“Why shouldn’t she come with us?” another of the children asked defiantly.
“Perhaps she does not go to be banded,” hissed the plumpest of the women. “Perhaps she is a witch woman.”
The children stared at Rage solemnly.
“Don’t frighten them with foolish talk, Ramis,” the older woman said in a no-nonsense voice. “Witch women do not venture from Wildwood. This girl is clearly from one of the outer villages and is traveling with her escort to Fork to be banded. They often come in somewhat older. It was so with you, was it not, Ania?” she asked the youngest of the women.
Ania nodded meekly, but when she spoke, it was to the children. “Even if the girl is a wild thing, you have nothing to fear. You will see many wild things in the city.”
Rage heard this with puzzlement. Hadn’t the baker said that wild things were not supposed to enter keeper territory? To her delight, one of the children voiced this very question.
“The High Keeper has given wild things leave to enter Fork,” the plump woman said piously.
“But why? They’re so strange,” the girl complained.
“I do not know why, but they do no harm with their strangeness,” Ania said. The other two women stared at her askance. She shrugged. “Well, it is not as if they can draw magic from the earth without a witch woman’s help, and witch women are forbidden to cross the river.”
“They cannot be permitted to drain the other side of the river of magic as well,” said the older woman icily.
Rage blinked, wondering if she had heard correctly. The woman seemed to be saying that there was still magic on the other side of the river, although it had almost died on this side. Was it possible that magic could be in one part of a land and not another? Did it form in the ground like gold or silver? And how could the witch women have used it all up?
“I think wild things should be stopped from coming over the river,” said the plump woman. “It is so depressing to see them drifting about looking sick and starved.”
“More depressing for them to be starving, don’t you think?” Ania asked.
“The wild things are only dreams the witch folk brought into being. We should rather pity them than fear them,” said the little girl who had invited Rage to ride in the cart.
“I should not voice such opinions when you are in Fork,” advised the severe woman dryly. “Now, let us continue. I’m sorry we cannot take you and your friend,” she added to Rage. “But you ought to go along as quickly as possible.”
“There really isn’t room,” Rage pointed out when the little girl looked as if she might argue. Belatedly, it occurred to her that she was wasting a perfectly good chance to get more information. “Uh, before you go, we met another traveler who spoke of the Endless Sea. Do you know where that is?”
The plump woman snickered rather meanly. “She is from the outermost village in Valley, surely, to ask about a child’s myth as if it were a real place.”
“I heard that the wizard who made Valley had gone to the shore of the Endless Sea,” Rage persisted.
Ania opened her mouth as if to speak, then seemed to think better of it.
“I do not know where the wizard has gone, but it is said he will return when things are properly in Order again.” The severe woman spoke these words as a chant, then bid the donkey continue.
“The wild things must eat magic,” Billy said when the cart had drawn out of sight. “They’re starving because it has run out on this side of the river.”
“It’s horrible being hungry,” Elle said. “Why don’t the keepers let the witch women give them some magic from the other side of the river?”
“They’re probably afraid it will all be used up,” Billy said.
“How do you eat magic?” Goaty asked.
“How do you get it out of the ground?” Mr. Walker muttered.
Billy’s mind had been going along a different line. “I wonder what that woman meant by saying the wizard will come back when there is Order here. What is Order?”
Rage could see Billy was enjoying his new ability to think complex thoughts, but she was sick of questions with no answers. The women in the cart had laughed at her for asking about the Endless Sea, calling it a child’s myth. Rage wondered if they were going to find the answers they needed, even in Fork. She was beginning to be afraid they would never get back home and that she would never see Mam again, asleep or awake. That thought made her throat ache.
“I wonder what is over the river besides the city of Fork,” Mr. Walker said.
“A dangerous, wet land, probably,” Goaty said.
Rage lost her temper and rounded on him. “Why do you always have to imagine the worst?”
Goaty hung his head and looked so pathetic that her anger drained away. After all, she was really angry at herself for getting them into such a mess. “I’m sorry I shouted at you, but all those bad things you keep saying are like stones we have to carry. They just make everything harder.”
“I know,” Goaty mumbled. “That’s why no one wants me around. I make everyone feel bad and sad. It is because of the hole in me that comes from never having a name.”
“But you have a name.”
He looked up at her. “Would it be a name if you were called ‘girly,’ or Elle were called ‘doggy’? Goaty is not a name. It is the name given to a thing no one cares about enough to name.”
Rage swallowed hard, remembering that her grandfather had always called her “the girl.”
“We will give you a name,” Elle said enthusiastically. “What shall it be?” She looked at the rest of them.
“A name can’t be decided just like that,” Billy said admonishingly. “Naming is a serious business.” He sounded so like Mam that Rage felt perilously near to tears again.
“We will think of the right name for you,” she told Goaty thickly.
“What I want to know is how we are supposed to cross the river,” Mr. Walker muttered, for they had reached a part of the road that ran right along the very edge of the swift-flowing water.
Rage was carrying him because his little legs could no longer keep up.
“I’m sure there will be a bridge,” she said, and she was sure, for how else would the women and children in the cart get to the other side?
“There will be guards on it,” Mr. Walker said. “Rulers always have soldiers to make people obey them. The more rules, the more soldiers are needed to keep them.”
“Maybe the keepers keep their own rules,” Rage said.
But Mr. Walker shook his head authoritatively. “In stories, the makers of rules are never the ones to force people to obey them.”
“No one said anything about soldiers,” Rage said.
“Where there are rules, there are soldiers,” Mr. Walker insisted.
“I’m afraid Mr. Walker is probably right,” Billy said. “Humans are fond of rules and even fonder of giving people the power to make sure they are obeyed. Besides, there are bound to be guards at the bridge, if only to stop witch women from going over.”
Rage thought of something that one of the white-faced women had said. “How will they know I’m not a witch woman?”
Billy shrugged. “When we reach Fork, you must say you have come from one of the outer villages to be banded. I just wish we knew exactly what banding meant.”
“It’s getting metal things on your arms, like the bracelets those women in the cart wore,” Mr. Walker said. “Like getting a dog collar.”
“If that were all, what would stop witch women putting on the same sort of bands and coming to steal magic from Fork for the wild things?” Billy asked. “I think the keepers have some way of making sure magic can’t be taken from the ground, and I think the bands are part of it.”
A chill crept up Rage’s spine as she understood what Billy was trying to say. “You think being banded is more than just getting those bracelets?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
“If banding stopped women from working magic,
why would they be kept in Fork for so long?” Mr. Walker asked.
“So they can’t have daughters who might be recruited by the witches?” Rage suggested.
“Maybe,” Billy said. “Anyway, if we see anyone else on the road, we must be sure to ask about banding. When we get to Fork, they will want to band you, and we need to understand what that means.”
They did not meet anyone else until it was almost dusk, and by then Mr. Walker was asleep in Rage’s oversized coat pocket and Bear had disappeared into the trees alongside the road.
A wild-looking girl came round a bend in the road in front of them. She was flanked on either side by two coppery red winged lions, only slightly bigger than Bear in her dog form. The lions could only be wild things. Rage’s heart beat fast at the sheer wonder of them.
Goaty moaned in fright and stopped, trembling from head to cloven hoofs.
“Good dusk,” the girl greeted them in a thin, high voice. Up close it was clear that she was a wild thing, too. Her eyes were an impossible hue of violet, and her great tangle of black hair rippled as if breezes blew through it. She wore a ragged bit of a shift that showed a lot of her skinny greenish limbs, and her wrists were unadorned.
The winged lions began sniffing Billy, who laughed. “It tickles,” he said apologetically.
The sprite cocked her head at the lions. “They ask why you do not answer their greeting. And they ask what manner of thing you are.”
“I’m a dog,” Billy said.
One of the lions licked his toes, then looked at the sprite. “He says you smell like and not like a dog, as does your friend.” She pointed to Elle, who was now being examined by the lions. Fearless as ever, Elle ran her hands through their manes. The sprite laughed and danced across to caress her golden hair. “Pretty. Strong. And what are you?” she asked, coming to Goaty and tugging at his ringlets. “Soft. Pale. Half human, half beast. Are you not a wild thing?”
Goaty tried to speak, but the winged lions converged on him, and he fell into a quaking silence.
“They say you stink of fear,” the sprite said, tilting her head curiously. “You do not need to be afraid. We will not hurt you. Why don’t you come with us to Wildwood? I will make a crown of living ivy for your hair, and you shall learn to dance and ride on my friends as I do, and you will forget fear.” She threw her arms around his neck and kissed Goaty passionately on the cheek.
“Oh, please don’t eat me!” he shrieked.
“Don’t be a fool! She’s trying to kiss you, not eat you,” Mr. Walker said crossly, poking his head out of Rage’s pocket.
The sprite stared at him in delight. Sighing, Rage let him out onto the ground. The lions sniffed at him, and the sprite knelt to look at him. “I thought you one of the little people, but my friends say you are like that one and that one.” She pointed to Billy and Elle. “A not-dog.” Her face grew puzzled. “The witch women ask us to tell them of things that smell of magic but are not wild things.”
Rage felt even more wary of the witch women now that she knew they were responsible for draining magic from the land. “We are not magic, but magic has been worked against us,” she said carefully, knowing the centaur would tell the same story if the witch women asked. Better not to speak of the firecat and the hourglass. “We are looking for the wizard, to see if he can undo what has been done to us,” she added.
“The witch women also seek the wizard, for they say only he can restore magic to Valley,” the sprite said. She bent to pet Mr. Walker. “You are a pretty thing, with your soft ears and big eyes. Magic has made you into this shape, and whence comes the magic?”
“An enchanted gateway brought us here and changed us,” Mr. Walker said, twitching his ears.
“Where is this gateway?” the sprite asked. Mr. Walker started back in alarm from the sudden hunger in her eyes. The sprite looked abashed. “I did not mean to frighten you. It is just that magic is so scarce here now, and we are hungry.”
“You haven’t come from Fork?” Billy asked.
The sprite nodded. “Wild things cannot eat unless food is magicked for us, and there are no witches there. My friends and I went to the High Keeper to ask if they would not allow the witch women to come to Fork and create food for us. We had to wait a long, hungry time. Then he looked down from his seat of dead willow and said it was best that we fade, since we were never natural things and upset the Order of the land.”
“I’m sorry,” Rage said. “I wish we could help, but we really don’t have any magic.”
The sprite nodded sadly. “My friends say your words smell of the truth.” Then she stopped and listened to the lions again. “My friends say there is another….”
Bear came lumbering out of the trees lining the road, and the lions turned as one to regard her with their flaring golden eyes. Rage suddenly felt frightened that they might hurt her. But before she could say anything, she saw that the lions were merely sniffing Bear, who strangely allowed it. They then withdrew and sank on their bellies before her, purring loudly and spreading their glowing scarlet wings.
“They humble themselves before your companion,” the sprite told Rage. “They say your companion is…I do not know a word for it. Greater magic? My friends can see a little into the future, and what they see makes them honor this great dark beast. Can you not hear them?”
“I can,” Mr. Walker said with uncustomary shyness.
The sprite touched his face, then drew a deep breath. “Well, we must go back to Wildwood.” She turned to Bear and made a low, graceful curtsy. “Farewell, Great One. If I have done naught in my life but look on you, it is enough.”
The lions rose, and all three of them went on down the road.
“Well!” Elle said, staring after them. “What was all that about?” But no one answered, for they were staring at Bear.
She growled at them to leave her be. “I don’t know why those creatures acted like that. There’s nothing special about me. Nothing at all.” She turned away and went back into the trees. She disliked being in the open now, even more than when she had been a dog.
“Could you really hear those lion things talking?” Elle asked Mr. Walker, as they set off again.
“I said so, didn’t I? But it wasn’t exactly talking. It was sort of a deep, purring music. A bit like the firecat’s voice, but not so sneering and sly.”
“We should have asked that sprite about the firecat, and we forgot to ask about banding, too,” Billy said, but his eyes were on the bushes where his mother had gone.
“I don’t suppose she would have known much about banding,” Rage said. “And I don’t think we should tell anyone anything about our business anymore.”
“Maybe the firecat is a wild thing,” Elle said.
“It couldn’t be,” Billy said. “Wild things can’t work magic to feed themselves, and the firecat uses magic every time it appears.”
“Maybe it can work magic because the wizard made it, and he is more powerful than the witch women,” Mr. Walker said.
Rage said nothing. The encounter only seemed to have produced more questions. The sole interesting thing they had learned was that the witch women believed the wizard could restore the lost magic to Valley and were searching for him.
“Dangerous wild beasts,” Goaty said, looking down the road after the sprite and the winged lions.
“She was very small,” Mr. Walker said, and he sighed.
Not long after, the sun sank. They were beginning to think about finding a place to sleep when Billy pointed out an arc of light on the horizon.
“I bet the bridge to Fork is just over this rise,” Rage said, excited.
But she was wrong.
It wasn’t a bridge but a river port. Rage and her companions looked down on it from a low mound beside the road. The gray donkey and cart were tethered to a wooden pier with a hut built at the end of it. Obviously the little girls and the women in kimono dresses had already gone across the river. Rage noticed a big metal winch with thick, twisted iro
n cables stretching out across the water, which pulled the ferry across the currents to the opposite bank.
The darkness and width of the river meant that she could not see the other side. “Elle?”
“I see nothing, but I smell water and stone on the other side,” Elle reported.
“I have been thinking,” Billy said when they had been standing there staring down silently for some minutes. “The High Keeper told the sprite that wild things ought to be allowed to die because they upset Order here, and the woman in the cart said the wizard would not return until Order had been restored. What if the keepers are letting the wild things die because they think that will bring the wizard back?”
Rage stared, beginning to feel just a little bit awed by the way Billy was able to figure things out. She did not know what to say to his grim idea, but it struck her that a lot of people in Valley were looking for the missing wizard.
“Let’s go down,” Elle said impatiently. “We have done enough thinking, and talking about thinking.”
“Going down is always a bad idea,” Goaty murmured.
“I don’t think we should go down just yet,” Rage said. “Let’s wait until a boat comes.”
The others agreed. Billy suggested they travel in two groups when the time came to cross the river. “Rage will go as a human girl I am escorting to Fork to be banded, and the rest of you can pretend to be wild things,” he explained. “You can be going to plead your cause to the High Keeper, like the sprite and the winged lions.”
“I don’t want to see the High Keeper,” Goaty protested. “He sounds horrible.”
“He does,” Billy admitted. “But remember how the sprite said they were made to wait a long time to see him? He won’t see you at once, and that woman in the cart said there were lots of wild things in Fork, so they must be able to move around the town.”
Night Gate Page 7
