Emily Rodda: Deltora Quest #8: Return to Deltora

“All is well, Doom,” Fardeep called. “Your friends here are safe. The mist is only for our protection.”

Warily, Doom moved closer. He searched Fardeep’s face, and his own face darkened. “You!” he snarled, reaching for his sword.

“No!” Lief exclaimed. “Doom, this is Fardeep. He is no longer the Guardian. No enemy of ours, or of yours.”

For the first time since Lief had known him, Doom looked baffled. “You have much to explain!” he muttered.

“As you do,” said Barda harshly. “Why did you keep your knowledge of this place from us?”

“I warned you against the Valley of the Lost with all my strength!” Doom growled, recovering a little. “Would it have helped if I had told you I had visited it myself? No! You would have decided that if I could escape its dangers, so could you.”

“Perhaps,” snapped Jasmine. “But you take your wretched love of secrecy too far, Doom! Why did you not say that you believed the Guardian was King Endon?”

Ignoring Dain’s gasp of horror, Doom smiled grimly. “Even I have some fine feelings. When I left this accursed valley I swore that never from my lips would my people learn what their king had become. They had suffered enough. Far better, I thought, to let them believe he was dead.”

“You played into the Shadow Lord’s hands, then,” said Lief quietly. “He wants the king forgotten, so his own hold over Deltora can never be broken.”

Doom flinched, as though he had received a blow. Slowly he rubbed his brow with the back of his hand, hiding his eyes. Dain was staring straight ahead, his face quite expressionless. But it seemed to Lief that behind the calm mask many different feelings were struggling.

After a long moment, Doom dropped his hand and looked straight at Lief, Barda, and Jasmine. “I believe I know why you came here,” he said. “Am I to understand that you succeeded in your quest?”

The companions remained silent.

A shadow crossed Doom’s face. “Perhaps you are wise not to trust me,” he said bitterly. “Perhaps, in your place, I, too, would keep silence.” He turned away. “Come, Dain,” he said to the boy standing rigidly beside him. “We are not needed here. Or wanted, it seems.”

Zeean stirred. “Wait!” she cried.

Doom swung around, unsmiling.

“We cannot afford suspicion and rivalry now,” the woman said, standing very straight. “United, we drove the Shadow Lord and his abominable hordes from our lands in the time of Adin. United, we can do it now.”

She turned to Lief, Barda, and Jasmine. “The time for secrecy between friends is past,” she said firmly. “You are hunted, and you do not know what your next step should be. We need the talents and experience of all who share our cause. Now, at last, it is time to trust.”

They returned to the clearing beside Fardeep’s hut. There, while bees hummed among the flowers and the sun sank in the sky, the story was told once more. When, at last, Lief showed the Belt, Dain gasped and shrank back, trembling. “I knew that you had some mighty aim,” he whispered, “I knew it!”

But Lief was watching Doom. The man’s face had not changed. What was he thinking?

“Some of what you have told us I had already guessed,” Doom muttered at last. “No one who has travelled this land as I have done could have failed to hear the legend of the lost Belt of Deltora. I came to believe that you were seeking it — but whether for reasons of good or ill, I did not know.”

His mouth tightened. “Now I regret my suspicion that you were working against our cause. But —” He ran his lean brown hands through his tangled hair. “Can it be true that this — this legend made real — can help Deltora? Perhaps, long ago, in the years that are dark to me, I would have accepted such a tale. But as it is —”

“You must believe!” Jasmine burst out. “The Shadow Lord himself fears the Belt. That is why the gems were taken and hidden in the first place!”

Doom regarded her thoughtfully. “How many gems does the Shadow Lord know you have?” he asked.

“We have strong hopes that he thinks we are still to reach Dread Mountain, the Maze of the Beast, and this valley,” Lief answered.

“Hopes are no basis for planning,” said Doom curtly.

Lief felt a prickle of irritation. He was not alone.

“We are as aware of that as you, Doom!” exclaimed Jasmine angrily. “No one would welcome certain knowledge more than we would!”

Looking from one to the other, Zeean sighed, and rose. “Let us rest, now,” she said. “In the morning, our minds will be clearer.”

As she and Peel quietly left the clearing, Doom shrugged and strode off to where his belongings lay. Dain hurried after him. Fardeep wandered back to his hut to begin preparing food.

“Doom is an uncomfortable ally,” Barda muttered. “But he is right in wanting facts, rather than hope.”

“Then we will give him facts!” Jasmine snapped. “Lief must use the last of the water from the Dreaming Spring.”

Lief nodded slowly. They had been saving the water for when they really needed it, but surely that time had arrived. If he visited his imprisoned father again, the evil Fallow might come to the cell. Then Lief could learn how much the Shadow Lord knew. But what if Fallow did not come?

Lief’s heart sank as he saw what must be done. He could not risk visiting his father or mother. Instead, he must use the magic water to spy on Fallow himself.

Much later, Lief lay still in the darkness. His eyelids were very heavy, but his mind was fighting sleep. He was afraid — afraid of what he would see. Who was Fallow? What was he? Lief thought he knew. Words he had heard Fallow say to his father echoed in his mind:

… where one dies, there is always another to take his place. The Master likes this face and form. He chose to repeat it in me …

Lief had not known what that meant, when first he heard it. Now he knew only too well.

Fallow was an Ol, and perhaps — almost certainly — one of the Grade 3 Ols Doom had heard of in the Shadowlands. The triumph of the Shadow Lord’s evil art. An Ol so perfect, so controlled, that no one could tell it was not human. An Ol that could mimic nonliving things as well as living creatures. An Ol that was evil and powerful beyond anything Lief could imagine.

Prandine, King Endon’s chief advisor, had been one such being. Of that Lief was sure. Fallow, made in his image, had taken up the Shadow Lord’s work where Prandine had finished.

Lief turned restlessly. Queen Sharn had killed Prandine — tipped him from the palace tower window to crash to his death. Grade 3 Ols paid a price for their perfection, then. They could die as humans could.

He closed his eyes and forced his mind to go blank. It was time to give in to the Dreaming Water. Time to visit the world of Fallow.

White walls, hard and gleaming. A gurgling, bubbling sound. And in the corner a tall, thin figure — Fallow — shuddering in a shower of sickly green light, bony arms flung high. His mouth was gaping open like the jaws of a skull, its corners thick with foam. His eyes had rolled back so only the whites showed, shining, horrible …

Lief choked back his cry of horror, though he knew he could not be heard. His stomach churned, but he could not look away.

Thump! Thump!

Lief jumped violently as the sound, like a great heartbeat, throbbed through the room.