He looked at Bek. «You are the one who must see that he has the chance to do so.»
« What am I supposed to do?»
The old man looked away again. «Two things. First, you must find a way to protect your son when he crosses back through the Forbidding with the Ard Rhys. They must return to exactly the same place they went in—her sleeping chamber at Paranor.»
« Where Shadea and the others will be waiting,” Bek finished.
The old man nodded. «Second, you must find the demon. It will not look like a demon. It will look like something else. It is a changeling and takes the shapes of other creatures. This one is particularly dangerous. It absorbs its victims and becomes them. You must find out which disguise it has assumed and unmask it.»
***
Bek looked down at his feet. He couldn’t see them. He didn’t seem to have feet, even though he could feel himself walking.
« The darkwand will reveal the demon,” the old man said. «The talisman will respond to its presence. It will tell you who or what the demon is. If you get close enough.»
The scent of tuberoses filled Bek’s nostrils, sweet and heady. He shook off the distraction. «The wishsong told me that Pen was at Taupo Rough in the Upper Anar.»
« The wishsong did not lie. But now he is inside the Forbidding.»
« So I must go back to Paranor to find my son?»
The King of the Silver River turned to face him. «The path that leads to your son does not begin at Paranor. It begins at Taupo Rough, with Penderrin’s companions. The Dwarf, the Rock Troll, and the Elven girl will provide you with keys to the doors that you must open to reach him.»
He paused. «It is not within the Forbidding that Penderrin faces his greatest danger, it is here. The Druids will know where he has gone and be waiting for him when he returns. If they reach him before you do, they will kill him.»
« Nothing will happen to my son while I am alive,” Bek said at once.
He felt a subtle shift in his surroundings as he made that vow, a shimmering in the air, a ripple in the blankets and clusters of flowers, a whispering of breezes, and he knew he had committed himself in a way that could not be undone.
The old man nodded. «Do you feel the weight of your words, Bek Ohmsford? They have sealed your fate.»
He stepped aside, an effortless movement that belonged to a much younger man. His ancient face lifted and changed. He was something else now, an old man no longer, another creature entirely, not human, not of this world. Bek backed away involuntarily, hands coming up to ward off the thing that stood before him.
The King of the Silver River had become a monster.
« See the future, human!» the monster rasped, teeth showing, eyes bright with hate. «Look upon it! When the Forbidding falls, your world becomes mine!»
Then the gardens withered before Bek’s eyes, the flowers dying, their colors fading and their stalks wilting. The great shade trees lost their leaves, and their branches took on the look of bones blackened by fire. The grasses dried and cracked, and all sights and sounds of life disappeared. Overhead, the sky lost its brightness, its depthless blue becoming as gray as ashes, misted and empty.
Bek knew at once he was being given a glimpse of what his world would become if the demon set loose by the unthinking rebel Druids was successful in bringing down the Forbidding and setting free its denizens. When that happened, his world would become the world of the Forbidding. It would be the end of everything that mattered.
Do not jail.
The words echoed softly in the rapidly diminishing sweep of daylight, and Bek turned swiftly to seek the King of the Silver River, to protest that he would not, to give fresh voice to his promise to do as he had been asked, but found he was alone.
He woke with a gasp, jerked from his sleep by a sense of impending horror, his body racked by pain and fever and his mind roiling with wild, uncontrollable emotions that careened through him like tiny razors, jagged edges cutting. He tried to speak and could not. He tried to see, to discover where he was, but his surroundings were blurred and indistinct. He felt a slight rolling motion beneath him and heard the creak and groan of wood and metal fastenings, of lashings and the wind’s steady rush. He was aboard a ship, but he couldn’t understand how he had gotten there.
Penderrin is inside the Forbidding!
It was his first thought, and the realization all but stopped his heart. Pen, in that monstrous prison, where so much of what was evil in the world had been banished. That the King of the Silver River would send his son to such a place was impossible for him to understand. How could a mere boy have any chance at all of surviving?
How could he hope to find his aunt and bring her back again when everything he encountered would be looking to kill him?
But it is not inside the Forbidding that Penderrin faces his greatest danger.
« Bek, can you hear me?»
He took a deep, steadying breath and blinked against the haze that clouded his vision. A face swam into view, young and with skin ghostly pale, framed with a helmet of close–cropped black hair. A slender hand reached out to touch his cheek. «Can you hear me?»
He nodded, his mouth too dry to allow him to speak. Seeing his difficulty, she raised his head from the bedding on which he lay, brought a cup of water to his lips, and allowed him to sip.
Intense dark eyes peered into his. «Do you remember me?» she asked. «I’m Bellizen. I’m Trefen Morys’s friend.»
He nodded weakly, remembering nothing. «Where am I?»
« AboardSwift Sure. You have been very sick, Bek. You were badly hurt. A knife wound deep in your side and an arrow through your shoulder. You have been delirious for two days, fighting off a fever. I think it has broken finally.»
It all came back to him in a rush. His escape from Paranor with Rue, helped by the young Druid Trefen Morys, the battle to reachSwift Sure with the Gnome Hunters attacking from every quarter in an effort to stop them, his collapse moments after finally managing to reach the rope ladder, and then—nothing. This girl had been aboard the airship waiting for them. He remembered looking up into her face as they placed him on the deck and she bent to tend his wounds.
« You helped me,” he said.
« Healing is my Druid skill,” she replied, giving him a quick, reassuring smile. «Rue sails the airship, Trefen lends her a hand where it is needed, and I care for you. We each have our task. Mine seemed the harder for a time, I was afraid I was going to lose you.»
He thought back to the dreams and nightmares of his sleep, already growing distant and vague in his memory. He thought back to the fever dream, to his vision of the King of the Silver River. He had turned the corner into recovery then, he believed. He had been near death, but the dream had brought him back to life. He shivered at the memory of what the dream had shown him, the images of a desiccated, demon–invaded world still fresh in his mind.
Bellizen gave him another few sips of water from the cup and then laid him back down again. «You still need to rest.»
She started to rise, but he reached out for her arm. «Is everyone else all right?»
She turned back. «Rue was hurt, too, though not as badly as you. Several arrow wounds, but they were quick to begin healing once I cleaned them and applied the necessary salves. She moves slowly still, but she is able to sail the airship. Yours was the wound we were most worried about. I did not think we could save you unless we went to Storlock for help from the Healers, but Rue said that was the first place the Druids would look for you. I have some skill with infection and fevers. I worked the front on the Prekkendorran for a year in my early training. We decided not to chance going to Storlock.»