Will you shut up?” said Nettle. “You’re giving me the willies.”
Iron Boy kicked, then jerked into a canter. It would not do to lose control of the wagon. He braced himself, but Talen felt like he did after an exceedingly hard day’s worth of work. Then a wave of weariness fell upon him, and he could not keep his eyes open. He sagged into Nettle.
Nettle elbowed him back to his senses. “What are you doing?”
“The come-backs have finally worked their way through,” said Talen. “Take the reins. I’ve got to lie down.”
“What about your fright?” asked Nettle.
Talen looked down at the boards beneath his feet. Frights did not have power to steal from a healthy man. He and Nettle had nothing to fear. And panicking might only lead to them crashing the wagon. Besides, they had godsweed with them.
“It’s gone,” said Talen. “A vapor of my mind.”
“I’ve never heard of come-backs like this,” Nettle said. He cursed. “I’m getting you home.”
Talen wasn’t going to argue, “Sure,” he said. Then he handed the reins to Nettle and half climbed, half fell into the wagon bed.
He rode that way, flat on his back, looking up at the tops of the pines and the darkening sky beyond. Nettle took the reins and drove. He drove too fast. Once, Talen almost bumped completely out of the wagon bed. But he couldn’t bring himself to object. Nettle kept turning around to look at him. At one point he reached down to feel Talen’s forehead for fever, then turned back and spurred Iron Boy even faster.
Talen said nothing. The moon and the stars shone through the breaks in the tops of the trees. After a time he realized something cold lay on his ankle. Talen looked down. There, squatting in the back corner of the wagon bed was the fright. It was a hideous thing, all twisted and gray like a piece of knotty driftwood. One of its long fingers touched Talen on the bare skin of his ankle.
He kicked, and the thing released him, but it stretched out its finger once again.
“Nettle,” he said. Or at least he thought he’d spoken. “Nettle!”
But Nettle did not turn.
Then Talen remembered the godsweed charm about his arm. He could brandish it and chase the thing off. He yanked on the charm, but it would not tear free, and the knot was suddenly too complicated for his fingers.
He was so very tired. The touch of the fright was so very cold. It wasn’t supposed to touch him, not with the godsweed. So maybe this wasn’t a fright. Or maybe it was and godsweed didn’t have the virtue everyone claimed it did. Besides, what if it did take some of his Fire? At least it didn’t have the power to eat his soul.
The creature reached out with another finger.
Talen kicked again. But he could not kick a third time-he was exhausted and in a cold sweat. His thirst was beyond anything he’d ever experienced. There was not enough spittle to wet his tongue, much less swallow.
Then Talen recognized the trees and the run of the slope to his left. He twisted around and saw their barn ahead.
Nettle did not slow quickly enough and almost crashed into the well. When he finally got Iron Boy to stop, he turned around and looked down at Talen. “Goh, you look rotted through. This isn’t come-backs. This is some plague. Can you stand?”
“I can get up,” said Talen.
But he couldn’t. He could hardly move. His lower left leg was ice. The fright had elongated its fingers, split and multiplied them, and wrapped them around his calf. It looked as if the spidering root of a young tree had attached itself to him.
Nettle called out for help. Then he jumped into the wagon bed and helped Talen sit up. The fright moved slightly, but it did not disengage.
“The fright,” Talen said.
“Yes,” said Nettle, then he looped his arms underneath Talen’s and around his chest. Nettle dragged Talen to the back of the wagon. He dropped the back gate of the bed. In one fluid movement Nettle jumped out, then pulled Talen over his shoulder like a sack of meal.
Talen’s head hung low. He could see his leg. He could see that the fright still clung to him with one of its odd hands. Talen kicked, then Nettle pushed the door open and Talen found himself in the main room. River sat at the table, the candlelight shining off the beads in her hair. She was braiding clippings of Da’s hair into an intricate decoration.
Talen looked for the hatchlings and saw the door to the cellar lay flat, shut up tight.
When River looked up, Talen saw her face go from annoyance to concern. “What’s happened?” she asked.
“It’s an overdose of come-backs,” said Nettle. “Or worse. Earlier, he’s a picture of liveliness-blinding fast, wrestling Fabbis to the ground, leaping to the tops of the trees. Now look at him. Nothing more than a smelly dishrag. And he’s seeing frights.”
“I need something to drink,” said Talen.
“He’s drunk a barrel today. I’ve never had to stop so many times waiting for a body to relieve himself.”
River cleared the table. “Put him here.”
“Did the Fir-Noy come here?” asked Talen.
Nettle dumped him on the table.
“I haven’t seen any Fir-Noy,” said River. She began pulling up the sleeve of Talen’s tunic. “Where did Da tie the charm?”
“How did you know he gave me a charm?” asked Talen.
“Where did he tie it?”
“Here,” said Talen and lifted the other sleeve. He looked down at his leg. The fright was there, squatting all knobby and hideous, staring at him with one of its raisin eyes.
River fingered the braid and cursed. Her face turned grave. “And he talks about risks.” She removed the charm and cast it to the floor.
“Who?” asked Talen.
“Nobody,” said River. She slid her hand into the collar of his tunic. She had no sooner put her hand to his chest than she gasped and withdrew it.
“He’s got the plague,” Nettle said. “Doesn’t he?”
“Do you have any of the baker’s goods left?”
“Three cookies,” said Nettle. Then he went back outside.
“Has he poisoned me?” asked Talen.
“No,” said River. “And it’s not Nettle’s plague either.” She looked at him, and Talen could tell something had happened. She was deciding if she should share some secret with him.
“Goh,” he said. “It was the kiss. That girl!” He’d been wrong; they would have to kill her after all. Talen’s weariness pressed down upon him even more. “And her familiar has attached itself to my leg.”
River said nothing. Of course, River wouldn’t kill her. Not if the girl had magicked her. His thoughts strayed for a time. He looked at River and for a moment forgot what she was doing. Then it came back to him in a rush.
“We’ll have to be quick,” he whispered.
“What?” said River.
“Quick,” said Talen more loudly. “Quick. Kill them, the boy and girl, quick.”
At that moment he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned and saw the girl standing in the doorway to the back room.
River followed his gaze. “He’s out of his mind,” she said to her.
“I’ll divert her,” said Talen. “You clobber her with the pot.”
“Be still,” River commanded.
Talen looked at the girl for a while, waiting for her to spring. “Playing us like a cat? Is that your pleasure?”
“Sugar,” River said. “I need you to fill the mule’s watering trough. We’re going to need to lay Talen in it. Have Nettle help you drag it in here.”
Sugar looked at the two of them, a storm brooding on her face. Talen thought she was going to say something, but she must have decided against it, for she strode across the room and out the door.
“Now’s the time,” said Talen.
“Will you shut up,” said River. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. This isn’t her doing. It’s Da’s.”
That made no sense, no sense at all. But River wouldn’t listen to him. She brought a candle near to get a good look at his eyes and mouth. Then she began peppering him with questions: when did the thirst start, how many cookies did he eat, what did Da do when he tied the charm on his arm, had he been hearing a ringing in his ears? Talen struggled to answer them all. Twice she had to repeat a question.
Finally, he held up his hand. “My leg. It’s sucking the life out of my leg.”
Then he saw something at the window.
The shutters had not been closed tightly and pale twigs seemed to shoot in over the sill. From his position on the floor, he couldn’t make any sense of them, but there they were. Tree roots on the window. Then a twisted head appeared, followed by a long body. Another fright, smaller than the one about his leg. It pulled itself up onto the sill.
“There’s another,” he said.
“Another what?”
“Nasty little thing,” he said and motioned at the window. “It’s got cold fingers.”
River looked up and followed his gaze. “There’s nothing there.”
“There is,” said Talen. “And there’s another wrapped about my leg. Right there by your hand.”
The creature about his leg didn’t move. It just sat and watched them.
River put her hand on Talen’s leg, partially covering the thin fingers of the fright. Her hands felt warm.
“How many are here, Talen?”
“Two,” he said.
She cursed, then she calmly picked up Talen’s godsweed charm, took it to the hearth, and thrust it into the fire. “And thus a portion of my life goes up in smoke,” she said. Which made no sense to Talen. She picked up a bowl and put the smoking weed in it. Then she took a pair of tongs and removed three hot coals from the fire and put them in the bowl as well. The weeds smoked.
“Where are they now?” she asked.
“The little one’s at the window. The bigger one is right here.” Talen moved his leg.
River approached, blowing on the smoking braid. She blew it on his face. Then she blew it on his leg.
“Don’t worry,” said Talen. “Nettle says it’s just the come-backs.”
“Be gone!” said River. She blew again on the smoke. Godsweed was not a sweet herb and Talen did not like the taste of its smoke.
The knobby creature on his leg eyed her.
“It’s not afraid of you,” said Talen.
River blew again and waved the smoking bowl around him.
The creature turned as if trying to avoid the smoke. But River blew again and the thing released Talen’s leg and jumped to the floor.
“There it goes,” Talen said. The thing only shuffled a few steps then stopped. But the little one at the window was gone.
River followed Talen’s gaze. She waved the smoking bowl around in the air. Blew more smoke. Then the fright that had been attached to his leg scuttled up the wall and out the window. However, River kept moving about as if it were still there.
“You got it,” said Talen. “It’s off to torment the chickens.” Then Talen wondered why it would do that. Was this the reason Da’s last batch of hens died off? It seemed reasonable. “They’re the ones killing the chickens,” he said.
“You’re babbling,” said River. She went to the window and waved the smoking bowl there. Then she closed up the shutters and brought the bowl back and placed it in the middle of the room on the floor. There was no fire to it anymore. Just coals and smoke.
Nettle and Sugar opened the door and bumped their way through with the empty trough. They set it close to the hearth.
“Stand over that bowl,” she said. “Smoke yourselves.”
“Goh,” Nettle said. “Are you kidding? A real fright?”
“Just do it.”
When Nettle and Sugar finished, River said, “Now get the water going.”
“With a fright out there?”
“Move!” said River.
Nettle growled, and Talen couldn’t tell if it was in frustration at River or to muster up his courage to face the fright. Then he marched out the door, the girl right behind him. River walked over to the wall where their five white ceramic plates hung. She took down one plate, brought it to the table, and broke a cookie upon it. Then she lit four more candles and turned them on their sides about the plate to give the cookie more illumination.
She dug at it with the point of a knife, examining the crumbs. “I see nothing.”
She held one up and sniffed it. She took a bite. After savoring it for a while she shook her head and swallowed it. Then she ate the other two cookies and drank a cup of water. “Sometimes certain herbs magnify the effects of the charm. But I can detect nothing of that sort in these,” she said. “If there’s anything in them, we will shortly know. In the meantime you need to soak. Take off your clothes.”
All this time Nettle had been hauling in water, first to fill the large pot Sugar had put over the fire and then to fill the trough. The thought of moving daunted him, and Talen found he couldn’t do more than look at that trough.
“Never mind,” she said. “I’ll do it. Sugar, is that hot yet? We don’t want to freeze him.”
Talen wanted to protest, but it was no use. River had him out of his tunic and pants in moments. Mercifully, she left his linens on.
The trough was slick with slime and the freezing water just about sent him into shock. But he soon didn’t care. The cold meant nothing. He didn’t even care when the girl dumped the boiling water in too quickly and scalded his legs. The hatchlings were in control now. It was too late for all of them.
His eyes were heavy. They itched with sleep and he tried to close them, but River kept slapping his face.
“Let me alone,” said Talen. Then he drifted off into no thought at all.
“Listen to me,” said River. “You will die tonight if we do not change the course of what’s happening.” She felt his chest again as she had done at first. “This isn’t come-backs. Some herbs can heighten the effect. But there was nothing in those cookies. If there had been, I would be feeling the effects by now.”
“Effects,” repeated Talen. Something about that struck him funny and he giggled.
River stood and addressed Nettle. “You keep him awake. Use whatever it requires-don’t let him sleep.” She moved to the table and began unraveling her weaving of Da’s hair.
Nettle first tried to make Talen talk. When that failed, he began with slapping, pinching, and poking.
But Talen didn’t care. He just wanted to close his eyes.
That’s when Nettle retrieved a stick from the fire and burned Talen’s arm with it.
Talen started and yelled.
“Aha,” said Nettle. “It’s fire that will keep him awake.”
But soon Talen’s eyes began to droop, and Nettle had to burn him twice more before River returned.
“Put your tortures away,” said Talen. He looked at Sugar. “She can perform her depradations after I’ve rested.”
But River said nothing. She tied what she’d been weaving to his arm where Da had tied his charm.
“I’ll give it a few minutes,” she said. It sounded as if she were trying to reassure herself.
“There’s no virtue in hair,” said Talen.
“There isn’t?” asked River.
“I’ve never heard of it,” said Talen.
“What about Atra’s hair?”
“She’s given me up,” said Talen.
River made him relate the whole story of what happened at the glass master’s until Talen realized all she was doing was trying to keep him talking so he’d stay awake.
“I’m going to sleep,” he said. “Burn me if you like. I don’t care.”
River put her hand to his chest again. She looked desperate. She took him by the head then, her two hands clasping the back of his skull. “You need to help me,” she said.
“I can’t get up,” he said. “You’ll have to kill her yourself.”
“Talen,” said River. “I can’t stop the flow. You’re bleeding Fire. Your days are rolling off you like smoke. You must help me.”
“Fire?” asked Talen.
River glanced at Nettle and Sugar. Then she faced Talen. She’d decided something. He could see that by the set of her brow.
“You’ve been multiplied,” she said. “Da has begun your awakening. But it’s all gone wrong. You need to close it off.”
That made no sense to Talen. Only dreadmen and Divines could do that. Then through the fog of his mind he began to feel at the edges of a horrible idea.
“You’re going to feel an intrusion,” said River. “Fight it. Push with all your might. You’re leaking through a thousand holes. You’ve got to close every last one of them.”
Suddenly he felt something enter him. It was crushing, and he gasped.
Push! a voice in his mind said.
He’d been caught once in a tumble of earth, and this was what it had felt like. A panic began to rise in him.
He could feel her. He could feel River in him. It terrified him. The weight of her presence began to bear down.
Talen tried to flee, but she was everywhere. A crush of sand.
Fight me, you fool.
He struggled against her.
Fight!
“I don’t know how!” he shouted.
All about him the sand of her presence pushed at him, coming in through his ears, his nose, his mouth. She was the very air he breathed.
Talen struggled in panic, and then in one part he felt her recede.
Was it his imagination?
He tried again, but whatever he’d done fell to pieces and River’s presence swallowed him. He was trapped, pinned, a man under a ton of grain. He couldn’t breathe.
His panic rose to a pitch, then he did something-he couldn’t explain it-he pushed, and he found he could breathe again. He pushed again. And she moved farther.
That’s it! Fight!
River rushed at him with renewed force, but he held his space and withstood her. He did not know how long he struggled, managing only to keep her far enough away to breathe. Then he closed a small rent in his fabric.
Another, she said.
But there were so many.
Close another!
Talen was so tired, but he fought. He fought and lost track of time. It was only him and the suffocating sand of his sister.
After what seemed like hours he found himself facing the last hole, one rent in his fabric that separated him from the rest of creation. It was like trying to stop the sea with his hand. Talen fought to no effect.
“I can’t do it,” he said and did not know if he’d spoken this aloud or just in his mind.
You will, said River. Mother didn’t save you only to have Father kill you with his reckless ways.
It’s just one hole.
Close it!
Talen mustered the last of his strength and tried to close the rent. And to his surprise he felt it narrow and then shut up as tight as boiled leather.
He slumped in the tub. Tired. He was deathly tired. And thirsty. But the ragged edge of his weariness was dulled, if only a little.
Talen opened his eyes. Most of the water had sloshed out of the trough to the floor. River’s tunic and pants were soaked all down the front. She slumped alongside the trough, and heaved a sob of relief.
Behind her stood Nettle and the girl, their faces slack with confusion or shock. Which it was he could not tell. Talen started to say something to Nettle, but his exhaustion overwhelmed him, and he closed his eyes.
Talen woke and found himself in River’s bed. Someone had slipped small heated sacks of grain under the covers next to him to keep him warm.
He could see through the shutters that it was still dark outside. On the floor beside the bed stood a jug of water. Talen slowly sat up. His head swam, and he clutched it until the dizziness passed. He grabbed the jug and took a long drink.
When he finished, River stood in the doorway.
“I don’t know that I want to hear it,” said Talen. They were caught, all of them. In a black web of Slethery.
“It’s too late for that,” said River. She walked in and sat beside him on the bed. “How do you feel?”
“Awful,” said Talen. “But not as bad as before.”
Nettle came to the doorway. His ear had been stitched and cleaned. “So he’s not dead yet? There goes my wager.”
“Ha,” said Talen.
Nettle grinned.
“Are you well enough to travel?” asked River.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Well, it doesn’t matter. We have to leave tonight.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ke has come and gone since you slept. They’re holding Da in Whitecliff.”
“The Council?”
“He’s been accused of being Sleth.”
Talen recoiled.
“Talen,” said River. “I need you to listen to me. I need you to be calm and listen.”
He looked at her.
She took a breath then said, “You know how Mother died.”
Talen nodded. She’d died in the pox plague year. Died of stress and worry.
“You think you know: laid into the ground, she was, without a blemish upon her. Perfect and whole, broken with grief for her little boy who was covered with the ugly rash, all blisters and pus. This is what you think, but grief did not break her, brother. Grief could not have broken that woman, not in a million years.”
She paused.
“It was love that broke her. Your little body was consumed with sores. Da called every healer he knew; we tried every herb known to have any effect. We danced and sacrificed to the ancestors. But the disease only grew. And so Mother and Da did what any loving parents would do. They gave their Days to make you whole.”
Surely, she was talking about a Divine’s gift. “They went to the temple?” he said.
River shook her head, and dread came over him.
“You were broken in body and soul. Da could not see how to heal you and steeled himself to losing you. He had given up. After all, many families lose one here or there. But Mother would not give up. She saw possibilities invisible to him.
“You struggled a week, then two. Everyone marveled at your spirit. But then Da discovered one night it was more than your tenacity keeping you alive. He caught Mother pouring her life into you. Her Fire flowed through you and held you together. And when you finally vanquished the disease, she was spent. A whole lifetime spent in two weeks.”
River smiled, but her eyes glistened in the dim candlelight.
“She died in the morning the day after your fever broke, holding your hand.”
Talen could not speak.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?”
He nodded. But it just couldn’t be.
“Your veins, brother, run literally with our mother’s Fire.”
“But-”
He glanced at Nettle. His expression was unreadable. The girl stood behind him in the doorway. He hadn’t noticed her come.
“Shush,” said River. “Mother said that parts of you, parts of your weave were… twisted. Most of that she was able to heal. But as she delved into the fiber of your being she found other parts that defied her knowledge. Parts that she said were complex, beautiful, unlike anything she’d ever encountered. There are things about you she could not change. Things she dared not change.” River paused. “At the end, she was half mad with the effort and kept telling us you needed a flaw. She thought you were perfect. We’ve all been waiting to see what you would become, to see what gifts the wisterwives had bestowed.”
Talen felt lost. It was all too much. Wisterwives, Sleth, weaves. “Nobody’s seen a wisterwife,” said Talen.
“They are elusive, but Mother and Da found the charm.”
“The charm? You mean that odd necklace she used to make me wear?”
“The very same. Legs has it now. Mother gave it to Purity when he was born, thinking it might still have some virtue.”
“It was yours?” the girl asked in confusion.
River nodded. “Mother woke early one morning to find the shutters to her room open and the mosquitoes buzzing about her face. The charm was lying on the chair inside the Creator’s wreath. Something had taken the wreath from above the door to the house and brought it inside. Mother looked out the window. A troop of ferrets stood about the yard gazing at her, still as stone. They stood for some time, considering her in silence like wise little men. And then, just before the light broke above the hills, the little creatures turned and disappeared into the forest. Mother conceived Talen with that charm about her neck, and he wore it for the first few years of his life. But when Legs was born, she thought it had a better purpose.”
Talen had heard about the ferrets, but not the charm.
“But my da said it was given to us,” said the girl.
“It was, but not by a wisterwife,” said River. “He probably didn’t want to repeat the story. Such encounters are special, and should be treated so.”
“Did she see the wisterwife?”
“No, but how else do you explain the curious charm, the ferrets, and the wreath?”
Talen wondered. Wisterwives were said to bestow great blessings upon humans. Some said they served the Divines. Others said they served none but themselves.
It puzzled him that his family hadn’t said anything about this. Of course, a wisterwife’s charm was a rare and precious thing because it gave fertility and health. He supposed if people knew the source of that necklace, they would have stolen it. Perhaps that was the reason for the silence.
“Regret has servants as well,” said Talen. “How do you know it was a blessing? How do you know it even has anything to do with me?”
“I don’t,” said River. “I am trusting Mother’s judgment.”
“I might not manifest anything at all,” said Talen. “Maybe those changes were already in the bloodline. Traits can sometimes skip generations.”
“That’s true,” said River. “But your differences were exceptional.” She shook her head. “And they needed exceptional care. Da was reckless. I have no idea how much of your life you’ve lost. Nor whether you’ve burned yourself to the core.”
River’s description of his “weave” bothered him. “You talk as if I’m some piece of wrought jewelry.”
“We all are, Talen.”
He didn’t know what she meant by that. “So what was different about me?”
“I don’t know. Mother died and took her secrets with her. But there’s this: Fire can be eaten only very slowly and so it must be given only very slowly. To do otherwise is to risk the life of the person you’re giving it to. How she transferred a lifetime of Fire in the space of only a few days is beyond us. It should have killed you. Your exhibition tonight should have killed you. You were pouring forth quantities of Fire that would have killed ten men had they tried to tap into it. The amounts of Fire you’re able to handle is astonishing. On the other hand, Da’s charm: that should have had only the slightest effect on you.”
“You’re talking about that godsweed charm, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” said River.
“That was a weave?”
“Yes.”
Talen looked at Nettle and the girl. Both of them were standing aside with grim faces.
Too many thoughts coursed through Talen’s mind. But one stood out from the rest. Mother and Da had been using lore for years. These hatchlings hadn’t subverted them.
“You’re saying we’re soul-eaters,” he said.
It couldn’t be, but a number of things that had puzzled suddenly made horrible sense. Harboring the hatchlings, for one. Da’s dislike of the Divines, for another. His demonstrations of uncanny strength when there was nobody but a son to see them, his odd lack of sickness.
Talen thought of Ke. His brother was as strong as stone and just as unmovable. Yet, at other times he was lively as a cat. Talen remembered once a few years ago spying Ke upon a cliff in the distance. One moment he was standing on a ledge, then next he was moving, leaping and scrabbling up the rock like a mountain goat. Talen knew that cliff. He’d asked Ke how he’d done it, and Ke had said he had a rope. And that Da was pulling him up. It seemed plausible and Talen had dismissed what he’d seen. But now it made sense. Ke hadn’t used a rope. He’d jumped, just as Talen had jumped and scrabbled up that elm earlier today.
Dozens of such events came rushing back to him. River swimming out in impossible seas to help Blue. A deer Da brought home from the hunt with a broken neck and nary an arrow wound. The time Talen went out to chase after Ke, who had just disappeared down the trail, only to find the trail was empty for as far as he could see.
Talen thought about his earlier daydreams of hunting and catching Sleth. There was nothing like this in the old stories.
“Am I not myself then? I’m just bits and pieces of what Mother stole?”
River cleared her throat. “That is the difference between us and them. When you give Fire freely, it flows between two people as clean and easily as the wind. Freely given it is without taint. You haven’t a speck of her soul, Talen. What she gave was all Fire-pure and brilliant and sweet. It is only when you forcibly take, as the Divines and soul-eaters do, that you contaminate. Taking tears the soul and brings madness to the thief. The Divines think to avoid the consequences with their filtering rods. But you cannot filter away the darkness such deeds sow into the heart.”
“But the people freely sacrifice themselves.”
“They offer themselves up. But that is not a free gift. You must know what you’re giving. And to do that you have to be able to give it yourself. Why do you think they drug sacrifices with wizardsmeet or opium? No, they do not gift their Fire. What they do in reality, Talen, is promise to struggle less. And if they only take part of a man, they’re still killing him, only it’s by degrees.”
“So you are not Sleth?”
“Do you know where that word comes from?”
Talen did not.
“It comes from Urz. In that country it is the name given to the dry killing wind that comes from the east. The wind that steals all moisture from the crops.” River paused. “Brother, I do not steal life.”
Talen searched his sister’s eyes, those kind, lovely eyes, and he believed her. “But what are you then?”
“In the beginning, the Creators taught all how to use their powers. Some excelled in the lore, but instead of sharing their knowledge, they hoarded it, and in some instances killed to keep their advantage. Over the ages, those people have gained the upper hand. Look at the Divines: they kill any who try to use what was given freely in the beginning.”
“There are others then?”
River nodded. “A few. We cannot do the mighty deeds that were done of old. But still we work what we may. We are banded together in an order whose purpose is to break the yoke of the Divines and let every man, woman, and child control their own Fire just as they control their own breath.”
Her words astonished him. “How do you know you’re not under some spell? How do you know your master, or whatever you call it, hasn’t subverted your will?”
“Talen, there are those that practice wickedly. There are indeed nightmares in this world. But I’m not one of them. This is the truth of the matter.”
“But why was all this kept from me?”
“Because telling you would endanger many lives.”
“Despite what Da thinks, I do not have a butter jaw. I can hold my tongue.”
“No, that isn’t what I mean. It doesn’t matter how much you want something, you need the skill to perform the act. You have a pure and loyal heart, but you don’t have the skill to close your mind to a Seeker. And that can’t be taught to a child. And so it is better to tell you nothing so that if something happens, and you are taken, you have nothing to share. The Order is not yet powerful enough to reveal itself. One day we will walk in the sun, but for now we must keep to shadows. We are bound by oath to do so.”
Nettle, the girl, and the boy stood in the doorway. He was ashamed to look at them.
“Purity, Sugar’s mother, and Uncle Argoth are both part of the Order as well.”
Talen’s world was spinning. “And the creature?” he asked. “That thing that fetched the Sleth woman?” Talen did not want to hear the answer to that question, but he steeled himself.
“Her name is Purity,” River corrected. “And we have no idea what the creature is, much less who it belongs to.”
Talen heaved a sigh. At least there was that. Then something struck him. “If I couldn’t keep a secret yesterday, what has changed so I can keep it today?”
“Nothing,” said River. “A Seeker would ransack your mind as easily as you would that cupboard. But, as I said, we are leaving. And in time you will learn the skill.”
“Leaving? But what about Da?”
River looked down. “We are bound by an oath,” she said. “Da.” Her voice faltered. She closed her eyes and regained control of her emotions. When she opened them they were wet with tears. “Ke has been set to watch him. Once he’s assessed the situation, he will meet us at the refuge where I’m taking you. We’ll see what we can do at that time. But you need to prepare yourself because Da might not ever be coming back.”
Prunes was roused by a sharp dig into his ribs.
“It seems we have ourselves a situation,” said Gid.
Gid had already wakened him twice. Once to tell him that he’d had to tell a pack of Fir-Noy they already had the place under observation. Another time to watch the spectacle of two boys in a wagon pull into the yard. If this was another false alarm, Prunes was going to throw the man off the side of the mountain. And he didn’t care about blowing their cover.
Prunes sat up. He was wrapped in his soldier’s sleeping sash. “This had better be good.”
“Oh, it’s the tart’s delight. They’ve been busy as bees down there all night. In and out, lamps burning. And something interesting just went into the barn but she’ll be back out.”
“Who?”
“The girl who told the bailiff she was from Koramtown. But what do you know? It appears there’s also a boy with her that can’t find his way unless she leads him about by the arm.”
Prunes blinked the sleep out of his eyes. The moon was not large, but it was big enough to see shapes. The door to the house stood wide open, light spilling out into the yard. Someone exited the old sod house and walked toward the wagon in the yard, holding a lamp in front. That had to be the older sister. She made her way around the buildings and entered the house. That’s when two figures stepped from behind the barn, walking as boldly as you please.
One was a girl. And the other, the smaller one, she led him by the hand. Even from here he could see the boy was blind.
Prunes was wide awake now.
“Busy as bees,” said Gid. “And preparing, in haste it seems, to depart.”
Their duty was to watch, but if they left now, it was likely they’d lead a hunt back to a deserted farmstead.
“I say we don’t take any chances,” said Gid. He held up his knife. “We take them one by one.”
“This isn’t an extermination. The lords will want someone to question.”
“We’ll do our best,” said Gid. “But if things begin to sour, I’m not going to hesitate. Besides, all we need to do is kill one of them as an example and the rest will comply.”
“And who will that be?”
“Who else? The blind one.”
Gid was perhaps too eager, but he made sense. These youth might look like babes; however, a callow youth, given the right opportunity, could kill a man just as easily as a veteran of many battles. They might need to kill more than the little one. But that didn’t matter. They only needed to keep one alive for the questioners.
Prunes nodded agreement.
“You and I, friend,” said Gid, “are going to be rich.”
“Not if we don’t get you downwind,” said Prunes. He motioned for Gid to lead, and the two began to pick their way quietly downhill.