Above, a gray sky slowly became streaky blue, with the clouds called horsetails bannering away south.
The breeze that dried their swords brought more and more the stink of damp burning with it... so by sun-straight-up, as they clambered down a steep defile thick with yellow birch — Patience grumbling as she managed, ground-walking beside them — Nancy said, "Serious burning."
"Stop, then," Patience said, blowing out a tired breath. "Stop a moment." And they rested leaning against slender birches.
Richard raised his head and sniffed the air. "Forest is too wet to burn."
Patience sighed. "Then something burned before the rain. I'm weary of stomping and stepping, anyway." She bent her head as if she prayed to these mountains' Jesus... then slowly tilted forward as if about to fall. But the fall never came. Instead, she eased out that way, leaning in the air as if on the air, and Baj saw her small moccasin-boots just off the ground.
It had seemed to him before, that the Boston-woman rose in a single almost swinging way to Walk-in-air, but now, watching closely, he saw that wasn't so. It was a rising in gradual bounds, each — timed perhaps to a breath — higher than the one before... until she was no longer what they were, or she had been — but a different creature, white-haired and blue-coated, sailing up through sun-struck birch leaves into the sky.
They all — except for Errol, who was on all fours, sniffing at something at the base of a tree — they all stood watching Patience rise, sitting cross-legged, her scimitar held on her lap. Rise... then drift away to the north.
It still seemed to Baj an amazement, the gift of a Great, and something past the sensible of life.... But not quite the miracle it had been. The so-tedious mind, becoming used to it, had turned it almost usual with the curse of accustom, so it might have been that a familiar hunting hawk had flown from his gauntlet with jess-bells ringing.... Well, perhaps an eagle.
Nancy raised her red-crested head, sniffed the air. "Meat," she said. "Meat burning with the other burning."
Errol left his interesting tree and pranced a circle around them, making his tongue-click sounds, then trotted away down the mountainside.
Richard shouldered his ax, said, "Now, we go carefully," and strode off along the slope.... The mountains' air, after its storm, was fine and clear, so what seemed almost a Warm-time sunshine spangled through the leaves to decorate Baj and Nancy with flowing gold medallions as they hiked down the birches after him.
It appeared the perfect friendly air of a perfect summer afternoon, but its breeze still brought burning with it as they reached the mountain's wide green apron of water meadow refreshed by rain, and Baj took his bow from his shoulder, paused and knelt in high grass to brace it — making an odd shadow — then drew an arrow from his quiver, blew through its feathers to dry them further, and set it to the string as they went on. Damp fletchings . .. damp string — but fair enough for a short shot.
Nancy had said nothing to him since the storm, but she walked alongside.
There was a low ridge lying across their way, as if a small mountain had begun to wake and rise, then slumped to sleep again. Baj supposed this was the beginning of true lower country — at least for a time — since no succession of green rounded peaks loomed above its pine-furred spine. Lower country... "Thank you," he said aloud, imagining these mountains' Jesus listening from his tree.
"Thank me?" Nancy said.
"Well, I was thanking Mountain Jesus for level ground at last.... But also, I thank you and Richard. In your company, I've become a... more human human."
"That," she said, and was smiling, "— is to go from bad to worse."
They laughed loud enough for Richard to turn and frown at them, so they became serious, and looked right and left across the meadows as they went to the sleeping ridge. It was so like a great creature lying down, that Baj began a poem . .. that turned instead, as he paced along, into a tale for children — of a gentle monster, immense, named Pepperada-Dodo, who befriended all young creatures, animal, human, or Person, and guarded them — though, too shy to be seen as himself, appearing always as a modest mountain, carefully cloaked in evergreens.
A disguise successful, as Baj found — bow now eased, and arrow quivered — climbing the ridge's steep slope, hauling himself up it from sapling to sapling, his pack weighing heavier and heavier, his moccasin-boots slipping in rain-soaked soil or scrabbling up shelves of stone. Less soil, more stone as he climbed higher, Nancy stepping up more lightly beside him.
When they stopped climbing to catch their breath — Richard above them, massive, still moving quietly up the hill — Baj scanned the sky for Boston-Patience, but saw above the evergreens no tiny flag of blue coat drifting across blue sky.
They gathered at the crest — Errol squatting, drawing white lines on a round of surfaced stone with a sharp-edged rock — and met the strongest stink of burning yet, rising up the reverse slope. To the north, where the country sank away to a deep, wide valley, a smudge of light-brown smoke towered, broken by breezes.
"Past that burning," Richard said, "— is the Pass I-Seventy."
"Can we avoid the burning?" Baj was amused to hear himself ask a question that wouldn't have occurred to him only weeks before. Caution and care had come to stay.
"No," Richard said, "— though we can try, by one or two WT miles, going by."
"That's a Robin village," Nancy said. "We passed it, coming south."
"They built too low." Richard shook his head. "Hill tribes live longer in the hills."
Errol began hitting the stone with his rock. Tock tock tock, until his rock powdered and broke.
* * *
From the bottom of the ridge, they walked north, keeping to the trees where they could, and hold direction. Filing through birch groves and tangled brush along a narrow glittering run, they saw the smoke still rising, a little to their right.
Baj came last, pressed a little to keep up through dense growths of thorn and bird berry. Nancy trotted in front of him, her light-footed shadow, hunchbacked by her pack, slanting beside her. They stirred whirring grass-hoppers up and around them as they went.
Baj heard that sort of whirring whisper behind him — then cold steel touched the back of his neck. He yelped, wheeling, drawing his sword as Patience hung in the air just above him, smiling, her head haloed by the sun. "It might be wise to watch behind you, Baj Who-was-et cetera. Behind and above. I am not the only Talent out of Boston."
Baj took a breath, put up his rapier, and said, "Good advice."
"You know Warm-time's 'et cetera' ?" She sheathed her scimitar, and swung slightly in the air, her face, despite the little spints along her nose, now looking only lightly bruised.
"I know it, Lady."
Patience thrust a small moccasin down. "Pull me to the ground. It feels good in the back of my head... something rubs inside there."
Baj reached up to hold her foot, then gently drew her from the air. There was an odd... resistance.
"Feels good," she said, sliding down to him and along his chest and belly to stand in the grass. "Feels good..." She rested there against him, smiling up into his face, black eyes so close he saw nothing else, so she might have been a girl, and beautiful.
"is she hurt?" Nancy, coming back to them.
"No," Patience said, and stepped away. "I was teasing your prince as if I were still young, and perfect."
"He's not my prince," Nancy said, lisping the prince a little, and turned away as Richard came lumbering back to them.
"What have you seen?" he said.
"I've seen what you should see," Patience said. "That is a small Robin village, burning, and the Robins still stand in it."
"I doubt they'd welcome us," Richard said.
"Oh, but they will," Patience said, "— and smiling."
... And so it proved. The Robin village, its houses once ranked down along a stream — the water tumultuous after the storm — was burned, burned to nothing but sticks of char and furnaced wattle-clay. The villagers
smiled in welcome, some with ravens perched on their heads.
A forest of perhaps fifty or sixty of them grinned, propped upright in the ruins of their homes, blistered black and impaled on fire-scorched stakes. Several curl-tailed brown dogs shied and muttered a distance away, and a little flock of brown chicken-birds pecked and strutted by the stream.
Baj bent and vomited, sickened by smell more than sight. The drifting odor was of overcooked pig, charred, sweet, and delicious.
"No children." Patience cleared her throat, spit, and kicked a cinder aside. "So whoever it was, once the killing was over, had the children herded for serfs.... Too far south for this to have been done by Shrikes, though the method is theirs."
"Method?"
"Baj, the Shrikes are named for sticking people up on sharp stakes or, over the Wall, on tall made-icicles."
"And not the Guard's doing," Richard said.
Nancy suddenly sprinted through smoking remnants, took Errol by the back of his neck and dragged him, kicking, from what he'd been doing. "... No," she said, cuffing Errol still, "this was not the Guard."
Baj wiped his mouth with his bandanna. "Because none were eaten?"
Richard turned on Baj in a surprisingly sudden way. "Eating true-humans is a true-human do, as you should remember, since your own river-people are known for it!"
"Were known for it." Baj said.
"Oh," Patience said, "— I imagine some backcountry river lords still hold festival lunch.... But not the Guard's doing here, Baj. They wouldn't have troubled with burning, and they wouldn't have taken the children. They'd have asked for the chief's daughter, taken her if she seemed useful — but not killed anyone, unless opposed."
"And if opposed?"
"Then," Richard said, and seemed even angrier, "— then, everyone and everything, even singing basket-birds and puppies."
Baj knelt by the village stream to wash his bandanna. "Let's get the fuck away from here." Probably quoting from some copybook he'd read; it had Warm-times' harsh impatient ring.
"Get away, yes," Nancy said. "But which way to do it?"
"We're almost to the Pass I-Seventy," Patience said, "— and have no choice but keep north to cross it into Map-Pennsylvania."
"Well enough," Baj stood and wrung his bandanna out. "— If soon enough." He breathed lightly and through his mouth, but the odor still came in.
"Away from here, first," Richard said, and strode off down the stream, his shaggy head lowered, apparently so as not to see too much of what he passed.
They all filed after him, Nancy holding Errol by the arm. Patience came last, ground-walking. "What is in the air, is seen in the air," she said.
Richard led them down the Robins' stream — then over it, across cleverly set stepping-stones, big enough that they were only splashed, crossing. Once over, they traveled through scattered forest — of mainly evergreens, with only a few tamarack, aspen, and balsam poplar. The Wall's breath, over this lowland, was now close enough to be too chill for many hardwoods, summer or not.
The trees in these groves bore birds like bright fruit. Baj had seen the red-crossbills and siskens north on the River, but not the little purple finches — very like the pets, though different colors, that ladies kept in their chambers at Island.... He supposed Patience, meeting these feathered creatures in the air, must puzzle them.
After perhaps two glass-hours, Richard ducked into a hemlock thicket, stopped in its small ragged clearing — cool and deep-green as underwater — and shrugged off his pack.
"And we stop, why?" Patience brushed an evergreen frond away from her face.
"We're coming near to Map I-Seventy." Richard bent his odd knees, sat, then rocked back to lean against his pack. "So I thought we'd rest the day out here — then go on to cross the open at night."
"And be up into the Map-Tuscaroras by dawn." Patience nodded. "Seems sensible." She sat cross-legged, her scimitar across her knees, as the others shed their packs and settled. Settled as well as memory of the burned Robins allowed.
Baj, drowsing, found paintings of those people in his mind, roasted mouths open, as if they spoke and screamed. He tried to recall the little birds instead....
They lay at ease, or slept through the rest of the day, lulled by the hemlocks' shade and rich perfume — which reminded Baj, when he roused, of the exhalations of court ladies at Island, who'd taken to chewing sugared pine-gum to sweeten their breath. It could be scented sometimes, passing a group of them laughing in long paneled gowns, belted with daggers, and neck-laced with ropes of freshwater pearls or Map-Arizona turquoise. Ladies guarded by dangerous lovers, brothers, and fathers, and grown delicate and sometimes cruel as the pretty insect-eating flowers raised in corners of the glass gardens....
Baj woke in early evening — as all the other sleepers woke together, like children in a nursery, and rummaged for the last of smoked turkey-bird.
"A good rest," Patience said. They sat in a fire-circle, eating, though there was no fire in the glade. "I was tired. These mountains... I once Walked-in-air, and occasionally on the ground, from Boston to North Map-Mexico. And thought little of it."
"How many WT miles?" Nancy was examining Errol's hair for nits, the boy stretched out with his head in her lap like a fireside dog, drowsing.
"I suppose... more than two thousand. Though I came down to the east of here, where there is at least some civilization, if you count shepherds and cattle-herders and small farmers. And I did have an occa carrying my baggage — fool that I was not to steal one from the penthouse this last time I left. I would have had to kill sentries to do it... had no permission, no Faculty note. And the thing would have been complaining all the way. They are... sad company."
"MacAffee brought one down to Island," Baj said. "And are they... are they Persons, too?"
Nancy took her hand from Errol's hair. "What business is that of yours?"
"It is his business," Richard said to her. "Are all Persons wise? Are all of us gifted with sense? — No, no more than Sunriser-humans are, who have their own fools and witless unfortunates."
"I didn't mean to cause pain," Baj said.
"No." Patience leaned to one side, brought a handful of blueberries out of her coat pocket, mouthed a few from her palm, then held the rest out to Baj to sample and pass on. "No, it was a fair question.... Are occas Persons? Yes, though so sad and stupid. They are Persons as I am, as Richard and Nancy and Errol are — as many in Boston, who do not realize it, also are to some degree, since those Talents who believe they make useful improvements will not stop their making, though of worse and worse."
"May be stopped, though." Richard tossed the last blueberries down his throat.
"Yes," Patience said. "If we manage, we will stop them — though their making has allowed many men and women to warm themselves through the worst of Lord Winter's exercise, and gifted a few to Walk-in-air." She sat silent a few moments, staring into the hemlocks' deep green. "... My Maxwell is by blood-bits the greatest of Talents, made to someday — if it pleases him — made to press our earth a little nearer the sun, to bring Warm-times back again."
Another silence. And though she'd seemed serious, Patience smiled at Baj. "— Or do you suppose that only Wish-fools would think it possible?"
"... I'm not one to judge impossibility, Lady — for here I sit, alive, and with friends. But our world is large, and we are small."
"Me excepted," Richard said.
"But Baj," Patience said, "— nothing exists, not form or motion, unless first determined, shaped in a mind."
"Rocks," Baj said. "Trees."
"Ah, but those are Second-rocks, Second-trees — and then thirds of them and fourths and infinite numbers of them. But the first, imagined — how else come to be?"
"I think... our librarian, Lord Peter Wilson, would have said yours is an argument of prior givens — those creations by thought — and poorly logical."
"Your 'Lord Peter Wilson,' Baj, was first my dear old Neckless Peter of many years ago. And y
ou're right; that is exactly what he would have said.... But then, if not in logic, how do I come to Walk-in-air, so eagles sail beside me?"
"... That, Lady, I do not know," Baj said, and noticed Nancy watching him, staring as if to see beneath his skin.
CHAPTER 16
They set out by a rising moon and jeweling stars, traveling down through evergreens and out onto the widest plain Baj had seen since the River's coast, though more soft-summit mountains, the Map-Tuscaroras, could be seen rising to the north.
This was a valley — Map-Exxoned an ancient great roadway once — worn now WT-miles broad by centuries of end-of-summer flooding, come down yearly the distance from the Wall. The last of moon-light revealed streaked shallow banks of mud and gravel braided down the pass, and a wind — likely also from the Wall — came whispering cold.
"Lord Winter begins to wake," Nancy said.
"Hold here," Patience said behind her, and they all crunched to a stop on the valley's gravel, except for Errol, who skittered on into darkness.... There was a pause, and Baj supposed the lady had stopped for necessity, though no one looked back to see.... But after a few moments, there was a flap and flutter of cloth, and a faint moon-shadow swept slowly over them, though only her white hair could be seen against the sky.
"Safe now," she said above them, voice conversational from a ceiling of stars. "Safe to be Walking-in-air in darkness, unseen. Though once, in a glacier-lead where the Long Island lies, a horned owl came and struck me, almost took my ear. Cruel birds..." Baj could just follow — by her hair, by the stars she shaded — as she sailed away.
"That would be pleasant," Nancy said, "— to learn to do."
"For that," Richard shifted his pack more comfortable, "— for that, neither of us have the piece in the brain required."
"And I believe," Baj said, feeling rough gravel beneath his moccasins' soles, "— I believe there must be a cost."
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