By the time dawn began to gray the sky, it was only a stripe of light over our heads. The way we traversed was more like a cavern with a crack in the roof than a pass. I had never even imagined such a place. The filtered light showed me that many folk had passed this way and recently. To either side of us was the detritus of a busy trail: discarded rags, a frayed basket, scraps of food waste, and other litter. Olikea seized the basket and put her wood into it without losing the pace. The light grew stronger, but still Soldier’s Boy walked on. Jodoli had been correct when he said that the magic was harder to summon in the light of day than at night. Soldier’s Boy began to weary and to feel queasy from the way the landscape lurched and jumped as he passed it. Quite abruptly, he came to a halt. “We’ll rest here,” he announced.
“Here?” Likari asked in surprise. “This isn’t a stopping place.”
“It is now,” Soldier’s Boy replied grumpily. Olikea didn’t say anything. At a gesture from Soldier’s Boy, the water skin was passed around. Olikea dumped her trove of salvaged fuel on the ground in a heap. She stared pointedly at Soldier’s Boy. He puffed his cheeks in refusal.
“Making fire uses too much magic. You light it.”
For an instant, her lip curled up to bare her teeth. Then she turned her back on him, took out a Gernian-made flint-and-steel set, and set to work. Soldier’s Boy gritted his teeth to the unpleasant buzz of the exposed metal. She used part of the basket as tinder to catch the sparks, and the charred wood caught swiftly. It was not a large fire, but it pushed back the shadows and offered a little warmth. They shared the food Olikea had brought. On this rocky trail, there was no moss for Soldier’s Boy to command and no leaves to blanket them. Soldier’s Boy chose a spot along the edge of the trail wall and lay down. The ground was hard and cold. Olikea circled him, looking unhappy, and then took her place at his side. Likari lay along his back. The one blanket did not cover all their bodies. The dwindling warmth from the dying fire was almost meaningless in such a cold and stony place.
“I’m cold,” the boy whimpered once. Soldier’s Boy made no response but I felt him release some of his stored magic. My body warmed, and the two of them pressed closer. After a short time, I heard the boy sigh heavily and felt him go lax.
Olikea had put her back to my belly. She pressed in closer against me and yawned. Silence fell and I thought she slept. Then she asked, “Do you have a plan? For when we get to the Wintering Place?”
Soldier’s Boy was quiet for a long time, but I knew he did not sleep. With him, I stared wearily at the stony walls of the chasm. When he blinked, I felt the grittiness of his eyelids. The magic was like a small campfire burning in him, consuming the reserves he’d gathered. When he spoke to the dimness, I wondered if Olikea were still awake. “I’ll have to wait until I’m there. I’ve never been there before, you know.”
“But you know the way. How?” Olikea suddenly seemed uncertain.
“Lisana. Lisana shared many of her memories with me. She made this journey scores of times, first as a young girl and then as a Great One. I rely on her memories.”
They were quiet again and I felt Olikea relaxing against the warmth of his body. His arms were around her, holding her close to me. I felt sorry for her. Behind Soldier’s Boy’s closed eyelids, he was thinking of Lisana. My thoughts drifted toward Amzil. If only she were the woman in my arms now. Olikea exploded that fantasy.
She spoke softly. “You are not one of us. To some, that will be a problem. They may even be angry that you have come there.”
“I know. It will not make my task easier.”
“You will have to prove yourself to them before they will accept you as part of our kin-clan, let alone as a Great One.”
“I was thinking of that.”
She drew a deeper breath and let it out slowly, a prelude to sleep. “How long will it take us to reach the Wintering Place?”
“We could be there tomorrow. But I do not wish to move that swiftly and arrive there depleted of power. We will move more slowly and stop sooner.”
“That makes sense,” she agreed, and then said, “I need to sleep now.”
“Yes,” Soldier’s Boy agreed. But it was some time before he closed his eyes. I sensed he was weighing his options and planning a strategy. But I could not find a way into those thoughts and suspected he deliberately kept them from me.
CHAPTER NINE
JOURNEY IN DARKNESS
I became an observer of my own life. Soldier’s Boy was the first to waken. I’d been awake for hours, alone in his darkened skull and feeling oddly helpless. I knew that he was planning something, something that would affect both of us forever, but had no idea what it was or how I could influence him. I’d again attempted to move the body, to “sleep-walk” it while he was unconscious and succeeded not at all. All I could do was to wait.
He stretched slowly, mindful of the two sleepers who flanked him. Awkwardly, he disengaged his body from theirs. They both burrowed into the warm space he left, now sharing the blanket more comfortably. He walked a short distance away from them before he relieved himself. Overhead, a narrow stripe of blue sky showed. I tried to decide if the mountains were leaning closer to one another overhead, or if distance only made it seem that way.
When he went back to Olikea and Likari, the two had cuddled together. In the semidarkness, Olikea embraced her son, and both their faces looked peaceful. I wondered who the boy’s father was and where he was. Soldier’s Boy understood far more of Speck customs than I did. I found my answer in his mind. Only rarely did Specks select a mate and remain with one person for life. The kin-clan was the family who would raise the children born to the women. Usually, mates came from outside the kin-clan, and often the journey to the Wintering Place or the Trading Place was when young women met males from other clans for those liaisons. It was not necessary for a boy to know who his father was, though they usually did. Often fathers had little to do with sons until they were old enough to be taught the hunting rites. Then a boy might choose to leave his kin-clan to join that of his father, or he might decide to remain with his mother’s people. Women almost never left their kin-clans. It was not the Speck way.
“It’s time to travel again,” Soldier’s Boy said. His voice sounded odd.
Olikea stirred, and beside her, Likari grumbled, stretched, and then recurled in a tighter ball. He scowled in his sleep. Olikea opened her eyes and then sighed. “It’s not night yet.”
“No. It’s not. But I wish to travel now. The nights grow colder. I don’t want to be caught here when winter bites hard.”
“Now he worries about it,” she muttered to herself, and then seized Likari’s shoulder and shook it. “Wake up. It’s time to travel again.”
We did not quick-walk. The light from above reached down to us. It was the strangest natural setting that I had ever experienced. What had seemed like a pass between two mountains had narrowed to a crevasse. We walked in the bottom of it, looking up at a sky that seemed to grow more distant with every step of our journey. The sides of the rift were slaty, the rock layered at an angle to the floor. Rubble that had tumbled down into the rift over the years floored it, but a well-trodden path threaded through it. Moss and little plants grew in the cracks of the walls.
By late afternoon, the crack that showed the sky had narrowed to a distant band of deep blue. We came to a place where water trickled down the stony walls. It pooled into a chiseled basin, overflowed it, and ran alongside our path for some distance before it vanished into a crack. We refilled the water skin there and everyone drank of the sweet, very cold water. Plants grew along the stream, but not luxuriantly. It was evident that they had recently been picked down to the roots. Olikea muttered angrily that nothing had been left; tradition demanded that some leaves must always be left for whoever came behind. Soldier’s Boy, his stomach grumbling loudly, lowered himself to his knees. He put his hands in the cold water, touching the matted roots of the plants lightly.