SpringFire (7 page)

“Well,” he said in a drawn-out way, “I just sort of knew it was there. So I moved quietly, saw it in the trees, and I slingshot it.”

“You brought down a sittack with just a sling?!” Shandry exclaimed. “That’s … that’s … unheard of! If I didn’t know you had to be telling the truth, I’d never believe it.”

“Well, then maybe you’ll believe me when I tell you there’s a cave less than half an hour from here.”

Shandry looked closely at Traz, who didn’t flinch at her scrutiny. Then she nodded once and turned to kick out the fire. I slung the packs back onto Dyster and untied his reins, then led him along behind the others.

We trudged through the trees to the cave. It was dark before we got there, and, worse, it began to rain. Luckily, there was a lot of dead wood all around, and we had a fire blazing in no time. I hobbled the pony in the back of the cave, took off the packs, and filled his nosebag with grain and some oats. Shandry gathered more wood for the night while Traz dressed the sittack and set it to roast.

I wanted to ask Shandry about the creature—what it was and why it was so hard to catch one—but she seemed to have closed in on herself. Her thoughts were obviously far away.

When the meal was ready, we joined Traz next to the fire. The meat was tender and juicy. At first Shandry seemed reluctant to try it, but Traz held out her plate insistently, so she shrugged and began to eat. There was also flatbread with leten and some kind of root vegetable, yellowy-orange in color and roasted into sweetness.

As we sat around the fire after we’d finished eating, Shandry stroked the pelt of the sittack, which Traz had decided to keep.

“It seems strange,” she said, “that the first time I ever see one, it’s dead, and then I eat it.”

“What’s wrong with eating it?” Traz asked.

Shandry shook her head. “Nothing. It’s just that the sittack is rather a legendary beast.” There was a long pause, and I had to bite my lower lip to keep from demanding more information. “Not just anyone can bring one down. Only special people.” A startled look crossed Traz’s face. “Only sages. Or so they say.”

Traz froze for a moment. Then he drew a deep breath and licked his lips. “Are you saying that
I’m
a sage?”

Many long ages ago, before even history began, night was always black and chill. Folk huddled together and passed the dark time in terror and death, grateful when the grey light of morning banished the darkness.

Boca, however, told stories to her children to stave off their fears. Tales of their father’s hunts, brave and true. Tales, funny ones these, of a family of rodents whose escapades left the children in gales of laughter. Tales of love, strong and pure, that never died.

Then Merot, Lord of the Night, heard laughter breaking the silence of the dark. Curious, he came down from the night sky and sat outside Boca’s cave, listening to her sweet voice, absent of all fear, spinning its tales to comfort her children.

And he was well-pleased.

And he returned the next night.

And the night after.

A week of nights passed in this way, until Merot decided to reward Boca for the joy she instilled in his breast. In the pink hour after sunset, in that time of light and darkness intertwined when the Lord of the Night may greet the Lady of the Day, Merot asked Willa for a tiny piece of the sun, that he might gift a deserving woman.

And that night, as Boca gathered her children close around her, a yellow gleam shone in the darkness.

Thus came the light and warmth of fire into the world.

~an ancient tale from the deeps of time

Shandry shrugged. “How should I know if you’re a sage? Maybe that old story is just a legend.” She turned her attention back to the sittack pelt, completely unaware of the storm she’d unleashed in our companion.

He sat there unmoving, but I could feel his excitement as if it were water filling the cave and drowning us. A fierce sense of longing, deep wonder, and terrible fear, all churned in and around the small boy who stared into the flames. I put a hand on his shoulder and felt the tension that coursed through him; my hand seemed to grow warm from the contact.

Could it be true? And if it were, what did it mean? The possibilities danced in my mind.

Traz eventually rose to his feet, went beyond the firelight into the cave, and, wrapping himself in his cloak, lay down.

I took the first watch. Long after Shandry’s breathing settled into the regular rhythm of sleep, Traz’s eyes still glittered in the firelight.

When I began to feel drowsy, I stood up and stepped to the mouth of the cave. Rain poured down in sheets, and I was glad that Traz had found the cave and led us here. Sleeping outside in a deluge like this would’ve been impossible. With a sigh, I wondered how muddy the road would be now. Shandry was right that we couldn’t really have put the journey off, not with Xyla in the condition she was in. But I wished for better weather all the same. We couldn’t count on finding a cave every night.

The falling rain had a hypnotic effect on me. The thread of my thought wound its way back to Grey.

A sound from behind startled me. Traz crouched next to the fire, putting more wood on. I went over to him.

“Go ahead and get some sleep,” he said. “I can’t get any. It’s probably time for my watch, anyway.”

“I was going to stay up through your turn. You seem too … distracted. Why don’t you lie down again?”

“I’m telling you, Donavah, I can’t sleep. So you might as well.”

“Are you all right?”

He smiled up at me. “Yes, I am. Really and truly. I just want to think about some things. So I might as well watch, if I’m going to be awake anyway.”

I was tired, so he didn’t have to argue more than that. “All right. But if you get tired before Shandry’s watch, wake me.”

I woke up to see Traz’s form silhouetted against heavy snowfall outside. Shandry was lying nearby, also just beginning to stir.

I got up and moved to the fire, grateful to find that Traz had water already heating. A few moments later, Shandry came and joined me by the fire, holding her hands close to the flames and stamping her feet. Traz turned around.

“I’m thinking,” he said with a cockeyed grin, “that we’re not leaving right away.”

Shandry replied, “I hate to get a late start, but I don’t think we have any choice.”

I stifled a sigh of relief and set about making tea for the three of us while Shandry fed Dyster. I didn’t like the idea of delay, either, but surely we couldn’t travel until the snow lessened. After handing Shandry and Traz their mugs, I started a pot of porridge.

When we finished eating, I suggested to Traz that he try to get at least a little rest before we left. He lay down and even closed his eyes, but I doubted he slept.

I washed the breakfast things, then made more tea for Shandry and me. No less uneasy than Traz, she paced back and forth between the fire and the cave mouth, until I thought her incessant activity would make me scream. I understood her anxiety about being stuck here, but didn’t see how watching the snow would make it go away.

When it finally did stop falling after a little more than an hour, she stepped out without even putting on a cloak and looked up at the sky. She came in a few minutes later, slapping her arms and stamping her feet.

“Brr! It’s bitter out there,” Shandry said, “but we should probably get going. It looks to stay clear, at least for awhile.”

“At least for awhile?” I asked. “What’s that supposed to mean? We’re not going to leave here, just to get caught with no shelter a few hours from now, are we?”

Shandry made a non-committal sound. “I can’t tell what’s coming over the mountains. But there’s no point in staying here. You know that as well as I do.”

She got Traz up and moving while I put the fire out. Shandry and Traz loaded the packs onto the pony, then we bundled ourselves into our cloaks, hats, and gloves, and filed out of the cave.

Traz led the way back to the road. It didn’t seem natural, the way he could lead us so unerringly when he’d never been here before. But as if the incident with the sittack changed everything, Shandry seemed inclined to accept whatever Traz said.

We traveled slowly that day, even once we were back on the road. It didn’t snow again, and when the sun cleared the mountaintops ahead of us, it shone enough to take the sting out of the chill. Still, the icy layer under the fresh-fallen snow made for treacherous footing, and each of us fell several times. At least Dyster was sure-footed. Even Traz had to pay attention to where he stepped and resorted to using his staff as a walking stick.

That night and the next were miserable. Traz found us reasonably sheltered places in which to camp, but no more luck finding caves so it was impossible to sleep warmly.

The middle of the fourth day found us crossing over the pass. Not that I would’ve been able to tell if Shandry hadn’t said something. I’d expected the climb to grow steeper as we went higher, but it wasn’t like that at all, just a steady rise that eventually flattened out.

“Well,” Shandry said, breaking the silence in which we typically walked. “Here we are.”

Traz gave her a quizzical look.
“Where
are we?” My question exactly.

“The top. It’s not quite all downhill from here, but pretty much.”

I let out a snort. “Very funny. We can’t be at the top. There are the mountaintops there.” I pointed to several peaks on either side of us.

It was Shandry’s turn to laugh. “You don’t think the road would cross the highest peaks, do you? When there’s a pass as low as this?”

I felt myself blush. Of course, now that she pointed it out, it was obvious. Feeling a little stupid, I smiled at her and shrugged.

“It’ll be much easier going now. This pass widens into a valley that we can follow pretty much straight down.”

Soon we came to a huge meadow. It must be three miles to the other side, I guessed. The wind blew viciously across it, straight into our faces.

“Let’s get moving,” I said, hunching my shoulders and moving closer to Dyster to try to gain some warmth from his body heat. I was so tired of being cold, and I couldn’t wait to get to Delaron. I clucked the pony into motion.

Then I wondered—could I use my maejic to warm myself? Mages used their power to extend the growing season, so why not? It didn’t require much thought to keep hold of Dyster’s reins and follow the others, so I turned my concentration inward. Imagining a blazing fire on a hearth or a bed piled high with furs didn’t work, but just as when I’d tried walking quietly, once I stopped tying to direct the maejic power and just let it flow, it turned to that which I desired. It didn’t warm me completely, but it took the edge off the cold, and I was much more comfortable after that.

I tired more quickly that day than ever before. As I sat next to the fire Traz built, hardly able to keep my eyes open, I wondered what was wrong. The day hadn’t been more difficult than any other; as a matter of fact, the terrain was the easiest we’d yet traversed.

Then I realized that, of course, I’d been using my maejic all day. I couldn’t remember ever having done that before. Muttering something about needing to meditate, I dug my kit out of my pack and stumbled a short way away. I chose the forest green candle for strength and pale green for health, and settled into the routine.

At first, I was so tired that I found it difficult to keep my mind on what I was doing. Pushing through just drained me further. But as I made myself do it, energy began to seep into me, slowly filling me, renewing my spirit, refreshing my soul. My breathing slowed, as did my heartbeat. I relaxed and centered myself in the inflow of power.

When I finally opened my eyes again and blew out the candles, I felt energized, as if I could run at full speed all the way to Delaron.

The next morning, I discovered one big advantage to being on the eastern side of the mountains: the sun shone on us much earlier. Of course, when I remarked on this to Shandry, she pointed out the converse, that we’d lose it earlier in the afternoon, too. That really didn’t seem such a huge price to pay for feeling ever so slightly warmer in the morning.

I used my maejic a little more carefully, or maybe the weather was warming up a bit. I was more disciplined than ever about meditating each morning before we left and each afternoon when we stopped, and I tried not to expend any more power than necessary to keep myself comfortable.

Traz had been much quieter than normal ever since that first night, as if the possibility that he was a sage had overtaken all his thoughts. He’d kept to himself, mostly preferring to walk behind us rather than in front. He often seemed lost in thought, pensive and subdued.

The morning of the third day of our descent—a full week now since we’d set out—it rained hard for hours, soaking us all to the skin. At midday, the sun finally came out and warmed us up a little, but the road was slushy underfoot.

In the afternoon, we reached a place that Shandry called “the bends.” We’d been descending a great valley, just as Shandry had said. But here, it was as if a knife had sliced a chunk from the mountainside. Where we stood, we looked down a steep hill, down which the road went in tight switchbacks. The hillside was bare of trees, with just an occasional shrub clinging to the sharply angled earth. Far below, the pine forest spread out before us.