The Magicians' Daughter, page 25
Hubley’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You mean I haven’t seen Mother in thirty-one years?”
He nodded. Loneliness poured over her in waves of wretchedness. Flinging herself onto the blankets, she burst into years of tears. Sobs filled the darkness.
She felt better when she woke. Avender sat sleeping beside her, his hand still bound to hers. Despite everything he’d told her, she still felt like she was only ten. The other years remained something from her dreams. Not that she doubted what he’d said. Too much of what she’d thought strange about him and Mims made sense only if those thirty-one years really had happened.
The hardest part was knowing what her father had done to her. Except for the mussels, her memories of him were only good. Picnics on Aloslocin, and presents on her birthday, and him putting salve on her fingers when she first tried to cast a light spell without using a staff. And all the magic he had taught her, too.
But against that happiness Hubley knew she had to weigh the fact her father hadn’t allowed her mother to see her in a very long time. Even if Avender were lying, it had still been at least a year. And to think her father had said that her mother hadn’t come to her birthday because she was working on a spell! She couldn’t believe he’d done that, though he had always been the one most likely to forget the little things, breakfasts and goodnight kisses and trips to town, because he was always so busy with magic. Her mother, however, had always been there. And her grandmother too.
Hubley gripped the rough canvas side of the ship tightly at the thought. She hadn’t seen her Grandmother Giserre in all that time either, even though Giserre loved her son so much she’d braved the Wizards in Ussene for him. The fact Giserre had disappeared as well was even more proof that Avender was telling the truth.
Tears gathered in her eyes once more. Sniffing mightily, she rubbed them away with her free hand. Now was not the time to cry. Her parents had been in worse places when they were young: she was only being chased by a magician, not a Wizard. She’d always dreamed of having adventures the same as her parents, and now that she had her chance she wasn’t going to ruin it. So what if it was her father she was running away from rather than the last of the Three. She still had to get to her mother before he found her. Otherwise she might never see her mother again. Ever.
Brushing away a last tear, she nudged Avender in the ribs. He leapt up, his sword half-drawn.
“What’s wrong?” Swiftly, he scanned the dark around them. “Did you see something?”
“I want to see my mother,” she said. “You’ve been asleep too long. Can’t we go?”
He rubbed the spot where she’d poked him. “All right. Did you sleep well? No dreams?”
“No.”
“That’s an improvement.” Rooting around in their supplies, he passed out another pair of apples. “Maybe, now you know the truth, and you won’t have them any more.”
“Maybe.” Hubley polished her apple on the rough wool dress. “Why do you think he did it? Father, that is.”
Avender shrugged. “I’ve no idea. Mims thinks he was saving all those memories so you’d be much more powerful than Fornoch suspected if he actually did capture you. How she thought your father was going to release them, though, she didn’t say.”
“He could’ve just taught me the spells. I’d have been just as strong then. Stronger, even, if he’d let Mother help too.”
“Don’t ask me to explain why your father does what he does. I’ve never known.”
Hubley guessed a lot had happened in the years since she’d been hidden away. “Is Brizen still king?”
“Yes.”
“And Prince Merannon? Is he Brizen and Wellin’s son?”
Avender searched his sack for another apple. “I think so. I’ve never met him.”
“Wellin must be so happy. I’m just sorry he’s already grown up. I’m sure we’d have been best friends if he wasn’t.”
“I’m sure you’ll be friends anyway.”
“Does he have any brothers or sisters?”
“No.”
Hubley thought there was something suspicious about the way Avender wasn’t looking up, as if there was something more he didn’t want to tell her.
“Is there something wrong?” she asked. “Wellin is happy, isn’t she, now that she has a son?”
“I’m sorry, Hubley. Wellin’s dead.”
Despite her resolve, Hubley burst into tears once more. This time, instead of refusing her friend’s comfort, she threw herself into his arms. Of all the things Avender had told her, this was far and away the worst.
“How?” she stammered when her sobs had dropped off to hiccups and sore eyes.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t there.” Looking off into the darkness, Avender blinked a couple of times before going on. “Maybe she just got old.”
“It’s not right, Father not telling me about things like that. He should have let me see her.”
“You’re right. He should have.”
“Has anyone else died?”
“I only know what Mims has told me. To tell the truth, I’ve been away nearly as long as you.”
“You have? Where?”
“Underground.”
Hubley assumed that meant Avender had been spending his time in the Stoneways. “I wish I’d been as lucky as you. Bryddlough’s a lot more fun than Castle Grangore. At least you got to spend time with the Dwarves. Is that when you lost your hand?”
Avender looked at her sharply. “How do you know about that?”
“I heard you talking last night when you thought I was asleep. Mims said she put it back on.”
Holding up his right hand, Avender flexed his fingers. The remaining thimble gleamed.
“She did a good job,” he said.
“It was my father who did it wasn’t it,” said Hubley, the thought coming to her in a flash.
“Close enough. Mindrell did it on your father’s orders. Do you remember that too?”
“You mean I was there?”
Avender nodded.
Hubley wondered if there were other memories from the last thirty-one years she hoped she never recalled.
“Are you mad at him?” she asked.
“Who, Mindrell?”
“Him too, but are you mad at my father?”
“Yes.”
“Good, because I’m really, really mad at him.”
Later, after they had finished eating, Hubley stood awkwardly for a moment, grimacing and hopping from one foot to the other. Avender understood her need at once.
“I think I’ll go astern to check on the driveshaft,” he said. “You’ll find the chamber pot in the bow.”
He returned after she’d flung the contents of the shallow bowl far out into the dark. Now the Abyss wasn’t quite so empty as it had been before.
With Avender climbing back into the driver’s saddle, they set off. This time he didn’t have to pedal quite so hard, so Hubley could question him to her heart’s content about everything that had happened in the years she’d been hidden from the world. Avender answered as best he could, but he seemed to know very little. Hubley guessed that was because he’d spent his time wandering deep in wild cave during his years underground, otherwise he’d have known a lot more. With magic mirrors everywhere, even Issinlough heard the latest news. Meanwhile, the leagues passed. The Backford Lamp grew brighter. After they stopped for another meal and rest, it began to grow larger, too.
“We’re going to need some light now,” said Avender as the shadow of the unneret emerged above the Lamp. “I’ll never be able to moor the ship without being able to see what I’m doing.”
Crawling into the forward hold, Hubley found the small switch box right where Avender had told her she would, mounted on the blumet struts in the nose. Flipping the switch, she crawled back to the cockpit, but even on the outside it was hard to tell the bow light had been turned on. Only by squinting directly into the wind was she able to see that the air in front of the ship’s prow was no longer quite as dark as it was everywhere else around them.
Not much later they glided up beneath the bottom of the world: Avender had brought the ship in as high as he could to keep the Lamp from blinding them. Dark stone loomed just above their heads like frozen clouds. With both tail fins out, the ship slowed quickly, coasting toward the middle of an inverted tower that looked just like the one they had left behind in Malmoret, a skeleton of girders and beams suspended beneath a hole in the rock above. Seeing their approach was slightly off, Avender fiddled with one of the levers on the engine handle. The tail flap on the side of the ship farthest from the tower closed; the ship swung toward the Lamp. Avender toggled the lever again to reopen the flap; their course straightened.
Picking up a long coil of rope with a small anchor at one end, he went to the bow. The unneret grew bigger quickly; Hubley hadn’t thought they were still moving that fast. As Avender began to swing the rope and anchor in a long loop around his head, she crouched at the edge of the cockpit. The tower loomed closer on the starboard side. When it was almost beside them, he threw his rope. The anchor flashed in the bow light, then struck one of the tower struts with a loud clank. At the same time Avender tied off the other end of the line on a cleat along the edge of the cockpit, then jumped back to the engine to close the tail flaps. The anchor rattled around inside the open tower, tangling the rope on the beams and girders. The line pulled taut. Metal groaned. Hubley stumbled as the airship swayed to starboard.
“Not much of a landing,” said Avender as the ship shuddered to a stop. “But it’s a lot harder when you have to do it all alone.”
“I could’ve helped.”
“With magic?”
“No. I know more than just magic, you know.”
Mooring the ship securely to the tower, they rolled what was left of the food into Avender’s knapsack and one of the blankets, then tied the blanket around Hubley. Avender shouldered his pack and the water cask as well.
“You can never tell how far it is between water holes on a loway,” he said as he tied the cask firmly to the top of his pack. “Dwarves rarely think of humans when they delve.”
Hubley reminded herself that Lady Breeanna had come this way when she’d escaped from the Battle of Backford. If someone as silly as Lady Breeanna could do it, then so could she.
Finding no sign of Mims or Ferris at the Lamp, they ate another quick meal, then headed up into the stone. This time Hubley didn’t find climbing the narrow ladder in the side of the well nearly as bad as she had before. Perhaps it was easier to look up than down. Or maybe she was getting used to endless drops after the long flight over the Abyss. Reaching the top, she found herself in another cave, the walls wavering in and out of shadow as Avender helped her up. But one shadow stayed still no matter how many times Avender swung his headlamp across it: the entrance to the Backford Way.
For a long time they followed the tunnel beyond, clambering up through rough tubes that twisted and turned through the rock. When Hubley asked Avender why the Dwarves hadn’t cut a straight stair the way they had in Malmoret, he replied that this was a different sort of passage.
“The Backford Way is more secret than the ones you’re used to. As secret as the one in Valing, or the one Nolo has always talked about digging to the Inner Sea.”
“There’s a Dwarf Way to the Inner Sea?”
“They hadn’t finished it the last I heard, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out it’s done now.”
“But how do they keep all the water from draining out?”
Avender ducked around a knob of stone. “The same way they build lifts. Dwarves can build doors so tight, water can’t seep through at all. So they build a room with watertight doors on either side, and open them one at a time depending which way they want to go. Nolo calls it an air lock.”
“But why would they want to have a way to the Inner Sea?”
“To hunt for pearls. And to look around. Nolo’s always wanted to have a way to explore the bottom of the ocean. Didn’t your mother ever tell you about the time she and Nolo met those pirates in the Pearl Islands?”
Dimly, as if she were dredging the memory up from the same sea bottom Nolo wanted to explore, Hubley remembered the tale.
They rested once along the way, in a relatively flat cave where a low ridge of stone served as a bench on the side of the wall, and ate another meal. Hubley’s legs were already sore from all the climbing but, not being in as much of a hurry this time, she hadn’t asked Avender to carry her. But the thought that each step was bringing her closer to her mother made her jump up again after a very short rest, despite her tender thighs.
Not much later, Hubley noticed a change in the path. Sniffing cautiously, she thought the air seemed thicker than before.
“Water,” she announced the minute she figured it out. “Can you smell it?”
“I can. Look. The walls are wet.”
The darker patches on the rock glistened as Avender swung his lamp round to examine them.
“If you stop and listen for a moment,” he went on, “you’ll hear running water.”
Hubley held her breath. Sure enough, water muttered somewhere in the distance ahead.
The stream, or whatever it was, took longer to reach than she thought. Or maybe she was expecting it so much that every footstep seemed to last half an hour. But the sound of the water grew louder, the ceiling of the cave began to drip, and the floor grew slippery underfoot, until at last they reached the end of the tunnel and came out into a narrow chasm in the rock.
A stream rushed by at their feet, the water boiling along like the Ambore where it poured out of Grangore through Eggdrop and Tappet Flume. But where the Ambore boiled white and pale green, here the water was dark as ink. Even Avender’s lamp couldn’t pierce the surface: the gem’s light was too thin for the surging flood. Hubley imagined coiling serpents and large, file-toothed fish lurking just out of sight, ready to drag her in the moment she tried to cross.
“Here’s a good spot.”
She looked up to find Avender working his way carefully along the slippery bank to a place where the floor of the cave came down to the level of the water. Several large rocks marked a passage across the stream, the last set under an opening in the wall on the other side that Hubley suspected was the next section of the loway. Beyond the stones the river burst out from under a shallow rock shelf which Hubley could just make out in the dim light of Avender’s lamp. Where the current led downstream, it was too dark to tell. But the fact that there were other openings into the cave was plain from several thin trickles that spattered down from holes in the ceiling. Two crashed into the stream before and behind Avender, while another splashed against the stone directly across from her. With a few ferns and some green moss to cover the rocks, the spot would make an enchanting glen. But underground it was only damp and bare.
Kneeling on the flattest of the rocks that crossed the stream, Avender unstopped the cask and dipped it in the water.
“Boy, that’s cold. Cold as the Hart—”
Something pale and enormous landed on his back. With a cry, Avender pitched forward into the icy stream. A second pallid figure brought a large rock down sharply on the back of his head.
A cold hand wrapped around Hubley’s mouth as the cave went dark. Strong arms yanked her away.
Chapter 17
Reiffen
Reiffen looked around. Precious minutes had passed since Hubley had been taken and all he had done was rage. Shapeless specimens oozed down the workshop walls, splinters of wood and glass littered the floor. Despite the blood and bruises covering his hands, he felt no pain. His Living Stone was already healing him.
He reminded himself he had been preparing for this day for years. Smashing workrooms had never been part of the plan. He needed to curb his temper and get on with it. Still, his fear and anger were worse than anything he had ever felt before: losing a daughter was much worse than slaughtering armies. What if he failed to bring her back? For years he had hoped this day would never come, that he would be able to defeat the Wizard by other means. But he had also known there was never really any choice. There never was, with Fornoch.
His breathing eased. The mess in the workshop was unimportant. The first thing he had to do was find Hubley. Then he could confirm who had taken her, her mother or the Wizard, before deciding what to do next. Although he was certain Ferris could never have entered the castle without his knowledge, he still had to make sure. Springing his trap on the wrong target would ruin everything.
From inside his shirt he pulled out a small pouch at the end of a blumet chain. Opening it, he poured a single moonstone into his palm. In the dimly lit workroom its surface flashed red and yellow, like carp feeding in a chalky stream. Wrapping his long fingers around the orb, he held it up before his face. The spell was old, but he remembered it easily.
“Moon and stars that light this stone,
Let it now to me be known:
Under rock or under sky,
Bare my daughter to my eye.”
The charm began to glow as its hidden magic came to life. Knives of light slashed out from between his fingers. One stabbed his forehead, the other two jabbed his eyes. Dust stirred up earlier by his temper drifted in and out of the glowing shafts, but the magician didn’t move. More slowly than the jagged lights careening across the surface of the moonstone, the world rolled before his eyes, from Grangore to the Blue Mountains, past Banking’s western baronies, through the Wetting and the Waste, finally stopping in the depths of the Great Forest.
He hurled the gem to the floor. It rattled off the walls, but did not break. Even in combination with the other spells he had prepared, he would never be able to reach his daughter quickly. He had expected as much, but it was still hard to swallow his disappointment. Whoever had stolen her had planned their hiding place well. Reiffen had seldom visited the Great Forest, and had always stayed close to the river when he had. Even if he changed to bird form and flew from the river to the edge of the Bavadars, it would take more than a day to reach her. Whoever had taken Hubley undoubtedly knew that, and would move somewhere else just before the time he expected Reiffen to arrive.
