‘From whoever wants you to know about ashes. She must be putting the ashes in there.’
‘She?’
‘Or he. I don’t know.’
‘So the ash dream is a dream about ashes?’ Alen couldn’t hide his confusion.
Milla giggled, snuggling closer to ward off the cold. ‘No, crazy. The ash dream is the dream that comes from the trees. The ashes are in your dream, because someone put them there.’
‘Like your dog.’
‘Yup.’
‘Because he… or she… wanted me to think about ashes?’
‘Wanted you to know the name of the dream, probably.’
He propped her a bit higher on his hip. ‘Go to sleep now, Milla. I’ll wake you when we get back to the Wayfarer.’
‘All right,’ she yawned. ‘Did you remember Hoyt’s biscuit?’
‘And one for Hannah,’ Alen said, feeling her breath tickle his neck.
‘That’s good,’ she whispered and drifted off.
Plodding through the Pellia twilight, Alen analysed what he knew, trying to uncover something salient they had overlooked. So the ash dream is how someone, Nerak probably, referred to the hypnotic state one experiences in the Forest of Ghosts. Milla sent the dog to follow us, then worked him into our dreams, probably without Nerak knowing, or he would have been rutting furious with her for tipping us off. So why the ashes? Was that you, Fantus? What are you trying to tell me? I know it’s the tree bark, but why? What’s the point of shipping it here?
He was still thinking it all through when he arrived back at the Wayfarer Inn. Morgan and Illia Kestral, both working behind the bar, waved to him genially, deeply thankful that they had saved Erynn from Karel, the crazed young soldier, who had kidnapped their daughter and Milla before killing himself. If you only knew, Alen thought. He gestured to Milla and then the stairs: I’ll be right down, just need to take her up.
‘You need a beer?’ Morgan whispered.
‘Please,’ Alen whispered back. An aven or two alone might help him stumble on something he had missed.
INVISIBLE SENTRIES
At Gilmour’s call, Steven shouted, ‘On my way!’ and left Kellin and Garec chatting amiably. Brexan went off to find Captain Ford on the quarterdeck.
Passage along the Malakasian coast had been tiresome. The captain and crew of the Morning Star had pushed, pulled, dragged and kedged the little brig-sloop over and through all manner of hazards. Miraculously, the ship remained seaworthy, despite her battered appearance, and finally she rode a high tide through the last of the islands to join an armada of small fishing vessels, trawlers and booacore boats, mostly, working the coastline south of the capital. Steven prayed they had shaved enough time off the Northeast Channel to reach Pellia before Mark and the hijacked frigates.
‘What is it?’ he asked, catching his breath.
Gilmour pointed. ‘See that rocky point on the horizon with the pines running almost out to the end? If my memory and Captain Ford’s charts are correct, that’s the last slip of land separating us from the Welstar River inlet-’
‘And Pellia.’
‘And Pellia,’ Gilmour agreed. ‘If you look northeast, about as far out as you can on the horizon…’ He pointed again.
Steven sighted along his forearm but couldn’t see anything. ‘Sorry, but most of us don’t sharpen our eyesight with Larion magic.’
‘Trust me,’ Gilmour said, ‘it’s there.’
‘What’s there? A ship?’
‘Topsails, anyway. If it was a ship, we’d be in trouble. For now, it’s just her sails; she hasn’t come hull-up yet. When she does, her lookouts will spot us.’
Steven understood. ‘So it’s time to get hidden.’ He paused, then admitted, ‘I don’t think that I can hide us well enough to cross the inlet and make way into the harbour unseen. This is an awfully big boat to make disappear. And anyway, you know as well as I do that my cloaking spells don’t really make us invisible; they just help people overlook us.’
‘I understand,’ Gilmour assured him, ‘and I also understand that there are a lot of people in Pellia, and many of them will see us approach. What I want you to concentrate on is keeping us camouflaged while we sail inside the blockade. Once we’ve passed that, anyone on shore will assume we’ve been cleared to moor.’
‘And that’s the closest ship, way out there?’
‘For now, yes, but when we round this point, there will be a number of smaller boats, shallow-drafting boats, working the inlet. Those are my main concern.’
‘Why aren’t they on this side of the point?’
‘Because no one of any threat or consequence could possibly get a large ship through here. No invading army approaches in a skiff.’ Gilmour smiled. ‘We were lucky to find Captain Ford.’
‘Lucky doesn’t cover it! We’ve Brexan to thank for that one.’
‘The blockade captains in the inlet will be working upriver, inspecting barges as they approach from the south. They’ll also be downriver, at least glancing at the barges moving north. Those are the ships we’ll need to be concerned with, because anything coming off the pier or from a mooring line in the harbour will already have cleared customs and so they won’t get more than a cursory look.’
‘So the downriver blockade ships are our biggest threat?’
‘For the next aven or so, yes.’
‘Got it,’ Steven said. ‘All right, give me a moment, and I’ll see if I can get this right.’
‘I can probably help if you need it.’
‘Really?’ Steven was surprised. ‘So there’s a schooner in the harbour?’
‘Full to bursting, unless these old bones are reading the weather wrong.’
‘What is it?’
‘Carpello’s tree bark, I suppose.’
‘How did you live in Estrad Village all those Twinmoons and never feel it, especially if there was an entire forest of it growing just across the river?’
‘It must somehow become active when it’s processed, and I never bothered to check. That forest had been closed for so long; it never crossed my mind it might have been for a reason other than just because he could,’ Gilmour said. ‘Either way, it’s awfully noisy around here, so I can help if you need me.’
‘I might. I’ve been a bit distracted these past few days.’ Steven looked for a place to settle in and call up the cloaking spell that had served them so well outside Traver’s Notch. He sat in the bow, ducked below the gunwales.
‘Distracted by what?’
‘By whatever this is that I have in my pocket, this bug you gave me.’ He withdrew the remains of what looked like the unlikely offspring of a beetle and a poisonous spider.
‘You haven’t felt any of them on board, have you?’
‘No,’ Steven said, ‘but let me remind you that I’m no good at all this feeling and detecting that you and Mark and Nerak and Kantu and just about everyone else, including my old Aunt Ethel, can do. You tell me there’s a schooner filled with mystical tree bark just around the bend, and I can’t feel anything. You tell me to search for a netherworldly insect here to kill us all, and all I want to do is screech like a schoolgirl and climb the rigging to the crow’s nest until the exterminator comes and sprays the whole place down with DDT. So yeah, I’ve been a bit distracted.’
Gilmour checked the horizon, making certain the blockade ship was still hull-down. He crouched beside Steven, and said, ‘I don’t want you to worry about the insects. I haven’t felt any, and it’s been days now, so it must have been just this one. If there are others, they’re dead too – crushed, frozen, whatever. Right now, you need to concentrate on helping us hide. Can you do that?’
Steven shrugged. ‘Sure, just give me a moment.’
‘And remember,’ Gilmour interrupted, ‘you have shown an enormous potential to detect all manner of mystical energy, but for you it doesn’t happen-’
‘Until everything gets blurry,’ Steven said to himself. ‘When the air gets thick, and everything else turns to melted wax, that’s when I can do it.’
Gilmour backed away, whispering, ‘That’s right. Take your time.’