Witchlanders

by Lena Coakley

  Bo lifted himself up on his front legs, yawned, and settled back down into the warm sand. Ryder stroked the top of his head. The dog’s eyes were closed, but his ears were cocked back, listening.

  “When we were on the ice, I thought I heard my mother’s voice,” Ryder said. “I kept expecting her to appear. I kept thinking, why doesn’t she come back? If she’s still alive, why isn’t she here? Bo, I think my mother . . .”

  The dog moved over and put his head on Ryder’s knee.

  Ryder woke again at Skyla’s knock. “It’s the dog,” she said, poking her head through the door. “He’s in the kitchen, and Dassen’s hired girls won’t go in when he’s there.”

  Falpian held his covers up to his neck. “They just have to call him,” he said. But of course, they wouldn’t; the hired girls were terrified of Bo.

  “I think he’s eaten all the butter,” Skyla added.

  Falpian rolled off his sack bed as soon as Skyla was gone and began looking around for his clothes.

  “Ash on your face,” said Ryder. He knew they were both thinking about their dreams, but neither wanted to talk about them.

  Falpian rubbed his cheek. “Beard. Haven’t shaved in days.” He picked some leggings off the floor and quickly pulled them on, jumping a little to keep his balance.

  “Shaved?”

  “My face.” He found a shirt in the corner, gave it a few sniffs, and put it on. “I asked Dassen for a razor the other day, but he just stared at me like I was going to slit his throat with it. Forgot you people didn’t cut your beards.”

  Falpian was out the door before Ryder could respond. Just when he thought he was beginning to understand his talat-sa, Falpian would blithely reveal something incomprehensible like that. Cut his beard?

  A moment later Skyla slipped into the storage room, wearing a plain brown dress borrowed from the blacksmith’s wife. She sat down on the floor next to Ryder’s bed, hugging her knees. It was so cold in the storage room that Ryder could see her breath, though he was perfectly warm under his blankets.

  “I was thinking . . . I might go back today,” she told him.

  Ryder sat up again, surprised. Skyla had returned to the coven once already; he knew she’d had a long conversation with Sodan, but she hadn’t told him what they’d said. “Really? You mean, to the coven? But you haven’t been wearing your reds.”

  “Oh. Did you think . . . ?” She paused, looking at her feet. Mabis used to hug her knees in just the same way, Ryder noticed. “The villagers—they’ve known me all their lives, but if I’m wearing reds, I can’t get a word out of them—they just start bowing at me and praising Aata.”

  “Since when do you care what the villagers think?”

  “I don’t!” Skyla pursed her lips. “It’s just . . . We’ve always lived so far away from the valley. I just wanted to see what I was missing for a few days.” She smoothed the rough fabric of her dress as if it were a fancy gown she would regret giving up. “But I always knew I was going back.”

  “In the catacombs,” he started carefully, “it seemed like you had changed your mind about being a witch.”

  “I know, but so much has happened. . . .”

  Ryder couldn’t hide his disappointment. In his mind, he’d started to formulate a plan to rebuild the cottage. After all they’d been through, he wanted them all to be together. It was odd: Seeing the tomb of Aayse had made Mabis want to leave the coven, but it made Skyla want to stay.

  Falpian entered, pulling Bo by the scruff of the neck. “Bad dog!” he scolded. Bo barked a complaint and sat down in a corner, licking butter from his paws.

  “He’s just bored,” Ryder said.

  Since they’d come to the village, Bo had only been allowed out in a fenced-in paddock at the back of the tavern; Ryder and Falpian worried there would be trouble if he were free to roam, that a villager might do him harm out of fear. Although Ryder and Skyla had explained many times that Falpian was a friend, that he and Bo had helped to destroy the monsters, Ryder wondered if the villagers really believed it. He wanted to shake them, even Dassen sometimes. He kept expecting them all to see the Falpian that he knew. But all they saw was a Baen.

  “Ryder!” Dassen’s gruff voice boomed out from beyond the storeroom door. “You up?” Every muscle in Ryder’s body went tense. The tavern keeper shouldn’t have been back so soon.

  The door swung open, and the look on Dassen’s face was devastating.

  “Oh Goddess,” Skyla said, pressing her fingers to her lips, guessing what was coming.

  Dassen didn’t speak at first, but he leaned into the doorway as if he needed it to keep him up. “It’s Farmer Raiken,” he said finally. “He found a body frozen in the river this morning.”

  “Lilla?” Falpian asked.

  “No.”

  Ryder felt the same cold, clutching feeling in his chest that he’d felt when the black witch had tried to stop his heart. “But it could have been Lilla,” he said, his voice shaking. The last time they had seen the black witch she was in the river. Ryder was sure she must have drowned, but they hadn’t found a body. “Lilla and Mabis looked alike.”

  “I knew her, Ryder,” Dassen said. “I knew her hair.”

  Skyla gave a cry that was half moan, half sob.

  “I want to see her,” Ryder said.

  “No. You don’t.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Still in Raiken’s barn. We weren’t sure . . .” Dassen had to stop and take a breath. He looked to the floor. “We weren’t sure where we should take her, you see. We didn’t know if she should be buried in the village graveyard or in the catacombs with her ancestors.”

  Ryder hesitated. Mabis had once said that she lived her life in between the two places—halfway up the mountain and halfway down. But they couldn’t bury her where the cottage had been. She’d be all alone.

  “The graveyard,” Skyla said, with a certainty he couldn’t muster. “She’d want to be with Fa.”

  * * *

  The villagers were rebuilding, but every time Falpian turned a corner, conversations died and the sound of axes on trees, hammers on nails, faded to silence. In the center of town, he passed a knot of women murmuring together at the well. He nodded and gave them an overlarge smile, but they didn’t return the greeting, and their cold eyes followed him until he was out of sight. Falpian knew these villagers, that was the odd thing; he knew their names, and, if he thought hard enough, sometimes even their secrets. But they didn’t know him.

  He could feel Ryder. As he walked the snow-covered road of the little town, he could feel the weight of his grief. It was a weight he recognized too well. Falpian let it pull him toward the river. His talat-sa stood at the top of an arched bridge, looking out at the mountains. Below him, children played on the ice.

  “I’m so sorry about your mother.” Falpian came up beside him and leaned out over the rails. They could see the white humps of the planting hills and the base of the mountain, but the top of the mountain had disappeared, enveloped in clouds.

  “Thank you.”

  “Do you want me to leave? I know you want to be alone.”

  “No.” On the frozen river, children stared up at them and whispered.

  “I came out to see if the villagers needed any help,” Falpian said. “But . . . I don’t think they want help from me.”

  Ryder turned to him. “I hope they weren’t—”

  “No, no. They were very polite.”

  Ryder knew he was lying. It was becoming more and more difficult for them to hide things from each other. Information passed back and forth between them without Falpian even noticing; conversations they didn’t have when they were awake were simply postponed to their dreams.

  “They don’t know you the way I do,” Ryder said.

  “No one does.”

  For a while they stood silent, talk unnecessary. The children went back to their games. With his eyes Falpian followed the frozen river as it curved through the planting hills to a small
farm just visible below the line of clouds. Ryder was looking there too. It was Raiken’s farm, Falpian understood in a flash, where the body of Ryder’s mother had been found.

  “She must have gone to the river in the end,” Ryder said softly.

  Falpian nodded. “To save herself.”

  “Or to find maiden’s woe. No way to tell.” Ryder’s face twisted with grief. “How can she be dead, Falpian? There’s still so much I need to say to her.”

  Falpian wasn’t sure what he should say. Why did knowing grief himself not make him any better at knowing how to help? He said nothing, but Ryder didn’t seem to mind. It began to snow—petal flakes that drifted lazily, unsure where they wished to land, blurring the view of the farm and the river.

  “You’ve been worrying,” Ryder said, changing the subject.

  Falpian nodded and drew his coat closer around him. “I’ll be crossing the border soon. There are a lot of people in the Bitterlands who don’t want war, and some of them are very powerful. I have to make my father’s plans known to them before it’s too late.”

  “Will talking to them be enough? Enough to stop an attack?”

  “It will be. Once I make it known what he tried to do. No one will follow a man who tried to kill his own son.”

  Ryder frowned, blowing on his gloved hands. “I don’t know if I like that idea. Your father will think you’re a traitor. He’ll think you’ve switched sides.”

  “There are no sides,” Falpian said simply. Someone had said that to him recently, but he couldn’t remember who.

  Ryder rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes. But does your father know that?”

  Falpian hesitated a moment. On the ice, the children squealed with laughter, throwing snowballs. “No. No, he doesn’t.”

  “He’ll make a dangerous enemy. I hope you remember that. I wish—” Ryder broke off in midsentence, but Falpian knew what he was going to say.

  “You can’t come with me. It’s not safe for you in the Bitterlands, and you have Skyla and Pima to think about.”

  “I know.” His voice was steady, but Falpian saw him clutching the railing of the bridge in frustration.

  An image of Ryder’s sisters drifted thought Falpian’s mind. Ryder was thinking about them, worrying about what would happen to them now that their mother was gone. Falpian wondered if he would still see these pictures once he went back to the Bitterlands, or if they would fade. He decided he’d miss them.

  Something white whizzed toward them. With a smack, a snowball caught Falpian in the forehead. “Ow!”

  “Dirty blackhair, dirty blackhair!”

  He clutched his head.

  “Come here and say that, you little pustule!” Ryder cried, leaning out over the rail of the bridge. Below them, a boy stood waving. A few other children stood farther away in groups or giggled behind the trees at the side of the river. “I’ll make you eat that snowball!”

  “Ryder,” Falpian murmured, “it’s nothing. He’s half your size.”

  “Witches are going to get you!” the boy said, jumping up and down and pointing. “They’re coming to get you, blackhair! Look!”

  Falpian turned. A party of witches had emerged from the clouds, red blossoms on the snowy path. Some had pack ponies laden with goods. The children pointed and shouted; then, all at once, they scurried away, calling to their parents or anyone else who would listen that coven dwellers were coming to town.

  “I’ll go back to the tavern,” Falpian said.

  “No! They’re not really coming for you, you know.”

  “I know.” But in spite of Ryder’s words, he turned and started down the road.

  I’ll leave today, Falpian decided. It was no use putting it off any longer. The things he had to do in the Bitterlands were too important to risk staying, no matter how much he might want to.

  The witches’ procession filed slowly toward the village. At the very end, four people were carrying a litter painted red. The person on top clutched tightly to the sides as it lurched and swayed. Well, well, thought Ryder, bemused. Sodan has finally decided to see where his breakfast comes from.

  Something little and red detached itself from the party and came scampering toward him down the road—a small person. “Hey, Ry-der!”

  With a thump, she fell headfirst into the snow, and Ryder started forward, but she picked herself up again without a cry and started running again. They met at the end of the bridge, and Ryder swept her up in his arms.

  “Pima!” he said, squeezing her tight. “Sweetlamb.”

  “I went through the catacombs,” she said. “But I didn’t see a dead body.” She sounded disappointed.

  “Didn’t you?”

  “Yulla made me shut my eyes. It smelled like pee.”

  Ryder laughed.

  Two witches came forward now, his cousin Yulla and Aata’s Right Hand. Ryder was surprised to see that the younger witch was wearing red, not white. There was something cloying about Yulla’s expression, a look of pity and solicitousness that grated on him. He guessed that she knew about Mabis.

  “We met Farmer Raiken on the road,” Yulla explained. She glanced at Pima and shook her head, telling him that his sister didn’t know.

  Ryder held Pima tight and nodded. “Later,” he mouthed.

  “Sodan would like to speak to you,” said Aata’s Right Hand. Shyly she brushed her fingers against his shoulder, and Ryder knew she was trying to be kind. “But perhaps you’d like to join us later. We are going to lead prayers at the village shrine.”

  “I’m not very good at praying.” She looked even better in reds, Ryder thought. The color brought out the crimson in her lips—but it was hard to look at her without wondering whether, if it weren’t for her, his mother might be alive.

  Pima wriggled out of his grasp and ran to hold Yulla’s hand. “You should come pray, Ryder,” she said sagely. “It would do you good.”

  Ryder shot a glance at Yulla. “Maybe later,” he said.

  He bowed. Pima and the two witches took off toward the center of the village, but a few moments later, Aata’s Right Hand came running back. She stood, breathless, at the top of the arched bridge and called down to him.

  “I want you to know that I will spend my life trying to atone for what I’ve done. I’ll never throw the bones again.”

  Ryder was taken aback. “That’s your choice.” The word “atone” made him feel uncomfortable. It reminded him of Lilla.

  She turned, looking disappointed.

  “Aata’s Right Hand!” he called, before she had taken a step.

  “Marisat,” she corrected.

  “What?”

  “It’s Marisat. My name. I’m not the Right Hand of Aata anymore.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Well, I thought I should tell you. That vision you had, about the lake and the maiden’s woe. It was a true one.”

  She froze, looking down at him, and Ryder was sure he could see the rosy color leave her cheeks. “Why would you say that?”

  He thought she’d want to know, that he was saying something kind, but she didn’t seem to take it that way. “Because it’s true.”

  He turned away, but she came slipping down the curve of the bridge and caught his arm. “I’m going home,” she insisted. “To Dunes. To my father. No one can teach me there.”

  “Then go, for Aata’s sake.”

  “How can I? If what you say is true . . .” Her grip tightened on his arm. “How could you just say something like that to me like it’s nothing?”

  He shook her off. “I’m just telling you what I know.”

  “But everyone hates me in this coven!”

  He began to realize what he’d done. The covens had no boneshaker. And no one knew better than Ryder how much they needed one—the Baen were restless over the border. “I’m sorry,” he said more gently. “I didn’t see it. You’re right, you shouldn’t leave now, not if there’s a chance you can learn. Can you speak to Sodan?” Marisat just gaped at him, shaking her head. “You . . . did s
ay you wanted to atone. . . .”

  Her eyes widened. For a moment she stared at him so hard he thought she’d slap him, then she looked to the sky. “Oh Goddess, I did say that, didn’t I?”

  * * *

  The party of witches arrived, and for a while there was much excitement. Villagers came to greet the visitors and ooh and aah over the pack animals laden with stores. Ryder was amazed. They seemed to treat it all like a great gift, when really they were only being given back what they had grown themselves.

  The red litter was the last thing to make it down the mountain. Of course, the villagers knew it was Sodan, and they stood around at the village side of the bridge, talking in hushed tones. Word had gotten around that Sodan had come for the express purpose of speaking to Ryder, and so they stared at him and kept their distance, as if he’d suddenly caught a case of the scabs. Ryder crossed his arms and waited and tried to pretend that he didn’t care what Sodan had to say.

  The litter stopped right in front of him. Four witch bearers, three men and one woman, set their cargo down into the snow. One of them handed Sodan a stick, while another helped him rise, shakily, to his feet. Ryder had to stoop to look into his face. Sodan’s eyes were gray and redrimmed, and he had a long, white beard that fell softly over his red coat.

  “You know Visser, I believe.” The man’s dry voice was nearly carried away in the cold wind. Visser, who had been walking beside the litter, nodded curtly. She carried no gear, but held a sword clutched to her chest.

  Ryder nodded and gave the witch’s bow. “Is that the Baenkiller?” He thought he’d lost it in the snowslide.

  Sodan nodded. “Marisat knew where it was.” Ryder saw him rub the small of his back with his hand.

  “Shall we speak in the tavern, sir?” He felt guilty for assuming it was pride or disdain that kept Sodan from visiting the village; clearly, the journey down the mountain had been a trial. “Dassen will have a fire on by now, and we could return his sword at the same time.”

  “No, no,” the old man answered. “I must go to the shrine in a moment.” He nodded at the knots of villagers at the other end of the bridge. “I fear that no one will join the prayers if I do not come. Visser will take the sword. She has a favor to ask of the tavern keeper.”