Jarka Ruus (9 page)

The little boat—it was a skiff, Pen determined—whipped off the lake and into the cove, its single occupant hunched at the tiller. He was a Dwarf, gray-bearded and sturdy in build, cloaked against the wind and cold, working the lines of the sail as if trying to figure out what to do to get his craft ashore. Pen walked down to the edge of the water by the docks, waited until his visitor was close enough, then threw him a line. The Dwarf grasped it as a drowning man might, and Pen pulled him into the pilings and tied him off.

“Many thanks!” the Dwarf gasped, breathing heavily as he took Pen's hand and hauled himself out of the skiff and onto the dock. “I'm all worn out!”

“I expect so,” Pen replied, looking him over critically. “Crossing the lake in this weather couldn't have been easy.”

“It didn't start out like this. It was sunny and bright when I set off this morning.” The Dwarf straightened his rumpled, drenched clothing and rubbed his hands briskly. “I didn't realize this storm was coming up.”

The boy smiled. “If you don't mind my saying so, only a crazy man would sail a ratty old skiff like this one in
any
weather.”

“Or a desperate one. Is this Patch Run? Are you an Ohmsford?”

Pen nodded. “I'm Pen. My parents are Bek and Rue. Are you looking for them?”

The Dwarf nodded and stuck out his hand. “Tagwen, personal assistant to your aunt, the Ard Rhys. We've never met, but I know something about you from her. She says you're a smart boy and a first-rate sailor. I could have used you in coming here.”

Pen shook the Dwarf's hand. “My aunt sent you?”

“Not exactly. I've come on my own.” He glanced past Pen toward the house and outbuildings. “Not to be rude, but I need to talk to your parents right away. I don't have much time to waste. I think I was followed. Can you take me up to them?”

“They're not here,” Pen said. “They're off on an expedition in the Wolfsktaag and won't be back for weeks. Is there something I can do to help? How about some hot cider?”

“They're not here?” Tagwen repeated. He seemed dismayed. “Could you find them, if you had to? Could you fly me to where they are? I didn't expect this, I really didn't. I should have thought it through better, but all I knew was to get here as quickly as I could.”

He glanced over his shoulder, whether at the lake and the approaching storm Pen couldn't tell. “I don't think I can find my parents while they're in the Wolfsktaag,” the boy said. “I've never even been there. Anyway, I can't leave home.”

“I've never been there, either,” Tagwen allowed, “and I'm a Dwarf. I was born and raised in Culhaven, and other than coming to Paranor to serve the Ard Rhys, I've never really been much of anywhere.”

Pen grinned in spite of himself. He liked the strange little man. “How on earth did you find your way here, then? How did you manage to sail that skiff all this way from the north shore? If you get out in the middle of Rainbow Lake on days like this, you can't see anything but mist in all directions.”

Tagwen reached into his pocket, fished around, and pulled out a small metal cylinder. “Compass,” he advised. “I learned to read it at Paranor while exploring the forest that surrounds the Keep. It was all I had to rely on, coming down through the Dragon's Teeth and the Borderlands. I don't like flying, so I decided to come on horseback. When I got to the lake, I had to find a boat. I bought this one, but I don't think I chose very well. Listen, Pen, I'm sorry to be so insistent about this, but are you sure you can't find your parents?”

He looked so distressed that Pen wanted to say he could, but he knew his parents used the wishsong to hide their presence in dangerous places like the Wolfsktaag, the better to keep themselves and their passengers safe. Even if he knew where to begin to look, he doubted that he could locate them while they were using magic.

“What is this all about, anyway?” he asked, still unsure what the Dwarf wanted. “Why is all this so urgent?”

Tagwen drew a deep breath and exhaled so vehemently that Pen took a step back. “She's disappeared!” the Dwarf exclaimed. “Your aunt, three nights ago. Something happened to her, and I don't think it's something good. It hasn't been safe for her at Paranor for some time; I warned her about this over and over. Then she went into the Skull Kingdom with Kermadec to investigate some disturbance there, and when she came back, there was supposed to be a meeting with the Prime Minister—another snake in the grass—but sometime during the night, she just vanished, and now I don't know what to do!”

Pen stared at him. He didn't know who Kermadec or the Prime Minister were, but he could follow enough of what the Dwarf said to know that his aunt was in trouble. “How could she disappear from her own room?” he asked. “Doesn't she have guards? She told me she did. Rock Trolls, she said. Big ones.”

“They're all big.” Tagwen sighed. “I don't know how she disappeared; she just did. I thought that maybe your parents could help find her since I've done everything I can think to do. Perhaps your father could use his magic to track her, to discover where she's gone. Or been taken.”

Pen thought about it. His father could do that; he had done it before, though only once when Pen was with him, when their family dog disappeared in the Duln. His father probably could track Grianne, although only if she left a trail and hadn't just gone up in a puff of smoke or something. Where the Ard Rhys was concerned, anything was possible.

Tagwen rubbed his beard impatiently. “Is there anything you can do to help me or must I go alone to find them?”

“You can't find them on your own!” Pen exclaimed. “You wouldn't have one chance in a thousand! You barely managed to sail across Rainbow Lake in that skiff!”

Tagwen drew himself up. “The point is, I have to do something besides sit around hoping the Ard Rhys will show up again. Because I don't think she will. I've pretty much reconciled myself to it.”

“All right, but maybe there's another way, something else we can do.” Pen shrugged. “We just have to think of what it is.”

“Well, we'd better think of it pretty fast. I told you I don't have much time. I'm pretty sure I was followed. By Druids, I should point out, who don't want your aunt back, whether or not they're responsible for her disappearance in the first place. I expect they have decided I might be more trouble than I'm worth and would be better off ‘disappeared' somewhere, as well.”

He paused dramatically. “On the other hand, it is possible that they don't care about me one way or the other, but are coming down here to see about you and your parents. They know about your father's magic, just as I do. You can decide for yourself what use they might choose to make of it, should they find your parents before I do.”

Pen was taken aback. He didn't even know those people, Druids with whom his family had not been involved even in the slightest. That was his aunt's world, not theirs. But it seemed that Tagwen believed the two were not as separate as Pen had believed.

He wondered what he should do. His choices were somewhat limited. He could either tell Tagwen that he was unable to help, confined to this way station by direct order of his parents, who had made it quite clear he was forbidden to go anywhere while they were away and made him promise he would remember that—or he could break his word. It might be in a good cause to chance the latter, but he didn't care for the odds of his explaining it to his parents if he was successful in helping the Dwarf find them. That's if nothing else happened on the way to doing so, which was far from certain given the distance he must travel and the dangers he was likely to encounter.

He sighed wearily. “Let me think about this. Come up to the house for a glass of hot cider, and we can talk about it.”

But the Dwarf's face had gone white. “I appreciate the offer, Pen, but it comes too late. Have a look.”

He pointed out across the lake. An airship was making its way toward them through the drifting curtains of mist—a big, sleek three-master, as black as midnight. Frozen by the vessel's unexpected appearance and the consequences it heralded, Pen stared. All of a sudden, he wished his parents were there.

“Whose is it?” he asked Tagwen.

“It is a Druid ship.”

Pen shook his head, watching the vessel's slow, steady approach, feeling knots of doubt begin to twist sharply in his stomach. “Maybe they're just . . .”

He trailed off, unable to finish the thought.

Tagwen stepped close, a smell of dampness and wood smoke emanating from his clothing. “Tell you what. You can wait here and find out what they want if you wish, but I think I will be moving along. Maybe I won't go out the way I came in, however. Do you have a horse you can let me borrow?”

Pen turned to look at him. There was no mistaking the mix of determination and fear he saw in the Dwarf's eyes. Tagwen wasn't taking any chances. He had made up his mind about the ship and its inhabitants, and he did not intend for them to find him. Whatever Pen decided to do, the Dwarf was getting out.

The boy looked back across the lake at the airship, and in the wake of the uneasiness that its dark and wicked look generated, his indecision faded.

“We don't have any horses,” he said, taking a deep breath to steady himself. “How about a small airship and someone to sail her, instead?”

Eight

In that single instant, Penderrin Ohmsford's life was changed forever. Given what had happened already at Paranor, it might have been changed in any event, but likely not in the way his decision to go with Tagwen changed it. Later, he would remember thinking at the time that making the decision felt like a shifting of the world, not so much in the noisy manner of an earthquake but in the quiet way of the light deepening at sunset. He would remember thinking, as well, that he could do nothing about it because his family's safety was involved and he couldn't ignore the danger to them just to protect himself.

He took hold of Tagwen's arm and propelled him up from the landing to the dry dock where the cat-28 was tethered, telling the Dwarf to get aboard. There was no time to outfit her in the right way, to gather supplies and equipment of the sort a proper expedition required. He had her packed with spare parts, so that he could fix her if something went wrong out on the lake, but that was about it. He took just a moment to run into the shed for his toolbox, grabbing up a water container and some dried foodstuffs that he kept around to nibble on, then bolted back out the door.

He wondered for just an instant how big a mistake he was making. Then he dismissed the thought completely because he had no time or patience for it. Hesitation in circumstances like these always led to trouble, and he thought he probably had trouble enough with things just the way they were.

“Strap that safety line around your waist!” he called up to Tagwen, tossing the bag of foodstuffs and the water container onto the deck. “Stuff these into one of the holds in the pontoons!”

He worked his way swiftly from one tethering line to the next, loosening the knots from the securing pins and tossing the rope ends back onto the cat's decking. He did not look out again at the approaching airship, but he felt the weight of its shadow. He knew he had to get airborne and away before it got much closer or he would not be able to gain the protective concealment of the Highland mists and the low-slung clouds that would hide his escape. With luck, they might not even see him leaving, but he could not count on that.

When all the lines were unknotted save the one that secured the bow, he paused to look around the compound and tried to think if he was forgetting anything. A bow and arrows, he thought, and he rushed back into the shed to take a set from the weapons cupboard, along with a brace of long knives.

Rushing out again, he climbed aboard the cat-28, finding Tagwen, arms wrapped protectively about his knees, already strapped in and hunkered down in the aft hold of the starboard pontoon. It looked so comical that Pen wanted to laugh, but he resisted the impulse, instead scurrying to raise the sails to draw down whatever ambient light this gray day offered. There would be energy stored in the parse tubes, but the diapson crystals were small and not designed for long-term storage, so he could not rely on that alone to elude the larger ship.

He found himself wondering suddenly if its occupants would even bother coming after him. After all, they couldn't know who he was or what he was about. They were likely just to land and walk up to the house in the mistaken belief that the presence of
Steady Right
indicated that his family was still in residence. By the time they found out differently, he would be far away.

But what if Tagwen was wrong? What if the Druids were actually there to help in some way? Maybe those aboard the approaching ship were not among his aunt's enemies, but her friends. They might have come for the same reason Tagwen had come—to seek help from his father in tracking down the Ard Rhys. This could all be a big mistake.

He glanced at the Dwarf. Tagwen was staring out at the lake, his eyes wide. “We're too late, Pen,” he whispered.

Pen wheeled around. The big airship was right on top of them, sliding through the entry to the cove to hover over the water in front of the docks. It had advanced much more quickly than Pen would have believed possible, which indicated all too clearly how powerful and fast it really was. It might even be a match for
Swift Sure
, although he didn't think the airship existed this side of the Blue Divide that was that fast.

He saw her name carved into her great, curved rams, bold and etched in gold.
Galaphile
.

“That's her airship!” Tagwen exclaimed in dismay. “Your aunt's! They're using her own ship!”

“Get down!” Pen hissed at Tagwen. “Hide!”

The Dwarf ducked below the gunwales of the pontoon, and Pen threw a canvas over him, concealing him from view. He had no idea what he was going to do, but whatever it was, there was no point in taking chances until he found out if the Dwarf was right about who these visitors were.

There was also no point in pretending that he didn't see them, so he turned to watch the
Galaphile
's dark hull settle heavily into the waters of the cove. The skies over Rainbow Lake were darkening steadily with thunderheads and rainsqualls. It was going to be a bad storm when it hit. If he was going to make a run for it, he was going to have to do so soon.

He watched as a long boat was lowered over the starboard pontoon. Half a dozen passengers sat hooded and cloaked within, dark figures in the late afternoon gloom. Several took up oars and began to row, pointing the boat toward the docks. Pen caught a glimpse of their lifted faces as they strained against the oars. Gnomes, swarthy and sharp-featured, yellow eyes glittering and cold.

Something about the Gnomes convinced him instantly that Tagwen was right. He couldn't say exactly why, because he had encountered Gnomes before at Patch Run and on his travels about the lake. He stepped into the pilot box, unhooded the parse tubes stacked on both sides of the cat, and pushed the controls to the port and starboard thrusters forward just far enough to nudge the diapson crystals awake.

“Whatever happens,” he whispered to Tagwen, his head lowered to hide his words, “don't let them know you're there.”

“You'd better worry about yourself,” came the muffled reply.

The long boat had landed, and its occupants were climbing onto the dock and walking toward the compound, spreading out in all directions right away, a maneuver clearly intended to cut off anyone trying to get around behind them. Pen was terrified by then, standing alone on the deck of the cat-28, the brace of long knives strapped about his waist and the bow and arrows at his feet pathetically inadequate for mounting any kind of a defense. He couldn't begin to fight off men like those. Funny, he thought, how quickly he had given up on the possibility that they might be friendly.

One of them separated from the others and came toward him. This man wasn't a Gnome, and he wasn't wrapped in their mottled green and brown cloaks. This man wore the dark robes of a Druid. He was a Dwarf, and as he pulled back his hood to give himself a better field of vision, Pen immediately thought him twice as dangerous as the Gnomes. He had the stocky, square build of all Dwarves, the blunt, thick hands and the heavy features. But he was tall for a Dwarf, standing well over five feet, and his face looked as if it had been chiseled from rough stone, all ridges and valleys, nothing smooth or soft. His razor-edged eyes found the boy, and Pen could feel them probing him like knives.

But Pen stood his ground. There was nothing else to do except to run, and he knew that would be a big mistake.

“Can I help you?” he called out as the other neared.

The Dwarf came right up to the cat and climbed aboard without being invited, an act that in some quarters was considered piracy. Pen waited, fighting to control his terror, catching sight of the heavy blades the Dwarf wore strapped beneath his robes.

“Going somewhere?” the Dwarf asked him bluntly, glancing around in a perfunctory manner, then back at Pen.

“Home,” Pen answered. “I'm done for the day.”

He thought he kept his voice from shaking, but if he hadn't, there was nothing he could do to steady it that he wasn't already doing.

“Is this the Ohmsford place?” the Dwarf asked, squaring up before him, much too close for comfort. Behind him, the Gnomes were beginning to poke around in the shed and under the canvas-sheltered stores and equipment. “Bek Ohmsford?”

Pen nodded. “He's away, gone east on an expedition. I don't expect him back for weeks.”

The Dwarf studied him wordlessly for a moment, eyes searching his, measuring. Pen waited, his heart frozen in his chest, his breathing stopped. He didn't know what to do. He understood now why Tagwen had been so afraid. The Dwarf's gaze made Pen feel as if wild animals were picking him apart.

“Left you to look after things?” the Dwarf pressed.

Pen nodded again, not bothering with an answer this time.

“He must have some faith in you, boy. You don't look very old.” He paused, a lengthy silence. “I'm told Ohmsford has a boy about your age. Penderrin. That wouldn't be you, would it?”

Pen grinned disarmingly. “No, but he's my friend. He's up there at the house, right now.”

He pointed, and when the Dwarf turned to look, Pen shoved him so hard the Dwarf lost his balance, tumbled off the deck of the cat, and fell to the ground. Pen didn't think about it; he just did it, an act of desperation. He leapt into the pilot box and shoved the thruster levers all the way forward, unhooding the parse tubes completely. The response from the cat was instantaneous. It lurched as if it had been struck from behind, bucking from the surge of power fed into the crystals, snapping the bowline as if it were string, and careening directly toward the
Galaphile
.

Pen, braced in the pilot box and hanging on to the controls for dear life, had only an instant to respond to the danger. He pulled back on the port thrusters, swinging the cat left to sweep past the foremast of the Druid airship, coming so close that he might have reached out to touch her. Shouts and cries followed after him, then a volley of arrows and sling stones. The whang and snap of them caused him to crouch deep in the box, gasps escaping him in little rushes as arrows embedded themselves in the wood frame of his momentary shelter. The cat shot out over the waters of the cove and surged through an opening in the conifers to Rainbow Lake and the approaching storm.

What had he done?

There was no time to consider the matter and little time for much of anything else. He caught a glimpse of Tagwen flinging off the canvas covering and peering back at the flurry of activity onshore, where the Dwarf and the Gnomes were rushing for the long boat. Pen's heart was pounding so hard he could hear it inside his ears. It would take them only minutes to reach the
Galaphile
, and then they would be coming after him. As big and fast as the Druid airship was, they would quickly run him to earth.

If they caught him now . . .

He didn't bother finishing the thought. There was no time for thinking about anything but flying the cat. He gave her all the power the diapson crystals could deliver, bringing her up to a little over two hundred feet, then turning her east down the lakeshore toward the distant Highlands and the heavy mists that draped those rugged hills. Concealment could be found there, a way to lose pursuit, his best hope for finding a way to escape.

“Do you know who that was?” Tagwen gasped from his shelter, peeking frantic-eyed over the gunwales. “That was Terek Molt! He would have cut you to ribbons! Still might, Penderrin Ohmsford! Can this ship fly any faster?”

Pen didn't bother with an answer. The Highlands were still some distance away, and a quick glance over his shoulder revealed the dark rams of the
Galaphile
nosing into view out of the cove, already in pursuit. Those Gnomes were sailors; they knew what they were doing. He had hoped that they were land creatures filling in, but he should have known better. Druids wouldn't bother using anyone who wasn't good at what was needed.

“If Terek Molt is behind this, then I was right about the Ard Rhys!” Tagwen shouted, and then disappeared back down into the pontoon hold.

Pen canted the mainsail to take advantage of the storm wind howling across the water. The cat was buffeted and shaken by its force, but propelled forward, as well, riding the back of sharp, hard gusts. Rain was falling steadily, picking up strength as clouds closed about. The storm would help to hide them, but Pen didn't want to be caught out on the lake when it struck. A blow of that magnitude could knock a cat-28 right out of the skies.

He took her down to less than a hundred feet off the surface of the water, hugging the shore as he fought to regain land. They were well beyond the Duln and the mouth of the Rappahalladran, the Highlands already visible on their right, rugged and mist-shrouded under a ceiling of clouds hung so low that the horizon had disappeared.

“Penderrin!” Tagwen shouted in warning.

Pen turned and found the
Galaphile
looming out of the rain and mist, closing the distance between them far too quickly. How much time had passed since they fled from her? It didn't seemed like any time at all. Pen glanced ahead, then angled the cat to starboard, heading directly off water and inland, seeking the cover of the Highlands. If he could gain the hills, he would look for a place to set down, somewhere leafy and shadowed where he couldn't be seen from the air. But if one didn't present itself immediately, he would have to keep flying. On balance, his situation seemed hopeless, his chances so poor he couldn't imagine what he had been thinking to try running in the first place. What if Terek Molt had the use of magic to track them, just like his aunt? Druids had all sorts of magic they could call upon.

Pen, on the other hand, had none at all.

Straight into the mists he flew, recklessly disregarding what might be hidden there. Cliffs and rocky outcroppings dotted the coastline, dangerous obstacles for any craft and disastrous for one as small as his. He had flown the hills repeatedly over the years, but not in such poor weather and not under such desperate circumstances. He kept his eyes locked on the movement of the clouds and mist and listened to the sound of the wind as it shifted. White curtains enveloped him, closing everything away. In seconds, he was alone in an impenetrable haze of rain and mist.