Deltora Quest #7: The Valley of the Lost (5 page)

L
ief felt a chill of fear, but straightened his shoulders. Barda stood like a rock, his hand on his sword. But Jasmine tossed back her hair and lifted her chin. “Still, we must go,” she said.

Doom reached forward and gripped her shoulders.
“You must not!”
he hissed between clenched teeth. “Listen to me! Your quest is already lost. If you persist, you will be lost also. And for what? For a dream! For nothing!”

Jasmine shook herself free and drew back so that she, Lief, and Barda were standing shoulder to shoulder. Doom stared at them for a moment, then raised his hands and dropped them again, in surrender.

“I have done my best,” he muttered. “I can do no more. But it is a waste. Already you have a following. Together we might have roused the people. We
might have stood united against the Shadow Lord. We might have saved Deltora.”

“For now, we must go our separate ways, it is true,” said Barda. “But when the time is right, we will join the fight together.”

“When the time is right …” Doom turned away. “I fear that time will never come for you, my friends. Not now.”

Grim-faced, he slung his pack on his shoulder and jerked his head to Dain. “Tell Neridah we are leaving,” he ordered. “I have already wasted too much time here, and Steven will not wait.”

With a backward glance at Lief, Barda, and Jasmine, Dain trudged unsteadily to the water’s edge.

“You know more than you are telling, Doom!” exclaimed Jasmine. “If you can help us, you should do so!”

Doom shook his head. “You have refused the only help I can give you,” he muttered. “You have no right to ask more.”

He frowned down at her from his great height. She looked up at him, her green eyes snapping with anger. Then, quite suddenly, he gave a short laugh.

“There is one thing I can do for you,” he said. He pulled a dark woollen cap from his pocket, and tossed it to her. “You and the bird are what make your party recognizable. Cover your hair with this. You are already dressed as a boy, and a ragged boy at that. Your hair is all that gives you away.”

Jasmine glared, as if uncertain whether to accept the gift or not, but finally her sense overcame her pride. She twisted up her hair and bundled on the cap, pulling it down around her ears. Instantly she was transformed. It was as though a scowling young boy stood before them.

Kree squawked. Plainly, he did not like the change. But Doom nodded. “That is better,” he said.

He turned as Dain approached, and frowned again as he saw that the boy was alone. “Why is Neridah not with you?” he snapped.

“She — she will not come,” Dain stammered. “She says she has decided to travel on, to her home.”

Doom snorted angrily. “So that is why she insisted on coming with me! I am sure she never intended to return. Life in the stronghold does not suit her. It is too hard, too dangerous, and there is no money to spare for the luxuries a spoiled athlete has grown used to.”

“But — is she not afraid the Grey Guards will track her down?” asked Lief.

“No doubt she thinks that she will be able to persuade you to escort her at least part of the way. And she is convinced that once she reaches home, she will be safe,” Doom shook his head. “She is a fool! Another fool who will not take heed of warnings.”

Without another word he turned and began striding away towards the hills. Dain hesitated for a moment, then murmured a hurried farewell, and went after him.

As Doom had predicted, Neridah did her best to persuade the companions to let her accompany them. At last she broke down and cried in Barda’s arms, wailing that she had left the Resistance only because Doom had broken her heart.

“I love him,” she sobbed. “But he is cruel, and cares nothing for me. I cannot stay where I see him every day. I cannot!”

Barda patted her shoulder awkwardly. But Jasmine regarded her with cold surprise and Lief — Lief knew enough of Neridah’s deceiving ways to wonder how real her tears were.

At last, at Barda’s urging, they agreed to let her travel with them for a day or two. “But after that, we must separate, Neridah,” Barda warned her gently. “Our goal is a dread and dangerous place.”

“The Valley of the Lost,” Neridah whispered. “I know. I heard its name, when you were speaking with Doom. You are so brave — braver by far than Doom realizes.”

Again, Lief wondered about her. She had shown no sign that she had heard what they were talking about with Doom. She had sat quite still, staring out at the lake as if lost in thought. And all the time she had been listening. She had heard the name of the Valley of the Lost. What else had she heard?

She is sly, he thought. We must be careful of her.

In the end, Neridah travelled with them for nearly a week. She protested strongly about travelling by night, and was a sulky and complaining companion. But though they passed many roads that led in the direction of her home, she refused to take them. Whenever Lief, Barda, and Jasmine tried to part with her, she cried and ran after them. She clung to them like honey, and at last she lost even Barda’s sympathy.

“I have begun to think that she is not being truthful with us,” he whispered one day, as Neridah sulked in her sleeping blanket. “She said she wished to go home. Why does she not do so?”

“I do not know,” Lief whispered back. “But we must do something about her quickly. I do not trust her, and I do not want her with us when we reach the Valley of the Lost. According to the map, and our reckoning, it is not far from here.”

“She will not willingly let us go on without her, that is certain,” Jasmine said grimly. “So we have two choices. One, hit her on the head, and run. Or, two, wait until we are sure that she is asleep, then creep away.”

She seemed a little disappointed when Lief and Barda chose the second course.

A few hours later they carried out the plan, sneaking away from the camping place like thieves. They walked fast all day, trying to keep under cover, and at sunset reached a range of steep, thickly wooded hills.

“The valley is within this range, I am sure of it,” said Barda.

Lief looked up at the hills. “It will be a long, hard climb,” he sighed. “And dangerous, for the woods are thick, and it will be very dark. The moon tonight is at its smallest. And tomorrow night there will be no moon at all.”

Jasmine pulled off her cap impatiently. “I can hear nothing with this thick wool over my ears!” she complained, shaking her hair free with relief. “Now — what were you saying? That it would be dark tonight? And that the woods are thick? Quite so. I suggest we sleep the night through, for once, knowing that we can climb in the morning, well hidden by the trees.”

The plan seemed an excellent one. They did exactly as Jasmine suggested. So it was not until the close of the following day that they reached the top of that ragged hill and looked down at the jagged crack in the earth that was the Valley of the Lost.

A
thick grey mist crawled sullenly on the valley floor. It lapped to the very tops of the trees, stirred by the slow movements of half-seen figures that thronged the depths. A faint, damp warmth smelling of green decay, of rotting wood, and of smothered life, brushed the friends’ faces like an echo of the mist.

Jasmine fidgeted. Filli was chattering into her ear. Kree, after a single clucking chirp, sat motionless on her arm. “They do not like the valley,” she murmured.

“I cannot say that I am entranced by it, either,” said Barda dryly.

Jasmine hunched her shoulders and shivered. Then, without another word, she turned and returned to the largest of the trees that ringed the lip of the cliff. In amazement, Lief and Barda watched her lift Filli from
her shoulder and put him onto the highest branch she could reach. Kree fluttered up beside him.

“I know you will take care of one another,” Jasmine said. “Keep safe.”

She turned and, without looking back, walked back to Lief and Barda. She met their questioning eyes calmly. “I told you,” she said. “Kree and Filli do not like the valley. They cannot go there.”

“Why?” Lief burst out. He looked down to where Kree and Filli still perched on their branch, staring after Jasmine forlornly.

Jasmine shrugged. “If they go there they will die,” she said simply. “The valley is not for them. Or any creature. The mist will kill them.”

A shiver ran down Lief’s back. “What about us?” he asked abruptly.

“There are people down there. I can see their shadows in the mist,” said Jasmine. “And if they can survive, so can we. We will go down to where the mist begins. Then we will decide what to do.”

Abruptly, she swung around and held up her hand to Filli and Kree. Then she turned once more, pulled her cap more firmly over her ears, and scrambled over the edge of the cliff.

Lief and Barda followed. The ground beneath their feet was steep and treacherous, slippery with loose stones. Half walking, half sliding, always in danger of falling, they moved down and down. After only a few
minutes, Lief lost the sense that he was walking of his own accord. The slippery stones, the steepness of the slope, were doing all the work for him. From the cliff edge, the valley floor had seemed very far away. Now it was growing closer by the moment.

Once, he looked back. The cliff-top towered high above them. Impossibly high. Impossibly far away. It was hard to believe he and his friends had ever stood there. Hard to believe that they had ever had the choice of descending, staying where they were, or even turning their backs and walking away from the valley.

For now it seemed that there was no choice. The closer they moved to the crawling mist, the more it seemed to draw them, and the steeper the slope became. It took far more energy to stand still than to move on. The companions clutched one another for support, but they could do little to help one another.

And before they realized it, the mist was around them. It was as if it had risen to meet them, brushing their faces with warm, damp fingers, casting a haze over their eyes. Slowly it stole into their mouths and noses, filling them with its oversweet scent, its taste of decay.

This was not the plan, Lief thought in confusion. He tried to stop in mid-stride, then slipped and fell, rolling blindly, gasping and scrambling on the stones. He heard Jasmine and Barda calling him in alarm, but could do nothing to save himself.

When finally he came to a stop, he realized that he was on the valley floor. The mist swirled thick about
him. Shadowy trees, thick with mold, hung with vines, stretched above his head. Great clumps of glistening dark red fungus bulged from twisted roots beside his face. Lush ferns arched around him, brushing his face and his hands as he scrambled, panting, to his feet.

And everywhere there was a soft sighing, like wind in the trees. But there was no wind. The sound seemed to come from everywhere, from all around him, out of the swirling greyness where darker shadows slipped and writhed, moving closer.

“Barda! Jasmine!” Lief shouted, gripped with sudden terror. But the mist muffled his voice so that it sounded thin and piping. And when his friends answered, their voices sounded far, far away.

He called again. He thought he heard a cry of pain, and his stomach lurched. But then he saw his friends stumbling towards him out of the gloom. He lurched forward, gripping their arms thankfully.

“Well, we are still alive, in any case,” growled Barda. “The mist has not killed us yet.”

But Jasmine said nothing. She had drawn her dagger and was standing very still, every muscle tense.

The sighing, whispering sound was louder. The mist around them stirred and billowed, the shadows deepening, closing in.

“Keep back!” Jasmine hissed, raising her dagger menacingly.

The shadows seemed to falter, but only for an instant. Then they pressed forward again. And now
Lief could see that they were people, crowds of men, women, and children coming through the mist, from all directions.

They did not look unfriendly. Indeed, their pale faces seemed filled with timid eagerness and welcome as they drifted forward, long, thin hands stretched out towards the companions. Their fingers were pale grey, almost transparent, and so were the long clothes that fluttered around them and the hair that hung lank down their backs. No wonder they had seemed part of the mist.

They whispered as they moved, the sound of their voices like dry leaves rustling in the wind, but Lief could understand nothing of what they said. Yet he did not feel threatened. Even when they came very close, and the first of them began touching his face, clothes, and hair with fingers that felt dry and light as moths’ wings, he felt no thrill of fear, only a shrinking distaste.

And still more of the people came, and more. The colorless rags they wore hung around limbs that seemed just skin and bone. Their shapes seemed to blend and mingle, overlapping as they pressed in, each hand moving upon a dozen others, touching, stroking …

Barda and Lief stood rigidly still. But Jasmine quivered, her mouth set and her eyes screwed shut.

“I cannot bear this,” she whispered. “Who are they? What is wrong with them?” Her dagger hung loosely in her hand. She made no move to use it. She
could not do so. The people were so plainly harmless, so plainly in some sort of terrible need.

There was a stir in the crowd. It swayed and shivered like a field of long grass swept by the wind. Then the fluttering hands were slipping away, and the people were backing, whispering, into the mist, their grey eyes filled with hopeless longing.

There was fear in the air. Lief could feel it. Almost smell it. Then he saw its source. A tall, dark shadow, pierced by two points of red light that glowed like burning coals, was coming through the mist towards them.

He tried to put his hand on his sword. But his hand would not move. He tried to step back. But his feet would not obey him. A single glance told him that Barda and Jasmine were under the same spell.

The shadow gathered form and shape. Now Lief could see that the red coals were eyes, eyes that burned in the ravaged face of a tall, bearded man wearing a long, dark robe. The man held two thick grey cords in each of his hands. They stretched away into the mist behind him, as though they were attached to something, but he paid no attention to them. His burning eyes were fixed on Lief, Barda, and Jasmine.

They struggled to free themselves, and his thin lips curved into a smile that was full of malice.

“Do not waste your strength,” he purred. “You can do nothing unless I will it. As you will learn, in time. Welcome to my valley. It has been a long time since I
have had the pleasure of visitors. And now I am blessed with four.”

He watched with keen pleasure as Lief, Barda, and Jasmine glanced at one another in surprise.
Four
visitors? What did he mean?

“Perhaps you thought to trick me by splitting your party, did you?” he said. “Ah, that is what I like to see. Visitors who like games. That will make things so much more pleasant, for all of us.”

He crooked a bony finger. And to the companions’ amazement, out of the mist stumbled Neridah, her bewildered face bruised and bleeding.

She had stubbornly followed them, despite everything they had done! Now they had her to worry about, as well as themselves. Gritting his teeth in anger, Lief remembered the cry he had heard. No doubt Neridah had tripped coming down the steep slope alone.

He glanced at the woman in helpless irritation as she staggered to a halt beside him. But Neridah did not look at him. She was staring straight ahead, her eyes dark with fear and confusion.

Their tormentor was rubbing his hands.

“Who are you?” Lief demanded.

The man smiled mockingly.

“I?” he purred. “Why, have you not guessed? I am the Guardian.”

With a swirl of his robes, he turned and began walking away into the mist. Just before the companions
lost sight of him, he carelessly lifted one hand and crooked the index finger.

And, unable to help themselves, feet dragging as they fought to resist his command, Neridah, Lief, Jasmine, and Barda stumbled after him.