Jason thought he knew the road Ned had meant. The road he and Rachel had followed into town left the village angling toward the northeast.

As he passed quiet houses, Jason heard the lapping of the water in the harbor and the distant crash of breakers. A goat bleated from a pen beside a shadowy house with a big anchor half-buried in the front yard. Jason jumped, drawing his knife.

When they reached the main road, Jason set a brisk pace, taking long, quick strides. Rachel stayed silently at his side. For a good while they mounted a steep incline. The night was so dark they proceeded by feel and by faith that there would be no obstacle in the road. Like a dead mangler. Or a live one.

When dawn began to turn the sky gray, they took a break, ravenously devouring some of their newly acquired bread, sausages, and cheese. Jason eyed the energy berries the loremaster had given him. They showed no sign of spoiling, so he decided to conserve them.

As daylight brightened the overcast sky, Jason and Rachel resolved to walk the day away before sleeping. Around noon they ate again. While they were eating, a wagon appeared up ahead on the road. Jason and Rachel rushed for cover, ducking out of sight in the trees, remaining hidden until well after the wagon had rattled past.

A couple of hours after lunch they walked through a small village of tall, steep-roofed buildings constructed of stone and mortar, all crowded close together. A few were shops; most were residences. All of the buildings looked old. People watched them as they passed, their suspicious glares burning into Jason.

He noticed a group of young kids laughing as they played a game that involved throwing rings around a pair of stakes in the ground. A few of the kids chased one another. One spun in place until she got dizzy and fell down.

Jason frowned. This world was no place for children. What sort of future would these little ones have?

“Maybe we should have gone around the town,” Rachel muttered, “made our way through the woods.”

“Too late now,” Jason answered.

By the time the sun was setting, both Jason and Rachel were trudging along wearily. They roamed a good distance off the road and swallowed a few bites of food. Jason threw himself down in his blanket between the sprawling roots of a thick tree with smooth brown bark and fuzzy green leaves shaped like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

“I’ll take first watch,” Rachel yawned.

“I can,” Jason offered, half asleep.

“I’ve got it. You rest. I’ll wake you soon.”

CHAPTER 11

FERRIN

The following morning Jason awoke to something tickling his face. He brushed his cheek and sat up quickly. A shiny red centipede longer than his middle finger lay upside down on the ground beside him. The creature wriggled over and disappeared under a root.

Jason shivered. How long had that thing been crawling on him? One of the little drawbacks to sleeping out in the open.

Sitting up, he looked over at Rachel, sound asleep, wrapped in her cloak and blanket. Had she ever awakened him for his watch? He didn’t think so. Could she have fallen asleep on guard? She looked pretty and vulnerable, lying there serenely. He felt a sudden desire to protect her.

Famished, Jason started rummaging for food. Although he tried to be quiet, the noise disturbed Rachel, and she sat up, gasping and blinking. After looking around for a moment, she turned to Jason. “I’m so sorry! I don’t remember falling asleep!”

“We survived,” Jason replied.

Rachel squeezed fistfuls of her blanket, her jaw tight. “Take off your socks,” she said bravely.

“It might be hard to get them off. They feel pretty stiff.”

“Ha-ha.”

“Seriously, I might need your help. Some of my blisters popped yesterday. The socks feel plastered to my soles.”

“I feel bad enough. You don’t need to rub it in.”

Jason had to admit she looked miserable. “Tell you what. We were exhausted. And I got a warning the first time I fell asleep on watch. You deserve one also.”

Rachel scowled. “I don’t deserve a break. I could have gotten us killed.”

“Next time you blow it, you will smell and taste my socks. Same goes for me. No mercy from now on. Have some breakfast. We should get back on the road.”

As they proceeded, the forest dwindled to meadowland, still interspersed with groves of trees, but primarily featuring broad expanses of brush and wild grass. From the position of the climbing sun Jason could tell that the road was generally bending northward.

Around midmorning Jason and Rachel came to a crossroads. This was no footpath branching off the main thoroughfare—it was the junction of two major roadways. A tall post with a crossbeam lashed near the top marked the intersection. A bag hung from the crossbeam, well out of reach.

Jason paused, hands on his hips. The roads joined at right angles, and all looked to be in good repair. “Which way?”

“West would take us back toward the Blind King,” Rachel said. “And we came from the south. So north or east.”

“Ned called this road the Overland Loop. That might mean if we continue north, it will circle back to where we started following it.”

“Hello?” called a weak male voice, startling both of them.

Jason turned in a circle. Nobody was in sight, and there did not appear to be any cover for a good distance. “Who said that?” he asked sharply.

“Praise the fates,” the voice cried, gaining strength. “Help me. I’m up here.”

Rachel shared a befuddled glance with Jason. “Could that have come from the sack?” she asked.

“Sounded like it.” Jason stared up at the bag dangling from the crossbeam. The sack looked barely large enough to hold a bowling ball. Jason raised his voice. “Who are you?”

“I’m Ferrin,” the voice responded, muffled by the bag. “I’m a displacer. A gang of ruffians robbed me and left me here to die. Please get me down.”

“How do you fit in the bag?” Rachel asked, baffled.

“Like I said, I’m a displacer. I understand you may not be terribly fond of our kind, but please don’t leave me here to rot.”

“We come from far away,” Jason said. “We don’t know what displacers are.”

“It’s unkind to tease the helpless.”

“We’re serious,” Rachel assured him.

“They chopped off my head and buried my body. Things like that don’t kill displacers. Parts severed from my body remain linked by cross-dimensional connections.”

Jason gazed at the sack in disbelief. “So just your head is in there?”