Pen didn’t care for the threat, but he supposed it was the Rover Captain’s way of venting his disappointment at what was happening. Besides, he didn’t think there would ever be cause for the big man to act on it.
“I understand,” he replied.
“Best that you do. I won’t say I’m the least bit happy about this. I’m not. I won’t say I think it will work out for you. I don’t. But I will give you your chance with her, Penderrin, and hold you to your word. I just hope I won’t ever have cause to regret doing so.”
“You won’t.”
“Go on, then.” The big man gestured toward Ahren and Khyber, who stood talking at the port railing. “Go back to your friends. We have a full day of sailing tomorrow, and you want to be rested for it.”
Pen left the pilot box in a state of some confusion. He had not expected Gar Hatch to be so accommodating, and it bothered him. He hadn’t lodged more than a mild protest, hadn’t tried to talk Pen out of it, hadn’t even gone to Ahren Elessedil to voice his disapproval. Perhaps Cinnaminson had persuaded him not to do any of those things, but that didn’t seem likely to Pen. Maybe, he thought suddenly, Hatch was waiting for the Druid to put an end to their plans. Maybe he knew how unreceptive Pen’s companions would be and was waiting for them to put a stop to things.
But that didn’t feel right, either. Gar Hatch wasn’t the sort to count on someone else to solve his problems. That kind of behavior wasn’t a part of the Rover ethic, and certainly not in keeping with the big man’s personality.
Pen looked around for Cinnaminson, but didn’t see her. She would be up on deck later, perhaps, but since they were not flying that night, she might be asleep. Pen glanced at Ahren and Khyber. He should tell the Druid now what was happening, give him some time to think about it before he responded. But just as he started over, Tagwen appeared from belowdecks to join them, grumbling about sleeping in tight, airless spaces that rocked and swayed. The boy took a moment longer to consider what he should do and decided to wait. First thing in the morning, he would speak with Ahren Elessedil. That would be soon enough. He would be persuasive, he told himself. The Druid would agree.
Feeling a little tired and oddly out of sorts, he took Gar Hatch’s advice and went down to his cabin to sleep.
He awoke to shouting, to what was obviously an alarm. Bounding up instantly, still half-asleep, he tried to orient himself. Across the way, Tagwen was looking similarly disoriented, staring blankly into space from his hammock, eyes bleary and unfocused. The shouting died into harsh whispers that were audible nevertheless, even from belowdecks. Boots thudded across the planking from one railing to the other, then stopped. Silence descended, deep and unexpected. Pen could not decide what was happening and worried that by the time he did, it would be too late to matter. With a hushed plea to Tagwen to follow as quickly as he could, he pulled on his boots and went out the cabin door.
The corridor was empty as he hurried down its short length to the ladder leading up and climbed swiftly toward the light, straining to hear something more. When he pushed open the hatch, he found the dawn had arrived with a deep, heavy fog that crawled through the trees and over the decks of the Skatelow. At first he didn’t see anyone, then found Gar Hatch, the two Rover crewmen, Ahren Elessedil and Khyber standing at the bow, peering everywhere at once, and he hurried over to join them.
“One of the crewmen caught a glimpse of the Galaphile just moments ago, right overhead, flying north,” the Druid whispered. “He called out a warning, which might have given us away. We’re waiting to see if she comes back around.”
They stood in a knot, scanning the misty gray, watching for movement. Long minutes passed, and nothing appeared.
“There’s a channel just ahead that tunnels through these trees,” Gar Hatch said quietly. “It goes on for several miles through heavy foliage. Once we get in there, we can’t be seen from the sky. It’s our best chance to lose them.”
They pulled up the fore and aft anchors and set out. Breakfast was forgotten. All that mattered was getting the ship under cover. Everyone but Cinnaminson was on deck now. Pen thought to go look for her, but decided it would be wrong to leave in the midst of the crisis. He might be needed; Hatch might require help piloting the craft. He stayed close, watching as the Rover Captain took the Skatelow through a series of connecting lakes spiked with grasses and studded with dead tree trunks, easing her carefully along, all the while with one eye on the brume-thickened sky. The Rover crewmen moved forward, taking readings with weighted lines, hand-signaling warnings when shallows or submerged logs appeared in front of them. No one said a word.
The channel appeared without warning, a black hole through an interwoven network of limbs and gnarled trunks. It had the look of a giant’s hungry maw as they sailed into it, and the temperature dropped immediately once they were inside. Pen shivered. Overhead, he caught small glimpses of sky, but mostly the dark canopy of limbs was all that was visible. The channel was wide enough to allow passage, though the Skatelow wouldn’t have been able to get through if her mast had been up. As it was, the Rover crewmen had to use poles to push her away from the tangle of tree roots that grew on either side and keep her centered in the deeper water. It was too dark for Pen to see exactly what they were doing, but he was certain they could not have done it without Hatch. He seemed to know what was needed at every turn, and kept them moving ahead smoothly.
Still Cinnaminson didn’t appear. Pen glanced over his shoulder repeatedly, but there was no sign of her. He began to worry anew.
Ahead, the tunnel opened back into the light.
Gar Hatch called him into the pilot box. “Take the helm, young Penderrin. I need to be at the bow for this.”
Pen did as he was told. Hatch went forward to stand with his men, the three of them using poles to ease the Skatelow along the channel, pointing her toward the opening. Now and again, he would signal the boy to swing the rudder to starboard or port.
They were almost through when there was a scraping sound and a violent lurch. Pen was thrown backwards into the railing, and for an instant he thought that whatever had happened, he had done something wrong. But as he stood up and hurried forward, he realized he hadn’t done anything he hadn’t been told to do.
Gar Hatch was peering over the side of the airship into the murky waters, shaking his head. “That one’s new,” he muttered to no one in particular, then pointed out the massive log that the airship had run up on. He glanced up at the canopy of trees. “Too tight a fit to try to fly her. We’ll have to float her off and pull her through by hand.”
Hatch went back up into the pilot box, advising Pen that he would take the controls. There was no admonition in his voice, so Pen didn’t argue. Together with Tagwen, Ahren Elessedil, and the two crewmen, Pen climbed down onto the tangled knot of tree roots and moved forward of the airship’s bow. Using ropes lashed about iron cleats, they began to pull the Skatelow ahead, easing her over the fallen trunk. Eventually the airship gained just enough lift from Gar Hatch’s skilled handling to break free of the log and begin crawling along the swamp’s green surface once more.
It was backbreaking work. Bugs of all sorts swarmed about their faces, clouding their vision, and the root tangle on which they were forced to stand was slick with moss and damp with mist and offered uncertain footing. All of them went down at one point or another, skidding and sliding into the swamp water, fighting to keep from going under. But, slowly, they maneuvered the Skatelow down the last few yards of the channel, easing her toward the open bay, where the light brightened and the brume thinned.
“Move back!” Gar Hatch shouted abruptly. “Release the ropes!”
Pen, Tagwen, and Ahren Elessedil did as they were ordered and watched the airship sail by, the hull momentarily blocking from view the Rover crewmen who were working across the way. When Pen glanced over again in the wake of the ship’s passing, the crewmen were gone.
It took the boy a second to realize what was happening.
“Ahren!” he shouted in warning. “We’ve been tricked!”
He was too late. The Skatelow began to pick up speed, moving into the center of the bay. Then Khyber Elessedil came flying over the side and landed in the murky waters with a huge splash. The faces of the crewmen appeared, and they waved tauntingly at the men on shore. Tagwen was shouting at Ahren Elessedil to do something, but the Druid only stood there, shaking his head, grim-faced and angry. There was nothing he could do, Pen realized, without using magic that would alert the Galaphile.
Slowly, the Skatelow began to lift away, to rise into the mist, to disappear. In seconds, she was gone.
At the center of the lake, Khyber Elessedil pounded at the water in frustration.
Twenty-five
No one said anything for a few moments, Pen, Tagwen, and Ahren Elessedil standing together at the edge of the bay like statues, staring with a mix of disbelief and frustration at the point where the Skatelow had disappeared into the mist.
“I knew we couldn’t trust that man,” Tagwen muttered finally.
At the center of the bay, Khyber Elessedil had given up pounding the water and was swimming toward them. Her strokes cleaved the greenish waters smoothly and easily.
“You can’t trust Rovers,” Tagwen went on bitterly. “Not any of them. Don’t know why we thought we could trust Hatch.”
“We didn’t trust him,” Ahren Elessedil pointed out. “We just didn’t watch him closely enough. We let him outsmart us.”
This is my fault, Pen thought. I caused this. Gar Hatch didn’t abandon them because of anything the others had done or even because of the Galaphile and the Druids. He had abandoned them so that Pen couldn’t take Cinnaminson away from him. That was why he had been so accommodating. That was why he didn’t argue the matter more strongly. He didn’t care what either Pen or his daughter intended. He was going to put a stop to it in any case.
Khyber reached the edge of the bay and stood up with some difficulty, water cascading off her drenched clothes. Anger radiated from her like heat from a forge as she stalked ashore to join them. “Why did he do that?” she snapped furiously. “What was the point of abandoning us now when we were so close to leaving him anyway?”
“It’s because of me,” Pen said at once, and they all turned to look at him. “I’m responsible.”
He revealed to them what he and Cinnaminson had decided, how she had told her father, and what her father had obviously decided to do about it. He apologized over and over for not confiding in them and admitted that, by deciding to take the girl off the airship, he was thinking of himself and not of them or even of what they had come to do. He was embarrassed and disappointed, and it was all he could do to get through it without breaking down.
Khyber glared at him when he was finished. “You are an idiot, Penderrin Ohmsford.”
Pen bit back his angry reply, thinking that he had better just take whatever they had to say to him and be done with it.
“That doesn’t help us, Khyber,” her uncle said softly. “Pen loves this girl and he was trying to help her. I don’t think we can fault him for his good intentions. He might have handled it better, but at the time he did the best he could. It’s easy to second-guess him now.”
“You might want to ask yourself what Hatch will do to her now that he knows what she intended and no outsiders are about to interfere,” Tagwen said to Pen.
Pen had already thought of that, and he didn’t like the conclusion he had reached. Gar Hatch would not be happy with his daughter and would not trust her again anytime soon. He would make a virtual prisoner of her, and once again, it was his fault.
Khyber stalked away. She stopped a short distance off and stood looking out at the bay with her hands on her hips, then wheeled back suddenly. “Sorry I snapped at you, Pen. Gar Hatch is a sneak and a coward to do this. But the matter isn’t finished. We’ll see him again, somewhere down the road. He’ll be the one who goes over the side of that airship the next time, I promise you!”
“Meanwhile, what are we supposed to do?” Tagwen asked, looking from one face to the next. “How do we get out of here?”
Ahren Elessedil glanced around thoughtfully, then shrugged. “We walk.”
“Walk!” Tagwen was aghast. “We can’t walk out of here! You’ve seen this morass, this pit of vipers and swamp rats! If something doesn’t eat us, we’ll be sucked down in the quicksand! Besides, it will take us days, and that’s only if we don’t get lost, which we will!”
The Druid nodded. “The alternative is to use magic. I could summon a Roc to carry us out. But if I do that, I will give us away to Terek Molt. He will reach us long before any help does.”
Tagwen scrunched up his face and folded his arms across his chest. “I’m just saying I don’t think we can walk out of here, no matter how determined we are.”
“There might be another way,” Pen interjected quickly. “One that’s a little quicker and safer.”
Ahren Elessedil turned to him, surprise mirrored in his blue eyes. “All right, Pen, let’s hear what it is.”
“I hope it’s a better idea than his last one,” Tagwen grumbled before Pen could speak, and set his jaw firmly as he prepared to pass judgment.
He showed them how to build the raft, using heavier logs for the hull, slender limbs for the cradle, and reeds for binding. It needed to be only big enough to support the four of them, so a platform measuring ten feet by ten feet was adequate. The materials were easy enough to find, even in the Slags, though not so easy to shape, mostly because they lacked the requisite tools and had to make do with long knives. On more than one occasion Pen had built similar rafts before and knew something about how to construct them so that they wouldn’t fall apart midjourney. Working in pairs, they gathered the logs and limbs for the platform and carried them to a flat piece of earth on which they could lay them out and lash them together.
They worked through the morning, and by midday they were finished. The raft was crude, but it was strong enough to support them and light enough to allow for portage. Most important, it floated. They had no supplies, nothing but the clothes they wore and the weapons they carried, so after crafting poles to push their vessel through the swamp, they set out.
It was slow going, even with the raft to carry them, the swamp a morass of weed-choked bays and logjammed channels that they were forced to backtrack through and portage around repeatedly. Even so, they made much better progress than they would have afoot. For just the second time since they had set out, Pen was able to make practical use of his magic, to intuit from the sounds and movements of the plants, birds, and animals around them the dangers that lay waiting. Calling out directions to the other three as they worked the poles, he concentrated on keeping them clear of submerged debris that might have damaged their craft and well away from the more dangerous creatures that lived in the Slags—some of them huge and aggressive. By staying close to the shoreline and out of the deeper water, they were able to avoid any confrontations, and Pen was able to tell himself that he was making at least partial amends for his part in contributing to the fix they were in.
By nightfall, they were exhausted and still deep in the Slags. Pen’s pocket compass had kept them on the right heading, of that much he was certain, but how much actual progress they had made was debatable. Since none of them knew exactly where they were, it was impossible to judge how far they still had to go. Nothing about the wetland had changed, the mist was thick and unbroken, the waterways extended off in all directions, and the undergrowth was identical to what they had left behind six hours earlier.
There was nothing to eat or drink, so after agreeing to split the watch into four shifts they went to sleep, hungry and thirsty and frustrated.
During the night, it rained. Pen, who was on watch at the time, used his cloak to catch enough drinking water that they were able to satisfy at least one need. After the rain stopped and the water was consumed, Khyber and Tagwen went back to sleep, but Ahren Elessedil chose to sit up with the
boy.
“Are you worried about Cinnaminson?” Ahren asked when they were settled down together at the edge of the raft, their backs to the sleepers, their cloaks wrapped about them. It was surprisingly cold at night in the Slags.
The boy stared out into the dark without answering. Then he sighed. “I can’t do anything to help her. I can help us, but not her. She’s smart and she’s capable, but her father is too much for her. He sees her as a valuable possession, something he almost lost. I don’t know what he will do.”
The Druid folded himself deeper into his robes. “I don’t think he will do anything. I think he believes he made an example of us, so she won’t cross him again. He doesn’t think we will get out of here alive, Pen. Or if we do, that we will escape the Galaphile.”
Pen pulled his knees up to his chest and lowered his chin between them. “Maybe he’s right.”
“Oh?”
“It’s just that we’re not getting anywhere.” The boy tightened his hands into fists and lowered his voice to a whisper. “We aren’t any closer to helping Aunt Grianne than we were when we started out. How long can she stay alive inside the Forbidding? How much time does she have?”
Ahren Elessedil shook his head. “A lot more than anyone else I can think of. She’s a survivor, Pen. She can endure more hardships than most. It doesn’t matter where she is or what she is up against, she will find a way to stay alive. Don’t lose heart. Remember who she is.”
The boy shook his head. “What if she has to go back to being who she was? What if that’s the only way she can survive? I listened to my parents talk about what she was like, when they thought I wasn’t listening. She shouldn’t have to be made to do those kinds of things again.”
The Druid gave him a thin smile. “I don’t think that’s what has you worried.”
The boy frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t think you are worried about whether we will reach the Ard Rhys in time to be of help. I think you are worried about whether you will be able to do what is needed when the time comes. I think you are worried about failing.”