Passages

by Passages (epub)

  * * *

  * * *

  :You probably blundered into her territory,: Lilan said, carelessly interrupting Rosia’s story. :She may have had one or two young still lingering in the lair.:

  “Don’t stop me,” Rosia begged. “We’re getting to the hard part.”

  :I am sorry, my Chosen. I am listening.:

  * * *

  * * *

  Several agonizing moments passed. Rosia, her eyes squeezed shut to block out the sight of her imminent destruction, held her breath, expecting every second to be torn to pieces.

  But then the weight lifted off her chest, and the growling stopped. Faintly, Rosia heard the soft sounds of a large feline padding away.

  She opened her eyes.

  The cat had vanished into the undergrowth. Rosia was alone and—cautiously, she flexed her limbs and ran a hand over her torso—unharmed.

  She sat up—and froze, for she was not alone after all.

  It wasn’t the cat. Another person watched her, half-hidden behind the gnarled trunk of a great, old evergreen tree. Shadows hid the details, but Rosia was almost certain the person was a girl, and not that much older than she was herself.

  “She wasn’t going to eat you,” the girl said. “She just wanted you to leave. But there’s plenty out here that will hurt you.” She lifted one skinny arm and pointed. “The road is that way.”

  Her voice was cracked and dusty and . . . thin, as though it hadn’t been used in a long time. Nonetheless, Rosia heard the words plainly enough.

  “Wait,” she said, when the girl began to slip away. “How do you know all that?”

  “She told me,” said the girl, and she withdrew.

  Rosia sat in stunned silence for a moment, thinking that over. The cat had talked to this girl?

  “Wait!” she called again, but no reply came.

  Hastily, Rosia scrambled to her feet and took off after the girl who could talk to the beasts of the Pelagirs.

  * * *

  * * *

  :Animal Mindspeech,: Lilan offered wisely. :You run into it, now and then.:

  “Lilan,” protested Rosia.

  :Sorry.:

  * * *

  * * *

  The girl with the Animal Mindspeech lived in the Pelagirs entirely, Rosia discovered, for she had a dwelling there.

  It wasn’t much. She had doubtless built it herself, out of fallen boughs and branches and the like. So cunningly was it tucked between two craggy old trees, and camouflaged by the undergrowth, that Rosia would have walked straight past without noticing it at all. She was just in time to witness her quarry disappearing into a gap between the branches—and when she followed, she found a little arched entryway there.

  “Hello?” she called.

  No one answered her. But a fiery glow emanating from somewhere within intrigued her sufficiently to forget whatever manners Ma had tried to teach her, and she went inside. “Hello—” she called again. “I just want to thank you, and—and to ask you—”

  There she stopped, for the glow had a source: a Firebird.

  The graceful creature sat atop a perch near the “roof” of the dwelling—such as it was. A network of branches hung up there, all tangled together and covered with foliage. The Firebird sat with its sharp claws hooked over a lower-hanging branch and its glorious tail spilling halfway to the ground. Crimson and orange and gold and purple met Rosia’s eyes in a spectacular display of color, and the bird radiated the ruddy glow of a burning sunset.

  What was more, the Firebird had shed some of those feathers. More than a few. The floor—rough-spun matting worked from forest reeds—was covered in at least half a dozen of them.

  “She was sick,” said the girl, from somewhere Rosia couldn’t see. “But she’s well now.”

  “She’s so beautiful,” said Rosia, with awe.

  “Yes, she is, and now go, please.”

  “Are you . . . do you live out here alone?”

  “I’m never alone.”

  “I mean without . . . humans.”

  A soft laugh answered her, scornful. The message was clear without words: What use have I for humans?

  “I see,” said Rosia. “Thank you for helping me.”

  “You didn’t need help.”

  Rosia withdrew. But she didn’t leave right away. She stayed.

  Later, she could not have said what prompted her to do so. She hoped it was curiosity or, better yet, concern for the Pelagir girl. She hoped it wasn’t a calculated plan.

  * * *

  * * *

  :This is the hard part, isn’t it?: said Lilan, when Rosia’s tale slowed to a halt.

  Rosia swallowed. “Yes.”

  :I think I can guess what happened.:

  “You can?”

  :You took a feather.:

  Rosia hung her head. “I did.”

  * * *

  * * *

  It wasn’t the largest of them, not by a long shot. The feather she took was only a small one, about as long as her thumb. And there were seven more that she didn’t take—she’d counted.

  But that didn’t change anything about what she had done. She had waited until the girl had gone away, and she had crept back into her forest-hut and taken one of the Firebird’s feathers.

  She had done so with her heart beating so fast, she thought it might burst. Fear of the Firebird had done that; what if she objected to her feathers being taken? What if she somehow told the girl before Rosia could get away, and Rosia was caught?

  Rosia the peddler’s daughter—Rosia the thief—had scarpered out of there as fast as she could go, her stolen feather clutched tightly in her fist, and she had not stopped running until her shaking legs would carry her no farther.

  Then she had collapsed, shaking, into the mud, and sat there for some time.

  She’d stolen something. She was a thief.

  People had thrown that word at her pa before and her ma. At her, though she was a child. They had the look of pickpockets about them, some said: shabby attire, and the road-weary look of people who never stopped walking. People who could filch something today, and by tomorrow they’d be too far away to fear the consequences.

  Ma had always brushed off such remarks, but Rosia could see that they hurt Pa. She’d ferociously resented the people who could say such things, who could believe so ill of strangers just because of the way they looked.

  Her parents never stole. No matter how difficult the winters sometimes got.

  Rosia would never steal anything either. Never.

  She had been so sure of that, once.

  Well, never had not lasted very long.

  She should take the feather back. Right now, before it was missed.

  But that was no good. The Firebird had seen her take it, probably, and she would tell the girl what Rosia had done. There was no undoing her deed now. It was too late.

  And she needed the feather. There was no getting around that, either. The emptiness in her stomach and the weakness in her body had prompted her to do it; the coin she could get from one tiny feather would get her through the winter. Probably several winters.

  * * *

  * * *

  “And that’s when you showed up,” Rosia finished.

  :Well, that explains why I had to delve into the Pelagirs to find you. Though I still don’t understand why you ran away.:

  “At first, I thought the girl sent you.”

  :Aha.:

  “Then I realized what you were . . .”

  :And ran all the harder.:

  “Yes.” Rosia sniffed, and she swallowed an incipient tear. “Now you know why.”

  :Are you ever going to come out of those bushes?: Lilan asked.

  Rosia stifled a vague desire to remain there until she starved to death; that would solve the problem, for sure, though
it wouldn’t make amends to the girl with the Firebird.

  But that wasn’t something a grown-up would do.

  Finally she sighed, and she shoved her way free of the thicket. She emerged rather scratched, but hale enough, and presented herself to the Companion.

  :I definitely like the look of you,: said Lilan, snuffling Rosia all over with her enormous, warm nose.

  “Even after . . . that story?” Rosia squirmed, though one hand crept up to smooth Lilan’s velvety ears.

  Lilan appeared to think it over. :It is a tale of deepest iniquity,: she said. :No doubt about it.:

  “I know,” said Rosia sadly—and only then did she notice the twinkle in Lilan’s ice-blue eyes and the warmth that attended the words.

  :I’ve heard nothing to change my mind,: said Lilan firmly. :You are my Chosen.:

  “I can’t be.”

  :You know that they have food in Haven? Quite a lot of it.:

  Rosia’s stomach growled at the prospect. “Don’t taunt me,” she sighed. “I can’t go with you. You can’t have a thief as a Herald.”

  :You’re sure about that, are you?: said Lilan.

  Rosia nodded.

  :How about a reformed thief?:

  Mutely, Rosia shook her head.

  :Hm. Well, that’s disappointing. I had better get back to Haven and start again. Maybe you’ll let me walk with you as far as the road?:

  A tear came, one stubborn droplet Rosia could not swallow. “Of course,” she said with false heartiness, and fell into step with the Companion.

  By then she had been traveling steadily back the way she’d come for some time, and the road was not so far away. She and Lilan covered the distance in a silence Rosia could not find the words to break.

  Once they got to the road, Lilan nuzzled Rosia one last time. :Thank you. Watch yourself out here. People can be as dangerous as wild beasts, you know.:

  With these words, she trotted gracefully away, leaving Rosia standing alone in the road.

  * * *

  * * *

  Despite her protests, Rosia had not expected that the Companion would truly abandon her. She trudged back in the direction of the nearest village in a state of near despair, her spirits lower than at any time since—well, since Ma and Pa had gone. Her feet hurt in her threadbare shoes, and the morsels of nature’s fare she had scrounged up in the forests would not ward off the hunger for long. She had no coin, and winter was coming.

  The feather, tucked securely away inside a pocket, seemed to be burning a hole there. Rosia felt it almost as a physical weight, her hope and her despair, the two opposites somehow bound up in the one tiny thing.

  It wouldn’t do to sell it in the village; she would not get a fraction of its fair price. But she did not know how far she could go before she collapsed, from hunger or weariness or both. Nor had she any great familiarity with the area; how far away was the nearest town?

  No matter. She would go as far as she could, sell the feather for as much as she could get, and . . . go on. Find somewhere to weather the winter. In the spring, she could fill up Pa’s packs again with salable goods and take to the roads. Someday, it would be as though she had never stolen the feather at all.

  She knew, even as she formed her plan, that this would never be true.

  Such were the conflicting reflections occupying her troubled mind as she trudged southward. Her preoccupation rendered her oblivious, or more so than she ought to be out there on her own. Then again, what did it matter if she was robbed? It was no more than she deserved, and she had nothing worth stealing anyway.

  The sound of hoofbeats on the approach jolted her at last out of these dismal ideas. Her head came up; in spite of herself, a surge of hope swept away all her despair. Lilan had come back after all.

  But in another moment, she knew herself mistaken. There was a Companion coming up the road ahead, but it was not Lilan. This Companion had her Chosen with her: a woman, much older than Rosia, with gray threaded through her dark hair. She was on foot, for some reason; her Companion trotted sedately beside her. Rosia instinctively fixed her eyes upon the dirt before her feet, but not before she had caught the Herald’s cheery greeting.

  “G’afternoon,” mumbled Rosia, moving over to the side of the road.

  She waited there for the Herald and her Companion to pass—fortunate pair!—but instead the hoofbeats paused.

  “Going far?” asked the Herald.

  Rosia risked a glance up. She was being inspected, with what intention she could not fathom. The Herald’s look remained friendly enough, however. “I . . . don’t know,” said Rosia, and then thought. “How far’s it to a town?”

  “A long way,” came the dispiriting answer. “Farther than you can walk in that state, I’d wager.”

  A wave of weariness swept over Rosia, so profound as to set her swaying on her trembling legs. “Thanks,” she said shortly, and she would have moved off except she did not think she could manage to do so without falling down.

  “Steady,” said the Herald. She caught Rosia in strong hands and set her aright again.

  Rosia nodded her thanks, her thoughts too busy and her spirits too low for further speech. She would have to beg; there was no help for it. Swallowing her pride, she began with: “Please. Could you spare—”

  She stopped, for the Herald had begun idly juggling two or three small objects. To Rosia’s confusion, she recognized them. One was a pale, smooth pebble her Pa had given Rosia, a common thing, with no value to anyone else. He had collected it from the bank of a river, shortly before the fever. Another was Ma’s blue hair ribbon, a threadbare thing now, but Rosia had made a treasure of that, too.

  “You—you—how did you get those?” Rosia gasped.

  “You should keep a closer watch on your pockets,” the Herald said with a wink.

  Rosia gaped.

  “Especially when you’ve valuables about you,” she went on, and produced Rosia’s Firebird feather.

  “But—” Rosia struggled to find words. “But—Heralds don’t steal.”

  “That’s true,” said the Herald. “But I was pretty light-fingered when I was your age. Had to be, or I’d have starved.” She grinned, and offered Rosia’s three treasures back to her.

  Rosia gathered them up with shaking hands and stuffed them back into the now dubious safety of her pockets. “I don’t understand. How—”

  “How can I be a Herald if I was once a thief?” She wasn’t smiling now; she looked Rosia over with a kind of warm sympathy. “Heralds aren’t Chosen for what we did in the past. We’re Chosen for what we’ll do in the future. You’re Rosia?”

  Rosia nodded, wordless.

  “My name is Danna. I heard you were in some kind of trouble.”

  “Heard . . .” Rosia’s head turned, for there were the hoofbeats again, and this time it was Lilan: bells ringing, coat shining, her white mane flying in the breeze. Seeing Rosia, she snorted—the sound a mixture of exasperation and, according to the feelings swamping Rosia’s mind, relief.

  Danna nodded in the Companion’s direction. “She looked us up on purpose. Lucky for you we weren’t too far away.”

  “Lucky for me?” Rosia repeated numbly.

  Danna nodded. “We’re going to need you at the Collegium, but Lilan is right. You’re in no condition to make it that far without help.”

  “I can’t go to the Collegium,” said Rosia automatically.

  “Mm. And why is that?”

  “Heralds are—good people.”

  “Good people, yes,” said Danna briskly. “Not perfect people. Were you planning to continue thieving?”

  “Never,” said Rosia vehemently. “But that—I never should’ve—”

  Danna smiled, but it was to Lilan she spoke. “She is stubborn, isn’t she?”

  Lilan snorted again, and nudged Rosia with her
nose—quite hard. :Stop fighting it, Chosen. Don’t you know that Companions never Choose wrong?:

  Danna rolled her eyes, apparently at Lilan’s comment. “Come on, Rosia. I’d really like to get a good meal into you. If you starve to death now, Lilan will never forgive any of us.”

  Rosia was thinking. “I can’t,” she concluded, and she put out a hand to smooth Lilan’s ears when the Companion groaned. “Unless I . . . can we take the feather back?”

  Danna’s response was to rummage in one of her Companion’s saddlepacks. “Aha,” she murmured, and emerged with a quantity of dried meat in hand. This she gave to Rosia. “Eat,” she commanded. “Then up on Lilan’s back. We’ll make a fine procession into the Pelagirs, won’t we?”

  Rosia fell upon the meat and dispatched it in seconds, despite its toughness. “Thank you,” she said, and she wrapped her arms around Lilan’s neck. Another tear escaped, but not from grief or despair. This one came from an overflowing heart and a profound gratitude.

  She’d never be alone again. And maybe she hadn’t disgraced her ma and pa. Maybe, if they were here, they would even be proud of her.

  Danna bestowed a comforting pat upon Rosia’s shoulder. “Don’t thank me,” she said drily. “You might end up riding Circuit up here someday, and then you’ll be wishing you’d stuck with a life of larceny.”

  Rosia, hauling herself gracelessly onto her Companion’s back, gave an eloquent shudder. “Not a chance.”

  A Ruler’s Gift

  Anthea Sharp

  Summer dust softened the road and turned the distant mountains to hazy blue shadows as Healer Tarek Strand traveled toward home.

  Home in a strictly geographical sense, that was. The home of his heart lay behind him at the Collegium in Haven, a few days journey along the East Trade Road. Ahead, the track to Strand Keep unfurled through carefully tended fields. He’d known, in a distant corner of his mind, that someday he’d have to return to his birthright.