The Farwalker's Quest Page 26

  Zeke sighed. “Does it ever get done?”

  “Go with him if you want,” Ariel called over her shoulder. She didn’t mean it, and everyone knew it. Zeke gave Scarl a farewell and hurried after her.

  For an hour, Ariel fought the impulse to turn and look back. When they’d left Hartwater, she had taken comfort from the possibility of Scarl coming behind them. Now his silhouette could only be moving away. Before her, shrubs and brush dotted hollows as she and Zeke traversed to a wetter side of the mountain. To Ariel, though, this land felt emptier than even the Drymere.

  The pair walked in silence most of the day. Tears slipped now and then down her cheeks, but she made sure they fell without sound.

  As the sun slid to the earth, Zeke wondered, “How much farther do you think it is?”

  The feeling that her feet were being tugged had returned, but it had never hinted how far she’d be drawn. Ariel shrugged.

  A few steps later, she said, “It’s for me, Zeke. A message for me. I have to go get it, if I can. If we just go home now …” She couldn’t push past the dread images that arose in her mind: an empty stone cottage. No Healtouch in Canberra Docks anymore. The only surname for Ariel there would be Fool. She could imagine the village without her mother, but she no longer wanted to see it. Not until she had nowhere else left to go.

  “I know,” he said. “It’s all right.”

  The sigh in his voice jolted Ariel’s sympathy loose. “Thank you so much, Zeke, for sticking with me. Do you miss your family awfully?”

  Zeke clenched his teeth, trying hard not to either cry or shout at her, Ariel wasn’t sure which. “Yes,” he said finally. “But you didn’t see my dad after the burning. I—I don’t know if he’ll be there when we get back, not really. Not him.” Zeke turned to her swiftly. “And you know what? Whenever we get back, I won’t be there, either. That’s almost the worst.”

  Ariel thought she knew what he meant. She pushed back an urge to tell him she admired Ezekiel Stone-Singer far more than the Zeke she’d known in Canberra Docks. The words would have eased her guilt, but she wasn’t sure they would make him feel better. So instead she rubbed his shoulder and suggested they stop for a rest.

  They snuggled beneath a large candle-wax shrub in the lee of the mound made by the tunnel beneath them. The late-afternoon sun soaked into them pleasantly. Zeke took bites of their food, but Ariel didn’t feel hungry, only tired. Instead of just resting, they both fell asleep.

  When Zeke blinked and yawned a few hours later, he could not shake Ariel awake.

  Her dreams only gradually twisted. At first, she sat near the hearth back home, aware that her mother stood just around the corner in her workroom. Ariel smiled, eager to see her, but she felt thirsty, very thirsty indeed. Her throat grated when she tried to swallow. So instead of visiting her mother, Ariel headed outside to the well.

  The village square, where the well should have been, held a graveyard. A dead tree guarded each mound. Misha wandered among the graves as if looking for one that he wanted.

  Her thirst made more sticky by dread, Ariel cowered, barely breathing. If Misha noticed her there, he would invite her into a grave, and she knew, in that case, she must go.

  A bird winged past her, the size of a raven but with feathers as gray as a dove’s. It lit on Misha’s shoulder. Another bird circled the far side of the graveyard. Perhaps because Ariel had thought it, the second bird was a dove. It fluttered in midair, not sure it wanted to perch. Misha raised his hand. Flapping uneasily, the dove dropped to his fingers.

  A sea fog rolled in, cloaking Misha and the birds. A new figure emerged a few paces ahead, regarding the graves just as Ariel did. She could not see his features, but she knew it was Scarl.

  “Ariel?” he called across the graveyard. She was too stiff with fear to respond. Besides, she didn’t want attention from anyone—or anything—there.

  The mist parted, and Misha stepped from behind the nearest dead tree, his lips curled in distaste. Scarl backed away. The ghost muttered words that did not reach Ariel, and then he glanced over his shoulder to the tree. Both gray birds perched on its bones.

  At Misha’s look, the gray raven hurtled toward Scarl. He flung one arm over his eyes. The bird hit him in the chest, talons slashing.

  Recoiling, Ariel clapped her hands to her face. She peeked out between fingers.

  Scarl and Misha both jerked their heads toward her, two sets of eyes staring into her own.

  Before she could speak, a monstrous wave rose from the sea, snatched her up, and carried her off.

  CHAPTER

  39

  Ariel could not figure out why she couldn’t wake up from her bewildering dreams. Zeke had awoken from his nap; she knew because his face kept looming over hers, asking questions she couldn’t hear. After a while, Scarl’s face appeared, too. She felt hands on her, hands all the time, so she supposed Misha also was there, though she did not see him again.

  “Go away,” she told them all. “Let me wake up.”

  She wanted to get to the mouth of the mountain, but her stomach hurt. So did her back and her head. Perhaps she shouldn’t have fallen asleep in the sun. It had given her a headache and strange, thirsty dreams, as if she and Zeke had stumbled back into the Drymere.

  After a while she dreamed solely of water: the creek where the pollywogs lived, the Hartwater basin, the sea. She once felt water in her mouth, cool when she felt so hot. The water rushed back out, warm. Her stomach didn’t want it. Only her dreams wanted water, it seemed. In watery dreams she was drowning.

  Ariel lay blinking at the stars a long time before she realized they were not sparkles deep in a well.

  She turned her head to the right. It hurt to move, and her skull felt full of mud, so she didn’t move it back. She just let her eyes wander.

  She recognized nothing about the hollow where she lay. The candle-wax shrub was gone. She could have reached one foot to the ashes of a fire, though. Perhaps the shrub had burned. Beyond the gray mound, a slender form curled in sleep—Zeke. If he slept now, maybe she was finally awake.

  She became aware of the hand resting flat on her chest, rising and falling with her breath. Hands again! She moaned.

  Something next to her lifted. Automatically she swiveled her head toward it, wincing at the bolt of pain that quick motion caused.

  “Ariel?” Scarl propped himself on one elbow. The sag in his face hinted that he’d been asleep alongside her. “You’re awake?”

  As much as she hoped that was true, it didn’t seem possible. She and Zeke had left Scarl when they’d climbed out of the cave, so this must still be a dream. Mustn’t it?

  He shifted his hand to her forehead, checking her fever. She wanted to brush it off, but her limbs felt all watery, too. If she lifted her arm, her hand might slide right off her wrist.

  Scarl turned away briefly, then back. His cupped palm hovered over her mouth. Drops of water tickled her chin. Suddenly nothing was more important than catching those drops with her tongue. They’d done this before, more than once, Ariel realized, as water dribbled into her mouth. This time, it stayed down.

  “More?”

  She nodded slowly so the mud wouldn’t slosh so hard inside her skull.

  His tin cup came to her lips. His other hand cupped the back of her neck so she could sip. The water swished joyfully down her throat, even if her head throbbed from the lifting.

  He took the cup away too soon. “Careful,” he said. “Only a bit at a time.”

  Dull anger blinked in her chest and went dark. It took too much effort. But the inside of her mouth felt mobile again.

  “What—”

  He laid damp fingertips on her lips. “Just rest. Another drink soon, if you want it.”

  Ariel wanted each sip he gave her until the stars were absorbed into the dawn. The water slowly leached the mud from her head. By the time Zeke groaned and rolled over, Scarl had helped her sit up, propped against one of the packs.

  Zeke’s eyes we
nt round when he saw her. “Are you finally better?”

  Scarl answered for her. “She’s decided to stay in the world, anyway.”

  Zeke scooted around the fire, which Scarl had relit, to pat both hands on her arm.

  “Geez, you scared me,” he said. “First you wouldn’t wake up, then you—It’s been more than three days!”

  A part of Ariel’s brain that hadn’t worked for a while told her she’d been not just dreaming but sick—so sick she had no idea what had happened since she’d fallen asleep next to Zeke.

  His explanation of the things she had missed filled the morning. Zeke’s attempts to rouse her had failed. She’d only garbled a few words and shoved off his touch. When she still tossed and mumbled the next morning, he’d realized she was more than just tired.

  “You drank the water in the cave, didn’t you?” Scarl asked her as Zeke told his story. “I should have paid more attention. It was foul, obviously.”

  Memories swam back into Ariel’s fogged mind. With them came a sense of betrayal.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. Her body, recovering, let her voice snap. She turned to Zeke. “Did you go and get him?”

  Zeke shook his head. “I would have tried, but I was too scared to leave you alone.”

  “I came on my own,” Scarl said. “It just took me a while to catch up.”

  Ariel looked at Scarl’s foot. He hadn’t moved far enough from her side for her to gauge how badly he limped. But the wood splints were gone, the crushed foot bandaged inside its boot.

  “It’s still bad,” he said in response to her glance. “You and Zeke didn’t move at all for a couple of days, though. When I saw how ill you were, he and I tried to get you to Libros. We had to risk it. It isn’t that far, but I just couldn’t do it lame.”

  “So I went by myself,” Zeke said. “Yesterday morning.”

  Ariel turned a stunned look on her friend.

  “I had hoped he could bring back a Healtouch,” Scarl explained, “without Mason catching wind of it—or of me.”

  “But the Healtouch I found wouldn’t come,” Zeke said. “Or give medicine to ‘a strange ragamuffin with nothing to trade.’ That’s what he told me.”

  Scarl muttered something about trading for some of Zeke’s courage. Zeke blushed.

  “He told me that if I wanted a handout, I ought to ask Mason,” the boy continued. “Or if Mason advised it, he’d come. I didn’t listen, of course, but I did spy on Mason’s house. People were lined up to see him. The Healtouch made it sound like they would wait standing on their heads if he said so.” Zeke shrugged. “Anyhow, the best I could do was to bring back fresh water for you. We were out.”

  “But that water helped break your fever,” Scarl told Ariel. “Zeke probably saved you.”

  Solemnly, Ariel thanked her bold friend. She said nothing more for a while, nibbling a morsel of dry bread and trying to imagine all that commotion. She realized that a big piece of the puzzle still hadn’t appeared. Strengthened by the bread, she summoned her nerve to unearth it.

  “Why did you follow us?” she asked Scarl. “After everything you said?”

  The Finder’s gaze dropped. His fingertips traced circles on the water jar in his hands.

  “I had a visit from your ghost friend that first night.”

  Ariel sucked in a breath. Snatches of nightmare swept back into her mind. Shivering, she guessed, “In a graveyard in Canberra Docks.”

  Scarl’s head jerked back up, unease rippling his face. He whispered, “You were there … weren’t you?”

  “What happened?” urged Zeke.

  Scarl yanked at the tail of his shirt and drew it up over his ribs. Expecting slashes from talons, Ariel cringed. Then she blinked at his bare chest. The skin was unbroken, but it wasn’t unmarked. An angry red welt glowed over his heart. It could have been formed by a burn or, more likely, a sharp slap—because the welt took the shape Misha favored: a handprint.

  “He told me my work and my obligation to you was not done,” Scarl said. “To my shame, I needed reminding. And he gave me a token so I wouldn’t forget or think it was only a dream.”

  “Misha,” Ariel murmured. So the dead boy could do harm, if he chose. Or his raven friend could. She wondered if Scarl had spied the dove as well as the raven.

  “Does it hurt?” Zeke asked.

  “Not on the outside.” Scarl tucked his shirt smooth again. “It woke me up, though, I can tell you. That’s when I turned around and came to find you.”

  Ariel studied her knuckles. She wanted to say that she and Zeke didn’t need him. Obviously that wasn’t so, but she resented the truth.

  Her thoughts must have shown on her face. He reached to touch one of her elbows.

  “I know I frustrate you greatly,” he said. “But I’ve never known a Farwalker before, least of all one who’s still mostly a child. That confuses me more than you know. First I underestimate you, then I expect too much. I keep making mistakes.”

  He caught her eyes so she would meet his regard. In their brown depths, Ariel found herself recalling mistakes of her own.

  “Me, too,” she whispered.

  “I don’t know if you’ll find anything where you want to go,” he said. “I don’t know if I even still care. I—” He looked away. Ariel reached a hand to his arm, and the touch seemed to brace him.

  “But I’ll walk beside you and help you as best I can,” he finished, “for as long as you want me to be there. Or I will leave again if you’d rather. That’s all I know how to offer.”

  Ariel’s fingers tightened on his arm. What she most wanted was to leave turmoil behind and find something steady to cling to.

  “You can’t find what doesn’t exist,” she said. The saying tumbled from her lips more in response to her own thoughts than to anything Scarl had said. But it seemed like a hard truth between them, a heartache they shared.

  He wrapped her hand with his own. “You seem to be able to,” he replied.

  CHAPTER

  40

  If stones could see—and Zeke assured Ariel they felt movement so well it amounted to the same—Cloudspear watched them, uncaring, as they limped haltingly toward its mouth. Even after a full day of rest and food, Ariel could only travel in short bursts as her strength returned. Though he said little about it, Scarl struggled as much.

  “Your foot’s not getting much better, is it?” she asked him. Her mother had told her that limbs that were too badly damaged had to be cut off if the person was to survive. But Ariel couldn’t imagine doing such cutting.

  “The evening after we climbed out of the cave was the worst.” He shuddered. “If I hadn’t lost my knife you’d see one foot, not two. But the pain eased a little from there. As long as Zeke’s willing to keep serving as my legs for finding our water and food, we’re all right. If Mason suspected we were here, he’d be on us already.”

  “Still, you should let me look at it.” She didn’t want to see the mangled flesh under Scarl’s boot, but she felt it was her job to offer.

  “And do what?” A sour grin softened the truth they both knew. “No. If it turns black, toss a flower on me when it finally takes me out of the world. If not, I’ll live with it.”

  They pushed on, finding new reserves of endurance once they’d glimpsed the end of their quest. From this side, the hole in the mountain looked indeed like a mouth. Round and gaping, it gave the hillside an expression of amazement that matched Ariel’s own: they’d actually made it this far.

  As they drew near, the roar of falling stones echoed in her memory.

  “It’s not going to collapse again, is it?” she asked Zeke.

  “No.” Miserably he kicked a dirt clod out of his path. “I asked it to do that before. I didn’t think it would listen. Not like that. I was just hoping one or two rocks—little rocks—I didn’t mean to kill everyone! I didn’t really mean to kill anyone!”

  “You have no cause for guilt, Zeke,” Scarl said. “You were only defending Ariel and
yourself the best way you knew how.”

  “But Storian and Derr …” Zeke drew a ragged breath.

  Scarl squeezed the boy’s shoulder. “I know. You just didn’t understand your own power. And stones aren’t fine instruments, either. But killing seems to be part of living. It’s a hard lesson you should hope not to use often. Sometimes, though, the world gives us little choice.”

  “Made and unmade,” Ariel whispered, thinking she’d heard it in some dream.

  Scarl nodded. “Sunlight and leaf pass to firelight and ashes,” he said. “And back once more to leaf. So the Tree-Singers say.”

  “They do.” Zeke sighed, but he nodded.

  As if the cave heard and had an opinion to share, its foul breath hit them. Ariel’s throat clenched shut.

  “Ugh. What is that smell?” Zeke asked, clutching his nose.

  Scarl buried his own nose in the crook of his elbow. “If I’m not mistaken, it’s death.”

  They found the source of the stink just inside the cave mouth. A body, once human, slumped beside a large pack. Ariel, who had seen beached, bloated seals, was grateful this corpse had been dead long enough to look shriveled rather than squishy.

  It was not hard to tell how the person had died: a wide slash split the neck from one ear to the other. The blunt end of a telling dart stuck out of the wound.

  Ariel groaned. “When I dreamed about the mouth of the mountain, Misha told me the inside of my dart said, ‘A message is caught in a throat.’ That’s not it, is it?”

  “Don’t know,” Scarl replied. “I was thinking we may have found Liam.” He picked up a splinter of stone. “Don’t watch.”

  Neither of his companions obeyed. Scarl snagged a brass fin with the splinter and drew the dart out. Maggots clung to it, squirming. Ariel’s gorge rose. She whirled away. When she looked back, her stomach still quivering, the dart had fallen to the ground. Scarl scuffed it clean in the dust before he bent to inspect it.

  “Blank. It must have been his.” Scarl checked the abandoned pack. “Looks like a Storian’s belongings to me. It has to be Liam. Perhaps he came here with Mason or Gust. Maybe both.” He turned to Ariel. “If there was any other message to be found here, Mason may already have it. Clearly this dart was left as a threat.”