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Ferris woke to a clap of thunder. Leaping from her bed, she dashed to the window to close the shutters before the room was drenched, only to find there wasn’t any storm. Pale dawn crested the mountains. Mist covered the lake like a herd of huddled sheep, without a breath of wind.
Fog wasn’t unusual at daybreak in Valing, but who ever heard of lightning in a morning fog? Leaning farther out the window, she searched for storm clouds in the mountains. A flash from the lake regained her attention. Thunder followed, brief and muted. Another flicker lit the fog.
Grabbing her robe, she rushed to fetch her parents. Their bedroom faced the courtyard, and there was every chance the faint thunder hadn’t woken them.
“There’s something happening on the lake!”
Berrel just barely beat Hern out from under the covers. “What is it?” he cried, the tassel on his nightcap bobbing in front of his anxious face.
Three more thunderclaps rumbled through the house. Berrel pulled the tassel away from his eyes and leaned out the nearest window.
“Where’s the storm?”
“On the lake. In the islands, I think.” As she spoke, Ferris remembered Reiffen’s appearance in her room the night before. Dream or not, he had said something was about to happen. And he hadn’t sounded as if it would be good.
“Maybe it’s magic,” she added.
In nightgown and nightshirt, Ferris and her father hurried downstairs. Hern paused to gather cloaks before following. Outside, the wet grass chilled their bare feet as they ran through the orchard to the edge of the cliff. Bursts of light still stirred the fog, accompanied by feeble strokes of thunder. Slowly the flashes moved north through the mist.
“Whatever it is,” said Berrel, “it’s coming this way.”
“I’m sure it was over the islands before,” said Ferris.
“It’s past the Bottle now.”
“Can you tell what it is yet?” Hern came up beside them, wisps of gray puffing out beneath her nightcap, and handed out the cloaks.
“It’s magic,” said Ferris, not bothering to put hers on. She was warm enough already. “It has to be.”
“Then it must be dangerous.”
Ferris hadn’t seen her mother so anxious in a long time, not since the morning Reiffen and Giserre had disappeared.
Berrel started back to the house. “We have to find out what’s going on. They can probably hear it in Eastbay and Spinner’s, but we’re the only ones high enough for a clear view of how odd this is.”
“You won’t be able to see a thing on the lake,” warned Hern.
“It’ll burn off. Besides, if I can’t paddle a straight line from here to the Bottle, fog or no, I’ll know the reason why.”
As they came out of the orchard they found Sally hanging out of her upstairs window, her husband peering over her shoulder. “Hern!” She called. “What’s going on?”
“Everything’s under control!” Hern waved Sally back inside. “Berrel’s on his way down to the lower dock to find out. Come on down to the kitchen and we’ll get some breakfast ready.”
Dennol met them at the house, a pair of sleepy guards lumbering behind him.
“Snug, Fells,” Berrel ordered. “You two come with me. Dennol, you’re in charge while I’m gone unless Ranner shows up. Keep a watch from the cliff, but make sure the gate stays manned. Eastbay’ll probably send a runner to find out what’s going on. If they do, send him back to tell the mayor to get a couple of long canoes out with the Home Guard.”
“I’m going with you,” said Ferris.
“No you’re not,” said Hern.
“Yes I am.” Ferris had never told anyone about her dreams and wanted to make sure there was a connection before she said anything now. “Four paddlers are better than three.”
“You can come, Ferris.” Berrel ignored his wife’s nasty look. “Four paddlers are better then three. But if you don’t meet us at the lower dock in five minutes, armed and dressed, we’ll leave without you.”
Knowing her mother was too stout to catch her, Ferris raced up the stairs. The dread she had felt the moment she woke followed at her heels. What else could those flashes and weak thunder be but magic? Coming as they had the morning after her dream, they must be more than simple chance. Maybe Reiffen had found a way to escape finally, after all these years. The lightning could be a signal he needed her help.
She tried not to think about the alternatives as she pulled on her clothes. By the time she returned to the kitchen, Hern and Sally were firing up the stove. Her mother gave her a short look, which Ferris knew was meant both for reproof and good luck. Armed with a bow and quiver from the stock in the unlocked section of the armory, she hurried down to the cellar and the long stair leading to the bottom of the Neck, her knife already tucked into the sheath at her belt.
She found Snug and Fells already on the quay. The sight of their shadows flitting through the dim light that filtered in from the entrance to the cave reminded Ferris of Reiffen in her dream. Chains creaked as Fells turned the wheel that raised the gate. Water dripped from the portcullis in loud splashes that echoed hollowly off the stone.
Old Mortin hobbled out from his small room beside the dock, his candle casting a soft light across the chamber.
“What’s going on?”
“Just an early start, Mortin,” answered Berrel as he emerged from the stair. “Go on back to bed.”
Snug jumped down to the floating wharf and began to untie one of the canoes as Ferris picked four paddles from the rack and joined him. The dock swayed beneath her feet.
They slipped out onto the still lake, ducking as they passed under the stone entrance because of the high water. The gorge drummed distantly, its direction twisted by the fog. Behind them the Neck disappeared in a matter of strokes. Snug paddled bow, with Berrel in the stern and Ferris in front of her father. Pulling together, they drove the canoe through the water faster than a man or woman could walk. Small waves surged out from the canvas sides.
After a while, Ferris realized they hadn’t heard any thunder at all since leaving the cave.
“I know,” replied her father to her question. “Whatever was happening has stopped.”
Anxiously she peered into the haze, but it was Snug, in the bow, who saw something first.
“Island to starboard,” he called.
A low shadow loomed in the mist to their right. Ferris couldn’t tell if it was a small island near at hand, or a large one farther away. Fells glanced nervously at the lake and the unseen sky.
“Cease paddle.” Berrel’s voice was muffled in the fog. “Is it Bottle?”
“Can’t tell. What do you think?”
The slow current pulled them closer.
“It’s Bottle,” Fells confirmed.
“We’ll check it first, though the last flashes were beyond it.” The canoe rocked slightly as Berrel straightened and peered around at the rest of the lake. “Until the fog lifts and we can see, we’ll have to check each island. Easy now. Everyone paddle light and slow.”
Ferris matched her stroke to Snug’s. She kept her eyes and ears open as they slid forward, the current pulling them along as much as their paddles. The island grew as they approached, darkening from smoky gray to dull brown and green. Its neck pointed south, away from the falls, a narrow beach on the eastern shoulder. Small and stony, the island was not usually worth pasturing even a single sheep.
“What’s that?”
Ferris ceased paddling and pointed as something large and brown moved on the beach.
“It’s a nokken,” said Snug from the bow.
“What’s the matter with it?”
The nokken lay on its stomach with its nose on the stony shore. It flopped suddenly as the humans drifted close, its flippers splashing weakly.
“Icer, is that you?” Ferris thought she knew that gray muzzle.
The seal replied with a short bark, his whiskers fluttering at the effort. Ferris slipped out of the canoe into cold water as deep as her waist before her father could stop her. With lunging steps she plowed up the shelf to kneel by the injured seal. A long, ugly burn stretched from shoulder to flipper along Icer’s right side, the skin blackened and raw. Just the sort of burn a bolt of lightning might leave behind. Thin wisps of blood curled out into the clear water; small fish nibbled at the ends.
Ferris tried to pull Icer farther up onto the beach. “Help me get him up on dry land!”
“Don’t...don’t waste time,” gasped the nokken. “Pups...still in the water.”
Exhausted at the effort of speaking, Icer’s head flopped back down on the stony shore. His quivering whiskers broke Ferris’s heart. Snug and Berrel held the canoe steady while Fells jumped out to help Ferris. Together they pulled the heavy nokken farther up the beach, ignoring the uneasy feeling that whatever had hurt him might still be lurking nearby in the heavy fog.
“Pups.” The nokken barely lifted his head as he tried to speak once more.
“What happened? Who did this to you?”
Icer closed his eyes wearily. “Don’t know...have to save the pups...too much current...the gorge.”
Ferris understood at once, her anger increasing. Harming a pup was as bad as harming a human baby. She looked back at the canoe. “Icer says there are pups still in the lake. We have to find them before the current drags them over the gorge.”
“In this fog?” Snug gestured toward the thick mist. “We’ll be in the White Pool ourselves before we find a one of ‘em.”
“We have to try.”
“Ferris is right.” Berrel’s mouth pursed grimly. “We have to do what we can to save the pups. Icer, we’ll be back for you, but probably not till the fog clears.”
Leaving the old nokken on the beach, Fells and Ferris climbed back into the canoe. Berrel steered them around to the west side of Bottle Island, where the current rippled along the shore. For a long way north the lake was safe, but there was a limit to how close they could come to the gorge, especially when the lake was high. Ferris tried to remember where the rippling that showed the start of the heaviest current began. Had it been a stone’s throw from the head of the gorge? Two? Either way, if they found themselves in that part of the current it would be too late. The key would be to recognize where they were long before that.
The island disappeared in the mist. The only sign they were moving was their wake; the current’s pace couldn’t be told without landmarks to measure their progress. Eyes alert for nokken in the water, especially the bobbing heads of pups, they pressed forward into the fog. Nor did they forget to watch for whatever had wounded Icer. Ferris took some comfort that the nokken hadn’t known what had attacked him. Had it been Reiffen, Icer would have recognized him for sure.
Minutes passed. The roar of the gorge and the waterfall beyond grew louder. Above their heads the mist began to thin.
“If we don’t find something soon,” said Berrel, “I’m taking us back.”
They came out of the fog into a patch of sunlit lake. Mist surrounded them in stealthy banks.
“There’s something to starboard,” said Snug, pointing.
Ferris peered across the canoe, but saw nothing.
“It just went back in the fog,” said the bowman.
“I saw it.”
Berrel guided the canoe back into the cloud. Ferris shivered as the damp air kissed her cheek. Then she saw it, a small brown head struggling feebly in the water. Small waves stuttered around it. They paddled fiercely, ignoring the rising roar of the flume. Leaning forward, Snug plucked the wriggling body out of the lake and dangled him over the canoe by the scruff of his neck. One shoulder was black and burned, though without the raw wetness that had marked Icer’s wound.
“Let me see him,” said Ferris.
Fells took the pup from Snug and handed him over. Ferris cradled him in her arms, trying not to hurt his shoulder. The pup squirmed and spat but, without any water in his mouth, he couldn’t really give her much of a spraying. She saw at once he was too small and scared to tell them what had happened, which might have been the reason whoever had burned him hadn’t bothered to finish him off.
Laying the pup gently in the bottom of the canoe, Ferris took up her paddle again. “Icer said there was more than one.”
“First let’s find out where we are,” said Berrel.
Once more the canoe glided out of the fog. Green mountains soared up against blue sky. They recognized where they were at once, just beyond the northern entrance to the bay outside Spinner’s Farm, about as far north as they wished to go. A puff of wind widened the lane of air around them, bringing the Neck into view on the other shore. Threads of mist washed clear against the dark stone like a spent wave, small figures watching from the cliff above.
“There’s another!” called Fells, pointing east.
Berrel frowned. “I don’t know if we can get that one. It’s awful close to the cut.”
Ferris gripped her paddle. “We have to try.”
His face set, Berrel agreed. All four paddlers bent their backs to their strongest stroke yet. Ahead of them, a long plume of cloud rose up to the sky behind the Teapot’s spout. The small black blur they were pursuing followed the retreating mist toward the gorge.
At first Ferris thought they were going to reach it in time. But even as they closed quickly on the bobbing head the current around it quickened. Ferris gritted her teeth and forced her paddle through the water as powerfully as she could, wishing she were stronger. If they could just have a few more strokes.
“That’s enough.” The canoe slowed only a little as everyone ceased paddling. “Snug, hard turn toward Spinner’s. We can’t risk going any closer. Best to get out of here while we can.”
Her heart breaking, Ferris took a last sad look at the nokken. Its small muzzle rose and fell as the pup struggled amid the growing waves.
“Paddle, Ferris,” ordered her father sharply. “We’re not free yet.”
She bent her back once more, hands and shoulders aching. Berrel guided them at an angle across the current, racing for the slack water of the bay. The water tugged at the canoe like a large dog, dragging them toward the gorge. For the first time it occurred to Ferris they might have gone too far.
But Berrel knew his lake. The pull of the current weakened. No longer did the western shore slide so quickly across their bow. Exhausted, they coasted into calmer water. Ferris leaned forward, gasping with fatigue, her paddle athwart the gunwales as an eddy spun the bow back toward the north. Her chest burned. Before them the mist had cleared almost all the way to the mouth of the gorge, leaving a clear view of the dark blue water as it thickened at the top of the flume.
“There’s another nokken to port,” said Snug, panting hard. “A big one. Must be one of the bachelors.”
Like the shadow of a diving bird, the large nokken darted forward a stone’s throw from the canoe. Though the pup looked as if it had already drifted beyond help, the pursuing nokken kept up the chase all the same. Often he leapt clear of the water, his sleek brown body arcing above the current like a leaping fish. Quickly he gained on the struggling infant. The race was going to be very close.
Ferris gave a little cry the second time the nokken leapt. She had seen Skimmer soar back and forth across the bows of too many boats not to recognize him in mid-flight. Her hands tightened fearfully on her paddle as bachelor and pup hurtled toward the lip of the gorge.
He was going to be too late. Already the pup was at the edge of the wild chute, spray mingling with the fog. Skimmer remained two or three canoe lengths away. Ferris imagined she heard a terrified squeal as the pup vanished into the rolling waves. Skimmer leapt clear of the lake one last time and plunged into the spray behind it. The white mist swallowed them both.
Ferris threw her face into her hands and wept. At her knees, the pup they had saved whimpered on the wooden planking. Berrel waited until the last hope of Skimmer’s return had died, then gave the order to paddle back into Spinner’s Bay. As they rounded the southern flank of the Teapot the gorge disappeared behind them. Quiet replaced the tumbling roar, but Ferris felt Skimmer’s loss even more keenly. Her only consolation was that it hadn’t been Reiffen who had attacked the nokken, or Icer would have told them.
They paddled straight to Spinner’s dock, where everyone clung to the rough wood for a much needed rest. The dogs trotted out onto the pier, their friendly barking the signal to Mother Spinner and her sons that the visitors weren’t a threat. Ferris gasped, her throat too dry from paddling for further tears.
“Nokken’ll do just about anything to save a pup, lass,” said Fells kindly.
“I’m thinkin’ he knew he couldn’t beat the current, but kept on anyway,” said Snug.
Berrel climbed out of the canoe and looked back toward the Bottle, one hand shading his eyes against the morning glare. Two of Spinner’s dogs stood beside him, their tails wagging briskly and their noses pointed in the same direction.
“Looks like Eastbay sent the two canoes I asked for.” His eyes scanned the rest of the lake. “But there’s still no sign of what caused all the ruckus. We’ll have to go back and talk to Icer. Fells, go get some bandages from Mother Spinner. And a pot of salve, too. Icer will talk better when we patch him up.”
“The pup needs patching, too.” Ferris took a long, halting breath and wiped her eyes.
The steward looked down at her as she brought herself under control. “I’m sorry, Ferris. I wish you hadn’t had to see that. I’ll send a party down to the White Pool to look for the bodies this afternoon. But first we’ve got to learn what happened.”
The pup at her knees whimpered again. Ferris felt for a handkerchief in her pocket and, finding none, dipped her hands into the lake. Gently she poured cool water onto the small nokken’s wound. The pup flapped his fins; Ferris couldn’t tell if she’d made him feel better or worse. Suddenly tired, she wiped the back of her wet hand across her forehead. The worry of what they had yet to find tugged at her like the last wisps of current on the canoe.
Fells didn’t have to go far on his errand. Enna Spinner met him at the foot of the dock but ignored him entirely. Her son Elm followed close behind her.
“What’s going on here?” she demanded as she hurried out to the end. “Was that you makin’ all that racket this morning, Steward?”
Berrel ran a hand through his half-gray hair. “I don’t want to scare you, Enna. But it seems someone’s attacked the nokken.”
“Attacked the nokken?” Mother Spinner peered across the lake at the islands, the wrinkles crinkling around her eyes. She didn’t look scared at all. “That’s a fool thing to do. Did Longback drown ‘em?”
“We don’t know yet. We’ve been rescuing pups.”
Berrel nodded toward the canoe. Ferris leaned back to make sure Mother Spinner got a good look at the small, brown nokken lying in the bottom.
“Something burned it,” said Ferris. “I was wondering if you could bring some clean cloth for bandages.”
Mother Spinner cocked her head at her son. “Elm, go tell Min to bring out one of the old sheets. And some of that ointment I mixed up last time your brother burned himself in the sugar house.” The spry old woman turned back to Berrel. “How’d they get so burned? There’s no smoke I can see out there on the islands.”
“That’s what we still have to find out. We only pulled in to your dock to get out of the current. We lost another pup to the gorge.”
“And Skimmer, too.” Ferris didn’t imagine she would feel any worse if it had been Avender who had been lost over the falls.
Mother Spinner clucked grimly. “It was bad enough the time that Mindrell fellow came through. Now folks are attackin’ nokken. I suppose we’ll have Wizards hauntin’ us next. When I was a girl this sort of thing didn’t happen in Valing, steward.”
“Well it’s here now, Enna,” said Berrel, “and we have to find out what it is before we can stop it. Ferris, bring that pup up out of the canoe. You can nurse him here while we go back to Bottle.”
“I’m going with you.” Carefully Ferris picked up the nokken, its wet fur dampening her sleeves. “Mother Spinner, if you could watch him for me, I’d really appreciate it. I have to go back to the island.”
“Well, now, Ferris. I’ve my morning chores to see about. And there’s breakfast—”
“Skim always loved your candy better than anyone else’s, ma’am. All the nokken do.”
The old woman’s frown deepened. “Well, if it’s for the nokken. I suppose I can manage. Just make sure you send one of the aunties round for him when you’re done.”
Min Spinner’s shoes clattered as she hurried onto the dock with an armload of clean sheets for bandages and a pot of salve. Ferris took them all, knowing there would be more at the farmhouse. Climbing back into the canoe, Berrel and his crew pushed off from the dock and paddled rapidly uplake toward the islands. Ferris took a last look behind her as they left; Mother Spinner cradled the pup in her apron, her head bent as she looked to see how badly the small seal was hurt.
The sun had topped the Low Bavadars by the time they reached Bottle. All fears forgotten, Ferris was out of the canoe even quicker than before, bandages and jar of salve in hand. Berrel looked back to Nokken Rock to see if the Eastbay men would follow them over. Sure enough, once they realized the steward wasn’t coming to them, the farmers and fishermen of the Home Guard piled into their canoes and continued on to the smaller island.
Ferris was nearly done with her bandaging by the time they arrived. She had found Icer right where they left him and, shooing the flies gathering on his flank, set to work smearing ointment on the raw burn. The nokken’s whiskers trembled.
“You find the pups?” he asked, before Berrel could question him about what had happened.
“We found two,” said Ferris.
“That’s all was missing. Firrit came by while you were gone. Told me they’d found everyone but Longfin and Rollby. But a lot of them are burned like me. And the aunties, too.”
Ferris looked up at her father, who shook his head. Later they could tell Icer they had only been able to save one of the two pups they had found. And that Skimmer was gone, too. In the meantime better not to shock him.
Sniffling, Ferris wiped the ointment off her hands and brushed away her tears. “We’ll have to tell Firrit and Longback to bring anyone who’s hurt by the lower dock for medicine. I don’t think you nokken know much about burns, living in the water like you do.”
“I’ll tell ‘em myself when I get back.”
“I’m afraid you’re not going anywhere, Icer. If you want this to heal properly, we’re going to have to keep it dry.”
Icer’s long neck curled forward; he winced as his exertions stretched his burnt skin. “Not go back! What do you mean! I have to go back. The aunties’ll take care of me.”
“The aunties don’t know anything about burns, Icer.” Ferris laid a comforting hand on the nokken’s shoulder. “We’ll bring you to the Manor. You can keep Old Mortin company. And I’ll make sure you get maple candy every day. Unless you’d rather stay in Eastbay.”
The nokken eyed Ferris and her father suspiciously. Berrel he had known his entire life, and Ferris only a little less. Never had he known either of them to be anything but trustworthy.
The steward, sensing his fear, squatted down beside him. “It’ll be okay, Icer,” he said cheerfully. “The troop can come visit every day. Not even Longback’s ever lived with humans. You’ll be the first.”
“They’ll sing songs about you,” added Ferris. “And about how you got your wound.”
The nokken’s suspicions dimmed as he weighed the attractiveness of the humans’ offer.
“Speaking of which.” Berrel pointed at Icer’s raw side. “How did you get that?”
“Let me finish bandaging him first.” Ferris picked up the strips of cloth she had torn from Mother Spinner’s sheet. “If you can lift him from the front, I’ll be able to wrap these all the way around.”
Icer looked remarkably better once his wound was dressed, and had just settled back comfortably on the rough beach when the two canoes from Eastbay arrived. Another score of men tumbled out onto the shore.
“What’s wrong with Icer?”
“Scratch yourself on the rocks chasing aunties, did you?”
“You found out yet where all that racket was comin’ from this mornin’?”
“That’s what I’m hoping to learn right now.” Berrel hushed the Home Guard and turned back to the nokken. “Are you ready to tell your story?”
“Hmm,” began Icer, his voice a rasping bark. Ferris scratched behind his ears with soothing fingers, his head pillowed on her lap. “We were after pike today. Longback left me in charge of the pups and aunties round Bottle. Would have taken them to the Rock to catch some sun, only the fog was too heavy. That’s probably what helped us, though, in the end. The Wizard might have killed us all if he’d been able to see.”
“Wizard?”
Ferris’s fears came rushing back as Berrel repeated the terrible word. What if it had been Reiffen attacking the nokken after all? Hushed gasps and anxious glances filtered through the Home Guard; a few looked around nervously.
“Which Wizard?” Ferris asked, trying not to show her unease. Instead she smoothed a patch of fur on the top of Icer’s head, careful not to touch the bandages on his neck.
The nokken’s whiskers quivered. “How would I know which Wizard? I never seen one. Only heard you humans talk about ‘em. I don’t even know their names.”
Ferris relaxed again. To be sure, it was horrible the nokken had been attacked, but at least it hadn’t been Reiffen doing the attacking. As she had told herself more than once already, Icer would have recognized him.
“How were you wounded?” asked Berrel.
“The Wizard didn’t get me right away, you know. I saved more than a few pups before he finally caught me.” A small shiver rippled through Icer’s damaged coat at the memory.
“Maybe if you started from the beginning,” suggested Berrel.
Icer settled his muzzle more comfortably on Ferris’s lap. “It was terrible,” he said. “There we were, watching the pups on Bottle, when, boom! we were in the middle of a storm. Lightning crashed, thunder bashed. No rain or wind, though, which should have given us the scent. But we were busy getting the pups away from the island – everybody knows lightning always hits right next to islands. Then I saw it wasn’t lightning at all, but fire hitting the water around us.”
“Fire?” asked one of the Eastbay men.
Icer nodded, and winced as his skin tugged painfully beneath his bandages. “That’s what it was. Bundles of fire, only with no wood. Don’t ask me how the Wizard did it. But they hissed like fire when they hit and the water got hot, same as it does when you humans poke it with burning sticks.”
“How’d you know it was a Wizard?”
“Who else would know how to make fire without wood?”
“Did you get any sense why he was attacking you?” asked the steward.
“Not at first.” Icer rubbed his hind flippers against the ground like a dog trying to scratch an itch it couldn’t reach. “Just thought he was trying to kill us. Didn’t stop to ask why. Like I said, if the mist hadn’t been so thick, a lot of pups and aunties might a’ died. Lucky for us the fog only got thicker each time one of them fireballs hit the water. Most of ‘em hit between a pup and an auntie, and it wasn’t long before he’d driven the pups out around the bottom of the island here. Current took ‘em quick enough after that. Swept ‘em right off into the fog. The aunties and me had to go underwater to find ‘em, but it’s even harder to see under a fog than it is through it. Uplake, downlake, it’s all the same in mist like that. Didn’t know where we were half the time. I got turned around chasing a pup that turned out to be a school of brownies, and found myself right back at Bottle again. That’s when I found out what was really up.”
“Which was?”
“Stealing pups.” Icer’s eyes narrowed. “That’s what it always comes down to. Pups have softer fur than bachelors, or aunties even. I guess Wizards still like nokken fur even if you humans don’t. But he didn’t see me. I guess he thought he’d chased us all away. Had a pup in his arms, though. One o’ the bigger ones. Rollby, I think. So I squirted him hard, right in the face. He dropped the pup in the water and started spluttering. But that wasn’t enough for me. Got myself a good swimming start and shot up onto the island to really get him. Don’t think I’ve made a jump like that in years, but I was that mad. Only he saw me coming and hit me with one o’ those fire balls. That’s how I got this.” Icer patted his bandages gently with a flipper. “Now I know why you humans are always so careful with your fires. That stuff hurts.”
“So then what happened?” asked Berrel.
“Why, he disappeared. Phfft! Not another sign of him. Not that I was looking. Just wanted to get down to the water to soak my side. Which is where I was when you came by. And why I sent you out after the pups. Didn’t know if anyone had found young Rollby yet.”
“We took one of the ones we found over to Spinner’s,” said Berrel. “Don’t know if it was your Rollby or not. He’s got a burn like yours on his shoulder. Not as bad, though”
“That’s not Rollby,” wheezed the old gray nokken. “That’s Longfin. Rollby’ll be an auntie when she grows up.”
A sudden shadow passed overhead, causing more than a few of the Home Guard to duck. A large, red-brown eagle swooped wide around the island, then swung back to land on the taller rocks at the north end.
“Redburr!” exclaimed Ferris as the fat bird settled its wings.
A wave of relief settled over the small company. Even Icer felt things would be better now the Shaper had joined them.
“Morning, Berrel.” The bird cocked his head to look at the crowd with one bright eye. “Icer, you look like you ate too many mussels.”
“Weren’t mussels, Shaper. I was fightin’ Wizards. Feels a lot better, now Ferris patched me up.”
“Wizards?” Redburr riffled his wing feathers, but didn’t look entirely surprised. “Which ones?”
“Just one,” said Berrel. “We don’t have any idea which.”
“I do,” said a voice that seemed to pop out of the ground at their feet. “He left me to inform you which one, I’ll have you know.”
“Who’s that?” Berrel glanced nervously around the beach, his hand on the hilt of his knife. The Home Guard shuffled back toward the canoes.
Ferris found herself staring at the rocks on the shore. There was something familiar about that voice, especially its patronizing tone.
“Durk?” she asked, not believing she could possibly be right. And not wanting to be right, either, because of what it might mean. Neither Ossdonc nor Fornoch would have bothered to bring a talking stone to Valing. Her fears about Reiffen rushed back, stronger than ever.
“At your service, my lady. Though I should never have recognized your voice had I not heard your name. You don’t sound anything like you used to.”
Ferris studied the beach more closely. “Where are you?”
“On the ground, naturally.”
“Where on the ground?”
“How should I know? It’s not as if I can see.”
“Well, keep talking then. We’ll try to find you by your voice.”
By this time everyone was moving around carefully and lifting their feet to stare at the stones underneath. Memory had overcome their initial surprise: the story of how Avender had found the talking stone in Ussene was a local favorite. To tell the truth, more than a few folks were disappointed that the talking stone, which had done so much to help Ferris and her friends escape the Wizard’s fortress, hadn’t been with them when they returned.
“Keep talking?” said Durk. “I think I can manage that. I am sorry I didn’t recognize your voice at first, Ferris, but I imagine it’s been a long time since we last met. You must be a charming young woman by now. I’m reminded of my fair Elinora, whom I met when she was just — ouch! Watch where you’re stepping, sir. You might have shattered me into a thousand pieces.”
“Who did that?” Ferris looked around quickly. “Who stepped on him?” The farmers and fishermen shrugged blankly and looked back at the ground. Almost at once there was a second squeak from the stone.
“Ferris! I implore you, please call off your brutes. By the time they’re finished I shall be trampled so deeply into the stone not even the good Nurren would be able to find me.”
“Here he is. I think.” One of the Eastbay farmers stepped back gingerly and peered at the pebbles at his feet. “Not that I can see the difference. Just looks like stones to me.”
“I assure you, my good man, I couldn’t be more different.”
Ferris got down on her knees and picked through the suspect stones. Even with a smaller area to search, it took her a minute to find the one she was looking for. After all, she had never seen Durk in sunlight before. He kept up a steady stream of commentary and complaint until she found him, a small, pale gray stone, not unlike the larger pebbles scattered on the lakeshore.
“Ahh,” he said finally. “You have me now. I do say, Ferris, it is good to feel your hand again.”
“So,” said Berrel, as his daughter held Durk out for all to see. “Who brought you here? A Wizard?”
“Well, yes and no.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” demanded Berrel.
Ferris thought she could guess. Her throat tightened at the notion, and her fingers curled around the stone. Even if it was true, it wouldn’t be his fault, she told herself. It couldn’t be. Not if he was under the Wizards’ control.
“We could wait,” she said. “Durk could tell us what he has to say back at the Manor.”
“And leave all these good men who’ve come out to help us hanging? You know we can’t do that, Ferris.”
“That’s right.” The farmer who had stepped on the stone nodded impatiently. “I didn’t leave my milking to go home empty-handed. Let’s hear what the rock has to say.”
Ferris took a deep breath. Uncurling her fingers, she held Durk out in the palm of her trembling hand. “All right, Durk,” she said, her courage near to failing. “Tell them what you know.”
“Are you sure? You won’t like it.”
“I’m sure.”
“Very well then. It was Reiffen.”
“It couldn’t have been Reiffen,” she snapped the moment her fear was confirmed. “Reiffen would never harm a nokken.”
“He would now,” replied the stone.