The Flute Keeper's Promise (The Flute Keeper Saga) (39 page)

It sounded exactly like something
Linaeve would say. I thought sadly of my lost Spirit Mentor. I felt as though
my own mother had been taken from me a second time.

“Commander Larue was not a victim
of fate,” Lord Finbarr said. “I know he went out fighting with every drop of
his valor. A man like that does not lie down before destiny.”

I reached into my pocket and pulled
out the deadened lump of rock that Commander Larue brought from Helm Bogvogny.
“This is what the duke and his followers are turning people into,” I said,
handing the stone to Lord Finbarr. “Destiny or not, if we don’t do something
soon a lot of people are going to die and the duke is going to have a powerful
weapon to show for it—maybe even more powerful than my flute.”

Lord Finbarr paled. His glasses
magnified the look of horror in his eyes. “What is this atrocity you speak of?”

I told him everything that
Commander Larue had said about Helm Bogvogny and the giant alchemical stone.
Though it was painful, I described exactly how he looked with his magic drained
from him. I ended with his valiant standoff in Feegman’s Boot, carefully
recounting how the magic in the tiny stone gave him a phenomenal burst of power
in his last minutes of life.

“Now imagine a rock like that as
big as a room,” I said. “Commander Larue shattered it, but they’re bound to
have some of the pieces. If they have the ability they will surely make
another.”

Lord Finbarr looked on the verge of
a collapse. “It is worse than I ever could have imagined.”

There was a movement in the curtain
covering the door. Valory pushed it aside and poked her head in. “Oh, hey there
you are, Em. These folks were just talking about laying out some grub. Are you
ready to eat? I’m hungry enough to eat a fluffalo.”

“Just a minute, Valory,” I said.

Lord Finbarr shook off his pallor
and waved Valory inside. “Join us for a moment, Miss.”

Valory ignored the shouts and
squeals of the children outside and came to stand beside me.

Lord Finbarr extended a hand to
her. “We haven’t officially met. I’m Lord Mulberry Finbarr, servant of the
crown of Faylinn.”

Valory pumped his hand vigorously.
“Pleased to finally meet you. I’m Valory, Queen of the Slaugh.”

Caught off guard by her bluntness,
I did a double take and then watched Lord Finbarr to see his reaction. He
raised an eyebrow and smiled knowingly. “Yes, you told me as much a moment ago.
You were under a trance, so you won’t remember.”

“Is that what she said when she
spoke Slaugh?” I asked.

“More or less,” Lord Finbarr said,
still with a knowing smile. “Family secrets have a way of outing themselves in
such situations eh, Emma? But Valory, of course, you know there’s a problem. No
doubt Emma has explained it to you.”

“You mean my scoundrel of a
half-brother?” Valory asked.  “I reckon I could put him in his place easily
enough.”

I sprang up from my cushion, gaping
at Lord Finbarr. “What? You mean you
knew
about King Hugo?”

“I always knew,” Lord Finbarr said.
“You can’t hide royalty. Florrie and I were close friends of King and Queen
Winterwing. I’d had glances of Hugo when he was very young. Florrie was still
carrying Garland when Hugo was born, so she and Linaeve wrote each other often
on the progress of their little boys. Hugo had an exemplary upbringing. He can
read and write in several different languages and he knows all the customs of a
royal court. I knew it was him the moment he spoke to me at Moonlight Pass.”

I recalled a defeated Slaugh boy
speaking in his native tongue to Lord Finbarr on that night so long ago.

I was too astonished to be angry. “Why
didn’t you tell King Theobald or the Seelie Court?”

“Because being dead has its benefits,”
Lord Finbarr said. “As long as Marafae and her minions thought that they’d
extinguished the last of the royal family, they wouldn’t come after him anymore.
The same could be said for you, Emma. Do you think you would have lived fifteen
peaceful years in the human realm if the Seelie Court knew that you or any
other Wrens were still alive?”

Valory glanced back and forth
between the two of us as she tried to piece things together. “You mean he hid
who he was? Well that’s kind of smart, I’ll give him that. What’s wrong, Emma?
You look like someone stole your boots while your feet was still in them.”

I tried to remain calm as I looked
Lord Finbarr in the eye. I didn’t feel betrayed, exactly. I understood his
reasons. Nevertheless, a sickly feeling burned in my gut as it dawned on me
that I might have made a huge fool of myself. “If you knew that, then you must
have known that he’d leave someday.”

“It was part of the deal we made on
that night at Moonlight Pass,” Lord Finbarr said. “I promised him a safe haven
and the chance to avenge his people someday. The occasion arose in the weeks
before King Theobald’s death. Our informants overseas learned of activity near
Seraph’s Tear. We suspected that Robyn and her mechamen were behind it. Of
course we can’t go near the place, but Slaugh can. Othella had been harboring
other Slaugh refugees. We asked King Hugo to take those people and go to
Seraph’s Tear to take out Robyn’s army.”

I felt like I was going to be sick.
The room spun. I thought of all the horrible things I’d said to him when he
left. Warring emotions raged inside me.
If he’d only told me…if I’d only
known…why did he have to hide it from me?

“I can tell he kept you in the dark
until it was too late,” Lord Finbarr said, giving me a sad look.

Anger won out over shame. “He stole
my dagger! He said awful things about the Fay! I thought he was turning against
us!”

“And perhaps he has,” Lord Finbarr
said. “He was supposed to stay in contact with Othella, but he never made
contact after he left. We have no way of knowing what he found.”

Valory touched my shoulder. “You
okay? You’re kinda green.”

I shrugged her hand away. “What
about Othella and Chloe and Violet? Let me guess, same story? Nobody’s heard a
thing, right?”

“Correct,” Lord Finbarr said. “I
can only guess that they are in the human realm. Othella knows enough about the
place to keep them safe there.”

Something grumbled by my ear.
Valory wriggled and stared at the floor. “Sorry. That was my stomach.”

Lord Finbarr rose from his seat. He
moved very stiffly like an invisible hand was pressing him down.

“There is much to consider,” he
said wearily as he held open the curtain. “I’ll call up a council in the morning
to discuss Helm Bogvogny. Now let us eat and give thanks.”

“Sounds good to me!” Valory said.
She strolled out into the great room.

Lord Finbarr patted me lightly on
the elbow to hold me back. “I know you don’t understand all of his reasons,” he
said in a hushed voice. “You must keep faith in him, though.”

I didn’t have to ask who he was
talking about.  “But he’s gone rogue! He doesn’t care about any of us!”

“Are you saying that because you
really believe it, or are you saying it to make yourself feel better?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t because
I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that when I thought back to Lev’s departure and
the things I’d said, I wanted to curl up into a ball and scream until I
couldn’t scream any more.

Lord Finbarr’s expression grew
softer. “Have faith,” he said again. “I’d take just a little faith over a big
heap of destiny any day.”

CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE

Woodman’s Hall was a grand
conglomeration of rooms that had been added on as necessary or, in some cases,
out of plain architectural insanity. The hunters and lumberjacks who’d put
their mark on the place must have seen it as a living thing like the trees of
the forest. Over the years, it had grown much like a vine that took root
wherever it could find a foothold. Spiral staircases twirled around tree
trunks. Some whole rooms were even inside trees with split-levels and hanging
balconies perched in the branches above. The ground level was a jumble of
little corridors leading to rooms great and small. It faced a swift stream in
the front so that the main entrance was a drawbridge that could be lowered by
working a hand crank.

I took in the hodgepodge design of
the place as I followed Lord Finbarr through the great room and up a staircase,
across a bridge between two tree trunks and back down to a room with three long
wooden tables in it. Some of people must have already eaten because abandoned plates
and silverware sat on some of the tables. Mrs. Larue was spreading a clean
cloth over one of the other tables. Mr. Larue, Bazzlejet and the little girls
were already seated. Beth went around the table laying out silverware. I heard
voices coming from an adjacent kitchen.

“Have a seat,” Lord Finbarr said,
directing Valory and me to a bench at the table.

“This is a nice set-up,” Valory
said, admiring the clean tablecloth and the forks.

Bazzlejet traded places so that he
could sit by me. “So are you going to tell me how you lived through that fall?”

I caught Mr. Larue’s eye and hung
my head. “I’m really, really sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you guys like that.
I had a plan to get out of the house, but it didn’t work.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bazzlejet said. “Just
make with the juicy details!”

I told him about sliding down the
mountain on a piece of debris.

“Ooh, let me tell the rest!” Valory
said after I had come to the part when I was lying injured in the snow.

“Okay…” I said hesitantly. 

Fortunately Valory stuck with the
facts, although she spoke with such animation that Mrs. Larue actually stopped
setting the table to listen.

“…and then Emma went kind of crazy
because she figured out who I was and I didn’t believe her at first so we got
into a fight!” Valory mimed punches in the air. “BAM! We was going at it pretty
hard until Emma talked some sense into me.”

Harriet and Alice both watched her,
enthralled. Their mother cleared her throat. “I’m sure the rest of the story
can wait until after dinner. I think Anouk is just about finished with the
baked yams.” She went off to the kitchen.

Valory looked disappointed. “But I
haven’t gotten to the part where Emma had to chase a bird naked through the
forest!”

Bazzlejet hooted. “Do tell!”

Mr. Larue gave Bazzlejet an
admonishing look. “Thanks for that lively account, Valory, but we’ll let you
rest up a bit. We wouldn’t want you to go hoarse.”

Valory started to argue, but I cut
her off by asking, “Mr. Larue, what happened to you guys after the wind carried
you over the mountain?”

“We were at the mercy of the winds
for a while,” he said. “When we got clear of the tallest peaks I put holes in
the balloon to get us lower to the ground. Then Cecily and I used some of the
ropes to make guidelines. We took turns flying with the ropes until we found a
safe spot to land. We came down close to a settlement of Gnomes. Lord Finbarr
had come through it only days before, so they were able to point us in the
right direction. Bazzlejet rigged up the deck and balloon so that we’d have
better control and we swept the area until we spotted the Finbarrs’ wagon.”

“And that’s how they found us,”
Garland said as he entered the room with a platter of steaming meat.

Anouk glided in with two bowls of
vegetables. She gave Garland a smile as they both huddled over the table with
their dishes. After putting down the yams she wiped her hands on her apron and
said, “I’ll be right back with the crispy bread!”

Garland watched her admiringly all
the way back to the kitchen.

Valory nudged me with her elbow.
“Look at those two! What I wouldn’t give for somebody to look at me like that!”

Garland overheard her and blushed.

I came to his rescue. “I’m
surprised to see Anouk here. How did she make it?”

“I got up to my old tricks again,”
Garland said, beaming. “I recalled that she still had one of the books I’d
loaned her…you know, one of the ones with the funny errors? It just so happened
that I brought a few books with me for the journey. I got to wondering one
night if there was any way I could get from one of my books to hers. Every
night I went into the books, researching cross-references and quotes and
misprints until, after two months, I found her. I convinced her to come back
with me.”

“That’s ingenious!” I said. “If
there’s a book in Ivywild that we can get to—”

“It’s not worth the risk,” Garland said.
“I was almost caught and besides, what would you do once you got there? The
place is crawling with red capes. The duke keeps bringing in reinforcements
from Larlaith. He has patrols on wind drakes and where he can’t go, the clergy
can. We’d just be asking to get caught. The book works the other way as well.
If they find out there’s a connection in the book to our hideout, then what
would stop them from coming after us?”

I felt deflated. “But it took you
two months just to figure out how to get from one book to the other. They
wouldn’t fare any better.”

“It’s not a risk worth taking,”
Garland said. “I was able to bring back Anouk. That is enough.”

Anouk emerged from the kitchen with
the crispy bread. I recalled what she’d said during our last meeting down in
the well.

“Did she manage to free any of the
Cognites?” I asked Garland.

His face went pale. “Don’t mention
that!” he whispered. “It’s a sore spot for her. She wasn’t able to help.”

“Looks like we’re all set here!”
Anouk said as she placed the bread on the table.

Garland shot me a desperate look. I
nodded to let him know that I wouldn’t bring up the Cognites again.

Mrs. Larue and Anouk served up
plates of piping hot food. Nothing had ever tasted so good. I suddenly realized
how famished and exhausted I was. Beside me, Valory tried her best to eat
politely but she soon gave up on the silverware and dug into her meal with her
bare hands. Alice and Harriet watched her with wide eyes and then they tested
their mother’s patience by abandoning their own forks.