The Gypsy Morph

TWENTY

I N THE AFTERMATH of the battle with the skrails, Logan Tom wasn’t sure what had become of Kirisin. At first he thought the boy had fled into the darkness to seek sanctuary from the attack, and that was why Praxia was chasing after him. He hadn’t seen the skrails snatch the boy, his attention on the larger swarm circling overhead and the struggle taking place around the AV. But when Praxia came racing back clutching the small pouch with the Loden Elfstone, shouting at him that Kirisin was gone, he realized the truth of things.

Lost another one, he thought in frustration and dismay.

Praxia thrust the pouch at him like a weapon. “We can’t use this without Kirisin!” she snapped. “All of our people are trapped inside unless he frees them!”

For a moment he just stood there, seething. First it was the gypsy morph and now the Elven boy. The Lady had given him responsibility for both, and he had failed them equally. It was a bitter realization, especially since he had thought that after so many years of ceaseless, debilitating effort at stemming the subversion of children in the demon camps, he had finally been given a charge for which there was an end.

Protect the gypsy morph–the street kid Hawk–long enough to permit him to lead an exodus to a safehold that would provide them all with shelter against the destruction that was coming.

Protect Kirisin Belloruus, the Chosen of the Ellcrys, into whose hands had been placed the fate of an entire race of people.

Straightforward charges. He should have been able to fulfill them. Yet he had lost Hawk to the madness of the inhabitants of a compound and now he had lost Kirisin to a flock of demon–summoned skrails. While he had been lucky enough to have Hawk returned by an intervening magic, he could not rely on that happening with Kirisin.

More to the point, he had endured enough of personal failure.

“What are we going to do?” Praxia demanded. “Those things flew off with him! There’s no trail! We can’t possibly find him now!”

“Yes, we can,” he answered softly.

He told her to look after her companions, to bind their wounds and see to their needs. Two were dead, and the other two injured. She hesitated a moment, and then turned away to do as he had asked, muttering something about how he better be telling the truth.

“Watch my back!” he snapped at her.

Without bothering to see if she had heard him, he walked over to the Ventra and went back to work on the solar connectors. The AV was supposed to be virtually indestructible, yet something as small and unexpected as this shut it down. He shook his head. You couldn’t depend on machines to hold up, not anymore.

He had almost repaired the damage when the attack began, had been close enough to finishing that if he had been given just another half an hour, they would have escaped everything that had happened. He experienced a fresh wave of frustration thinking of this, but brushed it aside quickly so as not to disturb his concentration. Self–recrimination would not help. Anger would not help. Not yet. He would save all that for when he caught up to the skrails.

“Are you watching my back?” he called out again to Praxia.

She glanced at him from where she knelt by her injured companions, nodding her answer and saying nothing.

He should never have left Kirisin out in the open like that, he told himself. He should have kept him inside the Ventra where it would have been much more difficult for the skrails to get at him. He should have just locked the boy away. But would Kirisin have stood for it? He saw himself as a man, not a boy, and he would not have appreciated being treated as somehow less than the others. Besides, hindsight was twenty–twenty and all that. It was easy to second–guess himself now.

When he was finished with the repairs to the AV, he slipped behind the wheel, triggered the power key, and listened to the soft purr of the engine as it slowly revved up. Everything was working again. He gave it another minute, making sure, and then stepped back out and walked over to the Elves.

“When you’re able, start walking. Stay on this road. Follow it north to the river and wait for me there. Stay out of sight. If I don’t show by tomorrow, go in search of the camp where the children and their protectors are waiting. Find the boy Hawk. Tell him what has happened.”

“Ruslan and Que’rue can go,” Praxia replied. “I’m going with you.”

He shook his head. “No, you’re not. You’re going to do what I told you to do.”

Her face hardened. “I don’t answer to you, no matter who or what you think you are.”

He nodded. “No, you don’t. But you do answer to Kirisin. He gave you the Loden Elfstone in trust. He gave it to you to hold and keep safe until his return. You can’t give up that trust. And you can’t come with me if you’re holding the Elfstone.”

She stared at him without saying anything for a moment. “You have to find him,” she said finally. “You have to bring him back or everything we’ve done is for nothing.”

He almost laughed. As if he needed reminding. “Stay on the road,” he repeated. “I’ll find him and then I’ll find you.”

He climbed into the Ventra, released the locking mechanisms on the wheels, and without looking back drove away into the night.

He WAS A DOZEN miles or so down the road, retracing the route they had taken after escaping the Cintra, before he allowed himself a moment to reflect on the hopelessness of what he was undertaking. He had perhaps another six hours of darkness before dawn broke, so he had some time to catch up to the skrails–which, while efficient and quick, were not built for endurance. Having flown all day to fight a difficult battle, they would have to land and rest before making the journey back to the demon that had dispatched them. In a best–case scenario, they would wait for the demon and its army to catch up to them.

That gave him a small window of time to track them down. But that was all he had going for him. He had little hope of finding much of anything hidden within the screen of gloom that cloaked the surrounding countryside. Unless the skrails were foolish enough to reveal their presence, he had no idea how he was going to find them. They would not be roosting on the roadway where he might stumble on them; they would be off in the heavy brush or up in the rocks in a place where they could protect themselves. They probably did not expect anyone to try to give chase, since they had left no trail to follow, but they were not stupid enough to chance discovery by being careless.

So what was he to do?

As if in response, a shadow swept down across the front windshield of the Ventra before soaring off again into the darkness. Trim! He hadn’t seen the owl since he reached the Cintra. In truth, he had dismissed the bird from his mind completely.

The owl glided back across the road in front of him, as if marking his progress, and then disappeared into the darkness ahead. Trim was not there by accident or just to keep Logan company. He was taking him to Kirisin once more. He was showing him the way to where the skrails were holding the boy. If he could keep the bird in sight and if he were quick enough, he might have a chance at getting Kirisin back after all.

He accelerated the AV, one eye on the road and one eye on the owl, a jolt of adrenaline rushing through him.

With Trim leading the way, he tracked onward through the night, back down the roadway south, the big Ventra throbbing and growling all around him. He did not stop to rest; he did not stop to consider where he was. He pushed ahead with single–mindedness, intent on getting back something of what he had lost–not just that night, but over the past few weeks. Whether it was pride or self–confidence or just a sense of self–worth, he couldn’t say. Nor did it matter to him beyond the fact that he wanted to feel again that he could do what he had been given to do as a Knight of the Word.

It was still several hours until dawn when Trim took him off the road and into rougher country, high desert formed of mesquite and scrub and, in the distance, clusters of boulders and high bluffs. In between, ravines crisscrossed the landscape in a maze of deep rifts. Logan drove into this rolling, obstacle–riddled landscape almost recklessly, slowing only when the ravines or the boulders made it absolutely necessary. The Ventra was built for terrain like this and could take the shocks and jolts. Trim wheeled and soared in the sky ahead, giving Logan his direction, telling him where he should go. It almost seemed as if he were responding to what the Knight of the Word was thinking: Hurry!

The rough travel went on for what seemed an endless distance, and Logan began to feel that he might run out of time after all. Dawn could not be that far away, and once it was light there was a good chance that the skrails would move the boy again. At best, it would become more difficult to sneak up on them undetected. The danger in being caught out was not to himself, but to the boy. They might choose simply to kill him, or alternatively to move him again so that Logan could not follow. He had to reach Kirisin before it got light enough to see by.

Then all of a sudden Trim flew back at him from out of the night, wheeled about, and landed on the branch of a dead tree just ahead. Logan slowed the Ventra 5000 to a stop, shut it down, and climbed out. He walked over to the owl and stood looking up at him. Trim did not move, regarding him silently. Logan understood. The owl had taken him as far as possible with the AV. Now he must leave the vehicle and proceed on foot.

For just an instant, as he stood staring off into the night–shrouded distance, he considered casting off everything he had become as a Knight of the Word and reverting to how he had been when he was with Michael. It was an unexpected impulse, one born of his frustration with his present life and regrets for lost pieces of his last. His memories of his time with Michael–memories other than those of Michael’s descent into madness–still resonated. Good memories. One was of times like this, when they would seek out enemy patrols come in search of them. They would strip down to almost nothing, paint themselves with camouflage, and go hunting their enemies with nothing but knives. They would stalk them and kill them and then disappear back into the night as if they had never been there. It was a game they played, a challenge they gave themselves, dangerous and seductive. Surviving it provided validation of who and what they were, of their ability to confront and defeat the death that was constantly stalking them.

Get in and get out. Leave no footprints. Those were Michael’s words of caution to him each time they played the game. Leave no sign that you were ever there. That you even existed. Leave nothing but the bodies of the dead to show that death stalked their enemies, too.

Logan Tom thought about how it would feel to do that again, to turn back the clock, to strip away everything and go hunting. He thought about abandoning the staff of his office and taking up one of the big hunting knives instead. He would shed his identity as a Knight of the Word. He would become for just that night a nameless, faceless hunter—a predator, a warrior–confronting his enemies with nothing but his skill and strength and weapons that carried no magic upon which he could rely to defend himself.

It was a ridiculous idea, but there it was. He let it linger for just a moment, savoring the freedom it offered and the intense sense of satisfaction it would provide, and then he cast it aside. There was too much at stake for such madness, and he was no longer the boy he had been, no longer the student to Michael’s teacher, no longer the willing follower of a man who would one day try to kill him.

He took a deep breath and exhaled, tightening his hands about his black staff. “Show me where they are, Trim,” he said to the owl.

Trim seemed to understand. Lifting off the dead branch, he soared away into the distance. Logan Tom waited a moment, tracking the bird’s flight, and then stripped off his jacket and followed after.

They passed through the darkness as silently as night’s shadows, Trim flying ahead, Logan in pursuit. The Knight of the Word kept up a steady pace, running smoothly, eyes on the terrain he passed through, the black staff cradled beneath one arm. He was careful of the terrain, avoiding the rougher parts, the places he could be tripped up and injured, the deadwood and jagged rocks and deep crevices. He could feel the sweat form on his brow, and it mirrored the intense heat of his desire to track down the skrails. He had no illusions about what that meant; he understood the nature of who he was. He was trained to fight, and he looked forward to testing himself in combat. When he was going into battle, he was alive in a way that was both exciting and satisfying. He was complete. He was afraid, too, but that was to be expected. He was always afraid. He would have been a fool if he were not. But fear was something to be overcome, an enemy of a different sort, not something from which to run away but something to confront. He had done so many times in his life, and each time it made him a little stronger, a little more self–assured.

The minutes passed, and still he saw nothing of the skrails. Trim soared and dove, rose and fell, a fleet shadow against the sky, always wheeling back to find him, to make certain he was following. There was no sign of anything other than themselves in this desolate country, no movement amid the rocks and scrub, no sounds to break the silence. It felt as if they were alone in the world, the last two living things, running to escape the fate that had befallen all others.

And wasn’t that, he wondered, pretty much the truth of what he was doing every day of his life?

Ahead, Trim wheeled back sharply and landed on a rock. Logan Tom slowed in response, sensed the hidden presence farther on, and stopped. He peered into the darkness, breathing heavily, his magic–enhanced senses registering the skrail keeping watch just out of sight.

He had found them.

He felt a fierce sense of satisfaction, knowing that they had not escaped him after all, that he had been right in supposing they must stop for the night, that they did not think they were in danger of being followed and thought themselves safe.

He stood where he was, unmoving. His breathing gradually slowed, but his mind was working rapidly as he considered his options. He would get Kirisin back from them; that much was settled. But how was he going to go about it? Should he annihilate them, so that he could be certain they would give no further pursuit? Or should he kill enough of them that they would think twice about coming after him? Or should he simply find and kill their leader?

Or should he do something else entirely?

The night was a soft, silky blanket of silence and darkness that enveloped him and rendered him invisible to those he had tracked and found. It whispered to him with words of encouragement. He could do whatever he wanted. He could make any choice and not be wrong in doing so. He could do anything. He was invincible.

Just like that, the choice was made.

Kirisin WAS DOZING, drifting in and out of a troubled sleep, his hands and feet bound once more and this time cinched together behind his back so that as he lay on the hard ground he was twisted backward almost double. He wouldn’t have been able even to doze, so excruciating was his discomfort and pain, if he hadn’t already been exhausted.

So it took a minute for him to come awake even after he felt the hands, one clamping over his mouth, the other pressing him back against the earth so that he could not move at all. His eyes opened in shock, and he found himself looking at a demon. Black and gray stripes painted the skin of its face and upper body, turning its human form into something animalistic and feral. Black cloth bound its hair back, and its eyes were bright with hunger. He tried to jerk away, but the hands held him fast.

“Lie still,” Logan Tom whispered. “Don’t talk.”

Kirisin stared in disbelief.

“Do you know me now?” the other mouthed.

The boy nodded, though he could still scarcely believe who he was looking at.

The Knight of the Word–he was still that, Kirisin supposed–took his hands away. A finger went to his lips in further caution, and then Logan Tom was cutting him free, stripping off the bonds, rubbing his ankles and wrists. Again he mouthed, Don’t move. Kirisin lay still, the circulation slowly returning. He glanced off into the night for his captors. One of them sat not a dozen feet away, propped up against the rocks. How it could not see them was beyond the boy’s understanding. Logan Tom’s disguise was good, blending him closely with the night–shrouded landscape, but he was crouched out there in the open as he worked over Kirisin, completely exposed.

“Lean on me,” the other whispered in his ear.

Then he carefully pulled him to his feet and steadied him. After a moment, he began walking him out of the skrail camp. Kirisin glanced again at the guard, but the guard didn’t move.

“It can’t see you,” Logan Tom whispered.

Kirisin didn’t understand. Then he looked more closely. The skrail’s head was cocked to one side at an unnatural angle. It was dead.

His rescuer put a finger to his lips once more. The strange mottled face and unnaturally bright eyes mirrored something the boy couldn’t quite define. One rough hand reached up to grip his shoulder.

“Leave no footprints,” the Knight of the Word whispered, and his smile was bright and fierce.