The elven warrior released his bowstring. A gleaming ruby shaft leaped from the golden bow and seemed to disappear before Juhg's eyes as it took full flight.
An instant later, a goblinkin warrior
exploded
, seemingly from within. Before the various pieces of his body descended, a blaze erupted and consumed them. Ash rained down from the sky.
In quick succession, two other goblinkin were summarily dispatched in the same fashion. Their ashes whirled on the breeze as well.
Then a great brown bear lumbered from the forest under Sokadir's feet. When it rose to its hind legs, the bear stood almost fourteen feet tall. It snuffled mightily, then roared and dropped back to all fours. In motion at once, the bear streaked for the goblinkin.
Raisho and the pirates stood to one side. Then the great bear was among the goblinkin, ripping and shredding with its great claws and biting. The goblinkin line broke, shattered into knots that quickly retreated. The bear flung the ones it had caught into the air so they crashed down several feet away. Most of them weren't moving, but the ones that did were quickly put to death by Raisho and the pirates.
Sokadir's magic bow, Deathwhisper, churned out burning death. As the elf drew back the string, another arrow formed out of thin air, summoned by the spell beaten into the bow.
In less than a minute, the goblinkin were in full rout. They headed back to the north, and only then did Juhg realize that they hadn't come upon them from behind. With any luck,
Moonsdreamer
still awaited them at the port in the ruined city.
Slowly, Sokadir stood on the tree branch where he'd taken up position. The owl returned to him, alighting on a specially constructed leather stand the elven warrior wore upon his left shoulder. Snuffling with displeasure, the bear padded toward Juhg and sniffed him. When the large creature was satisfied with his inspection, he turned and lumbered back to the elf.
“Greetings, champion,” Kimaru said in the woodlands elf tongue.
Sokadir balanced his bow on the toe of one of his snakeskin boots and leaned slightly on his crossed arms. “You bring trouble on yourself, little brother,” the elven warrior said.
“These people seek you,” Kimaru said.
“I know. I don't want to be found. If not for you, I wouldn't be here now.”
“I thank you for your help, honored one.”
“I did it so that you can help others,” Sokadir replied. “Use my gift wisely. These days I don't give out many.”
“I will.”
“Sokadir,” Juhg called.
The elven warrior looked at him. “I don't know you.”
“I wish to talk to you.”
“Why?”
“I want to know what happened at the Battle of Fell's Keep.”
Sokadir regarded Juhg in silence for a moment. “Careful what you seek. What you ask could get you killed.”
“I'm not hunting you or Deathwhisper,” Juhg said. “I only want the truth.”
“The truth is a dangerous thing,” Sokadir replied. “And it will kill innocent and guilty alike.”
“I don't understand.” All the weariness and fear and curiosity he'd felt since Craugh had come for him in Shark's Maw Cove came apart inside Juhg. “I
need
to understand.”
“I would not kill you if I didn't have to,” Sokadir said. “But I will if I must. You need to go from these woods. I won't make the mistake of helping you again.”
Unconsciously, Raisho stepped in front of Juhg.
Without another word, Sokadir turned and leaped, vanishing into the forest with hardly a rippling leaf in his wake. The owl glided beside the elven warrior while the bear lumbered along beneath.
“I don't understand,” Kimaru said in a child's voice. “Sokadir has never harmed an innocent.”
“'E saved us this night,” Raisho said. “Doesn't make sense, 'im threatin' us like that.”
“Didn't you feel the pain in him?” Yurial asked.
“I did,” Juhg said. “A thousand years of it.” But was it pain from what had happened, or guilt over what he'd done?
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A day later, on a foggy morning that held a cloud layer close to the land, Kimaru brought Juhg and his companions to the Crocodile's Throat. They stood high on the hillside of a low valley and stared at the water coming through a cave mouth and spilling down into one of the tributaries to the Steadfast River.
“There.” Kimaru pointed at the cave mouth on the cliff face. “That's the Crocodile's Throat.”
Rushing white water poured through the tunnel and dropped to the wide bowl of the river below. The water look cool and deep, then narrowed again as it found its way to the Steadfast River. Crocodiles lay in the mud along the riverbank.
As Juhg watched, a gull dipped down to the river's surface for a fish and became prey instead as an alligator opened its jaws wide, surfaced and snapped the bird from the air in a flurry of feathers.
From the hill where he stood, Juhg could just see the Never-Know Road going over another hill in the distance. “Where is Jaramak's Aerie?” he asked.
“Not far from here,” Kimaru answered. Over the past day and a half, the
young elf had been quiet and kept mostly to himself. Sokadir's reaction to them that night had weighed on him heavily. Juhg guessed that only Kimaru's curiosity and need to see what it was that Sokadir feared had brought him this far.
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Jaramak's Aerie was a small tree house less than a hundred yards from the Crocodile's Throat. Age had weathered the wood, but greenery still wrapped it. If Kimaru hadn't pointed it out for them, Juhg doubted they would have found it.
“Does anyone live here?” Juhg asked.
“Not in a long time,” Kimaru answered. “Jaramak was a lookout for the Laceleaves sprawl.”
“What 'appened to 'im?” Raisho asked.
“He died,” Kimaru said, as if that were strange. “I knew him for a time. It's strange to think that he's no longer there.”
“Does anyone come 'ere?”
“It's a place of the dead,” Kimaru answered. “Jaramak died in that place. No one will go there.”
The dead were anathema to elves. With their long lives, they didn't like to be reminded of what awaited them in the end. When elves died, they were given back to the air, placed in baskets and tied high in trees so their bodies could waste away out of sight.
“I've been told,” Kimaru said in a quiet voice, “that people can still hear Jaramak speaking inside that house.”
For a moment, Juhg looked up at the house, then he walked to the tree.
“What are you doing?” Kimaru asked.
“I'm going inside.”
“Why?”
“Because I was told to go to the Crocodile's Mouth inside Jaramak's Aerie.”
“The Crocodile's Mouth is back the way we came. You saw it for yourself.”
“I know. But I have to see. There was a reason the message was worded like that.”
Kimaru took a step back. “You could be cursed.”
“I don't think I will be,” Juhg replied. He couldn't argue with the years that had taught the elves to fear death. He found handholds and footholds, and climbed forty feet till he reached the dwelling. Yurial followed at his heels, trailed by Raisho.
Juhg paused at the door, touched the handle, and found it wasn't locked. He opened the door, walked in and looked at the shadowed recesses.
The tree house consisted only of four rooms in a two-story stack. The living room and the kitchen were on the bottom, and two bedchambers were on top. All of the furniture remained, presumably the way it had been since the day Jaramak passed away.
The elven warder had lived simply. Everything was neat and orderly, although covered with dust. Empty bird nests occupied shelves that contained tiny carvings. Evidently Jaramak had enjoyed whittling, judging from the tiny wooden figurines.
One of those figurines was a miniature crocodile. On impulse, Juhg picked the crocodile up and turned to the window to allow light into its mouth. A bird, nesting in the curtain above the window, suddenly exploded into motion, flew around the room, and out the window.
Juhg ducked back and his heart trip-hammered. He took a deep breath and forced himself to relax. Beside him, Raisho had his cutlass half drawn.
“Mayhap we're all a little nervous,” Raisho growled in embarrassment.
“This,” Yurial said grimly, “is an appropriate time to be nervous.”
It wasn't just the thought of being in a dead elf's house, Juhg knew. It was the expectation of finding ⦠something. But he was going to have to look elsewhere, for there was nothing inside the crocodile figurine. He reported his findings to the others and put the figurine back on the shelf.
In Jaramak's Aerie
, he mused, remembering what Grandmagister Lamplighter had written.
“Juhg,” Yurial called from the circular staircase leading to the second floor.
He went, climbing the steps, and followed her to one of the bedrooms. Vines moved inside the bedroom, shimmying and shaking under their own power for there was no wind.
A slight keening reached Juhg's ears, something he could almost understand but that stayed just beyond his reach. The almost-voice was intoxicating. Then he realized what he had overlooked.
“Jaramak's Aerie,” he told the others. “It isn't just the tree house. Not with the symbiotic relationship the house and the elf that lives inside it has with the tree. Jaramak's Aerie includes the whole tree.”
Quickly, Juhg descended the ladder and called Kimaru to him. “I need to talk to the tree,” Juhg said.
A fearful look filled the young elf's face. He shook his head. “It is a dead place. It knows death.”
“It may know the secret I'm looking for,” Juhg replied. “Please. Help me.”
“It is a dead place.”
“The tree isn't dead,” Juhg implored. Then he reached deeper, remembering how the young elf had looked on Sokadir with hero worship. “Sokadir is a prince, yet he hasn't been among his people in a thousand years. Would you have him stay away forever? Until it's too late? Do you want him to die rootless?”
“No.” Kimaru's faced tightened.
“Then help me. Can you talk to the tree?”
“I can try.” Reluctantly, Kimaru approached the tree and laid his hands upon it. He sang in a soft voice, then his eyes opened in surprise. He looked at Juhg. “Come here. It wants to talk to you.”
Juhg joined the young elf, taking the proffered hand. Feeling the buzzing thrill of contact almost at once, Juhg had to suppress his urge to immediately disconnect. He had a feeling of great age and a timelessness that was similar to the feeling he'd gotten when he'd handled
The Book of Time
. This was magic, Juhg knew, in its most elemental form.
“Librarian,” a deep voice said inside Juhg's mind.
“Yes,” Juhg responded.
“You ⦠are ⦠not ⦠the ⦠other,” it announced ponderously.
“No. I'm Juhg. You knew Grandmagister Edgewick Lamplighter.”
“Yesssssss.” Above, the branches clacked and rustled restlessly. “He wassss ⦠known ⦠to ⦠me. He ⦠said ⦠one day ⦠another ⦠would ⦠come. He ⦠left ⦠a gift.”
Juhg waited, the breath locked in his throat.
“There ⦠isssss ⦠a tessssst. A quessssstion ⦠you ⦠musssst ⦠ansssswer.”
“Ask.”
“Name ⦠the ⦠three.”
The three
? Juhg was confused. The three what? Three was a magical number, one that was used over and over again in stories, in magic spells, and in coincidence and jokes. Then his mind cleared and he knew there could only be three names that Grandmagister Lamplighter would give to the tree. The three names of the weapons that had held at the Battle of Fell's Keep and were now in jeopardy.
“Boneslicer,” Juhg said. “Seaspray. Deathwhisper.” As the last name left his lips, he felt the connection with the tree grow stronger.
“Yessssss,” it exclaimed. “Look ⦠up.”
Juhg looked up just to see a section of the tree bark split open. A rectangular shape wrapped with a cloth tie tumbled free. He knew instantly what it was. He caught the book easily, feeling the solid weight of it.
“I ⦠bore ⦠the fruit ⦠of your ⦠masssster,” the tree said. “Live ⦠long. Live ⦠well.”
Juhg studied the book. He could tell from the look of it that it had been made in the Vault of All Known Knowledge. He'd made several reams of the paper himself while he'd been a Novice. When he opened the cover and peered at the first page, he recognized Grandmagister Lamplighter's elegant handwriting at once.