“Please. Do. See if they’re all alike.” He wandered away, keeping his face with its oddly Shifted eyes turned from the loquacious old man who was lecturing Queynt and Chance on the intricacies of dream mining.
“Sometimes there’d be a dozen little ones in one nodule, sometimes only one. Used to be pretty green ones in this mine, good ones, too. Happy stuff, no death dreams; forests and birds mostly. I ‘member one was about flyin’. Oh, me’n Jermiole shared that one, flew all over. Mountains, valleys. One great chasm we saw all full of cities built on tree roots, if you could believe that. Great groles down in the bottom of it, too, and up on top the hugest beasts you’ve ever seen. Saw parts of the world never knew were there. Well, p’raps they aren’t, if you take my meaning. In the crystal they were, sure as certain.”
“Were a lot of these yellow ones dug out of here and put into commerce?” I asked Gerabald.
“None from here. Fella used to work here dug up the first one, tasted it — well, we almost always did, you know. Didn’t know what to ask for ‘em until you tasted ‘em—and we found him four, five days later where he’d wandered off to, deader’n a baked bunwit, half the crystal still in his hand. Well, if that wasn’t enough, came some ijit through here a few days later, didn’t ask, didn’t tell anybody, and dug a bunch of ‘em, gave ‘em to his entire party, parents, children. They must’ve shared ‘em around, cause we found ‘em all gone. That was enough, let me tell you. We never sold another from this mine after that.”
“If we’ve seen a lot of these on the road, then, they must have come from somewhere else?” I asked.
The old man stumped over to me, looked up at me with rheumy eyes, whispered, “Way I hear it, lassy, they’re coming up ever’where. Used to be a mine over near Smeen, nothin’ but pure greeny-blue crystals. Most greeny-blue ones are the best kind. Make you healthy, they do. Long-lived. Me’n Jermiole’r more than a hundred ten, you know that? We just go on, cheerful as tumble-bats from the ones we used to get fifty, sixty years ago. Well, that mine’s nothin’ but these yallery things now. So I hear. Sad, too. I’ve got a few of those old ones left, but sad to think there’ll be no more.” He stumped away again.
That was more than merely troublesome. It was scary. Peter came up behind me, began stroking my back. All I wanted to do was turn around, but I gritted my teeth and told my belly to stop melting in that ridiculous way.
“All of them,” he said, continuing the stroking. “All of them have that little tube coming up from deep in the earth somewhere.”
Gerabald Buttufor looked back at me, calling loudly, “Better throw that yallery thing away, lassy, pound it up to powder. Dangerous, those are.”
“I know.” Who knew better than I? No one else had buried more of the victims than I had. Still, the thing went in my pouch. Sometimes one had need for dangerous things. This crystal was one. The idea I had just had was another.
CHAPTER SIX
As soon as it was light, Queynt arrayed himself quasifantastically as suited a Merchant’s man from Bloome.
He wore the seal of office, the plaque of jet with the letters “DM” picked out in brilliants in a circle of multicolored gems. We three others put on the black garb from Zinter that Queynt had provided from his costume store. I considered it inauspicious clothing while accepting that nothing could be more anonymous. A stretchy black garment covered the body and head with a half veil over nose and mouth. Over all this went a voluminous cloak, dark as midnight, with one stripe, the color of dried blood, running from throat to hem. The cloak had a larger, metal-lined hood hanging at the back to be used in case of hail. The people of this region were preoccupied with the possibility of storm, and we were beginning to understand why.
There were no boots among Queynt’s provisions, so we wore our own, decorated with new ornaments to make them look foreign and strange. I chose a pair of gilt snakes for the outside of each boot: Peter chose salamanders and Chance a pair of Basilisks. At the sight of these last, I couldn’t help shuddering.
“What’s wrong?” Peter came to my side with a concerned expression.
“Nothing much. It’s those Basilisks on Chance’s boots. Made me think of Dedrina Dreadeye. Dedrina-Lucir’s mama.”
“Lucir? That was the one who tried to kill you?”
“Yes, she tried, but I succeeded. I killed her, and I’ve walked in fear of the Basilisks’ vengeance since. Dedrina Dreadeye is still alive; sometimes I remember that and it makes me go all over cold. Porvius Bloster came northward, I remember. Likely his sister Dreadeye did, too. I keep expecting to encounter her, or him, or both.” I wandered toward the rocky edge of the shelf we had camped upon, stood looking toward the eastern horizon.
“We’ve seen no sign of her, or him.” He stood beside me, giving me lecherous looks. No. I thought of them as lecherous. Perhaps he intended them only to be admiring.
“True. I’d feel happier if we had—if we knew, for instance, she was headed off in some specific direction, preferably away from us. Ah, well. Not important now. What is important is Queynt. How’s he feeling?”
“Seems in good spirits. Asked me what we’d done with the amethyst crystal.” He turned to look back at the wagon, where Queynt and Chance seemed engaged upon wheel repair.
“What did you say?”
“Told him I hadn’t seen it since the event.” He moved toward me with a purposeful leer.
“Peter,” I begged weakly. “Don’t.”
“Peter, don’t!” he mimicked savagely. “Gods, Jinian. I’ve had enough of “Peter, don’t.”“
“You know why. It isn’t
