Xaca came silently into the open patch, the children holding her hands, pressed close against her, their eyes huge, their faces old with the strain from being afraid. Arms hugged tight across her chest, Nyen followed them with Hidan close behind.
Wintshikan felt in her belt pouch and took out the box with the Tale Cards. She sat with the box on her thigh, her two hands clasped loosely about it. “We have thinking to do,” she said. “Questions to ask. We will bespeak the cards and consult our hearts. It is a hard way that lies ahead, and we must get ourselves ready to bear it.”
As she opened the box and took out the cards wrapped in their silk scarf, she murmured the words of the Prophet. “Bless the unfolding, O God. Guide the mix and the draw, O God. Speak to our hearts, O God. Guide our days, O God.”
She lifted the cards clear of the silk, held them out, the pile resting on her two hands. One by one, the Remnant passed by, touching the pile with fingers of the left hand, the heart hand. Luca was the last of them. Her eyes were laughing as she set her fingertips on the top card and before she walked on, she murmured, “In this I do believe.”
Wintshikan gave the silk to Zell who spread it on the log, then she shuffled the cards and began to lay them out, two in the top row, three in the middle and one last below them.
“Come round and see,” she said, and when the Remnant was kneeling by the downed tree, she touched the base card. “Death it is. Death is the gate to the change from which there is no returning. This defines us. We are dead to the Round and born anew as hohekil.”
She touched the cards in the middle row, one after the other. “These are the determinants that mark the days to come. The Gate that, looks forward and back. The Broken Twig, peril to the body or the mind. The Spring from which comes wisdom. There is more danger ahead of us and a choice, perhaps many choices. It is necessary to make them wisely.”
She touched the cards in the top row. “These are the guides to direct us to the Right Path. The Spiral which embraces all. It is God Himself who speaks to us, who will be our Light through the darkness of our unknowing. If we walk the Right Path, we will pass through the dark and the dangers unharmed. Think, Oh, Remnant of Shishim, on the double meaning of Path. And the last card, the Fire upon the Altar. What we do, though it may not seem so, we do in the service of God.”
With slow deliberation she took up the cards, set them back in the pack, and squared it. She gave the silk and the pack to Zell, straightened, pulled the Shawl closer about her body, and spoke as Heka. “The Tale of the Cards has echoed the thoughts that came to my heart when I lay in terror and listened to the obscenities of the Impix phela walking that Round that was once ours to keep and bless. As the Twig is broken, so must we break our lives. We must leave the Round. Now. So much sooner than I’d hoped. We must leave behind all we know, cross the mountains and walk the lowlands if we wish to live long enough to see Linojin. The Peddler’s Trace is half a day’s walk to the north of us. Can anything be more of an omen than that?” Slowly, deliberately, she removed the Shawl from her shoulders, folded it and placed it on her lap, rested her clasped hands on it. “Oh, Remnant of Shishim, if there are those with another course to offer, or anything to add to what the Heka has said, this is the time to speak.”
She moved her eyes from face to face.
Luca and Wann held hands and smiled at her. Nyen was grim faced, though she nodded as Wintshikan looked at her. Xaca bit her lip but nodded her agreement. Kanilli and Zaro leaned against Xaca’s knees, eyes wide with fear and excitement. Hidan nodded. As anya, xe had more to fear than any fern or mal.
“No one has spoken. Thus let it be.” She got to her feet. “Omylya Creek lies ahead another hour. It’ll be late when we reach it, but we’ll camp there for the night. We’ll speak the Praises as we walk and pray God’s blessing on our choice.”
In the morning the Remnant-even Luca, this time-gathered on the Round and sang the Blessing of the Absent, blessing themselves by it, for they would absent from the Pixa Rounds perhaps for the rest of their lives. Then they moved quickly, warily, along the Path, going hungry because they were afraid to slow for foraging.
As day slipped into night, night into day again, they wound through the mountains, clinging together the more closely because now all they had were themselves. Everything they’d known had vanished from under their feet. Even the land was different now, harder and even more ungiving.
Luca and Wann moved more deeply into their bond and farther from God’s Path.
Xaca no longer dreamed horrors. It was as if her fears had been purged from her with the other losses. She sang as she walked and foraged for food, the tunes were old ones, the words new.
Hidan was quiet, anxious, never far from Nyen, as if xe couldn’t forget that xe was food to any phela that came across the Remnant. That was truth. They were hohekil and cursed of God in the eyes of those who still pressed for war. Whatever was done to them was just, for they were traitors to the Cause.
By nightfall on their fifth day on the Peddler’s Trace they’d reached the end of the winding vale that was Kakotin Pass and had moved a short distance down the western slopes, the silver grass of the savannah intermittently visible as the Trace twisted about.
“Po po po, didna expect to see Pixies on t’ Trace.” The mal who stepped from the shadows under the trees lifted his free hand as Luca came to her feet, her knife out. “No no, young fern, no trouble am I.” He bowed. “Just old Bukha the Needle Mal with his pack and his faithful yuzz.”
Peddler Bukha was a short wizened mal with a face more wrinkled than a shirt slept in for weeks. The bits of his crest visible under the hard peddler’s hat were patchy with gray, his small shrewd eyes were the yellow of old cream. His voice was a comfortable growl, oddly pleasant despite its lack of harmony. He gave a tug on the lead rope and a small shaggy yuzz almost obscured by a covered pack came ti-tupping into the firelight. It shook its head at Kanilli, drawing a giggle from her as its long ears flopped about.
Wintshikan got to her feet. “We are Pilgrims,” she said. “On the road to Linojin to pray at the Grave of the Prophet for the souls of our dead. We have nothing to tempt a peddler to bargain.”
“You discount the pleasures of your company, Heka. The Peddler’s Trace is a lonely road.” He canted his head, looked sideways at her, a yellow-eyed bird spreading his plumage to please. “I see you’re about to make supper. I could add a pinch of shlah tea to the pot and some rounds of waybread.”
Though Zell pinched her and Luca looked sour, Wintshikan smiled at him. “Be welcome, Bukha. Though if you stay, you should understand that we are sworn to keep ourselves apart and will not offer dalliance.”
“Most gracious Heka, I’ll abide by your rules while I’m in your company.”
In the shadow beyond the reach of the campfire, Wintshikan stood with Zell and Luca, watching the peddler doing his finger magic for the children. “Say your say,” she murmured.
“Heka, why did you ask him to stay? I don’t like anything about him.”
“Nor do I, Luca meami. But isn’t it better to have him by the fire where you can see him than to leave him prowling about us in the dark?”
Zell touched her arm. +Peddlers don’t give things away, not for the pleasure of anyone’s company.+
“Yes. He’s not as clever as he thinks or as charming. Luca, you and Wann are the best we have at woodcraft, you’ve scouted for us all day, could you do more?”
“Yes. What are you thinking?”
“There’s not much moon, but the road is open here, the soil is pale, could you track that yuzz, see where he and the peddler came into the Trace?”
“Easy enough. You think…”
“I believe nothing about him, not even the direction he came from. Don’t leave until we say Praise and tuck the children into their blankets. I’ll show you where Zell and I will be sleeping.” Her laugh had edges on it. “Pretending to sleep, that is. Come to us and tell us what you found.”