“We will,” Coll echoed, and Morgan Leah nodded his agreement as well.
Steff took a deep breath. “The possibility of being free—just the possibility—is more than the Dwarves dare hope for in these times.” He placed his thick hands firmly on the table. “Then we have a bargain. I will take you to find Walker Boh—Teel and I, for she goes where I go.” He glanced at each of them quickly for any sign of disapproval and found none. “It will take a day or so to gather up what we need and to make an inquiry or two. I need not remind you, but I will anyway, how difficult and dangerous this journey is likely to be. Go back to Granny’s and rest. Teel will take you. When all is in place, I will send word.”
They rose, and the Dwarf embraced Morgan, then smiled unexpectedly and slapped him on the back. “You and I, Highlander—let the worst that’s out there be wary!” He laughed and the room rang with the sound of it.
Teel stood apart from them and watched with eyes like chips of ice.
VIII
Two days passed, and they did not hear from Steff. Par and Coll Ohmsford and Morgan Leah passed the time at the orphanage completing some much-needed repairs on the old home and helping Granny Elise and Auntie Jilt with the children. The days were warm, lazy ones, filled with the sounds of small voices at play. It was a different world within the confines of the rambling house and the shaded grounds, a world quite apart from the one that crouched begging a dozen yards in any direction beyond the enclosing fence. There was food here, warm beds, comfort and love. There was a sense of security and future. There wasn’t a lot of anything, but there was some of everything. The remainder of the city faded into a series of unpleasant memories—the shacks, the broken old people, the ragged children, the missing mothers and fathers, the grime and the wear, the desperate and defeated looks, and the sense that there was no hope. Several times, Par thought to leave the orphanage and walk again through the city of Culhaven, unwilling to leave without seeing once more sights he felt he should never forget. But the old ladies discouraged it. It was dangerous for him to walk about. He might unwittingly draw attention to himself. Better to stay where he was, let the world outside stay where it was, and the both of them get on the best they could.
“There is nothing to be done for the misery of the Dwarves,” Auntie Jilt declared bitterly. “It’s a misery that’s put down deep roots.”
Par did as he was told, feeling at once both unhappy and relieved. The ambiguity bothered him. He couldn’t pretend he didn’t know what was happening to the people of the city—didn’t want to, in fact—but at the same time it was a difficult knowledge to face. He could do as the old ladies said and let the world without get along as best as it could, but he couldn’t forget that it was there, pressed up against the gate like some starving beast waiting for food.
On the third day of waiting, the beast snapped at them. It was early morning, and a squad of Federation soldiers marched up the roadway and into the yard. A Seeker was leading them. Granny Elise sent the Valemen and the Highlander to the attic and with Auntie Jilt in tow went out to confront their visitors. From the attic, the three in hiding watched what happened next. The children were forced to line up in front of the porch. They were all too small to be of any use, but three were selected anyway. The old women argued, but there was nothing they could do. In the end, they were forced to stand there helplessly while the three were led away.
Everyone was subdued after that, even the most active among the children. Auntie Jilt retired to a windowseat overlooking the front yard where she could sit and watch the children and work on her needlepoint, and she didn’t say a word to anyone. Granny Elise spent most of her time in the kitchen baking. Her words were few, and she hardly smiled at all. The Ohmsfords and Morgan went about their work as unobtrusively as they could, feeling as if they should be somewhere else, secretly wishing that they were.
Late that afternoon, Par could stand his discomfort no longer and went down to the kitchen to talk to Granny Elise. He found her sitting at one of the long tables, sipping absently at a cup of amber tea, and he asked her quite directly why it was that the Dwarves were being treated so badly, why it was that soldiers of the Federation—Southlanders like himself, after all—could be a part of such cruelty.
Granny Elise smiled sadly, took his hand and pulled him down next to her. “Par,” she said, speaking his name softly. She had begun using his name the past day or so, a clear indication that she now considered him another of her children. “Par, there are some things that cannot ever be explained—not properly, not so as we might understand them the way we need to. I think sometimes that there must be a reason for what’s happening and other times that there cannot be because it lacks any semblance of logic. It has been so long since it all started, you see. The war was fought over a hundred years ago. I don’t know that anyone can remember the beginning of it anymore, and if you cannot remember how it began, how can you determine why it began?”
She shook her squarish head and hugged him impulsively. “I’m sorry, Par, but I don’t have any better answer to give you. I suppose I gave up trying to find one a long time ago. All my energy these days is given over to caring for the children. I guess I don’t believe questions are important anymore, so I don’t look for answers. Someone else will have to do that. All that matters to me is saving the life of one more child, and one more after that, and another, and another, until the need to save them doesn’t exist anymore.”
Par nodded silently and hugged her back, but the answer didn’t satisfy him. There was a reason for everything that happened, even if the reason wasn’t immediately apparent. The Dwarves had lost the war to the Federation; they were a threat to no one. Why, then, were they being systematically ground down? It would have made better sense to heal the wounds that the war had opened than to throw salt into them. It almost seemed as if the Dwarves were being intentionally provoked; as if a cause for them to resist was being provided. Why would that be?
“Perhaps the Federation wants an excuse to exterminate them altogether,” Coll suggested blackly when Par asked his opinion that night after dinner.
“You mean you think the Federation believes the Dwarves are of no further use, even in the mines?” Par was incredulous. “Or that they’re too much trouble to supervise or too dangerous, so they ought to simply be done away with? The entire nation?”
Coll’s blocky face was impassive. “I mean, I know what I’ve seen here—what we’ve both seen. It seems pretty clear to me what’s happening!”
Par wasn’t so sure. He let the matter drop because for the moment he didn’t have any better answer. But he promised himself that one day he would.
He slept poorly that night and was already awake when Granny Elise slipped into the sleeping room before dawn to whisper that Teel had come for them. He rose quickly and dragged the covers from Coll and Morgan. They dressed, strapped on their weapons and went down the hall to the kitchen where Teel was waiting, a shadow by the door, masked and wrapped in a drab forest cloak that gave her the look of a beggar. Granny Elise gave them hot tea and cakes and kissed each of them, Auntie Jilt warned them sternly to keep safe from whatever dangers might lie in wait for them, and Teel led them out into the night.
It was dark still, the dawn not yet even a small glimmer in the distant trees, and they slipped silently through the sleeping village, four ghosts in search of a haunt. The morning air was chill, and they could see their breath cloud the air before them in small puffs. Teel took them down back pathways and through dense groves of trees and gatherings of brush, keeping to the shadows, staying away from the roads and lights. They moved north out of the village without seeing anyone. When they reached the Silver River, Teel took them downstream to a shallows, avoiding the bridges. They crossed water like ice as it lapped at their legs. They were barely into the trees again when Steff appeared out of the shadows to join them. He wore a brace of long knives at his waist, and the giant mace was slung across his back. He said nothing, taking the lead fr
om Teel and guiding them ahead. A few faint streaks of daylight appeared in the east, and the sky began to brighten. The stars winked out and the moon disappeared. Frost glimmered on leaves and grasses like scattered bits of crystal.
A bit farther on, they reached a clearing dominated by a massive old willow, and Steff brought them to a halt. Backpacks, rolled blankets, foul-weather gear, cooking implements, water bags, and forest cloaks for each of them were concealed in an old hollow tree trunk that had fallen into the brush. They strapped everything in place without speaking and were off again.
They walked the remainder of the day at a leisurely pace, bearing directly north. There was little discussion, none whatsoever as to where they were going. Steff offered no explanation, and neither the Valemen nor the Highlander were inclined to ask. When the Dwarf was ready to tell them, he would. The day passed quickly and by midafternoon they had reached the foothills south of the Wolfsktaag. They continued on for what was perhaps another hour, following the forestline upward to where it began to thin before the wall of the mountains, then Steff called a halt in a pine-sheltered clearing close to a small stream that trickled down out of the rocks. He led them over to a fallen log and seated himself comfortably, facing them.
“If the rumors are to be believed—and in this case, rumors are all we have—Walker Boh will be found in Darklin Reach. To get there, we will travel north through the Wolfsktaag—in through the Pass of Noose, out through the Pass of Jade, and from there east into the Reach.”
He paused, considering what he saw in their faces. “There are other ways, of course—safer ways, some might argue—but I disagree. We could skirt the Wolfsktaag to the east or west, but either way we risk an almost certain encounter with Federation soldiers or Gnomes. There will be neither in the Wolfsktaag. Too many spirits and things of old magic live in the mountains; the Gnomes are superstitious about such and stay away. The Federation used to send patrols in, but most of them never came out. Truth is, most of them just got lost up there because they didn’t know the way. I do.”
His listeners remained silent. Finally Coll said, “I seem to remember that a couple of our ancestors got into a good bit of trouble when they took this same route some years back.”
Steff shrugged. “I wouldn’t know about that. I do know that I have been through these mountains dozens of times and know what to look for. The trick is to stay on the ridgelines and out of the deep forests. What lives in the Wolfsktaag prefers the dark. And there’s nothing magic about most of it.”
Coll shook his head and looked at Par. “I don’t like it.”
“Well, the choice is between the devil we know and the one we suspect,” Steff declared bluntly. “Federation soldiers and their Gnome allies, which we know are out there, or spirits and wraiths, which we don’t.”
“Shadowen,” Par said softly.
There was a moment of silence. Steff smiled grimly. “Haven’t you heard, Valeman—there aren’t any Shadowen. That’s all a rumor. Besides, you have the magic to protect us, don’t you? You and the Highlander here? What would dare challenge that?”
He looked about, sharp eyes darting from one face to the next. “Come now. No one ever suggested that this journey would be a safe one. Let us have a decision. But you have heard my warning about the choices left us if we forgo the mountains. Pay heed.”
There wasn’t much any of them could say after that, and they left it to the Dwarf’s best judgment. This was his country after all, not theirs, and he was the one who knew it. They were relying on him to find Walker Boh, and it seemed foolish to second-guess the way he thought best to go about it.
They spent the night in the clearing of pines, smelling needles and wildflowers and the crispness of air, sleeping undisturbed and dreamless in a silence that stretched far beyond where they could see. At dawn, Steff took them up into the Wolfsktaag. They slipped into the Pass of Noose, where Gnomes had once tried to trap Shea and Flick Ohmsford, crossed the rope walkway that bridged the chasm at its center, wound their way steadily upward through the ragged, blunted peaks of slab-sided stone and forested slopes, and watched the sun work its way across the cloudless summer sky. Morning passed into afternoon, and they reached the ridgelines running north and began following their twists and bends. Travel was easy, the sun warm and reassuring, and the fears and doubts of the night before began to fade. They watched for movement in the shadows of rock and wood, but saw nothing. Birds sang in the trees, small animals scampered through the brush, and the forests here seemed very much the same as forests everywhere in the Four Lands. The Valemen and the Highlander found themselves smiling at one another; Steff hummed tonelessly to himself, and only Teel showed nothing of what she was feeling.
When nightfall approached, they made camp in a small meadow nestled between two ridgelines cropped with fir and cedar. There was little wind, and the day’s warmth lingered in the sheltered valley long after the sun was gone. Stars glimmered faintly in the darkening skies, and the moon hung full against the western horizon. Par recalled again the old man’s admonition to them—that they were to be at the Hadeshorn on the first day of the new moon. Time was slipping past.
But it wasn’t of the old man or Allanon that Par found himself thinking that night as the little company gathered around the fire Steff had permitted them and washed down their dinner with long draughts of spring water. It was of Walker Boh. Par hadn’t seen his uncle in almost ten years, but what he remembered of him was strangely clear. He had been just a boy then, and his uncle had seemed rather mysterious—a tall, lean man with dark features and eyes that could see right through you. The eyes—that was what Par remembered most, though he remembered them more for how remarkable they had seemed than for any discomfort they might have caused him. In fact, his uncle had been very kind to him, but always rather introspective or perhaps just withdrawn, sort of there but at the same time somewhere else.
There were stories about Walker Boh even then, but Par could recall few of them. It was said he used magic, although it was never made clear exactly what sort of magic. He was a direct descendent of Brim Ohmsford, but he had not had use of the wishsong. No one on his side of the family had, not in ten generations. The magic had died with Brin. It had worked differently for her than for her brother Jair, of course. Where Jair had only been able to use the wishsong to create images, his sister had been able to use it to create reality. Her magic had been by far the stronger of the two. Nevertheless, hers had disappeared with her passing, and only Jair’s had survived.
Yet there had always been stories of Walker Boh and the magic. Par remembered how sometimes his uncle could tell him things that were happening at other places, things he could not possibly have known yet somehow did. There were times when his uncle could make things move by looking at them, even people. Sometimes he could tell what you were thinking, too. He would look at you and tell you not to worry, that this or that would happen, and it would turn out that it was exactly what you were thinking about.
Of course, it was possible that his uncle had simply been astute enough to reason out what he was thinking, and that it had simply appeared that the older man could read his thoughts.
But there was the way he could turn aside trouble, too—make it disappear almost as fast as it came. Anything threatening always seemed to give way when it encountered him. That seemed a sort of magic.
And he was always encouraging to Par when he saw the boy attempting to use the wishsong. He had warned Par to learn to control the images, to be cautious about their use, to be selective in the ways in which he exposed the magic to others. Walker Boh had been one of the few people in his life who had not been afraid of its power.
So as he sat there with the others in the silence of the mountain night, the memories of his uncle skipping through his mind, his curiosity to know more was piqued anew, and finally he gave in to it and asked Steff what tales the other had heard of Walker Boh.
Steff looked thoughtful. “Most of them come from woodsmen, hunt
ers, trackers and such—a few from Dwarves who fight in the Resistance like myself and who pass far enough north to hear of the man. They say the Gnome tribes are scared to death of him. They say they think of Walker Boh in the same way they think of spirits. Some of them believe that he’s been alive for hundreds of years, that he’s the same as the Druids of legend.” He winked. “Guess that’s just talk, though, if he’s your uncle.”
Par nodded. “I don’t remember anyone ever suggesting he hadn’t lived the same number of years as any normal man.”
“One fellow swore to me that your uncle talked with animals and that the animals understood. He said he saw it happen, that he watched your uncle walk right up to a moor cat the size of a plains bull and speak with it the same way I’m speaking with you.”
“It was said that Cogline could do that,” Coll interjected, suddenly interested. “He had a cat called Whisper that followed him. The cat protected his niece, Kimber. Her name was Boh as well, wasn’t it, Par?”
Par nodded, remembering that his uncle had taken the name Boh from his mother’s side of the family. Strange, now that he thought about it, but he could never remember his uncle using the Ohmsford name.
“There was one story,” Steff said, pausing then to mull the details over in his mind. “I heard it from a tracker who knew the deep Anar better than most and, I think, knew Walker Boh as well, though he’d never admit to it. He told me that something born in the days of the old magic wandered down out of Ravenshorn into Darklin Reach two years back and started living off the life it found there. Walker Boh went out to find it, confronted it, and the creature turned around and went back to wherever it had come from—just like that.” Steff shook his head and rubbed his chin slowly. “It makes you think, doesn’t it?”
He stretched his hands toward the fire. “That’s why he scares me—because there doesn’t appear to be much of anything that scares him. He comes and goes like a ghost, they say—here one minute, gone the next, just a shadow out of night. I wonder if even the Shadowen frighten him. I’d guess not.”