by Kay L. Ling
The office door was open. Elias sat at his desk facing three gnomes whose backs were to the door. Lana was pretty sure the white-haired one was Raenihel. They all turned as Lana and Jules entered the room. A knot formed in Lana’s stomach when she saw their expressions.
“We have troubling news,” Elias said, coming straight to the point. “S is missing.”
“What?” Jules cried.
It took Lana a moment to find her voice. “Missing? How?”
Raenihel spoke up, looking utterly miserable. “We have no idea. Last night she was in the tree; this morning she was gone, cage and all.” He gestured toward his gray-haired companions. “Elders Dridd and Samis are the only others who knew where she was, and I trust them completely.”
“We would never free her,” Dridd said. “Or kill her, although the thought is tempting. Whoever has her must not intend to harm her. If they wanted to kill her, they could have done so and left her in the cage.”
“They’re telling the truth. They don’t know anything about her disappearance.”
“Someone must have followed them to the tree,” Lana suggested.
“That seems the only possible answer,” Elias agreed.
“Wasn’t the tree warded?” Jules asked.
“Not from the outside,” Elias said. We didn’t think it was necessary. “But I did ward the interior so when gnomes Walk With the Wind, they wouldn’t inadvertently pass through.”
“So, who would take her, and why would they want to?” Lana asked.
A tense silence followed. Finally, Elias said, “Before I share my theory, Jules, can you think of a suspect?”
Jules’s jaw tightened. His eyes flicked to Raenihel before he answered. “I hate to say it but—Kaff.”
Raenihel threw up his hands. “You too? How can you accuse him of such a horrible thing? It could have been anyone! Anyone!”
“Anyone could have been curious enough to follow you,” Elias agreed, “but few gnomes would kidnap her.”
Lana said, “When you decided to move S out of the castle, did that cause any dissension?”
“No,” Raenihel said. “Hiding her seemed the sensible thing to do, considering everyone’s mood at the time.”
“That’s exactly my point. You and Elias were protecting her, and maybe some of your clan didn’t like that."
“As far as I know, there haven’t been any complaints,” said Samis. “She’s rotting in captivity, alone and despised, and that’s a suitable punishment.”
Lana was mystified. “I don’t see why Kaff would take her.”
Elias steepled his fingers. “She holds a wealth of knowledge. Kaff may think he can pry valuable information from her through flattery or intimidation.”
Raenihel said angrily, “The main information we need is how to breach the barrier, and according to the spell book, S tried repeatedly and failed, so she is no help to us.”
“Thanks to Lana, we may have a solution now,” Jules said.
“Yes, but Kaff doesn’t know that,” Elias reminded him.
Samis folded his arms. “The team came home yesterday and reported that a gem reaction went wrong and the barrier is stronger than before. That’s a serious setback. Who might know how to reverse what happened? Today, S disappears. It does seem suspicious.”
“Suspicious? It’s completely coincidental! S wouldn’t know what to do about it, and even if she did, she wouldn’t tell us.” Raenihel’s eyes narrowed. “It takes two or three gnomes to carry her cage. How could Kaff move her on his own?”
“A wheelbarrow,” Dridd suggested.
“Maybe he dragged the cage to another nearby tree,” said Samis.
“Did you see any marks on the ground?”
“Well, no,” Dridd conceded, “But the ground is dry.”
“Regardless, there would be marks.”
Lana thought it over. How had the kidnapper, whoever he was, managed to get the heavy cage out of the tree and carry it off? Did he have accomplices? She certainly hoped not. Bad enough one gnome could be so treacherous.
“Come to think of it, Kaff still has the bracelet I lent him. With those gems, carrying the cage would be no problem,” Elias said thoughtfully.
“Has anyone seen Kaff today?” Lana cut in.
Raenihel gave her a hostile look. “We should question the whereabouts of every member of the clan, not just Kaff.”
“We’re wasting time,” Jules said. “We’ll worry about who kidnapped her later. Right now, we need to find her.”
“I agree,” Elias said. “And it won’t be easy. She could have been moved to a different tree, but unless it’s warded, gnomes Walking With the Wind might discover her. If that occurred to her kidnapper, he may have hidden the cage in weeds or scrub brush. It will be a tedious process to find her, and we’ll need all the help we can get. Gnomes can look inside trees. Breghlin can search the forest on this side of the portal, and I’ll take Lana and Jules with me to search the Fair Lands Amulet.”
Raenihel stood, his face flushing with anger. “You hid her in a tree so no one would kill her and now you’re allowing everyone to search for her?”
Elias didn’t back down. “What choice do we have? We need to find her as soon as possible.”
There went Lana’s free time for gem experiments. And she had been looking forward to it. If they found Kaff, and he had kidnapped S, she would personally box his ears.
“Lana and I will brief the staff,” Jules said. He took her arm, all but pulling her from the office.
On their way to the library, they ran into Tyla and explained what had happened. Tyla hurried off to find Lant and Arenia.
“You really think Kaff did this.” Lana said, as she and Jules headed for the equipment barns to recruit breghlin.
“He has a big ego, and he’s too ambitious for his own good. Yes, I can easily believe he’d come up with a crazy plan like this. We have S’s spell book and her library, but it would take years to wade through all of that, and Kaff isn’t very patient. He wants to learn something. Exactly what, I don’t know. S knows a lot about spells, and Elias doesn’t, so maybe it’s that.” He fell silent for a moment. “Now that I think about it, the last day of the trip Kaff was rambling about heroes, daring deeds, and hard choices, but I was heartily sick of him by then and tuned him out as much as possible.”
“Should we tell everyone to be on the lookout for Kaff, or just to look for S’s cage?”
“He’s our primary suspect, so we should be looking for him. Breghlin can’t follow him into a tree, but they can report his location to gnomes.”
When they reached the equipment barn, Jules explained the situation to the breghlin and made assignments. Xenon would search from Shadowglade to the portal, Ben between the portal and Strathweed, and Oliver behind Shadowglade—especially around the alamaria mine. Driving to these areas would save time, so they should take a maraku cart and one or two other breghlin to help, and then search the area on foot.
Elias, Jules, and Lana rode with Ben and Tina Ann, parting company with them near the portal and going through on their own.
“I don’t think S will be here,” Jules said. “It makes more sense that Kaff, or whoever took her, would hide her close to home.”
“Maybe so,” Elias said. “But gnomes seldom come here in the daytime, so this may have seemed a clever hiding place.”
“We’ll find her sooner or later,” Lana said, hoping it would be sooner rather than later.
“Yes, only someone very foolish and arrogant would expect to get away with this,” Elias said.
“And that’s why you suspect Kaff.”
“That’s about the size of it,” Elias told her.
It was an irresponsible thing to do on so many levels, Lana thought angrily. “Doesn’t he care how frightened everyone will be when they hear S is missing?”
Jules gave a derisive snort. “Kaff only thinks about Kaff.”
“Whatever he wants from her, I wonder how he expects to make he
r cooperate,” Elias mused aloud.
Lana pictured S minus a leg or two. She shivered. “Once we find her, where do you plan to put her?
“I haven’t thought that far,” Elias admitted. “I probably should have left her at Shadowglade in a warded room, but a Tree Home seemed safe and I didn’t have to look after her. She really should be the gnomes’ responsibility.”
The group fanned out to search. If someone had brought S through the portal, they probably hadn’t taken her far. Lana looked for tracks made by a wheelbarrow or hand-pulled cart, and deeper-than-normal footprints that might indicate someone carrying S’s heavy cage. She kept an eye out for Kaff or any other gnomes. Normally, gnomes came at night and left by first light, so it would be suspicious if they found any here now.
An hour or so later, she and the others circled back to the portal. No one had spotted anything out of the ordinary. Elias had even used gem powers, hoping for a clairvoyant image or a burst of intuition, but that hadn’t worked either.
They went back through the portal and hadn’t gone far before they came across Raenihel, Samis, and Dridd sitting outside, having a little fialazza to “sharpen their senses.” Lana couldn’t blame them. There were thousands of trees to search, and even though gnomes could Walk With the Wind, passing through the interiors of trees with amazing speed, it was a daunting task.
Lana felt like taking a break, too, but they kept going, and when they reached the trail that went to Strathweed, Elias said, “Let’s search along this trail. I expect we’ll run into Ben and Tina Ann before long. They’ll be coming back this way, and we can all ride back to Shadowglade.”
They made brief forays off the trail, searching the weeds and brush for S’s cage, but Lana didn’t expect to find anything. It was like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack, and she was getting discouraged.
When they were nearly to Strathweed, they saw a cart approaching—Ben and Tina Ann.
Ben stopped the cart, looking wild-eyed. His face was slick with sweat, and Tina Ann beside him was twisting her hands in her lap.
“We foun’ him,” Ben blurted. “An’ we did jus’ what you said an’ snuck after him.”
Elias looked shocked. “That’s wonderful. Did he see you?”
“Don’t think so.” Ben drew a grimy sleeve across his forehead. “We was on foot. We saw bushes move an’ heard somethin’ an’ we hid behin’ a tree. Sure ‘nough, it be him.”
Tina Ann said, “Maybe he hear us ‘cause he look back a couple times.”
Ben shrugged. “If you ask me, he just bein’ careful.”
“Then he disappear . . . sort of,” said Tina Ann, glancing at Ben who nodded solemnly.
“Sort of? How does someone sort of disappear?” Lana asked.
Ben said, “Sometimes we see his body but no head. An’ then all of him be gone an’ we follow by sound till we see him again.”
“After a while he stay invisible.”
“I imagine you lost him then,” Elias said unhappily.
Ben shot Tina Ann a nervous glance.
“No,” she said hesitantly. “We know where he be.”
“Dunno the ’xact tree, but close. Put crossed sticks in the groun’ and notched some trees to fin’ our way back.”
“Good thinking,” Jules said, looking surprised at their resourcefulness.
Elias was eyeing Ben and Tina Ann with a peculiar expression. “I’m surprised Kaff didn’t Walk With the Wind to avoid detection since he’s not adept at invisibility. I’m even more surprised you could track him by sound alone.”
The breghlin dropped their eyes, then Ben nudged Tina Ann. “Tell him.”
Tina Ann said reluctantly, “Wasn’t just followin’ by sound. I be feelin’ Dark gems.”
Lana let out a startled breath.
“He’s using Dark gems?” Jules exploded.
Elias said, “It’s tempting to a person with more ambition than sense. And thinking back, at the end of our trip, he was questioning me about dark powers. If we had any doubts before, I think it’s safe to say now that Kaff stole S from the tree, but what he plans to do with Dark gems, I’m afraid to guess.”
“We’ll need a gnome in order to enter the tree,” Lana said as they all climbed into Ben’s cart.
“I’m aware of that, but there aren’t any gnomes around, and we don’t have time to find one. Once Ben and Tina Ann show us where Kaff is, we’ll keep watch and they can go for help.” Elias lapsed into silence. After a moment he said bitterly, “Now I understand why Kaff isn’t Walking With the Wind. He can’t travel through trees if he has Dark gems in his possession.
“If Kaff comes out of the tree while he’s invisible, how will we know?” Lana asked.
“That would be a problem,” Elias conceded. “But since he has trouble remaining invisible, we’ll probably catch a glimpse of him.”
“And once you find him, then what?” she asked.
“I haven’t decided. The Anen will have a say in the matter.” His expression suggested that Kaff would not like their punishment. “For now, let’s concentrate on finding S.”
Chapter 19
“There be a notched tree,” Tina Ann said, pointing, and Ben brought the cart to a halt.
“We’ll follow your marks to Kaff’s tree while you to find a gnome. But it can’t be just any gnome,” Elias said. He frowned, considering. “We need someone discreet. Tyla would be a good choice, and she has gem powers. I’ll try to reach her telepathically.”
Lana’s eyes narrowed. Someone discreet? Why did it matter? He was concentrating, so she didn’t dare question him. After a moment, he waved for Lana and Jules to get out of the cart. “We’re in luck. She’s with Parcune and they’re headed this way. Now listen carefully,” he said to Ben and Tina Ann. “When Tyla and Parcune arrive, send them after us, then return to Shadowglade but don’t tell anyone we’ve found Kaff. I want everyone to think S and Kaff are still missing. Understand?”
Ben looked puzzled but nodded solemnly. Tina Ann shrugged. “We won’t tell.”
“I don’t get it,” Lana said.
Elias said, “We’re going to let Kaff go.”
“What?” She had assumed Elias would throw the conniving little troublemaker in the dungeon, at least until they learned why he had taken S, where he had gotten Dark gems, and what he was doing with them.
Hear me out,” Elias said, holding up a hand. “We’ll watch for Kaff to come out, and then we’ll move S. When he comes back, she’ll be gone.”
Jules laughed. “He’ll assume someone beat him at his own game—followed him and discovered where she was.”
“Yes,” Elias said. “And he’ll assume it was Raenihel and the elders—until time goes by and no one reports finding her. At that point, if he has a shred of conscience he’ll confess what he did, hoping the elders can make sense of it and find her. If he confesses, his punishment will be less severe.”
“The longer S is missing, the more everyone will panic,” Lana said. “Why put them through that just to lighten Kaff’s punishment?”
“Crime of any kind is rare among gnomes. I don’t think you appreciate what this means for Kaff’s future. Aside from that, we don’t know what he and S have been up to, and if we apprehend them separately, we may get two different stories. We should go. Kaff could leave at any time.”
They started into the woods at the first notched tree, and Lana could see another not far ahead.
“Stay close,” Elias said. “I’ll make sure we’re invisible to anyone but ourselves, but we should move as quietly as possible.”
It wasn’t easy to be quiet. The ground was carpeted with fallen leaves and twigs, and Lana had to push branches out of her way every few feet as she made her way through the trees, trying to keep up with Elias and Jules. There was no actual trail, but Ben and Tina Ann had taken the path of least resistance and left marks along the way, so it wasn’t too hard to follow their route.
Lana heard a bird squawk, and when she l
ooked up, she glimpsed a huge bird sitting on a tree limb. It was brown with a red head and a long beak, and it looked like a turkey vulture. She knew she was invisible, but it seemed to be watching her, which gave her the creeps and felt like a bad omen.
Now and then Elias paused, looking for the next notched tree. Anyone who wasn’t looking for the marks would probably never notice them, but if you knew they were there, you could find them.
They had gone no more than a half mile when Elias held up his hand for them to stop. And there it was—the crossed sticks. He examined the ground around the nearest trees and found a leather pouch in the weeds.
He shook his head, frowning as he looked inside, and told them telepathically, These came from the top shelf of my bookcase. We can now officially add theft to Kaff’s growing list of crimes.
After Elias put the pouch back, they all moved away so Kaff wouldn’t stumble over their invisible forms when he came out, and before long, Elias advised them, Tyla and Parcune are coming now.
The gnomes appeared a moment later, and Elias extended the field of invisibility, cloaking them from sight as well. It was a strange effect for those within the field. They could see one another, but everyone looked ghostly and insubstantial.
Elias shared the plan telepathically with Tyla, but Parcune didn’t have gem powers so he was excluded by default.
Sitting on the ground was uncomfortable, and Lana was bored. She wished Kaff would come out, retrieve the gems, and leave, so they could go in and get S. Elias had said if there was no sign of Kaff by nightfall, they’d enter the tree, but she hoped they wouldn’t have to wait that long.
About an hour later, when Lana had started to doze off, Elias startled her to alertness. Here he is! Quiet now!
Kaff emerged from the tree, translucent but not invisible. He looked furtively about, and then apparently satisfied that he was alone, became solid. He picked up the gem pouch and hurried off.
Lana let out her breath in a rush. Finally! If she sat here much longer she’d grow roots like these trees. She stood and stretched, and the others did too. No one spoke in case Kaff was still close enough to hear them.