The Farwalker's Quest (34 page)

“Aren't you coming with us?” Ariel asked, her heart picking up speed. “We can go slow, or wait a few days while you heal. But we still have to get to the mouth of the mountain.”

He looked up at her wearily. “Why?”

Ariel's lips sputtered, empty. No response could have surprised her more.

“I told you. The telling dart—there's a message. The Vault …” At his expression, her voice trailed off.

“I don't care anymore,” he said. “I promised to try to protect you from Gust. He can't hurt you now—so I'm done. You go where you want. Clearly you can.”

“But we need your help!”

“No, you don't.”

Left out of the argument, Zeke looked on with dismay. “One of Gust's gang is still out there,” he said. “I'm pretty sure there were three when we saw them with the wolves.”

Scarl waved off the objection. “Washed away, if not drowned, in the flood. Didn't you hear the shouting that night?” He picked up a pack and hopped with the staff toward their exit.

Aghast, Ariel watched his back. Reality itself seemed to have slipped from beneath her: Scarl had given up.

“You can't!” She grabbed his elbow, nearly knocking him off his one-legged balance. “You started it,” she insisted. “You want to find it worse than I do. It can't help Mirayna, not now, but you still—”

Spinning to seize her arm, he snapped her up onto her toes. Ariel's teeth cracked together painfully. She held back a whimper, sure she was in for a shaking. Zeke jerked protectively toward her.

That motion broke the wave of Scarl's anger. With a grimace, he splayed his fingers and released her.

“I'm sorry,” Ariel whispered, not sure what for.

“No. You don't deserve that. If anyone is wrong, it is me. But hear me, Ariel ….” He tore a ragged breath, closed his eyes, and shook his head. When his eyes opened again, they stared over her head. “I know my own actions have caused what I feel. I didn't try hard enough to stop a death delivered to you—your mother. I put what I wanted first. And now you have hastened a death delivered to me. Two, with my old grandpop.”

Zeke groaned. “I did that! I didn't mean to, but …”

Scarl ignored Zeke and refused to meet Ariel's eyes. “It's only justice, and I'll take the punishment I deserve.” He turned away. “But that's enough pain for us both. Let's stop there.”

The closed look on his face sank into her heart. The tearing sensation it left in Ariel's chest felt in some ways worse than any before. When Zeke had told her that her mother was dead, there remained a faraway cottage where that death might not be real. This time, she couldn't tell herself that the words might be wrong. Worse still, no matter how dead her mother might be, Luna had not chosen to die. Nothing between them had pushed her to leave Ariel intentionally.

“You really won't go with us?” Her voice trembled. “We could—”

“No.”

Her eyes filling with tears, Ariel's gaze swung to Zeke. He looked stricken as well but had no help to offer.

Ariel flung the last argument, the last hope, she had. “Coward.”

He flinched but did not turn.

“Call me what you will, Farwalker,” he said softly to the wall before him. “I'm not you.”

In silence, Scarl boosted both Zeke and Ariel out of the cave. Gulping hot, racking sobs, Ariel climbed desperately, scraping her elbows and knees to avoid needing more of his help. She didn't want him to touch her. Then Scarl tossed up the packs and his staff, along with a rope knotted under his armpits so Zeke could tug from above. With that help, he managed to ascend. He could not, however, stifle a few cries as he bumped or put weight on his foot.

Ariel waited in the sunshine, looking elsewhere through water-blurred eyes. The whole morning's grief spilled out in tears she didn't bother to hide. Hearing pain echo out of the earth, she felt it reverberate through her heart.

“Come on, Zeke,” Ariel said, once all three of them were out of the hole. The tunnel's course, a grassed hump, stretched clearly before them.

Zeke turned troubled eyes on Scarl. “Are you sure you'll be okay?” he asked, low.

“Good luck and good days.” No cheer lifted Scarl's voice. “You may catch up to me after the farwalking is done.”

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.

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 went 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.