by Terry Brooks
He hunched his shoulders and took a deep breath to calm himself. He felt his pulse slow. There was still no sign of the Galaphile.
He was beginning to think he had gotten away altogether when abruptly the Druid airship appeared right in front of him, Galaphile emerging from the haze like an apparition out of the netherworld, huge and forbidding. Pen gasped in spite of himself, shocked by the suddenness of it, then swung the cat hard to starboard to come in behind and under the bigger ship, hoping against hope that no one aboard her had caught sight of him.
But someone had. The Galaphile immediately began to come about, then to drop rapidly, intent on crushing the cat beneath its hull, smashing it in midair, and sending its passengers tumbling into the hills below. The boy countered the maneuver with the only option left to him, slamming all the thrust levers forward at once, expending every bit of power the diapson crystals could muster, in an effort to get clear. The little craft lunged forward, surging through the mist and rain like a frightened bird, throwing Pen back against the pilot box wall.
Down came the Galaphile, dropping toward her like a stone. For just an instant—the cat a little too slow, the warship a little too close—Pen was certain they were not going to get clear. The cat’s mast snapped as the warship hull caught its tip, and the little ship lurched and dropped beneath the weight of the larger craft. Pieces of mast and rigging collapsed all around Pen, splintering the walls of the pilot box. The boy dropped to his knees and ducked his head as debris rained down on him. The cat shuddered from the blow, but then abruptly broke free with a scraping and splintering of wood. Lifting away as the bigger ship continued to drop, it ran hard and fast under the full power of its crystals until it disappeared into the mist.
Pen rose cautiously from behind the walls of the pilot box. The shattered mast had snapped off midway up; the top half had fallen away completely, and the lower half was bent at a rakish angle across the rim of the box. Pen had to steer with the remnant of the mast practically in his face, but he was so grateful to have escaped that he scarcely noticed. He was breathing hard, and his hands were fastened on the control levers in a death grip.
“What happened?” Tagwen demanded in a strangled gasp.
“Nothing,” Pen answered, refusing to look at him. His hands on the levers and his eyes on the mist kept him from shaking too badly. He swallowed hard. “Get down. Stay out of sight.”
Night arrived, and the storm began to diminish. The winds died away and the rain slowed to a drizzle. Mist and clouds still masked the horizon in all directions, but the buffeting the cat had experienced earlier was gone. With darkness to help conceal them, Pen felt marginally safer. The Galaphile had not reappeared, and he was beginning to think that their last encounter had happened solely by chance. Otherwise, she would have found him again by then. He knew he was grasping at straws, but straws were all he had.
He told Tagwen that he could come up on deck, and after hesitating, the Dwarf did so. Pen gave him the controls to hold and dragged out an all-weather cloak from a storage bin to throw over his soaked clothes. The temperature was dropping quickly, even though the winds had died away and the rains slowed, and he needed to stay warm. He was navigating by compass readings, unable to catch more than a brief glimpse of the land below and nothing of the stars above. At least he was no longer simply running away; he was flying toward something, as well. Having fled Patch Run, his plan was to undertake a search for his parents in the Wolfsktaag Mountains as Tagwen had suggested. It wouldn’t be easy, and it might not even be possible, but it was all he could think to do. If he could manage to locate them, Tagwen could explain what had brought him to Patch Run, Pen could relate what had happened since, and they could decide what to do from there. The whole business would be safely out of Pen’s hands, which was the only sensible place for it to be.
Riding through the empty, misted night, cold and miserable, he found himself missing his parents in a way he would not have believed possible a day earlier. It made him realize how much of a boy he still was. He didn’t like to think of himself that way, but it was hard to pretend he was all grown up when he felt the way he did. All he wanted was to find his father and mother and go home again. No more running away and hiding from terrifying Dwarf Druids and their Gnome strongmen. No more flying blind in a damaged ship through strange lands.
All of which served to remind him of how much trouble he was really in. Sooner or later he was going to have to set down to make repairs to the cat’s damaged mast and then take a look around to determine how far east the storm had blown him. All that was left for him to do was to decide how long he would wait before doing so.
In the end, the decision was made for him. He must have expended more power than he thought, or perhaps had less to start with, because sometime around midnight the diapson crystals began to give out. He knew at once what was happening when the ship began to stall, slowing sharply and dipping its bow in fits and starts. Enough power remained to land, and he did so at once. With Tagwen shouting in his ear, demanding to know what was wrong, he put the cat into a slow glide and eased her downward in search of somewhere flat and open to land.
He had no idea where he was but was relieved to find patchy stretches of forest clearings bordering the recognizable expanse of Rainbow Lake only a few miles to the north, and he steered the failing cat in that direction. He took a quick look about, peering through the mist, but saw nothing of their pursuers. Maybe things were going to work out, after all.
A broad, dark stretch of ground opened ahead of him, and he took the cat toward it. He was almost on the ground when he realized it was a marsh. Angling the nose of the cat up sharply, he skipped over the bog and settled down hard at the very edge of a thick stand of trees east. The cat slammed into the ground, skidded wildly for a moment, and then bumped up against a tree trunk and stopped.
“Haven’t you had any practice landing this thing!” Tagwen demanded irritably, hauling himself out of the hold into which he had tumbled.
Pen finished hooding the parse tubes and bringing the thrust levers all the way back. “Don’t be so grumpy. We’re lucky to be down in one piece. Smooth landings are for undamaged ships.”
Tagwen huffed, then looked around. “Where are we?”
Pen shook his head, peering over the lip of the pilot box at the broken mast and damaged rigging. “Don’t know.”
“Well, wherever it is, I don’t much care for the look of it.”
“The Highlands have rough features, but they’re safe enough. At least, that’s what my parents say.”
The Dwarf climbed back onto the deck and stood staring out at the night. “This doesn’t look like the Highlands to me.”
Pen glanced up at once. A quick survey of the surrounding countryside confirmed Tagwen’s assessment. Instead of hills and valleys, the terrain consisted of low, flat stretches of marshy ground abutting heavy stands of forest that soon turned into a solid wall to the east. Rainbow Lake was still there, glimmering dully in the misty dark, but nothing else seemed quite right.
He looked at the black trunks of the massive trees ahead of them, many of them well over a hundred feet tall. There were no trees like those in the Highlands. A chill ran through him, and it was from more than the damp and the cold. This wasn’t Leah. The storm had blown them right through the Highlands and into the country beyond—country so dangerous that his parents had forbidden him to go into it under any circumstances.
He was inside the Black Oaks.
NINE
They could do nothing about their situation that night, so they hunkered down to wait for morning. The cat couldn’t fly until there was power for the diapson crystals, and there wouldn’t be power for the crystals until there was light from which to draw it. Even then, the problem wasn’t solved, because they needed to rig the mainsail and radian draws to absorb the ambient light into the crystals, and they couldn’t do that on any kind of permanent basis without a mast. They couldn’t replace the mast until it was light
enough to see to go into the Black Oaks—a whole other kind of problem—to find a tree suitable for the purpose. Then they had to cut down the tree, haul it back to the airship, shape it, attach the iron clips and stays that would hold it and the rigging in place, and put it up.
Pen, sunk down in a funk that defied his best efforts to dispel it, estimated conservatively that such an operation might take as long as three days. In the meantime, they were grounded in one of the most dangerous places in the entire Southland.
Nor could they do much to ease their physical discomfort. Soaked through and chilled to the bone, they might have welcomed even a little warmth. But a fire was out of the question while the Galaphile was hunting them, and Pen could not use the diapson crystals to generate even the smallest amount of heat because all their stored power was exhausted. He had not had time to pack the right provisions for this experience, so the best they could do for shelter was to strip off their wet clothes, crawl into the sleeping space under the pilothouse, and wrap up in spare sails to try to stay warm.
But only one of them could do this at a time because the other needed to stay topside and keep watch. Even Tagwen saw the wisdom in that. The Galaphile was of obvious concern, but the creatures that lived in the Black Oaks offered a more immediate threat. Gray wolves ran in packs large enough to challenge even a moor cat. The swamps were filled with snakes and dragon beasts. There were rumors of even larger, more dangerous things, some in the Black Oaks, some out in the Mist Marsh bordering it to the northeast. While they had weapons with which to defend themselves, neither Pen nor Tagwen was particularly anxious to test them out.
Things could be worse, Pen thought darkly as they sat staring at each other and the night, but not by much and not in any way he could immediately identify.
“Is there any food?” Tagwen asked glumly.
They were sitting inside the pilot box, talking about what they would do when morning came. The sky was clearing, the first stars and a hint of moonlight visible now through the broken clouds. Pen knew it was well after midnight, the beginning of a new day.
Wordlessly, he retrieved the pack of dried stores he had snatched up on his way out of the work shed and handed it to the Dwarf. Tagwen rummaged around inside and produced some dried beef and a rather sorry-looking hunk of cheese. He split both and handed half to the boy. Pen accepted his meal wordlessly and began to eat.
What was he doing out in the middle of nowhere, completely disabled? How had he ever let this happen?
“We should get some sleep,” he said wearily.
“I’ll keep watch,” Tagwen offered, working his knife across the cheese rind. “I’m more rested than you are, after that storm.”
Pen didn’t argue; he was exhausted. “All right.” He yawned.
“I don’t sleep much anyway,” Tagwen continued. “I used to stay awake for hours sometimes while your aunt was sleeping, just sitting there with her. I was always there for her when she was sick. I liked doing that—just sitting there. It made me feel I was doing something to help her, something besides keeping her affairs organized.”
“What is she like?” Pen asked suddenly.
The Dwarf looked at him. “You’ve spent time with her.”
“Not very much. Not enough to know her well. She doesn’t let you know her well. She keeps you at a distance.”
“She does that even to me. I can tell you that she lives with her past more than most. She’s haunted by it, Penderrin. She hates who she was and what she did as the Ilse Witch. She would do anything to take it all back and start over. I don’t think anyone understands that. The Druids mostly think she hasn’t changed all that much, that once you have the kind of magic she does, you don’t regret anything. They think she’s the same underneath, that she just masks it from them.”
“I don’t know what she was like before,” Pen said. “But I think she is a good person now. She doesn’t want to get close, but she wants to help. She tries to be kind. At least, that’s how she was with me, and she didn’t even know me then. What do you think has happened to her?”
Tagwen shook his head. “Whatever it is, I think it has something to do with Terek Molt and Shadea a’Ru and the rest of their little group of traitors. At first I thought it had something to do with her trip into the Northland a few days before she disappeared, but I don’t think that now.”
He took a few minutes to explain what he knew about Grianne Ohmsford’s journey into the ruins of the Skull Kingdom with the Maturen Kermadec, then segued right into a dissertation about the cliques of Druid troublemakers who had made things so difficult for the Ard Rhys at Paranor. The boy listened attentively, thinking that there was a lot about his aunt that he didn’t know, much of it because his parents never discussed it. He was seeing her in an entirely new light now, and his admiration for her was growing.
“I would have walked away from all that a long time ago,” he said. “I think Kermadec is right. She should just start over.”
Tagwen shrugged. “Well, it’s all to do with politics and appearances, Pen. If she were free to act as she chose without consequences, I expect there would be some very surprised Druids when she was finished.”
Pen was silent for a moment, contemplating the ramifications of what he had just learned. If someone had acted against his aunt, as powerful as she was, and that same someone was responsible for sending Terek Molt and those gimlet-eyed Gnomes after him, then he was in a world of trouble—much more than he had thought he was. He wondered what was at stake that would cause someone to take such drastic action. If it was Shadea a’Ru, then perhaps the lure of becoming Ard Rhys was enough. But given his aunt’s dark history, he thought it more likely that it had something to do with revenge or misguided loyalties or fanatical beliefs. Those who committed atrocities always seemed to do so out of a misconceived sense of righteousness and the greater good.
“Do you think she’s dead, Tagwen?” he asked impulsively.
It was a terrible thing to ask the Dwarf, who was beside himself with feelings of guilt and despair already, and Pen regretted asking the question as soon as it was out of his mouth. But boys ask those kinds of questions, and Pen was no exception.
“I don’t care to think about it,” the Dwarf said quietly.
Pen cringed at the sadness he heard in the other’s voice. “It was a stupid question.”
Tagwen nodded noncommittally. “Go to sleep, Pen,” he said, nudging him with his boot. “There’s nothing more to be done this night.”
Pen nodded. There didn’t seem to be. He wasn’t at all certain how much could be done on waking, but at least a new day might grace him with a better attitude. The damp and cold had leeched all the good feelings out of him. The running and hiding had stolen his confidence. They would both come back with the advent of a new day, just as they always did with a little rest and a little time.
He rose and stepped out of the pilot box, ducked down into the sleeping compartment, and rolled himself into a square of sailcloth. He was asleep almost at once.
He dreamed that night, and his dreams were dark and frightening. He was fleeing through a forest, the trunks huge and black, whipping past him in a blur as he ran. He was running as fast as he could, but he knew it wasn’t fast enough to escape what was chasing him. It was close behind him, its shadow looming over him, and if he was to look back at it, even for a moment, he would be doomed. He didn’t know what was back there, only that it was something terrible. All he could do was run from it and hope that eventually he would find a way to escape.
But his fear overcame his reason, and he turned to look—just a glimpse, nothing more. The moment he did so, he knew he was doomed. A massive airship hovered right above him, dropping slowly, preparing to crush him. The airship had eyes as cold as those of a snake, razor-sharp fangs, and a long, wicked tongue that licked out at him. The ship was alive, but it was what lay inside, what he couldn’t see from where he was on the ground, that really terrified him. What waited in the bowels of th
e airship was what would have him after the ship had crushed him into the earth. He would still be alive, but he would wish he wasn’t.
With the airship so close he could feel its wood brush against his hunched back, he threw himself to one side into a deep ravine, and then he was falling, falling …
He woke with a start, sitting up so abruptly he bumped his head against the decking of the pilot box. Pain ratcheted through him and tears flooded his eyes. He sat holding his head for a moment, trying to clear his thoughts, to make the nightmare go away. But it lingered, stronger than before, pressing down on him, as if it were still happening in real life.
Consumed by this unreasonable, yet nevertheless unshakable fear, he crawled from the sleeping space onto the deck of the cat, breathing in the night air to clear his head. It was still dark, but the clouds had dissipated and the sky was bright with stars and moon. Sitting with his back against the wall of the pilot box, he glanced at the darkness, listened to the silence, and tried to shake off the effects of the dream.
Then he rose to look forward over the pilot box wall and saw the Galaphile flying directly toward him.
He felt his heart stop, and his breath caught in his throat, tightening down into a hard knot of fear. He could not quite believe what he was seeing, even though it was right in front of him and unmistakable. He caught a glimpse of Tagwen asleep inside the pilot box, oblivious to the danger. Pen wanted to reach out and wake him, but he could not make himself move. He just stood there, staring helplessly as the massive bulk of the airship grew larger and larger, bearing down on him like the airship in his dream, preparing to crush the life out of him.
And then abruptly, it changed course.