“Please take note: portals to Sleeping Rabbit Burrows temporarily down.”
An uneasy sensation tickled my stomach. “Is that the place where we saw that one man carving into the trees?”
“It is. Why the portals have failed, though, is another matter. I can assume that the spell we saw has in some way interfered with them. A few people are going in that direction to investigate. It isn't our problem.”
I bit the inside corner of my mouth in silent disagreement. “If you say so.”
“You think otherwise?”
“I think it's a rare type of spell, and that they won't know how to deal with it.”
Lyall raised a skeptical eyebrow, asking without saying a word.
I had to admit, “Not that I know how to deal with it either, but I'm not completely clueless.”
“Clearly they have the same assessment of their own abilities,” Lyall said and showed me the article.
I noticed that someone had spelled a bit of the bark tea on the paper, which had since dried in a creased dimple. I skimmed the page to the bottom.
...These failed portals are part of the system put in place prior to the refreshment scheme of 1955, and they have therefore been listed as due for refreshment for some years.
Transportation crews are underway. Construction of new portals will take place once the remains of the old portals are removed. In the meantime, expect longer walking times and to see sights you may not have seen in some time.
“What does it mean by the last line?” I asked.
“You'll find out. Traveling here is always an adventure.”
“So I am discovering. Any chance we will be making contact with other people?”
“Tests take time.”
Frustrated, I crossed my arms over my chest. “Except I can't see where I am taking any tests.”
“You will. And you are.”
I stared at him, his perfect calm, and realized that I was the only one upset in any way this morning. Standing, I asked, “Where is Mordon? I like the idea of sun on my skin.”
Chapter Nine
Lyall's whistle drifted through the air, drawing hear as he came closer on the wide swath of a trail formed by a dried creekbed. I opened my eyes and squinted in the bright afternoon light. A few hours after napping on Mordon's back I still hadn't decided if his sales were firm-comfortable or firm-aches-and-pains. I had yet to attempt moving.
The meadow he had found was easily wide enough for five fire drakes to line up wingtip to wingtip, but Mordon occupied the lion's share even with one wing pinning me to his withers. Mordon's desire to cuddle pushed my own tolerance sometimes, even as I loved it.
Blue larkspur blossomed alongside orange irises, a riot of color attracting humming bees by the hundreds. To my knowledge several of the insects had tasted my salty skin with their proboscis before flying away. Had it not been for Mordon's wing restraining me, I would have fled at the first honeybee. A childhood of (stupidly) trapping bees between two dandelion flowers had given me a healthy respect for anything with a stinger.
There came the squish-squish-squish of Lyall's footsteps once he left the path and entered the occasionally marshy meadow. What was left of the camp was strapped neatly to his back.
Lyall peered at me out from under a hand shielding his eyes from the sun. “I see you found him.”
“Didn't take long. He was right where you said he would be.”
Lyall snorted. “You mean the Wildwoods took you right where you wanted to go. No losing the fire drake, I take it?”
“Didn't know you wanted him lost.”
Mordon's body shook with his breathy laugh, jostling me against the boney frame of his wing.
“You won't lose me unless you want me lost.” He lifted his long neck to gaze straight at Lyall. “Have you received instruction on where to take us yet?”
“Why do you think that?”
“You had time in solitude. You could have spoken with whoever is responsible for Fera's testing. You are not a person to waste the time on frivolous matters. If you were not speaking with a superior, I assume you were consulting the portal repair team.”
“We all need to work together.”
“With that goal in mind, what is our next step in Fera's test?”
Lyall crossed his arms. “Is this your test or hers?”
“I ask for the sole purpose of aiding you in your ultimate goal. A bored Swift will take matters into their own hands.”
“I believe I know the Swift Clan better than you do. With that in mind we had best be going. The portals which are now closed were ones we would have needed to use today. Our detour will take us on a fifty-mile hike. We should be able to cover it within two or three days, depending on our pace.”
Chapter Ten
We were all seated around the campfire. Once more I was a magnet for the smoke. This had the distinct advantage of shielding me against mosquitoes, and the distinct disadvantage of teary eyes. Dinner had been oatmeal again since all of us were too tired to do anything else.
My feet hurt. Mordon had offered to rub them an hour ago, and I hadn't let him stop since. Every now and again I wriggled a foot to prompt him back to work.
I looked at Lyall who was poking sticks at the fire. I asked, “Why doesn't the Wildwoods accept fire drakes?”
Lyall sat there and thought about it for a moment. Eventually, when I thought he wasn't going to respond, he said, “One day a man by the name of Emile Jacques brought his mate, a fire drake woman, with him to settle in one of the glens. Upon introduction, everyone became terrified she may burn down the village and forest alike. They all asked her to leave, and when she would not leave they all made her feel unwelcome. Day after day they did this, until one day she left. Her mate was relieved and he found a fey female instead. The community was happy again.”
I blinked, underwhelmed by the story. “That's it?”
“That is it, yet.”
“She was booted out because a bunch of people were afraid?”
“Yes.”
“Not because she actually did burn down the village?”
“Of course not. Imagine what would have happened if she had.”
I held out my hands in exasperation. “But she hadn't done anything.”
“She could have.”
“She didn't.”
Lyall tossed his whittling stick into the flame. “You asked. We all know it was a recipe for disaster. Fire drakes can't control their passions. It is inherently part of them.”
I couldn't believe my ears. “You're saying Mordon can't control himself?”
That made Mordon smile. Not a proud smile, but a sly smile indicating that I hadn't seen him truly passionate yet. Lyall snapped a fresh branch off the log we were gradually feeding to the fire.
“He is an exception—not all of the time, mind, but the majority of it.”
“I am far crazier than he will ever be.”
“You say that because you haven't seen him off-guard. Fire drakes can't contain their impulses.”
I didn't know what to say. Anger would have me go off in a rant. A kinder emotion would have me try to educate Lyall. What came out was a plain, straight-forward, “You are an ignorant jerk.”
This won me a startled expression.
It wasn't a good victory.
“This ban on fire drakes is all because some preconceived notion that they can't control their emotional responses. It's bull.”
“Lessa of Blacksmouth had a hostile temper. Lord Commander Caledin was brutal. And don't ask me about Mordren. All fire drakes.”
“Which means nothing. Every group has their bad apples.”
Lyall took his first slice into his twig, rending dark bark from the white inside. “You asked me. Remember?”
Oh, yes, I remembered.
I went quiet.
The reason was just so dumb.
I couldn't help it. I spoke again. “The Wildwoods has not suffered from fire drakes yet they hate them. It's
ridiculous.”
“It is how it is.”
“Whatever,” I said and decided not to talk to him until I was less angry. Whenever that would be.
Chapter Eleven
We followed Lyall down a path which had steps made from dirt back filled around big roots, by any account a real staircase complete with a handrail made from an ancient vine. On the other side of the vine, the ground fell away abruptly and at the bottom of the ravine ran a river with white rapids and the dull roar of a distant waterfall. Lyall smoked his pipe, whistling around it as he led the jaunty way down, down, down.
“Lyall, what is your job? When you're not rousing young maidens from their beds in the name of the Vanguard, that is,” I asked after we had been walking for some time.
He paused by a giant elm and made a visible effort not to be goaded. “Patrol, but not what you might think. I have been checking on the totems and offerings, refreshing things as need be. Here.” He slung a small pack off his shoulders and opened a spotted handkerchief which was filled with fruits and seeds. “This is for replenishing the outlying wards.”
“Bird seed?”
He nodded. “The birds are our eyes, ears, and primary defenses. Creatures of the wind and sky are particularly precious to us.”
I was a wind elemental. If Lyall said he didn't know that, I wouldn't believe him. Mordon kissed my cheek. “You're particularly precious to me.”
I flicked his ear, grinning. Lyall tied his sack back up with an annoyed yank.
“So where are we going?” I asked.
Lyall straightened his pack and picked up a walking stick. He tipped the top of the stick down the trail. “There's a gypsy camp over the lake below. No one has been to visit it for some time.” Lyall frowned at Mordon, then started back on the trail. “I understand your parents raised you as they would a lamb. How do you feel to be tumbled into the magical realms?”
A curt dismissal rose to my lips, but one curious glance from Mordon chased it away. What was the harm in answering a well-meaning question when Mordon wished to know the reply as well? He'd only ever known the colony and the magical world beyond it. This may be the one time when I could say what I thought without fear of being evaluated.
“It's exhilarating, overwhelming, and confusing. I'd never want to go back, but I feel so far behind everyone else. The laws, the etiquette, just everything. It might be different if I had a softer introduction back into the world, but I find myself slapped with a murder charge and fighting it across societies. It'd be an adventure in the normal world, under lamb laws. Magic makes it more intense and confusing.”
Lyall nodded, distracted as though in his own thoughts. “And now you are in a place with rules no one knows except instinctively.”
“At least I have a lot of instinct,” I said. “And I know this summons is meant to be a test, but I don't see how it can prove guilt or innocence. There's no judge to speak to, no jury or lawyers, or anything. Just a huge forest. I don't understand how I'm to be judged one way or another if I am meant to wander around and try not to die.”
“That's not necessarily your goal. As you wander, you encounter things. Plants, animals, and people. How you interact with them is monitored—what you do and why. That's what matters. Who you are, what you do, and why. Because once the woods knows that, it knows what you'll do anywhere.”
“But if that's all it cares about, then why bother with the summons?” I asked. “Why the major threat if the forest and the fey kin don't care about the crime? And why do they even take notice?”
“It's not necessarily that the fey kin don't care. It's that the forest doesn't.”
“Oh.” I stopped, processing what he said and pondering it. “So the forest is the first test, a test to see if the woods even thinks that the person in question is worthy of meeting with the Fey Council, also perhaps a buffer to keep the people within the forest safe from those outside.”
“You have an incredible way of understanding the nature of the Wildwoods.”
Lyall didn't appear pleased when he said this, he stared at me as though this made me dangerous. Possibly it did, if he was used to the tricks and falsehoods of the feys.
I tried to lighten the mood. “Tell me about the feys and the Wildwoods. What is it like? What can I expect when I arrive?”
Coldness replaced Lyall's unease. “I won't say. If you arrive, you will discover that for yourself. I have been out of the Wildwoods often enough to know that it's unlike anything you've ever been in before. The people are still people but different from how you would anticipate them from being. They are suspicious of outsiders, and will be doubly more so since you come to them with blood on your hands.”
“I did not murder Cole,” I said, responding with the same chilly tone. “Life or death, I choose life.”
“Odd that earlier got a message from Death.”
“Death doesn't want me to die, so I will follow him. And there's something wrong with the balance in this woods, so I'll be here until it's sorted.”
Lyall huffed and stomped down the trail all the faster. The tension between us prevented us from speaking again.
Mordon took my hand and squeezed it. We followed after Lyall at our own pace, making it a quick one out of desire to not be eaten up by a swarm of insects which followed us. Gradually, we descended down and down and down the ravine until we were walking the footpath alongside the river which calmed in places, and there fish darted beneath the surface. Farther upstream, we saw Lyall waiting for us, leaning against a tree trunk, his earlier petulance forgotten.
Over the lake which danced with waves from the distant waterfall, painted gypsy wagons floated over the surface of the water. A small boat with a pair of oars waited for us in the sand and moss of the shore.
I smiled, giddy with anticipation. “Do you think that some of them know tricks and whatnot? Or do they just wander around?”
Even Lyall softened at my enthusiasm. “They're entertainers when the mood strikes them.”
While he dragged the boat back to the water, Mordon put an arm around my waist. Still panting from the hike, I curled up against his chest and stroked his chin, relieved to have a good place to sleep tonight.
Chapter Twelve
I loved boat rides. My fingers skimmed the surface of the water, casting tiny ripples after us. If I leaned over the edge, I could see the bottom of the lake, crystal clear and stunning with the faint movement of towering seaweed and the darts of fish through the shadows.
“How far down do you think the bottom is? Fifty feet? More?”
Mordon leaned on the other side of the boat to counterbalance me, looking a little green. I wriggled up and down, causing tiny waves to rock away from the boat. “Oh, stop fretting. It'd take both of us on one side to slosh any water in this thing, and even then you'd be shocked how much water a boat can hold and still remain afloat.”
Lyall shook his head at me. “Do you know what it is that lives in this lake?”
Mordon went pale at the thought.
I cocked my head. “No, I don't. But I've heard of sea monsters and turtles the size of dinner tables and sturgeon as long as thirty feet, not to mention giant squid and octopus. I used to terrify Railey with stories of a woman who would snare the legs of swimmers and drag them underwater at the base of cliffs just like that one there. So, tell me, what have I missed?”
“Swimmer's itch,” Lyall said.
“Ah, that. Do you know what causes it? Deer liver fluke larvae. They can't enter the human bloodstream, so they die just under your skin and you break out.” I leaned forward and squinted. “I think at this point it's closer to seventy feet to the bottom, but up ahead must be at least a hundred. It's all dark.”
“Do you mind?” Mordon said, sounding surly.
“The way it drops off so quick, this has got to be a glacier lake. Think the Wildwoods is in a National Park?”
“Or a very big homestead which has been forgotten,” Mordon said, glancing at the shore. “Which
is more probable if this is a sanctuary.”
“It's a sanctuary,” Lyall answered. “We don't listen to Constable Law here.”
I cocked my head and Mordon saw the questions I wanted to ask.
“Places such as the markets are classed as part of the Intercontinental Thaumaturgical Reservation, where people are free to practice magic within the rules of the Constabulary. Sanctuaries are private property, either owned by one individual or by a commune of them, and their laws are set by the community. This is the case with the Verdant Wildwoods and the Kragdomen Colony.”
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