Chapter 21
1482 Words
CHAPTER 21
Zandaril puzzled over Penrys’s behavior well into their simple meal of grain cakes and smoked fish. What was she doing way up the slope, as though she were about to run off somewhere or meet someone?
He cast around and found no other people, no refugees from the cove below, and no Rasesni prowling this high up.
All through dinner Penrys had seemed lost in thought. When he raised an eyebrow at her, as she wiped her plate clean, she flushed and commented, “A cook who could ride and sing, with a strange fondness for leather. Can’t see that that’s much help.”
He snorted, but Tak Tuzap was completely stumped, and stared at her.
She glanced at him. “Never mind—something Zandaril said to me earlier. Now, whose turn is it?”
They’d started to tell stories of an evening, to spend the time before going to sleep. They’d heard about Tak’s uncle, and the death of his parents years before. Zandaril had talked about crossing the pass at Jus Shamr, the Low Pass, to join Chang’s expedition.
So far, Penrys had ducked her turn. Now Tak swallowed his last bite, and then told her, “You know it’s yours. I want a story about…”
He broke off.
“About wizards,” she said, and the boy nodded.
“What’s the fun in traveling with wizards if they don’t tell stories about it?” he said.
Zandaril commented, “He has a point.”
He expected her to refuse again, but she surprised him. “I’ll tell you a story.” Her eyes slid sideways to meet Zandaril’s. “A story about a meeting of wizards.”
She sat upright and crossed her legs. She drew her open hand across her face as if she were wiping it clean, and her expression changed. She focused on Tak as she spoke.
“Now, I was there for much of this tale, but some of it I heard from others. This is how they tell it, in far-away Ellech, at Drosenrolkentham, the Collegium of Wizards in Tavnastok, a quarter of the way around the world.”
The boy’s eyes widened.
“On a cold, snowy, winter’s night, not many years ago, in the forests around Sky Fang, the wizard Vylkar was quietly reading in his study when he felt the tug of power, like a burst of a wind funnel, somewhere nearby. His old mother, a wizard before him, called down to him from her chamber, having been woken from her sleep.”
Penrys leaned forward and waved her hands before her to illustrate her words. “They agreed that they both felt the disturbance in the same place, and that it was nothing they had encountered before. So Vylkar summoned his huntsmen and some of his grooms for, you see, it was a fine hunting estate he was at, the treasure of his family. The horses were surprised to be turned out of their warm stalls into the chill of the night.”
She wrapped her arms around herself and mock-shivered.
“It was still and overcast, and the men lit torches to find their way, holding them well away from their horses, accustomed though some of them were to the task. Vylkar could feel something where the surge of power had been, and he used that as a guide.”
Zandaril watched the fire’s embers between the three travelers flare up as if they envied the torches.
“The paths led sometimes toward it, and sometimes away, but always they got closer, winding around the side of Sky Fang, and it was awkward riding with their torches through the trees.”
Zandaril was as rapt as the boy. She should add ‘storyteller’ to her list.
“At last, Vylkar drew his horse to a stop. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘Somewhere around here you should find something.’ He and his men dismounted, and began to search through the trees on either side of the path.
“One voice cried out, ‘Over here!’ and the others joined him. There, at the base of an old oak tree, in the snow, was the naked body of a woman.”
Tak asked, “Wasn’t she cold? What was she doing there?
“She was asleep until they startled her awake with their noise and their torches. Then, yes, she was very cold, and wet, too, from the snow.
“‘Who are you?’ they cried, and ‘What’s your name?’ but she just shivered and didn’t speak, so they wrapped her in two cloaks and lifted her onto a horse to ride double with one of the grooms.”
“Were her feet bare? No clothes at all?” the boy asked.
“Nothing but a cold chain around her neck.”
The trance was broken, as Tak Tuzap realized this was her own story and stared at the chain that hugged her throat.
She went on as if she didn’t notice.
“It was faster coming back than going out, for they knew their way, and soon they had her in the hunting lodge, wrapped in warm blankets, and Vylkar’s old mother pouring hot soup down her.”
Her voice trailed off for a moment, and then she continued.
“They were kind, these men, and waited until she had stopped shivering before they asked her again who she was. She answered them this time, in their own language, that she had no name, she had nothing at all. The earliest thing she could remember was the torchlight reflected from the snow.
“Then, when the wizard Vylkar went to probe her mind to see if that would tell him more about her, she shut him out, and he couldn’t get in. That’s when he knew she was another wizard, though what all of that meant was unknown to her.”
She stopped, and swept her hand through the air. “Sennevi. It is done.”
Silence fell, until the collapse of some of the coals broke it. Penrys laid her hands back into her lap.
“That’s enough for one night,” she said. She rose up clumsily from her cross-legged seat and walked away, out of the firelight.
Tak looked over at Zandaril, across the fire. “That wasn’t the sort of story I expected,” he said.
“Nor I,” Zandaril said, thoughtfully.
At last. People.
Penrys turned her horse off the trail and pulled the pack mule along behind her. She stopped there to concentrate. The trees and grasses were greener, on this side, and the air had been getting moister for some time now.
Behind her, she heard Zandaril call out softly to Tak Tuzap to keep him from riding ahead of them.
They were still well up in the pass on the western side, about halfway down from the crest, but for the first time in days she could feel the mind-glows of other people in the not yet visible valley below them.
“There are small clusters of men, women, even kids—well scattered. Families and villages, I would guess.”
Tak had turned around and come back up to watch. He nodded. “That’s what there should be, down there.”
“Are they Kigaliwen, or the Rasesni invaders?” Zandaril asked.
“Can’t tell from here—too far away for language. Just ordinary folk, no wizards,” Penrys said.
At Tak’s puzzled look, she added, “If they’re Rasesni settlers, they might be a lot like the people they displaced.”
She looked at Zandaril. “It would be useful if they were Rasesni, and a bit closer. Think of those two books.” The spy’s books, power-stones, and a few of his pre-built device forms took up part of her pack.
Tak ignored her aside. “That’s our land. What about the people who lost everything?”
“It was Rasesdad land before that,” Zandaril commented. “And I’m sure Chang is intent on making it Kigali land again.”
“Point is,” Penrys said, “these aren’t likely the primary folk doing the fighting and planning. It’s not them we’re looking for, but the leaders and especially the wizards, if they have any.”
Zandaril coughed. “We’ll be just as dead if it’s the herders and farmers who catch us.”
“True.” She twisted in her saddle and grinned at him. “Got to survive long enough to get further into Wechinnat and find out about the situation there. Glad you came?”
She laughed outright at the glare he directed at her, and turned to the boy.
“What’s the best method of working our way north without being seen? Can we stay in the foothills? As far as the Gates?”
“The hills are no good—the trails go over them, not the other way, north and south. The trade road on this side runs along the valley edge for a few miles before it joins up with the main road. That might be empty, I suppose, if you go at night.”
He pursed his lips. “Can’t you just make yourselves invisible or something?”
“Wonderful that would be, if we could.” Zandaril nodded slowly. “Horses, too?”
Tak’s face fell.
“And then there’s all those footsteps, and creaking leather, and jingling harness.”
Penrys chimed in. “Not to mention the smell when one of the horses decides to…”
The boy’s face flamed red. “How do I know what you two can do?”
“Sorry, Takka,” she said, “but it’s just not that easy. We can sneak around a bit, but not with all this gear. What we have to do is meet up with your uncle’s colleagues at Gonglik, if they’re still around, and get some information.”
“And then we have to not get caught, any of us,” Zandaril said. “And get a message back to Chang.”
She looked at him. “And how were you planning to do that, by the way? Smoke signals?”
He looked at her, deadpan. “I thought we could seal up some clay bottles with messages inside and float them down the river. What do you think?”
She laughed, unable to contain herself. “No, really, how will we get messages out?”
“We’ll carry them out ourselves.” He looked at her seriously. “This is something I intend to survive.”
- Writer
