by Rob Scott
‘I thought you might want to go back there,’ Alen smiled.
‘She’s fun, and I like those biscuits, the warm ones. They’re so big.’
‘Big as your head!’ Alen pretended to struggle beneath the weight of a giant pastry.
‘Can we bring one back for Hoyt?’
‘Of course.’
‘Is he going to die?’ Milla twirled a length of ribbon around her finger.
‘No, Pepperweed. He’s going to be just fine.’ Alen tried to sound convincing.
‘But there’s a new hole in his shoulder,’ the little girl said sadly. ‘One of those soldiers stuck him with a sword.’
‘That’s almost all better, sweetie. The querlis is fixing that hole right up.’
‘But not the other one,’ she was quick to point out.
‘I know, Pepperweed.’
‘Do you think Gilmour will be able to help him?’
‘That’s a funny thing to ask.’
‘Because he’s almost here,’ Milla said.
‘How do you know? Can you sense him out there?’ Alen knelt beside her, ignoring the damp seeping through his leggings.
‘You know how we felt that big crash from Falkan a while ago?’ Milla whispered as if sharing a secret. ‘It’s like that, only a lot quieter.’
‘It must be.’ He looked around, thinking perhaps his former colleague might be coming up the quay to join them. ‘I can’t feel him at all.’
‘Well, it’s hard, because he’s really quiet, but I know where to find him, because I held him that time outside the room.’
‘Like you did with me and Hoyt in the wagons?’
‘I had to with you and Hoyt, because those Seron things were coming so fast, and you two were dreaming about fireplaces and pretty girls.’ Milla snorted with laughter. ‘But, yes, just like that.’
‘Any idea where he is, Pepperweed?’ Alen aligned his finger with hers and Milla wrapped them both in the ribbon.
‘A little bit that way.’ She pointed southeast, across the inlet and along the coast.
‘Are you sure?’ Alen asked, ‘because if he’s coming by sea, he would have to come from that way.’ He pointed northeast, where deep water met a wall of atolls and shallow islands in the Northern Archipelago. ‘Everyone coming on the water this Twinmoon has to come that way.’
‘Nope.’ Milla shook her head, her scribbled curls jouncing. Not Gilmour. He’s coming from over there, around that piece of ground sticking out in the water.’
‘All right, Pepperweed, we’ll watch for him from that way. And to answer your question: yes, I hope that Gilmour can help Hoyt, or help me help Hoyt get better.’
They walked for a while in silence. Milla stopped to consider, then hopped over a coil of mooring hawser some docker had left along the wharf. Beside them, the Welstar River was a steely grey ribbon.
‘Nice jump,’ Alen said, retaking her hand, ‘but be careful. You don’t want to fall in.’
‘I know,’ Milla shivered. ‘It’s so cold it made my head hurt, and my skin was like it didn’t feel anything.’
‘Numb.’
‘Numb,’ Milla echoed. ‘So I had to warm it up, or I would have been too scared to swim.’
‘I hear you did a good job swimming.’
Milla beamed. ‘I swam the scramble, just like Hannah showed me, but she calls it the dog-paddle, or something like that. I did have to hurt that one man, though – I didn’t want to, but he was going to stab Hoyt, and maybe Hannah, too. So I made him stop.’ Her lip started to tremble.
Alen picked her up and, holding her close, whispered, ‘Don’t you worry about it, Pepperweed, not for one more day. Those men were going to take you back to Welstar Palace.’
‘Back to Rabeth and the others?’ She looked cross. ‘But I don’t want to go back there. I want to go home to Mama and to find Resta with Hoyt.’
‘Resta?’
‘You know: Resta the Wonderdog, who writes his name and sings songs.’
‘Yes, of course, how could I have forgotten?’
A pair of barges laden with tarpaulin-covered crates moved slowly towards Welstar Palace. Milla waved at one of the sailors. ‘You don’t think those other soldiers are going to come and find me?’
‘Not after what you did to them.’
‘That was Hoyt’s idea,’ Milla said. ‘I didn’t know if I could do it, but Hannah helped me to come up with a good story, and I just told it to those men, the ones with the hurt legs, and they thought it was true.’
‘And Erynn too, right?’
‘She was even easier,’ Milla said. ‘I just make her think that Karel had taken me away because he was mad at her for being in love with Hoyt.’
‘That’s silly, isn’t it?’ Alen blew into his cupped hands; Milla mimicked him, warming her fingers.
‘Hoyt’s too old, anyway.’
‘I’m sure he’ll be glad you think that way, Pepperweed.’
She giggled. ‘Hoyt’s silly.’
‘That is an interesting trick you did, though. I wish I knew how to do that one,’ Alen said. ‘Did Nerak teach you that one: helping people to remember things the wrong way?’
‘No.’ Milla wiped her nose on her cloak. ‘It was Hoyt. He told me to try it, and so I did. It was hard at first, because those other soldiers were shouting. So it was hard to think about how to do it.’
‘I’m impressed,’ Alen said, ‘but Milla, please don’t try that one on me or the others, all right?’
‘All right.’ Milla didn’t seem to care. ‘Are we there yet? I’m cold.’
While the Hunter’s Glade did indeed have enormous biscuits, some the size of a child’s head, Milla’s favourite thing about visiting Gisella were her dogs. The lonely cafe owner had two, a big old wolf-like creature, and a small, feisty creature with a mass of tight curls, a fiery temper and a soft spot for children. As soon as they arrived at the cafe, Milla rushed over to the dogs and the three of them rolled and wrestled until, exhausted, she joined Alen at their small table near the fireplace. After devouring whatever delicacy Gisella had prepared for her, Milla donned her cloak, kissed the barmaid on the nose and climb into Alen’s arms for the journey back to the Wayfarer. After most visits, Milla was asleep before they rounded the first corner.
This aven, the little girl didn’t sleep. Alen?’ she asked, a tiny voice in the twilight air.
‘What is it, Pepperweed?’
‘I sent those dogs to the wagons, too.’
‘I know you did, Pepperweed.’
‘Was that a wrong thing to do?’
‘You saved me and Hoyt,’ he said, ‘so no, I don’t think it was wrong.’
‘But some of those soldiers-’
‘They were all fine.’ Alen stopped her with the lie he and Hoyt had prepared. ‘Hoyt and I were watching while we sneaked away, and when the dogs left, all those soldiers were fine.’ She had been so upset at killing the Malakasian sergeant; knowing she had wiped out an entire platoon of Seron warriors would be too much for Milla to handle right now. He changed the subject, saying, ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘What?’
‘How do you do it? How do you get those dogs inside our dreams? Hannah, Hoyt, and I all dreamed about dogs – the same dog, from Southport, the one you sent after Hannah when she came across the Fold. How did you get the dog to follow your orders, and how did you get the same dog to fit so perfectly into our dreams?’
‘It’s the way those ashes work.’ Milla didn’t lift her head from his shoulder.
‘The ashes?’
‘The ash dream,’ she yawned into his ear.
‘What is that, Pepperweed?’ He was getting more confused, not less.
‘The dream you get from the trees.’
Ashes, Alen thought, ashes – yes, there were ashes in the fire grate in Durham, and Hannah mentioned ashes from her father’s cigarettes. Hoyt remembered me smoking, although I never did, and Churn smelled the ashes of his family’s burning homestead. The ash dr
eam? Dreams of ashes? It doesn’t make sense.
He asked, ‘So why did we all dream about ashes, Pepperweed?’
‘You dream about your life. I put in the dog for fun. It isn’t hard to do.’
‘So where do the ashes come from?’
‘From whoever wants you to know about ashes. She must be putting the ashes in there.’
‘She?’
‘Or he. I don’t know.’
‘So the ash dream is a dream about ashes?’ Alen couldn’t hide his confusion.
Milla giggled, snuggling closer to ward off the cold. ‘No, crazy. The ash dream is the dream that comes from the trees. The ashes are in your dream, because someone put them there.’
‘Like your dog.’
‘Yup.’
‘Because he… or she… wanted me to think about ashes?’
‘Wanted you to know the name of the dream, probably.’
He propped her a bit higher on his hip. ‘Go to sleep now, Milla. I’ll wake you when we get back to the Wayfarer.’
‘All right,’ she yawned. ‘Did you remember Hoyt’s biscuit?’
‘And one for Hannah,’ Alen said, feeling her breath tickle his neck.
‘That’s good,’ she whispered and drifted off.
Plodding through the Pellia twilight, Alen analysed what he knew, trying to uncover something salient they had overlooked. So the ash dream is how someone, Nerak probably, referred to the hypnotic state one experiences in the Forest of Ghosts. Milla sent the dog to follow us, then worked him into our dreams, probably without Nerak knowing, or he would have been rutting furious with her for tipping us off. So why the ashes? Was that you, Fantus? What are you trying to tell me? I know it’s the tree bark, but why? What’s the point of shipping it here?
He was still thinking it all through when he arrived back at the Wayfarer Inn. Morgan and Illia Kestral, both working behind the bar, waved to him genially, deeply thankful that they had saved Erynn from Karel, the crazed young soldier, who had kidnapped their daughter and Milla before killing himself. If you only knew, Alen thought. He gestured to Milla and then the stairs: I’ll be right down, just need to take her up.
‘You need a beer?’ Morgan whispered.
‘Please,’ Alen whispered back. An aven or two alone might help him stumble on something he had missed.
INVISIBLE SENTRIES
At Gilmour’s call, Steven shouted, ‘On my way!’ and left Kellin and Garec chatting amiably. Brexan went off to find Captain Ford on the quarterdeck.
Passage along the Malakasian coast had been tiresome. The captain and crew of the Morning Star had pushed, pulled, dragged and kedged the little brig-sloop over and through all manner of hazards. Miraculously, the ship remained seaworthy, despite her battered appearance, and finally she rode a high tide through the last of the islands to join an armada of small fishing vessels, trawlers and booacore boats, mostly, working the coastline south of the capital. Steven prayed they had shaved enough time off the Northeast Channel to reach Pellia before Mark and the hijacked frigates.
‘What is it?’ he asked, catching his breath.
Gilmour pointed. ‘See that rocky point on the horizon with the pines running almost out to the end? If my memory and Captain Ford’s charts are correct, that’s the last slip of land separating us from the Welstar River inlet-’
‘And Pellia.’
‘And Pellia,’ Gilmour agreed. ‘If you look northeast, about as far out as you can on the horizon…’ He pointed again.
Steven sighted along his forearm but couldn’t see anything. ‘Sorry, but most of us don’t sharpen our eyesight with Larion magic.’
‘Trust me,’ Gilmour said, ‘it’s there.’
‘What’s there? A ship?’
‘Topsails, anyway. If it was a ship, we’d be in trouble. For now, it’s just her sails; she hasn’t come hull-up yet. When she does, her lookouts will spot us.’
Steven understood. ‘So it’s time to get hidden.’ He paused, then admitted, ‘I don’t think that I can hide us well enough to cross the inlet and make way into the harbour unseen. This is an awfully big boat to make disappear. And anyway, you know as well as I do that my cloaking spells don’t really make us invisible; they just help people overlook us.’
‘I understand,’ Gilmour assured him, ‘and I also understand that there are a lot of people in Pellia, and many of them will see us approach. What I want you to concentrate on is keeping us camouflaged while we sail inside the blockade. Once we’ve passed that, anyone on shore will assume we’ve been cleared to moor.’
‘And that’s the closest ship, way out there?’
‘For now, yes, but when we round this point, there will be a number of smaller boats, shallow-drafting boats, working the inlet. Those are my main concern.’
‘Why aren’t they on this side of the point?’
‘Because no one of any threat or consequence could possibly get a large ship through here. No invading army approaches in a skiff.’ Gilmour smiled. ‘We were lucky to find Captain Ford.’
‘Lucky doesn’t cover it! We’ve Brexan to thank for that one.’
‘The blockade captains in the inlet will be working upriver, inspecting barges as they approach from the south. They’ll also be downriver, at least glancing at the barges moving north. Those are the ships we’ll need to be concerned with, because anything coming off the pier or from a mooring line in the harbour will already have cleared customs and so they won’t get more than a cursory look.’
‘So the downriver blockade ships are our biggest threat?’
‘For the next aven or so, yes.’
‘Got it,’ Steven said. ‘All right, give me a moment, and I’ll see if I can get this right.’
‘I can probably help if you need it.’
‘Really?’ Steven was surprised. ‘So there’s a schooner in the harbour?’
‘Full to bursting, unless these old bones are reading the weather wrong.’
‘What is it?’
‘Carpello’s tree bark, I suppose.’
‘How did you live in Estrad Village all those Twinmoons and never feel it, especially if there was an entire forest of it growing just across the river?’
‘It must somehow become active when it’s processed, and I never bothered to check. That forest had been closed for so long; it never crossed my mind it might have been for a reason other than just because he could,’ Gilmour said. ‘Either way, it’s awfully noisy around here, so I can help if you need me.’
‘I might. I’ve been a bit distracted these past few days.’ Steven looked for a place to settle in and call up the cloaking spell that had served them so well outside Traver’s Notch. He sat in the bow, ducked below the gunwales.
‘Distracted by what?’
‘By whatever this is that I have in my pocket, this bug you gave me.’ He withdrew the remains of what looked like the unlikely offspring of a beetle and a poisonous spider.
‘You haven’t felt any of them on board, have you?’
‘No,’ Steven said, ‘but let me remind you that I’m no good at all this feeling and detecting that you and Mark and Nerak and Kantu and just about everyone else, including my old Aunt Ethel, can do. You tell me there’s a schooner filled with mystical tree bark just around the bend, and I can’t feel anything. You tell me to search for a netherworldly insect here to kill us all, and all I want to do is screech like a schoolgirl and climb the rigging to the crow’s nest until the exterminator comes and sprays the whole place down with DDT. So yeah, I’ve been a bit distracted.’
Gilmour checked the horizon, making certain the blockade ship was still hull-down. He crouched beside Steven, and said, ‘I don’t want you to worry about the insects. I haven’t felt any, and it’s been days now, so it must have been just this one. If there are others, they’re dead too – crushed, frozen, whatever. Right now, you need to concentrate on helping us hide. Can you do that?’
Steven shrugged. ‘Sure, just give me a moment.’
; ‘And remember,’ Gilmour interrupted, ‘you have shown an enormous potential to detect all manner of mystical energy, but for you it doesn’t happen-’
‘Until everything gets blurry,’ Steven said to himself. ‘When the air gets thick, and everything else turns to melted wax, that’s when I can do it.’
Gilmour backed away, whispering, ‘That’s right. Take your time.’
From the bow, Steven had an unencumbered view of the Morning Star. He blinked, let his vision blur and then drew everything back into focus. Concentrating on his mother’s old blanket, the ugly one from the 1970s with the big circular knitting that made the whole thing look as though it had been shot by a 12-gauge, Steven inhaled through his nose, felt the cold bite his sinuses and let himself drift back in time. Winters in Colorado. The cold chilled your sinuses there; they nearly froze shut some mornings. Those were the worst headaches, frozen-from-the-inside-out headaches. Every morning, Steven would amble down the hall, into the living room and curl up on the sofa beneath that old blanket. Most mornings, school mornings, his time there was brief; he had to get dressed, finish homework, catch the bus, sinuses frozen or not. But Saturdays and Sundays were days for lingering beneath the covers, the old wool rubbing against his skin, capturing the heat despite the clumsy, holey stitching. Some mornings he would get lucky and there would be a film on television, some great old epic with John Wayne or Errol Flynn. Stretching out on that couch – not unlike the Morning Star, stretching aft, her rigging taut with northerly wind – Steven could fit his whole body under the blanket; he had to be careful not to push his feet through the hole near the far end. Who had done that? His sister? The dog? He couldn’t remember. But what a place to hide, warm, safe and nearly invisible as Charlton Heston wrestled freakish-looking monkeys or James Mason battled a giant squid with a steak knife.
‘That’s it, Steven,’ he heard someone say. ‘That should do it; excellent work, your best yet, my boy.’
Steven let himself wander, not hurrying, back to the cold foredeck of the Pragan brig-sloop he and his friends had shanghaied into carrying them this far. When he opened his eyes, he wasn’t surprised to find that much of the ship – her masts, cordage, sheets and rigging – were a blurry backdrop of brown and white.