by Tim Lebbon
All the time she thought of Ramus, and she knew that he was thinking of her. It was not an idea that gave her peace.
LULAH HAD BEEN joking, but Ramus made a charm from Konrad's fingers.
He picked off the loose flakes of stone first, then tested to see whether they would break into small pieces. They did not. They seemed strong, which was befitting their origin. Then he cut a thin thread of leather from the bottom hem of his jacket, rolled and twisted it into a thong and tied the two fingers together. He knotted it around his neck without Lulah seeing, dropping the stone fingers inside his shirt. He was not certain what Lulah would do if she knew. It was very possible that she would kill him.
Later that night, as Lulah scouted ahead, Ramus paused and cupped the stone fingers in his hands. He breathed across them, whispering the same words that had made them. Nothing changed. In a way that comforted him. The magichala that the Widow performed followed the laws of time well, and so it seemed did these words from atop the Great Divide.
Lulah remained distant. She often rode ahead to explore their route, make sure it was safe, save time if they were heading for a ravine, deep river or some other obstacle. She never found one—none that they could not pass, at least—but she used the excuse nonetheless.
Ramus would have preferred her to ride with him. He had seen in her a kindred spirit, and he sensed it there still, though swallowed by grief and a dash of pride. He would give her time, and perhaps time would wash away some of the hurt.
Riding alone gave Ramus the opportunity to speak to the Widow.
She had been on his mind for a long time. In truth, she had been a part of him ever since he met her on his first voyage, a voice in darker times and a companion when he was lonely. He was certain that she did not cast herself this way, and yet he had given her that role. She was a wise woman who acted wiser, and it seemed to Ramus that every time he saw her she was younger, though possessed of more knowledge and exploring deeper into arcane matters that few would even consider. There was no limit to her ability to believe. Most people treated magichala as a slight against whichever god or gods they worshipped, a betrayal of natural laws as opposed to a deeper understanding of them. The Widow was a purer explorer of the mind and the powers in the land than Ramus, even though she had never traveled beyond her own mountainous home. She knew Noreela deeper, appreciated its nature more fully than he ever could.
Now he could go back to her, his imagination stretching north to her mountains. He could sit in the cave that she called home, eyes burning from the scented smoke from her fire, nose stinging as the acidic fumes were drawn in, and the Widow smiled. Tell me what you have, Ramus, she said.
I'm not sure. Something beyond magichala. Something belonging to the potential you see in the land.
Instead of being amazed, she shook her head and sighed a tunnel through the smoke. There's always a cause, she said. Always a source, a home, a well from which such things rise and spread. Because this land is far from ready, and we are young and innocent of our purposes here.
My purpose is to explore and be a discoverer.
Exploration? the Widow said. Perhaps.
Ramus whispered in his mind the words from the parchment, and the Widow's eyes went wide, the smoke from her fire slowed. But then she smiled again and the fire roared higher than ever. Tricks in the smoke, she said. Twists in your mind. Magichala is more than roots, leaves and steam-dragon teeth, and you know that, Ramus. Riding where you are, seeking what you seek, you know that there are whole new vistas waiting to be opened in the land, and in the minds of those who live upon it. But those words... do you really think they're anything other than a hex?
“Are they?” Ramus said, blinking away sunlight or staring into the night, and Lulah remained away from him.
Perhaps it was hatred. He had seen it in her eyes that first day following Konrad's death, but it had mellowed since. So perhaps that, yes, though in a waning state.
But maybe more than anything, she was afraid.
“I won't turn you to stone,” he said to her whenever they came close enough to speak.
Lulah shook her head and rode away. “You talk in your sleep.”
TWO DAYS FOLLOWING Konrad's death, they came across a band of marauders. Lulah rode back quickly to warn Ramus. She said there were maybe a hundred of them, some hauling wagons heavy with equipment, others riding fully armed. A few riders guided a small group of chained fodder: a race of fat, pale humans bred for food in the southern parts of the Pavissia Steppes. There was a way to skirt around them, but it involved a long, careful march, watching out all the time for marauder guards and preparing for attack at any moment.
It turned into a wearisome afternoon, mostly spent walking so that they could guide their horses along gulleys and through a heavily wooded area. Twice they saw marauder sentries miles out from their camp, and Lulah took this to be a sign that this was a war party, as likely to be attacked as to attack someone else. “So there are more out there,” she whispered in Ramus's ear.
By the time dusk fell, they had covered only fifteen miles, and they were more exhausted than they had yet been on the voyage. Ramus's head was thumping and his eyes swam with colors he did not know, and for a while he ranted and raged as Lulah gathered herbs and roots to make him medicine. Later, huddled together for warmth because they dared not light a fire, Lulah admitted that she feared he would curse her without knowing. “You were raving,” she said. “Just for a moment, but it was long enough. Words I didn't know came from your mouth, your hands drew the strange shapes in the air and I stuffed my ears with moss. Do I have to hear these words for them to change me? If they touch my skin, will that be enough to turn my blood to dust?”
Ramus told her he was not sure, though he knew the true power of those words. He hoped that the more he examined the parchments, the more he would understand.
They were almost across the Pavissia Steppes and there was a longer ride ahead of them, through places unmapped and landscapes unknown. They would navigate now via hearsay and tales passed by word of mouth from wanderer to wanderer, instead of using maps drawn and refined by Voyagers dedicated to the task. Everything that had happened up to now had been in a place of relative safety.
“These are the dark lands,” Lulah said as they stood on the shores of the great river. “These are places untraveled.”
“Not untraveled,” Ramus said. “Simply unknown. Doesn't that excite you?”
Lulah smiled at him, and it was the first time she had shown him anything other than resentment and fear since Konrad's death.
THEY CROSSED THE river and moved on, Ramus driving them with his silent sense of urgency. Lulah never questioned his swift food stops, his early mornings, his insistence that they cover another few miles before making camp. She rode with him, and as time went on Ramus began to believe that she really was the kindred spirit he had sensed before his words had turned Konrad to stone.
Every evening, after food and before sleep, he studied the parchment pages, fingering the charms about his neck—the bone, the stone, the fingers. He filled his journal with notes and observations, and Lulah watched from a cautious distance. He never revealed what he discovered, because in truth there was little to reveal. More words that he dared not speak. More sentences that held no meaning for him, but which perhaps would turn air to glass, rock to salt, flesh and blood to something more terrible.
Yet these words held no fear for him. He remembered them, and sometimes when he was alone he whispered them to the wind.
What did frighten him were the frequent references he found to a Sleeping God gone mad. And one line in particular that said, Never wake the fallen.
A DAY AFTER fording the river, Nomi and her Serian riders entered the first of the great forests. Some rumors held that much of the uncharted area to the south of the Pavissia Steppes was wooded, and that was part of the reason it remained uncharted. Such landscape was notoriously difficult to negotiate. At first, they found rough trails wor
n between the trees, but these soon vanished as though who- or whatever had made them had simply faded away. They took to wrapping their lead horse's chest and front legs with their leather groundsheets so that it could force its way through thickets of brambles and ferns, forging a path for them all to follow. Sometimes the going was easier, trees more spread out and the spaces in between taken with grass or purple and green moss. Other times the route became completely impassable, and they either had to turn back and retrace their steps or push left and right.
Some of the trees here were huge. Their trunks took thirty steps to walk around, and their heads were hidden so high in the canopy that they could not be seen. Thick creepers hung from tree to tree high up, swaying slightly even when there was no breeze, and Nomi saw fleeting shadows passing along these fine connecting lines. The Serians saw them too, and they looked up nervously every few beats, weapons ready. Sometimes Nomi was sure they were being followed at high level through the forests, though the shadows never resolved themselves and the followers never came.
They found several fruits dropped from one of the highest trees; round, spiked things, as large as a human head, that seemed to pulse with inner life. One of them had extruded several spiny limbs and was slowly hauling itself away from its parents' shadowy influence, searching for somewhere new and sunlit to sit, take root and grow. Some of the fruits' spines were home to dead creatures: rodents, large insects, even a few birds. The skin below these pierced animals was a bright crimson, and the spikes throbbed as they ingested blood and guts.
Many of the trees seemed to have much of their root systems exposed aboveground. Long, thick roots snaked up to a hundred steps from the trees' huge bole, and behind several trees the travelers found wide drag trails. The evidence was compelling, but though they camped close to a tree for one long afternoon, they saw no signs of movement.
Ramus would love this, Nomi thought. However much she tried, her old friend would not leave her alone.
The trunks of lightning-struck trees were often home to giant fungi that grew in wide, thick plates. Ramin carved a slab from one of these growths, but threw it away, cringing at the smell and wiping his hand for the rest of that day. The fungi displayed holes here and there the size of a fist, and Nomi saw an occasional spiny leg draw slowly back into the darkness as they passed.
The landscape was not at all even. The forests covered hills and valleys, and sometimes deep and deadly ravines were spanned and camouflaged by thick creepers and vines. More than once the lead rider stumbled and almost fell, and it was more the horses' instincts than anything else that saved them.
They found occasional signs of wanderers: old campfires, shelters built between trees, a platform constructed up in the branches that seemed more permanent. But they saw no one. Every sign they found was old, and if there were wanderers still traveling these parts, they were keeping to themselves.
And there were dangers other than the lie of the land. One morning, Noon was stung by a huge wasp, a creature the size of a small bird, and when Rhiana brought it down with an expertly fired arrow, it spat and spun on the ground, wings kicking up a storm of leaves as its stinger slapped into the soil again and again. It took Beko's boot to silence it fully, and then Rhiana sliced off its sting and squeezed the remaining poison onto a wide green leaf. Noon had already fainted by then, and the lump on the side of his neck was swelling rapidly.
Nomi felt useless as she watched the Serians work, so she sat behind Noon and cradled his head in her lap, making sure he could feel her touch on his face. She talked softly to him, hearing only moans and hisses in return. His skin grew hot.
Rhiana did something with the poison. She gathered fallen leaves, selected the few she wanted, chewed them into a paste and dripped wasp poison into the mix. Then she added a few pinches of stuff from her belt pouches. Nomi could not see what it was, and she did not ask, because the concentration on Rhiana's face was absolute.
A hundred beats after Noon had been stung, Rhiana knelt before him, short knife in one hand and the leaf holding the dark green paste in the other. She looked up at Beko and Ramin, her face stern with concern, and then pricked the swelling on Noon's neck. Blood gushed out, followed by a clearer liquid that seemed to have small shapes swimming within it. Nomi blinked quickly and bent to look closer, but the fluid had already soaked into Noon's shirt.
Rhiana nudged her aside and pressed the leaf to his wound.
He screamed for a long time.
THEY STAYED THERE for several hours while Noon recovered. His screaming dwindled to a cry, and the cry to a deep, troubled sleep. When he finally came around, the wound on his neck was little more than a vivid spot, and his skin had returned to its normal temperature. Rhiana showed him the wasp that had stung him and he examined it for some time, either fascinated or disgusted.
After eating, they moved on. Noon was weak but eager to continue, and he rode the rest of that day beside Rhiana, their bond obviously close.
_____
CAMPING IN THE forest was a nerve-wracking affair. By day it was filled with the sound of birdsong, the hum of insects and the surreptitious rustle of small creatures in the undergrowth. There were dangers—they saw more of those huge wasps, and for one long afternoon they passed through a ravine crawling with snakes—but during the day at least they were mostly visible, and avoidable.
By night the place changed into somewhere else entirely. Insect noises grew from a hum into a loud, persistent buzz, tone and volume changing as clouds of flies parted to make way for larger, less easily identifiable creatures. They saw things with wingspans the length of a person's arm, and the canopy above them was briefly lit by a vivid display of orange and yellow flames. Roasted nuts pattered down around the camp, and the shapes swooped down and plucked them from the ground almost too fast to be seen. A few were left, smoking aromatically upon fallen leaves, and when the buzzing shapes had departed, Beko collected some and handed them to Nomi. They tasted gorgeous, still warm and sweet from the cooked sap oozing from within.
Noon was still recovering from the sting, so he was allowed to rest, but the other three Serians took turns standing guard. One would stay nearby, close enough to be seen by the light of the campfire, and the others would creep into the forest and perform slow, cautious circuits of the camp.
Things called, screamed, cried, yelled, howled, bayed and buzzed, each species doing its best to outdo the next in volume and persistence. Bushes shook leaves, branches whipped back, and several times in the depths of the night, the sound of trees splintering and falling was clear in the distance. One creature—Beko identified it as a bellows ape—cried like a newborn child being slowly murdered. It was a shocking and wrenching sound, even though they knew it came from an animal and not a dying child. It bore down on the whole camp and made sleep next to impossible, and when dawn came the next morning, Nomi was still exhausted. Her sleep had been intermittent at best, and she felt ill-prepared to go on. The sun seemed to rise on a different world—a forest more inimical to humans than the day before, and more determined to eject them from beneath its sheltering canopy.
They moved off that morning feeling the comfort of known places slipping farther and farther behind.
HE IS IN the forest and it has sprung a trap on them, luring them in with the promise of mysteries too enthralling to resist, serenading them with the songs of nature, gathering them beneath its protective canopy so that the sun cannot witness its crimes. And now that dawn has come, there is no let-up in the monstrous sounds of the dark. Animals screech to one another way above the forest floor, sharing secrets that no humans should know or could understand. Things move just beyond his vision, dashing through the undergrowth with the padding of many feet. He hears them, but by the time he looks all he can see is a waving branch or the flutter of a few leaves drifting slowly groundward. Farther away trees are uprooted and thrown across the forest like leaves on the wind.
Something is coming....
He senses this throu
gh Nomi's fleeting nightmares, and he looks around desperately to see whether there is anything here he needs to know. Beko is sitting across the camp, his visage shimmering in the heat from the campfire. The other Serians are out of sight somewhere, and that realization brings a scream from the forest, and then something splashing down onto the waning fire. It's the torso of a Serian, arms, legs and head ripped off to leave streaming wounds that paint the forest red.
Before the screams can begin, something huge rumbles into the camp, shattering trees, crushing everything before it, and it is a monstrous thing made of stone, crunching down on six legs, head higher than the tallest trees, and it only has eyes for...
“NOMI!” RAMUS SHOUTED. He snapped awake and sat up, pressing one hand to his mouth to prevent another cry. The camp was quiet and the fire small but strong, and somewhere out there Lulah was circling the camp. He had decided not to sleep in his tent tonight because not seeing his surroundings made him feel even more vulnerable. Nomi, he thought, what nightmares you share with me! He supposed he should have felt elated that he scared her so—the stone thing coming at her through the trees was testament to that. But did she really think of him as such a monster?
It could have been worse. He breathed long and deep to quieten his thumping heart, and gave thanks that Nomi did not fantasize about Beko. That was one dream he had no desire to visit.
Being here seemed to be focusing Ramus's mind. Though the sickness was ever-present, ranging from a dull throb to a bright white agony, he seemed able to think around it, applying himself to problems without his creeping death putting a barrier in their way. Eight days in the forests now, and he spent much of his time whilst not traveling examining the parchment pages. He was building a vocabulary of words that he still did not quite understand, and sometimes he whispered them to the breeze, a leaf or the insects that landed on his arms. Little seemed to change, but he knew that somewhere in there lay something vital to the voyage.
