by Garry Spoor
“Find anything, Vesper?”
-Nothing. Hungry.-
“Yeah, me too. We’ll head back to the campsite, see if they left anything.”
It was a long shot, but it all depended on how quickly the sailors left. If they feared an attack from the Valgar, they might have abandoned a few of their supplies. If nothing else, it provided her with a destination.
The beach she was on didn’t connect with the south side of the island, so she couldn’t follow it back to camp. She would either have to go north or straight up the side of the cliff. Even though the cliff wasn’t all that high, she was in no mood to climb. After collecting Vesper, she started walking north. It was the roundabout route, but it proved the easiest, and it wasn’t long before she was able to turn south. She was retreading the same path she took when she was returning from the temple. It was only a matter of time before she reached the place where she fought Darfin and was surprised to find him still there. The headless Alva lay undisturbed, exactly where he fell. It meant nobody came back to reclaim his body, which also meant nobody came back to look for her. There were only two reasons she could think of that would explain why nobody came to investigate. The first was, they feared for their lives. With the Valgar in the vicinity, and believing she was already dead, they didn’t want to risk another encounter. It made perfect sense, and she wanted to believe it because the alternative was less pleasant: a scenario where she was never meant to leave the island. Her only reason for being included in the company, according to Darfin, was to recover the Heart from its resting place. They must have known, or feared, she would figure out what was going on. Once she did, she became a liability.
After carefully searching Darfin’s body for anything that might be of use, she came away with a few coins, a small piece of flint, and a length of string. She thought about removing the ring from his finger but couldn’t bring herself to do it. It was one thing to go through the Alva’s pockets; it was quite another to strip him of his valuables. She did, however, find his Lann, which she carefully laid beside him. She wanted to bury him, to show respect even though he did try to kill her, but she had to worry about herself first. She still needed to find food, water, and a safe place for the night.
When she finally reached the beach, she was surprised to see the tents were still erect. Even the campfire, although burned out, still had Lothran’s soup pot sitting on it. It appeared as if everyone simply up and left, leaving everything behind. Looking out into the harbor, she almost expected to see the Charlotte still anchored offshore, but it was too much to hope for.
Kile went from tent to tent, pulling out anything she could use. Water bottles, medical supplies, purification cloths, clothing—everything was still there, even the hardtack.
“Well, it’s definitely not my first choice, but at least we won’t starve,” she said, sniffing at the block of food-like substance. Even Vesper didn’t complain when she broke him off a piece.
She piled her newly discovered bounty in the center of camp and, using a vial of liquid kindling, restarted the campfire. She didn’t think it would keep the Valgar away if they chose to attack, but it was better than sitting alone in the dark. Her next step was to take inventory of her supplies. Food and water were her primary concerns, and it looked as if she had enough for maybe a week if she rationed herself. Since the only food was the hardtack, it shouldn’t be too difficult. She took another bite and quickly washed it down. How long would she have to be stranded on this island before it tasted better?
“Well, Vesper. We are in a real pickle this time,” she said, lying down beside the fire. “I have no idea how to get back home. How about you?”
-Fly,- the yarrow said.
Kile laughed. “If only it was that easy. Although, Risa did say something about Umingoth, but I’m not sure how he can help me all the way out here. Even if I could get a message to him, which is highly unlikely, there’s no guarantee he would come.”
-Lizard friend.-
“I think Umingoth’s only friend is Umingoth, although, I am the guardian of his offspring, so maybe that counts for something. I suppose I could give it a try, but not right now. Maybe first thing in the morning, assuming I’m still here.”
Kile closed her eyes but found it difficult to sleep. Her mind was too busy running through all the new bits of information it had gathered. There might be a few holes in it, but she was starting to get a better picture of what was going on.
“Didn’t Risa say something about you being able to show me what happened after I… died?” she asked Vesper.
The yarrow was knocking around a chuck of hardtack. -Show Kile.-
“What did you see, Vesper?”
Climbing up onto her chest, he made himself comfortable as Kile fell into her Edge. It never took her long to connect with the yarrow as he was always a willing subject. No sooner was the link made when everything went black. Fortunately, this time, the darkness wasn’t the result of her losing consciousness. It was simply what Vesper saw from inside the courier’s bag. He was trapped inside when she tossed it away and could do nothing but listen to the battle. Kile wanted to see her duel with Darfin, but since Vesper couldn’t, she couldn’t. All she could do was listen and wait. The battle sounded a lot shorter than it felt and ended with the sound of a Valgar biting the head off an Alva. That was something she was glad she didn’t see. Once was more than enough. The battle with the Valgar, however, was harder to follow. Although she remembered what happened, it was difficult to link the sounds to a proper picture; that was until Master Boraro arrived.
“What happened here, girl?” she heard him call out.
She couldn’t make out any more of the conversation. It was difficult to hear from inside her cloth prison. There was a bunch of mumbling, followed by an eerie silence that lasted until the bag was suddenly lifted into the air. For some reason, Master Boraro decided to take it with him. She was sure his motives weren’t driven by a desire to save the yarrow. There was no way he knew Vesper was inside. But what other reason did he have for taking it?
The bag moved violently, and Vesper flopped around inside it as Master Boraro started running. He was heading back to camp as quickly as he could. She could hear him breathing hard, but she couldn’t sense any fear. As far as she knew, there was nothing chasing him.
“Get to the boats. Get to the boats,” he shouted.
The sound of the waves, the smell of the ocean, they must have reached the beach.
“What is it? What’s happening?” somebody asked him. It sounded like Private Eafer.
“Saladog!” Boraro said. “There are saladogs in the woods.”
“Are you sure? We haven’t seen anything since we’ve been here.”
“Wait. Where’s Kile?” Daniel asked.
“Forget her. She’s dead.”
“What do you mean dead? What happened?”
“There’s no time to explain. There were dozens of them out there. It’s only a matter of time before they come looking for us.”
“But we have to find Kile,” Daniel said.
“She’s dead, I tell you. I found her body alongside Darfin’s. They must have been attacked in the forest. They took several of those creatures with them, but there were too many.”
Well, at least she went down fighting.
“If that were true, where are they now?” Daniel asked.
“How the hell should I know? I killed three of them myself, trying to get back here. Maybe they’re regrouping.”
“Are you sure?”
That was Master Heaney’s voice. He sounded genuinely concerned.
“We have to go back and get them,” Daniel said. “We can’t just leave them out there.”
“I’m sorry, Danny. If what Master Boraro says is true, it’s too dangerous.”
“But Master Heaney—”
“No, get to the boats,” Heaney commanded, his voice growing louder. “Get to the boats, get back to the ship. Take only what’s necessary.”
“Eafer, get him in the boat.”
“Yes, sir.”
Soon, the voices died down, and the only sound Kile heard was the heavy breathing of Master Boraro. The flap of the bag was suddenly flung open and light streamed in. Vesper seized his opportunity to escape. Leaping out, he startled the Hunter, who quickly tossed the bag aside. When Vesper hit the sand, he ran for cover, but no one tried to stop him. From the safety of the rocks, he watched as the vir fled in boats. They were battling the tide as they rowed out to the Charlotte.
15
“I’m sorry, Vesper,” Kile said when she opened her eyes. “I’ve tried, but I still can’t reach Umingoth. He’s either too far away, or he’s simply not listening to me. I’m not even sure why Risa brought him up in the first place.” She slowly got to her feet, slapping the sand from her pants as she walked down to the ocean’s edge. Looking out over the water she had to wonder where the Charlotte was now. Had it reached the stormwall? Did it make it through? Was it already home?
Three days had passed since they abandoned her on the island, but Kile had a feeling it was a bit longer. Risa said time moved differently between the realms. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower, and sometimes not even in the same direction. She felt her time in Fthak’thun was considerably longer than three days.
Sitting down beside a smoldering campfire, she pulled her pack toward her and dug inside it for her morning meal of hardtack. It still tasted horrible, so it meant she wasn’t stranded long enough. She washed it down with a long drink of water. The purification cloths she’d found weren’t the cheap ones provided by the Guild, but the high-quality ones made by the alchemists in Littenbeck. They would supply her with enough safe drinking water long after the food ran out. Wrapping the rest of the hardtack up, she stuffed it back into her pack.
“You sense anything, Vesper?”
-Nothing. Alone,- the yarrow said.
They were taking turns, keeping watch, but it was starting to feel unnecessary. There had been no sign of the Valgar since the day of her death. It was a morbid way of keeping track, but it was the most significant event in her life so far. It had been three days since she died, not counting her time in Fthak’thun, since she wasn’t sure how long she’d been there. In those three days, she explored most of the island, looking for some means of getting home, but one side of the island looked as dead as the other. The only place she didn’t return to was the underground temple. It was pointless to go back. There was nothing more she could learn there and she risked annoying the Valgar if they were still down there. As far as she knew, they could have all stowed away on the Charlotte.
~~~***~~~
The first day, she buried Darfin on the northeast corner of the island. It was the closest she could get him to his homeland. From there, he could look out over the ocean to await the Alverian ships, which would never come. Of course, she couldn’t find his head, so he wouldn’t be seeing much.
On the second day, she completely dismantled and packed away the campsite since she didn’t need all those tents up, and it gave her something to occupy her mind. She also stopped feeding the campfire. There was no need to keep it burning. It wasn’t as if she had any real food to cook. She tried fishing, but it seemed as if the fish avoided the island as much as the birds did.
During the nights, she kept trying to get back to Fthak’thun, but she simply couldn’t find her way. Each time she had visited the realm in the past, it was by accident, usually when she was asleep or gravely injured. Now that she needed to get back there, it seemed inaccessible. Risa hinted at a way to get back home, but she simply didn’t understand what the Alva wanted her to understand.
Kile took another drink of water and threw the bottle across the beach.
-Kile mad?-
“Yes. No. I don’t know,” she said in an exasperated voice as she fell back on her blanket. “This is all becoming pointless, Vesper. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. As far as I know the Heart is already back home. Roland has already released the Maligar and Aru is now a giant wasteland, and I’m simply… useless.”
Now she was starting to sound like her father. She hadn’t given him much thought over the last couple of years, not that she had much time to. Wouldn’t he be vindicated right about now?
Kile quickly stood. “I am not useless,” she shouted to the sky and threw her hands up. “I… just have no idea what I’m supposed to do.”
Vesper turned and looked at her. -Change-
“Change? Change what?”
-Change you.-
“Change me? What are you talking about?”
-Change you,- the yarrow said and in his words, she saw herself… as a rabbit.
“That’s not funny, Vesper.”
-Change.-
“It’s not possible.”
-Try.-
“Vesper, it’s not possible. Risa said it only works in Fthak’thun. I guess reality works a bit differently there.”
-Umingoth broke the barrier.-
“What did you say?”
-Umingoth broke the barrier.-
It was the last thing Risa had told her right before she woke up. Umingoth broke the barrier. It was more like he broke her. She was never quite the same after that, although she never understood what he did. To save her from losing her mind to the Maligar, Umingoth broke the barrier. Even he didn’t know the consequences of his actions. Risa said she was not just any Orceen.
“That’s ridiculous,” Kile said, brushing the notion aside. “It’s impossible.”
Was it?
Didn’t she see Murphy turn himself into a living statue, before walking into a burning farmhouse? Didn’t she witness Eric turn himself into living flame? Even Carter could become invisible, although that was more of an illusion than a transformation. Still, was it all that different than turning oneself into a rabbit?
“Even if it was possible, what good is it being a rabbit?” she asked the yarrow.
-Not rabbit, Norir,- Vesper explained, and in his words, she saw the great white albatross soaring through the clouds.
~~~***~~~
“This is stupid,” Kile said as she sorted through her supplies.
It was difficult to pack when you didn’t know where you were going, and she didn’t know where she was going. As for how she was going to get there, she was trying not to think of that. What she was planning to do, or try to do, was beyond the realm of possibility, and yet it was the only plan she had. Right now, all she could do was prepare.
She wouldn’t need much. Food and water were her biggest concerns. A block of hardtack and a canteen of water and one of the purification cloths should be enough. She would also need her weapons. There was no telling where she might end up, so she had to include her Lann and her long knife. She would also need a first aid bag and a tinderbox.
Sitting back and reexamining her supplies, Kile realized the futility of the situation. She couldn’t take any of it.
How much could an albatross carry?
The idea was laughable if it wasn’t for the fact she was serious.
It wasn’t so much carrying it, it was trying to take off with the load. When Norir left the Charlotte, he’d had to jump off the back of the ship, and even then, he stumbled across the surface of the water to pick up enough speed to gain flight. There was no way he could have done that while weighed down with all the supplies she had laid out in front of her. If she believed she could pull this off, she would have to leave everything behind.
What was it Master Latherby had told her? All a Hunter needed was a good horse, a good weapon, a good heart, and a good head on their shoulders. Somehow, she never seemed to have all of them in the same place at the same time. So now she was lacking her horse, her weapons, and her good sense, but at least she had heart, although she wasn’t sure how far that was going to get her.
There was only one thing she had to take. Otherwise she couldn’t leave. Looking over the supplies, she picked up th
e personal first aid kit. It was a simple small white pouch, filled with a few vials of foul-smelling liquids, questionably labeled as medicine, as well as an assortment of cloth bandages. There were two long straps secured to the sides of the pouch, so it could be tied around a waist like a belt, or even hung from one’s shoulder. She turned the pouch over and dumped the contents onto the sand. It should be just large enough, she thought as she tested the strength of the straps.
“What do you think, Vesper?” she asked, holding the pouch out to him. “You think it’s large enough for you to ride in?”
The yarrow didn’t look too convinced. -Small.- He sniffed at the pouch.
“It has to be small. I can’t carry much as an… albatross. I can’t believe I actually said that.”
Vesper climbed into the pouch to test it out. It was a snug fit and there wasn’t much room for anything else, but she wasn’t planning on taking anything else. Although, the hardest things to part with were going to be her Lann. Master Latherby gave them to her, and they once belonged to Risa Ta’re. In a way, it seemed almost fitting they should remain on the island. She wrapped them in an old cloth. Picking up the pouch, which was now filled with a yarrow, she continued inland, leaving everything else behind. She stopped when she found a nice spot, or as nice a spot as she was going to find on this dead island. Beside an interesting rock formation, she buried her Lann. Who knows—once this was all over, and if she survived it, she might come back and reclaim them someday.
“So, Vesper. How do I do this?”
-Don’t know.-
She laid the pouch on the ground and sat down beside it. It was still early, and the sun was still low in the eastern sky. Staring out over the ocean, she watched the waves break on the beach.