But she could turn to Denser and Darrick because she knew, without having to ask, that the strangeness affected them too. Her only other option was to retreat into her mind alone, which was even more distressing filled as it was with Lyanna. Being apart from her daughter's grave had broken the direct association but nothing would ever dim the memories. Her desperation was as keen as ever, and those scant moments when her memories brought her joy were scarce jewels in the desert. But she couldn't cry. Not here. This place didn't understand her pain, and her tears and rage would be wasted.
To distract herself as they sailed, she tried to imagine what lay beneath them. Ilkar and Ren had been fulsome in their descriptions and she had bought it all, fuel for her fears. The shoals of flesh-eating fish that scented blood from ten miles' distance. The thirty-foot crocodiles with jaws strong enough to pierce plate mail. The invisible creatures that burrowed into flesh and laid their young to grow fat on host blood.
She imagined war beneath the impenetrable surface. The flashing of scales in the dance of life. And seeing one of the armoured beasts surge from the river to take a tapir as it drank fed her fantasies until she expected a fanged head to spear through the floor of the boat and take them all to the terrible drowning death that dominated her nightmares.
But instead they landed for good in the late afternoon of the third day at a shallow beach fringed with palms and waving grasses, home to three dozen and more fishing boats and open canoes.
'Home,' said Ilkar, leaping onto the land and staring up the beach.
'About bloody time,' said Hirad, following him to stand with hands on hips.
Erienne felt a rush of relief. She needed to lie under a roof, in something more substantial than a hammock. The light was beginning to fade, she was tired, hungry and could no longer ignore the growing pulse in her head as a passing ache. It had been coming on for days. At least now she could hope for a little privacy and security to sort it out.
'It's beautiful,' said Ren, slipping an arm around Ilkar's waist.
A flight of red-backed parrots passed over them, heading for the cloud-shrouded green heights and the falls they could just make out in the distance.
'Naturally,' said Ilkar.
'He's going to tell us it's a five-mile swamp hike through snake-infested forest to his front door,' grumbled Denser, though he was smiling. He looked down at Erienne, his expression sobering. 'Are you all right, love?'
'Damn fool question,' said Erienne, feeling the comfort of his closeness and empathy.
'You know what I mean.'
'Later,' she said.
'The village is literally just over the rise here,' said Ilkar, pointing up the bank through which a path had been well trodden, its shingle all but covered in mud.
Erienne followed his arm and could see the odd plume of smoke rising into the heavy sky. It was getting very hot again. She felt the sweat prickling on her and had a sudden longing for winter and the cold. Even the rain here was hot enough to bathe in.
The Unknown and Aeb had hauled all of their kit from the boat under the scowling gaze of Kayloor.
'Let's get going,' said Hirad. 'I can feel rain.' He shouldered his sack and glared at their elven guide. 'It's been a real pleasure.'
'Respect the forest. Cefu watches you,' said Kayloor in halting Balaian.
'It speaks,' said Hirad.
'Yes, and so do you,' said Ilkar. 'Too much. He's just giving you sound advice.'
'Who's Cefu again?'
'God of the canopy, Hirad,' said Erienne.
Ilkar smiled. 'At least someone listens to me. And remember what I told you before. People will stare at you. They won't want you to be here. Don't react; let Ren and me guide you. And Hirad, no staring back.'
'Me?' Hirad's expression was pained innocence.
'Yes, you,' said Ilkar. 'Prolonged eye contact is a challenge. Don't make it until they accept you. Really. Come on.'
He led the way up the bank, The Raven and Ren close behind him as the rain swept across the river and soaked them yet again. It wasn't even worth hurrying. They'd learned that much. And at least it discouraged the flies.
Taanepol, Ilkar's home village, which roughly translated meant 'town on the river', was a cluster of approaching two hundred wood and leaf-thatch buildings in an elf-made clearing somehow in total sympathy with the forest around it. Trees overlooked it on three sides, with the fourth largely open as the ground fell away towards the river.
It was not an obviously organised settlement to the Balaian eye because there was no discernible centre or dominating structure. Groups of buildings were gathered loosely around cleared areas in which fire pits sat, tables and benches were arranged, and cooking and hunting paraphernalia lay scattered. Every house had a wide covered porch, roofs angled to take the rain into shallow channels that ran away downhill and back to the Ix.
As they approached, the rain smearing their faces, Erienne thought she could see what looked like a moat along the edge of the village, bridged by lashed-together logs. Ilkar was speaking for all their benefits.
'There'll be about five hundred in all here, though at any one time half are fishing, hunting or farming. Or on Balaia mage-training, if they feel the calling. I know it looks a bit jumbled, but like every other village, it was originally settled by one family and has grown as others were accepted and joined.'
'Why did it happen that way?' asked The Unknown. 'Protection presumably.'
'That's right. The elves of Calaius have a tribal history no less torn by war than the Wesmen's. Even so, this is one of the biggest settlements you'll find this deep in the forest.'
'So how come you're allowed to hack down the forest but when we break a twig Captain Miserable has a fit?'
'Because, Hirad, it's our land. We were born to it and we husband it. This isn't wanton destruction. We benefit the forest; strangers destroy it,' said Ilkar. 'Like I say, just respect elven beliefs and you'll have no trouble.'
It was a moat. Dug square, and she could see as she neared that it was the best part of six feet deep and around eight feet wide. Log bridges crossed it in five places.
'Expecting attack, are you?' she asked.
'Not exactly,' said Ilkar, turning and smiling through the downpour, his black hair smeared on his head. He stopped on the bridge. 'It keeps our animals in and some of the undesirables out.'
Erienne caught her breath. The moat was lined with an inch or so of water and seemed to be teeming with life. Lizards, rodents, snakes – she could see them all in there – scuttling or slithering here and there or testing the sides of the moat. There had to be dozens of the things in the stretches she could see to either side.
'It's hardly going to stop a spider, is it?' said The Unknown.
Ilkar shrugged. 'Probably not, but we fill it periodically with a mild alkali. Creatures don't like it. Then, in the morning, we clear it out and get them back into the forest where they belong.'
'Is it that bad?' asked Darrick.
'Unless things have changed radically, it varies,' said Ilkar. 'It's just a safer environment, particularly for the young ones. They need to be taught to treat animals correctly to avoid trouble. Some of these things don't give you a second chance.'
Erienne walked briskly across the bridge, feeling altogether safer. It all made perfect sense to her. But, like crossing from light into shadow, the hostility hit her immediately too.