The mountains had brought dozens to their deaths.
This was not a good place, at least not for his kind.
He shaded his eyes with his hand. A rock quarry had been hollowed out of the mountainside, and behind it, a maze of trails. Above those trails, a diamond glimmered.
It couldn't be a diamond. He couldn't see it from this distance. It had to be something else.
Home.
The voice whispered in his head. It was soft and seductive, and powerful.
The other Enchanter was up there. Not at the diamond, but near it.
Boteen blinked. He had heard of something like this, but the buzzing in his ears made it hard for him to concentrate. A block, almost as if someone knew he was coming and was trying to prevent it. But it wasn't the other Enchanter. He seemed too concerned with himself, from what Boteen could tell.
Something was happening on that mountainside.
Something important.
"We need to go up there," he said to no one in particular.
"Where?" Ay'Le, Rugad's Charmer, asked, shielding her eyes. She wasn't as tall as Boteen, but she was nearly as thin. Charmers usually came into the magick late, but the Fey had known early that Ay'Le would come into hers. She had been too lean, too lithe to be a magickless Red Cap.
He pointed to the mountainside. "Do you see something that resembles a diamond up there?"
She squinted, then put a hand over her face, much as he had, to shield her eyes. "No," she said.
He let out a small sigh. He had expected her answer, but didn't welcome it. "Are you hearing a slight buzzing in your ears, feeling a bit of nausea?"
"No," she said, and this time she looked at him. "Perhaps you're coming down with something?" She signaled for Erbok, the Domestic. He had been talking with one of the Wisps. When he saw the signal, he came over.
"I'm fine," Boteen said. "The symptoms aren't physical."
"What symptoms?" Erbok asked.
"He's hearing a buzzing, feeling ill," Ay'Le said. "See what you can do for him."
She left his side then and he wondered how Charmers ever got their name. He was an impervious to their magick as Visionaries were. And like Visionaries, Charmers angered him more than they pleased him. Still, he supposed, they were useful to have around. They did do the talking — and the convincing — where it was needed.
"How serious is this?" Erbok said.
"It's got a magickal cause," Boteen said. "I've felt it before."
He moved slightly away from Erbok. "Do you see that glow on the mountainside?"
"The sun?" Erbok said.
"No," Boteen snapped. "It looks like a diamond."
"No," Erbok said.
Boteen groaned. Why did he have to be traveling with lesser magicians? Why couldn't he travel with a Visionary or a Shifter? Someone whose powers at least had a hope of matching his own.
"There are currents up there," one of the Wisps said.
He turned. She was an older Wisp, delicate and very pale for a Fey. The lightness of her skin came from mixed blood several generations ago. It paled Wisps, sometimes making them the color of their wings.
Because of her coloring and fragility, she had been named Gauze.
"Currents?" he asked.
She nodded. "When we fly, we note magick currents. We've lost some people in magick swirls. We're quite cautious about such things."
Another Wisp, whose name Boteen had heard before they set out but had forgotten, said, "We've been having a lot of trouble around this mountain range. The magickal currents are the strongest we've ever encountered."
"Wisps are so fanciful," said a Gull Rider, landing on the top of the carriage. "They are so light they make up various currents to explain why they can't stay a course. It's because you weigh nearly nothing."
Boteen shook his head. "I've been feeling this as well. Perhaps you're too large to feel what they have."
He stepped around the carriage. The Horse Riders had retained their shape. The Fey on their backs were peering around their horse necks, apparently trying to gauge the road ahead.
"Where else have you encountered currents like this?" he asked Gauze.
"Coming up the mountains to the south," she said. "There were strong magick currents there, but not as strong as these. They're all over the Isle."
"But have you discovered them anywhere other than Blue Isle?"
"Around a Shadowlands."
"We always have to teach young Wisps how to enter a Shadowlands safely," the other Wisp said.
Boteen remembered something of that. When he had been a young boy, there had been a bit of a scandal when a Wisp child was crushed in a Circle Door. The Visionary who made the Shadowlands, some minor member of the Black King's family, had called it an accident. The Wisps had chastised the parent Wisps, claiming negligence, and the remaining Fey had thought it all a great waste of time.
"Anywhere else?" he asked. He was standing on the edge of the road. Beneath his feet, it angled down the mountainside and toward the fork of the Cardidas. From here, the river looked deep and powerful. There was white water where it hit a series of rocks.
"Not that I've encountered," Gauze said.
"What about places you've heard of?"
"I've heard the Eccrasian Mountains have difficult magick currents," the male Wisp said.
"Air currents," The Gull Rider snapped. "It's because of the mountains' unusual height."
Unusual height. Boteen turned to her. "Are they as tall as these mountains?"
"Don't know," she said. "But I would think so. They were supposed to be the tallest in the Fey Empire, at least they were when we had gone as far as Nye."
That fact was significant somehow. And Boteen didn't think it was because of the air currents, as the Gull Rider suggested. The buzzing in his head was increasing, making it difficult to concentrate.
He squinted at the mountainside. The diamond burned bright in the growing sunlight. The mountains were reflecting red onto the river below. Flowing blood, constantly moving. No wonder the mountains had gotten their name. He was getting continual reaffirmation of that name in the sunrise.
"We need to go up there," he said again.
"There's no way we'll get the carriages up those trails," the Gull Rider said. "They're narrow and rocky and seldom used."
"I need to get up there," Boteen said.
There was a clatter from farther down the road.
"Hey," one of the Horse Riders said.
Boteen turned, as did the others standing with them.
"We've got company," the Gull Rider said.
Five Islanders on horseback came over the rise. One of the Horse Riders neighed, and its Fey self looked distressed. The Rider patted himself on the mane with one small hand
The Islanders stopped in front of Boteen's carriage. Boteen walked around it, hands clasped behind his back. The buzzing, which had been so loud a moment before, had stopped.
So these Islanders were the source of it. Strange. They didn't seem to be doing any magick at all.
The five Islanders were all male. The man in front was clearly their spokesman. He appeared to be middle-aged, his long hair faded to a blondish gray, his eyes a watery blue. Islanders did not age well. Their pale skin showed every bruise, every broken blood vessel, every scar.
The man in front was carrying an extra forty pounds on his short frame. He hid most of it in a sweater and bulky pants. His boots were old and scuffed, and he griped the horse too tightly with his legs. He wasn't that used to riding, then, or he hadn't done it for a long time
"Tall ones," he hissed, looking down at Boteen.
Even though he sat on the horse's back, the man's head wasn't that much higher than Boteen's. Boteen wondered how tall he would be if he were standing beside him. The man probably came up to Boteen's waist.
"Actually," Boteen said, "We're Fey."
"We don't care what you are," the man said. "We've come to warn you away from Constant."
"Const
ant being?"
"Our town."
Ay'Le pushed her way forward. She put a hand on Boteen's arm, signaling that he should be quiet. Rugad had probably sent her for an occasion just like this one.
"We've come to introduce ourselves," she said with a smile. "We're the new rulers of Blue Isle. Your King has abdicated. His family is gone."
"We don't care about the Isle," the man said. "Just our small corner of it. And we don't want tall ones here."
Her smile grew. "We don't know what your objection is to taller members of your race, but we—
"It's all tall ones," the man said. "Your race, ours. It makes no difference. The important thing is height. You know that."
"Because height implies magick ability?" Boteen asked.
Ay'Le shot him an angry look.
"Because height guarantees it," the man said.
"Then I should think you'd be wary of me," Boteen said. Ay'Le's grip on his arm tightened. She was reminding him that Rugad had placed her in charge of this mission. Boteen felt that the mission had changed the moment he saw the diamond and felt the impact of a strange magick.
He shook her off. He nodded toward the mountains. "What's up there?"
The man's face shuttered. "Where?"
"That diamond of light off the side of the mountain, quite a ways above tree line."
The men behind the spokesman stirred. Their horses shifted from leg to leg as if the riders' nervousness translated to them. So there was something in the mountains. And these Islanders didn't want him to know about it.
The spokesman's face had flushed a deep red. "We have had an infestation of tall ones in the past few days. We want no more. We've driven the others out. But we can't have you overrunning us. Go back to your kind. Tell them they're not welcome here."
"Or what?" Boteen asked.
"Or we'll have to look upon you as Soldiers of the Enemy."
Obvious that statement had some great meaning to the Islanders. He understood the intent clearly enough. But he wondered what else it meant, and why it was spoken with such clarity. Usually threats were less subtle than that.
"Is that like killing us?" Boteen asked.
The flush deepened. "You have been warned," he said. Then he clucked to his horse. The riders behind him turned, and he did the same. They galloped off in the direction they came.
"Wonderful work," Ay'Le said. "You've alienated them totally. I was supposed to Charm them into a peaceful surrender."
Boteen shrugged. "Go try."
She uttered a Hiere curse, executing that language's glottal stops and clicks perfectly, then she turned her back on him and started toward the carriage.
"What did he mean," the Horse Rider nearest Boteen asked, "An influx of tall ones?"
Boteen froze. He hadn't thought it through. What an excellent question.
"What's your name?" he asked the Horse Rider.
"Threem," the Rider said.
Boteen smiled. He'd heard of Threem. Threem had distinguished himself in three battles on Nye and was well known within fighting circles. Rugad had taken no chances on this trip. He had sent the best.
"The only tall ones," Threem said, "would have to be Fey."
"No," Boteen said. "An occasional Islander gets tall."
Like an Enchanter. Like the man he was looking for.
"But would they consider one of their own an influx?"
"I don't know," Boteen said. He stared at the road. A small cloud of dust rose ahead of them, where the other riders had disappeared. "I doubt it."
"The Infantry is still behind us," the Gull Rider said from above. "I have seen no other Fey."
"If you're isolated, even five Fey would seem like a lot. And now they know of us. Someone had to have been monitoring our passage for sometime. Those riders knew we were here," Boteen said. "And these Islanders have no flying magicks that we know of."
"A simple message system along those hills wouldn't be hard," Threem said. "A flash of light, using silvered glass, could be interpreted a dozen ways."
"And if they already felt threatened, they might set up such a system," Boteen said slowly. The dust cloud had vanished. "An influx." He stretched, looked up at the mountain, at the diamond of light no one else could see. "Rugad destroyed the Failures and, according to all we learned, they never traveled this far north and east in the first place. We know we are Rugad's first people up here, and I have not heard of any defectors from our own ranks."
Threem snorted. "No one would dare."
That much was true. The last time someone tried to leave the Fey army, Rugad had ordered a death so terrible that those who saw it would tell of it in hushed whispers, tell of it for generations. Boteen had seen it. He had never thought of crossing Rugad, not since that.
"There are only two Fey from that first group left alive that we know of," Boteen said.
"Rugad's great-grandchildren," Threem said.
Ay'Le had come back to Boteen's side. She was unnaturally calm. "They might have had traveling companions."
"Who would have been spared if they weren't in Shadowlands," Threem said.
"The great-granddaughter was raised in Jahn, among the Islanders," Boteen said.
"But the great-grandson wasn't." Ay'Le's calm was a facade. Boteen felt the excitement in her. "If we find even one of them — "
"Don't plan your success before it happens," Boteen said. "It will divert you from doing the work."
She shot an angry glare at him. "You diverted me from my work the first time."
"Oh, it's my fault now, is it?" Boteen said.
"Stop," Threem said. "This won't get us anywhere."
"He said that they forced the other tall ones out," the Gull Rider said. "I wonder how long ago that was."
"It couldn't have been too long," Boteen said. "They're acting like people in a panic."
"I'll search for these Fey," the Gull Rider said.
"You'll wait until I tell you to do so," Boteen said.
The Gull Rider peered down at him from the carriage.
"You're not in charge of this mission," Ay'Le said. "You were along on a mission of your own. They weren't supposed to mix."
"They have mixed," Boteen said, "And since I have the ranking powers, I am the one in charge." He looked up at the diamond of light. "We need to go up there."
"There's no guarantee that these Fey you're looking for are there," Ay'Le said.
"And there's no guarantee they're not," Boteen said. "If they're still nearby, they're in the mountains."
"How do you know that?" the Gull Rider said.
"Easy." Gauze spoke from her place beside the carriage. She had been listening silently up to this point. "We've been all over this area. We haven't seen any Fey on the roads besides our people. We haven't seen them anywhere, have you?"
"No," the Gull Rider said a bit sullenly.
"If there are signalers on the mountainside, we haven't seen them, either," the other Wisp said,
"It's easy to hide in a tangle of boulders," Boteen said.
"But it's pretty open down here, on the road, and near the river," Gauze said. "If they ran the Black Heirs out of that village within the last few days, we would have seen them."
Ay'Le let out a small breath of air. "If they drove the Black Heirs out of their village, they must have some amazing powers."
"They might," Boteen said. "But the Black Heirs are Visionaries, and the girl is a Shifter. These are not offensive magicks. The Black Throne is vulnerable, more vulnerable than you'd like to think."
"Then why aren't you in charge, Enchanter?" Ay'Le said.
Boteen looked at her, fairly astonished. "Your history is poor, isn't it, girl?"
Then he stepped away from her.
"Her history and her knowledge of other magicks," Threem said. He laughed, and the sound came out as a small neigh from his Fey mouth. His horse's head hadn't moved.
"A small group of Fey," Boteen said. "I should be able to find them. We need to get me acros
s that river, and up that mountainside. But before we do, I want to know what we're facing. Gauze, I know you can't see the light I was speaking of, but let me describe its location to you. I want to know what's there before we make the climb up the mountain."
"The carriages aren't going up any mountain," Threem said.
Boteen put his hand on Threem's back. "We don't need any carriages," he said.
"A horse could break a leg up there," Threem said.
"Then go up as Fey," Boteen said.
"You think you know what's up there," Threem said.
"No." Boteen sighed. "But something is. I can feel it."
And so was the other Enchanter. But he didn't tell them that. They didn't need to know everything.
"Should I send for the Infantry?" Ay'Le asked. Her question, though a good one, was asked with a bit too much sarcasm, as if she wanted everyone to know how displeased she was with her loss of leadership.
"I think so," Boteen said. "Let's take over the roads leading into that little village. We were supposed to take this place for Rugad. We'll let a show of force start it. Then you can go Charm them, Ay'Le, if you're so inclined."
"You make my work so easy," she said.
"I will do your work if you continue to be insubordinate," Boteen said.
She closed her mouth and raised her head slightly.
"Go on, Gauze," he said. "We'll take care of things here while you investigate."
She shrank to a small version of herself, barely as large as Boteen's thumb. Then she took off, letting her small spark shine so that he could follow her passage across the river.
The pull of the diamond grew. He had stumbled on something far larger than he expected.
A power he hadn't known existed.
Gauze disappeared into the growing sunlight.
He hoped she would be able to return.
SIXTY-SEVEN
The sun was coming up, and the fires had gone out. Only wisps of smoke remained, trailing up toward the blue sky. Matthias leaned against a boulder, arms crossed over his chest. The morning air was cold, colder than it had been during the night — or perhaps that was caused by the fires going out.
Tri was asleep by another boulder. Denl and Jakib slept in the burning boy's old camp. Pausho and her companion had gone down the mountain after Matthias had tried to question her some more. She would not listen to him, and she would say nothing after her pronouncement about the Hand of God.
The Resistance: The Fourth Book of the Fey (Fey Series) Page 43
