The Wayfinder

by Darcy Pattison

  Finder’s Hall was silent except for snores until late afternoon. The mists had thinned in the noon sun, giving a block or two visibility. Win spent the afternoon in Finder’s Square gossiping with the other apprentices about their assignments the night before and answering the teasing about Kira’s outracing him. As evening fell, thick milky white clouds billowed out of the Rift, swirling and twirling, swallowing up the buildings and leaving households isolated in the f’giz again—time for Wayfinders to work. The apprentices wandered back to Finder’s Hall.

  Hazel, who was pulling hot loaves from the oven, caught Win as he passed through. “I haven’t seen Zanna lately. She’s probably up in the Apprentice Dorm. Find her and bring her to me.”

  Win expected Zanna to be in Finder’s Hall or somewhere very near. He concentrated on her face: wide brown eyes, cheerful smile and golden curls. Finding a missing person came easily now, especially when it was a person with whom he was so familiar.

  Win frowned. The Finding was distinct and clear. Zanna wasn’t in Finder’s Hall or even in Finder’s Square. She was somewhere down in the city—probably at Roberto’s stall, looking for rabbit. Win’s stomach hurt in a hollow feeling that no stew could cure. With no Finding skills, Zanna would be waiting somewhere—white-faced and tense—until he came in to Find her, to lead her home to supper.

  He opened the door of Finder’s Hall and started out. He stopped, almost panicking.

  Zanna was moving.

  Why didn’t she stop and wait to be Found?

  Win pulled a cloak over his robe and grabbed a lantern. He followed the Finding through the twisting streets, through the cloying floral smell of the Rift mists. Landmarks were impossible to identify in the fog, but Win moved with confidence. For thirty minutes the Finding led him through upper G’il Rim, past the vacant market stalls, and into lower G’il Rim. His stomach cramped harder. If she had stopped and waited, he would have Found her by now. Was she expecting the mists to disappear as quickly as they came?

  A shrouded shaped appeared. It was a giant wolf, distorted by the mists so that it appeared to have more than one head floating over its body. Win leaped aside. What did it mean? But the mist wolf disappeared as quickly as it appeared, leaving Win to wonder if it had been real or just a f’giz phenomenon.

  Win took a deep breath and shivered. Where was Zanna?

  He picked up the pace now, running cautiously but quickly toward Zanna. Large wooden doors appeared before him. K’il Rus, the main gate to the city! They were barred, but a small wooden side door was ajar.

  “She’s left the city! Doesn’t she know how dangerous that is?” he blurted into the mists. Briefly he considered getting another Finder to help, but the Finding was still strong. He just didn’t like wandering outside G’il Rim in the f’giz. What was she doing outside the gate? Checking on rabbit snares? Surely not. Or was she so lost she didn’t know this was the city’s main gate? Had she gone f’giz crazy?

  Win focused harder on the Finding and broke into a trot. “She can’t be far. I’ll catch up soon,” he told himself.

  He shook his head vehemently. She shouldn’t be moving!

  The Finding grew sharper as it led him around the edge of the city walls. The heady Rift flower smells mingled with his own pungent sweat. The Rift was closer and closer.

  Zanna was still moving!

  Win trotted farther along the city wall, his footsteps muffled by the sandy soil and the blanket of fog. The lantern creaked in Win’s hand. The Finding was almost smothering him, in a familiar feeling that meant she must be close.

  “Zanna!” he called.

  The cry was curiously hollow, the moist white fog eating the words.

  Win’s Finder’s sense told him two things: Zanna was very near, and so was the Rift’s edge. Win inched forward, unsure of his footing. He tested each step, making sure it was safe before he shifted his weight.

  The lantern light caught her face. Zanna was two steps in front of him, and the mists swirled around her feet. Her curly hair hung limp. Condensed water droplets glistened on her face and short eyebrows. For a moment he wasn’t sure if she was real or just a f’giz illusion. Zanna looked up, startled. She blinked her brown eyes, and Win knew it was really his sister.

  They were on the very brink of the Rift itself, and his sister stood on a small rock that curved and jutted out over the Rift. Between them was empty space. A sudden rush of blood made Win swoon with dizziness. He swayed. Fear gripped him, holding him paralyzed.

  Finder’s Hall was built on the very edge of the Rift, and the upper windows overlooked the chasm. Apprentices thought they had to show their courage by hanging out the windows, throwing rocks at the Rift eagles, or challenging one another with foolish pranks. Win had watched these games all his life and thought nothing of them—until he became an apprentice. Kira had tossed her long braids behind her back and said, “I dare you to walk the ledge from one window to another.”

  Then she had proceeded to show him how it was done, by nimbly dancing across the ledge.

  Win had tried, but he froze when his foot crossed the threshold of the window. He could never explain to Kira the panic that gripped him. Waves of terror rose from somewhere inside him. He felt compelled to jump. He didn’t want to jump; he wanted to live. But he knew if he put his other foot outside the window, he would leap into the Rift. He would fall and fall and fall and fall.

  Zanna was tempting fate, challenging death.

  He tried to move. He staggered forward a half step. Words moved out of his mouth in slow motion. “Zaaanna! Dooon’t mooove!”

  He took another tentative shuffle step toward her.

  “Win, I knew you’d come.” With a sob Zanna reached to catch his hand. She took a single step through the billowing clouds.

  Without a sound she plunged out of sight.

  “Zanna!” Win dropped the lantern and lunged for where she had been. He fell, his arms hanging off the edge of the Rift. The stone cliff cut sharply into his chest. He peered helplessly into the rising mists.

  She was gone.

  His arms dangling in midair, Win lay numb with shock. For long seconds the Finding followed Zanna as she fell. Then the Finding was gone: it simply disappeared. Instead he felt nothing, a void. He had failed. He had been just one second too late. Another Finder would have made Zanna understand she shouldn’t move. But he had been paralyzed with fear for a split second. He had been too late.

  THE BELL

  The Finder’s Bell led Win home. After he lay on the rim of the Rift in the cold and fog for a long time, the chill crept through even his wool cloak. Win didn’t want to move, but the Bell kept tolling and tolling. It was calling him to do something.

  Leave me alone!

  The Bell tolled louder. It demanded an answer; it commanded him to do something.

  Where was Zanna?

  The Bell wouldn’t stop tolling. Win forced himself to get up and answer the call.

  A three-foot-thick sandstone wall separated the Finders’ section of town from the jumble of shops, tangled streets, and cramped stone houses below them in G’il Rim. Because it was the oldest part of the city, no one knew who had built the wall or where the Finder’s Bell had been forged. Three gates and numerous doors penetrated the Finder’s Wall. The largest gate, K’il Bell, had worn, wooden doors, which dangled slightly askew. Above the gate in an arched alcove hung the Bell. It was a two-foot in diameter brass bell, dusty gold but tinged green around the edges. There was a long clapper, but no rope to ring it. Sometimes a child from outside—never a Finder’s child—threw a rock at the bell, making it chime with a whispered sound that hinted at a full, resonant toll if the Bell were ever really rung. But the Bell was always silent—unless you were a Finder. Then you heard it ringing in your head.

  The Finder’s Bell was the first thing an apprentice was taught to Find. The apprentices were taken out into the city and had to Find their way home by concentrating on Finding the Bell. No Finders were born to the g
uild; they came to it because of their innate ability to locate objects, a talent that had to be tutored and developed. This usually meant five years as an apprentice in Finder’s Hall, with increasingly difficult tasks set by Hazel, Eli and the Finder’s Council.

  Win couldn’t explain to a non-Finder how he knew the Bell’s location. He just knew as if the Bell were ringing and he had only to follow the silent tolling. Once he concentrated on Finding the Bell, there became only two directions: toward the Bell or away from the Bell. Normal directions of north, south, east and west, or right or left, became meaningless. He couldn’t give directions on how to get to the Bell, but for a copper coin he could lead anyone to it.

  Win didn’t remember walking back to K’il Bell Gate; he only remembered the numbing cold and the incessant tolling of the Bell. How had he gotten all the way to the Bell? And where was Zanna?

  Hazel and Eli found him huddled just inside the gate.

  “Where’s Zanna?” Eli shook him roughly. “I can’t get a Finding on her. Where is she?”

  Win could only stare at his stepfather’s face: weathered cheeks, iron gray mane and eyes that lit up only when Zanna was around. But Zanna was—

  He turned and buried his face in Hazel’s soft shoulder.

  Eli pulled at his cloak and again demanded, “Where is Zanna?”

  Tears streamed down Hazel’s face. “He’s in shock. There’s no Finding for Zanna, and you know what that means. She’s beyond our help. It’s Win who needs us now. Let’s get him back to Finder’s Hall.”

  But Eli fled into the mists, leaving Hazel to care for Win.

  The Bell had saved Win’s life that night. He wished it hadn’t.

  Part II

  THE DENIAL

  THE WELL

  Six weeks later the dry season was hard upon the Heartland. From the beaches of Munir Lake to the Jamila Kennels of the royal gazehounds in G’il Dan, the capital city, and across the G’il Bab Mountains to the Great Rift, the land was parched. Of course, every year had a dry season, but this was the worst in eighteen years, or so Hazel said. Crops dried, withered, mummified. Well water sank lower and lower until some wells gave only damp sand. Gritty, tasteless dust blew into every cooking pot and covered every surface.

  In G’il Rim everyone avoided the heat of the day, staying inside the thick stone buildings or searching for a scrap of shade in which to sleep. In the relative cool of late afternoon, sluggish foot traffic began again, usually with those lining up to draw well water. The line at Finder’s Well stretched halfway around Finder’s Square. Win stalked across the dusty square, carrying a yoke with four empty buckets. They weren’t heavy, but he waddled to keep them from banging against his legs. He was tall and muscular, like the wrestlers who came to town with the caravans twice a year. The last caravan had brought a young wrestler, and Win had almost beaten him. After they’d left, he vowed he’d be ready to fight when the next caravan came. That had been before. Now Win had no ambition beyond surviving each day.

  He walked alone. No one spoke to him, met his eyes, or even acknowledged his existence. Six weeks ago, he had failed both himself and the Finders’ Guild when he let Zanna fall to her death. Everyone knew of his failure. Everyone except Kira and Hazel ignored him.

  The line was long, and Win waited, staring at nothing, silent and aloof. He inched along the square until, just as the sun was setting, he was finally close to the well. The five people ahead of him crowded one another slightly, leaving a wide berth around Win, so he wouldn’t touch any of them.

  The windlass creaked as the rope uncoiled and a bucket dropped to the water below. Win shifted his yoke from one shoulder to the other. With the sleeve of his robe he wiped sweat from his brow. Win licked his lips. He was thirsty. He hated the heat, but he was also grateful for it because the dreaded mists didn’t rise out of the Rift during the dry season.

  The Rift dominated the city. G’il Rim was at the southwest edge of the Heartland and was separated from the rest of the land by the G’il Bab mountain range. From the range to the Rift was a wide, arid plateau that took three days to cross. The outpost city perched on the cliffs above the Great Rift where it had served as a first line of defense against invasions by the fierce Zendi from the south. No one feared invasion from the west since the Rift was an insurmountable barrier. Yet it was the vastness of the Rift, a canyon so wide and deep no one had ever crossed, and its majestic grandeur that commanded the most attention.

  On a clear day the far side of the Rift shimmered in and out of focus like a mirage, beckoning and then hiding itself. The Rift’s bottom was equally mysterious. It was so deep only a ribbon of water could be seen glinting far below; the existence of a river was a thing of wonder for Win, who had always lived in a desert.

  At least during the dry season, you could see the Rift and understand the danger. The heat was a thousand times better than the mists.

  The well rope creaked again and Win inched forward toward the sandstone well. He did very little these days except haul water for Finder’s Hall. He heard the other apprentices talking about their assignments. He even got excited when Kira was made a full-fledged Finder, and her first job was to escort Mistress Porter, the mayor’s wife, to see her grandchild’s birth in the middle of the night. Win wanted to slap her on the back and congratulate her as the other apprentices were doing, but he couldn’t make himself crawl out of his cocoon of silence. He couldn’t make himself move fast enough to do anything.

  The water line shifted again. Only one more ahead of him.

  Win wondered if the Finder’s Well would go dry before the rainy season. He’d heard that down in the city one well was already dry. But the Finders had the best section of the city, including the deepest well.

  The man in front of Win dropped his bucket into the well. Win leaned over the wall and drank in the cool, soothing air that rose to strike his dusty face. The bucket splashed far below them, and Win thought the sound of water was more beautiful than even Hazel’s voice.

  Squeak, creak. The windlass cranked up the full bucket. The man paused to catch his breath. Dark patches of sweat stained the armpits of his tunic. Then he cranked again, more slowly than ever.

  Win licked his salty lips again. His turn next.

  Eli strode rapidly through the gate into Finder’s Square. He wore his red-and-white pin-striped robes identifying him as Head Finder. He waved to the nearest Finders and stopped under a scrawny oak on the other side of the square. Even from a distance Win thought Eli looked older, his face more lined than six weeks ago. A crowd gathered quickly around Eli, who at six feet tall towered over the others. He talked, emphasizing what he said with broad waves and jabbing fingers, and his listeners shouted in excitement.

  Win lowered his eyes to the well. Eli hadn’t spoken to him since that fateful night and would only be angry if he saw Win. Besides, Win didn’t want to be drawn into any excitement. Slowly the water bucket rose. A shaft of light from the setting sun glinted off the clear, cold water. The dark wood of the bucket was tinged green from moss growing along the cracks between staves.

  He looked up again at a new murmur from the crowd. The four oldest Finders, who also wore pin-striped robes, hurried across the square to Eli. Together the five of them were loosely called the Council, the Finders who made decisions for their square and their guild.

  Eli raised his hand for silence and boomed out in a voice that carried across the square, “A caravan is coming in tonight. Everyone works! A nobleman is with them, too. He sent me a letter. Wants to be sure I meet him at the K’il Rus Gage.”

  Win was intrigued in spite of himself. Who’s the nobleman? What time is the caravan coming? How many wagons?

  The windlass creaked so loudly he couldn’t hear Eli. He stopped cranking.

  “He says he needs a Wayfinder to guide him into the Rift,” Eli said. He slapped a hand across the yellow scroll, and a chunk of broken red wax seal fell into the dust.

  Someone wanted to go into the Rift? Impos
sible! Win licked his cracked lips, tasting blood.

  Zeke, the oldest Finder, stroked his beard, which was yellow-brown from the dust. He finally answered, “We’ll send no Wayfinder into the Rift.”

  “All agreed?” asked Eli. His piercing gaze took in not just the four members of the council but also those Finders near him.

  All four members of the council nodded solemnly, and there was a murmur of assent from the crowd as well.

  Eli raised his voice. “The caravan will be here at nightfall. I want every Finder to meet it. Be at the K’il Rus Gate or on the wall within the hour.”

  He pushed his way through the crowd and disappeared around the corner.

  Win strained to turn the rusty windlass again, trying not to think about the caravan. Even this simple effort of drawing water was difficult. He drew up the water bucket and emptied it into his bucket. Then he dropped the water bucket into the well again, listening for the distant splash. He worked until all four buckets were full. Then he bent to the yoke, heaved it only his shoulders, and trudged across the hot square, his sandals kicking up dust. Hazel will get me out of work tonight. She’ll know what to do, he thought.

  At Finder’s Hall, Win switched two full water buckets for the empty ones by the fire.

  Hazel was bent over a wooden board, chopping garlic, which was added to everything during the dry season as a ward against the fevers that the heat brought. Hazel straightened, catching at her back as she did. Her face was flushed, and her hair curled in wisps around her face. “Did you hear the news? A caravan! There will be work for everyone. With any luck it’ll be a long night of work. We need it. The dry season is a dry time for Finders, too.”

  “I’ll stay and tend the fire and pot,” Win said quickly. He picked up a long wooden spoon from the table.

  “No, you won’t.” Eli’s broad shoulders filled the doorway. “You either work tonight like every other ‘prentice in Finder’s Hall or don’t come back to Finder’s Square.”