But the climb was slow and arduous, and before long they were breathing hard, their muscles strained and their heads light. They paused to rest close to what appeared to be a shelf of rock that would serve as a bridge. Behind it, the cliffs split apart once more, opening into a vast, high, impenetrable darkness in the rainy gloom. Higher up still, the peaks disappeared into the clouds. The tree line ended just below this misty canopy, tapering off into scrub pine and fir, the tiny trunks gnarled and twisted as they hugged the rugged surface of the rock.
“When we get to the other side, we’re going back down onto the flats,” Paxon announced while they collected their breath. He couldn’t tell if his companions heard him or not. No one was looking at him; no one responded. “Those plants can’t have grown this far north. We must be almost to the Silver River by now. We should find some Dwarf villages not too far away.”
He said it without knowing if it was true and mostly just to offer some small bit of encouragement. He said it as much to convince himself as them. But he meant it nevertheless. He was determined they would get through this.
When they rose to move on, it was raining even harder—hard enough that it was virtually impossible for Paxon, who was in the lead, to see the Trolls, who were acting as rear guard, as more than vague shadows. He would never have attempted to continue if there was any sort of shelter to be found, but there wasn’t. The rock face was bare of everything but scrub; the conifers that warded them the night before were nowhere to be found.
Miriya moved up beside him. “We can’t go on like this much longer, Paxon. Are you sure about those Dwarf villages?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure about anything at this point. But we might as well assume the best. We can’t stay up here. We can’t stop. We have to keep going.”
She gave him a look, nodded, and dropped back again. She couldn’t be pleased with his answer, but he didn’t want to lie to her. She would understand. Miriya was a warrior. Yet he wondered what would happen to her now that Karlin was gone. The seer had been her whole life these past few years. Her passing would leave a hole that would be hard—if not impossible—for Miriya to fill.
They summited the ridgeline and found themselves face-to-face with mountain walls that rose into the clouds. They stared upward in awe for long moments, thinking of what it would mean to try to climb those towers, then turned toward the stone shelf that formed a bridge over the canyon cliffs bracketing the river. Its flat-layered surface was broad and open, but the split behind it was a scary-looking crevasse that might be hiding almost anything.
Or nothing, Paxon told himself. Nerves weren’t a good idea at this point. He glanced back at Miriya and Isaturin as he drew his blade. The Trolls were already moving up, placing themselves between their charges and the split. Paxon took a moment to let everyone settle in place, then nodded to the others and started ahead. In single file, with the Trolls fanned out toward the cliff face, they edged out onto the shelf.
The rain continued to fall, and their rocky bridge, carpeted thick with lichen and moss, was dangerously slick. Paxon motioned for them to remain spread out, to create enough open space between them that they couldn’t all be swept away if anything went wrong. He thought belatedly he should have had them roped but then remembered they didn’t have any rope. They barely had anything left by now; most of their supplies had been lost or consumed along the way.
Lightning flashed across the sky ahead, jagged streaks of blinding white fire that arced from horizon to horizon before lancing down to strike the peaks atop their perch, exploding with such force it felt as if the whole mountain might come down. Paxon, halfway across the bridge, dropped to one knee. Behind him, the others hesitated as well.
Miriya moved up in a hurried crouch. “Keep going! We can’t stop out here! There’s no protection at all!”
She was right. The wind was picking up, whipping over them with tremendous gusts. Lightning was still fracturing the black sky. He rose, motioned to the others, and started ahead once more. By now the Trolls, acting as a buffer, had caught up to them and begun to move ahead.
It was their undoing.
They were a little more than halfway across when a monstrous apparition, obscured by sheets of rain and heavy gloom, burst from the dark opening in the cliffs. It gave no warning save for the scuttle of claws against rock and a sharp hiss that managed to rise above the howl of the wind. Paxon caught only a momentary glance of their attacker before it was on them. A giant lizard! No, a dragon! It had the thick, scaly hide and horned spine of both, but its neck and tail were long and sinuous, and rows of teeth jutted from its open maw. There was no time for anyone to act. It caught up the Trolls—one snap, two snaps—and they were gone. It kept coming, right at Paxon, who squared away, sword in hand, facing this juggernaut as it bore down on him like a landslide. The Sword of Leah blazed to life, fire ripping through it, green snakes climbing its length, brilliant light filling the darkness. The dazzling suddenness of it was startling. Enough so that it caused the dragon to shy away.
Which did not slow its momentum but did cause it to lose its footing.
Claws scrabbling futilely at the slick surface, it careered into Paxon and Miriya. And, as it slid over the edge of the rock shelf, it took them with it.
—
Fero Darz saw it all. He was trailing with Isaturin, barely able to lift his head he was so weary. His night had been long and sleepless, plagued by nightmares and repeated waking. One of those nightmares had apparently come looking for him. He heard its claws rasping against the rock ledge at the last moment and looked up in time to see it emerge from the darkness—a horror that dropped him to his knees in a huddled ball. He reached for his weapon, but it was still in Paxon’s hands. He fell backward into Isaturin in his frantic efforts to escape as the dragon disposed of the unfortunate Trolls, lost its grip on the stone surface of the rock shelf, and slid into Paxon and Miriya, sweeping them away as it disappeared over the edge.
“Paxon!” he managed to scream.
“They’re gone!” Isaturin grabbed him by his shoulders and hauled him to his feet. His face was an unreadable mask—stark, flat, and empty of expression. “Perhaps you should join them.”
Then he seized the hapless Commander of the Ministerial Watch and flung him into the void.
—
Once alone, Isaturin continued across the uneven ledge, fighting wind and rain, trying not to stumble, intent on finding his way down off the mountain.
They flew out of Grimpen Ward early the next morning—Leofur, Imric, and Olin—the three of them crammed into the Druid two-man. It was an uncomfortable squeeze at best, but flying was the only reasonable choice, for the Murk Sink was at least two days away by foot and one by horseback—and all of it through rugged country populated by very dangerous creatures. This was the Wilderun, after all, and everyone who knew anything about the history of the Four Lands understood its perverse and treacherous character.
Leofur flew their vessel, with the boy seated next to her to provide directions. A taciturn and introspective Imric Cort rode in the rear with the supplies, listening but adding nothing to the conversation. He had said little to Leofur after their conversation the night before and even less since rising. It seemed to her he had retreated into a place of his own choosing, one to which he went when he required privacy. His mood wasn’t outwardly dark, although within his carefully spun cocoon it might be. But it felt more complex than that, and she could sense the wheels turning and the gears shifting as he watched and considered. There was a marshaling of strength and a determination reflected in his lean features, a kind of gathering up of resources to face what he suspected lay ahead.
Her own demeanor was scarcely less off-putting. She had risen that morning vaguely unhinged and thoroughly out of sorts, a different young woman from the one who had gone to bed the night before. She could not explain it, but there was a seismic shift in her regard not only for herself or her razor’s-edge rescue mission, but also fo
r the direction her life had taken. It came over her so quickly it left her disoriented, infused with dark and troubled emotions. It demanded her attention. No, it screamed for it. The flight gave her time and space to let it have its say. She had always been honest about herself, in large part because of the nature of her childhood. When you were the daughter of Arcannen Rai—a child of one known parent only—you learned quickly how to separate fact from fiction and avoid pretense in favor of truth.
Over the course of her life, she had found this to be a good and necessary principle, and had always embraced it willingly. And so it was here.
So what, exactly, was she doing here?
What was she doing with her life?
What sort of life had she found for herself?
These were the core questions she grappled with in the cool, damp light of the new day, off on what might turn out to be a fool’s errand or a pointless exercise in self-indulgence. These were the questions that would not be banished until she had satisfied herself with answers. She considered each in turn, found them inextricably connected, then set about trying to discover the reason they had surfaced so abruptly, in the middle of this quest, at a time when such questions were highly intrusive and unwelcome.
She was miles from Paranor, her home. She was farther still from Wayford, where so many of her years had been spent before that. She had wandered away from everything she knew, and what sort of reason did she have for it? On the surface, the immediate answer was simple. She had come to save her friend, Chrysallin Leah. But she had come a long way, and to an extremely dangerous place, with no assurance that her friend was even here. What did she really know of Chrysallin’s whereabouts and condition, after all? She was relying on the skills and abilities of a man who was not entirely human, but something so foreign and mysterious she might never come to understand more than a little about him. She was relying on the words of thieves and kidnappers—words forced from their lips by her threats—to guide her. She was trusting to instincts and hunches where both were highly suspect. She was taking a risk no sane person would take because she felt a responsibility to do so. If she was wrong, she might die. If she was wrong, her friend might be lost.
Worst of all, Paxon had not come with her.
She understood why, and she knew she shouldn’t blame him for his absence. And yet she did. Because at the root of her questions was the fact that Paxon was never there when she most needed him. No, that sounded selfish. And, besides, it was worse than that. He was never there, period. He was a paladin, a Knight-errant in service to the Druids, and so was always off on some quest or other. It was in the nature of his duty—and to Paxon, duty was everything.
She had not thought it would be like this. She had thought, when he had appeared on her doorstep all those months ago, that he had come back to her because he needed her. And in the beginning, he had. But now he didn’t seem to. Oh, he loved her well enough, and he valued her. As she loved and valued him. But the fire that had been there in the beginning was gone. The need and the want and the pure, unadulterated passion—there was no time for it now. You had to be together to have that, and they were always apart.
This had to change. They had to find a way to change it.
Beyond that particular concern, however, she was questioning her life in other ways as well. She found again a lack of purpose since she had moved to Paranor with Paxon. She had enjoyed a busy life in Wayford as a trader of goods and a procurer of hard-to-find artifacts and weapons. She had friends and acquaintances with whom she did business on a regular basis, people from all over the Four Lands. She loved traveling for her work, loved the constant changes in her life, the challenges, the shifts in fortunes, the ebb and flow of trading and procuring.
Every bit of that was now lost to her.
And there was nothing to replace it.
She didn’t think she could continue like this. The lack of anything to do in Paxon’s absence was beginning to tell. She couldn’t accept a life of just sitting around. As much as she enjoyed Chrysallin’s company, her friendship, she needed to have something that belonged to her and her alone. She needed a purpose.
She needed so much, but she had never asked for any of it. She had never told Paxon of her unhappiness, or demanded more of him. She supposed she had been waiting for the right time. She supposed she had thought him too busy, too occupied with responsibilities, to be further burdened.
So she had kept everything to herself and carried the burden alone. Not realizing, until now, that there was never going to be a right time.
But without him, who was she? Who had she become? It felt as if her entire identity had been stripped from her. Everything she had become could be defined by her relationships to other people. Paxon’s life partner. Chrysallin’s best friend. The Druids’ special guest. Imric’s tether.
This last was particularly galling because it suggested that she was only there to serve his needs, that the tethering was not a true sharing on any level. It required one to serve and one to be served. She was his link, but she was there for him and not for herself. Was this also true of her relationship with Paxon? She wondered if maybe it was. Certainly, she did not feel as if she had any other purpose in his life.
And what, exactly, did that require of her?
And where, exactly, were the attributes and characteristics of her identity beyond that?
She was still mulling this over, her dissatisfaction evolving into a resolution to act, when Olin said, “You should set down over there.” Pointing. “By the big cedar. We have to walk from here. There’s no other solid ground after this on which to land an airship.”
Leofur did as he instructed, finding an open piece of ground in the forested surround and descending safely. As she did so, she noticed what lay ahead for the first time. She had watched it as they approached without really seeing it, so absorbed in her private thoughts she had paid no attention to what it meant. A vast, sprawling wetlands stretched before them, a dank and fetid smell rising from its watery surface, which was dotted with islands of cypress and mango and swamp grasses of every variety. Trees were halfway toppled, drowning by inches as they were swallowed whole. Logs that might have been something else lay motionless in a miasma of gloom and mist. Birds flew through this endless haze, big and predatory, hunting. Now and again, a solitary splash was heard—a swamp dweller surfacing, perhaps, or a victim being dragged to its death. Now and again, a scream could be heard, something on the order of a screech or a howl. Hard to tell if it was hunter or hunted; the sounds all seemed the same.
All Leofur knew for certain as she climbed from the two-man and stood staring into the unchanging face of this damp, misted monstrosity of a landscape was that she wasn’t meant to be here. No sane person was. But here was where she was, and there was where she must go.
Into the Murk Sink.
Olin was already beside her, and Imric beside him. Neither carried a weapon. She had her short-barreled Arc-5 strapped across her back and the smaller flash rip strapped to her waist. The boy was smiling uncertainly.
“You can take those with you, if you want,” he said, indicating her weapons, “but they won’t help you if you get into trouble. Not in the Murk Sink.”
“Still, it makes me feel better to have them,” she said.
Imric gave her a small nod. Good for you.
“Just stay close to me,” the boy said. “Walk where I walk. Walk in my tracks, if you can. Keep your eyes open. Be aware of everything—especially the water. It’s the things that live there that you most need to worry about.”
“Do you have any idea where you’re going?” Imric asked abruptly.
The boy shrugged. “I’ve navigated the Murk Sink before, so I know a few of her routes. As to where Melis is? Your guess is as good as mine. But you’re the one who insisted I come. So how do you think I should do this?”
“Just start walking,” Imric said. “Don’t overthink it. Trust your instincts. I’ll be right behind you, picking up o
n whatever trail I can find. We’ll find something.”
Olin stared at him. “Sounds a little vague, don’t you think? But it’s your decision. I just don’t want you blaming me if nothing turns up.”
The shape-shifter nodded. “No one’s going to blame you. Just take us where you think Melis might be. Let your memories open up and guide you as best they can, and I’ll do the rest.”
The boy looked doubtful. “If you say so.”
They set out into the swamp, and within a dozen yards the mist and gloom closed about them so thoroughly that the way back vanished. Ahead, the mists created a constantly shifting curtain that opened to reveal long stretches of swamp and then just as quickly closed again to seal them off. The boy seemed untroubled by this. His footsteps were quick and certain, his sense of direction apparently unaffected by the whims of the brume.
No one spoke.
What was there to say, after all?
But their otherwise silent passage was constantly broken by the movement of the swamp waters, the shrieking of birds, the screams of animals, and the occasional crack of limbs and deadwood being broken. Leofur stopped thinking about her life, about her worries for the future, about everything but what she was doing. If she didn’t, she might find herself in trouble or dead. She watched the boy, the placement of her feet, and the water. Once, she saw a shadow pass just beneath the languid surface, a monstrous apparition fully fifty or sixty feet in length. It passed slowly, smoothly, and she found herself momentarily hypnotized by its fluidity until Imric placed his hand on her back to move her along again. She blinked in confusion, then in fear. It was so easy to lose focus.