Chapter Ten Trouble Beyond Trouble #3
Kell was glad Timtim had given what Saeldian couldn’t ask for and what Kell couldn’t offer. Osalor! What a—poltroon. What an ass. What a brute. Too much about Saeldian made sense now, and Kell didn’t want to understand them.
“All right. Next step,” Saeldian said. “I’m certain we’ll find the bridge Osalor was talking about. It’s very close by, obviously.”
“Obviously.” Jubilee picked up the thread. “We’ll find the bridge and then Kell can do the meditation thing he did to find you, Sheld. It only took a few minutes, and he knew exactly where to go. It’ll be easy.”
“And then we’ll be in Eightbridge,” Lorzok said. “Have you heard of it? How it works?”
“It’s where the spire of Menoriath fell,” Saeldian said. “Look, Osalor showed me what it looked like.”
An illusion sprang from their upraised palm. A shining, cut-jewel tower refracted rainbows with colors Kell could see but couldn’t name. It leaned just a little off-center. Buildings and towers clustered at its ankles, fading at the boundaries of Saeldian’s little vision.
“That’s the place,” they said, firm as an oak, making their voice confident as they believed what they said as hard as they could. “And any bridge can lead to Eightbridge, if you need it to badly enough.”
Essanderon’s Rest had been a forest first and a village second. It had been a place of sunshine and shade. Would Kell’s family dwell in the quilted city of Eightbridge?
It made sense. It wasn’t one court or the other. It was the safest place to be. Maybe they lived in one of the smaller domains that had gathered around the spire to make safety in numbers.
Everyone stood still, and Kell realized they were waiting for him to move.
That made sense. He was the finder, after all.
But Kell had no idea where they were, which was a funny thing to be concerned about in the truewild.
That didn’t have meaning the way it did on Toril, where distance stayed distant.
It was time for Kell to guide them, and he could do this.
They were in the truewild, and everything was fine.
The ground and the air thrummed with music Kell knew.
It was the music he heard when his mind wandered, or in the place between dreaming and awareness, or just barely audible in the corner of his ear.
The music that snuck into his bow when he forgot to play a song and just made sounds.
Those sounds were the music of the Feywild, and it had been so long that he didn’t know he was remembering it. The music reached for a melody, a key, waiting for him to gather the stuff of it and—
—not sing. He hummed it in his head, turned clockwise around an ash, and there was the bridge, exactly as Osalor had described: an arch of stone blocks that crossed a depression that wandered between the trees.
It looked sturdy, even if the stream it had crossed was gone.
He could close his eyes just before he set foot on it and open them as he touched ground, and they would be looking at the spire, shining its impossible colors where the light touched it.
And Kell could not take one more step.
“Kell,” Jubilee said after a pause. “Are you going to…Wait. Do you need to do something first?”
Kell blinked. The birdsong politely fell silent. “Yes. We need a gift.”
“A gift.”
“We definitely need a gift,” Kell said, letting the idea babble for him. “It’s impolite to arrive without something for your hosts.”
Saeldian shifted. “I didn’t—wait. I think I might still have a brooch in my pack.”
“But it shouldn’t be anything too extravagant.”
“I want to complain about not being informed that we had to bring the perfect gifts, but I’m not going to because we were all rushed into this,” Saeldian not-complained. “So could you maybe give us an example?”
Lorzok cleared his throat. “Timtim has a suggestion.”
Timtim was nibbling away at—no, under—a low plant with round toothy leaves.
“Strawberries are perfect. Everyone pick a handful.”
The berries were tiny—no bigger than his thumbnail—and they were deep red and tempting. Kell filled a pouch with them, keeping an eye on the others. Then he looked back when his thoughts caught up to what he saw.
Saeldian, squatting the way a farmer would to collect a handpicked harvest, low to the ground, solidly balanced, straight-backed. They picked up a cloth bag and moved easily to the next clump, carefully and expertly picking fruit.
The Saeldian he knew didn’t pick strawberries from anything but a crystal dish.
But the gardens and orchards at Righthoof Manor didn’t harvest themselves, did they?
Bastion and Serenity wouldn’t speak so fondly of Saeldian if they didn’t do their share.
But between Saeldian and Jubilee, they’d nearly gathered enough berries for a pie.
Timtim thumped.
“Did you find something?” Kell ambled over to see a clump of golden-veined mushrooms on a fallen birch.
“Good nose, Timtim.”
Timtim leapt into the air, twisting so he faced the other way, and dashed toward Lorzok. Kell went back to the fallen tree.
Yolk mushrooms? They were the right color and shape.
Kell nicked one with his dagger. It didn’t turn purple, so he could touch it.
It smelled right—a bit like stonefruit and an earthen smell that woke up the sides of his tongue.
Rows of pale and creamy ridges on the underside forked apart and joined together.
Yolk mushrooms. Verandil’s favorite.
Kell closed his eyes. The breeze shivering through the leaves hitched. The songbirds fell quiet.
“It’s all right,” he said to the wood. “Don’t stop on my account. It’s probably a sign. I wouldn’t have found these if—”
He didn’t finish the sentence. He had an extra linen square in a pack pocket. He gathered—not too many, but enough. Strawberries and yolk mushrooms would make a good gift. Exactly the right gift for Verandil. He tied the corners of the cloth together and aimed toward the bridge.
“I’m ready,” Kell said. “Let’s go.”
Saeldian reached out one arm for Timtim. “Up you come.”
Jubilee grabbed her pack off the ground. Kell kept walking, leading with the bundle of mushrooms. He couldn’t wait to take them to Verandil and see how he had grown and what he’d become. Was he still the best target archer of all his friends?
Kell set one foot on the stone bridge, and the air pressed closer to him. Verandil would be so happy for a batch of mushrooms. He’d be happy to see Kell. Every step brought him closer to his brother.
He reached the top of the arch just as the woodland whispered, If he still lives.
Kell couldn’t move then. He should have ignored it, acted as if he hadn’t heard anything, kept walking on his way to Verandil, whom he could always find, hiding or not—
If he still lives. If any of them still live.
Doubt and fear snuck up right behind him after years of staying well ahead of them.
He’d waited and waited for Terandis to return for him.
Kell had walked backward around every tree, spoke every rhyme that came to mind, promised the night sky anything if the way would open and he could find them.
He searched for a way back to the world where his family still lived, but…
But the way had opened at last. And now that he was here, one more step could tell him that everyone in his memories no longer lived, and he would know that he was alone.
“Kell.”
Lorzok’s voice. Lorzok’s hand on his shoulder.
“How can I help?”
Lorzok couldn’t help. He’d never been here. He didn’t have a point to build a path to. Kell had to get them to a place that wasn’t the truewild between the domains. He was the only one who could.
So he had to pick up his foot and walk straight for Verandil. He had to clear his mind of doubt. He had to clear his mind of the fear that he had been alone all this time. He had to forget that everyone he loved might not be there to be found.
“What if I can’t find them?”