Song of the Wanderer

by Bruce Coville

  “We require a reading,” said Moonheart.

  “Oh, really?” M’Gama raised an elegant eyebrow. “And what would that be for?”

  “The child is to return to Earth, to fetch her grandmother, Ivy Morris.”

  The Geomancer’s eyes widened when she heard the name. “So, the Wanderer is going to return to us at last.”

  She didn’t sound entirely pleased at the idea, which surprised Cara. Everyone else she had met in Luster had been delighted at the thought of the Wanderer returning.

  “It is the Queen’s wish,” said Moonheart sharply.

  M'Gama bowed her head. “Then it is my bidding.” Extendeding her right hand, the one bare of jewelry, she said to Cara, “Come, young one. Let us begin the work.”

  Cara, not entirely sure she wanted to go off with this woman, glanced at Moonheart. At his nod of approval, she stepped forward and took the Geomancer’s hand. Together they walked to a door at the back of the roof, which led into the hill itself. Inside was another set of stairs, not so wide as the ones by which Cara had ascended. They started down.

  At about the time the light began to fade behind them, the darkness ahead was lessened by a series of clear glass bowls that sat in niches in the wall. Each bowl was filled with a glowing liquid.

  As they passed the first bowl M’Gama dipped a forefinger into the liquid, then painted a line of it across her forehead, where it continued to glow. At the next bowl, she did the same to Cara. The liquid was cool and tingled a bit on her skin.

  After another few minutes Cara said, a little nervously, “I don’t remember this many steps going up.”

  M’Gama uttered a low, silky laugh. “Of course you don’t. We’ve gone far below the first level of the house.”

  “Why?”

  “My magic and my study are rooted in the earth. Therefore, I must go into the earth to practice them.”

  Very deep into the earth, thought Cara as they continued to wind their way down. She tried to count the steps but lost track after the first hundred.

  They came at last to a room — a cave, really — crammed with globes, maps, star charts, astrolabes, bubbling retorts, candles with multi-colored flames, and pots exuding strange smells. A firepit carved into the center of the stone floor held a pile of glowing red embers. In the farthest corner stood an intricately carved stone cabinet. Behind its crystal doors Cara could see shelves stacked high with sticks, stones, and clods of moist earth. In front of each item was a card covered with tiny, precise writing. Though the writing was in a language she did not know, Cara had a sense that the cards were labels.

  “Pieces of reality,” said M’Gama, when she noted the questioning look in Cara’s eyes. “These bits of earth are the touchstones of my craft, and the source of my knowledge.” She crossed to the fire pit and, in a single, graceful motion, lowered herself so that she was sitting cross-legged on the floor. Patting the stone next to her, she said, “Come and sit beside me. I must learn many things from you before I can do the work that will tell us from where you should depart.”

  Cara did as the woman asked, imitating her posture. When she was settled, M’Gama extended her right hand and said, “Let me see the amulet.”

  Cara hesitated a moment, unwilling to let the amulet out of her grasp. But since the Queen had sent her to M’Gama, she decided it must be all right. Slowly, she drew the chain over her head and passed it to the Geomancer.

  Rather than look at it, as Cara had expected, M’Gama closed her fingers over the amulet, clenching it so that the chain flowed down from either side of her fist. She closed her eyes and began swaying slowly from side to side. After a moment she crooned a soft, wordless song that reminded Cara of the tune Thomas had been humming earlier that day. Green light began to flow between her fingers — the same green that had shone when the amulet had opened the door to Luster.

  Finally M’Gama opened her eyes. “These amulets contain great magic,” she murmured, her voice husky. She uncurled her fingers, and the glow vanished. “They hold the power to pierce the walls between worlds, to open a hole from what is to what might be. Now, tell me where you need to go.”

  Cara described her home. As she spoke, M’Gama asked many questions. After a while she nodded, then went to one of the globes and began to study it. “You can return to the others now,” she muttered, without glancing up at Cara. “This will take some time.”

  “Is it all right if I stay?”

  “Suit yourself. But please do not speak from this point on.”

  Sitting in silence, Cara marveled at the cat-like grace with which M’Gama moved around the cave. On a table near the back wall the Geomancer placed several items that she pulled from the cabinet: a smooth, red stone; two long, green feathers, a small bottle of water; and a dried twig. She then took a double handful of dried leaves from a niche in the wall and tossed them onto the embers in the fire pit. Cara gasped as a burst of flame rose from the pit, stretching nearly to the ceiling. But within three or four seconds the fire died down, to be replaced by thick, blue smoke.

  As the smoke curled up from the fire pit, it coalesced into a perfect globe that began to turn slowly on its axis. M’Gama sat before the globe, hands on her knees, staring at it as if all the knowledge of the world were somehow concealed beneath its surface.

  After a time she began to chant.

  A sweet, musky odor filled the cave.

  Points of light appeared on the surface of the smoky globe. They began to move, slowly at first, then faster and faster. Soon they looked like lines instead of points. More and more appeared, zipping madly over the globe until it seemed to be made of light instead of smoke.

  M’Gama’s voice rose higher and higher. “A la manna hayim!” she cried, swaying back and forth. “A la manna hayim!”

  Her body began to tremble; suddenly she uttered a shrill cry, then collapsed onto the stone floor.

  The globe vanished. The embers were quenched. Even the glowing lines on their foreheads went black,leav ing Cara in a darkness so complete it was as if the world itself had disappeared.

  5

  “I am Wandering,

  Wandering . . .”

  “M’Gama?”

  Cara whispered the name, half afraid that someone — or some thing — other than M’Gama might answer from the darkness.

  When there was no answer at all, she tried again, more loudly.

  “M’Gama?”

  Still no answer.

  She started to stand, thought better of it, and began to crawl across the floor. The stone was smooth and cool beneath her hands. The air smelled the way it does after a nearby lightning strike.

  Hoping she was heading in the right direction, she searched ahead of her with her hands so she would not accidentally come down too hard on M’Gama’s body. She continued to whisper the Geomancer’s name, wishing M’Gama would respond — if only with a groan — so she would know she wasn’t feeling through the dark for a dead woman.

  Finally her fingers brushed flesh instead of stone. The moment of shock gave way to relief when she realized the flesh was warm and had flinched slightly at her touch. Scooting forward, Cara rose to her knees and drew the woman’s head into her lap. “M’Gama,” she whispered urgently. “M’Gama, are you all right?”

  The Geomancer shuddered, then took a deep breath. She seemed startled to find Cara holding her, and began to struggle to rise. After a moment she dropped her head back and murmured, “I’ll be fine. I just need some time. That was. . . harder than usual.”

  She fell silent again, though whether she was asleep, unconscious, or merely too tired to speak, Cara wasn’t certain. Only the sound of M’Gama’s breathing kept the girl from total panic. She felt as alone as she had ever felt, swallowed by the blackness around her.

  She closed her eyes to see if it made any difference in the quality of the darkness.

  It didn’t; the world was equally black either way.

  Depri
ved of sight, her other senses seemed to grow sharper. Somewhere in the distance she heard the slow drip of water. The musky smell of the herbs M’Gama had thrown on the fire still lingered around her. She could feel the weave of M’Gama’s garment, the threads bold and clear beneath her fingertips.

  As time went on, Cara’s mind began to wander, tracing back over all that had happened to her since she’d first fallen into Luster. Again she found herself missing Lightfoot and the Dimblethum. She thought with fondness of the Dimblethum’s strange face, like that of some bear that had begun to turn into a man, then been stopped halfway through the process. Despite his gruffness and his growls, his size and his fur, he was gentle in his strength.

  She never had found out how he and Lightfoot had become friends. She wished Lightfoot was with her now. They had already shared so many dangers that it felt strange to be setting out on this adventure without him.

  Thinking of the dangers she had shared with Lightfoot inevitably led her to a more disturbing memory . . . that of her father.

  She didn’t want to miss him, didn’t want to love him anymore. But she couldn’t stop herself from wondering where he was, if he was all right. Firethroat had said only that she had taken him to a place that was safe, but empty. Was he even now wandering through some wilderness? Wandering like her, only without friends?

  She forced the thoughts away. Her father was an enemy of the unicorns, and she could not afford to feel pity or love for him.

  In the darkness her mind drifted to her grandmother. She tried to envision her face. This was something she did almost daily, out of fear that if she did not the image might fade from memory. Sometimes, at first, the memory was fuzzy. That always scared Cara. But she found that by focusing on the details, by first recalling the long braid, then the high forehead, the soft skin with its lines like crumpled paper, the gray eyes, the wide mouth, that the picture would sharpen until she saw her grandmother clearly and distinctly once more.

  As she did that now, as she began tracing the lines of her grandmother’s face in her mind’s eye, she thought she heard the old woman singing — a high, thin sound that seemed made up of equal parts of courage and despair.

  “Gramma?” she whispered.

  The singing continued: “Oh, where’s the thread that binds me, the voice that calls me back?” The voice was distant and quavering, but distinct.

  “Gramma?” whispered Cara again. “Gramma, where are you?”

  “Cara? Cara, is that you? Oh, come and get me, my child. Come and get me. I am wandering, wandering and so far from home.”

  “Gramma, where are you?”

  Her own words, uttered in a desperate cry, came echoing back to her, eerie in the darkness.

  But the echoes were all she heard. Her grandmother’s voice was gone. Cara strained to hear it again, listening until she thought the black silence would drive her mad. Finally, trembling, she lapsed back into thought. Was she losing her mind? If not, where had the words come from? More importantly: What did they mean?

  So absorbed was she in these questions that when someone touched her on the arm she started violently, nearly dropping M’Gama’s head to the stone floor.

  “Shhhhh!” hissed the intruder.

  With relief, Cara realized it was Flensa. She could sense the woman next to her, so tiny that though Cara was kneeling and Flensa was standing, the dwarf’s mouth was right next to her ear. “This has happened before,” whispered Flensa. “Though not often. We must wait.”

  She sounded angry, as if she blamed Cara for M’Gama’s condition. Cara tried to ask a question, but Flensa shushed her again. “Wait,” she whispered fiercely. “Wait.”

  After what seemed like hours, M’Gama groaned and stirred again. “Flensa?”

  “Here, My Lady.”

  “Help me to my feet.”

  “Best to wait a bit, My Lady.”

  “Then bring me something to drink,” said M’Gama, sounding half annoyed, half amused.

  Flensa moved away so silently that Cara only knew she was gone by the sudden absence of her body’s heat. She wondered how the little woman could see in the dark.

  The dwarf returned a few minutes later, something Cara could tell not by her footsteps but by the faintest sound of water sloshing.

  “Drink, My Lady,” whispered Flensa.

  M’Gama moaned, but drank. “Better,” she whispered. Reaching behind her, she closed her hand on Cara’s arm. “Is that you child?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you all right? I am sorry if I frightened you.”

  “I’m all right,” said Cara, speaking the truth, though just barely. “But I have to tell you about what happened while you were asleep.”

  Quickly she spilled out the story of hearing her grandmother’s voice, of her strange and desperate words.

  “What does it mean?” Cara asked when she was finished. “What does it mean?”

  M’Gama was silent for a time. When at last she spoke, her words were of little comfort. “There is a deep strangeness in this. I cannot make sense of it. Was the voice true? I cannot say — though it is certainly possible. A great deal of magic was loose in this cave a little while ago. On the other hand, when one is alone in the dark, the mind can conjure up all sorts of things that have the feel, the seeming, of reality, and yet are not real.”

  “But what should I do about it?” asked Cara urgently.

  “Exactly what you are doing,” said M’Gama. “Are you not doing as your grandmother has asked? Are you not in search of her even now?”

  “Yes,” said Cara. “But I felt as if . . . I don’t know . . . as if there was something more my grandmother needed — wanted . . .” Her voice trailed off. “Only I don’t know what.”

  “Then until you do, I think the best thing is to continue the journey you have begun. But keep yourself open, child — always ready to receive what may come. There may be more for you to learn, information that may arrive in unexpected ways.”

  “Ill’ try,” said Cara, though the idea made her nervous, given the vision of Beloved that she had experienced the night before they’d begun their journey. “How soon can we go back to the others?”

  M’Gama laughed. “Give me another few minutes. Flensa, bring some light, please.”

  The little woman left without a sound. A moment later she returned, carrying one of the bowls of liquid light that had lined the steps leading down to the cave. The light was low and greenish, but steady, not like the flickering of candles. Shining up into Flensa’s face, which was grotesque enough in the daylight, it made the dwarf seem truly eerie. The light was not strong enough to reach the corners of the cave, which remained in shadow.

  “Help me to my feet,” whispered M’Gama. With Cara’s support she was standing by the time Flensa reached them. “All right,” she said, taking a deep breath and drawing herself to her full height. “Let us return to the upper world.”

  * * *

  Flensa led the way. Though M’Gama had to lean on Cara’s shoulder when they started, she seemed to grow stronger by the moment. By the time they had climbed the first twenty or so steps, she released her grip and walked on her own.

  Cara stayed close to her, just in case. After another twenty steps she asked softly, “What did you see, M’Gama?”

  “When we’re out of the caves and with the others I’ll tell you. I only want to say it once.”

  Cara didn’t like the sound of that.

  * * *

  By the time they reached the top of the stone stairs, the backs of Cara’s legs were aching and she was breathing hard. She saw that it was full dark out — a disappointment, since she had been looking forward to the daylight.

  “Oh, well,” she muttered as they stepped through the door. “Probably would have hurt my eyes anyway.”

  “Yowie!” cried the Squijum when he saw them. “Good come back hotcha miss much girl gone too long!” Then he scrambled onto Cara’s shoulder a
nd began to tug at her tangled hair.

  “Stop it!” she said crossly, too tired and nervous to appreciate his greeting.

  “Be nice!” ordered the Squijum, giving her a little smack with his paw. But he settled down, clinging to her shoulder for a full thirty seconds before he darted away again.

  “Well?” asked Moonheart. “Were you successful?”

  “The work was more difficult than I expected,” said M’Gama slowly. “However I found your answer. Not that you will like it.”

  “That’s encouraging,” said Thomas dryly.

  “There is nothing here to be taken lightly,” snapped M’Gama. “As I walked the lines of the world to look for your answer, I could feel someone trying to find me, trying to discover what I was doing.”

  “Do you know who it was?” asked Finder nervously.

  “Yes. It was the one you call Beloved.”

  A coldness rippled across Cara’s shoulders. “Did she find you?” she asked in horror.

  M’Gama shook her head. “I have tricks of my own. But eluding her was . . . unpleasant. As was the answer to your question.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Finder.

  “I have found the place where Cara must make the transfer back to Earth.”

  “And . . . ?” prompted Moonheart.

  M’Gama glanced nervously at the skies. “Let us go below. Some things are best not spoken of in the open.”

  6

  Path to

  the Seventh Dragon

  Without another word, M’Gama led them down the broad stone stairs that started on the outside of her home and then, two levels down, shifted inside. The night air was cool, the sky thick with stars. Cara walked beside Finder, her hand on the big unicorn’s warm, silky shoulder.

  At the main floor they turned and headed into the hill. To Cara’s surprise, they entered a large chamber — half room, half cave — that could easily have held a dozen unicorns without feeling crowded. It was lit by the same glowing bowls that had lined the stairs Cara and M’Gama had descended to reach the deeper part of the dwelling. Their light filled the center of the chamber but did not reach all the way to the back.