the forest canopy, the sky turned to rose and gold with only the first hints of twilight’s ash, when the bowman returned with an old man who wore a chain of gold around his neck and brightly dyed cloth around his elbows and knees. The cunning man, or anyway a Southling village’s version of one. The cunning man walked a slow circle around them, his breath thick and heavy. Marcus felt the air on the back of his neck stirring. Kit watched solemnly as the cunning man finished his course, clapped his hands together, and shouted. A burst of light and sudden, vicious cold, and then the cunning man was walking up to them, grinning. His hand touched Marcus’s shoulder, and the two men nodded to one another, smiling. A little show of magic and force to keep them in line, then, followed by welcome. Kit’s grin was warm, open, friendly. The wall of guards dissolved, and the villagers came closer, as pleased and curious as if Marcus had been a two-headed puppy. A girl of perhaps six years came up to Marcus, holding out a broad green leaf as a present. When he took it, she giggled and fled.
“The mother rests now, but she will speak to you soon,” the cunning man said. “Very soon.”
“Give her our thanks,” Marcus said.
The haze went grey and then black. No starlight could fight its way through the thick air, and the moon was only a lighter quarter of the sky. Around them, the life of the village bustled. Children carried great buckets of water slung on sticks. A group of old men sat by one of the huts smoking something sweeter than tobacco and weaving long, thin strips of bark into rope. Another group of armed men arrived carrying a dead animal that looked like a longskulled boar, and for a moment the two strange travelers became only the second most interesting event of the night. Men and women watched as the animal was skinned and butchered. The carcass was being rubbed with a brown savory-smelling paste and prepared for the cookfire when the cunning man appeared again at Marcus’s elbow.
“Now,” he said. “Come both with me.”
The village mother’s hut was thick-walled and smaller inside than Marcus had expected. What room there was had been devoted to a single greeting chamber as ornate and impressive in its way as the greatest throne rooms of Northcoast. A dozen silent men knelt against the walls, swords and daggers in their hands. The dim orange light came from a single brazier, and by it the woman in the wooden chair seemed to float in a velvet blackness. Her pale skin caught the light, glowed with it. Her gown was simply cut, but glittering with soft metal thread and gemstones. She could have been a child or a woman Marcus’s age. Either way, she was beautiful.
Kit sank to his knees, and Marcus followed his example.
“Most gracious lady,” Kit said. “We thank you for speaking with us. We have come very far, and we are in need of your aid.”
The village mother smiled. Younger, Marcus thought. She had to be younger than he was.
“It is rare that travelers come so far to ask favors of me. More often, those who ask for my help find themselves where they had not meant to be.”
Kit fumbled for a moment in the darkness, then drew a folded parchment from his belt and unfolded it. Marcus couldn’t see it, but he didn’t need to. He’d studied the curves and angles of that map a thousand times, and in better light. If the village mother kept it or destroyed it, Marcus could draw it again from memory.
“A great evil has woken in the north,” Kit said. “A corruption from before the fall of the dragons. Already its chaos is spreading. With time, it will even reach here.”
The village mother nodded to the cunning man. He took the parchment from Kit’s hand and walked the few steps to her. Her gaze flickered across it, and the faintest scowl touched the corners of her mouth.
“And this?” she asked.
“There are tales of an ancient reliquary. Items of power gathered together by Assian Bey in the days after the fall of the Dragon Empire. Among these, there is said to be a blade envenomed by the art of the greatest of dragons. We have the task of finding this sword, carrying it back to the north, and with it, ending the corruption that threatens us all.”
Three of the men against the wall shifted their weight. With the poor light, it was hard to say, but Marcus had the impression that they were less preparing for an attack than seeing how he and Kit would react if they feared one. With as many as there were, he and Kit would be cut down in a breath. He might be able to kill or hurt one of the others. Two if he were lucky. Since there was no way to answer the threat, he ignored it.
“Three generations ago,” Kit continued, “a scholar and adventurer led an expedition from Herez. He was a Dartinae who went by the name of Akad Silas. He wrote back to his wife from the field. That which you are holding is said to come from the last reports that came from him. It suggests that he and his men were very near here, and that he believed they had found signs of the reliquary’s existence. I have come here to beg of you, gracious lady. If you know anything of this treasure or of the Silas expedition, please tell me. The fate of the world rests upon it.”
“And you?” the village mother said. It took a moment before Marcus realized she was speaking to him.
“Following Kit,” Marcus said. “Keeping him out of trouble.”
Her sniff carried a cartload of contempt. She handed the parchment back to the cunning man, who bowed until his forehead was even with his knees before he turned and put it in Kit’s outstretched hand.
“I am sorry, noble wanderer. You have wasted your time,” she said. “I know nothing of this adventurer, and I have never heard of any such reliquary.”
The soft exhalation, almost a grunt, that came from Kit might have been the blow of bitter disappointment. But Marcus was fairly sure it wasn’t.
“The map shows a place not far from here where Silas believed he would gain entrance. There is nothing there?”
“There is not. Nor is there any such place within the range of my people. You have been misled.”
Kit ran his hand over his beard to cover a smile.
“I am bitterly sorry to hear this,” he said. “But I thank you for your kindness and your hospitality.”
“You and your servant are welcome to remain and take your rest.” Her voice was gentler now. Marcus imagined that she would be glad to be so easily believed. With a man other than Kit, she might have been.
“You are kind,” Kit said. “Please, let me give you this map as a gift. It is a lie set in ink, but it has its beauty. It is of little use to me now, but it does show something of the lands which belong to you and your people.”
“I accept your gift. I did not expect northerners to be so thoughtful.”
“Northerners are as stones in soft earth,” Kit said. “We’re all different kinds. And some, perhaps, worth more than others.”
The fruit and meat that waited for them when they emerged from the hut would have been the midday meal for any of the other races of humanity. They ate in darkness apart from a small lamp placed near them as a courtesy. Around them, the bustle of village life went on by thin moonlight. The meat from the long-faced boar was sweet and a little gamey, but it was fresh and cooked with onions. A woman brought clay bowls of fresh, cold water to them. Marcus wouldn’t have been more pleased by the finest wine.
On the farther side of the yard, a circle of children sat, whispering into one another’s ears and occasionally breaking out in roars of laughter. Kit watched them with a sour expression.
“Problem?” Marcus asked.
Kit nodded toward the children at their game.
“You’ve played that?” he asked.
“Everyone’s played that. Whisper in one ear, then repeat it until something absurd comes out the far end. Harmless enough.”
“I dislike it,” Kit said. “I’m afraid that all the world’s like that. A long chain of men and women speaking what they believe as clearly as they can, and the truth leaking out like they were trying to hold water in their fists. Even without lies, without deceit, that over there is the best we can manage. A crust of misunderstandings. And all of history is made that way.”
Marcus nodded. The tone Kit spoke in said more than the actual words. “She was lying, then?”
“She was. Not all of it. When she said the Silas map didn’t show where the reliquary was, that was truth. When she said it wasn’t in the range of her people … that was less than true.”
“So it’s close, then.”
Kit took an onion and bit into it, shrugging.
“Probably. Certainly she believes it is.”
“That’s good.”
“On the other hand, it seems to me she’s protective of it. If we press on, the locals may be less friendly than
