Most of the travelers had scrounged up sympathy. Wynn and Cortie had been orphaned in a beastman attack, after all. But Wynn’s experience as a merchant’s child made him see all encounters as competition, all people as threats, all exchanges as challenges to gain the upper hand. Poor fool, thought Krawg. So unlike Auralia. Did no one teach him how to play?
“What’re you pickin’ knuckle-nuts for, old man?” Wynn barked. “There’s nothin’ worth eatin’ in these krammin’ woods.”
“These krammin’ woods,” repeated Cortie, always amused by the rough speech of her elders. She rode in her brother’s pack because her legs were still healing from her ordeal in the Cent Regus Core.
“They’re not for eatin’,” said Krawg. He split another nut between his teeth—crrak!—and spat it into his hand. The nut inside was rotten like the rest.
“Is the storyteller stuck?” asked Cortie.
“Of course not,” the old man lied, edging his way along the bough toward the trunk. All the tree’s branches were dry, dead, likely to snap. Rather than climb down to fetch the picker-staff he had dropped, he took to snatching clusters with his bare hands. He’d always found it a thrill to climb up to a view and a panic to climb back down.
He dropped the shell halves into his shoulder bag, then leaned to embrace the tree trunk and eased himself down a branch. Something squirmed underfoot. Flame engulfed his leg as a squealing puffdragon sprang from the branch.
Krawg seemed to take flight. His cloak billowed out around him, and he landed hard. The pop from his knees was as loud as nutshells cracking.
“Ow,” he said.
“Ask him, Wynn!” Cortie whispered.
“Cortie’s scared of Fraughtenwood,” said Wynn. “She wants one of your stories.”
It wasn’t Cortie who looked scared. “Leave me alone, boy,” Krawg muttered, “and I’ll think one up for her.”
It was unexpected to find his attempts at storytelling welcome, to learn that they were meaningful to some beyond himself. If this journey came to nothing else, and his name was known by few and soon forgotten, he would be grateful for having provided something that was, for a time, wanted.
“Tonight, Warney, I’ll finally finish telling my very best tale,” he murmured. “And you won’t be here to learn it. That’s a shame.”
He’d been gnawing on the narrative since the tale of six tricksters had first appeared, unfurling like a scroll within his imagination, during a storytelling contest in the Mawrnash revelhouse. The story had surpassed his expectations, burning his voice to a rasp as his characters led him breathlessly along. But he hadn’t reached the end. That Seer called Panner Xa, strangely enraged, had seized him by the throat as if he were revealing secrets.
At times he’d grumbled over missed opportunities, ways he might have told the story better, giving characters more time to emerge in detail. There was no going back. Either the story would live on for those hearers, or it wouldn’t.
But here was an audience who had not yet heard the story. Tonight he could tell it again and tell it better. There were no Seers here at the southern edge of Fraughtenwood to forbid him to reveal the story’s conclusion.
Wynn led Krawg through a patch of trees that soldiers were tapping for flammable pitch—men and women of the Bel Amican escort sent by Queen Thesera to protect the company. “Evenin’, storyteller.” One of those archers—a high-spirited woman named Deanne—nodded to him as if he were someone of importance.
“Told you they were waiting for you,” grumbled Wynn.
The travelers gathering around the fire looked in Krawg’s direction with some admiration. Bowlder, his chin set on the heavy firewood pile he was carrying into the camp, grinned at him like an excited child. Krawg’s frustration with Wynn dissolved. He gripped the picker-staff as if to wring courage from it.
As they settled in around the smokeless fire, he noticed that almost everyone held an unlit branch or torch. Fear of Deathweed followed them like a cloud of skeeter-flies. The deadly tendrils had remained unseen since they left Bel Amica behind, but the memory of sudden attacks and lost companions was still blood-red in their minds. Gashes like scars from a lash marked the ground in places, assuring them that they were within reach of the scourge. They would be ready with fire should it come.
“Not yet, Krawg,” said Tabor Jan, a shadow at the edge of the firelight. “We’re still missing one.”
He wondered if Milora was the straggler again, but no. From the captain’s distress, Krawg sensed it was Brevolo. Many had rumored that the captain would marry that formidable woman back in Bel Amica. She’d been quiet and disgruntled on this journey, and Krawg had heard her complain about leaving.
But there had been other rumors too—rumors that Tabor Jan was looking back toward Bel Amica too often.
Brevolo had only spoken to Krawg once, at the conclusion of his last fireside story, a dramatic tale of a girl whose kindness helped merchants survive a hard winter. The character’s tricks and tactics in foiling monsters and thieves had delighted Brevolo. But Krawg had concluded it without resolving all of its questions, including the fate of its hero. This bothered Brevolo. But Frits, the master glassmaker, had patted Krawg on the back, perhaps a little too firmly. “Not bad,” he had said. “And don’t give in to those who want explaining. Questions are the life of the story. They keep us humble.”
Frits sat on the other side of the fire beside Milora on a broad, flat stone. “We all thought she was his daughter, Warney,” Krawg whispered. “But now I know different.” He wished he could shine the shadows from Milora’s downcast face.
“Did I hear a button wren?” mused Frits. “We must be close to home.”
“Button wren, button wren, sing us back home.” On the ground by Frits’s feet, his granddaughter Obrey leaned back against Milora’s shins. “When we get back, we’ll have to make something for the forest. Something to, I don’t know … brighten it up.”
“Why bother?” Milora’s question had a bitter tone, and she stripped the seeds from a reed. Frits looked as if he’d been stung. His shoulders sank, and he looked very old.
“Well …” Obrey scowled, searching for a reply. “Button wrens don’t say ‘why bother.’ ”
Milora tied the reed in a knot. “A song like that makes no sense in this dead place.”
Obrey didn’t want to have this argument. She started whistling to herself, playing with silvery vawn scales, poking holes in them with pins, and threading her long yellow hair through them so that her braids sparkled.
“So like Auralia, Warney. In some ways. But she’s too young.” Instead of sitting down in the space others had cleared for him, Krawg half circled the fire, lifted his shoulder bag, and scattered some scraps he’d pulled from the knuckle-nut tree on the blanket draped across Obrey’s lap.
The girl stared at the nutshells, moss-ribbons, and lace-leaves, then looked up. “What’re these for?”
He shrugged. “Thought they looked like pieces to a puzzle.”
“She’s not a trained monkey,” Milora muttered. “Obrey plays when she’s inspired.”
“I’m not givin’ her a job,” he said. “But if she can make Fraughtenwood look a little better … Well, it’s such a grim and shivery place. Maybe a spot of beauty would do everybody some good.”
Obrey jumped up and set about bouncing. “Make something with me, Milora!”
“Beauty,” said Milora, “is very laborious.” Krawg leaned in close. “It’ll come back to you.” Milora’s eyes narrowed. “Is this some kind of test?” Yes, Krawg thought. “Never,” he said.
As Obrey offered her some of the nutshells, Milora’s hands tightened into fists. “I’m not a child,” she murmured, looking away so that he was left studying the short silverbrown hair on the back of her head.
Maybe I’m imagining things, he thought. Maybe I just miss Auralia too much. “Obrey,” said Frits, “come here. I’ll play with you.”
“Nah.” Obrey dropped the pieces on the flickering dust. “
Now I’m not in the mood.”
“Brevolo’s here,” somebody whispered. And there she was at the edge of the light, holding the leash for King Cal-raven’s woodsnout, Hagah, who panted and whimpered anxiously.
“Story time,” said Obrey, and in her eager gaze he could sense how badly she wanted to escape all of this tension.
Relieved that Brevolo had emerged from the trees, Tabor Jan stepped into the fireside circle.
He addressed the travelers with feigned confidence, encouraging them to retreat to their tents as soon as sleep seemed possible. The next day’s road through Fraughtenwood would tax them. They’d push through the dense undergrowth that had given these woods such a troubling name. There would be leech-bogs. Tree-trolls were very rare, but thieving rat-monkeys might pester them from hanging mosses. “If the chatterflies buzz in your ears,” he said, “Say-ressa can give you oil to discourage them.”
Even as he spoke, he was mightily distracted. He’d assigned Brevolo to the team that would sneak back along the trail to ensure they hadn’t been followed. She’d gone farther than he’d intended, perhaps tempted to return to Bel Amica.
“If we make good ground,” he continued, “we’ll be free of Fraughtenwood in just a few days. We will be walking where no one from House Abascar has walked in generations.”
He bowed to Krawg, backed out of the circle, and sat down against a fallen tree. Brevolo bound Hagah’s leash to a low tree branch, then leaned against Tabor Jan. He draped his arm around her.
As Krawg began his story, Tabor Jan gazed at Brevolo’s fire-lit face and then down to the freckles at the base of her throat. She looked beautiful and dangerous, her dark, wild mane typically strewn with leaves and scraps from the forest. He traced her thick eyebrows with his fingertip. She did not look at him. Her eyes flared with unspoken anger, as if she had hoped for a fight but found no opportunity.
“Remind me,” she said softly. “What do we hope to find up there?”
“A house with King Cal-raven on the throne,” he said without hesitation. “A house where these people can be safe enough to begin families again. A house with a solid wall that will keep out the troubles south of us.”
“Yes.”
“And a wall to the north to keep out any mysterious curse.”
“Yes, again.”
“I want to be safe, Brevolo. Safe so we can build without interruption. And I have plans of my own.” He drew a slow spiral on her cheek.
She ran her fingertips down his arm. “Sometimes it seems all you think about is getting Cal-raven onto a new throne. Have you imagined the events that come after?”
He was surprised.
Brevolo had always loved a good fight and reveled in a wild gallop on a vawn or a horse. But since Deathweed had killed her sister, Bryndei, in the Blackstone Caves, she’d become more mercurial. She wanted to punish somebody. During their Bel Amican stay, Brevolo had joined the patrols of Captain Ryllion, whose charm and violence had distracted and inspired her.
Tabor Jan had begun to feel he was fading from her attention. He was a part of a world full of painful memories and loss. She might leave him behind.
As Krawg went on, telling the story of the strange magician who had sewn up dolls with minds and wills of their own, Tabor Jan traced lines around the ridges of Brevolo’s knuckles, where Abascar tradition would require a marriage tattoo. She would not miss this suggestion.
“So you do have plans.” Her voice sounded suddenly fragile. Fearful. “Can it still be possible?”
It had taken some persuasion to get her to come along on this journey. He wanted to find a way back to the feisty, stormy romance they had shared before she lost Bryndei. He hoped to ask for her hand in marriage and create a bond that would make them both stronger.
But did he want this for her good? Or his own? Did he want it because it was the best plan or because any plan seemed a comfort in this disappointing world? The king’s disappearance had raised so many uncertainties. Tabor Jan had led this party along Cal-raven’s charted course, as if by putting that plan in motion he would draw the king out of the darkness.
“I will not let fear rule my decisions,” he said aloud, surprising himself.
Brevolo released a shuddering sigh. “I had wondered,” she whispered, “if your eagerness to lead this mission came from fear.”
“I feared what would become of us in Bel Amica,” he murmured. “Abascar was dissolving like sugar in … like salt in a …” He had never been very good with poetic turns of phrase.
“I think you were afraid of more than what was happening to Abascar. Something unsettled you there.”
He pressed his fingertip more determinedly against the back of her hand as if he could engrave the tattoo on her skin by sheer willpower. He would not let himself think of Queen Thesera’s daughter. Cyndere lived in a different world, with different demands and responsibilities. She belonged to House Bel Amica. He had been a fool even to consider the possibility.
He closed his eyes.
“I feared,” he said determinedly, “that we would not separate ourselves from the Bel Amicans. I feared we’d never see all that we had fought for. Consider what you and I might do for these people, Brevolo.”
Our family could rise as a pillar of New Abascar.
“And you?” he asked hesitantly. “What would you hope to find up there?”
“Room to raise an army,” she said. “The great army that you deserve to lead, Captain.”
He looked at her, half expecting to find that she was joking. But before he could see her expression clearly, she was kissing him. Then she whispered, “Forgive me. I let myself become distracted by a liar. I feel like a fool. I’ve just been so … so helpless since …”
“I know.” He touched her first tears as if they were rare gemstones.
“I wanted to be part of something strong. But when I saw you walking with the Bel Amican royals after you spoiled the conspiracy, I woke up. And when I heard you were planning this journey, I remembered how rare it is to find a principled man. A man faithful to his friends and to his house. A man who suffers so that others will be safe. A man who is everything my father failed to be. I saw that I still have something to lose. Someone I want to protect.”
Krawg’s story went on. He spoke of the girl sewn by the magician, the girl who came to life and flew. The listeners were enthralled.
Tabor Jan looked at the glassmakers. Obrey was grinning as if the story were coming true before her eyes. But as she listened, her hands were busy. She’d taken a branch and planted it in the ground. In each rising, coiling offshoot, she had set a stick of wax, making a candlestand out of materials she’d found in the Cragavar.
What would it take to bring these artists to Abascar? To give them enough peace that they could remember how to play?
Milora was distracted—transfixed—by Krawg’s narrative. Her face seemed bruised, troubled as the old Gatherer went on. When Krawg spoke of the girl flying back into her maker’s arms, she stood, face wet with tears, and slipped away. Frits watched her go, visibly worried.
Tabor Jan did not go after her. Brevolo was asleep on his arm, and she was warm. He decided to wait awhile and quietly pulled bits of bark and insect wings from her hair.
Just as Krawg reached the part where the disgruntled young boy rebelled, breaking away from his maker and taking a group of children with him beyond the border of safety, a sound began to spread through the boughs over their heads. Rain. In this thick cover of branches, no one had noticed clouds coming down from the north.
Brevolo awoke with a start, and Tabor Jan stood. “Time for the tents, everyone. You’ll have to dream the rest of the story.” At the rising chorus of complaints, he added, “And I’ve said it before—Krawg needs shorter stories. A few characters we like, a few we don’t, and the bad ones are beaten at the end. That would help us sleep.”
Krawg growled and groaned. “Ballyworms! I’ll never finish this story. And I want to know how it ends!”
<
br /> In his tent Krawg tossed and turned.
Every time sleep took hold, he saw Cal-raven fighting a monster in a cave, Warney strung up by his ankles in trouble, and Auralia locked in a prison, waiting for rescue.
“Auralia!” he shouted. That drew the attention of Jes-hawk, who was on patrol.
“Help me,” the archer said, restraining the excited, slobbering Hagah on a leash. “Frits says Milora’s wandered off again.”
Krawg knew Jes-hawk’s deep distrust of strangers and his rage against deserters.
Jes-hawk gave him a crooked torch, and they decided to walk a wide circle around the camp, going in opposite directions. Krawg hadn’t gone far when something stopped him.
“Pssst.”
It was Obrey, hiding just out of the light, huddled at the base of a tree. “Don’t tell the soldier,” she said, “but I’m looking for Milora.”
“Oh no you’re not,” Krawg insisted. “You’re goin’ back to camp. Leave the lookin’ to me. What’s she doin’, runnin’ away again? What’s got her rotten as a winter plum?”
Obrey crawled out on all fours, cautious as a fox. “It’s her memory. Sometimes it starts coming back. It scares her.”
“Is that why she wouldn’t play?”
Obrey sighed as if she were carrying the burdens of an adult. “She says it hurts too much—makin’ things no one’s got time to see. It makes her feel … invisible.”
“I see.”
Obrey stood, brushing off her hands. “And when somebody does slow down and really look, well … they always say nice things. But then they start askin’ for stuff. Gifts and favors.”
Yes, yes, that’s how it was for Auralia. Krawg felt trapped. He wanted to back away, wanted to lean in and ask questions.
“One woman asked her for a statue. She was a small, scowling, jealous woman, and when Milora made the sculpture, it looked just right. The woman smashed it.”
Krawg nodded, amazed. It has to be Auralia, he thought.
“Most of the time, though, she says that people are just waiting for her to find a man. As if that’s all that matters.” Obrey crumpled her face as if trying to imitate Milora’s expression. “Why is it that way? And who made it so?”
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