The figure on the raft stumbled. “Lord of Caberton?”
“Yes.”
“Are you … his shade?” The voice sounded awestruck.
“No, it’s really me. I’m back.” Jason could hardly believe it himself. “Come over here.”
The short, robust figure struggled to unburden himself of the cumbersome instrument. Once free of the sousalax, he sculled over to the bank, peering forward suspiciously. The raft bumped against the shore. Tark hesitated. “Come forward so I can see you better.”
Jason realized he had been standing in shadow. He stepped sideways into the moonlight.
“How can this be?” Tark gasped. “You were taken by the emperor.”
“I escaped to the Beyond. Now I’m back.”
Tark sprang from the raft and fell to his knees in the mud before Jason, hands clasped over his broad chest, tear tracks glinting on his cheeks in the moonlight. “My heart is going to rupture with joy,” he proclaimed. “How did you escape?”
Mildly stunned at the exuberant reception, it took Jason a moment to answer. “I had help. Where’s Rachel?”
“We parted ways,” Tark said. “A strategic move, suggested by Drake.”
“Drake? Was this before or after he freed me on the road to Felrook?”
“He helped us before and after. Our enemies dispatched a lurker, so the only way to stay ahead of our foes was constant movement.”
“A lurker?” Jason exclaimed. “Ferrin told me that lurkers are really bad news.”
“The lurker made matters much worse. Eventually we split up to confuse and divide our pursuers. Drake and Rachel took horses one way, I rode off in another direction, leading a second mount, and we set loose a few other horses for good measure.”
“What about Jasher?” Jason asked.
“I delivered the amar of the seedman to his people, at one of the gates to the Seven Vales. He should have been planted weeks ago.”
Jason stared down at Tark. “Why are you here alone, playing your sousalax?”
Tark looked away. “Not my sousalax. Mine is long gone. I got this mediocre substitute from a pawnbroker. You see, once I assured the safety of the seedman, I kept running, and eventually found my way home. I had no idea how to rejoin Drake and Rachel. I could only hope that the lurker had deserted them to follow me.”
“They’re also called torivors, right? I don’t know much about them, except for what Ferrin told me.”
Tark shuddered. “The common name is lurker. Since splitting from the others, I’ve glimpsed a dark presence in the distance from time to time, but never got an honest look.”
“So the lurker followed you?” Jason said. “Rachel and Drake may have gotten away?”
“No way to be sure,” Tark replied. “Having never met a torivor, I can’t be certain what exactly tracked me. I pray that I drew away the worst of Rachel and Drake’s pursuers. For the first couple of nights at home, no longer on the move, I expected to be taken. But no enemies ever appeared on my threshold. Instead, I began to stew. My guilt hollowed me out. I would never have left you behind, Lord Jason, had you not entrusted me with the amar. I would have fought to the death at your side.”
It took Jason a moment to realize that Tark truly felt bad for leaving him at Harthenham. “You did the right thing, Tark. We had to give Jasher a chance at survival. And you had to help Rachel. You did what I wanted.”
Tark’s eyes remained downcast. “I couldn’t shake the certainty that in abandoning you to be captured, I had performed my culminating act of betrayal. Not only had I let the Giddy Nine sacrifice themselves without me, I had forsaken the person who had revived my dignity and granted me renewed purpose. Part of me wanted to mount a solitary assault on Felrook, but the undertaking felt too hopeless and too grand. So I purchased a secondhand sousalax, built this small raft, and tonight intended to finish what I started months ago with my comrades.”
“You were headed for the falls? Tark, you have to overcome—”
Tark raised a hand to interrupt. “Waste no words. Even I can read signs this obvious. You are a specter descended from realms ethereal, and for some unfathomable reason you have condescended time and again to rescue me from self-pity.”
“I’m just a regular person.”
Tark snorted a laugh. “Whatever you may be, you are no regular person. Do not protest. In gratitude, I formally vow to serve you until my dying breath.” He prostrated himself further on the muddy bank, bowing his head low. “I pledge to you my fealty. All I have is yours.” The final words were uttered in profound solemnity.
Jason felt touched by the display. He also felt awkward. “Get up, Tark.”