The Magic of Recluce (26 page)

The bitterness of frozen and rotted field stubble swirled past me, and my legs seemed like they would knot into cramps so tight I would fall from the saddle…and my throat was tight…

When we reached the crossroads a kay from the gate I began to relax, but did not drop the light-reflective shield. While I was convinced we were too far for either an order-master or a chaos-master to detect the shield, if we appeared on an open road in plain sight of the walls, even a kay away, it would only be instants before a troop was dispatched. And although Gairloch was steady, I doubted that he could outrun true cavalry chargers on the road. In the mountains, perhaps, but not on the road.

So, cloaked from sight, I rode the south road quietly, as the surface changed from stone to smooth-packed clay, angling always toward the mountains I could sense vaguely in the distance until I was certain that the walls of Jellico had vanished behind multiple rows of the low rolling hills that seemed to lead toward the mountains.

Even past noon, even with the steady kays we had covered, wagons passed. Horsemen passed, and two post-carriages. I even had to ride around peddlers on foot, and a party of pilgrims, the one-god variety.

First the hills were low and rolling, covered in winter grass or crop stubble, the fields arranged in regular patterns and confined by low stone walls, with occasional hedgerows. Those huts close enough to the road for me to sense were ordered enough, if impoverished and stark.

When we crossed another road, running east-west—or so it appeared to my limited senses—I encountered no more wagons, and but a single horseman, a post-rider, I suspected.

As the hills had become steeper, the cultivated fields gave way to grasslands, separated from the road by a stone wall whose maintenance was haphazard. The smooth-packed clay turned to mud frozen in ruts, and Gairloch's pace slowed even more.

Very shortly thereafter, over the crest of the second hill past the other road, beside a high tangle of brush in a dip in the road, and after listening carefully for what I might not sense, I unwove the shield.

The wind was chill by mid-afternoon, and thick gray-roiling clouds had covered the blue skies of that morning when I had left Jellico. For all that, never had the gray of the sky, the sere brown of the grass by the roadside, the tan-gray of the stone walls at the field edges,
never
had they seemed so vivid.

I dismounted and studied the brown tangle where the hedgerow overtopped the wall, then glanced to the wonder of the clouds, taking a deep breath of air that seemed fresher just because I could see with my eyes again.

Near the top of the hill, further along the crest and away from the road, grazed a handful of black-faced sheep. Even seeing them was welcome.

I patted Gairloch. “You're one hell of a pony.”

He didn't even whinny, just accepted it.

I took a long drink from the water bottle. My throat was dry. Not knowing what action might dissolve our cover, I had done nothing but ride and had held nothing but the reins throughout the long departure.

Thurummm…urummmm
…As if to greet me, along with the thunder, light raindrops began to fall upon my upturned face. At that moment, I didn't care.

B
Y NIGHTFALL
I cared a lot more. First freezing rain had come down nearly in sheets, gradually turning the rutted road into a surface as treacherous as glass. Like knives, the ice fragments slashed from the sky. The hills were steep enough to make climbing impossible, but not rocky enough to contain caves or outcroppings.

In the end, I figured out what to do. Under a scrubby tree next to a stone wall, I created something like the light-weaving, except that it kept out ice and water.

Easy? Hardly, and with each rumble of thunder I felt more drained, though I forced myself to keep eating and drinking, knowing that I needed the energy to hold together the weather-net that sheltered Gairloch and me in a barren area, with but the marginal shelter of the hedgerow and a short stone wall.

Whheeee…eeee
…

“Easy…” I patted him for at least the hundredth time.

After the ice-rain came the snow, thick and wet at first, then cold and fine. Keeping the finer flakes from us took less energy, and by the time it was close to midnight the wind and snow had slackened enough and drifted deep enough against the wall and brushy hedgerow to provide a natural barrier. That let me relax my net and build a fire.

The warmth from the small blaze helped as I continued to weave a shelter and climb into my bedroll. Gairloch's internal order and appearance indicated he was far more accustomed to the hard weather than I, and finally I let go of the weather screen and collapsed into sleep.

Whhheeee…uh
…

The morning was gray, with windy gusts blowing the lighter snow into the once-clear area and over all but the warmest of the fire's ashes.

Yee-ah! Yee-ah!
The shrill call of the vulcrow jolted me full awake. Through a half-haze of fine snow-fog and sleep, I lifted my head—and wished I hadn't, as a line of fire split my skull down the middle.

“Ooooo…” mumbled a strange voice that resembled mine. The pain eased, but did not cease as I let my head rest on the quilted fabric of the bedroll.

Whhhssssssss
…Even the whisper of the snow echoed like thunder through my skull.

My arms ached more than in the first days with Uncle Sardit, more than after Tamra's drubbing me, more even than after Gilberto's hellish exercises.

“…ooooo…” I wished whoever was moaning would stop, but that didn't happen until I realized I was the one doing the moaning.

Yee-ah! Yee-ah!

Wheeee…eeee…whufff
…

Between the damned vulcrow sitting on the hedgerow and Gairloch suggesting that it was either time to eat or get up, I eventually woke up and levered myself into a sitting position, not even high enough to see over the wall and the snow drifted above it.

My cheeks tingled from the cold, and ice crystals fell from the steam of my breath. The fire in my skull not only burned; the bones surrounding my brain felt like a smith's anvil pounded by an unrelenting hammer.

Thinking the water bottle might help, I reached through the powdery snow for it, ignoring the minor arms cramps until I had it…and dropped it. Of course the water had frozen solid.

The fire was warm ashes, nothing more, and light snow covered all but the center cinders. How long it took to get the fire started, who could tell? My fingers nearly froze, since I had never replaced the leather gloves I had seared apart in Frven. The branches I had broken and set aside for fuel had frozen together.

Gairloch whuffed and whinnied, and each whuff and whinny cut through my ears like a knife. My legs cramped at each movement, and the wind blew out the fire three times, besides flinging dry bitter flakes into my eyes whenever I really needed to see something.

Order-use magic was out—that is, if I didn't want to finish destroying my body—and it seemed impossible to get enough warmth to get some water and food into my system.

On the other hand, I somehow doubted that much of a search for me was going on, not for a while. So, after much flailing, the fire burned again, and I found a small package of pressed grain which I fed to Gairloch. Except that I held it, half-leaning against him while he ate it.

In time, using the one battered skillet in the sack, I melted some of the snow, taking a few sips myself but letting Gairloch have most of it.

Then I ate—what, I'm not sure, but it didn't matter that much—and crawled back into my bedroll.

The fire was back to ashes when I woke again, and the sky was still covered with the featureless gray clouds. The wind gusted, and my head still ached and burned.

Wheeee…eeee

“…don't like it, either…” I mumbled.

The flailing to re-establish the fire was about the same, since I had to stagger through knee-deep snow down the hedgerow to find enough branches and sticks for fuel. But I was getting somewhere.

Sitting by the fire, I ate some more, drank some more, and felt the headache subside a bit more.

Clearly, we weren't traveling anywhere quickly, and there was no point in trying, not when the road wasn't even visible except in the higher and more exposed places where the wind had swept the snow off in order to build waist-high drifts—if not higher—in the depressions.

While I had no schedule to meet, we had not even reached the true base of the Easthorns. Was there any chance of crossing them?

My eyes traveled to the southwest.

Surprisingly, I could see the darkness of conifers on the lower slopes, as if the mountains had received less snow than the hills beneath them.

I shivered and forced myself to eat another few mouthfuls of the travel bread. Then I told my reluctant body that it was time to loosen up. The protests were monumental, enough that I nearly lost what I had just eaten. So I leaned against Gairloch, my eyes damp in frustration.

So damned unfair…but fairness sure as hell counted for nothing.

I kept moving, if more slowly, and melted some more snow for Gairloch and gave him the rest of the grain cake. Half of Justen's sack was for him, a division of provisions that never would have crossed my mind.

As I struggled to lift the large canvas sack of provisions back onto Gairloch, I wondered how long it would be before I could see things in advance. I mean, there was nothing special about the provisions, just that same faded and heavy gray canvas, still filled almost to overflowing and representing a goodly portion of Justen's stocks. But, in the instants while I was trying to escape Jellico, he had packed with more forethought than I had since I landed in Freetown.

Justen—I already missed the gray wizard. Now all the choices were mine, and it had already become clear just how little I knew about the real world of Candar. At the same time, Justen hadn't been that much better than my father, Talryn, Tamra, or the half-a-dozen others who had more knowledge than I did—and refused to share it. Each of them had given me just enough for me to know there were unanswered questions…and said it was up to me to find the answers.

Yee-ah! Yee-ah!
The vulcrow was back, probably waiting for us to die, but I had a different idea.

Finally, sometime after midday, under the featureless gray clouds that obscured the time, I swung up on Gairloch and let him take his own pace through the snow. He avoided the wind-swept areas, still icy, and made his way along the side of the road.

Unlike me, he seemed to enjoy the ride.

My guts ached, and while the headache had diminished to a dull pounding, my eyes burned and my hands trembled.

Gairloch walked carefully and I hung on, occasionally sipping from the water bottle I had tucked inside my cloak, now containing half ice and half water.

Despite the gusts and the chill, I sweated and the dampness froze on my forehead, then seemed to freeze-boil away.

By mid-afternoon, as the sky darkened, the lower slopes of the Easthorns were closer and the snow was only ankle-deep. More important, it had apparently not rained first, and there was little ice on the open spots in the rutted road. Gairloch still preferred walking in the lighter snow than on the frozen clay.

The sweats had left me, as had the headache, replaced by a light-headedness and a feeling of weakness.

I kept looking for somewhere to stop, but the hills had grown increasingly more barren and rocky as we trudged toward the lower slopes of the Easthorns, which now seemed to get no nearer.

Meanwhile it got darker, and I peered through the blowing snow as the wind rose, looking for another hedgerow, another sheltered spot, at least one out of the wind.

Wheee…eeee
…

“That goes for me, too.”

Night had not yet overtaken us, and we could have traveled longer, but a darkish shape not far off the road resolved itself into something—an abandoned hut, a waystop. Who could tell? I wasn't sure I cared. I risked trying to feel whether the place was disordered, and immediately recovered the headache I had almost forgotten about. The hut was chaos-free, all four sides, and it had a roof of sorts, made of slate shingles though half were missing, as well as an open hearth beneath a hole in the roof.

With no door and two oblong holes where shuttered windows had been it was drafty indeed, but the remnants of the door and the shutters were enough for a small fire to warm the space occupied by one tired young man and a strong pony.

We ate, and we both slept, and the next morning was merely cold, with stray staffs of sunlight peering through the breaking clouds, and light gusts of chill air.

Best of all, my headache was gone, though my back was sore and my muscles ached. In the warm darkness, it looked as though the Easthorns had moved closer, as though I could reach out and touch the conifer-covered lower slopes of the foothills.

That wasn't exactly right, but we did reach the road-marker noting the road to Fenard by mid-morning, and by then had reached the edge of where the recent snow had fallen. While there was snow under the trees, the occasional tracks on it, and the finger-width distance between its white and the brown of the tree trunks told that the storm that had attacked me had not reached the Easthorns.

I shivered again at that thought, looking back over my shoulder, but saw no one and nothing on the road behind. I did wish that I had possessed the ability to conceal Gairloch's tracks, but surviving the storm and cold had been hard enough.

Not more than another kay past the road-marker we passed a narrow stream that disappeared underground right to the east of where we stood. Warmer than the air, a fog rose from the water, and I let Gairloch drink as he would while I rinsed the canteen and washed my face and hands in the pleasantly chill flow. Before I had finished washing, my friend and companion found some tufts of grass still partly green to nibble.

For the first time since scrambling out of Jellico, I could peer into the supply sack provided by Justen while there was light enough to see. Even so, I almost missed the off-white square tucked between two oatcakes wrapped in oiled paper.

Folded into a square the size of my hand, it bore one word—“Lerris.” My head was still swimming and I did not open it, but tucked it instead into my belt pouch and continued to search for another package of travel bread. I found it, and a small pouch of spiced dried apples.

While I ate travel bread and dried apples, Gairloch alternated slurps of water from the not-quite-underground river with bites from the narrow stretch of grass nurtured by the spray from the fast-moving water.

Glancing overhead, I realized that the clouds seemed to be darkening and thickening once again. So I finished as much as my stomach would hold without rebelling and climbed back into the saddle.

Then we started up the narrow road again, winding in and out of ever-steeper hills, and at each turn I looked for a sign of other travelers, or wayfarers' huts, or some shelter, with one eye checking the sky visible in the space between the hills.