Inside the Forbidding, the light was hazy and gray and the air tasted of metal and damp. Tesla Dart led Oriantha and Redden Ohmsford through the wilderness they had found upon returning to the land of the Jarka Ruus, skittering here and there as she went, constantly in motion. Fugitives from the Straken Lord’s Catcher, Tarwick, and his minions, they were constantly looking over their shoulders for unwelcome pursuit. They had tried to disguise all evidence of their passing before coming back into the Forbidding, wading through creek waters and even traveling the trampled pathway left by the passing of Tael Riverine’s massive army, hoping their few footprints would disappear amid the many. But they understood that Tarwick was Catcher for a reason, and that even these efforts might not be enough to fool him.
Still, it would be unexpected for them to return to a place they had struggled so hard to escape, so there was reason to believe Tarwick might confine his search to the Four Lands. He could not know of Tesla Dart’s presence or suspect the help she would give the two outlanders with whom she traveled. Diverting their escape route from the obvious to the unlikely might throw him off sufficiently to allow them to complete a swift journey through the Forbidding and then to escape back into the Four Lands by means of another portal before their hunter knew what they were about.
It was a dangerous game they were playing, and Redden couldn’t be certain how the odds were stacked. Because they had fled so suddenly and made the decision to come back into the Forbidding so abruptly, there had been no time to gather up water and food, and they had almost nothing of either. Nor did the boy think that Tesla Dart—for all her knowledge of her own country and its creatures—knew exactly where they could find another way back into the Four Lands. She acted as if she did; she even insisted that she did. But something about the way she phrased it suggested it wasn’t as settled as she tried to make it sound. She might have confidence such an opening existed because the imprisoning wall was crumbling, but that didn’t meant she had a road map of its location imprinted in her mind.
What she did have was Lada, and the presence of the odd little creature provided the boy with a small glimmer of hope. The Chzyk seemed capable of finding its way in any territory and under any conditions, racing all over the place at blinding speed, never seeming to tire, a lizard imbued with innate instincts. Even if Tesla Dart wasn’t certain of the path they should take, he thought maybe Lada might be.
He thought, too, that something had better happen soon to resolve their situation. His strength was almost gone, and his state of mind was still precarious. He remained mired in memories of his imprisonment at Kraal Reach, of the sounds and stench and discomforts of the rolling cage that had brought him back into the Four Lands, imprisoned like some exotic creature. He still flinched at the thought of the abuse and taunts he had received from his captors and was still devastated by images of Khyber Elessedil’s terrible death. And it felt to him as if his newfound freedom was an illusion that could fade as swiftly as a mirage. He had no faith in its solidity, no confidence in its permanence. He had a sense of impending collapse, as if everything might go back to the way it had been in a single instant.
He slogged on because he had no choice in the matter, but it was working at him, gnawing at his sanity and eroding his emotional and psychological balance. He could feel it happening and he had no defense against it.
The day wore on, and their journey across miles of barren emptiness continued. They were moving in a mostly northerly direction, trying to get to a hole in the wall of the Forbidding that would bring them out much farther north of where they had started and presumably closer to where Redden and Oriantha both thought they should be when they reentered the Four Lands.
When they finally stopped for a rest, Oriantha waited until Tesla Dart was chittering away with Lada before kneeling beside a dejected Redden.
“How are you holding up?” she asked quietly.
Redden shook his head, his wild red hair falling over his eyes. “Not well.”
“Can you keep walking?”
“Probably. But I feel like I’m coming apart inside. I can’t seem to stop it from happening.”
She put her hands on his shoulders. “Remember what I said. I won’t leave you, no matter what.”
“I know that.”