With a quiet grumble, Jinn opened her eyes a crack and looked at her brother. “Quick, would you be a love and hum more softly?”
There was silence for a moment, and then snores cut through the silence like a great wood saw. So much for his keeping first watch.
Jinn tucked her chin into her chest. They had been traveling for around a month now, searching for the Summoner, following her foresight and hoping for the best. The best sure hadn’t turned out. She was cold, she was sleepy, and she was cranky. Some strange man or beast was after her, and she was no closer to stopping Mother than when they had started out. In fact, by the way things were going, Mother’s so-called ‘secret’ plan was more likely to happen. That plan, as Jinn had figured out, without Mother’s knowledge, was for Jinn and Quick to succeed in finding the Summoner…and yet hopefully die in the process.
Mother had belonged to the Circle, a cult that bred men and women to produce magical heirs, the Blest. Though the cult had long since been destroyed – by Mother’s hand – they were still feared. It was no wonder, then, that Mother hated Jinn and Quick, the two reminders of her captivity. Though Jinn could not blame Mother entirely for her hatred, it did nothing to cool her own.
Another yawn escaped her. The sun wouldn’t be getting any higher in the sky, not that she could actually see it. They couldn’t stay where they were for the remainder of the day; the shelter would not hold, and whoever or whatever was pursuing them could very well overtake them in the dark. With a grimace, she closed her eyes and did what she had been dreading: she looked ahead.
The next hour was clear of anything dramatic. Quick would sleep like a dead man, snoring as loudly as ever. Jinn foresaw herself lying on her back, her chest rising and falling slowly. The rain would stop, and the sun would even make an appearance. There were no holes in this vision. But an hour’s time was not long. She needed to look further.
Jinn followed the vision down its course for five hours into the future, sorting through divergent paths that seemed likely when they appeared. The most alternate paths she chose to look at were three. Again, nothing much seemed to be happening. She concentrated and tried to look ahead to ten hours from now, something that was always difficult and required more concentration. The further ahead things went, the more paths there were to look at, and any conclusions became less stable and vaguer.
Once she was satisfied with what she had seen, and having chosen the path that would allow Quick to sleep another two hours, Jinn rubbed her temples and attempted to look for the Summoner. It was one thing looking at one’s own fate, but a more delicate feat to try to look at another’s. Gauging when a vision’s events were going to take place was impossible and had led her in the past to make less calculated decisions.
She waited until Quick’s snoring grew softer, and then sought out the Summoner. It took several minutes to find him, and when she did, she wasn’t entirely sure what she was foreseeing. There was a dimly lit cave. Water trickled in an unsteady stream, ploinking on the ground while the air hummed with energy, as it does when a storm is building. There was no sign of the Summoner, and yet she knew he was there…somewhere. Perhaps if she focused harder—
“Where hast you gone?” a strange voice asked in the darkness. A lantern’s blue light bobbed into view. The Summoner did not appear. Perhaps he was hiding. But why could Jinn not see him?
“Eldred!” the man with the lantern called out, his voice bouncing off the stone walls. He approached where Jinn knew the Summoner should be, and stood there with his cloak’s hood covering his face. For a moment the man held the lantern aloft in silence, watching the spot where Jinn was also staring.
His cloak was perhaps once fine, but the royal red – if that truly was its original color – was dirt-caked and torn. His feet were bare, and his brown toenails were long and curled back up over his feet. He shifted his weight and called out again. “Eldred. I know your power.” When he pulled his hood back, Jinn thought she might faint. Not only was his gray hair long and matted with mud, the man’s face was emaciated, his skin thin as paper, so Jinn could see his veins and the blood pumping through them. He drooled excessively.
Jinn gagged and coughed, and the man looked her straight in the eye, frowning. “No,” he said, shaking his head as his eyes widened. “Go away, Fistight. No. I don’t want to be found. I don’t – stop following me. You’re dead.” He laughed, rearing his head back to show the blackness of his teeth. “Yes, you’re dead.” The thought seemed to make the man shiver, and he stopped laughing.
Coming to her senses, Jinn decided to try talking to this strange man, though she had only ever been able to interact with one vision, and that had been the night previous. “Who are you? And why did you call me Fistight?”
The man continued to stare at her but said nothing in reply.
She tried again. “Are you from the future?” Immediately she felt stupid. How would this man know if he was from the future or not? Just because the she-wizard from last night’s vision had known, it didn’t mean this crazy old bat would have a clue.
A great roar of a man or beast was taken up in the distance.
The insane man seemed to forget about Jinn and began wringing his hands. “Oh, dear. More guests. Must prepare the games again.” And with that, he hoisted his lantern higher and scuttled back to the tunnel whence he had come.
Jinn swore. Where was the Summoner?
“Jinn?” Quick’s voice intruded. “Jinn, you all right?”
She opened her eyes and blinked several times as the world came into focus. No longer sitting up, Jinn found herself lying in a puddle at the base of the tree. She groaned. “How long was I asleep?” The sun sat lower in the sky, and the rain had stopped entirely. She must have been asleep for two hours at least.
Quick yawned, and his stomach rumbled. “Hungry,” he said as if in apology.
“Thanks for waking me. I didn’t mean to sleep that long.”
His head bobbed once in acknowledgment. Standing, he knocked the shelter to the forest floor with a thud. Birds squawked their complaints and flew high into the sky. Quick groaned, his joints cracking as he stretched. “Rainwater tastes bad.”
Jinn laughed. “You drank from the puddles, didn’t you?”
Quick shrugged and mumbled something unintelligible. What was she going to do with him? “You slept. Quick ate.”
That stopped her laughter. She quirked an eyebrow and fixed Quick with a frown. “How much did you eat?” Before he could answer, she broke out the packs and sorted through the papers and crumbs. Jinn swore. “Oh, Quick. Why?” More than half of their food supplies were gone. What should have lasted them three days had lasted maybe three hours.
“Was hungry,” he said, thumping his chest, defiance in his voice. Before she could reprimand him further, Quick continued. “There are berries in woods.”
She looked around. “What kind of berries? Where?”
Quick licked his lips. “Red berries. Big, red starberries!”
“B-but wild starberries aren’t in season, Quick,” she wailed. “Quick, the next town is far from here, more than two and a half days’ worth of walking.” Tears prickled her eyes, and exhaustion washed over her.
Like a child, Quick stomped his foot, kicking up a spray of mud that streaked across Jinn’s face. “Quick saw starberries.”
Stunned, Jinn sat there in the mud and stared at her pack through a film of dirt and tears. Why had she let herself fall asleep like that? She knew that Quick couldn’t be trusted at all times with precious items, such as food and water. Just for good measure, she felt and shook the water bladders. Those, at least, were plenty full. She took an angry swipe at the mess on her face and stumbled to her feet. Of course her right leg was all pins and needles, and her boots squelched in the mud and might have gotten stuck had she weighed more. “What is done cannot be undone,” she said, though her voice quavered. “Come,
we need to make haste. The sun isn’t getting any higher in the sky today.”
“Make shelter?”
“You’re right.” Jinn started walking, pushing aside branches and bracken that tore at her cloak. “We’ll walk for an hour.” She pointed to what she assumed was the south. “Then we’ll make a proper shelter. Perhaps I can forage for root veg.” That was optimistic. Any carrots or other root vegetables would have probably long since rotted. They would simply have to ration. And she would have to sleep with the food pack beneath her head.
* * *
They walked on for another five miles, stopping several times to readjust their plans as well as their packs. Jinn scouted paths in her mind and, finding the ones that led to the best conclusions, she tugged at her brother to make him follow. One way led downhill to a fast-moving river. Jinn did not like the look of that, since so much could go wrong with rapids. She scouted out a way that led them a little farther west than she would have liked. From what she had foreseen, the Summoner was – or at least would be – headed northeast.
Quick remained impenitent and Jinn tried her best to keep a level temper as she stopped him from eating more of their wares away. In the end, she carried his pack as well as her own. Several times she thought she might collapse beneath the weight in exhaustion, but she only dropped one pack twice, and then figured out a better way to manage them both. When they settled, she would transfer all of the food to her pack. In the morning, she would place some back in Quick’s pack, just in case they were, stars forbid, somehow separated from each other.
“How much more?” he said, stopping to watch some birds flying overhead. “Water birds.” He grumbled. “Can’t eat water birds.”
Had her hands been free, Jinn would have rubbed her temples. “The sun is about an hour from setting. So…. Oh, let’s just make camp here.” She set down the packs with a little more force than necessary and looked for a good spot to build a shelter that would better protect them from the elements that night, for it seemed to be a cold one, judging by the now-cloudless skies.
“Fire?” Quick asked.
Jinn nodded. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to light one. We don’t want to catch our death of cold.” She set about gathering shrubs and branches, hoping to make another lean-to shelter between three trees. While she gathered, Jinn ordered Quick to start collecting anything dry he could find to burn. When he looked at her in confusion, she said, “We don’t want a lot of smoke.” But he continued to stare at her, confused. “Inhaling lots of smoke could make us faint.” That still drew no reaction from her twin. “And it could draw the bad man you keep talking about. Quick? Are you all right?”
Quick shivered and seemed to return to the present moment. “Not feeling so good. Lie down?”
“Once you’ve found some firewood and kindling. The two of us need to work together if we want to be ready for nightfall.” Jinn began to construct a wall between two of the trees by stacking branches and sticks in an interlacing pattern. When she’d finished, she would fill in the empty places with leaves, moss, sticks, anything she could find to block out the wind.
Quick sighed. “All right. Quick find your dry wood.”
Jinn ignored him and continued her work. Half an hour later, she had most of one wall constructed and decided that she wouldn’t make it any higher. Then she began filling in the gaps. All this time, Quick had been quietly gathering wood and stacking it. None of it looked very dry, but that could hardly be helped. Jinn stopped working on the second wall to build a fire while Quick gathered stones to form a pit.
After another hour of hard work, all was mostly prepared for their night ahead, and Jinn was ready to settle down for the evening. The shelter was decent, if not perfect, and they’d managed to bring a fire to life, stars alone knew how.
Jinn stretched, and put a hand to the small of her sore back. She hadn’t eaten or drunk anything since that afternoon, so she unstoppered a water bladder and downed more than she knew she ought. Then, when she was certain Quick was out of sight and hearing, she reached into her pack and searched for a pasty. He may be bigger, but I am going to waste away if I don’t take some nourishment. She rummaged some more, hoping Quick hadn’t eaten the rest of their provisions while she had been busy making camp. With a sigh of relief, she produced one of the hand pies and took a bite, crust and all. The pastry was too salty, and she spat it out at once. “Water,” she gasped, reaching back into her pack for the canteen. When she did, something slipped out and thudded onto her boot tip. Jinn ignored it and took a sip of water.
Quick’s boots were squelching their way back to her.
She’d have to share the pasty with him or risk dealing with a full-blown tantrum. Or she could hide it. The thought was tempting. Jinn reached for the grease paper in which the pasty had been wrapped, and then she noticed a strange object lying on the ground, presumably the same item that had fallen out of her pack. “Huh.” She held the iron dagger aloft, shuddering as she felt her abilities recede deep inside herself and far away from the blade. Ignoring her discomfort, Jinn studied the dagger. “Where did you come from?”
“What that?” Quick asked, startling Jinn so she dropped the blade into the mud at her feet. He shuddered. “Iron?”
Jinn nodded. “You didn’t take it from someone back in Gullsford?”
Quick shook himself like a wet dog and backed away from where the blade in question lay. “Bad metal. You know Quick don’t like the bad metal.” He gave her an accusing look.
“I didn’t pack it. It was underneath the pasties and fell out when I….”
His eyebrows knit together as he looked at the unwrapped pasty sitting on top of the pack. “You eat without Quick?”
“I haven’t eaten since I broke my fast at noon,” Jinn said, hoping to reason with him. “You’ve already had enough meals for today. Remember, there are two of us and a three-day journey ahead.” It was hard to ignore his muttering and foot-stomping, but Jinn tried her best as she studied the dagger. There were strange markings on the sheath, curving and twisting symbols she thought looked a bit familiar, but she couldn’t be sure. Mother had taught Jinn to read at a young age, but had soon tired of the chore and had given Jinn old musty books to finish her studies with. Perhaps that was where she recognized the symbols from.
Curious to examine the blade further, she unsheathed it, nicking her already-bandaged hand and drawing a few droplets of blood. At once the blade began to glow green. Jinn yelped and dropped the knife into the blaze, and the whole fire began to glow a deep red.
Somewhere nearby, Jinn was vaguely aware of Quick calling for her to be careful. Perhaps he had been frightened by the strange red blaze as well. Trembling, she tried to find a stick to pull the knife out with. If the fire kept glowing red like this, it would attract anything with a pair of eyes for miles. She had found a suitable pointed stick – “Gotcha!” – when Quick began to cry out in earnest. Jinn turned. “What? What’s wrong?”
He pointed to the blaze.
Jinn looked just in time to see a giant pair of glowing black eyes staring out of the flames. After a moment of frozen terror and confusion, she had the presence of mind to grab a stick and wave it in the fire, trying to break up the image. If the eyes were able to see where they were, they might be able to track her and Quick, she reasoned. The stick did nothing to disrupt the apparition.
“What is this?” Quick asked, his voice cracking.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “We have to put the fire out.” It would be a cold night without it, but what choice did they have? Jinn took the stick and started scattering the logs. “Quick, see if you can gather some dirt to throw on the fire. We need to put it out.”
“But it gets cold,” he said. “Try something else.”
Jinn continued beating and stirring up the embers. Something hot and solid rolled over her boot, and the unnatural red hue went out of the fla
mes, and the eyes disappeared entirely. Trembling, she looked down at the object that had been dislodged from the fire: it was the strange dagger she had found in her pack. Cursing, she shouted at Quick to mend the fire, and she dug a hole with her poking stick and buried the blade there in the ground.
Soon the fire had roared back to life, and as no eyes reappeared in the flames, Jinn decided that they should get some rest. “We’ll have to move on first thing in the morning,” she informed Quick, who groaned. “I think someone is still tracking us.”
He pointed to the blaze. “Will it come back?”
“No, Quick,” she said wearily, “I don’t think it will. At least, not tonight.” She had no idea why the eyes had magically appeared in the fire or why the fire had turned red. It might have had something to do with the blade she had found. Or it might have been both of them imagining things. The latter idea sounded slightly more comforting, so she chose to believe that.
Quick was still shaking, the color drained from his face, but he went back to work, gathering more tinder to feed the fire with. The sun was nearly set now, and the temperature had dropped considerably. They would both be thankful Jinn hadn’t managed to put out the flames.
“Jinn?”
“Hmm?” She was busy working on their makeshift shelter and didn’t look up.
“You never leave Quick, yes?”
That startled Jinn, but she tried not to show her emotions. “Why would I leave you? We’re twins. We’re supposed to do everything together.”
Quick snapped a log in two. “It – nothing. No mind. Just being silly.” He let out a laugh, which fell flat, but Jinn pretended not to notice.
What did he know? Maybe Quick was on to her scheme involving Mother. Perhaps he had foreseen something going horribly wrong. She would ask him at first light. Now she needed to get a good night’s sleep, as she hadn’t had one in a while.
By the time the woods plunged into dusk, Jinn and Quick had gathered enough wood and tinder to last them through the night. Bats skittered against the charcoal sky. Owls hooted and crickets keened. The fire crackled pleasantly as the twins lay down next to each other in the tiny shelter, and for the first time in a while, they both weren’t shivering enough to hear their own teeth chatter.
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