‘Fine, okay, a long time, years even.’ She used the English word to capture the depths of her anxiety. ‘But don’t you think the forest will – well, figure out that I’m just along because there is no other way for me to go?’ She was embarrassed at being so selfish and so terrified out loud.
Thankfully, none of her companions appeared willing to judge her for her insecurity: all three had seen and experienced horrifying things in their past; each knew fear. The fact that Hannah was trying to find a way to avoid the forest of ghosts was a perfectly normal response.
Alen said, ‘I’m afraid not, Hannah. If the forest behaves true to form, you will not pass freely.’
‘Great. That’s just frigging great.’ Hannah stood and began walking back and forth between the fire and a gnarled oak from which she had hacked Churn a longer riding cane that morning. Searching her past, she tried to decide which images the forest of ghosts would use against her. Might it be something wonderful? she thought, Meeting Steven? Feeling the power of those emotions? She did not wish to remain trapped in the forest for the rest of her life, but if she had to relive something from the past, that would be her first choice. Oh shit, though, what if it’s something ugly? Hannah considered the other side of the metaphysical coin. I’ve got a lot of dirty laundry in there, too. Damn it!
A thought suddenly occurred to her. ‘Hey, what about Hoyt? How does he get off without having to wrestle one of these – whatever they are?’
‘I may not,’ Hoyt admitted. ‘I may get in there and discover that I am as susceptible as you or Alen. But if we go by the legends, I ought to be able to move through unhindered.’
‘Because you don’t have anything invested in this little journey?’ Hannah challenged.
‘It is not my life’s work, no.’ Hoyt said, looking down at his boots to avoid eye contact with her.
‘Well, Hoyt, it must be nice for once to be an outsider, huh? To be on the fringes of things that matter? Slash and burn, run and hide? Convenient, isn’t it? Well, let’s hope you’re right about this place.’ Hannah sounded furious, but without Hoyt she would still be pacing the hill overlooking Southport Harbour. Instead, pacing the camp, she wrung her hands in a frustrated gesture that said, I am helpless, again. I have to give away control, again, and I am sick to death of it. She kicked at a loose stone. ‘All right, fine. Let’s get going. If there is no other way in, we don’t have a choice. Do we?’
Hoyt shrugged. ‘No. If even one Malakasian soldier, some scout hiding in the brush above a mountain pass, sent word ahead that we were riding north, we would be stopped, interrogated, arrested – who knows what?’
‘What about those towns you mentioned in the east?’
‘Averil and Landry – we could try, but Churn and I have a reputation there. We’ve met some of the underground fighters, but it’s been too long since our last visit to know whom we can still trust and who would sell us out to the nearest platoon lieutenant. It’s too great a risk. Even if we utilised the network of thieves and spies at work between the border cities, we might get stopped on the street or the highway into town. That area is thick with Malakasians.’
‘So, instead of sneaking in and maybe fighting a squad or two, we are going to butt heads with the supernatural?’
‘We do have Alen,’ Hoyt said. ‘With his help, we should be able to link ourselves together using ropes, our horse bridles, anything, and walk right through.’ Hoyt was irritated at how meek this response sounded, and he suddenly wanted to be gone, anywhere but there, trying to justify a potentially deadly risk the others had to take. Somehow he knew already that he would not have any difficulty crossing through the forest. They didn’t want to go, especially Hannah, but here he was, the one taking essentially no risk, trying to convince her to dive in and trust a thief to see her through.
‘So you’ll lead us, and while leading us you’ll listen in as we relive the most critical and emotionally impacting moments of our lives? The most devastating or wonderful times we have ever known? Do you really want to hear all that?’
Hoyt turned away, blushing. ‘It might not be those memories, Hannah. It might be something horrible, and I promise you when we make it to the other side, I will drink myself into oblivion, until the whole ordeal is wiped from my memory.’
Suddenly serious once again, Hannah said, ‘I wouldn’t want to be you, Hoyt. I don’t want to be me going through there, but having to haul us along while we fall apart? No thanks.’
‘Come along, everyone,’ Alen said, ‘we’ll never know if we don’t get there.’
BOOK II
The Ash Dream
THE FJORD CAMP
Garec gnawed thoughtfully on one of the bars Steven had taken from Howard’s kitchen. He turned it over in his fingers, looking at it sceptically. ‘Why wouldn’t they make them in the shape of something familiar?’ He tried another bite. ‘This doesn’t look like anything that grows naturally – well, almost anything.’
‘People are used to eating things that don’t occur naturally where we come from, so the shape doesn’t bother us.’ Steven paused to consider the cylindrical brown morsel Garec twirled like a miniature baton. ‘Although now that you mention it, it doesn’t look very appetising, does it?’
Despite Garec’s attempt at levity, the mood was grim. Mark told Steven of the Prince Marek’s destruction and of their subsequent failure to find Brynne among the floating wreckage. He had paused several times while telling the tale, but had refused to cry. When he finished, Steven had not known what to say, but looking into his old friend’s eyes, he realised Mark had lost something vital; something had been extinguished inside him, leaving the dry vestiges of Mark Jenkins. No longer the fun-loving sceptic, Mark had shifted into the shadows. For the first time in his life, Steven feared his roommate. There would be no holding him back now; he would be an unchained force, running full-speed into Sandcliff, into Welstar Palace, wherever. Already he looked prepped for battle: his belt tightened snugly against his hips, a hunting knife, a short dagger and a new battle-axe strapped within easy reach of either hand. Mark, who had once joked about hacking off limbs, was ready to do just that. At that moment Steven profoundly regretted ever having found the key to William Higgins’ safe-deposit box.
He passed out a few of the items he had managed to buy or steal on his journey across the country. Garec was especially excited at the idea of Colorado beer and had already placed the cans in the fjord to cool. Gilmour, thrilled to have Howard’s American Civil War book, planned to check into an Orindale inn, bolt the door and steep himself in Gettysburg as soon as the Fold was closed for ever. As he paged through it absentmindedly, he pondered Steven’s story; he was especially interested in how Steven had located the far portal and Lessek’s key.
Pocketing the lighter, he asked Steven, ‘So are you saying you could feel the staff’s magic there in Idaho Springs?’
‘I think it was the portal, or maybe the key,’ Steven answered. ‘I had been going so fast for so long – in such a hurry to get back. When I discovered that our house had burned down-’ Steven glanced over at Mark, ‘sorry about that, by the way-’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Mark said, emotionless. ‘Go on, please.’
‘Well, anyway – when I learned that our house had burned down, I figured Nerak had done it. He had beaten me there and had destroyed everything.’ Steven looked across the fjord, allowing the images to take shape in his mind’s eye. ‘But he hadn’t. The house had been gone for a while, long enough for them to come in and bulldoze the lot. There had been time for some real estate agent to put the land up for sale. So I figured the portal and the key must have been hauled up to the city landfill and dumped.’
‘And that’s where you felt the staff?’ Garec pressed.