“I know him!” Cashel said. “This is the guy I asked you about, the one who looks like Metra. He was going to take a piece of statue away from me.”
Cashel frowned with a realization. It wouldn’t have been the statue the fellow was after, just the ruby ring the statue wore. And that was here in Cashel’s purse.
“He’s a Son of the Mistress,” Tilphosa said, frowning also at some thought of her own. “I don’t recognize him, Cashel. He does look a lot like Metra.”
Cashel glanced back at the sailors. They were keeping up all right. As they should: Cashel was walking at the pace that a herd of sheep would’ve set.
“Let’s go on,” he said aloud.
Cashel didn’t understand this, but he was used to things he didn’t understand and to going ahead anyway. He might not like the scenery on the way, but eventually he’d always gotten to a place where he wanted to be.
There was another fog of light ahead, and Cashel supposed there’d be more after that one. He wondered if they’d ever come out of this forest. He had bread and cheese still in his wallet. With the frugal reflex of growing up poor—and poorer yet—he’d bundled the leftovers away before he started down to deal with Metra’s wizardry.
He smiled. That seemed a long time ago, now.
“Do you suppose they’re all looking for me, Cashel?” Tilphosa said. “All the wizards whose images we’ve seen? Metra is, we know that.”
“Um?” said Cashel. He thought about the question. “I don’t see how they can be, Tilphosa. That last fellow was somebody I met in Valles. He…I mean, that was…”
What would Tilphosa say if he told her he came from a time farther in her future than he could imagine himself?
“I’m from a long way away, Tilphosa,” he said. “A long way ahead in time.”
She turned her head to study him as they walked along. “I see,” she said, but Cashel wasn’t sure that she meant anything by the words. “Well, I’m glad the Mistress’s powers enabled Her to go even through time to bring me a champion.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk about the Mistress bringing me, Tilphosa,” Cashel said. He looked straight ahead to avoid the girl’s eyes, but he flushed regardless. “I mean…my sister and I never had much to do with the Great Gods. Well, we couldn’t afford to, that was part of it, but with Ilna it was more besides. And, well…I just wish you wouldn’t say the Mistress is moving me around. I don’t feel right hearing that.”
“All right, Cashel,” Tilphosa said. She didn’t sound angry or even hurt. “I’ll be more careful about what I say.”
Either Cashel had started walking faster in embarrassment or this time the image of light was located closer to the previous one. The scene within was a barn, a big one. There were horses stabled there, so it belonged to rich people. A man sat on an upturned wicker basket, talking to a circle of many other men.
The one talking shared a family resemblance with both Metra and the fellow who’d tried to take the ring back in Valles. He wore a coarse tunic now, but his black-and-white robe was hung to dry on a rafter.
Most of the audience were strangers to Cashel, but—
“That’s Garric!” he cried. “That’s my friend Garric! But what happened to his head? He’s got scars on his scalp!”
“Maybe it isn’t really your friend, Cashel?” said Tilphosa. She was frowning when he turned to look at her, but she smoothed her face at once. “I mean…the men who look like Metra? Perhaps…?”
Cashel grimaced. One of the beastmen of Bight, a female, fawned at the feet of the fellow he’d thought was Garric. That didn’t seem like something the real Garric would’ve let happen.
The wizard in the center talked urgently, gesturing repeatedly toward the ring held by the older peg-legged man at the side of maybe-Garric. The ring looked a lot like the one in Cashel’s purse, but the when the light caught this one right it winked blue.
“I don’t know,” Cashel said harshly. “Let’s get on. There’s nothing here for us.”
He turned. When the girl didn’t follow him at once he reached out—then jerked his hand back.
Cashel’s body was cold. Had he been thinking of pulling Tilphosa along against her will? All he knew was that it frightened him to see his friend changed that way; frightened him as he’d never feared death.
“Yes, of course, Cashel,” Tilphosa said. She stared at his horrified expression with obvious concern. “Let’s get away from here. We’ll get to the edge of these woods soon, I’m sure.”
Cashel wasn’t sure of anything except that he was jumpier than he’d been since, well, a long time. “Sorry,” he muttered.
“I haven’t heard the night bird recently,” the girl said brightly, changing the subject for sure this time. “Have you?”
“Um?” said Cashel. “Oh, you mean the music? No, not since just after we got here. These woods are quieter than the ones I’m used to.”
“Is that because there’s no wind?” Tilphosa asked. She looked about her as they walked along, swaying a little closer to Cashel. She was nervous, but she was keeping it well inside.
“Partly that, I guess,” Cashel said. “There’s always something happening in the woods, though. Squirrels running about, limbs squealing as they grow…. You can hear the trees breathe if you take the time to listen.”
“But not here?” said Tilphosa.
“Not that I’ve noticed,” Cashel said; walking steadily forward, but keeping his eyes on the things around him as he always did. He noticed most things, though he didn’t generally talk about them.
He cleared his throat. “You can generally tell when there’s something wrong with your flock, you know,” he said. “Things don’t feel right, even if you can’t see what it is that’s wrong. I don’t feel like that here, for what it’s worth.”
“Thank you, Cashel,” the girl said. She laid her fingertips briefly on his arm.
They’d reached the next of the scenes in light. This one was smaller than the others, scarcely the size of the shelter a shepherd might weave for himself from sticks and branches in bad weather. Cashel squinted, waiting for the image in his mind to focus.
“That’s Tenoctris!” he said. “It couldn’t be anybody else! Oh, if she’s looking for us, then everything’s going to be all right!”
Tenoctris sat at a table in her cottage in the palace grounds, reading a scroll by the light of a three-wick oil lamp hanging at her side. Most of the room’s furnishings were simple, but the lampstand itself was a scaled, sinuous body of gilded bronze. Each wick projected like a breath of flames from a dragon head.
“She’s a very powerful wizard, Cashel?” Tilphosa asked. She bent her head as if to read over Tenoctris’ shoulder, but of course you couldn’t see anything that small in the light here. It was clearer than what you saw through the rounds of bull’s-eye glass in the casements of Reise’s inn, but not much clearer.
The sailors had fallen farther behind, so Cashel figured to wait here for a time anyway. And if there was a way to get into this vision, then that’d be a very good thing.
He pushed his quarterstaff into the light. He was careful for fear there might be a spark when the iron touched it or even that the whole scene might vanish with a blaze and crashing.
The metal-capped hickory blurred and vanished; then it hit something and stopped. Cashel pushed harder, but whatever he’d hit was solid. He couldn’t see either the end of the staff or anything in the image that ought to be blocking it.
“Cashel?” said the girl, watching him closely.
“Wait,” he said tersely. He heard the rustle and whispering of the sailors joining them, but he didn’t look around.
Withdrawing the quarterstaff, Cashel thrust his bare left arm into the image of light. His fingers touched—