Beck decided he would begin his search in Callyn-Rhe to speak to the Sovereign, Moombai. If anyone could lead him to the Draca Cats’ ancient enemy, it would be their leader.
“It is called Farout Falls?” Kiernan asked Airron, studying the map on the table in front of her. It was the middle of the night, but none of them could sleep. Until pure exhaustion overtook her body, sleep would not come easy again until her daughter was safely home.
Beck was never coming home.
Airron slapped his hand down on the southern tip of Deepstone. “Yes, that is where Avalon took Beck when she kidnapped him, and she will probably do so with Kenley as well.” They were using the palace War Room to take advantage of the charts and historical records of Massa.
Kiernan shook her head. “It does not make sense that she would take her there when she knows that you can find her.”
“She wants us to follow! Think about it. Why else would she take Kenley? She wants us to follow so she can destroy the Savitars once and for all. Whether she is seeking revenge for the death of her brother or is simply being guided by the dark magic flowing through her body, I do not know. I only know that she wants us dead. All of us.”
Kiernan rubbed her hands over her face. It was just so hard to think straight with her daughter’s life in danger. Finally, she threw her hands up. “All right. I have to be doing something. Beck is following his path and I must follow mine, which appears to lead to Farout Falls.”
“Who should we take?”
“You will not be doing this without us,” declared Rogan from the door. He and Janin postponed their trip home and she was grateful for their support, but to enter this fight with Avalon Ravener? This was not the same as six years ago. The two Dwarves now had their own children to consider.
Kiernan shook her head. “No, Rogan. I cannot allow it.”
Rogan looked up at the ceiling. “Do you hear something, Janin? I thought I heard nonsense, but I must be mistaken.” Then, he leveled a narrowed gaze at Kiernan. “We are packed and ready to go. Who else?”
She knew that she would never be able to talk him out of it, because she would have done the same if this had happened to Reilly or Jala. Instead, she looked at each one of her friends with gratitude and love. “Thank you,” she choked out. “There are no other words for what your friendship means to me.”
Rogan and Janin walked over to embrace her. She waited for Airron to crack a joke or poke fun at her for being overly sentimental, but he did neither. He simply walked over and peeled her from the Dwarves to lift her off her feet in a hug.
“We will get Kenley back or die trying. I promise you that,” he whispered fiercely in her ear.
She wept then and could not stop.
Her friends worried over her mental state, she could hear that much through their anxious whispers. Still, she could not stem the tide of emotion that poured out of her body as she sank to the floor. Janin placed a blanket over her shoulders and they left her alone to crawl back from the abyss of despair on her own.
She hugged her knees tight to her body and lowered her head on her arms. A heavy despondency descended over her like a shroud and she could not move. Her limbs felt heavy, her mind sluggish. All she could do was sit there while dark thoughts dominated her mind.
Sometime later, she was not sure how long, three pinpoints of light penetrated the gloom.
Her daughter and sons.
The maternal drive to love and shelter and protect her babies shattered her grief and the thread of its powerful existence dangled in front of her. She clawed for it. And, inch by inch, second by second, one breath at a time, she climbed out of her dark hole.
Rising from the floor, she discarded the blanket around her shoulders, walked over to join her friends at the table, and listened in on their discussion.
“The Sabers will have to stay behind because they cannot travel with us through Aquataine,” Rogan commented. “Kirby Nash will not be very pleased with that. The man has a broken leg and a couple of cracked ribs, and he is still insisting that he is going after Kenley.”
“What about some of the shifters in Bardot? Or, the sorceresses?” Janin asked. “If there was ever a situation where the justification of their involvement could be sanctioned, this is it.”
“I have a feeling that iron chains could not keep Sapphire from going,” Airron responded. “I think we should also ask that spirited dark-haired witch, the Sect Leader for Combat. Citrine, right? That will make us a party of six which is still small enough to allow us to travel quickly.”
“When do we leave for Bardot?” asked Janin.
Kiernan glanced toward one of the windows and was surprised to see the faint rays of dawn. Feeling stronger, she said, “Now. I just need to have a word with Captain Nash, and I will meet you at the stables.”
She left the War Room and Saber LaFrae knelt when he saw her, but she barely noticed him. She ran up the stairs to the third level of the palace. At one end of the corridor, workmen were already busy reconstructing the doorway of her father’s chambers. Turning in the opposite direction, she headed for her own suite of rooms.
As she suspected, Kirby Nash was sitting in the armchair by the fire, his broken leg propped up on a small stool. He had not left the room since Kenley disappeared, his remorse over her disappearance spilling over into an irrational need to protect her sons.
And, at this moment, it was exactly what she needed.
“Where is Miss Belle?” she asked him when she entered the room. He tried to stand, but she waved him back down. “She is in the bedroom with the babies, Your Grace.”
Kiernan walked over and knelt beside him to take his hand in hers. The intimate contact took the Saber by surprise. “Kirby, look at me. You are not at fault for what happened to Kenley.”
“Of course I am.”
She shook her head. “You were injured and exhausted, and at the mercy of a very bright and strong-willed girl.”
“I am going with you to find her, Your Grace,” he said adamantly.
“No, Kirby, you must stay behind. I will have Baya mend your injuries with the Healing Breath before I leave, but you still cannot go.”
The comment deflated the Saber even more. “I am your protector, Your Grace. After all these years, have you lost all faith in me?”
“Of course not. I need you to do something far more important than protecting me. I need you to look out for my sons. I could not leave if I did not believe that they were in the safest hands possible.” She squeezed his hand tighter. “You guard the Princes of Iserlohn, Captain!”
Kirby straightened in the chair.
“You must remember that!”
“Of course, Your Grace!”
“Not a hair on their heads is to be harmed, Saber, unless your own death precedes it! I will accept nothing less for that is your sworn oath.”
Captain Nash banged his left fist to his chest. “My life before theirs, Your Grace, I promise you that!”
She nodded and stood. “Good. Now, that that is settled, I must go and bring back my daughter.”
Beck was never coming home.
CHAPTER 21
The Malakai
Beck had no illusions that his arrival in Haventhal had gone unnoticed. He walked calmly through the Puu Rainforest and waited for the Elven Gardiens to appear. They did so almost immediately.
Wearing brown and green tunics that blended into the forest as if cultivated from the trees and plants that disguised them, one minute the path was empty and the next it was filled with Elves.
Beck searched their faces but did not recognize anyone in the group. Fortunately, most knew who he was, and he was granted permission to go on his way. Before he left, he asked the Gardiens if any had ever heard of the village of Torg or the Malakai. None had, and they insisted that they knew every inch of Haventhal.
The news was discouraging, but if there was one thing Beck had learned, it was that not everything was as it appeared. The Elves were also unaware o
f the existence of Callyn-Rhe, yet it was present in Haventhal as surely as the royal seat of Sarphia.
Beck nodded his thanks and shouldered the pack Digby had given him. The watershifter insisted on waiting for him even though Beck could not guarantee when he would return.
The Gardiens now gone, he pulled out the magical compass created from the silver pendants Galen Starr had bestowed on the Savitars. Keeping his hand flat, he turned his body until the needle pointed east and then set off at a jog through the humid forest. There were many dangers to be wary of in the Puu including deadly spiders, snakes, jaguars, and even plant life that could stop a man’s heart just by rubbing up against their leaves. He kept an eye out for these things, but did not dwell. There was no time.
The tunnel and waterfall he would have to navigate sprang to his mind. It was an experience he was not particularly anxious to revisit, but would do what he had to do for Kenley. A second in Avalon Ravener’s clutches was a second too long. The thought spurred him on, and the minutes turned into hours. The rainfall, a drenching torrent whenever a break in the overhead canopy of trees opened up and an insidious mist at other times, seemed singularly determined to break his spirit. The muddy path pulled at his boots and threatened to remove them from his feet with every step he took. Rainy runnels dripped into his eyes and obscured his vision. He did not see the leafy wall of the tunnel in his path until he was directly upon it.
Wiping the rain from his face, he moved to the entrance, quickly cleared the foliage that had grown around the aperture, and ducked inside. He was relieved to find the space not nearly as dark this time without Adrian Ravener’s conjured blackness to impede his way.
This part of the trip would also take hours, so he pulled out a strip of beef as he trudged through the swirling water and ate. He did so not because he was hungry, but because he needed the food to keep his strength up.
He wondered what Kiernan, Rogan and Airron were doing right now. Did they go in search of Kenley? That is what he would have done if the roles were reversed, but he did not have time to discuss any plans with his wife and friends. If they left the morning after he departed for Bardot, they would be two days into their journey by this time.
The water was rising higher now, soaking his already damp pant legs up to his calves. He plowed ahead, the effort of walking now considerably more difficult and his legs muscles burned with exertion.
Still he pushed on.
The monotony of the journey pressed in on him and his impatience seethed as the time passed but his surroundings remained infuriatingly the same. His world had become the incessant dripping of water, the gloom of the tunnel, and the slippery limestone floor that had sent him crashing to the ground more than once.
Digby had commented often that he was an impatient man, always in a hurry. On an intuitive level, he knew that it was true, but he had not always been that way. Once he married into royalty, he discovered that he had little tolerance for the endless Court sessions, politicking, and rigid protocol. He was a simple man, married into a complicated life.
The water was up to his waist now, so he mentally prepared for the stomach-turning drop into the churning rapids of the river far below. From there, he would continue east until he found Callyn-Rhe. He did not remember how long it took the last time he traveled this way. The hours leading up to the discovery of the land of Draca Cats all those years ago were muddled in his memory and, to this day, he had very little recollection of that final leg of the journey.
The clamor of the falls crashing in the distance came to him, faint at first, but began to build. Beck let himself be swept away now with the flow of the moving water, and the closer he drew to the opening, the more ominous the sound became. He caught a glimpse of the full moon hanging in the sky like a scoured marble and in the next instant, he was weightless, flying out over the falls in a towering plunge.
When he hit the water, the impact felt as if he had collided with solid ground and his body had broken into a million tiny pieces. The pain caused him to suck in his breath and he swallowed a mouthful of water. Feeling like he was drowning, he panicked and fought his way to the surface wildly. When his head broke through the roiling torrents, he gulped in the air greedily but with his lungs already holding the inhaled water, he felt no relief and only a sharp burning in his chest. Coughing violently, he swam awkwardly to the shore and hauled himself on the beach. For several long moments, on hands and knees, he could do nothing but spew the water from his lungs while taking desperate gasps of air in between. When he had nothing further to expel, he flopped down on his back, his chest still on fire.
Tentatively, he tested the movement of his limbs, but it did not feel like he had broken any bones.
Looking up at the darkening sky, he decided to stay put for the night and camp on the shore. If he continued on now, he would be forced to spend the night in the rainforest and be subjected to, among other things, the swarming insects that would bite and sting him unmercifully while he slept.
He sat up and scanned his surroundings. He noticed that there was plenty of wood, but it was useless since he did not have anything to start a fire with. In retrospect, it was foolish not to have at least taken a moment to pack a tinderbox. If not for Digby, he would not even have any food to eat. Curling up in a ball on the sandy beach, he used the pack Digby gave him to rest his head. At first, the deafening rumble of the falls made it hard to sleep, but soon he grew used to the sound and began to nod off.
As the night deepened, his wet body shivered uncontrollably from the cold. It was a miserable evening, one of the most uncomfortable of his entire life, and it was still in the middle of the night when he decided to give up on rest and keep moving. At least then, he could warm his body and stop his teeth from chattering. He blew into his cupped hands to coax them back to life and picked up his pack.
He turned toward the rainforest and stopped.
A group of five Moshies crouched in his path.
He stayed perfectly still, knowing from experience that it would not take much for the apes to attack.
One bellowed out a howl and scrambled toward him on all fours in an aggressive manner, but Beck held his ground and the Moshie pulled up short in confusion and scampered back.
The Moshies moved like animals, but their faces were so human. That is, if you did not consider the three-inch canines jutting forward over their lips. They were very disturbing to look at.
Beck held his hands out. “Look, I just need to get by, fellows. Nobody needs to get hurt here.”
The Moshies stirred in agitation, but made no effort to step aside.
Evidently, talking to animals is not going to help me.
In frustration, he dropped his hands and looked to the Highworld. “I just need to find the Malakai! Is that too much to ask? For Kenley?”
“What did say?”
Beck started and took a step back. “Who said that?” he asked into the night.
The Moshie who had rushed him stood upright and walked to him, the cloak of an animal shedding with a human gait. “I did.”
“You can talk?”
The Moshie’s yellow eyes glared at him. “Foolish question.”
“But…I thought you were animals,” he managed to stutter out insensitively.
“Thought what wanted man to think.”
“Well…since you can speak my language, maybe you can help. I am looking for the Malakai. Do you know where I might find them?”
“We are Malakai. To know that name, must be Mage apprentice.”
“Yes. And, I am in quite a bit of a hurry.”
“I am called Odawa. Follow.”
The Moshie, or Malakai rather, turned and walked back to the others. After a brief conversation that included more hand gestures than words, all four stood upright and started back on the path behind them.
Odawa turned to Beck to make sure he was following. “Torg not far. There will find what seek.” He paused, then asked, “Why come by waterfall, foolish one?”
“I…that was the only way I knew to get here. I was headed for Callyn-Rhe and the…”
The Malakai turned around and charged at him with a growl. Baring his teeth, Odawa grabbed him under the neck. “Do not speak of enemy cats in presence of Malakai!”
He was so strong!
Beck nodded and held his hands up in submission.
“Foolish.” The Moshie spit at his feet and turned to follow his companions once again.
Beck had no choice but to follow and after a short walk, the path opened up into the village of Torg. Even after meeting Odawa and the others, Beck could hardly believe what he was seeing. It was his first glimpse of the Malakai, a functioning society of animals that moved and spoke with human-like intelligence.
Despite the fact that it was the middle of the night, the village was awake and active. Small children ran laughing and playing among two dozen triangular teepee tents and huts built with bamboo and palm tree fronds. Female Malakai were busy cleaning fish from the river and stirring the contents of huge pots cooking over open fires. Most of the males were sitting or lying at ease while the women worked. A cloud of smoke hovered above one small group as they puffed on long pipes.
All turned and stopped what they were doing when they saw Beck, but did not seem overly concerned.
Odawa addressed the Malakai in a language he did not understand, but whatever he said seemed to reassure them. Some commented back to Odawa and he answered, and Beck noticed him pointing several times to three small teepees sitting apart from the rest of the village under a sturdy wooden shelter.
The conversation over, the village went back to their tasks, and Odawa motioned once again for Beck to follow him. Before he could move, two children ran to him, giggling and grabbed his arms. Examining both sides of his hands very carefully, they seemed very surprised to find them without hair.
Island Shifters: Book 02 - An Oath of the Mage Page 21
