Dark Mist Rising (12 page)

‘But you didn't tell,' Tom breathed. ‘And you never would, not even under torture!'

‘No, I didn't tell them where George is,' I said, and truer words have never been uttered. ‘But I am going to tell you. Because George needs our help.'

Tom's eyes glowed. ‘Anything!'

‘George is planning a rebellion against the savage army. To fight them. Not in a big battle, such as happened before at Glory, but in small raids. By night, and using our superior knowledge of the countryside. We can do it, George says. And he needs soldiers.'

‘He wants us!'

‘He wants you, Tom. I have only one hand, remember? I am no use as a fighter.'

Tom frowned. I could almost see the slow turning of his brain, like a millstone ponderously grinding sparse grains of wheat. Finally he said, ‘But you could help George in other ways, maybe.'

He was casting his dice to my numbers, did he but know it. ‘Yes, I can. And George has a task for me to do. I cannot tell you what it is, but I can tell you what George wants
you
to do. He wants you to travel this track here north-east. In two days' time you will come to an inn. Wait near there for George and his men. Stay hidden in the woods.'

‘How will I recognize George?'

‘He looks a lot like me, but older and stronger. And he will be wearing an emblem embroidered on ... on the shoulder of his tunic – the left shoulder. A ... a red boar.'

‘A red boar,' Tom repeated. ‘On the left shoulder. Yes, I understand. But, Peter, how does George know about me? You and I ain't spoken to anybody since we met.'

‘Shadow took him a message. That's why he left us, you know. I sent him to George.'

‘You use dogs to send messages! What a good idea! And is Shep—'

‘Yes, he brought me a message.'

‘And when you said it was strange to find two identical dogs, why, you were testing me, weren't you, you rascal! To see what knowledge I already had about all this!'

‘Yes.' He was doing half my lying for me. Shame and relief mingled in me. But surely the shame was misplaced. Weren't all these lies for Tom's protection as much as mine? He would travel for two days and discover there was no inn, no George, no red-boar band of fighters against the savage occupation of The Queendom. Tom would be disappointed, but he would otherwise not be harmed, and he would be away from my dangerous company. The savages had caught me before; they might do so again. I was, in one sense, saving Tom's life, as he had saved mine.

Tom said, ‘When should I start for the inn?'

I squinted through the pine trees at the sun. ‘There are still several hours of travel possible this day.'

‘You're right! I'll go immediately. Peter, I'll leave you one
gun
and take the other two. Oh, wait – can you hold and fire it with one hand? No, you cannot, and perhaps George's men can use the
guns
. Yes, of course they can! A good thought! I'll leave you my big knife – here, take it – and also the water bag and the savages' meat because – no, you'll have Shep to hunt for you. He prefers you to me, but that's all right because I have two hands so it's fair you have Shep. You can keep my cloak and—'

I could not stand it: his enthusiasm, his good-hearted concern for me, his simple mind. I said, ‘You should go now, Tom. The sooner you reach George, the sooner you will be of aid to the rebellion.'

‘Yes, of course. Goodbye then.'

He held out his hand and I shook it. He had forgotten about the water bag in his other hand, and it flapped against his thigh as he strode off, the three
guns
strapped on his back. I watched him disappear down the faint track, a healthy young man eager to fight in a rebellion that existed only in my deceitful brain.

When I was sure he had gone, I turned my steps towards Soulvine Moor.

Shep brought back a rabbit. Slowly, without Tom's deft, two-handed energy, I made a fire, skinned the rabbit with Tom's knife and roasted it. After dinner I destroyed all signs of my fire and hid myself in a thick deadfall of branches and rotting logs. Shep crawled in beside me. My bed of moss was comfortable, but I could not sleep. Soulvine Moor was less than half a day's journey. Soulvine Moor, and my mother.

She would talk to me. She must. I would rouse her from her death trance. (
But
, whispered my logical self,
you have never yet roused anyone who died so young
.) She would tell me how she died and why my father abandoned me to my Aunt Jo. (
But Mother Chilton told
you to not seek that very knowledge
.) She would tell me who my father was. (
But always the dead speak only of
their own childhoods
.) Most of all, she would tell me what I am, why I am cursed with this ‘gift', and what I must do to live in the peace I had never yet found: not with Hartah, not at court, not at Applebridge with Maggie. I remembered her so clearly, my mother in her lavender gown with lavender ribbons in her hair, and myself safe and happy in her arms. She would tell me where I must go, how I must live, to be safe and happy again.

Looking up at the one brilliant star I could see from my hiding place, I could wait no longer. I was still half a day's journey from the border between the Unclaimed Lands and Soulvine Moor. But both time and distance were different in the Country of the Dead, and it may be that I did not need to be directly on the border.

I pulled my little shaving knife from my boot, pricked my thigh and rode the pain to cross over. The last thing I was aware of in the land of the living was Shep stirring frantically beside me.

Darkness—

Cold—

Dirt choking my mouth—

Worms in my eyes—

Earth imprisoning my fleshless arms and legs—

But only for a moment, and then I lay in the Country of the Dead. The deadfall was gone and I lay in the open. Scrambling to my feet, I looked around. For a long, dazed moment, I recognized nothing.

All was hidden in fog.

It hung heavily over the landscape, obscuring anything further away than an arm's length. I could not even tell if the countryside here matched that in the land of the living or if it had stretched or shrunk, as it often had before. All I could see was light grey fog: motionless, silent, parting effortlessly as I moved through it.

I tripped over one of the Dead, a man dressed in winter hunting clothes, too young to be roused. Next I fell into the shallow woodland pool. The bank, which I could not see clearly, gave way beneath my feet and I splashed into a foot of water, climbing out wet and muddy to my knees. But at least now I knew that the landscapes matched. However, without much visibility, how would I know in which direction I must walk to reach Soulvine Moor? Here there were never stars to guide me, never sun, never moon.

But I could not face the idea of returning to the land of the living. Not yet, not after having come so far. Not without at least trying to find my mother.

Carefully I walked around the woodland pool, judging as well as I could when I had reached halfway. Then I set myself to walking away from the pool, which should be south, in as straight a line as I could manage. The fog became a little less dense. I had gone less than a hundred yards, water from the pool sloshing in my left boot, when I came upon one of the circles of the Dead, and my blood stopped in its veins.

The Dead often sat in circles of four to eight people, sometimes touching, sometimes not. This was a larger circle, fourteen Dead, and they all held hands. I could see their clasped hands resting on the grass by their sides, and their legs, crossed under them or stretched out on the ground before them. But their heads were all enveloped in patches of the fog denser and darker than any on the landscape, so thick it completely shrouded each of the Dead from the neck up. And another, equally dense patch of fog rested in the centre of the circle.

When I had meddled before in the Country of the Dead, keeping the Blue army artificially roused and then bringing the Dead soldiers temporarily back to the land of the living, the landscape had reflected my meddling. Winds, storms, quakes and finally the tearing of the sky itself, so that there roared out of it that bright and terrible thing I had glimpsed for only a brief second. Trying to change death itself had monstrously roiled the landscape of death. But that was not happening now. This ground was as stable, the air as motionless, the woods as silent as the grave that in fact they were. Only the fog was different. And it had increased hugely since I last crossed over.

Cautiously I approached the circle. Closest to me was, judging from the shabby homespun skirt and wrinkled bare feet that were all I could see, an old woman from some poor upland farm. It is old women who are most willing to talk to me. I put my hand within the dark fog and laid it upon her head.

Immediately I jerked my hand away and cried out. Her head
vibrated
. It felt like touching the outside of a hive humming with bees. My hand was not injured, and the lower half of the old woman's body rested as tranquilly on the grass as before.

‘Mistress! Wake up!' With the toe of my wet boot I nudged her leg. Nothing. I pushed harder. Nothing. Finally I kicked her, knowing that the Dead cannot be hurt, but although my kick knocked her over, she did not rouse. However, her hands slipped from those on either side of her in the circle.

All at once the patches of dense fog dissolved from around each head; what remained were thirteen Dead holding hands and one lying peacefully on the grass. I could see each clearly. No heads vibrated. But the dark patch of fog in the centre of the circle began to hum angrily.

Those were the watchers from Soulvine Moor.

I dared not approach that angry central fog. The cloud could not, as far as I knew, move from that one spot, but what did I really know about what was happening here? Nothing. This was new, and troubling, and there was no one to help me understand it – unless my mother was that one.

In the land of the living, Soulvine Moor had lain a half-day's walk from where I had crossed over. The Moor might be closer here – or further. I had crossed over soon after dark. I had the whole night and, should I need it, the whole of the next day to spend in the Country of the Dead. My body could go that long tranced. It was a risk, but I was well hidden in the deadfall from any savage soldiers, and Shep would protect me from four-legged predators. Skirting widely around the remains of the circle, I again moved south through the fog.

It was not easy to keep my bearings. But as the land rose and the woods thinned out, I was sure that I approached the Moor. I passed two more large circles of the Dead, all holding hands, each head shrouded in impenetrable dark fog. In the centre of each circle was a patch of even darker fog. I did not approach the circles.

Finally, after hours of climbing steadily upwards, the ground levelled and began to feel springy under my feet, squishing slightly as I walked.
Peat
. I was on Soulvine Moor.

Another hour of walking and I came to the largest circle yet. Twenty-one Dead. Except for its size, it looked like the three circles I had seen in the Unclaimed Lands. But I knew how people died on Soulvine Moor – at least those people who either were strangers or natives who left and then returned. It was how Cecilia had died.

Don't think of it.

And then I saw something that wiped away all thoughts of the past.
Figures moved in the fog
. Figures, where here-tofore nothing had moved except me.

They came towards me very slowly, three of them, as shrouded as the immobile circled Dead. Their dense mist moved with them, dark patches in the lighter fog that hung everywhere. Slowly, so slowly, they approached me, then stopped on the far side of the circle of twenty-one Dead.

‘What ... what are you?' I quavered, and realized that I had said the same thing, on the other side, to Shep. But Shep was a dog – familiar, solid, known – at least in form. I could not see these forms beneath the fog. I did not know if they were solid. I could not imagine what they might be.

None of the three answered.

We stood there, on opposite sides of an immobile circle of the Dead, in the grey silence. I don't know how long we stayed thus, I waiting fearfully for what might happen next, and they waiting for ... what? It seemed a long time. Perhaps it was, perhaps not.

A woman's voice spoke from behind me. ‘Roger.'

I screamed and whirled around. Now the pervasive light grey fog had thickened, although without growing darker. A wall of it stood behind me, and it swirled as if in a light breeze. Through that swirling pale fog it seemed I glimpsed shapes, shifting and inhuman, and among the shapes the glint of a crown.

The voice was the voice of my dream.

‘Roger,' she said again, and then, ‘Eleven years dead.' And she laughed.

It was a laugh to shiver bones, to shatter minds. When the wall of swirling fog moved towards me, I bit my tongue and crossed back over.

Darkness—

Cold—

Dirt choking my mouth—

Worms in my eyes—

Earth imprisoning my fleshless arms and legs—

Horrible, but not so horrible as what I had left. For the second time in my life, my travel through the cold and maggoty grave was actually welcome. Then I lay back in the land of the living, wrapped in Tom's cloak, hidden in the deadfall in the Unclaimed Lands. Shep was gone.