The Unfinished Land

The Crafter’s Lair

THE FORTRESS that lay over the krater revealed a plan like unto the markings they had seen in other kraters on the way here, empty kraters, including the one that still contained the shrouded body of a Crafter. The fortress supported a cleft tower, like a great stack over a forge, a tower likely open to the sky and the stars, and was surrounded by a great outer wall interrupted by arched openings of dense black stones.

Each opening seemed to lead down a hallway, and none led down the same hallway.

“Seest thou the way of it?” Calafi asked Reynard.

Reynard said, “A maze, I think, like the labyrinth that held the Minotaur.” Behind them, a furtive group of twelve men and women, dressed in black-and-white-checked robes and high caps, brought forward four disks and stood, waiting to be given permission by someone, or something, to enter the fortress.

“And where dost thou get that notion?” Calafi asked, her voice high and childlike, but also cutting like a blade.

“From memories not my own,” Reynard admitted. “From Valdis, perhaps.” He turned his head to find her.

Valdis stepped closer, hands held out as if measuring and judging a great force. “Not my gift,” she said. “Some other’s learning, or maybe it came with the Crafter’s work.”

Reynard looked back to the ring of fine black sand around the hard rim of the krater, like the lip of a great bowl that carried a meal none dared eat. He could not see Widsith, could gain no reassurance that the Pilgrim had told him the truth. Reynard felt a vibration that squeezed his heart and made it falter in his chest, that bunched the muscles of his stomach and made him wish to throw up—and filled his arms as well, making him shake as if with palsy.

Calafi looked toward the wall and the nearest arch. “This Crafter is still alive.”

Reynard agreed.

“But failing,” Calybo said, and made his face clear to Reynard.

“I see only darkness in those doors,” Andalo said.

The checked servants carried a disk forward and placed it into a groove before the archway. They then bowed and approached Calybo, and spoke to him in whispers—doubtless one of the few times they had ever addressed an Eater.

“Thou wilt pass through,” Calybo said to Reynard and Calafi. “There is a last play, and the disk will lead thee to its heart—and protect ye against truths too strong. I will go with ye.”

“Who am I?” Calafi asked. “Who are you? And who are we?

“We are the next.”

Valdis seemed to flow up beside them, like a shape of smoke, but then looking very much, Reynard thought, like the young Viking girl she had once been. “We will share,” Valdis said. She put one hand on Reynard’s shoulder, and the other on the girl’s head. Looking into the girl’s radiant face, and upon Valdis’s night-dark features, Reynard felt his indecision and fear fade.

Andalo brought forth a pile of sticks and bones, donated perhaps by the servants, which he laid before Nikolias. As the second candle took its wick and made a greater brightness, a ragged figure in tatters of old muslin came forward, barely recognizable as a female conjure-shape. It reached down with stick arms and pulled up from the bones and pieces of wood another like itself, and Nikolias removed the fine cloak from his shoulders and draped it around the new construct, which suddenly filled out like a woman, with long hair and fine limbs and a lovely face that glowed in the light of the candle which gave it time to do its duty.

The last servants of the Crafter, who had performed menial duties and sacred duties for who could say how long, had arranged themselves around the krater structure and its tower, most kneeling, some in ornate robes standing, hands over their heads, staring inward and paying no attention to the newcomers.

Nikolias rode his horse forward. One of the servants swung her head to see him, but otherwise did nothing—did not rise from her knees, did not speak.

“They are all Travelers,” Nikolias said. “They have been here, all their generations, since Hel brought the Crafters down to the chafing waste.” He drew himself up straight in his saddle, then nodded to Reynard and threw a kiss to Calafi. “Yuchil and I wish you all triumph,” he said. “That Travelers may continue to carry languages and tales, and to sustain gods, heroes, and mortals for all time to come.”

They stepped toward the wall, the disk, the archway. Kern and Kaiholo and Valdis stood beside the disk. Kaiholo made a motion with his hand. Reynard would have to stoop to fit his head through.

The interior of the disk was still dark.

“It is solid,” Reynard said. “I would not break it!”

“Stroke the upper rim until it sings,” Calybo said. “I will follow.”

Calafi curtseyed like a princess and stood beside the newest bone-wife, whose own thin voice now carried to their ears—and though feminine, not unlike the voice of the King of Troy.

“I will go before all and make certain,” the bone-wife said. “I’ll be first and test the airs, little such as I breathe, but as I do not have eyes, mine eyes will not fail, and as I have not a mind, my mind will not fail, and I’ll let ye know whether the Crafter is prepared for the line to come to it before it dies.”

“Rub the disk,” Calybo said.

Reynard held out his hand and stroked the top of the disk, rubbing with two fingers. The sound was muted and blunt. He then touched his fingers to his tongue, moistening the tips, and tried again.

With a slight pressure, the disk began to vibrate, then to sing!

“It is opening,” Calafi said. “Can I try next time?”

The bone-wife shivered away some leaves and dust, drew tight her black garb, stooped very low, and entered the disk first. Reynard kept rubbing as Calafi passed through, and then Calybo, and finally, Valdis.

When the Eaters passed through, the disk’s tone changed.

“Keep to the left at every turn,” Kern advised Reynard. “Many such mazes are in the histories of the giants, and that is always the way to the inner chamber.”

“Many times I have riddled mazes with Asian emperors,” Widsith said.

“Many times?” Kaiholo asked.

“Three times, actually,” Widsith said. “And each time, I failed. A poor Minotaur!” He gripped Reynard’s free hand and squeezed. “I envy thee, fox-boy.”

The drakes left behind sang a sad humming noise and shifted on their perches, making roof tiles fall to the ground and shatter. Their connection with their masters was now ending, and they wished only to fly off and die on the southwestern shores.

Andalo took another candle from Gareth, lit it, and handed it to Reynard, who now passed through, following Calafi, and heard a rustle of sticks.