by Terry Brooks
“Except you’re not carrying the seed anymore, are you? Where is it?”
Arling shook her head. “I don’t know. I had it … before the crash. Now it’s gone. I thought … you took it.”
Edinja turned away. “Someone took it. That much is true.” She walked away again, then turned around slowly. “Let’s consider your sister’s situation. If she’s alive, what will she do once she finds you missing?”
Arling squeezed her eyes shut as she gave her answer. “She will come looking … for me.”
“Exactly what I thought. She will come looking for you. A smart young woman with Druid skills and magic. She will figure out where you are and come to Arishaig to rescue you. From me.” She laughed. “Won’t that be convenient?”
Arling lurched up on one elbow, fighting to hold on to the words she wanted to speak. “Don’t hurt … her. Don’t.”
Edinja walked over and pushed her back down again. “You should be worried about yourself instead of your sister. You should be worried about what might happen to you.”
“If anything happens … to me, the Ellcrys … dies.”
Edinja made a dismissive gesture but said nothing. Arling swallowed hard. “Doesn’t the captain … or any of those … who brought me here know what happened … to the seed? Or to my sister?”
“Perhaps.” The sorceress pursed her lips as if considering. “They said nothing of it to me, but they might be hiding something. Frightened men often do that. Should we go and find out? At least you could be doing something useful while we wait for your sister to appear. I think you can handle doing this much to help move things along, don’t you?”
She hauled Arling out of bed by sheer force, bundled her into a robe, and put slippers on her feet. She was strong for someone so slight and managed the task easily. With her arms locked about the girl, she guided her from the room and down the hallway to where a panel in the wall concealed a massive iron door that opened into the interior of the building. A stone stairway spiraled downward into darkness and disappeared into a pool of impenetrable gloom.
Edinja gave Arling a friendly squeeze, as if they were close friends off on an adventure. “I don’t think you’re ready to attempt such a dangerous descent without help, let alone make the long climb up again after we’re done. I’ll have you carried.”
She reached into a niche beside the doorway and produced a small bell. Holding it out over the stairwell, she rang it three times. Then she returned the bell to the niche. Together the sorceress and the girl stood waiting.
A flaring of torchlight within the darkness accompanied a slow tromping of footfalls.
When the creature appeared, Arling very nearly bolted. It was vaguely human, but mostly something less—a huge semi-human with blunted features and listless movements. It climbed into view with slow, measured steps, as if repeating from clouded memory a process it had gone through many times but did not entirely understand. It did not glance up at them or seem to look anywhere at all. It carried its torch held out before it, but stared straight ahead as if light were unnecessary. There was an emptiness to its gaze that was frightening.
Edinja said something to the creature in a language that Arling had never heard. Then, after passing the torch to the sorceress, it abruptly picked up Arling without even looking at her. Cradling her in its huge arms, it began to descend the stairs once more. Arling, too frightened to struggle, let herself be borne into the depths of the building.
Edinja walked in front of them, holding up the torch so that the gloom was at least partially dispelled. “Stay calm,” she said to the girl. “He won’t hurt you.”
Arling didn’t believe this for a moment, but she was still too weak to do anything to help herself, and certainly nothing that would allow her to escape. So she steeled herself and kept her eyes averted from her bearer’s blank expression and empty eyes.
The descent seemed to take forever, each step measured by another footfall. At the bottom of the stairs they passed down a corridor that ended at a huge iron door. Arling could hear sounds from behind the door—grunts and squeals and guttural mutterings that suggested things more animal than human.
Edinja touched a series of studs on the door, and it swung open with a ponderous groan.
Arling gave a small gasp.
The room was cavernous and gloom-filled, but there was no mistaking its purpose. Chains hung from racks, and cages lined the walls. Metal tables were scattered across the room, many with sharp blades and tools of extraction resting on their bloodied surfaces. Fluids ran down funnels into drains and buckets. More creatures resembling the one that bore her were shambling about the room, moving slow-footed and witless. In the back of the room, men in cages screamed and begged, gripping the bars or sagging in postures of hopeless dejection.
Edinja directed the creature carrying Arling to the back of the room where the cages holding the screaming, moaning men were bolted to the floor. They saw her approach and began calling out to her: Lady, Mistress, please help me! Release me and I will never return. Please, I beg you, let me go. What wrong have I committed? Why am I here?
They seemed to be addressing Arling, their attentions turned to her rather than to Edinja, their hands reaching through the bars as if to grasp at the chance they thought she offered.
“Here are the members of the ship’s crew, the ones who brought you to me, eager to be of service.” Edinja motioned for the creature to put Arling down. “Ask them what you wish. If they have an answer, they will be most willing to give it to you.”
Arling was so horror-stricken she could barely get the words out. “Why are they here? What have they done?”
“They disobeyed me. This is what happens to those who don’t do as I ask.” Edinja seemed impatient. “Now, don’t waste my time. I brought you here so you could find out something about your sister. This is your chance. Ask your questions.”
Arling turned to the men. “Do any of you know what happened to my sister? Or to the other Elves?”
The muttering was pronounced. Nothing, Lady. They are fine and well! No, they weren’t even there! We never saw them! They must be safe by now! They killed those creatures we brought aboard—they looked like this one. And the man Stoon. We saw them dead, my mate and I. No one else! Please! Believe me!
So it went, words spoken in desperation, answers tinged with fantasy and lies, all of it useless. Arling turned away. “Can they be set free?” she asked Edinja without looking at her.
The sorceress shrugged. “I will give it some thought.”
But she wouldn’t. Arling could tell from the way she said it. “Can I speak with the captain of the ship?”
Edinja Orle gave her a sympathetic look. “That might be rather difficult.”
She took the girl by her arm and steered her across the room to a table. Another of the creatures was fastened to it, bound by leather straps, limbs splayed across its metal surface, head pulled back, mouth open. A funnel had been forced down its throat, and it was gagging on the metal end lodged in its windpipe and quaking as if with a fever.
Beneath the table, a huge ginger moor cat, its colorings starkly beautiful, was gnawing on a piece of meat.
Edinja reached out and extracted the funnel. The creature did not look at her, its eyes fixed on a point somewhere between the table and the ceiling of the room. It had the look of a dead thing, as if any spark of what had made it human had been leached away.
Arling cringed, suddenly realizing who it was.
“Captain,” the sorceress said, “have you remembered yet what happened to this girl’s sister?” She waited a moment. “No? What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue?”
Then she looked over at Arling and began to laugh.
8
Oriantha sat with Tesla Dart atop a ridgeline perhaps a mile distant from the sprawling camp of the Straken Lord’s army. Sunset was approaching, the surrounding landscape stretching out its shadowy fingers from the east as the skies slowly darkened and the lighter gray of daytime changed to tw
ilight. She was weary and footsore, and she would have liked a bath. But there was no water for bathing and no respite for sore feet save rest and sleep. She wasn’t tired from the journey’s length so much as its circuity. Unwilling to trust to a straight line of travel that would have had them trailing along like obedient dogs, she had opted instead for brief forays around the army’s flanks and all the way forward to where Tael Riverine flew a dragon at its head, trying to discover where in the Forbidding they were going. Admittedly, she’d had help from Tesla, who scurried left and right with unbridled energy and seemingly endless fascination with the whole of the countryside and those passing through it. But even so, she refused to let the Ulk Bog bear the entire weight of this effort and so had inserted herself into the equation to shoulder an equal share of the burden.
Now, many hours later, she was ready to sit right where she was for as long as the light remained and then hopefully get some sleep. But it wasn’t a given that sleep would be permitted her—or, at least, any sort of useful sleep. Tesla Dart had dispatched the Chzyks—including the Ulk Bog’s favorite, Lada—a few minutes ago, sending a handful of the little creatures down into the enemy camp to see if they could pinpoint the location of the cage imprisoning Redden Ohmsford. If they were successful and if the conditions allowed for it, she would leave after midnight to attempt a rescue.
She was momentarily distracted as Tesla Dart leapt up and dashed off into the distance, weaving her way through clusters of rocks and clumps of thorny brush, a small wiry shadow in the disappearing light. Oriantha watched her until she was out of sight, wondering what had attracted Tesla’s attention this time and how she could manage to muster the effort to go look. The shape-shifter had spent some of that day asking Tesla about the Ulk Bog people, thinking to learn something about her in the process. But what information Tesla Dart was willing to share was dispensed in sudden, brief bursts that ended almost before they began and did little to provide any useful insights.
Mostly, it appeared, Ulk Bogs were like gophers or moles, living in burrows and eking out a living through foraging and thievery. Tesla’s uncle, Weka Dart, who had befriended and aided Grianne Ohmsford when she had been trapped within the Forbidding decades earlier, had been the Straken Lord’s Catcher once, but it was unclear what his niece had been doing beyond waiting for Grianne to come back into the land of the Jarka Ruus.
Although why Tesla would do this or even expect it to happen was baffling.
Not that it mattered. Weka Dart’s history was incidental to what was occurring, and Oriantha was nothing if not pragmatic. She had remained behind in the Forbidding when she had been given the chance to escape because she could not abide leaving Redden Ohmsford behind when there might be a chance to help him. She had lost her mother and thereby her reason for coming on this expedition. Going back now offered no resolution to her rootless life. If anything, it felt like a betrayal. Her mother wouldn’t have gone back; she would have kept going. Just as she had with Khyber Elessedil—right up until the very end. Could Oriantha do any less and still live with herself?
Of course, there was more to it. She wanted to free Redden Ohmsford—even though they had only just met and she had no real attachment to him—because she was fond of him and did honestly want to help.
But what she wanted most was revenge on Tael Riverine.
For her mother.
For the other members of the ill-fated company.
For the inhabitants of the Forbidding.
This creature—this so-called Straken Lord—had ruled the Jarka Ruus, the denizens of his world, for decades and perhaps centuries and had done nothing to help them. Tael Riverine’s sole achievement was to gain domination, and his sole objective was to procreate so that his line could continue to rule. She found it repugnant in both demonkind and humankind. There was no suggestion of advancement or enlightenment or useful purpose. There was only the promise of raw power exercised by one ruler so that it could be bequeathed to others.
A good part of her outrage was derived from her connection with the creatures imprisoned here. She was more of an outsider in her own world than she was in this one, and her sense of kinship with the Jarka Ruus was strong. Like her, they were different, and their differences set them apart. But in this world she was just one of many, and all of them very much in the same situation. In her world, she belonged to a tiny group of mutant creatures who were mistrusted and disliked and set apart from the much larger populations of Men, Elves, Dwarves, Trolls, and Gnomes. There, she lived a life in the shadows, disguising the truth about herself.
It didn’t escape her that the creatures of the Forbidding lived the same sort of life here—the same sort of persecuted existence—that she lived in the outside world.
She might not be able to do anything about an entire world in which her fate was subject to the prejudices of the general population, but perhaps she could make a difference in a world in which a single individual’s removal could change everything.
She was toying with these thoughts as Tesla Dart reappeared from out of the increasing gloom, chattering away.
“Furies, dozens of them. Roaming the boulders and brush like vermin. Hate those Furies, I do. Mindless killers.” She gave a look over her shoulder as if to make sure the Furies weren’t following her. “Want to make sure. They could see us, come for us.”
“They won’t bother,” Oriantha told her. “They serve the Straken Lord for now.”
The Ulk Bog made a rude noise. “Serve themselves is what they do. All teeth and claws and no brains.” She gave a noticeable shiver. “Keep them far away, shape-shifter. You listen.”
Oriantha was listening, but she was not particularly worried. She could manage Furies if they found her. Shape-shifters were clever and resourceful. When you could become anything—even the air you breathed if it was dark and hazy enough—there wasn’t much that could harm you unless it got very close or caught you unawares.
Suddenly Tesla Dart squealed and leapt up excitedly. “Lada returns! Come, Lada! Come, Chzyk! Tell me all! Here to me, Lada!”
The lizard raced across the open ground and leapt into the Ulk Bog’s arms, where the latter proceeded to pet and rub the little creature in fond welcome. Lada turned around and around, raising and lowering his scaly head and tail, and generally doing everything he could to make himself available for the other’s welcome attentions.
Then he began to chirp, and Tesla Dart chirped right back, the two engaging in a conversation that had all the elements of a comedic parody. But apparently each understood the other, for when they had finished Tesla put the Chzyk down again and turned to Oriantha.
“This is no good, shape-shifter girl,” she said solemnly, shaking her head for emphasis. “Tael Riverine has put boy in cage at camp’s center, next to tent where he sleeps. Boy is watched closely. Guards right by him. You go in, even at night, they catch you quick.”
“How many guards around the cage?” Oriantha asked. “Exactly.”
The Ulk Bog chattered at the Chzyk once more, and the little creature responded in kind. “Four, one on each side. Goblins. But demon-wolves loose in camp near cage, too.”
Oriantha nodded, considering. “No worse than what I thought.”
“You don’t do this,” the other pleaded. “Let this be. You wait. A better chance comes later. Do this now is foolish!”
“This whole business is foolish if you stop to look at it too closely.” Oriantha sat back and regarded the Ulk Bog solemnly. “Let’s wait until it gets dark and take another look at it then.”
In fact, she stayed where she was until after midnight, sleeping several hours in between, eating a little something and staring out across the wilderness to the fires of the Straken Lord. She watched the shadows in the firelight, tracking their movements, immersing herself in the flow of the camp. She breathed in the night air and centered herself for what lay ahead. She had already decided she was going after Redden, in spite of Tesla Dart’s warnings. Her chances were far
better in a crowded open place than if she were forced to enter a confined space with only one way in and out.
She looked at the sky and waited for moonrise. When the orb appeared in an overcast sky, slipping out from behind clouds and mist, it was only a small crescent and the light it shed was pale and weak.
She stood up and looked down at Tesla Dart, who was staring up at her with wide eyes and a look of disbelief.
“I’ll need Lada to show me the way. Will you allow him to do that? Just to take me as far as the cage?”
Tesla nodded mutely, her face stricken.
“Wait for me until you see the army begin to move out again. If I am not back by then, go your own way. Leave all this behind and have no regrets. This is my choice. Any consequences that attach are mine to bear.”
“This is a mistake!”
“It is my mistake to make,” Oriantha said.
The Ulk Bog gave her a desperate look. “Wait, then. I have something.” She fumbled in her pocket and finally produced a small key. “Take this. If you find boy, you will need it. Tael Riverine fits him with conjure collar to keep him from using magic. Key will open lock and release collar.”
“How do you happen to have this key?” Oriantha asked, suddenly suspicious.
“Weka gave it to me. He kept it after he was dismissed as Catcher. If he was imprisoned, he knew he would be fitted with collar, too. He would not allow such. Use it to free boy.”
Oriantha took it and tucked it into her tunic. “You are a constant source of amazement, Ulk Bog.”
“You are a fool!” the other snapped. “Please, don’t go! You will end up like the others. You will not come back!”
Oriantha bent over and kissed the little creature on the cheek. Then she was gone into the night.
Redden Ohmsford lay huddled in his cage, rolled into a ball in an effort to escape the creatures that took every opportunity to shake the iron bars of his prison or reach inside to torment him. They came in all shapes and sizes, all types and forms—things he had not only never seen but also never imagined. They screamed at him—howls and shrieks that caused his skin to prickle and his stomach to clench. He was made physically ill from the harassment, his insides roiling, bile rising to his throat, but there was little he could do about any of it. By staying in the center of the cage with his body tightly balled up, he could just avoid their grasping fingers and claws. By closing his eyes, he could almost pretend they weren’t there. But nothing really helped.