Dreamers were among the first to turn their backs on historical truths. King Tehol would be swept aside, drowned in the inexorable tide of unmitigated growth. No one, after all, can stand between the glutton and the feast.
She wished him well, even as she knew he would fail.
In the midst of pelting rain she had left the camps behind, taking one of the old wood-bison migration routes through virgin forest. The mud of the ancient track swarmed with leeches and she was forced to dismount every bell or so to tug the mottled black and brown creatures from her horse’s legs, until the path led down on to a sinkhole basin that proved to be a salt-trap-the plague of leeches ended abruptly and, as she continued down-slope, did not return.
Signs of the old dwellers began to appear-perhaps they were Shake remnants, perhaps they belonged to a people now forgotten. She saw the slumping humps of round huts covered in wax-leaved vines. She saw on the massive trunks of the most ancient trees crumbled visages, carved by hands long since rotted to nothing. The wooden faces were smeared in black-slime, moss and lumps of sickly fungi. She halted her mount beside one such creation and stared at it through the rain for a long time. She could think of no finer symbol of impermanence. The blunted expression, its pits of sorrow that passed for eyes: these things haunted her long after she had left the ruined settlement.
The track eventually merged with a Shake road that had once joined two coastal villages, and this was the path she now took.
The rain had become a deluge, and its hissing rose to a roar on her hood, a curtain of water sheeting down in front of her eyes.
Her horse halted suddenly and she lifted her head to see a lone rider blocking her path.
He seemed a figure sculpted in flowing water. ‘Listen to me,’ she said, loud, unexpectedly harsh. ‘Do you truly imagine that you can follow us, brother?’
Yedan Derryg made no reply-his typical statement of obstinacy.
She wanted to curse him, but knew that even that would be useless. ‘You killed the witches and warlocks. Pully and Skwish are not enough. Do you understand what you have forced upon me, Yedan?’
He straightened in his saddle at that. Even in the gloom she saw his jaws bunching as he chewed for a time on his reply, before saying, ‘You cannot. You must not. Make the journey, sister, upon the mortal path.’
‘Because it is the only one you can follow, banished as you are.’
But he shook his head. ‘The road you seek is but a promise. Never attempted. A promise, Yan Tovis. Will you risk the lives of our people upon such a thing?’
‘You have left me no choice.’
‘Take the mortal path, as you said you would. Eastward to Bluerose and thence across the sea-’
She wanted to scream at him. Instead, she bared her teeth. ‘You damned fool, Yedan. Have you seen the camp of our-my-people? The population of the whole island-old prisoners and their families, merchants and hawkers, cut-throats and pirates- everyone joined us! Not even including the Shake, there are close to ten thousand Letherii refugees in my camp! What am I to do with them all? How do I feed them?’
‘They are not your responsibility, Twilight. Disperse them-the islands are very nearly under water now-this crisis belongs to King Tehol-to Lether.’
‘You forget,’ she snapped, ‘Second Maiden proclaimed its independence. And made me Queen. The moment we arrived on the mainland, we became invaders. ’
He cocked his head. ‘It is said the King is a compassionate man-’
‘He may well be, but how will everyone else think-all those people whose lands we must cross? When we beg for food and shelter? When our hunger grasps tight our souls, so that begging becomes demands? The northern territories have not yet recovered from the Edur War-fields lie fallow; the places where sorcery was unleashed now seethe with nightmare creatures and poisonous plants. I will not descend upon King Tehol’s most fragile subjects with fifteen thousand desperate trespassers!’
‘Take me back, then,’ Yedan said. ‘Your need for me-’
‘I cannot! You are a Witchslayer! You would be torn to pieces!’
‘Then find a worthy mate-a king-’
‘Yedan Derryg, move aside. I will speak with you no longer.’
He collected his reins and made way for her to pass. ‘The mortal path, sister. Please.’
Coming alongside, she raised a gloved hand as if to strike him, then lowered it and kicked her horse forward. Feeling his gaze upon her back was not enough to twist her round in her saddle. The weight of his disapproval settled on her shoulders, and with a faint shock she discovered that it was not entirely unfamiliar. Perhaps, as a child… well, some traits refused to go away, no matter the span of years. The notion made her even more miserable.
