Straken Read Online Free PDF Page B

spit. “He was a skilled hunter. Nothing would have confusedhim. Nothing would have distracted him once he had the scent. Certainly not the dark! You are lying to us, little man!”
    The Gnome’s fist was jammed so tightly against Pen’s throat that the boy could barely breathe, let alone talk. “It was the magic!” he finally managed to gasp.
    Pyson Wence dropped him to the floor and kicked him hard. “Magic? What magic? Magic from these spirits you talk about? What sort of magic would they have that would stop Aphasia Wye? You’re making this up, boy!”
    Pen was shaking his head as hard as he could in denial, both hands clutching at his injured throat. “No, it’s the truth! I didn’t know they were there when I went to Stridegate. I didn’t know anything except what my aunt told me in the dream. I was to go there and find out what I could do to help. So I went. The spirits were her means of communicating with me from within the Forbidding. She came to me on the island through them and told me that there was still a chance for her to escape so long as some of the Druids believed in her. She said that belief formed a connection to her and would help her find a way back!”
    Pyson Wence kicked him harder still. “Belief in her? That’s going to get her out of the Forbidding? That’s what she told you?” He kicked Pen again, then looked over at Traunt Rowan. “Let’s kill him now and be done with it!”
    The tall Southlander seemed to consider the idea, then shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He walked over, moved the smaller man out of the way, then reached down and helped Pen back to his feet. Steering him by his shoulders, he led the boy back to the bench and sat him down.
    Kneeling, he looked Pen squarely in the eye. “He’s right about one thing,” he said softly. “You’re lying to us. I thought we agreed that there weren’t to be any games played in this business.”
    Pen felt his throat tighten and his stomach clench. He thought for a minute he was going to be sick, but he kept it from happening by refusing to give them the satisfaction. “I wasn’t lying!”
    Traunt Rowan shook his head in disappointment. “Your aunt summoned you all the way to Stridegate to tell you that belief would help free her? Why didn’t she just tell you that in your dream, Pen? For that matter, why didn’t she just tell your father, who might havebeen able to do something about it? Why choose to tell you, a boy with no way to do much of anything without help?”
    Pen looked down at his clenched hands. “All right. There was something else. While I was on the island, I had to do something. I had to find this tree, a kind of tree I had never seen before. I had to find it and carve her name into its trunk. The tree bled sap into the letters, and there was a kind of magic released. It was what saved me from Aphasia Wye. It kept him from me, confused him, sent him off into the dark so that he fell into the ravine. The magic was a part of her, brought back from the Forbidding by the carving of her name. It wasn’t her body or mind or anything you could touch. It was her spirit, I guess.”
    It was a plausible enough story, given the nature of magic and its workings, much of which was elemental and released through nature’s children. It even bordered on the truth.
    Traunt Rowan smiled. “Strange, though. Your father couldn’t do all this? It had to be you. A boy not out of his teens, Pen?”
    Pen nodded. “I have the use of a kind of magic my father doesn’t. It isn’t much. I can understand the thinking and intent of birds and plants and animals from their movements and sounds. It isn’t communication exactly, but it’s something like it. My aunt understood that I would know how to carve the letters in the tree in a way that wouldn’t hurt it, that would allow it to permit her to reach through the Forbidding.”
    A total lie this time, but he was too deep in to back away and he needed to buttress his