“Maybe they know something.”
“They know history.”
Kristen read the general’s letter again. It was not ambiguous. “It is what it is. Fussing won’t change it. It sets limits on how the tapestry of tomorrow can be woven.”
“I just hate… Forget it. You’re right. We’ve been told. Only Bragi can change it.” Inger put her embroidery aside, rose, paced, eventual y wondered, “When wil she send them back? She said she would.”
Mist had made no demands other than to ask that her lifeguard be treated wel . He had a family. They looked forward to his homecoming.
Inger was concerned more about her sorcerer than her husband. Without Babeltausque or money she was just an impoverished noble who had not yet abandoned her airs.
Having others acknowledge her status meant everything to Inger.
She had a ful ration of the Greyfel s inferiority complex.
“She’s probably too busy staying alive.”
“Understatement. You’re good at that, aren’t you? Of course she’s busy! That happens when you’re dim enough to try to play on the same field as… Ah! You almost got me to say it.
That would be one way to get around those dire warnings about what wil happen if…”
Kristen did not argue. There was no point. Inger was stressed. She would be who and what she was, only more so.
Inger punched herself in the forehead. “Stupid! Why do I go al whack job when it’s time to be sensible?”
“Suppose we get Ozora back?”
Inger stopped pacing. “Are you serious?”
“If she was here, neither of us would mouth off without thinking first. That dragon would lean on us so hard…”
“I couldn’t take it. The pressure would build up and I’d do something stupider than anything Dane would try. What I’l do, though, is ask myself, ‘What would Ozora do?’ when I butt heads with something real y tough.”
“I’l try that, too. What about your cousin? Is it real y safe to send him home?”
Inger shrugged. “His time in the cel ar won’t have changed him much but he might’ve grasped the fact that he has to at least fake it to survive. Plus the family needs somebody in Itaskia. Their problems are so awful, he won’t ever have time to bother us again.”
“That makes sense.” And, she was sure, Greyfel s would get his own unambiguous communique from High Crag.
“I’ve had a letter myself. From Abaca Enigara.” Kristen watched Inger think, realize, harden, but consider, What would Ozora do? before she asked, “Would that be the Colonel’s daughter?”
“That would. Being a girl, custom won’t al ow it official y, but, practical y, she’s chief of chiefs of the Marena Dimura now.
Some good soul let her know al about the Thingmeet. She wants to fol ow the path her father tried to blaze.” Inger drew on Ozora again before she suppressed her prejudices enough to observe, “This poor hagridden kingdom. I pity it if Bragi and Michael don’t come back.”
“Real y? My whole life women have been tel ing me how much better the world would run if the girls were in charge.”
“Pardon my cynicism. Show me a couple of examples.” Kristen shook her head. The only women she knew of, who had gotten famous, had been real y serious kickers of ass.
...
Babeltausque found himself second-in-command to his thirteen-yearold girlfriend, who could be precisely decisive even when she had no clue. She was one of those people who got things done.
“Lein She, we need firewood.” In seconds she had determined that the Candidate was the line officer while Tang Shan was only a senior technical specialist. “Send someone to find some. Then we’l inventory our resources, including skil s, before our ability to communicate goes away.”
It might. The easterners were becoming harder to fol ow. “Keeping warm is our main project for now.” Dawn came. They watched it from the portico of what seemed to be a temple. The world sprawled below was grey and white with tufts of brown weed showing through crusty old snow.
Carrie said, “Let’s figure out where we are. And find something to eat. I’m real y hungry.” Fire was no problem. A forest lay at the foot of the hil . The easterners had tramped a path already.
Tang Shan spoke slowly. The sorcerer said, “I can’t fol ow him anymore.”
“What he said last night. He’s been here before. Only now he says if we head straight south we’l come to a road.”
“You stil understand him?”
“You have to listen hard.”
Tang Shan said something more.
Babeltausque listened hard. This time he caught a few words. Something about smal game. Rabbit and bird tracks marred the snow. The crust had weathered til those were featureless depressions, but they did suggest that a clever hunter need not starve. “I can help with food.”
“We’re going to get cold,” Carrie said. “Them worse than us. They’re not used to our kind of winter. But we can’t stay here—unless we want to make it to spring by eating each other.”
Babeltausque asked, “Why do you say things like that?”
“Gal ows humor? Al right. It wasn’t funny. But it was true. If there’s a road we need to find it and let it take us somewhere warm.”
The sorcerer could not argue with that. “Let’s get out of the wind and get a plan worked out.” Carrie was right about them going to get cold. They had barely enough clothing amongst them to preserve the new girl’s modesty and their own. And they would have to help the woman travel. She did not do wel on one foot.
She was a strange one. The oddest things amazed her.
Carrie said, “Bee Boss, we could outfit you and send you for help while the rest of us stay by the fire.” Him because he was most likely to get serious attention, of course.
“Wouldn’t work. This place can’t be found from outside, remember?”
“Are we sure this is the place where the King came back?”
“You heard Tang Shan. And how many secret temples, with transfer portals in them, can there be near Vorgreberg? So we al have to go and we al have to be miserable and I real y, real y hate that. I real y don’t like winter. And right now it feels cold enough to cause frostbite.” The easterners kept whispering amongst themselves. Near as Babeltausque could tel they were trying to fol ow what he and Carrie were saying. He and she spoke deliberately, for their benefit, and for that of the woman, who seemed able to read moods wel , if not fol ow their actual speech.
Tang Shan focused on Carrie intensely, working hard to maintain communication. Survival might depend upon it.
She reported, “He says they can create a heat exchange bubble big enough to keep three people warm. We can take turns.”
“That should help.” He had no idea what a heat exchange bubble might be. Definitely not something within his own skil set. Food he could help with. He could cal game to the slaughter if he could see the animal before he started the draw. “How far to that road?”
“He says it’s a matter of time, not distance.”
“That’s right. It took the King and them hours and hours to cover three or four miles.”
“We’d better get started. There’s less daylight this time of year.”
...
Scalza shouted, “Mother! I found them!”
Mist closed in quickly, wondering who. They were looking for more than one… Ah. The sorcerer, his girlfriend, and some of the Karkha Tower garrison, with Tang Shan, al crowding a bonfire beside a dirt road in a snowy forest.
So a few had gotten away, probably because they had been moving the couple along when Old Meddler arrived.
