Deltora Quest #6: The Maze of the Beast (4 page)

D
ain may have been afraid — may, indeed, have been guilty and ashamed — to free Lief, Barda, and Jasmine from the cell and lead them in silence down the dark passage beyond. He may have trembled as they moved into another tunnel and on to a small door that opened to the outside world. But still, he did it. And when they stood at last in the open air, under stars that sparkled like jewels scattered over the black velvet tent of the sky, he heaved a sigh of relief.

“We are safe, now,” he whispered. “They are all eating and drinking. No one will visit the testing room again until it is the hour for sleep. By then, we can be long gone.”

They wasted no time with words, but together began scrambling away over the rocks, slipping and sliding on loose stones, catching hold of rough bushes to stop themselves from falling.

Only when they were well away from the stronghold, when they were on flat ground again, did they stop to rest, and talk.

“Tora is many days’ journey downriver from here,” whispered Dain. “We will have to take great care as we go. Bandits and pirates haunt the River Tor, and Ols patrol the area in great numbers.”

“Why?” whispered Lief in reply. “What is so special about Tora, Dain? And why do you want to go there?”

Dain stared at him. Several expressions seemed to chase themselves across his face: surprise, bewilderment, disbelief, and finally, anger. Slowly he clambered to his feet.

“You know very well why,” he hissed, looking Lief up and down. “Can it be that still you do not trust me?” He shook his head violently from side to side. “I have betrayed my people for you. I have betrayed Doom, who has been like a father to me! Is that not enough to prove —?”

“Be still, boy,” muttered Barda. “It is not a matter of trust. We know very little of Tora.”

“I know nothing of it,” Jasmine muttered. “I had never heard of it until you said its name when we first met.”

“But I thought —” Dain took a deep, shuddering breath and pressed his hands together till the knuckles showed white. “You tricked me. You told me you were going —”

“We told you nothing,” Barda said firmly. “
You
suggested that Tora was our goal. We simply did not correct your mistake.”

Dain groaned and buried his face in his hands. It was dark, and he moved swiftly, but Lief thought he saw the dark eyes shining with tears. He felt a pang of guilt, and put a careful hand on Dain’s shoulder.

“We are going all the way to the coast, following the river. If Tora is on the river, or near it, we can escort you there, if that is what you wish.”

Still with his face in his hands, Dain slowly shook his head from side to side. “When first I heard of you — a man, a boy, and a wild girl with a black bird, in whose presence the Shadow Lord’s evil was undone — I began to think you were the answer,” he said, his voice thick and muffled. “And as the months went by, and Doom brought news that you were moving west, I became sure of it.”

He stifled a sob. “Then I met you. I thought it was fate. But it has all been a mistake. Another mistake. Oh, I can do nothing right! What am I to do?”

“I think you had better tell us what is troubling you,” said Jasmine flatly. “No purpose is served by wailing and grieving.”

Dain looked up. Her calm seemed to have brought him to himself as no amount of kind sympathy could ever do. He rubbed the back of his hand over his eyes, wiping away the tears.

“For reasons I cannot tell you, I must get to Tora. But Doom forbids it. At first — when first he found me — left for dead after bandits burned my family’s farm — he said I must regain my strength. Then he said I needed more training to travel in safety, though already I could use a bow. Later he said he needed my help for just a little while, and I could not refuse him. And at last, as I grew impatient, he said that Tora had grown too dangerous for me or any of our group, until we were much stronger.”

He paused, shaking his head as if to clear it. “He says that to visit it now would mean certain capture, and this would be a danger to the whole Resistance. He says Tora is crawling with Grey Guards and thick with spies, because …”

His voice trailed off, and he swallowed.

“Because Tora has always been so loyal to the royal family,” said Barda suddenly. “Of course!”

His eyes were alert and excited. In the back of Lief’s mind, memory stirred. The memory was of his father, beating red-hot iron in the forge, talking of Tora, the great city of the west. He had said that it was a place of beauty, culture, and powerful magic, far away from bustling Del and its palace, but fiercely loyal to the crown. Lief remembered his father describing a painting he had seen in the palace library, long ago.

It was a picture of a great crowd of people. All were tall and slender, with long, smooth faces, slanting
eyebrows, dark eyes, and shining black hair. They wore robes of many colors, with deep sleeves that touched the ground. Their hands were pressed over their hearts.

They were all facing a huge rock from the top of which green flames sprang high into the sky. Beside the rock, his head bowed humbly, stood a big man in rough working clothes, wearing the Belt of Deltora. A beautiful, black-haired woman stood beside him, her hand on his arm.

“Adin loved a Toran woman, and she loved him,” Lief said slowly. “When he was proclaimed king, she went with him to Del, to rule by his side. On the day they left, the Torans swore allegiance to Adin, and all who came after him. Other tribes had done the same, but the Torans, who were the greatest among them, carved their oath upon the flaming rock that stood at their city’s heart, and set a spell upon it that could never be broken.”

He met Barda and Jasmine’s eyes, and the same thought flashed between them. What more perfect place than Tora to hide the heir to the throne?

“It is a long way from Del to Tora,” said Barda aloud, choosing his words carefully so as not to reveal their meaning to Dain. “A perilous journey. But once there …”

Yes, Lief’s eyes answered silently. Once there, King Endon could have been quite sure of help. The Torans would have done anything, risked anything, to keep him, Queen Sharn, and their baby safe. And they had
magic enough to do it — whatever the Shadow Lord threatened, whatever destruction he caused.

“You
do
know something of Tora, then!” Dain was exclaiming, his face brightening.

“Not as it is now,” Lief said slowly. “I know only the ancient stories. No news has reached Del from the west since before I was born.”

“And perhaps long before that,” Barda put in. He met Dain’s anxious eyes. “I think, perhaps, that it is not only the dangers of Tora that cause Doom to forbid it to his people. It is also Tora’s loyalty to the crown. Doom wants no part of that. He despises the memory of the royal family. Is that not so?”

Dain’s shoulders slumped. “It is so,” he admitted. “And Doom wants no part of Tora’s magic, either. He says we depended on magic to save us in the past, and that it failed us. He says that we must learn to stand on our own feet, and fight the Shadow Lord with cunning, strength, and weapons. But I —”

“You know that is not enough,” Lief broke in. “And it is you who are right, Dain. The Enemy’s power was gained by sorcery. Ordinary strength, however determined, may undo some of his evil work, but can never defeat him for good.”

Jasmine had been listening, looking from one speaker to another. Now she spoke.

“Ordinary strength may not defeat the Shadow Lord. But ordinary sense tells us how we must proceed from here. Plainly, we are about to travel into territory
the Enemy is watching closely. There will be many eyes watching for the group they have been told about — a man, a boy — and a wild girl with a black bird.”

She said the last words with a bitter smile.

Lief tried to interrupt, but she held up her hand to stop him. “We must separate, if we are not to be noticed,” she said. “And since Kree and I are the ones who make our group obvious, we are the ones who must take another path.”

She pulled on her pack. Kree flew to perch on her arm. Filli chattered fearfully.

“Jasmine, no!” Lief exclaimed.

“Do not leave us!” cried Dain at the same moment.

Jasmine turned to Barda. “I am right, am I not?” she demanded. “Tell them!”

The big man hesitated, but his grieved face showed that he knew her reasoning was sound.

She nodded briskly. “Then that is settled. All being well, we will meet on the coast, at the river’s end.”

With that, she lifted a hand in farewell and moved quickly off into the darkness. With a cry Lief started after her. But she did not answer his call, and he could not catch her. In moments she was just a flickering shadow among the trees. Then she was gone.

B
arda, Lief, and Dain were following the river, creeping through the trees that ran along its banks.

Many days had passed since Jasmine had left them, and though Lief watched constantly for signs of her, so far he had seen nothing. It was strange and dull to be travelling without her, without Filli’s soft chatter in the background and Kree squawking above their heads. Dain, though always dependable in time of trouble, could not take her place.

Lief was alarmed, too, to realize how much he and Barda had grown to depend on Jasmine’s sharp eyes and hearing to warn them of approaching danger. For there was danger in plenty. Twice the companions had been forced to fight for their lives when bandits took them by surprise, leaping down on them from the trees. Four times they had hidden just in time as pirate boats sailed
by — large, battered wooden craft patched with all manner of odd bits and pieces, some of them with sails made of scraps of cloth roughly sewn together.

The ruffians who hoisted the sails, lay sleeping on the rough boards, or plied the long oars, were as ill-assorted as the materials that made their craft. They were of every size, color, and shape, but all had a savage, hungry look. Their clothes were ragged and filthy and their hair wild, but the knives, swords, and axes that hung from their belts gleamed sharp and bright in the sun.

A lone figure swayed at the top of every mast, strapped in place with ropes or supported on a sling of leather. From that high perch, hard eyes, shaded with a hand, hat, or branch of leaves, scanned the riverbanks and the water ahead.

Looking for prey. Looking for travellers to kill and rob. Looking for unprotected villages, for other boats to plunder.

Here, far from the mountains and the streams that fed it, the river had grown slow, narrow, and winding. It was dark and oily, flecked with evil-looking foam. The smell of death and decay hung over it like mist. Rotting, broken timbers, rags of clothing, and other rubbish bobbed in its current.

There were more sinister floating things, too. Now and again dead bodies drifted just below the surface, the water around them swirling and bubbling horribly as writhing river creatures feasted unseen.

And Ols? Who knew which bandits, which creatures, were Ols?

One evening, when Lief, Barda, and Dain had stopped for the night, two beautiful water birds, purest white, waded through the reeds to shore, bending their graceful necks as if asking to be fed. But they ignored the scraps Lief threw to them. They simply stared. And only when they raised their wings to fly away did Lief see the black spot each bore on its side, and realize what they were.

Prowling Ols. But a man and two boys were of no interest to them. They were moving on, to seek the man, the boy, the girl, and the black bird they had been sent to find and destroy.

Lief lay back, his stomach churning, staring at the brightness of the moon. In three days it would be full, and even now it was large and gleaming, lighting the darkness. Every bush seemed bright. Every tree was open to view. There were no hiding places.

Jasmine had been right. It was her presence, and Kree’s, that made their group stand out. But if the Ols found her alone, with Kree by her side, would they not strike? She was the one in true danger now.

Lief prayed she would be safe. He vowed to himself that if they all survived this test, their party would never again be separated. Prudence was all very fine. But other things were more important.

The next morning they reached a bridge that spanned another river flowing into the Tor. The bridge was arched
high so that boats could sail under it, and, though in bad repair, it felt safe enough to cross. On the other side was a tiny village, nestling in the corner made by the two rivers. It seemed deserted.

“This is Broad River, I think,” said Dain, looking down at the slow-moving water as they began to cross the bridge. “You would have seen part of it on your way to Rithmere.”

“Oh, yes,” Barda answered with a grim smile. “And felt it, too — more than we would like. So this is where it ends.”

They reached the end of the bridge and began to move towards the village, which they could now see had suffered some terrible disaster. Many houses had been burned. Windows were shattered. Rubble and broken glass littered the narrow streets.

“Pirates,” Dain muttered.

There was a post sticking up from the ground ahead, and when they reached it they saw that it had once supported a sign. Now the sign lay on the ground, its edges broken, its brave lettering muddied.

“I have heard Doom speak of this place,” said Dain dully. “He said the people were brave and full of good heart. He wanted them to join us, so they would be safe. But they refused to abandon their village to the pirates. They said they would defend it with their last breath.”

“It seems they did so.” Barda’s voice was harsh with anger.

As Lief began to turn away, he saw that some scraps of thick yellow knitting wool had fallen on the bare ground along the board’s top edge. He crouched to pick them up — then snatched his hand back as he saw that they were arranged in a pattern.

“Barda! Jasmine has been here!” he exclaimed excitedly.” And perhaps she is here still. This is a message for us — a message no other person would notice. See? She has made the first letter of her name. And a picture of a bird for Kree. The other signs must tell us where she is sheltering.”

Barda considered the shapes on the ground. “The circle could be part of a building. But what is the 3?”

“A number on a door, perhaps!” Lief stood up and looked around, filled with new energy.

With Dain trailing behind them, they began to explore the village. It was a depressing task, and Lief’s
excitement quickly died. Plainly, Where Waters Meet had once been a busy, thriving little town. Now, everywhere were the signs of violence and bloodshed. The tavern, the meeting hall, every house, every shop, had been ransacked. Everything of any value had been taken.

Some of the invaders had scrawled their names triumphantly on the walls of living rooms, bedrooms, and halls. “Nak” was one name that occurred again and again, twice in what looked like blood. But there were other names, too. “Finn” was one, “Milne” another.

Lief stared at the scrawlings with hatred. Nak, Finn, and Milne, he thought, I will remember your names. You are not Ols or Grey Guards, Shadow Lord’s servants, bred for evil. You are free to choose how you act. And you have chosen to prey upon your own people. You have chosen to steal, destroy, and murder. I hope that, one day, I meet you. Then I will make you pay.

With heavy hearts they finished searching. There was a circular courtyard, and some window frames in the shape of circles, too. But there were no numbers at all, and there was no sign of Jasmine.

Lief stopped outside the last house, which had a new moon carved into the door. “Moons are circles, when they are full,” he called to Barda. “Could Jasmine have meant —?”

Then he broke off, for he had at last realized the true meaning of Jasmine’s message. He shook his head, annoyed at his own slowness. “We have been wasting our time,” he exclaimed. “Jasmine is long gone. The
signs tell us not where she is in Where Waters Meet, but when she was here. The circle is the full moon. Then there is a minus sign, and the num-ber 3. She was here yesterday — three days before full moon!”

“Of course!” Barda heaved a great sigh. “Then —”

Suddenly he looked alert, and put his finger to his lips, listening. Lief listened in his turn and heard the last thing he would have expected.

It was the jingling of many tiny bells, growing louder. And, even more astonishing, the merry, booming sound of someone singing.