Illengond Read online

When Dhan and Thimeon arrived back at the cavern where they had slept, the rest of their band was already up and moving, fed, dressed, and ready to go. All except the merchant Lluanthro and his servant Rammas. Lluanthro still lay on his sleeping mat, with his splinted leg propped out on a cushion, trying with only moderate success to sip steaming beverage from a stone mug.

  “I’m afraid I won’t be continuing with you,” the merchant said, when Dhan and Thimeon walked over to greet him. “It will be a few days before I’m fit to travel even in a wagon, and many weeks maybe before I will be walking.”

  “You bore the worst of it,” Thimeon said. “You and Rammas. Certainly more adventure than you imagined when you stopped for a needy stranger on the road.”

  Lluanthro laughed. “Maybe I wouldn’t have stopped if I’d known where you’d be taking me.” But then his face grew more serious. “No. Truth be told, knowing what this all means—and knowing what I’d learn from you about my son—I’d have begged you to come along. But it’s time to leave me behind. Some refugees from Ceadani lands to the southeast have offered to bring us back to Kreana in a few days, as soon as I’m well enough to sit in the back of a wagon. In the meanwhile, the folk of Gale Enebe will take care of me. I might even find some new trading partners here. I don’t think I’ll do much business in Citadel anymore.”

  “You have been a good friend,” Thimeon said. “And a brave help. Without you, I would not even have made it to Citadel.” He leaned over and embraced the merchant.

  Dhan wished Lluanthro and Rammas well. “If my position in Citadel is ever restored, I’ll give you both a good reward for what you have done,” he added. He didn’t say how unlikely he thought that possibility was.

  An hour later, Dhan stood on the ground at the base of the village, beside the piles of broken stones that had once been the walls and doors of the stable. Their entire band was there, along with Cathwain and Gaelim. The two Ceadani now were dressed in warmer cloaks over the robes they had worn earlier high up in their Sanctuary. Their horses were saddled and the men and women of Dhan’s company were mounting. Dhan looked around at them. Despite the one good night of rest, they were a bruised and weary-looking band. Only Corandra had escaped the previous day’s battle completely unscathed. The rest of them suffered burns, bruises, cuts, and in a few cases more serious gashes. Even Jhonna, though she had done nothing in the battle but to shoot one arrow from a distance, had been singed and knocked unconscious at the assault of the Daegmon when they’d first entered the village. None of them, except perhaps Thimeon, appeared at all eager to depart. Their food supplies were nearly depleted. If they could not buy food from some farm they passed on the road, they would have to go on thin rations.

  The prince walked over to Thimeon, who stood next to Cathwain preparing to help her mount her horse. Cathwain greeted him, but then turned and looked back toward her horse. She looked ill at ease as she stared up at the saddle. Dhan wondered if she had ever been in a saddle before. But he could not worry about that now. He turned to Thimeon. “Will Gale Enebe be safe when we depart?” he asked. “Won’t the other Daegmon come back after we are gone?”

  “I do not know,” Thimeon replied. “But my instinct tells me it will not return. We defeated one of the Daegmons. It will remain disembodied and impotent for a time. More importantly, though, I suspect Chal-char understood something correctly: they came here after Cathwain and Gaelim—and perhaps after Chal-char as well. With all three of them gone, there is less reason for our enemy to attack Gale Enebe again.”

  Thimeon then turned and looked soberly at Cathwain. The prince saw in their expressions that he had again interrupted an ongoing conversation. “You will be in greater danger now than you were in the village,” Thimeon said in a soft voice.

  “Thimeon is right,” Dhan said. “I would feel better if you remained somewhere safe.”

  “I trust you,” she replied. “And the prince too,” she added, looking at Dhan. Then she turned and looked up the cliffs at the shattered balconies that gave testimony to her ruined village. “I thought this place was safe. But there is no safe place in Gondisle. I will put my hopes as well as my faith in you.”

  Thimeon cringed. “There are others who have trusted me who now lay in graves.”

  Cathwain closed her eyes. Her thoughts came straight into the prince’s mind with a clarity that her halting use of trade tongue lacked. My grandfather taught me many things, she said. Though she had spoken to him this way the previous evening, it still came as a shock. One of them is that all of our bodies will one day lie in the grave. She looked back and forth between him and Thimeon, and the prince knew instinctively that she spoke to both of them. But then her eyes came to rest on Thimeon. Many days ago, when you last were in our village, Grandfather also told me something else. He told me to trust you. He said my path would be with yours. When you left, he said you would be back. I do not know how he knew that, but he was proven right. You are here. And you have saved Gale Enebe. So I will trust also his instruction to trust you. If I give my life while following your lead, I believe it will have been a life well spent. A life that would have made my grandfather proud.

  She paused, and then she looked again at the prince. And there is this also: I would rather face any danger than wait in hiding while an enemy destroys my people because of me.

  “I fear those are your only choices,” Thimeon replied. “And I am glad you have made the choice you have. I think you and Gaelim both will have some task to do when the gifted are united—as I hope you will be.”

  A few minutes later Prince Dhan led the company northwestward out of the village. Gaelim rode at Dhan’s side along with Plainsman Rhaan, whose boundless energy and eagerness to be of use continued to be on exhibit. Thimeon, no longer needed as a guide, rode near the back of the company next to Cathwain. They passed the hidden trail up to the Sanctuary, and for a short while backtracked along the previous day’s route away from the cliff-side village. For the first quarter of an hour, the road was on rock and hard gravel. Then it turned away from the mountain and began a steady gentle descent through meadows lined with stonewalls down toward the low lying woods still an hour off in the distance.

  Lost deep in his thoughts, Dhan remained silent for a time as they rode. His eyes drifted back and forth between the trail in front of him and the distant peak of Mount Illengond far to the north and west. How had he come to be leading into danger three women who had not yet seen their twentieth year? Back in Citadel, Cathwain and Jhonna would be considered too young to court. Or was he leading them out of danger? He didn’t know.

  Lost in thought, he barely noticed the surrounding countryside as they followed a slow descent to the lower Ceadani plains. They had ridden another hour and had come into the midst of a thick wood of firs with a few scattered silvery beech when he heard Thimeon’s voice behind him call out in surprise or concern. “Cathwain!”

  The prince told Rhaan to continue on, and then he spun his mount around and rode to the back of the band to see what was amiss.

  At the back of the band, Thimeon and Cathwain had both reined to a halt. Thimeon had spun his horse around to face the opposite direction and ridden up next to her. Not sure whether he should hold back or approach, the prince chose the latter. “You remember Elynna?” Thimeon asked Cathwain, as the prince rode up beside them. There was excitement in his voice. Or just a sudden urgency. “And the others? The company I was with when last I came.”

  “How could I have forgotten them?” Cathwain replied with a smile. “We go to bring them the sword, as you told me this morning. You believe they are in the Undeani Mountains to the northwest.”

  Thimeon nodded. “That was their plan when I left them. But if we could get them to come toward us. To go to Mount Illengond and meet us there.”

  “The Holy Mountain,” Cathwain said. “My grandfather spoke of it. He has been there. I have not yet gone—”

 
“Listen!” he said, interrupting her. “Your gift. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this at once. We need to get a message to Elynna. Can you reach her? Speak with her as you did with me?”

  Cathwain bit her lip. “I don’t know. It is difficult if I don’t know the person well. Even if I do, I don’t always know if I am heard.”

  “Will you try?”

  “I tried already,” she said. “For many days before you came I called to Elynna for help. If she heard me, I do not know. I gave up and called you instead.”

  “She did hear you,” Thimeon said. “I was with her. We had just been attacked by one of the Daegmons and she told us she had heard your voice calling for help. So whatever you did, it worked!”

  “But she did not come,” Cathwain said.

  Dhan could hear the pain in the young woman’s voice as she said this. He thought back on the damage done to her home, and wondered how many of her people had died in the attacks. No wonder she was hurt that Elynna had not come. Then Dhan realized with a sick stomach that the people of Gondisle had been calling out to Citadel for help also, and no aid had come from the throne.

  Thimeon squeezed his eyes shut. “I can’t answer for why. But I heard you. I came. We came. Now we need you to try again to speak to her. Are you willing?”

  Cathwain nodded. “I will try. What shall I tell her?”

  “Tell her she must lead her company to Mount Illengond. As quickly as she can. We will meet her there in—” He paused and looked up at the distant mountain. “In three or four days.”

  “Is that all?” Cathwain asked.

  Thimeon rubbed his chin with his gloved hand. “Tell her that we have a new weapon: one that will enhance Cane’s power. She must not pursue the Daegmon until Cane has this weapon. Tell her also that Cane should not wear the stone I gave him.”

  Dhan thought back again on the conversation with Borodruin. He had spoken of some strange stone of power, and what he told Thimeon had caused great alarm. Something about the stone not being made for the gifted to wear. Was that what Thimeon was afraid of? That one of the gifted now possessed it and would try to use its power?

  “What stone?” the young woman asked.

  “She and Cane will know of what I speak,” Thimeon replied. “The stone must not be worn by one of the gifted. Make that clear. If Cane takes it into battle, it might be destroyed and its power lost.” He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry to ask this. I am not one of the gifted. But I know from both Tienna and Elynna that using their gifts cost them something. I know this is a burden. Yet I know of no other way.”

  “Maybe it is why the All-Maker sent me with you,” Cathwain said, in a voice barely above a whisper.

  “I do not know,” Thimeon replied. “But there is one more thing. I am sorry. I need to know if she hears you. I need to know if she is coming. If she does not hear you, we must continue west toward the Undeani lands to find her. However if she hears—if she agrees to the message—then we journey north toward Illengond.”

  Cathwain nodded. “I understand. I will do my best to reach them.”

  Dhan watched the young woman’s face as she closed her eyes. He had no idea what her gift felt like, or what it meant for her to use it. But he could not doubt it was real. Her lips moved in a low mumble. Twice she flinched as from an unseen blow, and she began to lean unsteadily in her saddle. Thimeon reached over and held her arm to steady her. A minute later, Cathwain slumped down and lowered her head. She opened her eyes and exhaled deeply, then turned to Thimeon. The look in her face told Dhan before her words did that she had failed. “The Daegmon,” she said. “It interferes with my call.”

  “What?” Thimeon asked in alarm. He looked skyward. “Is it nearby?”

  “I don’t think so. I think it was closer to her. To Elynna. Wherever it is, it sensed the power of my call.”

  “But it—could it stop your voice? I mean, your mind-speaking? Is that possible?”

  “I don’t know,” Cathwain answered. “I don’t think it can silence my call altogether. It was more like—well, like it spoke to her also, trying to confuse my voice or drown it out. If she is sensitive to the Daegmon’s voice, then she might not have heard me. The effort is tiring, but I will try again.”

  Thimeon seemed to be pondering the idea. “No,” he answered. “You said that when you called her before, many days ago, you did not know if she heard you. That was—” He paused. “That was almost two weeks ago.”

  Two weeks, Dhan thought. So much could have happened! Golach had been after Elynna that entire time. The prince had learned that before he had been thrown into the dungeon for disloyalty. The thought made him clench his fists. Golach was a cruel captain. He was also smart and persistent. And if rumors were true, he was the illegitimate son of the king. He was Dhan’s half-brother.

  Thimeon was staring northward toward the distant peak of Illengond. “May the All-Maker protect them,” he whispered. Then he turned back to Cathwain. “Listen. I was with Elynna then. We were still on the Plains. She did hear you. She heard you clearly. She told the others about your voice. But then— Then other things happened. Too many things. We were pursued by the armies of Citadel.”

  “But she did not reply.” Frustration was evident in Cathwain’s voice. “If she heard me, I could not tell, for she did not speak back to me. I lost hope.”

  “She didn’t know how, I think,” Thimeon said. “But she did hear you before. We must hope she heard you again.”

  It took them several minutes to catch up with the others. Dhan and Thimeon then left Cathwain with Jhonna and Corandra near the rear of the company and the two of them rode to the front.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Thimeon said in quiet voice, when he and Dhan were side by side at the front of the company.

  The words caught the prince off-guard. For ten days his Andan guide had seemed so sure of himself. Not since the dungeon had Thimeon not known what to do. He fought his sense of panic and waiting for Thimeon to continue.

  “I know we must find Cane and Cathros and Elynna. That knowledge has kept me moving. But I don’t know how to find them. We could spend weeks listening for rumors of their passing in the highlands, if indeed they have come north at all. If they even still live. I had a hope that Cathwain could reach them. But now? I don’t know if it is wise to trust that hope.”

  “What do you suggest?” Dhan answer. “I do not know how to advise you. I know only that I trust you.”

  “I wish I deserved that,” Thimeon muttered. He took a deep breath. “Though it will cause a delay, I think we should head to Aeti. Unless we hear some news from Elynna before we get there. Unless Cathwain is able to reach her.”

  Dhan had been to Aeti a half dozen times. It stood north and east of Mount Androllin, not too many days’ ride from Swage on the mountain road to Anghata. It had also a few inns and taverns as you might expect on a trade route but though it was the largest settlement in the highlands, it was mostly peopled by farmers and woodcutters. There was a small garrison a half day’s ride west of the town. It seemed an odd place to go now.

  “There were other Andani in Elynna’s company, including a cousin of mine,” Thimeon went on. “Perhaps they have sent some message, or news has somehow reached Aeti. When we escaped Citadel the first time, rumor of our coming had already reached the Plains before us. A message of some sort, or even rumor of the Daegmon. Or rumor of soldiers from Citadel. I don’t know what else to hope for. If no new information can be gathered, then we ride west toward Undeani land and do our best to find a sheep in a field of lambsflower.”

  “What?” Dhan asked, confused.

  “Sorry,” Thimeon said. “Just an old Andani metaphor. If you’ve ever seen a whole meadow of lambsflower blooming in the spring, you’d know what I meant.”

  “I’ve never seen lambsflower, but I’ve been to the Undeani highlands. I never thought it w
ould be easy to find your friends. I just thought,” he paused. “Well, I thought you had a plan.”

  “No,” Thimeon replied. “Just a need. I was trusting that the plan would arise out of our need. My faith in that is faltering.”

  Dhan tried not to think about this new uncertainty. “Even getting to Aeti might be difficult,” he said. “You know as well as I do that we cannot risk getting caught in the open by an army from Citadel. I don’t know where our pursuers are now. It may be that our ruse in Kreana worked completely and they are getting off a ship in the Northlands somewhere. But even then, there will still be spies along the roads and in the villages. When you first escaped from Citadel, my father started sending them out by the dozens. Even if most of the army has been sent to the northwest in pursuit of your friends, I do not think Koranth will easily give up on me.”

  “At this time of year, the storms may be every bit as dangerous as enemy soldiers,” Thimeon added.

  Dhan looked up at the sky. There was not a cloud to be seen, and barely a breath of wind. Though the air was much colder than anything he experienced in Citadel, even that was not horrible. He looked back at the road ahead of them, a wide wagon path that wound along the rolling hills. “What is our route from here to Aeti? I have seldom traveled here.”

  “Straight line across the Raws would be fastest. But that would leave us most open to all three dangers: spies, storms, and the winged beasts. You can see a crow walking across the Raws from a hillside thirty miles away. And there is no place to shelter if a storm blows through.”

  “So where do we go? Even on this wagon path I don’t feel safe from spies.”

  “I have been giving that thought, and I asked Gaelim earlier. He knows the region well, and he has a plan I think good. Unless we want a long delay trying to get through these woods, we must stay on the road today nearly as far the village of Gale Ceathu. We should be there before dark. There we will leave the road and veer northwestward and follow the foothills of the Androllin Range along the western edge of the Raws. It is a narrow region between the Raws and the steep slopes of the mountains, but it should work. The area is wooded enough to provide some cover, but not so dense to slow us down. Gaelim and I have both traveled there.”