Darkwell

by Douglas Niles

  “The Scroll of Arcanus that offers mastery of water,” she said quietly. “It might be the solution to our problem.”

  “Well, let’s find out in a hurry. Those birdies are getting closer,” announced Pawldo. They could all see a score or more of the soaring creatures, wheeling gracefully over the fens several miles away. But the size of the flock was growing, and their meandering course undeniably brought them ever nearer to the companions.

  Robyn stepped to the edge of the gorge, unrolling the sheet of parchment and holding it open before her with both hands. Slowly, deliberately, she began to read.

  The words were strange to Tristan and the others, and it seemed they were strange to Robyn as well. More than once she paused, pronouncing a long word very slowly and carefully, but she never misspoke nor repeated a phrase.

  The king stood protectively beside her and noticed a strange phenomenon as she read. One by one, the runes upon the scroll disappeared from the parchment, apparently in time with her reading. As she finished and lowered the page, he saw that the entire surface was blank!

  He forgot the parchment as he heard a splashing sound. As one person, they looked down into the gorge and watched the snow melt along the bottom, carried away by a shallow streamlet of clear water. It originated, apparently, from the stones themselves, for there was more of it than could possibly have been created by the melting of the snow, but the trickle remained far too shallow to offer any hope of floating a boat.

  As they watched, however, the water slowly grew deeper, and deeper still. Soon it babbled along like a mountain stream some three or four feet deep. And still it continued to rise.

  “How deep will it get?” Tristan asked, disbelieving the evidence of his eyes and ears.

  “Who knows?” whispered Robyn, staring intently at the steadily increasing flow. Unconsciously she placed her hand around the Rose-In-Sun medallion she wore around her neck.

  For a full minute, the water level rose, storming up the sides of the gorge, filling the narrow passage with its clean, frothing mass, and rushing ever downward toward Myrloch. Finally the current slowed to a forceful, steadily rolling pace, still racing down the riverbed but deep enough to bury most rocks and obstacles in the gorge. Like a smooth green carpet, it lay before them, a few feet below on the only possible route to safety.

  “If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never ask to see anything like this again,” said Tavish, awestruck.

  “I’m older than that, and I’ve never even heard of anything like this before!” whispered Pawldo. Even Newt sat quietly for once, gazing at the miraculous flow.

  “No time to lose now!” Tavish shook off her reverie and placed the folding boat on the rim of the gorge. “Everybody get ready to jump in. Once it unfolds, its own weight will topple it into the water, and we won’t get a second chance. You, too, Yak!” She gestured at the box and the water, though the firbolg managed to look more confused than ever.

  “Garanday!” she cried. The box immediately flipped open, doubling its size. But it didn’t stop there. The sides flopped down, unfolding again and again until the rough outline of a boat took shape. Then the keel stretched forth from the bottom of the box, and the whole craft tilted crazily, barely balanced on the rim of the gorge.

  “Get in!” shouted the bard, diving toward the tiller and seizing the shaft in her hands. The other companions leaped in a similar chaotic fashion, and even Yak and Canthus tumbled into the boat as it slipped off the rocks and splashed into the water. A cascade of icy spray soaked them, but then the bard steadied the helm.

  The current swept them along, rolling down the gorge with startling speed. Tavish hauled on the tiller with all her strength, narrowly missing a huge outcrop of rock, and then they slid wildly around a corner. Their launching place, and the end of their visible trail, quickly disappeared behind them.

  With a sharp cry, Kamerynn reared. He sighted on the creature’s flat skull and brought his front hooves down to crush it. Then he lurched to the ground in surprise as his attack met no resistance, for the thing was not where it appeared to be!

  The unicorn felt raking claws dig into his flank, and he whirled in desperation, flailing at the air with his sharp horn. He felt the horn meet resistance and drove it forcefully against the invisible form there. Kamerynn was rewarded by a shrill cry of pain and rage.

  Then one of the monster’s horny tentacles wrapped around the unicorn’s throat, and he felt once more the raking claws across his breast. Kamerynn reared and kicked with his powerful forehooves. For a moment, the monster twisted, impaled on the horn. Kamerynn looked at the snarling, hateful face below him and tried to guess at the monster’s actual position.

  He ducked his head and kicked forward into the air to the left of the creature’s apparent location. But he was terribly, fatefully wrong.

  Once again his attack met no resistance, and this time, he felt an awful weight land upon his back, twisting his neck backward as the creature remained impaled. Claws sank deep into Kamerynn’s flanks, and the creature’s tentacles lashed his neck again and again. The unicorn reared backward, but he could not dislodge the supernatural predator.

  He bucked and kicked, tossing the beast around and trying to drive his horn ever deeper into the twisting body. But then, with a sharp snap, the horn of the unicorn cracked and broke off. It remained stuck in the monster, but it no longer held it away from the unicorn.

  Then Kamerynn felt the long fangs at his throat, felt the powerful jaws close and drive the teeth through his skin, his muscle, his windpipe. With a strangled gasp, the unicorn fell to the ground.

  Then the jaws completed their deadly work, snapping the bones of the proud neck, and Kamerynn—the last of the children of the goddess—kicked his last and died.

  old on!” Tavish grinned with delight as the boat ducked and bobbed through the water. She handled the tiller with skill, avoiding the numerous obstacles that reared suddenly in their path.

  Tristan looked behind them and saw no sign of the deathbirds. Could it be that they had seen the last of the things? A curtain of icy spray suddenly drenched him, and he forgot about their pursuers as he clung tightly to the gunwale.

  He and Robyn sat in the bow of the little craft, while Pawldo rode beside Tavish in the stern and Yak sat amidships. Canthus bounded nervously from one place to another, while Newt perched on the prow as a living figurehead.

  “Yippee! Here comes another one!” The faerie dragon’s exhilaration was not shared by the other passengers as the boat darted down a narrow, foaming chute to burst into more placid waters.

  “Ride water!” shouted Yak, his face split by a gap-toothed grin. “Look!” The giant pointed at a craggy rock formation and stood up to get a better view.

  “Sit down!” shouted Tavish and Tristan together as the boat heeled dangerously to the side. Puzzled, Yak sat and the craft righted itself.

  “That was a close call!” groaned the king, wiping spray from his face.

  “What was so great about that rock, anyway?” demanded Pawldo.

  “It probably reminded him of his mother.” Tavish seemed to be enjoying their ride down the rapids.

  For a short time, the vessel bobbed peacefully as the water meandered through a wide, deep stretch. Then the walls narrowed, looming above them, and again the river became a raging torrent. The boat raced between the rocky sides of the gorge, but Tavish’s steady hand on the tiller kept them in the center of the channel.

  “The water’s deep enough to cover the big rocks,” said the bard. “That helps a lot!”

  “How long do you think it’ll last?” Tristan looked at Robyn, still amazed by the power she had displayed in bringing the river to life.

  “I don’t know. The wind spell lasted for a long time, but faded as soon as I reached the vale. I suspect it’s harder for the magic to work here, so I assume we only have an hour or so.”

  “We’re making great time, anyway.” Tristan had been surprised and delighted by the speed of their
boat. “We’ve already made half a day’s progress!”

  The gray sky still glowered its threat of snow, but for the time being, no flakes fell. Nearly a foot of snow lined the banks of the river, however. The temperature remained below freezing, and in places where the water splashed up on the rock walls, it left an icy sheen. Only the forceful current prevented the entire waterway from freezing.

  Best of all, there was no sign of the deathbirds. The flock would have been hard put to keep up with the racing boat, and the depth of the gorge often screened the river from view from the sky.

  Once more the river widened, and they relaxed their holds. Tristan noticed that his knuckles were white from the strain of gripping the gunwale, and he stretched his fingers in relief at the temporary respite.

  The water rolled, a deep gray-green below them, washing against what was now a flat shore.

  “We can beach the boat anywhere along here,” offered Tavish. “It’ll be a lot harder to do once we drop into the rapids again.”

  “Let’s take advantage of the river while we’ve got it.” Tristan spoke for all of them in preferring to stay with the boat, however hair-raising the rapids, to another long overland trek.

  Soon the rumbling of the torrent grew in volume again, and they saw the walls of the gorge rising high above the water before them.

  “Sounds like a pretty fast one,” admitted the bard, looking a little worried for the first time. “Everybody get a handhold!”

  Tristan looked ahead and saw the water drop away. He couldn’t see what lay beyond, but the roaring grew to a thunderous crescendo, and then the boat flew into the chute.

  The gorge became a blur of rock and snow as the craft heeled and lurched through the rapids. Spray flew from all sides, drenching and chilling them, but none of the companions dared let go of his precious handhold. The boat crunched into a rock, jerking to a sudden halt before breaking free to race along with the current again. Tristan, alarmed, saw water spurting through several of the planks in the hull, but he dared not let go to bail.

  The river dipped into a hole and flew out the other side, carrying the boat with it. For a desperate moment, the craft seemed to drop away from beneath them. Tristan felt an odd sensation of flying before he slammed back onto his seat. A small shape, whirling through space, passed through the corner of his vision.

  “Pawldo!” cried the bard as the halfling was torn from his seat. She dared not release the tiller to reach for him, and in the next instant, the boat lurched again and the halfling flew over the side.

  Tristan whirled in his seat, reaching out his hand toward Pawldo, receiving only a faceful of chill water for his effort. The halfling bobbed under the water as the current swept him away from the boat.

  Canthus sprang over the side of the boat in a single leap, splashing into the foaming rapids near the spot where Pawldo had disappeared. In another second, the moorhound vanished under the water.

  Canthus popped to the surface some distance away, and Tristan saw his teeth firmly clamped around the halfling’s shirt. “Come on, boy!” he whispered, willing the dog back to the boat.

  Robyn leaned over the side next to him, and Tristan seized her around the waist to prevent her from being swept overboard. She extended her staff, and he saw Pawldo, his arms thrashing, grab desperately for it. For a split second, the dog and the halfling disappeared again, but then Pawldo surfaced with the tip of Robyn’s staff in his hands.

  “Pull!” she cried, leaning back into the boat. Tristan heaved as well, ignoring the sickening rocking of the craft and the icy spray that continued to fly into his eyes. Robyn, still clutching her staff, fell on top of him.

  They scrambled back to the gunwale to see Pawldo hanging on to the hull like a drowned rat. Canthus bobbed in the water behind him, frantically trying to swim in the torrent. Tristan reached down and grabbed the halfling by the arms, quickly pulling him back into the perilous safety of the boat.

  Immediately he leaned back toward the water, grasping for the fur of his dog. Canthus yelped once—a gasping, choking sound—and tried desperately to swim toward his hands, but just as he got close, an eddy of violent water swirled him away, and the moorhound disappeared below the surface.

  “No! By the goddess, no!” The king leaned far out of the boat, aware of Robyn’s hands now grasping him by the legs. He flailed at the water and would have hurled himself in but for her firm grip. “Canthus!” His voice was a wail, but the dog did not reappear.

  Then another jarring crunch shook the boat as it twisted in the grip of the raging current. For a moment, the vessel hung between two giant boulders, and Tristan got a brief impression of the gorge walls towering overhead, appearing to lean in on them. The boat suddenly broke free, riding again with the current, but now water swirled about their ankles, pouring in through another gash in the hull.

  “Shallows! We’ll have to find a bank and land her, or we’ll be torn to pieces!” The bard shouted over the thunder of the rapids, twisting the tiller in her hands. But no flat shoreline presented itself. If anything, the walls were steeper and higher here than at any point along the journey, and they continued racing downstream.

  Tristan saw more and more rocks sticking their craggy heads above the surface of the water, and once again he felt the awful scraping of granite against wood. How much more punishment could the little boat take before it came apart?

  The king looked anxiously across the whitecaps of the river, desperately seeking any sign of Canthus, but the dog had never surfaced again after their last glimpse of him. Still, Tristan could not bring himself to believe that the great hound was dead. Not Canthus, too! he thought. There is too much death, too much killing! We must stop it!

  A savage swirl in the current suddenly twisted the boat around, and for a hair-raising second, they rode sideways, beam to the current. In that instant, they smashed into a huge rock jutting out of the middle of the stream, and the little vessel came to pieces around them.

  Tristan flew from his seat in the bow, grabbing Robyn’s hand as she, too, was hurled into the water. The current forced them up against the rock, and for a moment, they remained there, poised in the rapids, as the crumbling pieces of the boat floated away to either side. The weight of Tristan’s chain mail dragged him down, and he flailed his arms, grasping a leather saddlebag, salvaging a few of their possessions. They saw Yak standing in the streambed, shaking his head angrily, and then Tavish and Pawldo floated up to them. Newt had disappeared, no doubt invisible in his agitation, but Tristan didn’t doubt that the faerie dragon had flown to safety.

  And then Tavish stood before him, and he realized that the water was indeed quite shallow. He put his feet down, easily reaching the rocky bottom, and as he stood, the water level fell even farther. In seconds, it washed around his waist, then his knees, and then his ankles.

  “The spell!” Robyn gasped. “It must have run its course.” Soon the stream was no more than a memory, reflected in the rapidly freezing sheets of ice that coated the wet rocks. The companions, bedraggled and wet, huddled in the bottom of the gorge with the wreckage of Tavish’s boat around them. An icy wind raced down the riverbed, driving a deadly chill into their soaking bodies as it grew to a mournful, howling gale.

  There was still no sign of the moorhound.

  “I sell a catch along the north coast now and then,” explained the grizzled fisherman. He looked down, avoiding Randolph’s eyes. “They pay good, and we got enough down here, anyway. It’s not like I’m disloyal!”

  “Go ahead, man. Get to this news you say is so urgent!” The captain of the guard waved impatiently to get the man to continue.

  “Well, you see, I was takin’ a batch of salmon—nice catch, for this season—up to Codsbay, only I sailed into the cove, and the town was gone! I tell you, it was burned, or trampled, or somethin’ even worse!”

  Randolph leaned back in his large chair and stared at the man. He could think of no reason why the fisherman would make up such a story, espec
ially since he confessed in the telling to selling food to the enemies of the Ffolk.

  “What exactly did you see?”

  “Well, there was some ashes. And other buildings, with the walls just caved in, it looked like. I don’t mind telling you that I didn’t land when I saw that. I took off outta there faster than you can say ‘firbolg’!” The fisherman looked around anxiously, as if searching for evidence to corroborate his story.

  The pair sat in the Great Hall of Corwell, before the grand fireplace that had burned so brightly on the night of Tristan’s homecoming feast. Above the blaze, on the broad oaken mantle, rested the Crown of the Isles, right where the king had left it. The symbolic icon of his authority was well guarded by Randolph, and now the young captain looked at it, as if hoping for guidance. He didn’t know what to make of this strange news.

  “Could the damage possibly have been done by firbolgs?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so. They don’t like fire much, from what I hear. It’d not be like them to burn the place.”

  “Well, what then? You can’t suspect that the northmen have raided a village of their own people!”

  “No, I don’t, nor do I know what did it. If you want my guess, it was something that come from the sea, it was! Something more terrible than firbolgs or northmen, though the goddess knows what that could be! I just come to tell you what I seen.”

  “Thank you. You have done well.” Randolph dismissed the man with a wave, then stood up, thoroughly alarmed. If it were true that some ravaging scourge had attacked the north coast of the island from the sea, was it not possible that Corwell was also on the enemy’s agenda?

  He heard a footstep and looked up to see a familiarly handsome face, surrounded by a frame of brown curls. Pontswain collapsed easily into the chair the captain had just vacated, looking at him curiously.

  “What did the beggar want?”