“Needs more padding, in case it happens again,” the younger soldier said. “His have cracked more than once.”
Jean’s eyes went to the Genius.
“He likes to test them,” Liyla whispered. “A sharp tug can make them go, or a hard knock. And then, too, the wind blows on its own sometimes.”
Liyla’s breath was warm in her face, and it was as hot here in the open as it had been in the tent. Jean eyed the silver pendants. What would happen now if the others came? They wouldn’t know; they might do something bad. She closed her eyes and wished the ribbons away, wished the terrible silver balls would float up into the air and go. But wishing never did anything, at least not for her. She’d played once and brought the sea splashing skyward. But Laysia had said that was the way for the very young, who needed to play. This was no time for playing, and so she could only sit shivering across from Liyla, thinking that, after all, she was sorry for how mean she’d been to the girl in the tent.
In a thousand nightmares, the mist had risen to pursue her, to seek the exile it had relinquished. Now it did so. But rising, the mist touched neither Laysia nor the children. It hunted greater game. Uncoiling through the wood, a beast of the deep with a hundred arms, it rushed past through the trees, its whispered voice full of terrible promises.
Long ago, Tur Nurayim had spoken of the sanctuary — the council’s sanctuary — as wave and fire. Laysia remembered now that final debate of sages. Shall we nourish or destroy? And here was the final word in that debate — the sanctuary roaring it to the sky.
Behind the mist, Laysia could just make out the line of dim figures driving the wave. Full they were with fury and joy. Was the Master Watcher among them?
The thought made her stumble, and she half turned to search for him, shrouded there in the haze, when Kate’s cry stopped her.
“Jean!”
“Where?” Susan shouted. “Where? Do you see her?”
Kate had stopped abruptly near a ridge where the trees gave way to a low clearing that created a hollow to the west.
“No — no — he has her. He took her. . . .”
“The mist? She’s in the mist?” Susan gasped.
But Laysia knew the valley had not gone mad to rise up thus against one small child.
“No! She’s there —” Kate pointed straight ahead, to where the mist broke free of the empty wood and slipped down into the clearing like water.
“Who has her?” Nell snapped. “Tell us!”
Kate was shaking. “The Genius,” she cried. “He took her. He’s here.”
“No!” Nell shouted.
Kate shuddered violently and bent nearly double, hands pressed to her ears. Laysia ran to her, grabbed her hand — and reeled.
Voices crashed over her, the howling madness of the mist — but beyond it, more. She could feel the creatures in the wood scattering in terror, and the children, the battering of their fear and guilt, their hope and their anger. Startled, she dropped the child’s hand, and the sensations evaporated. In shock, she stared down at Kate. At the child’s touch, all the boundary between Laysia and the world had fallen away. The turbulent babble of life had poured into her ears, unfiltered.
“Kate! What did you do?”
Guilt, fear, worry. She did not need to hold the child’s hand to see it on her face.
“Nothing! Please! Can you get Jean?”
“Yes!”
She said it, but for a moment, though Susan and Nell charged ahead, Laysia stood rooted, caught by the memory of the sound rushing at her. So this was what the child heard! Laysia had read of such things and thought them only legends, but here was the world blaring its passionate intention into her ears. She looked back at the child and took her hand again, as the sea of emotion pulsed at her, vivid as the mist.
The mist slid into the hollow, a woolly fog crackling with static. The sound swelled and the haze rose as Jean shook and tried not to shake, tried not to disturb the terrible pendant around Liyla’s neck. And yet it was hard to be still when below the soldiers in the clearing faltered and bent, dropping weapons and putting hands to their ears. Already the men were changing, the hair on their faces thickening. Jean gasped, and the rancid air choked her, made her head swim. In the hollow, soldiers buckled and sank beneath the cloud, shrill wails of terror and pain shouted to the sky.
“Slashers!” the younger soldier croaked. “They’re making slashers!”
Despite the fire pendants, the captives cringed and bunched together.
“What is that?” Liyla’s mother cried. She’d struggled to sit upright, and Jean caught sight of the raw spot below her neck where the hair had been burned away. “Will it come here?”
From his place on the ridge, the Genius laughed out loud.
“As you expected!” he said to Ker. “Exactly!”
In the corral, the captives watched in horror.
“But they’re his own troops!” the ruddy soldier whispered. “What’s he done?”
“He’s mad,” the younger one said. “Gone mad, and feeding his own men to the beast.”
Jean stared into the hollow, watching the men twist and fall beneath the mist, then rise again, horrible and malformed. Howling, they ran in all directions, scrambling for the rise and falling back, and even running farther into the mist, blinded and wild.
The Listener of old had first heard the world speak and described the sound as a voice, ever singing. He had been mistaken. It was ever weeping, ever screaming, ever frightened and pleading. For that was the sound that rushed at Laysia now as she clung to Kate’s hand and heard the terror and pain that vibrated from the mist and the hollow. How had Kate withstood this voice of terror and fury? Was this what she’d heard all along?
Go!”
