“Thou hast survived another round of Crafter muggery,” Kern called to Widsith in a voice deep and wide. “Welcome, Pilgrim. I hear thou’lt make a request. Calybo told me thou’rt unhappy about something, though he refilled thy years at great discomfort.”
“Yes, sire. I have a request. Though I have told this boy ’tis unlikely granted.”
“Is it about Maeve?”
“Aye.”
“A very popular lady. Thou hast often taken wives. Why dost thou feel so strongly for this one? Surely she is not the most beautiful, although, I hear, likely the most faithful.”
“Before I left, we had not a single wedded year, and now she is in her last hours.”
Kern’s chuckle was like a distant storm. “Thy situation, thine and hers, would be very romantic, would it not? The sort of tale Crafters enjoy spinning. And in the end, we on this isle live and work, like the rest of this unfinished land, for Crafters. To whom dost thou carry the request?”
Widsith bowed his head. “As thou say’st. I bring news from the finished lands. That is mine only coin. Travelers are meeting us soon, and once I deliver this boy to them, and tell my stories, I can leave and resume my journeys, as is meet.”
“The boy? His opinion?”
Reynard said, “I have no home, here or anywhere. I have a mother in England, but no father, and no power, no money, nothing but…”
He was about to say a word, an etymon, but that was not exactly true, either.
“And would your mother miss you?” Kern asked.
“She would.” But Reynard could not remember her face! Somehow, recovering memories from Valdis had erased other things, things so familiar, but now gone. Had they ever been there at all?
Was there even a Southwold he could return to?
Kern said, “I have had no mother for many years, and my father…” The giant stood for a moment like a rough-hewn statue, then turned and said, “Bring the boy. Calybo, as it happens, is here to lead away his chosen Eaters. And so is Guldreth, albeit she will also soon make ready to leave.”
“Where are they now?” Widsith asked.
“Kaiholo knows. Should it please Guldreth, he will likely meet us before the old bird cavern.” Kern looked back at Reynard. “Knowest thou my breed?”
“Anakim, I trow,” Reynard said without thinking.
Kern did not take it amiss. “Some called us that. People of the lower North called us Hiisi, and those became devils. Others called us Cyclopes. But I have two eyes.” He winked at Reynard. “I have not seen mine ancestors since I was a babe. My mother was Anakim but loved a mighty man, I hear, but mine aunts killed him before I was born. Guldreth took us in, she so enjoyed my mother’s tales.” The giant looked back down the Ravine and said, “Other than my mother, I never knew an Anakim could stand humans. Pilgrim, thine affection for Maeve is the least of Guldreth’s worries this season. Crafters themselves are in peril. Mayhaps they are dying. I know not which, but they grow weaker and less in control.”
“No!” Widsith cried out, as if this defied all reason.
“I understand thy distress. They are the reason we have gathered here, all of us. But the Travelers tell me those who still live take great pains to bury their departed fellows. And I can attest that there is a plain of open jars that few of the Travelers dare approach… Shaitan’s ovens, some call them, baking infernal loaves!”
“You have been there?” Reynard asked, squinting.
“I have, on Guldreth’s missions. And so has Kaiholo. The island’s interior is at a rolling boil. Other than Eaters, many flee who once served both Guldreth and the Crafters, claiming to be in danger. On the other side of the isle, the Sister Queens have summoned outside help with the coming war. It is said thou hast supplied some of that, Pilgrim.”
Widsith shook his head and patted his horse’s neck. “That was not mine intention. It is all upturned and rooted wrong.”
“Indeed. For the nonce, the stock of humans at Zodiako is too small to matter—but their drakes may be of use. Some of the larger ones, at least. Come,” the giant urged, and descended the scree. “If I do not cause a fall, ’twill hold for ye.”
“And our horses?”
“Leave them,” the giant said. “Traveler and Eater horses are the only ones that will travel in the krater lands.”
They dismounted and sent their horses back to Zodiako with firm pats on their withers. Widsith seemed most unhappy with this change of plans. “Follow close,” he told Reynard. “Move not from me whatever thy temptation or wonder. I sense Eaters and others will flee this way, and all along our path.”
“That be true,” Kern said over his shoulder. “And we shall not even see most of them.”
They followed the giant and gingerly descended the scree into the depths of the Ravine. The chill penetrated Reynard’s clothes and skin down to his very bones, where it either tingled or burned, he could not tell which. Not all things that work and move on their own, he thought, live by warmth and the sun. Down here, the Eaters and others seemed to thrive in the night and cold. The ice that climbed in sheets on both sides looked like frozen moonlight. He wondered how long he and Widsith could last in such a clime.
The clouds above the arch of trees parted now. Moonlight cast the broken rocks of the scree in stark black and gray. Reynard looked up, but briefly, fearful of stumbling and falling, for the rocks had shifted again and the path was no longer smooth. Despite his size, Kern seemed to drift over the roughness like a hovering spirit, but Widsith had no such grace.
The heaves of hoarfrost now clumped into knife-edged sheets of foggy ice, growing more and more transparent as they wound down along the rocky trail—and embedded in them were contorted figures, bodies, dozens and dozens in the hundred yards they traversed. Neither Kern nor Widsith commented on them, and Reynard had no urge to look into their faces, when they were visible.
They passed beyond the ice sheets. Two trails rose on either side of a slow, narrow river. Widsith said in wonder, “I have never been this far.” He stared at the giant’s broad, receding back. “I am told we should seek out Valdis.”
“I passed her on my way to find you,” Kern said. The giant was making faster progress than they, and neither Widsith nor Reynard wanted to be left behind, so they took more chances and stumbled and fell more often, gaining cuts on their elbows and hands, and once, Reynard tumbled headlong, until he felt as if sharp rocks had scalped him. Widsith examined him quickly, said he was fine, but blood dripped down his forehead and into his eyes, and he could barely see what little there was to see.
As Widsith helped him along and used his sleeve to wipe back the blood, Reynard resolved yet again he would do everything he could to flee this awful, evil island, even had he no home to return to.
“No leaving now, Fox,” Kern called back, as if he could hear Reynard’s thoughts, feel his anger. “You would lose the path. This Ravine is no longer the home of the Eaters—it is now but a deep scar in the island, clogged with old ice and dead castles—a fracture shared by desperate spirits.”
“What will they do?” Reynard asked, his voice shaking.
“Go into exile,” Kern said, answering his last question. “Lost races dwindled to a few… Tenebria, some call them. Bad omens. Bad dreams.”
Widsith watched Reynard closely, to judge whether his courage might fail him. They were walking along a narrow trail, carved partly from ice, partly from stone, above the river and the upraised frozen blades that seemed to interrupt and shape the constant breeze from the north. The river seemed to be moaning. Reynard thought he saw shadows and shapes, and sometimes felt a kind of breath on his cheeks, but the others did not react, so he tried to ignore them.
“And what do you hope to do here?” Reynard asked.