by Robin Hobb
We did not ride. We led the horses, and long before our day’s journey was over, my feet were sore and my back ached. The other Great Ones had chosen to be transported in litters; Soldier’s Boy’s pride had not allowed him that option. It had been months since I had demanded exertion of my body. Soldier’s Boy had allowed the underlying muscle I had cultivated with my endless grave digging to lapse. I knew he would deeply regret that tomorrow when he had to mount Clove. Although I would share his pain, I privately rejoiced that it would distract him from the business of command. I had not warned him of this. It was a tiny advantage I could offer to the Gernian cavalla. They would never know of it, but even that small thing might make a crucial difference when the time came.
Time, I had come to know, is a tricky thing. Although we traveled much more swiftly when we were quick-walked through the pass, I was still aware of each stage of the journey, and hence at the end I felt as weary as if I had miraculously walked the whole distance in a single day. As indeed, I had.
That weariness was a sentiment shared by many. Firewood was scavenged and Dasie moved among us, bringing the fires to life for us. Although Kinrove and Jodoli had gorged themselves the previous day, the effort of quick-walking the force had depleted their reserves. They kept their feeders busy preparing and serving to them the food the horses had carried. Most of the Specks had never traveled through deep cold, let alone camped in it. Olikea made no complaint, a clear sign of how deeply she was mired in her sadness. We made our night’s shelter in the covered part of the pass. Shallow snow had blown into the mouth of the cavernlike entry. Some tried to sweep it away with evergreen boughs, while others used the boughs to make beds that would lift their bodies slightly off the frozen ground. Soldier’s Boy had counseled them to bring woolen blankets and furs, so most were provided for, but even so, they would pass a cold night.
For all of the Great Ones, there were thick mounds of evergreen boughs overlaid with furs and warm blankets. Quantities of food had been transported, both for the warriors and the mages. As the evening deepened and the cold crept closer, the fires were fed until they became bonfires and the food a feast. There were drawbacks to this; the icy ground around the bonfires thawed and became wet. The bundled Specks in their fur-lined cloaks and deep hoods overheated and then, as they disrobed, chilled themselves. There was drink, too, brought along to ward off the cold, and all the more potent at the end of the long day’s travel. None of the Great Ones kept the warriors from indulging. All this I watched silently and knowingly, and listened in, as the Great Ones finalized their plans for tomorrow night’s attack.
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It was late before the last of them slept. Soldier’s Boy went to his bed weary from both travel and talk, and anxious for the morrow. Olikea curled around his back. Weariness soon claimed her. He closed his eyes and composed himself but sleep would not come. He went to battle a virgin to war, and yet he felt that, of the Great Ones, he had the clearest idea of what they would face on the morrow. He agonized over it. Would he acquit himself well or would he take his warriors into useless deaths? Whatever would come, he wanted to face it and have it be over. I had seen their plans and recognized that much of what he had chosen to do was exactly what I would have selected, were I ruthlessly bent on annihilating an enemy that had not yielded to any other tactics. I watched him, a darker shade of myself, the product of my father’s and the Academy’s teachings, and yes, of the hatred that such teachings had roused in the Specks. I had to marvel in horror at what happened when such a system was turned back on itself.
Then, deliberately, I began to consider every aspect of what might go bad for him tomorrow. I thought long and in detail of the men who had chilled their muscles, and of the strong drink that had been consumed. I thought of the depth of snow that awaited them, the trails that must be broken. Quick-walk was quick-walk; it could speed up how we traversed terrain but could not eliminate the challenges of it. I dwelt on his inexperienced horsemen and the poor quality of their tack. Dasie’s mount was a cart horse, chosen solely because he could carry her weight; her mount had little experience as a saddle horse and she had even less experience as a rider. I imagined for him all of the mishaps that could arise from that combination. Into this equation, I factored his ignorance of the command of the fort now. He was counting on the sentries to be slack and the night guard but half awake.
I deliberately fed his fears and kept him from sleep long after the others had subsided into snoring. And then, when his frazzled mind had worn itself out with snapping at possible disasters, I withdrew. He sank swiftly toward sleep and I did all I could to make his rest as deep as possible. I soothed and calmed him from the edges of his thoughts, and as soon as I felt him sink deeper than the level of dreams, I acted.
Tapping into his magic was the most delicate part. He and the other Great Ones had spent the last two days fortifying their reserves, eating only the foods most conducive to their tasks. Soldier’s Boy, I knew, was jealously aware that he had still not regained the size he had enjoyed before I had expended all his magic in my futile attack on the road, but in this last bout of eating, he had surpassed Jodoli. His height and bone structure gave him a clear advantage over Dasie at any time; her body simply could not carry the weight that his could. Kinrove had rapidly regained his size, the result of a dedicated team of experienced feeders. Nonetheless, Kinrove and Jodoli had insisted that their reserves would be taxed by the transporting of the army as well as its safe retrieval. They had warned Dasie and Soldier’s Boy to hoard strength lest part of that task fall on them as well.
Like a tiny tick, I sucked off the magic until I felt my awareness was saturated, then bloated with the stuff. I withdrew from Soldier’s Boy’s awareness as far as I could and then sent a needle-sharp thought questing for Epiny.
I could not find her.
For a heart-stopping moment, I wondered if she were dead. She had not seemed in the best of health when last I saw her, dragged down by both her pregnancy and the sorrow and anxiety she felt over me. Gettys was a rough and primitive place for a genteelly raised woman to give birth to her first child. I had been glad to know that Amzil would be there at her side, but although Amzil had attended other births, she was not a doctor or a midwife. I tried to count back and decide where Epiny would be in her pregnancy, but time had slid about so much for me recently that I could not decide if she would still be pregnant or a new mother by now.
I gave way to the impulse of my heart and reached for Amzil. I found her just as effortlessly as I had the first time I’d dream-walked to her. This time I was wiser. I approached her more slowly and gently. “Amzil. Amzil, can you hear me? It’s Nevare. ”
I knew she was there, but some sort of murkiness obscured her. I reached desperately through it. “Amzil? Amzil, please! Hear me. Hear my warning. ” But beyond the fog that cloaked her mind, I encountered only the same wall she’d shown me last time. She’d shut me out of her dreams, resolved to go on living without me. I could not blame her; she’d learned too well to rely on her own strength. I could not get through the defenses that kept her strong. Epiny, then. I would have to find Epiny if they were to be warned.
I mustered my stolen magic and reached out more strongly for my cousin. There was a long moment of doubt, of empty, endless reaching and then a startled, “Oh!” from somewhere in the other world.
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“Epiny? Epiny, please be there, please hear me. I have only a short time, and the warning I have for you is dire. ”
“Nevare?” Her voice was faint, yet thick as syrup. She did not sleep and dream, but neither did she feel awake to me. I saw nothing from her eyes, sensed little of her surroundings. She was warm. That was all I could tell.
“Epiny. Are you all right? Are you ill?”
“Nevare. I’m sorry. I couldn’t name the baby after you. She’s a girl. A girl can’t be Nevare. ”
“No. Of cou
rse not. Is she well? Are you well?” The baby was not what I wished to speak about, but I hoped that as Epiny spoke of her, my sense of Epiny would come clearer. It didn’t work as well as I had hoped. I felt a tiny warm body under Epiny’s hand. The baby was bundled close to her.
“She’s so sweet. And quiet. She doesn’t cry much. We named her Solina. Do you think that’s a pretty name?”
“Solina is a lovely name. Epiny. I know you are tired, but listen to me. Great danger is coming. The Specks are massing for an attack. Late tomorrow night, they will descend on the fort, with fire and arrows. They hope to destroy the fort and the town with fire, but also to kill as many people as they can. You must warn everyone to be on their guard. ”
“I have so much to tell you,” she replied dreamily. “It’s lovely to know that you are still alive. Lovely. We wondered how you were doing. Oh, I had that one dream of you, of course, but that was months ago. When the fear stopped, that was so nice. I wondered, did Nevare do that? Then I wondered if it meant you were dead. ” She took a deep breath and sighed it out again. Thick tendrils of mist seemed to rise with her sigh. The warmth and comfort of where she was billowed around us and threatened to engulf me. I resisted it with difficulty.
“Epiny, what’s wrong with you? Did you hear anything I told you? An attack is coming and you must warn everyone. ” She made no response and I spoke more sharply. “Epiny! What ails you?”
“Laudanum. ” She sighed. “Nevare, I know it’s not good for me. But it’s lovely. For a while, the fear went away. And the sadness. It was like waking from a dream. I got up one morning and wondered, why have I let this house be such a dreary space? And I started scrubbing and dusting, and then I was humming at my work. And Amzil came in. She said I was making my nest. Such a lovely notion. And she helped me clean and make my room brighter and prepare a place for the baby. ”
“I’m glad she was there. I’m glad the baby is fine. Epiny, the attack will come like this. The Specks will slip into Gettys Town very late at night. Some will stay in the town, to fire buildings there. Others will disable the sentries and come into the fort. They are targeting key structures to burn, the warehouses, the barracks, the mess hall, the headquarters, and especially the prison for the workers. But they plan to burn as many homes as they can, also. You will be in danger, you and your baby. And Amzil and the children and Spink. After the first attack, things will die down. The Specks will seem to retreat. But it’s a trick. They’ll wait until everyone is out and fighting the fires, and then they’ll come back. ”
“I can’t worry. That’s the beauty of it, Nevare. I know I should worry, but I just can’t. It feels nice not to worry, Nevare. So nice. ” She made a tiny effort, curling her fingers to tug her blankets closer. “Nevare. In autumn, when the fear stopped and I thought you were dead, I sent your book to my father. To put with your father’s books. I tied a string around it and added a note, to say it should not be opened for fifty years. To protect everyone you wrote about. ”
“What?” I was horrified. Then, with an immense effort, I pushed my own concern aside. I tried to speak gently but firmly to her. “Epiny, you need to wake up now. You need to warn Spink and the rest of the household. You need to pack whatever you might need in case you must flee. Have you warm clothes and food you can take?”
She sighed and shifted in her dreamless state. “Amzil’s little one is sick. She mustn’t go outside. I hope the baby doesn’t catch it. She’s such a good baby, such a good little sleeper. ”
“Epiny. ” I spoke more slowly now, trying not to despair. “Is Spink nearby?”
“He’s sleeping in the other room. He made a bed there, so I could have Solina here by me. He’s so thoughtful. ” I felt her smile. “We had post. Such good fortune, to have a delivery come through in the winter. Good news from Spink’s people. The water cure. That doctor, that one from the Academy? He believed my letter and he went himself to Bitter Springs to take some of the water back to Old Thares. He stopped one outbreak of plague with some of it. And made some of the cadets at the Academy better, just like the water made Spink better. So. Now everyone is going to Bitter Springs to bathe and take the cure, and other people are buying water to take home with them. It has made their fortune, Nevare. Spink and I are so happy for them. ”
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Even drugged with laudanum, there was no stopping Epiny once she started talking. I broke in before she could start rambling again. “Call Spink, Epiny. Tell him what I told you. ”
“Told me. ”
“About the Specks and the attack. ”
“He’s sleeping now. He’s so tired. I told him to try the laudanum, but he said no. He thinks it’s good for me to get this rest. He thinks it’s good for the baby that I’m so calm now. ”
“Epiny, I have to go now. ” My supply of magic was dwindling. “You have to remember this dream. You have to tell Spink to warn everyone. ”
“Are you going to come and see the baby soon?”
“You have to warn Spink. Warn everyone. It’s urgent!”
“Urgent,” she repeated listlessly, and then I felt her rally a bit. “Father was so angry, Nevare. About the book. ”
Shame choked me and I could make no reply. Yet at the same time, a most peculiar sensation came over me, a sense of the completion of a great circle. I had known that this would happen. I’d always known it, from the time I first set pen to the paper that my uncle had sent me in my beautiful soldier-son journal. I had always known that somehow it would go back to him, and that the consequences of what I had written there would grind my future into powder. It was a strange feeling to realize that from the beginning, I had been documenting my disgrace for all to know. It was almost a relief, now that it was done and over. Epiny was still speaking in her dreamy singsong way.
“He told my mother she had no right, that it was his name she was risking. She said the Queen would never know, would never bother to find it out. She said a fortune was at stake, and he should not let his dignity cripple him. Hadn’t he brought you into our home? Hadn’t he married me off to a common soldier, like an innkeeper’s daughter? Father was so wroth. He will speak to your father. He said. He said…” Her voice trailed away and her touch turned to moonlight on my hands, and then a cloud covered even that. She was barely there.
“Epiny. ” I sighed, and let go of our feeble contact.
I hovered, a mote in Soldier’s Boy’s awareness, a sort of Gernian conscience that he paid no heed to. I wanted to agonize over my soldier-son journal. I hated all I had written there, hated myself for being so stupid as to write it. Too late. What was shame to me now, a dead man, a Speck, a renegade mage against my own people? Too late to think of my good name. I had no name. What I did have was a tiny remnant of my stolen magic. Epiny had been my best hope. We’d been joined by the magic before and I had been certain I could walk into her dreams. If she hadn’t given in to the dark depression of the creeping magic, if she hadn’t taken the Gettys Tonic of laudanum and rum, I could have been certain of my warning being heeded. But she had. The magic had outwitted me again.
I thought I had strength enough for one more try. I would reach for Spink. I had never dream-walked to him, but I knew him well. He might dismiss Epiny’s words as a strange dream; if I touched him, mind to mind, he would know it was real. I knew he would have a hard time convincing the upper echelons of the military command at Gettys to heed his warning as it was; better not to have Epiny saying that the warning was based on her dream.
I summoned all I could recall of Spink, every facet of him, from the boyish and enthusiastic cadet he had been at the Academy to the weary and harassed lieutenant and husband he had become at Gettys. I reached hard for the moments of contact that we had shared in that otherworld we had walked when the Speck fever had taken us both. Back then, he had been more willing than I to accept the reality of that episode. I only hoped that if I could reach him, he would still be as open
-minded.
Dream-walking to Spink was not like traversing terrain. I felt I was a needle plunged endlessly through folded bolts of fabric, trying to find a single thread. Trying to make this new contact was more draining than reaching Epiny had been. Epiny had always been more open to magic than the rest of us. But I found Spink, and with every bit of my remaining strength, I forced myself into his dream. It was a dreary place. He dreamed of digging a hole in stony earth. He was in the hole and had to throw the shovelfuls of rocky soil up over his head. Half the time, earth and gravel cascaded back down on him. He was in the bottom of the hole, trying to get his shovel point under a large stone, and then suddenly I was there with him. He didn’t flinch or start. Dreams adjust quickly to intruders. I found a shovel in my hands. Spink looked up, wiped gritty sweat from his face, and said, “You dug your hole and I dug mine. And here we are, stuck in what we’ve made of our lives. ”
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“Spink. Put your shovel aside and listen to me. We are in your dream, but what I’m going to say to you is real. ”
I took a risk in telling him that we were in his dream. He looked at me, and I saw his eyes focus, and in the same instant, the dream around us began to disintegrate, watercolors lifting away from a painted card. I seized him by the shoulder and believed him there as hard as I could. I gripped his bony shoulders, felt the rocky soil under my feet, deliberately smelled the smells of soil and sweat. Spink stabilized but continued to gawk at me.
“Little time,” I said, even as I felt the magic running out. “Epiny had a dream, too. Make her tell you. Specks will attack Gettys late tomorrow night and try to burn everything. Spink, don’t forget this, don’t doubt it. ” I was gripping his shoulders as tightly as I could, as if to make the contact more real. Inspired, I suddenly seized his hand and forced it to his face. I pressed hard, driving his nails into his cheek and tore down, scratching him. “The warning is real, real as pain. Take action. Extra guards, a night patrol, guns primed and ready, iron shot—”