Journey Of Thieves (Book 5) (2 page)

Hadrian set aside his ink-stained quill and his book, saying, “There’s no mystery in the would-be killer’s easy disappearance. A forest thief knows how to cover his trail. You two should know that. Luckily, we are too near our destination to be likely targets of that villain again. I doubt we’ll see more of him.”

I stopped listening, my eyes drifting to the remnants of the arrow that had so nearly taken my life. It was a fascinating object, not merely because there were dried flecks of my blood spattered across the tip but because there seemed to be some strange, invisible quality surrounding it.

Magic? Surely not. I stretched out my consciousness, seeking to touch the mysterious essence that lingered like a scent over the arrow. But my magic was as elusive as the aura of the arrow, leaving me to wonder if I was only imagining it. To my eyes and to the touch of my fingers, the arrow appeared ordinary in every way.

A discussion was taking place over my head.

“I care not how near our destinations lies.” Terrac sounded irritated. “We cannot travel now, not until Ilan has a full day to recuperate.”

He rested his hand on my shoulder, maybe out of sympathy or possibly as a silent nudge for my agreement. Either way, it was my injured shoulder and I flinched at his clumsy touch.

“There’s no need for this fuss,” I told both men. It’s my shoulder that’s taken a scratch, not my leg. I’m as fit to travel as either of you.”

Terrac looked like he wanted to argue. Ever since our relationship had taken its recent turn from the friendly to the tentatively romantic, his attitude toward me had changed. He could be at once overbearing and annoyingly protective.

I cut him off before he could begin. “No arguments. We’ve wasted enough of the daylight. If our next campsite is as close as Hadrian seems to think, I’d like to reach it before nightfall.”

That settled them, and within the hour we broke camp.

I had thought I could be at home in any woods, but the forested hills of Cros were nothing like what I was accustomed to. The terrain here was increasingly uneven. We always seemed to be climbing sharply upward or plunging down into valleys. The ground was rough, our path littered with rocks and lined with boulders. The grass was thin and sprouted only in occasional tufts between rocks. The spindly trees with leaves sparse on their branches were so different from the lush green canopy of Dimmingwood that it seemed faintly wrong to call them trees at all. Here was no pleasant scent of pine or elder. Even the songs of the local birds were foreign to my ear.

We did not break for our afternoon meal but ate as we walked to make up the lost hours of the morning. I was filled with nervous energy anyway and would not have rested easily. My eyes were constantly on the watch for a dark form moving among the shadows or for the end of a black cloak disappearing behind a tree. But I saw nothing suspicious. I had only the pain in my shoulder and the broken arrow carried inside my traveling pack to prove my encounter with the would-be killer had ever occurred at all.

The afternoon passed and the shadows of the trees had begun to lengthen when the path our party followed took us abruptly out of the wood. We were on open, sloping ground, and my aching feet detected that our path had turned completely to gravel. The steep hills had become small mountains.

I scrambled to catch up to Hadrian, who always seemed to be many yards ahead of Terrac and me despite possessing more years than the both of us combined.

“How much farther have we to go before we reach this camp of yours?” I asked. “Another hour or two and it will be dusk.”

For answer, Hadrian climbed a pinnacle of rock and, when I joined him, pointed out over the cliff’s edge. Here the world dropped away suddenly into empty air. But across this open space was another rocky peak where jagged cliffs rose opposite ours. There was a valley far below where a wild river rushed freely between high walls of stone.

But my attention wasn’t on the canyon. I was looking at the cluster of huts clinging, as if by magic, to the sheer face of the far cliff. These houses were connected to one another by a series of platforms and roped bridges, but how any of them kept their precarious purchase against the rock was impossible to guess. Across the distance, I could see tiny dots that were people moving among the houses and bridges, apparently not the least concerned by the dangerous drop to white river far below them.

“Behold the largest known settlement of magickers anywhere in the provinces,” Hadrian said. “This is Swift-on-the-Mountain. Or Swiftsfell, to the locals.”

Terrac joined us at the rock’s edge. “Swiftsfell? How is it I have never heard the name, when I spent most of my childhood in this province?”

I had nearly forgotten that Cros was Terrac’s province of birth, the place where his parents had died and he had first embarked on his journey toward Whitestone Abbey, Dimmingwood, and, ultimately, to me.

“Swiftsfell prefers to avoid attention from the outside world,” Hadrian said. “Those lacking magical abilities are typically forbidden entry. This community is a refuge for magickers driven from less hospitable places, where their power is forbidden by law.”

Terrac looked uncomfortable, and I guessed he was thinking of how the Praetor had once attempted to cleanse our province of magickers. We rarely spoke of my abilities, but I had the sense he was not altogether sorry my talent had been burnt out of me. Magic made him uneasy.

He said, “If magickless outsiders are discouraged from stopping here, why have we come? It’s well enough for the two of you, but I don’t have your powers.”

“No one says you cannot enter,” Hadrian answered. “Only that it will not be by invitation. Even Ilan and I may be looked on with suspicion, as strangers. But if my book of magical races and histories is to be completed, we must find a way to gain the trust of these people.” He thumped the thick tome carried inside his travelers pack. “Anyway, we have a dual purpose for this visit. I have information from my sources suggesting Ilan may find Swiftsfell very much of interest.”

He looked at me. “I believe this is the magicker settlement you were bound for ten years ago when you set out for Cros.”

It was a startling revelation. I thought back to the fateful day Master Borlan had set me atop a peddler’s wagon and given the old man instructions to deliver me to a place in Cros where I could live among others of my kind. A place where I would be safe from the soldiers who had killed my parents. But I never reached that mysterious destination thanks to the intervention of a band of forest brigands in Dimmingwood.

I looked over the rooftops of Swiftsfell. Was this really the home that would have awaited me had I finished that long-ago journey? Would this community of magickers have taken me in?

Compelled to learn more of this place and its inhabitants, I had only one question for Hadrian. “How do we get in?”

“A good question,” said Terrac. “It will take us days to make our way down into the canyon and cross the river and even longer to scale the cliff on the other side.”

“Perhaps not.” Hadrian was mysterious.

He led us down the sharp incline by way of a slippery path that was so rough I was not sure it actually
was
a path at all. It looked as likely to have been carved by wind and weather as by the hand of man.

All the while we descended, Hadrian seemed to be looking for something. We had not gone far when he stopped us. We were on a narrow ledge, just wide enough for the three of us, with a sharp drop-off overlooking the valley below.

“It should be about here,” the priest muttered under his breath, and he began exploring the face of the rock, scrubbing away dried clay and moss and scattering pebbles.

“What should be here?” I asked. “What are we supposed to be looking for?”

“There ought to be some sort of symbols or inscription etched into the rock. According to the description from my sources, it must be close.”

Terrac caught my eye, and I shrugged. If the priest was determined to be cryptic, it might be faster to help him instead of dragging the facts from him piece by piece. I joined the search, and Terrac followed suit.

“Is this it?” I asked a moment later, glimpsing some foreign writing carved into the stone at eye level. I peeled away the dead moss that had overgrown it until the entire inscription was revealed.

Hadrian came to my side, and together we surveyed the strange writing.

“It is the old tongue,” he explained. “You do not see this anymore outside scholarly writings.”

“But you can read it?”

“I would not be much of a cleric if I couldn’t decipher Old Writ.”

As he began to read the ancient words aloud, a chill crept over me.

A sudden gust of wind came whistling down the canyon. When it hit us, its cold teeth bit through my clothing. As the gust grew stronger, it snatched up Hadrian’s words and carried them away.

As thunder rumbled overhead, Terrac touched my arm and pointed skyward. A collection of dark clouds was swiftly forming, roiling directly overhead, while the sky in all other directions remained clear. It was an unnatural sight.

“Are you doing this?” I asked Hadrian over the rising howl of the wind. “I didn’t know you had weather abilities.”

He finished his incantation and shouted back, “It is no skill of mine. Whoever engraved this spell endowed it with great power.”

I raised my eyebrows. “I thought you didn’t approve of spells and incantations. You always said they smacked of dark magery.”

He put his head closer so I could hear him over the roaring gale. “I do not like any source of magic that is not naturally born. But I trust the goodwill of whoever created this spell.”

The intensity of the storm was growing. The wind tossed my hair into my face and ripped at my clothes. Hadrian motioned for me and Terrac to join him in planting our backs against the rock and bracing ourselves against the strength of the gale. Raindrops began to patter down around us.

The priest pointed out over the canyon, toward the distant village on the far cliff. “Look for the void in the rain!”

I wasn’t sure I had heard him correctly, but I looked anyway. And as soon as I did, I spotted it. Just a short distance away, the rain appeared to collide with empty air and bounce away as though from a solid object. There was nothing there for the drops to hit, only a yawning emptiness spanning between this cliff and the other. But somehow, impossibly, the rain picked out an invisible shape, a long and narrow stretch where the water spattered and formed pools and finally ran off in little streams.

The others saw it too, and together we approached the invisible bridge.

Terrac would have stepped out first, but I held him back. I did not trust that mysterious surface enough to let him test it. Not when I couldn’t see it or whatever supported it.

Hadrian went first. Cautiously he extended his walking-stick in front of him like a blind man, tapping the surface until he was satisfied it was solid enough to hold his weight. He took one step, then two, onto the invisible bridge.

Behind him, I held my breath, waiting for him to fall.

But he did not. Instead he kept going until he was well away from the safety of the ledge and standing, apparently on thin air, above the chasm.

I followed next. It was a strange sensation, walking on a surface I could feel but not see. Looking down between my feet, there was nothing to block my view of the canyon and the rushing river far below.

Whatever materials the bridge was made of, it was dangerously slick with the falling rain. Away from the shelter of the rocks, the wind was unnervingly strong, pushing and pulling at me as if wanting to throw me over the edge. I didn’t know whether there were invisible ropes or rails to prevent a fall. My hands found nothing but air to either side.

I was unused to such heights, and the view of the valley so far beneath me was dizzying. I had to stop looking down and focus instead on Hadrian’s back just ahead of me, following his every step until, together, we made it to the other side. Moments later, Terrac safely joined us. Only then did I dare to look back.

The wind and rain evaporated as soon as we were on solid ground again, the storm clouds dissipating so suddenly we had only our sodden clothes to prove there had ever been any storm. And without the rain, the bridge too disappeared before my eyes.

We were now on a rocky outcropping at the opposite side of the canyon from where we had started. The only visible way off this ledge was by a short walkway of timber and rope leading to a suspended platform from which branched a series of other walks heading to different parts of the village. At the end of these paths, dozens of small homes clung like the nests of mud-wasps to the sheer face of the rock.

We followed the near walk. Despite its swaying, I felt much safer on the ordinary bridge than on the invisible one we had just crossed.

As we came into what seemed to be the heart of the village, it was clear our arrival, or maybe the storm that made it possible, had not gone unnoticed. Heads poked out of doorways to watch us pass, and the locals crept out of their homes and onto the swinging bridges and suspended platforms. There was something cautious in their movements, as if they were undecided whether to greet us or drive us away.

This was my first close look at the inhabitants of Swiftsfell, and I studied them with interest, remembering what Hadrian had said, that fate had almost delivered me to this place as a child. How different might my life have been if I had grown up here instead of Dimmingwood?

The children looked clean and well fed and as content as any little ones I had ever seen. Among children and adults, I saw a mixture of races and clothing in varied styles that suggested many different provinces. I recognized the rough garb common in the mountainous province of Kersis and the smoother garments and tinkling accessories that might have come from Camdon. I saw too many folk like me, whose pale skin and silver hair denoted a distant Skeltai ancestry. Had all these people fled their home provinces and settled here for the same reason? To be free of persecution toward magickers? I saw more folk who looked like they belonged to my own province than any other, confirming my guess. These people would have sought refuge in Cros during the “cleansing” of Ellesus over a decade ago when the Praetor had attempted to destroy every magicker in the region—and very nearly succeeded.