Deltora Quest #7: The Valley of the Lost by Emily Rodda Read Free Book Online Page B

standing very still, every muscle tense.
    The sighing, whispering sound was louder. The mist around them stirred and billowed, the shadows deepening, closing in.
    “Keep back!” Jasmine hissed, raising her dagger menacingly.
    The shadows seemed to falter, but only for an instant. Then they pressed forward again. And nowLief could see that they were people, crowds of men, women, and children coming through the mist, from all directions.
    They did not look unfriendly. Indeed, their pale faces seemed filled with timid eagerness and welcome as they drifted forward, long, thin hands stretched out towards the companions. Their fingers were pale grey, almost transparent, and so were the long clothes that fluttered around them and the hair that hung lank down their backs. No wonder they had seemed part of the mist.
    They whispered as they moved, the sound of their voices like dry leaves rustling in the wind, but Lief could understand nothing of what they said. Yet he did not feel threatened. Even when they came very close, and the first of them began touching his face, clothes, and hair with fingers that felt dry and light as moths’ wings, he felt no thrill of fear, only a shrinking distaste.
    And still more of the people came, and more. The colorless rags they wore hung around limbs that seemed just skin and bone. Their shapes seemed to blend and mingle, overlapping as they pressed in, each hand moving upon a dozen others, touching, stroking …
    Barda and Lief stood rigidly still. But Jasmine quivered, her mouth set and her eyes screwed shut.
    “I cannot bear this,” she whispered. “Who are they? What is wrong with them?” Her dagger hung loosely in her hand. She made no move to use it. Shecould not do so. The people were so plainly harmless, so plainly in some sort of terrible need.
    There was a stir in the crowd. It swayed and shivered like a field of long grass swept by the wind. Then the fluttering hands were slipping away, and the people were backing, whispering, into the mist, their grey eyes filled with hopeless longing.
    There was fear in the air. Lief could feel it. Almost smell it. Then he saw its source. A tall, dark shadow, pierced by two points of red light that glowed like burning coals, was coming through the mist towards them.
    He tried to put his hand on his sword. But his hand would not move. He tried to step back. But his feet would not obey him. A single glance told him that Barda and Jasmine were under the same spell.
    The shadow gathered form and shape. Now Lief could see that the red coals were eyes, eyes that burned in the ravaged face of a tall, bearded man wearing a long, dark robe. The man held two thick grey cords in each of his hands. They stretched away into the mist behind him, as though they were attached to something, but he paid no attention to them. His burning eyes were fixed on Lief, Barda, and Jasmine.
    They struggled to free themselves, and his thin lips curved into a smile that was full of malice.
    “Do not waste your strength,” he purred. “You can do nothing unless I will it. As you will learn, in time. Welcome to my valley. It has been a long time since Ihave had the pleasure of visitors. And now I am blessed with four.”
    He watched with keen pleasure as Lief, Barda, and Jasmine glanced at one another in surprise. Four visitors? What did he mean?
    “Perhaps you thought to trick me by splitting your party, did you?” he said. “Ah, that is what I like to see. Visitors who like games. That will make things so much more pleasant, for all of us.”
    He crooked a bony finger. And to the companions’ amazement, out of the mist stumbled Neridah, her bewildered face bruised and bleeding.
    She had stubbornly followed them, despite everything they had done! Now they had her to worry about, as well as themselves. Gritting his teeth in anger, Lief remembered the cry he had heard. No doubt Neridah had tripped coming down the steep slope alone.
    He glanced at the woman in helpless