"May be stopped, though." Richard tossed the last blueberries down his throat.
"Yes," Patience said. "If we manage, we will stop them – though their making has allowed many men and women to warm themselves through the worst of Lord Winter's exercise, and gifted a few to Walk-in-air." She sat silent a few moments, staring into the hemlocks' deep green. "… My Maxwell is by blood-bits the greatest of Talents, made to someday – if it pleases him – made to press our earth a little nearer the sun, to bring Warm-times back again."
Another silence. And though she'd seemed serious, Patience smiled at Baj. "- Or do you suppose that only Wish-fools would think it possible?"
"… I'm not one to judge impossibility, Lady – for here I sit, alive, and with friends. But our world is large, and we are small."
"Me excepted," Richard said.
"But Baj," Patience said, "- nothing exists, not form or motion, unless first determined, shaped in a mind."
"Rocks," Baj said. "Trees."
"Ah, but those are Second-rocks, Second-trees – and then thirds of them and fourths and infinite numbers of them. But the first, imagined – how else come to be?"
"I think… our librarian, Lord Peter Wilson, would have said yours is an argument of prior givens – those creations by thought – and poorly logical."
"Your 'Lord Peter Wilson,' Baj, was first my dear old Neckless Peter of many years ago. And you're right; that is exactly what he would have said… But then, if not in logic, how do I come to Walk-in-air, so eagles sail beside me?"
"… That, Lady, I do not know," Baj said, and noticed Nancy watching him, staring as if to see beneath his skin.
CHAPTER 16
They set out by a rising moon and jeweling stars, traveling down through evergreens and out onto the widest plain Baj had seen since the River's coast, though more soft-summit mountains, the Map-Tuscaroras, could be seen rising to the north.
This was a valley – Map-Exxoned an ancient great roadway once – worn now WT-miles broad by centuries of end-of-summer flooding, come down yearly the distance from the Wall. The last of moon-light revealed streaked shallow banks of mud and gravel braided down the pass, and a wind – likely also from the Wall – came whispering cold.
"Lord Winter begins to wake," Nancy said.
"Hold here," Patience said behind her, and they all crunched to a stop on the valley's gravel, except for Errol, who skittered on into darkness… There was a pause, and Baj supposed the lady had stopped for necessity, though no one looked back to see… But after a few moments, there was a flap and flutter of cloth, and a faint moon-shadow swept slowly over them, though only her white hair could be seen against the sky.
"Safe now," she said above them, voice conversational from a ceiling of stars. "Safe to be Walking-in-air in darkness, unseen. Though once, in a glacier-lead where the Long Island lies, a horned owl came and struck me, almost took my ear. Cruel birds…" Baj could just follow – by her hair, by the stars she shaded – as she sailed away.
"That would be pleasant," Nancy said, "- to learn to do."
"For that," Richard shifted his pack more comfortable, "- for that, neither of us have the piece in the brain required."
"And I believe," Baj said, feeling rough gravel beneath his moccasins' soles, "- I believe there must be a cost."
Nancy, stepping up beside, poked him with her elbow – the first time in a while that she'd touched him. "And what cost is that?"
"… Beside her always-hunger, I don't know."
"If you knew how old she was in WT years," Richard said, trudging in the lead, "- you'd know the cost."
"Fifty years?… More?"
"Thirty-nine," Nancy said, and stepped out so Baj had to trot to catch up.
"Is that true?"
"Yes. And how old do you think I am?"
Baj remembered wise men's lessons. "Young," he said.
… They worked their way by star-light, more than the slender crescent moon's, across the Map I-Seventy – the pass certainly much wider than it had been in Warm-times – and, though easier than mountainsides, still difficult traveling over one-after-another low ridge or shelf of mud and flood-trash rafted down, with only coarse grass growing.
They marched hungry, and cold in a north wind – the short-summer seeming left behind on their last mountain to the south. Baj pictured some beast roasting over a hidden fire's careful coals, once they were in the new northern hills.
He managed to imagine the taste of the wild meat fairly well as he marched along. Hot, oily, rank, and wonderful.
Mud and gravel gritted under their moccasin-boots. The stars – brilliant now as sunlit powder snow – shone not quite enough for shadows. Baj heard Errol strolling out to the left, watched Nancy's bobbing pack just before him – then almost walked into her as she suddenly stopped. Richard, bulk barely seen, stood still in front of her.
"What is it?" Baj climbed a low shelf of grassy drift… came up beside him.
There was a shallow run-off creek lying across their way, frosted by star-light.
"How deep?" Baj said – then saw the creek was no creek at all, but a narrow roadway running east and west, straight as a taut rope, its crushed limestone-gravel shining white.
"The Warm-time road?"
"The WT pathway," Richard said, keeping his voice low, "- if it was here – lies buried deep."
"Yes… of course." Baj stepped down to the road, knelt and touched the surface. "Fine-broken, tamped hard, and ditched. This is a Kingdom road, a best road – but our people never came so far!"
"Best," Richard said, "- but new, and no Kingdom road. We traveled our way south to the west of here, and saw nothing like it."
And as if his words had called a demon-Great, the softest chuff chuff chuff sounded on the wind, as though a giant's boots were scuffing down the pass.
They stood still, listening, as the sound, steady as the beat of blood, first faded as the wind swung away… then grew louder.
Light – a dazzle of yellow light flashed suddenly from the west down the limestone road – and as they stood watching, grew brighter while the giant boots seemed to scuff and kick their way along.
"An engine of machinery." Baj's heart was thumping, thumping. "It's a Warm-time engine, pushed by cramped steam!"
"No," Richard said, "- it isn't."
"Back!" Nancy clutched their packs, yanked them so hard that Baj stumbled. "Back…!"
They retreated over mud and flood-trash.
"Down," Richard said. "Lie down."
"Errol." Nancy called softly as she could. "Errol…!"
Now the yellow light and chuff chuff chuffing had come nearly to them, was just down the moonlit limestone way – and looking over the mud shelf, Baj saw Errol suddenly come into the glare like a moth due for dying – come onto the limestone road and go dancing down it, glowing gold as the boot-sound, stomp and scuff, grew loud as right-beside, with the rolling grind of big wheels turning.
"Errol!" Nancy was up and would have run to him, but Baj caught her ankle, tripped her, and wrestled to hold her down. He put his hand over her mouth, and was bitten – then Richard was beside him, and together they held her still.
"Shhh…" Baj whispered in her ear. "Shhh, sweetheart." The second time he'd said that foolish thing.
An easy stone's-toss away, Errol stood still, blinking into blazing yellow. There was sudden silence on the limestone road – no heavy rhythmic noises, no motion. Glancing to the left, Baj saw behind the light's shimmering halo, a shape huge as forty Richards.
Time seemed to beat and pulse with the yellow right – from a great mirrored lamp, certainly. Errol stood staring, mouth open, apparently amazed.
Then, barely, by what the lamp allowed of star-light, Baj saw silhouettes of many men – certainly men – climbing down from the big thing. One of them called out, "Do you question?"