Dag said sternly, “Fawn and I are a long story that you might learn more of if you listen, but in the meanwhile, don’t talk ignorant rubbish. Fawn’s earned every bit of loyalty I can give her.” His voice slowed. “We have a fair trade going on, that way.”
Calla flinched.
It finally clicked in. Oh gods, I’m slow. “I take it you believe you magicked young Sage into marrying you and taking you and your brother north? ”
“You know I did, Lakewalker. His family suspected. His sister told me to my face Sage wouldn’t have looked twice at such a horse-faced rack of bones without it.”
Dag began to speak, hesitated, and reversed the order. “You figure your spell is still holding? He hasn’t treated you any different, the past couple of days? ” It was a safe question; there had been a couple of happy grounds in that feather bed just last night, together with some faint, distinctive creaking from the wagon that sheltered it.
“Of course it’s holding. Or he’d have cast me off by now.”
“Well, no. If you’d had the training you should have, you’d know those sorts of persuasions are absorbed over time, and have to be renewed to keep working. That groundwork of yours faded weeks ago. In any case, I cleared the last of it out of Sage early yesterday.”
A faint cry, choked off. She quivered like a filly about to bolt.
“Stand still!” Dag used his old patrol captain’s voice; she froze rigid.
“Straighten up, girl, and gather the wits you were born with. I’m not saying your initial persuasion didn’t cause Sage to take a second look at you, because I think it likely did. But it was what he saw that made him stay. He doesn’t love you because you magicked him.” Dag’s voice softened.
“He loves you because you’re lovable.”
The kindness nearly broke her as the sternness never would; once again, Dag was reminded of Fawn. Tears laced her gasp, but she steadied her breathing. And listened; oh my, she was listening with all her heart now. Here’s your chance, old patroller; go carefully.
“More to the point,” he went on, “Sage was never a bit beguiled by you. And for the same reason that my groundwork on Fawn doesn’t beguile her. Your heart was entirely open to him, so your grounds flowed both ways, and he never choked on the imbalance.
“So as he loves you, and as you like him right well, too—and both your grounds prove it—there’s not a reason in the wide green world you can’t rub along as well or better than any other married couple. You could have set your persuasion into any other youth in Alligator Hat. You picked well when you picked Sage. I think you know that.”
“Oh . . . !”
“Though you might care to clear the air with a confession. It’s bound to make it easier between you not to be hiding that useless secret. And it will straighten out your ground for your next lessons in groundwork.”
“He’ll hate me!”
“Well”—Dag scratched his head for show—“I’m not saying he won’t be a touch unsettled, but he knew about your powers before, and they didn’t scare him off none. He might be flattered. A tall, handsome”—alarming—“older girl plucks him out from all the other fellows . . . he might even be proud.”
He could tell by her stillness that this was a completely new thought to her.
“And if he has any questions, he can bring them to me or Arkady. I meant it when I said I’ve helped a passel of youngsters learn to manage their groundsense. And trust me, some of them were even more thorny than you. You may not need Moss River—in fact, it seems Moss River was exactly what you didn’t need—but you need someone to show you how to go on.”
She’d moved close enough for him to see her; her hands clutched her hair. “But I don’t want this. These powers.”
“Then you can choose not to use them. But that’s not a choice you can make before you’ve learned to command them. Until then, you’ll just be blundering around in the dark bumping into things and hurting yourself—and maybe others—through ignorance.”
For the first time, her silence grew considering, and not just frightened.
“I can . . . choose not to be . . . ? ”
“If you learn enough. And what I can’t teach, Arkady surely can. Chance has given you a prize, this journey. Absent gods, girl, seize it. I mean to.”
Calla made a faint, confused noise, and Dag explained, “Arkady’s my teacher.”
“You have a teacher? At your age? ”
Dag chose to ignore the second part of that. “Yes. And Fawn teaches me, too. She’s taught me more this past year than I imagined possible. The whole world teaches me new things every day, now that she’s made me alive to it again. You teach me.”
“What do I teach you?” Calla stared in bewilderment.
“What half bloods need, to start with. I expect there will be more surprises, as we go along.” He rose from his rock, gave her his softest salute. “I can hardly wait. Good night, Missus Smith.”
“Uh . . . good night, Mister Bluefield . . .”
He tracked her trudge back toward her wagon and her waiting husband.
He was reminded that he had a bedroll warmed by a waiting wife, but detoured through the nearby trees. A long, pale shadow detached itself from a pecan bole as he neared.
“Do you think she has the makings of a maker? ” said Dag to Arkady.
“In some small, useful ways, undoubtedly.”
“I hope you don’t mind me volunteering you, sir.”
“No . . .” A shrewd pause. “All in all, that was well done.”
From Arkady, who was quite capable of prefacing his milder critiques with You gormless, ham-handed half-wit! this was true praise.
“I hope so, sir,” said Dag. “I surely do.”
14
Over the next few days Fawn was heartened to see Arkady chatting often with Calla, riding beside the wagon or even sitting on the box. Barr helped Indigo with the animals. With each of the half bloods tucked under a suitable Lakewalker wing, Dag rode alone during Fawn’s fatigue naps. She watched him curiously over the tailboard, turning that walnut in his hand and brooding over it. He’s working up to something.
Swampy Alligator Hat lay over a hundred miles behind them when they first hit rain, and even then they only had to pull the wagon out of mire once and warp it across swollen fords with ropes twice. Coming into the last stretch of farmland south of the Barrens, Ash Tanner led them aside some miles for a planned rest at his uncle’s farm, where they were made welcome despite the surprise additions to the party. The animals were set to graze for a day, and the people turned to topping up their supplies for the pull ahead.
That afternoon, Dag and Fawn retreated to their bedroll, which they’d laid in the most private corner of the Tanner barn loft—although, Fawn suspected, not for the reason their comrades thought.
They were left strictly alone anyway, which likely suited Dag’s purposes just as well.
Climbing down afterward, Dag led her off to seek out Barr and Arkady. A roof on posts along one side of the barn sheltered a work area free of the misting rain. Barr had their saddles and bridles up on sawhorses, giving them a cleaning. If Arkady was doing anything besides keeping him company, it wasn’t apparent to Fawn, but they did break off some chat as she and Dag came around the corner.
Dag set her in front of him, hand on her right shoulder, wooden wrist cuff resting on her left. “I need you two a moment,” he said to the Lakewalkers.
Barr set down his brush and rag; Arkady, leaning against a post with his arms crossed, lifted his eyebrows.
“What in the world did you do to Fawn’s ground? ” asked Barr. “It’s all . . . shiny.” He closed his eyes to—Fawn supposed see better didn’t quite make sense, and she surely couldn’t feel it, but a vague discomfort filled her to be the focus of his uncanny attention. As for Arkady, she didn’t even attempt to read the intent stillness of his face.
“Well,” said Dag, “that’s what I need you to help me test. Barr, try to plant a persuasion i
n Fawn’s ground.”
“Er . . . what kind? ”
“Whatever you’re best at. It doesn’t have to be well shaped.”
“That’s fortunate,” murmured Arkady.
Dag shot him a quelling look. “I’ll lift it right out again if you succeed. Just anything.”
Hesitantly, Barr approached and started to lay his hand on her breast, glanced at Dag, and prudently moved it up to her collarbone. He frowned at the walnut that lay there, held by a cord plaited of her hair.
The walnut was not pierced, but trapped in a woven net that continued unbroken into the braid circling her neck. “Huh!” he said after a moment.
“I can sense her ground—she’s not really veiled—but the work slides off. Like rain on a window.”
“Good.” Dag turned her; obediently, she shuffled around. He dropped his hand away and said, “Now, Arkady. Try to ground-rip her. The way I did you at the camp gate my first day.”
Arkady cocked his head and made a short gesture. Nothing happened.
He blinked, came closer, and lifted her hand in his. His other finger traced a line across the back. Fawn felt a twinge like winter sparks in a wool blanket. “Interesting,” he said, in a neutral tone. “Her ground seems to dimple away as I try to grip it.”
“Dag, have we really done it? ” Fawn said breathlessly. “Made a ground shield for farmers? ”
He sighed uncertainly. “Maybe. Enough to protect you from ordinary persuasion or beguilement, and the sort of ground-ripping I—a person can do. But a malice is much more powerful, and I don’t know how to test for that. It’s not like I’m going to set you out as bait.”
“Maybe someone”—she glanced at Barr—“could get a patrol to take a volunteer farmer out somewhere to try it. Up north, maybe, where the malices are thicker. Or at least, try it on their youngsters.”
Dag shook his head. “I’m still not sure this shield would work on Lakewalker grounds. They’re too active.”
“So, try one on Barr and find out.”
Barr gulped. “Er . . . all right. Makes sense.”
Fawn said, “It’s too bad we don’t have a Lakewalker child to try it on. Maybe later.”
Brightening, Dag told Arkady, “At least I’ve half solved the problem of how to turn it off. All Fawn has to do is remove the necklace, and the link to her ground will break. Thing is, she’d need me to do all that groundwork over again to link it back to her. In the ideal design, the farmer would be able to take it on and off at will. Leastways I’ve proved the principle of the thing.”
Arkady gave him a thoughtful nod. “I didn’t think you’d get this far.”
Brows tightening, he took up Fawn’s hand and stroked it with his finger again; she shivered at the prickle. “Now I hesitate to guess how far you can take this.”
Dag watched her hand intently. “That contraction seems to be a natural response, of a sort. After I was near ground-ripped by the Raintree malice, Mari said my ground was so tight nobody could get in to help me. Had to take her word for it—I was out cold. She said she’d never seen anyone look more like a corpse and still breathe.”
“Even if it doesn’t protect farmers from malices, it seems it protects them from Lakewalkers,” Fawn said. “Like Barr’s cook-pot helmets for real. It changes things. Um . . .” She glanced up at Barr and Arkady.
“What about—Dag’s—someone at Hickory Lake once told me that because farmers couldn’t veil their grounds, it was like they were walking around naked, to Lakewalker eyes. What is this doing for that? And don’t be polite,” she added sharply. “Tell me the truth.”
“In ground veiling”—Barr held up his hand and turned it edge on—“it’s like the Lakewalker’s ground slowly gets thinner and thinner till it vanishes. From the inside, it looks like the world’s ground does the same, like going back to being a child when you couldn’t sense at all. With this, your ground’s density is all still there, but it’s like I’m seeing it under moving water. I can’t make out the details. If you see? ”
Well, being dressed in thin cloth was better than parading around stark. Fawn nodded satisfaction. She wrapped her hand around the walnut.
What an extraordinary birthday present this is turning out to be. “Should I keep it on? ” she asked Dag.
“Yes, I want to see how long that involution will hold up. Sharing knives may last a lifetime, but lesser work fades sooner.”
“That’s going to hold awhile, I wager,” said Arkady.
Fawn slipped the walnut pendant inside her blouse. “I wonder how one would work on Calla or Indigo? Like on a farmer, or like on a Lakewalker?”
Dag’s eyes narrowed. “Huh. Good question, Spark.” His gaze strayed to her middle. “If they’re starting to trust me enough . . . I’ll ask them to let me try. Later. Not now. It’s going to take me some days to recover from this.”
“Talk to Calla before you offer such a shield to Sage,” advised Arkady.
“I wouldn’t want her to take it amiss. I’ve just about got her taking food from my hand, so to speak, but she’s still nervy.” He paused. “It’s been quite a while since I’ve instructed a beginner. I’ll give her this—at least she doesn’t have any bad training for me to undo.”
Dag nodded understanding. A sly smile slipped over his mouth and vanished, by which Fawn guessed he was pleased that Arkady was taking his new student seriously.
———
Over the next days, the swampy alligator country fell behind. Villages grew poorer and farther apart and the road surface deteriorated, with fewer bridges and worse fords. In places with softer soil, the way was beaten down into a broad track between earthen walls that rose higher than their heads. Farms were replaced by piney woods. In the growing heat, the trees breathed a delicious and oddly northern smell that made Dag smile for no reason Fawn could see, but she was glad of it nonetheless.
Local traffic thinned out. Their only company on the road became others sharing the long haul. More folks were headed north than south, what with the rivers disgorging their travelers onto the Trace at Graymouth. They passed gangs of flatboat men walking home, and were passed by speedier horse pack trains, including some Lakewalker kin carrying trade between camps. They played leapfrog with that tea caravan for days, and, when Fawn, Dag, and Barr proved conversant in river talk, ended up getting to know some of the muleteers by name.
The last village before the Barrens going north, or the first after coming south, guarded a rope-cranked ferry, a smaller version of those Fawn had seen up on the Grace. The crowd trying to cross at the riverbank held them up for half a day. On the other side, the road climbed again. The piney woods grew more ragged and sad, then thinned out into scrubland inhabited only by mice, hawks, rabbits, and wild pigs.
The shadeless stretches turned headache-hot. Roadside camping spots with both water and grazing became harder to find, as prior travelers’ beasts of burden had eaten the scanty fodder far back from the road.
Two days into the Barrens and their novelty had worn off for Fawn, to be replaced by her nausea of pregnancy. This lasted till she fled from the campfire one morning to retch in the bushes, and Arkady, with an incredibly smug smirk, produced a bottle of that Lakewalker stomach medicine from his pack. He only made Dag grovel a little for it. In the evenings Arkady took Dag aside for maker ground-projection and sensitivity drills, and Dag retaliated by making Barr and Arkady do patroller ground-veiling drills. The results of the latter left Dag frowning.
One evening, they camped with some friendly flatboat boys who knew the Clearcreeks, and exchanged much river gossip including garbled accounts of the gruesome events at Crooked Elbow, which Dag, Fawn, and Barr tried to amend. Dag treated a flatboat boy’s sore foot and seized the chance for his beginner lecture on Lakewalkers; Fawn wasn’t sure which of these left Arkady rubbing his forehead. But at least it was a thoughtful rub.
The lack of grazing proved worse than the company had anticipated, and the feed grain they’d so prudently packed al
ong from the Tanner farm ran low, then out. But late one afternoon Ash, whose turn it was to scout ahead, came cantering back all excited. The fertile valley he described seemed too good to be true, but a few miles farther on, at a dip where a river ran between high rocky walls and around a bend, they found a broad sweep of meadow, flecked by wildflowers, that glowed like green glass in the leveling light. Dozens of dogwoods lit up the woods like white flower fountains. New leaves, Fawn realized, weren’t just pale green, but shades of bronze and copper red. Both people and animals greeted the sight with the same joyful sigh.
This bliss lasted till Sage, who had gone into the woods bordering the bluffs to gather firewood, came bolting back out waving his bloodied ax in the air and screaming, “Snakes! Hundreds of ’em! And they’re all rattlers!”
Fawn, about to unsaddle Magpie, scrambled back aboard and pulled up her toes. “What? ”
“There can’t be hundreds,” objected Finch. “Snakes don’t travel in herds, Sage. You just panicked.”
“Yeah, how many did you really see? ” said Ash. “Two? Three?” Although he prudently unshipped another long-handled ax from his pack.
“Actually . . .” said Dag, slowly wheeling about and scanning the rocky slopes.
Disturbed and attentive silence fell, broken only by Sage’s panting.
Everyone’s faces turned to follow Dag, like beguiled mice.
“ . . . there are hundreds,” Dag continued. “Those ledges up there are full of snake dens. They coil up in snake balls to get through the cold times, see. They’re all just coming out of their winter sleep.”
Finch swung abruptly up onto the driver’s box next to Calla.
“You can get up to a couple of hundred rattlesnakes at a time in the bigger dens,” Dag went on blithely.
Indigo looked in longing at the rich grass. All the tired, hungry animals had their heads down tearing at it. “We could all hole up in the wagon, I guess, but—would they bite the mules and horses? ”
“They might,” Dag said. “More usually they’d just slither off. But with so many so thick around here, an accident becomes more likely.”