Abbee reached the monastery grove a few hours later. She skirted giant redwoods and reached the beach. Gray-blue water stretched to the horizon as she followed the coastline west. Listening to the crashing waves stilled her mind, and for a brief while, she forgot about her troubles. Her peace faded when she crested a big dune and saw Joor across the bay.
Abbee remembered Ilo telling her about the three-kilometer radius around the monastery grove being painful for wizards. So she didn’t have to go into the city itself. The monastery was about a kilometer to the east, so the ground she’d covered was out, along with the port itself and the city proper. Abbee was glad the city wasn’t included in her search area. She hadn’t been back here since … since then. She didn’t even want to think about it. This place made her edgy.
She guessed Kai was close enough that supply runs to the city weren’t onerous. Someplace out of the way, but not too out of the way. Fishing villages dotted the coast on the opposite side of the city. Such places were insular, and inhabitants noticed outsiders. Locals remembered new arrivals for decades. Learning about newcomers was as easy as buying a round in the village’s watering hole and asking questions. She doubted Kai was there.
Abbee thought about the farms north of town. Ilo said Kai would be in his nineties. A farm was a lot of work, too much for an elderly man, and a farm that produced nothing got noticed. Abbee couldn’t imagine a wizard farmer, but maybe that was the point. And perhaps Kai had done well for himself over the years and had hired help. There were dozens and dozens of farms. It would take her weeks to check them all. She only had two days before her pursuers reached the city. Thad was right. Abbee was on borrowed time. Better to eliminate other options first.
She remembered a big forest along the northwestern coast, north of the fishing villages, where rolling hills rose from the basin. Windmere Forest. Lots of old growth and choked with underbrush. A wizard might hide out in that forest. But it was big and stretched for many square kilometers. She’d need better directions.
Abbee skipped the East Gate. She wasn’t taking Thad’s advice. She wasn’t doing anything that insufferable thief suggested. She still couldn’t believe he’d stolen her sheets and used them for the whole trip. Abbee wished she could’ve shot him in the leg or something.
It was late afternoon when Abbee reached the port’s outskirts. She got lucky, and the tide was low, allowing her to dart among the wharf piers to the western side. Abbee decided to go into the city. She didn’t like it, but she figured Kai had bought supplies in the city. Someone might remember him. Abbee went around the city and entered the Northwest Gate. She convinced herself that this was the opposite side of the city from where she was taken. The gate wasn’t really a gate, more like two iron posts that marked the city’s edge. Joor didn’t have gates or walls. No guards at the posts either.
Abbee stopped a woman walking with two children. She gave them her best smile. “Pardon me, ma’am, but would you happen to know the nearest place offering foodstuffs and the like? My uncle sent me out for supplies, but I’m new here and have gotten a bit turned around.”
The woman’s children pointed before she did. “Two blocks that way,” she answered. “When you get to the intersection, take a right. Walk for a couple minutes, and you can’t miss it.”
Abbee thanked her and followed the directions to an open-air market teeming with people. She scouted the stalls around the edge, looking for someone selling dry goods. Found one, manned by a big, round man and a smaller, less round boy who looked like his son. She waited for a lull in the customers and approached the older vendor.
“I’m looking for my uncle,” Abbee said. “He lived around here and might have bought from you.”
“Lots of people buy from me,” the vendor said. “Can’t remember all of—”
“He’s”—Abbee was about to describe an elderly wizard she’d never met, and switched at the last instant—“only got one arm and thinks he’s smarter than you.”
The vendor’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, that one.” He snapped his fingers. “I know who you’re talking about. Used to come here every three weeks, like clockwork.” He frowned. “Haven’t seen him for a while, though.”
“That’s why I’m looking for him,” Abbee said. “He used to send letters, and the letters stopped.”
“Rennie!” the man barked.
The boy in the back, Rennie, perked up. “Yes?”
“Your friend with the one arm,” the vendor said. “This here’s his niece, and she’s looking for him. Help her out, would you?” He moved over to the other side of the stall to help another customer.
Rennie set down a crate with a thump and approached Abbee. He was less a boy and more a young man with a baby face. Abbee guessed mid-teens. Rennie did his own sizing up of Abbee, and he looked suspicious. “You’re Mabo’s niece?”
Abbee nodded. Mabo was the name Ipsu had used when meeting random people. For someone who loved to ask “Who are you?” until you couldn’t take it anymore, he rarely shared his real name with anyone. At least not when Abbee had traveled with him.
“Did you ever answer his ‘Who are you?’ question to his satisfaction?” she asked.
Rennie gave a lopsided smile. “I thought so, but he didn’t, because he kept asking.”
“Did you ever see where he lived?” Abbee asked.
“No, but I know the general area,” Rennie said. “He came in one time with a sprained wrist. I did a delivery for him. You kind of take two hands for granted, but … I shouldn’t be saying this, but sometimes Mabo makes you feel a little bit happy when something bad happens to him.”
Abbee chuckled. “Yes, yes, he did. Do you remember where you took the delivery?”
Rennie squinted. “You keep using the past tense.”
“I assumed the worst when the letters stopped,” Abbee said. “Habit of mine, really. I don’t want to get my hopes up.”
“Well, it wouldn’t surprise me, given where I took him that one time. He had me drop him at the fork to Duskmire. I dunno how he managed the crates with one arm and a sprained wrist.”
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“Where’s this fork? I’m not from around here.”
“In Windmere Forest,” Rennie said. “About four hours north of here by cart, though you’re not going to find a drover who’ll take you up there. Even woodsmen steer clear.”
“Why do woodsmen avoid … What is it called?”
“Duskmire,” Rennie supplied. “Nasty place. Big swamp in the middle. People think it’s haunted.” He glanced at his father and lowered his voice. “I went there once with some friends, and I didn’t see it, but my mate Lonno says the crows followed him around. Whole place is creepy.” He grimaced. “Somebody goes missing out there every year or so. But Mabo didn’t seem to mind.”
Abbee felt a surge of satisfaction that she’d picked the right area. “I just need directions.”
“Your funeral,” Rennie said with a shrug. “Follow Windmere Road northwest for a few hours. When you get to the fork with a chain across a deer track and all the signs saying to avoid Duskmire, ignore the signs.”
***
Abbee didn’t have much daylight left, and while she felt pressed for time, stumbling around in a haunted swamp in the dark felt too risky, even for her. She stayed at an inn near the Northwest Gate. Abbee didn’t know when she’d next get an opportunity and made liberal use of the bathhouse.
The idea that her pursuers were two days away made relaxing difficult. She considered buying a horse and riding up to Lencoe to wait for the hunters. Get it over with. She discarded the option almost immediately. She’d not ridden a horse in years. She and Ipsu had never used them while traveling together. Horses ate a lot of food, went lame all the time, and had to be shod. Carrying things meant more things to worry about, more things to maintain. Abbee had no idea what to do with the animal, nor how to care for it. Yes, every moment counted with hunters after her, but she’d lose time wrangling such a big animal.
Either way, going to Lencoe meant wasting all attempts to throw the sniffers off her trail. Not to mention the hunters had bolt throwers too, and if the blond telepath was with them, they’d know what Abbee looked like. If they saw her first, she’d lose her advantage. She lingered in the tub until her skin wrinkled like a raisin, playing scenarios over and over in her head. All ended with the same result: stay the course; find Kai. The story about Ipsu’s sprained wrist gave her hope. He hadn’t carried a bunch of crates with his teeth. He’d had help. Abbee smiled at the thought. He must’ve been beside himself to have to ask.
Abbee slept poorly. She gave up tossing and turning, raided the inn’s kitchen for food, and left Joor before dawn. The moon was out and made the road to Windmere easy to follow. She ran the whole way. Dawn broke as she arrived at the forest’s edge, and the road narrowed to a dirt lane barely wide enough for a cart. A few kilometers in, she smelled woodsmoke. A couple of hundred meters later, she spotted a camp set back off the road, with some woodsmen sitting around a small fire. They didn’t see her, and she didn’t stop.
A thick cloud cover rolled in, and Abbee had no idea of the time of day when she reached the fork Rennie had described. It was hard to miss. A thick, rusty chain had been wrapped around two trees and had been there long enough that both gnarled trunks had grown around the metal links. Three old and weathered signs had been nailed to the tree on the right. The first sign said Duskmire, and the second said Avoid. A third sign said Known Deaths and had a long list of names. At least thirty people. The last two looked recently added.
Abbee ducked under the old chain and ran down the deer path.
She lost the trail twice and gave up following it the third time. The air turned cold and stank of dead things. The land was covered with pools too murky to see the bottom, and Abbee never saw a body of water wider than ten meters. Thick clouds obscured the sun and made everything gray and dark. She crossed large stretches of thick canopy where she never saw daylight touch the ground. She supposed that was where Duskmire got its name. Not much light. Lots of mushrooms everywhere.
Hunger told her it was midday, and the lack of trail or familiar markings told her she was lost. Duskmire was bigger than she’d thought. She’d avoided swamps on her trek to Kiva, because it was so easy to get turned around in them. The wet ground absorbed her footprints. She thought about marking trees or saplings, in case she went in circles, but Abbee decided that would make it easier to be followed. If the hunters had a sniffer, maybe they’d trip on something out here and break an ankle.
Abbee knew she wouldn’t be so lucky. She stood at the edge of a dark pool, her boots slowly sinking into mud, and wondered if she’d made a mistake. It would take forever to bushwhack through, searching for signs of an old wizard who didn’t want to be found. Maybe I should’ve checked the farms first. She knew she’d have come up empty. The wizard was here in Duskmire. It was the most forbidding place around.
She never saw Rennie’s creepy crows. She hardly saw any animals at all. Abbee was struck by how few living things she saw in Duskmire. Swamps seemed like dank and dead places, but they were usually teeming with life. She worried that there was some large predator out here she’d yet to encounter.
Darkness fell, and Abbee still hadn’t found anything.
Worried about a predator, she climbed a suitable tree and tried to rest. She ate the last of the food she’d stolen from the inn’s kitchen. Food was going to be a problem in Duskmire. She could go without for a couple of days, but she hadn’t seen much to hunt today, and none of the plants around here looked edible. None of them could kill her, but they’d probably make her sick. Abbee hoped for clear skies tomorrow to see the sun for direction. She knew she’d have to try to exit the swamp tomorrow.
Worry gnawed at her. She couldn’t give up. This was the best lead she had to find out where Ipsu had been. She didn’t want to get caught by hunters either.
Abbee pulled out the ring with the runes on it. She turned it over in her fingers, following the unending runes, and tried to still her mind. Her resolve about finding a wizard in the swamp battled with the sense that she had no idea where she was going. She worried she’d wasted a whole day wandering around in the wilderness.
The ring vibrated.
Abbee almost dropped it. She turned it over and over, trying to make it happen again. When one particular rune pointed in one particular direction, the ring shook in her hand for a moment. She kept it pointing in that same direction. Nothing happened. She moved it away and moved it back. The same, short shudder. A beacon. She pulled out the thumb light, flicked off the cover, and pointed it where the ring had pointed. All she saw was trees.
Abbee climbed down to the ground and set off in the dark. She stopped every so often to get her bearings with the shuddering ring. It was slow going. Frustrating. Abbee had her first indication of direction since entering Duskmire, and it felt like every step took her further away.
She walked for what seemed like hours. She wondered more than once if the twitching ring was making her walk in random directions. Maybe it wasn’t a beacon. Maybe it was leading her to her death. Ipsu would’ve had choice words for her right now, blindly following a magic ring in a swamp in the dark.
The sky had cleared and was pink with dawn when Abbee had to stop. The ring pointed back the way she’d come. Abbee must have passed the destination, or so she thought. It was so easy to get turned around in here. She backtracked. No, now the ring pointed in the other direction. Abbee walked until the ring stopped vibrating no matter where she pointed it. This spot. She cast around with the thumb light, but she didn’t see anything remarkable. Three trees within several meters. Plain old muddy ground. Abbee tried to see if she’d gotten it wrong, and walked away. Tried the ring again. It led her back to the same spot.
Abbee swore. She’d done it. She’d followed a magical ring to the middle of nowhere.
She pointed the thumb light at the ground. Mud and fallen leaves. She expanded her search outward to the closest tree. It looked like any old tree. Abbee examined it closer, trying to find a clue. Anything. Nothing remarkable … Wait. The tree had a stone next to it, near a big root. The stone looked like any old rock, except for a little knob on top. It looked cut, or fashioned. Unnaturally round. The knob looked like the size of the ring she carried.
On a whim, Abbee touched the runed ring to the knob.
Something squeezed her. All over her body. The squeezing intensified, and she felt an uncomfortable wrenching in her belly. Abbee heard a thunderous crack, and the world shifted.