Wandering Lark

by Laura J Underwood

  She stiffened her shoulders and glared at him. “You go too far, Turlough Greenfyn, and one day it will be your undoing.”

  Turlough merely smiled. He let go of her hands and nodded to one of the guards.

  This time, there were no soft manacles. She was pushed into a chair and had her hands tied back behind her and a gag slipped into her mouth. She continued to glare at Turlough as his mageborn warriors did the same to Wendon and Shona.

  “Secure the inn for our purposes, Lorymer,” Turlough ordered. “Tell the landlord to name his price, but all his other guests must find new quarters. I suspect we are in for a bit of a wait, and I will have no one here who can interfere when Fenelon returns.”

  And I shall pray to every god and goddess I believe in that Fenelon makes you sorry you ever crossed his path, Etienne thought.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  Fenelon was starting to believe that they were going to fall out of a hole in the bottom of the world before they found the Pass of Baldoran. It seemed like all Hobbler did was lead them deeper and deeper into the earth, so deep, Fenelon swore he was hearing a great thundering sound. The rhythm pounded his eardrums like the beating of a heart.

  He had to resist the overwhelming urge to step over to the walls of the caverns and listen. Besides, he had already touched those walls once and the oily black residue that dirtied his hand had yet to come off. He wasn’t squeamish about dirt, but there was something downright disgusting about the feel of the stuff. Tempting as it was, to burn it off with a quick fire spell, he decided it might not be wise...especially if this was the rock he heard mentioned that was used by Dvergar as a fuel. In his experience, setting oil on fire was a good way to lose skin.

  Their trail occasionally split. Hobbler would stop and test the air by licking his finger then holding it aloft before he would announce, “This way.”

  “Do we really trust him to know where he is going?” Fenelon whispered to Gareth when he was able to get close enough to his father to do so.

  “To the pass, yes,” Gareth said. “Hobbler knows the way even thought he denies it. Beyond that, he’ll be as much in the dark as we will...in more ways than one.”

  “You know, it seems to me it would have been simpler to use a fly spell and cross over the mountains...”

  “Shows how little you know,” Gareth said. “Some of the mountains in the Ranges are so tall their peaks are not visible even on a clear day. And the air gets thin when you get too high. Breathing becomes nearly impossible. I should know, since I have climbed a number of these mountains in my youth. But like the spell that keeps me from gating back to that place I found all those years ago, the mountains will not allow you to fly over them at all. I have seen birds of no magical ability whatsoever flying at those mountaintops, only to be turned away by some force that even nature cannot comprehend.”

  Fenelon sighed and fell back to his place at the end of the line.

  He had no idea how many days or nights they traveled along. His body told him to eat, sleep and otherwise, when to get rid of wastes. But he soon lost count of those. Was it two days now? Or was it three? Or only one?

  One could go mad underground this way.

  He was almost convinced of his own madness when Hobbler stopped before a divided shaft and frowned. “Well, gents,” the Dvergar said. “That passage there will lead you to Baldoran’s Piles and between the Piles, you’ll find the pass. So I’ll just be on my way...”

  He started to walk uphill. Gareth’s hand snagged the little man by the scruff.

  “I think not, Hobbler,” Gareth said. “We’re going to need your guidance to get back out of here, so you’re going with us.”

  “Down there? Into the pass?” Hobbler looked so pitiful now. “But...I don’t want to go into the pass...”

  “Why not?” Gareth asked.

  “There might be...well...them...”

  “Them?”

  “Look,” Hobbler said. “You know perfectly well that the Stone Forest lies just past the entrance of Baldoran’s Pass, and it’s full of them...”

  “Them?” Fenelon said, emphasizing his father’s question.

  Hobbler looked as though he were going to start crying. “Them,” he agreed.

  “Just who are them...I mean, they?” Fenelon insisted.

  “Oh, there’s all sorts of them,” Hobbler said. “Some as big as houses, others as tiny as gnats, and all of them want to lead you astray so that you find the hidden pits...and if you fall into one of those, well, there is no going home.”

  “Hobbler, you know perfectly well that I would never allow them to harm you,” Gareth said. “So stop this nonsense and get moving. You’re wasting my time with all this arguing.”

  “Thought as much,” Hobbler said with a sigh and lost his frightened air. “But it never hurts to try.”

  Fenelon frowned. “Just what is he trying to pull now?”

  “Hobbler is always trying to pull something,” Gareth said. “That’s part of his charm.”

  “You and I clearly have a different idea of what constitutes charm,” Fenelon said.

  Gareth merely smiled. He forcefully turned Hobbler around in the right direction and guided the Dvergar towards the tunnel. Hobbler hesitated, and then sighed with resignation and marched on into the tunnel, shaking his head.

  “I’m going to regret this,” Hobbler muttered. “I just know I am going to regret this...I curse the day my cousin Tobbler ever told you about this place, indeed I do...”

  “His cousin Tobbler?” Fenelon said.

  “Aye,” Gareth said. “His cousin Tobbler was one of my first guides around the Ranges. It was back in the days when I was married to my first wife—the harridan, I used to call her, and it’s no wonder I took to wandering the way that woman could scold. Getting into the ranges and wandering around was the only way I could find any peace.”

  “Then why did you marry this harridan?”

  “I was very young, and I may have been drunk at the time,” Gareth said. “Not that it matters. She drove me insane, which is probably why I never stayed around long enough to sire any children on her.”

  Fenelon said nothing. He’d heard enough tales from his own mother to know his father was not always faithful to the woman who carried his name, and that there were half brothers and sisters all over Ard-Taebh that he had yet to meet.

  “I was never so happy to have a wife die as I was when she passed on,” Gareth continued. “At any rate, it was on one of my earliest forays into the ranges that I met old Tobbler. I saved him from a jotun that was trying to steal his keg of mead. In gratitude, he shared his mead with me, and somewhere around the fourth or fifth tankard, he started talking about his youth and how he was one of those of the Stone Folk who traveled with his family when they guided the Haxons out of the Ranges and into Ross-Mhor. And he mentioned the time they had a little trouble with a band of Hidden Folk who told them they could not stay in Garrowye...

  “Now I had heard of Garrowye...I remembered an old text I had studied in my own father’s library, text that now resides in the Great Library of Dun-Gealach, and it was fragments of a journal written by a Ross-Mhorian scholar from that time period, who described the coming of the Haxons, and how they mentioned a land called Garrowye where the Aelfyn would not allow them to stay. I pressed Tobbler for more information, and learned that he had found a secret way in and out that the Hidden Folk were not watching as closely. So I tried to get him to tell me where it was.”

  “And...?” Fenelon ventured.

  “At first, he refused. Said it was forbidden to tell the Long Legs anything about the way. But I reminded him that he owed me his life, and being that Dvergar are very set in their ways when it comes to paying back a life debt, I told him I would release him of that debt if he would show me the way... So he did, in a sense. He led me to that river. He advised me to follow the water’s way as that would lead me to the entrance, but he warned that I would have to be a clever man to see it. That only a clever
man would be able to find it.”

  “And clearly, you did,” Fenelon said.

  “Clearly, though I think it was more fool’s luck. I fell into a river, got dumped into a cave just under the waterline, was dragged along through the dark for what seemed like forever, and was too scared witless to use magic to get myself out. But that turned out to be to my advantage because the river finally spat me out, tossed me down a mountainside and landed me in a place where I could barely flounder ashore. There was a ruined village there. I was cold and wet and sore, so I kindled a fire and fell asleep. When I awoke the next morning, I could see that the village had been destroyed by a rockslide, and I could see a beautiful green land. I wanted so much to explore it, but I had no supplies and I was injured enough that I knew I needed a healer. So I gated myself back home, intending to get my arm fixed and gather provisions and return.”

  The pause was rather irritating in Fenelon’s opinion. But he knew better than to say so. “And?” he encouraged, hoping Gareth was not about to decide all this talk was a waste of time.

  Gareth heaved a sigh. “When I stepped out of my gate, I was struck by a most blinding pain that knocked me senseless. It was as if someone had stuck a knife into my head. When I finally woke up, I could not recall how to get back...it was as though there was a wall in my head. I could remember the place I slept. I could remember what I saw, the stuff I found in my brief exploration of those ruins—discarded farthings, scattered pottery, even a few bones—but the moment I tried to concentrate on the location to open a gate spell, the memory would vanish as though it had never been there at all...”

  “Perhaps you should let me into your mind,” Fenelon said. “If I can fetch the memory from you, I could probably open a gate and...”

  “It will not work,” Gareth said and shook his head. “It’s already been tried. My own father, for all his skill, could not unlock the wall he found there. And what he did manage to see would not let him use it when he tried. It is as though whatever spell was protecting that place passed the loss of memory along. It was a magic like none we had ever seen—not until I met your young friend Alaric. The wall Ronan put in his head was very much like the one that grows in my own when I try to remember that place and open a spell gate...”

  “Won’t you at least let me try?” Fenelon asked.

  “I would rather not have you rummaging around in my mind, thank you,” Gareth said. “There are some things even a son should never learn about his father.”

  “Oh, like there are things about you I don’t already know?” Fenelon challenged. “Father, your life has never been a great secret...”

  “How dare you,” Gareth snarled. “What makes you think you know everything, eh? What your mother told you about me was a drop of water in the river that has ever been my life...”

  “Uh, gentlemen,” Hobbler said in a voice that bordered on panic.

  Fenelon and Gareth turned to shout “What?” simultaneously.

  And then froze as one.

  The passageway was blocked by several rock trows. Unlike their cousins above, these were holding cudgels and hammers of stone, and glowering from beady obsidian eyes.

  “They don’t look terribly...happy,” Hobbler said.

  “He’s right on that account,” Gareth agreed.

  “What do we do?” Hobbler asked.

  The rock trow were slowly moving closer. Fenelon glanced over his shoulder in time to see that the way back was closing off as well. Horns, how had they managed to pass the trow without seeing them?

  “Any suggestions?” Gareth asked, arching eyebrows at Fenelon.

  Fenelon reached into his leather vest and felt around until he found the stone the rock trow above had given him. He brought it out and held it up so all could see it.

  The rock trow ceased their advance. A few looked as though they traded glances. Then almost as one, they all moved back against the walls and seemed to disappear.

  “Good enough?” Fenelon asked, glancing at Gareth.

  “So you do have other good ideas from time to time,” Gareth agreed. “I suggest we move on before they change their minds...”

  “Hobbler, were those the things you were so worried about?” Fenelon asked as he looked at the stone and smiled.

  “Well, no, there will be far worse things waiting for us in the Stone Forest,”

  “Like what?” Gareth asked.

  “I’m not sure, but I had heard stories,” the Dvergar said as he hurried on.

  Well, that’s certainly reassuring, Fenelon thought as he shook his head and followed them, keeping the stone in clear view.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  Talena awoke to sunshine pouring through the high windows and several women standing over her. She sat up, startled to see them. They were not guards, but serving women who smiled and whispered to one another as they watched her.

  “What do you want?” Talena asked.

  The eldest among them looked to be little more than a lass of fifteen, but she held herself like a woman of great age and dignity. “I am called Selana, and my queen has bid me to find you fresh clothes and invite you to have breakfast with her. These women have come to help you bathe and dress.”

  Talena leaned so she could glance towards the door. It was closed, and the guard there was another woman. Talena could also see that the chair in the center of the room had been replaced by a steaming tub of water.

  “Thank you, but I think I can bathe and dress myself,” Talena said.

  “We have our orders,” Selana said. “We will assist you.”

  Right and I’ll bloody that snooty nose of yours if you try, Talena thought.

  Selana arched an eyebrow. “Violence is not necessary,” she said.

  Talena felt her jaw drop. “You can see my thought?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Selana said. “Because you have not yet learned how to shield your mind.”

  “Can all of your people read thought?” Talena asked.

  “No,” Selana said. “Some can only sense emotions. Still, once you are trained, you will be able to shield your thoughts and...”

  “Trained?” Talena said and frowned. “Trained to do what?”

  “Use your natural gifts, of course,” Selana said.

  Talena stood up. “The only natural gift I have is using a sword,” she said, wishing she had one now as she would gladly use it to hack off this woman’s head.

  “Then you will make an excellent addition to our queen’s personal guard,” Selana said. “Assuming you learn to control your violent urges...”

  “Strange,” Talena said and frowned. “I don’t remember applying for the position of Queen’s bodyguard...”

  “I suspect you would do better at that than becoming one of Her Majesty’s personal maids,” Selana said. “Now, Her Majesty awaits you, and it is never wise to keep her waiting. Bathe and dress quickly, or we will do it for you.”

  “Oh, I would like to see you make me...” Talena snarled.

  She heard a faint laughter, and it sounded a lot like that creature that had visited her last night. Selana looked at the women and nodded, and as one, they rushed forward, giggling like young girls. Talena nearly tripped over the bedding trying to back out of range. There were no corners in this round room, and they swarmed over her like bees. She struck away several pairs of hands that seized her arms, her lacings, and her clothes, but there were more of them than she could deal without causing them serious harm.

  If that’s what it takes, she thought. She seized the arm of the nearest woman, and flung her into the rest. Several of them went down in a heap, arms and legs akimbo. Those who had managed to stay on their feet laughed and rushed in to finish what their companions had started. Talena kicked, catching one in the stomach and knocking her down. She knotted her fists together and struck out at the next one, catching her across the cheek and flinging her aside. Then she glared at Selana and started to rush the woman.

  A mistake, Talena quickly discovered. She had hardly
crossed a few meters of space before Selana threw up her hands and whispered, “Adhar clach!”

  Before Talena could check her momentum, she hit a wall of hardened air again. You would think I would remember that trick, she thought as she fell back into the bevy of women who were scuttling back to their feet. There was no escape now. En masse, they rushed again, pinning Talena to the floor, and this time there was nothing she could do to resist or fight back as they stripped her down and carried her over to dunk her bodily into the tub. Water closed over her head. They let go, and Talena struggled upright so she could draw a breath. The women stood in a circle around the tub. Their smiling faces never altered. Selana stepped through their number and offered Talena a sponge.

  “You said that you wished to bathe yourself,” she said.

  Tempting as it was to splash water on the matronly creature, Talena checked her temper and took the sponge. She began to scrub herself vigorously, glancing at each woman in the circle in turn.

  You just wait until I get out of this tub, she thought.

  “We will,” Selana said.

  Talena cursed inwardly and tried to keep her thoughts quiet after that.

  King Culann was quite proud of his kingdom. So much so, he spent a large part of the morning dragging Alaric from one point to another. Just when Alaric would think he had seen enough, the king would ride through one of those gate menhirs and take Alaric to another part of his land.

  “Are these gateways everywhere?” Alaric asked, trying not to sound bored. But in truth, while he was fascinated with this new land, some nagging feeling made him want to go back to the palace and find Talena.

  “Oh, yes,” King Culann said and gestured to the capstone. “These were placed here in the most ancient times by the White One herself. I am given to understand that they and the gate stones even exist in your world, but the knowledge of their use has been lost to your kind. Just as magic has been lost to the Aelfyn of Garrowye.”