Грег Бир - The Unfinished Land

The young warriors entered the wagon with grim smiles and brought forth what they needed: a clutch of fine swords and three long yew bows very like those Reynard had seen in England, but also a composite horn bow Widsith said was found more often on the great plains of Asia. To Reynard’s wonder and a smile from Kern, they handed the giant a sword as long as he was tall.

These new weapons were all blessed by Yuchil and Nikolias, then by Kaiholo—and Calafi ran through their ranks, making a sort of inspection and drawing smiles, to which she responded with a serious glower. Reynard thought of Yuchil’s judgment. Perhaps she was wrong.

Kaiholo blew out his breath and settled into a far island prayer.

ANDALO AND SANY rode ahead and around an old wall of bone-colored blocks. When they returned, their eyes were wide and voices subdued. “We have a few miles before we must abandon the wagon,” Andalo said. “And we need guidance.”

“Why is that?” Nikolias asked.

“There is indeed a krater ahead,” Andalo said, and Sany nodded.

“Ah,” Nikolias said. “The Crafter the city served.”

“But they kept it at a distance!” Sany said. “Do we proceed? Do we go to the edge and look in?”

“Is it like the jars of dead Crafters… bringing on madness?” Andalo asked.

Yuchil, Bela, Kaiholo, and Kern approached them, and Yuchil asked, “What did you hear, what did you see?”

“There was a cloud over the land, casting a long shadow… but we heard nothing. A few hundred yards from the krater, beyond the last of the road, there is a cleft in the earth and jumbles of gold-flecked granite.”

“A quarry of souls, likely,” Yuchil said.

“Now depleted and no longer mined,” Kaiholo concluded.

“The houses of those who served the miners, those are empty and in ruins,” Andalo said.

“And still no bodies,” Sany said, looking askance. “But all along the way… footprints.”

Yuchil said. “Where there are no servants, likely there is no living Crafter.”

“But even dead Crafters bring on madness!” Andalo said.

To which Sany ventured, “Mayhaps the Crafter is merely hiding! It could jump out at us…”

“Crafters are not bogey spirits,” Kaiholo said. “They likely had a hand in your history and lineage, and even your reason for being. Respect them.”

“Then what do we do?”

“Observe that cloud,” Nikolias said. “I have heard of such. The breath of Crafters makes its own weather, which can last for many seasons.”

Yuchil withdrew to the wagon and joined Calafi.

Reynard looked to the path ahead. A tall candle burned in the middle of the rocky way. Widsith saw it as well, but none of the others.

THEY PAUSED AGAIN to consider how to divide their group. Soon the wagon would have to go back, since it could not go on—go back to whatever fate. Bela brought scraps of wood, and Sophia and Yuchil lit a small fire and again made tea.

Valdis stood beside her black horse, away from the glow of the fire, silent as the land. Reynard could not see her face, she had found such deep shadow to cloak herself.

Nikolias gathered them around this last fire, before they doused it and scattered the ashes. “Do not look beyond the path we follow,” he advised. “The servants of Crafters, when dead, persist. Their spirits cannot leave this island until all the Crafters are gone, and some say they are hungry for their freedom and might displace our own souls to get it—hiding in cover to fool Hel. But we have never experienced this. Even as Travelers, we know only what we have been told, meeting with those who serve—with never an explanation that satisfied.”

Yuchil sniffed at this, as if it were possible she did not agree. But then, no doubt she would be riding the wagon back to wherever it must go, along with Sophia and the remaining children, all but Calafi seen so seldom. She afforded Reynard a sad glance, as if challenging his conscience on the importance so many seemed to bestow upon him.

“I would gladly give all to be back where trods watch out for us and none serve Crafters,” Bela said.

Then, at Nikolias’s instruction, Andalo and Sany and Sophia urged the horses to pull the wagon up a slight incline. From this last viable pathway, they could see the edge of the crusted, slicing lava that appeared to surround the krater.

Widsith said, “I see the cold rock that once spread hot from mountains of fire, but no mountains from which it would pour. Agni Most Foul is many hundreds of miles from here.”

Nikolias said, “Long ago the sky rained fire, and the chafing waste was the center of a vast upheaval, neither hot nor cold. Each of the seven islands felt such throes.”

Another desolate and scattered village confirmed what Sany and Bela had found—emptiness and more silence. Reynard and the Pilgrim briefly explored a shallow cleft in which gold-flecked stone had once been quarried and split into sheets—all broken now. Whatever souls had been described by the patterns in these sheets were now lost.

Widsith picked up a piece the size of his hand, and held it up for Reynard’s inspection.

“I see an eye,” Reynard said.

“Half an eye,” Widsith said. “And no life in it.”

They returned to the group and the wagon. Calafi resumed her place beside Reynard. Valdis also kept close, and her form seemed more defined, as if it was important for them all to know where she was and what she was doing. As if she was becoming more aware of a part she would soon play. She faced the direction the wagon was facing, perhaps studying their prospects.

Reynard looked at her for a time, as if he would attract her own gaze—not sure why he wanted to or should.

Calafi twirled her greasy hair in dirty fingers, and then grinned at him, looking remarkably like a young witch.

On the horizon rose a cold gray cloud, dropping silent flurries of snow on the land beneath.

“The krater,” Yuchil said.

“This is the nearest of twelve that ring the chafing waste,” Valdis said. “It is empty.”

“We will make sure,” Nikolias said. “Who will accompany me? Sany, Andalo—you stay here.”

Widsith, Reynard, Kern, and Kaiholo gathered beside him. Sophia stepped down from the wagon and handed Calafi her leather apron. “I’ll go with thee. For once, I would like to know what we have been doing here.”

Yuchil reluctantly gave permission and handed her a short sword. Then she took the tethers of the horses and tied them, Eater and human mounts, to the back of the wagon. The wagon team stamped their hooves.

Widsith and Nikolias walked in silence between the broken stone walls and decaying huts. Reynard kept close to Kern and Kaiholo. Sophia followed them. The edge of the krater was about a mile and a half away, and the air became so cold its slow churn seemed to burn their faces.

Kaiholo and Kern simultaneously pointed to broken slabs of the same gold-flecked stone they had found fragments of in the first quarry.

“More faces and eyes for more worlds,” Kern said. “Now forgotten. The master of this quarry shall never return.”

Sophia was the first to spot, beyond the quarry, before they could peer into the krater’s depression, a disk very like the disks they had seen in Guldreth’s dwelling—the ones they had heard being destroyed. It lay wedged in the crust like a coin fallen from a purse.

Kaiholo and Kern walked around it, followed by Sophia.