“You seem much better,” he said.
How he could tell she would never know. She was constantly amazed at how he was able to discern so much of what would normally require sight. He was better at it than she was, she believed. He had that gift or skill or whatever it was that enabled him to sort things out with his other senses. She had seen him do it over and over since she had arrived, in small but no less incredible ways.
“I am better,” she agreed. “Thanks to you.”
His lean, sharp features crinkled with the appearance of his self–deprecating smile. “I supplied the small kindnesses and little medicines, but mostly you did this yourself. You and your magic, Mistress Knight of the Word.”
She shrugged. “Some of each played a part, I imagine. What matters is that I am better.”
“Indeed. Now we need to think about getting on with things. It’s been a week, and Sim and Kirisin aren’t back. I don’t know if that means anything, but we should assume the worst for purposes of your own situation. What do you want to do?”
Angel didn’t hesitate. “Go after them.”
“Go after them?” Larkin shook his head. “No, that’s a bad idea. You aren’t strong enough for that yet. Even if you think so, you aren’t. You’d have to go afoot. It’s a long way to another balloon, even if you could get there, and neither you nor I can fly it.” He smiled. “We have to be patient, Angel. We have to wait on them.”
“What if waiting on them is not what’s needed?”
He shrugged. “Give me your second choice. What else would you do with yourself while waiting?”
She thought a minute. “I would find Helen Rice and the children I left in her keeping when I came in search of the Elves. They are supposed to be somewhere on the Columbia … sorry, somewhere on Redonnelin Deep.”
“And so they are,” he said. His quirky smile was back. “They are a dozen miles upriver and have been for as long as three weeks. More than two thousand of them, by my count.” He didn’t explain how he had managed that; he just shrugged. “I can take you there, then come back and wait.”
“If I agree to that,” she said carefully, locking eyes with him as if he could see–and perhaps, in a way, he could–the intensity mirrored there, even in that blank gaze, “then you must promise you will bring Sim and Kirisin to me at the camp or come to get me if you discover they cannot reach us without help.”
He nodded. “Very well, I give you my word. You should be strong enough by then.” His brow furrowed. “Now, however, I have my doubts even about the short hike you propose. We might need to see how far you can walk before we set out. You haven’t tested yourself yet.” He gestured toward the river. “Want to give it a try?”
They set out along the riverbank, picking their way over fallen logs and roots, following the flow downstream with the sunlight arcing over their shoulders. Angel had taken short walks, but only close by the cabin and not too far out of sight. This day, it seemed, Larkin Quill intended to go a good deal farther. She took her time following him, noting how smoothly and easily he made his way through the tangle of vegetation, how effortless he made it seem. She carried water and drank from the skin often, measuring her pace, gauging her strength, careful with everything. She carried, as well, the black, rune–carved staff of her office, its smooth wood comforting, its presence reassuring. The day was hot, but the breezes that blew off the water kept them cool as they walked.
“I think you saved them,” he said suddenly at one point. “Simralin and her brother, up there on Syrring Rise. They didn’t say it, but that was the impression I got.”
“They saved me,” she said.
“A good partnership, then.” He kept walking steadily ahead and didn’t look back at her. “Between humans and Elves. A good sign of what might lie ahead, don’t you think?”
“I hope so. If there’s no cooperation, there’s no survival. We’ll all be destroyed by whatever’s coming.”
“Or by whatever comes after,” he added. “It never ends, really, does it? You overcome one obstacle, one evil, one enemy, and another steps into the unoccupied space. I think about that. We persevere, but it isn’t ever really over for us. Not even for those who don’t want any part of it. The Elves are a perfect example. They want no part of the human world, no part of its evils, of the demons and once–men and all the rest. They just want to be left alone, and so they isolate themselves and stick their heads in the ground so they won’t be seen.” He made a vague gesture. “You can see where it’s gotten them.”
“They seem to be doing something now,” she observed.
“That’s so,” he agreed. He glanced back. “Too little, too late, perhaps? Time will tell.”
They had gone about three miles when he stopped, looked around, and moved into the shadow of a small cluster of conifers that fringed the mudflats they had passed onto. He found what was left of the trunk of a fallen tree and sat down.
She moved over and sat beside him. “I’m winded.”
“You’ve done well. I didn’t think you would get this far without resting.” He reached over and patted her leg affectionately. “I think you’re ready to make the trip upriver to your friends. We’ll go in the morning.”
“I would like that, Larkin.” She gave him a genuinely warm smile, not caring that he couldn’t see it. “You’ve done a lot for me, mi amigo. You took risks for me when you didn’t have to. You’ve been a good friend.”
Larkin laughed. “Did I? What was I thinking?”
She laughed with him, and then she rose and stood looking off into the distance, across the river to the cliffs beyond. “I need to try something,” she said quietly. She glanced back at him. “I need to see if I can summon the magic.”
He looked puzzled. “Why wouldn’t you be able to?”
“I don’t know. I just know I have to be sure.” She hesitated. “I lost something back on the mountain. My life, almost, but something more, too. Something of myself. It’s hard to explain, but I won’t feel complete until I know I have the magic to command. I won’t feel whole.”
He brushed idly at his shock of wild black hair. “And how will you test it?”
“I only need to make certain I can summon it. It won’t take a moment.”
He didn’t say anything further, so she stepped away from him and faced off into the distance, holding the staff before her, both hands gripping its smooth surface, her fingers working slowly over the indentations of the runes. The staff was her life, the verification of who she was and what she did. She needed to know that her close brush with death hadn’t robbed her of its power, hadn’t leached it away. She knew she was probably being foolish, that such a thing couldn’t happen. But her confidence was diminished, and she needed to strengthen it anew.
She reached down inside herself and called the magic to her, joining with the staff, feeling it become a part of her.
The runes began to glow instantly, bright red beneath her fingers, and the magic flared from the staff in a soft, white glow that widened against the dappled shadows cast by the branches of the trees. She felt a surge of relief, vindication of her need. The magic was there and it was hers. She was still a Knight of the Word.
She let it fade quickly, exhaled sharply, and turned back to Larkin Quill.
“Are you reassured?” the Elf asked with a wry smile. “Doubts chased back into the dark corners, everything sunny and bright?”
“Everything sunny and bright,” she replied.
Not FIVE MILES DISTANT, close by the waters of the Columbia, the Klee stiffened in recognition. It stood where it was for a long moment, as if become a stone carving, its huge, shaggy bulk blocking the way forward on the narrow trail it followed, bits of debris broken off by its cumbersome passage littering the ground behind it. A deep quiet settled in all around it, a widening arc of silence that reached well beyond what it could see with its weakened eyes, a caution that reflected both the nature and extent of the danger its presence posed.