Sworn To Transfer

Irritated beyond belief, Ciardis sat up and pushed the covers away. Rubbing sleep from her eyes, she saw the large gray owl perched on a bird stand above Terris’s bed.

“Help with what?” she muttered sourly as she looked out of the guesthouse through the open window. Seeing the moon still high in the sky, she cursed and fell back into her bed.

“He says Barren needs us,” said Terris, looking at the bird to confirm.

“Do you know what time it is?”

“A quarter to midnight,” Terris said. “But Ciardis, I have a bad feeling about this. The images from Flightfeather aren’t good.”

This time Ciardis sat up, leaning on her elbows as she squinted first at the bird and then at Terris. “Images?” she asked suspiciously.

Terris sighed. “I can hear him in my head.”

“Yeah,” said Ciardis with a yawn. “So can I.”

“I mean I can hear full thoughts from him Ciardis—more than the short phrases he can push into a human’s mind.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, oh.”

“Is it just owls? Anything else more interesting – can you talk to the nightwolves too?”

“Now is not the time.”

“Right, okay. What’s wrong with Barren again?”

“Flightfeather was startled earlier tonight when Barren got up out of bed on his own. He’s been weak since the healing and usually needs help. This time he got up and walked out without assistance.”

“That’s it?” Ciardis said, her eyes throwing daggers at the bird. “Maybe he had to go pee.”

“No, that’s not it. If you’d shut up and listen, I’d tell you the rest.”

There was silence from Ciardis’s bed, which Terris took as assent.

“He got up and left in nothing but his pants. It’s been raining. Flightfeather says Barren always wears his boots in the rain because he hates mud between his toes.”

“I’d hate that, too,” muttered Ciardis while plucking at her blanket and wishing she could fall back asleep.

“Barren didn’t stop walking when he left the house,” Terris said, ignoring Ciardis’s muttering. “He walked to the forest and he just stood there.”

“Right, okay. So where is he now?” said Ciardis, not up for a midnight hunt for a boy in the forest.

“If he’s in the forest, we need to alert the warriors,” she continued in a hurry, finally worried about the boy. Standing up, she shucked her sleeping clothes and put on a warm shirt and pants and dropped to the floor to look for her socks. She could never keep them in one place.

“I am not going out to that forest,” Ciardis said with her butt sticking in the air and her head under the bed while she rooted around for the missing pair.

Terris cracked a smile and even Flightfeather turned his head sideways, eyeing the girl in that odd way owls do.

“Well, that’s good,” said Terris. “But we don’t need the warriors.”

With a triumphant “Gotcha!” and a startled yelp as she hit her head on the underside of the bed, Ciardis emerged victorious with the dirty socks to ask, “And why is that?”

“Because he’s standing outside.”

Ciardis looked at her already-dressed friend warily. She put on the socks and hurriedly stuffed her feet into boots. She stuck her head out of the house to confirm that Barren was, in fact, still out there and popped back in with a sigh.

“Yes, so he is,” Ciardis said, arms crossed. “What does the bird want us to do?”

“Follow him,” Terris said.

“Follow him?”

“Flightfeather can sense that Barren needs to go somewhere, but he needs us to go with him.”

“The bird told you this?”

“He shared his bond with Barren so I could decipher the feelings.”

“All of this happened while I slept?”

“Something like that.”

Ciardis sighed in irritation. “Why can’t his mother do it?”

“He needs us.”

“Dammit, Terris.”

Chapter 28

As they snuck out of the guesthouse, Ciardis took a closer look at the boy.

“Have you noticed his eyes are closed?” Ciardis asked caustically.

Terris nodded. “He’s sleepwalking. That’s why I think he needs to show us

something. If he’s in a dream sleep, his subconscious could be leading us to a clue about the attacks.”

Ciardis bit her lip in uncertainty. She had a bad feeling about this, but she also could see that Terris felt it was important. Besides, they’d probably be back in their beds within the hour. The owl took flight in front of them as they followed Barren without a word. A light misty rain began to fall, but Barren didn’t slow down. If anything he picked up his pace.

They jogged behind him as he detoured along the ornate bridges and around the silent homes in the trees. He kept going farther down to the forest floor until finally they were running along the cleared dirt pathways on the ground to the outskirts of the village. Before long they saw the dark forms of trees that marked the natural forest. Barren went straight for the trees and disappeared into the forest. Before Terris could follow him in a headlong rush, Ciardis grabbed her again.

“We can’t go in there,” Ciardis said pointedly. “There are things in that forest with teeth and claws. Things that eat humans. Don’t you remember how you got here?”

Terris wrenched her arm out of Ciardis’s grip. “I’m not leaving him out there. I can’t!”

Ciardis shook her head. “I told you, I don’t like it. This is as far as we go.”

“Wrong,” Terris said. “This is as far as you go.”

Before she could argue with her any further, Terris took off after Barren. Ciardis stood im

open-mouthed shock. Where had that come from? Terris was the sponsor’s pet. She did everything Vana asked and excelled at her training. She never got in trouble and she never talked back.

Lucky me—she gets a streak of independence and it just happens to be now.

Ciardis knew that every second counted here. Hesitating, she turned to look back over her shoulder at the winking lights of the village overhead and considered running for help. But by the time she got back, Terris and Barren would be long gone. Cursing her luck, she followed behind Terris. After a few minutes of slapping large fronds back and stumbling over hidden roots and vegetation, she called in a mage light. She knew she wouldn’t be able to track Terris in the forest, let alone Barren and his damn owl. But she didn’t have to. Ever since she’d helped Terris—followed her, really—into Barren’s mind, she could sense when she was near. Careful of her footing, she followed that sense.

Hopping over what suspiciously looked like a very large snake, Ciardis pushed aside a large number of hanging vines to find herself next to a rather large tree trunk. She could feel Terris now; she was close—very close.

But there was someone else here, she realized suddenly.

Ciardis stooped into a crouched and edged forward around the trunk. Trying to find Terris as well as staying out of sight. Unfortunately she misjudged her footing, and suddenly went tumbling into the clearing. Head over heels. This was one of the few places in the forest were the canopy of the trees had left an opening. Moonlight shone down on the small clearing where Ciardis lay on the ground, cursing.

When she got to her feet and looked around she wished she hadn’t. That was when she saw him. A man in