“You mean this is not the only Gathering?”
Orcutt clearly thought the question mad. “There’s only one Gathering. And this’ll be the biggest yet.”
Asach thought about this a moment, and tried again. “So, how long will it go on?”
“No tellin.’ Year, two three. At least, if it’s the same as always. Only, this one won’t be.”
“The Revelation.”
He winked. “The Revelation.”
“But if I only have supplies for—”
“Oh, you don’t worry about that. You can trust Laurel. His Eye will open by the time you get up there. You will stand in awe before his Gaze.” His voice quavered reverentially, and then, quite matter-of-factly, he continued. “Then Laurel will See you back down, and See the next batch up. Unless, of course, you See and don’t believe. In that case, you’re on your own.”
The next morning, Asach discovered why this could be a problem.
They mounted up. Asach saw at once why the appellation pilgrim had so often been presumed: everyone mounted, except Laurel and other Seers, wore long, split-backed, hooded cloaks not unlike Asach’s own. Laurel proceeded down the line from back to front, handing each rider a lead line for the horse behind. Asach began to protest: “that’s really not nec—” but trailed off at Laurel’s glower.
“Just mind your mule,” she said, moving up the line.
And then she was mounted herself. She made a flapping motion past her ear, as if waving off a bug. “Hoods up!” She shouted. “Hoods Up!...Hoods Up!...Hoods Up!” echoed down the line.
Confused, Asach fumbled to pull the cloak hood from the collar with one hand without dropping the pack mule’s lead line. Another Seer trudged up from behind, checking something. It was difficult to see exactly what was going on. Asach jumped at a slap on the thigh.
“Hoods UP!”
Confused, Asach looked down. The Seer signaled furiously, as at a child. “Over the eyes! Pull your hood down over your eyes!”
Asach groaned. Seers. Clairvoyants? Shamans? Oracles? Prognosticators? No. Himmists has to be the most bloody-minded literal people ever imagined, apart from accountants. Seers were, quite literally, guides to the blind. Or, in this case, blinded. Mindful of the consequences of being abandoned in the middle of nowhere, Asach complied. It was going to be a bloody boring ride.
Asach wasn’t completely blind. A patch of the horse’s mane was visible. A patch of Asach’s own chest was visible. A patch of the mule’s pack was visible, wobbling off to the side. Occasionally, the mule’s nose hove into view, as it slobbered on its new buddy’s withers. The horse did not seem to mind. Asach became intensely aware of the need for clippers and a nail buffer. Asach began daydreaming of coffee and pie. The train trundled on.
Other senses became more acute. The smell of the dust changed. Less—clayey. Then, simply, less. Before the end of the first day, they had moved onto rocky ground. Asach had lost all sense of direction; tried to picture in what direction rocky ground might lie. Then noted the warmth beaming from the—back. Definitely back. And surely, it was late in the day now? Surely the warmth had—passed overhead? So, they were heading east?
Asach listened. There was nothing to hear, except the scrabbling sound of hooves on gravel. Sometimes a clop, more often a crunch, or a slither, or a scrape. And the squeaking of tack. And the clinking of harness. And the crickety bit rollers in nervous horses’ mouths. And their breathing, and snorting, and snotty-nose-blowing sounds. The occasional squeal as one or another objected to the attentions of a pack-mule. Asach’s feet, then knees, then butt grew numb. Asach’s stomach made rumbling sounds. The horses trudged on.
It was the mules who announced camp time. As if on cue, braying began at one end of the train, then whipped along with ear-splitting fervor. As if on a cue of their own, the horses all pulled up. Asach reflected. None of these could have made this trip before. The last Gathering would have been twenty years earlier. But clearly, at least some knew what was going on.
“Dismount!” echoed down the line as the sun winked out. They made camp in the dark, on the rock-hard ground. The Seers encircled the camp with watch fires. They could pull their hoods off now. It was impossible to see where they were.
After three days, the air changed. It smelled of high, cold mountains. The ground was uneven now, rising and falling, the trail twisting across the fall lines. If it could be called a trail. It was as if Laurel was seeking the worst possible ground. Rocky, unlevel, horses lurching and scrambling to find purchase in spots. At one bend, Asach nearly pitched over from vertigo, as the fist-sized view from under the hood revealed a sloping granite face, plunging down, down, down, but no clear trail at all beneath the mule’s feet. The animals seemed unperturbed. At camp that night, Asach sidled up to another fire, populated by what looked like a ten-year old. “How do they do this?” Asach asked.
“Who?”
“The horses. The mules. How do they know these trails?”
The boy wrinkled his nose and forehead. “They train them, of course!”
Asach said a silent prayer for Orcutt, who clearly had done more of the choosing than Asach had realized, and another for Laurel, out of new respect for a Seer’s multifaceted responsibilities.
Another day of this, and they had passed the foothills, into the mountains themselves. Asach could not identify the smells, beyond something like leaf mold; something like earth. They had to unrope the horses now, so that the mules could drop back to single file. Then, even that became impossible, and they had to dismount, tying the mule to the horse and leading the horse on foot. Asach felt physically ill as they clambered across a scree slope one by one, the very trail, if it could be called that, cascading from beneath their feet, but miraculously, all made it safely, and not a single animal was lost.
Finally, toward day’s end, they topped a rise, and slithered into a saddle of level ground. Asach leaned against the horse, exhausted, soaking in the snuffly warmth of its breath. It turned and nibbled hopefully at the mule’s pack, then jumped as a raucous cheer swept the line. Unbalanced, Asach nearly hit the ground, and in sheer reflex swept back the hood—only to see everyone else do the same.
“Hoods off! Hoods off from here on!”
This time, they made camp in daylight. The animals were fed and rubbed down. As dusk fell Asach dozed, leaning on the mule’s pack, trying to stir the energy to cook a meal, mind drifting to an eerie, half-heard sound. It echoed softly between the rock walls of the saddle; oozed down from higher on the mountain. Like a roundelay, of childhood. Like a desert wind. Like a—Asach stirred. Like a medieval chant. Asach sat up. Like a hymn. Asach stood. Which is what is was. For the first time, Asach was hearing The Gathering Hymn sung aloud. It was unbelievably alien. It was unbelievably beautiful. Picked up and carried beyond fatigue; carried away by the moment, Asach joined in. Surely, they were not far now.
Fog lay so heavily in the valley that morning was marked only by a lessening of darkness. People; shelters; animals, loomed suddenly from the grey, then sank back into the mist whence they arose. There was a shallow, rocky lake somewhere beyond their picket line. Asach led the stock to water.
“Not too much,” cautioned Laurel’s disembodied voice. Asach started. “This water’s OK for them, but not too much at once. Don’t let them wade in and muddy up the bottom. It’ll make them sick.”
The mule was fussy. It sipped, then raised its head to swivel its great, long, fuzzy ears, spooking at every noise. Eventually it was done, and Asach returned them both to the picket line.
“They rest today,” said Laurel, materializing again. “Come on with me. We’ll lead the others up. I don’t want to lose you. “