He kept walking. A gentle breeze stirred the crops, and the earth breathed a rich fertile smell in the darkness. The black road was smooth under his weary feet. Ki was probably making excellent time over it, he reflected sourly. Another and separate hunger began to stir in him, harmonizing with the one in his belly. Why the hell couldn't he be on the wagon seat beside Ki, swaying gently to the rhythm of the turning yellow wheels? There had been a few balmy nights like this, cool traveling weather through hot lands, when the wagon seat was a place to share companionable silence and wedges of cheese and apples. Those were the best times, he reflected, when errands were done, or deadlines not yet pressing, the long days of unhurried and shared solitude. They were rare days, never strung so closely together that they became boring. A hundred times more frequent were the hot days of choking dust, the blustery days when the icy rain slapped at them and the team's great hooves skidded in the mud, or the days when Ki drove them all from daylight to past dusk, cursing herself as she harried her weary horses on to meet some delivery date. And now there was this rare evening of fine weather and excellent road through a mysterious and fascinating countryside, and Vandien was padding along on bare sore feet like an abandoned cur.
Vandien stopped and looked down over the fields. The road bed was elevated slightly, just enough at this point for him to see past the line of twiggy trees into the fields beyond. The trees were only a border: beyond them vines lay untidily along the ground. Vandien thought he could see dark shapes like melons resting on the ground beside the big leaves.
Beside the road was a fringe area of deep moss, then a pebbly embankment that bruised his bare feet. The coarse grass at the bottom of it sliced into his bare ankles, leaving shallow stinging wounds. When he tried to push through the row of bushes at the edge of the field, he found them not twiggy but thorny; long raking thorns pierced carelessly through his clothes to drag long scratches over his flesh. Another man would have been happy to return to the smooth road bed and limp on, but to thwart Vandien was only to make him more determined. Protecting his face with an upflung arm, he pushed doggedly through. He hobbled out into the field on the other side, both feet so painful that he couldn't decide which to limp on.
Hissing softly in pain, he lowered himself onto the cultivated ground beside one of the vines. A red globe rested on the ground within his reach; smaller ones decked the stem of the vine. Vandien let his eyes roam. Nearly all of the vines were heavily laden with the globes in various sizes. A few from such a bountiful yield would scarcely be missed; he took one as big as his head into both his hands. A gentletwist snapped it easily free of the plant, and he turned it over in his hands.
'No fruit I know, but no farmer would grow such a thing unless it could be eaten. Like a big red egg.' He puzzled aloud, tapping a cautious finger against the thing's shell-like rind. Drawing his knife from the sheath, he rapped its pommel against the globe, and the crust gave way. Vandien picked off bits of it to form a hole. A sweet smell rose. Hunger did not let him question it and he raised the globe to his mouth and sucked at it.
A thick layer of pulp came free in his mouth and then a gush of juice, thick as fresh milk, sweet, but tart enough to be refreshing. It brought him to a full awareness of his hunger. Too soon the fruit was an empty shell in his hands. He twisted off another and popped a hole in it with his knife.
As he lowered it, he became aware of eyes on him. He had a glimpse of a woman's startled face, and then she fled from him. 'Come back!' he called in Common, but she only ran faster. He cast the empty rind from him and pelted off after her. The vines caught at his feet. He heard her breath in shuddering gasps. 'Stop!' he cried when he could nearly touch her. With a shriek she darted away, leaping over the vines, fleetness powered by terror.
Her legs were longer than his, and she knew the lay of the ground. He was at the edge of the dooryard when he heard the slam, and a thump of something piled against the door. Vandien approached the door but didn't touch it. 'I won't hurt you!' he called through it. He thought he could hear the frightened sobbing of small children within. 'Please! I'm a stranger here! I only wish to beg food of you, and to ask if you have seen my companion coming ahead of me down the road. On my honor, I wish you no harm.'
There was a scuffling inside, then silence.
'Please!' he cried again, but in vain. Reluctantly he set his hand to the door handle. He put his shoulder against the door.
'Get away from the door, Dark One!' The courage of the man's words was little marred by the shaking of his voice. He advanced on Vandien, the stick in his hands held awkwardly. But when he raised the pole, his intention was as unmistakable as his inexperience. Vandien could have disarmed him in a moment. But a scuffle was no way to gain their confidence. He backed away from the door, holding his hands up wide.
'Please. I mean you no harm. I only come to ask for food.'
The man kept his pole at the ready. His eyes gleamed palely in a golden face outlined with shining hair. 'Drink of the water, Dark One. It will be enough to sate you!'
Vandien sensed the test in the man's words, but didn't know what answer would clear him. 'I cannot drink the water of this place. I have been warned against it. I come from beyond the Gate. My friend came before me through the Gate, and I have come to fetch her back.'
'Silence your lies, Dark One! Did you think to find fools here?' The man made the pole whistle through the air. Vandien retreated a few steps.
'I will not ask even food then. Only this: Have you seen my friend, driving a wagon and a team of grey horses? Tell me, and I will go. I mean to do no harm.'
'Your being here is harm enough! The wrongness of you cries aloud in our ears. You are a corrupter, aseducer of innocents, come to charm our young ones into venturing through the Gate.'
'No! I swear it! By my coming and my going, I seek to make a way for two of your own people to return. For Jace and Chess! Do you know those names? Jace told me she kept the farm near the Gate. Chess is her son.'
The rod cut the air and Vandien fell back before it. Muscles flexed under the man's tawny skin with each swing. He handled the rod in a strange way; Vandien could not tell now if it was skill or foolishness. He did know now that he could not predict how the next swing would come; this man feinted by no rules Vandien knew. 'Get back, Dark One! Back to the black road! Stay to the way that is made for you!'
The scrape of heavy wood and the opening of the door came to Vandien's ears. He looked back to find the woman framed in the doorway, but the glance nearly cost him, for the rod whistled suddenly past his ear. Vandien stumbled backwards through the vines. 'Back!' the man roared, following him as he retreated.
'But he spoke of Jace!' the woman called hesitantly. 'And Chess, long gone from us.'
'He is a Dark One, and a rogue as well!' the man roared back. 'What did the Limbreth say to us? We were warned of him. Do not listen to him, though he comes to you with honeycombs in his hands, and the moon's own words on his lips. He is dark and unclean, not touched by the Limbreth and the Jewels. He will defile us! Back!'
A fanatic, Vandien decided. And decided too that he would not be fool enough to fight him, for there would be no winning. Even if he downed and defeated the man, neither he nor the woman would willingly part with any food or news of Ki. Best to take what little advantage he could. This time when the rod swished by, Vandien was ready for it, stepping in with a ready grip and a wicked twist. The rod went flying, the man leaping after it. Vandien did not attack, but turned and fled, leaping over the vines. The distance he gained let him stoop and rip free one more globe, although the man had regained his rod and was again in pursuit, and he was large and long-legged. Only Vandien's iron-willed leap through the thorn bushes saved him, for the rod whistled over his head close enough to stir his curls. Vandien scrabbled back up to the road and then looked back, grinning and panting. The big farmer would go no farther than the thorn bushes.