by Joni Sensel
On impulse, Ariel raised the map and pressed it to her nose as if she could inhale its meaning. It smelled of wet stones and well water and drowning. Hastily she pulled it away.
She whispered, “I’m kind of afraid, Scarl. Afraid I can’t do it. And afraid of what might happen after.”
He exhaled at length, but his gaze softened. “You know I’ll do what I can.”
The fire popped, scattering embers. Grimly, Scarl shoved the coals back into place with his boot. “I hate it when … Well, I wish Zeke were here so the stones could advise us.”
“Me, too,” Ariel murmured, feeling responsible. Then she remembered her promise to Zeke. She’d meant to plop a few rocks into their fishing hole once the fishing was done. She’d forgotten—no, been distracted. She glanced sideways at Nace. Emotions tangled inside her. Just now, she couldn’t deal with those, too. She kicked at a rock near one foot, hoping that would do for tonight, and comforted herself with the cool feel of her necklace.
“You’ll let me wear it, then?” she asked Scarl.
“For now. If you insist.”
“Farwalkers are the strangest people I ever met,” Sienna announced.
Nace, on the other hand, edged closer to Ariel. He reached as if to take one of her hands, but after a wary glance at the Finder, he settled for thumping his fist to his heart. Though she didn’t really understand, his gesture still gave her strength.
She turned her face once more to the lopsided moon and begged it to wait for her coming.
CHAPTER 24
Dog Moon and Sleep
Ariel awoke the next morning with a fluttering sense that she needed to hurry. As she bolted upright and looked about in confusion, her gaze fell on Scarl. He’d curled up last night closer than usual. Now he lay with his cheek propped on his hand, waiting for her to awaken.
“You spoke in your sleep,” he said. “What were you dreaming?”
“I don’t remember.” She shoved off her blanket. “But we need to go. I messed up bad yester—”
Her eyes fell on a worn length of rope coiled between them. The morning breeze abruptly felt chill. “What’s that?”
He raised his wrist, tied with one end of the rope. “I’m surprised you don’t recognize it. I woke to find it between us, but I untied your end so it might not upset you so much.”
She scrambled to her feet and away. “It’s not!”
“I think it is. I know my own knots.” He began freeing himself from the rope that he’d once used to leash her. “I considered hiding it before you awoke, but I’m not in the habit of keeping secrets between us and I suspect this would be a poor time to start.”
Ariel stared at the hated rope and tried to stop her chest from heaving. The fear inside her could not be exhaled.
“Easy.” Scarl reached a hand to calm her. “I know how you feel—like the earth has turned to water beneath you and everything you know must be wrong. But none of these strange ‘tracks,’ as you called them, has hurt us.”
“My arm hurt when it bled.”
“I shouldn’t have dismissed that. Forgive me. But I still think your necklace is more of a threat.”
“Does it have a story about going backward in time?”
Scarl hesitated. “Backward… Not really. I’ll have to think about that. Anyway, it seems to me that we are going forward. The past is just clinging to us in some unnatural way.”
“Then we’ve got to go forward faster,” she decided. “Right now. Get rid of that thing and let’s get out of here.”
“Done.” He rolled to his feet and nudged their companions, who’d been awakened by Ariel’s cry. “Up fast,” he told them, ignoring Sienna’s questions. Nace raised his tousled head to shoot Ariel a grin before bounding to his feet. His cheer—his very nowness—eased her anxiety. And despite the rush to leave, he managed to present her with a flower.
As they packed, Scarl’s first words that morning belatedly wormed into Ariel’s brain. She asked him, “What did I say in my sleep?”
“I couldn’t understand most of it. But one thing was ‘Walk across the waning moon.’” He glanced for Nace’s whereabouts. “Another sounded like ‘Don’t let the moonlight burn Nace.’ ”
The words chimed through her head, stirring but not waking memories of the dreams. She grasped for them without success. All she could retrieve was an impression of climbing—hillsides and ladders and dozens of stairs—and the bitter taste of fear.
Seeing her puckered brow, Scarl said, “Don’t fret. The same window may open again before you fall asleep tonight, and you might realize it looks out on nonsense. Just dreams.”
“As long as Elbert doesn’t come climbing through it,” she said.
Scarl’s expression turned grim, but he shook his head. “Even Orion was little more than a ghost. And if there’s a bead in your necklace for Elbert, I don’t see it.”
“This one.” She tapped her largest bead, the green glass. “Everything that happened last spring goes with this one.”
His silence did not reassure her.
“Will you tell me the rest?” she asked.
“As we’re walking,” he agreed.
When they were ready to leave, though, Scarl drew Ariel aside. “I don’t mean to doubt you,” he said. “But would you be less distracted in finding your path if the three of us followed behind you, instead of all walking together?”
Ariel fought a surge of defensiveness. After her work yesterday, his question wasn’t unfair.
“I’m paying attention now, honest,” she said. “I was mostly distracted by junk in my head. I mean—”
“Thinking too much.”
He’d advised her against that before, but she only now understood. She nodded. “I know where my feet want to go now. Please don’t make me walk by myself.”
“When’s the last time I made you do anything?” he asked with a wry smile. “It was just a suggestion.”
They forged across densely forested ridges. Despite the day’s ominous start, the purposeful motion and her relief over Sienna lifted Ariel’s heart higher than it had been in days. She closely attended the tug on her feet, which grew stronger until she could let her eyes wander with confidence. She had difficulty keeping them off Nace. Walking with him was like traveling with a mockingbird. Using whistles and clicks, he conversed with every sparrow, chipmunk, and cicada within earshot.
“Can you really understand them, Nace?” she wondered. “Can they understand you?”
He raised closely spaced fingers: A little.
“Couldn’t you make up a language for talking to people with those sounds?”
He shrugged, but his face suggested he wasn’t that interested in talking to people. Ariel guessed he’d had too many failures.
Struck by a sudden idea, she whirled. “Scarl!” Knowing that Nace and Sienna were both listening, however, made her tongue feel clumsy. “Never mind. I’ll tell you later.”
“Are you sure it can wait? We can just ask them to—”
“It’s not about where we’re going.” She moved onward again. “Talk more to the birds, Nace. I like how it sounds.”
Newly self-conscious, he cast his face toward his feet and stayed quiet a while. Eventually, though, birds drew him back into their chatter. He occasionally chirped to Ariel, too. She wanted badly to mimic the sounds back to him, but she feared he would think she was mocking. She smiled shyly instead and decided to try it some other time, when Sienna and Scarl weren’t so close.
The sound of rushing water overtook Nace’s chitter. The travelers shared hopeful glances. As they wove through the trees toward the sound, though, Ariel’s stomach grew heavy. She knew before they saw it that they had not reached Timekeeper, but a gorge.
Where the forest broke, they stared down at the white turmoil below, which bit deeply into the earth.
“No waterfall here,” Scarl said. “Upstream or downstream, Farwalker?”
The look Ariel threw him smacked of despair. “Neither! We need to cross it, not fo
llow along.” The urge to get across and beyond burned in her almost like hunger. The gorge was narrow enough to be tempting—less distance than Ariel’s fall from the roof—but too risky to jump. “I knew it. I knew I screwed up.”
Sienna plopped her hands on her hips. “I thought Farwalkers found ways around this sort of mess.”
“We’ll just have to detour until we can ford it.” Scarl rummaged for his broken glass. “I’ll find the nearest safe crossing.”
“We don’t have time!” Ariel could feel the impatience in her feet. Even the rushing water advised her: Hasten, hasten. Or perhaps it was an echo from the unseen, growing moon. She moaned. “We might as well stop here. I know it. We’ll get there too late.”
Nace tugged on her sleeve. He pointed across the chasm and slightly upstream to what looked like an odd ladder dangling over the side of the far cliff.
“A swinging bridge.” Scarl squinted. “It must be left from the old days.”
“Like it matters,” said Sienna. “It’s broken. Besides, after Scarl’s story, if you think I’m crossing any bridge I can fall from, you’re crazy.”
Scarl grunted and Ariel shuddered. Nace scowled at it, too—and then sprinted upstream.
“Nace!” Ariel cried. When he didn’t slow, she gave chase, glad to flee her losing battle with tears.
A short way along the gorge, Nace stopped. Bolts jutted from the stone at his feet, anchors for the end of the bridge that had broken. Behind them, a pair of thin metal ropes that had once served as handrails dangled from the trunks of two large trees. Bark had grown over the loops circling the trees. One line had frayed and snapped short, but the other must have given way on the far side, for its length hung over the near edge of the chasm. Nace hauled it up. The end featured several metal gadgets and clamps, which had presumably once fastened a loop on the other side, too. But now the handrail was useless.
“Sienna’s right, Nace.” Hot tears surged into Ariel’s throat. She had to whisper to speak without letting them out. “Thanks for trying to help, but I blew it.”
He gestured impatiently: Wait. Critically he studied the trees and the remnants of bridge. Then he flung the cable over a sturdy branch overhead that extended out across the chasm. As the loose end swooped toward him again, he caught it and tested his weight against it.
“Oh, Nace, no!” She peered at the boulders in the river and blanched. “If you fall…”
Nace waved aside her fear and backed up for a running start.
“Ariel?” Scarl called through the trees. “Ready when you are. And we do have a long stretch before any ford, so…”
His words faded in Ariel’s ears as Nace dashed to the edge of the chasm and launched. Her heart seemed to come unanchored, too. The cable squeaked on the branch, bark crumbs raining down, as Nace swung over the river and past the far bank. A curse and Scarl’s drumming boots sounded downstream. Nace swung back. He released the cable to drop to his feet before his momentum could pull him back over the gulf.
Ariel rushed to him. Nace spread his hands, palms up: Ta-da!
Scarl grabbed his arm and spun him so hard that Nace would have fallen if the Finder had not yanked him upright.
“Have you lost your senses?” Scarl demanded. “This may not be the Enchanted Gazelle’s waterfall, but it’s bloody well close enough! If that hadn’t worked, you’d be smashed on the rocks. The very last thing I want is to have to haul your corpse back to your mother and explain how I let it happen!”
Nace dropped his eyes, looking contrite, but Ariel could tell he was only giving Scarl’s anger time to burn itself out.
“Oh, never mind. We’d have no way to retrieve you!” Scarl added. “But you’d bleed in Ariel’s nightmares for weeks. Did you think of that?” He swore again, turned his back, and took a few labored breaths.
Her eyes round, Sienna crept forward through the trees. Willow trailed her, blowing through his nostrils in an unwitting imitation of Scarl.
Torn by doubt, Ariel cast Nace a questioning look. He made a sign of reassurance, tapped himself on the chest, swept one arm in a gesture inclusive of her, and nodded toward the dangling cable.
“Scarl?” Ariel asked.
“Sorry.” He turned. “That caught me by surprise. I shouldn’t have gone off quite so hard. But truly, Nace…”
“Scarl, if I talk, will you listen a minute?” Ariel had already told him how Nace had swung her in Skunk, and he’d been impressed, so she got straight to the point. “If Nace swings us all across the gorge, it might save my mistake. He can—”
“Oh, no,” said Sienna. “Not this Flame-Mage. No.”
“He can do it,” Ariel pressed. “But if we have to go around, we might as well give up now. We’ve only got a few days till full moon, and it’s been nagging at me to go faster. And that’s without any detour. So we can swing, or we can stop now. I say we swing.”
Scarl ran his hand through his hair and sighed, briefly closing his eyes. “The horse, Ariel. Don’t tell me he can get the horse across, too. If we give up Willow to haul our own gear, we might not get where we’re going in time anyhow.”
Nace clapped his hands for attention and squatted to draw in the dirt. It took a great deal of patience, but eventually he helped them all understand that he could ask the horse to run downstream to the ford and catch up with them on the far side.
Scarl laughed, the sound hollow. “I know you’re a Kincaller, Nace, but please. He’s not nearly that smart.”
Anger flashed in Nace’s face. He clucked to the horse. Willow whinnied and stepped forward to pluck at Scarl’s hair with his lips. Only Scarl’s direct apology stopped him at last.
“Maybe I’m the one who isn’t so smart,” Scarl muttered. He gripped the back of his neck and dubiously studied the cable and the branch where it dangled.
“No, Scarl,” Sienna said, biting her nails. “You can’t be thinking about this. We can just go around.”
“I will make you a deal, Farwalker.” Scarl’s eyes bored through Ariel. “If Nace can swing me over safely, over and back, I will let him swing you. I weigh twice as much. If the branch and his grip will support me as well, fine. If not, you sacrifice both of us to find out.”
Ariel felt the blood drain from her face. She really would throw herself in if the two of them fell.
“Is it worth that much risk?” Scarl pressed.
Nace touched her arm and nodded.
“Are you sure?” she asked him, her voice tight with fear. But the voice of the water below drowned her own: Hasten, hasten, hasten, hasten …
Ariel thought of the Vault and the stones’ threat that Zeke might lose his trade. She remembered Vi’s story of the fail-safe, her suggestion that people might never be ready—and the example of the uncaring men who had driven her off. And Ariel heard again all the threats of the moon, as well as the warning the cherry tree at the abbey had given to Ash: They can’t wait much longer, or all she has done will be undone.
All lost. Ariel didn’t have any choice.
CHAPTER 25
Dog Moon and Luck
Nace took a deep breath, rubbed his palms together, and gripped the cable. Scarl’s hands grasped it just above Nace’s.
“I’m going to put as much weight on you as I can with my legs,” Scarl said. He’d already tested the branch himself. “If I do break your grip, my legs wrapped around you should give you a chance to regain it.”
Nace nodded, but his knuckles gleamed white. A sweat broke on Ariel’s skin.
As the pair pulled back for their swing, Ariel lost the contents of her stomach. When she spat and looked up, they were swinging back toward her, a knot of limbs and strained faces. They landed and fell over each other, entwined. Nace slapped Scarl’s shoulder. Scarl cuffed the back of Nace’s head. They both grinned.
“All right,” Scarl said, disentangling himself. “Let’s get this over with.”
Ariel whooped. Sienna whimpered.
In a rush of sympathy, Ariel asked her, �
��Want to ride Willow and meet us instead?”
“Alone? What if—”
“No. We’re not splitting up.” Scarl shook his head. “I’ll risk losing the horse. Not one of you.”
Sienna grasped his arm. “Scarl, please. If I have to do this, will you take me? Nace will drop me on purpose.”
Nace smirked and tapped one finger on his lips as if contemplating the option. Ariel elbowed him.
“I might ask if you’ve given him reason,” Scarl told Sienna. “But it’ll be easier just to say yes.”
“Wait, Scarl. Can you?” Ariel asked. “I mean, your bad foot—”
Scarl shook his head. “There’s nowhere to put feet. This is all arms. Which is why Nace will take you—and don’t argue if you were thinking of swinging yourself. You’ve got your own strengths, but biceps aren’t among them.”
Ariel frowned. She didn’t like limits, but she knew most of her power lay in her legs, not her grip. Besides, Nace had skills she didn’t.
“I wanted to be sure he had enough strength, and then some,” Scarl went on. “But there’s no point in taxing him needlessly, either. I’ll ferry Sienna.”
They put one night’s gear into Scarl’s pack; everything else, including his walking stick and all of Sienna’s trade tools, went on Willow. Cheek to cheek with the horse, Nace made small noises, his eyes closed. Then he pulled back and clapped. The horse whirled and ran.
A twinge crossed Scarl’s face. “I hope you’re right about his ability to understand what you’ve asked, Nace.”
“I’m going to throttle you if he doesn’t,” Sienna told Nace.
“Let’s just go,” Ariel urged.
“You first,” said the Flame-Mage.
Nace grabbed the cable. Ariel edged up to him, more frightened than she’d expected to be. Unlike in Skunk, there was no soft mud to fall into here.
“Are you going to drop, Nace, or come back with the cable?” Scarl asked.
Nace gestured: Back.
“Why?” Ariel asked. Nace pointed to the branch over the gorge. If the cable had been hanging straight down, they wouldn’t have been able to reach it.
