Witchlanders (38 page)

“Neither will you. The witches might cross the border to keep you from telling what you know. We're better off if we stay together.”

A note of fear entered Falpian's voice. “Do you think they will?”

Ryder hesitated, then lied. “No. Probably not.”

Behind them, the smudge of sun grew lower in the sky. For a while the only sounds were those of their breath, and their steps, and the
shush
of their walking sticks digging into the snow. Sometimes Ryder caught a glimpse of Bo between the trees, a quick, pale shape. The dog traveled with them, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, always on guard. Ryder marveled that such a big animal could be so quiet, appearing and disappearing without a sound, as if he were made of fog.

“Think what you're doing,” Falpian said, breaking the strange, muffled quiet. “I . . . I know how you feel. All the time we were at Dassen's, don't you think I was trying to think of a way for us to stay together? Together we are so powerful—but the Baen will give you the same reception the Witchlanders gave me.”

“I have a gift,” Ryder said. “And I've decided not to waste it. I'm going to learn to sing.”

“Ha!” Falpian said. “You think you'll find a singing master in the Bitterlands? You think any Baen will teach you?”

“I'm talking about you, fool. You're going to teach me.”

“Oh.”

“I see it!” Ryder cried, before Falpian could say anything more. Ahead of them was the flat table of land where the border marker was. They took the last distance at a run.

When they got to the border, Ryder's legs crumpled underneath him. “We shouldn't stop,” he managed to say, but he sat panting in the snow without getting up, the cold air shredding his lungs.

“Your leg,” said Falpian. A few red spots were beginning to seep through Ryder's leggings.

“It's nothing. I think a stitch has come out. Give me your arm.” He got to his feet. “We can't assume they won't follow. We'll have to travel all night, if you can make it.”

“If
I
can make it?” Falpian laughed.

Ryder edged forward toward the place where the mountain fell away to the Bitterlands. There were fewer trees on this side; he should have been able to see the dizzying descent down to the gorge, but there was nothing but white blankness. It would be dangerous traveling in this weather, especially after sunset. Ryder knew from their previous climb that there were places where one wrong step could mean a deadly fall.

“Let's go,” he said, but his talat-sa was still standing next to the border marker, blurred by the swirling fog.

“Ryder,” Falpian said. “They'll kill you. Do you understand? My people will kill you.”

“Lady Melicant,” Ryder answered firmly.

Falpian gaped. “How would you—oh. All right, she's a friend of my mother's, what about her?”

“Lady Melicant has Witchlander servants.”

It took Falpian a moment to see what he was getting at. “Oh, no. No. That's different, Ryder. They were loyal and followed her to the Bitterlands during the war. Nobody has
new
Witchlander servants.”

“We'll say you saved my life in the snow, and now I'm bound to you as your faithful attendant.”

Falpian snorted with laughter. “And everyone will immediately think you're a spy. And that I'm a dupe for not seeing it. No. It makes convincing the lords not to go to war all the harder, don't you see? It's too dangerous!”

Ryder stood firm, arms crossed. “Falpian, you're going up against a man who's already tried to kill you once. Yes, taking me with you would be dangerous, but our singing together is our greatest weapon. Leaving me behind would be even more dangerous.”

“It's wrong,” Falpian said. Ryder watched as a realization dawned on Falpian's face. “And you know it! Even you think it's wrong for you to come—you're thinking it right now!

Ryder let out a sigh of annoyance. He hated this link they had sometimes. There was no privacy in it. And he'd thought sharing a cramped cottage with his mother and sisters had been bad.

“Yes,” Ryder agreed. “It's wrong.” Without warning, his voice started to quaver, though he tried to stop it.
“Somewhere above our heads there is a handful of stars that say I am meant to be a witch. They say, ‘Ryder lived happily in the coven with his sisters and worshipped the Goddess until the end of his days.' And you know, a part of me really does want that. But I can't figure out a way to have it and be sure you stay alive.”

Falpian threw up his hands in frustration. “But I'm not asking for your help to stay alive! I don't want to keep you from your family and from your . . . boneshaking destiny!”

Ryder took a breath and kept his voice calm and firm. “I'm going with you because the thing you have to do is too important. If Sodan sends someone across the border, you might not last the night without me. And if your father decides to try to kill you again to keep you quiet, you're better off with me than with just a humming stone. That's the way it is. You're stuck with me.”

Falpian cast his eyes to the clouds. After a long moment, he said, “I'm not going to convince you, am I?”

“You already know you're not.”

“Goddess help us.”

Ryder laughed. “Wrong one. You're Kar, remember?”

Falpian pursed his lips, frowning. “We should at least sing. To know if they're following. To know what we're up against.” Ryder shook his head. “You did just say you wanted to learn to sing, didn't you?”

“Yes, but . . .” Ryder couldn't think of a reason to object. Singing would give them a vision of the whole mountain, and they needed to know if Sodan had sent an army after them, or one lone hunter, or no one at all. “After we sing, I never know how I did it. I can never really believe it happened.”

Ignoring Ryder's hesitation, Falpian took off his pack and dropped it in the snow. “Stand over here,” he said. “Where it's flat. We'll start with something we know.” He clapped his gloved hands together briskly. “Come, come! I'm the singing master, remember?” He grinned wickedly. “And you're my loyal attendant.” Ryder rolled his eyes.

The key of rocking waves. The song of the sea.
This is where we met,
Ryder thought as he began to sing.
Not at Stonehouse, but here.
Before the chilling day, they had both, for different reasons, been dreaming of the sea. Was that how their minds had found each other?

Pay attention,
came Falpian's voice in his mind.
Watch your tones, servant.
Ryder was going to regret giving him this role.

Around him, the world came into focus. Ice crystals glittered in the fog, each one suspended in the air like a tiny universe. Ryder was dazzled, as he always was when he sang. It seemed to him that there was a pattern there, if he could only see it. It seemed to him that some great mind might calculate the distances between each crystal,
drawing invisible lines between them, and from them extrapolate the past, present, and future of all things under the eyes of the Goddess, and of Kar.

Then Ryder let his mind see beyond the fog, let it rise into the air like the smoke of his breath. He could see down to the shoulder of the mountain where their two little bodies stood. He could see the snow-covered trees. He could see Bo making wide circles around them, keeping them safe. He could see the way in front of him and the way behind. And everything was clear.