The Farwalker's Quest Read Online Free PDF

vanished behind the next wall, she dashed for the door and burst in.
    Her mother glanced up from tying herbs by the fire.
    â€œWhat did he want?” Ariel asked, breathless.
    â€œHe’s looking for something. He thinks it might be near here.” Luna hesitated. “I told him I hadn’t seen one since I was a child.”
    Ariel collapsed on her stool. Her mother had saved her.
    But her mother wasn’t done talking. “And you have something to deliver to Storian right after lunch.”
    Ariel gasped and leaped back to her feet. “You told him that?”
    â€œNo. I’m telling you that.”
    Ariel’s heart started beating again. “But why? You said—”
    â€œI know, love, but it isn’t a toy. I just felt our own Storian should have a chance to see it before it went to a stranger.”
    Ariel pushed tears back down her throat and slouched toward the foot of her bed. What might have happened, she wondered, if she had kept her mouth shut last night? Could she and Zeke have held on to their secret once they’d learned the strangers were hunting for it?
    â€œWhy is some old metal stick so important?” she grumbled.
    â€œI can’t imagine.” Luna sounded puzzled. “But giving it up is the right thing to do.” She patted Ariel’s shoulder. “Want something to eat?”
    â€œNo.” She pulled the shining dart and her ivory copy from their hiding place. Inspecting her night’s work, she raised the brass shaft to the light to compare. Her fingers, slowly twisting it, halted.
    One of the symbols had vanished.
    She turned the brass barrel the whole way around. All twelve trades had been marked on the telling dart last night, she was certain. Now one of the rows came up short. Bright, unmarkedbrass filled the space where one symbol had been. Ariel glanced at her copy to confirm which was missing:, the mark for a Judge.
    Her mouth fell open. How could engraved marks disappear? That one may have been fainter than others, but she was sure they’d all been there yesterday in neat, aligned rows. She’d been careful to copy each in order, or she might have believed she had—
    â€œWait,” her confused mind muttered. A shape had changed, too. Her mother had pointed out a crosshatched sign that meant danger:. Now a second appeared on the dart in a place where it hadn’t before. The sign that used to be in that spot—the mark she had copied onto her whalebone—had a little swoop instead of one crossbeam:. Surely that swoop made it mean something different, something less threatening than an echo of danger.
    Ariel dropped both hands in her lap, her mind racing. She had no idea how telling darts worked. Maybe changes were normal. She examined both shafts again. Her eyes were not misbehaving. Ariel heartily wished she and Zeke had studied it more closely while still in the tree. She believed her own eyes, but nobody else would, not even Zeke.
    Ariel peeked up. Her mother had gone back to work. With a long, steadying breath, Ariel bent to finish her copy. Fortunately, all that remained was to smooth curves, deepen the shallower scratches, and add a few details to trade marks she knew. She didn’t bother fixing her version to match the brass dart now. She wouldn’t ever forget what had changed.
    Ariel hurried back to class through a sprinkle of rain, chewing one of last fall’s mushy apples on the way. She also bore a small linen bandage with the telling dart folded snuglyinside. Her mother had made Ariel promise to turn it over right away. The bone knitting needle was hidden once more at home, and Ariel had made her own vow about that. Her copy would remain secret, no matter what the Storian or anyone else said.

CHAPTER
4
    Ariel slipped into the classroom just before Zeke. He was breathless and looked a bit queasy, but the bell had been rung and there was no time for them to speak.
    â€œDon’t bother