Finding the Way and Other Tales of Valdemar

by Mercedes Lackey

  As the light began to fade, she went outside and put the pottery “rocks” back in the windows, then closed and barred the door. Although she had, at great need, been known to go out at night—it wasn’t a good idea. And it also wasn’t a good idea to advertise her presence with any sort of light, nor with a source of scent. She couldn’t do anything about what came out of the chimney, but she could at least keep the hut from being obvious.

  Hertasi had very good night-vision, and besides, she knew the inside of her hut blindfolded. She didn’t need a lamp or a candle to find her bed and get into it. She could have read some more, she did have a lantern, but there wasn’t any good reason not to go to bed at sundown, since she’d definitely be awake at sunrise.

  The very first morning sounds outside woke her immediately, as they always did, but there was another sound out there that was unfamiliar. It was the sound of hooves, but these hoofbeats had a peculiar, chiming ring to them.

  Anything unfamiliar was automatically suspect; she stayed very quiet, listening to the sound of the hoofbeats pacing back and forth along the bank, as if the creature in question were trying to figure out a way into the swamp. There was an agitated quality to the sound; the hoofbeats were definitely coming faster. It was like nothing she had ever heard before. Certainly not dyheli, and no horse she had ever heard had that chiming quality to its footfalls.

  Finally, her curiosity overcame her caution, and she opened the door.

  There on the bank, frantically pacing back and forth and yearning over the sluggish water was the most remarkable beast she had ever seen—shaped like a horse, it glowed in the early dawn light, whiter than lily blossoms, carrying a light, blue-dyed saddle and otherwise unencumbered.

  A moment later, though, she knew what it had to be. Even she had heard of the Spirit Horses out of Valdemar, the Companions. The Vales were abuzz with tales of them and their riders, the Heralds.

  She coughed politely to get the Companion’s attention.

  The Spirit Horse whirled to face her, ready to defend itself. Herself. So she wasn’t so caught up in whatever was making her so frantic that she was oblivious to the dangers here.

  Sherra bowed a little. She hesitated to speak—it wasn’t likely that the Companion would know either the Hawkbrother tongue or that of the hertasi.

  :Are you the guide?:

  The words formed in her head, as some of the Tayledras spoke. She nodded, her snout moving quickly up and down. Yes, Lady, she thought hard.

  :My Chosen is somewhere—in there, on the other side, I cannot tell. But I must find him!:

  Oh, dear. This was one of those jobs for which you didn’t get paid. Presumably the gods rewarded you . . .

  Well, perhaps they will send more fish or fewer monsters, Sherra thought to herself with resignation. “Can you understand me, Lady?” she asked aloud.

  :Of course. We have the Gift of Tongues.: The Companion didn’t have an eyebrow to raise, but Sherra certainly got that impression.

  Of course you do. At least Sherra wouldn’t be going cross-eyed and headachey with the effort of projecting her thoughts. “Wait just a moment while I gather my things.”

  The Companion pranced with agitation and impatience, but Sherra was not going into Gripping Mire without her kit. She gathered up her guide kit, which she always kept in readiness, shoved three packets of dried fish, her camp stove, compressed dung-and-grass fuel bricks, copper bowl and cup, and her special brews into the top of her rucksack, and slung it on her back. She strapped on her short, stout reed-knife and her longer hacking knife, hung her hand-crossbow from her belt on one side, the quiver on the other, and jammed on her hat. She poured what she could of her fish stew into a gourd and sealed it, tied the gourd to her belt, and with a sigh of regret, poured the rest down the drain into the midden, filling the pot with water and a pinch of soap flakes. She made sure the fire was out, and only then did she leave the hut, latching the door behind her, and putting the “rocks” back over the windows.

  :Are you quite ready?:

  Hmm. While Sherra could sympathize with the Companion’s impatience . . . there could be only one person in charge in Gripping Mire, and that person was her. She picked up her quarterstaff and grounded the butt of it with a thump. “Lady, I know that your Chosen is somewhere out there, and you are concerned. But I know this swamp, and you do not. We either go my way at my pace, and you obey my orders, or you may go alone and I will go back to my fishing. I am sure you are a very important personage on your own ground and in your own land. But you are not there, you are here, and here your concerns are not nearly so important as our ability to survive Gripping Mire.”

  It was not the first time Sherra had been forced to make that speech, and she doubted it would be the last. And every time she did, the person she addressed was always taken aback, having assumed that the authority he (or she, though females rarely exhibited such arrogance, even if they felt it) had outside the swamp would carry within it.

  Sherra dared not allow that. Not if the client was going to live to see the other bank.

  This time was no exception. The Companion stepped back a pace or two, looking astonished that anyone would question her right to be the one in charge. Sherra stood firm. “The fish are waiting, Lady, and you just made me pour the stew that would have been my dinner down the drain. My terms, or not at all.”

  The Companion laid back her ears and narrowed her eyes, then grudgingly acquiesced. :All right. Your way.:

  “Fine. Follow directly behind me and don’t go more than an arm’s length—my arm—off the trail that I set. There are mudholes in there that could swallow you up before you ever realized you were in trouble. And that is only the smallest of the dangers. Which direction is this Chosen of yours?”

  The Companion pointed her nose in the direction that she wanted to go. Sherra oriented herself on that inbred compass that hertasi had, another remnant of their days as dull swamp lizards. When she was satisfied she would not lose the direction no matter what, she gestured to the Companion to follow, and headed up the path beside the swamp.

  “You might as well tell me your name, lady,” Sherra said, after a great deal of huffy silence. “Mine is Sherra.”

  She didn’t look back over her shoulder; she was too busy studying the stretch of marsh ahead of her for a path that would take the much greater bulk of the Companion. But she could sense the rumbling of thoughts in the Companion’s head.

  :Vesily,: came the answer, finally.

  “Well, Vesily, I hope that your human didn’t decide for whatever reason he had to go into the Mire on his own. Even experienced hunters won’t do that unless they have no choice.”

  Finally she spotted a path, marked by the presence of mat-grass, which needed actual soil, not mud, to grow. “Follow me. See this grass?” She pulled up a tuft. “Step only where this grows.”

  :You go into the Mire alone. What makes you different?:

  “For one thing, I am a lizard, and we make notoriously poor eating.” She chuckled. “For another, I have—well, I suppose it is a Gift of sorts. It’s certainly more than just knowing the swamp very, very well. I can find paths to and through anything. I really don’t know how, I just think about it, and I can see it.”

  This was the most talking she had done in a very long time, and she actually surprised herself with the amount she had said.

  “Besides that, as you said, I know the swamp, and I know the danger signs in it. I suppose I have another Gift; I get a sense of when danger is near, even without signs of it.” She shrugged, and leaped to the next grassy tussock.

  :I do not know if my Chosen is in the Mire or on the other side,: Vesily said, as she picked her way daintily from tussock to tussock. :I only know that it is time and he needs me. Until I actually Choose him, I cannot Mindspeak him, and I am not bound to him as I will be when he is truly Chosen.:

  “Depending on where he is, it might take us as long as three days before we can reach him.” Sherra tested a dubiou
s tussock with her staff, but it held firm. She envied the Companion’s long legs.

  She felt the Companion’s dismay. :Three days! But—:

  “You can’t tell how far he is, and that’s how long it takes to cross Gripping Mire. Unless you can summon a gryphon to go look for him—” That would certainly be preferable. Not for the first time, Sherra wished she lived on the Vale side of the Mire. It would be much easier to get one of the gryphons to scout. Or ask one of the Hawkbrothers to send out his bond bird; that would be almost as good.

  The Companion’s sigh was all that it took to tell Sherra that Vesily was no more likely to call a gryphon than she herself was. :But doesn’t that mean we will spend at least two nights in the Mire?: she replied, clearly not happy with that prospect either.

  “There are islands in there, and I know how to safeguard us,” Sherra replied. “And I’ll find things that are safe for you to eat. It won’t be pleasurable, but it won’t be a misery either, unless it rains. Until it rains.”

  She looked back to see Vesily shuddering at the thought. Well, Sherra couldn’t really blame her. The Mire in the rain? Ugly proposition. Not as miserable for them as it would be for humans, poor naked things, but quite bad enough.

  Already the insects had discovered them—the small ones, at least, not the huge, hunting ones deeper in the Mire—and midges and mosquitoes rose from the surrounding area in clouds. But Sherra’s tough hide sent them away, discouraged, and something about Vesily made them suddenly zoom off when they had gotten within a few inches of her white coat. Probably something to do with magic, and that was one thing more off Sherra’s “worry” list. Without protection, it was quite possible for animals to be so drained of blood overnight by insects that they became too weak to move.

  At which point, of course, they became something’s dinner.

  Since she had not had time for breakfast, she gulped the fish stew from her gourd while it was still warm, regretting the half pot she’d had to throw away. This had been a very good batch.

  :What on earth are you drinking?: Vesily demanded after a while, her irritation plain.

  “My breakfast, Lady, which you were too impatient to permit me to eat,” Sherra replied, with equal irritation. “If you had not noticed by now, in order to set a pace that satisfies you, I must make three strides to your one, thus I am working three times harder. I am in great need of this breakfast.”

  Silence. Chagrined silence, at least.

  Good. Sherra put her mind back on the path. The plants around them now were well over Vesily’s head, never mind Sherra’s—and more than once, Vesily had to balance awkwardly on two or three tussocks of safe ground, while Sherra searched for another to jump to.

  Finally, there was nothing to jump to. “Well, Lady,” she said, turning back to the Companion, “We have run out of dry. It is now time to get wet.”

  : ... . blast.:

  Sherra nodded her snout with sympathy. “The good news is that this part of the mire is relatively free of sucking mudholes. I’ll only have to make sure we don’t run into plain, ordinary holes that would break one of your ankles.” She eased herself down into the dank, green water carefully. No matter what you did, swamp water was pretty nasty stuff, rank with rotting vegetation, and stagnant. Not even a lizard liked the smell of it.

  At least it was only knee-deep here. Small blessing.

  This was where her staff truly came into play, probing every bit of bottom before they ventured onto it. As long as it stayed this shallow, nothing really large and dangerous could hide under the water, and things like water vipers generally tended to slither away rather than attack. So all they had to worry about were underwater obstacles, and the occasional poisonous serpent that wouldn’t slither away when disturbed.

  Oh, and anything they might attract with the sound of splashing.

  At midmorning, they came upon one of the islands that Sherra had told the Companion about, and at that point they were both ready for a rest. Slogging through water trying to make the best possible speed was not an easy task. They were both slimed, Sherra up to her waist, the Companion well above her knees. It showed more on Vesily; she had green legs now.

  Sherra hauled herself up onto the firmer land with a sigh; Vesily groaned as she lurched up out of the water. Sherra had expected to have to fight for a rest, but it was Vesily who asked first :Can we take a candlemark or so to recover?:

  Well! Sherra tried to keep from sounding gleeful. “Absolutely. Just let me dig a seep.”

  As Vesily folded up her slimed legs and dropped down onto the thatch of dried grasses that must have been accumulating here for a decade, Sherra cleared a patch of them away and dug a hole in the mat of roots until she was pretty sure she was below the waterline. This hole would quickly fill with water filtered through the roots of the plants and the earth itself, and once boiled, it would give them a clean source of water for a good drink before they moved on.

  Then she flopped down on the grass next to Vesily.

  Now that they were not moving, Sherra let her tired muscles relax, and let the warm sun soak into her. It felt wonderful. She had never pressed this far, this fast, into the swamp before. Vesily’s urgency had infected her, but they were both paying the price of that urgency.

  Her eyes started to close, and she let them. If Vesily was still feeling that driven, then Vesily could wake her up.

  On the other hand . . . if Vesily was as tired as Sherra, they might not wake up until the sun set and evening’s chill descended.

  Bad idea.

  So she left a little mental command to herself: I will wake up when the sun is a little past noon. That part of her that tended to such things noted the position of the sun on her closed lids, knew where it would be around about noon, and agreed. With that mental “watchdog” in charge, Sherra quickly reviewed their position.

  It was good. They were in the middle of this island, there had been no indication that anything used it as a home other than marsh birds, they were below the level of the tops of the grass and, so, invisible. They were as secure as they could be without erecting walls.

  All good, said the “watchdog.” Sherra let herself drowse. The watchful part of her kept an ear on the marsh sounds, the insects whining and buzzing, the frogs, the little marsh birds. There was some splashing that briefly disturbed her, but the sounds were small and irregular, so they were probably a fish or a frog jumping or striking at a bug.

  Finally it was a little after noon, and she woke fully, feeling much better. The Companion was still dead asleep; interestingly, all the slime had flaked off her legs, leaving her lying in a shower of little green flakes, and her legs were pristine again. Well, that wouldn’t last long.

  Sherra set her tiny camp-stove to blaze, blowing on its vents until the fuel became an ember. She balanced a full cup of the seep-water on the stove’s tines and revisited it after it had bubbled a few minutes. Sherra swapped that hot cup for a wide shallow copper bowl of seep water in its place, and left her bread in it to soak while a pinch of tea warmed up in the cup. She then got out one of the leatherbound vials from her pack and dripped four drops into the seep, swirled it with her tailtip, then had herself a drink of the tepid water there; it tasted green, but not bad, and now it was nice and clear. The drops made contaminants simply drop away to the bottom and clump there, leaving pure water behind. It took weeks to make a batch of the stuff, but even if it took years, it would still be worth it. Sherra slipped off long enough to gather some grasses and roots she knew the Companion could eat safely; for herself, she kept a few of the roots, augmented with the journey bread sticks she kept in her rucksack. The roots were unusual fare for her when guiding; normally she made do with the bread, while those she guided tended to their own needs. But normally she didn’t have to set off in a tearing hurry with a client that hadn’t made any preparations—and who, in any event, would have to eat so much that carrying provender was impractical.

  When she had eaten—eating before Vesily
did, because she was pretty certain Vesily would not give her much time once she bolted her own meal—she woke the Companion.

  Vesily lurched to her feet in alarm, confused for a moment at finding herself in the swamp. Sherra just stepped calmly back for a moment while Vesily sorted herself out.

  “I’ve gathered safe food for you, Lady, and the seep is full and clean,” she said, gesturing to the pile of grasses and roots. “While you are eating I will scout ahead, and when you are finished, we can be off.”

  :How late is it?: Vesily asked, her eyes wide. :How long did I sleep? I didn’t mean to sleep!:

  “Lady, it does not matter, “ Sherra replied with what she hoped was patience. “If you were tired enough to sleep, you were too tired to go on. Would you rather have stumbled into a sinkhole or a sucking mud-mire because you were too tired to stay to the path? Would you rather have attracted some predator? You slept; now we will make better time than if you had not.”

  Honestly, how experienced is this creature? she thought rather crossly, as she left Vesily to eat—or not—and struck out in the direction Vesily had given her. How is it she doesn’t know that exhausting yourself at the beginning of a journey only makes it longer?

  She didn’t know all that much about Companions, really. All she could think was that they must be greatly pampered creatures . . . or else this one truly did not know her own limits. It was true, come to think of it, that she didn’t particularly “feel” old in her Mindspeech.

  Well, she would discover her limits quickly enough in here.

  What Sherra was most concerned with, besides whatever roaming monster happened to prowl this part of Gripping Mire, was the presence of the sort of mudholes that Vesily could stumble into. Sherra knew how to free herself and a human from them, but a Companion? Four legs instead of two, no ability to grasp a rope or a branch, no way to get on top of the mud and slide on her belly——The only ending Sherra could see for that was death. A rather horrible death at that. This place was called Gripping Mire for a reason; the Hawkbrothers reckoned that it was at least half mudhole, and what the mud gripped, it seldom let loose.