Emily Rodda - Deltora Quest #5 - Dread Mountain

“Kin!” a voice shouted. “Pen-Fel and Za-Van have sighted Kin from the spyholes to the south. There are many, many. The sky is black with them!”

In an instant, food and drink were forgotten, bows and arrows were being snatched up, and gnomes were running for the door.

“No!” Lief, Barda, Jasmine, and Prin shouted at the tops of their voices. Their voices echoed around the feasting hall.

And the gnomes stopped.

“Have you not learned better than this?” demanded Lief, as Prin clung to him in terror. “Do you not realize that the Kin should be your partners on this Mountain? Do you want the Boolong trees to continue to multiply till even the streams are choked by thorns? If I am right, the Kin are coming to rescue their young one. You should rejoice, and beg them to stay! You should welcome them with open arms, not seek to kill them!”

There was a moment’s silence, then Fa-Glin nodded. “Our friend is right,” he said. Regretfully he smoothed the old Kin skin jacket he wore, then he took it off and threw it at his feet.

“It is a pity. But our weavers can make fine garments enough,” he murmured. Then once again he raised his voice. “Lay down your weapons, gnomes. We will go out and greet the Kin in friendship. We will welcome them home.”

At sunrise two days later, a strange group walked down the gnomes’ pathway to the bottom of the Mountain. Prin walked with Lief, Jasmine, and Barda. Ailsa, Merin, and Bruna came next. Fa-Glin and Gla-Thon brought up the rear.

They spoke little as they walked, for more than one heart was heavy at the thought of the parting to come. But when they reached the road at the Mountain’s base, where a bridge spanned the stream, they turned to one another.

“We thank you and will think of you every day,” Ailsa murmured, bending and touching each of the travellers on the forehead. “Because of you we are home, and Little — I mean, Prin — is with us once more.”

Merin smiled as she and Bruna farewelled the companions in their turn. “As she has told us many times, Prin has grown too tall and strong in these last days to be called Little One anymore. Besides, now that we are here again, there will be more young, and she will no longer be the smallest among us.”

As she stepped back, Fa-Glin stepped forward. “The Dread Gnomes also thank you,” he said gruffly, bowing low. He held out his hand and Gla-Thon passed him a small carved box of Boolong tree bark. This Fa-Glin gave to Lief.

Lief opened the box. Inside was a golden arrowhead. “We owe you a great debt,” said Fa-Glin. “If ever you need us, we are yours to the death. And this is a token of our oath.”

“Thank you,” said Lief, and bowed in his turn. “And you will follow the plan …?”

“Indeed we will.” Fa-Glin’s teeth gleamed through his white beard as he grinned. “Next full moon, and every full moon from now on, the poison jars will be at this spot as usual. But their contents will not be the same, though the liquid will look identical. Stream water mixed with Boolong sap, I fancy, will do the trick. We and the Kin together will make the brew. It has been decided.”

“And our last supplies of Gellick’s venom will be kept safe,” added Gla-Thon. “So that when at last our Enemy realizes what we are doing, and comes for us, we will be ready. Then, and only then, will our arrows be tipped with poison once more.”

“It is our hope —” Barda hesitated, then went on carefully. “It is our hope that your Mountain will not be invaded. Before long there may come a time when the Enemy will have other concerns.”

The Kin glanced at one another, confused. But Fa-Glin and Gla-Thon nodded, their eyes gleaming. They had sworn never to speak of the stone that had fallen into Lief’s hand, or of what he had done with it. They had not asked for an explanation of the glittering, gem-studded Belt into which the emerald had fitted, or the two empty spaces that still glared blankly along the Belt’s length. But perhaps they did not need to ask. Perhaps they knew, or guessed, the truth, for the Dread Gnomes were an old race, with long, long memories.

Lief felt Prin’s gentle touch on his shoulder. “Where are you going now, Lief?” he heard her ask.

Lief looked across the bridge to where the stream continued through rustling trees, and on to where the first rays of the sun glinted on broader water: the distant river that would take them to the wide sea and the forbidden place that was their next goal.

“I must not tell you, Prin,” he said softly. “But it is a long way from here.”

“And why are you going? And why so soon?” she persisted, for the moment, in her distress, becoming again that more childish Prin he remembered from the time when they first met.

“Because I must,” Lief said. “And because there is no time to waste. We must finish our journey as quickly as we can, now. There are people at home who are — waiting.”

And as he turned to meet Prin’s eyes, to say the hardest farewell of all, he prayed that the wait would not be too long.

This book has been compiled in secret. If the work had been discovered by any authority, I, its author, would have paid with my life. Or so I believe.

The risk was worth taking. Forces are working in Deltora to suppress the facts of our past as well as those of our present. Lies are everywhere. King Alton believes that the kingdom is thriving. He thinks that if monstrous perils once existed in far-flung corners, they exist no longer.

Iknow this is false. Because I, who once wore the silken gloves and velvet tunic of a palace librarian, now scavenge for food in the gutters of Del. I now know what the common people know, and more. I could never have imagined such a future for myself. But I regret nothing.

Perhaps I woul have fled from the palace if the king’s chief advisor, Prandine, had not ordered me to burn The Deltora Annals . The threatened destruction of the Annals , that great, vivid picture of Deltora over the ages, was more than I could bear. And so it was that while pretending to obey Prandine’s order, I saved the Annals and myself.

This book contains material drawn from The Deltora Annals as well as new information I have gained in the past few years. It describes many of the dreadful, mysterious beings that haunt this land. Some of these creatures are as evil and unnatural as their master in the Shadowlands. Others are native to Deltora. All grow stronger every day. Yet the king does nothing to offer his people protection. They hate him for it. But why should he help, since he does not know the monsters exist? None of them are spoken of in the palace except as beasts of legend, dangers of the past.

Books such as this are needed to correct the lies that have become official truth. The people are too busy scraping a living to write down what they know. Writing, in fact, seems almost to have disappeared among them. I fear that lies may one day become the only “facts” available to students, unless people like me act to prevent it.

What the future holds for us, and for Deltora, I cannot say. But when my hopes dim, I take heart in remembering another thing I did before I left the palace. It concerns yet another book — The Belt of Deltora. It is simply written, but full of wisdom. From the day I first found it in the library, I believed that it was of vital importance, and that it contained the keys to Deltora’s future, as well as its past. I kept it hidden, for I knew that if Prandine saw it, it would quietly disappear. I had planned to take it with me, but at the last moment something moved me to change my mind. I hid it, instead, in a dim corner where it would only be discovered by an eager searcher.