“Stop,” said Jinian. “I want to pet one.”
I pulled up the wagon, amazed, and she hobbled over to one of the beasts, staying in character the whole way, to feel its huge side. Nothing would do but that I come as well, and Silkhands, to feel the stony hide of the beast and wonder at its size. The handlers seemed well accustomed to such marveling from travelers, almost uninterested in us.
Then we got back into the wagon and Jinian surprised me further. “You are Shifter, are you not?” Well, of course I had told her I was. “I thought it wise for you to lay hands on the creature. That is how it works, does it not? You must lay hands on it? So I have heard?”
So she thought it wise, did she? She must have seen something of my irritation, for she flushed, then shrugged. “If I have misunderstood, forgive me.” She had not misunderstood. That was how it worked, or at least one way it worked. But Shifting into something like that! The bulk, alone, would take hours to build. One could do it by starting small, eating rock and converting it to bulk, then more and more. I thought the process out, step by step, lost in it, and then blushed, embarrassed, to catch her eyes on me. She knew very well what I had been thinking.
“No need for forgiveness,” I said. “It is an interesting thought.” As it was. I did not ever intend to do anything about it, but it was interesting.
The mines and many small foundries were scattered along the gulches and upon the ridges around the three mountains, but Three Knob itself lay cupped among them like a child’s toys spilled upon a dish. I chose not to ride into the town as we were. Instead we would engage in further deception. We found a twist in the road behind a long, crumbling wall, unharnessed the water oxen and drove them away down the slope of the meadow toward a distant line of trees which marked a stream. Then I took the hammer I had brought for the purpose and beat the wagon into several pieces, separating these from the wheels. When stacked along the wall, it looked like what it was. Wood fit for the fire. Perhaps a wheel or two worth salvage by some desperate wagoner. Our rags were buried beneath the wagon, and we cleaned the dirt from our faces and the tar from our teeth before walking into Three Knob as a middle-aged buyer of something or other and his two daughters. I hoped I would not have to look far for Chance.
As it was, I did not have to look far enough. The yellow horse I had told him to get rid of was cavorting in a paddock near an Inn, nubby shoes and all. Chance was toping wine, red of nose and bibulous, full of good cheer and unresponsive to my annoyance.
“Why, my boy, the Bonedancers are all long gone on ahead. He’s a good horse. No need to trade him off just yet.”
“They’re behind us again, Chance. Behind us. They passed us on the road. Karl Pig-face, with his nasty little mind hunting me, and he did feel me back there when you and I lay up in the copse and watched him. Further, he knows you!”
I wasn’t getting through to him at all until Silkhands reached out to take his hand with an intent expression. She was doing something intricate and intimate to his insides. I saw the flush leave his face and gradual awareness seep in to him. “Ah. Ah, well, lad. I’m sorry about that. Truly, I had not thought they would return. And they may not have one among them who can track.”
“Rancelmen do,” said Jinian. “They have a skill for it. We must think quickly what to do, for they could be on the start of our trail and back here by evening.”
Silkhands nodded agreement to this sadly. Her face was quite drawn, and I felt a quick pity. The way had been hard on her. I could not help her, however, and Chance interrupted the thought.
“It was my doing, so fair it be my undoing. I’ll take the animal with much hoorah and ride off on the back roads. Once far enough along, I’ll get rid of the animal and continue so far as Reavebridge. You all lay by here until you’re rested — Silkhands needs a night’s sleep in a bed — then come on north to meet me. Have you barter enough for new mounts, lad?”
I told him truthfully that I did not. The last coin I had had been spent on the wagon and water oxen. So he dug down and gave me a pouch which seemed well filled. Part of his gain from Xammer, no doubt, and he did not deny it. He was generously quick to offer it, and I knew he felt guilty. At the moment, I was in no mood to forgive him, though no great harm had been done if he would ride swiftly away. We had all been talking quietly, so we separated ourselves from him as would any travelers who had made casual talk upon the road and busied ourselves finding lodging. Meantime Chance gathered his string of animals together, and got himself gone with much loud joshing and suchlike, to draw attention.
As for the rest of us, we found two rooms adjoining, upstairs above the stable yard, and set about having a bath in deep tin tubs before the fire. Afterwards, wrapped in great, rough towels, we sat in the window to sip warmed wine and watch for the Bonedancer, hoping he would not come. It was after dark that he came, he and his colleagues, but come he did. They did not leave. The bones lay in a drift against the stable wall. The residents of Three Knob cowered in their homes. The Boneraisers, including Karl Pig-face, sat in the common room below, eating and drinking with much cheer. We, Jinian, Silkhands and I, stayed in the rooms above, quiet and inconspicuous.
As for me, I was hung between two pillars. On the one side, I was as angry as I have ever been, angry at Karl Pig-face for sitting below in the common room, undoubtedly eating and drinking his fill without any need to hide or sly about. On the other hand, I remembered clinging to that tree while the Ghoul pranced beneath me, as close to death as I have ever come. I felt no desire for audacity, but I hungered for vengeance against Huld and all his minions. Across the room from me Jinian sat, staring at me, the fire dancing in her eyes. Silkhands slept. I do not know where I got the idea that Jinian knew what I was thinking. There was no Demon tickle in my head, and it wasn’t that kind of mind reading anyhow. I simply thought that she knew. I was certain of it when she said, “They don’t know me at all. If they ride out tonight, I could lend them a lantern to light them through the dark … tunnels.”
I was not at all sure I liked her knowing what I thought, but it would work better if she did help. “Tonight would certainly be best,” I agreed.
“They must be encouraged to leave soon, then,” she said. “Perhaps they would be so encouraged if they heard that the horse they are following is soon to be sold or traded? If they heard this from someone?”
“Someone being you?”
She smiled. “Oh, I don’t fear the Bonedancer. I am not pretty enough to attract that kind of attention, either. I can try.”
“They may Read you.”
“I think not. I will do it simply. But not until you are ready.”
I thought about that. “Midnight, then. Or earlier, if it looks like they are going off to sleep.” Privately I thought it fairly risky, but better than doing nothing. I slipped out the back way, walked at the side of the road Chance had taken, able to see the prints of the nubby shoes even in the light of the lantern I had brought with me. The road wound and climbed back into the gullies above the town, dodging behind this bank and that hillock. I had not gone far before I found what I was looking for, a narrow defile where the roadway cut through a bank. I put out the lantern and got to work.
As I did so, I visualized what was undoubtedly going on back at the Inn. Silkhands would stay quietly asleep. As a former Gamesmistress of Vorbold’s House — to say nothing of her being a Healer — she might be known to someone in the place. Jinian, on the other hand, would be only an anonymous girl, of Gamesman class by her dress. She would go into the common room to the place the Innkeeper sat in the corner adding up his accounts and keeping an eye on the man who poured the beer and wine. She would wait for a lull in the conversation, then say, “Innkeeper? The man who left this afternoon, the one who owned the pretty yellow horse with the nubby shoes? Do you know if he is coming back? He said he intended to sell or trade the horse at once, and I thought I might offer for it.”