by PMF Johnson
Once again Deeb took the time to go back down the route they had taken and spent as much time as he dared to wipe out their trail, concealing the fact that they entered this particular valley in particular out of all the different canyons that gave entrance into the mountains.
In the valley, they found themselves on the remains of an old path that made its way beneath a stand of cottonwoods that lined the river. On the far side of the trees ahead was an open grassland, and beyond that the graying wood of ruined outbuildings, with a corral half-hidden in the meadow flowers.
Their faces were eager as they rode forward, passing out of the cottonwoods into the sun, and Galle came up to walk beside his father as they took in their surroundings. Beyond the burbling river to their right stood aspen, the even spacing between their trunks as formal as a cathedral. A fence of stone lay almost hidden in the grass. All was long abandoned. Beyond the meadow rose a hillside of spruce, aspen and pine, and the mountain stood bulwark behind that, protecting against the northern winds.
"Over there," Galle said, pointing.
To their right, on a small bench of land above the small river stood a small house built of logs. Part of the roof had been repaired, but even that work had been abandoned long ago.
"No one has lived here for a long time," Galle said with certainty.
"It feels right for us," Mara said. "But does no one truly own it?"
"No kingdom claims this region," Deeb said. "Most nomads live in the Magic, and those who don't claim homelands further east, though all pass through here on occasion. International law as argued in Remula recognizes the rights of property-holders in possession. Outside a kingdom, someone may claim land abandoned for one year as long as they settle on it and make reasonable improvements. So basically, if we can hold onto this land it's ours."
Mara smiled at that thought.
The horse and mules looked around attentively, almost happily, as though they too thought this felt like their new home. Deeb felt a gladdening of his spirit as they crossed the river and drove up to the house.
The forest right around the house had been cut down years ago, though a few saplings had sprung up again. Deeb could picture gardens there, a barn beyond that. They would need to fix that corral across the river, to contain their stock.
Deeb helped his wife down off the wagon. Mara looked about, taking in the green scent of the meadow, the view of the mountain above the trees, sunlight pouring over everything.
"It's so beautiful," she said, almost to herself.
Galle proceeded them to the small house.
"The door still works," he said. "It's well-built, Pa."
Mara watched Deeb. "What do you think?"
"Let's look it over for a week or so," he said. "We don't want to make too much haste after so much travel, I think we have to be careful."
She studied his face. "But you love it too, don't you?"
He nodded, but said, "Let's get the lay of the land -- we'll scout the area, see if it will do. But yes, I like what I see."
"I wonder who held it before us," she said.
"I don't know. But they had pride in their work," he said. "It's obvious by the work they left behind. They were likely good people, building to last. As we intend to do."
Squash would grow well here, along with pole beans. They would need corn, peas, root vegetables.
"This is the one of the valleys you were told about?"
"It's that or something better," he said. "It's the same country I knew as a boy, sure enough. Don't know how far we are from Plover, the town I lived in, whether it's in the next valley over or farther than that. The mountains look familiar, but we never came this far east."
#
In early morning four figures sat in a half-circle under the shade of a small overhang in a rocky cliff face, with three cottonwoods giving added shelter. All were of the same shade of grey, so dark as to appear black -- faces, hair, carved clothing. Only their eyes sparkled with pinprick lights at the center, an eerie, orange glow resembling life. The morning was foggy, so when Shef first saw the four figures he froze, not aware of what he faced.
Had they noticed him? They did not move, did not turn towards him. He waited as time slipped by, but in their utter immobility he saw something unnatural. Were they dead? Was this a trap?
A finch sang an inquiring song. Shef was alone. The rest had camped off to his right, on the north side of the river. They often slept later than he did, all but the Owl, so he prowled the new dawn alone. He had backtracked the pilgrims across the river on a hunch, thinking about how they had lightened their wagon.
Also, as often when out alone, he was considering simply fading away, letting the others go. That would be the way to disappear. Rock would never come back this way when his quarry had gone on.
But Shef's brother Ulf was there, and family ties held him, as did inertia. Anyway, what would he do if alone, work as a hand for some rancher? That was a tough, impoverished, small life, and Shef still held bigger dreams than that.
He studied the area, making a slow loop around the figures, seeing how they were set above the level of a casual flood from the river in the flats below, how they were arranged to view each other as though for companionship, the care taken to place them where they would be sheltered from the sun.
He was no great shakes as a woodsman, and did not see the half-obscured tracks of a wagon headed off to the river crossing, but he still put together enough of what happened here.
Having a notion, he approached the figures with a respectful expression.
"Good day," he said aloud, coming up to them.
He wondered crazily if they could read minds. But he'd never heard of any magic able to do such a thing.
***Good morning.***
The reply, coming unbidden into his mind, raised the hackles on the back of his neck. So maybe they could read his thoughts. But he went on with his plan. "Your people said you could guide us to them."
***Who are you?***
"Name's Shef. We're driving a few head of cattle for them, help start their ranch."
He was gambling the pilgrims intended to start a ranch. The silence dragged on. Were the statutes conversing with each other? He kept his face bland, waiting, but behind the mask he considered how to convince the statues to tell him where the pilgrims went from here. He could not come up with anything. And they did not seem to be willing to help him. Or they weren't fooled, maybe.
He had a sense of nostalgia, of dreams lost, and he thought of his family long departed. Only Ulf remained to him. A sadness swept him that he did not expect and was not prepared to counter. He did not connect it with the magic of these creatures, but with his foolishness over his older brother. The little things that Ulf did for him, even the ways they shared as family, add it all up, it wasn't much.
He should get out of here. But that thought opened up an empty feeling. If he left, where would he go? He had to figure that out, first. Maybe he'd give Ulf one more chance to change.
At last, he made a half-bow. "Sorry to disturb you. Thought you might be able to help."
He started away, hesitating once, but the silent figures made no response. To himself, he cursed them, then went on.
He did not know what magic they might command even left alone out here, and did not want to find out, so he said nothing to offend them, nothing to alarm them any more than they might already be.
Though his trick had failed, he intended to say nothing to the others about what he found. Shef was not a man who gave anything away freely.
Anyway, he still wasn't sure if he intended to warn the pilgrims somehow. He hadn't made up his mind about them. He touched his heels to his horse, hurrying back to his brother, Ulf, who he missed suddenly for some reason.
He had no idea the simulacra had cast a spell to make him leave, go cling to his own family.
#
The house had been standing empty for a long time Deeb judged, maybe five years or more. They were a long ways
from anywhere here, and not many folks must ever pass this way. Many places in the world had never been re-settled by mortals after the Shadow Years, as long ago as that had been. He took care of the stock, getting them out of the traces, watering them, setting them out to feed.
He directed Galle to gather wood, left Mara to look through the cabin, and set Lok to watching over them, then headed out, bow in hand, along a narrow game trail that followed the river uphill.
A sort of wide, flat area, several hundred paces in length, opened up there at the base of the mountain. A beaver dam blocked the water and the pond sparkled in the sun. An ideal location for raising the long-horned, half-wild neve cattle that did so well in these regions. And with the spoor of game animals he saw -- deer, rabbit, even an elk, he thought they could make do here until he brought in some cows next spring.
They would need firewood -- a lot of wood, several cords to pass the winter, he was sure. Galle and he could get that accomplished before winter. It was a beautiful spot -- deceptively beautiful.
Underneath, he felt surprisingly scared -- this was the place, here their dreams would become reality, or not. He wondered if anyone else homesteaded anywhere close -- did they have any neighbors at all? The town he lived in as a boy, Plover, did it even exist anymore? How far away did it lie?
They had very little food and must replenish their stocks. They were one accident away from disaster. He would have to remain very careful -- cautious, even. Galle had shown himself to be a good hunter when he could rely on the whirligigs to guide him, but the whirligigs had not followed past the borders of the Magic, which lay a few days ride to the south.
Nomads and barbarians might pass through this region -- certainly the Ruskiya clans from the Magic would be familiar with this area, might claim it. They had already had some peaceful dealings with the Ruskiya, but each of the clans was independent of the others, so they must work with each clan as it came by.
The risks were considerable, but such was the life of an exile. They were still safer here than back in the city. Turning off the caravan route and heading into the Magic should have thrown off any pursuit, but even did his brothers' enemies know where they were, at such a distance it would not be worth the bother to hunt them down -- those were men who weighed costs with heavy coins. No, from that danger at least, he judged they were safe.
But they had come north a long ways and must get in a crop quickly, plant the land, hunt, fish and smoke enough meat for winter. And always be scouting the land -- for resources, for neighbors, for enemies.
Deeb walked down to Mara, who had emerged from the cabin. "We should inventory what we have -- get an understanding of what we will need for the winter. I'm thinking the hunting will be good, here."
"Galle will have to relearn hunting without his silver scouts," Mara said.
He nodded. "But he's learned much already. I think we will keep our hunting distant from our home -- leave the closer animals undisturbed. In case of emergency."
She sensed his sudden seriousness. "What is it, Deeb? You don't like this place?"
"I love it. Except maybe for the lack of anyone else close by."
"You're worried those ruffians are still back there?"
"I'm thinking they are, but even if they're not, what does it cost to be careful?"
He turned to go fetch more wood for her fire. At that moment, as they looked out into the evening dusk, in the distance a bright orange light flashed.
The light of a spell being cast.
Chapter Twelve
Deeb and Mara stared at the spot far up the mountain slope above them where the flash occurred. A spell cast, here?
But of course any number of people could be in the area, it should not be such a surprise. They had even crossed a road back yonder -- it could be the members of a caravan, doing some hunting with magic.
"We may not be as alone as we think," Deeb said, keeping his expression calm. He was trying to remember the shape of the mountain, to calculate the distance to that spell. Two thousand paces? Three, maybe? Maybe someone did live over the shoulder of the mountain. Or maybe the Preacher and his gang were that close to finding them.
"Evening time, the deer are moving down to drink. With one spell, I'd say it was a hunter holed up by a game trail," Deeb said. "I'm not going to worry too much about it, but we will have to keep watch, and I would just as soon not advertise our presence tonight. We will find a way to get food unobtrusively."
One trick he had been teaching Galle was to spear fish. So the two of them went down to the river, and between them speared five trout, enough even for the next day. Mara fried them up, after which they banked the fire as quickly as possible.
The next day they assessed -- their inventory was less than hoped, what with the gifts to the Ruskiya. Deeb was dismayed at how low their supplies were. A couple sacks of milled grain for making bread, a few dried corms of sweetroot, a fair amount of pimien for coffee.
"I'll have to go out to hunt tomorrow," he decided.
First, they spent the day dusting out and swabbing down the house. They did have pails for water, which helped. The back room had a wood frame for a bed, the front room had a hearth and fireplace for cooking and a ladder up to the loft where Galle could sleep. It was a cozy setup all in all, and Deeb felt grateful for that. A small shed had once stored wood -- a few split logs remained.
"We'll need that replenished," Deeb told Galle. "Full up."
Galle studied the shed. "Bigger than it looks. That's a lot of work, Pa." He did not sound happy.
Sometimes Deeb was surprised to remember his son was still a boy, with a boy's outlook. "It'll take several weeks of working full-out to fill it," he acknowledged, "if we're to have a chance to make it through the winter. These are cold climes, son. Cold in ways you never experienced back in Thehar. That job is as important for us as any. Listen to me, I'm being as serious as I can be. We can't survive here, your mother, you and I, without that wood. I need you to take charge of getting this shed filled."
Galle nodded, glum. His whirligigs had not accompanied him past the boundaries of the Magic. If the creatures lived on the energies of Magic storms like the one the Partens lived through, that would make sense, but Galle still obviously missed them.
By fortunate chance, Deeb brought down an elk with a long bow shot the next day in the hills east of their valley. He fashioned a sledge to haul as much meat as he could, and get it back to the house by dark. Mara found wild roots down by the river, and dug some out, thinning them so others could grow larger. A few berries from clearings in the woods supplemented their supper.
As they ate, Deeb considered that burst of magic from the evening before -- they needed to know who the mage was and why that spell was cast, as well as the lay of the land around their home. After spending another day getting Galle going, teaching him where and how to find wood and how to get it back with the sledge, Deeb prepared to head out the next morning for the high hills to the north.
"I'll return by sundown," he told Mara. "Keep Galle close. Our boy is getting better at managing Lok, but I'm taking the imp so we can scout the area."
Mara took note that her husband headed north, aiming for the high hills and the slope of the mountain where the spell had gone off. Then she set to doing laundry, while Galle followed his father's example yesterday in gathering bark, fallen limbs and other dead wood, picking off the easiest work first.
The day passed slowly. As Mara worked, she worried about how much they needed to do and how little they knew about doing it. None of them was expert at such a life. She must find someone to give her advice. A woman, if it were possible. In the meantime they would do the best they could, and learn at every chance. But there was much they would need -- she would make a list of essentials to acquire when they went to town.
They had little enough anyway -- they must weigh each item carefully. She thought of the carvings of her ancestors, alone in the wilderness, weeks to the south of them. Someday -- in a year? tw
o? -- she hoped they might go and bring them home. The simulacra were heavy though, it would be a major undertaking. So many ifs. Her husband might be hours away when hunting, days even, in the future.
She felt glad Deeb had taken Lok, the danger being greater for him. But she kept an eye out for any sign the imp had been sent to her, bearing a message. She felt vulnerable here, with only Galle to help and him without the whirligigs who seemed to work with him in some mysterious way.
Galle must have felt the same way, for later in the afternoon he went off to study the land where the road came in, He used a pine branch to brush out some of their tracks, then circled the area, looking for sign. He came back shaking his head, having found none.
So the thugs had lost their trail. She could believe that, but worried they would be searching. Galle picked up the fish spear. The day was so sultry she imagined the fish could be hiding at the bottom of the pools. She thought to accompany Galle to the stream, but before they could descend to the river, a flicker of something caught her attention.
At the top of the slope to the west of their valley stood a horse -- the man atop it was studying the land to the south. He was a stranger.
Mara grabbed Galle's arm, and they eased behind some trees. As they watched, the man reined his horse around to descend into their valley.
Mara caught a better look at him. His face was mashed in, and might have been mottled from old bruising. Just as he reached the bottom of the hill, they heard a distant cry -- a voice calling.
He stopped, seemed to listen, then turned his horse around and returned the way he had come.
"That's the man who crept up on us that night," Mara said. "The one I hit with my pan."
"He did look pretty beat up," Galle agreed. "Boy, maybe that's why he's been chasing us, because he knows one of us did that to him."