Voyage of the Fox Rider (61 page)

After forceful argument by Jinnarin, Bokar at last acceded, and she and Rux were sent with a Dwarven squad in among the island tors, the Pysk especially equipped to scout the lay of the land, with Rux and shadow and stealth at her beck. On the fox she would go well before them, she and Rux cloaked in shade to slip in secret among the twisting ways.

All squads were cautioned merely to measure and observe, to avoid confrontation and combat should they sight foe—for who knew what this dreadful place might conceal? And so, under gloom-cast skies, across the isle
spread the explorers, leftward and rightward and inward. And within the vanguard spreading wide, a clot of shadow slipped among the weed and scrub and stone and headed into the craggy tors.

Using the face of a shield as a drawing table, Dett sat on the ground and added a section to the parchment map as Aravan and Bokar peered over his shoulder. When the scout set the pen aside, the armsmaster growled, “That completes the perimeter.”

Aravan glanced at the scale. “Hm…some three miles across and four miles long.”

Alamar scowled at the seated Dwarf. “No castle, eh? Nothing of the sort?”

Dett looked at the elder. “No, Mage Alamar. Not where we walked.”

“You looked down the sides, did you?”

The ginger-haired Dwarf nodded.

“Bah! It is the same with all reports,” Alamar said sourly, then spun on his heel and stooped under the brim of the sail-made tent, where Aylis paced back and forth in the chill wind, peering out through the gathering darkness.

“You’ll wear out your legs with all your worry,” muttered Alamar.

“Where is she, Father?”

Alamar waved a hand toward the silhouettes of crags. “Out there.”

“But she should be back by now. All the other squads have returned.”

“She is with warriors, Daughter. Besides, she can take care of herself.”

Surprise in her eyes at this admission, Aylis looked at the elder. “Even so…”

It began to rain.

Jinnarin and Rux, along with Brekka, Dask, and Dokan, came through the cold downpour an hour after full darkness fell, though under the pall of the rain, just when that had occurred was nought but a guess. Drenched to the bone, they came in under the tent, and by the slump of her shoulders Aylis knew that the Pysk
and Dwarves had found nought—“Nothing but stone crags,” confirmed Jinnarin.

When they had dried off, by the phosphorescent glow of a Dwarven lamp and the flicker of the small scrub fire, Dask added their knowledge to the map. As had all other patrols, he noted the elevations as well as the general features observed, while he sketched with precision their exact route.

When he was finished, Jinnarin stood beside the shield and peered at the drawing. Soaking cold rain drummed down on the silk above. “Where is it, this castle?”

Bokar turned up his hands, saying nothing.

“No one found anything?”

“Nothing,” growled Bokar.

Near tears, Jinnarin looked at Aravan, seeking answers. None were forthcoming.

Alamar cleared his throat. “Perhaps Durlok has enwrapped it in a spell so that it is not seen.”

Jinnarin’s eyes flew wide. “Invisibility?”

“I did not say that, Pysk,” snapped the Mage, nettled at her response. “Bah, you are like all the others—expecting miracles.”

A spark of fire glinted in Jinnarin’s eyes. “Well you said—”

“What I said, Pysk,” interrupted Alamar, “was that he might have used a spell so that the castle is not seen.”

Jinnarin ground her teeth. “If that isn’t invisibility, then what is it?”

“Oh, any number of things—but they all boil down to disguise or misdirection.”

Bokar cocked an eyebrow. “Disguise I understand, Mage, but misdirection? How can that be? Hiding a castle is no sleight of hand trick.”

“Ha! Do you presume to instruct me in magery, Dwarf?”

Aylis sighed in resignation. “What Father means is that there are castings which cause an onlooker to simply not see what is before his very eyes. In some, the beholder cannot even look at the object, but instead he is forced to peer around the edges, so to speak. Some of these castings cause the observer to mistake an object for something completely familiar, something to dismiss entirely from attention. Others cause the witness to forget
the object even as he is looking straight at it. Still other castings camouflage the object to meld in with the surroundings, or to become obscure, such as does your mastery of shadow, Jinnarin. Illusion, misdirection, obfuscation—these are three ways to hide a castle.”

“See? I told you!” sneered Alamar. “Invisibility, pah!”

Ignoring the affront of Alamar’s manner, Jinnarin asked. “And you believe that Durlok may have done such a thing?”

Aylis turned up her hands. “It is a possibility.”

“Then how will we overcome it?”

“Aha!” crowed Alamar above the sound of rain. “I will counter it with a casting of my own, using my magesight to see through Durlok’s cheap trick.”

During the night it stopped raining, and bright Sun came with the dawn. Two heavily armed parties were sent out, fifteen Dwarves in each: one accompanying Alamar: the other with Aylis. Mage and Lady Mage would use their gift of to see through whatever ruse Durlok may have cast…if any.

Using the map, they divided the isle into sections, Alamar and his party to start out westerly, Aylis and hers to the east. First they would merely walk the perimeter along the top of the cliff, their sweeping across all they could see. If anything was spotted, they would hold their position and send runners to fetch the other party. If nothing was seen, they would meet at some point along the opposite side, then Aylis and her team would walk among the crags, the Lady Mage seeing whatever she could see. As proposed, should Aylis and her party enter the tors, Alamar and his team would return to the campsite, the crags deemed too rugged for the elder to pass among. Alamar had argued strenuously that he was as good as any of them, but finally acceded to the plan when Aylis reminded him that the tors were mostly uphill.

Jatu and Bokar accompanied Alamar’s team; Jinnarin and Aravan and Kelek went with Aylis. The remainder of the force remained at the campsite, warding the boats and supplies.

Jinnarin on Rux took point as Aylis’s party marched
east, the Lady Mage whispering
“Visus,”
her gaze sweeping across the isle.

Along the top of the bluff they marched, cliffs falling sheer to the water. The ocean below boomed against the grey stone bulwark, attempting to wear it away. The morning Sun burned brightly as it rode up into the sky. It would pass overhead far to the north, for it was the middle of May and they were far south of the midline—in fact some five hundred miles south of the Lat of the Goat.

An hour passed, no more, and they had reached the eastern extent of the island, when Jinnarin called, “Look! In the crags—a glittering!”

A quarter mile away, among the upjutting grey stone, a sparkle shone. “It is no illusion,” murmured Aylis, “but a real glint—source or reflection, I cannot say.”

“Let’s go,” cried Jinnarin, Rux bounding away.

“Wait,” called Aravan, too late, for the Pysk was by then gone.

“After!” ordered Kelek, Aravan gainsaying him not. “At a jogtrot!” and the Dwarves and Elf and Lady Mage set out on the heels of the fox.

Within sixty heartbeats Rux had covered the distance to the gleam, and Jinnarin’s face fell, for it was merely sunlight reflected off glittery stone. Moments later, the Dwarven squad arrived. “It’s just shiny rock,” said Jinnarin bitterly. “And I was so hoping…”

Kelek stepped forward and ran his hand over the stone.
“Kwarc,”
he said, other Dwarves muttering in agreement. Turning and sweeping his arm wide, Kelek added, “All rock here among the crags and elsewhere on the island is
kwarc
bearing. It is the nature of such stone.”

Jinnarin sighed. “Well, it’s not enough to make a crystal castle from.”

“Not here,” agreed Kelek, turning, gesturing. “But elsewhere—who knows?”

They marched back to the periphery and continued about the isle, now heading ‘round the southern marge. They had gone some miles or so, when Aravan held up a hand. “Mine amulet, it gathers chill the farther we go. Take care, for we approach something of harm.”

All crossbows were cocked and weapons were eased
in their harnesses, and those who bore shields on their backs unslung them and kept them loosely at hand—not such as to interfere with the crossbows, but available nevertheless. Jinnarin was recalled and apprised of the forewarning, and she readied her tiny bow and gathered shadow to herself and Rux. And in spite of arguments to the contrary, she took point again, for none else was as well suited to the task. Even so, Aravan cautioned her to keep an eye on him, for he would signal should the stone betoken imminence of the threat.

With Jinnarin and Rux thirty yards in the lead, south and west they fared, still on the rim of the bluff. And the farther they went, the colder became Aravan’s stone. Aylis’s magesight revealed nothing untoward—no illusion, misdirection, obfuscation—and no threat. Past the southernmost reach of the isle they trod, eyes alert, weapons ready, yet nothing of menace did they see. Yet when they moved on westerly, Aravan murmured, “The threat slowly fades; the stone is less chill.”

Aylis swept the isle with her then said, “Does it move away from us, or instead do we move away from it?”

Aravan’s eyes widened slightly at her canny question. “When we join up with Bokar and Jatu and the others, then we shall see,
chieran
.”

On they marched another mile or so, the stone warming with every stride. And then in the distance they saw Alamar’s group resting, the elder sitting on a rock.

“Here it is coldest,” murmured Aravan, his hand clutching the blue stone amulet, the Elf surrounded by a ring of Dwarven warriors, Aylis and Alamar inside as well.

“If your stone is chill,” muttered Alamar, “then most likely it responds to creatures from Neddra—Foul Folk and the like.”

They had returned to the place where the stone grew chill and, arms ready, had followed its influence to where it grew coldest, moving inward toward the tors. And now they stood at the edge of the crags perhaps a quarter mile in from the bluffs.