'The Hibernian Ice Expedition was set upon by dire wolves,' said Kehinde. 'So say the accounts of the men who found the remains of the expeditioners.'
'In the village I come from, north of Ebora, where on clear winter days we can see the face of the ice, we know better.'
Kehinde was shaking her head. 'That there are forces in the world we do not understand is evident to all, but that does not mean that with proper investigation and measurement it cannot be explained by rational means.'
'The Hassi Barahals are known as a family who collects information,' said Chartji to me. 'What have they to say about all this?'
'It's true my father traveled as part of the family business and recorded both his observations and accounts told to him by the people he met,' I said, eager to move the subject away from airships. 'For instance, many villages, especially in the north, tell tales of the Wild Hunt. Sometimes the Hunt is merely the agent of natural death, marking the souls of those who will die in the coming year. But other tales say that the Wild Hunt hunts down and kills or carries off people who have drawn the notice or the anger of the day court and the night court, which are the unseen courts said to rule in the spirit world.'
'Their power is so vast it lies invisible to us,' said Brennan. He wore on his left hand a massive and rather ugly bronze ring, which he touched now as if it were an amulet to protect him against the gaze of the unseen courts.
Kehinde crossed her arms, giving him a skeptical look. 'What is invisible to us is nothing more than that which we do not comprehend. The tides and threads of magic that can be harnessed and manipulated by mages and bards and others like them do not thereby prove the existence of 'courts,' which no human or troll has ever laid eyes on.'
'What of eru?' I said cautiously. 'In tales, they're often called the servants of the courts. Although it's usually said they appear as human to our eyes.'
Godwik gave me a sudden, knowing look, although how I could read such emotion on his snout of a face I was not sure. Then he winked at me, as if we shared a joke.
'Rats and trolls love to tell stories about rats and trolls,' said Chartji, 'and tend to see rats and trolls wherever they can. Meanwhile there are dragons in the mountains of Cathay and along the rim of the Pacific Ocean. In the Levant, goblins drowse under the rule of the Turanians. When the salt sickness was unleashed from the deeps of the salt mines of the Saharan Desert, a plague of ghouls overran western Africa.'
'It wasn't a 'tale' that forced my people and so many others to flee our homeland,' agreed Kehinde. 'Greedy men who should have known better forced enslaved miners to dig where anyone could have told them they ought not to dig. When the first hive of ghouls was released, there was nothing anyone could do to stop more from hatching.'
'That is my point.' Chartji gestured, as in a court of law. 'The existence of creatures who are not human or troll does not thereby prove the existence of the courts.'
'I saw a sleigh of eru once, each one wearing spirit wings like i ihttJUCJ iboUl their body.' Godwik hoisted his cup and flashed a toothy grin at me as Brennan and Kehinde looked in amazement at his quiet statement. I choked on a spoonful of soup. I wanted to ask if they had all possessed three eyes, but dared not. He took a swig of wine before setting down the cup with a flourish that drew looks from the other tables. 'Indeed, it was on that very expedition paddling the length of Lake Long-Water that I was telling you about. My bucks and I, six to a boat and six boats in all, the age group of seven villages-I must call them villages, although they are not precisely villages as you rats build and organize such things. We set out laden with dried fruit and nuts to supplement the fish we expected to catch as we journeyed. You may wonder how it all started! What had transpired in the villages to make us eager to leave.'
'I want to hear what observations you made of the ice,' said Kehinde, 'for I am sure there was a purpose to your investigation, not just the adventurous escapade of thirty-six overly energetic young males.'
'I am all ears,' said Brennan. 'Rat that I am.' He winked at Chartji, whose grin sharpened.
Godwik took in a significant breath, as one does before commencing a lecture or a song.
Voices rose in the common room as men entered the inn.
Godwik fixed me in that odd way the trolls had, his head tilted to one side as if he were looking at me with only one eye. 'Perhaps, before I begin, the Barahal will wish to check on her companion? I sensed a'spot of trouble beforehand, did I not?'
He was an elder. I recognized that now in the lack of glossy sheen to his otherwise brightly colored feathers. Old, and wise, and clever. How in the name of Tanit had he felt the cold tide of Andevai's anger an entire chamber away beyond a closed door? Was Andevai that strong, or did Godwik have senses the rest of us lacked?
'He's being very quiet in there,' added Godwik, with one of those toothy grins that somehow translated into the gleam of his intelligent eyes.
I suddenly, overwhelmingly, and inexplicably felt a surge of liking for the old troll.
'Thank you,' I said, rising. 'If I may. Don't tell the story without me, I beg you. For I am eager to see if you ever actually reach the ice or just keep paddling down tributaries.'
He chuffed. Brennan laughed. Kehinde made a gesture, like a compatriot on the sidelines signaling to a fellow swordsman that it was a good thrust in a practice bout. Chartji's crest raised, a reaction I could not interpret.
I opened the door letting into the common room in time to see an old fiddler raise his instrument to his chin and pluck the strings, testing its tuning. Another old man set his kora on a pillow, used one hand on a bench and the other on his cane to
brace himself as he lowered into a cross-legged position on the pillow, and took the kora into his lap. Two younger old men- not quite so white-haired and creaky of limb-tapped curved hands over the skins of drums, heads bent to listen to the timbre. Around them, another dozen men, mostly old enough to need canes, settled onto benches as the innkeeper pulled ale and carried mugs four to a hand to the tables. They had the typical look of folk in this region: milk-white, freckled, tawny, brown, black, and every variety of mixed blood in between: One man had tightly curled reddish hair and freckles on a dusky face, another had coarse black hair braided, while others kept their thinning hair cut short and swept up in lime-washed spikes. A few had complexions blued with tattoos; some wore mustaches in the traditional style. There were even a few suspiciously
Roman noses among them.
At the hearth a man wearing the gold earrings of a djeli rekindled the firet as djeliw could do even in the presence of a cold mage. Andevai stood hallway between the door and the nearest table.
'Here, now, Magister, sit beside me.' The eldest of the men, a farmer by the look of his simple clothing and weathered hands, spoke directly to Andevai.
Astoundingly, Andevai obeyed. Stiff and silent and proud he might be, but he sat meekly enough beside the white-haired old man and accepted a common mug of ale, and when the old men scattered a few drops of ale at the room's little altar, he did likewise, and when they all drank, he drank. Then he glanced up and saw me standing in the doorway.
The old man followed Andevai's dark gaze with his own. 'Eh, maestra. This is no fitting room for a woman. Get you back to the supper room, now. We've men's songs to sing.'
I skittered back, chased by their hearty laughter and Andevai's glower, although what it portended I could not guess. Was he angry at me? Irritated at them? Frustrated at being stuck in a common inn for the night? Or was that annoyed arrogance just a quality inherent in his nature?
Hard to say, and, anyway, I was not about to ignore the words of an elder. As the fiddler's bow pulled a tune from the strings and the drums answered in a counter-rhythm, I kicked the brick away and pulled the door to the supper room shut. At the table, I ladled more soup into my bowl.
'So, Maester Godwik,' I demanded as a song broke into full flower beyond the closed door. 'What transpired in the villages to make you young bucks eager to leave?'
13
Godwik's tale wound down many tributaries. He and his thirty-five compatriots were reduced to twenty-seven after battles with vicious saber-toothed cats, foaming rapids, a marauding troo, gusting winds, and a party of
