“I’ll take care of him,” Simralin promised.
The King gave her a fleeting smile. “I know you will. You will take care of each other. Better than I was able to take care of Erisha.” He shook his head. “I still can’t quite make myself believe that she’s gone. I keep waiting for her to come home.” He rubbed at his face, hiding his eyes. Then he straightened abruptly, exhaling. “I have difficulty imagining what is happening. To leave the Cintra, after all these years. After decades. Centuries. To be threatened like this. To know what lies ahead. Or, more correctly perhaps, not to know, but to be able only to speculate.”
He trailed off. Then he took Ordanna Frae’s arm. “Come with me, First Minister. There are preparations to make.”
Kirisin and his sister watched them go. For a moment, neither spoke. Then Simralin took her brother’s arm. “Come on. Let’s go. Dawn is six hours away. We need to get some sleep.”
Together they stumbled lead-footed from the room.
ELEVEN
L OGAN TOM drove the Ventra 5000 southeast into the mountains for what remained of the day after leaving the Portland area, following the two-lane road upon which Trim had set him. There were opportunities to take other roads, but the owl kept to the one they had started out on. He flew ahead, frequently cutting cross-country over fields and through forests, leaving Logan to assume that he would be met again somewhere down the road, which he always was. His hesitation about following Trim, so pronounced when he had first discovered that the owl was to be his guide, had given way to a grudging reliance. He supposed he would have been uneasy about following anyone, owl or human; his natural instinct after all these years on his own was to trust no one. But there was no one with whom to argue the matter, and Trim seemed set upon their course, so Logan quickly accepted the inevitable and went where he was led.
When darkness began to set in, they were at the foot of the big mountain he had spied earlier while crossing into Oregon over the Columbia. His maps identified it as Mount Hood. It was a massive rock, and the road led right up one side and into mountains that stretched beyond it to the south, so Logan knew he was going to face some rough traveling before the night was over. Stopping for sleep didn’t seem to be in the owl’s plans; he kept flying ahead, taking Logan higher and deeper into the chain, past Mount Hood and into the tangle of peaks beyond. Progress was slow, the roads narrow and winding and frequently littered with debris of one sort or another. In some places, the pavement was so badly split by crevices or collapsed beneath sinkholes that Logan had to drive the Ventra off road to continue. But the Ventra was such a beast that it surmounted obstacles almost effortlessly, its big wheels, high chassis, and powerful engine giving it the ability to do everything but climb trees. And Logan wouldn’t have bet against that.
When it finally got too dark to go farther safely, Trim winged his way back to Logan and settled on the Ventra’s roof. Logan pulled over, climbed out, and checked to be certain of the owl’s intent. Trim regarded him from the roof with saucer eyes, and then took flight. Logan watched him fly off a short distance and roost in a nearby tree. When the bird showed no signs of doing anything more, Logan climbed back inside the Ventra, shut down the AV’s engine, locked the doors, set the security alarms, settled back in his seat, and drifted off to sleep.
He woke to the sound of the owl’s soft hoot and a scrabbling of its talons on the Ventra’s metal roof. Sunlight was pouring down out of a cloudless sky, the day bright and clear. From the position of the sun, he guessed it was nearing midday. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, ate and drank a little something, turned the Ventra’s engine back on, and set out once more.