by Richard Due
Cora helped Lily out of the wagon. “We’re going to need more barrels of wine and mead from the storeroom. Where are Nye and Luna?”
Falin shrugged his shoulders. “They’re around.”
“Well, make sure you mind them. This place looks like it could use some work. As long as you’re guests here, you should make yourselves handy.”
After hoisting the last keg into place, a sweaty Falin and Grimm put on a pretty argument about how they they were old enough to attend the party.
Cora ignored them. “Make sure you’re all ready to leave by tomorrow afternoon at the latest.” Cora eyed the additional kegs in the back of the wagon. “Or maybe by early evening.”
“We’re going to travel at night?” asked Darce.
Cora looked uncertain. “Oh dear. I suppose there’s a chance we won’t leave until the morning after. We’ll just have to play it by ear.”
And with that Cora gave the reins a shake and off the wagon creaked.
“All right,” began Darce under her breath. “Let’s give Cora a friendly wave goodbye. Smiles, everyone.”
“Did we overplay it?” asked Grimm though a frozen smile.
“Little bit. The woman’s not daft, you know,” replied Darce.
“I think we did fine,” said Falin.
“Well, I totally bought it. If that helps,” said Lily. “Now, what was it I bought again?”
Darce gave Lily a cursory glance, then looked at everyone else in turn.
“All right then. I declare this party a go. Ren, Ridley, Prin: provisions. Teague, Luna, Andra: get up to the cistern and get those water skins filled.” Darce gauged the moons in the sky. “Where are Luna and Nye? They should have been back before Cora and Lily arrived.”
“Party?” asked Lily.
Darce, Grimm, and Falin removed a rolled-up blanket from a rough looking duffel bag and laid it out. Inside were four swords—two long and two short—with belts and scabbards.
“What are these for?” asked Lily.
Grimm and Darce unrolled more blankets. These were filled with bucklers, shields, helmets, and other bits of armor whose names Lily didn’t know.
Falin hefted one of the longswords, examined it quickly, and tossed it to his brother, taking the other for himself. They rolled up their old weapons in the empty blankets and carefully stowed them. Even to Lily’s inexperienced eye, their previous swords seemed like playthings.
Darce patted her shorter, more agile-looking weapon. “You would do far better with something faster,” she said to Falin. “Two well-placed hits are better than one big one.”
Falin partly drew out his blade and made a quick inspection. “Yeah, well, just try and tell that to the one taking the big hit,” he said, grinning.
“Don’t fret, Darce,” said Grimm. “We’ve got the strength to use them in close quarters. You won’t be in any danger. And let’s face it, neither Falin nor I will ever possess your placement skills. These are a much better fit for our styles.”
Darce shook her head in obvious disgust.
“Um, guys?” said Lily. “Could someone please tell me what’s—”
Darce gave Lily a hard look. “We’re tired of our parents having all the fun,” she snarled.
“What are you planning to do?”
“Let them have their party tonight, but we have no intention of wasting our time being babysitters.” Lily stared at Darce. “Nye found Badru’s boat. He has to have come from somewhere!”
“Badru?” said Lily slowly, not believing what she was hearing. “You mean to find out where the blackmage came from?”
“Yes. And any others who are working with him.”
“Don’t you think—” Lily cut herself short; second-guessing Darce would only make things worse. “But with Badru dead . . . if he came by boat . . . he could have come from anywhere in the fens. How will you track him?”
“What does it matter to you?” asked Darce. “You’re no fighter, no lunamancer, no healer. I doubt you’ve ever drawn a bow.” That said, Darce stomped off.
“Falin,” Lily implored. “The fens are huge. Badru could have come from anywhere in them. This is crazy.”
Falin gave a knowing smile. “We will find where he came from, and this very night. We had planned to avenge Tavin, but this will be sweeter. Ours is not a plan born from a single mad mind—”
“Yes, I can see that. It was born from many mad minds!”
Falin laughed. “More than you know. Annora and Bree—”
“Annora!” said Lily.
“Yes, and you should come with us.”
“Me? Why?”
“Annora and Bree will want a firsthand account of how Tavin was saved.”
Lily didn’t let her face show a thing. “When do you plan to leave?”
“As soon as Nye and Luna get here with the horses.”
“What about the children?”
“They’ll be fine. Andra, Ridley, Prin, Luna—they’ll take care of the little ones. And Byrne is on his way with his brothers. They’re on foot.”
“They’re walking through the wastes?”
“Yes. We’ll leave a horse behind for Byrne if he gets here late, but his brothers will be staying here.” Falin leaned in conspiratorially. “Andra is very upset that she has to stay behind. But the party is already quite large, especially with the Lintel brothers coming along.”
Lily felt a cold dread pass over her. “The Lintel brothers? The ones Annora and Bree hurt in the arena? The ones that can’t form peerins anymore?”
Falin grinned. “Yes. Evidently, there was more to that little trick than they told any of us. Turns out the four of them had been planning it for some time, but they needed all those lunamancers to pull it off. Something about drawing magic off them.”
Little trick? The way Jasper had described it, Annora and Bree’s contest in the arena had gone horribly wrong, and not according to any plan.
“Personally, though,” continued Falin, “I think it was a bit more painful than Beck or Newlin had bargained for. But I must continue to help packing. Let me know what you decide.”
Lily nodded, still thinking over Falin’s surprising news about the Lintel brothers’ role in the plan. She was certain now Annora and Bree had drawn off the moon coin through Jasper as well. No one could have planned for that.
Falin glanced up at the sky, which was clear of clouds. “Taw is moving off now—taking Dik Dek and Barreth with it. It doesn’t look like we’ll have a dominant moon tonight. That would be a good thing; we can use all the darkness we can get. But we’re still in the middling, so you can expect—Ah, look! Rel’ Kah is staying with us, and by the look of her, she’s waxing.”
“You call the moon Rel’ Kah a she?” asked Lily.
“It’s not an uncommon thing, to liken one of our moons to a woman.”
“Even Darwyth?”
“Even Darwyth. Evil can find purchase in any heart.” He pointed low in the sky. “Look here. She’s bringing the Secret moon with her for company—a sure sign of mischief, that. The only iller omen would be for Darwyth to join them.” He sighed. “We have a ways to travel. We’ll be in want of moonlight before we reach the fens, though we’ll wish we were darkward before the night’s over.”
“And you have real horses for this?”
“Horses aren’t so hard to come by out here. Nye says all kinds of animals come drifting in from the wastes. The healers take care of them until they’re ready to go out again. Nye’s gone off to get them now.”
Byrne, along with both his brothers, jogged into camp shortly before Nye and Luna arrived with three horses.
To even out their weight, Falin rode with Nye, Byrne with Grimm, and Lily rode with Ren and Darce. Darce was originally adamant that she be in charg
e of the horse. Ren didn’t care who took the reins as long as it wasn’t herself, but once Lily climbed on and made several impressive maneuvers, including a jump over a fence, Darce changed her mind, giving Lily full credit for her horsemanship.
Nye took the lead, and Lily was happy to see that she wasn’t the only one who knew her way around a horse.
After an hour, the path began a slow descent, leveling off rarely, and even then only for short periods before dipping downward again. They rode fast and long for many hours. The sun sank into the horizon and the sky between the moons filled with bright stars. Lily grew concerned for the horses and was about to say something when they reached a darkly wooded coomb, its entrance marked by a gushing waterfall. At the bottom, they emerged from the deep shadows of the tree line and assembled on a stony shore at the water’s edge, where a boat floated in the moonlight. Three black shapes stood waiting.
The party dismounted, and a ball of blue light took shape before the three figures, lighting their faces. Drawing from Jasper’s description, Lily easily identified Annora, making the young man in black either Newlin or Beck, and the girl with her arms around him Bree.
“There are seven of you?” said Annora, squinting her eyes in Lily’s direction.
“This is Lily Winter, Jasper’s sister,” said Ren. “She wanted to come along.”
“Oh, good. For a second I thought you’d brought Luna. Hello, Lily, it’s nice to meet you.”
“The same. I heard about your competition from my brother.” Lily eyed the Lintel boy warily.
“Where’s Beck?” asked Prin.
“He’s not coming,” said Annora shortly. “Now let’s get moving. We have no idea how long this might take.”
Working as a team, they unloaded the horses and stocked the boat. Nye tarried with the horses, softly talking to each of them, his head pressed close to theirs. It was something Lily liked to do before a jumping event with Hello Kitty.
The boat was quite large, and very wide, yet even with all ten of them aboard, it drew very little water. From its center rose a tall, single mast. Someone had raised its yard but not yet unfurled the sail.
Moonlight from Rel’ Kah and Secret spilled down and lit the shore’s edge, sparkling off the water leading into the fens, illuminating small islands of trees and wide meadows of reed. Vapors rose from the water, vanishing into the dense cloud banks blanketing the fens.
Nye, Falin, Grimm, and Darce boarded first. Using long poles, they anchored the boat in place as Ren untied the mooring line.
Once they were all aboard the blackmage’s boat, Lily decided to stick close to Ren, who in turn stayed close to her fellow lunamancers. They gathered near the mast around a table made of rough planks.
Ren formed a peerin and scanned the wood. “I don’t see anything unusual . . . just some old wooden planks.”
And then, to Lily’s surprise, Newlin formed a peerin before his chest.
“I thought you couldn’t do that anymore!” said Lily.
Newlin smiled graciously. From his halting speech, Lily determined that he was manipulating things within his peerin as he spoke. “This . . . is no ordinary peerin, Lily. This . . . is what we now call . . . a dark peerin.”
Suddenly, the boards rattled loose and popped out of their seatings. Newlin collapsed his peerin and began flipping the boards over one at a time, slowly revealing a map burned into the wood. Annora waved her hand and the glowing ball of blue light swept closer. Lily pulled out one of her notepads and began furiously sketching the map. All four of them turned and stared.
“What?” she said, pausing briefly. “Notes are good! How do you think the British made their Empire?”
“The who?” asked Ren.
Lily blushed. She’d forgotten that here, in the Moon Realm, her obscure history references would not only be unappreciated, but total non sequiturs to boot.
“Runs in the family, I suppose,” said Newlin under his breath, and everyone, even Lily, grinned. Newlin tapped a spot on the map. “This is where the boat was found. . . . And this is where we are now.”
“How does it work, Newlin?” asked Ren, staring intently at the map.
“There are two holes for pegs—here, in the map. It appears I’m the only one who can see them.”
“Are the pegs invisible, too?” asked Ren.
“Hold on.” Newlin reformed his peerin. “The pegs are here. But only when called for, like so.” Newlin spoke something into his peerin and twitched a finger. Two balls of mist appeared at the top of the map, grew solid, and finally resolved into slightly different looking wooden pegs, one with a boat carved on top, and one with an X. Newlin closed his peerin and picked them up.
“This is the destination peg,” he said, picking up the peg with the X. “It was still in the map when Nye found the boat. And this,” said Newlin, holding up the peg with the boat carved on top, “is the starting point peg.” He placed the peg over the hole in the wooden map where Badru had landed and shot it home. The boat shuddered.
“They’re different, you see, so they can be switched when you want to start the return trip. This way, a minion, if properly trained, could operate one of these boats without the blackmage on board.”
“Just the two holes?” asked Lily.
“This boat is only halfway through its mission.” answered Newlin. “A singular mission.”
“To claim Tavin and take him back to . . . wherever,” said Lily.
“It would seem so.” Newlin raised his voice. “Listen, everyone. Hold fast to something.” He held up the destination peg. “This goes—here.” As his hand reached toward the center of the map, to what looked like an island in the middle of the fens, Ren gasped.
“Perianth,” she said, looking stricken. Her arm shot out to stay Newlin from seating the peg. “But that’s so far! We’ll need to travel through half the fens and back!” Ren turned to Annora. “How long have you known this?”
“Beck figured it out this afternoon,” said Annora. “But it doesn’t change anything.”
“Doesn’t change anything? We’re chasing a blackmage! What if there are others? What if there are dread-knights?”
Lily shifted, suddenly uncomfortable.
“The blackmage is dead,” explained Annora. “We’re just going for reconnaissance, Ren. Then we’ll turn the pegs around and come back. Perianth is long abandoned. No one will see us.”
“Just what is a dread-knight?” asked Lily in a low voice.
Several faces turned to Darce.
“Dread-knights,” began Darce in a voice of deadly calm, “were once Dragondain, real Dragondain, just as blackmages were once lunamancers. Beyond that, very little is known.”
“Tavin followed one into the fens,” said Lily.
No one spoke for a time.
“Are you certain?” asked Darce evenly.
“Positive.”
Ren released Newlin’s arm, taking a step back in horror. “A dread-knight! In the fens! Surely it’s living in Castle Fendragon. And it won’t be alone.”
“This changes nothing,” said Darce, her eyes darting to Falin and Grimm. “We’re just going for a look.”
“We’ll have to hike in through the city,” said Ren. “And while I’ll grant you the streets will be dark and abandoned, Castle Fendragon will not. It glows still. And if there are others, they’ll have a watch!”
“There would be no reason for a watch. They would have no reason to expect anyone,” countered Annora.
Castle Fendragon! thought Lily. She had long imagined walking its halls and climbing its towers. But not empty of its generous populace and enlightened dragons, surrounded by reeking fens.
Ren took another backward step. “I don’t—this isn’t what I was expecting, Annora.”
“She doesn’t have to
come,” said Bree to Annora. “She could take the horses back.”
“Not by herself, Bree,” said Annora.
“Nye could go with her,” offered Bree.
Annora thought hard. “I have a feeling we’re going to need Nye. But if Grimm or Falin were willing to take her, that would work. Grimm! Come here.”
Grimm set down his pole and moved to the center of the boat.
“Ren has changed her mind about coming. Would you be willing to take her and the horses back?”
“Just the two of us?” protested Grimm. “Don’t you think it would be better to stop at a closer homestead? We must have slipped past a dozen of them on our way here.”
“No. They’ll ask questions. They’ll know we’re not at old Pym’s homestead,” said Annora.
“They’re going to find out we’re not at Pym’s eventually,” said Prin. “That can’t be helped. But what will it matter? You’ll be well on your way by then. They won’t be able to stop you.”
Annora turned and looked out into the fens. “Damn,” she muttered softly. “That’ll be two less.”
“One less,” said Lily. “You weren’t expecting me to be here.”
Ren and Grimm walked to the edge of the boat and faced the shore.
“You really don’t mind?” asked Ren.
“No,” said Grimm.
Ren grabbed his arm. “You’re lying. I can tell, you know. You want to go with them.” Ren lowered her voice to a hush. “I want to go, too, but I’m scared.”
Grimm put his arms around Ren and gave her a reassuring hug. “There’s nothing wrong with being scared. If I had to guess, I’d say the only one here who isn’t a little scared is Darce. And that’s only because . . . well . . . she’s Darce.”
“You’re scared?” asked Ren. “How could you be scared? You charged a blackmage!”