A Play of Shadow (51 page)

She hoped she was the one lost and alone. If she couldn’t sense where Bannan was, she supposed that made him a bit lost too, but surely he was with Wisp and Scourge. And the little cousin, not to be forgotten, as well as the yling.

Not that she could guess what use a yling, however brave, might be, nor why the tiny thing had climbed into Bannan’s hair in the first place and crossed with them.

Though the man did have lovely hair. Thick, with waves Hettie envied. Soft to the touch—

This was no time to daydream about Bannan’s hair, Jenn scolded herself, then sighed, a little. She’d been proud to think herself his protector. A splendid job she was doing of that. So much for being an all-powerful turn-born. Really, she wondered, how did they ever get anything done in the Verge, if they would disagree with something so simple as “please find my love” or “bring us back together?”

“Aren’t you the lovely one?”

Jenn jumped, then looked around wildly. A voice! And not an inner one such as Mistress Sand’s or a toad’s, nor was it a breeze in her ear; this was, in fact, a real voice. A voice needed someone to speak it—

She was alone in the meadow.

Alone and uneasier by the moment, whether at the overbold compliment or the voice itself, that being rather dry and dusty-seeming. Though perhaps the speaker didn’t have the chance to speak very often. Didn’t Master Jupp regularly need to clear his throat before any sound would come out?

“Can’t you talk?” the voice said, its tone become one of pity.

“Of course I can.” Problem was, what would be safe to say to such a strange voice? “Where are you?”

“Where are you, Lovely One?”

She cared even less for the flattery the second time. “My name’s Jenn.” Something told her to give it nothing more. “I’m here waiting for my friends.” There. Now the voice knew she wasn’t alone.

Though she was.

“‘Friends.’” It said the word oddly, as if it had an unfamiliar taste. “Won’t you, Lovely Jenn, be my friend?”

Friends, Jenn knew full well, were important. Aunt Sybb said true poverty was being friendless; though she’d add it wasn’t easy to tell a true friend from false, then frequently go on to comment darkly on friendship being a poor gauge of trust. Their Poppa would remind his daughters, quietly and in private, that their aunt had lost friends during the exile and some of those, she’d loved dearly.

Thinking of Aunt Sybb and her family stiffened Jenn’s spine. “Who are you?” she demanded.

Rustlerustle.

Heart’s Blood!

She would not be afraid. She would not. Now she had “who.”

Where was he?

Jenn pushed aside her dread, determined to find this sneak. This was her magic and the turn-born could not deny her.

There!

Too close for comfort. Much too close. Moving very slowly, she looked over her shoulder into the water of the fountain.

And into great yellow eyes.

“Got you!” exulted the voice.

The kruar’s naked sides shuddered, shedding pieces of wood and dust; he blew noisily. Unimpressed, that meant. ~Old fool.~

The dragon, having made himself visible, stalked back and forth, violence in his eyes. ~I’m the fool?~ His claws shredded the ground. ~You were to wait in ambush!~

~For you to scare him off?~

Letting the powerful beings bicker, not that he could stop them, Bannan settled his pack and tucked the house toad under one arm, where it seemed content. Done, he stood in the middle of the clearing and raised his forefinger.

Scourge’s head lowered and turned to fix him with an abashed-looking eye. Wisp halted, claws deep in brown fuzz that, on too-close inspection, appeared to bleed.

“Where’s Jenn?” Spoken, Bannan thought proudly, like a man both calm and collected. A man with priorities. Someone sensible.

~Where you were told to go.~ As if all this—all of it!—was his fault?

The truthseer abandoned calm. “Bloody idiots, the pair of you! Where’s that?” He shook a fist under the dragon’s long and deadly snout. “Is she there? Do you know? Is she safe?” He turned to Scourge. “And what were you after? That foul voice? Ancestors Misbegotten and Malicious, what was that?!” He was shouting. Who wouldn’t be shouting! “You used me as bait AGAIN!”

~You haven’t been eaten yet,~ Wisp pointed out smugly.

Scourge lifted his head, a noble curve to his neck. ~Tasty!~

Ancestors Witness, he’d give anything to tie their tails together. Was that within a turn-born’s magic? He’d be delighted to request the favor, when next he had the chance.

Hoping for that chance, Bannan emphasized each word. “Take me to Jenn. Now.”

~ ‘Now?’~ Scourge.

~We’re hunting!~ Wisp.

Though one pair was red and somewhat beady, the other whorls of wild purple, their eyes gave him the same astonished look.

Maybe he could find a way to ram them down each other’s throats! As Bannan drew breath for another, likely useless, shout, the toad shifted under his arm. ~Elder brother, General, forgive my intrusion, but I too must go. The man you hunt seeks Jenn Nalynn. I am her protector!~

“‘Man?’” Bannan heard himself as if from a distance. As Captain Ash, he’d felt the same exceptional clarity when his patrol entered the darkness close to their enemy, or when an interrogation drove past lies to some horrible truth. It washed away every emotion, leaving only focus and deadly will, and he was grateful—oh, yes—for that now. “Another man. Here,” he stated grimly. “What is he? Another truthseer?”

The house toad, after a courteous hesitation for others to answer, launched itself into its own without breath or pause. ~Do you not know of the Lost One, truthseer? Who lived in your house and brought the mirror and was named Crumlin Tralee before he crossed at the cataract using magic he stole, and thought dead then though now, according to the efflet, isn’t dead and never was and seeks our turn-born for her magic? How they know I cannot say, but I will protect—~

~Peace, little cousin.~ The dragon padded forward until the heat from his breath stirred Bannan’s hair. ~What we hunt was once a man. What he is now?~ Somehow Wisp put the feel of a careless shrug into the words. ~A threat. One whose strength we don’t know and the turn-born deny. Whatever he is, I will end.~

“I know the name.” Bannan heard himself say. Crumlin. The man who’d led Great Gran and her family, those other families, to Marrowdell. Who’d been left behind.

Lost.

Heart’s Blood. The mirror. Great Gran had meant it as a kindness; he’d seen the truth in her wrinkled face. “Why didn’t you tell us?” Beyond betrayal, this. Or was it? Ancestors Witness, he was nose-to-snout with a dragon. But not any dragon. “You claim to value honor and duty,” Bannan said harshly. “You’ve betrayed both!”

Wisp’s long head turned so Bannan gazed into one wild eye and he spoke next as a breeze, hot and fetid and intimate. “Tell Jenn Nalynn a villager from Marrowdell has been lost in the Verge—trapped here—most of his life. Tell her I intend to eat his heart before he can so much as think to do her harm. What would she do, Bannan Larmensu? What will you?” The dragon moved back, jaws agape. “Now that you’ve a name and know our prey was once of your flesh, what does your honor and duty demand? Does it differ from mine?”

Bannan held to his dark focus, made himself hear what Wisp told him, forced himself to think. No innocent settler, this Crumlin Tralee, nor charlatan selling tokens in the market. The mirror—the rest of it—was proof they faced what was exceedingly rare in Rhoth, a true wielder of magic. More than that, a wielder who’d come to Marrowdell for his own purpose, like those who’d almost destroyed the valley.

As for the mirror? Bespelled to return or by unfortunate chance, it had given Crumlin a window into Marrowdell, to see the magic that was Jenn Nalynn. Yes, she’d destroyed it, but would she have, knowing the truth about its owner?

Would he?

Let alone how best to deal with Crumlin in the Verge, other than by the dragon’s clear preference. “What is he now?” Bannan asked grimly. “Could he return to our world?”

~To survive in this one, who knows what he’s become?~ Wisp balanced on his good legs and spread his wings. ~Well?~

“We’re not your bait,” Bannan snapped, then curled his arm more securely under the toad. “We find Jenn. We cross into Channen. And hope Crumlin Tralee has the wisdom to leave us alone, having seen who hunts him.”

Those hunters regarded him, waiting for the rest.

“If he doesn’t,” the truthseer said at last, sure and cold, “we’ll revisit the question of who eats his heart.”

Scourge began to purr.

“You haven’t ‘got me,’” Jenn informed the eyes, being quite firm about it. “I found you.”

A blink.
Rustlerustle.
The voice, still disembodied and seemingly from everywhere at once, chuckled as if she’d surprised it, but it was an uncomfortable sound, as though laughter was more foreign to the voice than speech. “Say we’ve found one another, Lovely Jenn. I’d prefer we not argue. About this. About anything.”

She’d argue about not arguing, but that seemed pointless. Jenn stared into the water, but the eyes sat within the sky’s many-colored reflection, as if they rode those heights.

She glanced skyward, to be sure she wasn’t looking at a reflection, but there were only the myriad colors of the Verge, a rock or two floating high, and the black plumes of the trees surrounding her.

Plumes filled with watching ylings. They clung to the tips by one hand or two and weren’t at all like the ylings she was used to in Marrowdell. These wore black feathers instead of petals or leaves and more than a few held shields that looked disturbingly like the fine silver scales along Wisp’s back. There were tiny swords that might have been teeth and those without swords carried spears twice the length of their bodies.

“I—”

A hard cold grasp jerked her back toward the fountain! She looked down, horrified to find a metal band clamped around her arm from wrist to elbow. From it depended a chain, a chain that ended at the surface of the water.

While within the water, the eyes, once slit, had dilated and become round, like black pits. “Got you!” Another jerk on the chain.

Her free hand scrabbled over stone, unable to find a crack or crevice to grip, and her upper body was already at the fountain’s edge. Another pull and she’d be over. Jenn pressed her knees against the outer wall, trying to use her own weight for leverage.

Freeze!
she wished the water, but the expectation that had built it wouldn’t be denied.
BEGONE!
she wished the eyes, but they weren’t really here and didn’t obey.

“Help!” she shouted. “Help me!”

“I am helping,” crooned the voice. “And soon you’ll help me, Lovely Jenn. Come closer. Come.”

“Bannan! Wisp!”

Jenn felt herself slipping. Felt the lines of an unseen net fall around her, taking her breath, taking her. She made herself turn-born and it made no difference.

The hunter laughed.

Bannan fell more than stepped into the open, losing both his balance and grip on the toad. The toad landed without difficulty, being used to flying through the air. The truthseer caught himself. “You couldn’t—” he sputtered.