It was Abasio who first called their attention to the silence. It was summer; the weather was warm. Normally there were sounds in the forest: the young that had been born in the spring would be learning to find food and shelter and water. Some would learn to gather nuts, others to graze on grass or browse tender leaves, and all that activity was accompanied by a constant, quiet chitter-chatter of squirrels, the calls of mate to mate, the territorial songs of birds, the nighttime twitter of bats and hoot of owls, the rustle of fallen leaves or underbrush where small, furry things hunted or sought hiding places from hunters. Now, however, the forest was silent, as though every creature in it was burrowed as deeply as possible, hidden as well as possible. No creature called any attention to itself.
“I can almost smell the thing,” Xulai murmured to Abasio, clenching her hands together to keep them from shaking. “I can imagine what it must have been like during the Big Kill. I find myself wanting to stop thinking so it can’t find me.”
“The library helmet says people took drugs then,” said Abasio, putting his arm around her. “They took drugs so they couldn’t think, but the slaughterers found them anyhow. We have unconscious thoughts that drugs don’t stop and the creatures could find. Remember what Precious Wind told us. At the end, it didn’t kill only the people who thought wrong things, it killed anyone who wasn’t thinking the right thing.”
Silently, he was thinking about losing Xulai. He would not. Duty or no duty, saving the race or the world, he would not. And if she was determined, then by all that was holy she would not go alone. Not the way Ollie had gone. Never again. Xulai would not go alone.
They stopped for the night at the Queen’s Skep in Hives. They found the small town locked, as though against a plague. Justinian had to convince the innkeeper that he could safely provide for them, and later that they could open to Precious Wind, who had come to report.
“The ul xaolat is finding game all too easily,” she said, her face twisted in revulsion. “I have never before seen hungry deer lie with their heads down, unmoving, half-starving, with browse all around them. The wolves know of the creature, as well. They can smell it. All of them turn into the wind, pointing, like trained hunting dogs. Men are dead, their families are dead, the wolves and ravens have found their bodies. We need to bring this to an end very soon.”
“The power source for your locator?” Abasio asked. “Is it mobile?”
“The original device was designed to store power from the wind. As I said, we’ve made one that uses human power. We can crank it or pedal it.”
“The Edges had solar power,” said Abasio reminiscently. Also, the Edges had walls. And places dug below where monsters could not come. And they had weapons. The warriors that attacked the Old Dark House had weapons, and what good did they do?
“We have solar and wind power in Tingawa,” she replied. “But for this, we need the power source to be totally reliable, even if clouds cover the sun or no wind blows. The locator sends out a pattern. If it finds that pattern, a signal comes back and shows up on the screen. We need to see that signal move, so we know it’s the creature, not some rag or bit of clothing or flesh it has lost or discarded.” She shook her head in frustration. “I could almost use the wolves for this! They only tell me the direction, though. Not the distance. Two men can keep the locator constantly powered all day or all night without being overtired. Four can keep it running night and day. Theoretically, we could put it in your wagon, Abasio, and keep it running as we moved, but it works more accurately if it is set up and established in one place where we can determine the fewest possible . . . things in the way.”
“Interference,” said Abasio. “That’s what things in the way are called. Like human beings. Animals.”
“Whatever it or they are called, we want to avoid them. So, we plan to unpack it high atop a tower at Woldsgard and use that as our locator base. We have far-talkers with us, so the people running it can keep in touch with us.”
“So you’ll locate the thing; then what?” asked Justinian.
“Then we’ll do something to entice it to the place we want it, when we want it,” said Precious Wind. She laughed shortly. “Meantime praying it does not find us in a place we don’t want it before we do want it.”
“You’ll look for a pattern,” said Xulai.
“We’ll pray for a pattern,” said Precious Wind. “A pattern lets us make a plan. If there is none, our task will be very much more difficult. And I’m not telling you anything else, because we don’t want anyone at all to know anything at all.”
“Including me,” said Xulai to her father. I wonder if I will survive this? I really don’t want to die. I’d like to have . . . my child. I’m very curious about my child. Of course, now that the sea eggs are being distributed, I’m not so important as I was before . . . They can risk me now.
“It seems unending,” said Justinian. “The Before Time, resurrected. The Big Kill, starting over.”
Precious Wind put her hand on his and squeezed it. “There is only one of them left, Duke of Wold. He, it, cannot go on much longer. Mirami is gone. Alicia is gone. The Old Dark House is gone. Even if we fail, there will be an end to it.”
“But at a terrible price for Wold,” he said.
“And Rancitor?” asked Xulai. “If he could use flesh from Mirami or Alicia, can’t he use Rancitor? Or Hulix?”
Precious Wind repeated monotonously, “There will be an end to it.”
Oldwife Gancer met the wagon at the
