She shuddered, drew herself up. ‘So, mockers. You thought the old woman a mad one, eh? So. Learn from this not to judge the soul from the look of the skin. Wrinkled I am, oh yes. But mad I am not.’ She waved them away from the circle to stand beside it tracing the paths which the stones had made in the dust as though they were the letters and words of a language she knew well.
‘I trace the stone of Leona,’ she said. ‘It moves to the north, then turns and goes east. And the stone of Thewson goes east also. And here they are, all, lying where the Jaer-stone lies, at the place on the circle Jaer stood. If you find what you seek, you will find it where Jaer is.’
‘I will truly find it?’ begged Jasmine joyously.
The old woman shook her head. ‘I didn’t say that. I said if you find it, you will find it there. You may not find it together, but you will not find it separately. Also, the stones lie not to the east, but to the north of east.’
‘You draw a strange map, vision maker,’ rumbled Thewson.
‘Then follow your own,’ she snapped.
Medlo coughed. ‘Old woman, the fact is simply that we do not know whether to trust you. Is this a true vision? Or a wickedness you have created for us to lure us toward Murgin? We may be weak and vacillating, but we think we know what moves us. What moves you? We do not know.’
Unaccountably, she grinned at them. ‘Well, I don’t blame you. Here you are, going along full of your own troubles, and you pause to rescue an old hag from chained captivity’ – at this, Jaer started – ‘who thrusts you into a vision with the Seekers chant. Well then. What am I? A member of the Sisterhood. Gone from it these fifteen years. Tired. Weary. Going home once again. A simple thing.’
There was an uncomfortable silence. Leona said, ‘I know of the Sisterhood. There is no evil in them that I have heard. Which Choir is yours?’
‘The Choir of Gerenhodh-south. At least it was. Who knows whether they will welcome me.’
‘I suppose it is only coincidence,’ drawled Medlo, ‘that from here, Gerenhodh Mountain lies north of east? It would not be that you simply wanted company?’
The old woman choked down laughter. ‘You are very bright, young man. No. I had not thought of that until now. But it is true. The vision I called for you lies along my path. And if the things you seek lie anywhere, they lie there.’
‘Well, I will go,’ said Thewson. ‘I have been not far to the east, and if the Crown of Wisdom is there, it is worth the journey. Two years I have asked of this Crown, and no one in these lands knows of it. Faxo voa luxuf; a mockery this journey. They say the one who took the Crown from my land was called the Axe King, so let us go east and ask about him. Why not? Wa’osu.’
Jasmine cried, ‘And what about me? I don’t want to go eastward. I came from eastward. I may be a slave, bought and paid for, but I do not want to go back the way I came. You, old woman, say my search ends there or not at all, but when I ask if I will find it there, you say no! You are full of weaseling words, old woman.’
Jaer looked up, hurt and angry, but Medlo forestalled him. ‘No, Jasmine. That is not just. If you would rather go west, go. Jaer would undoubtedly give you gold enough to get there. He did not bring you to Byssa on a leash. As for me, I will go to Gerenhodh if others go. Why not? My search has had no luck elsewhere, and I don’t much care.’
Leona said, ‘I am not unwilling to go. Though I may find my search there, it is probably too late to matter.’ For Leona had begun to believe that Fabla was dead, needed to believe that Fabla’s suffering had ended. When she had taken Jaer’s gold, she had assumed the leadership of the little group as she had done countless times in the past with similar groups. But now she sensed a difference, a strangeness, and something which had slept within her wakened slowly to uncoil and peer out at the world. ‘I do not desire to return the way we came. If you go northeast, I will go with you – until the time I wish to go elsewhere.’
‘Yes,’ sighed Jaer. ‘Whether we go east, or north of east, to the Sisterhood, or to the Sunrise… well. I welcome those who will come with me. Even you, Jasmine – or you can stay here. Or turn back to Byssa, or go overland to Hynath Port once more.’
Jasmine turned her back on them, weeping. The old woman patted her on the shoulder.
‘I know it is hard. You would rather go elsewhere, though you know not where. Still, girl, you won’t do your lost child any good if you are dead. Better to turn aside with us for a time and stay alive. At least Thewson’s great spear and Leona’s great hounds will guard you.’
Leona and Thewson acknowledged this grimly, already adjusting their packs for the road. Jaer gazed at Jasmine reproachfully, his lower lip out like a pouting child and totally unconscious of it. Jasmine began to laugh as she cried, took him by the hand and followed after the others.
They went across the ragged meadows into the wide forest lands which lay like petticoats at the foot of the mountains. They were going into the land called Ban Morrish in which were small villages named Bast and Rent and Vallip. Eastward lay Murgin, and beyond that the
