by Mel Odom
Juhg hung in the rigging over Moondreamer’s prow. It was his customary position when he was aboardship. He cradled his journal on his knees and worked in charcoal. He looked up at the young woman’s voice.
Minstrel Ordal’s long red hair brushed her shoulders and warmth reflected in her brown eyes. She carried her lute in one hand and a bowl in the other. As usual, she wore the Minstrel Ordal trademark yellow blouse with alabaster fringe and tan breeches, though these were cut for a woman. The feather in her red cap fluttered as the chill night wind plucked at it.
“I’m used to working by lantern light,” Juhg said.
“At the Library?”
“Yes.”
Yurial frowned. “Then it’s a wonder you’re not blind as a bat.”
Juhg smiled at her. “I’m a dweller. Our eyesight is a little better and a little more indestructible than a human’s.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” She looked at the rigging beside Juhg. “Do you mind company?”
“Not at all.” Juhg put his charcoal into a bag and closed the journal.
“I brought you something to eat.” Yurial offered the plate.
“I’ve already eaten.”
“Not nearly enough, according to Raisho.”
“How would he know? He’s been looking out for the ship all day.”
Yurial settled in beside Juhg. “Because he has spies everywhere,” she replied mysteriously. She said it in a half whisper and in such a conspiratorial manner that Juhg was chuckling in spite of the danger that surrounded them.
“I truly wish you hadn’t come,” he told her.
Sniffing with feigned disdain, Yurial said, “I have to admit, I’ve had far better reactions to the offer of my company.”
“It’s not your company I’m worried about,” Juhg said. “It’s your safety.”
Yurial leaned back against the rigging and wrapped her arms around her knees. “I can look out for myself, Grandmagister.”
Juhg frowned. He remembered Yurial as a child, and that had only seemed like yesterday. He was never going to get used to how quickly human children grew. “I meant no insult.”
“Then don’t treat me as if I were a child,” Yurial stated flatly, but without anger. “I am, for better or worse, the Minstrel Ordal now. I will carry on my father’s office to the best of my ability.” She took a deep breath and relaxed a little. “That also means not trying to get myself killed, thank you very much.”
“I apologize,” Juhg said.
“You should. It’s hard enough being the first female Minstrel Ordal in five generations without everyone making a fuss about it.”
“Everyone?”
She shrugged. “Perhaps not everyone,” she grudgingly admitted, “but enough so that it is a sore point. The thing is, no one knows more about the Steadfast River than Minstrel Ordal. Even me.” She looked at him. “Why else do you think Wick sent you to the Minstrel Ordal to answer a question that you should have known yourself?”
Juhg had to admit that was true. If he hadn’t been so tired from the long trip and paranoid about being attacked in his sleep as he had been on the way to Deldal’s Mills where he’d encountered Minstrel Ordal, he would have known the answer to the puzzle Grandmagister Lamplighter had left in his first journal from the Cinder Clouds Islands.
Yurial gazed out into the darkness. “I know this river and these lands. If not from my time on it and through it, then from the stories I’ve had from the previous Minstrel Ordals. I had to memorize a good bit of history and lore, I’ll have you know.”
“Yes,” Juhg agreed. “I know that you have.” He gazed at the plate’s contents. “What are these?”
“Cookies.”
“I’d guessed that from the round shape,” Juhg said dryly.
“I baked them myself,” Yurial said. “My mother created the recipe. Wick liked them a lot as I recall.”
Not wanting to chance offending his friend any further, Juhg picked up a cookie and took a bite. It was surprisingly sweet and still warm from the oven. “Delicious,” he said.
“Have another.”
Juhg helped himself to another but said, “You didn’t come out here to feed me cookies.”
“No.”
“You don’t know any more about the Crocodile’s Throat than I do, do you?”
“Unfortunately, no.” Yurial sighed. “I came out here to tell you to trust yourself, Juhg.”
“Me?” Juhg was surprised.
“Yes.”
“I do trust myself.”
Yurial looked at him knowingly. “Not yet you don’t. You have doubts about your ability to handle whatever lies ahead of us.”
Juhg started to object automatically, then thought better of it. “Do you think that you can handle whatever is ahead of us?”
“I don’t know. That isn’t what I’ve decided to concentrate on.”
“Then what?”
“I’ve decided,” Yurial said, “that I will meet whatever lies ahead of us to the best of my ability. That’s the promise I made to my father as he lay dying.”
Juhg remained silent.
“And at some point, since Wick took his leave of you by choice and knew that potentially what we’re here to do now would come back to haunt you, I think he elicited the same promise from you.”
After a moment, Juhg said, “He didn’t ask in so many words.”
“But you knew what he wanted.”
“Yes.” Juhg nodded. “He told me he knew he was leaving the Libraries in the best hands available. He also knew that I would be more able to send the books back out of the Libraries and into the hands of the people than he would ever have been able to do.”
“Wick did love to protect those books.” Yurial smiled.
“Did you know—” Juhg’s voice failed him for a moment. “Did you know that I was the one responsible for almost destroying the Vault of All Known Knowledge?”
“I did. My father told me. He learned it from Craugh.”
“Craugh.”
“Craugh said you were not to blame,” Yurial went on. “He was very clear about that. He explained that the book you carried was a trap, one so clever that not even he nor Wick had puzzled it out. Until it had already snapped closed.”
Juhg remembered the roaring fires and the bloody violence that had erupted within the Vault of All Known Knowledge. Those images would never leave him as long as he lived.
“You’re fallible, Juhg,” the young woman said. “Just as Wick was during the years that I knew him. He didn’t always know what was best. But he always tried to do his best.”
“I know.”
“You can’t let the fear you’re feeling stop you.”
“But what if I make a mistake?” Juhg asked quietly so that none would hear. “Evidently Craugh has already made a mistake, or else he would be here now and there wouldn’t have been blood all over his cabin.”
“Exactly what happened to Craugh remains to be seen,” Yurial said. “I’ve seen that old wizard walk through situations that left everyone around him dead.”
Juhg looked at her.
Yurial sighed and shrugged. “Okay, that’s probably not what I should have said.”
“No.”
“But what I’m getting at is that Craugh is a survivor. He’s always told me not to count him out till I see his smoldering corpse.”
Juhg knew that was true.
“What I’m saying,” Yurial told him, “is that Wick sent you to see this through to its completion. Not Craugh.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I suppose when we find the answers to the other questions we have, we’ll know the answer to that one as well.”
If we live, Juhg thought morosely. Old Ones willing, if I’m to be taken, don’t let it be in failure.
“Your redemption for what happened to the Vault of All Known Knowledge,” Yurial said, “doesn’t lie in dying for the right reasons. You’re supposed to live for them.”
&nb
sp; “I know,” Juhg said. “I know.”
Darbrit’s Landing stood cloaked in shadows, vines, and the low branches of tall trees. Remnants of stone buildings and of the ten-foot stone wall that had surrounded the city lay mired in the thick black mud. All of them tilted at crazed angles. Creatures moved within the tall brush on either side of the Steadfast River. A bridge, somehow miraculously whole, curved in an arch above the water and blocked Moonsdreamer’s progress. Bird calls, cat screams, and lizards bellowing filled the thick silence.
“Drop the anchor,” Raisho ordered. “Archers, stand alert.”
“Aye, cap’n,” the crew responded.
Raisho joined Juhg at the prow. Together, with Yurial, they stood staring out over the dead city.
Gently, her sails furled so that she no longer felt the weak push of the wind that had brought her to Darbrit’s Landing, Moonsdreamer floated back to the length of the anchor chain and rode the rise and fall of the slow current.
“Is this it then?” Raisho asked.
“This is Darbrit’s Landing,” Yurial answered. “What’s left of it, anyway.”
“Ye ever been ’ere?” Raisho asked.
“No.”
“’Ow ’bout ye, scribbler?”
“No,” Juhg replied.
“Well,” Raisho mused, “Grandmagister Lamplighter musta been. Otherwise ’e’d never have sent ye up this far.” The young captain glanced around. “All this black mud, though, makes me think of them bog beasts we ended up fightin’ in Shark’s Maw Cove.”
Silently, Juhg agreed.
“Guess there’s no ’elpin’ it,” Raisho commented.
“What?” Juhg asked.
“If ’n nobody’s come out ’ere to meet us, looks like we’ll be goin’ over there to meet them.”
Nearly two hours later, Raisho was finally satisfied the warriors going ashore were fully provisioned. Juhg knew his friend hated splitting his crew, but there’d been no helping that. Fortunately, Raisho had been carrying an extra complement of warriors from Greydawn Moors because he’d been providing protection for Juhg out in the Blood-Soaked Sea.
Juhg clambered down the fishing net hung over the ship’s side and into the waiting longboat. Yurial joined him next. He knew better than to protest her choice to accompany him. He’d only have been wasting time, and she did know more about the area than he did.
He sat in the stern and watched monkeys capering through the branches, chattering with anxious fear. Thankfully they hadn’t encountered any more spiders. But the temperature was greater than Juhg would have thought. Where Calmpoint had been cool because of the Gentlewind Sea, and even Deldal’s Mills was only slightly warmer, Darbrit’s Landing was almost sweltering.
Raisho climbed down into the longboat to join them.
“Shouldn’t you stay aboard the ship?” Juhg asked.
The young captain seated his cutlass over his shoulder and shook his shaggy head. “Not with ye out an’ about by yerself.” He rolled his shoulders. “Besides, I’d rather be runnin’ from trouble than sittin’ in that ship a-waitin’ fer it to find me.” He grimaced. “From the looks of this place, that won’t take any time at all.”
The boat crew rowed for shore at Raisho’s direction. Their oars made little noise in the water. Above, monkeys raced along the trees, squealing threats and tossing down branches.
“What are we lookin’ for again?” Raisho asked.
“Jaramak’s Aerie,” Juhg answered, remembering the passage from Grandmagister Lamplighter’s last journal.
“Do ye know what it is?”
“No. But it stands to reason that it would be above ground. Something like that, I think we’ll notice.” Of course, that wasn’t necessarily true. Many woodlands elves had gotten good at hiding their homes and cities in the branches of trees. Even the rope bridges connecting them were often unnoticeable.
The boat crew rowed to the nearest pier. All of the piers were made of stone and jutted out into the wide river at certain points. If there were any docks that had been made of wood, nothing of them remained.
“Weapons drawn,” Raisho said. Then he nodded to the young sailor standing in the boat’s prow. “Toss that line an’ pull us alongside.”
The sailor flipped the end of the line expertly over one of the stone pillars sunk into the mud holding up that end of the stone dock. Hand over hand, he pulled the boat up next to the dock.
At Raisho’s instruction, swordsmen took the lead, flanked swiftly by archers.
Thankfully someone in the past had crafted a flight of stairs leading up to the dock. If they hadn’t, Juhg would have been hard-pressed to climb up. Peering down into the murky water, he got the sense that the stair extended down into the depths for a ways, proof that the whole city had at one time sat higher on the river. Or perhaps the river had risen.
The chatter of the monkeys continued, growing in cadence and volume, till the noise seemed all-consuming.
Raisho cursed the tiny primates. “They’re relentless,” he grumbled. “Ain’t no way we’re gonna sneak up on anybody with them there.” He took the lead, though, walking down the runway leading to the massive city wall gates.
Juhg walked beside Yurial. Only a short distance farther on, they walked through the open doorway. The massive gates were marked by roaring lions, not alligators.
“Lions?” Juhg asked the minstrel.
“Art only,” Yurial said. “No one has ever spotted any lions in the Forest of Fangs and Shadows. But there are occasional tigers.”
Juhg pressed on, pushing his fear to the back of his mind. He kept wondering if Grandmagister Lamplighter’s adventures while investigating the Battle of Fell’s Keep had ended here or somewhere else. There was no way of knowing.
“Where are we ’eaded?” Raisho asked as they walked through the entrance. The gates were all but destroyed. Creeper and vines were deeply rooted in the mortar between the stones.
Juhg looked at one of the few remaining tall buildings. “High ground. There.”
Turning, Raisho strode through the buckled streets, avoiding jagged ruptures of the cobblestone streets where tree roots and vegetation had torn through. Juhg followed his friend. Their footsteps sounded loud and out of place.
“Wait,” one of the sailors on the right said.
They froze. Juhg waited anxiously.
“What is it?” Raisho demanded.
“I thought I heard something.”
“So did I,” Yurial said. She reached into her tall boots and withdrew two short sticks not quite two feet in length that were capped in iron at both ends. She cocked her head to one side and listened intently. “There.”
Juhg listened as well and thought he heard furtive footsteps. He didn’t think the sounds were made by a beast; they were too weighted, too careful. The cadence was all wrong for a truly wild thing.
Raisho waved his men into action, dividing two small three-man groups from their fifteen, nearly halving their strength. Moving quickly, the two groups surged forward and surrounded the portion of a wall they judged the noise to be issuing from.
As they closed in, the noise suddenly erupted into a crescendo of sounds. An elven boy leaped to the top of the wall with acrobatic grace. Slender and graceful, he wore only a modest loincloth, a knife at his belt, and a bow slung over one shoulder. His hair was the color of summer wheat and his skin deeply tan. Bright aquamarine eyes peered at them.
The archers raised their bows.
“’Old yer fire!” Raisho bellowed, throwing up a hand.
The bowmen held their arrows nocked.
From the shadows near the young elf, a pirate darted forward and tried to grab his feet. With a lithe leap, the young elf threw himself into the air and caught a tree branch. With the speed and skill of a monkey, he darted through the branches and was twenty feet up and hidden by the tree trunk.
“What are you doing here?” the boy called down.
Raisho glanced at Juhg, letting him make the choice.
“Is that why you tried to capture me?” he challenged.
“We’ve come a long way,” Juhg said, “and we know that we’re among enemies.”
“I’m not your enemy,” the young elf replied. “Not yet, anyway. But I can be. The Forest of Fangs and Shadows is my home. You’ve not been given permission to come here.”
“Juhg,” Yurial whispered. “May I?”
“Of course,” Juhg said.
Yurial stepped forward. “Do you know me, elf?”
High above them, the young elf peered around the tree trunk, allowing only a small part of his body to show. “You look like the Minstrel Ordal.”
“I am the Minstrel Ordal,” Yurial shot back.
“No,” the young elf insisted, “you’re not. I’ve met the Minstrel Ordal.”
“That was my father.”
The young elf peered more closely. “Minstrel Ordal did have a little girl with him when he visited our sprawl.”
“I was that little girl,” Yurial said.
Suspicion deepened in the young elf’s voice as he looked around. “Where’s your father?”
“He … died.”
“Oh.” The young elf seemed uncomfortable.
Death made a lot of elves uneasy, Juhg knew. If they were properly insulated from the rest of the world and there was no violence in the community, death was a seldom-seen and alien thing except in the animal world. They had the longest lives of all the races.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” the young elf said. “He sang very well.”
“Thank you.”
“What are you doing here?”
“We’ve come seeking the Crocodile’s Throat.”
Even at the distance, Juhg saw the perplexed look on the young, beautiful face.
“Why?” the young elf asked.
“We were sent there by a friend.”
“What friend?”
“Edgewick Lamplighter.”
“Wick the taleteller?”
“Yes.”
The young elf looked harder at Juhg, then out at Moonsdreamer anchored in the river. “Is Wick aboard the ship?”