place it. It must be the wind, he thought. The wind, sweeping over the hull or through the rigging or along the decks. But he knew it wasn't.

The sound grew louder, crept closer, as if a sleeping giant had woken and was coming over for a look. Pen glanced quickly at Ahren, but the Druid's gaze was intense and fixed, directed outward into the mist, searching.

“Uncle?” Khyber whispered, and there was an unmistakable hint of fear in her voice.

He nodded without looking at her. “It is the lake,” he said. “It is alive.”

Pen had no idea what that meant, but he didn't like the sound of it. Lakes weren't alive in the sense that they could breathe, so why did it sound as if this one was? He tried to pick up a rhythm to the sound, but it was unsteady and sporadic, harsh and labored. The ship sailed into the teeth of it, sliding smoothly through the fog, down the giant's throat and into its belly. Pen could see it in his mind. He tried to change the picture to something less threatening, but could not.

Then abruptly, ethereal forms appeared, incomplete and hazy, riding the windless mist. They brought the sound with them, carried it in their shadowy, insubstantial bodies, bits and pieces echoing all about them as they moved. Pen shrank back as several approached, sliding over the railing and across the airship's rain-slick deck. Cinnaminson gasped and her father swore angrily, swatting ineffectually at the wraith forms.

“The dead come to visit us,” Ahren Elessedil said quietly. “This is the Lazareen, the prison of the dead who have not found their way to the netherworld and still wander the Four Lands.”

“What do they want?” Khyber whispered.

Ahren shook his head. “I don't know.”

The shades were all around the
Skatelow
, sweeping through her rigging like birds. The breathing grew louder, filling their ears, a windstorm of trouble building to something terrible. Slowly, steadily, vibrations began to shake the airship, causing the rigging to hum and the spars to rattle. Pen felt them all the way down to his bones. Seconds later, its pitch shifted to a frightening howl, a wail that engulfed them in an avalanche of sound. Pen went to his knees, racked with pain. The wail tightened like a vise around his head, crushing his ineffectual defenses. In the pilot box, in a futile effort to keep the sound at bay, Cinnaminson doubled over, her hands clapped over her ears. Gar Hatch was howling in fury, fighting to remain in control of the airship but losing the battle.

“Do something!” Khyber screamed at everyone and no one in particular, her eyes squeezed shut, her face twisted.

Like the legendary Sirens, the shades were driving the humans aboard the
Skatelow
mad. Their voices would paralyze the sailors, strip them of their sanity, and leave them catatonic. Already, Pen could feel himself losing control, his efforts at protecting his hearing and his mind failing. If he had the wishsong, he thought, he might have a way to fight back. But he had no defense against this, no magic to combat it. Nor did any of them, except perhaps . . .

He glanced quickly at Ahren Elessedil. The Druid was standing rigid and white-faced against the onslaught, hands weaving, lips moving, calling on his magic to save them. It was a terrible choice he was making, Pen knew. Using magic would give them away to the
Galaphile
in an instant. It would lead Terek Molt and his Gnome Hunters right to them. But what other choice did they have? The boy dropped to his knees, fighting to keep from screaming, the wailing so frenzied and wild that the deck planking was vibrating.

Then abruptly, everything went perfectly still, and they were enfolded in a silence so deep and vast that it felt as if they were packed in cotton wadding and buried in the ground. Around them, the mist continued to swirl and the shades to fly, but the wailing was no longer heard.

Pen got to his feet hesitantly, watching as the others did the same.

“We're safe, but we've given ourselves away,” Ahren said quietly. He looked drained of strength, his face drawn and worn.

“Maybe they didn't come after us,” Khyber offered.

Her uncle did not respond. Instead, he moved away from them, crossing the deck to the pilot box. After a moment's hesitation, Pen and Khyber followed. Gar Hatch turned at their approach, his hard face twisting with anger. “This is your doing, Druid!” he snapped. “Get below and stay there!”

“Cinnaminson,” Ahren Elessedil said to the girl, ignoring her father. She swung toward the sound of his voice, her pale face damp with mist, her blind eyes wide. “We have to hide. Can you find a place for us to do so?”

“Don't answer him!” Gar Hatch roared. He swung down out of the pilot box and advanced on the Druid. “Let her be! She's blind, in case you hadn't noticed! How do you expect her to help?”

Ahren Elessedil's hand lifted in a warding gesture. “Don't come any closer, Captain,” he said. Gar Hatch stopped, shaking with rage. “Let's not pretend we both don't know what she can and can't do. She's your eyes in this muck. She can see better than either of us. If she can't, then send her below and steer this ship yourself! Because a Druid warship tracks us, and if you don't find a way off this lake, and find it quickly, it will be on top of us!”

Gar Hatch came forward another step, his fists knotted. “I should never have brought you aboard! I should never have agreed to help you! I do, and look what it costs me! You take my daughter, you take my ship, and you will probably cost me my life!”

Ahren stood his ground. “Don't be stupid. I take nothing from you but your services, and I paid for those. Among them, like it or not, is your daughter's talent. Now give her your permission to find a place for us to hide before it is too late!”

Hatch started to say something, then his eyes widened in shock as the huge, ironclad rams of the
Galaphile
surged out of the fog bank.

“Cinnaminson!” he shouted, leaping into the pilot box and seizing the controls.

He dropped the nose of the
Skatelow
so hard and so fast that Pen and his companions slid forward into the side of the pilot box, grabbing onto railings and ropes and anything else that would catch them. The airship plummeted, then leveled out and shot forward into the haze, all in seconds. As quick as that, they were alone again, the
Galaphile
vanished back into the fog.

“Which way?” Gar Hatch demanded of his daughter.

Her voice steady, Cinnaminson centered herself on the console, both hands gripping the railing, and began to give her father instructions, calling out headings. Pen, Khyber, and Ahren Elessedil righted themselves and snapped their safety harnesses in place, keeping close to the pilot box to watch what was happening. Gar Hatch ignored them, speaking only to his daughter, listening to her replies and making the necessary adjustments in the setting of the
Skatelow
's course.

Pen looked over his shoulder, then skyward, searching the mist for the
Galaphile
. She was nowhere to be seen. But she was close at hand. He sensed her, massive and deadly, an implacable hunter in search of her prey. He felt her bulk pressing down through the haze, looking to crush him over the Lazareen the way she would have crushed him over the Rainbow Lake almost three weeks ago.

He was aware suddenly that the shades had vanished, gone back into the shroud of mist and gloom they had swum through moments earlier, sunk down into the waters of the Lazareen.

“Why didn't the dead go after Terek Molt?” he asked Ahren suddenly. “Why didn't they attack the
Galaphile
, too?”

The Druid glanced over. “Because Molt protects his vessel with Druid magic, something he can afford to do and we cannot.” He paused, hands knuckle-white about the pilot box railing, droplets of water beaded on his narrow Elven features. “Besides, Penderrin, he may have summoned the dead in the first place. He has that power.”

“Shades,” the boy whispered, and the word was like a prayer.

They sailed ahead in silence, an island once more in the mist and fog, a rabbit in flight from a fox. All eyes searched the gloom for the
Galaphile
, while Cinnaminson called out course headings and Gar Hatch made the airship respond. The wind picked up again, set loose as they reached the Lazareen's center, and the haze began to dissipate. Below, the lake waters were choppy and dark, the sound of their waves clear in the fog's silence.

Ahren Elessedil leaned over the pilot box railing. “Where do we sail?” he asked Gar Hatch.

“The Slags,” the big man answered dully. “There's plenty of places to hide in there, places we will never be found. We just need to clear the lake.”

Pen touched the Druid's arm and looked at him questioningly.

“Wetlands,” the Druid said. “Miles and miles of them, stretching all along the northeastern shoreline. Swamp and flood plain, cypress and cedar. A tangle of old growth and grasses blanketed with mist and filled with quicksand that can swallow whole ships. Dangerous, even if you know what you're doing.” He nodded toward Hatch. “He's made the right choice.”

She
has, Pen corrected silently. For it was Cinnaminson who set their course, through whose mind's eye they sought their way and in whose hands they placed their trust.

The mist continued to thin, the sky above opening to a scattering of stars, the lake below silver-tipped and shimmering. Their cover would be gone in a few minutes, and Pen saw no sign of the shore. The mist still hung in thick curtains in the distance, so he assumed the shore was there. But it was a long way off, and the wind was in their face, slowing their passage.

Then, all at once, clouds blew in, and rain began to fall, sweeping across the decking in a cold, black wash, and quickly they were soaked through. It poured for a time, thunder booming in the distance, and then just as suddenly it stopped again. At the same moment, the wind died to nothing.

“Twenty degrees starboard,” Cinnaminson told her father. “We'll find better speed on that heading. Oh,” she gasped suddenly, “behind us, Papa!”

They all swung about in response and found the
Galaphile
emerging from the remnants of the fog bank, sails furled and lashed, the warship flying on the power of her diapson crystals. She was moving fast, surging through the night, bearing down on them like a tidal wave.

Gar Hatch threw the thruster levers all the way forward and yelled to his Rover crewmen to drop the mainsail. Pen saw the reason for it at once; the mainsail was a drag on the ship in that windless air and would be of less help if the wind resumed from the east. The
Skatelow
was better off flying on stored power, as well, though she could not begin to match the speed of the
Galaphile
. Still, she was the smaller, lighter craft and, if she was lucky, might be able to outmaneuver her pursuer.