His brother gave him a skeptical glance. “It’s not a predator like a mountain cat,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“I suppose I don’t.” Bayne was silent for a moment, then stared up at the stars again. “When I was young, I was afraid of the dark,” he said.
Trey smiled. “I remember.”
“I still am sometimes.”
“What?”
Bayne shrugged. “Why not? The things I thought might attack me in the dark could still be there—now more than ever since we’re heading into foreign lands. But it doesn’t matter if they’re there or not, and it doesn’t matter if I’m still afraid or not; I can’t hide from the darkness anymore, I have to stand against whatever might be hiding behind it for your sake and for Kellisin’s. It’s what I do. I protect. But I’m not that scared little boy anymore either, I’m a man now with a man’s strength, just like you are. And predator or not, you may have to dig that coat up and put it back on; make it a man’s coat instead of a boy’s coat and make it your own.” He squeezed Trey’s shoulder. “And whatever comes of it, brother, we’ll face it together as kinsmen. As clansmen.”
“And what if I see your death?” Trey shot back. “Or Kellisin’s?”
“We’ll face that together, too. That’s what families do. They stand together so that no one has to stand alone, be they hunter, trapper, or shaman. Yes?”
Trey gave a long, resentful sigh. “Yes.”
“Good.” Bayne stood. “Then pull yourself together. You’re scaring Kellisin.”
That night, drawing on the warmth of Bayne’s back pressed against his for courage, Trey reached out, past the avalanche of snow and the deaths of his people, and drew the blue coat from its hiding place. In his dream it was damp and cold and covered in dirt, much as it might have been in the waking world. Shaking it out, he studied the silver trim along its length, something he’d never noticed as a boy, before pulling it over his head. It settled across his shoulders with an all but forgotten familiarity, and once again he stood by the bright, swiftly flowing water of his childhood dreams. Taking a deep breath, he looked down, but instead of bodies floating beneath the surface, he saw a great walled city spiraling outward from a wide river valley. A broad belt of green land lay beside a beautiful structure of stone and timber and he could almost hear Vulshin’s music and poetry in the distance. Fighting back tears of relief, he turned to the hazy figure standing in a meadow of spring flowers.
“Thank you, shaman,” he breathed.
That night he had the first peaceful slumber since before Dierna’s death, and two days later the three men left the hills and looked down upon a vast, open plain covered in tiny purple-and-yellow flowers. Beyond that lay a wide, swiftly flowing river.
Bayne glanced over at Trey. “The Terilee?” he asked.
“That’s what Vulshin called it.”
“Whatever he called it, I call it fresh water for drinking and for bathing,” Kellisin said excitedly. With a shout of joy, he urged his mount into a gallop, the pack pony close behind them.
The two older men followed more sedately, but neither of them could hide the pleasure the sight of the clean, blue water gave them as well.
That evening as they made camp, Trey collected a handful of the tiny blossoms and wove them into his pony’s mane and that night he dreamed again. He saw a wide but shallow quarry where strangely garbed people labored to cut great blocks of stone from the ground which were then loaded onto rollers pulled by great horned beasts and then loaded once again onto three oddly-shaped flat-bottomed boats. The cloudless sky above promised a clear and stormfree day, but the dark forest beyond the southern bank whispered of hidden dangers behind the trees and the water below wavered with the hint of bodies beneath the surface.
He awoke with the familiar twisting fear in the pit of his belly. After a cold breakfast, they broke camp quickly and turned southeast, following the river with their bows near to hand. They saw no signs of settlements or encampments as they rode, but rather than have this allay their disquiet, after the initial excitement of reaching the river had passed, all three men began to feel both uneasy and exposed. The gently rolling countryside was too open and too empty for their passage to remain hidden, the strips of woodland that grew right up to the water’s edge too dark and the underbrush too thick to maneuver in easily. Time and time again they had to leave the riverbank to bypass some soft and crumbling escarpment or boggy patch of ground and strike north.
After three days of this, Bayne’s mood began to darken and Kellisin started to lag behind, his eyes constantly scanning the unfamiliar terrain. Trey was unable to break the tension. His dreams had become as impenetrable as the woodlands themselves, almost as if the blue coat were laughing at him for thinking he could overcome his childhood fears so easily.
However, nineteen days after they’d left the familiar peaks and paths of the Ice Wall Mountains, the river flowed through a series of lightly wooded hills, then opened up to reveal a group of huts built about a wide but shallow quarry. A dozen people labored to cut away great blocks of the exposed stone while a dozen more loaded them onto log rollers pulled by heavy-set horned creatures that looked like a cross between huge ponies and hairless mountain goats. Another dozen figures stood at key locations, obviously guardsmen protecting the settlement, while two women shouted orders from the first of three flat-bottomed boats tied up at a sturdily built wooden and stone pier. Two of the boats were already loaded with the stone blocks, the third half full.
Hidden just beyond the tree line, the three Goshon stopped dead and Kellisin’s mouth fell open.
“Isn’t that . . . ?”
“Yes,” Trey answered.
“And look at the color the guards are wearing,” Bayne added meaningfully.
Trey squinted down at the settlement.
“It’s the wrong shade,” he declared after a moment, trying to mask the sense of foreboding the sight of the bright blue uniforms caused him.
“Does it matter?” the other man asked.
“Yes, it matters,” Trey snapped back with rather more force than necessary and his brother raised his hands in a sarcastic gesture of submission.
“All right, so it matters, but you have to admit, it’s an interesting coincidence. Have you ever seen anyone wear any kind of blue cloth?”
“No I haven’t, but until this moment I’d never seen anyone stand on floating rocks either.”
Beside them, Kellisin stirred restlessly, impatient with the argument. “So, are we going down for a closer look or not?” he demanded. “If you dreamed this place, there must be a reason.”
“True.”
“Then, let’s go down and find out what it is.”
Trey and Bayne rolled their eyes at each other over his head.
“Life is always simpler for the young,” Bayne noted sagely.
“Life is always slower for the old,” Kellisin retorted.
“And life is always a pushy series of inevitable events for the shamans, old or young,” Trey added.
“So we’re going?”
“Yes, we’re going, but cautiously,” he added, grabbing the younger man’s halter before he could go galloping down the hill. “Cautiously, little cousin.”
All work ceased immediately as the three clansman broke from the trees and rode slowly into the open towards the riverbank. One of the guardsmen gave a whistling signal and, by the time they reached the pier, an older woman in a leather apron and a man in the guardsmen’s bright blue uniform were waiting for them, ringed by people. Most held their tools or weapons loosely but resolutely, and Trey gave Bayne a casual, sideways glance.