“Look to Trader!” Skye hissed.
Garth squinted in the weird light as the ponies nosed at the water. “What’s he doing?”
“Selling stuff,” Skye said. “Or getting in trouble. I don’t know which.” She handed the ponies’ ropes to Garth.
“Skye, don’t go over there,” Garth said, steadying her arm, his eyes on the men surrounding Trader.
As they watched, Trader finished her transactions. She packed her wares and turned toward them with a smile and a wink and a fistful of coins. She stopped at the kettle corn stand and moseyed back to the wagon with a cone of sugared treats.
“That was slick,” she said, munching popcorn and offering the rolled cone to Skye and Garth. “I don’t care what your witches say. I knew that fossick was worth something.”
“What did you sell them?” Garth took a handful of popcorn.
“It was all that military stuff I showed you. There was that medicine bag, and the Skell dice, a road pass, and it turns out those bits of ivory were commissary chits. I guess chits are as good as money in Bordertown, better in some of the alehouses.”
“It’s illegal to sell such items,” Skye said. “If you find chits or passes, you’re supposed to turn them in.”
“Oh, like anybody does,” Trader said, with a wave of her hand. “Really.”
As they watched, the group around the fire broke up abruptly. Indigo and Esmeralde hurried back to the wagon.
“Time to go,” Indigo said, dumping the water the ponies hadn’t drunk out on the ground. She took the leads from Skye. “Hop in.”
“We haven’t eaten yet,” Garth said, stacking the water buckets into the back of the wagon.
“Eat on the road,” Esmeralde replied, mounting the bench beside Indigo. “There’s a checkpoint up ahead at Woolen Woods, and we’ve got to get around it before dark.”
“Can’t we just pretend to be a family?’ Trader asked. “I can be a girl.”
“Apparently the Guard knows that the reason for the red sky is that the Twelve have been called,” Indigo said. “They’re looking for us, not you.”
“I told you there was an interloper,” Esmeralde muttered.
“Or an intruder.” Indigo turned to Trader. “I saw you talking to those men,” she said fiercely.
Esmeralde glowered. “If we find out you’re the one who’s been selling secrets, I’ll put a pox on you so harsh that you’ll lie in bed sweating in your sheets all summer.”
“I’ve done nothing, truly.” Trader raised her hands to show open, innocent palms.
Indigo slapped the reins and the wagon lurched forward. “You’d better be right.”
Esmeralde pointed at a lone rider up ahead, wearing a brimmed hat. “Follow him, on the bay gelding. He knows the way around.”
“Are you sure?” Skye asked.
Esmeralde nodded. “I put a pinch of truth powder in the glass of cordial I gave him.” She smiled craftily. “No one can resist my cordial. It works every time.”
“What’s the damage?” Indigo asked.
“Five pieces of Northland silver. One for each of us,” Esmeralde replied.
“Before or after?” Trader asked.
“After we make it through.” Esmeralde smiled knowingly at Trader. “If we are caught, he gets nothing.”
Trader gave a nod of approval. “Good deal,” she said.
The route around the checkpoint turned out to be a game trail, muddy and meandering. Even with a guide, it took them most of the afternoon. The wagon got mired in a rivulet that ran along the path and they all had to climb out. While Garth splashed around to the ponies’ heads and urged them through the icy water, the others pushed the wagon from behind.
The old man on the bay gelding was true to his word. Wet and tired, the group and their mud-spattered wagon finally emerged into a pasture where dairy goats were cropping new grass. Shep and Chuffer were used to such animals and paid them no mind. After the ponies were unhitched, all they wanted were the tender shoots of green timothy. The three young people watched as Esmeralde counted out five pieces of shiny Northland silver and handed them to Indigo, who lit a smoke and walked to the pasture gate with their guide. After a short discussion, the man tipped his hat and bid them farewell.
Indigo came back with directions. “He said Woolen Woods is just up the track,” Indigo pointed. “We get to the fork, and then bear left past the sheepskin tannery into town.”
Esmeralde shaded her eyes against the glare of the sun beginning to set in the dusky pink sky. “We should either stop for the night or drive straight through.”
Nodding, Indigo blew a stream of smoke. “Woolen Woods is no place to be after dark, when the mills close down and the alehouses open,” she agreed, eyeing Trader and Garth. “Not for boys, anyway.”
“I can take care of myself.” Trader shrugged. “Stop if you want, I’m game.”
“As can I,” Garth chimed in, grinning at Trader. His eyes sparkled with excitement. “I’m game, too.”
“It’s not a game,” Skye said. “So stop acting foolish.”
“What are you so mad about?” Trader asked.
“Soldiers are looking for boys,” Skye shot Trader a warning glance. “Like my brother.” She turned to Garth. ”Do you want to get taken away in a rolling cage by the Guard, like Warren did?”
Garth looked at the ground. “No,” he said, under his breath. “Come on, then,” Skye yanked him up by his elbow, and glared at Trader. “It’s time that you boys saw to the ponies.”
As Skye stalked away, Indigo glanced at Trader. Esmeralde uncorked her flask and took a nip before pulling the mead cups from her pack. “Indy, let’s relax for a bit and then move on after the horses are rested.”
“My, your call is strong,” Indigo joked.
Esmeralde poured cordial and handed a cup to Indigo. “We could be at the Southern Gate of Bordertown by tomorrow evening,” she said. “I doubt any of the others will get to Riverwalk as quickly.”
“Barring anything unforeseen,” Indigo agreed, clinking her cup against Esmeralde’s. “Like checkpoints and muddy rivers.”
“Once we step inside the city walls, you have no worries,” Trader said airily, watching the witches drink the liquor. “I know every nook and cranny in the Seven Boroughs.”
“Do you, now?” Indigo said, blowing glacier weed smoke into the air.
“Ugh.” Esmeralde waved it away.
“It’s no worse than the stink of the tannery,” Indigo said, holding her cup high. “Bottoms up!”
“I know Riverwalk, Winter Watch, Merchant’s Pass, and Artisan’s Hand like the back of my own hand,” Trader boasted. She waved her hand toward Skye and Garth. “I’m not like these country bumpkins. I was born on the streets.”
“It’s been twenty years since we’ve been inside the city walls,” Esmeralde reminded Indigo, as she wiped her mouth.
“There’s the Guard, and who knows what else, looking for us,” Indigo agreed.
Esmeralde gave Trader a crafty look. “Can you sneak us into Merchants’ Row quickly, without attracting notice?”
“Not with horses that look like that,” Trader said, pointing to the ponies being brushed by Skye and Garth.
“Forget about the mountain ponies,” Indigo threw down her smoke and stamped it out. Finding her cup empty, she reached for Esmeralde’s flask. “We’ll stable them elsewhere.”
“We have a plan,” Esmeralde’s face was flushed with cordial. “And it’s not a nice one, I’m afraid,” she said, with a tipsy smile.
“It would upset Skye,” Indigo agreed, wagging her finger, “For she is her mother’s daughter.” She let her voice drop to a whisper. “Our plan is not nice,” she told Trader. “Not nice at all.”
Trader laughed. “Well, that could be almost any plan that I’ve ever heard of. What is yours, exactly?”
Esmeralde eyed Ind
igo. “What’s the harm in speaking freely? He is just a boy.”
“No,” Indigo disagreed, with a shake of her head. “He is a turncoat and crafty. They don’t call him Traitor for nothing.”
Trader got up, climbed into the wagon, and disappeared into the bed. “Suit yourself,” she called, feigning disinterest.
Esmeralde cupped her hand and put her lips to Indigo’s ear. “There is no harm in telling him that we are going to take over the Potluck,” she hissed, her breath laced with sweet wine. “It’s the truth.”
“I know it’s true,” Indigo conceded, draining Esmeralde’s flask. “I was there when we concocted the plan.”
“We saw ourselves in a true vision. Everyone will know soon enough.”
Trader’s unruly head popped up over the sideboard of the wagon. “What kind of vision? Are you two having one right now?”
“No,” Indigo said. “We’re having drinks. You can only have a vision over a proper simmer.”
Trader turned to Esmeralde. “What’s a simmer?”
“It’s a crystal-boil where you see the future,” she explained. “You search for clues to your destiny in the steam over a dye pot.”
“We saw ourselves, and we were ruling the Potluck better than Aubergine ever did,” Indigo could not hold her tongue. “Two heads are better than one.”
“Did you notice?” Esmeralde plucked at Indigo’s sleeve. “When we conjured up our destiny, there was no need to summon all Twelve.
Smokey Jo was wrong. You can have a true vision over a simmer, even with just two of us.”
“And without Aubergine’s great pot,” Indigo added. “We used my little soup kettle and it worked just fine.”
Trader laughed out loud. “What did you see yourselves doing in the soup pot? Did you just throw on some magic knits and take over?” She pointed to Esmeralde’s Possibles Bag. “Or make them drink one of your strange potions cut with wine? Do you forget that they are witches, too?”
“Our vision was true and good,” Indigo said irritably. “All we need to do is make them our offer.”
“They will all see reason,” Esmeralde assured her. “Especially if we reach the Potluck first and assume our new roles. Aubergine is old and forgetful, and Smokey Jo is nothing more than an impish pyromaniac.”
“I thought she was born a gypsy child,” Indigo interrupted, bleary-eyed. “Or a changeling, perhaps.”
“You remember. She’s a gnome,” Esmeralde explained. “They are small, like imps. Pyromaniacs play with fire.”
“Well, she does do that.” Indigo eyed Trader. “Did you know that girl always smelled liked bacon? She could disappear into smoke.”
“And that is not someone fit to rule the Potluck when it is time for Aubergine to step down,” Esmeralde declared.
“It is time,” Indigo said solemnly.
“Past time. Thus our plan, remember?”
The wobbly witches watched Skye and Garth make their way back across the goat pasture to the wagon, leading the ponies.
“Pack up. We’re riding through, just as you wished,” Esmeralde told Skye, who smiled.
Indigo tapped Trader on the chest. “Not a word of this yet,” she warned.
Trader shrugged. “What’s in it for me?”
Indigo sized him up. “Treat the two of us well and we’ll see what’s in it for you, fossicker boy.”
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Mae shone the blazing beam straight into his eyes, then turned and fled.
CHAPTER 16
WARREN AWOKE WITH A START IN PITCH DARK, with no recollection of where he was, unsure if it was day or night. He lay wrapped in unfamiliar blankets, atop rushes rancid with age. At his feet, the fire had died to embers in an untended hearth, and all around him the air was frosty. Even beneath the musty blankets, his back felt frozen. He burrowed his fingers into the thin padding beneath his bedroll and touched ice. The day’s events came back to him and he remembered he was in Lavender Mae’s lair, a cavern deep in the Northland Glacier.
With a yawn, Warren wiped the sleep from his eyes. It seemed to him that the years had not treated Mae as well as they had his mother. At some point, maybe not so long ago, Mae had clearly lost her mind. He assumed that she had been affected gradually, beginning when she had stumbled upon the legendary Crystal Caves while searching for the lost crystal. Warren put together scraps of information from his mother’s stories. Perhaps the familiars called Watchers or even the ancients themselves had cursed Mae for trespassing, plaguing her mind with their reawakened voices. He imagined that eventually their incessant murmurings had overpowered Mae’s sense of herself and driven her crazy.
From the legends his mother had told, Warren knew of the First Folk, who lay entombed in a vast chamber beyond the enchanted caves of colored rock. According to legend, they had perished in an age of ice, taking the remnants of their civilization and the secrets of the magic crystals with them. For years, fossickers and adventurers from all the lands had searched for the entrance to the mystical Crystal Caves. Most did not return. Those who did had failed to find a way in. As far as Warren knew, no one but Mae had come back from the frozen caverns alive, if he could call her madness living.
As he recalled where he was, Warren remembered that he had made a promise generated by what now seemed like shortsighted chivalry. He had promised Mae that he would safeguard her back to the only one he believed could help her, and that was the Potluck witch, Aubergine. Even though practical magic was now a lost art, and using it was an offense that would get a person jailed, during his training at the garrison Warren had learned that many still called Aubergine the Potluck Queen—usually derisively, and never to her face. At the garrison, the recruits’ whispered joke in the barracks at night was that the Dark Queen sought to rule everything that the Potluck Queen and her half-pint sidekick had not already lost or misplaced over the years.
However, Warren had also learned that there was a strange connection between Aubergine and the Northland Guard, because the old knitting witch had been seen entering the garrison late at night. Rumors abounded that she secretly ruled the last magical stronghold in the Middlelands; although most folk believed she only ran a yarn shop.
Warren threw off his dank covers and sat up, as his eyes adjusted to the layers of gloom in the cave. He recalled that he had intended to take a short afternoon nap, before beginning the southern trek to Bordertown with Mae under the cover of darkness. The fact that he was hungry and had to empty his bladder led him to believe exhaustion had taken over, and that he had slept much longer than he intended. He groped for the glowing rock that Mae had given him to light their path through the winding tunnels of the glacier. The chunk of pink quartz was gone. So, he feared, was Mae.
“Mae,” he called, crouching on all fours as he slapped around blindly for her bedroll. When he reached it, he found the rumpled blankets empty and the sheets without any trace of warmth. His hand closed around Mae’s wool afghan, a curious knit patchwork of mitered squares constructed in garter stitch from odd balls of yarn that Mae had collected over the years. When she had taken the blanket from the chair by the fire it had looked smaller than a lap robe, but when she lay down to sleep, it covered her entire body.
The base magic within simple household things knit from crystal-dyed yarn had always amazed Warren. Mae was not a talented fiber artist—that was obvious. A child could have patched together the afghan. But she had apparently colored the wool with ground crystal mixed with boiling glacier water, something he had seen his mother do many times, and which he knew gave the patchwork piece a little power. Now that the afghan was unneeded, it had become no bigger than a baby’s blanket.
Warren realized that his offer to guide Mae, although gallant, might turn into complete fol
ly if he tried to carry it out. He was branded a deserter, with a price on his head. Besides, how could he protect Mae when he couldn’t even keep track of her in the ice caves? He had never met Aubergine, nor did he know his way around Bordertown. That settlement was huge, divided into boroughs that ran from the town center like wagon spokes. He had no clue which of the seven pie-shaped districts housed Aubergine’s shop. In Bordertown, he was only familiar with the borough of Winter Watch, which was closest to the garrison. Wandering unfamiliar neighborhoods with a cackling crone, while searching for a knitting witch who lived behind a defunct yarn shop, would shift more than a few glances his way. Warren heaved a sigh. He would have to come up with a different way to save Mae.
But first he had to find her.
His fingers strayed across the abandoned pile of coats and tunics that Mae had worn on the battlefield—was that earlier today, or already yesterday? He felt a uniform sleeve, festooned with pins and emblems. What if Mae was scavenging again? Worse yet, what if she had been lured off toward the Crystal Caves by the voices of the dead?
How could he find Mae without losing himself? He needed the old witch as much as she needed him, and perhaps more. Alone, he couldn’t even retrace his steps and get out of here.
If she had ventured into the Crystal Caves, he could do nothing for her. Even if he could find her, he had no defense against the Watchers or the dead who lightly slumbered. What if he disturbed some of the ancients and they invaded his mind as well? The only knitted thing that might ward off danger was the furry watch cap Mae had given him. But he didn’t know if it contained any crystalline magic at all.
Warren stood and felt his way to the mouth of the cave. “Mae!” he called, but the only answer was his own voice echoing, “Mae, Mae, Mae, Mae, Mae,” in lessening waves until her name was only a dark whisper.
The Broken Circle: Yarns of the Knitting Witches Page 22
