Dancer rubbed a temple, almost wincing. Whatever. Not his area of expertise. Suffice it to say he had a resourceful partner he could trust, and so it was time to push himself as far as possible to see just what he could accomplish.
Kellanved fished in a vest pocket and brought out the stone – the infamous knapped broken spear-point – which he jiggled in his palm. ‘Nothing,’ he announced. ‘Thought not. The influence, or connection, that bears upon it does not extend to this Realm.’
‘So we return.’
‘Yes.’
‘Where?’
‘North. Somewhere north.’
‘Not Heng, please,’ Dancer said, laughing.
Kellanved offered a weak smile. ‘No indeed.’ Then he frowned, thoughtful. ‘But it came to me there, didn’t it?’
Dancer’s half-amused smile fell. ‘Not that town.’
The mage offered an ambiguous shrug. ‘Who knows? I swear, Dancer, I mean to avenge myself upon those mages. Eventually.’
They paced onwards for a time; a thin, wind-borne scarf of ash and dust preceded them. Dancer could not shake his discomfort, his sense that the Realm was somehow haunted. ‘I dislike this place,’ he announced to Kellanved, who nodded, not surprised at all.
‘Yes. It has that aura. A great crime was perpetrated here, I believe. Long ago.’
Finally, Dancer could endure the wait no longer, and he asked, ‘Now?’
Kellanved paused, peered round. ‘Well. I suppose we could see where we are …’
In a moment Dancer found himself in sudden night, amid a plain of tall windswept grasses. He peered round, crouching, now quite used to these transitions. ‘Northern Dal Hon,’ he offered, cocking an eye to his companion.
The mage glanced about, distaste upon his wrinkled features. ‘Sadly so,’ he agreed. He studied the stone in his hands, then announced, ‘This way.’
Dancer followed, hands on his heaviest weapons, for hyenas, leopards and other beasts stalked these grasslands. After a time, the wide, bright bridge of the gods arcing overhead, he suggested, ‘We should bed down for the night.’
The wizened Dal Hon native had been slashing his walking stick through the grasses as he went. ‘Really?’ he answered. ‘Are you tired?’
Dancer considered. Was he tired? He realized that he was not. The walk through the ashen Warren had only been a few hours, after all. Yet it was night here. Had it been a half-day, or even two? He had no way of knowing until they reached a settlement that kept a decent record of the days – beyond that of the traditional ‘close to harvest’, or ‘soon after the solstice’, or whatever.
Not that it mattered. Days and years came and went. There was no pressing need to keep count. Why bother, after all? Only pinched dry historians argued over what happened in the third year of king so-and-so’s reign. It was all over and done with to him. Not of the moment.
Setting aside his musings, Dancer looked to his companion and realized that he was uncharacteristically sombre and quiet this night. ‘You are troubled?’ he asked.
The little fellow shrugged his thin shoulders as he swatted at the grass. ‘Unhappy memories.’
Dancer smiled to himself. He thinks he had a difficult childhood?
‘I was beaten and mocked and belittled all through my youth,’ Kellanved began, unbidden. ‘Dal Hon tribes value martial ability, you see. Fighting. Strength. Athleticism.’ He motioned to his skinny form. ‘I possess none of these qualities, as you see. So I was the mongrel dog, the runt of the litter, that is the target of all abuse. Further, there seemed some darker motive behind it all. Some deliberate dislike or dread. At the time I knew nothing of this – all only became clear later.’
Dancer listened quite astonished; this was the first time the lad had opened up regarding his background.
The mage swatted anew as they paced along. ‘Eventually, useless as I was judged for warfare, I was taken in, reluctantly, by a neighbouring tribal shaman. I was overjoyed at first. This would be my calling! It seemed to fit so very well. But soon I found myself suffering even worse abuse at the hands of this fiend. Every degradation, every humiliating and disgusting task he set me, seemed deliberately designed to drive me away. And so, in time, he succeeded, and I ran away from my apprenticeship, out into the wilds, quite alone. Of course slavers captured me almost immediately.’ The lad swatted ferociously at the grass. ‘I will never forget the torture I received at their hands!
‘So I languished for a time, a bound servant in their camp. Then, one day, a man picked me out and took me away to serve him in his tower on the Itko Kanese border. He was a mage and he revealed to me that he’d picked me out because I, too, was touched by talent. There my real journey began.’
Dancer nodded. All this sounded not too dissimilar from his experience. ‘He trained you,’ he offered.
The lad nodded. ‘Yes. The rudiments. But nothing more. Stingy, he was. Never revealing quite enough to allow me to stand on my own. Eventually I realized the damned fellow intended to keep me perpetually in his service, if he could. And so I ran again.’
Dancer nodded. He, too, had also fled his master.
The lad raised his walking stick to the stars. ‘Then it happened. A revelation in the wilds. As you now know, mystic legend has it that ancient Shadow, Kurald Emurlahn, was shattered, broken into countless shards. In these very grasslands, I stumbled upon, or was washed over by, one of those shards, and at that moment everything became clear. Shadow! That was my home. All the dark insults and muttered asides directed my way during my youth were explained: such a fragment had happened to pass over, or through, the village during the moment of my birth.’
The mage halted, and Dancer drew up short, surprised, as Kellanved faced him. ‘That is why Meanas does not trouble me, you see. It is my home. I was born in it. All this,’ and he gestured about, ‘all this is an impediment; irksome. I loathe it. It is in Meanas that I feel most whole. It is my centre. I was formed within its influence. Do you think it mere chance that the Hounds responded to me? No. My soul, my essence, belongs there. It took a while – but they recognized a kindred spirit.’
Dancer let out a breath, nodding. Well … that explains a lot. ‘I … see …’
Kellanved continued on. ‘For a time I bounced from scholar to scholar, mage to warlock, ever pursuing more knowledge of Shadow. Everything since has been an effort to return there for ever. And I shall.’ He thrust the walking stick to the night sky. ‘I shall!’
‘I do not doubt it,’ Dancer murmured.
The mage now set a finger to his lips as he eyed the silvery monochrome landscape before them. ‘I judge we are some three days south of the Idryn. Must we walk it?’
Dancer considered the alternatives – neither of which he judged desirable. ‘Sorry,’ he answered, ‘but we really ought to.’
Kellanved sighed, his thin shoulders falling. ‘Really? Must we?’ He raised a finger in warning. ‘Fine! If we must. But I tell you, once I come into my own there’ll be no more of this tramping about, I promise you!’
Dancer smiled his approval. ‘Agreed. Once the benefits outweigh the hazards.’
* * *
Nedurian walked the cobbled main road that led out from Malaz City to cross the isle. Once he’d passed two wayside inns, an informal market ground, a blacksmith’s, and a shop dedicated to building and repairing the local heavy slate roofs, he entered fields and market-gardens where produce, pigs and chickens vied for space among low hedges and ancient, crumbling fieldstone walls. Past these he came to long fields of grain such as barley, millet and wheat that ran in narrow strips out from the road to a distant hidden stream. These rural farmers – crofters, some named them – lived relatively independently of the city just a few hours’ walk, though something of a world, away.
His left leg started to ache then, as it always did when called upon to cross more than a few rods of journey. It was an old injury. A summoned demon had taken a chunk out of his thigh and nicked the femur; a military churgeon had reached him in time to save his life, but the leg had never been the same. Thankfully, not so far ahead, among the windswept hills, he spotted what surely must be his destination.