MIND GAMES
A hand clamped on Karigan’s shoulder and she jumped. It was Donal.
“Lala!” she said.
“Yes, the child is gone,” he replied.
“But I was just talking to her.”
“Yes. That’s the last any of us remember seeing her. She was there one moment, and then gone the next. You were left standing there like a statue staring into space.”
She rubbed her forehead. There was a sore spot in the middle where the butterfly had hit. “A spell. She got me with a spell.”
“We guessed as much,” Donal said. “We feared causing harm if we tried to shake you out of it. What was the effect of the spell? Besides freezing you in place, that is.”
She shrugged. “Not much. Apparently she wanted to introduce me to my other self.” When Donal looked perplexed, she added, “I assume people are looking for her?”
“Yes, search parties have been organized and are already heading out.”
They would not find her, Karigan was sure. Lala had just been biding her time at the camp.
“Probably halfway to Second Empire by now,” Donal murmured.
Karigan wasn’t so sure that that was where the girl was headed.
“I will escort you to the king’s tent to speak with Counselor Tallman.”
“What for?”
“To explain what you witnessed of the girl’s disappearance.”
“How long was I standing there staring at nothing?”
“A quarter hour, at a guess.”
“Right.”
She tried to keep up with Donal’s long strides as he escorted her to the king’s tent. Inside was a buzz of activity as advisors and officers came and went, argued and discussed and mused. She did not think the fuss was over Lala, but more of the usual daily business over which Zachary presided.
Eventually Les Tallman took notice of her. “Ah, Rider. You’ve come to speak of Lala.”
“Yes, sir.”
Zachary was engrossed in a conversation with General Washburn and others by the map table. She didn’t think he’d noticed her entrance. Her other self would have liked to make him notice her, but she quashed the impulse.
She was attended by Counselor Tallman, Donal, a young officer she did not know, and, belatedly, Connly. She told them of encountering Lala, the butterfly spell, and the fact that when she came back to herself, Lala had already been gone for a time.
“I’m afraid there isn’t much more I can tell you than that,” she said.
“What of this butterfly spell?” the officer asked. “What did it do?”
“It distracted Sir Karigan for one,” Donal said, “who was right there when she escaped, and caused the rest of us not to notice as well.”
“There has to be more to it than that,” the officer said.
“Not much,” Karigan replied, and she hoped she was right. “It put me in a sort of . . . I don’t know, a dream state.”
“You were asleep?”
“Not exactly, no.”
“What did you dream about?” Connly asked. “It could be important.”
“I don’t think so,” she replied. “It was personal. It was me talking to myself about my life.”
That seemed to make them lose interest, and she was glad. She had no desire to discuss the personal issues with which her other self had taunted her. That’s what Lala had intended, she was sure, to make her question herself, to strip away her confidence much in the same way Nyssa did. Mind games.
Her questioners seemed disappointed in the lack of additional information and moved off to talk among themselves. She was about to leave, but glanced again at Zachary whose full attention was on General Washburn. She clenched her hands at her sides as her other self quietly reminded her of her “reward.” She moved to stride from the tent and almost crashed into a Green Rider entering.
“Garth!” she exclaimed. She hadn’t seen him in a long time.
“Hello, Karigan,” he said, and then flashed her a grin before going straight to Zachary, withdrawing a sealed letter from his message satchel as he went.
Connly intercepted her. “Karigan, you are excused. If they need to question you further, they will send for you.”
She was curious to know what message Garth was bearing, and to see him, of course, but she nodded and left. She hadn’t any duties assigned to her until it was time to feed the horses, so she returned to her tent and, sitting in a camp chair in front of it, decided to give the colonel’s saber a good polishing. Not that it wasn’t already in good order, but it would keep her busy.
Camp life was one part boredom, and one part frantic duty. Those who could read and write wrote letters home for themselves or for others who lacked the skill. They gamed or carved, or visited the brothel wagon over by the market.
She worked cloth over steel, cleaning fingerprints and every speck of dust. She could do nothing about nicks and scratches, except to ensure they were clear of dirt and well oiled. The colonel had been a Rider for a long time during periods of both peace and turbulence, and her sword showed the scars.
She caught sight of her own reflection beneath the scratched surface, and for a moment, she was once again with her other self. She closed her eyes, willing away the dark thoughts that had been stirred within her. She did not like that part of herself. Her darker self wanted to see the world as black and white, where weighty decisions actually had easy answers. In her darker self’s opinion, she should forget honor and conscience, and just give in to her most desired impulses. But real life just wasn’t like that.
She shook herself and polished with ferocity to help erase the image and memory of her darker self.
As she finished up, some shouts of greeting drew her attention to a Rider reining her horse toward the king’s tent.
“Dale?” Karigan said. She sheathed the saber and trotted after her. By the time she reached the king’s tent, Dale had already been ushered inside. Tegan stood there holding the reins to Dale’s mare.
“Oh, good,” she said to Karigan. “Could you take Plover to the pickets?”
Karigan accepted Plover’s reins while Tegan entered the tent. A twinge of disappointment prickled at her that she was no longer Chief Rider and couldn’t be present to find out what had brought Dale up from the wall. But then she patted Plover’s neck. Getting to take care of the horse, she thought, was the better end of the deal.
Karigan got to see her friends soon enough. They joined her at suppertime, as she sat by the fire, eating in front of her tent. One by one, other Riders came to sit with them. She introduced some of the newer Riders, including Megan, who had never met Dale. When Garth came over, he gave her a gentle hug as though she might break in his arms, a contrast to his usual crushing bear hugs. It didn’t take much to gather he’d heard about her torture in the north. She responded by giving him a peck on his cheek. His blush made her smile. He then sat beside Tegan, and the two of them leaned against one another, talking quietly and laughing.
It was marvelous to see Garth and Dale again, and a happy coincidence they had arrived on the same day. There was much laughter among their group as they caught up. Their time together would not last, however, as Dale was leaving them first thing in the morning to return to the wall.
“The gryphlings are adorable,” Dale was telling them, “and were just getting ready to learn to fly when I left. Poor Alton is so allergic he can’t spend more than a few minutes at a time in the tower.” She told them about the new gryphon they were calling “Bob” since his non-gryphon form was that of a bobcat. “He was spending most of his time out in the woods,” Dale explained. “Pretty shy, but they were trying to coax him to stay close by, by offering him food.” She also told them about the battle with the oversized porcupine creatures at the breach, and everyone sobered.
“That’s why I’m here,” she continued. “Alton hopes the king will send more troops to the wall. The forest, we think, is starting to get restless.”
Karigan shuddered with the unbidden memory of black tree roots slithering across a clearing toward her beneath the eaves of the dark forest. It was only a matter of time before Mornhavon arose once more and threw the force of Blackveil at the wall in an effort to cross over into Sacoridia.
The Riders speculated for a time when and how that might happen, but then they moved on, joking and laughing again, glad to be in one another’s company.
As stars gathered above their campfire, Connly made his way to their circle and joined them.
“Any word on Lala?” Karigan asked him.
“Not so far,” he replied. “The searchers stopped at sundown. They’ll begin again in the morning.” He sounded very tired.
Brandall passed him a cup of tea and asked, “Is it wrong to say I hope no one finds her ever again?”
“I feel sorry for her,” Constance said. “All her family gone and raised by that crazy old woman? It’s not her fault.”
“Saw her around here a few times,” Brandall replied. “She made my skin crawl.”
“What do you say, Karigan?” Constance asked. “You had more to do with her than the rest of us.”
Karigan shrugged. “I’d feel better if we knew where she was.” There was no telling what the girl was up to.
The Riders chewed over the subject of Lala for a while, and when they had run out of things to say on the subject, Connly asked, “Any of you cliff climbers?”
“Not me,” Sandy said, and others chimed in with a similar answer.
“The king is looking for a climber,” Connly said. “Garth brought the news that the one he was expecting broke his leg and so now can’t come.”
From a quiet spot by the fire, Megan giggled.
“What’s so funny?” Brandall demanded.
“I don’t need to climb.”
Connly’s mouth dropped open as her words registered. Everyone else stared at her in incredulity.
“What?” Megan said. “Why are you all looking at me like that?”
Oh, Megan, Karigan thought. She had no idea what she had just gotten herself into.