One Salt Sea
Page 87
“For now,” he said. “Raj is bringing the knights from Shadowed Hills. I understand your reluctance to wait for them, but a little last-minute cavalry never hurt anyone. My subjects stand watch at Goldengreen, and at your apartment, in case this is a diversion of some sort.”
“Good thinking.” I shut the trunk. “I’m glad you came.”
“No other places beckoned half so sweetly,” said Tybalt. “I’ll keep watch as we go.” He half-bowed, and was gone in a swirl of pennyroyal and musk. I looked down at the tabby tomcat now standing by my feet.
“Well?” I asked. “Were you going to take point or not?”
Tail high, he turned and trotted toward the open parking lot gate. I looked at the others.
“Come on. Let’s go get my daughter back.” Not waiting to see if they’d follow, I started after Tybalt. One way or another, this was going to end.
TWENTY-NINE
WALKING BENEATH THE TOWERING REDWOODS was very much like walking into a forest in the Summerlands: majestic and unspoiled. Only a few undeniable signs broke the illusion of the forest primeval. Wooden walkways wound among the great trees, protecting the forest floor from careless feet, and there was a small gift shop near the entrance, polluting that part of the wood with the smell of human habitation. Tybalt lashed his tail as he glared in that direction, then continued down the wooden path, a dark streak moving through the growing shadow as the night descended.
I kept my hand on the hilt of my knife as I walked, flinching a little every time the bushes rustled. An owl hooted in the distance. The sound was answered by another, deeper hoot, before a chorus of frogs began to sing somewhere in the creek that ran beneath the wooden planks.
The Luidaeg paced next to me, her dark curls almost blending into the background. Her feet were silent, unlike Connor’s or Quentin’s; the two of them alone managed to sound like an entire invading army as their shoes clomped on the walkway. She looked at my face, reading the tension there, before casting a glance back over her shoulder and whispering a word in a language I didn’t recognize. The temperature of the air around us dropped by several degrees, and the sound of their footsteps stopped.
I nodded silent thanks, the need to stay as quiet as possible saving me from the effort of talking my way around the forbidden words, and kept on going.
Muir Woods was designed to retain as much of the spirit of the land as possible, while making it accessible to humans at the same time. They wouldn’t preserve anything they couldn’t appreciate, or so the logic ran; unless they saw the true beauty of California’s wilderness for themselves, they’d never understand why they shouldn’t burn it all to ashes. I’ve never understood that sort of thinking, but this time, it was working in our favor. We’d have been moving a lot slower if we’d been forced to make our own way through the undergrowth.
Tybalt reached a fork in the path and stopped, looking one way and then the other before turning to look at the rest of us. Deliberately, he sat, flattening his ears.
I bit back a sigh. If Tybalt had lost the scent—and he wasn’t a bloodhound, no matter how cheerfully I exploited the keenness of his feline nose—we were going to need to try something else. I looked to the Luidaeg, raising an eyebrow.
She nodded and held out her hand, gesturing for me to give her mine. I didn’t hesitate. Whatever she needed from me, she could have it, if there was a chance it meant we’d be able to get my daughter back.
The Luidaeg raised my hand to her mouth, looking at me solemnly before making a “hush” gesture at Quentin and Connor. They hadn’t been making any noise. All three of us looked at her quizzically, trying to figure out what she wanted.
We were still looking at her quizzically when she opened her mouth and bit me hard enough to draw blood.
I’d been expecting pain—I’ve learned that when I let the Luidaeg take hold of any part of my anatomy, pain is going to follow very shortly—but it still took everything I had to grit my teeth against the urge to scream, or at least squeak. As it was, I made a small, muffled, moaning sound before clapping my free hand over my mouth, stopping anything else from getting free.
The Luidaeg withdrew her teeth from my flesh, studying the resulting puncture wounds for a moment before nodding to herself and letting go of me. Motioning for the rest of us to stay where we were, she stepped off the edge of the walkway and into the creek. Her feet slid into the water without a sound. My blood ran from the corner of her mouth, looking almost like chocolate syrup in the dark.
Chocolate syrup doesn’t sing to my senses. I cradled my wounded hand against my chest, trying not to think about the fact that I was bleeding, or that we were standing here while Rayseline might be torturing my daughter. Connor stepped up beside me, putting a comforting hand on my shoulder. I let myself lean into it, breathing slowly in and out, trying to ignore the smell of blood.
The smell of musk and pennyroyal joined the mingled scents of blood and redwood trees, and Tybalt stepped soundlessly up on my other side, back in his human form. He looked at Connor, and nodded. That was all; just nodded.
The Luidaeg stooped to grab something out of the creek. Then she straightened, holding a dripping, Y-shaped branch in one hand, and climbed back onto the walkway. She held out the branch to me. I took it, giving her a blank look. She mimed grasping the two short ends and holding it out like a—
Like a dowsing rod. Of course. I turned the stick around so that I would be holding it appropriately, only wincing a little as the bark rasped against the wounds made by the Luidaeg’s teeth. My blood ran down the right side of the stick, mixing with the water, as the copper-and-cut-grass smell of my magic started to rise. I wasn’t the one calling it, not on purpose, but I forced myself to relax and let it come. The Luidaeg knew what she was doing. My daughter needed me to trust her.
As if that thought were the key, the magic locked into place, and the dowsing rod in my hands twitched drowsily to life. It pulled, hard, toward the path up ahead. I started in that direction, holding the dowsing rod straight out in front of me. The others followed, fanning into a rough diamond formation: Quentin right behind me, Tybalt and Connor walking side by side, and the Luidaeg bringing up the rear.
All of them looked like they really wanted something they could hit. Anything that tried getting the jump on us in this forest was going to have a nasty surprise when it realized what it was dealing with.
“Good thinking.” I shut the trunk. “I’m glad you came.”
“No other places beckoned half so sweetly,” said Tybalt. “I’ll keep watch as we go.” He half-bowed, and was gone in a swirl of pennyroyal and musk. I looked down at the tabby tomcat now standing by my feet.
“Well?” I asked. “Were you going to take point or not?”
Tail high, he turned and trotted toward the open parking lot gate. I looked at the others.
“Come on. Let’s go get my daughter back.” Not waiting to see if they’d follow, I started after Tybalt. One way or another, this was going to end.
TWENTY-NINE
WALKING BENEATH THE TOWERING REDWOODS was very much like walking into a forest in the Summerlands: majestic and unspoiled. Only a few undeniable signs broke the illusion of the forest primeval. Wooden walkways wound among the great trees, protecting the forest floor from careless feet, and there was a small gift shop near the entrance, polluting that part of the wood with the smell of human habitation. Tybalt lashed his tail as he glared in that direction, then continued down the wooden path, a dark streak moving through the growing shadow as the night descended.
I kept my hand on the hilt of my knife as I walked, flinching a little every time the bushes rustled. An owl hooted in the distance. The sound was answered by another, deeper hoot, before a chorus of frogs began to sing somewhere in the creek that ran beneath the wooden planks.
The Luidaeg paced next to me, her dark curls almost blending into the background. Her feet were silent, unlike Connor’s or Quentin’s; the two of them alone managed to sound like an entire invading army as their shoes clomped on the walkway. She looked at my face, reading the tension there, before casting a glance back over her shoulder and whispering a word in a language I didn’t recognize. The temperature of the air around us dropped by several degrees, and the sound of their footsteps stopped.
I nodded silent thanks, the need to stay as quiet as possible saving me from the effort of talking my way around the forbidden words, and kept on going.
Muir Woods was designed to retain as much of the spirit of the land as possible, while making it accessible to humans at the same time. They wouldn’t preserve anything they couldn’t appreciate, or so the logic ran; unless they saw the true beauty of California’s wilderness for themselves, they’d never understand why they shouldn’t burn it all to ashes. I’ve never understood that sort of thinking, but this time, it was working in our favor. We’d have been moving a lot slower if we’d been forced to make our own way through the undergrowth.
Tybalt reached a fork in the path and stopped, looking one way and then the other before turning to look at the rest of us. Deliberately, he sat, flattening his ears.
I bit back a sigh. If Tybalt had lost the scent—and he wasn’t a bloodhound, no matter how cheerfully I exploited the keenness of his feline nose—we were going to need to try something else. I looked to the Luidaeg, raising an eyebrow.
She nodded and held out her hand, gesturing for me to give her mine. I didn’t hesitate. Whatever she needed from me, she could have it, if there was a chance it meant we’d be able to get my daughter back.
The Luidaeg raised my hand to her mouth, looking at me solemnly before making a “hush” gesture at Quentin and Connor. They hadn’t been making any noise. All three of us looked at her quizzically, trying to figure out what she wanted.
We were still looking at her quizzically when she opened her mouth and bit me hard enough to draw blood.
I’d been expecting pain—I’ve learned that when I let the Luidaeg take hold of any part of my anatomy, pain is going to follow very shortly—but it still took everything I had to grit my teeth against the urge to scream, or at least squeak. As it was, I made a small, muffled, moaning sound before clapping my free hand over my mouth, stopping anything else from getting free.
The Luidaeg withdrew her teeth from my flesh, studying the resulting puncture wounds for a moment before nodding to herself and letting go of me. Motioning for the rest of us to stay where we were, she stepped off the edge of the walkway and into the creek. Her feet slid into the water without a sound. My blood ran from the corner of her mouth, looking almost like chocolate syrup in the dark.
Chocolate syrup doesn’t sing to my senses. I cradled my wounded hand against my chest, trying not to think about the fact that I was bleeding, or that we were standing here while Rayseline might be torturing my daughter. Connor stepped up beside me, putting a comforting hand on my shoulder. I let myself lean into it, breathing slowly in and out, trying to ignore the smell of blood.
The smell of musk and pennyroyal joined the mingled scents of blood and redwood trees, and Tybalt stepped soundlessly up on my other side, back in his human form. He looked at Connor, and nodded. That was all; just nodded.
The Luidaeg stooped to grab something out of the creek. Then she straightened, holding a dripping, Y-shaped branch in one hand, and climbed back onto the walkway. She held out the branch to me. I took it, giving her a blank look. She mimed grasping the two short ends and holding it out like a—
Like a dowsing rod. Of course. I turned the stick around so that I would be holding it appropriately, only wincing a little as the bark rasped against the wounds made by the Luidaeg’s teeth. My blood ran down the right side of the stick, mixing with the water, as the copper-and-cut-grass smell of my magic started to rise. I wasn’t the one calling it, not on purpose, but I forced myself to relax and let it come. The Luidaeg knew what she was doing. My daughter needed me to trust her.
As if that thought were the key, the magic locked into place, and the dowsing rod in my hands twitched drowsily to life. It pulled, hard, toward the path up ahead. I started in that direction, holding the dowsing rod straight out in front of me. The others followed, fanning into a rough diamond formation: Quentin right behind me, Tybalt and Connor walking side by side, and the Luidaeg bringing up the rear.
All of them looked like they really wanted something they could hit. Anything that tried getting the jump on us in this forest was going to have a nasty surprise when it realized what it was dealing with.
