The Farwalker's Quest Read online

  “Pretty hungry,” she thought, but she grimaced.

  “Tell you what,” he said, carrying it back to her. “We’ll take it with us in case we don’t come across anything better soon.”

  She held out his glass. “You do it.”

  “I’m much more concerned about getting us out of the Drymere, and the glass will reflect that.” He slipped it with the dead lizard into his coat. “But being hungry served you well for a first try, my little apprentice.”

  “I’m not a Finder,” she protested, appalled. She didn’t want to be like him.

  “I think you’ll need to learn a bit of everything, if you can.”

  “To be a Farwalker, you mean?”

  “Just to survive. If you can do that, the farwalking skills will rise by themselves.”

  Although the thought of such skills reassured her, the word that echoed longest in Ariel’s mind was that “if.”

  When Zeke returned from the top of the chasm, he brought a groundmelon with him. His bright orange lips made it clear that Ariel was not the only one hungry enough to be selfish.

  “Where’d you get that?” Scarl asked as Zeke offered his fruit. Ariel took it.

  “When I woke up, I climbed down to the sand over there.” Zeke gestured vaguely.

  Scarl’s face clouded. “Don’t go so far. You said yourself that Gust’s band is still out there. And despite what either of you may think, I’m not eager to see you dead.”

  Ignoring his pointed glance, Ariel cracked open the melon. It wasn’t ripe, but she suspected it still tasted better than lizard.

  “We’ll walk tonight under the moon,” Scarl told them. “We’ll get farther without water that way, and perhaps farther from our enemies, too. Drink up while you can.”

  All three filled their stomachs to sloshing. Scarl turned his coat inside out, knotted the end of a sleeve, and filled it with water. He watched the sleeve seep.

  “This may not last long,” he said, “but it’s worth a try.”

  He entrusted his filled tin cup to Zeke, who held a melon rind overtop against spills.

  They climbed to the top of the chasm. There Scarl paused, used his glass briefly, and then peered into the dunes behind them. When he was satisfied with the blankness of a certain swath of horizon, he turned.

  “Ariel, you did so well at finding, I want you to try something else. I’m just guessing at this, but …” He shrugged and gestured forward. “Take us out of the Drymere.”

  “Me?”

  Even Zeke gave Scarl a doubtful glance.

  “You. I won’t let you lead us too far astray.”

  She looked at Scarl’s dripping bundle of oilcloth and the small cup in Zeke’s hands. “But we don’t have much water,” she argued. “Or food.”

  “You’d best hurry, then,” Scarl replied softly. He shifted his gaze to the eastern horizon.

  Dubious, she waited. At last she said, “I’ll need your glass, won’t I?”

  “You shouldn’t. This isn’t finding. You’re a Farwalker. Walk. Follow where your feet take you. I think your path will appear.”

  “Ah. Go where the stones want you to go,” Zeke said. “I get it.”

  Ariel listened with growing dismay. Scarl’s request seemed unfair. Guiding them was his job, and the least he could do, if you asked her.

  “Try it.” Zeke said, nudging her.

  “I’ll give you two bits of advice,” Scarl added. “They’re true for finding, so I suspect they’ll be true for you, too. Don’t think too much and don’t question yourself. Go.”

  She crossed her arms stubbornly, planting her feet. Scarl tried to hide a smile by casting it down to his boots. Zeke simply gazed at Ariel until she wanted to slap him.

  “Fine.” She spun and angled across the stone slope. If Scarl wanted her to get them lost so they all died of thirst, she would do it. Fuming, she marched toward the horizon.

  Zeke caught up to walk alongside her. Scarl trailed behind like a shadow. After a while, soothed by the rhythm of her legs, Ariel forgot her annoyance and even some of her hunger. She and Zeke took turns sipping water as twilight sank into night. The staring moon watched their progress until it, too, fell behind them.

  First the cup and then Scarl’s oozing sleeve were long empty before Ariel’s legs started to weary. They were growing stronger. But as dawn failed to come and the night only stretched onward, shivers began racking her shoulders. The desert chill seemed to mock the hot, sticky thirst in her mouth.

  “I can hear your teeth chattering, Zeke,” Scarl said. “Want my coat?”

  “I’m okay,” Zeke lied.

  “Well, it’s too big for Ariel alone; it’ll hang down and trip her. Why don’t you each take a sleeve? You’ll warm one another that way.” Scarl pulled the oilcloth from his shoulder, where he’d slung it once they’d licked off the last of the water. He passed it to Zeke.

  “What about you?” Zeke worried.

  “I’m feeling fever. Might as well use it.”

  Neither Scarl nor his coat was so big that the two friends didn’t bang shoulders and kick ankles at first. They soon fell into locked step, though, considerably warmer. And their nearness made it easy to whisper together.

  “He hasn’t changed your direction or stopped you,” Zeke noted.

  “He wants us to shrivel up somewhere like dried-out worms, that’s all.”

  “No, he doesn’t. He’s just pushing you.”

  “Why are you sticking up for him?” Ariel’s voice jumped above a whisper. “Have you forgotten your maple? If he’d told your father or Storian the truth about Elbert, the trees might not have burned. And we wouldn’t be here.”

  Zeke stared at his feet. “I won’t ever forget. But I don’t think it’s that simple. Besides, I like him, even if he would save you first. And the stones like him, too. They—”

  “Enough about the dumb rocks, all right?”

  That silenced him. Ariel regretted her words immediately. Zeke would not meet her eyes, and with him pacing so close alongside her, his hurt feelings spilled back onto her.

  She tugged her arm free from the coat. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, dropping her sleeve and pulling away. “I didn’t mean that.”

  “Get too warm?” Scarl asked doubtfully from behind.

  Ariel shrugged, in no mood to say more than she must to the Finder.

  “Would you like a drink?” he added.

  She spun, her frustration blazing. “You’ve had more water this whole time?”

  “No.” Scarl pointed. “You’ve been walking past a creek’s tail for five minutes.”

  With effort, her eyes found the dark trickle in a swath of wet sand. She ran to get there. It was maddening trying to fill her cupped hands without scooping up sand. The water tasted like rocks, but it still brought juicy joy to her tongue.

  Zeke dropped beside her. Scarl arrived more slowly, surveying their empty surroundings.

  “No hurry,” he said. “We can rest here without fear of ambush.” He sank to his knees. “By the way, Ariel, the head of this creek lies in Hartwater, so we can just follow it now. I’ve been here before—and I couldn’t have found the route better myself.”

  Surprise lit Ariel’s face. She looked back over their tracks, uncertain whether to feel foolish or proud. Then she realized that both her companions were smirking.

  “Hmph. I told you I could do it,” she said.

  CHAPTER

  28

  Thirteen, Ariel thought to herself, was a number of power. The moon circled the earth thirteen times during a circuit of the sun, and young people took Naming tests in their thirteenth year. They’d once had a thirteenth trade to choose, too, but that was extinct—other than her.

  She peeked at the Finder striding alongside her. The sun would soon heave itself over distant hills to glare in their eyes. Regretting some of her recent hostility, Ariel mustered the nerve to break the hush that accompanied their footsteps.

  “Scarl?”

 
“Yes?” He did not look over.

  “Was the thirteenth trade unlucky? Is that why there aren’t any other Farwalkers left?”

  He snorted. “You could say so, I guess. But the fault doesn’t lie in the number. Blame the Forgetting instead.”

  When he didn’t go on, she said, “I was hoping you’d finish the story you were telling before we ran into Gust.”

  He gave her a long, sideways appraisal.

  She swallowed her pride to add, “Please?”

  “Did the Farwalkers fight the Forgetting and lose?” Zeke asked.

  “Just the reverse,” Scarl said. “They helped, only to be forgotten themselves.”

  While people were blind, he explained, Farwalkers spread hope, and eventually, the glad news that children had once more started to see. By the time most everyone’s eyes worked again, though, Farwalkers weren’t nearly so needed. Villages had grown and could get along on their own. For a while, those in favor of Forgetting relied on Farwalkers to help collect and destroy the relics they found on their travels.

  “Dumb,” Zeke declared. “Why’d they help with that?”

  “Don’t be too hard on them,” Scarl said. “A few saved what they found, or gave relics in secret to Storians, which is why we have any at all. But they had to eat, too, and perhaps they didn’t realize where such a path led. After most of the old mysteries had been destroyed, the people who did it began discouraging Farwalker visits. Storians could be kept busy teaching children to count, but Farwalkers had become dangerous relics themselves. They’d seen too much in their travels, and their trade stood for sharing and remembering, not Forgetting. Attitudes shifted, and welcomes became chilly. Some Farwalkers ended hungry and alone. Others took up fishing or reaping, changing their names. Young people stopped asking for a Farwalker test on Namingfest days.”

  “So I’m some kind of outcast?” Ariel’s heart flopped.

  “If you were only an outcast,” Scarl replied, “nobody would be trying to kill you. That’s what Zeke’s stone meant when it said Gust’s band ‘forgot with their hands and their feet’—wiping away the past and anyone, anything, that might bring it back. It seems Mason is so afraid of repeating mistakes that he shuns the old ways completely. He can’t see, or doesn’t care, how important a Farwalker could be for our future.”

  “But if the stuff left after the war is all gone or wrecked, how could one Farwalker make any difference?” Zeke asked.

  “It’s not just the relics he fears, Zeke. It’s knowledge itself. That’s the problem. People still stumble on better ways to do things, but we’ve lost the ability to share good ideas, so they fade again when the person who uses them dies. Villages are too far apart. Strangers are regarded with the utmost suspicion, particularly if they can’t win friends by finding.” He eyed Ariel. “Believe me, I know. A Farwalker could change that, although it could take a long time, because many places may be hostile from habit.”

  “Why bother killing me?” Ariel grumbled. “I’ll probably die of loneliness anyway.”

  “Well … there’s one other factor,” Scarl said. “There was a story that once gave people hope. It spoke of a place underground. At the start of the war, or shortly thereafter, valuable things were taken there for safekeeping.”

  “The Vault!” Ariel exclaimed. “We know that story. It’s supposed to be at the end of a rainbow. Or in a hole at the bottom of the sea.”

  “Or down a pink rabbit’s burrow or beneath a circle of mushrooms or under the roots of a two-hundred-foot tree,” Scarl countered. “There are dozens of versions. Every generation, a few Storians have chased what they thought were new clues. They’ve all given up or died in the wilds, losing themselves instead of discovering what they sought.”

  “Have you looked?” Zeke wondered.

  Rue tugged at Scarl’s features. “Long and far,” he admitted. “That’s why I eventually became a Finder. But you can’t find what doesn’t exist, Finders say. Certainly I’ve not found any store of old treasures.”

  “But … ?” Ariel prompted, her skin tingling.

  “The telling darts,” Scarl said. “I told you I don’t understand most of the summons, and that’s true. But I recognized one of the symbols, because I’ve spent much of my life searching for it. Your dart bore the mark for the Vault.” He reached toward Ariel, a plea on his face. “I didn’t mention it sooner because I feared you would think I was only hunting treasure. I couldn’t care less about gold or jewels. I care about the Forgetting. It’s gone on too long. And only the Vault can help us remember.”

  Ariel trod carefully through the gravel that had replaced the sand underfoot, feeling as though she walked a jetty surrounded by sharks. Scarl had been correct: if she had known from the start he was after the Vault, she would have rejected his proposal outright. Since then her mistrust had ebbed—and her commitment to her calling had grown. But his revelation still made her uneasy. So much was at stake.

  “The Farwalker who spreads the news and contents of the Vault will be anything but an outcast, believe me,” Scarl added. “Most people will be thrilled to learn the legend is true. And that is why Mason wants to kill you.”

  “But if somebody found it,” Zeke protested, “and sent the darts to invite people to see it, that person must be dead now, since the sender’s mark has faded.”

  Scarl shrugged. “There could be other reasons for the missing sender’s mark. Perhaps it wasn’t a person, for instance. I think the Vault itself might have sent them, like witch broom flowers shoot seeds. Maybe a certain number of years had to pass first. Or Ariel had to be born and grow up a bit. I don’t know.”

  Goose bumps tickled Ariel’s arms. “You think the dart says where the Vault is?”

  “I doubt it’s that easy. If it were, Mason could have already stripped or destroyed it. Especially with help from Elbert and Gust, who were probably easy to bribe. It’s harder to imagine Liam Storian going along, even for wealth, so I can only guess that he argued and has since paid the price. Luckily, few people know I was once a Storian myself. And Elbert liked to talk. That’s how I’ve pieced together as much as I have.”

  Zeke swatted his bangs from his eyes. “But my maple, and things Ash said … the trees think all this is important. A great Tree-Singer wouldn’t ignore that. He couldn’t do such terrible things.”

  “He may not think they’re so terrible, Zeke. Mason seems to believe that we’re all better off without anything that may be in the Vault. Everyone who favored the Forgetting agreed. And perhaps he fears that if the Vault is found, the world won’t depend so much on Tree-Singers and trees. The people of Libros defer to him greatly. I’m sure he would not like to lose his place as the Farwalkers did.”

  “The world will always need Tree-Singers,” declared Zeke.

  “I can’t believe any of them would commit murder to make sure of it,” Ariel added.

  Scarl’s eyes slid to hers. “You’re still young, Ariel. People sometimes kill for a lot less than that.”

  “Not in Canberra Docks!”

  “No, I’m sure you’re right. And that’s exactly the argument used to justify the Forgetting.”

  “Maybe we should just forget, then.”

  Sighing, Scarl kneaded his forehead. “Let me show you some reasons for remembering before you decide.”

  “Like what?”

  “You’ll see soon enough. We’ll be in Hartwater by nightfall day after tomorrow.”

  Ariel whimpered at the promise of food and a long rest for her feet. Zeke’s grunt was more thoughtful.

  “The Storian you want us to meet,” he said slowly. “Were you his apprentice?”

  “Yes,” Scarl replied. “He’s my grandfather. As well as the best Storian I know, now that Liam’s apparently dead.”

  “Oh!” Ariel’s feet stopped. “You’re taking us to your village?”

  “I know I can trust people there,” he told her. “To fight for you, if need be. And my grandpop is sure to have some idea what to do next.
”

  The sand and stones of the Drymere slowly gave way to scrub brush and thorns. When a stunted tree appeared, they stopped in its shade. Ariel flopped to the ground. Her stomach complained noisily.

  “Ready for that lizard yet?” Scarl teased.

  Her forehead wrinkled. “Well … can we cook it?”

  “Yes.” Scarl dug in his pocket. Instead of the lizard, he pulled out his glass. “But I’ll see if I can find us anything better to go with it.”

  Ariel tried not to stare as he worked. Her eyes strayed to his glass anyway. Black specks burst inside it like fleas, then swarmed and melted together until the whole glass looked dark as obsidian. He pocketed it, kicked over a rock, and scooped something from the hollow beneath.

  Ariel’s face fell. Nothing he found under a rock could be better than lizard. She was horrified when he returned with his tin cup full of beetles.

  “Ugh,” said Zeke. “You expect us to eat those?”

  Scarl whistled. “We probably could, Zeke, but if you do, you’re more man than I am. They’re buzzers. I was planning to use them as bait.”

  “The fish line’s in your back,” Ariel reminded him.

  “I haven’t forgotten for an instant, believe me. But I’m not baiting fish. Try to be quiet and still for a while.”

  He overturned the cup near the tree. The trapped insects buzzed angrily. Holding his coat in his hands, Scarl stood against the tree trunk and waited. Zeke napped, but Ariel couldn’t. The beetles’ noise scratched too loudly at her brain.

  Shortly, a fat gingerbird changed course overhead and flapped down near the tree, approaching the overturned cup one wary step at a time. Scarl tossed his coat like a net. A quick motion later, their breakfast was ready to pluck.

  “Can I try?” Ariel asked.

  Scarl handed her his coat. “Throw when you think it’s a moment too soon, or the bird will get the bait and be gone. I’ll start a fire.”

  Passing gingerbirds couldn’t resist. Ariel’s first quarry flapped away with a croak. The second fluttered free from her arms. She awaited bird three as the mouthwatering smell of Scarl’s roasting bird wafted past. Ready to give up and eat his, she found herself with an armload of angry bird in a coat.