Deltora Quest #1: The Forests of Silence (3 page)

A
fterwards, Jarred could barely remember scrambling from the ditch. He could not remember stumbling through the tangled weeds and thorny bushes beyond the road. He did not know what guided him to the blacksmith’s forge, where at last he fell, fainting, to the ground.

Perhaps he saw the glow of the fire. Perhaps he heard the hammer beating on the red-hot metal, and the sound reminded him of his lessons with Endon. Or perhaps the spirit of Adin was looking after him. For Crian the blacksmith, stubborn and fearless, was perhaps the only man in Del who would have taken him in.

Crian roused him and helped him into the small house behind the forge. At Crian’s call, a sweet-faced girl came running. Her eyes were full of questions, but
she was silent as she helped Crian give Jarred water and bread and bathe his cuts and scratches. They took his filthy, torn clothes, gave him a long, plain nightshirt, and tucked him into a narrow bed.

Then Jarred slept.

When he woke, the great hammer was ringing on metal once more, the girl was singing in the kitchen, and the sun was setting. He had slept the day through.

At the end of his bed he found a set of clothes. He pulled them on, tidied the bed, and crept outside.

He found Crian at work in the forge. The old man turned and looked at him without speaking.

“I thank you for your kindness with all my heart,” Jarred said awkwardly. “I will leave now, for I do not want to cause you trouble. But I beg you not to say I was here if the palace guards come searching. They will tell you I tried to kill the new king. But I did not do it.”

“So much the worse,” the old man answered grimly, returning to his work. “Many in Del would thank you if you had.”

Jarred caught his breath. So this was how things were. The king was not loved, but hated. And no wonder. As far as his people knew, he lived in luxury behind his high walls while they suffered. They did not understand that he had no idea of their trouble.

“The guards will not come,” the old man said, without turning around. “I threw your clothes over a cliff into the sea and watched as they found them. They think that you are drowned.”

Jarred did not know what to say. He saw that Crian had finished the horseshoe he had been hammering. Without thinking, he picked up the heavy tongs beside the forge and stepped forward. Crian glanced at him in surprise, but let him pick up the shoe and dip it into the barrel of water standing ready. The water hissed and bubbled as the iron cooled.

“You have done this work before,” the old man murmured.

Jarred nodded. “A little,” he said. Carefully, he lifted the horseshoe from the water and laid it aside.

“I am old,” Crian said, watching him. “My son, whose clothes you are wearing now, was killed three years ago. His dear wife died before him, when their child was born. I have only that child, Anna, now. We live simply, but there is always food on the table. And will be, while I keep my strength.”

He glanced down at Jarred’s hands — soft and white, with long, rounded nails. “You could stay here, boy,” he said. “But you would have to work hard to earn your keep. Could you do it?”

“I could,” said Jarred strongly.

Nothing would please him more than to stay. He liked the old blacksmith. He liked the calm, sweet-faced Anna. Here, too, he would be close to the palace. He
could do nothing for Endon now except to keep watch. But he had vowed that this he would do.

Prandine thought he was dead. But he would be unlikely to tell Endon so. It would suit his purpose better to let the king think Jarred was still alive, and dangerous. If he feared for his life, Endon would be even more willing to do exactly as he was told.

But one day Endon may realize that after all I was right, thought Jarred. One day he may call me. And if ever that happens, I will be ready.

So, it was settled. Jarred took shears and cut off the long plaits of hair that marked him so plainly as coming from the palace. And after that, every day, he worked in the forge.

He already knew how to hammer hot iron and steel to make fine swords and shields. Now he had to learn to make simpler things, like horseshoes, axes, and blades for ploughs. But this he did quickly, and as his muscles hardened and his soft hands grew tough he took over more and more of the blacksmith’s work.

The forge was busy, but still Crian and Anna were poor. Jarred soon discovered that this was because most of the people in Del were even poorer, and could pay little for the work the blacksmith did for them. Some, indeed, could give nothing. And these Crian would help all the same, saying, “Pay me when you can.”

By the second day, Jarred had realized with a sinking heart that everything he and Endon had been
taught about life outside the palace had been a lie. The city was a place of hunger, illness, and struggle. Beyond its walls, strange, terrible beasts and bands of robbers prowled. For many years no news had come from the towns and villages scattered through the countryside.

Many people were weak with hunger. Yet it was said that in the dead of night heavily guarded carts piled high with food and drink trundled into the city and up to the palace gates. No one knew where the carts came from.

“Somewhere far away, in any case,” Crian muttered, as they sat by the fire on the second night. “Such luxuries could not be found here.”

“It is said that Deltora was once a land of peace and plenty,” Anna added. “But that was a long time ago.”

“The new king knows nothing of this!” Jarred cried. “Neither did the old king. You should have told him —”

“
Told
him?” Crian growled angrily. “We told him time and again!” He swung around in his chair and pulled an old tin box from the shelf. He thrust the box at Jarred. “Open it!” he ordered.

Jarred lifted the lid of the box. Inside were many small rolls of parchment edged with gold. Confused, he picked out one of the rolls and straightened it.

Frowning, Jarred thrust the parchment back into the box and picked out another. It was exactly the same. And so was the next he looked at, and the next. The only difference in the fourth was that it spoke of “The Queen” instead of “The King” and was signed “Lilia.” Queen Lilia had been Alton’s mother, Jarred remembered.

He scrabbled through the parchments. There were hundreds of them, all stamped with the royal seal. Some were much older than others, signed with royal names he remembered from his history lessons.

“They are all the same,” Crian said, watching him reading one after the other. “The only difference between them is the name at the bottom. For centuries messages have been sent to the palace, begging for help. And these accursed parchments are all the people have ever received in return. Nothing has ever been done. Nothing!”

Jarred’s throat tightened with pain and anger.
“King Alton, at least, never received your messages, Crian,” he said, as calmly as he could. “I think they were kept from him by his chief advisor. A man called Prandine.”

“The king signed these replies and fixed to them his royal seal,” Crian pointed out coldly, flicking his finger at the box. “As did his mother and grandfather before him.”

“It is the Rule — the custom — that the chief advisor prepares all replies for the king to sign,” exclaimed Jarred. “The old king signed and sealed whatever Prandine put in front of him.”

“Then he was a fool and a weakling!” Crian snapped back. “As no doubt his son is also! Endon will be as useless to us as his father.” He shook his head. “I fear for Deltora,” he muttered. “We are now so weak that should invasion come from the Shadowlands we could do nothing to protect ourselves.”

“The Shadow Lord will not invade, Grandfather,” Anna soothed. “Not while the Belt of Deltora protects us. And our king guards the Belt. That, at least, he does for us.”

Jarred felt a chill of fear. But he could not bring himself to tell Anna that she was wrong. If she found out that the king did not wear the Belt but let it be shut away, under the care of others, she would lose the last of her hope.

Oh, Endon, he thought, as he went to bed that night. I cannot reach you unless you wish it. You are too
well guarded. But you can reach me. Go to the hollow tree. Read my note. Send the signal.

From that time on, before he started work each morning, Jarred looked up at the tree rising against the misty cloud on the hill. He would look carefully, searching for the glint of the king’s golden arrow at the top. The signal that Endon needed him.

But it was a long, long time before the signal came. And by then it was too late.

Y
ears passed and life went on. Jarred and Anna married. Then old Crian died and Jarred took his place as blacksmith.

Sometimes Jarred almost forgot that he had ever had another life. It was as if his time at the palace had been a dream. But still, every dawn, he looked up to the tree on the hill. And still he often read the small book he had found in the palace library. Then he feared for what the future might hold. He feared for his beloved Anna and the child they were expecting. He feared for himself, for Endon, and for the whole of Deltora.

One night, exactly seven years after the night Endon was crowned, Jarred tossed restlessly in his bed.

“It is nearly daybreak and you have not slept, Jarred,” Anna said gently, at last. “What is troubling you?”

“I do not know, dear heart,” Jarred murmured. “But I cannot rest.”

“Perhaps the room is too warm,” she said, climbing out of bed. “I will open the window a little more.”

She had pulled the curtains aside and was reaching for the window fastening when suddenly she screamed and jumped back.

Jarred leapt up and ran to her.

“There!” Anna exclaimed, pointing, as he put his arm around her. “Oh, Jarred, what are they?”

Jarred stared through the window and caught his breath. In the sky above the palace on the hill, monstrous shapes were wheeling and circling.

It was still too dark to see them clearly. But there was no doubt that they were huge birds. There were seven. Their necks were long. Their great, hooked beaks were cruel. Their mighty wings flapped clumsily but strongly, beating at the air. As Jarred watched, they swooped, rose again, and then separated, flying off swiftly in different directions.

A name came to him. A name from the school room of his past.

“Ak-Baba,” he hissed. His arm tightened around Anna’s shoulders.

She turned to him, her eyes wide and frightened.

“Ak-Baba,” he repeated slowly, still staring at the palace. “Great birds that eat dead flesh and live for a thousand years. Seven of them serve the Shadow Lord.”

“Why are they here?” Anna whispered.

“I do not know. But I fear —” Jarred broke off abruptly and leaned forward. He had seen something glinting brightly in the first feeble rays of the sun.

For a moment he stood motionless. Then he turned to Anna, his face grim and pale.

“Endon’s arrow is in the tree,” he said. “The call has come.”

In moments Jarred had dressed and run from the house behind the forge. He hurried up the hill to the palace, his mind racing.

How was he to reach Endon? If he climbed the wall, the guards inside would certainly see him. He would be hit by a dozen arrows before he reached the ground. The cart that collected the food scraps would be of no use to him. Prandine must have guessed that Jarred had used it to escape, because it was no longer permitted to enter the palace. These days it waited between the two sets of gates while guards loaded it with sacks.

Endon himself is the only one who can help me, Jarred thought as he ran. Perhaps he will be watching for me, waiting for me …

But as he slowed, panting, in sight of the palace gates, he could see that they were firmly closed and the road outside was deserted.

Jarred moved closer, his spine prickling. The long grass that ringed the palace walls whispered in the breeze of dawn. He could be walking into a trap.
Perhaps at any moment guards would spring from their hiding places in the grass and lay hands on him. Perhaps Endon had at last decided to betray him to Prandine.

His feet brushed something lying in the dust of the road. He looked down and saw a child’s wooden arrow. A small piece of paper had been rolled around the arrow’s shaft and tied there.

His heart beating hard, Jarred picked up the arrow and pulled away the paper. But as he flattened it out and looked at it, his excitement died.

It was just a child’s drawing. Some palace child had been playing a game, practicing shooting arrows over the wall as he and Endon once had done.

Jarred screwed up the paper in disgust and threw it to the ground. He looked around again at the closed gates, the empty road. Still there was no movement, no sign. There was nothing but the wooden arrow lying in the dust and the little ball of paper rolling slowly away from him, driven by the breeze. He stared at it, and the foolish little rhyme came back to him.

Strange, he thought idly. That rhyme sounds almost like a set of instructions. Instructions that a small child could chant and remember.

An idea seized him. He ran after the paper and snatched it up again. He smoothed out the creases and looked at it closely, this time seeing two things that he had overlooked before. The paper was yellowed with age. And the writing, though childish, was strangely familiar.

This is the way Endon used to print when he was small, he thought in wonder. And Endon drew the picture, too. I am sure of it!

Suddenly he realized what must have happened. Endon had had little time. Yet he had wanted to send Jarred a message. So he had snatched up one of his old childhood drawings and sent it over the wall. He had used a child’s wooden arrow so that the guards would take no notice if they saw it lying on the road.

And if Jarred was right, Endon had not chosen just any drawing. This one had a special meaning for him. Why else would he have kept it?

Wake the bear,

Do not fear …

Jarred waited no longer. With the paper clutched in his hand he left the road and moved left, following the wall.

The road was out of sight by the time he found what he was searching for. Even overgrown with long grass and shadowed by a clump of straggly bushes, the shape of the huge rock was clear. It really did look exactly like a sleeping animal.

Jarred forced his way through the undergrowth to the rock. He saw that at one end, where the bear’s nose rested on its paws, the grass grew less strongly than it did anywhere else. Why would that be? Unless …

“Time to wake up, old bear,” Jarred muttered aloud. He ran to the place, threw himself to his knees, and began pulling at the weak grass. It came away easily, and as he scrabbled in the earth beneath it Jarred realized with a wave of relief that he had been right. There was only a thin layer of soil here. Beneath it was a large, round metal plate.

It took only moments for his powerful hands to uncover the plate completely and pull it aside. A dark hole was revealed. Its walls were lined with stone. In wonder, Jarred realized that he had found the entrance to a tunnel.

Scurry, mouse,

Into your house …

He knew what he must do. He lay flat on his stomach and wriggled into the hole, pulling himself forward on his elbows until the space broadened and his way became easier.

So now the mouse is in the mouse hole, he thought grimly, as he crawled along in the darkness. Let us hope that no cat is waiting at the other end.

For a short time the tunnel sloped downwards, then it became more level and Jarred realized that he was moving through the center of the hill. The air was still, the walls around him were ancient stone, and the blackness was complete. He crawled on, losing all track of time.

At last the tunnel ended in a set of steep stone steps that led upwards. His heart thudding, Jarred began to climb blindly. He had to feel his way — up, up, one step at a time. Then, without warning, the top of his head hit hard stone. With a shock he realized that the way above was blocked. He could go no further.

Hot panic flared in him. Had this been a trap after all? Were guards even now creeping through the tunnel after him, knowing that they would find him cowering here, without hope of escape?

Then, through the confusion of his thoughts, he remembered.

Lift the lid,

Be glad you did.

The panic died. Jarred stretched up his arms, pushed firmly, and felt the stone above his head move. He pushed harder, then staggered and nearly fell as with a grating sound the stone moved smoothly aside.

He climbed the last few steps and crawled out of blackness into soft, flickering light.

“Who are you?” barked a deep, angry voice.

A tall, shimmering figure was looming over him. Jarred blinked up at it. After being so long in darkness, his eyes were watering, dazzled by the light. “My name is Jarred,” he cried. “Stay back!”

He scrambled to his feet, blindly feeling for his sword.

Then, suddenly, with a rustle of rich silk and the clinking of golden ornaments, the figure was falling to its knees before him.

“Oh, Jarred, how could I not have known you?” the voice cried. “For the sake of our old friendship, I beg you to forgive the past. You are the only one I can trust. Please help us!”

And only then did Jarred realize that the man at his feet was Endon.