Reynard looked at her for a time, as if he would attract her own gaze—not sure why he wanted to or should.
Calafi twirled her greasy hair in dirty fingers, and then grinned at him, looking remarkably like a young witch.
On the horizon rose a cold gray cloud, dropping silent flurries of snow on the land beneath.
“The krater,” Yuchil said.
“This is the nearest of twelve that ring the chafing waste,” Valdis said. “It is empty.”
“We will make sure,” Nikolias said. “Who will accompany me? Sany, Andalo—you stay here.”
Widsith, Reynard, Kern, and Kaiholo gathered beside him. Sophia stepped down from the wagon and handed Calafi her leather apron. “I’ll go with thee. For once, I would like to know what we have been doing here.”
Yuchil reluctantly gave permission and handed her a short sword. Then she took the tethers of the horses and tied them, Eater and human mounts, to the back of the wagon. The wagon team stamped their hooves.
Widsith and Nikolias walked in silence between the broken stone walls and decaying huts. Reynard kept close to Kern and Kaiholo. Sophia followed them. The edge of the krater was about a mile and a half away, and the air became so cold its slow churn seemed to burn their faces.
Kaiholo and Kern simultaneously pointed to broken slabs of the same gold-flecked stone they had found fragments of in the first quarry.
“More faces and eyes for more worlds,” Kern said. “Now forgotten. The master of this quarry shall never return.”
Sophia was the first to spot, beyond the quarry, before they could peer into the krater’s depression, a disk very like the disks they had seen in Guldreth’s dwelling—the ones they had heard being destroyed. It lay wedged in the crust like a coin fallen from a purse.
Kaiholo and Kern walked around it, followed by Sophia.
“Is this one of their dreams?” she asked, holding out her sword as if the disk might be dangerous.
“Very like,” Kaiholo said.
“You have seen many, have you not?” Sophia asked him. “You were the high one’s consort.”
“She had a number of consorts,” Kern said. “None of us knew all.”
Kaiholo stepped closer, knelt, and peered into its depths. Kern stooped over and bent awkwardly to peer from the other side. “This way, it is dark and blank,” he said.
“Faded or never filled,” Kaiholo said. “Is all here now dead and empty?”
Nobody spoke. The answer was sadly obvious.
They walked the last few dozen yards to the rim. The stony krater was about a thousand yards wide, and curved down, at its center, about a hundred feet. It seemed at first to have a smooth surface, but then Widsith pointed out shallow grooves or trackways drawn from its center and spreading in all directions, intersecting, fading and ending at the rim. At the outer extent of each track was a wide gray spot about the width of a disk. These spots, as if venting, pushed up ghostly pillars of cloud, flaking down snow—snow that did not stick, and never seemed to be there at all.
Nikolias said, shaking his head, “Our fellows told us that they tended to Crafter needs from afar—and never looked into their homes on Earth, as we do now.”
“What sort of beast would take comfort here, under storm or sun, no shade, no protection?” Sophia asked.
Reynard followed the ghostly pillars rising up and up, until they spread out and seemed to form knots. Strange knots, tied in ways that drew his eyes in impossible directions. He covered his face with his hands, then slowly parted his fingers, like a child, and looked again, but saw only a final canopy of cloud and drifting shavings of something that might have been ash, or might still be snow… he could not tell.
“No beast at all,” Nikolias said. “But one that could make its own worlds and forge its own protections… of which we see only marks.”
“Where did it go?” Sophia asked.
Nikolias said, “It could not leave here and live.”
“How did they move a dead Crafter?” Reynard asked.
Kern said, “I have heard of cloaking and many wagons, out to the plain of jars, a long journey for such a burden.”
“Did your people have a hand in that?” Kaiholo asked.
Kern shook his head; he did not know all.
“How long hath it been dead?” Sophia asked, a better question, Reynard thought, though it guaranteed bad dreams later. All but Reynard and Widsith drew designs on their arms and across their chests, which Reynard had come to recognize as a three-barred cross—a symbol of Hel.
Kaiholo looked through the columns of vapor and across the krater. “Some are watching,” he said.
Nikolias looked and shook his head. “Thine eyes are better than mine.”
“Maybe four or five,” Kaiholo said. “Now they are hiding, or gone.”
The Dividing
AS YUCHIL and Calafi fed the horses, Nikolias and Andalo walked around the wagon, speaking in low tones. Nikolias approached Reynard and Widsith a few minutes later. “It is time for the wagon to leave. Soon dawn will light the way.”
“Where will we go?” Sophia asked, with a sharp look at Reynard, to which he did not know how to respond. “There is no way back!” Yuchil came down from the wagon and joined Nikolias.
“For now, we divide,” Nikolias said.
Reynard looked at his feet and his worn shoes. He could not think of a reason why he had not run off and left them, rather than explore the city. They could all return if he simply ceased to exist. His insides felt as knotted as the cloud that rose from the krater.
But now, he knew, there would be no fleeing. He could feel the tightening of his life, the reduction of his choices—the focus of his companions, those he had likened to his family in Southwold. When his uncle had called for him to board the hoy, he had not escaped. He could not flee now. All he could hope for was that soon he would know why he could never keep a family for long.
“Calafi and I will go on. The rest of our family will stay. The wagon will return to the fields around the first city,” Nikolias said. “There should be water enough and wood to last until we rejoin. Yuchil has stores for a few days.” With a look of sorrow and concern, Yuchil ran her fingers along his arm. He smiled assurance and returned the gesture. Calafi looked up at them, silent and serious. “Andalo will protect them with his drake—when it arrives. And we will leave our horses. This land will be rough on horses.”
Yuchil and Nikolias kissed and made their farewells as everybody else went about their preparations. Calafi stood away from all, but watching, small, her shoulders low, eyes big, like a frightened rabbit.
Yuchil swung the wagon around. Sophia helped the team to maneuver and roll on. Bela and Sany took the reins of the riderless horses and urged them along with clicks of their tongues and light songs. The Eater horses screeched their night cries as they passed out of sight of Valdis.
With fewer supplies, and no access to Yuchil’s magical stores, it was obvious their time was limited—that they must find, inside a day or two, those who might still exist to receive Reynard. They did not see the figures that Kaiholo had spotted earlier, nor anyone else—this land felt and sounded empty, and as they walked on, was plagued by drifts of salty dust that stung their eyes and made them sneeze.
“Salt is creation,” Kaiholo said, folding a cloth over his mouth. His next words were muffled and accompanied by a sardonic squint. “All the seas are salt. We have salt in our blood. Why doth it have to creep into all our holes and sting?”
Widsith and the giant also covered their faces with a cloth. The Pilgrim dug into his pocket and extended a kerchief to Reynard. All regarded the boy with barely concealed resentment. Their loyalties were being put to the test, and he did not know any more than they!