“Was that in Nisses’ book?” Miriamele asked, then was startled to feel Tiamak cringe beside her as if dodging a blow. She turned to look at him, but the slender man was staring at Cadrach with what looked oddly like suspicion—a fierce, intent suspicion, as if it had just been revealed that the Hernystirman was half-ghant.
Puzzled, she looked at the monk to find that he was looking at her with fury.
I suppose he doesn’t much want to think about that, Miriamele realized, and felt bad that she had not kept quiet. Still, Tiamak’s reaction was what truly puzzled her. What had she said? Or what had Cadrach said?
“In any case,” Cadrach said heavily, as if unwillingly forced to continue, “there were once things called Witnesses, which were made by the Sithi in the depths of time. These things allowed them to speak to each other over great distances, and perhaps even let them show dreams and visions to each other. They came in many forms—‘Stones and Scales, Pools and Pyres,’ as the old books say. ‘Scales’ are what the Sithi called mirrors. I do not know why.”
“Are you saying that Tiamak’s mirror was ... one of those things?” Miriamele asked.
“That is my guess.”
“But what would the Sithi have to do with the ghants? Even if they hate men, which I have heard, I can’t believe they would like those horrid bugs any better.”
Cadrach nodded. “Ah, but if these Witnesses still exist, it could be that others beside the Sithi can use them. Remember, Princess, all the things you heard at Naglimund. Remember who plans and waits in the frozen north.”
Miriamele, thinking of Jarnauga’s strange speech, suddenly felt a chill quite unrelated to the mild breeze.
Isgrimnur leaned forward from his seat before Camaris’ knees. “Hold, man. Are you saying that this Storm King fellow is doing some magic with the ghants? Then what did they need Tiamak for? Doesn’t make sense.”
Cadrach bit back a sharp reply. “I don’t claim to know anything with certainty, Rimmersman. But it could be that the ghants are too different, too ... simple, perhaps ... for those who now use these Witnesses to be able to speak with them directly.” He shrugged. “It is my guess that they needed a human as a sort of go-between. A messenger.”
“But what could the Stor ...” Miriamele caught herself. Even though Isgrimnur had uttered the name, she had no desire to do the same. “What could someone like that want with the ghants down in the Wran?”
Cadrach shook his head. “It is far beyond me, Lady. Who could hope to know the plans of ... someone like that?”
Miriamele turned to Tiamak. “Do you remember anything else of what you were being made to say? Could Cadrach be right?”
Tiamak appeared reluctant to talk about it. He stared cautiously at the monk. “I do not know. I know little about ... about magic or ancient books. Very little.” The Wrannaman fell into silence.
“I thought I disliked the ghants before,” Miriamele said finally. “But if that’s true—if they’re somehow part of ... of what Josua and the others are fighting against ...” She wrapped her arms around herself. “The sooner we leave here, the better.”
“That’s something we all agree on,” Isgrimnur rumbled.
In Miriamele’s dreams that night, as the boat gently rocked on the slow-moving waters, voices spoke to her from behind a veil of shadow—thin, insistent voices that whispered of decay and loss as though they were things to be desired.
She woke up beneath the faint stars and realized that even surrounded by friends, she was terribly lonely.
Tiamak’s recovery proved to be incomplete. Within a day after Younger Mogahib’s ceremonial burning, he had fallen back into a kind of fever that left him weak and listless. When darkness fell, the Wrannaman had terrible dreams, visions that he could not remember in the morning but which made him writhe in his sleep and cry out. With Tiamak suffering his nightly tortures, the remainder of the company was nearly as ill-rested as he was.
More days passed, but the Wran lingered like a guest that had outstayed his welcome: for every league of marshy tangle they crossed—floating beneath the steamy sky or wading through clinging, foully-scented mud as they struggled with the heavy flatboat—another league of swamp appeared before them. Miriamele began to feel that some sorcerer was playing a cruel trick on them, spiriting them back to their starting place each night while they lay in shallow sleep.
The hovering insects who seemed to delight in finding each person’s tenderest spot, the shrouded but potent sun, the air as hot and damp as the steam over a soupbowl, all helped bring the travelers’ tempers close to the snapping point—and many times to push them past it. Even the arrival of rain, which at first seemed like such a blessing, turned out to be another curse. The monotonous, blood-warm downpour persisted for three whole days, until Miriamele and her companions began to feel that demons were pounding on their heads with tiny hammers. The unpleasant conditions were even beginning to affect old Camaris, who had previously been unmoved and untouched by almost everything, so calm that he allowed the biting bugs to crawl across his skin without reprisal—something that made Miriamele itch uncontrollably just watching. But the three days and nights of unbroken rain reached even the old knight at last. As they poled along through the third day’s storm, he pulled a hat he had made from fronds lower over his white brows and stared miserably out at the rain-pocked watercourse, his long face so sorrowful that Miriamele finally went and put her arm around him. He gave no clear sign of it, but something in his posture suggested he was grateful for the contact; whether that was true or not, he stayed in place for some time, seemingly a little more content. Miriamele marveled at his broad back and shoulders, which seemed almost indecently solid on an old man.
Tiamak found it a labor just to sit upright in the stem of the boat, wrapped in a blanket, and call directions through his chattering teeth. He told them they had nearly reached the Wran’s northern fringe, but he had already told them that many days earlier, and the Wrannaman’s eyes now had an odd, glazed look. Miriamele and Isgrimnur were being careful not to let each other see they were worrying. Cadrach, who more than once seemed on the verge of coming to blows with the duke, was openly scornful about their chances of finding the way out. Isgrimnur at last told him that if he made any more pessimistic predictions he would be thrown over the side, so that if he wished to make the rest of the journey it would have to be by swimming. The monk ceased his carping, but the looks he directed at the duke when Isgrimnur’s back was turned made Miriamele uneasy.
It was clear to her that the Wran was finally wearing them all down. It was not a place for people, ultimately—especially drylanders.
“Over here should do well,” she said. She took a few more awkward steps, struggling to stay upright as the mud squelched beneath her bootsoles.
“If you say so, Lady,” Cadrach murmured.
They had moved a little way from their camp to bury the remains of their meal, mostly fish bones and scaly skin and fruit pits. During the long course of their journey, the inquisitive Wran apes had proved all too willing to come into camp in search of leavings, even if one of the human company stayed up and sat sentry. The last time the offal had not been removed to at least a few score yards from the campsite, the travelers had spent all night in the middle of what seemed a festival of brawling, screeching apes, all in mad competition for the rights to the finest scraps.
“Go to, Cadrach,” she said crossly. “Dig the hole.”
He gave her a quick sidelong look, then bent and began scraping at the moist soil. Pale wriggling things came up with each stroke of the hollowed reed spade, gleaming in the torchlight. When he had finished, Miriamele dropped in the leaf-wrapped bundle and Cadrach pushed the mud over it, then turned and began to make his way back toward the glow of the camp fire.
“Cadrach.”
He turned slowly. “Yes, Princess?”
She took a few steps toward him. “I ... I am sorry that Isgrimnur said what he did to you. At the nest.” She lifted
her hands helplessly. “He was worried, and he sometimes speaks without thinking. But he is a good man.”
Cadrach’s face was expressionless. It was as though he had drawn some curtain across his thoughts, leaving his eyes curiously flat in the torchlight. “Ah, yes. A good man. There are so few of those.”
Miriamele shook her head. “That is not an excuse, I know. But please, Cadrach, surely you can understand why he was upset!”
“Of course. I can well understand it. I have lived with myself for many years, Lady—how can I fault someone else for feeling the same way, someone who doesn’t even know all that I know?”
“Damn you,” Miriamele snapped. “Why must you be this way? I don’t hate you, Cadrach! I don’t loathe you, even though we have caused trouble for each other!”
He stared at her for a moment, seeming to struggle with conflicting emotions. “No, my lady. You have treated me better than I deserve.”
She knew better than to argue. “And I don’t blame you at all for not wanting to go into that nest!”
He shook his head slowly. “No, Lady. Nor would any man, even your duke, if they knew ...”
“Knew what?” she said sharply. “What happened to you, Cadrach? Something more than what you told me about Pryrates—and about the book?”
The monk’s mouth hardened. “I do not wish to speak of it.”
“Oh, by Elysia’s mercy,” she said, frustrated. She took a few steps forward and reached out and grasped his hand. Cadrach flinched and tried to pull back, but she held him tightly. “Listen to me. If you hate yourself, others will hate you. Even a child knows that, and you are a learned man.”
“And if a child is hated,” he spat, “that child will grow to hate itself.”
She did not understand what he meant. “But, please, Cadrach. You must forgive, starting with yourself. I cannot bear to see a friend so mistreated, even by himself.”
The steady pressure with which the monk had tried to pull away suddenly slackened. “A friend?” he said roughly.
“A friend.” Miriamele squeezed his hand and then released it. Cadrach pulled back a step, but went no further. “Now please, we must try to be kind to each other until we reach Josua, or we shall all go mad.”
“Reach Josua ...” The monk repeated her words without inflection. He was suddenly very distant.
“Of course.” Miriamele started to walk toward the camp, then stopped again. “Cadrach?”
He did not reply for a moment. “What?”
“You know magic, don’t you?” When he remained silent, she plunged on. “I mean, you know a great deal about it, at least—you’ve made that clear. But I think that you actually know how to do it.”
“What are you talking about?” He sounded irritated, but there was a trace of fear in his words. “If you are talking about the fire-missiles, that was no magic at all. The Perdruinese invented that long ago, although they made it with a different sort of oil. They used it for sea-battles....”
“Yes, it was a clever thing to do. But there is more than that to you, and you know it. Why else would you study things like ... like that book. And I know all about Doctor Morgenes, so if you were part of his—what did you call it? The Scroll League... ?”
Cadrach made a gesture of annoyance. “The Art, my lady, is not some bag of wizard’s tricks. It is a way of understanding things, of seeing how the world works just as surely as a builder understands a lever or a ramp.”
“You see! You do know about it!”
“I do not ‘do magic,’ ” he said firmly. “I have, once or twice, used the knowledge I have from my studies.” Despite his straightforward tone, he could not meet her eyes. “But it is not what you think of as magic.”
“But even so,” Miriamele said, still eager, “think of the help you could be to Josua. Think of the aid we could give him. Morgenes is dead. Who else can advise the prince about Pryrates?”
Now Cadrach did look up. He looked hunted, like a cur backed into a corner. “Pryrates?” He laughed hollowly. “Do you think that I can be any help against Pryrates? And he is the smallest part of what is arrayed against you.”
“All the more reason!” Miriamele reached out for his hand again, but the monk pulled it away. “Josua needs help, Cadrach. If you fear Pryrates, how much more do you fear the kind of world he will make if he and this Storm King are not defeated?”
At the sound of that terrible name, a muffled purr of thunder could be heard in the distance. Startled, Miriamele looked around, as though some vast, shadowy thing might be watching them. When she turned back, Cadrach was stumbling across the mud, headed back toward camp.
“Cadrach!”
“No more,” he shouted. He kept his head lowered as he vanished into the shadowy undergrowth. She could hear him cursing as he made his way back across the treacherous mud.
Miriamele followed him to camp, but Cadrach refused all her attempts at conversation. She berated herself for having said the wrong thing, just when she had thought she was reaching him. What a mad, sad man he was! And, equally infuriating, in the confusion of their talk she had forgotten to ask him about her Pryrates-thought, the one that had been tugging at her mind the other night—something about her father, about death, about Pryrates and Nisses’ book. It still seemed important, but it might be a long time until she could bring up the subject with Cadrach again.
Despite the warm night, Miriamele rolled herself tightly in her cloak when she lay down, but sleep would not come. She lay half the night listening to the swamp’s strange, incessant music. She also had to put up with the continual misery of crawling and fluttering things, but the bugs, annoying as they might be, were as nothing compared to the irritation of her restless thoughts.
To Miriamele’s surprise and pleasure, the next day brought a marked change in their surroundings. The trees were less thickly twined, and in places the flatboat slid out from the humid tangle onto wide shallow lagoons, mirrors compromised only by the faint rippling of the wind and the forests of swaying grasses which grew up through the water.
Tiamak seemed pleased with their progress, and announced that they were very close to the Wran’s outermost edge. However, their approaching escape did not cure his weakness and fever, and the thin brown man spent much of the morning slipping in and out of uncomfortable sleep, waking occasionally with a startled movement and a mouthful of wild jabber before slowly coming back to his ordinary self.
In late afternoon, Tiamak’s fever became stronger, and his discomfort increased to the point where he sweated and babbled continuously, experiencing only short spans of lucidity. During one of these, the Wrannaman regained his wits enough to play apothecary for himself. He asked Miriamele to prepare for him a concoction of herbs, some of which he pointed out where they grew along the watercourse, a flowering grass called quickweed and a ground-hugging, oval-leafed creeper which, in his weakened state, he could not name.
“And yellowroot, too,” Tiamak said, panting shallowly. He looked dreadful, his eyes red, his skin shiny with perspiration. Miriamele tried to keep her hands steady as she ground the ingredients already gathered on a flat stone she held in her lap. “Yellowroot, to speed the binding,” he mumbled.
“Which is that?” she asked. “Does it grow here?”
“No. But it does not matter.” Tiamak tried to smile, but the effort was too much, and instead he gritted his teeth and groaned quietly. “Some in my bag.” He rolled his head ever so slightly in the direction of the sack he had appropriated in Village Grove, which now held all the belongings he had guarded so zealously.
“Cadrach, would you find it?” Miriamele called. “I’m afraid I’ll spill what I have here.”
The monk, who had been sitting at Camaris’ feet while the old man poled, stepped gingerly across the rocking flatboat, avoiding Isgrimnur without a glance. He kneeled and began to lift out and examine the contents of the bag.
“Yellowroot,” Miriamele said.
“Yes, I heard, Lady,” Cadrach
replied with a little of his old mocking tone. “A root. And I know that it is yellow, too ... thanks to my many years of study.” Something that he felt beneath his fingers made him pause. His eyes narrowed, and he pulled from Tiamak’s bag a package wrapped in leaves and tied with thin vines. Some of the covering had dried and peeled away. Miriamele could see a flash of something pale inside. “What is this?” Cadrach eased the wrappings back a little further. “A very old parchment ...” he began.
“No, you demon! You witch!”
The loud voice startled Miriamele so much that she dropped the blunt rock she had been using as a pestle; it bounced painfully on her boot and thumped down into the bottom of the boat. Tiamak, his eyes bulging, was struggling to lift himself.
“You won’t have it!” he shouted. Flecks of spittle gathered at the corners of his mouth. “I knew you would come after it!”
“He’s fever-mad!” Isgrimnur was more than a little alarmed. “Don’t let him tip the boat over.”
“It’s just Cadrach, Tiamak,” Miriamele said soothingly, but she, too, was startled by the look of hatred on the Wrannaman’s face. “He’s just trying to find the yellowroot.”
“I know who it is,” Tiamak snarled. “And I know just what he is, too, and what he wants. Curse you, demon-monk! You wait until I am ill to steal my parchment! Well, you may not have it! It is mine! I bought it with my own coin!”
“Just put it back, Cadrach,” Miriamele urged. “It will make him stop raving.”
The monk, whose initial look of startlement had changed to something even more unsettled—and, to Miriamele, unsettling as well—slowly eased the leaf-wrapped bundle back into the sack, then handed the whole thing to Miriamele.
“Here.” His voice was once again strangely flat. “You take out what he wants. I cannot be trusted.”
“Oh, Cadrach,” she said, “don’t be foolish. Tiamak is ill. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”