“What!?” I said. Abioye was starting to sound like a crazy person.
“It’s always been like this. I’ve always been too weak. My sister was right all along—” Abioye started to mutter, and suddenly I saw the boy whom Abioye had been, dirty-faced and alone on the streets of some Middle Kingdom city.
Montfre had said that Abioye and Inyene had been sent to a workhouse when their mother died, I remembered. And Inyene had taken her brother and fled onto the streets of Torvald before finally making a ‘name’ for herself in Torvald noble society.
And, from what Abioye was saying—I guessed that his sister had blamed her younger, less driven brother all along the way. I gritted my teeth in frustration at that woman and what she had done to her own brother!
“Abioye,” I said firmly. “If it wasn’t for you, I would already be dead. Either burned alive under that tent, or else dead at the bottom of your sister’s mines,” I told him. “Thank you,” I said.
Abioye frowned as he looked at me, as if he didn’t quite believe what I was saying—but had no way to deny that what I was saying was the truth.
“And what is more, Abioye,” I continued, pressing my point home, “We cannot do this without you. I mean all of us—Montfre, Tamin, Ymmen, and myself… And my people, the Daza. The very reason that we’ve got this opportunity to be out here and to recover the Stone Crown is because of who you are, and what you have already achieved. We need you. I need you,” I said. It felt strange to say those words—that I needed him—and even stranger to admit to myself that they were true.
But they were, weren’t they? I realized. That was why his previous change of behavior had been so annoying and hurtful to me. I thought he was becoming someone that I didn’t—couldn’t—understand.
Had a part of me come to rely on him? I asked myself. But no—it was only that without him, without this expedition, I had no way to free my people.
There was silence from the young man opposite me for a moment before he sighed and bobbed his head, and it looked as though some kind of weight had fallen from his shoulders. He took a deep breath and let out a shuddering sigh once more and raised his head. His voice was lighter, but still shot through with worry when he next spoke to me.
“But…” I could see Abioye trying to argue with me. Or trying to argue against his own better nature, perhaps. “How are we going to find the Stone Crown now? Before Nol Baggar and his Red Hounds do?” he said fretfully. But at least he was looking at me, and not gazing out into the mists anymore, I thought.
“We can do it,” I said, and I opened my mouth to lie to him—to say that I knew that we would—but I stopped myself before my mouth formed the words. No. The truth is better. Abioye had spent his entire life surrounded by the lies of his sister in one form or another, either her telling him that he wasn’t good enough, wasn’t tough enough, or her filling his head with nonsense about their ‘rightful place’ in the world. Abioye needed to hear the truth, and from it he would draw strength.
“I think we can do it, Abioye,” I said again. “And you know why?”
Abioye blinked.
“Because of what we’ve already managed to do,” I said. “We freed Montfre from your sister. You realized the importance of Lady Artifex’s shrine, the map—all of it,” I pointed out. “You saw from the start that your sister couldn’t have the Crown… You fought the guards that came with Dagan Mar to kill you, and me. Look at how much we’ve both achieved—” I thought of the four long years I had spent as a slave in Inyene’s mines. I was now sitting under the Plain’s night sky (even if I couldn’t see it!), and there was a Bull black dragon circling the air far above us who was my friend.
I couldn’t quite say that I felt hopeful about our chances, I had to admit—but that didn’t mean I wasn’t grateful for how far I had already come.
“So, what do you say, Abioye?” I pushed myself to standing, my knees and feet protesting with the effort and at the thought of yet more walking—but it was an irritation that I would gladly have any day, instead of the pain of shackles as I would have shambling about the mines before. “Are we going to walk on out of here and find the others?” I offered him my hand to help him up.
The young man with the choppy hair and the clear eyes glanced at my hand, and then at me. I saw the edge of his mouth crook in a flicker of a smile.
And Abioye reached out and took my hand.
Chapter 15
Footsteps
“Look,” I said, pointing down at the ground we were crossing.
We had walked through the rest of the night and into the early morning—and Ymmen was right; the Sea of Mists were starting to lighten, and now it was possible to see some several meters around in all directions instead of the close ‘wall’ that it had been last night. The mists appeared more diffuse, allowing us to see the silhouettes and shadows of the scrubby trees looming towards us.
But right now, I was more concerned with what was beneath us—the reedy grasses were disappearing, to be replaced with boulders and rocks that scattered across our path, forming a low rise.
“A causeway,” Abioye muttered, stepping up to the bed of the road and stamping his feet on the hardened, packed ground.
“Oh, thank the Stars.” I could almost have laughed with relief if I wasn’t already so exhausted. I had been doing my best to track through the wet fenland—but without clear sight of any sky or distant landmarks it was nigh impossible to plot a course. I was afraid that we had wandered quite deep into the Sea of Mists, as the ground also had been filled with mud slicks and pits, and several times we had to backtrack down the ridges of reedy grasses to take another route—all of which left me feeling more dazed and confused about our course!
The causeway of the Sea of Mists! It led to, or from, the fording place over the largest central river—and joined up with the main track through the Sea of Mists and to the Plains outside. It was as I had seen it on Lady Artifex’s map, too. And we had found it! I thought with relief.
“Whichever direction we take,” I said, with clear and apparent relief, as I joined him on the road, “we’re going to end up on the edge of the Sea of Mists.” But if we headed westwards, then we’d be traveling farther away from the Stone Crown. And my village, I thought. My village I knew, would be southeast of here, and there we could find safety. At least for a while. The causeway appeared to be built up from the fenland itself, and its surface was made of a layer of packed and solid earth and rock that I knew would be able to support wagons, carts, and horses. I picked a direction that seemed to be walking away from the sun—and thus eastwards, further into the Plains, and towards the distant Stone Crown, and my people.
“I think it’s this way,” I said, stepping forward.
But no sooner than we had taken a dozen or so steps together, then Abioye gave a strangled cough and dropped to the ground.
“What is it?” I spun around, my hand going to my belt before I once again realized that I had no weapon with me.
But Abioye did not appear in any immediate danger—or at least, nor the physical kind. He was crouched over the road surface, his gloved hands touching the dirt lightly.