"Oh, God!" shouted Satterly. He tried to stand, then lurched backward and righted himself, finally falling to his knees. He lowered his head and vomited his breakfast onto the soil.
Silverdun rode easily into the shifting place and stood over Satterly, his hideous face red with anger. "Damn you, human!" he hissed. "You could have gotten yourself killed! Why did you rein him back?"
Satterly shuddered. "I got scared!" he shouted. "I got scared and pulled back on accident. It was an accident!"
Silverdun shouted a curse in Elvish that Mauritane had never heard. "Now all of your supplies are gone, and you'll have to double up with someone the rest of the way. That is, unless we happen to stumble onto a horse ranch somewhere out here! I trust you are pleased with yourself?"
"Enough, Silverdun," said Mauritane, dismounting. "Everyone makes mistakes."
"He can ride with me," said Raieve. "I'm no burden on this mount."
Mauritane helped Satterly to his feet. "Are you hurt?" he asked.
Satterly dusted himself off. "Just bruised," he said. "I'll survive."
"Fine, then. You'll double with Raieve for now. Let's move while the shifting place is with us."
"Idiot!" shouted Silverdun, then he fell quiet.
They rode in silence for what seemed like many hours, though it was difficult to tell the duration with any precision. As they rode, the scenery beyond the shifting place moved with a bizarre rapidity, as though they were traveling much faster than Mauritane's other senses told him. The sun, however, barely moved in the sky overhead. The time that passed for them, whether ten hours or twelve, could not have been more than an hour or two in the outside world, for the sun was barely at its zenith when Mauritane's internal clock told him it should be night.
They stopped for a brief dinner. Only necessary words were spoken. It was obvious to Mauritane that the others were still thinking about the sight of Satterly's horse and how easily it could have been one of them. The meal was a grim one.
They mounted and rode again for another seemingly endless stretch. From beyond the shifting place, the sounds of the world were slow and eerie, muffled as though the entire world were buried beneath a pile of blankets.
They stopped again. As the hours wore on and became first one full day, then another, then perhaps a third, the silence among them became overwhelming, as though it were mandated. Each of them seemed lost in thought, pondering the world outside the shifting place as it caromed by in a hazy blur. When they stopped, they watched leaves fall from the trees in slow motion, examined with rapt expressions the fascinating properties of a stream whose waters intersected the shifting place, how it created a bizarre waterfall, the current flowing over some invisible obstacle which, Satterly pointed out in muttered tones, appeared to be the stream's own water.
Mauritane looked into the sky and at some point the sun had moved past its apex and was now nearing the horizon. He felt as though he could not stand another moment in that timeless space. Just ahead in the real world, for so Mauritane had begun to think of it, was a flat, grassy clearing between two dense stands of pine, suitable for a campsite.
"That's enough," he said. "Silverdun, get us out of here."
The relief was evident on every face. "Come along," said Silverdun quietly. "Getting out should be much easier than getting in. Just ride at a quick, steady pace." He pointed to the left. "That way."
Mauritane led Streak out of the shifting place and the world sped up again, taking on its usual sights and sounds. The others followed him out and the shift in their overall mood was palpable. Satterly breathed an audible sigh of release.
"Congratulations," said Mauritane, consulting his charts. "We covered four days' worth of ground in a single day."
"I, for one, felt all four of those days," said Silverdun wearily.
"We'll be in Sylvan ahead of schedule," said Mauritane, attempting to leaven the overall mood.
Only Gray Mave managed a smile. "Well, that's good, isn't it?"
Silverdun slung his tent from behind his saddle and stumbled around it. "It might sound that way after about ten hours of sleep. If anyone asks me to take the first watch, I'll cut his throat."
"I'll take first watch," said Raieve. "Then I plan to sleep for a very, very long time."
"Let's all get some rest," said Mauritane. "Once we've all rested, I want to speak to you. I believe a Hegest is long overdue."
Silverdun nodded soberly. "Yes, Mauritane. You're right. A Hegest would do us all some good."
"What's a Hegest?" said Satterly, his voice slow and tired.
"Wait until tomorrow," said Raieve. "You'll find out."
Mauritane watched her crawl into her tent. She looked back at him for a moment, pursed her lips, then turned and went inside.
Chapter 23
Raieve knelt by the ice-covered poplar and dug her hands into the snow at its base. The previous night's freezing rain had left a clear sheen over everything: the tents, the trees, even the snowy ground. The ice bit into her skin, its jagged edges scoring her already-red hands with white lines. The ground had an empty, wintry smell.
Her hands began to sting. She dug around the base of the poplar's trunk, creating a narrow trench. Just as the needles of cold reached beneath her skin more than she could stand, she found what she was looking for.
The mushrooms were tiny, lavender in color, with wide, flat heads and narrow stems. Icthula. She collected them in her aching palm and brushed them into a jar. The icthula was the final ingredient, joining the spittle, bitter herbs, and radish seed already inside. She scooped a handful of snow into the jar and covered it with a lid, placing it gently on a tiny brazier she'd secreted away from camp.
Above her, at the top of the slope, she could hear Silverdun complaining about his food. She tried to ignore him.
She watched the jar intently until it boiled, holding her hands over the brazier to warm them. As the fire worked the frost from her fingers, they began to sting in a different way, like sharp pinpricks all over her flesh.
She stirred the jar's contents with a stick, watching it bubble, until the mixture turned a purplish color. She lifted the jar using the hem of her cloak and poured it out into another jar with a strip of cloth over the top as a strainer. She let the solid ingredients fall away.
The filtered icthula mixture stank horribly. With a grimace, she lifted it to her lips and drank the whole thing, wincing as the hot liquid scalded her tongue and the roof of her mouth. Almost immediately the drug began to take hold of her, drawing her out of herself until her awareness perched just outside her body, ready to leap out and explore its surroundings.
She stood up, her stomach turning at the dizzying perspective. She climbed the slope awkwardly, cursing herself for her own stupidity. It would have been a lot easier if she had returned to camp first.
The climb seemed to last hours but could not have, because when she returned to camp no one appeared to notice that she'd left.
"It's time," said Mauritane, as she appeared at the crest of the slope. "Have a seat."
Raieve took her place around a new fire, built upon the ashes of the fire from the night before. The flames wriggled and twisted like braids of light.
Mauritane let his eyes rest on her for a moment. The icthula drew her toward him and she held back, forcing herself to remain still for now. She gave him a silent nod and he turned away. The icthula had been her idea; the Hegest his. She'd seen the tiny mushrooms a few nights before and had told Mauritane about them during their ride through the shifting place. It was her mother's recipe she was using.