Into the Stone Land (19 page)

Avea looked him dead in the eye. “I'm going to remove my hand,” she said. “When I do, you'll not shout.”

“But…” Tall started to say, but Avea's hand went back to his lips as he did so.

“The magic used to conceal this vale does so by playing tricks on the mind. No doubt the same wizardry plays with our doubts and anxieties. Now, when Alkin releases you, promise you'll not try to flee.”

Tall nodded, waited for the moment of his freedom, knowing he would flee no matter what. And that's exactly what he did when Alkin let him go. He ran, sprinting away down the hill. He heard Avea and Alkin running behind him, then a rush of wind as Rhyliath landed abruptly in front of him.

Rhyliath said, “Avea speaks the truth. I was unaffected by this magic, but I sensed it once I understood there was something amiss.”

Tall drew in a deep breath, fought to recover from the hasty sprint. “You…” he said, his voice trailing off as he realized his fear and panic were leaving him. “But Avea… How could she not know Deanna? Deanna and Kerry are sisters. How could she not know her own granddaughter?”

Avea said, “If Deanna and Kerry are sisters, then it is news to me. You seemed to think Deanna and I looked alike, so maybe it is possible.”

“That just cannot be,” Tall said. “It makes no sense.”

Avea started to say something, Alkin interposed. “There's much you don't know the half of, Tall, and now is not—”

“Ever my defender,” Avea said, cutting in. “Tall must hear this and know to calm his fears.” She paused, took a deep draught from her water bag. “As a mother, as a grandmother, I'm a terrible failure.”

Alkin tried to speak. Avea waved off his words with a sweep of her hand. “A terrible price I've paid for the long years of this struggle. There is much I've missed, much I don't know.” Avea must have seen the question in Tall's eyes. “Go on, ask,” she said.

“How is it possible to not know your own granddaughter?”

“Kerry's mother, Ekatarin, married young. Stirling, Kerry's father, took Ekatarin away to start a new life, but the strife they left behind in the East caught up with them in the West. I spent many years looking for them. By the time word came that they'd been found at last, it was too late. The wizard had already taken Ekatarin. Stirling believed to the end she was lost to the void. A broken heart is what killed him, I'm sure of it.”

Tall was silent for a long time. Fear replaced doubt. He feared for Ray's safe return, for his village, for his mother and father, for Ellie—the girl whose kiss he would never know. If the wizard's magic was so powerful he could cast a pall over an entire valley, what hope was there? How could anyone as insignificant as he make any difference? He should return to the Inland, spend what time remained as best as he could.

It was Rhyliath who interrupted Tall's reflection. “How quickly you learn the closing,” the wivre said. “I see your fear on your face, but I hear nothing of your thoughts.”

Tall knew the words were meant as flattery, and suddenly he wondered whether his thoughts had been closed at all. He started to reply when an absence lurking at the corners of his mind brought pain and memory. He reached out to the hatchlings, to Lucky, to Lady, to Hazard. Finding emptiness, he reached out farther and farther. His eyes rolled back, his body collapsed to the ground, but he did not know this. He knew only that he must find them, and they must find him.

Around him there was shouting. He felt this, more than he heard it, for he was no longer in the world of tethers and links. He was in that other world, drawn there by the one. But the lost one was no longer a withered specter, he was a man in his prime, clad in golden robes. On his head, he wore a spectacularly jeweled crown. In his right hand, he held a scepter as finely crafted as his crown. And yet, the sight of him still terrified Tall. There was an undeniable power in the man's eyes and his demeanor was so much more than regal. It was transcendent, almost divine.

Tall wanted to run, but as soon as he thought about it the roots of the earth were reaching for him and twining round and round his limbs. Then she was there; a woman clad in robes of white fire. With the wave of her hand, the bindings fell away. With the touch of her hand, Tall was torn from the inverted world and restored to the true world.

Even as that other world faded, Tall saw the other, his features withering as he gradually became unrecognizable as a man. The otherworlder was reaching out. Reaching, reaching.

Tall wanted to recoil. A strange purpose in the dying eyes held him transfixed. The other's icy touch found him.

Tall feared the worst, thought sure this was the end, but the cold thing pressing against his hand wasn't the other's grasp. It was the other's scepter. Only now it wasn't a scepter. It was a staff. And not just any stretch of wood, it was the straight length of arbor that Tall crafted in the village with the other 12-winter boys. He realized then that he couldn't recall the last time he'd held the staff, though he suddenly knew he'd been without it for some time.

Sight came with his return to the true world. Yet just before he saw Avea, Alkin and Rhyliath standing over him, he saw the tethers that held everything and all. Angry crimson spread like a blanket, interlaced with white fire and ice blue. In this way he saw all. Bright clusters from Inland villages. A web of lights from Adalayia. Faint traces and pockets of brightness. One of these pockets was Lady Hravic, Deanna and the man. Another, his brood. How faint and thin the returning connections were, so much so they seemed more transient than fixed.

The sun was directly behind Avea when Tall looked up at her, and he knew in an instant that hours had somehow slipped away. “How long?” he asked.

“That is my question for you,” Avea said. “Time in that place does not flow as it does here.”

Tall sat up with Alkin's help. Tall noted Rhyliath was close but preoccupied with something.

Avea waved Alkin back. “We all have our mirrors there. I must ask,” she said. “Did the other find you? Did he touch you?”

Tall sensed urgency in her words, a hidden peril as well. He answered carefully. “My staff. Did you?”

“This,” Avea said, pointing, her expression showing her unease. “Alkin?”

“Not I,” Alkin said.

“I thought as much,” Avea said. “Tell me what you experienced.”

“It felt like it was only moments. He appeared but he was whole. I tried to run, but something held me. There was another, a woman. She freed me… and …and I returned.”

“There's more, I know there is,” Avea said.

“Just before he touched me… Or at least I thought so, but what I felt was the staff pressed into my hand. I'm certain of it. I don't know how… I can't recall but I don't seem to remember having it while I've been with you.”

“Odd, continue.” Avea's eyes fixed on Alkin's for a moment; whether impulsively or deliberately, Tall didn't know.

“That's it. The next moment I was… was… Wait, just before, I saw them. The tethers. Red, connecting everything and all. White, shining out like stars in the night sky. Blue, cold and underneath.”

Avea's eyes fixed on Alkin's and did not return to Tall's. She held still otherwise, said nothing. “It is, isn't it,” Alkin said.

“I think so,” Avea said quietly. “You yourself said he has the light of a seer.”

“Not just the light,” Rhyliath said, his attention suddenly and fully on what was transpiring.

“Too opportune and doubly so with Lady Hravic outside the city,” Alkin said, half to himself. “Tainted, his gift is. Tainted, I tell you.”

“Even so,” Avea said. “We know of the ill binding, and can deal with that when the time comes. For now, we must use what advantage we can get.” She turned to Tall. “Do you know where Lady Hravic is? Did you see her in your vision?”

Tall nodded. “She follows but at a distance. She must be using Deanna to track. The orb, I think. Somehow she can use her orb to find mine.”

Avea and Alkin spoke at length in hushed tones. Rhyliath interjected at times. Tall listened, but couldn't quite hear what was said. Perhaps some form of the closing, he thought. Perhaps because they thought they couldn't fully trust him. Or perhaps because of the taint. He didn't know, but by early afternoon, they seemed to have a plan. By late afternoon, they were ready to carry it out.

Rhyliath deposited Tall and Avea on a hillside, Rhyliath with Alkin astride him circled to the south and waited. Grandin and his men came from the north. Tall's brood waited to the east. Tall reassured Hazard across the link, thankful the tethers were strong and renewed. This was mostly because they were so close, also because of the heavy influence of seed. Avea warned him that so much seed would have him walking in two worlds, but also told him that there was great need. He was to watch the way and be ready.

“Down, get down. Wait here,” Avea hissed. “Stay out of sight. Whatever you do, don't draw attention to yourself. Can you do that?”

“Is it time?” he asked.

“Soon,” she said. “If I don't return by the time the sun touches the horizon, follow the plan as we've discussed.”

Avea stalked off without another word, leaving Tall alone on the hillside. Being alone didn't dampen his mood. His thoughts raced. His heart soared. His journey was coming to an end.

Chapter 17: Wrinkle in the Mix

An hour passed, perhaps more. Unease settled in. The plan seemed so simple, so perfect: Track the trackers, wait until nightfall, seize them. Go after the soldiers, exchange Lady Hravic for Ray.

Simple. Perfect. Except something was wrong. Avea should have returned by now.

Tall gripped his staff and shouldered his light pack. He slipped from concealment. Stooped over, half crawling, he moved to a vantage point on the hill.

A thick knot of trees ensured no one could sneak up from behind. He had only to lean forward, turn his head one way or the other to look up or down the hill.

The prospect of night's arrival brought with it a slow death to day sounds. Chirps and chirrups and trills started to give way to croaks and buzzes, hoots and howls.

Tall could no longer see the sun, though lengthening shadows told him it was surely settling to the horizon. He leaned forward, looked right, took in the view down the hill. Scanning slowly, he watched for signs of those lurking in wait. Turning the other way, he scanned his way up the hill.

Stillness, though comforting on some levels, was disquieting. He expected more animal activity. He heard the beasts sure enough, but they were always far off and never close. That in itself spoke of a close danger.

Earlier Tall told himself the eerie calm was Avea's fault. She wasn't an Inlander. She moved well enough through the thick foliage, but he'd been able to follow her progress, losing track of her only because she topped the hill. Now he walked her indirect course, cresting the hill near the prickly tangle she had stalked around for some time before proceeding. Tall did the same. He took in the position of the sun, noted where Avea crawled back and forth to look down into the gully and out to the deep bowl in the distance.

A creek in the meandering channel was her next stop. She'd followed it to the northeast. He paused to look, listen, and gather his courage.

The moment's hesitation brought clarity. The easy path was the fool's way. Sound carried across greater distances in the natural corridor the creek created. Anyone lying in wait would hear him coming, and whoever or whatever waited out there was close. He knew this as surely as he knew the feel of the staff in his hand.

Proximity sharpened his senses. By the time he decided on a workable path and began to work his way down, the sun was touching the horizon and the gully was completely enveloped in shadows. Avea gave him instructions to wait for this time before starting out, but he felt good about starting out early. He knew the twists and turns of the gully as seen from on high, how the stream flowed, and where best to work his way to the deep bowl. All things he'd not have known otherwise. He made good progress because of it.

Scrub and thickets filled much of the channel. Dense new growth was the trickiest to work around. Thin pockets of trees, the most dangerous, and it was as he was passing through one of these that the path ahead opened into the deep bowl that had seemed so far away.

Tall hunkered down, got a firmer grip on his staff. A flickering light in the distance was trouble, whether it was Lady Hravic's campfire or someone else's. He noted the position of the fire, its proximity to the east wall of the deep bowl. He stepped backward, retracing his earlier steps.

When darkness shrouded him, he removed his pack. It was as good a time as any to finish what remained of his supplies. He ate hurriedly, washed down the meager meal with the last of his water. As he no longer needed the pack, he discarded it. One less thing to worry about. He kept only the empty water bag, which he hoped to refill later.