A Solitary Journey (7 page)

‘Your Eminence, he is in the Reading Room,’ a pasty-faced disciple replied.

Diamond nodded and led Vale through the chamber to a partially open door. Peering in, he saw Reason’s
blue robes bent over a document spread across a table. ‘What new spell are you working on?’ Diamond asked, entering.

Reason turned, his greying beard neatly trimmed short and his hair tied back. On his nose, attached with wire, were two glass discs. ‘Diamond. And Vale. Jarudha’s blessing upon you both,’ he said, and chuckled warmly as he beckoned them to approach. ‘What do you think?’ he said, indicating the object on his face.

‘You look ridiculous,’ said Diamond abruptly.

‘What is it for?’ Vale asked.

Reason unhooked the contraption from his face and handed it to Vale. ‘Look through it at the paper,’ he urged.

Vale held the glass discs before his eyes. ‘It makes everything go blurry,’ he said.

‘Because you don’t know the magic of it,’ Reason remonstrated. ‘You don’t have the Blessing.’

‘For what?’ Diamond asked.

Reason took the contraption back from Vale. ‘Near-seeing, ’ he said, readjusting it on his face. ‘This lets me read these tiny scripts,’ he explained, pointing to the spidery letters on the scroll. ‘I couldn’t read these before, but with Jarudha’s blessing and the nearseer I can read these things easily.’

‘Then it is a Blessing,’ Vale agreed.

‘Let me try,’ Diamond insisted, but when he looked through the discs he repeated Vale’s disappointment. ‘Blurry. I do not have this Blessing,’ he complained and handed the nearseer back to Reason. ‘How is your apprentice progressing?’

‘Ah,’ Reason said, nodding, ‘he is a true disciple. He has the Blessing many times over. Had we a Conduit for him he would bring Jarudha’s Paradise to being today.’

‘Can he walk yet?’ Diamond asked.

‘Much better than that, my brothers. In the past two
days he has gone from lying inert to moving like a normal man.’

‘Good news,’ Diamond commended. ‘The Kerwyn are threatening to be troublesome and we might need him to be ready earlier than we anticipated.’

Reason scratched his beard with both hands, a habitual sign of nervousness that Diamond recognised. ‘It would be foolish to be hasty.’

‘Haste and necessity are intimate friends,’ Diamond remarked. ‘If we need to use him before planned then you will make sure that he is ready, won’t you?’

Reason raised an eyebrow. ‘Jarudha willing,’ he said.

‘
W
hat did he say?’ Hoe’s disappointed expression carried the answer to Blossom’s question. ‘They don’t want us anywhere near their village,’ he said. ‘They’ve had others here already and can’t spare any more food.’

Blossom looked over Hoe’s shoulder at the men standing on the road leading into the village and saw that several held spears and pitchforks. To Hoe she asked, ‘So are we meant to starve?’

‘They said there’s plenty of game and food around in the bush. They said they don’t want any trouble.’

Blossom snorted and turned away. ‘No stopping here!’ she yelled to the waiting group. Then she wheeled and yelled ‘Bastards!’ at the men on the road. The man at the head of the group waved.

‘Aren’t we visiting?’ Magpie asked Meg as they traipsed off the road with the group and headed crosscountry.

‘They haven’t got enough food for all of us,’ she replied, ‘but that’s fine because we’ll find some. We just need to go over these hills and find a stream.’

‘They could have given us some water,’ Magpie complained. ‘I’m thirsty.’

Meg licked her parched lips. ‘We’re all thirsty,’ she said, ‘but we’ll find water soon.’

‘How do you know?’

She smiled vaguely. ‘Because there will be some.’ She took Magpie’s hand to reassure the boy and they walked on through the mallee as the sun crept lower.

‘Why doesn’t anyone let us stay at their village?’ Magpie asked.

‘Because they don’t have any spare food probably,’ said Meg.

‘But we can get our own. We have been,’ Magpie argued.

‘I know, but maybe it’s because they’re scared that we will bring the barbarians to them,’ she told the boy. ‘How?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t even know why the barbarians came in the first place.’

‘Because they don’t like us?’

‘Who knows?’ she said. ‘Save your questions. We’ll stop soon and go looking for food. You’ll need your energy for that.’

Late the following afternoon, the mallee thinned as the land levelled and the horizon was filled with a long dark shadow. Mountains rose behind the shadow. ‘The Whispering Forest,’ said Blossom as Meg stopped beside her. ‘We’ll be at the edge by nightfall, if we push on.’

‘Look.’

Everyone followed Hoe’s pointing finger to a column of dark smoke spiralling skywards. ‘It’s the village we left yesterday,’ said Blossom. ‘The barbarians are still coming.’

‘And we’d better keep moving,’ said Hoe.

‘Look over there,’ Brace said, pointing westwards where a dark line was moving on the dry grasslands.

‘Barbarians?’ Hoe asked.

‘Can’t tell,’ said Brace. ‘No riders.’

‘More of us,’ said Blossom.

‘I hope so,’ Hoe said, ‘or else we’re done for.’

‘We can’t risk it,’ said Brace. ‘We’ll have to hide up here until it’s safer.’

Meg stared across the distance at the moving line, wishing she could see them more clearly, willing her eyes to make out details, and her spine tingled. She shivered at the unexpected sensation, but the distant people seemed to snap into focus and she could see men, women and children straggling across the plain. ‘They’re people like us,’ she said.

Brace turned sharply. ‘How do you know?’

‘I can see them.’

‘How many?’

‘Can’t tell. A lot more than we are.’

Hoe whistled. ‘You must have keen eyes to see that far.’

‘Are you sure?’ Blossom asked.

‘I can see them,’ Meg repeated.

Hoe and Brace spread the word and the party headed down the hill and onto the grassy plain. Magpie walked beside Meg. ‘How can you see that far?’ the boy asked. ‘I tried and I couldn’t see anything.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Meg. ‘Just lucky,’ but she was unnerved and exhilarated by the experience and walked silently while she wondered at the event.

The two groups met at sunset on the forest verge. The second group numbered almost a hundred women, with a sprinkling of children and nine men. Some were escapees from Quick Crossing who knew Hoe and Blossom, but most came from villages south and west of Quick Crossing. Agreeing to travel together, they headed a short distance into the forest and set up a makeshift camp as the darkness closed in.

‘Can we have a fire tonight?’ Magpie asked as Meg chose a place for them to rest.

Meg shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I’ll ask.’ She approached Blossom and Hoe who were talking to two men from the larger group.

‘The barbarians attacked a village we were at yesterday morning,’ said Hoe, ‘north of here.’

‘North?’ a dark bearded man asked rhetorically. ‘They should have still been going south.’

‘Looks like they’re going south and east,’ the other stranger said.

‘Then they’ll come here,’ said Blossom.

‘Perhaps,’ said the bearded man. ‘No fires tonight. We’ll have to make do.’

Meg took the news back to Magpie who complained bitterly. ‘You said when we get to the forest there’d be fires and water and food, but there’s nothing except cold old scary trees.’

She had no answers for the boy. The forest trees weren’t the friendly and familiar gum trees or mallee, but taller and thicker with branches that stuck straight out in regimental rows, and they filled the air with a different tang than the eucalypt that she knew. Memories stirred of standing at the verge of the forest another time, staring at a dead man who wore a bloodied blue robe. There had been a battle. But who had fought? And why?

She shared the remnants of roots and nuts that they had gathered the previous evening with Magpie, and they received a mouthful of water each from a woman who said that her name was Eager Goldwheat, and that she’d known Magpie’s mother in Quick Crossing. ‘She was good woman, your mother,’ Eager told Magpie.

‘And the boy’s father? What about him?’ Meg asked.

Eager snorted. ‘Went to be a soldier six cycles back. Never seen him since.’

The fate of Magpie’s father stirred more memories for Meg. Her father was a soldier. He died in a battle. She knew that because Emma told her and she’d seen it in her dreams.
Who is Emma?
she wondered.

‘Water is the biggest problem,’ Eager said. ‘People are already suffering badly. Some folk haven’t tasted it for two days now. I gave you my last.’

‘Sorry,’ Meg apologised. ‘We didn’t mean—’

‘Hush, Meg—I wouldn’t have given it if I didn’t want to. This boy is the son of a very dear friend. It’s the least I could do.’

Meg listened to Eager and others share their stories, not just of the barbarian attack but of their lives, and it reminded her of how her family often spent evenings telling stories. But did she have a family? Where were they? Cold horror flowed through her veins, remembering the corpses she buried before leaving the village. Who were they? Her family? Is that why she felt so much sorrow when she buried them? Why couldn’t she remember anyone? Who was Emma?

After people settled into their sleeping spaces against trees and under bushes, some spreading sheets of cloth for shelter or to lie upon, and Magpie was curled asleep beside Eager, Meg crept out of the camp. Everyone needed water so she would find it for them. She checked the position of the full moon between the trees against the camp as she climbed a rise.
No,
she imagined a voice inside her head saying,
that won’t work. The moon moves. Use the stars. Use the Great Star. It stays constant in the sky and points the way to the west.
She knew that. Someone taught her this when she was a child—her father. His name was Jon. That explained why the name was familiar. It was her father’s name. She looked for the bright star in the west and pinpointed its position in relation to the camp before she descended into the shallow forest valley.

Using the Great Star as reference, she climbed and descended hills, pushing through the thicker vegetation on her quest for water. At times the moon’s brilliance vanished under the forest’s canopy, but she never felt lost in the dark and by the time the moon was at its zenith she found a meandering stream in a shallow valley. Startled nocturnal creatures shifted through the surrounding undergrowth, too quick for her to identify. She knelt to drink, the liquid chill thrilling her lips and cheek, and refilled her makeshift waterbag before she checked her position against the Great Star to begin her return journey. Because she reached the stream circuitously, by her estimation, she took a directly westward route towards the camp.

As she crested a hill and began to descend she spotted firelight through the trees. She stopped. She couldn’t be more than halfway back to camp and no one was meant to light a fire. Warily she crept closer. The campfire was small, but she counted fifteen men around it—some standing, some seated, some lying as if asleep. Two standing men were talking quietly in an alien language, although as she concentrated and her spine tingled the words took meaning. They were discussing a man named King Future and another called King Ironfist and how King Ironfist was planning to take over King Future’s kingdom. ‘Give him time,’ the broad-shouldered man said. ‘He’s never done us wrong in the past, has he?’ His companion grunted agreement. ‘Then let’s do our job and we’ll get our rewards.’

A cracking twig startled her. A shadow moved to her left. Terrified, she bolted from her hiding place to be hit from the side by something heavy that drove her to the ground. She struggled and kicked and screamed and a fist smashed against the side of her face. Hands held her legs and a weight pressed down on them. As other hands grasped her arms another weight dropped on her
chest, knocking the breath from her. She gasped, fighting to breathe, her face smarting from the blow, and willed the heavy object from her chest. Her spine tingled and the weight vanished. She tried to kick, but her legs were held. Men were shouting. She willed the hands holding her arms and legs to release her and she was instantly free. She scrambled to her feet, dodging the shadows of men, although a hand grabbed her tunic and tore it as she pulled free. She ran across the face of the hillside, the moonlight her guide, with men shouting in her wake. When she darted into a dark stand of trees, she glanced back to see the shadows chasing her and ran again into the light on the far side, weaving between the bushes and trees, cutting diagonally up the slope towards higher ground. The shouting faded, but she ran until her legs threatened to buckle and she stumbled to a standstill.

Looking back down the slope, listening for her pursuers above the thumping of her heart and gasping for breath, she guessed that she had eluded them. She gathered her breath and climbed higher, until she reached an outcrop of granite where she scaled the boulders and slid into a narrow gap to rest and hide.

Her arms and legs and chest ached from the attack, and she smeared blood from her nose with the back of her arm. Her left cheek was both numb and stinging. There were barbarians in the forest. She hadn’t expected that. No one in her party expected that. She had to warn the others, but she realised that she would have to wait until it was safe to skirt the barbarian’s area before she could get back to her camp to raise the alarm. She sucked in the chill air through gritted teeth despite the pain in her right side. Then she heard voices below, near the rocks. ‘She can’t have gotten too far.’

‘I tell you she’s a witch. We shouldn’t be messing around with witches.’

‘You idiot, Shortknife. There are no witches.’

‘And I tell you what happened back there. Ask the others. They’ll tell you. We had her down and then it was like someone ripped our arms away—like spirits.’

‘Keep it to yourself. I don’t believe in tales.’

‘Then you tell me how she’s gotten away. They say barbarian witches can turn into animals. Maybe that’s what she’s done.’

‘Shut up and look over there. I’ll check around these rocks.’

The voices stopped. Boots crunched the dead leaves and grass. She held her breath, curled in her tiny space, and hoped the men couldn’t hear her terrified heart. Metal scraped on the boulder. ‘She’s gone, I tell you,’ a voice insisted.

‘All right, let’s go that way,’ a voice urged.

Boots stomped away, but she kept still, willing herself to be calm and to breathe quietly and steadily.
There is no point looking if they are out there waiting for me,
she decided, and relaxed her tension in her confined hideaway. The air was cold on her nose and forehead and shoulders.
How did I escape
? she wondered, recalling the attack and her frantic struggle.
Why did they let go so easily
? She mentally replayed the sequence of events.
I wanted them to let me go and they did—but not because I asked.
Her mind leapt to the earlier incident when she could see what the others could not across the plains.
Who am I
? She shivered and hugged her arms tighter to her chest.
They called me a witch,
she remembered, and wondered what a witch was. The icy air was biting her arms. She couldn’t stay in this position. She needed a warmer shelter, or a fire, or a blanket. But she had to wait.

The cold was glistening on her skin by the time she eased out of her hiding place to warily survey the moonlit forest. The men were gone. The moon was well
on its decline, but she looked for the Great Star to estimate her position. Her problem was establishing how far she’d run. Heading west would definitely take her to the forest verge, but how far was she to the north or south of her camp? The others had to be warned.

She headed west by the star’s guidance, wary of the forest sounds and firelight as she stole between the trees, weariness countered by her vigilant fear of discovery. She stopped, ready to bolt, each time her progress sent invisible bird wings beating into the darkness and twice she flinched and stared fearfully as small, shadowy forest animals scampered across her path. The moonlight waned and the forest was thicker than she remembered. Was she north or south of her target? Her best strategy was to get onto the plains where she could use familiar landmarks to work out the direction she had to go to find the camp.

Walking drove out the cold, but she had to constantly rub her arms to keep her blood warming her. What she needed was a fire. She couldn’t recall the cold being as potent on any of the nights since she woke in the village, so the forest had to be affecting the air. When the rapidly fading moonlight revealed wreaths of mist weaving between the trees she quickened her pace, determined to reach the open ground before the mist turned her task into a nightmare. She scrambled around a rocky outcrop and skidded down a steep slope, her boots splashing in water in the darkness at the bottom of the slope. Unintentionally she’d stumbled upon another creek—or had she unwittingly gone in a circle, as she knew could happen to people lost in the bush, and come back to the stream?
How do I know that?
She crossed the narrow shallow creek, her boots crunching on the shale as she climbed the steep bank on the other side, but as she stood on the lip the earth collapsed, her right ankle rolled under her weight and
she pitched back down the slope to land in a thick bush at the edge of the water. Cursing, she tried to stand, but a piercing pain shot through her right ankle and she yelped and collapsed into the bush. ‘No!’ she hissed. ‘No!’ She grabbed her offending ankle between both hands and rubbed it—at first vigorously and then gingerly when the pain bit. ‘No!’ she yelled angrily, and smacked her fist against the branches. ‘No!’
I have to warn the others,
she thought.
I can’t stop here. I have to warn them.
She tried to stand, but the pain forced her down. She swore and rattled the branches and her tears welled.
I can’t stay here!