Rob Scott - Lessek_s Key

When Jacrys paused, the captain snapped to attention once again, saluted, and said, ‘I’m sorry for the breach of protocol, sir.’

‘Just bring Sallax Farro to me, Captain.’

‘Should I clear these plates, sir?’

‘Yes, and the bottle, too. That rutting vintage makes my head hurt.’

Captain Thadrake was already on his way out of the door with the pastries in one hand and the wine in the other.

*

As Hannah sat bolt upright pain ripped through her shoulder, and with a shriek she fell into her blankets, dizzy with the agony. A moment later, Hoyt was by her side. ‘I see you’re up. It’s about time,’ he said cheerily.

‘You wait until I’m back in one piece, Hoyt. I am kicking the shit out of you,’ Hannah said through shallow breaths.

‘Out of me?’ Hoyt feigned incredulity. ‘I put you back together, Hannah, and trust me, it was not an easy task.’

Mimicking his accent, Hannah repeated, ‘We shouldn’t organise any dances up there, but if we hold fast to that lip, it’s a good two or three paces wide, and it’s actually fairly level.’

Hoyt laughed. ‘I’m not the one who tied myself to the millstone.’ He motioned to where Churn lay sleeping, a nondescript lump under two heavy blankets.

‘How is he?’

‘Fine,’ Hoyt said, ‘it would take more than falling off a mountain to hurt him. He was a bit cold when we finally got you back up on the porch, but Alen worked an interesting spell, warmed the two of you right there in the mud, dried your clothes, too. I was impressed.’

With Hoyt supporting her, Hannah sat up a bit straighter. ‘Where are we?’ she asked.

‘We’re back in that grove of pines we crossed through before climbing up onto the cavern ledge. That big meadow is just through there. We’ve kept a fire going with anything we’ve been able to find that won’t smoke up too much. The branches in here are such a rutting tangle, no one would know we were here unless they actually walked into us, but none of the Malakasians have passed anywhere near us. You were right. They must have another path somewhere south of here.’

‘So we’re safe enough – but how long has it been?’

Hoyt hesitated. ‘Two days.’

Hannah almost choked. ‘Two days?’

‘Well, three, this morning.’

‘Oh, Hoyt, I’m sorry. If I hadn’t slipped, we could have hauled Churn up, dried him off and been on our way.’ She looked around. ‘Did it snow?’

‘Some, a couple days ago, but it’s been quiet since then.’ He reached over to open one of their packs. ‘Are you hungry?’

‘Yes, please,’ she said, gratefully accepting two handfuls of crumbly bread, a small block of cheese and some cold sausage. Between mouthfuls, she continued asking questions. ‘Why did I sleep so long? What did I do to myself?’

‘Not much,’ Hoyt assured her. ‘You broke your collarbone and split the skin across your forehead. The head wound was messy – head wounds bleed like a rutting sieve – but setting the bone was the nastier of the two. Apart from those, it was nothing, really: assorted bumps and bruises, not a lot to brag about at a chainball tournament.’

‘A broken bone shouldn’t have knocked me senseless for so long.’ She shifted in her seat, trying to move her shoulder beneath its heavy wrapping.

‘Normally it wouldn’t, but it was a bad break and I had to treat it with querlis.’ Hannah looked at him questioningly, and he went on, ‘that’s a plant we use to treat all manner of injuries. It speeds up the natural healing process at a remarkable rate, but it takes its toll. Most people sleep for some time after a querlis application. You ought to be feeling better soon.’

‘Well enough to ride?’

‘Gods, yes. You don’t plan to walk over these hills, do you? You can ride with me. We lost Churn’s horse. The wretch is probably on some Pragan farm right now, eating winter hay and sleeping in a stable full of mares.’

‘Churn saved me.’

Hoyt nodded, ‘Yes he did, but he also hauled you down there to begin with, and for that, I think we ought to tease him for the next two hundred Twinmoons.’

She was serious. ‘And you put me back together.’

‘I did.’ This time, Hoyt didn’t make a joke.

‘How did you do it? I don’t remember any of it. You would think setting a bone would have been a horrible thing, especially one that had nearly broken through my skin.’ She ran two fingers over the bulging swath of bandages and torn tunics the Pragan healer had used to immobilise the injury.

‘Well,’ Hoyt began tentatively, ‘when you were down there on the rock, Churn found a body, one of the Malakasian engineers.’

‘So at least one of them did come this way.’

‘He did, and our guess is that he was trying to get away on his own.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he was carrying a pouch filled with ghost tree bark.’ Hoyt reached into a pack and withdrew a small leather sack bulging at the seams with bark from the enchanted forest.

Hannah nodded. ‘And he wanted some for himself, so he came through there thinking he would work his way north with a bag full of great magic.’

‘Or medicine, or drugs, whatever,’ Hoyt said. ‘Either way, he fell and died, right about where Churn found you.’

‘So what does this have to do with me?’

‘I didn’t have any way of knocking you out, or getting you to sleep long enough to set the bone; so I-’ He paused.

‘So you used the bark,’ Hannah finished his thought. ‘You sent me back to my childhood, to my parent’s house, that night I fell asleep on the couch.’

‘I don’t know what you were reliving, but it wasn’t as bad as the day we came through the forest. You kept going on and on about never having a dog.’

Hannah’s brow furrowed. ‘There was a dog, a big black one, or dark brown, maybe. It looked like rather like a wolf. He was there the night my mother decided… well, the night I relived in the forest of ghosts.’

‘All right, why is that an issue?’

‘I never had a dog, Hoyt.’

He tossed the pouch back inside the pack. ‘Who knows what this stuff does? Maybe it’s just a hallucinogen that sends you flying over the hills and valleys of your past. You get a whiff of this, whether it’s magic or not, and you go back in time, peek in a few windows, see your parents cooking eggs, beating each other up, whatever, and then you come back. Maybe people get caught by the forest because they can’t get out before they wither away.’

Hannah shook her head. ‘It’s more than that, Hoyt. I was there. I was actually there in the room, and the dog was part of it, as real as I was.’ She tried to stand, swooned again, and sat back down.

‘Keep resting. Those two are still sleeping, and my watch ends with breakfast, so close your eyes for a while. If you’re feeling rested enough later, you can ride with me and we’ll make our way back to find that trail.’

‘Three days lost,’ Hannah murmured.

‘Not a total loss,’ Hoyt said. ‘If Alen can work out what a sorcerer might be able to do with a handful of bark from the forest of ghosts, we may have stumbled… literally… onto something important. I doubt it was the engineer’s lust for adventure in high places that made him try to cross alone.’

Hannah lay back, closing her eyes and hoping for a couple hours’ sleep. Three days lost, and she had not been heartened by anything she heard after waking. She was glad that Churn was safe. As for their pocketful of enchanted forest, if it helped Alen figure out a way to send her home, then she would be happy they had found it, but for now, she was wary of it: it was mystical and dangerous, and it had trapped her in her past with her parents and that big dog until Hoyt had dragged her out. Hannah didn’t trust it. She remembered the dead body on the southern edge of the Great Range – Sunday Morning by Michael Adams – some poor soul who had wandered into the forest of ghosts, become enslaved by a memory and sat down beside a stand of white birch to while away the days for ever.