As if reading his mind, she stopped walking and turned on him. “I sense discomfort between us.”
Neb stopped. He wrestled to find the words. “I’m not sure what it is.” He thought about it some more.
“Is it unpleasant? "
He shook his head. “No. Just uncomfortable. I don’t know what it means or what to do or how to act or what to say.”
She laughed. “I feel that, too.”
Now that he’d started, the words just kept coming. “And then there’s your king and his dreams. It’s a way of knowing that cuts across the grain of everything I’ve been taught.” He felt a lump growing in the back of his throat, felt water building in his eyes. “And I really just want to go home, to talk with Brother Hebda about his latest dig, to finish my schooling and join the Order as an acolyte. But I can’t. Because my home is a field of blackened bones, my father’s among them. And there is no school, there is no library and soon enough, there may be no Order. Everything I have ever known and loved is gone from the world.”
She nodded, her brown eyes soft with something that might’ve been concern. “Then you will come to know and love differently,” she said, “and learn to live around the chasms. These are hard days, Nebios ben Hebda, but they are the travail of a woman with child. Through this pain, you will lead your people into their new home and it will be a home to you as well. I’ve seen it in the dreams.”
“I don’t want to lead anyone anywhere,” he said, and he heard the voice of an angry child in his words.
Winters sighed. “I understand that feeling all too well. But we do what we are made for.”
Suddenly, her hands were sliding up and around his neck as she pressed herself closer to him. Stretching up on tiptoes, she kissed him lightly on his mouth. Then she stepped back quickly, her cheeks turning red despite the layer of mud and ash. Neb felt his own heat rising along with stirrings elsewhere. “Why did you do that?”
She smiled. “I already told you. We do what we are made for.” Then she dug into her pocket and pulled out a small silver vial. “The Marsh King wants you to have this.”
Neb took it, and looked at it. “What is it for?”
“It’s voice magicks,” she said. “You’ll need them.”
He slipped it into his own pocket, and was going to ask her what he would need the voice magicks for, but he swallowed the question when his fingers felt the ring there nestled beside the Marsh King’s gift. One more thing that Brother Hebda had told him in the dream, one more thing that the Marsh King knew without Neb saying.
Winters must have seen the look on his face. “Do not be troubled,” she said. She brought her hand up and touched his shouldeOhede="r.
Then the sound of horses reached their ears and they turned. Moving through the forest, Neb saw a handful of horses-one large and white at the head of them. A slight, bearded man in a green turban and a long golden robe rode high in the saddle with an aloof confidence, surrounded by men dressed in multicolored wool uniforms.
“Is that-?”
Winters interrupted. “It’s Lord Rudolfo of the Ninefold Forest Houses. I’m afraid I will have to leave you here.” She took both his hands in her own. “Be well, Nebios ben Hebda.” She smiled at him, and for a moment Neb thought that maybe-just maybe-there could be some kind of peace or home at the end of this for him. “We will see each other again.”
Neb wasn’t sure how to respond, so he said nothing. He felt her squeeze his hands and he tried to squeeze back but it felt awkward.
Releasing his hands, she turned and ran back toward the camp.
Neb watched her go, still trying to capture and label the strange feelings she evoked. Then he continued south, breaking from the forest and making his way through the bones and ashes of Windwir.
He was halfway back to camp when something she said struck him as odd.
I’ve seen it in the dreams.
Shrugging it off, Neb moved south at a quickening pace, anxious to see Petronus and tell him what he could about everything that had happened to him.
Rudolfo
Rudolfo studied the Marsher camp as he rode into it. He had not been sure what to expect and he openly admired their skill at camouflaging themselves and their tents. He and his Gypsy Scouts stayed near one another. They were unmagicked to honor the kin-clave the Marsh King had proclaimed between them, and they were careful to keep their hands in plain view as well as their sheathed weapons and unstrung bows.
He’d never crossed into their lands and his only encounters with them had been with the king his father had captured and the occasional skirmishers he’d faced over the course of his life. He knew what most of the Named Lands knew about their history, and in many ways, he realized there was more kinship between the Marshers and the Ninefold Forest because of the ties to Xhum Y’Zir. Some scholars traced the original Marshers to the house slaves freed by Xhum Y’Zir after his sons were killed by P’Andro Whym. They came to the New World close on the heels of the first Rudolfo so long ago, before the others came led by the Whymers to establish the Named Lands.
He knew little OHe ablof their culture. They were given to bouts of mysticism, following a system of beliefs unknown to most. Apart from skirmishing and scavenging they kept to themselves, though at one time their skirmishing and scavenging had been on a much grander scale. They used to bring down whole cities. Now they occasionally took farms or caravans but even most of that slowed down ten years ago or more.
Rudolfo brought his horse to a stop in the center of the camp and raised his voice. “I’ve come to parley with the Marsh King.”
The people moved around him, silent, though they watched the mounted riders carefully.
Gregoric leaned over. “They say nothing.”
“Marshers vow silence that their king be their only voice in time of war,” a girl said, stepping from the crowd.
“And yet,” Rudolfo said, inclining his head to her, “you are speaking to us.”
“I am.” She curtsied. “I will bring you to the Marsh King.”
Rudolfo dismounted, leading his horse behind him as he picked his way through the muddy camp. He’d chosen a golden rain robe, wool trousers and a silk shirt over the top of his armor. He’d thought about leaving the light breastplate off, but he’d decided it would be best to humor his Gypsy Scouts.
He followed the girl and his men did the same. They walked to a tent against the side of a hill, and the girl gestured inside. “The Marsh King will join you soon. I will have refreshments brought to you.”
Rudolfo nodded. “That would be most pleasant,” he lied.
The girl curtsied again and ran off. She was a waif if he’d ever seen one. Long brown hair, tangled and filthy. Dried mud and ash smeared into her face and her plain burlap dress. There wasn’t a clean patch on her. And even from the distance they’d kept, Rudolfo had worked hard not to wrinkle his nose at the smell.
He looked over his shoulder at his men, flashing hand signals to them. One of them stayed with the horses. The others took up their positions near the tent. Gregoric slipped into the tent, then slipped back out a minute later.
“It’s fine, General,” he said. “Filthy but fine. There’s a back entrance.”
Rudolfo nodded. “Very well. Wait with the men, Gregoric.” He brushed past his first captain and into the tent. At the end of the short passageway, he saw that a small table had been set, along with a stool. Nearby stood a massive chair, and near it a meditation statue of P’AndrO/a›paso Whym-the one with the mirrors of self-awareness. It was dented and dirty, but it spoke of centuries past and of the same mysticism that had paved the way for Whymer Mazes and the Physicians of Penitent Torture-dark sides of T’Erys Whym’s adoration of his brother.
Rudolfo went to the small table and sat, drumming his fingers lightly on the wood.
A most unusual kin-clave, he thought.