“Anyone who tries to follow us will be attacked, of course. That is his plan.”
“By the bats,” I said, realizing what she meant. “And the people in that town. And the burning grasslands—”
“Yes.” She smiled a bit and smoothed her dress around her, as though we had gone for a pleasant afternoon’s ride or a picnic in the country. “Father is awfully clever that way. I never could have thought up those bats.”
“But… how—” I frowned, puzzled. Thought them up? She made it sound like he had created them, somehow.
“He is a true master at manipulating Shadows,” she said with a little shrug. “Far better than me. I like to pick a place and stay there.”
“As long as it’s safe.”
“Of course.”
More riddles, I grumbled to myself. Shadows? What was she talking about? She was Dworkin’s daughter, all right, and I was sick of their games. Every time one of them said anything to me, it only made my confusion worse.
My attention drifted to the table between us. Apparently she had finished with her Tarot cards; the whole deck sat neatly stacked before her now. I wondered what she had seen in our future. Briefly I considered asking her, but then I thought better of it. Somehow, I didn’t think the answers would make much sense to me. And I had never put much faith in fortune-telling.
I turned my attention back to the window. Without warning, the carriage burst into a clearing, and dazzling noontime sun caught me full in the face. I had to shield my eyes and squint to see, and even so, bright spots drifted before my eyes.
A desert… we were riding through a desert of red sand and red rocks now. Heat shimmered in waves, and though I could feel a scorching heat on my face, I felt a chill inside.
Magic again. The carriage was ensorcelled, taking us on a nightmare journey where neither day nor night nor landscape held any true form or meaning. Even so, knowing it couldn’t possibly be real, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light I found I could not look away.
We turned, crossed a bridge of stone, and entered another forest, this one filled with redwoods of immense proportion, their trunks so big around that it would have taken a dozen men with arms stretched fingertip to fingertip to surround one. High up among the leaves, I glimpsed creatures the size and shape of men leaping from branch to branch. Male and female alike wore skirts of woven grass and carried short wooden clubs hooked to small belts. When they spotted us, they began to shriek and point.
The sky darkened without warning; hailstones the size of peas began to fall, followed by gusts of wind strong enough to shake the carriage. Behind us, I heard a huge grinding, tearing sound like nothing I had ever heard before, and a jolt of fear went through me.
Opening the window, I stuck my head out and looked back to see what was happening. A cold, gale-strong wind whipped my hair, and I had to squint to see, but the sight filled me with a terrible awe.
Half a dozen tornadoes writhed and danced through the redwood forest behind us. Trees by the hundreds were falling before the winds, huge knots of root tearing loose from the ground, immense trunks slamming down in an impenetrable maze of wood. I saw hundreds of the manlike creatures sucked up into the black swirling funnels where, still screaming, they vanished.
The road would be impossible to follow on horseback. It had to be another trap for our pursuers, if they made it around the fires, through the townspeople, and past the bats. But how had Dworkin known to come here? How had he known the trees would fall? They must have been standing for centuries to have grown so huge. For us to pass just as tornadoes blew them over seemed unlikely, to say the least.
No, I thought, Dworkin hadn’t known the trees would fall, I realized with a growing sense of helplessness. He had made them fall. It was the only possible explanation. With such powers as he now commanded, he could have ruled Ilerium. How, in all our years together, had I never even suspected them?
I felt sorry for the tree creatures in that forest who had died because of us, unwittingly giving their lives and homes to protect our passage.
The winds began to drop when we descended into a small valley. Fog came up suddenly, and a dense, dismal gray cloaked the windows for a time. Though I knew cliffs stood to either side, somewhere just out of sight, I thought once or twice I heard the sound of gently lapping waves.
I pulled my head in and glanced at Freda, who looked as serene as a cat with a bird in its mouth. I couldn’t understand her calm. This journey—and it wasn’t over yet!—already had me feeling battle-worn and weary… yet too ill at ease to relax.
“How much longer?” I asked her.
“It depends on Father. He is not taking the fastest or most direct route to Juniper, after all.”
Juniper? Was that our destination?
I’d never heard of it… and from the name it could have been anything, from castle keep to sprawling kingdom. She expected me to know the name, I thought, from the way she said it, so I simply smiled like I knew what she meant. Perhaps she’d tell me more if she thought I already knew about this Juniper.
Instead of talking to me, though, she settled farther back in her seat and folded her hands in her lap, volunteering nothing.
I did notice that dawn had just broken outside again, burning off the fog with supernatural speed.
After that, everything kept changing, but subtly, never quite while you were looking at it. The sky turned greenish, then yellow-green, then back to blue. Clouds came and vanished. Forests rose and fell to grassland, which gave way to farmland and then back to forests again. Dawn broke half a dozen times.
I had never even heard of magic like this before, which bent time and place to a driver’s will, and my estimation of Dworkin—or the people he worked for—grew steadily greater, if that was possible. Whatever wizards had created his crystal-weapon and this carriage clearly had the power to save Ilerium from hell-creatures.
My job would be winning them over to King Elnar’s cause.
It seemed our only hope.
Finally, after what felt like hours of travel, we entered a land of rolling green hills. The highway we traveled—at times paved with yellow bricks but for the moment deep ruts with grass in between—curved gently ahead. Brightly plumed birds flitted among the scattered bushes and trees, their cheerful songs strangely normal after all we had been through. Overhead, high white clouds streaked the deep, perfect blue of the sky,
“We are close to Juniper now,” I heard Freda say.
I glanced at her. “You recognize the scenery?”
“Yes. A few more hours and we should be there.” Then a dozen horsemen dressed in silvered armor fell in around the carriage.
Chapter 4
Instantly my hand flew to the sword lying across my knees, but I didn’t draw it. These soldiers seemed to be acting as an escort or honor guard, I thought, rather than a band of attackers.
When one turned slightly, I noticed the red-and-gold rampant lion stitched on the front of his blouse. The pattern matched Dworkin’s—these had to be his men.
I allowed myself to relax. We should be safe in their care. So close to this mysterious Juniper, what could go wrong?
The carriage slowed enough for them to keep up with us. Trying to appear uncurious, I opened the window again and pulled back the curtain a bit, studying the rider closest to us. Thick black braids hung down behind his rounded silver helmet, and he had a long, thin black mustache that flapped as he rode. His arms seemed odd, I decided—a little too long. And they seemed to be bending halfway between shoulder and elbow, as if they had an extra joint.
Suddenly he turned and looked straight at me. His slitted yellow eyes caught the light, glinting like a cat’s with an almost opalescent fire.