’s Magic

EIGHT Quick-walk

When I became aware again, Epiny was gone. I didn’t immediately realize that. With Soldier’s Boy, I felt woozy and disoriented and unable to focus my eyes. My gut heaved with nausea. Being struck on the head hard enough to cause unconsciousness is never a joke, and my body had endured two such assaults in rapid succession. I could barely breathe past the thickness in my mouth, and I could not stir my limbs. I felt Soldier’s Boy’s frustration as he used yet more of his rapidly dwindling magic to speed the body’s healing. Even so, we lay motionless and queasy for a good hour before he felt well enough to sit up.

That was when he discovered that Epiny had taken a few precautions before she left. The leather strap of her bag was tied securely in my mouth as a gag, and strips torn from the draggled hem of her dress were knotted about my wrists and ankles. Soldier’s Boy rolled onto his side and began working against his bonds. Tree Woman spoke to me as he did so.

‘Your cousin is more resourceful than I thought. Truly, she would have made a better servant to the magic.’

Little as I wanted to serve the magic, the comparison still stung. ‘Maybe if my self hadn’t been divided, I would have been a better tool for the magic. Or a better soldier.’

‘That’s likely,’ she admitted easily. Soldier’s Boy didn’t hear her. He wasn’t looking at her tree stump, so I couldn’t see her. But I could imagine her gentle, rueful smile. I hated what she had done to me, I hated how the magic had twisted my life away from my boyish dreams of a glorious career as a cavalla officer, of a gentle well-bred wife and a home of my own. I’d forfeited it all when I’d battled Lisana and lost. She had been the engineer of my downfall. Yet I still felt tenderness towards Lisana, my Tree Woman. It was no longer based entirely on Soldier’s Boy’s love for her. I sensed in her a kindred spirit, someone who had come unwilling to the magic’s service but, like me, saw a need for it.

‘So. What will happen now?’

She sighed, light as wind in the leaves. ‘Eventually, Olikea or Likari will come back and help you. Or you’ll wriggle free on your own. And then you must eat heartily, and quick-walk to join the People at the Wintering Place.’

‘I didn’t mean it that way. I meant, what will become of Epiny and Spink? What will happen to them?’

She sighed again. ‘Let go of that life, Nevare. Embrace the one you are in now. Join the sundered halves of your soul and become one.’

That hadn’t been what I was asking her. ‘Will you try to harm Epiny?’ I asked her directly.

‘Hmf. Did she try to harm me? A few more minutes of that fire, and we would not be having this conversation now. I’ve told you before, I cannot control the magic or what it does.’ A pause. Then her voice was gentler. ‘But for whatever peace it gives you, I’ll tell you that I will not be attempting any revenge on her.’ She made an odd sound that might almost have been a laugh. ‘The less I have to do with your cousin, the better for both of us, I think.’

‘Thank you.’

Olikea did not come to find me. Jodoli did, stumping up the ridge with a scolding Firada in his wake. He, too, had heard the summons of the whispering leaves, but he had been farther away and Firada had not wanted him to quick-walk them to Lisana, thinking it better that Soldier’s Boy handle whatever the difficulty was with the Gernian madwoman on his own. Firada was not pleased with Jodoli consuming energy to rescue me yet again. She grumbled about it the whole time that he was untying me.

‘What happened here?’ Jodoli asked as soon as the gag was removed from my mouth.

‘Nevare’s cousin Epiny attacked Lisana. But do not concern yourself with it. The threat has been dealt with. I’m sorry that I used more of your time.’

‘You call this dealing with a threat?’ Firada asked tartly. ‘We find you bound and gagged, and your feeders nowhere in sight!’

‘I sent them away, to keep them safe. It is dealt with. Let it go.’

Soldier’s Boy spoke in a commanding way that I expected her to find offensive. Instead she just puffed her cheeks and then settled in abrupt silence. Soldier’s Boy turned to Jodoli. His face was equally disapproving, but I suspected that some sign from him had quieted Firada.

‘Jodoli, I thank you for coming yet again to my aid. Please, do not delay your journey to rejoin the People any longer. I will need another day here to gather strength before I am able to do any magic. But do not linger here on my account.’

‘We have no intention of doing so,’ Firada responded quickly.

Jodoli’s words were more measured. ‘Indeed, we must depart tonight. But I wanted to let you know that I went to look at what you did to the intruders’ road. I think you bought us a season of respite, and perhaps more. It is not a permanent solution. Nonetheless, I do not think you used your magic in vain. Firada is correct that I must rejoin our kin-clan tonight; they are unprotected when I am not with them. I hope you will hurry to rejoin us as quickly as you can.’ He glanced about, his eyes lingering on Tree Woman’s scorched trunk.

Soldier’s Boy got slowly to his feet. His head still pounded with pain and hunger squeezed him again. All the magic he’d acquired, he’d used in healing the worst of his injury. He sighed. ‘I go to regain my feeders. We will see you soon, at the Wintering Place. Travel well.’

‘At the Wintering Place,’ Jodoli confirmed. He reached out and took Firada’s hand. They walked away. I did not ‘see’ the quick-walk magic, but in less than two blinks of my eye, they had vanished from my sight. When they were gone, Soldier’s Boy turned back to Lisana’s stump.

He walked over to it, knelt in the deep moss, and gravely examined the damage. There was not much; the fire had licked the outer bark, scorching it, but not penetrated it. He nodded, satisfied. He gripped the hilt of the rusty cavalla sword that was still thrust deep into the stump. Heedless of the unpleasant buzzing that the proximity of the metal blade woke in his hands, he tried to work it loose. To no avail. A nasty recognition stirred in my own thoughts. As a mage, I’d now experienced how unpleasant the touch of iron felt. Yet Lisana had never once reproached me for the blade I’d felled her with and then left sticking in her trunk. I felt shamed.

But Soldier’s Boy continued unaware of my thoughts or feelings. He pushed through growing underbrush to reach the young tree that reared up from Lisana’s fallen trunk. He set his hands to its smooth bark and leaned his head back to smile up at its branches. ‘We must thank our luck that she did not know this is where you are truly most vulnerable. This little one would not have survived such a scorching as your trunk took. Look how she seeks the sun, look how straight she stands.’ He leaned forward, to rest his brow briefly against the young tree’s bark. ‘I really, really miss your guidance,’ he said softly.

Behind us, Lisana spoke. ‘I miss you, too, Soldier’s Boy.’

I knew he could not hear her. She knew it, too, and I heard the isolation in her voice, that her words to him must go unheard. It was for her rather than for him that I said, ‘She misses you, too.’

Soldier’s Boy caught a breath. ‘Tell her that I love her still. Tell her I miss her every day. There is not a moment that goes by when I do not remember all that she taught me. I will be true to what she taught me when I go to the Wintering Place. This I promise. Tell her that. Please, tell her that for me!’

He was looking at her little tree. I wanted him to turn and look at the cut trunk, where Lisana still manifested most strongly for me. But it was not easy to make him hear me, and I did not want to waste the effort. ‘She hears you when you speak. She cannot make you hear her replies, but what you say aloud, she hears.’

Again, he halted, turning his head like a dog that hears a far-off whistle. Then he slowly reached out to the little tree and drew a finger down its trunk. ‘I’m glad you can hear me,’ he said softly. ‘I’m glad we at least have that.’

I heard Lisana sob. I wished I could have met her eyes. ‘She’s by the trunk,’ I said, but my strength was fading.

Lisana spoke to me again. ‘Please. Tell him to walk down the line of my fallen trunk. Near the end, another small tree has begun. Tell him that it is for him, when the time comes. I’m preparing a tree for him. Please tell him.’

‘Look for another little tree, near the end of her fallen trunk,’ I said. I pushed the words as hard as I could. But he did not hear me. After a pause, he spoke aloud to her. ‘I’m tired, Lisana. Tired and hungry and empty of magic. I need to find sustenance. And as soon as I can, I must leave for the Wintering Place. I haven’t forgotten what you told me. Believe me. What you taught me, I will live.’ He was very still, as if listening for me or for Lisana, but after a time he closed his eyes, puffed his cheeks and turned away from the little tree.

He started to follow the fading trail that led back down the ridge and eventually into a valley where a small stream flowed. Weariness dragged at us. He muttered as we walked and after a time, I realized he was speaking to me. I listened more closely to his rambling words. ‘You used it all. Did you hate us that much or were you just stupid? I saved that magic, hoarded it all thinking that I might get one chance. And now it’s all gone. Gone. You always complained to everyone who would listen that I’d stolen your beautiful wonderful future. Is that why you destroyed mine? Was it vengeance? Or stupidity?’

I had no way of responding. I was little more than a spark inside him now, clinging desperately to my self-awareness. The idea of letting go came to me. I shook myself free of it. What would happen to me if I did? Would I cease to be entirely, or would all my ideas, thoughts, and knowledge suddenly be merged with Soldier’s Boy? Would he consume me as I had tried to consume him? If he integrated me into his being, would I have any awareness of it? Would I live on only as odd bits of dreams that sometimes haunted the Speck Mage I would become?

The thought of merging my awareness with Soldier’s Boy and becoming merely a part of him held no appeal for me. Instead it filled me with loathing, and I struggled against it. ‘I am Nevare Burvelle,’ I told myself. ‘Soldier son of a New Noble lord. Destined to be a cavalla officer, to serve my king with courage, to distinguish myself on a field of battle. I will prevail. I will keep faith with Epiny and I will prevail.’ I would not become a set of disconnected memories inside some hulking forest mage. I would not.

And so I wearily clung to my identity and did little more than that for the next two days. I was an observer as Soldier’s Boy hiked wearily down to the stream. He found Likari dozing on the shady bank while Olikea scavenged in the shallows for a greyish-brown leggy creature that looked more like an insect than a fish to me. As she caught each one, she popped its head off with her thumbnail and then added it to the catch heaped on a lily leaf on the stream bank. The animals were small; two would fill her palm. She already had a small fire burning. As Soldier’s Boy approached, he greeted her with, ‘It is good that you are already finding food for me.’

She didn’t look up from her hunting. ‘I already know what you are going to say. That you have used up what magic you had, and we must stay another night here. Did you kill her?’

‘No. I let her go. She is no threat to us. And you are right that we must stay here, not one night, but three. I have decided that before I travel, I will rebuild some of my reserves. I will not be the Great Man I was when we rejoin the People, but I will not be this skeleton either. I will eat for three days. And then we will quick-walk to the people.’

‘By then, almost everyone will have returned to the Wintering Place! The best trading will be done, and all that will be left there are the things that are not quite perfect or have no newness to them!’

‘There will be other trading days in years to come. You will have to miss this one.’

Olikea filled her cheeks and then puffed the air out explosively. She had caught two more of the creatures, and she flung them down on those already heaped on the stream bank so hard that I heard the crack of their small shells as they hit. She was not pleased, and I was dimly surprised by how easily Soldier’s Boy dismissed her feelings on the matter.

She looked at him at last and surprise almost overcame her sullen glance. ‘What happened to your forehead?’

‘Never mind that,’ he said brusquely. ‘We need food. Busy yourself with that.’ With his foot, he stirred the sleeping Likari. ‘Up, boy. Gather food. Lots of it. I need to fill myself.’

Likari sat up, blinking, and knuckled his eyes. ‘What sort of food, Great One?’

‘Any food that you can get in quantity. Go now.’

The boy scuttled off. Olikea spoke from behind me. ‘Do not blame him if he cannot find much that is good. The time for the best harvesting is past. That is why we go to the Wintering Place.’

‘I know that.’ Soldier’s Boy turned and walked to the stream’s edge, upstream of Olikea. With a grunt and a sigh, he hunkered down and then sat on the ground. He reached over, pulled up a handful of water-grass, rinsed the muddy roots off in the flowing stream and then peeled the slimy outer skin off them. He bit off the thick white roots and as he chewed them, uprooted another handful of the stuff. The flavour was vaguely like onions.

By the time Likari returned with an armload of shrivelled plums, Soldier’s Boy had cleared a substantial patch of water-grass. He ate as methodically as a grazing cow. Olikea was busy with her own task; she had steamed the leggy creatures in layers of leaves and was now stripping them of legs and carapaces. The curl of meat from each one was scarcely the size of my little finger, but they smelled wonderful.

They ate together, with Soldier’s Boy taking the lion’s share of the food. The plums had dried in the sun’s heat; their flesh was thick and chewy and sweet, and contrasted pleasantly with the little crustaceans. When the food was gone, Soldier’s Boy commanded them both to find more, and then lay down to sleep. When they woke him, they had roasted a pile of yellow roots that had little flavour other than starch, and a porcupine was cooking on the fire. Likari had killed the creature with a club. Divested of its fur and quills, it showed a thick layer of fat. ‘You can see the kind of weather that soon will come!’ Olikea warned him.

‘Let me worry about such things,’ Soldier’s Boy dismissed her.

Night was deepening when that meal was gone. They slept in a huddle, Olikea against his belly and Likari cuddled against his back. Soldier’s Boy used a tiny bit of magic to hummock the moss into a nest around them while Likari had gathered armloads of fallen leaves to cover them. Over the leaves, he spread the winter blanket from my cemetery hut, even though both Olikea and Likari complained that it smelled odd. He had discovered that they had disposed of the clothing he had worn when they found him. Olikea had cut the shining brass buttons from his uniform and kept them, but the rest of it was gone, dropped somewhere in the forest when they were moving him. So all that he carried forward from my life was a winter blanket and a handful of buttons. It seemed fitting.

As they settled together in their bed with Olikea’s warm back to his chest and her firm buttocks resting on his thighs, Soldier’s Boy felt an insistent stirring of lust for the woman, but set it firmly aside. Later, after he had regained some of his flesh, he could enjoy her. For now, he must not expend any effort save to gather and eat food. As for Olikea, she showed no such interest in him at all, and Likari seemed blissfully unaware of any tension between the adults.

For the next two days, that was the pattern. As long as there was enough light to see, Olikea and Likari gathered food and Soldier’s Boy consumed it. They moved twice, following the stream, as Soldier’s Boy systematically harvested and ate every edible item that it could provide for him.

There was a freeze on the third night. There had been twinges of frost before, enough to hasten the turning of the leaves, but that night, the cold reached beneath the forest eaves. Despite the mossy nest and deep blanket of leaves, they all shivered through the night. Soldier’s Boy awoke aching, and Olikea and Likari were both grumpy. In response to Olikea’s complaints, Soldier’s Boy told her, ‘We will travel tonight. I have regained enough reserves that we will go swiftly. For now, go about your gathering. I will return shortly.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘I go to the road’s end. I will not stay there long; have food ready for me when I return.’

‘This is a foolish risk you take. There will be workers there; they may attack you.’

‘They will not see me,’ Soldier’s Boy said firmly. And with that as his farewell, he set out.

As Soldier’s Boy had recovered his reserves and strength, so had I. He was still not as immense as he had been, but he had regained flesh and energy. He moved purposefully through the forest. The fallen leaves carpeted the moss. They rustled as he strode through them. As he approached the road’s end. Soldier’s Boy slowed and went more cautiously. For a large man, he moved very quietly, and he paused often to listen.

He heard only birdcalls and once, the thump and rustle of a disturbed rabbit. Emboldened, he ventured closer to what had been the road. Stillness reigned.

By this hour of the day, workers should have arrived, but there were no signs of them. He moved cautiously along the edge of the road. The greenery I had sent out across it had browned, but the vines and crawling brambles had survived and looked undisturbed. Where I had sent plants to block the culverts, swamps had formed on either side of the road. Insects buzzed and hummed near them.

He came to the shed where the men had been keeping watch that night. It was deserted. He walked through it and found the dice still out on the rough table just as the men had abandoned them. No one had been back here since that night.

‘Perhaps it was not a total waste of magic,’ he conceded reluctantly. ‘It looks as if the intruders are discouraged. I do not think they will come back before spring.’

He had turned back into the forest before I realized that he had deliberately spoken to me.

‘I thought I was doing what the magic wanted me to do.’ I could not decide if I wanted to apologize to him or not. It seemed strange to apologize to myself, and even more so to have to apologize for an action I’d been pushed into taking. I wasn’t even certain that he was aware of what I’d tried to say to him. I thought of the times when I’d thought I’d felt Soldier’s Boy stir inside me, the moments when my thoughts had seemed more Speckish than Gernian. Always, I’d felt that he deliberately concealed himself from me. Now I wondered if he had tried to share his views, only to feel as smothered as I did.

He spoke again, almost grudgingly, as if reluctant to acknowledge me. ‘The magic was mine, not yours to spend. And the magic speaks to me, not you. You should not have tampered with it.’

He seemed to resent me as much as I did him. It scarcely seemed fair. He was the one who had invaded my life. I reined in my resentment and asked my most pressing question.

‘Do you know what the magic wants you to do?’

He grinned hard. I sensed him weighing whether or not to reply. When he did, I felt it was because he could not resist the urge to brag. ‘Several times, I have acted on what the magic wished me to do.’

‘When? What did you do?’

‘You don’t remember the Dancing Spindle?’

‘Of course I do.’ At the Dancing Spindle, actions I had taken had ended the Spindle’s dance forever, and dispersed the magic of the plainspeople. I knew now that Soldier’s Boy had taken into himself as much of their magic as he could hold and had hoarded it. ‘But what else? When else did you obey the magic?’

His grin grew wider. ‘You don’t know, do you? That amuses me. Because at the time, I thought I felt you resisting me. And even now, I do not think I would be wise to tell you the things the magic prompted me to do. There were small things that I did, things that made no sense to me. But I did them. And I kept them from you, lest you try to undo them. You thought you had pushed me down; you thought you had absorbed me and made me a part of you. But I won then. And I’ve won now, Gernian. I will prevail.’

I nearly warned him not to be too certain of that. Then I decided not to provoke him to keep his guard up against me. He spoke no more to me but found and followed the stream to rejoin Likari and Olikea. She was sitting close by the fire, her arms wrapped around her naked body. The day had warmed, but not much.

‘Finding food would keep you warmer,’ he told her. ‘This is the last day we shall spend here. We’ll eat, and then sleep until nightfall.’

‘There isn’t much left to find here!’ Olikea protested, but just then Likari made a lie of her words.

He ran up to me, proudly displaying six silver fish hung from a willow wand through their gills. ‘I caught them all myself!’ he exclaimed. His hands and forearms were bright red from exposure to the icy waters.

‘Wonderful!’ Soldier’s Boy praised him and rumpled the boy’s hair. The child wriggled like a happy puppy. Olikea took the fish with a sour expression on her face and went to work cleaning them of guts and scales. Soldier’s Boy went back to the stream and began eating water-grass stems. He would have preferred to eat the foods richest in magic potential, but lacking those, he would fill my belly with anything that was edible.

When Olikea returned from her gathering, a hastily-woven carry sack held big mushrooms and a quantity of prickly cones. She gave the cones to Likari, and he pounded them on a rock by the stream to shake loose the fat seeds inside them. The mushrooms were thick and dense, with ranks of tubes rather than gills on the undersides of their orange caps. Olikea cut them into fat slices to toast over the fire with the fish.

After everyone had eaten, they all arranged themselves in the moss-and-leaves nest to sleep for the rest of the day. I felt no need for such rest. Instead, trapped behind the darkness of Soldier’s Boy’s closed eyes, my thoughts chased their own tails in endless circles. What had he done for the magic that I hadn’t even known about, and when had he done it? In dread, I thought of the times I had awakened from sleep-walking to find myself outside my cabin. Had it happened then? Or had it occurred when I was home in Widevale, or even while I was still at the Academy? I recalled how the Speck dancers had come to Old Thares with the travelling carnival. When I had seen them, I had lifted my hand and given them the sign to release the dreaded Speck plague on our capital city. Yes. I could see now that that had been the work of Soldier’s Boy. But what else had he done that I’d scarcely been aware of? Had he influenced my thoughts about my father? Had he precipitated my quarrel with Carsina?

When I decided that wondering about it was futile, my thoughts turned to Epiny, Spink and Amzil. I wondered if Epiny had reached her home safely, and if she had been able to convince both Spink and Amzil that I was still alive and that they had not failed me. I wondered about the rest of Gettys as well. I was fairly certain that my death would be dismissed easily. I doubted that there would be any serious inquiry into it. Gettys was a town composed of soldiers, convict workers and released convicts and their families. The Speck magic flooded the town with alternating tides of fear and despair. It was a place where violence and crime were as common as the dust blowing through the streets. A man beaten to death by a mob would only briefly shock the inhabitants, and no one else would ever know of it. I imagined that the official report, if there were one, would say that a condemned prisoner, Nevare Burv, had been shot to death while attempting to escape.

The knowledge that I was actually the son of Lord Burvelle of the East would have died with Colonel Haren. I was fairly certain that he would not have confided it to anyone else. So there would be no formal notification of my father. I wondered how Spink and Epiny would explain my death to my sister, and if she would pass the news on to my father and Sergeant Duril, my old mentor. I hoped that Yaril would have the strength of will to keep the news to herself. My father had disowned me; to hear that I had died while escaping a death sentence would only vindicate his poor opinion of me. As for Sergeant Duril, he knew how easy it was for soldiers to lose contact with families and friends. Let me simply fade out of his life and his memories, without any knowledge of my shame. I didn’t want the old soldier to think that somehow his teaching had failed me or that I had turned my back on all I had learned from him. Let me be forgotten by them.

And what did I hope for myself? Hope. It seemed a bitter word now. What hope could I have, imprisoned in my own flesh and about to be borne off to the Speck Wintering place? I had no idea where that was, nor could I begin to guess what Soldier’s Boy planned for the future. Obviously he was committed to the magic. He would do whatever he thought he must to drive the Gernians back west into our own lands. How far would he go?

I’d heard rumours of another Speck Great Man, the most powerful one of all. I wracked my memory for his name and then had it. Kinrove. Olikea had mentioned him as someone she hoped I would surpass; I imagined that she hoped Soldier’s Boy would supplant him as the most powerful Great One. Lisana had mentioned him in another way, as had Jodoli. Kinrove was the source of the Dance, whatever that was. For years, he had maintained a magic with it, a magic that was supposed to hold the intruders at bay, maybe even drive the Gernians away completely. But it had not, and now the younger men were becoming restless, and talking of bringing war to the Gernians in a way they would understand. No, I corrected myself. In a way ‘we’ would understand. I was still a Gernian, wasn’t I?

It was hard to pin down what I was any more. I could not even decide whether to think of myself as ‘I’ or ‘he’.

My other self was a frightening mystery to me. I didn’t know what he had already done in obedience to the magic or what he was capable of doing. Well, that wasn’t exactly true, I abruptly realized. He had been capable of turning the Speck plague loose on the Gernian capital city. He’d deliberately infected my fellow cadets of the King’s Cavalla Academy, successfully wiping out half of a future generation of officers. If he could do that, what would he not do? Was this ruthless creature truly a part of myself, an aspect of Nevare Burvelle that Tree Woman had peeled away and infected with the magic? If he had stayed a part of me, would I have been capable of such deadly, traitorous acts? Or would the self that I was now have ameliorated him, balanced his warlike nature with more ethics and philosophy? Was he a better soldier than I was in that he was burdened only with loyalty to ‘his’ people and cause?

Was he the sort of soldier my father had wished me to be?

Such thoughts were not cheering, especially confined as I was to the sleeping body of my enemy. For a short time, I tried to pretend that I had options. I’d stopped him from killing Epiny, hadn’t I? That meant I had some control over him. And I’d been successful in making him hear my thoughts. Did that mean I could influence him? Or, as Epiny had believed, eventually master him again?

I tried to feel my body as I had once felt it, to be aware of tickling leaves against my skin, of Olikea’s hair tangled across my face, of the ball of warmth that was Likari curled against my back. I could sense those things, but when I tried to move a hand or lift my foot, nothing happened. My only achievement in that long afternoon of their nap was to focus my attention on Olikea’s hair on my face. It tickled. It itched. I wanted to move my face away from it. It annoyed me. I nattered and nagged at the sleeping Soldier’s Boy with such thoughts until, with a grunt and a sigh, he lifted a hand to brush her hair away from his face. I had done it!

Or had he, of his own will, simply moved an annoyance away? I had no way of knowing.

As night descended, they stirred, first the boy, and then Soldier’s Boy and Olikea. They had little to do to prepare to travel. Olikea and Likari had left the migrating People in a hurry, rushing to rescue me. She had her hip belt of tools and pouches. The boy filled his waterskin for us. We had my winter blanket from my hut. Olikea had saved some cooked fish and water-grass roots in a carry-net. Soldier’s Boy yawned, stretched, and rubbed his face, scratching irritably at his unshaven cheeks. Then he told them, ‘It’s time to go. Come with me.’

He took the boy’s hand, but seemed to judge that Olikea could follow on her own. I wondered how he determined who would quick-walk with him. How did he extend the magic to include them; how did he do the magic at all? I sensed nothing, only his desire to travel swiftly now. Perhaps that was all it took. For a time, they walked in what seemed a very ordinary fashion, threading their way quietly through the dusky forest. They came to a faint path through the trees, and Soldier’s Boy grunted and nodded as if pleased at finding something.

After that, we travelled swiftly. His pace didn’t quicken. It seemed to me that he walked as he had before, and the sensations I experienced with him were little different from any walk I’d ever taken. Occasionally I felt a dizzying lurch, or stumbled as if the path had suddenly risen under my feet. That was disconcerting. The trees and brush did not rush past us, yet it only took three steps to climb a steep hill, half a dozen to follow a long ridge, and then in a few strides we dipped down into a valley, crossed a river, and climbed the opposite side. After that, our path led us ever upward. Despite the deepening night, we walked in a brief grey twilight that extended only a few steps ahead of us.

We climbed the flank of a mountain, traversing the steep side, followed a pass, and then crossed yet another mountainside. And always we went higher.

As we climbed, the night grew colder around us. The others hugged themselves and their breath showed white in the moonlight. We were above the tree line now. The ground was hard and cold underfoot. I winced for my unshod feet tramping along such harsh terrain but Soldier’s Boy appeared not to notice.

We came to the mouth of a pass. To either side of us, towering mountains gave us no other option. There was a campsite at the mouth of the pass, an area where many small fires had burned. There was plenty of evidence that a large group or several large groups of people had passed through the area recently. ‘Are we stopping here until tomorrow?’ Olikea asked.

Soldier’s Boy simply walked on. We followed the pass as it wound its way between two steep-sided mountains. The air was dry and cold and we were soon glad that Likari had filled the waterskin. As we trekked on, I became aware of how Soldier’s Boy used the magic in a steady stream. Olikea and Likari kept pace with him. I could sense their weariness. The magic might mean that they covered ground much faster, but hours of walking in the cold at a swift and steady pace were telling on them. ‘How much farther are we going tonight?’ Olikea almost wailed at one point.

‘We’ll stop and rest at dawn,’ Soldier’s Boy deigned to tell her.

‘But we’ve passed the best stopping place,’ she complained. ‘I did not prepare for Stone Passage. I thought I would have a chance to gather firewood and more food before we entered it.’

‘Wherever we are at dawn is where we will rest,’ he ended the discussion.

Soldier’s Boy pushed ruthlessly on. Scowling, Olikea began to salvage items left behind by other migrants. She darted from side to side, picking up ends of torches and bits of firewood that had not completely burned to ash. Soldier’s Boy appeared not to notice, but slowed the pace slightly. When Likari began to lag behind, he gruffly ordered the child to keep up. I felt pity for the boy; he could not have been more than six or seven, and to compel him on this forced march on such a long cold night seemed cruel to me. If Soldier’s Boy thought about it at all, I could not sense it. The pass grew narrower and narrower and the mountains ever steeper and more sheer. It seemed to me that this path might simply come to a dead end, but they all pushed on as if following a familiar way.

By the time dawn began to grey the sky, it was only a stripe of light over our heads. The way we traversed was more like a cavern with a crack in the roof than a pass. I had never even imagined such a place. The filtered light showed me that many folk had passed this way and recently. To either side of us was the detritus of a busy trail: discarded rags, a frayed basket, scraps of food waste and other litter. Olikea seized the basket and put her wood into it without losing the pace. The light grew stronger, but still Soldier’s Boy walked on. Jodoli had been correct when he said that the magic was harder to summon in the light of day than at night. Soldier’s Boy began to weary and to feel queasy from the way the landscape lurched and jumped as he passed it. Quite abruptly, he came to a halt. ‘We’ll rest here,’ he announced.

‘Here?’ Likari asked in surprise. ‘This isn’t a stopping place.’

‘It is now,’ Soldier’s Boy replied grumpily. Olikea didn’t say anything. At a gesture from Soldier’s Boy, the waterskin was passed around. Olikea dumped her trove of salvaged fuel on the ground in a heap. She stared pointedly at Soldier’s Boy. He puffed his cheeks in refusal.

‘Making fire uses too much magic. You light it.’

For an instant, her lip curled up to bare her teeth. Then she turned her back on him, took out a Gernian made flint-and-steel set, and set to work. Soldier’s Boy gritted his teeth to the unpleasant buzz of the exposed metal. She used part of the basket as tinder to catch the sparks, and the charred wood caught swiftly. It was not a large fire, but it pushed back the shadows and offered a little warmth. They shared the food Olikea had brought. On this rocky trail, there was no moss for Soldier’s Boy to command and no leaves to blanket them. Soldier’s Boy chose a spot along the edge of the trail wall and lay down. The ground was hard and cold. Olikea circled him, looking unhappy, and then took her place at his side. Likari lay along his back. The one blanket did not cover all their bodies. The dwindling warmth from the dying fire was almost meaningless in such a cold and stony place.

‘I’m cold,’ the boy whimpered once. Soldier’s Boy made no response but I felt him release some of his stored magic. My body warmed, and the two of them pressed closer. After a short time, I heard the boy sigh heavily and felt him go lax.

Olikea had put her back to my belly. She pressed in closer against me and yawned. Silence fell and I thought she slept. Then she asked, ‘Do you have a plan? For when we get to the Wintering Place?’

Soldier’s Boy was quiet for a long time, but I knew he did not sleep. With him, I stared wearily at the stony walls of the chasm. When he blinked, I felt the grittiness of his eyelids. The magic was like a small campfire burning in him, consuming the reserves he’d gathered. When he spoke to the dimness, I wondered if Olikea were still awake. ‘I’ll have to wait until I’m there. I’ve never been there before, you know.’

‘But you know the way. How?’ Olikea suddenly seemed uncertain.

‘Lisana. Lisana shared many of her memories with me. She made this journey scores of times, first as a young girl and then as a Great One. I rely on her memories.’

They were quiet again and I felt Olikea relaxing against the warmth of his body. His arms were around her, holding her close to me. I felt sorry for her. Behind Soldier’s Boy’s closed eyelids, he was thinking of Lisana. My thoughts drifted towards Amzil. If only she were the woman in my arms now. Olikea exploded that fantasy.

She spoke softly. ‘You are not one of us. To some, that will be a problem. They may even be angry that you have come there.’

‘I know. It will not make my task easier.’

‘You will have to prove yourself to them before they will accept you as part of our kin-clan, let alone as a Great One.’

‘I was thinking of that.’

She drew a deeper breath and let it out slowly, a prelude to sleep. ‘How long will it take us to reach the Wintering Place?’

‘We could be there tomorrow. But I do not wish to move that swiftly and arrive there depleted of power. We will move more slowly and stop sooner.’

‘That makes sense,’ she agreed, and then said, ‘I need to sleep now.’

‘Yes,’ Soldier’s Boy agreed. But it was some time before he closed his eyes. I sensed he was weighing his options and planning a strategy. But I could not find a way into those thoughts and suspected he deliberately kept them from me.