Грег Бир - The Unfinished Land

“Is this one of their dreams?” she asked, holding out her sword as if the disk might be dangerous.

“Very like,” Kaiholo said.

“You have seen many, have you not?” Sophia asked him. “You were the high one’s consort.”

“She had a number of consorts,” Kern said. “None of us knew all.”

Kaiholo stepped closer, knelt, and peered into its depths. Kern stooped over and bent awkwardly to peer from the other side. “This way, it is dark and blank,” he said.

“Faded or never filled,” Kaiholo said. “Is all here now dead and empty?”

Nobody spoke. The answer was sadly obvious.

They walked the last few dozen yards to the rim. The stony krater was about a thousand yards wide, and curved down, at its center, about a hundred feet. It seemed at first to have a smooth surface, but then Widsith pointed out shallow grooves or trackways drawn from its center and spreading in all directions, intersecting, fading and ending at the rim. At the outer extent of each track was a wide gray spot about the width of a disk. These spots, as if venting, pushed up ghostly pillars of cloud, flaking down snow—snow that did not stick, and never seemed to be there at all.

Nikolias said, shaking his head, “Our fellows told us that they tended to Crafter needs from afar—and never looked into their homes on Earth, as we do now.”

“What sort of beast would take comfort here, under storm or sun, no shade, no protection?” Sophia asked.

Reynard followed the ghostly pillars rising up and up, until they spread out and seemed to form knots. Strange knots, tied in ways that drew his eyes in impossible directions. He covered his face with his hands, then slowly parted his fingers, like a child, and looked again, but saw only a final canopy of cloud and drifting shavings of something that might have been ash, or might still be snow… he could not tell.

“No beast at all,” Nikolias said. “But one that could make its own worlds and forge its own protections… of which we see only marks.”

“Where did it go?” Sophia asked.

Nikolias said, “It could not leave here and live.”

“How did they move a dead Crafter?” Reynard asked.

Kern said, “I have heard of cloaking and many wagons, out to the plain of jars, a long journey for such a burden.”

“Did your people have a hand in that?” Kaiholo asked.

Kern shook his head; he did not know all.

“How long hath it been dead?” Sophia asked, a better question, Reynard thought, though it guaranteed bad dreams later. All but Reynard and Widsith drew designs on their arms and across their chests, which Reynard had come to recognize as a three-barred cross—a symbol of Hel.

Kaiholo looked through the columns of vapor and across the krater. “Some are watching,” he said.

Nikolias looked and shook his head. “Thine eyes are better than mine.”

“Maybe four or five,” Kaiholo said. “Now they are hiding, or gone.”

AS YUCHIL and Calafi fed the horses, Nikolias and Andalo walked around the wagon, speaking in low tones. Nikolias approached Reynard and Widsith a few minutes later. “It is time for the wagon to leave. Soon dawn will light the way.”

“Where will we go?” Sophia asked, with a sharp look at Reynard, to which he did not know how to respond. “There is no way back!” Yuchil came down from the wagon and joined Nikolias.

“For now, we divide,” Nikolias said.

Reynard looked at his feet and his worn shoes. He could not think of a reason why he had not run off and left them, rather than explore the city. They could all return if he simply ceased to exist. His insides felt as knotted as the cloud that rose from the krater.

But now, he knew, there would be no fleeing. He could feel the tightening of his life, the reduction of his choices—the focus of his companions, those he had likened to his family in Southwold. When his uncle had called for him to board the hoy, he had not escaped. He could not flee now. All he could hope for was that soon he would know why he could never keep a family for long.

“Calafi and I will go on. The rest of our family will stay. The wagon will return to the fields around the first city,” Nikolias said. “There should be water enough and wood to last until we rejoin. Yuchil has stores for a few days.” With a look of sorrow and concern, Yuchil ran her fingers along his arm. He smiled assurance and returned the gesture. Calafi looked up at them, silent and serious. “Andalo will protect them with his drake—when it arrives. And we will leave our horses. This land will be rough on horses.”

Yuchil and Nikolias kissed and made their farewells as everybody else went about their preparations. Calafi stood away from all, but watching, small, her shoulders low, eyes big, like a frightened rabbit.

Yuchil swung the wagon around. Sophia helped the team to maneuver and roll on. Bela and Sany took the reins of the riderless horses and urged them along with clicks of their tongues and light songs. The Eater horses screeched their night cries as they passed out of sight of Valdis.

With fewer supplies, and no access to Yuchil’s magical stores, it was obvious their time was limited—that they must find, inside a day or two, those who might still exist to receive Reynard. They did not see the figures that Kaiholo had spotted earlier, nor anyone else—this land felt and sounded empty, and as they walked on, was plagued by drifts of salty dust that stung their eyes and made them sneeze.

“Salt is creation,” Kaiholo said, folding a cloth over his mouth. His next words were muffled and accompanied by a sardonic squint. “All the seas are salt. We have salt in our blood. Why doth it have to creep into all our holes and sting?”

Widsith and the giant also covered their faces with a cloth. The Pilgrim dug into his pocket and extended a kerchief to Reynard. All regarded the boy with barely concealed resentment. Their loyalties were being put to the test, and he did not know any more than they!

Calafi danced around them, chanting her nonsense, looking more and more like a witch, and while small, not all that young. But she might have been distracting from their fear or anger.

The reduced group followed Nikolias down the rugged trail. “We will avoid the krater,” he said.

“Dig deep, fox-boy,” Widsith warned in a low tone, leaning close. “They need to be assured.”

“I have nothing to give them!” Reynard cried. “Why did you find me, why did you save me?”

“I saved you to save myself,” Widsith said, then fell back that the boy might simmer his anger alone.

But Kaiholo, looking ashamed, took his place and walked beside him for a few minutes. “I do not question thee,” the Sea Traveler said. “I question this place, and all it asketh of us, and all it bringeth.”

“Why did they not defend their city?” Reynard asked. “It was beautiful here!”

“Signs of the island’s change might have overwhelmed.” Kaiholo shook his head forlornly. “What was left to them? A dead Crafter? What work was left to them, and what were they willing to die to defend? Perhaps they were waiting for us. Or you.”

“Myself, who knoweth not my use, my quality or strength? I fear I have none!”

“And yet, thou hast been judged by those who should know—Guldreth, for one.”

Reynard gritted his teeth. There was nothing he could say—the Sea Traveler was trying to smooth the waves between them, but that magic was not natural for him.

“Others judged you. Maeve and Maggie—and Dana. Anutha even saved thee a drake. She said that thou hadst a fate, a place in the great map of this island… In its last days.”