Keles opened his eyes and smiled as Rekarafi appeared in front of him. “Over there, about a quarter mile. A clearing?”
The Viruk nodded. “There was a small one. Will it be bigger when I scout it out again?”
“It’s big enough.” Keles rubbed a hand over his forehead, smearing it with dirt. “You seem to think that I make a decision and the world changes. It’s not like that.”
“I have seen the changes you have wrought. I have felt the magic.” The Viruk squatted and carved a symbol in the ground with a talon. “You must understand what you do so you may claim it as power.”
“Perhaps it is a power I don’t want. And yet, if I do not master it, my grandfather can destroy the world.”
“Think, Keles. Tell me how the power works.”
Keles closed his eyes. “I don’t impose my will on the land. I simply see things the way they are supposed to be. At least that’s what it feels like. I just see what is meant to be there.”
“Meant by whom?”
The cartographer opened his eyes. “I don’t know. Me? My grandfather? The gods? Maybe the land itself. All I know is that I see what feels right. Do you suppose that is possible?”
“ Possible? ” The Viruk rose and pointed off toward the clearing. The group’s scouts led the people past in a serpentine procession that disappeared into the growing dusk. “Did it feel right to remake the people?”
“Maybe, in a way. The children became the adults they would have been, and the elders regressed to the people they had been. The minister and his guards became idealized versions of themselves-every bit the heroes they imagined themselves. Only you, Tyressa, and Jasai remained unchanged, because you are the people you were meant to be.
“The land, though, I wonder…In Ixyll, the magic changed the land in many ways, but there were basics that did not change. A valley might grow living metal flesh, but it was still a valley. Rocks might have been transformed into giant fruits, but they still rolled downhill. Is it possible that the world itself has a magic that can resist magic? Is reality too difficult to change on so vast a scale?”
Rekarafi’s ivory teeth glowed in the twilight. “I have lived for many years, Keles Anturasi. I saw the Viruk Empire collapse. I saw the empire of Men collapse. There are constants. This idea of the land possessing its own magic is not without merit. Perhaps you need to concentrate on finding what exists and perfecting it.”
Keles smiled. “Flow with the river, not against it?”
“It makes it less likely that you will be destroyed by the current.” The Viruk waved him on. “Let us see if what you thought matches what I remember seeing.”
The refugees had already begun to make camp and establish guard positions by the time they arrived. They organized on a standard plan, with the warriors occupying an outer ring and Princess Jasai’s shelter constructed in the middle. The guard stations pushed out into the woods. Given the nature of the Eyeless Ones and how they hunted, the company would need ample warning of their approach.
Fortunately, the sour weather that had kept them soaked for much of their trek south had also limited their pursuit. Rekarafi had estimated that they had gained a day over the Eyeless Ones, and their monkeylike companions had not been seen for a week.
Keles smiled at the Viruk. “Is it what you remember?”
“You only changed it a little. Bigger. Better drainage.” The Viruk shrugged off the baggage he’d been carrying. “Next time, bring the deer yard closer.”
As Rekarafi dashed off to hunt, Keles picked up his gear and carried it over to where Jasai sat before a small fire. He pulled off his own pack, then sat. He rolled his shoulders around and felt a series of pops ripple up his spine. He groaned, and she smiled as she fed a small stick into the fire.
“Keles, you really must let me carry something when we head out again.”
“You are carrying enough, Princess.”
The blond woman stroked a hand over her stomach. “Yes, I know, the future of Helosunde-a child to unite my nation with Deseirion.”
“It doesn’t matter whose child it is. It’s enough that you’re carrying a child.” Keles looked around at the others preparing their shelters and lowered his voice. “And you are the leader of our expedition. These people are loyal to you, not to Deseirion.”
Golden firelight could not melt the ice of her blue eyes. “They are my husband’s subjects. He had them so cowed they would follow me to the Mountains of Ice and through the Gate to the Underworld. They are suspicious of everything here. They see themselves as enemies in a foreign land.”
“Is that how you see yourself?”
She snorted, anger tightening her eyes. “I should. The Council of Ministers chose my brother to be Prince, then convinced him to attack Meleswin. They abandoned him there, and Pyrust took me to wife and to bed. The only reason they will be happy to see me is to use me as leverage over Pyrust.”
Keles laughed and she turned her cold stare on him. “You are amused by something?”
“Just by how wrong they are. Anyone thinking you’re a means to an end is a fool-and that includes Prince Pyrust.”
She looked a bit mollified by that, but Keles had already learned not to take too much comfort in appearances. Jasai had told him that, for her, he was also a means to an end. She had meant to use him to enable her escape from Deseirion. But her aunt had suggested that Jasai had grown to love him.
I wonder what the reality is. He had no way of knowing, and no mind to trust any assumptions. In fact, he didn’t want to make assumptions because he was in love with Tyressa. Though he found Jasai desirable, Tyressa was even more so. But if Tyressa did not exist, if Jasai was not married to the Desei Prince and carrying his child…
Too many ifs, and none of them real.
For a heartbeat he wondered if he could change such things-make if into is. That would greatly reduce the complications in his life. But what shone gloriously for a moment became dark and twisted a second later. In many ways, his grandfather had used his will and influence to change the lives of those around him. He had even swapped Jorim’s fate with Keles’. In a fit of pique he’d exchanged their missions. Had his grandfather possessed true magic then, there was no doubt he would have used it to do that and worse.
Keles frowned. Perhaps that was the problem with magic. When it came easily, the magician had no sense of consequence for his actions. Rekarafi said he’d improved the drainage in the clearing, yet the plants in the center preferred swampier soils.
To dry the clearing I shifted a thousand cubic feet of water.
From the lay of the land, it had drained off to the west and into a ravine. The trickle there would have become a small flood. The swollen stream would have boiled through the forest.
Keles stopped imagining and began seeing. Further downstream the water undermined the support of a small stone bridge. The bridge began to crumble. Stones shifted and mortar cracked. The children playing on it froze. Angry water splashed high. One of them screamed…
“No!” Keles thrust his hand into the water. He lifted the bridge, held it together. The children shrieked, but leaped to safety. The bridge’s stones tumbled into the raging stream, trickling like gravel through his unseen fingers.
“Keles!”
His eyes jerked open as Jasai slapped his hand aside. A shower of hot coals arced out and hissed against the moist ground. He shook his hand, then slapped at his smoldering bandages.
“What were you doing?”
“Um…” He glanced off into the distance. “I think I stopped a small flood from killing two children.”
“By digging your hand into the coals?” She reached out and took his hand into hers. She brushed away the ashes. “Are you hurt?”