Deltora Quest #6: The Maze of the Beast Read Online Free PDF Page B

and put a careful hand on Dain’s shoulder.
    “We are going all the way to the coast, following the river. If Tora is on the river, or near it, we can escort you there, if that is what you wish.”
    Still with his face in his hands, Dain slowly shook his head from side to side. “When first I heard of you — a man, a boy, and a wild girl with a black bird, in whose presence the Shadow Lord’s evil was undone — I began to think you were the answer,” he said, his voice thick and muffled. “And as the months went by, and Doom brought news that you were moving west, I became sure of it.”
    He stifled a sob. “Then I met you. I thought it was fate. But it has all been a mistake. Another mistake. Oh, I can do nothing right! What am I to do?”
    “I think you had better tell us what is troubling you,” said Jasmine flatly. “No purpose is served by wailing and grieving.”
    Dain looked up. Her calm seemed to have brought him to himself as no amount of kind sympathy could ever do. He rubbed the back of his hand over his eyes, wiping away the tears.
    “For reasons I cannot tell you, I must get to Tora. But Doom forbids it. At first — when first he found me — left for dead after bandits burned my family’s farm — he said I must regain my strength. Then he said I needed more training to travel in safety, though already I could use a bow. Later he said he needed my help for just a little while, and I could not refuse him. And at last, as I grew impatient, he said that Tora had grown too dangerous for me or any of our group, until we were much stronger.”
    He paused, shaking his head as if to clear it. “He says that to visit it now would mean certain capture, and this would be a danger to the whole Resistance. He says Tora is crawling with Grey Guards and thick with spies, because …”
    His voice trailed off, and he swallowed.
    “Because Tora has always been so loyal to the royal family,” said Barda suddenly. “Of course!”
    His eyes were alert and excited. In the back of Lief’s mind, memory stirred. The memory was of his father, beating red-hot iron in the forge, talking of Tora, the great city of the west. He had said that it was a place of beauty, culture, and powerful magic, far away from bustling Del and its palace, but fiercely loyal to the crown. Lief remembered his father describing a painting he had seen in the palace library, long ago.
    It was a picture of a great crowd of people. All were tall and slender, with long, smooth faces, slantingeyebrows, dark eyes, and shining black hair. They wore robes of many colors, with deep sleeves that touched the ground. Their hands were pressed over their hearts.
    They were all facing a huge rock from the top of which green flames sprang high into the sky. Beside the rock, his head bowed humbly, stood a big man in rough working clothes, wearing the Belt of Deltora. A beautiful, black-haired woman stood beside him, her hand on his arm.
    “Adin loved a Toran woman, and she loved him,” Lief said slowly. “When he was proclaimed king, she went with him to Del, to rule by his side. On the day they left, the Torans swore allegiance to Adin, and all who came after him. Other tribes had done the same, but the Torans, who were the greatest among them, carved their oath upon the flaming rock that stood at their city’s heart, and set a spell upon it that could never be broken.”
    He met Barda and Jasmine’s eyes, and the same thought flashed between them. What more perfect place than Tora to hide the heir to the throne?
    “It is a long way from Del to Tora,” said Barda aloud, choosing his words carefully so as not to reveal their meaning to Dain. “A perilous journey. But once there …”
    Yes, Lief’s eyes answered silently. Once there, King Endon could have been quite sure of help. The Torans would have done anything, risked anything, to keep him, Queen Sharn, and their baby safe. And they hadmagic enough to do it — whatever the Shadow Lord