The Gypsy Morph
He gave a quick, hard laugh. “Even that wasn’t enough to save him in the end. He thought it would be, but it wasn’t.”
“Michael was your teacher?” Kirisin asked, wanting now to know something more about Michael, unwilling to let it slide further.
Logan Tom nodded. “That, and much more. My surrogate father. My best friend. My only family.” He took a deep breath and exhaled sharply. “Everything, once.”
His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “When I went into the skrail camp to rescue you, I was doing something for myself, too. I was proving to myself that there was more to me than the staff’s magic, that I was more than a Knight of the Word. I had to reassure myself. Michael had warned about relying too heavily on automatic weapons. It’s the same with magic. It’s wrong to rely too much on anything.”
“Like you were telling me earlier,” Kirisin said. “The magic can be dangerous in more ways than you might think. It can undermine you in lots of unexpected ways.”
“The magic hasn’t been too reliable lately,” the other continued. “I thought it was time to make sure I could still get along without it. I needed to test myself. Going in after you in the old way, the way I used to with Michael, was what I thought I needed to do.”
“Well, if you thought it was important, then it probably was,” the boy offered, at the same time wondering if that was really so.
“Maybe. I’m still not sure. You make a choice and it works out and you think it was the right one. But maybe you just got lucky. If you made that choice a second time, you might end up dead.”
There was nothing Kirisin cared to say about that. He decided to leave the matter there, and he turned back to face down the road, looking off into space, seeing things that hadn’t happened yet, but that one day would.
Neither said anything further.
MIDDAY CAME AND WENT, and in the lengthening shadows of the Cintra the afternoon crawled toward another lank, gray evening. Findo Gask stood at the edge of the skrail encampment and watched the sun slide toward the wall of the mountains west. Fifty of his once-men were engaged in cleaning up the mess behind him, diligent servants under the whip and blade of a pair of his newly promoted demon lieutenants. With Delloreen dead and the Klee still in search of the gypsy morph, he had need of new subordinates, of creatures anxious to move up in the pecking order, to take the place of those he had favored before. They lasted only a short while, for the most part, and then they were gone and there were others. They all had the same ambitions, the same central goal—to fawn for his favor while they schemed to replace him. They all wanted the same thing—his power, his status, his rule.
Except for the Klee—which wanted nothing but the opportunities he provided for it—they were all alike.
He thought momentarily of Delloreen. Unlike most of the others, he genuinely regretted losing her. Certainly, he would have had to kill her before much longer in any event, but he had admired her grit and determination. He had enjoyed their verbal sparring; staying alert to her endless machinations had helped keep him sharp. There was no one among the present crop who could scheme as she did and be prepared to back it up with savagery and cruelty, which even he had trouble matching.
The demon called Dariogue wandered over, slouching in that peculiar way it had developed, one leg shorter than the other, neck twice broken and reset, face all smashed in. Findo Gask didn’t like Dariogue much and didn’t trust him at all, but he was the most capable of the bunch.
“It’s done, Master,” his subordinate offered, gesturing vaguely.
“All of them?”
“All, Master.”
“Do we know anything more than we did before about what happened to the boy?”
“No, Master, nothing.”
Findo Gask was not pleased. Not that he had expected Dariogue to be any more successful than himself at finding out how the Elf boy had escaped. Not that he didn’t already have a pretty good idea.
“Let’s have a look, then.”
They started off toward the grove of skeletal trees north of the clearing. Findo Gask was already thinking ahead to his pursuit of the Elf boy. It didn’t matter how he had escaped—or with whom. The end result would be the same. He would track the boy, find him, and extract from him the truth about the whereabouts of the Loden. The boy would have it near him or know where it was; he would have to if he expected to save his people. Culph had been quite clear about how the Elfstone worked. His ideas of manipulating the user remained valuable even though he himself was dead and gone.
Gask frowned on thinking of the deaths of his spies—the old man and the Tracker. How had the boy managed to kill not one, but two demons? He must have access to a magic Findo Gask did not yet know of; he would have to be cautious. The boy was capable of more than any of them had believed. The boy was dangerous.
“Here, Master,” Dariogue advised, breaking into his musings.
He looked to where the other was pointing. The broken bodies of the minder and twenty-five skrails dangled from the limbs of the trees to which they had been nailed. They looked vaguely like bats. Or strange decorations for a pagan celebration.
The old man studied them with his cold, empty eyes, and was satisfied. Failure of the sort that had occurred here would not be tolerated.
“We’re leaving,” he said to Dariogue. “Send me something that can track the boy. Blood soaks or huntrys should do. Then bring up the rest of the army. March them by these trees so that they can see what happens when I am disappointed.”
An object lesson, he thought as he brushed the other off with a wave of his hand. But it was nothing compared with the lesson he intended to teach the Elf boy.
TWENTY-TWO
A NGEL PEREZ stalked through the center of the refugee children’s camp, radiating anger and dismay with every step. She walked purposefully, giving no sense that she had any doubt at all about where she was going. She had been in the camp for only three days, but that was enough time for her to find her way about. The camp sprawled, and its configuration changed continuously as its inhabitants were shifted from one care group and one location to the next. But Angel was a quick study. Besides, it didn’t really matter where she was going. It only mattered that she was able to find the person she was looking for.
She heard Helen Rice before she saw her, and she saw her just about where she expected, down by the bridge where the work was going on, engaged in discussions with the demolition experts and the sappers. Helen was animated as she issued instructions and responded to questions, a small dynamo of energy. Nothing had changed since their time together at the Anaheim compound. Helen was still a take-charge kind of person, a born leader able to adjust to what the circumstances required. Even when she didn’t possess knowledge specific enough to provide a solution, she knew how to find those who did and enlist them to her cause. Like she was doing now, as she set about preparing for the demon army that had pursued them all the way north from California.
Angel stopped a short distance away. She wanted to talk to Helen alone. The information she carried was not meant to be general knowledge. Not yet. It would happen soon enough, no matter what precautions they took. But there was no need to rush things.
She sighed inwardly. She was significantly improved since her injuries on Syrring Rise, if not yet entirely whole. She had healed well enough under the care of Larkin Quill, but it was not her physical health that had suffered the most damage. Emotionally, she was a wreck. Especially after Larkin’s death at the hands of that monster, that demon-spawn. She might hide it from those around her, but she knew the truth of things. She could feel the upheaval working about inside. Doubts and fears roiled, and her mind was awash with growing uncertainties about her ability to carry on.
She was a Knight of the Word, but she was human, too. The one didn’t supplant the other. You carried your past life with you into the job; you didn’t shed that life like an old skin. You remained the person you started out as, even if you wielded killing magic and
projected an invincible aura. Your past was your heritage and the foundation on which you were built. You couldn’t start over. You could only repair and move on.
What that meant in practical terms was that she wasn’t sure of herself anymore. She had lost a significant piece of self-confidence.
“Helen!” she called out, suddenly impatient with the wait.
Helen turned, said something to the men and women with whom she was speaking, and walked over to Angel. “What is it?” she asked at once, seeing something of what was coming in Angel’s eyes.
“We’ve lost another two children. A boy and his sister, ages seven and eight. They disappeared sometime during the night. No one is sure when. It wasn’t noticed until they woke the other children in the group, counted heads, and came up short.”
Helen shook her head vigorously. “They may have wandered off, Angel. We can’t be sure. Can we?”
“We can be sure. You know so.”
The other woman said nothing for a moment. “I suppose I do. How many does that make?”
“Eight. In a little more than forty-eight hours. It’s taking them in pairs. I don’t know how, but it’s finding a way to get to them. We’ve doubled the guards, ringed the sleeping areas, the privies, the food storage, everywhere I can think of. Nothing seems to stop it. It comes in and goes out whenever and wherever it wants. No one sees it. Something that big, and no one even sees it.”
She folded her arms and stepped close. “We know what it is. I know, anyway. It’s that thing, Helen. That monster. It’s tracked the boy Hawk and his bunch back to us, and now it’s feeding on our children.”
Helen winced. “I know. I know what it’s doing.”
“What’s so maddening is that I don’t know why!” Angel’s voice was fierce and guttural. “I thought it was tracking me at first, that the old man had sent it to take the place of the one I killed on Syrring Rise. I thought it was trying to finish the job that it started at Larkin Quill’s. But then it went after Hawk and the children traveling with him. So now I don’t know what to think.”
Helen nodded. “Hawk believes it’s after him, that because he’s been sent to lead the rest of us to safety this thing has been sent to kill him. He says he saw it in the creature’s eyes when it found them in the mountains. But if that’s so, why isn’t it trying to get at him? Why is it killing these other children? It seems to be killing them just for sport! It’s preying on them like some animal.”
Angel looked away, troubled. Her hands gripped her black staff. “I saw it, Helen. Like Hawk. I was as close to it as I am to you. I looked into its eyes. I saw what was there. Doesn’t matter that it stands on its hind legs and cloaks itself in human form—it is an animal. An animal like nothing I’ve ever seen. A black thing out of some pit . . .”
She couldn’t finish. She wheeled back. “I have to go out there and find it and kill it,” she said, her face twisted in fury.
Helen took hold of her arm and held on firmly. “I wish you wouldn’t do that, Angel.”
“You’re afraid for me?”
“I’m afraid for the rest of us. If we lose you, who do we have to protect us? We need your magic, your experience and skill. We need your heart.” She brushed at her short-cropped blond hair and shook her head. “There aren’t enough of us to do what is needed. We have weapons, we have transport, and we have food and water and maps. We have our determination, and that is not to be underestimated. But we are not Knights of the Word, and we are no match for the demon and his army if they catch up to us. We can’t afford to risk losing you. Losing you would leave us terribly vulnerable.”
“You won’t lose me,” Angel answered, slipping free her arm. “Besides, you have Hawk. He has magic.”
Helen nodded. “Very powerful magic, at that. But he’s a boy, Angel. He’s still a child himself. He lacks experience. His magic is an unknown, even to him. He can do things with it, but it isn’t a weapon he can use to defend others in the same way your staff is. It’s a whole unexplored country!” She paused. “Bottom line? He isn’t you.”
Angel saw the reason embedded in the other woman’s words. It was more than just her magic. A Knight of the Word gave power to those she protected simply by virtue of her presence among them. There was belief in her. Her absence would leave a void that no one else could fill.
“Lo siento. Estoy cansada.” She took Helen’s hand in her own and squeezed gently. “I’m not thinking clearly. I know that.”
“We’re all under a terrible strain,” Helen agreed. “We know we have to do something, but we can’t afford to act out of haste, either.”
“No tenemos mucho tiempo,” Angel answered. “It’s all slipping away from us, Helen. The longer we stay here, the worse things are likely to get. We need to start moving. We need this boy to take all of us to where we are supposed to go. If he can really do that.”
Helen nodded. She hugged herself and exhaled sharply. The way her eyes fixed on Angel, it felt as if she were reaching deep inside for something to hold on to. “I think he can,” she finally said. “I really do. Even if I can’t explain it.” She shook her head against whatever doubts she was experiencing. “But he says we can’t leave yet. He says we have to wait. He won’t say why.”
Angel’s lips tightened into a thin line of impatience. “I’ll talk with him about it.”
Helen looked uncertain. “Angel, I don’t know . . .”
“I won’t do anything but ask him for a reason. I just want to know that he has one, that he’s sure about this.”
Helen nodded. “Remember, he knows about the children, too.”
“I’ll remember.” She hesitated. “Better send out search parties to look for those kids.”
“I will, of course. You know that. Not that it will make any difference. We haven’t found a single trace of any of the others. We won’t find anything of these two, either.”
She turned and started walking back to join the men and women with whom she had been speaking before Angel’s interruption.
“It doesn’t hurt to look,” Angel called after her.
Helen glanced back over her shoulder. “Everything hurts,” she said.
THE WHITE-HOT ORB OF THE MIDDAY SUN was suspended overhead, the air so thick with its heat that the landscape shimmered as if formed of water. The countryside was burned brown and dry, and even the presence of the river flowing beneath the bluffs on which the refugee camp had been settled did nothing to temper its effect. Hawk stood at the top of the bluff and looked out across the broad expanse of the gorge to where the mountains south formed a black mass against the hazy blue sky.
He was waiting, and the waiting was painful. Not because he didn’t know how to wait, but because he didn’t know what he was waiting for.
Sometimes he wondered how he had come to this. He accepted that what he had believed to be true about himself for so many years was a lie. The King of the Silver River could call it anything he liked, but it was still a lie. His memories were layered with people and places that had never existed and events that had never happened. None of it was real. He accepted that he was a creature formed of magic, not of Faerie or humankind, but of some mix of the two. He even accepted that he was meant to be leader and guide to all these children and their caregivers and to others who would join them on their way to the place in which they would find safety from the end times.
Fine. But what was he to do about not knowing any of the particulars of his mission? How was he to come to terms with the fact that he must accept so much on faith? What was it going to take for him to be at peace with the inexplicable and unknowable behavioral characteristics that were charting his decision making as surely as ocean currents would a rudderless ship’s course?
And what of his uncertainty about himself? His surprising use of magic in the face of obstacles hindering their passage was a case in point. His ability to heal both Cheney and Logan Tom when death might have claimed them was another.
Now this. The waiting.
br /> He was waiting for Logan Tom to return with the Elves, even though he had no way of knowing when that would happen or even if it would happen at all. He was acting on faith. Logan Tom would come, and he would bring what was needed. How did he know? He just did.
Even more troublesome was his reluctance to move the camp.
Even though that creature the Ghosts had encountered in the mountains had followed them here and was preying on the children, he could not allow them to leave. Would not. Why? Because his instincts told him it wasn’t time, that he must stay where he was until moving felt right.
It was difficult to explain. It was nothing more than a sense of what was needed, but the sense was very strong and very certain. He hadn’t experienced it before going into the Gardens of Life and encountering the King of the Silver River, but now it was such a dominant presence that he could not go against it. He had felt it surface within him the moment he had returned from the gardens and prepared to set out with Tessa to find the Ghosts. It hadn’t left him since; it was a voice that whispered to him soundlessly and ruled his decision making with an iron hand. He wished it were otherwise, wished he could bargain with it or simply ignore it, but he knew . . .
“Hawk!”
The sound of his name snapped him out of his reverie and brought him about to face Angel Perez. She walked toward him purposefully, her face reflecting an unmistakable determination. He knew at once what she was going to say.
She stopped in front of him. “We lost two more children this morning. How much longer before we can leave this place?”
The question resonated with impatience and anger. It didn’t ask for an answer; it demanded it.
“I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. The monster will follow us wherever we go.”
“That might be,” she conceded. “But we have to do something anyway. We can’t just wait around.”
She was right, of course. They had to do something to stop the killings. He even knew what that something was. They had to hunt the monster down and find a way to destroy it. To do that, they had to use Hawk as bait because he was the one the monster wanted. Because the monster was a demon, and it had been sent to stop him. He knew that. But he also knew what he couldn’t do. He couldn’t put himself at risk. There was more at stake than his own life.