The Flute Keeper's Promise (The Flute Keeper Saga) (35 page)

Trapper Toussant’s head snapped up
and his eyes sparkled beneath their bushy brows. “Well now, I’ll tell you what!
You need to talk to Natty. I think she has some jewelry that one of them fellows
traded for a bag of grain. Meet me back here and I’ll get you your map.”

Trapper Toussant limped into town
and vanished inside one of the buildings. Valory flapped her big wings and took
to the air. Natty and her children were already quite a ways down the road. I
had no hope of catching up, so I waited by Commander Larue’s grave.

I sat down and rubbed my palm on
the fresh burial mound. I didn’t know what the citizens of Feegman’s Boot had
done with the other bodies. I didn’t care. All that mattered was that I deliver
Commander Larue’s message. I kept the stone he’d brought from Helm Bogvogny in
my pocket. However sinister its origins, it was the last link I had to him.

Valory returned. She wasn’t wearing
her fur coat. At first she seemed cross but she flashed me a smile and showed
me a bracelet made of sparkling opals.

“Got it! One of those resistance
people traded this bracelet to Natty and Natty gave the bracelet to her
daughter on her birthday. Ornery little brat. She couldn’t even fit the thing
around her wrist, but she wouldn’t trade it unless I gave her my coat.”

I admired the opal bracelet. It was
a finely crafted piece of jewelry of the sort that only master artisans could
make. I hadn’t seen anything so pretty since leaving Ivywild. “Sorry about your
coat.”

Valory shrugged. “The days should
be getting warmer now and it’s heavy, so I won’t miss it much. It’s just
sentimentality. Almyra helped me make it.”

“What about the bracelet?” I asked.
“Is there any scent left on it?”

Valory slipped the bracelet on her
wrist and sniffed it deeply. “Once you get past the Brownie smell there’s a
little hint of something that smells like flowers.”

“Fay women bathe in flowered
water,” I said. “That must be it. Can you pick out a trail off that alone?”

“I can try,” Valory said, pushing
her hair behind her ear. “If it’s been months since they last came this way it
won’t be easy.”

Trapper Toussant reappeared with a
yellowed, torn piece of cloth. It looked very old. The ink, probably made from
a root, had faded to a light brown.  

“What’s that?” Valory asked.

“The only map in the town of
Feegman’s Boot,” Trapper Toussant said. “It’s been hanging in Clementine’s
brothel for as long as I can recall.”

Valory wrinkled her forehead.
“What’s a brothel?”

“Never mind that,” I said, taking
the map. It smelled of pipe smoke and low-quality perfume. “Let’s see…there are
no trails marked north of here.”

“Well of course a secret group
isn’t gonna set up shop just off the beaten path,” Valory said, snatching the
map from me. “Here’s what you’ve got to figure. They’ll need a steady supply of
water, so it’s gonna be by a stream or something.”

My spirits sank again. “It looks
like streams crisscross all over the place.”

“Right,” Valory said. “But there’s
other things. See these pointy marks over here? That’s some real barren slopes.
There’s no good hunting there and the weather’s always nasty, so we can rule
that out.”

“That just leaves that big space
with all those swishy markings,” I said, indicating one whole third of the map.

“The lower part of that is all
saltwater swamps,” Trapper Toussant said. He blocked off part of the area with
his hand. “Nobody would settle there unless they wanted to catch mudgump fever.”

“So what’s all that above it?”
Valory asked.

Trapper Toussant pointed to an area
of markings so thick that the ink had bled together in splotches. “Forest. It’s
full of big, needle-leaf trees. Dryads don’t like to live in em’ because the
sap is so bitter.”

“That has to be it!” I said.
“Secluded with no Dryads around to give away the location…”

“Yep, and look at this,” Valory
said. She pointed to a squiggly line that ran next to an inkblot. There might
have been writing by it at one time, but now it was too faded to read. “What do
you reckon that is?”

“Looks like some kind of building
or town or something,” I said, turning the map around to see it better. “A
river runs by it!”

Trapper Toussant smiled. “Sounds
like you girls are on your way. I’ll be on mine. Good luck to the both of you.
I still owe you a drink if you ever come back.”

I glanced at Commander Larue’s
grave. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back someday for sure.”

We plunged into the wilderness with
only the map and the sky to tell us where to go. Valory had not picked up the
bracelet’s scent anywhere yet.

I remained quiet most of the day,
alternating between grief over Commander Larue and hope that Lord Finbarr might
be among the resistance fighters. Of course, we’d have to find the rumored
encampment first.  The distance on the map looked enormous. I hadn’t dared to
ask how many days of travel it would be.

The air became thicker and warmer
as we dropped in elevation from the mountains. Green shoots poked up from the
rocky terrain. New leaf buds showed on all the trees. The forest hummed with
little creatures stirring after their winter nap.

At sundown Valory heaved our camp
supplies onto a patch of flat earth. “Bollywarts. All this way and I still
can’t pick up the scent of whoever wore this bracelet.”

I heard tree branches rustling
above us. “Hello? Is there a Dryad present?” I asked.

“Indeed,” said an unseen voice.
“What do you want?”

“I don’t bother talking to Dryads,”
Valory whispered to me. “They like to play mean tricks and steer you the wrong
direction.”

Her warning made me think of Chloe
and her prejudice against mermaids. I hoped Valory and Chloe could meet
someday.

 “Listen,” I said to the Dryad.
“We’re trying to find some Fay who might have come this way before winter. Did
you see anybody?”

“I have not,” the Dryad said. “But
my sisters south of here tell of murder in the town of Feegman’s Boot. Do you
know anything about that?”

Valory and I exchanged a guilty
look.

“No,” I said. “We’re just passing
through.”

“I’d much prefer it if you slept
somewhere else,” said the Dryad in her terse little voice.

“See,” Valory said. She stuck her
tongue out at the tree. “Bunch of stuck-up snobs. They think they’re so neat
because they live in trees. Why, if I had my axe with me—”

“Come on,” I said. I grabbed the
camping supplies and tugged Valory’s arm.

“I want to camp here now just to
spite her!” Valory said, glaring at the tree.

I sighed. The last thing we needed
was a forest of Dryads angry at us. “Let’s just go. If you stop making a fuss
I’ll tell you what a brothel is.”

We made camp in a little valley far
away from the Dryad. I heard whispers following us. The trees teemed with life,
most of it invisible.  It made me think of the elevatree at Ivywild.

“You’re doing it again,” Valory
said as she tied back the tent flap. “What are you thinking of this time? I can
tell it’s not that boy because your heart’s not beating all fast.”

I stared, too amazed to be
embarrassed. “You can hear my heart?”

“Yep,” Valory said. “I thought it
was gonna pound right out of your chest when Commander Larue was talking to
you. You were real scared, weren’t you?”

I pulled my knees up to my chest
and laid my cheek on them. “Yeah. Yeah, I was. Commander Larue was the greatest
man I ever knew next to my own father. If they could do that to him…well, it’s
almost like there’s no hope for the rest of us.”

“Aw, don’t think like that,” Valory
said in a low, soothing voice. “We’ve made it this far.”

A lump welled up in my throat. I’d
been holding it back since the moment the commander died. “What if it’s all for
nothing? Sometimes I can’t help but ask myself that. All the good people that
have died, all the friends I’ve lost…all for what?”

The shadow of motherly concern
clouded Valory’s face. For a few moments the age gap between her and me felt
larger than a mere two years. “But you can’t think like that, Em. You just
can’t. You keep going. That’s all. You just keep going and one day all the bad
guys will get theirs and you’ll be sittin’ pretty, eating sweet cream pie.”

I reached the breaking point. I
couldn’t hold it in any more. “I DON’T WANT SWEET CREAM PIE! I WANT COMMANDER
LARUE BACK! I WANT MY DAD! I WANT TO GO HOME TO IVYWILD AND I WANT THE DUKE AND
ROBYN TO FALL OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH!”

Valory didn’t try to hush me. She
wrapped her arms around my shoulders and sheltered me with her wings. She had
no way of knowing that it was exactly what Lev would have done and the thought
of him only made me more upset.

“There, there,” Valory said.
“You’re all right. Just let it out. Even knives of the strongest iron can break.
We’ll just smelt you back together and you’ll be good as new.”

“I’m not made of iron,” I said, my
voice cracking. “Commander Larue was and you saw how easily they broke him!”

Valory rested her chin on my matted
hair. “Maybe you’re made of wood then, like that tree over there. You got
chopped down but we’ll make something stronger out of the pieces.”

Her soft, calm words helped me
regain control. I sniffled and wiped my eyes. “I’m afraid all the pieces aren’t
here. Part of me is in Ivywild and always will be.”

Valory sat back. “Tell me about
it.”

I took a shaky breath. “Ivywild? I
told you lots about it over the winter.”

“Tell me again,” Valory said.

So I told her about the first time
I saw the castle, rising like a mountain of crystal over the emerald valley. I
told her about the elevatree and the open-air market. I told her about the
servants and the Pixie messengers. I described the beaded, feathered creations that
hung in Chloe’s closet. I told her about the view of the courtyard from my room
and described how a full moon made Ivywild River sparkle like a silver necklace
running through the castle grounds. I talked of the Master Casters and how they
used to guard the castle walls in their purple uniforms. Now crimson guarded
those walls, not purple, but in my mind it would always be Commander Larue and
his eager young soldiers.

When I finished I had calmed down
considerably, although inside there was still a throbbing ache. I rested my
head on my knees and stared into space.

Valory sat and looked up at the
stars. She was so quiet and so still that she might have been a statue. After a
long time she spoke. She took her time choosing her words and spoke carefully,
playing down her usual country brogue.

“It all sounds very pretty, Emma,
but it isn’t why you fight. It’s the people you care about. I lived in Almyra’s
hut all my life, but I didn’t have pains about leaving it when the time came because
there wasn’t nobody left there for me to care about. You’ve got to stop
thinking on Ivywild and look ahead. We’re already on the right track. We’re
hunting up your friends. That’s the pieces you’re missing.”

Her words were profound enough to
rattle me out of my pity party. I shoved my hair out of my face, letting the
night air cleanse the evidence of tears from my cheeks. “Valory, sometimes I
think you’re a genius and you’re just hiding it.”

Valory’s brows drew together.
“What’s a genius? Is that like a kind of flower?”

“No,” I said. “It means you’re a
very smart person. It’s a little scary, to be honest, especially having known
your parents and your half-brother. I think you’re smart in a different way,
though.”

A grayish color tinged Valory’s
white cheeks. “Pshaw. I may not be a droolin’ idiot, but I wouldn’t call myself
a genius.”

The next day found me in better
spirits. We packed up camp, consulted the map and continued our trek to the
north.

By the end of the second day Valory
still hadn’t picked up the scent of any Fay.

“Maybe they didn’t come this way,”
I suggested. “It’s all unmarked wilderness. Or maybe they flew.”

“There should be
something
,”
Valory said as she sniffed at trees frantically like a puppy in a new place.
“Even if they were flying they’d have to stop for relief breaks.”

“Relief breaks?”

“To go pee. All I smell is animal
pee. People pee smells different.”

 “Good to know.”

We continued to navigate by the map
for the next day and the next. The mountains disappeared behind us and now even
the foothills lay far behind. The forest was thick with the sounds of birdcalls
and Dryad whispers. The air hung in damp, warm pockets that made my leather
clothes stick to me. Gnats hovered in a constant cloud around my face. Valory
took to flying more often to get a break from the muggy forest.

On the afternoon of the fourth day,
Valory let out a shout that disrupted a whole flock of birds from the branches
over my head. She swooped down and landed next to me, cursing.

“Bloody bull maggots and
stinkshrooms!”

“What? What is it?” I asked in
alarm.

“We’ve veered off course. We’re too
far south. When I was flying just now, I saw those swamps Trapper Toussant
warned us about.”

I pushed my sweaty hair out of my
face. The cloud of gnats sensed fresh meat and buzzed even closer to my nose.

“I’d say we’re a day or two south
from where we need to be,” Valory said drearily.

“Man, what I’d give for an airplane
right now,” I said. “And a bath.”

“What’s an airplane?”

“It’s a big flying machine you take
to get to faraway places. I flew in one once. We went on vacation to Florida. I
was very small but I remember feeling funny when the plane took off because it
went up at an angle.”

Valory seemed to have forgotten her
question. She was watching my hand with a look of intense curiosity. I realized
I’d been drumming my fingers on my shortsword.