Ferran's Map (10 page)

“How did you find me?” Crash asked.

A mocking lilt entered the man’s voice.
“We’ve been following you for some time now.”

Crash stiffened. “You have my attention,” he
said coldly.

“Our master has taken an interest in you. He
wants to meet you, Viper. He wants to share his vision.”

“Who?” Crash asked, though he already knew
the answer. “Who is your master?” The more ignorant he seemed, the
better. In the seaside city of Delbar, he had killed two of his own
race who sought the Dark God’s weapons. In that musty, darkened
bell tower, he had pressed a dagger to a woman’s throat and
demanded the name of the leader of the Shade.
Who do you
serve?

She told him a name he never expected. A
name he grew up with and once revered—Cerastes.
He who kills in
the sand.
His mentor, the one who trained him, and who drove
him from the Hive.

The stranger let out a wheezing laugh. “He
knows about you, Viper. How you left the Hive. How you died, or
supposedly died, but your body was never recovered. You abandoned
your colony. As you well know, it’s the assassins’ code to kill a
deserter. There are many who will come for you now. They would
gladly kill for your Name.”

“Is that what you’re here for?” Crash said
quietly. “My Name?” He drew his dagger, allowing the sunlight to
play off his sharpened blade. “If you want it, then take it.”

The man shook his head. “I have a Name,” he
said. “And I wouldn’t want the tainted blade of a deserter. No,
I’ve come to offer you restitution, Viper. My master will welcome
you by his side. Your transgressions will be erased. You will be
reborn as one of the Dark God’s servants, blessed by His shadow.
You’ve been given an honored invitation. Become one of us, and
revel in His rising glory. What say you?”

Crash felt his skin crawl. He tried to
control his voice, but a manic note slipped in.

“I follow no one,” Crash said softly. “And
certainly not the will of the Dark God.”

The unknown assassin gave him a piercing
look. “Not even to further your practice?” he said, his voice
dropping a notch. “My master makes a generous offer; he will
continue your training. Wouldn’t you like to unlock the fifth
gate?”

Crash’s eyes narrowed. The fifth gate:
entrance into the shadow realm, that space between lands where
darkness reigned and demons slept. Only by unlocking the fifth gate
could he learn the full extent of his race’s magic—the use of
shadow portals, among other things. It was not an easy skill to
attain. When last he tried, he had been too young, overzealous, not
yet prepared to fully harness his demon.

“I won’t be swayed,” Crash said tightly.

The unknown assassin seemed to be laughing,
though he made no sound. “You say that now, Viper,” he murmured.
“But what our master wants, he takes. He will weaken you. We know
about the false life you’ve created.
The people you think you
care for.
The ones closest to you. We shall pick them off, one
by one….” The man’s eyes glinted dangerously. “We will chip away at
them until you have nothing left but to accept your true
calling.”

Crash gripped the hilt of his blade.

“Take your time, Viper. Consider it,” the
man said. Then, fast as a whip, he turned and leapt through the
black portal.

Crash lunged and tried to grab him before he
could escape, but the portal shut with a whistling snap. He landed
on the crushed leaves between the tree trunks. Staggered. Then
stood.

The assassin and the portal were both
gone.

Crash scanned the forest, prepared for an
unseen attack, but after a long minute his tension eased. He
glanced at the sky. Caprion had disappeared. How much had the Harpy
witnessed?

He turned back toward the village and
started running, hoping to catch up with Sora and Ferran. The
assassin’s threat lay heavy on his mind. The people you think you
care for. Crash cursed himself over and over. How long had the
Shade been trailing them? How much did they know about his journey?
About his companions?

Don’t jump to conclusions,
he told
himself. His kind were skilled at manipulation. Chances were, they
knew nothing of his life. They were planting seeds of fear, hoping
to set him off, testing to see what he would respond to. He
recounted his actions since leaving the Lost Isles. He had stayed
far away from Sora. He had spoken briefly and casually with Burn.
He kept to himself whenever possible and reluctantly worked
alongside the Dracian crew. For all the Shade knew, he was the same
man who had left the Hive, heartless and lost, with no connections
to the world.

And at that thought, he suddenly felt
furious, like a wild horse first put to the reins.
They will not
control me with fear. How dare they try to intimidate me? After all
this time, do they really think I will return to the fold?
He
would rather take his own life than go back to that world.

The demon smirked within him.
Soon,
it murmured.
They come.

* * *

The forest stretched out below Caprion. He
saw endless green pines jutting into the air, disrupted by stark
gray bracken and the occasional patch of golden leaves. A brisk,
cold wind heralded a different kind of winter than he had
experienced on the tropical islands of his homeland. He had never
seen snow, though now he could see it now on the distant
mountains.

The Little Rain river resembled a long,
silver scar across the green earth. He glided slowly toward it,
unhurried. His companions wouldn’t reach their ship for another
hour or so, and he didn’t see the point of returning before that.
In the meantime, he wondered what had transpired in the village,
and about the Viper’s strange meeting in the woods.

His thoughts were disrupted by a humming,
pulsing vibration at his hip.

Intrigued, he paused to hover briefly on the
wind and reached for a pouch at his belt. After some rummaging, he
withdrew a small ovular sunstone that trembled and glowed in his
hand. At his touch, a quiet song began to play—a melody he hadn’t
heard in years. Still, he remembered the notes as clearly as the
day he first sang them, when he sealed them into this stone.

It was
her
song.
Her
stone.
Impossible that it would play now, because she was dead.

He banked his wings and turned in an easy
loop, considering the small white stone in his hand. It was meant
to play in her presence. He wrote it as a lullaby of sorts, to keep
her company in his absence. He never spent enough time with
her.

But it shouldn’t play now. It couldn’t. She
had been gone for years.

Its magic is weakening,
he decided.
And as the magic left the stone, it released a whisper of years
long past, nothing more.

He briefly considered throwing it
away—allowing the stone and its whispered melody to vanish into the
wide expanse of the forest. He hesitated, trying to make himself
let go. Below him, a gust of wind rippled through the trees like
the waves of an ocean. Watching the branches shimmer and sway, for
a moment he remembered other trees on the Lost Isles, the scent of
citrus on the wind, and warm evenings shared with a young,
dark-haired girl.

He stole her life. He broke every promise he
ever made. He couldn’t save her. Yet now, hearing the song, he
could see her face clearly again. He could almost meet her
eyes….

Then the stone fell silent.

He fingered its smooth surface. He had kept
it out of pure sentiment, but it no longer served a purpose. He
should have destroyed it long ago.

With a deep breath, he released the stone
from his hand and allowed it to fall into the forest. His heart
quickened, and he fought against the urge to dive after it. He
watched the small, shining rock plummet away—and then it was
gone.

It’s better this way,
he thought.

He continued toward the
Dawn Seeker
,
which drifted like an acorn on the long shining expanse of the
Little Rain river.

* * *

Sora awoke to a sharp twig jabbing her in
the back. She opened her eyes, blinking in the harsh sunlight. Her
head pounded. Her chest felt heavy, difficult to breathe. And yet
joy rushed through her—the Cat’s Eye’s presence sang in her mind,
purring in satisfaction. She felt unexpectedly rejuvenated, like
drinking cool mountain water after a long day in the sun.

She climbed into a sitting position and her
vision swam momentarily. She tried to blink her eyes clear, holding
her hand to her head, then pulled it away, her palm sticky with
blood, and stared at it in confusion. Head wound? No…it took her a
minute to realize the blood seeped from where the scar had torn
open on her bandaged left hand.

“Oh, good, you’re awake,” Ferran’s voice
reached her. She turned and found him standing a few yards away,
leaning up against a tree, whittling away at a piece of wood in his
hands. His long river-reed had been replaced by a thin, carved
toothpick.

For the short time she had known him, Ferran
always kept something in his mouth: a cinnamon stick, sweet-grass,
hard-candy, ginger roots. She wondered if he used to smoke tobacco
leaves. It was a rich man’s habit and he hardly looked like a rich
man, his hair mussed from their fight in the village, a few cuts
and bruises along his arms, his stained tunic torn down the front.
He had once been the most renowned treasure hunter in all of the
Kingdom, or so her mother said. In Sora’s opinion, he seemed little
more than a drifter, someone with no roots and no destination.

Sora could understand her mother’s
attraction to him, though Lori never spoke of it. Ferran carried a
daring sort of charm, an easygoing confidence and a certain
disregard for rules that made him, well,
exciting.
He seemed
younger than his age and full of boundless energy. He stood several
inches above six feet. His physique wasn’t bulky, but taut and
defined, like layers of coiled ropes. Lorianne acted as though the
two were just old friends, and treated him as a nuisance at
times—and yet Sora noticed how her mother laughed around him, and
how wide she smiled. They were always together….

Her thoughts felt a little strange, and she
looked away, avoiding his quick gray eyes. She picked a few leaves
from her shirt. “Where’s Crash?” she asked, glancing around. “What
happened?”

Ferran raised an eyebrow. “You don’t
remember?”

“Well, yes, I remember….” The image of the
garrolithe
remained vibrant in her mind. As she slept, she
felt the beast crouched nearby, looming over her body. But
obviously, it was long gone by now. She shifted uncomfortably.
“But…where did it come from? How….?”

Ferran dropped his whittling to the ground
and kicked it away with his mangled boot. A hound must have got
hold of the boot, though he favored the foot only slightly as he
crossed to her side. He sank down lazily next to her, settling
himself among the moldy leaves. “I take it your Cat’s Eye hasn’t
been acting right for a while?” he asked vaguely, shifting the
toothpick in his mouth.

Sora sighed. “No, it hasn’t. It’s been very
hard to connect to.” She felt suddenly relieved to talk about it.
Finally, someone who understands!
Ferran wore a Cat’s Eye
himself, but his friendship with Lori made her unexpectedly awkward
around him. She wasn’t used to her mother spending time with a
man.

“I’m used to always hearing it in the back
of my thoughts, but lately it’s been silent. Today is the first
time it’s reacted to…well…
anything,
since the Lost
Isles.”

“And the more you worry about it, the worse
it becomes.” Ferran squinted slightly at the trees, as though deep
in thought.

Probably staring at a bird,
Sora
thought wryly. She frowned. “Yes, actually. I hadn’t thought of it
that way.”

“That’s happened to me before too.” He
flashed her an easy, reassuring smile. “It’s not permanent,” he
explained. “But in order to use the stone, you need to have strong
mental discipline. If you’re overly stressed and worried, that
clogs up the bond. Makes it hard to focus and communicate.” He
waved his hand at the trees. “You were raised a noble, weren’t you?
I assume you were privately tutored and took written exams?”

Sora nodded, remembering her years of
tutelage at the manor. Yes, she had studied arithmetic, history and
literature. She took lessons in economics for a time, though
eventually her father ordered her to study other things, saying
such topics were for accountants and stewards.

“Well,” Ferran continued, “no matter how
well you prepare for an exam, if you’re too nervous, you can’t
organize your thoughts and you won’t remember anything. You’ll
forget details like historical dates, or the names of important
people. It’s the same idea with a Cat’s Eye.” He tapped the red
stone on his wrist cuff. In this light, it looked like nothing more
than a large, ovular ruby. “If you have too much on your mind—too
much worry and stress—you won’t be able to control the stone. The
more you doubt yourself, the harder it becomes. Your bond with the
Cat’s Eye should be a natural connection, taken for granted, like
breathing.”

Sora frowned again. “It used to be….”

“My guess is that when you first wore the
necklace, you were just learning about it, and you weren’t afraid
of its magic yet. You were
open
to the stone’s power. But
something happened to change that. I don’t know what you went
through on the Lost Isles, but I think it’s weighing pretty heavily
on your mind,” Ferran finished.

Sora considered his words. The previous leg
of her journey had been fraught with peril. First her ship sank
near the Lost Isles and she thought her friends were dead. Then she
fought the
garrolithe
in the Crystal Caves. Crash was
imprisoned and tortured by the Harpies, and finally, they battled
Volcrian. She was forced to create a bond with two different
Cat’s-Eye stones in order to kill the mage. She had destroyed one
of the stones and suffered the mental backlash of a broken bond.
Luckily, it hadn’t killed her. She glanced at her blood-caked,
bandaged palm.