“I have done my best,” he muttered. “I can do no more. But it is a waste. Already you have a following. Together we might have roused the people. We might have stood united against the Shadow Lord. We might have saved Deltora.”
“For now, we must go our separate ways, it is true,” said Barda. “But when the time is right, we will join the fight together.”
“When the time is right …” Doom turned away. “I fear that time will never come for you, my friends. Not now.”
Grim-faced, he slung his pack on his shoulder and jerked his head to Dain. “Tell Neridah we are leaving,” he ordered. “I have already wasted too much time here, and Steven will not wait.”
With a backward glance at Lief, Barda, and Jasmine, Dain trudged unsteadily to the water’s edge.
“You know more than you are telling, Doom!” exclaimed Jasmine. “If you can help us, you should do so!”
Doom shook his head. “You have refused the only help I can give you,” he muttered. “You have no right to ask more.”
He frowned down at her from his great height. She looked up at him, her green eyes snapping with anger. Then, quite suddenly, he gave a short laugh.
“There is one thing I can do for you,” he said. He pulled a dark woollen cap from his pocket, and tossed it to her. “You and the bird are what make your party recognizable. Cover your hair with this. You are already dressed as a boy, and a ragged boy at that. Your hair is all that gives you away.”
Jasmine glared, as if uncertain whether to accept the gift or not, but finally her sense overcame her pride. She twisted up her hair and bundled on the cap, pulling it down around her ears. Instantly she was transformed. It was as though a scowling young boy stood before them.
Kree squawked. Plainly, he did not like the change. But Doom nodded. “That is better,” he said.
He turned as Dain approached, and frowned again as he saw that the boy was alone. “Why is Neridah not with you?” he snapped.
“She — she will not come,” Dain stammered. “She says she has decided to travel on, to her home.”
Doom snorted angrily. “So that is why she insisted on coming with me! I am sure she never intended to return. Life in the stronghold does not suit her. It is too hard, too dangerous, and there is no money to spare for the luxuries a spoiled athlete has grown used to.”
“But — is she not afraid the Grey Guards will track her down?” asked Lief.
“No doubt she thinks that she will be able to persuade you to escort her at least part of the way. And she is convinced that once she reaches home, she will be safe,” Doom shook his head. “She is a fool! Another fool who will not take heed of warnings.”
Without another word he turned and began striding away towards the hills. Dain hesitated for a moment, then murmured a hurried farewell, and went after him.
As Doom had predicted, Neridah did her best to persuade the companions to let her accompany them. At last she broke down and cried in Barda’s arms, wailing that she had left the Resistance only because Doom had broken her heart.
“I love him,” she sobbed. “But he is cruel, and cares nothing for me. I cannot stay where I see him every day. I cannot!”
Barda patted her shoulder awkwardly. But Jasmine regarded her with cold surprise and Lief — Lief knew enough of Neridah’s deceiving ways to wonder how real her tears were.
At last, at Barda’s urging, they agreed to let her travel with them for a day or two. “But after that, we must separate, Neridah,” Barda warned her gently. “Our goal is a dread and dangerous place.”
“The Valley of the Lost,” Neridah whispered. “I know. I heard its name, when you were speaking with Doom. You are so brave — braver by far than Doom realizes.”
Again, Lief wondered about her. She had shown no sign that she had heard what they were talking about with Doom. She had sat quite still, staring out at the lake as if lost in thought. And all the time she had been listening. She had heard the name of the Valley of the Lost. What else had she heard?
She is sly, he thought. We must be careful of her.
In the end, Neridah travelled with them for nearly a week. She protested strongly about travelling by night, and was a sulky and complaining companion. But though they passed many roads that led in the direction of her home, she refused to take them. Whenever Lief, Barda, and Jasmine tried to part with her, she cried and ran after them. She clung to them like honey, and at last she lost even Barda’s sympathy.
“I have begun to think that she is not being truthful with us,” he whispered one day, as Neridah sulked in her sleeping blanket. “She said she wished to go home. Why does she not do so?”
“I do not know,” Lief whispered back. “But we must do something about her quickly. I do not trust her, and I do not want her with us when we reach the Valley of the Lost. According to the map, and our reckoning, it is not far from here.”
“She will not willingly let us go on without her, that is certain,” Jasmine said grimly. “So we have two choices. One, hit her on the head, and run. Or, two, wait until we are sure that she is asleep, then creep away.”
She seemed a little disappointed when Lief and Barda chose the second course.
A few hours later they carried out the plan, sneaking away from the camping place like thieves. They walked fast all day, trying to keep under cover, and at sunset reached a range of steep, thickly wooded hills.
“The valley is within this range, I am sure of it,” said Barda.
Lief looked up at the hills. “It will be a long, hard climb,” he sighed. “And dangerous, for the woods are thick, and it will be very dark. The moon tonight is at its smallest. And tomorrow night there will be no moon at all.”
Jasmine pulled off her cap impatiently. “I can hear nothing with this thick wool over my ears!” she complained, shaking her hair free with relief. “Now — what were you saying? That it would be dark tonight? And that the woods are thick? Quite so. I suggest we sleep the night through, for once, knowing that we can climb in the morning, well hidden by the trees.”
The plan seemed an excellent one. They did exactly as Jasmine suggested. So it was not until the close of the following day that they reached the top of that ragged hill and looked down at the jagged crack in the earth that was the Valley of the Lost.
A thick grey mist crawled sullenly on the valley floor. It lapped to the very tops of the trees, stirred by the slow movements of half-seen figures that thronged the depths. A faint, damp warmth smelling of green decay, of rotting wood, and of smothered life, brushed the friends’ faces like an echo of the mist.
Jasmine fidgeted. Filli was chattering into her ear. Kree, after a single clucking chirp, sat motionless on her arm. “They do not like the valley,” she murmured.
“I cannot say that I am entranced by it, either,” said Barda dryly.
Jasmine hunched her shoulders and shivered. Then, without another word, she turned and returned to the largest of the trees that ringed the lip of the cliff. In amazement, Lief and Barda watched her lift Filli from her shoulder and put him onto the highest branch she could reach. Kree fluttered up beside him.
“I know you will take care of one another,” Jasmine said. “Keep safe.”
She turned and, without looking back, walked back to Lief and Barda. She met their questioning eyes calmly. “I told you,” she said. “Kree and Filli do not like the valley. They cannot go there.”
“Why?” Lief burst out. He looked down to where Kree and Filli still perched on their branch, staring after Jasmine forlornly.
Jasmine shrugged. “If they go there they will die,” she said simply. “The valley is not for them. Or any creature. The mist will kill them.”