by Dana Davis
“Then you’ve decided to ride?”
The flaxen-haired girl glanced at the others. Maesa and Henny’s jaws had dropped in a comical manner and Saldia shook her head, trying to keep a chuckle at bay.
“Yes. I’ll ride.” That innocent face pleaded with the Gypsy and Saldia felt a pang of sympathy. Must’ve been so difficult for such an inexperienced girl, who obviously came from money and a soft life. “Please don’t tie me to that beast.”
The Gypsy nodded. “Put the rope away, Eletha.”
The little woman looked sincerely disappointed. Kal helped Adelsik into her saddle, while Saldia held the reigns of the small mare.
Haranda placed a hand on Adelsik’s knee and gazed up at that doll-like face. “Keep your feet in the stirrups and don’t grip the reins so tight. Just give them an easy tug where you want her to go. Master Flindering said she’s very gentle and good at following my stallion. Remember to use your knees to keep from slipping, not your hands. You’ll be all right, youngling.”
Adelsik nodded and they started off again.
Saldia had to admit the girl did very well with Haranda’s instructions. Maesa must’ve taken the Gypsy’s advice too, because she looked more in control on her mount.
The group traveled a while in silence, and Saldia enjoyed listening to her own thoughts for a change. Her mind skipped here and there, wondering about Gypsies and her own future, a leisure she didn’t often have. At least, not until now.
It wasn’t long before Maesa began whining about her saddle-sore backside and aching legs, though. Sharp head movements gave her a comical appearance atop her gelding. She looked as though she waited for an assault from any direction. Probably from Eletha. The little woman simply grinned at Maesa’s misery.
Haranda ignored the whining, but Saldia wanted to throttle Maesa and force her quiet. The cloudless sky made the cool day bright, and she found herself squinting to the point of a headache. The road they followed ran alongside Frog River. At least, that’s what the old farm couple called it. She’d counted numerous grasshoppers but hadn’t seen or heard a single frog. Not many traveled this road anymore but it led to the sea, and Haranda seemed determined to get them there no matter what obstacles presented themselves.
“Haranda?” Eletha called to the front. “Why exactly are we going to the ocean?”
The Gypsy twisted in her saddle. “Because that’s where we need to be.” She turned back and her chestnut hair swung side to side.
“That’s a bloody slippery answer,” Eletha grumbled, but Haranda didn’t seem to hear.
Saldia had to agree with the little woman. Haranda had been evasive about this trip, as well as other things. All she would tell them was that they had to get to the shore and find the entrance to the Land of the Goddess. How the Gypsy knew where to look still intrigued Saldia.
Realization took hold of her again as she let her thoughts wander toward the future. Her heart suddenly pounded at her ribs. Blazes! She was going to meet the other Gypsies, become one of them.
She only hoped her fantasies of them matched reality.
Chapter 4
The sight had been a blessing and a curse from his mother’s side of the family, and Thad Macwinnough vowed to assist others like himself before he went mad and died.
His latest vision led him to yet another village in Tandiar Province. A young lad, not much taller than the back of a farm chair, also possessed the sight. Thad cursed the vision because he had no idea exactly where along Tandiar River this village lay. One looked much like the next, very similar to his own village of Solinar. The wide river stretched for miles, nearly all of its banks filled with one village or another.
These small, separate communities prompted trade along the river. Marriage arrangements between villages were not unheard of either. Young people had a tendency to give in to their desires, and some of those marriages, no doubt, happened in haste before the bride’s belly swelled to a noticeable size. Thad had seen lasses as young as fifteen saddled with a little-un or two, something he felt strongly against. As a healer, he knew what pregnancy and childbirth could do to a mature body and didn’t wish that suffering on any lass barely into her bleeding years. Not everyone shared his beliefs.
In the tiny village of Jaspin, where he now traveled, little-uns trekked back and forth, carrying water from the river to the thatched-roof houses, where women and older lasses hung laundry on lines between trees. Elderly men and women sat on porches and attended to snapping beans or whittling, anything their old hands could manage. Those too young to work, played in the dirt at their mother’s feet, and babes squirmed in woven baskets. The able men and older lads hunted and chopped wood in the forests behind the village and across the river. Those here took little notice of him, other than an occasional nod as he rode by.
He searched for the little, wide-eyed face he’d seen in his vision and dug heels into his mare’s side, his cloak snapping in the wind. His only hope was to find the lad and teach what he knew, in hopes of sparing him a future of madness and early death.
Thad’s mother had developed the sight by the time she was twenty and hadn’t lived beyond twenty-four. Madness had taken her, and the strain eventually stopped her heart, but not before aging her far beyond her years. People in Tandiar Province kept to themselves when it came to discussions about the sight. Thad didn’t find out what had killed his mother until he developed the sight three years ago. His father told him everything he could remember, especially how rare it was for someone with the sight to bear a child, much less a child who also inherited that gift. The next harvest, his father was crushed by a felled tree. Thad got there too late to save him. He had no siblings, so he sold his father’s farm and worked for his uncle until the visions brought him here.
Since no other person in Tandiar Province had the sight, at least that he knew of, no one could help him discover the triumphs and defeats of the cursed gift, and visions were only one aspect. He remembered well when they started, just before his eighteenth birthday. He thought he had gone mad. The healing power he also possessed had caused him to lose his stomach on numerous occasions, until he learned some control. His ability to push a miniscule ball of light from his fingertips, useful to illuminate a darkened path, didn’t seem much good for anything else, since that was the only thing he could manage. And that tiny light had taken him several moon cycles to master.
All in all, it had taken Thad these three years of trial and much error to get some control over the sight. In those seasons, the strain of self-learning had been great and his lined face was the result. At almost twenty-one, he looked years older and many days felt that way. His only hope was to find the dark-eyed woman he’d seen in his visions. And to give the lad any chance of survival, he must take him along.
The mare stumbled and Thad cursed as he pulled the reins and dismounted. Quick hands probed the leg, hoof and shoe. When he pulled the sight from the ground beneath, awareness of everything around him assaulted his senses. He had learned to distinguish people from other life but not one person from the next. Children were smaller pulses, slighter creations of heat to his senses, but there were so many along the river that he couldn’t find the boy this way. He used the sight to probe the mare’s leg for a break and no longer winced as his mind pushed through flesh, sinew, blood and bone. That part had been especially difficult for him at first. Looking into a person’s innards didn’t pacify a weak stomach.
He pulled the sight back into his body and let it flow into the earth, taking the awareness with it. “No break, Fern.” One hand patted the brown mare’s neck then he stood, stretched and adjusted his cloak. The air was now quite cool along the river, especially at night.
He decided to walk but hadn’t pulled the mare more than twenty paces when a vision found him. Awareness flooded his senses as blood rushed through his veins. Visions always entered unannounced and he had no control over how long they lasted. He stopped and stared toward the river as the image of a woman pervaded h
is mind. This dark-eyed woman—he had seen her in other visions—wore a long cloak over her peasant dress as she stoked a fire. He thought her nice to look at, curved and padded where a woman should be, and he wondered when they would meet. She stood near a cave on a deserted beach, a cave marked by shimmering stone, and her chestnut hair shifted in the breeze. The vision faded, leaving Thad with the familiar desire to find solitude, and he was thankful that he traveled alone.
The sun loomed overhead now and his stomach rumbled. The sight made him ravenous on occasion but right now he simply hungered for midday meal. His mare chewed an apple then he lingered long enough for her to take a drink from the river before continuing on foot. He dug bread and dried fish from his saddlebag but didn’t bother to stop to eat.
Once he had finished his meal and was about to climb into the saddle again, he saw the lad from his vision hunched over a lip of the river. The little-un shivered and vomited.
“It begins.”
The convulsing lad seemed not to notice him, even when he placed a hand on the small back. Bones greeted his touch and he shook his head. He pulled the sight from the earth below and hesitated as a flickering heat emanated from the lad and tickled his senses. Curious, since no other person ever felt that way to him. Perhaps that flicker came from the lad’s sight. Stranger things had happened. He pushed into the undernourished body but found nothing other than hunger and a few healing welts and bruises.
After two more retches, the lad dipped his hands in the river, rinsed his mouth and spit, then swiped a skinny arm across his eyes, large brown eyes that looked up at Thad. “I know you. That a fact.”
Thad lost count of the times he’d emptied his stomach when the visions first began to assault his mind. He nodded at the young lad and bent to one knee. “I know you from my visions too. My name Thad Macwinnough.”
“My name Nym Fargoodes.” A skinny finger poked the bony chest.
“Where your family, Nym?” Thad could scoop him up and take off like the wind on a winter’s day, but he would do better to get permission from whoever took care of the lad.
Nym lowered his head and twisted his hands together. “Fada not want me.”
So, this one was a throwaway, and not very well treated from the welts and bruises visible on his half-exposed limbs. Thad placed a hand on the lad’s head. The blonde hair was brown from dirt and stiff from days or weeks without washing.
“I want you, Nym.” Thad used the sight to check for lice. Surprisingly, Nym’s scalp was varmint free. “Came a long way to find you. That a fact.”
A bath could wait until they stopped for the night and so could a healing. Patients always fell asleep when Thad healed, had ever since he began using that part of his sight, which he performed mainly on farm animals and a few grateful poor who couldn’t afford the local healer. He had healed a few who were in a serious way. They never suspected him because he would leave a bit of the injury or illness to mend naturally. That way he didn’t need to offer explanations when someone recovered. Most took his help as a blessing from the gods, especially the two birthing women he had saved.
Nym pinched one eye shut as he gazed up. “You want me?”
“Of course, lad. That why I came.” Nym’s face lit up and he smiled. A space revealed a missing bottom tooth. So young. Thad smiled back. “How old are you, lad?”
“Nine.”
That should have surprised him but it didn’t. Little-uns often grew slower without enough food and care. He had learned that from his mother before she died. He was very young then, only four, yet he remembered. His mother had been a healer in his village and used the sight to help people, until it consumed her and drove her mad. Thad found her in her bed one morning. Her heart had given out. Of course, he didn’t know those details until much later, when his father could talk about her without weeping.
“That your horse?” Nym stepped to the mare.
“Yes. Like to ride with me?”
“Oh, yes, Thad. I’d like that very much. My fada never let me on no horse. Said I was so stupid I’d fall off and bust my crown.”
Thad clenched his jaw as anger pervaded him. That a grown person, especially a parent, could tell such a thing to a little-un. He took Nym by the shoulders and felt protruding bones beneath the stained tunic. “Now, you listen to me, Nym. You’re not stupid. You understand?”
“But Fada said—”
“I don’t care what your bloody—what your fada said.” He calmed his voice when Nym flinched. “He wrong. You have the sight, Nym, and the sight come to those smart enough to do good with it.”
Those innocent, wide eyes studied him. “I’m smart?”
“Yes, Nym. You’re a smart lad and you’ll be smart to come with me.”
“To the others? To the pretty woman?”
So, Nym had seen her in one of his visions. “Yes, to the pretty woman.” Thad smiled. “And we’re going on Fern here.” He indicated the mare with one hand and held out the other to Nym as he stood.
“That her name? Fern?”
“Yes.”
“That a fair name, Thad.”
“I thought so when I gave it to her.” He reached into his saddlebag for food. “Now, before we leave, you need to eat.” He opened the cloth with bread and cheese and offered some to Nym. The lad snatched up the food and began to shove it into his mouth, and Thad stopped him with a gentle touch. “Eat slow or your stomach will end up in the river again.”
Nym nodded and Thad wanted to curse the hunger he saw in the lad’s eyes. “I have plenty of food and there’ll be more where we’re headed. I won’t let you go hungry. That a fact.” At least he could keep them fed if nothing else. He was a good fisherman and a fair hunter.
He had Nym sit on a large rock to eat. When the lad finished, Thad gave him two dried apricots. He didn’t dare offer more food. Nym would probably eat until his stomach protested in an attempt to ward off future hunger.
Apricots made the lad grin harder and he took a bite. “That good.” With dirty fingers, he tucked them into his tunic pocket as though they were gold.
Thad smirked and shook his head. The lad would most likely stuff portions into his pockets just in case there were no meals ahead, no matter how much Thad reassured him.
“Now drink, lad, and we’ll be on our way.” He led Nym to the riverbank and allowed him to drink, while he filled his water bag and looped the strap over his saddle horn. Then he took a leather pouch that protruded from Nym’s breeches pocket.
The boy snatched it back and it rattled. “That mine!” Nym cradled the pouch. “My game!” His face grew dark.
So, there were pebbles in the pouch, a game Thad had played in childhood. “I know it yours. But you’ll be uncomfortable riding the distance with pebbles in your breeches. I have a pocket in my saddlebag for your things.”
“Just for me?”
Thad nodded. Nym glanced at the leather pouch and sucked on his lips. “Can I put my game in the saddle pocket? My pocket?”
“Of course.” Thad opened a flap on the large bag and lifted Nym up to it. The lad placed his leather pouch inside, as though it were the most precious thing in the world. And Thad guessed that next to food, it probably was.
He wrapped Nym in his cloak, mounted and lifted the scrawny lad into the saddle in front of him. “Hold here,” he instructed, and Nym grabbed the tall horn as though his life depended on the strength of his grip.
Thad wrapped an arm around the boy’s thin waist, turned Fern around, and headed south along Tandiar River toward the sea, where the dark-eyed woman would find them.
Chapter 5
The next evening, they arrived at the sea and traveled west along the deserted beach. Waves crashed against the rocks and the salty wind whipped Thad’s shoulder-length hair as he rode along the shore. One arm held Nym on the creaking saddle in front of him. The lad had slept since midday, when visions caused him to be ill, and light as he was, Thad’s arm ached from supporting him. He had healed the lad’s
welts and bruises last night, putting Nym right out. But despite a good night’s sleep, the lad still needed rest. Thad had learned from his mother that growth quickened when a little-un slept. When he thought back, it seemed his mother tried to teach him everything she’d learned about the sight before she died. She must have feared he would get it, or perhaps she also had visions, though she never mentioned any.
The cave from Thad’s most recent vision had to be on this section of the beach. Everything looked too familiar for it not to. He had recognized this beach from when he was a lad, his only trip to the shore, and wondered if his mother had been drawn here by the sight. Perhaps she had visions after all. He kept the mare at a leisurely pace. No need to hurry. This area of the shore was unoccupied, except for the teeming life in the water and beneath the sand. That had been a surprise when he’d sensed the creatures with the sight. More life lived in the sea than any lake he’d ever been near.
He studied the area, looking much as it did when he was a small lad. Tall trees that swayed majestically in the wind, their fronds waving this way and that, grew sparsely in the sand. A few stone ruins dotted the cliffs above, left behind by ancient peoples. Tales that flesh-eating monsters had devoured them were spun along Tandiar River, and Thad had heard those stories since he was a little-un. Most stayed away from the shore, afraid of sea monsters and giant, sand snakes that preferred people over any other meal.
Thad didn’t feel that way, though. His parents had assured him the stories were made-up ones. He believed the monster tales were to frighten lads and lasses into obedience and keep them from straying too far from home. And visions would have warned him of danger. His visions didn’t always reveal what the danger was, as some messages weren’t as clear as others, but he sensed if he ventured into trouble. The only things he sensed now were tiny heats that burrowed furiously beneath the sand at vibrations from above.
