[Meetings 02] - Wanderlust

by Mary Kirchoff; Steve Winter - (ebook by Undead)

  Hope, it seemed, was the mainstay of her strategy now. She could only hope that her potion would last long enough to track Balcombe. She could hope that when the potion did expire, she would have enough warning to reach the ground without getting killed. She had to hope that Balcombe was not aware he was being followed. And she had to hope that, if and when she found Balcombe in his lair, she could retrieve the bracelet and escape.

  As they traveled, they seemed to be following the same valley consistently. They had not yet veered away from the main branch of the stream that ran through Tantallon. If I do lose him for some reason, Selana decided, I will continue following this stream. It seems to be Balcombe's navigator, and at least I won't get lost.

  She found herself watching the mountains more and more. Selana had never seen peaks like this before. In her native kingdom, anyone could swim above the undersea mountains easily, but they were largely barren and their peaks and ridges were worn smooth by the tireless motion of the water. These were bold, jagged, and vibrant with life. Still, more than anything else since leaving the sea, this curious flight reminded her of home.

  Castle Tantallon was perhaps thirty minutes behind her when Selana began to feel oddly heavy and her vision grew clouded. The potion! She knew in a flash that it must be wearing off. Unable to still a stab of fear, a pulse pounding in her ears, the sea elf immediately dipped her feathered head, tucked her wings, and nosedived straight toward the moss-covered earth.

  She nearly made it.

  Past the top branches of firs and budding aspens, just above a grassy glen near the banks of the stream, the sparrow turned back into a panic-stricken sea elf. She tumbled more than eight feet through the air, indigo cloak fluttering behind her, and crashed into a large, prickly thicket.

  With a scream of searing pain, Selana sprang from the shrubbery, but her robe was caught up in pointy thorns. Tears streaming from her eyes, nearly hysterical, she tugged frantically at her robe, which was already in tatters from the encounter with the satyrs and the chase through Tantallon. She managed to finish the job and tear it beyond repair. Flailing, thrashing, yanking on the shredded cloth, she screamed with the frustration and exhaustion that came from days on the road with little sleep and even less food. The small bit of cape that remained around her neck she tore loose and flung into the malevolent bush, venting her anger slightly.

  Her silver-pale hair was tangled and hung in limp strands about her sweaty, dirty, scratched face. Wearing nothing but a thin, dun-colored tunic that came to mid-calf, the princess of the Dargonesti elves dropped to her knees and wept great sobs.

  "Now what am I to do?" she wailed skyward. Balcombe was long out of sight, and she had only a slim idea of where he was headed: a hideaway upstream, though it could be miles and miles away. Curled into a ball, her head cradled in her scratched hands, Selana cried until her tears were spent and she felt an eerie calmness overtake her.

  She had no food, no shelter, and no magic spells left to cast; weary to the bone, she needed sleep to restore her magic. If she had any hope of reaching Balcombe before it was too late to either retrieve the bracelet or save Rostrevor, she would have to travel overland on foot. She could scarcely face the prospect. Vexed, Selana snatched up a fistful of pebbles and hurled them into the stream with tremendous frustration.

  The young sea elf felt lost, far from her people, farther still from anything the least familiar to her life beneath the sea.

  Selana touched her tongue to a salty tear that pooled above her lips and smiled sadly, remembering the days spent frolicking in the sea with her family, especially her elder brother. Semunel loved to tease her; just as she got close in a game of tag, he would shapechange into a dolphin, the form all Dargonesti had the natural ability to assume, but used mostly to flee from predators. He always swam faster than she, dodging through coral reefs and the many shipwrecks that littered the sea floor, always one length ahead, eluding her grasp.

  When she was a very young sea elf, she would cry and complain to their father, the Speaker of the Moons, who would chastise Semunel.

  "All members of the Dargonesti royal house must be above ridicule or defeat, even from each other," he would say sternly.

  Afterward, Semunel would poke her when their father wasn't looking. "You are a spoiled princess, little sister. One day Father will not be around to fight your battles for you," he would goad. Just when she thought she would go mad with fury, he would grin and seize her in a fierce hug and say, "But I will always be there for you, Selana."

  The corners of Selana's mouth turned up in a bittersweet smile. "Perhaps Semunel was right—maybe I am a wee bit headstrong and used to having my way," she mumbled reflectively. "I wish he were here to help me now."

  She remembered showing him the formula she had found for the bracelet. When she told him of her intentions on his behalf, he all but ordered her to abandon the plan.

  "Stay away from land dwellers, they are nothing but trouble," he said, literally shaking his finger at her. "We'll resolve this problem without their interference."

  Of course, stung by his patronizing tone, she inwardly belittled his objections and slipped away in the night to do things her way. She hated admitting that he had been right about land dwellers.

  With a sigh, Selana sidled over to the stream's edge and sat cross-legged, contemplating her reflection in a calm, shallow pool, sheltered by a fallen log.

  "What conceit made you think you could manage such an excursion by yourself?" she moaned at the pinched, pale face in the smooth water. What lunacy had turned a once lighthearted young princess into an abject, weeping fool in the shrubs of some faraway mountain range? She should be frolicking in the beautiful waves of the homeland she loved. If only she could swim again. . . .

  Suddenly Selana's eyes went wide. She looked up quickly at the rushing stream. Was it deep enough? What if the current were too strong and she were swept downstream? The water would certainly be far colder than she was accustomed to. And it was fresh water, not salt water, but she could survive in it for a long time.

  In spite of these doubts, the sea elf princess's mind was already set. She was awash with the desire to slip into familiar, enveloping water, no matter the consequences. She stood boldly, removing one of her soft leather boots to test the water's temperature with her big toe—it felt like barely melted snow. Replacing her boot, she shivered, only partly from the cold, and reminded herself that it would not feel so icy after she had adopted her thick blue-gray dolphin hide.

  Selana closed her large sea-colored eyes. Clenching her teeth, she willed her feet to carry her into the swiftly moving, frigid water. Every nerve shrieked in protest against the assault on her pale, tender flesh. She stood, the waist-high water swelling around her, soaking her to the bone. The sound of rushing water pulsating down the mountainside steadied her nerves. Spreading her arms before her with practiced ease, she drew a deep breath, holding it in her lungs, and dove into the force of the currents.

  Selana brought a memory from childhood to mind and centered her thoughts. Instantly the water coursing over her no longer felt icy. She perceived the familiar "joining," which was the only way she had ever been able to describe the sensation of her legs converting to one powerful tail. Her arms shaped into smaller flippers, and her vision spread as she sprouted a bottle-shaped snout with her eyes widely separated to either side.

  She felt free!

  Swinging her tail, she pressed upstream, carefully testing the depth of the riverbed as she progressed steadily in the current. When she needed her first breath, she couldn't resist the dangerous temptation to leap up in a graceful arc, snatching air in gulps, the way fish gobble flies. She did a barrel-roll and then another, one of the first tricks she had learned as a dolphin. Selana sprang from the water and leaped high in the air again, swishing her powerful tail in a defiant gesture of renewed confidence.

  Her spirit sated, she turned her mind solely to the task and swam onward for a short time, trying to cover ground
as quickly as possible. Soon she would have to look for signs of the fortress, though she was not at all sure what to look for. Would it be a building, like one from the town? She popped her snout above the surface and cruised along, her black eyes scouring the landscape for any sign of Balcombe.

  Selana found negotiating the unpredictable changes in the stream the most difficult part of her journey. In fits and starts the stream would widen to twice its usual size, the bottom dropping quickly to form a calm, slow-moving pool. Just as suddenly it would narrow or the bottom would swoop up, turning it into a shallow, rushing torrent.

  As she swam higher into the mountains, the tall fir and aspen trees gradually gave way to shorter pines and scrub. This far upstream she was having to negotiate around large jagged flows of ice and snow that were breaking from the shore. To make matters even more difficult, the stream varied in size, but the depth was decreasing steadily. Selana knew that unless she found Balcombe's hideout soon, she would simply be unable to proceed this way. As a dolphin, she simply could not swim in less than a few feet of water.

  Straining against the strong current in a fast-flowing narrow stretch, Selana squawked in pain as her left flipper scraped across a sharp, submerged rock. She both heard and felt the tough hide tearing away. The icy water aggravated the raw wound, and she thrashed in momentary panic. Her spirit sank instantly as she realized she could not possibly control herself in the powerful current with just one usable flipper, let alone continue upstream. Quickly she pushed herself with her tail toward the bank, steering with just her right flipper.

  Even more disheartening was the realization that she could not just bob at the stream's edge until her wound healed. She needed her hands to make a bandage and restful sleep to recover her wits. To fall asleep as a dolphin in this current was surely to drown. Accepting that she had no real choice, Selana sighed dejectedly and willed herself back to humanoid form.

  She stood with the water lapping at her breasts. At once the wound beneath the sleeve of her soaked tunic, four inches long and deep enough to expose the bone, throbbed unbearably and pumped out a thick red trail of blood that swirled around her. Struggling to remain conscious, she hauled herself onto the bank using her good arm. Once there she lay on the frozen ground and shivered in the ice-cold breeze.

  Selana could scarcely believe it was possible, but she was now in worse straits than before. The temperature in the stream had been nearly constant, but the air was much colder this high in the mountains. Now seriously injured, she was without food and shelter. She realized that she could very well die before the sun rose again.

  I have to get dry, Selana thought faintly, her head spinning dizzily from loss of blood. Mustering every ounce of stubbornness in her makeup, she concentrated on the one spell left in her memory: a cantrip, nothing more than a practicing technique, so minor it was almost negligible. Once mastered, though, a cantrip could be extremely flexible, and Selana was counting on that. It took a great deal of effort, but with the cantrip she managed to squeeze the icy water from her skimpy tunic and blot it dry. The effort left her weaker still.

  Acting largely on instinct and reflex, she ripped a two-inch strip of cloth from the ragged hem of her tunic and bound the oozing, burning wound tightly to close the gash and stop the flow of blood. The added pressure of the bandage hurt, but felt reassuring at the same time.

  "You need to rest for a moment," she mumbled aloud, hoping the sound of a voice—even her own—would keep her awake. "Find some shelter from the wind." Selana half stumbled, half walked toward a dazzlingly white outcropping of rock in the face of the mountain. Surely she could find a nook or cranny and hide there from the merciless mountain gales.

  At last she found a small, low ledge, barely deep enough for her slight form. She collapsed in a ball against the cold granite, her face turned outward. With the tattered tunic drawn up close, she blinked foggy eyes at the bleak scene before her.

  She knew with frightening clarity that she was going to die . . . alone. As the wind howled, she would slip into eternal oblivion and never awaken—unless she believed the clerics who said there was an afterlife, if she believed in the true gods, whoever they were, but she didn't believe.

  Thinking she had seen movement, Selana forced her eyes to focus once again for just a moment. A fallen branch, perhaps? Or a hallucination? She discarded the notion because whatever she had seen was much larger than a branch and blended perfectly into the grayness of the granite mountainside. She thought she saw a hulking minotaur, a savage man-cow hybrid, though this one was made of polished white granite. It was crossing the gap, headed toward her.

  I really am hallucinating, she thought. I'll just close my eyes and sleep, and when I awaken it will be gone. But with her eyes closed she heard ragged, vicious snarling and breathing. I'll just close my ears, too, she thought groggily, and the sound will go away. Eyes tightly closed, fingers in her ears, she waited.

  Then two great hands, icy as the granite itself, clasped her by the shoulders and hefted her into the air. A heartbeat from unconsciousness, Selana's eyes fluttered open briefly and saw the frightening, horn-headed granite minotaur again.

  For one last, brief moment, she thought, almost gratefully, that she must already be dead.

  Chapter 15

  The Jailbreak

  Tasslehoff stretched out beneath a small night-stand, licking his paws and smoothing out his fur. His tail flicked back and forth casually. It was an engaging feeling, and he was just a little rueful that kender had no tails.

  He still could not believe what he and Selana had witnessed in the laboratory. A talking coin, who represented the evil god Hiddukel! He could hardly wait to tell Tanis and Flint about it, particularly now that Selana had flown away. She'd flashed him one more telepathic message before she'd disappeared through the loophole in the mage's chamber.

  "Tas, I'm going to follow him and get my bracelet back," she'd said, giving Tasslehoff no chance to talk her out of it, since she flew from sight and range right after.

  So, in a mouse-induced panic, Tas had skittered out of the evil mage's laboratory, run partway down the hall, then slipped under the first door he came to. He found himself in a bedchamber. Probably a spare, unused room, he decided, because the fireplace was cold and several leaves swirled about in the comers whenever a breeze gusted through the tiny window. Still, a few rugs on the floor made it cozy enough and it seemed like a good place to pause and decide what he should do next.

  Tas's first decision had been to shed his mouse form for something the mage might not be looking for. Most people seemed to like cats, so Castle Tantallon now had a white, brown, and turquoise cat with an unusually long shock of hair at the back of its head.

  He also thought he would do well to wait a minute or two before moving around too much, just in case someone was watching the hallway. Tas washed himself, cat style, wondering all the while if he really would be cleaner when he changed back to his normal shape.

  He soon began considering his situation strategically. Few people realized that kender were capable of analytical thought. In fact, they were quite good at it under the right conditions but, because they were so easily distracted, they rarely managed to carry an argument through to a logical conclusion. Tas discovered that lying under a nightstand, licking one's paws, and purring softly were all conducive to clear thinking.

  Tasslehoff posed himself a question: If I were an evil wizard in league with Hiddukel and I found myself in this situation, what would I do? The mage would be guarding the bracelet now, that much was certain. And they had lost a big advantage by revealing both that the bracelet was what they wanted and that they could change shape.

  Tasslehoff decided it was time to switch plans. He and Selana had failed to get the bracelet back, but Flint and Tanis were still prisoners somewhere in the castle. The captives had seen things under the castle—the zombie, for instance, which the wizard undoubtedly wanted to keep quiet from the knight, at least. That put the dwarf and t
he half-elf in considerable danger. Tas was certain he would never have a better opportunity to rescue them than while the potion was still effective, so he had better hurry.

  He remembered that after the shadow monster had expired, he and Selana had seen the mage walking to the keep from the jail, so Flint and Tanis probably were being held captive there.

  Tas finished his washing, stood, stretched, and padded to the door. He eyed the space under it, gauging its height. As a mouse he'd slipped under with no trouble, but why be a mouse again when there were so many other diverting forms he had yet to try.

  In the blink of an eye he transformed into a two-foot-long, tan, brown, and gold fox snake. The stone floor felt nicely cool under his belly. Tas flicked his tongue experimentally a few times, then poked his head under the door and swung it slowly to look both ways. The hallway was clear.

  His first effort to move forward was less than successful. His body twisted and jerked and rolled over, and he banged his head on the bottom of the door, but did not move forward. This is not as easy as snakes make it look, Tas concluded. After a few more abortive efforts to master a crawl, he managed to roll right side up again, but still was not in the hallway.

  At last he realized that he was taking an altogether wrong approach. Crawling required arms and legs. Instead, he had to figure out how to slither. He thought about how a snake wiggles its way through a meadow. Without really understanding how he did it, he suddenly found himself making swift progress sideways and forward at the same time, until he was under the door and right out into the hallway.

  Tas's curiosity about snakes was quickly settled— besides, people tended to startle and shiver and try to chop snakes in half whenever they ran across them—so he transformed himself again as soon as he was clear of the doorway. This time he settled upon an orange-and-ivory spaniel. He trotted down the corridor with his tail in the air, sniffed under doors, scampered down a winding staircase and through an open doorway into the main corridor. The way out was just down the hall to his right.