Marja hugged Peter’s arm and whispered, “Bring me two rabbits, Peter-cousin. We’ll celebrate tonight!”
Nicolas heard whispering behind him and the swish of Marja’s skirt as she busied herself at the stove, but his attention was fixed. The old man finished his water and rested his head back. Nicolas put the cup back on the dirt floor. “How do you feel, Father?” Nicolas asked, wincing at his own awkwardness.
The old man closed his eyes and did not answer.
Peter returned a few hours before dusk, bearing a load of reina bark, two rabbits, and a grouse. Marja skinned, chopped, and boiled until the smell of stew filled the hut. Peter sat outside the door and smoked his pipe, and Marja and Nicolas joined him with steaming bowls of stew when the cooking was finished. The stars were just beginning to come out in a clear winter sky.
“Bless the man who left us pots and bowls to go with the stove,” Marja said.
“Not to mention that broom,” Peter said. “Did I see you sweeping again when I came down the hill this evening? How many times can you sweep a dirt floor?”
Nicolas took a bite of stew and looked up at the sky. The hot broth warmed his throat. A shuffling noise issued from the hut, and the old man called out, “Nicolas! My son!”
Nicolas shoved his stew into Peter’s hand and bolted through the door. It was dark inside, except for the glow inside the iron stove, but Nicolas could see that his father’s eyes were open. One frail, thin hand reached toward the door. Nicolas went to his knees beside the hay cot and took the hand. His hand tightened almost involuntarily around his father’s.
“It is you?” said the old man. “I am not dreaming?”
“No,” Nicolas said. “You are not dreaming.”
“I was coming to find you,” said the old man. “To tell you. I was sailing to find you…” He brought his other hand out from under his makeshift blankets and covered the exposed part of Nicolas’s hand with it. There were tears in his bloodshot eyes. “So many years I longed to see you,” he said. “I fought for my freedom so I could see you again.”
“Your freedom?” Nicolas asked.
“We were trapped in the islands of the south… there is evil there, too.” His words were laboured. “Evil. We fought. We thought we had killed it. But one of the men brought it with us.”
“Brought what?” Nicolas asked.
“The serpent,” said the man. “It bit me—all of us. You see it?”
His hand shook as he spoke, and Nicolas looked down. To his horror he could see two tiny marks near the joint of his father’s thumb, like pinpricks—or a snake’s bite.
“We killed it that time,” said the man, “but it got us first. Poison.”
Nicolas bowed his head and lifted his hand so that the father’s fingers rested against the son’s forehead. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“I came to tell you,” said the old man. “You have to take sides. There is real evil in this world—I never believed it when I was young.” He stopped and closed his eyes, his chest rising and falling. “There is a King,” he said. “He is coming with fire. Look for him. He will overcome evil, and you must fight with him. And there are some—the Gifted—who need protection. I know it sounds crazy…”
Nicolas leaned forward and said, “I know a little of what you say, Father. I am Gifted.”
The wrinkled hands tightened, and a tear slipped down the old man’s cheek. “My son. Do you follow the King?”
“I don’t know,” Nicolas said.
“Decide!” said the old man, drawing himself up for a moment. He fell back on the hay with a deep sigh of exhaustion. “It is war. You must decide. Don’t run. I ran for so many years.”
“Ran from what?”
“From the truth. From the King himself, though I didn’t know it then. I thought I was a wanderer. I didn’t want anything to tie me down. My freedom was all that mattered. It was no freedom at all.”
Nicolas swallowed a lump in his throat, but said nothing. His father cried out suddenly and then began to sob, his emaciated frame shaking with every breath. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “Oh my son, I’m so sorry…”
Nicolas began to cry too, and he bent down so that his head rested on his father’s shoulder. Even as he did, the faint strains of a song began to play in his ears. Through his tears, wonder tugged at him. The river had led him here. Straight to the black-sailed ship—straight to his father.
Open your heart, the Shearim had said. Use what the river has given you.
When the old man had ceased crying, he tapped Nicolas’s shoulder. “I am sorry I took so long,” he said, his words clipped with pain.
“It’s all right,” Nicolas said. “Just rest.”
The old man looked up at his son with pain-filled eyes. “I did not come to rest,” he said. “I came to fight evil. I wanted to do it with you by my side.”
The old man’s body convulsed, and he lay still until Nicolas began to grow alarmed. He was about to call for Marja when the old man spoke again. “It is over so quickly for me,” he said. “I wanted to fight in this war. To make others see the truth.”
Nicolas swallowed. “There are others to spread the word,” he said. “This war has begun. I have seen it. I have seen evil defeated. Some in the Eastern Lands believe in the King. I have friends among them.”
“But you are not one of them?” the old man asked.
Nicolas hung his head. “I did not want—”
“To be tied down,” said the old man. “You must decide, Nicolas. You can’t remain a loner forever. I know what it is to be snared by your own foolishness. Open the trap, my son. Set yourself free—truly free.”
Nicolas began to say something, but the words caught in his throat as a song broke out in the hut. The music filled the little room as waves fill a drowning ship. It was a wondrous song, indescribable in its strong, comforting beauty. As Nicolas raised his shining face and drank it in, he realized that no one else could hear it. But he could, and he heard, too, the name of it. He thought perhaps the voices of the Shearim named it for him.
Hear the Three-Fold Song, the Song of the Burning Light! Heed the Father-Song, son of light.
* * *
In Pravik, the move deeper underground had begun.
Teams of workers began by installing sconces for torches throughout the lower corridors. Men cleared debris while women came behind them and cleaned. On the higher level, the explorers explained maps and drilled the men, women, and children in the twists and turns of their new home.
Maggie and Pat pushed carts of food and supplies down the long corridors until they were ready to drop from exhaustion. They had just finished stocking the shelves of an underground pantry when the Major stuck his dark head in the door.
“Time for a break,” he said. “Come join us.”
Maggie and Pat needed little urging. They left the pantry, gathering with a tired, dirt-smeared group of Gypsies in a torch-lit cavern. Three carts had been overturned and pushed together to form a long table, which was laden with salt pork, dry bread, and water collected from the damp corridors near the river.
“Whatever else the inconveniences of underground life,” Pat said, making a face as she tore a piece of pork from a large hunk, “you can’t say the food isn’t great.”
“All right then,” said the Major. “I won’t say it.”
Darne’s eyes laughed as he bit into a piece of bread. He was still too new to underground life to complain about it, even in jest. Only veterans had that right.
Pat sighed deeply and looked up at the high stone roof. “Lovely weather today, isn’t it?” She sat up. “Enough. I’m going crazy down here. Darne, tell us the story of how you got your horses from the Emperor’s ranch in the middle of the night.”
Darne smiled. “It sounds to me as if you already know the story,” he said.
“Of course I know it,” Pat said. “I want to hear it again.”
Darne launched into the tale. Maggie rested her chin in her hand as he spok
e. She closed her eyes and pictured Nicolas heading up the raid. When the story was over, she opened her eyes again. “That will make a wonderful tale for Marja to tell around the campfires,” she said.
“There are precious few campfires left for storytelling,” the Major said.
A tall dark man in fine clothing, who had sat quietly through the story, spoke up. “Does the Ploughman mean to sit here and do nothing while the High Police enslave the Gypsies? I had heard that he was a man who fought for freedom.”
“He’s not doing nothing,” the Major said. His dark eyes seemed troubled. “He has a home to provide for all these people. He is doing his best.”
The tall man sat forward, and the torchlight fell on his thin face and amber eyes. Asa, the strange doctor who had come to Pravik with a wounded Gypsy. He had worked diligently with the others since coming to the underground colony, but Maggie had never felt comfortable around him.
“I came here to seek strength,” he said. “But I have found only people in hiding. There is too much weakness here.”
Pat’s face clouded over. She opened her mouth to answer when an eerie howl filled the cavern. The company sat in silence until the sound died away.
“What was that?” Maggie asked, shivering.
“Only the wind in the caverns below,” the Major said.
“They say there are untold levels down there,” Darne said.
“They say there are strange creatures down there,” said Asa.
“It is only the imaginations of the explorers,” said the Major. “Long days alone in the dark will play tricks on your mind.”
Asa sat back, a smile on his face. “Have it your way,” he said.
An uneasy silence fell over the company. Pat replaced her hunk of pork on the cart tables. She stood and stretched. “I’m going back to work,” she said. “Maggie, are you coming?”
“In a minute,” Maggie said.
Pat left, and Darne and Asa got to their feet. The Major stood and offered his arm to Maggie.
“Walk with me?” he asked.
She nodded. “Thank you.”
They walked together out of the cavern, down a long stone passageway. “Something is bothering you,” the Major said.
“I’m worried,” Maggie confessed.
“About?”
“I don’t know. Everything. I suppose it’s just the waiting. Virginia says we must cling to what we have seen and trust that the King has not forgotten us, but… it is not easy.”
“You have been talking to the seer?” the Major asked.
“Yes.”
“She doesn’t talk to many people.”
“I know,” Maggie said. “She is—there is something dark in her as well. I am a little afraid of her.”
“What else did she tell you?”
“That Nicolas is well.”
The Major raised his eyebrows. “That is good to know.”
“Of course, that was days ago,” Maggie said. “The way things are, he might not even be alive today.”
The Major grunted. “It is a dangerous thing to be a Gypsy—even a half-Gypsy—in the world today.”
They said nothing for a few minutes, then Maggie said, “Do you think he’s right?”
“Who?”
“Asa. He thinks we ought to be doing something more than just sitting here.”
“And what could we do? Storm Athrom?”
“Maybe,” Maggie said. “We won the fight in Pravik.”
“With the help of Heavenly Warriors, they say,” the Major said.
Maggie stopped walking, but she still clung to the Major’s arm. “That’s what troubles me,” she said. “Yes, we won—and then the warriors disappeared, and we went underground. And now Pravik and the mountains are overrun with soldiers looking for us, and we’re hiding in the dark. Is this what the King wants from us? To bury ourselves until he comes back?”
“I wish I could answer you,” the Major said. “But of all of us here, I know the least about this King of yours. What does the professor say to your questions?”
“Professor Huss says very little,” Maggie said. “I haven’t asked him. Lately he seems so troubled.”
The Major started to say something, and bit his tongue. A moment later he spoke, slowly. “I do not know what is required of the Ploughman,” he said. “I think it is right that he stays here. If he tries to go above now, his colony will be destroyed, and all of my sheltered people with it. Too many people here are still reeling from their wounds. It will not hurt them to stay below and rebuild before the time comes to go above. But I will not stay underground much longer.”
Maggie looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“I am going to find Nicolas,” he said. “Since I have been here, Nicolas seems to have made it his business to rescue our people from their enemies. I mean to join him.”
“But your people are safe here,” Maggie said.
“My band is here, yes, all except Marja and Peter. And I have stayed as long as I have because I felt that the Major’s Gypsies needed their leader. But no more. They are settled here now. The Ploughman governs his cavernous kingdom well, and I trust him. They don’t need me. Our people outside do.”
“But you could be killed out there,” Maggie said.
“So could Nicolas.”
Maggie shivered. “Don’t remind me.”
“The truth is, little one, I go for Nicolas’s sake as well as for my own peace of mind. I bear some responsibility for him.”
“He once told me that your mother had raised him, after he ran away from his home.”
“Yes, that is true. Although some would say he ran to his home, not away from it.”
Maggie spoke hesitantly. “Nicolas always said that even the Gypsies did not fully accept him; that his only real home was the forests. But he longed to belong with other people.”
“He belonged with us,” the Major said, “but he would never stay. He drove himself out.”
“But—” Maggie began.
“Nicolas has never accepted himself,” the Major said. “Perhaps because his father left him. Perhaps because he was Gifted. But we never drove him out. He did that himself.”
“It is good of you to make yourself responsible for him,” Maggie said.
“It is no more than I am bound to do, by blood duty.” The Major smiled ruefully. “I used to wonder that Nicolas told you so much about himself. He does not normally open up to anyone. But now I don’t wonder. You are a good listener.”
Maggie smiled at the compliment, but she couldn’t help asking. “What did you mean by blood duty?”
“I told you that Nicolas did not run away from home so much as he ran to it,” the Major said. “He thinks that he found my mother. The truth is, she found him. We came to the city to take him away with us so that his mother’s family could not send him to the orphan house after she died.”
“But why?” Maggie asked. “Nicolas made it sound as though he had never seen any of you before he joined the band.”
“He hadn’t,” the Major said. “But that doesn’t change the truth. Nicolas is my brother’s son.”
* * *
Marja slept with her back against Peter’s, huddled next to the stove. Melting snow dripped through the roof and ran through her black hair, now and then hitting her face like an icy tear. A drop of water collected on her eyelash, and she blinked and opened her eyes as the cold stream ran down her cheek.
Nicolas and his father were whispering together.
Nicolas was talking. Marja watched him as he told his stories. He lifted his hands and moved as he spoke, all of his energy poured into the telling. Only his voice was subdued, kept low so the others could sleep. Marja saw Nicolas’s father smile and try to laugh, and another stream of water ran down her cheek—but this was a real tear, hot on her skin.
She smiled as she closed her eyes, letting the whispers surround her. She had worked so hard to keep the old man alive, bringing all the skill of her p
eople and the training of her mother to bear as she tended him. It was for this she had done it. And Nicolas’s desire to know his father, coupled with the father’s desire to know his son, had done wonders for the old man’s health. He would live longer than she had first thought.
But he would not live forever. She brushed her cheekbone with the edge of her thumb, smearing the tears across her face. He would not live forever.
And when he died, where would Nicolas go?
Marja was a true daughter of her people. Never once had she ever desired to put down roots—her roots were in the sky, ever winging over the roads and the forests of the Seventh World. Her desires, her passions, soared as well—she longed for freedom for her people. She wished for vengeance on their enemies.
But now, as she fought back tears in the salty darkness and listened to the whispers of two men, she wished for the first time that things might never change.
* * *
Professor Jarin Huss held his torch close to the rock face. For the first time in weeks, his eyes were bright. His forehead furrowed as he studied the characters carved in the stone.
“What do you think, Professor?” asked the Ploughman. He stood behind Huss, arms folded.
“Fascinating,” said the professor. He turned to look at the tall rebel leader. “The language is very old, but it is not one I recognize—and I can read some of the oldest languages known to the Seventh World.”
“The carving is that old then, do you think?” the Ploughman asked.
“It dates from before the time of the Empire, at least,” Huss said. He turned back to the stone and traced one of the old letters with his long finger. “Fascinating,” he said again.
They stood in a deep place, below the now-occupied second level of tunnels and caverns. Both men turned at the sound of boots tramping down the corridor toward them.
A small company of men entered the cavern. Their leader, a one-time farmer whose face was pale but still weathered, bowed his head to the Ploughman. “Reporting from below,” he said. “You wanted me?”
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