The Farwalker's Quest Read online

  Sudden nausea whirled in Ariel’s stomach. A black buzz in her head warned she might faint. She scooted on her backside the rest of the way to the ground.

  Zeke hurried to meet her. She threw her arms to cling to him, wobbly.

  Stretching his fingers to her bloody cheek, he blurted, “I was so afraid I was wrong!”

  “Where is he?” Ariel’s head swiveled. She tried to decide whether to run, and if so, which direction.

  “He climbed around to where Elbert fell and made sure he was dead. And took a few things from his pockets. Now he’s just sitting by our cave, waiting.”

  “No. I got tired of waiting.” Scarl had slipped, quiet as a breeze, around the front corner of the slab. He folded his arms to regard them. “You look about to pass out,” he told Ariel. “Come and let me make up for some of the abuse that you’ve taken.”

  “You just want to trade me for something and not share what you get.” Ariel’s mind had begun working again, and she squared her shoulders alongside Zeke. “But it’s two against one now.”

  A thin smile touched Scarl’s lips. “I’ll go you one better than that.” He pulled out his knife again. Knowing how quick he could use it, Ariel quailed. But the Finder merely thrust it into the soil near his feet. He directed his next words to Zeke.

  “I’ll be sitting there, waiting, as you said.” He held the boy’s eyes for a long moment before he retreated again.

  Ariel stumbled, weak kneed, to the knife. She found she did not want to touch it. Zeke didn’t mind. He pulled it out of the earth and tilted it, appraising.

  “I think he’s not what he seems,” he told Ariel.

  “You don’t know him. I do.”

  “I was watching. It looked to me like he just saved your life.”

  She shook her head, frustrated. Yet his words stuck, and memories flitted through her mind. Not all were welcome, particularly those in which Scarl had helped her stay warm or protected her, even subtly, from Elbert. Such reminders made it harder to hate him—but hatred had sustained her, and she feared giving it up.

  By the time she and Zeke pushed around the corner of the slab, she was angry as well as in pain.

  Scarl looked up. He sat on a stone just outside of where they’d slept. A few items from his pack lay scattered at his feet.

  “Good. I shouldn’t have expected either of you to trust me,” he told Zeke. “I won’t give you cause to use it, but keep that blade ready if you like. Come here, Ariel.”

  “Go ahead,” Zeke murmured to her.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t grab you.” Scarl shook his head. “I can’t trade anything for you. I never expected to.”

  “Why did you steal me, then?” Ariel demanded.

  “The man who sent us would prefer you were dead. I’ve been trying to keep you alive. But I didn’t get to you before Elbert caught up with me, and neither of us expected someone so young. That changed things.”

  “You’re not really a Finder, are you?” Zeke asked. Ariel suspected he was remembering something Ash had said.

  Scarl shrugged. “I can find. It’s not all I know how to do.”

  “Like killing people?” she blazed. “And stealing children?”

  Scarl rested his elbows on his knees and studied the dirt at his feet. “Both were easier than they should have been,” he said softly. “But I think both had to be done.”

  “Why?” Zeke wondered. He and Ariel swapped a glance.

  “I’ll tell you as much as I know. But it will take time. Please, Ariel—who once would be Healtouch—if you won’t let me, you’ll have to do something yourself. You only have so much blood.” He gestured to her arm.

  She looked down at her crimson-soaked sleeve. Maybe she moved her eyes too rapidly. Certainly she’d had too much strain that morning and nothing to eat. Her head swam. Her knees buckled next.

  Scarl and Zeke both reached to catch her. Scarl’s arms were longer and he wasn’t occupied with a knife. He settled her against the rock he’d been perched on. She didn’t like it, but she no longer had the will to resist.

  “Zeke, dig a jar from my pack and fill it with fresh water,” Scarl said. “The stream’s just over there. You can take your eyes off me for that long, I promise.”

  “I know,” Zeke said, already moving.

  Scarl ripped the slit in Ariel’s sleeve wider and eased the gooey fabric from the wound. He winced.

  “I can see the bone in there, girl. It must hurt.”

  “Not as much as my cheek.”

  His gaze moved to her face. “That’s not so deep, at least. That one can wait.”

  At first, the icy water Zeke brought stung her more than the knife had. Whimpers pushed through her clamped teeth. Finally the cold numbed some of the hurt.

  Scarl pulled Orion’s horsehair from his mended shirt to make stitches in Ariel instead. To make it stronger, he doubled it over. Looking at the length of the gash in her arm, Ariel thought it a good thing she’d mended more than one place in his shirt.

  As he threaded his needle, he warned her, “This is going to hurt, but it’s got to be done. Zeke and I will try to give you something else to think about.”

  “The telling dart,” she insisted. “I want to know why it matters so much.”

  He reached into a pocket. Ariel drew back, and her eyes darted to Zeke. The knife hung limp in his grip. But when Scarl’s hand reappeared, his fingers bore only the brass dart.

  “It’s yours,” he said. “Take it.”

  She did. He bent to her wounded arm. She braced herself.

  “Ready?” Scarl asked.

  At her nod, his fingers squeezed the wound’s edges together. She mashed her lips tight. A prick of the needle was followed by the sinuous drag of the horsehair. Those hurts were all but lost in the greater throbs that consumed everything below her elbow.

  “What does the dart say?” she asked through gritted teeth.

  Scarl shook his head as he stitched. “It’s a summons, but I can’t understand most of it. That’s one of the reasons I needed Elbert. He seemed to know.”

  “Was he telling the truth when he said nobody knows who sent it?”

  “Yes. You can see for yourself that the dart’s tail end is blank. That’s where the sender’s mark should appear.”

  Storian had said the same thing. Blinking away the water blurring her eyes, Ariel checked again anyway.

  “But I do recognize the sign for the receiver,” Scarl added.

  Zeke said, “The lightning bolt, right?”

  “Farwalker,” Ariel declared, mostly to see how Scarl would react.

  “You’ve figured that out, then.” He didn’t look up from her wound.

  Ariel exchanged a triumphant smirk with her friend. “But everyone thinks there aren’t any left—” She flinched at an especially clear jab of the needle.

  Scarl raised his eyes. “I meant it when I said it was yours. There’s one left—or I should say there’s one yet to be. I’m convinced this dart came for you.”

  The respect in his gaze may have given weight to the words. Or perhaps she’d simply been drawn far enough from her old life to be open to one that was new. Ariel stroked the lightning bolt mark. It seemed to buzz under her fingertip.

  “I don’t know how to be a Farwalker, though,” she protested meekly.

  “Not yet, maybe,” Zeke said at her side.

  “You asked what I did besides finding,” said Scarl as he stitched. “I often feel like a Fool. But they say a Fool sees the truth when wise folk don’t dare, and I can see the Farwalker in you. You’re on the path, Ariel. You just don’t recognize it.”

  Ariel shivered. She looked closer at her mark on the dart, seeing it for the first time as equal to the trade marks below it, which showed who else had received the same message. She frowned. Another symbol had vanished.

  “There were marks for every trade when we found it,” she said.

  “I saw them, too.” Zeke peeked over her shoulder. “But now two are missi
ng.”

  “The Judge symbol disappeared right away,” Ariel added. “I noticed when—” She stopped. She didn’t want Scarl to know about her copy. “The next day.”

  He may have assumed she merely was wincing. “If the person a dart is intended for dies, his symbol soon fades, along with the message. Elbert carried one completely blank dart. It had been sent to a Judge. What you’ve said tells me there’s another blank one somewhere.”

  “Someone is killing them.” Zeke’s voice had dropped to a whisper.

  Ariel gulped at Scarl. “Elbert. And you?” She wanted to pull her arm away from him. With the needle in it, she didn’t dare.

  “No, not me. Please believe that.” He looked into her eyes. She stared back, unblinking, but she didn’t feel like a good Fib-Spotter today. The lies seemed too tangled with truth.

  “But why?” Zeke asked. “Kill them, I mean?”

  “I can only guess, Zeke, without knowing precisely what the darts say. What I do know is this: besides your Farwalker’s dart, another dozen went out. Thirteen in all. But not to just anyone. Elbert lied about that. They went to the strongest, the most skilled, the top of the trade, whoever that might be. The Tree-Singer dart went to Mason—”

  “Who’s Mason?” asked Zeke.

  “He sent out the Finders,” Ariel told him.

  Zeke grunted, indignant.

  “I’m surprised you don’t know the name,” Scarl said. “Apparently the trees speak well of him to other singers. Another dart went to an old Storian named Liam. They both live in Libros. Liam must have told Mason what the dart said.”

  “Or his tree told him,” Zeke guessed.

  Distaste twisted Scarl’s features, but he didn’t argue.

  “Who got the Finder’s dart?” Ariel asked. “You?”

  Scarl snorted. “Hardly. Elbert.” At her incredulous expression, one corner of his mouth twitched. “It wasn’t a dart for a good man,” he added. “It was a dart for a very good Finder.”

  “I can’t believe Elbert could understand all those symbols,” she said.

  “Oh, he couldn’t. He had no patience for that sort of thing. But Liam Storian is known for his relics collection—Elbert mentioned it to you, I think—and our friend Elbert figured that was the one place where the dart might be worth something in trade. So he took his dart to Libros, too. That’s how Elbert met Mason. Through Liam.”

  Ariel scowled at her dart, putting names to a few of the trade marks. “Well, that Storian’s mark is one of the two that have vanished.”

  Scarl stopped stitching to peer at the dart for himself. His brow furrowed as he returned to his work.

  “How’d you get in the story, if you didn’t get a dart?” Zeke asked.

  “Mason sent Elbert to round up a handful of Finders, including me,” Scarl replied. “We were to collect all the darts, if we could, and make sure those who received them did nothing. Those were the instructions I got, anyhow. For speed, we scattered, each working alone.”

  “So you went around stealing everyone’s darts?” Ariel wondered how many homes besides Bellam Storian’s had caught fire.

  Scarl winced. “Didn’t have to,” he said. “Most people can’t understand them. Everyone I dealt with was happy to trade a confusing bit of brass for some finding. But I noticed the Farwalker sign among the others on the first dart I tracked down. That’s when I started wondering what was really going on. We’d been told that the message was meaningless, but if a Farwalker lived, and the darts thought one did, that alone was news no one should ignore. Besides, I’ve spent much of my life searching for old knowledge and old ways, and I’d give a lot to ask questions of anyone who’s traveled more than I have. So I went straight for the Farwalker dart.”

  Scarl knotted a stitch before he went on. “Elbert caught up with me first. He wanted to team up on the few darts remaining, and he insisted we go for the nearest. It had gone to a Judge. Do you know how Judges work?”

  “Not really,” Zeke said. “We don’t have one in Canberra Docks.”

  “A good Judge can tell a lie from the truth in a voice or through the brush of a hand. That’s one way they settle disputes. Anyhow, when we got to our Judge, Elbert held back and made me take the lead. Now I know why—he thought I’d fool her more easily, since all I knew was what I’d been told.”

  “Even I knew he was lying,” Ariel said.

  Scarl wagged his head. “Mm. That’s why he needed me. But Mason is much more convincing, and I didn’t yet realize how much I’d been misled, nor why. Still, the Judge knew something was wrong, and she wouldn’t give up the dart. Thinking she might have some glimpse of the truth, I was waiting for a chance to talk with her alone. Before I got it, Elbert silenced her. Permanently.”

  “You didn’t stop him?” Zeke sounded hurt.

  Scarl sighed and rubbed one eyebrow with the back of his wrist. “I had no idea it would happen. And it’s not easy to be on one side of a fight while pretending to be on the other. But I knew then that the Farwalker needed protection. If it wasn’t already too late.”

  Ariel eyed the places on her dart that had gone recently blank. They gave her a chill.

  “And that’s when you came to Canberra Docks?” she asked.

  Threading the needle anew, Scarl nodded. “At first I thought we’d come on a goose chase. The dart was broken. You just stumbled on it by accident. That’s what Elbert thought, too. When you failed your Naming test, though … I had to give him some other options. I couldn’t make the same mistake twice.”

  “So you snatched me.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice.

  His gaze rose again to meet hers. “I was trading for time. I almost lit out with you when he went to the roadhouse, too, and I probably should have, but I worried he might get his hands on another horse to catch us. And we’re still a long way from anyone I’d call a friend.”

  Ariel blinked as what he’d said meshed with things she already knew. This time, she did yank her arm from his grasp. She no longer cared about the added pain her jerk caused. Greater anguish had awakened within.

  “You let Elbert kill my mother!” She hurled herself forward. Her fists pounded against him. “You knew he probably would, and you let him!”

  He accepted her blows a long while, his eyes clenched in his wan face. Finally he wrapped his arms around her to contain her.

  “I couldn’t stop him,” he murmured. “It was all I could do to stop him from killing you, and that’s far more important. Though I don’t imagine you’ll understand that anytime soon.”

  “Never!” Overflowing with grief and anger and mottled confusion, Ariel sobbed and struggled against him. He let her go. She snatched up her dart from where it had dropped and hammered it down at him like a spike. He held her off, trapping her fist. She kicked him instead.

  The blows dwindled as her rage sank back to sorrow.

  Still holding her at bay, Scarl gave Zeke a helpless look. “Maybe you’d better finish her stitches.”

  Zeke blanched. With a sympathetic sigh, he put his free hand to his friend’s shoulder. “Ariel, just let him get done with your arm.”

  “No,” she moaned. But her struggling stopped. She drooped, limp.

  Gingerly, Scarl released her, resting his hands on her shoulders. “I am sorry. I didn’t want what happened in Canberra Docks. What Elbert told me made me sick. And I hated treating you harshly. I had to, if I was to keep Elbert’s trust enough to keep you alive. If he had doubted me any more than he did, he would have finished you long before now. And it took me a while to … to face the idea of killing someone myself.”

  Letting go of her shoulders, he blew a long breath through pursed lips. “I could only hope the rough treatment was making you stronger,” he added. “But I would make amends for as much as I can.”

  Unforgiving, she refused to meet Scarl’s gaze. He reached again for her left arm.

  Giving herself over to impulse, Ariel dodged. Without thought, she grabbed the knife
from Zeke’s slack grip and raised it. Two quick steps put the tip of the blade at Scarl’s throat.

  CHAPTER

  22

  “Ariel! Stop!” Zeke’s plea didn’t reveal who he most feared would get hurt.

  Now that she held the knife at Scarl’s throat, she wasn’t sure what would come next. He might snatch the knife back. She was certain he could. His hands had frozen in midair between them, and she almost wanted him to grab for the weapon. For a moment, the shock of wild actions covered the hole in her heart.

  Watching her face, he made his hands sink slowly again.

  Those hands dropping made Ariel feel powerful. Stretching her arm, she pressed the knife’s tip into the soft skin below his Adam’s apple. A dimple circled the point. Scarl drew his neck back from the pressure, but otherwise he didn’t move.

  At last he whispered, “What now?”

  It took a few seconds for words to flow into Ariel’s mouth. “Prove it,” she snarled. “Prove that you’re sorry. Prove anything you’ve said. I don’t believe you.”

  Scarl returned her fierce gaze. Ariel could hear her pulse pound in her skull. She waited for him to argue or snicker or plead.

  “I don’t know how,” he said finally. She felt the motion of his throat through the knife.

  “I can take you to people who will vouch for me,” he added. “Or I could take you to Mason, but I won’t. I don’t think either of us would leave Libros alive. Here, though, Ariel? I have nothing but things you’ve already seen. What proof would you have me give?”

  Ariel glared, unable to answer.

  “He’s telling the truth,” Zeke muttered behind her.

  “How do you know?” she demanded.

  “I … I don’t want to tell you.” Zeke shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not sure you’ll believe me, either.”

  Ariel resisted the strong urge to twist her neck for a good stare at her friend. He’d rarely said anything so strange. How could Zeke possibly earn the distrust she gave Scarl?

  “Try,” she told Zeke. Her attention remained fixed on the Finder.

  “The stone slab told me,” her friend said. “I can hear it muttering to me even now.”