Son of Avonar (59 page)

“He'll come.” D'Natheil closed his eyes, flicked his fingers in a small gesture, and whispered a word I couldn't hear. But I felt it. Most definitely. The sheriff felt it, too, and watched the Prince intently. When I heard the distant pounding of hooves and saw the chestnut appear on the next hilltop, I was not surprised. D'Natheil looked satisfied as the graceful animal galloped into our camp and stopped within reach of his master's hand.

Paulo grinned. “You must've learned his name.”

D'Natheil stroked the horse's head. “Indeed I did.”

“And what is it, then?” I asked.

“He is called Sunlight.”

A relieved Baglos finished the loading, while I pulled out the journal and showed Rowan and D'Natheil its secrets.

“The first riddle is obvious,” I said, tapping lightly on the page. “A river is a road that never sleeps, and its travelers have no feet—boats and fish and such, of course. And we know we're going to the mountains, so we must head upriver. But how far? When do we look for the next clue? The chest is the next, and it must indicate this one, ‘It is the lesser brother's portion that brings the greatest wealth and the lesser passage that finds its destination.' ”

“It would imply a decision point,” said D'Natheil. “A fork in the road or some such, and we would take the inferior way.”

“We'll have to trust that we'll recognize it.”

In a short time all was ready. The sheriff knelt at the top of the hill, raising a dirty thumb to his brow, as stubborn in his piety as in all else. And so we set off in the sparkling morning, leaving the mournful ruin to the wind and the sparrows. With six of us together, and D'Natheil yanked back from the brink of despair, I felt more confident than I had in many days. But after only an hour's riding on the little used path that paralleled the restless Glenaven, D'Natheil pulled up and looked back the way we had come. “We'd best ride hard,” he said, taking a deep breath. “Someone's close behind.”

The day flew by in a blur of grass and rocks and scattered trees. As we galloped toward the soaring majesty of the Dorian Wall, the gently sloping hillsides to the east and west of the river yielded to rougher country. Craggy knobs appeared, at first one here, one there, and then on every side. The meandering Glenaven moved faster here, darting restlessly between the rocks that threatened to stay its progress. Nowhere did I see any choice to be made as to our course.

We stopped briefly at midday to rest the horses. The hills and knobs had finally formed a continuous barricade on either side of the river, creating a narrow valley sparsely scattered with pine and fir. The air was hot and sultry, the breezes of the open country blocked by the encroaching walls. Though it seemed a year since Midsummer's Day, little more than six weeks had passed. The land remained awash in summer.

We did not resume the morning's banter at our stop. D'Natheil's eyes flicked frequently back the way we had come. Half an hour and we were on our way again, Baglos in the lead. Rowan and Kellea rode side by side just behind the Dulcé. Paulo stayed close at their heels, and D'Natheil and I brought up the rear. I was not about to let the Prince lag behind as he had on the day of the storm.

“Do the Zhid still call to you?” I asked, as we wound our way up the narrowing gorge.

“Yes. But it's easier now. I try to concentrate on everything you told me, on your stories.”

“The J'Ettanne were your people every bit as much as those in your Avonar. That's why I chose those things to talk about.”

“You're an exceptional storyteller. They seem far more real than anything Baglos speaks of.”

“Can you remember nothing of your years with Dassine? Ten years it would have been.”

He shrugged. “I keep thinking that if I work at it hard enough, I'm bound to see. But the memories stay just out of reach.”

“Why would Dassine have taken your memory and your voice before sending you? What circumstance could force him to do that? He said he had no alternative.”

“Perhaps he thought I wouldn't do what was needed. Because of the person I am. It's likely I don't want to know what's hidden.” Winter had touched his voice, and he dug his heels into Sunlight's flank. “Come, we must move faster.”

The Prince rode ahead to where Graeme Rowan was picking his way across the swift water. The track ahead of us on the east side of the river was tangled with tree roots and underbrush, for the water had eaten away at the bank, leaving it narrow and steep-sided. The track on the west side of the river was still unobstructed. I considered briefly that the east side might be the “lesser passage” of the riddle, but a few moments' observation convinced me it had been more than four hundred and fifty years since the east bank had been passable.

I needn't have worried. The Writer had buried his instructions so cleverly that he hadn't felt the need to make them true riddles. The way was very clear.

Half an hour or so after the river crossing, we heard a considerable rush of water ahead—a swirling pool of icy blue-green, the turbulent confluence of two healthy streams that formed the Glenaven. The stream on the right flowed from a broad grassy valley that angled almost directly west, funneling the afternoon sunshine straight into our eyes. The stream leaped and bounded its way through thick grass, dotted with clumps of yellow, blue, and white flowers.

The left branch flowed from a passage of very different character, a gloomy, narrow slot that at first glance appeared to have no path at all. Everything in my nature beckoned me to follow the sunlit valley, but I assumed that the darker way was ours.

“The lesser brother?” asked Rowan.

“It's the first likely thing,” I said. “If there's a path . . .”

“I'll take a look. If we go a little west where the water's slower, we can cross easily.” In moments Rowan was on the spit of rocks and sand between the two forks. Then he splashed through the stream, rode into the shadowed mouth of the narrower passage, and disappeared.

D'Natheil kept glancing over his shoulder while we waited. After a time that likely seemed far longer than it was, the sheriff rejoined us. “There's a path. Narrow. But I went in fairly deep, and it continued as far as I could see.”

“Hurry,” said D'Natheil. “Choose.”

“We go left,” I said.

“Some will go left,” said Rowan. “Kellea and I have decided that it's impossible for all of us to outrun a determined pursuer in these conditions. And it looks to get worse. But if the two of us were to go west, while the rest of you take the opposite way, then, unless the fellows on our tail have Kellea's talent, we might fool them. She says that it might be possible to mislead even one like her, if we take something with us that belongs to each of you. That may give you time enough.”

“I hate splitting up,” I said, though I knew that he was absolutely right.

“We'll loop back if we can. Kellea can find you.”

I pulled off the scarf I used to tie back my hair. Baglos produced a kerchief of his own and D'Natheil's discarded sandals. Paulo had nothing to give, but Kellea startled him by riding up close and yanking a hair from his shaggy mop. “Ow!” Paulo slapped his hand to his head.

“We'll see you again before we're done!” called the sheriff. Kellea was already galloping into the sunlight, and Rowan's great black horse shot after her.

“Go with your gods, Graeme Rowan. And you, Kellea,” I called.

D'Natheil and Baglos were almost halfway across the water, and I was right on their heels, glancing back to make sure Paulo followed. But the boy sat at the joining of the water, looking back and forth between the two parties. Before I could call out to him, he clucked at Molly and bolted westward after Graeme Rowan. I couldn't worry about his safety. There were no assurances along either route.

I disliked the eastern passage from my first step into it. The path Rowan had seen was scarcely worthy of the name—a narrow band of damp sand along the west side of the river. The walls of the gorge became steeper and rockier the farther we rode, and, in some places, the river widened until it reached almost from one wall to the other. Once, the track disappeared completely, and we had to ford the shallow water to pick it up again on the other side.

Another hour and the walls had become sheer rock faces, and the bottom of the rift grew darker, musty and close in the warm evening. Stomach in a knot, I glanced up frequently to prove to myself that there was no roof to cave in on me. The sky held the deep blue of evening, but in the flat-bottomed gorge it was already dusk, forcing us to slow our pace. The path varied a great deal in width, drips and trickles in every direction warning of side streams waiting to trip us up. And early spring waterfalls had bored out deep pools in the streambed, abandoning them as traps for the unwary traveler now that summer had quenched the falls. When the first stars winked into life overhead, we had found no spot suitable to stop for the night. I had to trust Firethorn to find safe footing.

We proceeded without incident until a soft word from the Prince signaled a halt. We dismounted, unsaddled the horses, and pulled out food and blankets, fumbling our way about in the dark. Baglos dragged brush from the steep banks and piled it up between us. “My lord, the only fuel hereabouts is damp and green. I'll never get it lit. Hot food and warmth would restore us all. If you could help, as you did in the storm . . .”

“I think not,” said the Prince. “Since we split off from the others, I can't feel the pursuit behind us. Every time they've caught up with us again, I've just worked some sorcery. I'm beginning to think that the more I do such things, the easier I am to find.”

His theory made sense. And as for me, I was too tired to regret the lack of comforts. I was long past hungry and could think of nothing but rolling up in my blanket and stretching my tired muscles on the damp earth. I told my companions to wake me when it was my turn to watch. “. . . or if there's need, I'll watch with you,” I told D'Natheil.

“This night is not so dark as the last,” he said from somewhere in the murk. “Nothing to fear.”

As I drifted off to sleep, I felt vaguely as though I were forgetting something important, but I was much too tired to dredge it up.

 

Baglos woke me while the strip of sky above us was still crowded with stars. “There's been no disturbance,” he said, as I tried to clear my groggy head. “When the Prince turned the watch to me, he said our pursuers have not yet discovered us. He sleeps.”

It didn't take Baglos long to join D'Natheil. Soon I heard the soft snoring I'd come to recognize as his. I leaned against the cliff face behind me and to my disgust found my back soaked almost immediately. Groping about in the dark revealed no dry spot. It would be a mistake to lie down again and expect to stay awake, so I had either to sit up without support or try to walk a few steps here and there without stepping on my companions or falling into the river. The hours until dawn stretched very long.

 

Morning came to the sky much earlier than it came to the bottom of the gorge, but even in the gray light, I found both the source of the dripping noises and the reason I could find no dry spot to lean on. I'd never seen anything like it. Moisture was leaking from the pores of the rock wall. If the sky had not been cloudless, one might have thought rain was falling high above the cliff tops. Thick moss, tiny red flowers, and slender vines of deep green laden with miniature purple berries burrowed their roots into the wet rock face, creating a colorful vertical garden. The sight changed my whole perception of the rift.

“The ancient face that weeps.”

I jumped. D'Natheil stood just behind me. “Of course! The third clue. ‘When one ascends the ancient face that weeps . . .' ” I peered into the blue-gray haze up the gorge. “But how does one ascend it? The walls go straight up and crumble in your hand. And why would they send us this way, if we needed to be on top? Surely there would be an easier path.”

“I suppose it will come clear like the other clues.”

Not half a league up the gorge, the river made good on the previous day's threat. The path vanished, and the water spanned the breadth of the rift. For a while the going was easy, the clear water only hoof-deep, the stony bottom easy to see. But then I followed D'Natheil around a sharp bend and saw the water lapping almost to his knees. “Stay to the right,” he called back to me, as I felt the icy water seep into my boots. Repeating the warning over my shoulder for Baglos, I fixed one eye on the Prince and one eye on Firethorn's footing to make sure we followed his lead exactly.

For a long hour we had no relief from the frigid water that varied from ankle to knee in depth. My feet were numb, and I patted and soothed Firethorn, promising him a winter of dry oats and hay if he would carry me through safely. I did not see Polestar step into the pool or Baglos slip from his saddle into the water. I only heard a great splash and a cry for help behind me.

“D'Natheil!” I yelled, coaxing Firethorn back toward Baglos, who flailed the water in panic. The Prince was just disappearing beyond the next turn.

D'Natheil quickly reversed direction and dived into the river from the back of his horse, swimming with powerful strokes toward the floundering Dulcé. Catching him around his chest, D'Natheil dragged Baglos back across the pool, swimming until he could get a foothold and then wading through chest-high water until he could haul himself and his soggy servant across the saddle of the patiently waiting chestnut. The wild-eyed Polestar found his way back to the shallower water. I maneuvered myself so I could grab the jittery beast's reins before he could bolt back down the gorge. The incident was over in moments, and I was relieved to see the chestnut lunge out of the water onto a mostly dry shore after one more turning of the path.