He stood up and surveyed the cat-28 one more time, making sure everything was as it should be. For now, he would have to satisfy himself with flying his single-mast, small to be sure, but quick and sturdy, and best of all, his. He would test her out in the morning to make certain the splicings were done properly and the controls for feeding the ambient light down through the radian draws operating as they should. It was tricky business, splitting off draws to channel energy to more than one parse tube, but he had mastered the art sufficiently that he felt confident this latest effort would work.
He glanced at the late afternoon sky, noting that the heavy mist lying over the Rainbow Lake had thickened with the approach of storm clouds out of the north. The sun had disappeared entirely, not even visible as the hazy ball it had been earlier. Nightfall was approaching and the light was failing fast. There would be no sunset this day. If the storm didn’t blow through that night, visibility would be down to nothing by morning and he would have to find something to do besides test out his splicing.
“Rat droppings,” he muttered. He didn’t like waiting for anything.
He finished putting his tools back into their box and jumped down off the cat-28. It was in dry dock, tethered close to the ground and out of the water until he was ready to take her out for her test run. If a storm was coming, he had to make ready for it, although the cat was secure enough and Steady Right, the other big expedition airship, was anchored in a sheltered part of the cove. With his parents gone east, he was responsible for taking care of the airships and equipment until they returned, which wasn’t likely to happen for at least another two months. It was all familiar territory to him, though. He had looked after things since he was twelve, and he knew what was needed in almost any situation. What he missed when his parents were away was being out there with them. It reminded him that they still thought of him as a boy.
He carried the toolbox into the work shed and shut and barred the double doors. He was average in size and appearance, neither big nor small, his most striking feature his long auburn hair, which he kept tied back with brightly colored scarves in the Rover fashion. But the commonness of his physical makeup hid an extraordinary determination and an insatiable curiosity. Pen Ohmsford made it a point to find out about things that others simply accepted or ignored and then to learn everything he could and not forget it. Knowledge was power in any world, whether you were fifteen or fifty. The more he knew, the more he could accomplish, and Pen was heavily committed to accomplishing something important.
In his family, you almost had to be—especially if you didn’t have the wishsong to fall back on.
He regretted its absence sometimes, but his regret was always momentary. After all, his mother didn’t have any magic either; she was beautiful and talented enough that it probably didn’t matter. His father rarely used his magic, though he had been born with it and been forced to rely on it extensively before Pen was born.
But his aunt? Well, his aunt, of course, was the Ard Rhys, Grianne Ohmsford, whose use of magic was legendary and who had used it almost every day of her life since the time she had become the Ilse Witch. She was so closely defined by her magic that the two were virtually inseparable.
He knew the stories. All of them. His parents weren’t the sort to try to hide secrets about themselves or anyone else in the family, so they talked to him freely about his aunt. He knew what she had been and why. He understood the anger and antipathy her name invoked in many quarters. His uncle Redden would barely give her the time of day, although he had grudgingly admitted once to Pen that if not for her, the remnants of the crew of the Jerle Shannara, including himself and Pen’s parents, would never have returned alive. His parents were more charitable, if cautious. His father, in particular, clearly loved his sister and thought her misunderstood. But they had chosen different paths in life, and he rarely saw her.
Pen had seen her only twice, most recently when she had come on his birthday to visit the family. Cool and aloof, she had nevertheless taken time to fly with him aboard her airship and talk about his life at Patch Run. She had made a point of asking if he sensed any growth of the wishsong’s magic inside his body, but had not seemed disappointed when he told her he didn’t. Her own magic was never in evidence. Other people talked about it, but not her. She seemed to regard it as a condition that was best left undiscussed. Pen had respected her wishes, and even now he did not think it was a subject he would talk to her about, ever, unless she brought it up first.
Still, magic’s presence marked the history of the Ohmsford family, all the way back to the time of Wil Ohmsford, so it was hard to ignore, whether you had the use of it or not. Pen knew that it tended to skip whole generations of Ohmsfords, so it was not as if he was the first not to possess it. His father said it was entirely possible that it was thinning out in the bloodline with the passage of the years and the increase in the number of generations of Ohmsfords who had inherited it. It might be that it was fading away altogether. His mother said it didn’t matter, that there were more important attributes to possess than the use of magic. Pen, she insisted, was the better for not having to deal with its demands and was exactly who he was meant to be.
Lots of talk and reasoning had been given over to the subject, and all of it was meant to make Pen feel better, which mostly he did. He wasn’t the sort to worry about what he didn’t have.
Except that he didn’t have his parents’ blessing to go with them on their expeditions yet, and he was getting impatient at being left home in the manner of the family dog.
He walked down to the cove and did a quick check of Steady Right, tightening the anchor ropes and cinch lines so that if a blow did materialize, nothing would be lost. He glanced out over the Rainbow Lake when he was finished, its vast expanse stretching away until it disappeared into a haze of clouds and twilight, its colors drained away by the approach of heavy weather. On clear days, those fabled rainbows were always visible, a trick of mist and light. On clear days, he could see through those rainbows all the way to the Runne Mountains. Such days gave him the measure of his freedom. He was allowed the run of the lake, his own private backyard, vast and wonderful, but forbidden to go beyond. His invisible tether stretched to its far shores and not a single inch farther.
He wondered sometimes if he would have been given more freedom if he had been born with the wishsong, but he supposed not. His parents weren’t likely to think him any better able to look after himself because he had the use of magic. If anything, they might be even stricter. It was all in the way they saw him. He would be old enough to do the things he couldn’t do now when they decided he was old enough and not before.
But then, how old had his father been when he had sailed aboard the Jerle Shannara? How old, when he had crossed the Blue Divide to the continent of Parkasia? Not much older than Pen, and his adoptive parents, Coran and Liria Leah, had given him permission to go. Admittedly, the circumstances compelling their agreement had been unusual, but the principle regarding a boy’s age and maturity was the same.
Well, that was then and this was now. He knew he couldn’t compare the two. Bek Ohmsford had possessed the magic of the wishsong, and without it he probably wouldn’t have survived the journey. It made Pen want to know how that felt. He would have liked to have the use of the wishsong for maybe a day or two, just to see what it was like. He wondered how it would feel to do the things that his father and aunt could do. Had done. He was curious in spite of himself, a natural reaction to the way things could have been versus the way they were. He just thought it would be interesting to try it out in some way, to put it to some small use. Magic had its attractions, like it or not.
His father talked about it as if possessing it wasn’t all that wonderful, as if it was something of a burden. Easy for his father to say. Easy for anyone who had the use of it to say to someone who didn’t.
Of course, Pen had his own gift, the one that seemed to have come out of nowhere after he was born, the one that allowed him to con
nect with living things in a way no one else could. Except for humans—he couldn’t do it with them. But with plants and animals, he could. He could always tell what they were feeling or thinking. He could empathize with them. He didn’t even have to work at it. He could just pay attention to what was going on around him and know things others couldn’t.
He could communicate with them, too. Not speak their language exactly, but read and interpret their sounds and movements and respond in a similar way. He could make them understand the connection they shared, even if he clearly wasn’t of their species.
He supposed that could be considered a form of magic, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to designate it as such. It wasn’t very useful. It was all well and good to know from gulls that a storm front was building in the west or from ground squirrels that a nut source was dwindling or from a beech tree that the soil that fed its roots was losing its nutrients. It could be interesting to tell a deer just by the way you held yourself that you meant no harm. But he hadn’t found much point in all that. His parents knew about it, and they told him that it was special and might turn out to be important one day, but he couldn’t see how.
His uncle Redden wanted him to read the seas when they went fishing, when they flew out over the Blue Divide. Big Red wanted to know what the gulls and dolphins were seeing that might tell him where to steer. Pen was glad to oblige, but it made him feel a bit like a hunting dog.
He grinned in spite of himself. There was that image again. A dog. The family dog, a hunting dog. Maybe in his next life, that was what he would be. He didn’t know if he liked the idea or not, but it was amusing to think about.
The wind was whipping across the lake, snapping the line of pennants attached atop the trees bracketing the cove entrance to measure velocity, a clear indication that a storm was indeed approaching. He was just turning away to go inside when he caught sight of something far out on the water. It was nothing more than a spot, but it had appeared all at once, materializing out of the mist. He stopped where he was and stared at it, trying to decide if it was a boat. It took him several minutes to confirm that it was. Not much of a boat, however. Something like a skiff or a punt, little and prone to capsizing.
Why would anyone be out in a boat like that in such weather?
He waited for the boat to come closer and tried to decide if it was headed for Patch Run. It soon became apparent it was. It skipped and slewed on the roughening waters, a cork adrift, propelled by a single sail and a captain who clearly did not know a whole lot about sailing in good weather, let alone bad. Pen shook his head in a mix of wonder and admiration. Whoever was in that boat wasn’t lacking in courage, although good sense might be in short supply.
The little boat—it was a skiff, Pen determined—whipped off the lake and into the cove, its single occupant hunched at the tiller. He was a Dwarf, gray-bearded and sturdy in build, cloaked against the wind and cold, working the lines of the sail as if trying to figure out what to do to get his craft ashore. Pen walked down to the edge of the water by the docks, waited until his visitor was close enough, then threw him a line. The Dwarf grasped it as a drowning man might, and Pen pulled him into the pilings and tied him off.
“Many thanks!” the Dwarf gasped, breathing heavily as he took Pen’s hand and hauled himself out of the skiff and onto the dock. “I’m all worn out!”
“I expect so,” Pen replied, looking him over critically. “Crossing the lake in this weather couldn’t have been easy.”
“It didn’t start out like this. It was sunny and bright when I set off this morning.” The Dwarf straightened his rumpled, drenched clothing and rubbed his hands briskly. “I didn’t realize this storm was coming up.”
The boy smiled. “If you don’t mind my saying so, only a crazy man would sail a ratty old skiff like this one in any weather.”
“Or a desperate one. Is this Patch Run? Are you an Ohmsford?”
Pen nodded. “I’m Pen. My parents are Bek and Rue. Are you looking for them?”
The Dwarf nodded and stuck out his hand. “Tagwen, personal assistant to your aunt, the Ard Rhys. We’ve never met, but I know something about you from her. She says you’re a smart boy and a first-rate sailor. I could have used you in coming here.”
Pen shook the Dwarf’s hand. “My aunt sent you?”
“Not exactly. I’ve come on my own.” He glanced past Pen toward the house and outbuildings. “Not to be rude, but I need to talk to your parents right away. I don’t have much time to waste. I think I was followed. Can you take me up to them?”
“They’re not here,” Pen said. “They’re off on an expedition in the Wolfsktaag and won’t be back for weeks. Is there something I can do to help? How about some hot cider?”
“They’re not here?” Tagwen repeated. He seemed dismayed. “Could you find them, if you had to? Could you fly me to where they are? I didn’t expect this, I really didn’t. I should have thought it through better, but all I knew was to get here as quickly as I could.”
He glanced over his shoulder, whether at the lake and the approaching storm Pen couldn’t tell. “I don’t think I can find my parents while they’re in the Wolfsktaag,” the boy said. “I’ve never even been there. Anyway, I can’t leave home.”
“I’ve never been there, either,” Tagwen allowed, “and I’m a Dwarf. I was born and raised in Culhaven, and other than coming to Paranor to serve the Ard Rhys, I’ve never really been much of anywhere.”
Pen grinned in spite of himself. He liked the strange little man. “How on earth did you find your way here, then? How did you manage to sail that skiff all this way from the north shore? If you get out in the middle of Rainbow Lake on days like this, you can’t see anything but mist in all directions.”
Tagwen reached into his pocket, fished around, and pulled out a small metal cylinder. “Compass,” he advised. “I learned to read it at Paranor while exploring the forest that surrounds the Keep. It was all I had to rely on, coming down through the Dragon’s Teeth and the Borderlands. I don’t like flying, so I decided to come on horseback. When I got to the lake, I had to find a boat. I bought this one, but I don’t think I chose very well. Listen, Pen, I’m sorry to be so insistent about this, but are you sure you can’t find your parents?”
He looked so distressed that Pen wanted to say he could, but he knew his parents used the wishsong to hide their presence in dangerous places like the Wolfsktaag, the better to keep themselves and their passengers safe. Even if he knew where to begin to look, he doubted that he could locate them while they were using magic.
“What is this all about, anyway?” he asked, still unsure what the Dwarf wanted. “Why is all this so urgent?”
Tagwen drew a deep breath and exhaled so vehemently that Pen took a step back. “She’s disappeared!” the Dwarf exclaimed. “Your aunt, three nights ago. Something happened to her, and I don’t think it’s something good. It hasn’t been safe for her at Paranor for some time; I warned her about this over and over. Then she went into the Skull Kingdom with Kermadec to investigate some disturbance there, and when she came back, there was supposed to be a meeting with the Prime Minister—another snake in the grass—but sometime during the night, she just vanished, and now I don’t know what to do!”
Pen stared at him. He didn’t know who Kermadec or the Prime Minister were, but he could follow enough of what the Dwarf said to know that his aunt was in trouble. “How could she disappear from her own room?” he asked. “Doesn’t she have guards? She told me she did. Rock Trolls, she said. Big ones.”
“They’re all big.” Tagwen sighed. “I don’t know how she disappeared; she just did. I thought that maybe your parents could help find her since I’ve done everything I can think to do. Perhaps your father could use his magic to track her, to discover where she’s gone. Or been taken.”
Pen thought about it. His father could do that; he had done it before, though only once when Pen was with him, when their family dog disappeared in the Duln. His father probably could
track Grianne, although only if she left a trail and hadn’t just gone up in a puff of smoke or something. Where the Ard Rhys was concerned, anything was possible.
Tagwen rubbed his beard impatiently. “Is there anything you can do to help me or must I go alone to find them?”
“You can’t find them on your own!” Pen exclaimed. “You wouldn’t have one chance in a thousand! You barely managed to sail across Rainbow Lake in that skiff!”
Tagwen drew himself up. “The point is, I have to do something besides sit around hoping the Ard Rhys will show up again. Because I don’t think she will. I’ve pretty much reconciled myself to it.”
“All right, but maybe there’s another way, something else we can do.” Pen shrugged. “We just have to think of what it is.”
“Well, we’d better think of it pretty fast. I told you I don’t have much time. I’m pretty sure I was followed. By Druids, I should point out, who don’t want your aunt back, whether or not they’re responsible for her disappearance in the first place. I expect they have decided I might be more trouble than I’m worth and would be better off ‘disappeared’ somewhere, as well.”