The Fog of Forgetting (33 page)

Louis nodded and knelt next to Frankie. The bangle on her upper arm caught his eye. He snatched it off. It left a bloody scarlet indentation.

“Time to go,” he said to her. “I hope you're a good swimmer.” Then he grabbed the back of her collar and launched her over the canyon's edge into the river. She came up shouting, moving quickly with the current. Evelyn jumped in after her. Louis swooped down and cut Seaborne's bonds, positioning himself between Dankar and the remaining prisoners.

“You! YOU! Ungrateful human!” screamed Dankar. He seized Louis by the throat. Another peal of thunder boomed across the sky. The wind blew harder. Rain became hail. Dankar was momentarily stunned.

“Let him go, Dankar,” Rysta commanded, her voice rising above the storm.

Dankar refused and tightened his hold on Louis with one hand. He brandished his blade with the other.

“Never,” he snarled. “He's mine.”

“I would get moving if I were you,” Louis shouted to Seaborne and the boys. He wrestled himself out of Dankar's grip and took out his own knife. The two men circled each other, glaring. Thunder boomed across the canyon.

“You said you'd let them go,” Louis yelled. “Now let them go!”

Dankar pounced.

Louis parried and yelled to Seaborne. “You are out of time!”

Seaborne maneuvered himself next to Rysta. He grabbed Teddy. “He's right! In you go, ma'am.”

Rysta shook her head. “What has been put into motion cannot be stopped, Seaborne. It is my fate to stay. I have little hope for myself—but perhaps I may gain some for others.” Rysta looked pointedly at Louis, fighting feverishly to keep Dankar at bay and buy them time.

“Then it is my fate, as well,” said Seaborne, setting Teddy on the ground. “I will not leave you to this.”

Rysta shook her head again.

“You must stay with the outliers. It is your appointed duty.” She cast her eyes over the three boys standing at the lip of the canyon, lingering longest over Teddy's blond head. “Be most careful with them, Seaborne, for they are very dear to me.” She leaned in. “As are you. Do not fear for me, my child; our vessels are impermanent things, but the daylights will endure.”

“He wouldn't dare!”

“It is not for me to know what will happen—but you must go, NOW!” The light from the stone in her necklace grew blindingly bright. “I send with you the benediction of the stone of Metria! May your daylights protect you and guide you to peace!”

Seaborne picked up Teddy again, cast one reluctant look at Rysta, and threw himself into the roiling river. Knox grabbed Chase by the tunic and jumped after him. They all looked back in time to see Dankar whip Louis in the side of the face with the hilt of his knife, knocking him to the ground. Rysta's hair blew wildly in the wind as she bent down to shield him. Dankar walked once to the gate to look down the river, his scepter glowing with renewed vigor. Then, as the river bent south, the rain and hail eased and they were carried swiftly out of sight.

T
hey had not drifted far when the swell of the river calmed and Chase and Knox met up with Teddy and the rest of their group, who had been waiting for them, treading water. They floated all together for a while, wondering how long this new river was and where it was taking them.

“Let's go a bit farther, then see if we can swim ashore,” said Seaborne tonelessly.

“I don't understand why Rysta would stay there,” said Knox. “After everything she told us about the balance of the daylights on Ayda—why would she just give hers up to Dankar?”

“He still doesn't have the stone of Metria,” said Chase.

“Yeah, but he has her, and the necklace! That's good enough to do a lot of damage.” Knox's voice broke. “The Melorians don't stand a chance.”

“You don't know that,” said Chase, thinking back to what Rysta had said on the way to the canyon.
The plan remains the same
.

“What do you mean to say, lad?” asked Seaborne, swimming closer. “What else have you not told us?”

Before Chase could answer, two light canoes came paddling toward them from the underbrush. They were constructed of bark and moved silently across the water. One was paddled by Mara and Calla, the other by Sarn and Duor.

“Melorians!” whooped Knox.

One by one the swimmers were pulled aboard, shivering. Calla passed out warm ponchos and then set her paddle back into the river. The canoes took to the middle where the current drew swiftly.

Evelyn pulled the poncho over her head and yanked up the hood.

“Are we going to the Wold?”

Mara shook her head.

“To the cabin, then?”

Again no. The canoes sped down the river, which began to broaden. A familiar mist crept along the boats, growing thicker and more chill. In the distance there was a strange rhythmic sound. It took Knox a minute to figure out what it was: waves, pounding a beach. They were at the mouth of the river, where it met the sea. Overhead, a few invisible gulls cried out a welcome.

The canoes glided gently to the left side of the river, their hulls scraping softly on the sandy bottom. Together, they pulled the canoes onto the beach. The fog curled and drifted around them.

“Everybody stay together,” barked Knox.

“You sound like my father,” Calla laughed. Knox went red.

The fog lifted enough for them to see the wide mouth of the river emptying its ruddy waters into the flat gray depths of the sea. Along each bank was a broad sand beach. Calla and Sarn led the way toward a twisted, surf-blasted tree trunk at the edge of some tangled vegetation that scrawled inland. Duor whistled one loud blast.

“With caution now; you are still in Exor,” intoned a deep voice from the brush. It was immediately followed by Rothermel himself, his green eyes muted in the fog. Chase, Knox, and Evelyn stiffened. They had not forgotten what Seaborne had told them about Rothermel's anger and his willingness to trade them to Dankar. Rothermel stopped only feet from them. Evelyn noticed that the lines on his face had deepened, yet his expression remained kind, if careworn.

“It would seem that I still have not answered the riddle of your presence here on Ayda,” he said. “I know not whether it is for ill or for good.”

“Feels pretty ‘for ill' right now,” said Knox in a low voice.

Rothermel smiled sadly.

“Yes, that is true—but it may not turn out to be so in the end.” Rothermel nodded to Chase. “Is that not so, eldest?”

Chase looked down at the sand.

“Chase? What's going on?” asked Knox.

“He means that I'm, I mean,
we're
still going to follow Ratha's plan. We're going home—through the fog, like she said, and then I …” He trailed off.

“What?” demanded Knox. “C'mon, Chase. Enough with the secrets!”

Rothermel came to Chase's defense.

“Your brother has made a vow to find the Keeper of the Fifth Stone and send him back to Ayda.”

“Right,” said Knox, exchanging a mystified glance with Evelyn.

“You know who it is?” she asked. “The Keeper of the Fifth Stone? And you didn't tell us?”

Chase squirmed uncomfortably.

“Better 'fess up, lad,” Seaborne admonished. “You left a lot for the explaining, and it was a sorry thing for me to leave Rysta in that blasted oven; my heart is sore with the doing.”

“Okay, okay. I didn't tell you because Ratha told me I should keep it to myself. She said you wouldn't believe me—especially you, Seaborne.”

“Rightly so; she's not to be trusted,” Seaborne huffed, then caught himself. “All due respect, Rothermel.”

“Anyway,” Chase continued. “You already know that Ratha said she was going to rescue Frankie, but I didn't know
how
she would do it. I swear. All I knew was that we were supposed to set out for Metria and that we'd get captured—”

“That sure worked out great,” said Knox sarcastically, emphasizing his point by rubbing his bald head.

Chase ignored him.

“If I got you all to go along, she promised to bring us all back together and send us home—just like I told you.” Chase hesitated again, aware of how crazy his next words would sound. “What I didn't tell you is that when we get there, I'm supposed to take a message to Captain Nate.”

“WHEN you get there?” Seaborne scowled. “That's a laugh! And who in the skies' great thunder is Captain Nate? Why would Rysta take part in a fool's errand? It's impossible to get through the fog. It was a lie. All of it!” He glared at Chase. “And you let it happen! If you'd only told me everything I could have stopped all this nonsense.”

“The plan for Rysta to go to Exor was devised without the eldest boy's knowledge—or mine,” Rothermel interjected. “But Seaborne, you are right on one account: It is like my sister to tell the boy just enough to secure his promise. Though she, too, was deceived. Despite her wisdom, her plan did not proceed as she anticipated. Ratha did not think Dankar would go back on his word to free you in exchange for Rysta. Fortunately, I have more experience with the enemy.”

Evelyn collapsed on the sand in a state of confusion.

“Chase, start from the beginning! The sea captain? How is he a part of this?”

This time, Chase left nothing out of his explanation of his visitation with Ratha at the the temple of Varuna, and her belief that Captain Nate was the Keeper of the Fifth Stone. As he spoke, a large flock of gulls circled overhead and amassed along the tide's edge. They craned their beaks and swiveled their heads as if they were listening.

Evelyn continued to shake her head in disbelief.

“I'm supposed to tell Captain Nate about Ayda and what happened to us here,” Chase concluded. “That's the deal.”

“But why should he come?” she asked in annoyance. “If he has the stone, he could have come anytime. Why now?”

“I may hold that answer,” replied Rothermel. “My sister Rysta has told you about our parents and the events that preceded the Great Battle of Ayda, but she did not tell you the very important role she had to play in our misfortunes. She avoided this out of sadness and shame, I warrant. It is a wound that will not heal.” Rothermel looked out into the fog, as if he could see the ocean behind it. One of the gulls cawed mournfully. Another answered.

“Of all the travelers that once came to Ayda, none managed to return to us but one—a great adventurer and explorer. He was known to us then as Caspar. He came to Ayda in my father's time, in the peace before the Great Battle. I still recall the sight of his ship sailing up the Hestredes: it was a broad ship laden with cargo”—Rothermel's brow furrowed—“and people taken as prizes for his king.”

“Slaves?” asked Evelyn, shocked.

Rothermel considered her for a moment, then answered.

“It was not uncommon in those days for such ships to come ashore here, bearing souls stolen from one land to do the work of another, not unlike how the Exorians now treat my people. But in the days of my father and the Fifth Stone, such evil intentions were unknown to Ayda—and soon forgotten by any who set foot here. All who stayed were free to live where their daylights dictated. Most Aydans, with the exception of my family and the ancients, are descended from these lines. What happened to those who did not stay I cannot say, for they sailed out of my knowing.”

“And Caspar?” prompted Knox. “What did he do?”

“He lived long on Ayda and fought bravely against Dankar's forces in the Great Battle, until his daylights were fragmented by the enemy. We believed him lost forever; I grieved for him as I grieved for my own brother.” Rothermel's voice grew more and more sorrowful as he spoke. “And I was not the only one; for there was a woman on Ayda who, in the days before the Great Battle, came to love Caspar above all things. But to love someone, truly, is to love the nature of their daylights, and Caspar was not content to stay on Ayda indefinitely. His daylights longed for the sea, for distant horizons and stranger shores. It was a torment to the woman to see him suffer, becalmed and landlocked, and so she went behind my father's back and found a way for Caspar—alone among men—to come and go to Ayda at will.”

“How?” asked Chase, Evelyn, and Knox in unison.

“I am told she gave him some kind of map, but I do not know for certain how she did this, only that she did.”

“Who was the woman?” asked Evelyn.

Rothermel's eyes wavered and fell to the sand.

“My sister, Rysta,” he admitted.

“The man in her pool,” gasped Evelyn. “The one she got so upset about. It must have been Caspar.”

Rothermel sighed. “The blessing my family received—our life on Ayda—relied on no further mingling of Watcher, or even half-Watcher, and humankind. My sister knew this, and yet she loved the man Caspar as my father loved my mother. It was her love that betrayed us and led Dankar to our shores.”

Chase sat back on his heels. Everything Rysta had said in Exor fell into place. This was the debt she needed to repay.

“But I don't understand,” he ventured. “If this guy Caspar was the only one who knew how to come and go, how did Dankar discover his secret?”

“Dankar had many spies then,” answered Rothermel. “He was once as powerful a king in your lands as he is here. He was vigilant and cunning, and, eventually, had Caspar watched. It was not long before Caspar—unwittingly—led him here. You will remember that Dankar had been looking for Ayda since he first heard tell of such a place. We did not guard our island well enough before the fog. We have since learned better.”

The gulls suddenly screeched into the air as if frightened. A dry wind began to blow down the beach, stirring the sand into eddies.

“That doesn't explain why Ratha thinks Captain Nate has the Fifth Stone,” said Knox, looking at Chase, then at Rothermel.

Rothermel's green eyes glittered. “Does it not?”

Chase clapped his hand to his forehead, thunderstruck.

“Ratha thinks Captain Nate
is
Caspar!” he exclaimed.

Rothermel nodded.

“Wait,” said Knox, braking the air with his hands. “I thought Caspar died in the Great Battle. Besides, they can't be the same guy. It would mean Captain Nate is, like, five hundred years, which he's not. I've seen him. He's old, but he's not that old.”

“Not if he has the Fifth Stone,” Evelyn cut in, thinking back to what Rysta had said about her parents. “As long as he stays with it, he won't die. Remember Rachel?” She turned to face Rothermel, who shifted uneasily at the sound of his mother's name.

“You think Caspar escaped from Ayda with the stone and that he's Captain Nate, or Captain Nate is him, or whatever. That's why Rysta let herself be captured! Ratha told her about Chase, and now Rysta wants Captain Nate to come back and bring the stone with him!”

The wind blew harder. Sand stung at their ankles and clung to Rothermel's long, grizzled hair. He nodded.

“You speak the truth, eldest girl. Time is short. Dankar has the stone of Exor and my sister. He may soon gain another stone. I do not know how long my sister's daylights will last so far from her home, and Melor is now in even greater peril. Our greatest challenge lies before us. If this captain is the voyager, Caspar, there is hope that the Fifth Stone will return to Ayda.”

“Dankar said that if it weren't for you, there wouldn't be any fog,” said Frankie, finally breaking her dazed silence. “He told me we could go home whenever we wanted if it weren't for you.”

Rothermel spoke to her gently.

“Little one, you have long been in the halls of the Usurper. He has told you many things, much of it lies. For that is his way. He will talk to you of friendship and loyalty when he knows not what they are.”

“He said that
you
were the liar,” Frankie insisted.

Rothermel frowned. “I have no doubt that he would prefer you to think that, but let me ask you this: Why would he not let you go as Rysta requested? Is this the manner of a friend?”

“But, he—and Louis—” she objected.

Rothermel looked to Evelyn for an explanation as to who Louis was. When he was told of the man who had saved them and protected Rysta, the creases on his brow thickened.

“I knew not of this outlier. I am thankful that my sister has at least one ally in her midst. Dankar may hold her and the necklace captive, but we must remember that she, too, is closer than ever before to the stone of Exor. Things may not proceed entirely in his favor. We will do what we can to aid her, and you must do the same.” He motioned to the Melorians. “It is time.”

Sarn and Duor retreated into the brush. Rothermel beckoned to Mara. She dug into the canoe and returned with a large basket, which she unpacked before them. It was the clothing they had arrived in, washed and mended.