their ranks.'
The Cobbler's laughter was more cutting than any blade that had ever touched Soth's flesh. 'I already am part of their ranks,' he said.
The Cobbler vanished, and Soth's fist closed on empty air. Twined scents lingered in his wake, roses and burned flesh. His laughter persisted, too, until it finally diminished to a noise that had lost all its mirth and derision.
In the instant before it silenced, the Cobbler's laughter became the agonized scream of a child.
Nine
A chill lingered with Ganelon long after his meeting with Soth and the Cobbler. It wasn't the harbinger of some sickness. Neither sunlight nor a fire's warmth could lessen the sensation. By his third day in the Fumewood, he came to think of it as an icy shroud that had enwrapped his soul, one he could not shake off.
Thoughts of Helain only seemed to make the pall cling to him more fiercely. The Cobbler had called her 'mad,' not 'sick' or 'distracted' or any of the other euphemisms Ambrose and the others used. Ganelon knew that the mysterious man had been correct.
That fact didn't disturb him as much as it once would have. The whole world seemed mad now, full of walking dead men and living nightmares. Since no creature in the wilderness had so much as sniffed around his camp since that first night, Ganelon had to wonder if he, too, might not be crazed. That was what the Cobbler had said, wasn't it? 'The things in the Fumewood give the mad a wide berth.'
No, Ganelon could cope with Helain's madness and had no trouble envisioning himself caring for her. He still loved her, after all. What saddened him was the growing certainty that he had played some part in bringing on the insanity. Perhaps she'd mistrusted his promise to curb his wanderlust. Fear that her one true love would leave her might have driven her mad.
As he looked around him now, at the expanse of stunted pine that marked the vague border between the Fumewood and the Iron Hills, Ganelon could not deny the quickening in his blood. The Cobbler had told him that an adventurous life was his destiny. He'd even killed someone else to set Ganelon back on that path.
A ragged sigh escaped Ganelon's lips. He was on the right road, but it was a lonely one. All the times he'd wandered off from the mine, Ambrose and Kern and Ogier had known where he was going. It was a sort of game they played. He dropped hints in between demands to be left to his own devices. They carefully noted his plans, all the while grumbling about being kept in the dark. Ganelon's friends thought of themselves as safety lines, like the ones the miners used down in the pit when someone explored a newly discovered cave. It was a role they treasured.
They couldn't pull him back to safety now, though. No one could.
Ganelon glanced up at the late afternoon sky, swiftly darkening to match his mood's grim hue. Rain was on its way, and soon. For the hundredth time that afternoon, he cursed himself for his hasty departure from the shop. He'd managed to compensate for most of the things he'd left without. Soon after parting ways with the Cobbler, he had literally stumbled across a hunk of timber suitable for a club. The clanking of his brace prevented him from sneaking up on any small game and putting the makeshift weapon to use, but he knew enough woodlore to keep his stomach filled with roots and berries. Nothing in the forest, however, would suffice as a cloak.
Best find a place to spend the night, Ganelon thought, though his prospects didn't seem to include shelter from the storm. The Iron Hills were still too far away for him to hope for a fortuitously placed cave. He was well clear of any woodsman's paths, where he might find a lean-to or some other improvised haven.
The trees in this part of the Fumewood didn't offer anything in the way of potential building material either. Much of the growth here was old pine, blighted and misshapen. The trunks crawled with some sort of termite that devoured flesh as readily as it did wood. The fallen limbs and needles burned only grudgingly and produced a thick smoke that reeked worse than anything Ganelon had ever smelled. If he tried to harvest a living branch, it seemed to struggle against him. It was as if the woods knew what he was doing, just as in all the childhood stories Ganelon had ever heard.
That was reason enough for him to leave the trees alone. As the past few days had taught him, those old stories held more truth than he'd ever suspected.
So it was that the thrashing of branches and cracking of limbs behind him brought to Ganelon's mind an image of an angry uprooted tree instead of a more mundane traveler in the forest. At the sudden commotion, he dashed behind a fallen log and camouflaged himself as best he could beneath a blanket of pine needles. He had barely finished his work when the large figure blundered into view.
Ganelon couldn't see his face at first, but his hulking frame was clad in tatters of once-bright Vistani clothing. Scratches crisscrossed his bare arms. A gash in his side wept dark blood that told of a deep infection. The man reached up with both hands and pushed a branch away from his face; the dirty remains of bandages circled the wrists.
As the branch came away from the stranger's face, Ganelon gasped. It was Bratu. There were only mangled stumps where the man's ears should have been. Pus and dried blood smeared his face. The Vistana's bald pate was blistered from sunburn. His ponytail had come undone, and the tangled hair trailed down his neck like a horse's mane. Gone was the pompous bully of a fortnight ago. A ragged madman swayed in his place.
Ganelon decided to take a chance. Just after the Vistana passed the log, he pushed himself to his feet with his makeshift club. 'Bratu,' he called quietly, 'what are you doing here?'
The Vistana didn't turn, didn't pause. With a silent curse, Ganelon hurried after him. It was obvious. With wounds like that to his ears, the man couldn't hear.
As Ganelon got close, he could hear the constant rumble of odd, feral noises coming from Bratu. He was delirious with pain and probably starving. That made him dangerous. Ganelon hesitated, his hand part way to Bratu's shoulder.
Whatever senses left to the Vistana had alerted him to the presence of something behind him. With a bestial grunt, Bratu turned to Ganelon. The frenzy in those eyes made the young man back away.
'It's Ganelon, from Veidrava.' He let the club drop to his side and extended his other, empty hand. 'I'm a friend.'
Bratu rolled his head from side to side, eyes fixed on Ganelon's face. Whether he recognized the younger man or not, he seemed calmer. With a broad gesture at their surroundings, he opened his mouth to speak. All that came out was a pitiful moan of rounded vowels divided by blubbered Bs and Ws. His tongue was gone.
Ganelon turned away in disgust. Bratu's own people must have done that to him. It was probably part of some banishment ritual. This way, he couldn't speak of their secrets.
'I'm so sorry,' he whispered. But when he turned back, Bratu had already started off again.
Ganelon stood there for a time, uncertain what to do. There was nothing he could do to help the Vistana. Truth be told, he wasn't even doing a very good job of helping himself. If he was going to make it to the Iron Hills and find Helain, he was going to have to keep to his own path and let Bratu wander off on his own.
As the first drops of rain began to fall, Ganelon decided that the log and the pine needles were going to be the best shelter he could hope for tonight. He wedged himself against the wood and heaped needles over his legs and stomach. It would have been warmer to cover himself all the way to his neck, but that would only serve as an open invitation for the roaches and weevils to venture up to his face. They needed no extra help finding his ears and nose.
He fell asleep with a nightmare already half-formed in his brain: Blood-red beetles pressed into his mouth. Razored pinchers clacking in anticipation, they scurried to the root of his tongue and set to work.
The next morning, Ganelon awoke feeling more rested than he had any right to expect. The rain hadn't been as bad as the clouds had threatened, and the insects had only bothered him a little, despite his nightmare. He lay there for a time, eyes closed, willing away the last vestiges of the night's unquiet dreams. Finally, he stretched his arms and cracked open one eye at the morning light. The bright glare made him hiss and clamp his eyes closed
