waited, dressed in suede, speaking that accent Sara found tantalizingly familiar. Hot food awaited the party — along with a dozen fresh mounts.
Someone is a good organizer, Sara thought. She ate standing up — a pungent vegetarian gruel. Walking helped stretch kinked muscles.
The next stage went better. One of the Illias showed Sara a trick of flexing in her stirrups to damp the jouncing rhythm. Though grateful, Sara wondered.
Where have these people lived all this time?
Dedinger, the desert prophet, caught Sara’s eye, eager to discuss the mystery, but she turned away. The attraction of his intellect wasn’t worth suffering his character. She preferred spending her free moments with Emerson. Though speechless, the wounded starman had a good soul.
Villages grew sparse south of the Great Marsh. But traeki flourished there, from tall cultured stacks, famed for herbal industry, all the way down to wild quintets, quartets, and little trio ring piles, consuming decaying matter the way their ancestors must have on a forgotten homeworld, before some patron race set them on the Path of Uplift.
Sara daydreamed geometric arcs, distracting her mind from the heat and tedium, entering a world of parabolas and rippling wavelike forms, free of time and distance. By the time she next looked up, dusk was falling and a broad river flowed to their left, with faint lights glimmering on the other bank.
“Traybold’s Crossing.” Dedinger peered at the settlement, nestled under camouflage vines. “I do think the residents have finally done the right thing … even if it inconveniences wayfarers like us.”
The wiry rebel appeared pleased. Sara wondered.
Can he mean the bridge? Have local fanatics torn it down, without orders from the sages?
Dwer, her well-traveled brother, had described the span across the Gentt as a marvel of disguise, appearing like an aimless jam of broken trees. But even that would not satisfy fervent scroll thumpers these days.
Through twilight dimness she spied a forlorn skeleton of charred logs, trailing from sandbar to sandbar.
Just like at Bing Hamlet, back home. What is it about a bridge that attracts destroyers?
Anything sapient-made might be a target of zealotry, these days.
The workshops, dams, and libraries may go. We’ll follow glavers into blessed obscurity. Dedinger’s heresy may prove right, and Lark’s prove wrong.
She sighed. Mine was always the unlikeliest of all.
Despite captivity, Dedinger seemed confident in ultimate success for his cause.
“Now our young guides must spend days trying to hire boats. No more rushing about, postponing Judgment Day. As if the explosers and their friends could ever have changed destiny.”
“Shut up,” Kurt said.
“You know, I always thought your guild would be on our side, when the time came to abandon vanities and take redemption’s path. Isn’t it frustrating, preparing all your life to blow up things, only to hold back at the crucial moment?”
Kurt looked away.
Sara expected the horsewomen to head to a nearby fishing village. Hoonish coracles might be big enough to ferry one horse at a time, though that slow process would expose the Illias to every gawking citizen within a dozen leagues. Worse, Urunthai reinforcements, or Dedinger’s own die-hard supporters, might have time to catch up.
But to her surprise, the party left the river road, heading west down a narrow track through dense undergrowth. Two Illias dropped back, brushing away signs of their passage.
Could their settlement lie in this thicket?
But hunters and gleaners from several races surely went browsing through this area. No secret horse clan could remain hidden for more than a hundred years!
Disoriented in a labyrinth of trees and jutting knolls, Sara kept a wary eye on the rider in front of her. She did not relish wandering lost and alone in the dark.
Gaining altitude, the track finally crested to overlook a cluster of evenly spaced hills — steep mounds surrounding a depression filled with dense brush. From their symmetry, Sara thought of Buyur ruins.
Then she forgot about archaeology when something else caught her eye. A flicker to the west, beckoning from many leagues away.
The mountain’s wide shoulders cut a broad wedge of stars.
Near its summit, curved streaks glowed red and orange.
Flowing lava.
Jijo’s blood.
A volcano.
Sara blinked. Might they already have traveled to—
“No,” she answered herself. “That’s not Guenn. It’s Blaze Mountain.”
“If only that were our destination, Sara. Things’d be simpler.” Kurt spoke from nearby. “Alas, the smiths of Blaze Peak are conservative. They want no part of the hobbies and pastimes that are practiced where we’re headin’.”
Hobbies? Pastimes? Was Kurt trying to baffle her with riddles?
“You can’t still reckon we’re going all the way to—”
“To the other great forge? Aye, Sara. We’ll make it, don’t fret.”
“But the bridge is out! Then there’s desert, and after that, the Spec …”
She trailed off as the troop turned downward, into the thorn brake between the hills. Three times, riders dismounted to shift clever barriers that looked like boulders or tree trunks. At last, they reached a small clearing where the guides met and embraced another group of leather-clad women. There was a campfire … and the welcome aroma of food.
Despite a hard day, Sara managed to unsaddle her own mount and brush the tired beast. She ate standing, doubtful she would ever sit again.
I should check Emerson. Make sure he takes his medicine. He may need a story or a song to settle down after all this.
A small figure slipped alongside, chuffing nervously.
No — Go — Hole—Prity motioned with agile hands. Scary — Hole.
Sara frowned.
“What hole are you talking about?”
The chimp took Sara’s hand, pulling her toward several Illias, who were shifting baggage to a squat, boxy object.
A wagon, Sara realized. A big one, with four wheels, instead of the usual two. Fresh horses were harnessed, but to haul it where? Surely not through the surrounding thicket!
Then Sara saw what “hole” Prity meant — gaping at the base of a cone hill. An aperture with smooth walls and a flat floor. A thin glowing stripe ran along the tunnel’s center, continuing downhill before turning out of sight.
Jomah and Kurt were already aboard the big wagon, with Dedinger strapped in behind, a stunned expression on his aristocratic face.
For once Sara agreed with the heretic sage.
Emerson stood at the shaft entrance and whooped, like a small boy exploring a cave first with his own echoes. The starman grinned, happier than ever, and reached for her hand. Sara took his while inhaling deeply.
Well, I bet Dwer and Lark never went anywhere like this. I may yet be the one with the best story to tell.
Alvin
I FOUND MY FRIENDS IN A DIM CHAMBER WHERE frigid fog blurred every outline. Even hobbling with crutches, my awkward footsteps made hardly a sound as I approached the silhouettes of Huck and Ur-ronn, with little Huphu curled on Pincer’s carapace. All faced the other way, looking downward into a soft glow.
“Hey, what’s going on?” I asked. “Is this any way to greet—”
One of Huck’s eyestalks swerved on me.
