Do not jail.
The words echoed softly in the rapidly diminishing sweep of daylight, and Bek turned swiftly to seek the King of the Silver River, to protest that he would not, to give fresh voice to his promise to do as he had been asked, but found he was alone.
He woke with a gasp, jerked from his sleep by a sense of impending horror, his body racked by pain and fever and his mind roiling with wild, uncontrollable emotions that careened through him like tiny razors, jagged edges cutting. He tried to speak and could not. He tried to see, to discover where he was, but his surroundings were blurred and indistinct. He felt a slight rolling motion beneath him and heard the creak and groan of wood and metal fastenings, of lashings and the wind’s steady rush. He was aboard a ship, but he couldn’t understand how he had gotten there.
Penderrin is inside the Forbidding!
It was his first thought, and the realization all but stopped his heart. Pen, in that monstrous prison, where so much of what was evil in the world had been banished. That the King of the Silver River would send his son to such a place was impossible for him to understand. How could a mere boy have any chance at all of surviving?
How could he hope to find his aunt and bring her back again when everything he encountered would be looking to kill him?
But it is not inside the Forbidding that Penderrin faces his greatest danger.
« Bek, can you hear me?»
He took a deep, steadying breath and blinked against the haze that clouded his vision. A face swam into view, young and with skin ghostly pale, framed with a helmet of close–cropped black hair. A slender hand reached out to touch his cheek. «Can you hear me?»
He nodded, his mouth too dry to allow him to speak. Seeing his difficulty, she raised his head from the bedding on which he lay, brought a cup of water to his lips, and allowed him to sip.
Intense dark eyes peered into his. «Do you remember me?» she asked. «I’m Bellizen. I’m Trefen Morys’s friend.»
He nodded weakly, remembering nothing. «Where am I?»
« AboardSwift Sure. You have been very sick, Bek. You were badly hurt. A knife wound deep in your side and an arrow through your shoulder. You have been delirious for two days, fighting off a fever. I think it has broken finally.»
It all came back to him in a rush. His escape from Paranor with Rue, helped by the young Druid Trefen Morys, the battle to reachSwift Sure with the Gnome Hunters attacking from every quarter in an effort to stop them, his collapse moments after finally managing to reach the rope ladder, and then—nothing. This girl had been aboard the airship waiting for them. He remembered looking up into her face as they placed him on the deck and she bent to tend his wounds.
« You helped me,” he said.
« Healing is my Druid skill,” she replied, giving him a quick, reassuring smile. «Rue sails the airship, Trefen lends her a hand where it is needed, and I care for you. We each have our task. Mine seemed the harder for a time, I was afraid I was going to lose you.»
He thought back to the dreams and nightmares of his sleep, already growing distant and vague in his memory. He thought back to the fever dream, to his vision of the King of the Silver River. He had turned the corner into recovery then, he believed. He had been near death, but the dream had brought him back to life. He shivered at the memory of what the dream had shown him, the images of a desiccated, demon–invaded world still fresh in his mind.
Bellizen gave him another few sips of water from the cup and then laid him back down again. «You still need to rest.»
She started to rise, but he reached out for her arm. «Is everyone else all right?»
She turned back. «Rue was hurt, too, though not as badly as you. Several arrow wounds, but they were quick to begin healing once I cleaned them and applied the necessary salves. She moves slowly still, but she is able to sail the airship. Yours was the wound we were most worried about. I did not think we could save you unless we went to Storlock for help from the Healers, but Rue said that was the first place the Druids would look for you. I have some skill with infection and fevers. I worked the front on the Prekkendorran for a year in my early training. We decided not to chance going to Storlock.»
She stopped, her face turning somber. «I am talking too much. You need to rest. I will tell Rue you are awake.»
« Wait,” he said again. He swallowed against the tightness in his throat, against the urgency he was feeling at needing to act on his dream. «How long have I been like this?»
« A little more than three days.»
Three days. A lifetime.«Where are we?»
« Above the Streleheim, flying north along the western exposure of the Anar Mountains.» She hesitated. «We stopped last night so that I could collect plants to treat your wound. And to allow you a chance to sleep on solid ground for one night. But Rue said we had to go on this morning, that we could not afford to delay longer. The Druids would be after us, and we needed to find your son before they did. That’s where we are flying.»
« To Taupo Rough?»
« To Taupo Rough. You told us just before you lost consciousness that this was where the scrye waters showed him to be.»
But where he no longer was,Bek thought. Still, it was where they must begin their search for his companions, whose help the King of the Silver River had said they would need. Keys that would open doors to reach him—what did that mean?
« Rest now,” Bellizen said, touching his arm as she rose.
He exhaled slowly and lay back, and she was gone before he could say anything more. He lay in the ensuing silence and stared up at the beams of his cabin, at the underside of the decking, at the windows through which the heavy streamers of daylight shone. It was all so familiar. But he had the feeling that the familiar was rapidly vanishing, and that what lay ahead would be as strange and new as the idea of Penderrin and Grianne inside the Forbidding.
He closed his eyes for a moment, to rest them, and immediately fell asleep.
Thirteen
When Bek Ohmsford woke, he was alone. He lay in his bed staring up at the same patch of the decking’s underside that he had been looking at when he fell asleep— crossbeams, rough planking, wooden dowels, and iron nails all fitted into place. He felt the sway of the airship and knew she was still flying. Outside, the light was pale and washed of color. It was twilight, he guessed. Or the gray of a new dawn. He wondered how much time had passed. He wondered how far they had come.
For a while he lay without moving, allowing himself to come fully awake, taking time to test the limits of his strength. He found bound about his waist the compress that protected the knife wound, as well as the bandage to his shoulder. Both wounds ached, but no more than he might have expected them to. He moved his arms and legs without difficulty and even managed to lift himself up on one elbow, although the effort caused a sharp twinge in his injured side. He lay back, feeling appreciably better than he had when he had first regained consciousness. Still, he accepted that he was not yet at full strength. He reached for the cup of water that Bellizen had left at his bedside and drank deeply. The water was sweet and cool, and it helped clear his head of sleep. He thought he might be able to get out of bed and up on deck if he took his time. But he would have to try standing and he would have to dress. It would not be easy.
He was working his way into a sitting position when the door to his cabin opened and Rue appeared.
« What do you think you’re doing?» she snapped, rushing over and pushing him down again. Her face reflected a mix of concern and irritation, but it softened almost at once as she leaned down and kissed him. «Wait a bit. You’re not ready yet.»
