She paused, grinning broadly enough that all her teeth showed. “Then she can kill him and take his place!”
She scampered ahead at every opportunity, all energy and excitement, constantly moving, never still. Oriantha and Crace Coram followed dutifully, but with mixed emotions. Getting out of the Forbidding was a desperate need for both, but leaving Khyber Elessedil and Redden Ohmsford behind felt like a betrayal. Oriantha was grieving for her mother, and the Dwarf could tell she was tremendously shocked and distressed by the loss. He saw her cry only once, late at night, when she must have thought he was sleeping, and did not otherwise give herself away. But her grief was mirrored in her eyes and present in her voice, and though she might appear stoic otherwise she could not hide the truth from him.
Later that day Tesla Dart told them to wait and disappeared toward a cluster of hovels and outbuildings. Within minutes, she was back driving a wagon drawn by a pair of four-legged creatures that might have been horses but for their burly bodies, shaggy coats and tusks. She urged them to climb aboard quickly, glancing back at the buildings from which she had driven away before whipping the creatures hard enough to send them galloping away into the haze.
A day later, after long hours of travel, they reached the place from which the Druid expedition had emerged from the shimmering light nearly a week earlier. The mountains were still hazy and distant, and the gloom from clouds and shadows uniform across the landscape from horizon to horizon. Stiff and sore, Crace Coram and Oriantha climbed down from the wagon and faced Tesla Dart.
“Go quickly,” she said. “When you return, come here. The way will be open again. But for now, once you pass through, it will close behind you. It is the Straken Lord’s magic that makes this protection. Entry allowed, but no exit until later. Do you see?”
She brushed at the scrub of hair bristling from the top of her head, eyes shifting from one to the other. “Find the Straken Queen. Quickly. If you do not, Tael Riverine brings his armies into your land and finds her himself. He plans this already. His armies assemble already. Time is very short for you.”
“Why are you helping us?” Oriantha asked her.
The Ulk Bog looked confused. “Weka Dart is my uncle.”
Oriantha shook her head. “I don’t understand. What does he have to do with you helping us?”
“Weka was Straken Queen Grianne’s friend. He helped her escape. She said she would come back for him.”
“But what if she can’t come back for him?” Crace Coram interjected. “What if we can’t find her?”
Tesla Dart cocked her head, her strange face taking on an entirely new look. “Weka is dead. When the Straken Queen leaves him, he goes to hide in Huka Flats. But Tael Riverine hunts him down and kills him. Weka dies for helping her. Now she must come back and revenge him. This is a debt she owes.”
She pointed toward the shimmer of light. “Tell her my words. Tell her she must pay it.”
“So now we must find a dead woman in order to keep the Straken Lord from invading the Four Lands?” Skint summarized. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“The Ard Rhys is not necessarily dead,” Seersha said quickly.
“She’s not?” Railing asked in surprise. He had always thought she was. Both he and Redding had thought so.
Seersha made a dismissive gesture and shifted her gaze to Crace Coram. “What happened to Oriantha? Why isn’t she with you?”
The Dwarf shook his head. “She wouldn’t come. Right at the last, she said she was staying.”
“Why would she do that?”
“She said she was going back for the Ard Rhys and your brother.” He looked over at Railing and shrugged. “If you spent as much time with her as I have, you might understand the why of it.”
“She wants revenge for her mother,” Skint declared. “She’s going back to find Tael Riverine and kill him.”
Crace Coram nodded slowly. “That’s what Tesla Dart said. That’s why the Ulk Bog agreed to go with her.” He looked back at Seersha. “Madness.” He took a deep breath and exhaled wearily. “Do you have anything to eat?”
13
Still many miles to the east, Aphenglow and Cymrian flew the airship Wend-A-Way in search of the missing expedition. Using the vision revealed weeks earlier by the Blue Elfstones, they had tracked their way across the Westland from Arborlon to the wilderness of the Breakline. Without any real idea of where the Ard Rhys and her party had flown, the pair were forced to rely entirely on Aphen’s memory. At least the landmarks shown by the vision had materialized as she remembered them, and they were now approaching a huge stretch of stone pillars that she recalled having glimpsed as the vision had moved her swiftly onward toward the shimmering waterfall. Her memory of this mist-shrouded marshland gave her no real idea of what she was to do once she reached this point, but it was enough to reassure her that, three days into their journey, they were still on course.
“I think we have to land Wend-A-Way somewhere in there,” she said to Cymrian, pointing ahead into the mix of pillars and mist. “If they were following the vision they will have done the same thing, and that’s where we will find them.”
He stood next to her in the pilot box, looking doubtful. The air was heavy and damp, and strands of his white-blond hair were plastered against his face. “Unless,” he answered carefully, “they have already moved on somewhere else.”
She shook her head. “No, the waterfall was in here. They had to pass through it on their way to finding the Elfstones, so they had to land and leave the ship. The Walker Boh is too large to have passed through the opening the vision showed me.”
“Big place,” he said, taking in the sweep of the marsh below. “Can’t see much of anything down there. This isn’t going to be easy. It will be dangerous to try to land the ship with all those stone spears waiting to tear her hull apart.”
He was right, of course, but she didn’t see that they had a choice. If the Walker Boh—a much larger vessel than Wend-A-Way—had done it, so could they.
She eased back on the thrusters and slowed the airship to a crawl. “Maybe it will clear as we get closer,” she said hopefully.
He glanced over, smiling. “Maybe. In case it doesn’t, I’m going forward where I can get a better look at what’s down there. Keep it slow. Watch for my hand signals.”
He left her, moving to the bow. She watched him go, thinking how hard this would have been without him. Once, in the beginning, she had tried to discourage his insistence on acting as her protector. Once, she would have welcomed his decision to leave her. Now she had no idea how she would have managed without him. He was always there for her, ready to help when needed. He didn’t need to be asked; he anticipated what was required and provided it. He never asked or even expected anything in return, not even a word of thanks. She couldn’t imagine why he was putting himself out this way when there was no reason for him even to be here, but she was grateful nevertheless.
Her thoughts drifted to Arlingfant, still back in Arborlon struggling with the terrible charge the Ellcrys had given her. She knew she must help her sister find a way to refuse it, but so far her efforts had failed. Nothing she had found in the Druid Histories offered a solution. Nothing she had found in the Elven archives or Chosen records had helped. She had come up with no answers on her own. Even talking about it with Cymrian—something she would never have done before now—had provided no useful answers. She was stymied at every turn and beginning to feel desperate.
But she had put all that aside for now, consigned to a compartment in the back of her mind where she could find it again after her present efforts were successful and the Druid expedition found. Perhaps the Ard Rhys would have something useful to suggest. Perhaps in discussion with the Elven High Council and the King, a solution might be found.