Arkoniel shrank back; this was the side of her Iya had tried so often to warn him of. Before he could stop himself, he’d raised a hand in a warding sign against her.
Lhel froze, eyes lost in shadowed sockets, but the harsh mask softened to sorrow. “Against me you make that sign?” She came back to the bed and sat down. “You must never call on my goddess. She does not forgive what your people and your Orëska did to us.”
“Then why did she have you help us at all?”
Lhel passed her hands over her face, smoothing away the symbols from her skin. “It is the will of the Mother that I helped you, and Her will that I stayed to care for the unquiet spirit we made that night. All those long lonely days I pondered the mystery of that. And then, when you came to me and were willing to become my pupil—” She sighed. “If the Mother did not favor it, you would not have learned so much from me, so easily.” She took his hand and her fingers found the shiny stump of his severed finger. “You cannot make a baby for me with your seed, but your magic and mine made something new. Perhaps one day, our people will create more together, but we still follow different gods. Your Illior is not my Mother, no matter how you try to tell yourself it is so. Be true to your own gods, my friend, and have a care not to offend those of others.”
“I meant no—”
She brushed his mouth with cold fingertips. “No, you meant to sway me by invoking Her name. Don’t ever do that again. As for the other wizards here, they won’t be pleased to see me. You recall our first meeting? Your fear and repugnance, and how you called me little trickster’ in your mind?”
Arkoniel nodded, ashamed. He and Iya had treated Lhel like some lowly tradesman, offering no respect even after she’d done all they’d asked.
“I will not win them as I did you.” Lhel ran a finger playfully down his belly to the thatch of hair below. “Just see to it that the strong ones don’t attack me.” She pulled back a little, looking hard into his eyes. “For their sake, yes?”
“Yes.” He frowned. “I wonder what Tobin and Ki will think, not finding-me here?”
“They’re smart boys. They’ll guess.” She thought a moment. “Leave that mind clouder.”
“Eyoli?”
“Yes. He’s very clever, and can keep himself unnoticed. Who will think twice about a stableboy? If Tobin needs us, he can send word.” She stood again. “Look for me along the road tomorrow. Bring as many supplies as you can carry. And more clothes. You will listen to me, won’t you, and stay away? There’s nothing to be gained by going back.”
Before he could answer she was gone, fading into the darkness as swiftly as a ghost. Perhaps one day she would teach him that trick, too.
There was no hope of sleep now. Going down to the kitchen yard, he checked the supplies in the wagon again, counting blankets, coils of rope, and sacks of flour, salt, and apples. Thank the Light the king had appointed no steward or Royal Protector here. Wandering through the yards, he gathered every tool he could find—handsaws, hammers, two rusted axes left behind in the barracks, a small anvil he found at the back of the farriers’ shop. He felt better, doing something useful, and all the while he felt the growing conviction that a corner of some sort had been turned. After years of wandering with Iya, here he was with a handful of fugitive wizards and a cart—his new Orëska.
It was a humble beginning, he thought, but a beginning all the same.
42
The stars were fading when Arkoniel and the others set out. Hain drove the children in the cart; the rest rode. Wythnir clung behind Arkoniel’s saddle, his meager bundle wedged between them.
“Where does this road go, Master?” he asked.
“To the mining towns north of here, and finally to the coast, west of the isthmus,” Arkoniel replied. Iron, tin, silver, and lead had drawn Skalan settlers into the mountains centuries earlier. Some of the mines still produced enough to keep people there.
He said nothing of the history Lhel had taught him; how Skalan soldiers—Tobin’s ancestors among them—had used this road to make war against Lhel’s people. The Retha’noi had been great raiders and warriors, but their magic had been even stronger and more feared. Those who’d survived had been branded necromancers and driven deep into the mountains. They were no longer hunted; but they remained exiles, driven from the fertile coastal lands that had been theirs. When Arkoniel and Iya ventured into the mountains in search of a witch, they’d felt the sullen animosity that still smoldered in the hearts of that small, dark race.
He’d done as Lhel asked, told them nothing of her, only that they were to meet a guide who would lead them to safety. They came upon her just after dawn. She stood waiting atop a boulder by the road.
The others reined in sharply. Malkanus reached into his pouch, readying some magic against her, but Arkoniel rode between them.
“No, wait. Don’t!” he said. “This is our guide.”
“This?” Malkanus exclaimed. “A filthy hill witch?”
Lhel folded her arms and scowled down at him.
“This is Lhel, an honored friend well-known to me and to Iya. I expect you all to treat her as such. Illior brought her to us years ago. She shares the vision.”
“Iya approves of this?” asked Lyan, who was old enough to remember the raids.
“Of course. Please, my friends, Lhel has offered her help, and we need it. I can vouch for her goodwill.”
Despite Arkoniel’s assurances, tensions remained high on both sides. Lhel rode grudgingly on the cart beside Hain, who leaned away, avoiding her touch as if she had the Red and Black Death.
They reached the first pass that day and toiled up through the steep valley beyond as the air grew colder and snow crept down the sides of the peaks to edge the road. The trees were sparse and stunted, leaving them at the mercy of the wind. Wolves howled nearby at night, and several times they heard the screech of catamounts echoing between the peaks.
The children slept together under blankets in the back of the cart while the older wizards tended the fires and kept watch. Totmus’ cough grew worse. Huddled among the others, he coughed and dozed but could not rest. Under the suspicious stares of the Orëska wizards, Lhel brewed a tea for him and gently coaxed it into him. The child brought up alarming gobbets of green phlegm and seemed the better for it. By the third night he was laughing with the others again.
The wizards remained wary, but the children were more easily won over. During the long, weary hours in the cart, Lhel told them stories in her broken Skalan and showed them pretty little spells. When they stopped each night she disappeared into the darkness, returning with mushrooms and herbs for the stewpot.
The third day they descended along the edge of a gorge, and the forest rose up to meet them again. Hundreds of feet below, a blue-green river tumbled between the echoing walls. Just beyond the ruins of an abandoned village, they turned west along a tributary stream and followed it into a small, densely wooded valley.
There was no road. Lhel led them along the riverbank, and into towering hemlock. Soon the forest was too dense to take the cart any farther, and she led them on foot along a smaller brook to an overgrown clearing among the trees.
There had been a village here, but not one built by Skalan hands. Small, round roofless stone huts stood along the riverbank, none of them larger than an apple cellar. Many had fallen in and been reclaimed by moss and creepers, but a few were still sound.
A few weathered logs still leaned at disparate angles around the edge of the clearing, marking where a palisade had kept out wolves and catamounts, and perhaps Skalan invaders, as well.
“This good place,” Lhel told them. “Water, wood, and food. But you must build soon.” She pointed up at the sky, which was slowly filling with grey clouds. They could see their breath on the air today. “Snow soon. Little ones must have warm place to sleep, yes?”