"I'm glad you-like me," he mumbled.
"Love you," she whispered, her breath warm in his ear.
"Yes," was all he could answer. "I-like you very much, Lily."
"That's not what a woman wants to hear."
"I know, and I'm sorry. I don't know… what I know anymore. Every day I know less, it seems."
The dancing girl laid her head on his shoulder. Her hair tickled his nose, but he was too tired to brush it away. "You and me both."
"Hm? How's that?"
She murmured, her breath warm on his skin. "Something's happening to me, Gull. Strange… ideas and feelings I've never had before. The whispering in my head. And sometimes a tingling in my hands and feet, as when the armored wizard came near. I don't know what it means… I do know I love you, though."
Gull patted her head awkwardly, fought to stay awake. "You deserve better than me, Lily. Someone to love you and care for you, give you a decent home. I don't own but my clothes and some worn-out tools and a handful of silver."
"I don't care about that. You saved my life. Rescued me from that rapist knight. I won't forget that." She rolled onto him, pressed her lips and body against his.
Half-asleep, Gull never was sure what happened next.
A few days later, they left the Whispering Woods.
The break was clean. They came to a drop-off where the black forest loam and big trees ended. Thirty feet below the land turned sandy, clothed with stiff grass and evergreen trees no taller than a man.
"A pine barrens," Morven told them. "Easy enough to cross, if you didn't mind stickers in your britches, but water's scarcer'n rum. It sinks into the sand and disappears. These pines and cedars have taproots a mile long, I've heard."
From this lip, they saw that beyond the barrens lay some lower pocket where vultures circled, then gray-green hills rolled out of sight. Towser unfurled a parchment map, pronounced them the Ice-Rime Hills, and noted a swamp before them: the hidden pocket.
"Should be lots of black lotuses there, children. I'll give a gold crown to the first person who shows me one. Alive. Don't pluck them."
They backtracked to a stream, filled every empty vessel and stoppered them. Then Gull began the heartbreaking task of easing the wagons down the drop-off. After thought and argument and experiment, they worked out a way of emptying a wagon, warping it to trees as a brake, then using a doubled team of mules to lower while some plied levers to prevent it flipping. It took three days before they could march across the pine barrens.
The land was sandy and crisscrossed with foot-tripping roots and grass sharp enough to pierce a girl's slipper. With the air trapped between forest and hills, flies and mosquitoes plagued them, until Gull and the nurse Haley mixed up pennyroyal extract and paraffin in mineral oil as a repellent. The mules walked slowly, careful of their footing, but the wagons rolled lightly over the corduroy roots. They made good time.
Within four days, they reached a swamp. A road of sorts, much bogged, skirted along the south. The insects were worse, but the hills looked rounded and surmountable, Gull was glad to see.
The bodyguards argued about first watch. Each was eager to hunt black lotuses. Lily explained Towser often offered bonuses for certain prizes as they traveled. Black lotuses were full of mana, it was said.
Drawing the short straw, Kem got first watch.
But around midnight, at changeover, Chad paced so much he woke Gull. The woodcutter growled, "Take it out there, will you? Some of us want to sleep!"
Chad suggested an obscenity, but added fitfully, "Kem hasn't returned yet. He's late."
"Late?" Gull eased Lily's head off his shoulder, rolled out of his bedroll. Quickly he reached for the pennyroyal oil and slathered it on. "He's never been late before."
"I know that!" Chad sneered. But clearly he was worried. "Once the fire died down, I saw lights out there. I've been wondering-"
Gull grabbed his arm. "Lights? Where? Show me!"
Fretful, Chad didn't argue. He led down to the edge of the swamp. "Somewhere out-there!"
Gull gaped. At a stone's throw, winking off and on, floating and sinking, of all sizes, bobbled soft glowing balls of green-white light.
"Knees of Gnerdel," the woodcutter gasped. "Don't you know what those are?"
"No," Chad muttered. "What?"
"Turn around or you're lost! Don't look at them!" Spinning, his back to the swamp, Gull explained. "They would appear sometimes in the bog below White Ridge! Those are will-o'-the-wisps! They lure folk into the wetlands to die, and the swamp feeds off their bodies!"
"Then Kem's out there!"
CHAPTER 14
Gull rapped his axe handle against the chuck wagon, the women's wagon, the astrologer's, even Towser's, chipping the paint.
"Rouse! Rouse! We've lost someone! Stiggur, build up the fire! High! We'll need a beacon to get back!"
People spilled from wagons and instantly cursed the hordes of insects. Gull shrugged on his leather tunic, slathered on more pennyroyal, grabbed his whip and axe, lit a torch of folded birch bark shoved into a hickory handle. After a hurried explanation, he dashed to the swamp's edge. Torch high, he hunted along the shoreline.
He recalled the muddy bottom with its reeds and grasses extended a way, then pools of open water took over. Past them started weird twisted trees, cypresses, Morven called them, with knobby upthrust roots like knees, and branches festooned with vines and grapes. Those curtains cut off any more sights.
But clear were the will-o'-the-wisps, bobbing and weaving, teasing like children playing hide-and-seek.
Seek, he thought, surely. For he found Kem's footprints, deep holes in the mud where his boots had stuck. Fifty feet into the grass, he found a boot. Gull swore: leaving something vital proved Kem was mesmerized.
The woodcutter took care not to look directly at the lights. It was dangerous as looking at the sun.
When the black mud became too plocky, Gull shucked his wooden clogs and hurled them toward shore. Cold mud oozed between his toes, but at least he could walk. He thrashed through saw grass that cut his legs. Dripping water and mud, hoisting his legs high-they'd ache soon-he heard splashing behind.
Chad followed with another torch. He carried a crossbow and short sword.
Beyond his flickering light, Gull glimpsed Greensleeves. "Go back, damn it!"
Chad shouted, "He's my friend and I'll rescue him! What the hell do you care about Kem anyway?"
"Not you!" Gull tried to turn, but was stuck fast. In fact, standing still, he began to sink. "I meant my sister, damn it! And Kem might be a prick, but he doesn't deserve to wander in a swamp till he dies! No one does! Greenie, go back!"
His sister ignored him. She had enough sense to tuck up her tattered skirts and walk parallel to the men's footprints so she didn't sink. Her legs were black to the thigh. Gull gave up yelling. Short of tying her to a tree, he couldn't stop her. He'd just have to watch front and back.
He tried to recall the legends of will-o'-the-wisps. Back in White Ridge, they sometimes appeared in summer three years in a row, then disappeared for three years or more. No one knew what they looked like up close. Folk who watched too long became mesmerized, walking toward the lights. If restrained, they fought like wildcats to go on, had to be tied in a closed barn until dawn, then watched each night else they pursued anew. What the lights wanted, no one understood. It was whispered they lured victims to wander until they died, where their corpses would feed the swamp itself. But no one knew for certain.
Queerest of all, only people became entranced. Animals ignored the lights. What did that mean? Again, no one knew. It was just something to speculate on through long winter nights.