Pathways Page 3

  Still, Marli waited to speak until they’d gained some distance from the villagers, who had followed up their expressions of gratitude with a firm request for the Heralds’ rapid absence.

  “I don’t know exactly what history is between you and your village,” she said, “but how can you be so calm with them rejecting you like that? You used to be one of them, didn’t you?”

  Selte wondered the same thing. As they climbed out of the valley, she found the continuing drizzle unexpectedly reassuring. It smelled fresh, like a day in a new spring rather than a summer growing old. With each cool drop, the fear and self-doubt that had haunted her in the years following her punishment washed away, and for the first time she rode with her shoulders held back and a sense of contentment growing in her heart.

  She’d been wrong about the rain, but it hadn’t mattered. Her training and experience in the years since she’d left home had taught her how to prepare for the worst, and she knew without any need to second guess herself that her expertise and quick action had saved the village from the inferno.

  The villagers knew it too, but the scars of the past would never fully heal for either party. No sudden acceptance from the forge master would give Selte back her voice, just as no amount of now trusted storm-proofing advice from Selte would bring the master’s son back from the Havens.

  Uncertain how to communicate that feeling to her Trainee, Selte shrugged and made a gesture she hoped implied it was a long time ago.

  Marli sighed and looked forward. “It wasn’t that long ago for me. Can people really be so judgmental about one fork in your path?”

  Selte saw the pain writhing within her Trainee. The storm Marli foresaw hadn’t landed yet, but she feared it all the same. She saw what little she now knew of Selte’s past as good data to judge by.

  But sometimes, even predictions made with the best data didn’t come true. All a weather reader could do was look at patterns and prepare for any inevitability. In the end, the destruction didn’t come from being inaccurate. Selte knew that now.

  She lifted her head so the raindrops fell on her unprotected face. Then she reached over and plucked at Marli’s sleeve. Once the other woman shifted in the saddle, she gestured up at the gray clouds.

  See those? She indicated with a flick of her fingers and a raised eyebrow.

  Marli glanced up, shrugged, and returned to her not-quite-slouch. “So you were wrong this time. I know you can’t always say for certain what the weather will do. I have picked up a couple of things from watching you.”

  Selte let the slight sting in Marli’s voice roll off her, let her Trainee have a moment to voice her dissatisfaction. Then she asked Cerilka to relay her next message.

  :When I’m reading the weather, all I do is sit back and listen. I let it tell me whatever it wants to say, whisper its secrets, gossip about the land, or complain about the wind. From those tales I can make a good guess as to how it will behave. I imagine that’s similar to what I’ve seen you do with people, though I . . . have a hard time figuring out what people mean when they say this or that.:

  Marli blinked, then smiled. It was a tentative gesture, not the easy, open grin she used with the people of Valdemar. “People aren’t that hard to figure out. They’re just . . . well, I suppose they kick up their own kind of storms.”

  Selte nodded, pointed at herself, then shrugged. And if I can manage to weather the storm from my harsh past . . .

  Marli’s smile widened. Along the rainy trail to their next destination, Herald and Trainee conducted the first of many weather lessons in a silence that spoke volumes.

  Traded Places

  Kristin Schwengel

  “I’m no fine lady from the Fifty made of spun sugar, Capin! I won’t melt from a few drops of rain. I’ve been cooped up in this carriage for the three days since we left Mornedealth, and I need to move.”

  Suiting action to words, Valia pushed open the door of the large traveling coach and stepped out into the light drizzle. The maidservant her mother had insisted on remained crammed in her corner, pursed lips radiating disapproval of her mistress’ boyish apparel and behavior.

  “Your brother will have my head if anything happens to you, my lady,” the guardsman replied, but he moved back to allow her space on the narrow ledge of road.

  “My brother knows better than to stand in my way,” Valia said with a grin that softened her sharp words. “Besides, I’m sure Tenna could use some exercise while we wait for his return.” She gestured to one of the other two guards, who hurried behind the coach to the picketed horses.

  Capin managed to conceal his sigh. “You won’t find a safe place in these steep forests to let her run like you did at your parents’ estate.”

  Valia’s only response was a shrug, and moments later the guard returned leading two saddled horses: Capin’s heavy chestnut gelding and Valia’s athletic bay mare.

  The two mounted in silence, and Valia nudged Tenna off the bare excuse for a road and up the slope into the forest, angling back along the ravine they had followed for most of the day.

  Stretching her legs into the stirrups, Valia inhaled the pinewood air and felt her mind clearing, even as the rain tapered off to nothing. She had no particular objection to her approaching betrothal, but she had no enthusiasm to race toward it, either. Despite her words, she was a lady of the Fifty Noble Houses of Mornedealth, and arranged marriages were the rule for women of the Fifty. She could not be married against her will, but she was expected to honor her family’s concerns first, and until now she had felt no calling that would change her choices. No Mage Gift, no religious devotion, no previous attachments drew her from her familial duty, so she and her brother and the bare minimum of guards that could be considered respectable were traveling to the city of Llyrida, where her parents had negotiated a match with the local Duke.

  Tenna shook her head against the sudden tightening of the reins, and Valia sighed and relaxed her fingers’ grip on the leather. Not for the first time, she wished she had shown some sign of magery or desired to join one of the religious houses that dotted Jkatha. Without Mage Gift or a spiritual vocation, it was next to impossible for her to move beyond the constrained roles of the nobility. She certainly had no aspirations among the social elites; the idle prattling of gossip bored her, and the eternal fussing about clothing and jewelry was even worse. Her mother had years ago despaired of turning her into a “proper” lady, insisting only that Valia know how to comport herself respectably when she had to and otherwise allowing her to ride and train in swordplay with her brothers. Of all things, she most hated being idle and useless—and it seemed to her that a lady of the Fifty was destined to be exactly that.

  Loosening her grip on the reins again, Valia pulled Tenna to a halt in a small clearing and turned to Capin, who had ridden close at her heels.

  “How many marks do you think it’ll be before Seb and Rall come back? How long can we ride?” How long am I still free to make my own decisions?

  Capin thought for a moment. “It’s only been a candlemark since he left, my lady. Maybe two marks? They weren’t planning to go all the way down to the plains, just through the steepest portion of the downhill slope to make sure the way was clear for the carriage. Rall knows the area from his visit on your father’s behalf, and he figured we’d be in Llyrida before dusk.”

  Valia’s reply was interrupted by a low rumble down the mountain, making their horses dance and half-rear, the whites of their eyes showing and nostrils flaring. Dismounting, the two understood the animals’ nerves as the ground trembled beneath their feet. The rumble grew to a roar, the earth shaking and causing Valia’s stomach to turn, and it took all her strength and weight on the reins to keep Tenna from breaking free in terror. Crashing sounds of rending trees and falling rocks echoed around them.

  It seemed to last forever, yet in mere moments the ground stilled and uncanny silence settled ove
r the forest. Eyes wide, Valia looked at Capin.

  “Landslide,” he said. “All this rain must have loosened a portion of the mountain, and it went down into the ravine.”

  “Might it have blocked some of the road ahead of us?” On this side of the mountain, the road had closely followed the cliff edge.

  “Only one way to find out.”

  With a last soothing pat on Tenna’s sweat-damp neck, Valia gathered the reins and hoisted herself back into the saddle. Capin had already mounted, and he led the way down the slope.

  The return through the forested slopes was silent until Capin pulled up his horse with a muffled oath. Distracted, Valia barely noticed in time to rein in Tenna.

  “What—” Her voice died into nothing as she looked past him, to where the coach and the other guards should have been awaiting them. The road now vanished into a steep drop, and a crazed pile of boulders and shredded trees leaned straight out over the edge.

  As one, they dismounted, securing the horses to one of the still-standing trees before picking their way with careful haste to the new edge of the ravine.

  Valia’s stomach churned and sank as she stared down, seeing just enough around Capin’s bulk to confirm her worst fears. The crushed body of one of the carriage horses, its head at an impossible angle, drew her eyes to the mud-covered carnage of what remained of the vehicle itself, lying half buried on its side with a great boulder squarely on top of it. A horrified gasp escaped her, and she held a hand to her mouth against sudden nausea. If she had stayed in the coach like the poor lady’s maid . . .

  “The other guards?” she whispered, her voice trembling into the too silent air.

  Capin shook his head, shifting his position to further block her view of the ravine, and a hoarse cry from the sky above drew her attention to the circling of carrion birds overhead. Valia bit her lip and turned away, the blood drained from her face, her stomach in knots.

  “We need to find Lord Sebasten, and Rall,” Capin said at last. “Come.” He turned to the horses, and Valia followed in a numb silence.

  “We’ll have to backtrack up and go deeper into the thick pines, to circle around the weak area. The rockfall took out a fair slice of the mountain, and it might still be unstable.”

  Valia nodded as she untied Tenna and mounted, strangely thankful that he made no effort to comfort her. His short words instead kept her mind practical, focused on the reality of their situation without dwelling on the horror behind them in the ravine.

  • • •

  It was nearly two candlemarks before they returned to the road, much lower down the mountainside from where they had left it.

  “Should we go up to find Seb or down?” Her brother would know what to do.

  “Up to make sure he isn’t behind us. He must have heard the landslide and would have started back to find you.”

  Before they’d gone a dozen paces, Valia grabbed at the pommel of her saddle, a strange vertigo washing over her. “Seb,” she gasped, her stomach churning as it had before, when the earth had dropped away. Fear flooded her veins, paralyzing her, and a vision of falling rocks passed before her eyes. In almost the same moment, the mountain rumbled again, the sound echoing down toward them.

  The ground around them shook less with this slide, and they were better able to manage the horses, who stood with legs splayed for stability, tossing their heads, but not attempting to throw their riders. Valia folded forward in the saddle, clinging to Tenna’s neck and fighting waves of nausea, her vision spinning between the road beneath her and a nightmare of collapsing rocks and trees.

  When all was once again calm, Capin turned to Valia, his brows raised in question at her white face.

  What was that I felt in the moments before the tremor? What did I see? All her thoughts went to Seb, and she bit back a moan. This second slide had shaken the earth less than the first, yet she had seen what was not before her, had felt the ground moving more. Her heart sank to her churning stomach. Somehow, she knew that what she felt was what happened to her brother.

  Valia shook her head, tears filling her eyes. “Let’s go to Llyrida,” she said, her voice shaking. “I could see the rocks falling, and I felt Seb’s fear . . . I don’t think I could bear to see . . .” She let the stumbling words trail off, then turned Tenna’s head. Whatever reply Capin might have made was soon lost in the cadence of hooves.

  Along the way, her imagination filled her mind with the pictures she dreaded seeing in reality: her brother’s fiery gelding instead of the coach horse, her brother’s blond head instead of the guard’s, all crushed, buried by falling, sliding rock. Her vision swam with tears as Capin nudged his mount past Tenna to lead the way down the mountain.

  • • •

  Two riders made better time than the carriage had, and all too soon the two were near the edge of the forest that swathed the foot of the mountains. The distant walls of Llyrida were a hazy darkness splashed against the pale green of early spring growth on the plains ahead.

  Capin looked over at Valia, then reined in the chestnut, using the horse’s big body to slow Tenna and guide her to the side of the road.

  “We need to lay plans,” he said, the brusque edge in his voice bringing Valia back from her stricken mental wanderings.

  “What do you mean? Should we not just find the duke and explain?”

  “My Lady, I do not know these parts. I don’t know whether a woman with only a single guardsman will be safe. Whether you would be safe without your brother and the others. I think we should use some sort of disguise, for a day or two, until we learn if we can trust the Duke.”

  Valia blinked back tears at the mention of her brother, her thoughts slow. “Disguise? As what?”

  Capin studied her, his eyes narrowing in thought. “You’re slight enough, if you cut your hair and wear the right clothes, you’d pass for a lad. Your riding gear will do with the help of dusk and torchlight. If we need time, I can look for a job as a guard, at least for long enough to hear what rumor tells of the Duke. I say we wait until dusk to approach the gates, just before they might be closing for the night.”

  Valia nodded, her gaze focused blankly at the ground ahead of her.

  “Come, milady,” he said, his voice suddenly gentle. “Let us set up a little camp off the road here so we can get you ready.”

  After cropping Valia’s blond hair to a boyish length with his knife, Capin stared at her. “With your hair short, you’re the image of my lord Sebasten,” he blurted out, then snapped his mouth shut as the threatening tears spilled down her cheeks and she curled into a ball of misery, buried under her cloak.

  • • •

  The rest of the slow afternoon passed in the silence of gloomy thoughts until they broke camp in the early dusk, riding out onto the plain for the last candlemark of the journey to Llyrida.

  A light drizzle started as they neared the north gates, and the guards barely glanced at the cloaked Valia as Capin spoke with them. Lost in grief, she didn’t even hear their conversation, and she numbly allowed Tenna to follow Capin’s chestnut down the main road through the city. The drizzle thickened to a steadier rain, and the crowds on the streets thinned rapidly, everyone finishing their business in haste to get to the comforts of their own homes and fires—or that of the nearest tavern.

  “I’ve got enough coin for a few nights,” Capin said, guiding the horses down a side street of buildings that looked rather like the people around them: not fancy, but well-maintained. “We should know enough to take our next steps before the coin runs out.”

  He turned off the street into the well-swept yard of an aging inn. Glancing up, Valia saw a hanging sign with a strange blue-winged blob, and she looked at him in question.

  “Gate guard said the Blue Gryphon was a fair and honest inn—none too fancy for the size of my purse, but reputable.”

  Valia dismounted in silent
assent, and they gave their horses over to the care of one of the stable-lads, who eyed the fine animals with awe.

  The innkeep standing at the bar looked to be a good fit for his location: grizzled but tidy, his figure only just starting to thicken around the middle, as though he had led a more active life than one would expect of a townsman. He greeted the two of them with respectful welcome, and again Capin took the lead.

  “A room for me and m’cousin, and stabling for our horses,” he said, gesturing at Valia, who had pushed back her hood but kept her head low, her damp hair shielding her red-rimmed eyes. “Three days standard?”

  The innkeep, Master Sarcen, nodded, and the price he named met with Capin’s approval. “That includes breakfast and use of the steam baths,” he added. “Other meals can be had here in the tavern room if you’re not off working.” Although he didn’t raise the inflection of his voice, his expression made a question of the last sentence, and Capin nodded.

  “We’ve got no fixed plans,” he said, “but I might be looking for guard work if we’re here longer than a sennight.”

  “Th’ lad, too?” The innkeep tilted his head in Valia’s direction.

  Capin shook his head. “Messenger, perhaps. He can take care of himself with a sword, but he’s not trained hard enough for full guard duty.”

  “If you decide to stay, check at the Great House. His Lordship hasn’t kept a large household, but with his coming betrothal to the lady of the Fifty from Mornedealth, word is he’ll be hiring. All kinds of jobs need doing when there’s a wedding to be planned.”

  “Thankee for the suggestion, Master. Now, if we might have a bit of supper to warm us, we’d be most grateful.”

  They ate in silence, letting the comfortable babble of the common room float around them until Valia began nodding over her half-empty plate. Capin tapped her arm to rouse her, leading her up the stairs to the tiny bunked room that the innkeep had allotted them.