The Fog of Forgetting (31 page)

They mapped a route that would take them east along the shores of Lake Voss, then south toward the head of the Hestredes, where, if all went according to plan, a ship from Metria would be waiting. Huge boulders lined the immediate shore; beyond them the beach turned soft and shale-covered. Seaborne guessed that they would only be on foot for a few days at most. He hummed lightly under his breath as they set out.

“You're in a good mood,” Evelyn noted.

“I like the idea of seeing the city of Metria again. 'Twas where I grew up, you know.”

“Calla told us. She said you would take her there someday.”

A misty look crossed Seaborne's rugged features.

“Aye, I plan to do that.”

Chase was jumpy. To keep his mind off things, he asked Seaborne about the man they'd seen him with in Rysta's gazing pool. The one who owned the jacket he was now wearing. Seaborne scowled, tugging at the strap that held the sword to his back.

“He was an officer on the ship I served on as a boy—it was scuttled in battle. A cannon blew the center mast. I remember the sound of that, I'll tell you. Timber screaming. It's not a sound one soon forgets.” Seaborne shook his head, then added, “He was a good man. He could have left me there, but he didn't.”

“You're a good man, too, Seaborne,” said Evelyn. “You saved us.”

Seaborne bowed his head toward her, smiling.

They hadn't walked more than half a mile when Chase caught a flash out of the corner of his eye. He stopped, looking out across the silvery surface of the lake. Small ripples broke the otherwise crystal-clear mirror of the sky. He took another step and again saw a flash reflected on the lake. Knox caught Chase by the arm and pointed up. Long trails of light, like the tail of a comet, were shooting across the sky. The dogs barked an alarm.

“We have company!” shouted Knox.

“Here we go.” Chase groaned inwardly, and unsheathed his sword. Backed up against the scree of boulders, they had two options: surrender or fight. If he surrendered right away, it would be too obvious. He said a silent prayer to Ratha, hoping Seaborne was wrong about her.

Within seconds, a host of Exorian warriors appeared around a bend in the beach. They raced toward them, bare feet churning the sand into dust clouds, their burning spears reflected ad infinitum on the surface of the lake. Chase counted twenty of them—too few for an all-out assault, but still too many for their small group to overpower; then again, that wasn't the point.

Knox balanced a blade between his thumb and forefinger. He gave Chase a wry smile.

“Team Thompson?”

Chase lifted his sword. The morning sun glinted off its sharp edges, illuminating the detailing on the blade. He squared his shoulders and took a fighting stance next to Knox. It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to take a few Exorians out. A little justice for Tinator.

“Team Thompson.”

The low
thwunk
of the crossbow resounded behind them. A large, iron-tipped bolt whizzed by their heads, finding its mark with a thud, quickly followed by another. Seaborne reloaded and fired into the oncoming Exorians as quickly as he could in hopes that he could buy some time. Evelyn was at his elbow, slingshot drawn. Chase and Knox attacked, darting between the unwieldy shields and dodging the flame-tipped spears. They had learned well from the previous battle and aimed for the unprotected knees and elbows of the Exorians and the tender seam between their tough patches of skin.

Chase's sword clashed with steel, locked in combat with the spear of an Exorian warrior. Knox extricated himself from the melee, circling from a distance, where his throwing knives could be most efficient. Axl and Tar dove in, savagely biting any exposed flesh they could find. An Exorian shouted in pain, then clobbered one of the hounds with his heavy shield. Tar yelped and retreated.

Seaborne quickly ran out of bolts; he dropped the crossbow and unslung his broadsword. The fighting escalated and a surge of battle fever passed through the Exorians as they realized their prey would not surrender without a fight. Chase felt it wash across him like a wave. His stomach lurched. Had Ratha planned on this? There was no way to know. He searched the face of an oncoming Exorian for any sign of complicity. There was none. Instead, the orange flecks in the Exorian's eyes danced like flames ignited by the heat of battle. Chase grunted in frustration, fighting in earnest now, slashing at whatever he could lay his sword on. Growls and yelps filled the air. Evelyn was down on one knee, scraping the ground for rocks to refill her slingshot. In the confusion she couldn't see two Exorians coming up behind her, their spears extended.

“Evelyn! Behind you!” Chase bellowed.

She looked up wildly, and drew her knife from the folds of her poncho. In an elegant pirouette, she sidestepped the first Exorian's spear tip, and drove her blade hard into the man's side, into the pink skin between the serpentine scales that protected his torso. She twisted her blade and yanked up, as Calla had taught her. His mouth opened and she felt the heat of his breath. His weight against the knife doubled. Evelyn quickly withdrew it and let him fall to the ground. She turned to face the next attacker, who had mysteriously abandoned her. She understood why a second later when the smell of burning poncho reached her nostrils. Without another thought, she sprinted into the lake and dove under.

The Exorians formed a semicircle around Seaborne and Chase, who fought back-to-back, their flank protected by the edge of the lake. The baked, hide-like skin of the warriors seemed out of place in the bright sunshine as it tensed and pulsed with their defensive movements. Seaborne was now fighting two-handed, his sword in one hand and knife in the other. Knox circled the periphery, throwing rocks, his knives used up.

The Exorians repositioned into a tight line, hemming Seaborne and Chase against the edge of the lake. They were no longer attacking and seemed uninterested in pressing their advantage.

“What's going on?” Knox shouted to Seaborne. “What are they doing?”

“I don't know; it's not like them at all,” yelled Seaborne, smashing his sword into the closest Exorian shield. “Where's your fight gone?” he shouted.

The Exorian holding the shield looked at him blankly. Then, as a unit, he and the other Exorians advanced another step, pushing Seaborne and Chase back toward the lake. Water licked at their boots. The enemy took another step forward to force Seaborne and Chase into further retreat. The water now reached their knees. The Exorians stood at the edge and lowered their spears. A yell from Evelyn came from behind them. She was standing waist-high in water, blue-lipped and shivering.

“They won't come in!” she yelled.

“That's because they can't swim—the devils!” yelled Seaborne.

Chase let his sword arm fall.

“What are you doing there, lad? Didn't Tinator teach you not to quit?” barked Seaborne.

“This isn't a fight, Seaborne—it's a raiding party sent to capture us. They won't kill us.”

“Doesn't feel that way to me!” shouted Evelyn.

Knox tried to create a distraction by whooping and running down the beach. Two Exorians separated from the rest to chase him. Out of habit, Chase advanced to help him, but he was roughly pushed back into the lake by the bulk of the enemy. Axl and a limping Tar prowled the semicircle of warriors, tearing at their ankles and calves. One large Exorian glared at Seaborne and jabbed toward their long, matted fur with his flaming spear.

“You'll be no help if you're roasted!” Seaborne yelled to the dogs, then let loose a long, piercing whistle. The hounds darted away.

Chase could no longer feel his feet. His ankles were numb, and the cold rose up through his bones in a nauseating ache. Evelyn was shivering violently. Seaborne growled at the Exorians and splashed them with water, trying to break the standoff.

“Damn you, you rot-ridden fireworms! At least make it a decent fight!”

Moments later, two Exorians returned with a kicking, struggling Knox. Another stepped forward, looking back and forth between Knox and the three others in the lake. He gestured with his spear for them to come out of the water.

“I'd rather not, thank you. It's quite nice in here. Refreshing!” replied Seaborne.

In response, the Exorian slammed the shaft of his spear into the back of Knox's knees, hard. Knox crumpled to the ground. The Exorian pinned him to the ground with his foot and slowly lowered the burning tip of his spear toward the back of Knox's head, pausing just above his neck. He turned and challenged Chase with his stare. The orange specks in his eyes were like sparks of flame.

“Don't do it, Chase!” gurgled Knox. The Exorian mashed his face into the ground with his foot.

Chase sheathed his sword and walked out of the lake, hands held above his head. Seaborne and Evelyn followed behind, their heads hung in defeat. Knox was yanked to his feet. The Exorians quickly stripped them of their weapons and shackled them together.

“You had to get caught, eh, laddie?” Seaborne groused at Knox.

“Where will they take us?” whispered Evelyn.

“Where do you think?” Seaborne replied, looking west.

Chase turned his eyes to the sky, looking for a sign. Surely Calyphor and Deruda were up there somewhere? He knew that part of the plan was to be caught by the Exorians on their way to Metria, but Ratha had led him to believe that she would intervene. With a sinking feeling, Chase realized he had never asked her
when
. How far was she willing to let this go?

Ratha, where are you?
he begged silently.

T
he Exorians kept them at a trot, heading due north. Soon the Voss was just a small silver disk in the background, the mountains of Varuna looming large to the east. Chase scanned their craggy surfaces for signs of life, but soon fatigue and thirst made it hard to concentrate on anything but moving forward. At dusk, they were allowed to stop. The prisoners were tied in a circle with their backs facing one another and moved a short distance away. Night was falling fast. They were too tired to speak, and fell into a fitful sleep leaning into one another. Evelyn was the first to be jolted awake by an Exorian unshackling her. She struggled, waking the others as he dragged her by the scruff of her poncho toward his company.

“Leave her alone, damn you!” shouted Seaborne, diving forward on his elbows after her.

A nearby guard bludgeoned him with the shaft of his spear and he slumped to the ground, bleeding from the forehead. Chase and Knox, still yoked to him, were slammed backwards. The guard made a menacing gesture. They watched helplessly as an Exorian circled Evelyn and then lowered her hood.

A tangled mass of dark hair spilled down in ropes between the jut of her shoulder blades. The Exorian grabbed it in his fist and pulled her head back, exposing her neck; then, he drew his knife. Its thin edge glinted in the dying light, sharp as a razor.

“STOP!” Chase cried out, struggling against his bonds.

The Exorian flicked his expressionless eyes at Chase and Knox, then locked them on Evelyn. She whimpered.

“If you touch her, I will end you all. By my daylights I will!” roared Seaborne. One of the guards kicked him in the gut, silencing him once more.

A rushing filled Evelyn's ears, the sound of her own blood circulating in her body. The gods of death—the Ghede—had been following her for so long; that they had finally caught up to her was less of a surprise than she thought it would be. She did not flinch when the Exorian raised the knife above her; she looked straight into his orange-flecked eyes.

The knife fell.

Chase and Knox shouted in dismay.

Dark curls floated to the ground. With a few more strokes, the Exorian sheared off all of Evelyn's hair, scraping her scalp bare, then released her. Watching her calmly pull up her hood over her bald and badly nicked scalp, Chase felt something inside him wrench free and knock against his rib cage. He swore to himself that he would never put Evelyn in danger again. She sat back down beside him. Beneath her hood, her eyes—now looking impossibly large—made it seem as if her baby self had suddenly emerged through her older skin.

Chase struggled to think of something to say that would comfort her, but before he did, the Exorian came for him, then Knox, and finally, Seaborne, whose hair was removed with particularly brutal strokes.

“You saved me a job, you devil! Thank you! It was high time I had a trim!” Seaborne sneered, wiping blood out of his eyes.

The rest of the journey was marked only by slogging weariness, which grew as the captives stumbled from the foothills of Varuna's western borderlands into Exor. The Exorians granted them only a few hours of sleep at a time, and very little to eat except for some dry bread and a clear liquid that was cool and strangely satisfying.

Their captors ate nothing, but sipped often from small gold flasks that each carried on their hip. The mountains passed farther and farther into the distance and the shift in climate was severe. Green scrub and low grasses slowly gave way to dust and thick-skinned plants covered with thorns. By nightfall on the third day, the exhausted sun cast small shadows across the same arid plains, rock hummocks, canyons, and spires of Exor that Frankie had seen on her journey. The prisoners moved slowly, trudging under the weight of the long trek, the heat, and their dogged refusal to take off their Melorian ponchos. The Exorians kept them shackled together and bound at the wrists so that when one stumbled or fell, the others were dragged down, too.

Any hope that Chase had in Ratha or the Varunans coming to their rescue had dried up with the scorching heat of the Exorian plain. Everything Ratha had said to him on the terrace had been a lie, he realized, a trick to further some plan of hers that had nothing to do with him, or any of them. She couldn't care less what happened to him or his family—hadn't she said as much? Chase wanted to kick himself for being such a sap. Seaborne was right about her and her visions. He had been a fool to trust her.

The sun lay flattened against the horizon when the Exorians and their captives were met by a caravan that included two wagons pulled by donkeys. The boys and Evelyn were bundled into one of the wagons, Seaborne into the other, and the donkeys whipped into moving forward. From the open wagon, Evelyn and the boys saw the moon rise above the barren straits, a sight made more ominous by the shadows of dark fingers of rock sticking up into the luminous sky, as if to point to their only way out. Rocked by the creaking movement of the wagon and totally spent from fear and exertion, they fell into a troubled sleep.

It was still dark when rough hands woke them and dragged them to their feet, pushing them forward. A heavy door clanked shut behind them and everything went black. A vague sense of space and chill suggested that they were underground again.

“I want to see my sister!” shouted Evelyn, to no one in particular.

“And you shall, very soon,” said a voice from the shadows. They heard the sound of breaking twigs and saw a spark of fire. “You will find her very well.”

A torch crackled into life and a pair of glittering eyes reflected its light. The face of a young man came into view—pink and healthy, not the scabbed ruin of an Exorian warrior. There was something boyish about him, though he was quite clearly a grown man. His head and chest were bare. He wore short white trousers and a webbed belt that held a small knife at his waist.

Chase used the firelight to study their prison. They were in a small, windowless cave.

“There is no escape, so I suggest you don't try,” he said plainly, his eyes following Chase's gaze.

“Where's Seaborne?” demanded Knox, stepping toward the man aggressively. The man laughed lightly.

“Seaborne? So that is his name? I myself am known by many names, the most recent being ‘Louis.'” He made a wry face. “Not my favorite, I'll admit, but since it was given to me by a friend, I will answer to it.” He glanced at Evelyn with deep curiosity, then looked away.

“But we are talking of your friend. The wayfarer.” The man blew on his torch gently, igniting the flames further. Light and shadow chased each other around the small confines of the room. “He is to receive special … ah … status considering his age and long tenure with the Melorians. There is much Dankar would like to learn from him.”

Knox made fists with his hands.

“What does that mean? You'll torture him until he tells you about Melor? Their secret hiding places? Their stone? He'll never tell! He'll die first!”

The man smiled faintly. “I know little of such things. Clearly you—like someone else I know—have been confused by the trickery of the Keepers. This will change once you have spent time here and heard what Dankar has to say. In fact, I think that if you were to ask Frankie, she would tell you something quite different.”

“Where is she?” said Evelyn growled.

“And, perhaps,” Louis went on, ignoring her, “in a short while, when you know what she knows, you too will think less badly of Exor—and me.”

“You're an Exorian?” Chase was puzzled. The man looked normal—bald, but all Exorians seemed to be bald. Maybe even—his eyes flitted across Evelyn's hooded head—the girls.

“Not by birth, no. I, like you, come from beyond the fog; but I have lived here a long time. It is my home.”

Chase snapped to attention. So here was another of Ratha's unfortunate adventurers.

“What do you want with us?” said Knox through gritted teeth. “What have we done?”

“You have done nothing; that is the point.”

Knox put his hands on his hips. “So, you're saying we haven't done anything and Dankar is this great guy, and we've been tricked by the Keepers—”

Chase shifted uneasily on his feet.

“And Frankie is fine … and we're just gonna
love
Exor once we get to know it better?”

Louis nodded encouragingly.

“Then tell me: Why have we been chased, attacked, kidnapped, scalped, and now locked in a dungeon? Sure seems like
someone
is mad at us.” He yanked off his hood, then Evelyn's, then Chase's. Their three shaved heads glowed softly in the torch light. Louis sighed, a look of genuine concern darkening his eyes.

“I am sorry for this. I told my uncle that I should accompany the excursion so that this kind of thing would not happen. The warriors do not understand your kind. It is a fault brought on by their loyalty to Dankar.” He stepped closer to Evelyn.

“You are otherwise unhurt?”

Evelyn nodded once.

The man hung his torch in an iron rung sticking out of the cave wall. Evelyn repeated the only thing she cared about:

“Where is Frankie?”

Louis paused, then replied, “Asleep in her room, I believe, or perhaps in the courtyard, playing.”

“
Playing?
” cried Knox. He snorted in disbelief and sat against the wall. This was too much.

Louis smiled, amused. “You may join her soon enough, but first, Dankar would like to see you.”

Chase gestured for Louis to come closer.

“Ratha said she would help us if we surrendered to you. Is she here?” he whispered.

Louis looked confused and then shook his head.

“What did you say?” seethed Knox, overhearing. “Ratha
told
you we should surrender? What else did she tell you that you conveniently forgot to share with us?” He looked at Chase as though he had never seen him before, then swore. “You sold us out, Chase. That's low, really low. If anything happens to Seaborne, I swear to God, I'll—”

“It's not like that, Knox,” said Chase, cutting him off. “I knew we were going to get caught, but then Ratha said—” He sighed, realizing how stupid it sounded. “She promised she'd step in, and that no one would get hurt.”

Louis laughed. “I see then that you are already wise to the lies of the Keepers. Perhaps Dankar will not have to do much to convince you. Come. He will see you now.”

“No way,” said Knox, crossing his arms in front of his chest and digging his heels in the dirt of the floor. “I have nothing to say until we see Seaborne.”

The man shrugged as if they had all the time in the world.

“Then I will leave you here until you are ready.” Louis's eyes searched the wounds on their skulls. “I will see to it that I alone attend you three. I will bring you food and”—His eyes flitted over their heavy, lined clothing—“other necessities. While I am gone, reconsider your audience with Dankar. You will find he is quite agreeable. The sooner you go, the sooner you may join Frankie.” He addressed Evelyn directly. “Do not wait long; I'm told she has been pining for you.”

The thought of Frankie alive, somewhere nearby, needing her, undid whatever reserve Evelyn had left.

“I'll go now!” she cried.

“Good,” said Louis. “Then I'll be right back.” He turned to leave and the light from the torch fell across his face, igniting the orange flecks in his eyes.

Louis came back shortly with dampened rags for them to wash with and a long, gauzy white tunic for each of them. Once they had changed, he escorted them down a dark corridor and up several flights of stone stairs into a main hall, bare except for several large gold medallions that hung on the walls. They passed along the edge of the same fountained courtyard that had welcomed Frankie on her first day, and under an archway leading to a rectangular chamber adorned with tall, paneless windows. As it was late at night (or perhaps early morning), the windows were as black as yawning empty eyes. Overhead, rings of candles attached to long chains added some murky illumination. They approached a dais at the far end of the hall; it held a broad, cloth-covered chair, upon which sat a tall man, half-reclined, with a circlet of gold around his bare forehead. He rolled a gold scepter across his knees, the knob of which glowed slightly. Louis bowed and moved to the side, introducing the three children to the man's view.

“At long last, you have arrived.” Dankar welcomed them with satisfaction.

Chase rubbed his newly shaved head, repulsed at the idea that it and the strange Exorian tunic made him look like a child in nightclothes coming for kisses before bed. He stood taller, determined to find out where Seaborne and Frankie were. He lifted his eyes in challenge to Dankar, but found his heart pounding in fear. Dankar's protruding eyes—cold and glittering—were so unlike the other Keepers. He wanted to warn Knox and Evelyn not to say anything. He glanced at them out of the corner of his eye. Knox stared straight at the floor. Evelyn hugged herself tightly, as if she was holding herself in. He breathed a small sigh of relief. They would not be fooled by gentle speech. Tinator would be proud.