Haladras (20 page)

“My dear boy,” said Lasseter with a sigh, “I kept you from
it as long as I could. This is not what I wished for you, or your mother. No one
can make you be king, but you cannot escape who you are, what you are meant to
become. Your destiny was set before the stars and planets were shaped and
formed. It is yours to claim or reject as you choose. But Skylar,” his voice
grew hoarse, “you were destined to become king, to serve a people who
desperately need you. It is a hard reality to bear.”

“But how am I supposed to even become king? All we’re doing
is running from the one who has power over the throne.”

“That,” said Lasseter gravely, “is not easily answered.
Though I fear it will require the lives of many more.”

“That is what I cannot bear. Grim’s death is more than
enough for me. I refuse to be the cause of anymore.”

“Then you sentence this people to a fate more loathsome than
death, Skylar: a life without freedom. Think of the people on Quoryn. Would you
have your own mother subjected to such wretchedness? Remember the maiden in the
village? Would you have had Grim captured and enslaved by the empire, his soul
crushed by tyranny?”

Skylar did not answer. Inside, Lasseter’s words were
battling with his emotions. How could he know the right course? Where was the
clear line that separated truth from error? He had always thought choosing the
right so easy before. His decisions had never carried such heavy consequences
before.

Oh great ruler of the stars and planets, guide my heart
aright!

“I believe Krom was wrong about one thing,” resumed Lasseter
after several moments, “Grim would have sacrificed his life for you whatever
you were destined to become. He loved you. Prince or pauper. That was his
nature.”

Skylar nodded absently, and let his head drop in defeat.

“Where do we go from here?”

NINETEEN

“W
E SHALL HAVE
to cross the
Boldúrins,” said Krom on the morrow following their partial reunion. “There is
no way around them. From pole to pole, those fierce ridges stretch. Arsolon
lies directly west of here. If the weather holds, it will take a week. If it
doesn’t...there’s little chance of us making it through alive.”

It was a somber morning. The gray curtain of low-hanging
clouds had reconvened some time during the night. An even colder air bit at
their fingers, ears and noses. The companions spoke little. All thoughts were
heavy and pensive after the previous night’s events.

Krom and Skylar had made a sort of reconciliation, Krom
offering a stolid and terse apology and Skylar half-heartedly accepting. Yet,
Skylar couldn’t help feeling some tension between them.

Skylar ate his cold but filling breakfast—more than he’d
eaten in the last two days. It gave him a strength he didn’t realized he
lacked. Strength he knew he would need. Endrick had returned to him his bag and
satchel, which he had left at camp on that fateful night. He thought how cruel
and ironic it was to have what he least cared about restored to him.

Somewhere overhead, above the cloud’s cover, a low hum
passed as the companions shouldered their packs and set off into the mist. Not
one of the companions halted to look up. Skylar himself had only half heard the
sound.

“Let us hope,” said Krom, “that we may not find Arsolon
infested with Tarus’ soldiers.”

The day advanced slowly, one monotonous step after another.
Skylar followed behind Lasseter as a man consigned to some dreadful fate.
Scarcely did he lift his eyes from the ground on which he trod. His mind was
full of thoughts which often flashed scenes of Grim’s death. They panged his
heart with grief. He wondered how he could go on hurting so.

As the day grew older the clouds grew denser and darker, as
if echoing Skylar’s mood. By midafternoon they began pelting the travelers with
raindrops.

Wrapping themselves in their oilskins, the companions
continued walking. The rain fell with greater intensity. A short time later,
they entered a dense forest. Its canopy of branches did little to protect them
from the cold downpour or from the angry winds that were growing ever stronger.
Thin trees were bent almost to the ground under its force. The older trees
groaned and creaked as they shivered at its strength. Thunder rumbled all
around like giant boulders crashing together. Within a matter of minutes, the
rainfall had become a fierce tempest.

Skylar had never beheld such a terrible display of nature’s
wrath. At any instant he expected all the trees around them to come crashing down.

Krom halted the group and tried to yell above the storm.
“There’s no sign of this abating. We must find some shelter.”

“I think I saw something,” yelled Endrick, pointing toward
the deeper forest, “over there.”

Krom nodded his head. “Lead the way.”

The group turned and followed Endrick. In the darkness of
the blinding rain, Skylar could scarcely see the ground at his feet. Occasional
flashes of lightning bathed the forest in a burst of white light, just enough
to tease their eyes. They moved slowly, navigating their way deeper into the
forest. No longer were they following a clear path, but forging their way
through thick brush and over fallen tree limbs.

Lightning flashed.

Skylar thought he glimpsed what Endrick had seen. He could
not be sure. A hundred meters away, he thought he saw something very
angular...square, almost, like a building. The last thing he expected to find
in that forest was a dwelling. His eyes were playing tricks on him.

As they drew nearer, however, and the lightning flashed
several more times, Skylar felt sure it was something manmade. A cottage, it
appeared. Soon they were standing in front of it; a small hut made of rounded
bricks and wooden roof. Faint slivers of orange light seeped out from the
cracks in a wooden door. Skylar felt he’d never seen anything so wonderful in
all his life.

Krom went up to the door and rapped on it hard several times
with his knuckles. It struck Skylar as an odd situation. What kind of person
would live in a place like this, far from any civilization? Whoever—he must
find it strange to hear a knock at his door in the middle of such a storm. He
wondered if it would open at all. Would simply barging in uninvited be
acceptable, given their extreme situation?

After several moments the door cracked open and the hooked
nose and squinting eyes of a man peaked out.

“We seek refuge from the storm,” hollered Krom above the
blaring wind.

The man stuck his head out further, and quickly took stock
of the whole group. Skylar thought the man was about to slam the door shut.
Instead, he swung it open, stepped to one side and curtly motioned for the
companions to enter. Which they did not hesitate to do. With relief, Skylar
stepped into the warmth and shelter of this solitary cottage.

Behind them, the man forced the door shut and barred it
securely with a wooden beam. Outside, the storm raged on. The winds howled and
whistled shrilly through the cracks and chinks in the doors and windows. The
roof creaked and shuttered. But for all its strength, the tempest seemed no match
for this stout forest dwelling.

“I suppose you lot are the cause of this,” said the
cottage-dweller irritably. “I don’t remember when last my little valley had
such a fit.”

The hermit eyed them all suspiciously.

“Robbers...murders, you likely are. I’ll no doubt wake
tomorrow morning with my throat slit and my animals gone. Well? Don’t stand
there politely—never could abide politeness. Take off your dripping cloaks.
Move yourselves by the fire. It’ll warm your chilled hides. There’s stew in the
cook pot, too. More than enough. Always cook more than I need.”

The heat of the fire on Skylar’s fingers and toes, the
warmth of the stew in his stomach, made him feel as though he never wanted to
leave that one-room hut. Being warm again, eating a cooked meal, transported
him back in time to that night with Grim at Barryman’s inn. So much had changed
since then; yet scarcely three nights had passed.

Other than fire and food, the hermit’s dwelling offered
little else by way of comfort. A small wooden table laid with a few bits of
leather, a knife and awl, sat with a solitary stool at one end. A coarse,
hay-filled bed occupied the other. Lacking other furniture, the companions sat
on the floor.

“Your hospitality and kindness—” began Krom before the
hermit quickly cut him off.

“None of that. None of that. Save you gratitude. Spare my
throat if you’re truly grateful.”

“Rest assured, my friend,” offered Lasseter, “we mean you no
harm.”

The hermit only snorted in reply.

The old man was a peculiar fellow. Skylar had never met a
hermit before. He expected that this man should be old. Yet he appeared no
older than Lasseter or Krom. Had he no family? What brought him to isolate
himself from the rest of the world?

“If it would ease your mind,” said Krom, reaching at his
belt, “we shall entrust our only weapons with you for the night.”

He unfastened the scabbard from his side and held out his
sword to the hermit.

“Keep your oversized butter knives! I’m sure the four of you
could just as easily strangle me as you could chop me to bits.”

Krom returned the scabbard and sword to its place on his
belt.

“What is your name, good man?” asked Krom after a moment’s
silence.

“Name?” said the hermit absently. “The birds call me one
name. The forest creatures call me another. My animals, yet another. But
men...when men spoke my name last, they called me Lin.”

“Well Lin, rest assured that we shall continue our journey
at first light on the morrow.”

“Indeed,” replied Lin, looking fully recovered from his
dream state. “Indeed. And I shall go with you.”

The four companions looked up with startled expressions at
the hermit.

“How’s that, Lin?” said Krom.

“You’ll be wanting a guide through the Boldúrins. No man
knows them better than I. Many hidden, forsaken ways there are through them.”

“Our journey is of a dangerous nature. We cannot risk your
safety, Lin. Though, we thank you for—”

“Do you think that I cannot see that you are not idle
travelers? I’m not so very witless or mad as you may believe. You plan to go
over the mountains? You shan’t make it. Snow will hit them soon. And when it
does, there’ll be no crossing them for months.”

Krom glanced briefly at Lasseter. Skylar caught the
slightest nod of Lasseter’s head. Krom turned back to Lin.

“We accept your offer,” said Krom, “We travel to Arsolon.
But let me add, you haven’t the faintest idea of what you’re getting yourself
into.”

A cunning smile broke the hermit’s perpetual scowl. “Or
perhaps it is the other way around.”

The storm raged on unabated until some late hour of the
night. By morning, the clouds had rolled away and the winds died. Only a few
wisps of white streaked the sky. A gentle breeze rustled the bushes and tree
leaves. Yet evidence of the storm abounded. Toppled trees and broken branches
were strewn about the forest floor.
It’s a miracle we didn’t get flattened,
marveled
Skylar to himself. Little pools of water reflected the trees above them.
Hundreds of shallow channels, formed by the water racing to join some larger
current, lined the moist soil.

Despite the damage, the forest was calm, nothing like what
the companions felt. Ever since last night’s agreement to let Lin be their
guide, Skylar had felt uneasy. Endrick felt likewise. And in a moment when Lin
was off making preparation for their departure, Endrick voiced his concerns.

“Not that I doubt your judgment,” he said to Krom, “but this
fellow is lacking some vital functions of his brain. The birds call him one
name? The forest creatures another? What, does he think this is some kind of
enchanted forest?”

“As to his mental state,” replied Krom, “it’s obvious the
solitude has made him somewhat peculiar.”

“Somewhat! You call that somewhat?”

Krom held up his hand to silence Endrick.

“It does not matter. He’s harmless. His help could save us
much time in travel.”

“If we get there at all. He may think he’s leading us to the
land of the talking animals for all we know.”

“Calm yourself, Endrick. We shall not be so easily
hoodwinked.”

“Well, I say—”

Endrick cut off at the sound of footfall. Lin appeared from
around the corner of the cottage, leading five paquas all saddled and ready.

“Here we are,” said Lin, “these have agreed to carry us on
the trip. They ought to make the journey pleasanter than walking on foot.”

Skylar had nearly forgotten what it was like to ride astride
a paqua. Its lazy, yet unwavering gait was dull and unimpressive. Nonetheless,
he felt immeasurably grateful to be off his travel-weary feet, to put his pack
on the animal’s shoulders instead of his own. The paquas, too, for all their
languidness moved them along faster than when the companions were on foot.

Lin led the way, guiding them along unmarked paths through
the forest, speaking softly to his paqua or greeting the birds singing in the
trees. At times he sang, too. The songs sounded as strange and mysterious as
the man who sang them. Skylar paid no heed to the words. His thoughts flowed
back, riding the notes of Lin’s song, to that first time he’d ridden a paqua,
not many days past. Suddenly the song was Grim’s song. The voice was Grim’s
voice. His eyes began to water.

By midday, the companions reached the edge of the forest.
Before them stretched a brief expanse of meadow filled with knee-high grass, a few
straggly shrubs and bare trees. Just on the other side, jutting straight from
the ground like a wall of stone, was the base of a towering black cliff.

Halting at the clearing’s edge, Lin held up a hand,
signaling for the companions to do likewise. Several moments passed. By the
tilt of Lin’s head, he was evidently listening to something.

Very low and faint, then gradually rising, came the same
mechanical hum they had heard the day before. Lin pointed upwards with his
index finger. Skylar craned his neck to peer through a few ragged holes in the
forest canopy. A single dark shape darted across the small patch of blue sky
above them, then disappeared from view.

“Too small for a military craft,” said Krom after it had
passed. “Someone of importance was in it, though. I’m sure of that.”

“Someone looking for you, doubtless,” added Lin, eyeing Krom
and smiling knowingly.

Krom merely grunted and urged his paqua forward—a signal to
Lin to lead on and mind his own affairs.

Skylar, however, didn’t see anywhere for them to go except
to the right or left. The cliff before them was as sheer as the flat of a sword
and as tall as any of the peaks he’d seen. Yet Lin led them straight ahead.

Endrick was right. This man is a lunatic.

Not one of the companions raised any objections as they drew
nearer and nearer to that wall of rock. Before long, they were at its base,
specks of dust in comparison to its size. Again, their hermit guide halted the
group and dismounted his paqua. Lin was walking now, inspecting the face of the
cliff, as if he expected to find a secret lever that would shrink the mountain
into an anthill. He continued to walk along it, moving farther and farther away
from the companions.

“I don’t think our little hermit’s going to find what he’s
hunting for,” said Endrick, once Lin was out of earshot.

“Perhaps not,” said Krom, “but I think he’s shrewder than he
lets on.”

“Well, I’ll be happy if he started letting on right about
now.”

Just then Lin hollered out some exclamation and began waving
his hand excitedly.