The dim red glow of the fire quickly faded behind us and we walked forward in darkness. Soldier’s Boy was content to let Olikea lead him, and she seemed confident of the way. So many others had trodden this path for so many years that it was flat and smooth. Soldier’s Boy did not think of such things. He focused simply on moving his body along. Fever ran over his skin like licking flames. The places where he had pierced his skin with the crystal itched. He scratched the scabs off and fluid leaked from the swollen cuts. He decided that he had been foolish to use the crystal, yet in the same thought, doggedly determined that his act and the pain and fever that followed it were necessary. His joints ached, and his head pounded with pain. The desire to lie down and sleep soon became a pressing need, one that was even stronger than the hunger that assailed him. Yet both had to be ignored as he pressed on toward his journey’s end. All thought became a narrow focus on walking. Ghost light crawled and danced at the edges of his fevered vision. He squeezed his eyes shut, opened them, and then blinked again, but could not banish the dots of sickly luminescence. He tottered on.
Gradually I became aware that the ghostly light was not an illusion. It occurred in patches and in tiny moving dots. It was a pale, creamy green and sometimes a white-blue. The blue lights were the ones that moved. When one hummed up to us, hovered near my face, and then flittered away, I recognized that it was some sort of underground lightning bug. That knowledge helped me to resolve what I was seeing. The greenish patches became a glowing slime or moss on the cavern walls. The blue insects frequented such patches, eating or drinking perhaps, and adding their light to it until they were sated enough to take flight again. The softly lit patches of gentle green seemed to occur at almost regular intervals. I decided that whatever it was, moss or plant or slime, the Specks had deliberately marked their trail with it as a dim light to show the way for travelers. I admired their innovation at using such a natural material even as I wondered at their lack of planning in other regards. I thought of my own beloved cavalla, and knew that if this were a path we used frequently, there would have been caches of firewood and food. I wondered if the Specks did not care for one another in that way or if they had simply never thought of such things.
I became aware of something far more important to me. In his weariness and pain, Soldier’s Boy was focusing all of his resources on staying upright and walking.
He was not guarding against me.
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My first impulse was to attempt a coup against my oppressor and regain control of the body. Luckily, I swiftly realized that it would leave me in the position he was now occupying: feverish, full of pain, and battling hunger. But if I remained quiescent for now, it might be that he would lose even more of his wariness of me, and that when next he slept, I could at least dream-walk on my own. And so I curled small within the prison of my own body and awaited my opportunity.
CHAPTER TEN
DREAM-WALKER
Soldier’s Boy did not last long. I do not know how far we had traveled in the darkness before he gave a sudden groan and sank down. Both Olikea and Likari did what they could to ease him gently to the stony floor of the cavern. Once there, he curled into a large miserable ball. For a time, it seemed all he could do was breathe. His eyes were closed tight.
Olikea speaking to Likari and the soft sounds they made were my only clues to what was transpiring. The boy set a small fire and Olikea kindled it. The tiny warmth was more a taunt than a comfort. They tucked the blanket around him.
“Drink. Open your mouth. Your body burns with fever. You must drink. ”
Soldier’s Boy obeyed her. The liquid in his mouth and running down his dry throat was a comfort, but the small amount that splashed him seemed horribly cold. Olikea wet her hands and wiped them over his eyes, rubbing gently at his sticky eyelids. Soldier’s Boy turned away from her ministrations but nevertheless felt the comfort of them. He sighed once, heavily, and then sank into a very deep sleep.
I worried at how racked with fever my body was. That it weakened him and distracted him was an advantage to me, but I did not want to regain command of a body that was hopelessly crippled or dying. I was tempted to try to ask Olikea for more water. I was certain it would be good for me, but decided that such a bold act might call Soldier’s Boy’s attention to me. I would attempt a dream-walk first.
I felt almost a thief as I did so. His bodily resources were low. Consuming what little of his magic remained seemed a cruel trick. Even so, I gathered my strength and ventured out.
It is difficult to describe that experience. I had dream-walked before, but not deliberately and often at someone else’s summoning. It was the first time I had attempted to master the magic in such a way, and I soon discovered that I faced a challenge. While Olikea and Soldier’s Boy had tottered along, the sun had risen and the day begun. All the people I had hoped to visit via their dreams were up and about their lives. I could find them easily enough; it was not a distance I traversed. The thought of a beloved friend seemed to bring me to them, but their conscious minds were busy with other things and refused to see me.
Just as I had not been able to gain a real link with Gord the night before, so it was today with Spink and Epiny and Amzil. I was like a little buzzing fly. I could hover round their thoughts but not penetrate them. Their experience of their waking world was too strong to permit me entrance. Frustrated at trying to contact those three, I tried to think whom else I might find dozing. Yaril came to mind, and before I could decide if it were a wise course or not, I found myself inside her bedchamber at Widevale. She was napping after a hectic morning. I ventured into a dream that seemed not restful at all, for it was cluttered with things that she must do. Shimmering folds of a pale blue fabric vied with supervising the day’s washing. Something about cattle was troubling her, but most pressing of all was an image of Caulder Stiet staring at her as hopefully as an urchin staring at a store window full of sweets.
“Tell him no,” I suggested immediately. “Tell him to go away. ”
“He’s not that bad,” she said wearily. “He can be as demanding as a child, it’s true. But he is also so desperate that someone see him as manly and competent that I can steer him simply by suggesting things he must do for me to praise him in those lights. It is his uncle who wearies me the most. Rocks, rocks, rocks. They are all that man can think about. He pesters the help and asks a thousand questions a day, yet seems strangely secretive as to what it is that he is seeking. And he is most presumptuous. Yesterday, I discovered he had taken workers from repairing the drive and had them digging holes along the riverbank and bringing him buckets of rocks taken from the holes. As if he has the right to give orders on our land simply because I am betrothed to his nephew! Oh, how that man maddens me!”
I said nothing though I felt great concern. I could almost feel the press of her words, the tremendous need she had to speak of her problems to someone.
“Duril brought the problem to me because he says the work on the drive must be finished before winter, or erosion will have its way with the carriageway. So I went to Father, and he told me that women who worried about such things were usually much older and uglier than I was, and had no prospects. So I had to go to Caulder and fret and fuss about the road and how bumpy it made my carriage rides, until he went to his uncle and said that he thought it best if they did not take Duril’s workforce off his project before it was finished. And his uncle said he would only need the workers for a few more days and then they could go back to working on the driveway. As if he had the right to decide what is most important for the estate!
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“I am beginning to hate that man. He is insidious, Nevare, absolutely insidious. He manipulates Caulder with such ease, and flatters Father into thinking that Professor Stiet is a very wise man, and someone to trust. I think not. I think he sees Caulder’s marriage to me as an opportunity for him to come into a nice lifestyle. It
seems that every time I think I have control of my own life or at least some control, someone comes along to muck it up! If his uncle would only go away, I am perfectly confident that I could manage Caulder to my satisfaction. And to his, I might add. He asks little of me. All I have to do is be pretty and tell him flattering things about himself. But his uncle! I am convinced that the man plans that after I am wed to Caulder, he will settle in here and run things to his liking.
“It makes me furious, Nevare. Furious. At you. Because it is entirely your fault that this has fallen on me. I should not be dealing with any of this. If you had not let Father chase you away, if you had sent for me or come back, then, then—”
“Then everything would be all right?” I asked her gently.
“No,” she said grudgingly. “But at least I would not be alone. Nevare, it meant so much to me to hear that you are alive. I was so shocked when your note fell out of Carsina’s letter, and then I had to laugh at what a reversal that was. How many times did a note for her come concealed in a letter to me? And what an amazing twist of fate that she would be in Gettys and would renew her friendship with you, even to helping you conceal a letter to me. I wrote back to her immediately, thanking her and reminding her of our wonderful days before we so stupidly ended our friendship over a man! What fools we were! Though, in my heart, I still have not forgiven her for her ill-treatment of you, even if I was a party to it. I’ve told myself that if you have forgiven her enough to entrust her with a letter to me, then I have little reason to hold a grudge. It was such a relief to know you were alive, and that you had actually become a soldier, as you always dreamed you’d be. I long to tell Father, but I have not yet. I dream that someday you will come riding back up to the door, tall and brave in your uniform, to show him that he completely misjudged you. Oh, I miss you so much! When can you come home for a visit?”
I cursed myself for how unthinkingly I had wandered into her dream. She was not aware that she was asleep and dreaming me there, nor had she realized, as Epiny had immediately, that I had intruded into her dream in a very magical way. Epiny had been prepared to understand what was happening by reading my soldier-son journal. Yaril had only the most basic idea of what had befallen me. And with a lurch, I suddenly realized that, when the days were counted up, I had “died” less than ten days ago. Neither news of my shameful conviction for rape, murder, and unnatural acts nor news that I had been killed trying to escape would have reached her yet. The last word she would have had from me was the note I had hidden inside a letter I’d blackmailed Carsina into sending her. She had no idea that Carsina was dead of the plague, let alone that I’d been found guilty of taking liberties with her dead body. Had anyone written anything to her since I’d sent her that note? Had there been time for Spink or Epiny to send her a letter about what had become of me? I wished I’d asked Epiny, but I hadn’t, and she hadn’t mentioned it to me. A colder thought came to me. Yaril had replied to Carsina’s letter. Would Carsina’s husband think that he must respond to that note, to let his wife’s correspondent know of her sad end? I felt sickened at the thought of how he would paint me for her. I had to prepare her in case the worst happened.
“Yaril. You’re asleep and dreaming. You know I’m not really here. But this is more than an idle dream. I’m using magic to travel to your dreams and talk to you. What I am telling you is real. I’m alive, but I can’t come to you or send for you. And for now, you must not speak a word about me to Father. Or anyone else. ”
“What?” A frown wrinkled her brow. The room suddenly wavered around us. Streaks of light broke through my image of it, as if someone had suddenly opened a curtain a crack. Or fluttered her eyelashes as she dreamed. My words had been too sudden, too startling. I was waking her up.
“Yaril! Don’t wake up yet. Please. Keep your eyes closed. Stay calm and listen to me. You might receive word that I’ve disgraced myself, that I died for vicious crimes I’d committed. You might get a letter from Carsina’s husband. Don’t believe anything he says about me. It’s not true. I’m still alive. And eventually I’ll find a way to come home to you someday. Yaril? Yaril!”
The world disappeared around me, washed away in a sudden flood of light. I’d wakened her. And I had no way of knowing how much credence she’d give to the dream or even how much she would remember on awakening.
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“Yaril?” I asked desperately of the empty light. There was no reply. Doubtless her waking thoughts filled her mind and excluded any touch I might make upon her senses. I hoped I had not given her too great a fright. Would she dismiss my visit as a bizarrely vivid dream?
I had nowhere to retreat from the light and it seemed painful to me. Magic, I reminded myself, worked best in the night. It was time to go back to my body.
I had used Soldier’s Boy’s magic; he would know that when he awakened, and I suspected he’d keep a tighter watch on me after this. I’d had one opportunity to use the power of dream-walking and I’d made a mare’s nest of it. I could feel my flesh pulling me back toward it and I let myself be drawn back into my body. Soldier’s Boy slumbered on, his eyes closed. I used my ears and nose to deduce what was happening around me. I could smell smoke and hear the tiny crackling of a small fire nearby. Olikea and Likari were speaking softly to each other. Some distance ahead of us on our path, there was another fish trap in the cavern stream. The traps were woven like a basket and set in the stream’s current. Fish could swim in, but finding a way out was more difficult, especially for large fish. There might be fish in it. They were both desperately hungry. They debated softly as to whether one of them should travel ahead to check the trap and then return with fish from it, and then argued as to which of them should go. It was a wearying thing to listen to, a battle between hunger and fear of the darkness.
At the last it was decided that Olikea would go. She warned Likari not to stray too far from me, and to be sure to feed the fire, but only slowly. She would be relying on its light to find us again.
“Give him water if he asks for it, and do not leave him. ”
“What else should I do for him?”
“There is nothing you can do for him except to stay near him and give him water when he thirsts. He chose this journey of his own will; he knew what the crystal and the black water would do to him. I do not think he gave any thought as to how it might affect us. But this is what it is to be the feeder of a Great One, Likari. Great Ones do not think of their feeders, but feeders must think only of the Great Ones we serve. ”
With that last admonition, she turned and left the little boy sitting beside the tiny fire in the immense darkness. After a short time, he drew close and sat with his back braced against mine, a faithful little guardian. I was impressed with both his obedience and his courage, and touched by his loyalty. He was such a young child to be left alone in the dark, charged to take care of a sick man.
Soldier’s Boy slumbered on in his aching fever-sleep. The not-silence of the cavern settled around us. The little fire made the tiny noises of flames devouring wood. I could hear, if I strained, the distant rush of the stream in its stone channel, and the occasional buzz of one of the lightning bugs as it whispered past us. Likari gave a shiver, sighed, and settled closer against me. His breathing deepened and steadied, and then became the openmouthed snore of a small boy. Tedium set in.
It seemed all my frustrated mind could do was chew over past events and rebuke myself with my foolish mistakes. I tried to make plans for the future and could not. There was too much I didn’t know. Even if I could seize control of the body right now, it was too sickly for me to go back the way I had come. Go back to what? I asked myself dully.
When I had left Gettys, I had said that I was giving myself up to the magic and would do its will. I thought I had, when I’d attempted to block the road builders from cutting any more of the ancestor trees. Now, bereft of any other distraction, I began to wonder why Soldier’s Boy had been hoarding the
magic and what he had hoped to do with it. Plainly my squandering of it had set back his plan. But what had that plan been?
Did he truly know a way to send all the Gernians fleeing from the Barrier Mountains and the adjoining lands? What could he bring down on us that would be so terrible that the military and the settlers would withdraw and the King give up his cherished road? How ruthless was he?
With a lurch, I knew the answer to that. More ruthless than I was. He’d taken my ruthlessness. That was frightening.
I tried to recall who I had been before Tree Woman and the magic had divided me. What would I have considered too extreme a solution to the clash between the Gernians and the Specks? It was hard to think in those terms. His loyalty to the Specks seemed absolute. With such loyalty as his sole criterion, could anything be too extreme? I made my heart cold and stopped thinking of the Gernians as my people; stopped thinking of them as people at all. If they were vermin, how would I drive them away?
The answer came to me, instantly and clearly. The fear and the disease that the Specs had already unleashed on them were merely discouragement. If I were Soldier’s Boy, and I wished to destroy Gettys and make it uninhabitable, I would set fire to it. In winter, when the inhabitants had no place to take refuge. Drive them out of their homes and then pick them off. For an aching instant, I could picture Amzil and her children fleeing through snow, Epiny heavily pregnant or carrying a newborn. They could not outrun an arrow. If the Specks struck with stealth, late at night, they could pick off the fleeing victims at their leisure.
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The moment the plan came into my mind, I shuddered away from it. I locked my thoughts tight, praying he had not sensed them. I was already traitor to one folk, showing the Gernians how to drug themselves against the Speck magic to cut down the trees. I would not betray both of them to each other.