Northlight

by Wheeler, Deborah

  “This is bad, Terr,” she said when he was finished. “This is really bad. I wish you’d turned around right then and brought the dagger back to Esme. She would have known what to do with it.”

  “I take responsibility for my decision,” Terris said tightly.

  She glared at him, lips pressed together. “You have no idea what you’re playing with — ”

  “Back off, Avi,” Kardith said. “He’s not the baby brother you left behind. Not anymore.”

  “Meanwhile,” Avi went on after a heartbeat, “who knows how long it’ll take us to get out of this mess — not soon, anyway, what with Jakon dragging us all up to this Northlight thing of his. It’s not worth risking all of Har — of Laurea for one person. You should have let me rot, all of you.”

  “That’s not only stupid, it’s just plain ungrateful,” Etch snapped. “After what your brother and Kardith went through to find you. Kardith especially. What she almost lost — what she was willing to give up to save your lousy skin! You don’t throw that kind of loyalty away, you — ”

  “You don’t know anything about it!” Aviyya snapped.

  Etch stared back at her, unflinching. “Horse-crotting toxic shit.”

  Aviyya’s hand, resting on her thigh, twitched as if reaching for a knife that wasn’t there.

  “Stop it, both of you!” said Terris. “Did we come all this way just to snipe at each other like a clutch of twitterbats? We’ve got this Northlight test to deal with, and Jakon to convince to let us go — with the dagger — not to mention getting it back to Laureal City and building a case against Montborne. If either of you thinks this bickering is going to help, I’d sure like to know how!”

  “Drat.” Aviyya ran one hand through her thick black hair. “You’re right.”

  “Meanwhile,” Kardith said, leaning forward in Aviyya’s direction, “I for one would like to hear how you got up here when I couldn’t find a trace of you anywhere between the camp and the badlands.”

  “That’s a story and a half,” Aviyya said. “It all happened because I was stupid.”

  “Stupid?” Kardith said, grinning wickedly. “You’re admitting you might have been stupid?”

  “You’d think after all those years I’d be used to the Ridge weirdies, wouldn’t you? They were all clustered around me that last night. Drove me half bats. I went off a little way from the camp...and then — I wasn’t on the Ridge any more.”

  “You fell down a canyon?” Terris asked, remembering his vision of her struggling up a mud-slick slope, her face white and bleeding.

  “There’s no place to fall down to.” Aviyya’s eyes widened. “But I did have a fall like that, a couple of years ago. It was during a skirmish. I felt — for a moment, I felt as if you were right there with me.”

  Terris thought of his other visions, especially his glimpses of Esme confronting Montborne, wearing the Guardian’s medallion. Were they past or future...or only possibility?

  “I turned around, heading eastward, back toward camp,” Aviyya went on, “and there I was, in the middle of this green tunnel. Not scrub-grass green, more like the color of malachite. All green, as far as I could see. It was so quiet the only thing I could hear was my own breathing. No flies, lizards, twitterbats, nothing.”

  “I know,” Terris said. “I’ve seen it, too.”

  Aviyya hung her head, and her soft dark curls hung forward around her face like a veil. She took a deep breath. “I have no idea how long I was there. Long enough to get thirsty — I was scared to go too far looking for water. I tried using my knife to mark the walls, but it wouldn’t leave a scratch. Finally — I don’t know how I did it. I was pacing out a path...and I turned around...and there was a shimmer like a Ridge weirdie and I was out. But not back at the camp.”

  “The badlands, where you hid your button?” asked Kardith.

  “I knew you’d find it if Derron let you search that far,” Aviyya said. “Anyway, by the time I’d figured out where I was, I was nabbed by Jakon’s scouts. They’re even jumpier about trespass than we are. Caught me way off guard. I should’ve been able to handle them — there were only three.”

  “You were always no good with a knife,” Kardith said cheerfully. She looked happier, but there was a strain in her voice, a poignancy that he couldn’t quite place.

  “Right,” said Aviyya. “You can guess what a time I had trying to explain to Jakon what I was doing here — ”

  “And Jakon didn’t believe a word of it,” Terris said.

  “I can hardly blame him. If I were him, I wouldn’t believe me either. But I was enough of a mystery that he didn’t kill me right off, even when I spit in his eye rather than eat his bread and salt.”

  “So we weren’t the first southers to come barging over the borders with unlikely stories,” said Terris.“Except,” he added grimly, “we were the ones with the dagger.”

  Chapter 28

  The starless night was broken only by a few watch-fires along the shore. Dawn hovered an hour or more away, but tonight the nocturnal predators had taken shelter early. The empty skies and forest waited, hushed except for the gentle whisper of the wind in the topmost fir branches.

  As if infected by the stillness of the morning, Terris and the others kept their voices muted as they finished their bowls of unsweetened boiled oats, rowed across the lake, and mounted up. Aviyya, Jakon and Grissem rode scrubby norther ponies, with a fourth to carry the extra food, clothing, tents, and grain for the horses. Jakon had offered them all ponies, claiming they ate less and stood the cold better. Terris, remembering how close Kardith had come to losing her gray mare to the ropeweed poison, refused.

  Gradually the blackness to the east became less dense. A formless gray crept along the horizon and by degrees across the arch of sky. The misty cold seeped through the layers of Terris’s clothing, even his heavy wool cloak. His gloved fingers felt thick and inert on the braided reins.

  They left the lake encampment to the sounds of leather gear creaking and muffled hoofbeats. Terris found himself straining to catch the last distant echo of a bell or a vibration so dim it must be half-imagined. Its source lay ahead of him, far to the north. If he concentrated hard, he could just hold on to it, weaving in and out of his awareness. But to speak would be to risk losing it and never being able to find it again.

  When it was light enough to make out the tufts of wire-grass and patches of ice, Jakon picked up the pace. They trotted until Terris’s bones felt like powder from the constant bouncing. Up one gentle hill and down the next, they skirted small, irregularly shaped fields of rye and oats. Scattered harvesters bent low to scythe the stunted grain, their pannier-laden elk following close behind.

  Jakon called a halt to let the horses drink from the half-frozen ponds that dotted the tundra. Kardith took a hoof pick from her saddlebags and began cleaning out dirt and stones from her mare’s feet.

  Terris slid to the ground and stood, numb and grateful, in the shelter of the gelding’s body. Once they’d started moving faster, he’d lost the faint tug from the north, and a sour sick feeling now took its place. The horse lifted his dripping muzzle from the water to pull mouthfuls of heavy-headed seed grass, jerking the roots free from the mud.

  “Greedy Bastard,” Terris muttered, patting him. He turned to Aviyya, standing next to him, checking the girths of her saddle. A feeling of strangeness came over him. What did he really know about her, this woman who looked so much like his sister?

  “What was it like, running away?” he asked.

  Aviyya took a swig from the flask tied to her saddle. It was light enough now to see the delicate lines around her eyes and mouth. “What was it like, growing up alone?” she countered.

  “Not simple.” A bitter sound that might have been a laugh erupted somewhere inside him. “By the time I was old enough to care, Esme had a chance to think about what happened with you. In the end, she let me go.”

  “So my leaving made a difference, after all.” Aviyya’s gray eyes narrowed
. “What you said about Montborne. And Esme. Can she handle him?”

  “I thought so when I left. That was before his goons came after me with the dagger. I still don’t know if I made the right decision — if I might have made things worse if I went back, or if Esme really needed me. I only know that I have to find my own way now, just as you did. Avi — what was it Esme told you that made you leave when you did, so sudden — what was it she wanted from you?”

  “Didn’t Esme tell you?” Aviyya’s eyes went steely. “It’s dangerous to ask such questions, baby brother.”

  Abruptly, she turned her back on him, reached beneath her saddlebags and pulled out a fist-sized parcel wrapped in greased cloth. Terris recognized it as the trail food Grissem had distributed among them. She took a bite of the amorphous grayish lump.

  “You ought to eat something.” She swung up on her pony and booted it into a choppy canter.

  o0o

  The wet-tundra seemed to go on forever, broken only by gentle hills with straggly evergreen forests clustering on the lower slopes. By gradual steps, they climbed. The air grew thinner and drier, the trees sparser.

  Terris reined his gelding beside Avi’s pony. There was something he wanted from her, and it wasn’t being told to eat something. Some trace of the sister he’d lost, perhaps.

  Aviyya rode with easy grace, her body moving to the pony’s stride. As Terris drew near, her mouth twisted, as if she were gathering herself for a difficult task. He waited, thinking how the old Aviyya, the one he’d grown up with, fearless confidante and playfellow, never had any trouble blurting out whatever was on her mind. They’d both changed.

  “I’m sorry I treated you like a kid,” she said at last. “Seven years is a long time.”

  He nodded.

  “You said you can see the Ridge weirdies, too,” she went on, sounding a bit hesitant still.

  “See them? I nearly fell into one!” Relief washed through him. “All my life, I’ve been able to see and feel things other people can’t.” He went on to tell her about the waking visions and the thing beneath the Starhall. Surely she, of all people, should understand.

  Aviyya frowned, chewing on her lip. “We both can see the Ridge weirdies, so we’re neither of us crazy. As for the rest...I always hated it when Esme dragged me to the Starhall, but I don’t think it made me physically ill. I don’t know about your dreams.”

  “They aren’t dreams!” The gelding jumped in surprise. Terris patted his neck. “For one thing, I’m often wide awake. For another, I see things I couldn’t possibly remember. I was there when Father died — I smelled the beeswax candles. Lys carried me away in her arms. Esme was crying, impossible as that sounds. I saw Esme make that speech of hers in the plaza. And, Avi — I’ve seen her as Guardian.”

  Aviyya came alert, taut. “You’re sure this has really happened?”

  Reluctantly, he shook his head. “The first time was back in Laureal City and Pateros was still alive. I don’t know if it’s something that will happen or that might. Montborne’s a formidable opponent.”

  “So is Esme.” But Aviyya’s voice was a shade less than certain.

  Terris’s eyes scanned the steepening hills, the inky shadows of the trees, huddled together as if for warmth. “There’s nothing we can do about it now.”

  “Maybe.”

  o0o

  Fields of grain gave way to herds of domestic elk grazing on wire-grass or resting in the shelter of dwarf holly groves. The herdsman, so bundled up that he looked obese, waved to them as he whistled to his dogs. Jakon rode off alone to greet him while the rest of them waited.

  “I reckon he doesn’t want it known he’s got southers with him,” Etch commented as they started off again. “I wouldn’t want to be seen with us, either.”

  Terris gazed ahead, his cloak tucked around him as tightly as he could manage. A gust of air, cold enough to burn, teased a few strands of hair from beneath his hood. He brushed them back and felt the first traces of beard regrowth along his jaw; the depilatory was wearing off. Etch’s beard had come in curly, gray-flecked brown, and there were creases bracketing his mouth and new lines around his eyes.

  I probably look even worse, Terris thought with an inward smile. Who in Laurea would recognize either of us now?

  o0o

  “You should eat.”

  Terris looked up. He’d been staring down at the sorrel’s bony withers, for how long he didn’t know. Etch had drifted off to ride beside Kardith, and Grissem taken his place. The norther held out a wrapped parcel like Aviyya’s. The thought of food made Terris’s stomach twist ominously and his mouth go acid. He shook his head.

  “You think you can’t,” said Grissem. “That’s your body sickening with the height. You southers aren’t used to it, or the cold. Next thing, you’ll be hearing things and we’ll have to carry you like a baby.”

  Terris took the parcel. He expected it to smell as revoltingly greasy as it looked, but he couldn’t smell anything at all — the cold had numbed the inside of his nose. He took a tentative bite. It was salty and pungent, chewy with grain and laced with fruit and something he thought was dried meat but didn’t want to ask. He drank from his saddle flask. The honeyed water, instead of being cloyingly sweet, tasted refreshing, invigorating.

  “Now listen to me,” said Grissem. “I know you want to talk to your friends. You southers always talk too much. But where we’re going, you can’t be bringing a head full of chatter, you understand me?”

  A head full of chatter. Terris remembered riding through the predawn stillness, his nerves raw with cold, but some part of him stirring, listening... It wasn’t that the altitude made him hear things, but that it made him forget what was already there, just at the limit of his normal senses. Now that his nerves were steadier, his sight clearer, he could feel it again, calling him from the north.

  o0o

  They saw no more elk herds, nor did they come within sight of any human habitation. The ponies went on as if they were immune to cold and fatigue, but by the end of each day the horses flagged and had to be coaxed to eat their grain rations. From time to time, Aviyya would ride beside Terris and try to talk to him, but between Grissem’s warning and the growing sense of urgency, the pull from the north, he couldn’t bring himself to answer her.

  They passed one night by a grove of ironbark trees and the next in the shelter of the huge, isolated rocks that towered above the half-frozen earth.

  Terris curled up in his cloak against the weather-cracked stone and lay there unmoving until Etch brought him a pan of hot trail stew. It was the usual sticky mess of grain, dried fruit and nameless smoked meat. With it was a chunk of bread and a pinch of coarse salt, which Jakon said would help them adapt to the altitude. Even though he wasn’t hungry, Terris took a mouthful of the stew. The last thing he wanted now was someone else nagging him to eat.

  Behind him, the wind moaned fitfully through the crevices. He felt the rock tremble, but perhaps that too was a product of the strange warping of his senses the farther north they went. The pulling had grown into a sweet wild calling that he could feel even in his sleep, and it was all he could do now to sit still and let his aching body rest. He closed his eyes and concentrated on chewing.

  In between the gusts of wind, he heard Etch and Kardith discussing one of the horses, a foreleg tendon or something like that. Abruptly Kardith swore and stomped off. Terris felt her pass within inches of his extended legs, not smooth like a shadow panther, but turbulent, volatile. He opened his eyes.

  Across the flickering pocket fire, Jakon and Grissem had taken out a hand drum and a small bone flute. Yesterday evening, they’d spent an hour or more playing and chanting. The words were so archaic Terris couldn’t even guess their meaning, yet he had found himself humming along, caught by their lilting rhythms. Tonight he recoiled from the music.

  Aviyya got up from her place in the shadows and went over to Jakon. Grissem’s hand jerked from his flute to the hilt of his knife. She saw the moveme
nt and kept her hands in plain sight.

  “What’s the matter with my brother?” she asked. “Why is he like that?”

  “It’s the Northlight calling him,” Jakon said, hands poised over his drum.

  “Batshit. He’s acting like he’s overdosed on ghostweed. He can hardly talk.”

  Terris struggled against the curious stillness of his body, the quality of listening, of following. He knew the effects of ghostweed, and this wasn’t any of them. His throat moved reluctantly. “I’m all right.”

  Aviyya glared at him. “Have it your own way. For now.” She sat back on her heels and turned her attention back to Jakon. “It’s also time we talked about what happens after we get to this Northlight.”

  Jakon laid the drum on the ground slowly. “We aren’t there yet. Your brother still must stand in the Light. We can’t make any plans beyond that.”

  She shook her head impatiently. “You don’t understand. No matter what happens there, we have to go back to Laureal City. I see that now. The sooner the better — in fact, we ought to turn around right now. We can’t afford to waste this much time. The political situation’s too unstable — and I’m not just talking about your people, I’m talking about mine, too. What if Terr’s vision is right and Esme’s now Guardian — how long do you think Montborne will let her live? Will there be another poisoned dagger for her? Maybe you don’t care. But suppose he manages to get elected instead. If people are scared enough, they’ll turn to anyone for help. What then? You know what he can do, you even call him the Butcher of Brassaford. But with the dagger and my brother’s testimony, we can make him answer for what he’s done. A part of it, anyway, enough to keep him from power. These aren’t empty words, Jakon, I can do it — if I can get back home in time.”