Deltora Quest #2: The Lake of Tears (6 page)

T
hat night they slept under a cluster of sweet-plum bushes far away from any stream or path. None of them wanted to be seen by anyone who might tell Thaegan where they were.

They were cold and uncomfortable, for their clothes were still damp and stiff with mud and they could not risk lighting a fire. But still they fell asleep at once, exhausted by all that had befallen them.

Sometime after midnight, Lief stirred. Moonlight shone palely through the leaves of the bushes, making shadows and patches of light on the ground. Everything was very silent. He turned over and tried to settle to rest once more. But, though his body still ached with weariness, thoughts had begun chasing one another through his mind, and sleep would not come.

Beside him, Manus was sighing and twitching — tormented, no doubt, by dreams.

It was not surprising that it should be so. Using signs and the strange picture-writing of his people, Manus had told them that he had been a prisoner of Jin and Jod for five long years. He had been making his way from Raladin to Del when, lured from the path by the tempting scent of the sweetplum bushes, he had fallen into the quicksand and been captured.

Lief could not bear to think of the long misery that the little man had suffered since then. Barda’s understanding of Ralad’s writing was not complete — but still he could translate enough to tell the terrible story.

Manus had been forced to work like a slave, beaten, starved, and treated with terrible cruelty. Tied to the wall of the kitchen, he had been forced to watch helplessly as Jin and Jod trapped, killed, and ate victim after helpless victim. Finally he had escaped — only to be seized by the troop of Grey Guards when he was almost home, and forced to march back the way he had come.

For five years he had lived with fear and loathing in the company of wickedness.

No wonder his sleep was haunted by nightmares.

When Lief asked him how long the journey to Raladin would take, he had answered quickly, scribbling on the earth with his finger.

“Three days,” Barda said heavily, looking at the marks. “If Thaegan does not catch us first.”

If Thaegan does not catch us first
…

Lief lay hunched on the ground and shivered as he thought of the letter “T” and the question mark. Where was Thaegan now? What was she doing? What orders was she giving?

The darkness of the night seemed to press in on him. The silence was heavy and menacing. Perhaps, even now, Thaegan’s demons were stealing towards him like flickering shadows. Perhaps they were stretching out long, thin hands to clutch feet and ankles and drag him, screaming, away …

Sweat broke out on his forehead. A gasp of terror caught in his throat. He fought to stay still, not to wake the others. But the fear grew in him until he felt as though he must scream aloud.

The topaz protects its wearer from the terrors of the night
…

He scrabbled under his shirt and pressed his shaking fingers against the golden gem. Almost at once the shadows seemed to shrink, and the terrible beating of his heart slowed.

Panting, he rolled onto his back and stared up through the leaves of the sweetplum bush. The moon was three-quarters of the way to full. Black against the starry sky was the proud shape of Kree, perched on the branch of a dead tree above them. The bird’s head was up, and his yellow eyes shone in the moonlight.

He was not sleeping. He was alert. He was on guard.

Strangely comforted, Lief turned onto his side again. Only three days, he thought. Only three days to Raladin. And Thaegan will not catch us. She will not.

He closed his eyes and, still clutching the topaz, let his mind slowly relax into sleep.

In the morning they set off again. At first they kept to small, well-hidden paths, but little by little they were forced into the open as the trees and bushes became less and the ground grew more parched.

They met no one. Now and again they passed houses and larger buildings where once grain had been stored or animals tended. All were deserted and falling into ruins. Some were marked with the Shadow Lord’s brand.

At evening, as the light began to fail, they chose an empty house and set up camp there for the night. They filled their waterbags at the well and helped themselves to any food they found that was not spoiled.

They took other supplies, too, collecting rope, blankets, clothes, a small digging tool, a pot to boil water, candles, and a lantern.

Lief felt uneasy about taking things that belonged to others. But Manus, grieving at every sign of fear, destruction, and despair in the house, shook his head and pointed to a small mark scratched on the wall beside the window. It was the same mark he had made in the dust when he first saw them in the clearing.

He trusted them enough, now, to tell them what the mark meant. It was the Ralad sign both for a bird and for freedom. But it had spread far beyond Raladin, and had taken on a special meaning throughout Deltora. Carefully, Manus explained what the meaning was:

The freedom mark had become a secret signal used between those who had sworn to resist the tyranny of
the Shadow Lord. By it they recognized one another — and told enemies from friends.

Before the owners of this deserted house had died or fled, they had left the mark for any future traveler of their kind to find. It was the only way they had of showing their defiance in defeat, and their hope for the future. It made Lief understand that they would have been glad to give anything they had to help the cause.

It was indeed fortunate that we found Manus, he thought. It is almost as if fate has brought us together for a purpose. As if our steps are being guided by an unseen hand.

He was half ashamed of the thought. Like his friends in Del, he had always jeered at such talk. But his journey had taught him that there were many things of which his friends in Del knew nothing, and many mysteries he was still to understand.

They moved on the next morning, and now that they knew what to look for they saw the freedom mark everywhere. It was chalked on crumbling walls and fences, marked out with pebbles on the ground, scratched into the trunks of trees.

Every time he saw it, hope rose in Lief. The sign was evidence that, however things were in the city of Del, in the countryside there were still people who were as willing as he was to defy the Shadow Lord.

Manus himself, however, was growing more and more serious and worried. The sight of the deserted countryside, the ruined houses, made his fears for his own village grow stronger with every step he took.

He had first left home, it seemed, when his people heard that the Shadow Lord wanted more slaves, and that his eyes were fixed on Raladin. The Shadow Lord had heard that the Ralads were hard workers of great strength and builders beyond compare.

Manus was to seek help from the resistance groups that the Ralads thought must exist in Del. They did not know that resistance in the city had been crushed long ago, and that their hopes of help were in vain.

Manus had been away over five years — years in which Thaegan had laid the land further to waste. He had no idea what he might find in Raladin.

But doggedly he moved on, hurrying despite his exhaustion. By the end of the third day it was all they could do to persuade him to rest for the night.