They met no one. Now and again they passed houses and larger buildings where once grain had been stored or animals tended. All were deserted and falling into ruins. Some were marked with the Shadow Lord’s brand.
At evening, as the light began to fail, they chose an empty house and set up camp there for the night. They filled their waterbags at the well and helped themselves to any food they found that was not spoiled.
They took other supplies, too, collecting rope, blankets, clothes, a small digging tool, a pot to boil water, candles, and a lantern.
Lief felt uneasy about taking things that belonged to others. But Manus, grieving at every sign of fear, destruction, and despair in the house, shook his head and pointed to a small mark scratched on the wall beside the window. It was the same mark he had made in the dust when he first saw them in the clearing.
He trusted them enough, now, to tell them what the mark meant. It was the Ralad sign both for a bird and for freedom. But it had spread far beyond Raladin, and had taken on a special meaning throughout Deltora. Carefully, Manus explained what the meaning was:
The freedom mark had become a secret signal used between those who had sworn to resist the tyranny of the Shadow Lord. By it they recognized one another — and told enemies from friends.
Before the owners of this deserted house had died or fled, they had left the mark for any future traveler of their kind to find. It was the only way they had of showing their defiance in defeat, and their hope for the future. It made Lief understand that they would have been glad to give anything they had to help the cause.
It was indeed fortunate that we found Manus, he thought. It is almost as if fate has brought us together for a purpose. As if our steps are being guided by an unseen hand.
He was half ashamed of the thought. Like his friends in Del, he had always jeered at such talk. But his journey had taught him that there were many things of which his friends in Del knew nothing, and many mysteries he was still to understand.
They moved on the next morning, and now that they knew what to look for they saw the freedom mark everywhere. It was chalked on crumbling walls and fences, marked out with pebbles on the ground, scratched into the trunks of trees.
Every time he saw it, hope rose in Lief. The sign was evidence that, however things were in the city of Del, in the countryside there were still people who were as willing as he was to defy the Shadow Lord.
Manus himself, however, was growing more and more serious and worried. The sight of the deserted countryside, the ruined houses, made his fears for his own village grow stronger with every step he took.
He had first left home, it seemed, when his people heard that the Shadow Lord wanted more slaves, and that his eyes were fixed on Raladin. The Shadow Lord had heard that the Ralads were hard workers of great strength and builders beyond compare.
Manus was to seek help from the resistance groups that the Ralads thought must exist in Del. They did not know that resistance in the city had been crushed long ago, and that their hopes of help were in vain.
Manus had been away over five years — years in which Thaegan had laid the land further to waste. He had no idea what he might find in Raladin.
But doggedly he moved on, hurrying despite his exhaustion. By the end of the third day it was all they could do to persuade him to rest for the night.
Lief would long remember what happened the next morning.
They rose as dawn broke and left the cottage where they had taken shelter. Almost running, Manus led them across an open field and plunged into a patch of scrubby bushes beyond.
There was a small, deep pool there, fed by a little stream that bubbled down from some gentle hills. Manus moved up the stream, sometimes splashing through the water, sometimes trotting along the bank. They followed, keeping up with difficulty, trying to keep his bobbing red top-knot in sight when he drew ahead.
He did not speak a word. All of them could feel his tension as he neared the place he had missed for so long. But when at last they reached a waterfall that cascaded in a fine veil from a sheet of rock, he stopped.
He turned and waited for them, his small face completely without expression. But even when they reached him, he did not move.
We have arrived, thought Lief. But Manus is afraid to go the last step. He is afraid of what he will find.
The silence grew long. Finally, Jasmine spoke.
“It is best to know,” she said quietly.
Manus stared at her for a moment. Then abruptly he turned and plunged through the waterfall.
One by one the three companions went after him, shivering as icy water drenched them. There was darkness beyond — first the darkness of a cave, and then the greater darkness of a tunnel. And finally there was a soft glow in the distance that grew brighter and brighter as they moved towards it.
Then they were climbing through an opening on the other side of the hill, blinking in the sunlight. A pebbled path ran down from the opening to a beautiful village of small, round houses, workshops, and halls, all simply but craftily made of curved, baked earth bricks. The buildings surrounded a square paved with large, flat stones. In the center of the square a fountain splashed, its clear, running water sparkling in the sunlight.
But there were no lights in the houses. Spiders had spun thick webs over the windows. The doors hung open, creaking as they swung to and fro in the gentle breeze.
And there was no other movement. None at all.
They trudged down the pebbled path to the village and began searching for signs of life. Lief and Jasmine looked carefully and slowly, their hearts growing heavier by the moment. Manus ran desperately into one house after another, with Barda pacing grimly behind him.
Every house was deserted. What had not been taken from inside had been destroyed.
When finally they met by the fountain in the square, the Ralad man’s face was lined with grief.
“Manus thinks that his people have been taken to the Shadowlands, or are dead,” Barda murmured.
“They may simply have moved away from here, Manus,” said Lief. “They may have escaped.”
The Ralad man shook his head vigorously.
“They would never have left Raladin willingly,” said Barda. “It has always been their place.”
He pointed at the piles of rubbish and the ashes of fires that dotted the streets and the square. “Grey Guards’ leavings,” he said, curling his lip in disgust. “They must have been using the village as a resting place for some time. And see how thickly the spiderweb coats the windows. I would say that Raladin has been empty for a year or more.”
Manus slumped onto the edge of the fountain. His feet kicked against something caught between a paving stone and the fountain edge. He bent and picked it up. It was a long flute, carved from wood. He cradled it in his arms and bowed his head.
“What are we to do?” whispered Lief, watching him.
Jasmine shrugged. “Rest for a day, then move on,” she said. “We are not far now from the Lake of Tears. Manus will guide us the rest of the way, I am sure. There is nothing to keep him here.”
Her voice was flat and cold, but this time Lief was not deceived into thinking that she cared nothing for the Ralad man. He knew now how well she cloaked her feelings.
Suddenly, a beautiful, clear sound filled the air. Startled, Lief looked up.
Manus had put the flute to his lips and was playing. His eyes were closed, and he was swaying from side to side.
Lief stood, spellbound, as the pure, running notes filled his ears and his mind. It was the most exquisite music he had ever heard, and the most heart-breaking. It was as though all the feelings of grief and loss that Manus could not speak aloud were pouring through the flute, straight from his heart.