She continued to ponder, but she couldn’t make the connection. After a time, they went back to work. It took them less than an hour to finish, and the end result was discouraging. Two long days of reading Drisker’s books had yielded nothing of use.
So they put the books aside and made themselves a dinner of cold meat, cheeses, bread, and root vegetables and ate at the little table, adding glasses of ale because Flinc thought they deserved it. Neither said much while they ate, disappointed and tired.
“What will you do now?” the forest imp asked at one point, but Tarsha only shook her head, too discouraged to do anything more. All her hopes and expectations were exhausted. What will you do now? She had no idea.
Halfway through the meal, she began to cry as she was thinking of all those she had lost, especially Tavo. Her crying was silent and evidenced only by the tears that rolled down her cheeks. Flinc said nothing, but politely kept his head lowered and continued to eat. She was grateful for this. She was disinterested in expressions of sadness and comfort, and disdainful of sympathy. She was stronger than this.
She wiped her eyes and put on her best stone-faced expression.
“I’m tired, Flinc,” she said, rising. “I’m going to sleep. Thank you for helping me read through the books. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Maybe we can find another way.”
She found her blankets, spread them out, lay down and rolled herself up, and was asleep almost at once.
* * *
—
But she was awake again sometime after midnight.
She had been dreaming fitfully, but she remembered nothing of the dream on waking. She sat up abruptly, a different memory crowding to the forefront of her mind. It was so urgent, so demanding, that she found its source instantly and was rolling out of her blankets even as she called for Flinc.
The forest imp was beside her while she was still struggling to free herself from her wrappings, crying, “What’s wrong, what’s happened? Are you all right?”
“The drawing in the book!” she gasped. “The one with all the little circles and numbers—I know what it is! I’ve seen it before. Down in the hidden passageway that leads underground from outside the walls of the Keep to its cellars. It’s part of a border of bolts that fastens the doors in place to the rock walls. But it’s more than that, too. It’s the way into the Keep. If the tips of the bolts on the correct plate are touched in the numbered order, the doors will open.”
“You’re sure about this?” Flinc looked doubtful. “It’s easy to confuse such things…”
“No! I was there. I saw Drisker open the doors. I watched him. I paid enough attention to know which plate he was using. I didn’t remember the sequence, but now I have it!”
She was so excited she was practically vibrating. Flinc watched her for a moment, then slowly sat on the floor and rubbed his bristled head with both hands. His hair, which was always poking straight up or out, didn’t look any different for his having slept. He stared at her for a moment, then nodded slowly.
“So you’re going there. To Paranor.”
She nodded at once. “I’ll leave in the morning. I could leave right now, as awake as I am, but I want to make the journey in the daylight.”
“A wise decision. Will you go alone?”
“Unless you’d rather go with me…”
Flinc smiled. “I think you know the answer. A homebody doesn’t care for travel.”
“Then I’ll go alone. I’ll copy the drawing and leave the books with you. Just be careful while I’m gone. Clizia Porse is still out there.”
His smile brightened further. “So, I think, is Drisker Arc.”
She nodded in agreement and fervently hoped he was right.
SEVEN
When Drisker Arc woke again, his surroundings were unchanged. Barren, blasted, empty countryside for as far as the eye could see—which wasn’t far. Heavy rain fell with such force it formed a curtain that effectively obscured everything beyond a stone’s throw. The sound of the downpour was a thunderous hammering as sheets of rain impacted against rocks and earth. The gloom persisted, and even after only a few days in the Forbidding, the Druid knew that time had already lost purpose. It could be either day or night, the difference so minimal as to render one indistinguishable from the other.
Weka Dart was hovering over him, the anxiety impossible to mistake. “Straken?” he asked tentatively. “Can you hear me?”
Drisker nodded, finding the question an odd one. Then the heat of his fever reasserted itself as if a furnace had been ignited inside him, and the aching and waves of nausea returned. He remembered waking earlier, so sick he could not manage more than a few moments of awareness before he was unconscious again. Now he was awake once more, but for how long?
“What’s wrong with me?” he whispered.
The Ulk Bog was suddenly frantic. “I don’t know! I can’t tell! I have no healing skills, and I haven’t seen anyone sick like this before. You are all spotted! Like an Isgrint! The spots are everywhere on your body. Has this happened before?”
Drisker shook his head. “Do you have something to help with the aching and the nausea? Any medicine at all?”
“Nothing. I carry no medicines or ointments. I don’t get sick. Ulk Bogs are very healthy.”
Good for you, Drisker thought wearily, ready to go back to sleep. But he forced himself to remain awake. An Isgrint? What is an Isgrint? His mind spun with confusion as waves of raw stomach-churning revolt threatened to overwhelm him. But he held fast to his determination not to give in.
“You have to get me to your mistress,” he whispered. “She will know how to heal me, if anyone does. We have to leave. Now.”
But Weka Dart held him down the minute he tried to rise, and he was so drained of strength he could not break free. “Straken, you are too weak to go anywhere. We have at least a day’s journey ahead of us, and the rain makes the walking harder and the way more dangerous.”
Drisker knew he was right; there was nothing he could do to help them against any sort of threat. Even if he could get to his feet and somehow manage to stumble through the treacherous terrain, he probably wouldn’t last for more than a couple of miles. Even fighting to get free of the hands holding him down caused his head to spin and his gorge to rise anew.
He closed his eyes. “Then you have to go alone. You have to get word to your mistress so she can come for me. Can you do that?”
The Ulk Bog shook his head at once. “Do not ask it of me, I beg you. I cannot leave you alone. You cannot defend yourself while you are this sick. You would have no protection without me.”