“We thank thee, O King, for the gift of fish and water,” she said. “The life of the Darkworld is in the river thy hand hath created.”
Rehtse pushed a small bowl into Virginia’s hands. It was warm.
“Hazrit sent it,” Rehtse said. “The soup, I mean. After this I will have to say a new blessing.”
Virginia smiled. “Thank you,” she said.
Rehtse did not answer—Virginia suspected she had nodded. “Has there been any word of the entourage to Pravik?” Virginia asked.
“Did you expect word?” Rehtse asked. “This is only the second day of their journey.”
“No,” Virginia said. “Of course not. Forgive my asking—when I am alone, time gets away from me.”
Rehtse settled onto the ground next to Virginia, and a moment later began to pray again. “May thy great presence guard their way,” she said. “Blind them to the deceiver’s ways; deafen them to the deceiver’s tongue. Bind them close to thy great heart, King of Heaven, Heart of the World.”
Silently, Virginia added her own agreement. She hoped that the King could hear. But even if he could not, it felt right to pray. How better to begin this journey?
The soup was good—salty and oily, but nourishing. When they had finished, Rehtse took Virginia’s bowl, clanked around with some equipment, and finally offered her hand.
“To the Highlands?” she said.
* * *
The entourage to Athrom went on in the morning, more sober and watchful after the serpent’s attack. Cratus and the Ploughman rode at the head of the column, both men bandaged and stiff. Harutek kept command of his own warriors.
Maggie rode with Professor Huss in a wagon just behind Harutek’s warriors. She sang throughout the day, sometimes wordless songs, sometimes stories or poetry in music. Now and again she played with the flute. She knew Harutek was listening, so she sang especially for him. It seemed to her that he needed it. As the miles fell away, so did her unhappiness with this journey. She was still not at all certain they should be doing this—but they had already defeated the Blackness once, their Gifts were strong, they were together. Some among them were even hopeful.
* * *
Virginia and Rehtse walked throughout the day, following a common road, until dusk began to fall on their way. They didn’t stop. Rehtse’s eyes were sharp, and to Virginia, loss of light made little difference. Birds called back and forth in the woods, their cries loud and lonely. They talked little, both lost in thought and concentrating on their steps. But as the road leveled out for a while, Virginia finally asked the question that had been on her heart since Rehtse’s arrival.
“How is it that you are here?” she asked.
“You were in need of eyes,” Rehtse said. “The King saw your need and sent me.”
It was a good answer, a faithful one. And one that purposefully left out a great deal. Virginia stumbled a little over a rough patch in the path. “I know a little of you,” she said. “I know you lost one you loved in the battle in Athrom.”
There was silence. Then, slowly, Rehtse answered, “Caasi would have been glad of this—of where we are going. He truly believed in the King, as I fear his father and brother do not.”
“The Majesty is called the father of seventeen sons,” Virginia asked. “How is it that I’ve only heard of two?”
“The others are insignificant,” Rehtse said. “Because they are not really his sons—the young men who stand up with him at feasts are surrogates, there for ceremony. His real sons died in childhood.”
Virginia gasped. “Fifteen of them?”
“Sun-sickness,” Rehtse said. “Many who are born to the Darkworld do not live to full age. That is the curse of living in darkness. We priests do the best we can to help. But we also live without the sun. We cannot do all we would.”
“None of us can,” Virginia said. She fell quiet a few minutes more, letting bird calls fill the silence between them. “Caasi was one of the first to answer the call when I shared my vision about the Gypsies and urged the men to Athrom to rescue them. I have always felt… responsible for his death.”
The words were a reaching out. Virginia held her breath as she waited for Rehtse’s response. All her life her Gift had made her enemies and driven even her friends from her. With this young woman from another world, she hoped it might be different somehow.
“Then you are responsible for making Caasi more than a man,” Rehtse answered quietly. “His death was earned gloriously in obedience to the King, in defense of the innocent. He was all that the Darkworld is supposed to be—all that he wanted to be in his most beautiful ideals. For that I thank you.”
“And yet you were wounded by it,” Virginia said.
“I do not deny the wound hurts,” Rehtse said. “I have been accused of not feeling it, but that is only because I do not weep in the presence of those who do not honour him and his death as they should.”
“Rehtse,” Virginia asked again, softly, “how is it that you come to be here?”
This time the pause was sighing, and Rehtse did not give the same answer. “The Majesty does not believe in the King any longer. I opposed him to his face—deliberately provoked him. So he released me from his service.”
Virginia heard the pain in Rehtse’s voice, the depth she was not sharing.
“I am sorry,” she said.
Leaves rustled overhead. Rehtse’s voice shook a little, but she was no less sincere. “He has only sent me where my heart longs to go—in search of the one I truly wish to serve.” She tightened her guiding grip on Virginia’s arm. “I am glad to be going with you. It is not easy to serve the King when others do not believe.”
Virginia smiled and laid her free hand over Rehtse’s. “I could not ask for a better guide,” she said.
* * *
The wagon rumbled over the road, bumping and jolting. Evening was falling on another day, and the road through the mountains was strangely hushed but for the sounds of the horses and wheels. Pat, on horseback, pulled alongside the wagon to check on Maggie and Huss before cantering ahead to the front of the line. They had opted to ride in the wagon for awhile, giving relief to both the horses and their own bodies.
Maggie looked out over the side at the flatlands of Galce stretching below them, crowned by a setting sun that turned the sky gold, orange, and faint purple. Athrom was still three days away.
Another shadow fell across the wagon: Merlyn Cratus, riding back through the column. He paused and looked keenly down at them. Maggie kept her face composed as she met his eyes.
“Good evening,” she said.
He nodded curtly. “And to you.”
She cleared her throat. “You are well?” she asked.
He smiled, but there was no joy in the smile. “Healing very quickly,” he said. “My wounds are minor. By some miracle. I know what they were before you sang.”
“You might try thanking her,” Huss said.
Maggie shook her head, flushing. “There’s nothing to thank me for,” she said, giving Huss a look that pleaded with him not to push the issue. “You are simply a strong man who’s healing well.”
“By some miracle,” Cratus repeated. “Perhaps the same miracle that is eating the rust and restoring the metal on these wagon wheels.”
Maggie frowned, unsure of how to respond. Was he joking? Before she could say anything, the general nodded again, said, “Good evening to you,” and rode ahead.
They stopped for the night not half an hour later, the men at the head of the column already making camp in a hollow by the time Maggie and the wagon reached it. As the men unloaded the tent and a few other necessities, she rounded the cart and stared at the wheels. The metal was shining in patches. It looked as though new metal was bursting out through the rust. She frowned. Had it always been like that?
Fireflies began to flicker around the wagon, lighting up through the spokes of the wheels, and she stood and brushed herself off. Tents rose and pots clanked: the comforting sounds and sig
hts of camp. The smell of woodsmoke reached her as a fire was started, and she realized how dark it was quickly getting. The men around the fire were reduced to silhouettes in the deepening shadows.
Overhead, stars were beginning to come out.
When the tent was erected, Maggie sat in the opening and hugged her knees to her chest. Huss wandered over and stood near her.
“I wish you wouldn’t call attention to my singing,” Maggie said. “It makes me uneasy. And I don’t like Cratus watching me.”
In the darkness she imagined she could see his eyes, somber as he spoke. “There is power in your songs,” he said. “Like there was in Mary’s songs. For all of us. You have truly inherited her Gift, Maggie.”
Maggie just sighed. She knew she was Gifted—that somehow she had inherited the Gift born and then killed in Mary Grant, her former guardian and member of the Council for Exploration Into Worlds Unseen. But she was not sure she liked it.
Crickets were singing in the woods around them, the chirps punctuated by cracks from the fire as the farmers stoked the pile of wood. The night was full of songs. Maggie could feel them all there, waiting for her to hear them and weave other music from their strains.
“What does it mean?” she asked.
Huss was silent. “The Gifts are a sign of the King’s coming,” he said. “I think in some way they manifest his power through you.”
She shook her head again. “That doesn’t help me. How are we supposed to use them? What are we for, Professor?”
A dark shadow approached. It was Harutek. “If you’ll allow me,” he said. “The priesthood taught us that among the Gifted, six would be chosen for a special task. They would usher the King back into the world. That is why our priests have so embraced some of you. The Six are named by their Gifts—the Warrior, the Seer.” He smiled in the darkness. “The Singer.”
“And yet you don’t believe it?” Maggie asked.
Harutek sighed. “I am not sure what I believe,” he said. “I only know that our beliefs in this King have hurt us more than they’ve helped. I am not faithless as the priests would paint me. But I cannot cling to a faith that is killing us and keeping us in darkness when light beckons. I do not believe your King would want me to.”
“In a world like this one,” Huss rumbled, “it is not always easy to know the difference between darkness and light.”
Harutek bowed. “Perhaps. But this is not why I came. I came to say thank you. I hear your songs, and they lift my spirits. I think you mean them to.”
“I do,” Maggie said, smiling.
Harutek bowed again, more deeply this time, and withdrew. Something else was drawing his attention near the edge of the camp. He walked into hushed conversation with a few of the guards.
The Ploughman approached, his eyes on Harutek and the guards. “What is it?” Huss asked.
“Harutek believes something is following us,” the Ploughman said.
“Another serpent?” Maggie asked.
“Perhaps. His men have been hearing and seeing things in the dark. No one else has sensed anything amiss. Cratus thinks it is nothing.”
“But you have great respect for Harutek’s ability to see in the dark,” Maggie said.
“Precisely.”
“What do you think it is?” Maggie asked.
“I don’t know,” the Ploughman said. “But I will be happier when we get out of these woods and onto the plains where we can see what’s around us.”
“Then we will not be far from Athrom,” Maggie said.
“I confess I will be happier when that is the case too,” the Ploughman said. “The closer we are to Athrom, the closer we are to leaving it again.” He fell silent. Maggie listened to the balladry playing in his cloak and hair like a wind.
Harutek appeared before them suddenly again. “We should not camp,” he said, his arms folded in what Maggie was coming to recognize as a stubborn stance.
The Ploughman frowned. “The men need rest.”
“They are soldiers,” Harutek said. “They can do without.”
The Ploughman glanced at Maggie and Huss. “We are not all soldiers.”
“Regardless,” Harutek said. “Here there is danger.”
Another voice intruded—Cratus’s, near enough to make Maggie jump. She hadn’t realized he was there. “It is nonsense,” he said. “My men have heard and seen nothing.”
Harutek’s eyes bored into the general. “It is your men the presence follows,” he said. “Something in the forest is angry with you. Just because your eyes and ears are not sharp enough to sense it does not mean it is not here.”
Cratus’s eyes narrowed. “Are you insult—”
A sudden call, lonely, eerie, rose over the forest. The encampment hushed and held silent under its spell until at last it died away, mournful as the cry of a wolf but far less earthly.
“Look there!” someone shouted, and Maggie turned to see, through the jumping silhouettes of the men, a tree where a human shape stood, holding to a branch high above. The form was slender as a boy and unmoving. It seemed almost to be part of the tree. One of Cratus’s men let fly an arrow, but it missed. In the next instant the shape had disappeared. Only the trees could be seen in the darkness.
“Gather weapons; go after him!” Cratus declared. The Ploughman reached out and stopped him.
“No,” he said. “It was only a boy.”
“A scout,” Cratus countered. “He will bring back others.”
“We do not know that he is an enemy,” the Ploughman said. “I will not be responsible for the life of one who was merely curious.”
“My lord,” Harutek said. “My suggestion has not changed. We ought not to encamp here tonight. There is danger in the woods, and none of us wishes another battle. If our presence here offends the forest, then why do we not keep moving?”
Cratus scoffed. “Offends the forest, man? Do you think it a living thing?”
Harutek’s eyes bored into him again, an unnerving stare that made the general shift uncomfortably. “I have spent all my life buried beneath unliving rock,” Harutek said. “That”—he waved toward the trees, swaying gently in a summer wind, their creaks and the rustling of leaves mingled with the chorus of crickets and the noises of other creatures stirring—“that is alive. And it does not want us to be here.”
The Ploughman nodded. “I will tell the men to break camp. Maggie, you and Professor Huss can continue to ride in the wagon. We’ll erect a cover for it. Try to get some sleep.”
A moment later the leaders broke up to gather their men, and within minutes the process of tearing down had begun. Maggie blinked at the speed with which things could change. She looked back up at the tree, hoping for another glimpse of the shape that had looked down on them from the branches.
This is alive, Harutek had said. Maggie recalled Virginia’s story of awakening the Earth Brethren, spirits of trees and beasts and wind.
But though her heart pounded with anticipation as she lifted her eyes, nothing was there.
“They are wise to leave the forest,” Professor Huss said.
“I don’t—” Maggie searched for the right words. “I don’t feel danger here.”
“Not for you.” Huss smiled. “The power here is not angry with you.”
“Professor,” Maggie blurted, aware that the clamour of packing up camp kept her words from any who would overhear, “where is Virginia? Do you know?”
The old man smiled and looked away, but Maggie stood and leaned close to him. “You had something to do with her disappearance. Tell me.”
Huss gestured vaguely to the darkness. “She might be… out there,” he said. “She is going to Bryllan to find the King.”
Maggie’s heart skipped a beat. “Alone?” she asked.
Huss shook his head. “Not for long,” he said. “I have asked Divad to send one of the Darkworld priests with her, and I believe he will do it.” Huss was quiet a moment. “I do not trust the prince, Maggie. He is turning against the
King.”
Maggie winced. But she didn’t defend Harutek. She was too busy processing what Huss had told her. “We’re on this journey,” she said slowly, “because the Ploughman doesn’t really believe the King will come soon. Because we’re all afraid we have to do without him. Do you really think Virginia will find him?”
“I think we need him,” Huss said. “More than ever. That is all I know.”
Thirty minutes later, they loaded into the wagon. Huss’s words had troubled her—had undone some of the confidence she’d been gaining on the journey. She sang softly, songs more sad and confused than she wanted to admit. Perhaps she was drawing them from somewhere inside herself. The songs offered up by the earth around her were still there, still to be woven into music, but there was in them anger and mystery and power so deep it frightened her. So she left the forest’s songs alone, and the entourage rumbled down the road in the dark toward the flatlands of southern Galce—and beyond them, Italya and the capital city, Athrom.
* * *
In the morning, Rehtse and Virginia followed a little-used road southwest. They spent the day mostly in silence, as Rehtse tried to navigate territory that was utterly unfamiliar to her and Virginia concentrated on keeping her steps steady beneath her. But the silence was good and companionable, punctuated by Rehtse’s prayers and strengthened by the sense of oneness both felt. When the sun was again setting over the dusty road and evening birds were singing in the thick trees, they stopped to make camp.
“In the Darkworld we burn fish oil,” Rehtse said. “I used all I had to warm up that soup of Hazrit’s. Forgive my ignorance. Tell me how to make a fire?”
Virginia laughed and began to give instructions, relying on her memories of sleeping in the hills with her grandfather. She felt around for a stick and found one, breaking it easily. “You need them dry, not wet or green. You might have the best luck if you gather branches that have fallen into the road.”
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