As if to break the silence, the scraping of cutlery on plates resumed.
Cleo began picking at her meal, though she pushed her food around more than she ate it. After nibbling on a slice of eggplant, she cleared her throat, then said, “It’ll be more than four hundred miles, anyway.” She gestured to the map. “Plus, we’re going to have to cross the Lymar river.”
“There are only two bridge crossings for that,” Harvey said. “One is immediately following the lake where the Lymar splits from the Old Maiden. The second.” He stood and moved in front of the map, studying it. “It’s maybe a hundred miles upriver from the ocean.”
“So,” Roy said, scratching at his chin. “Either way, we will be traveling out of the way?”
“A hundred miles or more out of the way,” Aarez added.
“And I wouldn’t advise traveling through the desert,” Oslow said between mouthfuls.
“Harvey and I second that. We cut through Brichton to save time on our way here,” Roy explained. “Frankly, the only reason that we’re alive is because of the snow. We would’ve dried up otherwise.”
“So that settles it,” Cleo ruled. She traced her fingers along some invisible path on the map. “We’ll travel south from here, parallel with the coast. Always in the forest so we can have fresh game and brush for fires. This lake here,” she said, pointing on the map, “is a good marker as to how we are progressing. Once we get to it, we can essentially double our time, and plan out when we’ll arrive at the river crossing.”
“And when we get across?” Nora’s comment led the discussion into the unknown. She had joined the group and was squinting over the map’s faded surface. Her eyes, the only features of her face visible, flickered rapidly across its surface as though memorizing every intricacy. “This is all desert here, between the river and the swamp.”
“We’ll have to really push.” Roy studied his straight edge, making note of distance. “That’s almost a hundred miles straight from the desert and river to the swamp. Too much to make in one day.”
“I don’t like those odds.” Harvey scrunched his face in concentration.
“Can’t we cross midriver?” Aarez asked. “Aren’t there any boats that ferry people over? No little hamlets along the river?”
“No,” Harvey said. “This map, while old, is accurate. There aren’t any villages along that stretch of river. Plus, the Lymar is too wild for boats to try to float against the current. And there was never a reason for people to set up such a system. Not many people are crazy enough to walk through desert.”
“Do we even know where the prison is located in this swamp?” Roy asked. “We might get lucky and find it along the coast.”
“All the note said is that it’s on the river, which splits the swamp in half,” Jean said. “So, while it could be close to the coast, chances are it’s along the western edge of the swamp, where the river is still a river.”
“What about the horses?” Cleo asked. “Won’t that terrain be hazardous to their hooves?”
“I imagine that the snow would fill in any ditches or trip-spots,” Harvey said. “Besides, we can’t afford to lose time by leaving them. And in this weather, even abandoning them with blankets would be a death sentence.”
“So, we won’t be able to plan out our path through the swamp until we actually get to the swamp,” Aarez noted. “What do we do once we find the prison? You going to walk up and ask for Gnochi’s release?”
“That’s exactly what I plan to do,” Cleo answered without an ounce of sarcasm in her voice. “I managed to stop Ren from killing Gnochi back in Brichton. I figure if I get worked up, I’ll be able to talk him out of the prison.”
“How can you trust that to work?” Aarez asked, obviously testing her. “You haven’t been able to consciously use it before.”
“Keep it up and I’ll manage to convince you to frolic in the snow without a stitch of clothing on,” Cleo threatened.
“He just doesn’t want you to get your hopes tied to a feat that you’ve never purposefully done,” Oslow said, keeping his voice level and calm.
Cleo sat back in her chair, steaming in frustration, but silent.
“Okay, that’s enough strategizing for one night,” Jean said, pulling the map, rolling it up and tucking it under her arm. “Oo, how about some entertainment?”
“Oh drat,” he said, smiling. “I left my harmonica in the store. Too bad.”
“No,” Jean said. “I was thinking that you could tell a story like the one you told me on the way here.” She saw Oslow’s mouth flatten out into a sickly scowl. Ignoring his expression, she said, “Tell another story about Gnochi.”
Cleo picked her head up and stared straight across the table at Oslow.
“Sapphire,” he said. “I do believe I feel your eyes on me as surely as I can feel the summer breeze.”
“I wouldn’t mind hearing a story,” Roy offered, attempting to placate the room. “Nights have been longer without his tales.”
“I’m interested,” Aarez said. “I mean, I’m risking my pension with Nimbus for this man. I wouldn’t mind getting a little more acquainted with him.”
“You don’t care about your pension.” Cleo must have thought her tone was too harsh because she forced a laugh out.
“Not true. Someone has to keep buying polish for Lucas’s face,” he joked back.
◆◆◆
“What do you say, Cleo?” Oslow asked. “Do you want to hear a story about Gnochi?”
“Fine,” she said. “Gnochi rarely talked about his life before Silentore took Zelda and Pippa, so I’m interested.” Upon the admission, she felt a somber air fill the room. A stab of guilt speared her heart. They had all been working and strategizing to save Gnochi, but his sister and niece remained in captivity. They had not even considered saving them. “After we rescue Gnochi, we need to find Zelda and Pippa.” She watched everyone in the room nod at her proclamation, though no one offered it a further comment.
“Okay,” Oslow said. “Did he ever tell you how he got the poncho?”
Cleo sunk deeper into its encircling warmth. She remembered how it had comforted her early in their shared travels. How it smelt of wood-smoke and helped conceal her identity in the menagerie. She missed its musky scent. It reminded her of simpler times, when her biggest concern was a few lewd comments.
She had taken to tying the poncho closed at her waist. It retained more heat and allowed her a larger range of motion. “No,” she said, fingering one of the frills that remained unsinged by a previous fire. “Wait!” She leapt from her chair and ran out of the room, returning a minute later with her journal and writing implements.
“You humble me,” Oslow said as he heard her scratch away on the journal with the pen’s nib. Color rose behind his bearded cheeks. “I hope my words come at least half as refined as those crafted on his lips.” He cracked his knuckles and ran his fingers along the stones accenting his beard. “I was telling Jean how Gnochi was exiled from Lyrinth because he avenged his father’s murder.” He regaled the group with the bard’s brash teenage nature, and the brand that he bestowed onto his father’s killers. He then spoke of how Nimbus intervened on his behalf, securing the exile in lieu of a more carnal punishment.
“One day, some years after the winteryear, a knock on my door revealed a rare, unsure Gnochi. I could tell that the time in exile had hardened him. A man’s beard replaced the teen stubble of old. Lines of fatigue split his temples and crowned his eyes. This was a different bard than he who had taken up the hot iron in vengeance.
“It was long before he’d opened up to me about what happened during his exile. He spoke of traveling south and west. He spent his first month in the very swamp where he is headed now, with an idea to hold out until the ground thawed. But, as he told it, once the pangs of isolation roared louder than those of hunger, he knew it was time to move on.
“From the swamp, Gnochi left Lyrinth entirely. This was before the wall lined its southern and western
border. He entered a different world, describing the people as nomadic and tribal, yet still welcoming. And you must realize that at this point, his skillsets were limited. This was well before he knew his way around a sword, so he only had his stories and his good looks going for him.” Oslow snickered.
“Luckily for Gnochi, storytellers are in high demand and low supply. Even more so in the lands outside of Lyrinth. These nomadic peoples had little time between their scratch farming and hunting to develop vocations, so Gnochi became an honored member of dozens of tribes. He traveled between them, enlightening the people with his tales. He was among a people who valued the storyteller, you see.
“And they, too, had stories to tell. He learned much during his years living amongst them. So, why did he return when he did? From what he said, or rather by what he omitted, Gnochi knew that his exile had ended long before his return, but something had kept him.” Oslow paused, seeming to survey his audience.
“If I was a betting man, I’d say that Gnochi found someone down there. He found love. I don’t know to what extent their relationship developed, or whether it ever progressed. He didn’t elaborate on anything of the sort regarding his time in exile. I imagine that something happened to his love. Probably death.
“The poncho was bestowed upon Gnochi as a farewell from the people. It was, as he told me, to be bestowed upon his first child. The entire time I had vision, I’d never seen him so much as take that off to wash it, let alone wear anything else, and the lad lived with me for some time after returning to Lyrinth.”
An iron hand gripped Cleo’s stomach. She felt her heart compress, fresh tears welled under her eyes. Cleo set her pen down, then stormed from the room, rushing for any shadowy alcove where she did not see Gnochi’s tortured face.
◆◆◆
“I’ll go talk to her,” Aarez said, standing from his chair before anyone else could move. He wandered through the manor until he found her huddled before a window in a room untouched by the warmth of the fires.
“You looking to catch cold? It’s not pleasant. Being sick and having to sit on a horse all day,” Aarez said.
“I need to be alone,” Cleo murmured, not removing her eyes from the snowy vista outside the window.
“Nobody needs isolation. I’m not about to leave you to the cold,” he said, grinning as his words echoed Cleo’s sentiment from when she found him confronting the three wolves. He saw a weak smile reflected on the windowpane before her face.
“You were out in the woods for days by yourself. I’ve been in this cold room for a few minutes.”
“Yeah, well, I also can remove myself, from myself.”
“This just reinforces what I’ve already thought,” she said, changing the subject. “Everything bad in Gnochi’s life of late is because of me.”
“You can’t think like that,” Aarez said. “He made his choices, as you made yours. And we must deal with those choices. Such is the nature of life.” He watched Cleo turn around and give him a look. “What?”
“That’s something Gnochi would’ve said. Almost to the letter.” A harsh laugh cut through intermittent sobs. “He was odd with sayings like that.”
“He’s not dead, Cleo. We will rescue him. Maybe we’ll have to talk him out of jail, or maybe we’ll have to spill blood to secure his freedom. We will free him. And then, you can finish your apprenticeship, and I can master my echo.”
“We have to.” Cleo looked around the room devoid of everything except empty shelves and bookcases. “We have to rescue Gnochi.”
“We will.”
“No, I mean we actually have to rescue him,” she said. “He promised to show me his library, and I don’t think anyone else knows about it. If we don’t save him, the library’s location could die with him. And with that, we’ll be, as he would’ve said, ‘that much more ignorant of the first age.’”
“We will find him, Cleo,” Aarez said, resting a hand on her shoulder.
“Aarez, can you liven up the poncho?”
He was shocked at Cleo’s request, but he obliged, willing a sliver of his life into the poncho. He felt it slither around her form as if it was sewn with thousands of snakes. The poncho radiated heat.
Cleo gasped as life flooded into the wool. She looked down at the poncho, watching it quiver, and then frowned.
“You know,” Aarez said, “Oslow brought over a handful of new pelts and clothes for the journey. I can get you something warmer.”
“No,” Cleo said. “Kiren needs those more than I do. No one is going to touch this poncho.”
Chapter 22
One morning, many days after beginning their journey south, a quiet air surrounded the travelers. Cleo’s group searched for any reason to speak, though nothing in the pervasive snow beckoned easy conversation. Harvey, on Fester, and Aarez, atop Slipper, led the column through the forest. Riding on Debs, Roy remained in the rear of the group. In the middle, atop Perogie, sat Cleo and Kiren.
Cleo examined the folded and wrinkled map that she had flattened out on the mare’s neck. She mumbled to herself, prompting Kiren to whisper in her ear, “What’s the matter?” Her voice, too low to carry to other ears over the crunch of sixteen hooves on snow.
“We are making slower progress than I’d like,” Cleo whispered back. “I’d hoped to reach the lake by morning, or afternoon tomorrow. We’ll be lucky if we’re there by nightfall tomorrow,” she said, laying her fingers out on the map to judge crude distance.
“We’ll make up the time,” Kiren assured. “Our first two days were tough on all of us, horses included. Plus, we had a late start the first morning. I don’t think any of us wanted to rush and finish Oslow’s morning oats.”
A rumble of hunger thundered from deep in Cleo’s stomach. “We should stop for lunch,” she said, raising her voice loud enough that it would carry to everyone.
“Thank Providence,” Roy said, jumping from his saddle and untying one of the group’s food packs. Harvey and Aarez worked quick to build a fire and melt snow, replenishing their canteens and allowing the horses to water.
Cleo and Kiren dismounted, allowing Perogie respite. Despite the added load of two passengers, Gnochi’s seasoned mare kept a good pace, especially after Cleo told her that the group was on the way to rescue Gnochi. So far, she made no complaints under the added weight.
“I know why Gnochi loves you so much, you smart girl,” Cleo said, feeding Perogie a carrot. Looking around, she felt at peace. Gnochi’s absence and current treatment continued to squeeze her heart raw but seeing her friends all working together under the slate-grey cover of a winter sky, she felt optimistic. She had known none of them longer than a year, yet they all put their lives on hold to help her find and rescue Gnochi.
Could he see the sky? Did the clouds over his head look upon him with a menacing sneer or a complacent smile? She wondered if he foresaw them coming to his aid. What would he say if he could see her now?
◆◆◆
Gnochi watched with listless eyes as river towns coated in thick snow lazily dragged past his portal window. Despite the frost marring the glass and cracks hugging the exterior of the window, he saw enough of the towns to know that their residents had left. People moved their families to warmer cities where food, however expensive, was available. Seeing all the trees still standing confirmed that the winteryear had arrived sooner than anyone had prepared for. He wondered how many people would die.
As the window’s view continued to slug past, his thoughts returned to the constant timer counting down in his head. He had already spent the first half of his allotted free time watching the sky fill with clouds through the opaque pane.
For the first time since beginning his journey south, his thoughts turned to Cleo. He recalled how he had initially imagined that she was Pippa. The young teen became so much more than a ghost as he got to know her. She kindled a fire, unique to her brash personality, that warmed his cheeks as he smiled. He remembered how he had said goodbye to her, not knowing that he
would be gone more than a day at most.
Had Skuddy been telling her about his imprisonment? Had the leader of Nimbus simply lied or was he honest with her? As he imagined Skuddying recounting the tortures, a shiver rippled up his spine.
He dragged his attention back outside, wondering what clouds loomed over her head. He imagined her cracking a smile and making a crude joke on his behalf at his missing voice. He mouthed her name, light fog forming on the window from his breath.
Gnochi grabbed some of the medicine Skuddy had left him, applying the paste to the stump of his tongue. It stung less and less each day he applied it. Without a cause to believe otherwise, he imagined it healing without issue. He would hate to have survived such brutal torture only to perish at the hands of an infection. He knew that historically, more people died to illness than by humankind’s twisted hands, but it still felt poetically unjust.
“You got a woman out there somewhere?” Cyrus’s near voice startled Gnochi.
He had forgotten that the thief was in plain sight under the window. When he looked down, he saw the Cyrus’s eyes square on his own, dismissing any doubt that his question was directed at anyone else. Gnochi shook his head.
“What about the girl you were traveling with?” Ren asked, much to Gnochi’s dismay.
Cyrus smirked, obvious that he was privy to some hidden aspect of the bard’s life.
Gnochi shook his head again.
Floyd, who had feigned sleeping, sprung at the parcel of information. “Ah, you got a spring chicken you’ve been tapping? Didn’t take you for a cradle robber. Then again, didn’t take you for an assassin, either.” The Luddite chuckled, a smile split his cheeks.
Gnochi turned to stare at Floyd, his eyes sharp as knives. A fire of rage coursed through his veins.
“Go on,” Floyd jeered. “Say you weren’t sleeping with the girl. Just say it and I’ll believe you.” Floyd laughed, hysteria edging into his voice.
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