He sang:
Horner Dees threw up his hands in exasperation. “What is it you are trying to say, Carisman?” he snapped.
“That your choices often undo you. That seeking everything sometimes costs you everything.” It was Walker Boh who answered. “Carisman thought that in becoming a king he would find freedom and has instead found only shackles.”
“Yes,” the tunesmith breathed, sadness flooding his finely chiseled features. “I don’t belong here any more than Quickening. If you would take her when you go, then you must take me as well!”
“No!” Pe Ell cried instantly.
“Lady,” the tunesmith begged. “Please. I have been here for almost five years now—not just several as I claimed. I am caged as surely as that maiden in my song. If you do not take me with you, I shall be kept captive until I die!”
Quickening shook her head. “It is dangerous where we go, Carisman. Far more dangerous than it is here. You would not be safe.”
Carisman’s voice shook. “It doesn’t matter! I want to be free!”
“No!” Pe Ell repeated, circling away like a cat. “Think, girl! Yet another fool to burden us? Why not an army of them, then? Shades!”
Morgan Leah was tired of being called a fool and was about to say so when Walker Boh caught him firmly by the arm and shook his head. Morgan frowned angrily, but gave way.
“What do you know of the country north, Carisman?” Horner Dees asked suddenly, his bulk backing the tune-smith away. “Ever been there?”
Carisman shook his head. “No. It doesn’t matter what’s there. It is away from here.” His eyes darted furtively. “Besides, you have to take me. You can’t get away if I don’t show you how.”
That stopped them. Everyone turned. “What do you mean?” Dees asked cautiously.
“I mean that you will be dead a dozen times over without my help,” the tunesmith said.
He sang:
Pe Ell had him by the throat so quickly that no one else had time to intervene. “You’ll tell everything you know before I’m done with you or wish you had!” he threatened furiously.
But Carisman held steady, even forced back as he was, the hard eyes inches from his own. “Never,” he gasped. “Unless... you agree... to take me with you.”
His face lost all its color as Pe Ell’s hand tightened. Morgan and Horner Dees glanced uncertainly at each other and then at Quickening, hesitating in spite of themselves. It was Walker Boh who stepped in. He moved behind Pe Ell and touched him in a manner they could not see. The gaunt man jerked back, his face rigid with surprise. Walker was quickly by him, his arm coming about Carisman and lifting him away.
Pe Ell whirled, cold rage in his eyes. Morgan was certain he was going to attack Walker, and nothing good could come of that. But Pe Ell surprised him. Instead of striking out, he simply stared at Walker a moment and then turned away, his face suddenly an expressionless mask.
Quickening spoke, diverting them. “Carisman,” she said. “Do you know a way out of here?”
Carisman nodded, swallowing to speak. “Yes, Lady.”
“Will you show it to us?”
“If you agree to take me with you, yes.” He was bargaining now, but he seemed confident.
“Perhaps it would be enough if we helped you escape the village?”
“No, Lady. I would lose my way and they would bring me back again. I must go to wherever it is that you are going—far away from here. Perhaps,” he said brightly, “I may turn out to be of some use to you.”
When pigs fly, Morgan thought uncharitably.
Quickening seemed undecided, strange for her. She looked questioningly at Horner Dees.
“He’s right about the Urdas bringing him back,” the old Tracker agreed. “Us, too, if we aren’t quick enough. Or smart enough.”
Morgan saw Pe Ell and Walker Boh glaring at each other from opposite corners of the hut—harsh, dark wraiths come from exacting worlds, their silent looks full of warning. Who would survive a confrontation between those two? And how could the company survive while they were at such odds?
Then suddenly an idea occurred to him. “Your magic, Quickening!” he burst out impulsively. “We can use your magic to escape! You can control all that grows within the earth. That is enough to make the Urdas give way. With or without Carisman, we have your magic!”
But Quickening shook her head and for an instant she seemed almost to dissolve. “No, Morgan. We have crossed the Charnals into the country of Uhl Belk, and I cannot use my magic again until after we find the talisman. The Stone King must not discover who I am. If I use the magic, he will know.”
The hut went silent again. “Who is the Stone King?” Carisman asked, and they all looked at him.
“I say we take him,” Horner Dees said finally, bluff and to the point as always. His bulky figure shifted. “If he really can get us out of here, that is.”
“Take him,” Morgan agreed. He grinned. “I like the idea of having a king on our side as well—even if all he can do is make up songs.”
Quickening glanced at the silent antagonists behind her. Pe Ell shrugged his indifference. Walker Boh said nothing.
“We will take you, Carisman,” Quickening said, “though I am afraid to guess what this choice might cost you.”
Carisman shook his head emphatically. “No price is too great, Lady, I promise you.” The tunesmith was elated.
Quickening moved toward the door. “The night flies. Let us hurry.”
Carisman held up his hand. “Not that way, Lady.”
She turned. “There is another?”
“Indeed.” He was beaming mischievously. “As it happens, I am standing on it.”
Chapter Fifteen
The Spikes and the lands surrounding were filled with tribes of Urdas and other species of Gnomes and Trolls. Since they were all constantly at war with one another, they kept their villages fortified. A lot of hard lessons had been learned over the years, and one of them was that a stockade needed more than one way out. Carisman’s bunch had dug tunnels beneath the village that opened through hidden trapdoors into the forests beyond. If the village were threatened by a prolonged siege or by an army of overwhelming numbers, the inhabitants still had a means of escape.
One of the entrances to the tunnels that lay inside the village was under the floor of the hut in which the five from Rampling Steep had been placed. Carisman showed them where it lay, buried a good foot beneath the earthen floor, sealed so tightly by weather and time that it took Horner Dees and Morgan working together to pull it free. It had clearly never seen use and perhaps been all but forgotten. In any case, it was a way out and the company was quick to seize upon it.
“I would feel better about this if we had a light,” Dees muttered as he stood looking down into the blackness.
“Here,” Walker Boh whispered impatiently, moving forward to take his place. He slipped down into the blackness where the walls of the tunnel shielded his actions and made a snapping motion with his fingers. Light blazed up about his hand, an aura of brightness that had no visible source. The Dark Uncle has at least a little of his magic left, Morgan thought.