The Ways of Winter

by Karen Myers

  George

  Don’t think about it, she chided herself, as her tears fell onto the paper. Think about it when it becomes inevitable, not before. Plan tomorrow’s ornament instead. He’d like that.

  She glanced out of the window as the new snow fell softly. How can the day be so lovely, and yet be so drained of joy.

  She gathered herself slowly like an aged woman and rose to let Alun know.

  CHAPTER 18

  George examined the rock formation to see if it would do for shelter.

  Last night he’d been too exposed in the bare woods to dare the risk of a fire but he was determined to find someplace more sheltered for this evening, since he’d be leaving the protection of the woods in the morning. There were springs alongside the ridge here, near its base, and he’d hoped to find a cave or at least some large rocks behind which he could make a small fire.

  This overhang he was looking at would do, he thought, open to the north rather than the west, into the valley, and with a rock outcrop in front that would partially block it. If he kept the fire low, the reflection shouldn’t be noticeable. He hadn’t smelled woodsmoke all day, but he’d have to take a chance and hope his wouldn’t travel too far. He couldn’t sense any people within a mile or so.

  He hastened to set up his fire and get his meal cooking before it got dark. The fire would be far less noticeable in what was left of the daylight. He could eat some of his supplies cold, but he’d rather cook something to warm him before sleeping out in the cold again.

  As he put a few sausage slices in his iron pan to sizzle in the lard, he felt something in the woods change. The animals became quiet. He listened again, and this time he sensed someone nearby, young. A boy? And something else. They weren’t moving, probably watching him, he thought.

  He let the smell of the food do its own persuading and called out, quietly, “Why don’t you come on in and join me?”

  He felt the consternation that offer created and hid his smile.

  *You taste like my mother.*

  “Granite Cloud, is that you? I’ve been looking for you.” He stayed seated, tending the food, not wanting to scare them off. Cloudie was far more understandable than her mother, actual words instead of pictures and emotions.

  Very cautiously, a boy of about eleven or twelve stepped away from the surrounding trees. He held himself like a deer, ready to dash off at a moment’s alarm. George thought he looked rather like a wild animal, too, with his cast-off torn clothing and ragged hair.

  “Who’re you?” the boy asked.

  “My name’s George.”

  “Cloudie says you’re a friend.”

  “You can talk to her?”

  “Sure. She says you know her mom.”

  “Her mother’s very worried about her.”

  The boy stood and looked him over, his hands on his hip. “Can you get her home?”

  “I want to try,” George said. He put the sausages on the underside of a piece of bark and reached out to put it on the ground closer to the boy. He cut up a few more slices for himself.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Oh, I’m nobody.”

  “You must have a name.”

  The boy sat down, out of reach, and drew the bark with the sausages over so he could begin eating them, hungrily.

  With his mouth full, he mumbled, “Maelgwn.”

  George nodded casually. “Pleased to meet you, Maelgwn.” He took out his sausages and added some corn cake batter to the greasy pan. “Where’s your family?”

  “Her boss killed ’em,” he said, cocking a thumb back over his shoulder, “long time ago.” The matter-of-fact way he said it made George’s heart ache for him. No wonder he looked feral.

  “Madog?”

  “Yeah.”

  George turned over the corn cakes while Maelgwn finished wolfing down the sausages. “How come you’re way out here? Won’t you get into trouble?”

  “Aw, he doesn’t know about me. Don’t you tell him!”

  “I won’t. He’s my enemy,” George said.

  *Can you take me home?*

  Something about her tone struck him as very young. “I’ll try, baby. Does Madog hold you? Does he make you work for him?”

  She came out into view. She looked much like her mother but smaller, about the size of a bull. After Mag’s bulk, she seemed downright dainty to George.

  *I don’t want to. People get hurt. I want to go home.*

  Maelgwn looked at George. “You’re not afraid of her.”

  “I’ve met her mother.” He cut up the corn cakes in the pan and divided them with Maelgwn.

  *Picture of Seething Magma, picture of George and Granite Cloud together.*

  “That’s her mom?” Maelgwn asked.

  George nodded.

  “She sounds nice,” he said, wistfully. “How come she talks different?”

  “I don’t know. Cloudie’s easier to understand.”

  *Can you help me?*

  “I’m going to look you over for a moment. Don’t be scared.”

  He examined her with his way senses, as if she were a way instead of a lost child. He could see that she’d been claimed and he could feel Madog’s signature as the claimer, just like the ways in Edgewood. Reaching out, he felt a small open way behind her.

  “Cloudie made a way for you both, just now?” he asked. “How did you find me?”

  “Her mom said you were coming. I told her you’d be heading toward us and we could just wait for you but you know how kids are. She wouldn’t leave me alone till I let her bring me here.”

  George asked gently, “Do you know how old she is?”

  “Well, sure, she’s about a thousand years old or something, but she’s just like my baby sister was, and she was five. No more sense than that.”

  “Do you live with her?”

  “Yeah, at his place. But he doesn’t know about me. I got away,” he said, proudly.

  George paused before his next question. “Why did Madog kill your family?”

  “’Cause we can see the ways, of course.”

  George was startled. This boy’s a way-finder, like Rhodri. Madog must want to eliminate rivals.

  “How do you live?”

  “Aw, I made friends with Cloudie as soon as I met her. She was lonely and I looked after her. She helps me hide. There’s this big place in his garden where I think he must have ’sperimented with her when she was really little. It’s full of short ways that just go from one spot to another, a real tangled-up mess. It’s so bad, he finally blocked it off. No one uses it.”

  George noted more evidence that Madog didn’t know how to collapse a way, else he could have just cleaned that up instead.

  Maelgwn boasted. “I live there. I’ve got food and clothes and all sorts of stuff, and no one thinks to look there.”

  “But how did Cloudie get away to come find me?”

  “He can’t keep track of her like that. He doesn’t care what she does. He can make her come whenever he wants, he doesn’t have to pay any attention to her the rest of the time. She has to do what he says.”

  *He’s mean. He hurts people.*

  “So if he summoned her right now,” George said, “how would you get back?”

  “I’d just use the way she made to bring me.”

  “Seems to me like you’re taking an awful chance. He might spot you.”

  “I don’t come out the other end unless I know he’s not there.” He was scornful of George’s concern. “He’s had her make so many ways, he never notices the new ones.”

  George considered the ramifications of all this. “Couldn’t Cloudie make a way just for you and get you away from Madog, over the Blue Ridge?”

  *No! Don’t go!*

  “I’d never leave her,” Maelgwn protested indignantly. “We’re family!”

  “Alright, I’m sorry. I didn’t understand.” It was a close bond the two of them had, comforting each other, especially since the boy had no one else.
/>   After a moment, Maelgwn settled down again. “So, how’re you going to get her loose?”

  “I’m working on a plan. I have another friend Madog just captured. I have to fetch him, too.”

  “Is that the one he got, the day before the big wind?”

  George’s hopes rose. The timing was right. “A young blond man.”

  “Yeah, that’s him.”

  “Is he alright?”

  “I heard the guards talking. They knocked him around but I think he’s still got all his pieces.” He looked at George consideringly. “You know, Madog likes to take bits off, a little at a time till there’s nothing and then he throws what’s left away. You better go get him soon.”

  Hearing those words from the mouth of a child made his hackles rise. He felt his ears move back on his head.

  “Do you know where he is?” George asked.

  “Maybe, but I’m not telling till you get Cloudie free.”

  George turned to Cloudie, still sitting at the edge of the firelight. “Have you tried talking to Madog?”

  *He can’t hear me.*

  Maelgwn said, “So how’re you gonna do it?"

  “I’m going to break his claim on her.”

  “How?”

  “Let me worry about that for now.”

  “Are you gonna claim her yourself?” Maelgwn asked, fiercely.

  “Never.”

  *Assurance. Picture of George, picture of Granite Cloud, together. Picture of Seething Magma, picture of Granite Cloud, together.*

  “How do I know you haven’t claimed her mom and made her say that?”

  Cloudie protested. *That’s not true.*

  Maelgwn subsided. “Sorry. They both vouch for you. It’s just, she’s had it tough.”

  George said, soberly, “I’m glad Cloudie has a friend like you, an older brother to watch out for her.”

  Maelgwn bobbed his head and sat quietly, watching George as he cleaned up from cooking dinner.

  “Do you want to stay here with me?” George said.

  “Naw, you should come back with us, to the garden ways. He won’t find you there.”

  “I’d like that,” George said.

  *Picture of Edgewood, picture of barrier. Question?*

  “Cloudie, your mom wants to know if you made that loop around the lands over there.” He pointed east.

  *He makes me go all the way through it every month.*

  “Can you show me where the ends are?”

  *Sure. Picture of map.*

  Just like her mother’s maps, this one had fine detail. George could see the nearest end, just south of them, up against the ridge line.

  “Cloudie, that one hurts the people who live there. I want to shut it down. Do you mind if I try?”

  *Oh, good. Do it.*

  George wasn’t sure if he could. Madog would know, of course, but he’d assume George was on the other side of the Blue Ridge.

  He reached for the end of the way. The full way was a passage many miles long rather than just a few dozen yards. It was… heavier was the best word he could find to describe the sensation, heavier by far than any way he’d tried to control before.

  Alright, he told the horned man within him, how about a little help. He felt him stir. “Don’t be afraid,” he warned his guests.

  He let the horned man out, and felt the familiar change in his senses. The woodsmoke and cooking aromas intensified, and the colors dimmed, but he was interested to discover that he could see better in the twilight in this form.

  Maelgwn, he noted, stood up and backed away to join Cloudie, who hadn’t moved. George stayed seated to make himself less threatening, cross-legged in front of the fire.

  Together, he and the horned man grasped the end of the barrier way, a few miles distant, and let their senses run the full length of it in its outward loop until they came back along the far end, north against the ridge line. George couldn’t have reached that far on his own.

  He held that heavy fullness in its entirety for a moment, then let it quietly dissolve away, so slowly that it became porous as it went like a membrane, diffusing the trapped air calmly without so much as a puff out of either end.

  *Thank you, George. I hated that.*

  “You’re welcome, Cloudie. Many people will be glad.” Mag, be sure to tell them, back in Edgewood.

  *Picture of Rhodri dancing.*

  I guess they noticed, he thought.

  My thanks, he said to the horned man as he pulled him back in. He thought he felt a casual wave of the hand in response.

  He dropped his head and slumped, suddenly tired, and wanting nothing more than to just sit there a moment, but he took a breath and made himself rise as if nothing extraordinary had happened, and packed up the cooking gear. He kicked snow onto the fire until it was out, then he hoisted his heavy pack and walked over to join Maelgwn.

  The boy hadn’t seen him stand up until now and was clearly startled by his size. He looked as if he was reconsidering his invitation, until George smiled at him. Then George patted Cloudie absently as he went by and undid all his efforts at calming the boy.

  “How did you do that? Doesn’t she hurt you?” He hopped from foot to foot as if he would take off into the darkness.

  “It’s a long story, Maelgwn. Her mother doesn’t hurt me either. Look, why don’t you show me where you live, and we can talk about it all night if you want,” he said.

  Maelgwn nodded cautiously, and turned to lead him back into the woods.

  George emerged from the way directly into a walled open space of about four acres. He saw the remnants of paved paths along the ground, but most of it had reverted to the sort of low bush and grass cover wasteland that he associated with treeless exposed ridges. The air was colder, and as he looked east in the twilight, he could make out the dark shadow of the Blue Ridge at a distance, near the base of which he’d been making his camp a few minutes ago. The top of the ridge was level with where he was standing. He must be on top of Massanutten Mountain, about 3000 feet above the valley floor, he thought.

  He wasn’t sure what was around them outside the wall, and feared that their voices might carry. “Shall I kill this way, so Madog doesn’t find it?” he asked Maelgwn softly, as he came out.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  George casually shut it down, gently, so no one would notice. He turned to look at the old garden with his way senses and gasped. The space blazed with virtual light, filled almost entirely at ground level with ways too numerous to count. Most seemed to be non-traveling ways—those took up the most room. A few were traveling ways, with both ends inside the walls. Ways went through other ways. It was complete chaos.

  Almost all of them were open and unclaimed. I guess Madog didn’t feel he needed to bother to claim them, George thought, not if he’s killing off every way-finder he can identify. He could see at least three ways from here that had Maelgwn’s claim on them. He wondered if the boy knew he had claimed them, or if it was an accident. How did way-finders grow into their skills? He wished Rhodri had told him. It had never come up.

  If Madog ever looked in here, he’d see Maelgwn’s claims. He’s going to notice eventually, George realized. He looked down. Not to mention everyone’s footprints in the snow.

  I can see why he walled this off. A person susceptible to the effect of walking through the side of a way would be seriously hurt, maybe killed, trying to cross this space through so many of them. That must be how Madog got the idea of using a non-traveling way as a barrier.

  “Maelgwn, can you see all these ways?”

  “Sure.”

  “Does it hurt when you walk through the sides?”

  “Yeah, like when I touch Cloudie. Madog can’t touch her either.”

  The boy yawned and George joined him sympathetically. “Maybe we should get to bed and talk about all this in the morning. Can anyone see us in here?”

  “No, this is the highest spot around. I can’t make a fire in here, but they won’t see us if we’re carefu
l.”

  Maelgwn led them to one of the short non-traveling ways he’d claimed, near the edge. His route was indirect, since he had to avoid all the other ways in between. To someone watching who couldn’t see the ways, his path would have looked utterly random. He brought them in, Cloudie last. It was just tall enough for George to stand in, comfortably.

  It had been transformed from a featureless curving gray passage about ten yards long and three yards wide to a cozy den with a series of divided spaces. Maelgwn had somehow learned how to close the far end so that the wind wouldn’t blow right through it. There were scraps of padding and even worn rugs on the floor, and chairs that had been broken and mended. Shelving would have been a challenge since there was no way to attach anything to the walls of the passage, but George saw baskets and boxes of various kinds—wicker, wood, leather—that had been scavenged and turned to use as storage. At the far end was a pallet, clearly Maelgwn’s bed.

  It was dim but the passage shed enough of a glow to get around by. “What do you do for light?” George asked.

  “I have candles for emergencies, but I don’t like to use them. I don’t want anyone smelling anything outside the walls or seeing the light and wondering where it comes from.”

  “And for cooking?”

  “I can’t make a fire here. Sometimes I take the food I find and Cloudie makes a way for me to somewhere else. Then I can heat it up.”

  “How long have you been living like this?” George tried to keep both judgment and sympathy out of his voice, but he was appalled—no heat and only cold stolen food. He was also impressed at the gumption of the kid, making this tidy nest for himself and getting by.

  “It’s been two winters, I guess. This is the third.” He looked away. “It was really hard the first winter. I found a little way that went almost in a circle and blocked off the ends with bushes to cut down on the wind. I stole plenty of blankets, and that helped a lot.”

  “What about footprints? Didn’t they know someone was here?”

  “Cloudie takes care of that. This old garden is where she lives. Madog expects to find her here most of the time. She walks everywhere and tramples down the snow. Covers my tracks, too.”

  *I can’t let Madog find him.*