A Turn of Light (46 page)

Wyll didn’t pause. Bannan marveled anew how each slow step and drag, each carelessly powerful thrust and twist, moved that ruined body with no other help.

Marveled, then abruptly understood. He’d been right to be reminded of the weary-eyed soldiers who hobbled Vorkoun’s streets, their crutches held like lovers. The dragon moved too confidently for his injuries to be new. “You weren’t maimed by Jenn Nalynn,” Bannan accused. “What happened to you?”

“I led my kind in war,” Wyll answered without turning or hesitation. “In gratitude, they broke my wings and let me fall.”

“Because you lost.” His mouth twisted as he thought of the marches and Ansnor, the years and blood spent for naught.

“Lost? No.”

Taken aback, the man fell silent, as perhaps the dragon intended.

The morning sun pushed the shade of the old trees aside. It had already dried the lightly trampled grass underfoot. Wyll’s steps left rough smears and gouges. Avoiding those, Bannan’s bare feet found themselves in the tracks of someone smaller, someone who’d come this way often and alone.

The notion of stepping where Jenn had stepped washed away all thoughts of war. Bannan found himself inordinately pleased.

Lila. Oh, she’d laugh if she knew. Her little brother, who’d proclaimed himself—often and loudly—above such folly, to act like the worst moon-eyed, daft-headed . . . and not even care.

Wyll reached the end of the grain and stopped as if he’d struck a wall. His hand flailed for support and Bannan hurried to take it, wincing at the other’s grip while he steadied him on his good leg. “What’s wrong?”

“Night’s Edge!”

Bannan lifted his eyes, and gasped.

The grain field curved away toward the river in a smooth line, leaving them standing in the open and exposed. Left, the line of old trees continued, hiding the Tinkers Road and framing the long lowermost slope of the Spine. Ahead, another rise of the naked stone flowed down to the valley floor at his right.

Heart’s Blood. His little farm lay where the two came closest together, like a finger curled toward a thumb.

But it was what else lay between that had stopped Wyll and made the truthseer doubt his own eyes for the first time.

“There’s no meadow here,” he protested.

There—there at some distance stood more old trees, healthy and green. They made a narrow band of forest, wrapped around the nearer of the pale hills.

Here, at their feet? Everything was dead and withered, save for a patch in the center where a torch might have seared and blackened the surface. Winter, before any snow, without any cold. Even winter held promise, Bannan thought desperately, but there were no pods of seeds hanging from these flower stalks, no buds on the little shrubs.

Wyll pulled free of his hold, his twisted foot dragging through dead leaves. The smell of rot drifted up, thick and cloying.

Not winter. Bannan pressed his forearm over his nose. Something worse. “What did this?”

The dragon didn’t answer until he stood where the ground had been scorched.

When he turned to Bannan, his eyes were brown and full of dread.

“Jenn Nalynn.”

Bannan’s heart hammered in his chest. The truth, but . . . “The wishing?”

“It happened here, but this—I fled before this.”

“‘Fled?’”

Ignoring the question, Wyll frowned. “She told me Night’s Edge had changed. Had died. But why destroy it? Was she so angry at me?”

“Angry women,” Bannan pointed out with what he thought commendable calm, “throw things. Yell. Make life miserable for their brothers. They don’t turn a meadow into—” What did he see here? “—despair.”

A flicker of surprise crossed Wyll’s face, then something softened in his eyes. “She couldn’t have known,” he said, with such profound relief Bannan wondered what the dragon had believed. “The result remains,” more sternly. “Her feelings have grown stronger. Such matter to expectation, but never have I seen this. Those of Marrowdell were fortunate it wasn’t worse.”

Worse? “What do you mean?”

“How could the sei intend this?” Realizing the dragon spoke to himself, the truthseer held very still. “With no contrary expectations to dispute hers . . . if her strength grows . . .” Wyll remembered his audience. “Turn-born rarely agree,” with a flash of silver, “for which all are grateful.”

Bannan latched on to what he could understand. “Jenn wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

“She wouldn’t want to,” Wyll said heavily, which wasn’t reassuring at all.

Not considering where they stood.

And what remained of Night’s Edge.

Somewhere new. Somewhere different. Jenn hurried, her steps quick and light, tingling with the joy of it all. She wanted as much time as she could on the very top, this first visit. There’d be a wondrous view from there; she just knew it. And a meadow as lovely as Night’s Edge. Lovelier, if that were possible. It could be. There would surely be rabbits, this time of year. As well Scourge hadn’t wanted to come.

She didn’t like to think how Night’s Edge had looked after the wishing. She didn’t want to go there, not until Wyll fixed it. He would; something else she knew. He’d make their special place the way it had been and should be, before he built his house there.

Though the Spine was steep, its path politely folded back on itself time and again, each sharp bend offering discovery to the traveler. The air was calm and cool, the rare breeze free of opinion. The trees leaned so close their branches touched overhead and what sunlight came through dappled the ground, inviting a game. With a grin, Jenn jumped from bright spot to bright spot.

When she’d had her fill of jumping, she walked through sunbeams and shadows, her bare feet making hardly a whisper.

She was, Jenn supposed, being ever-so-slightly irresponsible. Having Scourge deliver breakfast wasn’t what she’d promised. Coming here instead of the farm wasn’t what others thought she should or would do. Not at all.

She didn’t care. “This once,” Jenn told the interested trees, “I’m doing what I want.”

Besides, she had a good reason. A responsible, adult reason. Wyll was here, as a man, because of her. She would take this path, wave down at him from the upper meadow, and once and for all, prove to him there was nothing to fear from his new home.

This was Marrowdell. Her world, now his.

A third bend, surely the last. Her heart beat faster as she rounded it, finding the way abruptly steeper, as if as impatient as she was, so that she must lean forward as she walked and was beside the tops of trees whose trunks she’d passed below. Bright little eyes watched her from sundrenched branches, her presence announced by squeaks and chirrups, and insolent flicks of tails. Finding her harmless, the squirrels rent leaves with their long thin claws, and tore the pieces with yellowed teeth.

She’d not known squirrels to grow this size, or be as foolishly bold. Then again, no one hunted here. “I won’t tell Roche,” she told them solemnly, though she was as fond of squirrel stew as anyone.

“Oh,” she said a few steps later, her eyes wide.

Aunt Sybb had described the ossuaries of the Ancestors. How, after the famed arched bridges, they were the most beautiful buildings in Avyo, filled with light and air and music. She’d said you couldn’t help but be glad when you stood inside, though they were solemn places, because they celebrated life and its remembrance.

As Jenn took the last, steepest part of the path, for the first time she understood that feeling, for ahead grew the largest old trees she’d ever seen, one on either side of where the path did indeed open to meadow and sunlight. Their trunks rose like the posts of some giant gate and she half expected to be stopped as she went between them, craning her head to see if their tops touched the sky.

But nothing stopped her. Jenn stepped from shadow to sunlight, from packed cool earth to sod, soft underfoot and warm. She held her hands out from her sides to let grasses and asters kiss her fingers as she walked forward, chuckling at the abundance of silk-headed thistles.

Wisp’s doing.

Would Wyll play with thistledown? Somehow, she didn’t think so.

The meadow was still. Nothing chirped or sang or rustled. No rabbits. Not a butterfly or bird. Or bee. She supposed they weren’t used to visitors. Or was it too harsh this high in winter?

From this high, Marrowdell looked like one of Riss’ tapestried cushions, all color and texture, the shapes she knew blurred at their edges. The river shrank to a creek and the village to a handful of blocks. If she’d hoped her world would look larger, she’d been mistaken.

Suppressing a sigh, Jenn dutifully waved in the direction of Wyll and the farm, though from here the hill’s skirt of old trees blocked her view. She could walk over to where she could see and be seen—and would, she decided, when she wasn’t expected elsewhere. She’d borrow Davi’s cart and bring Wyll. Then he’d know how safe it was here.

First, to look the other way, over the hill. To see beyond and outside. She put her back to Marrowdell.

Like lace on a bodice, the meadow swept in a narrow band around the upper reach of the Spine and nestled between the creamy masses of stone. Four rose in front of her, crowning the hill like knuckles on a fist, no two the same or touching.

Jenn had never stood so close to one before. You didn’t, that was all. She couldn’t remember anyone giving a reason, other than it was easy to see from a distance that the Bone Hills were barren and boring.

And presently in her way.

The sides struck by the morning sun were bright white, almost blinding, the rest stark and black, the line between as crisp as if drawn with pen and ink. She couldn’t tell if a gap led through to the other side, only that the shadows met.

The meadow slipped into the darkness, a carpet of green dotted with purple and pink, silent and still. A welcome. An offer.

A dare.

With a smile, Jenn left the light behind.

She mustn’t! She couldn’t! “No!” Wyll heard himself wail as Jenn Nalynn did the unthinkable. ~ NO!!!! ~

From above. ~ What have you done? ~ From below. ~ FOOL! ~

And commotion in this world. The other man, Tir, shouting about saddlebags and breakfast. The thunder of hooves as the kruar ran to him, as if he was anything but useless, too.

“What’s happened?” A grip on his whole shoulder, a hard shake. Denied his first inclination, to fling Bannan away, Wyll tossed soot and rot into the air around them, blinding them both.

“Heart’s Blood, Wyll,” the truthseer cried. “Stop! What’s wrong? Let me help!”

“You can’t,” Wyll snarled.

“I don’t understand—Scourge!”

The kruar plunged to a stop, hooves deep in the rot of the meadow, neck and chest white with froth. ~ Why did she do that?! ~ he demanded, though he knew very well the turn-born were its prey. ~ Why didn’t she listen? ~

Though he knew the trap the Wound could set.

“What’s going on?” Tir, mercifully no longer shouting. “And—” in a newly horrified tone, “—what happened here?!”

Above, below. ~ Fool. Fool. Fool. Fool. ~ From either side.

Scourge rumbled and stomped his hooves, daring them to stay.

~ What’s this? ~ Altogether, a chant that whirled around and around. ~ Fool with folly. Folly with fool! Fool with folly! ~ They had no regard for kruar, let alone this one. If he let the taunting continue, they’d be tempted to act and he’d lose his sole ally.

And possibly a few dragons.

Wyll gathered himself. ~ SILENCE! ~ he bellowed.

Rock cracked.

Bone bent.

He no longer ruled his kind, but hurt them?

It seemed that he could still do.

Abashed, they circled without sound.

~ Be gone. ~ This he said without sting; he knew they were afraid.

So was he.

FIFTEEN

B
LEACHED STONE SWEPT
upward to either side, walls so glassy smooth and flawless Jenn reached out, only to have some impulse curl her fingers away before they touched. Undaunted, she stepped forward. Shadow engulfed her like a plunge in ice water and she gasped, then made herself breathe normally.

As normally as someone brimming with excitement could.

She found herself walking through slices of darkness so intense she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. Once, the sun found her and she shaded her eyes before another step took her into the dark again.

It was all very strange.

Like the light, the path beneath her feet couldn’t make up its mind. At times, she felt cool grass underfoot, at others, dried leaves gave way with a crunch. When her toes met something slick and damp, she was tempted to stop and bend down to feel what it might be, but she mustn’t dawdle.

She’d explore more fully on her next visit.

The path between the stones turned. No wonder she hadn’t been able to see through from the meadow side. Heart racing, Jenn walked faster.

Without warning, she stepped from the shadow’s chill into the open. Shading her eyes with one hand, she eagerly gazed beyond Marrowdell for the first time.

The sun gazed back at her over the crest of a ridge, rugged and draped with dark trees, a ridge as high as where she stood, that stretched to either side as far as she could see.

Another rose beyond the first, taller, darker.

Another yet.

And nothing more.

The ridges were like the hedges around the village. Like the crags around the valley. Walls to contain her.

Walls to keep out the world.

Her eyes stung and Jenn blinked fiercely. Of course there were ridges and trees. What had she expected? Marrowdell was a valley within the northern range. Clearly, the range was greater than she’d thought. It meant the world was greater, too. She’d studied the map but failed to grasp the scale of matters.

She’d lost so much more than she’d imagined.

Mere steps in front, the meadow ended in a precipitous drop. She didn’t bother to look over the edge.

Jenn turned. With the sun at her back, warm on her shoulders, she could see the path between the stones was wider on this side than the other. The shadow she’d walked through was gone and the ground, simply meadow.

There was nothing special here.

She’d been a fool.

Doing her best not to feel sorry for herself, which wasn’t easy but as Aunt Sybb would say, “Self-pity makes a pitiful self” and she’d no wish to be that, Jenn retraced her steps. When she reached where the path between the stones narrowed then bent, her shadow hurried across the pale stone to follow. It didn’t like being here either, she thought, eyeing it sadly.

Then stared.

For caught within her shadow was something darker, more blue than black, that curved away.

Something shiny, as if wet.

Jenn eased closer. It vanished.

Like her glimpses of Wisp in the meadow.

“Keep your secret,” she told the bone-white stone. “I don’t care.”

She did, though. Wisp had never made her uneasy. The notion that the Bone Hills themselves had another, hidden shape wasn’t right or good or safe. She wouldn’t think about it, Jenn decided, walking more quickly. She would forget what she saw.

Marrowdell filled her eyes and heart as she freed herself from the stones’ clinging shade. The Spine’s meadow no longer charmed her, its asters dull and about to wither, its thistles mean and thorned. How had she thought it compared to Night’s Edge?

Even the air here chilled. She rubbed her arms as she headed for the path down, cold inside and out. Cold and empty.

So empty . . .

A cramp struck her middle.

Another. With a cry, Jenn bent over and pressed her hands against her stomach. Why did she hurt like this?

She staggered forward, startling a moth, which proved something lived here, then felt a sharp pain. “Ouch!” She hopped on one foot, rubbing her now-sore heel. What had she stepped on?

A pebble, small and white, winked at her from the sod. “Something for my trouble,” Jenn declared with forced good cheer. She’d collect it for Wyll and Bannan, who likely were unaware of the requirements of toads.

Her fingers closed over the little stone. It really was a lovely pebble. The nicest she’d ever found.

Her mouth watered. She lifted the pebble to her lips.

Jenn froze. What was she thinking? It didn’t matter if she was hungry, which she wasn’t since she’d had a perfectly nice, if hasty, breakfast. No one, including otherwise adorable babies who didn’t know better and needed to be watched or who knew what would go in their mouths, should eat stones. Or dirt. Or anything not proper food. Ancestors Witness, she didn’t need Aunt Sybb to teach her that!

Rejected, the pebble turned heavy, as heavy as a full bucket of water. Heavier! Desperate to keep it, she used both hands to hold on, but the pebble grew heavier and heavier until its weight pulled her off balance and with a cry . . .

She let go.

The pebble fell. It fell and sank from sight, as if the sod and solid earth beneath were water.

“I didn’t want you anyway,” Jenn scolded the pebble, though she had, more than anything she could remember.

What she wanted now, more than anything, was not to be here, standing on the Spine, so close to its pale stones she could feel the cold breath of their shadows on her neck. She wanted, Jenn decided quite firmly, to be at the farm having a cuppa and something properly breakfast with Wyll and Bannan and Tir. She wanted that now.

She left the Bone Hill, taking long, determined strides, and found the walk down the twisted path took far less time than the walk up, though the sun refused to play and the squirrels sulked and hid their faces. She ignored everything but putting one foot in front of the other, with care, since her heel stung from the pebble and she couldn’t help but limp a little.

Served her right, Jenn thought glumly. She’d been a fool and foolish.

Near its end, the path became annoying, its unpredictable ruts larger and deeper. The trees leaned together to darken the shadows. She knew she should slow down, or risk a twisted ankle or worse, but something wasn’t right, not right at all, and Jenn hurried as best she could to be anywhere else.

Which is when everything became as dark as night, forcing her to stop.

Bannan dodged left and low, but Scourge wheeled with a snort to hem him in the farmyard. “Heart’s Blood!” he shouted, voice cracking with fury. “Let me by!” He tried again and almost made it, but at the last instant a fat toad appeared in his path. His lunge to avoid stepping on it gave Scourge time to whirl around, nostrils flared. Thwarted, Bannan glared up at his so-called companion. “You . . . let Tir . . . go,” he panted, hands on his thighs. “Why not . . . me?!”

“Because Tir’s blind,” Wyll insisted wearily. “You are not.” He’d been almost as quick as Bannan to return from the meadow, but only as far as the house. He leaned against it now, as if only the wood kept him upright, and his face was drawn and pale. Then, suddenly, his head lifted.

Something changed.

They all stopped moving, the only sounds Bannan’s panting and the bellow-like heaves of Scourge’s breath.

The air, he thought, and shivered in a chill better suited to early winter. The light dimmed and shadows crept around their feet, though there were no clouds.

“Jenn!” he shouted.

Jenn squinted, sure she’d seen a light. Yes, there it was. A bright happy yellow light round as a pumpkin that bobbed and swayed and didn’t do much to reveal the road but shone on its bearer’s welcome face.

“Wainn!”

The youngest Uhthoff carried an oil lamp at the end of a long pole, the sort of thing they used when a summer night was too glorious to spend indoors, and he wore his hat, which promised there was sunshine somewhere, if not here. “Hello,” he said calmly. “Wen said you were lost.”

About to protest, Jenn closed her mouth and nodded. “I think I was,” she admitted. Not now, with his cheerful light and presence. “The road’s that way, isn’t it?”

“It’s not up to me.”

She blinked, disconcerted. “You came that way.”

“Did I?”

This was as annoying as the path. Without sunlight, the air was chill and smelled of damp. She rubbed gooseflesh on her bare arms and considered Wainn with a small frown. “How did you find me?”

“I looked. You were here.” He paused, lifting the pole. The light skittered across ridged bark and malformed rock, glistened over a half-eaten mushroom big as a cow’s head, and sparked tiny fires in eyes that winked away. “Where is here?” he asked curiously.

Jenn sighed. She’d have to find the path for them both. “We’re almost at the Tinkers Road.” Wainn turned as she came up to him, the light swinging low so she had to duck. “It’s—” she hesitated, her sure sense of the direction fading.

The pool of bright yellow around their feet shrank inward, not as if the light failed, but as if the darkness pushed closer. Jenn reached for Wainn’s hand and wrapped her fingers around it, afraid to lose him. “I’m—I thought I—”

“Wen said you must know what you want.”

What did she want?

A terrible longing came over Jenn for the little white pebble the Spine had offered. Her traitorous mouth filled with moisture. She turned her head and spat, rather than swallow. “I want—I want to go home.”

Her heel throbbed vindictively.

“You are home,” Wainn said unhelpfully.

Well, yes, she was in Marrowdell, but Marrowdell wasn’t behaving. Not as it should. What did she want, then, if not home?

It was not the best time to remember Kydd’s tender, if clumsy, avowal of love or Peggs’ delighted response. Or the attentions paid to Hettie by the twins. For that matter, she’d better not think of Bannan’s strong arms around her or Wyll’s dear friendship.

Jenn thrust such decidedly confusing thoughts aside. She’d found her way down from the Spine and its pebble by wanting something simpler than love or happiness. “A cup of tea,” she stated firmly, sure there was none to be had here. Wherever here was. Tea belonged where she wanted them to be. “Hot and strong.”

The darkness slid back, retreating rut by ridge by rock, lifting through trees and leaves till Jenn and Wainn squinted at one another under the bright morning sun and a bee paused in surprise. “There’s the way,” he announced happily, and tugged his fingers free of hers. He lowered his pole, drawing the lamp close to snuff its small flame.

They were steps from the Tinkers Road. How could that be? Jenn thought with an inner shudder.

Wainn appeared unconcerned. “Bannan will have tea,” he offered with the same pleased confidence he used for Peggs’ pies. He headed off, and Jenn hurried to stay with him.

Once on the road, familiar and safe, her heart settled in her chest. She was even able to wave a greeting when she saw Tir coming toward them.

Despite his thunderous scowl. “Where’ve you been, girl?” he exclaimed, loud and rude.

Jenn flushed.

“She was lost,” Wainn answered.

This—or something about Wainn—silenced what Tir might have said next. Instead, he peered at Jenn, his scowl slowly easing to a tired man’s concern. “You’re found, then,” he said gruffly. “Come along.

“There’s tea.”