They paused for a while partway down the hill, giving the horses a chance to drink from a gurgling spring, drinking from their own water bottles. Kosar’s throat was parched and scored by the dust of that dead place behind them, and he wondered if things would ever return to normal.
“There’s San,” he said, pointing into the distance. The village was a thin spread of buildings strung along the riverbank. From this far away it was little more than a smudge on the landscape, but he knew that there were quays in front of each building, small fishing boats tied to them, sprawled nets being repaired or untangled, the stench of fish permanently ingrained in the wood of the place. He had not spent any time there other than to eat and trade for some food, and that had been a long time ago, but he still remembered some of the people he had met. Hard people, their life filled and ruled by the fishing that kept them alive. Sometimes they would spend days traveling down the river, almost as far as Lake Denyah, and return home with nothing more than a few weedy slinks in their holds. Other times-rarer-they would haul in a full catch, and then the village would celebrate for a week. They lived day by day, bartering rather than selling their fish. They had seemed excited when he arrived, and pleased to see him go. Strangers had no place in San; they were just another mouth to feed.
“We need to go around,” A’Meer said. “We’ll go as far as those hillsides.” She shielded her eyes against the sun and pointed east. “We can work our way around behind the hills, down into the valley, find some way to cross the river and then head south.”
“Easy,” Hope said. “Piece of piss.”
“Easy,” Kosar agreed. Hope glanced at him and raised one eyebrow. Her tattoos twitched into something that could well have been the beginnings of a smile. “And then the River Cleur to cross,” he continued, “Cleur to bypass, then down to Mareton and into the Mol’Steria Desert, providing the Cataclysmic War hasn’t changed the landscape beyond all recognition. I’ve heard of places this far south where the air is frozen into glass.” They sat contemplating their journey, the horses splashed in the stream, he nodded. “Piece of piss.”
“We should get Trey to do his thing,” A’Meer said. “See if the way is clear.”
“Every second we sit here brings us closer to being caught,” Hope said. “We should move on, chance it. Even if he does look and see the plains between the rivers swarming with Monks, what choices do we have?”
“If that’s the case, we could always head east through the Widow’s Peaks,” Kosar said.
“And meet Ventgoria’s steam dragons? No thanks. I’ll take my chances with a handful of Red Monks any day.”
“How about a hundred?” A’Meer asked. She called Trey over, pointed out their route and nodded as he moved away and sat with his back against a rock. “He’ll see what he can see,” she said. “And we could all do with a rest. An hour to regain some strength. I’ll try to catch some meat, though we’ll have to eat it raw.”
“No we won’t,” Hope said. “You catch us something decent and I’ll make sure it’s cooked before the fledger comes out of his trance. No fire. No smoke to give us away. You haven’t tasted spiced sheebok until you’ve tasted mine.”
A’Meer smiled at the witch, clapped Kosar on the shoulder and plucked her bow and quiver from her horse’s saddle harness.
As Trey chewed on fledge and Hope sat with Rafe, Kosar stared down at San, the wide river running past the fishing village, and beyond. Way over the horizon lay the Mol’Steria Desert, and two hundred miles south of that was Kang Kang. Beyond that, places that few had ever seen and survived. Once past these rivers and little fishing villages, they truly were entering the wilds.
Air frozen into glass; ground stripped to its bedrock; places where the sky itself erupted into flame. He had heard many tales of how these lands were changing. He had never felt the need to see for himself.
SOMETHING WAS DIFFERENT. The fledge had become stale, perhaps, or maybe he had taken too much in too short a time. He chewed and it was rough, gritty, not smooth and sweet as it broke across his tongue.
For a few seconds Trey panicked. Soon he would have no fledge left at all, and then his final link to his underground life would be gone. He would only have his memories, and those were ruled by his terrible flight from below, his mother’s final sacrifice and the fledge-fueled touch of a Nax as it awoke, raging. But then as he chewed he looked around him at the greenery of the landscape, the blue sky peering through the dispersing rain clouds, the glinting strip of the river in the distance, and the fledge found its way into his veins and his mind, ready to move him on.
He closed his eyes and slumped back against the rock. He did not need to sleep to travel with the fledge, but his body’s natural reaction was to slip into a gentle slumber. He did not dream-he was still aware of the sounds around him, the breeze stirring the fine hairs on his face and arms, the weight of the mountains in the east-but his mind was buoyed by the drug and given a freedom, released by the first touch of fledge on his heart.
Things were still different. His mind soared but it did not see, not properly. It perceived the outlines of things, mere impressions as if shapes had been pressed into the receptive clay of his awareness. He rose, and as he looked back down he saw the hillside laid out below him, but not in detail. He could sense the cool tumble of the stream somewhere to his right, and below him were the blots of his companions like living rocks mired in the ground.
He dipped down again and touched on Alishia’s mind, afraid of what he would find. As before, it was vast, and though he could not comprehend the scope of that mind, he could understand its emptiness. He drifted, passing through places where Alishia should have been. They were cold, and deep. He moved on toward the single light in the darkness, where he had touched on her consciousness back in the cave. As he drew near he heard her muttering. Yes, yes, there’s plenty to see, plenty to know, and yes, yes, I want to. He edged forward and touched on her mind. What? she said, startled. Who? Has it gone, has it gone for good?
Whatever harmed you has gone.
Harmed? Killed! It slaughtered me.
Who were you talking to?
Made me empty! Everything I was is in tatters.
Alishia, I’m here to help you. Trey edged himself forward, trying to sense just how much of the girl was left. This could have been madness, or an echo, or even the voice of her wraith, still connected to her dying body through disbelief and an unwillingness to let go.
There’s no help to be had, she whispered, and then Trey felt a heavy darkness pressing in from all sides. Alishia did not withdraw; the darkness grew. And it pushed him out.
He was sent away, spinning, rolling through the distorted planes of awareness that the fledge had opened up. He steadied himself and drifted past Kosar, past the witch with her scheming stew of thoughts. The closer he came to Rafe, the clearer the boy’s face became, until Trey’s mind reached out and touched on something beyond comprehension. So much space in there. So many places to hide.
Reeling, Trey guided his mind across the hillside and down toward the village in the distance. He was glad to be away from Alishia and Rafe-such strangeness hurt him-and he saw the gray-blue of sky and the green smudge of the grasslands, and little else. His mind was soft and blurred. Small rocky outcroppings were lost. Clouds became shadows. Here and there living things passed by beneath him, and he was angry that he could not discern them more clearly.
Solidness suddenly disappeared beneath him and the ground was moving, flowing, carrying a million mixed sensations. The river. Trey followed its course, his knowledge of what was below him hazy at best. He passed by places where the river was interrupted, still blank areas like solid shadows compared to the fluid shades of the running water. He tried a mental blink to clear his vision but it was not sight that was affected, nor his ability to project himself. Stale fledge, he thought. Growing staler. This might be the last time he journeyed like this.