As he stood he noticed his shadow was fading. A band of hot white stars had emerged in the sky opposite the sunset, and Raif spun a full circle as he scanned for the moon. No moon. Not yet.
"Where is the nearest place to join the mist river?" Raid had asked Tallal, half a day ago at the camp. The lamb brother had begun shaking his head even before all the words were out.
"My memory is good and if you walk with me to the fire I can point out the direction from which the lamb brothers came. Your memory, however, is bad."
Raif had grinned wryly. Only five minutes earlier Tallal had told him directions could not be trusted. "I'm still learning."
"My people have a saying: There are two ways to learn. Listening is the easiest." Tallal smiled. "Come, let us find you some supplies."
They had been generous, and Raif had found himself touched. The fine, soft blanket he had slept with since the first night had been wait-ing for him, neatly folded, by the fire. Fresh sheep's curd, butter, honey, dried dates, almonds, unleavened panbread, preserved apricots, lentils and a packet of herbs for tea had also been set close to the fire. Raif had never asked how long the lamb brothers had been away from home—it had seemed an indelicate question—but he had imagined it was well over a year. By now supplies brought from their homeland must be sparse, yet they had given their food freely. With grace. For some reason Raif found himself thinking about the Hailsman Shor Gormalin. Shor had been the best longswordsman. in the clan, a scholar of clan history, and a friend to Tern and Dagro. Shor had taught Raif about grace. Looking at the neatly laid pile of supplies, given without fuss or show, Raif imagined that Shor Gormalin would approve. "Grace is a powerful force," Shor had saiqpme morning on the practice court as they were wrist-to-wrist on deadlocked hilts. "It lifts men."
That was how Raif felt receiving the gifts of the lamb brothers: lifted. During the brief time he had stayed with them he had forgotten one important thing. These men had saved his life. Gods knew how they had found him. Passed out on a ridge in the middle of the Want, lips black, tongue swollen, sword bloodied to the hilt, Bear slain beside him: it could not have been an appealing sight. Yet four men had judged him worth saving.
"Farli." Raif spoke the slain lamb brother's name out loud. The sound was small in such a big place, instantly sucked away by space and darkness. The question was there in the back of his mind, waiting to be asked. Could I have saved him? Raif knew he had been slow in his responses, slow in finding his target and letting the arrow fly. If he had ran across the dune with Farli and fought with him side by side would it have been different? Probably, yes.
Grow wide shoulders, Clansman. You'll need them for all of your burdens. Sadaluk's words blew through Raif's head as the weight of that «yes» settled on his shoulders.
For no good reason, he changed his course. He'd been heading into the sunset and veered off at a tangent, picking a distant boulder as his destination. The light was nearly gone now and the temperature was dropping fast. The big double-chambered waterskin given to him by the lamb brothers bounced against his back. Its heaviness was reassuring. There was no guarantee he would find the mist river tonight or any other night, and even if he did there was still the question of how long it would take to leave the Want once the river had been found. "It will take as long as it must," Tallal had said before they parted. And where it leads is something that cannot be known. Out, that must be enough."
Raif glanced at the sky; still no moon, but the stars were teeming. The seabed was lit by a dome of silver light, and he could clearly see the salt scale that covered every rock and piece of debris underfoot. It stopped hoarfrost from forming.
As he neared the boulder his perception of its shape changed; one side was rounded yet he saw now that the opposite side was curiously straight. Closer still he realized that the front of the boulder was projecting forward, the curve and straight line meeting at a point. It was a boat, he understood quite suddenly, fallen on its side and sunk partially into the seabed. A small fishing boat or rowboat with a simple hull that had once consisted of steamed planks. It was quartz now, petrified by ash and mud into flaky iron-colored plates. Raif knelt and ran his hand across the crumbling ridge that had once been its keel. Chips of quartz broke off and fell to the seabed without a sound. Inside, the seats and most of the gunwales had collapsed and lay like blocks of cut stone in the bottom of the boat.
Abruptly, Raif stood. It would be spring in the Hailhold now. The oaks would be budding in the Oldwood, the sword ferns uncurling above the snow, the first bluebells would be peeping up around the basswoods, and the air would be vibrating with the sound of bird calls: geese, ducks, pheasants, ptarmigan, chickadees, cardinals, horned owls. Life—not stony, desiccated deadness—and he wanted some of it for himself.
He walked for several hours, holding the setting that he'd picked with the aid of the boat. The seabed rolled out before him, flat and unchanging, a landscape of dry ghosts. As the night grew darker his vision was reduced to the shadowy pendulums of his feet. If the moon rose it did so behind the thick tide of clouds that had washed across the far edge of the sky. Raif scanned for ravines as he walked, but as long as he remained on the seabed he wasn't hopeful. Few cracks split the earth here. The entire seabed was one vast depression, easily deeper than most canyons. When he stopped to drink he knew that he wouldn't find the mist river that night. An almost imperceptible lightening of the sky in the left quarter told of the inevitability of dawn.
Deciding he would walk until morning he continued on course. As the light grew his spirits felclass="underline" every increase in brightness revealed more seabed. Nothing else. When the sun finally pushed free of the horizon, it was tempting to carry on walking—put in some distance while he could. For a while he sprinted, aware as he did so that he was making a lot of noise. Each footfall echoed like the chunk of a chopped log.
Finally out of breath, he halted. Hot-faced and sweating, he put a hand on each knee as he waited for the hammering in his heart to subside. Peering through the gap between his legs he saw the path he had taken outlined with clouds of salt dust: one for each step. The sky was a piercing blue and the sun rode pale and low, like the moon. Looking ahead he realized that the long run had got him nowhere. All he could see was the flat chalk-colored plain of the seabed. Not even a boulder in sight.
"Only in darkness can we find a way through." Recalling Tallal's words, Raif sat. No point looking for cover or a suitable place to camp. Although he didn't much feel like it, he pulled out his bedroll and set about making preparations for sleep. He had no fuel for a fire and wondered if that was good or bad. Clan had no rules to govern sleeping by day. Deciding he probably wouldn't sleep anyway, he lay down and covered himself with the lamb brothers' blanket.
Aware of his vulnerability, he rolled and circled, straining his neck to keep watch in all directions. Hours passed. The sun shone. Nothing moved. Of all the empty places in the Want this seemed the emptiest. Nothing even pretended to grow here. There were no mountains on the horizon, no ice lenses to refract the light, nothing except shimmering air and seabed. Raif stared at the shimmers. He was sure that he would not sleep.
When he woke it was dusk and the final slice of sun was sinking beneath the horizon. Feeing vaguely stupid, he checked the seabed for changes. If the landscape had changed it was in subtle ways he could not discern. Kneeling, he stowed his supplies and ate a light meal of dried fruit, bread and nuts. The water tasted of the lamb brothers' spices and charred wood. After he'd taken his fill he cupped some in his hand and let it trickle over his face. Hoping it-was a luxury he would not come to regret, he broke camp and headed out.