The Unfinished Land

The End of the Tir Na Nog

GARETH SET A fire just big enough to heat their soup of dried fish and seaweed. He then took a candle out of his bag and carried the flame to its wick with a taper. Calafi squatted and stared steadily at the flame. It wavered as if breathed upon.

“Troy’s bone-wives have fared wide,” Maggie said, “and acted, like us, as scouts.”

“How many could he raise?” Reynard asked.

“As a dead man, many more than when he was alive,” Maggie said. “He had caches of bones and sticks across the island, around the chafing waste and near the krater cities. He sometimes sent his figures out to spy… and now those stores are all in motion.”

Nikolias crossed himself. Reynard had seen enough Traveler magic to wonder at the old man’s gesture, but decided that Troy’s wonders might have origins earlier even than Travelers’.

“Still, I take comfort in his aid and presence,” Widsith said.

“Oh, of a certes… he is not present,” Maggie said. “He only work-eth his way like a man winding his clocks.”

“At any rate, we keep our promise to him,” Gareth said. The candles made a small rumble in his bag.

Maggie turned to where Valdis had settled, under a dark cloak, caring nothing for the heat. “I have heard Eaters could not share time with Troy,” she said. “Why not?”

“The magician made his vows with others,” Valdis said. “And Eaters have another role to play.”

“When will we see our drakes?” Calafi asked Dana sharply.

“Later,” Dana said. “The company of drakes intent on vengeance doth disturb and unsettle those still partnered.”

“How much later?” Calafi persisted. “I am a small thing, and need protection.”

“And who gave you that benison?” Sondheim asked.

“Anutha chose around the wagon and gave them to both Travelers and to us, and also to Kern,” Widsith said. “She seemed to know what she was doing.”

“But at least one Eater hath the benison,” Sondheim said darkly, “yet did not share time with her!”

Widsith intervened. “Ropes of destiny we cannot see rig this ship,” he said.

The sun rose along the edge of a tower and hung there, halfway up, as if it enjoyed this vantage and would never leave, and they sweated, all but Valdis, with the heat from the sun and from the ground below.

Maggie unfolded and lay on her side. Her face showed relief; she seemed to find the heat rising through the soil soothing for her aches, like the warm waters in Bath, perhaps—which Reynard had heard of but never experienced.

She continued. “The hard news is that the Crafters are not being killed by the Sister Queens’ armies. Rather, for many years now, they have been dying of their own kind of age. One by one, their time is ending, and all who serve them have been set free to find their own protection. And that makes the Sister Queens angry, for they hate the Crafters and their servants, but had hoped to kill monsters in their lair—and mostly they find only dead monsters, and weak and dismayed human beings.”

“Have the Sister Queens sent their wise ones to look upon the dead Crafters?” Nikolias wondered.

Nobody knew.

“All that can be said this day,” Dana said, “is that our time and purpose on this island must be coming to a close. And that seemeth to include the time of the Sister Queens.”

All looked to Valdis. “And what about thy people?” Maggie asked, rolling over and rising on her elbow.

“Eaters have no place to go,” she said. “Nothing lies beyond the islands. I seek mine end, whatever it may mean.”