It meant a roof over our heads, at least, and shelter too for Azuan’s poor mount, which had already put up with more than could be reasonably expected from a horse. A long journey and a double burden for the last leg of it—no wonder it heaved a tired sigh when it was finally allowed to stop.
I, too, was about ready to drop from fatigue and misery. What was I doing here, with a man who looked like my father but wasn’t, a man who had blinded me and carried me off and still claimed that he was merely looking after me?
“Go inside,” he said. “And stay inside. I have to take care of the horse, but you can rest the while.”
We didn’t talk much as he lit a fire in the fireplace, fetched cheese and bread from the saddlebags, and melted snow for tea in a small pot. Once I tried to explain to him again that I wanted to go back to the others, and that if he really honored me as much as he said he did, he would take me home, or at least let me go. And once more he explained, in the patient voice of somebody talking to a sick child, that my home was not with these people, that they didn’t treasure me, and that once I was free of them, everything would look different.
“You could blaze like a sun,” he said. “Like a star. Instead you blacken the glass so that the lantern can barely shine. But I will help you.”
He sounded so certain, as if it wasn’t an opinion or a hope, but merely the way the world was. There was something very frightening about that certainty.
He left the loft to me. He himself curled up on the floor with one of the two blankets he had in his pack. The other he gave me. The cabin was not perhaps toasty warm, but it was still a great deal better than the outside. It would have been easy to fall asleep, tired as I was. But I fought to stay awake.
When I felt sure he had fallen asleep, I climbed down from the loft as quietly as I could. I stepped carefully over his sleeping form and out the cabin door. My body was buzzing and swaying with tiredness, but I had to get away from him, away from all his talk of stars and lanterns, away from that frightening certainty. What if he was right? What if he really could “help” me so that I no longer felt any connection to the people I now cared for and was no longer limited by… by anything, except perhaps the wishes of the House of Sina?
The horse stood, head drooping, in the small shed Azuan had given it for a stall. It wasn’t exactly happy to see me, particularly not when I began to saddle it. Falk, our own gelding, would have pounded his forefoot and tossed his head, but luckily Azuan’s mare was too well trained for such misdemeanors. It contented itself with a snort and a slight resistance as I led it outside.
“Stop.”
My heart leaped in my chest like a startled frog. Azuan stood there, black against the snow, and though his hands were empty, he still looked armed. Dangerous, anyway.
“You know I only have one weapon,” he said. “I will use it if you force my hand.”
I wished so that I could be like Tano and say Do it, then and fight on regardless. But I couldn’t. I was afraid. It was so awful, that darkness. I had been so helpless it felt as if I was barely alive, and yet I was alive. Buried alive, almost.
He could see that I was not going to defy him.
“Go in,” he said and took the reins from my unresisting hands. “Go back into the cabin.”
I did as he said.
He stood in the doorway, considering me.
“This is not worthy of you,” he finally said. “These people are not worthy of you. Don’t you understand? They lead you into danger and death, and I cannot be your jailer night and day. I had hoped to bring you gently and in good time to the place where you belong. But we do not have that time. We must sever their hold on you at once. There is nothing else to do.”
I didn’t understand what he meant. But he went to his saddlebags and brought out a small bag. He filled one of the tea mugs with the last of the water from the pot and sprinkled something from the bag in the water.
“Here,” he said. “Drink.”
I didn’t want to.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Dream powder,” he said.
And then I wanted to even less. Dream powder. I remembered Shadow and his greed for one more dream, and then one more, even though every dream pushed him farther into madness. It had all started with the dream powder, my father had told me. A hazardous shortcut, he had called it. One you should avoid. I couldn’t agree more.
“I don’t want it,” I said, as firmly and as strongly as I could.
He actually looked regretful. “Then I must force you,” he said. “It is demeaning to us both, and I promise you it will be the very last time I do anything of the kind. Once you are free of these people, you will see the proper way of it for yourself.”
Force me? I wouldn’t make it easy for him. I would kick and bite and fight him as hard as I could. Knock the cup from his hand, run away—
But the darkness hit me like a hammer. And I couldn’t bite or kick or fight, because I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t feel a thing.
I hated it. Hated it. So disgusting.
Time passed. I had no idea how much or how little. And as for what happened outside the darkness, I had no clue. If he forced the dream powder down my throat—and I suppose he did—I couldn’t feel even that. Nothing penetrated the blanket he had muffled my senses with. Not until he himself suddenly stood there. Azuan. In the middle of the darkness he himself had created, bowing to me like you would bow to a queen or a prince.
“Let me lead you to freedom.”
Not on my life.
But apparently my will did not matter. With a sudden jerk, we were elsewhere. An eerie gray shining mist surrounded us, a mist full of calling voices.
I had been here before. The Ghost Country, I had called it, and it was no place for the living. Back when Valdracu caught me, one of his men had given me witch weed to subdue me, and it nearly killed me. Somehow I had wandered out of my body and into the gray mists where one usually met only the dead. I had been so close to death myself, back then. Was I dying even now?
“This place is dangerous,” I told Azuan. “If you lose your way, you can die.”
“I’ll look after you,” he said, which didn’t make me any less anxious. “And there are threads to follow. If you have been here before, how is it that you don’t know this?”
Threads?
Yes. Now I saw them. They were what made the mists shine. Delicate, brilliant gossamer threads wove through the grayness like the weft on a loom. Life threads, I suddenly realized, destiny’s threads like those the Spinner had told me about. Was this what she was seeing while she weaved?
“Many believe that the bonds of their destiny are unalterable,” said Azuan. “But they aren’t. We sever and bind with the choices we make. You can choose, Dina. You can choose to be free.”
Suddenly I heard the Spinner’s voice in my mind. The thread has twained, but you cannot be two. Choose—before both threads are severed.
Mother’s daughter, father’s daughter. Shamer or Blackmaster. That had to be what she meant. But if I had to choose what to be, there was no real doubt. And I knew now what to do.
“Mama,” I whispered. And spoke the word again in my mind: Mama. I sent out my longing, because in these mists where one couldn’t walk from place to place, it was longing that made movement possible. Your own longing, or that of others.
Starry skies. Rocks. And far below me, a small troop of people and horses, and a cart. I knew this road. It was the road to Skayark. And once before I had traveled it at night, a night full of fear and the piercing screams of hungry young owls.
“Sleep now, sweetie. When you wake up, we’ll be there.”
It was my mother’s voice, so clear that it sounded as if I were right next to her. And in one breath, I was. Inside the cart, seeing her holding Melli on her lap, and a bow in her free hand.
A bow? I had never before seen a weapon in my mother’s hands. Her eyes and her voice had always been weapon enough.
Ex
cept against Drakan. Drakan met her gaze without faltering, shameless, though there was enough for him to be ashamed about. So perhaps he was the enemy my mother needed a bow against?
Maudi was driving, and there were many familiar faces in the small company—Black-Arse and his mother, Callan’s old Gran, Killian and his family. Why were they headed for Skayark? And why in the middle of the night?
“Mama,” I said, wanting her to see me, though I knew there was nothing really there for her to see. But surely she would hear me, at least?
It didn’t seem that way. She stroked Melli’s forehead with one hand, the other still clenched around the bow. And then I remembered that it was the Shamer’s voice I needed to use if I wanted her to hear me.
I tried. I really tried. I wanted it so badly. But nothing happened. I was no proper Shamer, not anymore. And my mother couldn’t hear me.
I would have cried if I had been able to. But my body was elsewhere, back in a cabin in the woods below the Highlands, and if tears ran down my face there, I was not able to feel them. Here in the Ghost Country, only the real ghosts cried. Like Auld Anya, searching for her drowned child…
No. Best not to think about that now. You had to be careful with your thoughts in this place where purpose and longing were more important than arms and legs. Already I could feel the mists crowding more closely around me, already I could hear the calling voices more clearly. I tried to hang on to Mama, Melli, the cart and the people and the horses on the Skayark road, but one of the mist-borne voices sounded nearer than the others, and I was the one he was longing for.
Nightbird is flying through the darkness
Nightbird is bringing me a dream
A dream as fine as you are
A dream as fine as you.
Only one other human being in the whole wide world knew that song, the man who had made it. My own longing rose and took flight like the bird in the song.
“Papa.”
I said it before I had time to remember that he was dead. It was so strange. Even though you knew it, you didn’t know it all the time, particularly not in dreams.
A campfire by a mountain road, but not the one that led to Skayark. This was the road to the Sagisburg. And by the fire, my father was sitting, singing softly. And I did so long to rest my head in his lap and be the one he was singing to.
He looked up. And he could see me.
“Dina.”
“Papa.”
“Crying again?”
Was I? I couldn’t feel it.
“You lied to me,” I said. “You said I didn’t have the serpent gift, but you were lying.”
“Is that why you are crying?”
I didn’t know.
“Why do I have to choose?” I said. “Why is it either or? Why not both?”
“That is a choice too,” he said. “But then you will have to become your own woman.”
“Mama can’t hear me,” I said. “But you can.”
“Your mama is in the waking world. And that is where you belong as well.”
“I’d rather be with you.”
And it was true when I said it. I was so tired. I was tired to death of being jerked this way and that, of being scared and in danger, of being alone.
“Dina, I am here only because you long for me.”
“But…” But his voice sounded so real. His face, his eyes, the only eyes in the world as green as mine.
“There. You see?” said another voice, very close. “You do belong with us.”
Azuan. Suddenly he was where my father had been a moment ago.
“No,” I whispered. “I don’t want to be the person you want me to be.”
“Why limit yourself?” he said. “Why clip your own wings? When I see you here, it is so brilliantly clear. You have shackled yourself. You have broken and crippled your Shamer’s powers, and you fear the serpent gift. Take a look at yourself!”
Suddenly there was a mirror where Azuan had stood. And in that mirror I saw…
A girl who wasn’t human. A sad and broken statue almost strangled by the vines that covered it. Was that me?
“It is so easy,” whispered Azuan’s voice, “so easy to break free.”
And suddenly, it was.
Not either or.
Both.
The green vinelike tentacles dropped away, like shackles opening. The statue blinked its eyes and came alive. A girl, not quite human in the way others were human, but still no monster. Just me.
“See?” said Azuan. “I knew you could do it. Now, let us get you home where you belong.”
DINA
The Sting of a Wasp
The cabin was so small. Much smaller than it had been the first time I saw it. And Azuan, he, too, looked smaller somehow.
“Sleep,” he said, picking up the blanket. “It has been a hard journey for you, I know that. But at least you may rest a little before we go home.”
But I wasn’t tired. My whole body was buzzing with… with power. And how could I sleep when there was so much to do? I turned to Azuan.
“I’m leaving now,” I told him. “And I’m taking the horse. You can follow if you like, but I advise you not to.”
He froze as he stood, blanket in hand, as if he meant to throw it over me.
“But you can’t—” he began. And then he looked into my eyes.
Shamer’s gift and serpent gift. Truth and dream. The Ghost Country was inside me now and would always be, threads spun from longing and lives and true dreams. I was a mirror he could look into. He saw himself there, as he had been, as he was, and as he would become. I think he saw all the way to his own death.
He didn’t say anything. An eerie moan broke free of him just before he collapsed.
“I don’t belong to you and your House,” I said. “I don’t belong to anybody.”
He didn’t try to stop me.
“Please don’t look at me” was all he whispered. “Please. Not again.”
I didn’t look at him. I found my father’s flute in his pack and left him there. The flute and the horse. That was all I took as I went.
Mist inside and out. A dense cold fog hung among the trees, because the snow was melting. The branches were dripping, and every once in a while a soggy patch of snow slid off and hit the ground or my tired horse. Inside, too, I could still see them, the shining gray mists of the Ghost Country. But that was not all I saw. There were brilliant threads showing me my way through the grayness. My own threads were fewer than they had been. Fewer choices left, fewer destinies. But one of them shone more brilliant than the rest, running like a trail through the mist. I followed that trail, through the waking world as well as the other one. There was no road, no path at my feet other than that trail, and yet the mare followed it as if she could feel my intent without guidance from rein or leg.
My strength wouldn’t hold out forever. But even when I began to shake, even when it became more and more difficult to stay on the horse, even then I could see it: the shining thread.
They told me later that I had ridden straight past dozens of guard posts, but nobody saw me. That I was just suddenly there, in the middle of the camp, on a horse so exhausted it could barely stand. They said I looked like a ghost and that at first no one dared approach me.
“Dina!”
I closed my eyes so that I wouldn’t look at him by accident, because I knew he didn’t like it, and I didn’t want to hurt him. But I felt his hand on my arm, guiding me, and let him help me down off the poor horse.
“Dina, what happened?”
But…
Even with my eyes closed I sensed that this was not as I expected. I had been so certain it was Nico’s thread I had followed, with him waiting at the end of it. It wasn’t. This surprised me so badly that I had to open my eyes.
Not Nico.
Tano.
Tano? But he didn’t even like me! How could he be so close to me already, his thread twined with mine?
I couldn’t make head or tail of it, and I
was all out of strength. I closed my eyes again and pitched forward into the snow, like a falling tree.
Voices. Voices in the dark.
“… is dangerous. It’s just not natural…”
“… telling you, she shone…”
I hadn’t the strength to open my eyes. My eyelids felt sticky and heavy. I heard the fear in their voices. I didn’t need to see it in their eyes as well.
“… Shamers are one thing, but this…”
“… look at her. Looks like a little girl. Just a regular little girl. But…”
“… oh no. Real people don’t look like that…”
I could feel tear tracks hot on my cheeks. I didn’t want them to be afraid of me. I just wanted—
“Go away! Leave her alone.”
Who was that? It sounded like Tano.
“We were just looking—”
“Go look somewhere else, then. She’s no carnival beast for you to gawp at.”
It was Tano, right enough. Tano all up in arms and ready to protect someone. And this time, the one he meant to protect was me.
“Maybe not a beast. But she’s hardly a real human being either, Tano!”
A small pause. Then Tano said, “Yes, she is.” As if there was nothing more to be said in the matter.
“Dina? Dina, try to wake up.”
This time, the voice was Nico’s.
Slowly, I opened my eyes. Daylight sifted down through a cover of pine branches above my head, but it was a cold and unfriendly winter light. And I no longer felt strong and brimming with powers.
I needed to pee. I needed to pee so badly it was a wonder the need hadn’t woken me up hours ago.
“How are you?”
“Fine,” I said, unable to think of anything except my strained bladder. “Nico, I have to… wait a little.”
I untangled myself from the blanket some kind soul had lent me and got to my feet in one stiff, groaning movement. Where could I go to…
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