Drisker—having already considered the choice of the weapons he could call on before setting out—immediately vanished.
It was the same skill he had used in his lessons with Tarsha, and he had learned not only how to hide himself physically, but also how to mask his scent. He did so now, shifting sideways in order to move farther away while still keeping the Furies in view. He executed this perfectly, and the Furies were left confused and—after a few further curious cat moments—disinterested. But Drisker took no chances. He kept his disguise in place—even though it drained him of strength—until he was well clear.
Then, near exhaustion, he breathed deeply of the fetid air, almost gagging from the taste, before setting off once more. He could not use his magic this way often. If he did, he would soon grow too weary to summon it, and his hunters would have him. Other means of protection were needed if there were many more of these encounters. Plus, soon he would have to stop for the night. It had been a long time since he had last slept, and his struggles had left him exhausted in both body and mind. He was still functioning, if not on a particularly high level.
But there was nowhere he could sleep safely, so he had no choice but to press on, even though the world about him was growing darker and his ability to sense what was out there in the gloom was lessening. He found himself once more regretting his impulsive nature. First there was his rash decision to go back into Paranor once the Skaar had taken control so that he might release the Guardian to destroy them, and now it was his insistence on trying to put an end to Clizia Porse on his own.
He shook his head ruefully, but regrets accomplished nothing at this point. What would save him now was caution and quick thinking.
Still, he could feel his weariness starting to work against him. His mind was wandering. Not enough to cause him to drop his protection or cease scanning the world about him—not yet, anyway—but soon enough it would. The erosion was not so gradual that he couldn’t recognize it was happening, but gradual enough that he was finding it harder to recognize the extent to which it diminished him.
He thought about his long-ago decision to leave the Druid order and seek refuge in Emberen. Abandoning his obligations and forsaking the other Druids had been a poor solution to the misbehavior and recalcitrance of those he had been elected to lead. Looking back on it, he imagined it was the beginning of everything bad that had happened in the Four Lands. He could make a good argument that, had he stayed, he would have spied out the traitor Kassen, disposed of him, and blocked the Skaar efforts to breach the walls of Paranor. Everything that had transpired since was born of that failure. The weight of guilt engendered by this knowledge was enough to bury him, if he were foolish enough to dwell on it.
Yet he realized—upon acknowledging this—that it was exactly what he had been doing all along.
Ahead, a broad patch of trees and brush came into view. He turned toward it at once, immediately searching for creatures in hiding. He found a few, but not many. They were not huge in size, though perhaps dangerous for other reasons, but Drisker could no longer afford to be picky about where he spent the night. His choices were few, and what remained of the daylight was slowly leaching away. The trees ahead were going to be the safest place he would find in the time that remained.
As it turned out, the choice was better than he had expected.
He did not think sleeping on the ground was a good idea, and at first glance the trees seemed tall and limbless for the first twenty feet. But he soon discovered one that had been used for a watchtower; handgrips and footholds had been fastened into the trunk to allow for climbing, and there was even a platform. On further investigation, he found a vine studded with razor-sharp thorns that could provide a barrier against anything trying to reach him. So he cut loose the vine, tied a length of cord he carried in his belt around one end, and hauled the vine up behind him as he climbed to his perch. Several yards down from the platform, at a place when the grips and holds ended, he wrapped his thorny protection about the entire trunk, concealing it as best he could within the leafy lower branches. That would be enough to stop anyone or anything from climbing up or over. Any effort to cut their way past the vine or to try to bypass it was almost certain to cause harm, and he would hear it.
It wasn’t perfect, but it would do, and Drisker was too exhausted to do more. He was hungry and thirsty as well, but there was no way to find anything until morning. Stumbling about in the darkness was an invitation to disaster.
Wrapped in his cloak against inclement weather and unexpected attacks, he situated himself on the platform with his back braced against the trunk, about thirty feet off the ground, and paused to make certain he was safe.
But staying awake any longer proved impossible, and he was asleep almost at once.
FIVE
When Drisker woke the following morning, the dawn light had already begun to cast the world around him in the familiar ominous gray color he remembered from the day before. He had slept poorly, restless and aware of the dangers all around him. The platform on which he had settled himself had proved a poor substitute for a bed, and as a result his body ached everywhere. Had he been anywhere else, he would have been certain he had contracted an illness of some sort, or perhaps a wasting disease.
It took a while for his body to regain feeling in all its various cramped and sore parts, and he spent long minutes stretching and testing before he was satisfied that everything still functioned. As he made whatever adjustments to his body he could to prepare it for what lay ahead, he studied the terrain around him and listened to its sounds. There were several screams from off in the distance and a few grunts and roars, as if animals might be waking, but nothing close. Birds—or an approximation of birds—passed in silent flight overhead: solitary creatures that looked more like rodents with wings.
Already he was telling himself that he had to find a way out of the Forbidding—and soon. But he was also aware that if he failed to find Grianne Ohmsford, he had no way to make that happen and was in danger of finding himself trapped in this wretched twilight prison forever.
When he was sufficiently mobile, he rose and climbed down from his perch to the ground below, keeping close watch as he did so, his senses pricked and his protective magic at the ready. But there seemed to be nothing lingering close by. The gloom was also providing sufficient light by now that he could find his way and spy out the pitfalls of the terrain.
More to the point, it was enough to help him find food and drink, which he needed to do immediately. He was hungry and thirsty beyond belief.
Where he would find sustenance in maybe whatever form it might take was another matter. He had seen no drinkable water yesterday—only gray, rank-smelling pools. The river he was traveling toward might provide something better, but the prospect of catching and eating anything that lived here seemed risky.
Still, for lack of any better options, he began walking south, making for the river. Behind him, mountains that approximated the Dragon’s Teeth rose skyward, jagged and threatening. The river, he decided, was the Forbidding’s version of the Mermidon. What must this world’s approximation of the Rainbow Lake look like—bands of black and gray arching over a murky body of fetid water? The Forbidding’s rank smell was ever-present and intrusive. How anything could live here was unimaginable. And yet live here they did.