Chapter Nine

Mossal plodded down the road. Every time the iveri’s large, furry feet struck the dirt, another jolt of pain shot through Zyran’s body. The pleasant cooling sensation brought on by the leafy paste that the iveri farmer’s wife had covered his legs with had faded. He tried to ignore the pain by focusing on his surroundings, which had changed substantially over the course of the hours since he had left the cabin.

They had come down from the rocky, pine-spotted mountainside, and were now passing through gently rolling hills, broken by small gullies filled with running water, covered with thick green grass and decorated by wildflowers and the occasional stand of large deciduous trees. It was pleasantly cool after the hot desert and cold tunnels. The great stone mass of the mountain loomed behind him, and snow-capped peaks blended in with the clouds far to his left and ahead of him. A gentle breeze brought snatches of some strange, chirping song that had mildly disturbed him until he had discovered that it was produced by small feathery creatures that flew away at his approach.

It was a beautiful place, really, ideal for distracting anyone from pain, but it wasn’t quite working. The sun had just passed overhead when Zyran had to gasp, “Down, Mossal.” He barely managed to cling on while the beast lowered itself to its arthritic knees. The instant Mossal’s belly touched earth, Zyran let go of its sparse mane and dropped to the road with a groan, the staff digging into his side. His upper body was sore and stiff, he was covered in sweat, his injured arm was throbbing painfully, and his legs were agony.

For some time, he found himself of the opinion that moving was highly overrated. He lay in the road, trying to think of something else, anything else. He reached out and grasped instinctively, and found himself clutching Mossal’s woolly, filthy, unpleasant-smelling fur. It was strangely comforting to have something to grab. He was vaguely aware that the sakiru was still lying prone, draped across Mossal’s shoulders. The thought that his current position was unworthy of a servant of Death crossed his mind, but the alternative was to get up, and Zyran was not ready to attempt that.

Whiskers brushed his shoulder. Mossal was sniffing him. A horrible thought occurred to him. Iveri ate anything. That was what the iveri farmer’s wife had said. He let go of its fur and pushed the beast’s muzzle away sharply, pain streaking through him as he moved. Mossal snorted in surprise and pulled away. Zyran lifted his head to watch. The beast got laboriously to its feet and began eating the grass at the side of the road, sampling several different types before it found one that it liked.

Relief washed over him. The iveri wasn’t going to eat him, or at least not yet. He let his head fall back against the hard dirt of the road. Now he just had to force himself to get up. Somehow. It seemed that he had had to do that a great deal recently.

After lying still for a few more minutes, listening to Mossal shred grass into oblivion, wishing desperately that he could stay there for another few hours, Zyran rolled over onto his stomach. It hurt, predictably. It hurt a lot. “Mossal,” he croaked. “Mossal, down.”

The iveri turned to look at him, looked back at the grass, sighed, and grudgingly got into position. It stretched its neck out further than Zyran would have thought possible and continued eating while Zyran used his arms to drag himself alongside the beast. He took several slow breaths, preparing himself, then pulled himself onto Mossal’s back and swung his leg over the animal’s side in one motion.

He groaned. Everything hurt, from his head to his feet. But he was back on the iveri. He touched the sakiru’s gently glowing body, assuring himself that it was still alive, and tried to think of anything else he could possibly do, anything but moving.

But there was nothing. And the sooner they left, the more quickly they went north, and the more quickly they went north, the sooner they would arrive at…wherever the mage was, and the sooner they got to the mage, the sooner he would be back, back in Death’s Hollow, where he would be made immortal again, and the pain would stop. Yes. No alternative.

“Up,” he said, steeling himself. Mossal lurched to its feet, and the pain spiked again. “Do you have to move so much?” he asked in an attempt to distract himself.

The iveri sighed, its ears splayed out to the side, and turned to look at him with one large dark eye.

“Never mind. Just go.”

And Mossal went, plodding along the road, every step a knife in Zyran. He gripped the beast’s mane and focused on his surroundings again. It was going to be a long afternoon.

When the sun touched the mountains to the left—west, that was west—they were in more populated country. There was a wooden fence along one side of the road, which was now wider and more firmly packed. Beyond the fence, the vegetation was different, a single variety of tall grass with what appeared to be heavy seed pods at the ends of the stalks, more orderly than the foliage on the other side of the fence, and clearly cultivated. It was a strange golden color, something like the sand in Rakken.

Mossal was moving much more slowly than it had been. It was clearly tired. Zyran considered stopping where they were, but he remembered what the iveri famer’s wife had said about bandits—the road was not safe. As desperately as he wanted to get off the iveri and lie still and wait for the pain to go away, the threat of yet another injury was enough to convince him.

He directed Mossal off the road, toward a large group of trees. Moving off the road made riding even more painful as Mossal changed pace to cope with the rougher terrain, but the trees were only a couple of minutes away.

When they arrived, Zyran wearily instructed Mossal to lie down. The iveri dropped much more quickly than it had before. Zyran, caught unawares, fell off and hit the ground with a thud. At least it was vegetation this time, a variety of different grasses and flowers. Mossal rolled over onto its side, knocking the sakiru off of its back, and lay still, panting softly. Zyran pulled the staff and bag off of his shoulder and let himself lie blissfully still.

He remained there for a few minutes, wondering why he had never before appreciated how really wonderful it was to not have to move. He was still in pain, but in was a dull, constant ache now, not the sharp strikes that felt as if he were being bitten and stabbed all over again.

Suddenly Mossal pulled itself up, just enough to reach over and nuzzle Zyran’s head. Zyran flinched a little, but didn’t defend himself. Now that he knew the iveri was perfectly content to eat grass, he would wait until it made a more obviously aggressive move before striking back. Mossal crawled a little closer, pressing itself gently against Zyran, and began to eat the surrounding grass with a little sigh of contentment.

It was being affectionate, for reasons unknown. He gathered all his strength and pulled himself to a sitting position, his back against Mossal’s bony side. The iveri heaved a louder sigh and curled its tail around them, like a very large cat. Zyran ran a hand over its shoulder cautiously, and it let out a low rumble. Zyran thought it was a sound of pleasure.

“I think we may get along,” he said. He twisted around a little and untied the rope that held the iveri’s pad on, then reached over to unbuckle its collar. Both items smelled strongly of iveri sweat. Zyran tossed them on the grass upside down to dry out. Then he pulled his new cloak tightly around himself, closed his eyes, and went still, hoping for the near-unconsciousness that had granted him temporary respite from the pain the evening before.

It did not come.

Zyran remained perfectly still for an hour, to no avail. How did mortals trigger sleep, anyway? There had to be some kind of mechanism for it. He thought back to when he had passed out, tried to recall what he had done. He had just been lying there, as far as he could recall. He had been extremely tired, and in a lot of pain. He was not quite as tired now as he had been, but he was certainly in pain.

He gave up on waiting with a blank mind and tried to reach out to the Song. There was nothing, as there had been every time since it had disappeared. The emptiness, the silence where there should have been sound, disturbed him, but he probed anyway, reaching out into the black. No matter how far he went, no matter how hard he listened, he could not hear the faintest trace of the Song.

A sound startled him. He opened his eyes and looked around, expecting the worst, but it was only Mossal snoring. It had grown quite dark. He picked up the sakiru, which was still lying prone where it had fallen from Mossal’s back, and tucked it under his cloak. Then he closed his eyes again and went back to reaching, reaching, listening, refusing to believe that the Song could have turned its back on him completely.

“Who in Kinn’s name are you?”

Zyran flinched. His hand went to the staff in its leather sheath, and he felt Mossal wake with a start.

It was a person. No, two people, standing there with a half-shuttered lantern, both with short hair, dressed in fur and leather. They had axes at their sides. The one who had spoken was male, he thought.

“Answer the fucking question,” the other said. Female? It was so difficult to tell. Why couldn’t they wear some sort of sign that identified their gender? “And keep your hands away from that staff, understand?”

Zyran raised his hands slowly, causing his bitten arm to sting. “My name is Zyran. I am only a traveler.”

“Sure,” the woman said. “So why are you armed, mounted, and wrapped up like a fucking corpse? And what’s with the fairy?”

Zyran glanced at the sakiru, which had emerged from beneath his cloak and was casting a dull orange light around them. Why had he still not come up with something to tell people, anything? “We are going north. It is guiding me.”

“North, huh?” The woman sounded suspicious. “Why don’t you get a little more specific?”

“I can’t. The fairy cannot speak. I will not know where I am going until I get there.”

“Now why on earth would you do a thing like that?” the man asked. He sounded amused. “Ah, fuck it. I don’t really care. Come on, he’s injured, and his iveri’s on its deathbed. Let’s just camp here anyway.”

The woman glared at Zyran for a few moments before nodding. “Okay. But first, give me that bag. We’ll have your valuables.”

Zyran sighed. Of course. Bandits. He lifted the bag and tossed it at their feet. “I have no valuables.”

The woman jerked her head in the direction of the bag, and the man bent down, opened it, looked inside, then turned it upside down and shook it. “Addos,” he said. “You don’t have anything?”

“No.”

The woman sighed, took off her pack, and began pulling things out. “Shit. We run into a lot of penniless pilgrims out here, but you’re the worst of them so far. You don’t even have any food. What in Kinn’s name are you living off of?” She started yanking up grass, clearing a space.

“Whatever I find,” Zyran said, conscious that they still thought he was a human. Ugh.

She chuckled. “Aren’t we bloody all.” Having cleared an area of vegetation, she went to a massive fallen branch, took out her axe, and chopped off a thick section, while behind her, the man started arranging a circle of stone in the circle of bare earth. Then she cut into the wood across its diameter three times and set the log on its end in the middle of the circle. Zyran watched with interest as she built a small pile of dead grass and twigs on top of the log, took out a small box, and used what appeared to be two pieces of stone to strike sparks at the wood.

She did this for several minutes. Meanwhile, the man removed a small metal pot and a few bags from his pack. He poured things from the bags into the pot, swirled the pot a little, then said, “I’ll fetch water.” He took the lantern with him when he headed off into the dark fields, leaving only the sakiru to light up the inside of the copse.

“There we go,” the woman said.

Zyran saw that the dried grass was now aflame. Bits of flaming vegetation were falling down into the cuts in the log, making the inside burn. Ingenious. He pulled his cloak around him again.

The woman spread out a large, woolly hide on the grass at the edge of the fire circle. Then she took off her boots, lined them up at the edge of the hide, and wrapped herself in a thick blanket. In the increased light, Zyran could see that she was young, with skin pigment of medium brown.

The man, now revealed to be about the same age with hair growing on the lower half of his face, returned with what appeared to be two leather bags full of water. He removed the stopper from one and poured a quantity of water into the pot, then put the pot on top of the log. “Ah, rakka. Truly a blessing.”

“Most blessings smell better, wouldn’t you say?” the woman said.

“Oh, probably,” the man said airily. “But most blessings can’t be found all over the bloody place, at nearly any time of year.”

“All the same, I could do with a different blessing for a change. Perhaps Addos would consider a nice chicken.”

“There’s farms enough. We could always steal one.”

The woman laughed. “Aye, and get eaten ourselves. No farmer this far south would let a chicken go without sending dogs after us.”

“So we go north. Northwest, maybe. Head up round Arcshire or someplace. They’ve got chickens. And more wheat, less rakka.”

“More people, too. More authorities. Too dangerous.”

“So count your blessings.”

“Rakka, an axe, a good pair of boots, and a good brother.” She reached over to the now-steaming pot and stirred it with a short wooden spoon. “About ready. You made a bit much. Hey, pilgrim, fancy a blessing?”

“No, thank you,” Zyran said.

“Suit yourself,” the man said. He took another spoon from his pack and sat down by the fire to eat out of the pot. “So, pilgrim, what’s with the fairy? Never seen one like it.”

Zyran glanced at the sakiru. Pilgrim…that might be a good story. “It came to me a while ago. It seemed to be a sign, so I followed it. It has been going steadily north, so I go north as well.”

“And you could just up and leave?” the man asked. “You a professional pilgrim, then? Used to hopping about between temples and whatnot?”

“Professional vagrant, more like,” the woman said. “No one can quite live off of charity. I imagine you know how to make yourself scarce pretty quick.”

“I have spent much of my life taking in the glory of the divine,” Zyran said, pretending to be offended. “Higher powers treat their devoted well. We have no need for theft.”

The woman grunted, clearly annoyed. Mortals betrayed their animal nature with noises such as these. “Just don’t try to grace us with any of your religious poems. I don’t care for scripture.”

“I do agree with my sister on that one,” the man said. “No preaching, pilgrim. And keep that walking corpse of an iveri away from my kit.”

Zyran turned and saw that Mossal had been extending its neck inch by inch toward the man’s pack. “Mossal, stop.” The iveri yanked its head back and closed its eyes as if it had never intended to touch the pack in the first place. Zyran was surprised to find himself amused. He scratched the iveri behind its ear and enjoyed the subsequent rumble. He was beginning to like this beast despite himself. Some animals were worthwhile. Not humans, no, but some animals.

“So, where’d you get the staff?” the woman asked after a few minutes of eating. “It’s a sword-staff, isn’t it? Thought you could only get those in Rakken.”

“I did get it from Rakken,” Zyran said. “I spent some time in the northern desert.”

“Yeah?” the man said in surprise. “How’d you manage that? The north’s nomad territory, isn’t it?”

“They decided that I was not worth their time. I…liberated the staff from them.”

“So you are a thief,” the woman said with a snort. “That how you got injured? The Rakkinen find you out?”

“If they had, I would not be here, and neither would the staff.” He hesitated, then decided that he might as well seek information. “I was attacked by an animal of some kind as I crossed the mountains.”

“What sort?” the woman asked. “Those mountains haven’t got much in them apart from lizards and hawks.”

“It was a strange little creature. Like a human, but…not. It was small, like a child, but with green skin and many teeth.”

“A gerra?” she laughed. “What, are you serious?”

“What is a gerra?”

They both looked at him blankly. “Aren’t you a pilgrim?” the woman said, a hint of suspicion in her voice.

“I have never heard of a gerra. What are they? Where do they come from?”

They looked at each other now. “He’s not a pilgrim,” the man said, as if Zyran were not present.

“So he’s something worse. What do you think, some wandering madman?”

“I was thinking he might be a gerra in disguise.”

“Sull, this is not a good time for you to find religion.”

“Fine. I’ll unwrap him.” Sull got to his feet and drew a knife.

“No need,” Zyran cut in. There was very little to lose, really. “I can do it myself.” He pulled the sackcloth off of his head.

“Fuck!” the woman swore, jumping back with Sull. “Fuck, fuck.” She hefted her axe. “If you’ve got a good reason why I shouldn’t take your bloody head off and burn it, now’s the time.”

“I have no intention of harming you.”

“Isn’t that nice,” Sull said. “What are you?”

He needed a more convincing story, apparently. Or the pilgrim one needed work. “I am a servant of Death, stranded here by an unfortunate accident. The fairy is going to help me return to her.”

The humans looked at him for a moment.

“Iveri shit,” the woman said.

“No, it’s true,” Zyran said in alarm.

“I don’t suppose you have any proof?” Sull said dryly.

Zyran didn’t know what to say to that. For all intents and purposes, he was physically no longer a servant of Death. He hadn’t thought of it that way before.

Something twisted inside of him, something that couldn’t stand its loss any longer. He felt it as a deep cold and weight somewhere behind his ribs. He couldn’t have spoken, even if he had been able to think of anything to say.

“Of course not,” Sull said with a sigh. He sat back down, drew a long knife with a bone handle, and toyed idly with it.

His sister was not as calm. “Better safe than sorry. I say we kill it now.”

“Or I could leave,” Zyran offered weakly. The thought of moving drove a sharp spike through his legs.

“Not until we’ve thought it through,” Sull said.

“What’s there to think through?” the woman said. “Look, it’s obviously not human, and it doesn’t look like any kind of forest person either. It’s something else. New things are either good or bad, and this one looks pretty bad to me. It lies, it steals, it talks without a mouth. It’s bad.”

“Counterargument,” Sull said slowly. “It’s a bad liar. Makes for a very suspicious pilgrim. Anything working for Death wouldn’t need to talk much. Makes sense it couldn’t lie. Also makes sense it wouldn’t have a mouth.”

“All the more reason to kill it. Rune’s got enough death without help.”

“I see your point…however, one could also say that death’s a natural part of life.”

The woman laughed, utterly without humor. “One could say that if you can’t come up with a better reason than that, I’m killing the thing.”

“Intrinsic value of life?”

“Is it alive?”

Sull looked at Zyran. “Good question. Are you?”

“Yes,” Zyran said emphatically. “And I promise, I will not stay in this world any longer than I must. I am just trying to leave. Really.”

“There, how about that, Illy?” Sull said. “He’s trying to get out of here. He’s clearly sane.”

Illy sighed. “Okay. That’s it. I’m not taking any chances.” She glanced at Zyran. “I’ll make it quick for you. Hold still.”

She raised the axe. Sull looked dismayed, but made no move to stop her. Mossal made a surprised sound. Zyran grabbed for the staff.

Then there was a god in the grove with them, a towering figure made of black and white fire that threw everything in the grove into sharp relief.

The humans both yelled and threw themselves back, scrambling away from it. Mossal did much the same, knocking Zyran over.

Zyran had no doubt whatsoever that Death was the most powerful being in the universe, a nearly perfect god, worthy of his eternal worship. Nothing and no one could ever hope to match her. That said, the god that had just appeared was impressive. He was naked, but what need did fire have for clothing? He was colorless and almost translucent, but so were the hottest flames. He was slender and curving, but in the same way that the tongues of an inferno might be. He shone with the furious cold light of a star, and the ash that collected in thick deposits on his head and limbs, though Zyran knew it to be pale gray, was the deepest black in comparison.

Zyran felt immense relief wash over him. He used the staff to hoist himself to a standing position and immediately fell back against a tree when his legs realized what he was doing. “Issimil,” he said reverently, and bowed as well as he could from a sitting position. “Lord of the Song.”

Issimil’s black head turned toward him with the speed and grace of a raptor. “Servant?”

With an unpleasant lurch, Zyran suddenly recalled what Death had told him: Issimil had requested Zyran’s demotion personally. “Yes, lord.”

“Why are you here?”

“I was relieved of duty, lord,” Zyran said, bewildered.

“You? For what purpose?”

“My lord told me that you had requested it, lord.” Issimil was nearly omniscient. On the occasions that Zyran had met him, he had always been perfectly calm and composed. Now he looked…as though he had been caught off-guard. It was disconcerting.

Issimil blinked eyes of white fire at him. “I did not. Death’s servants are her own concern.”

“Then…lord, if I may inquire, why are you here?”

“There was a bad chord in the Song. It came from here. But now it is gone. Have you heard from Death since your dismissal?”

“No, lord.”

“Nor have I.” Issimil raised his head and looked away, apparently at empty space, eyes narrowed to brilliant slits. “I have been unable to locate her.”

Cold fear gripped Zyran sharply. “My lord is not in the Hollow?”

“No,” Issimil said. “Nor anywhere else that I can find. None of her other servants know where she is.”

No. No. What could have happened? Had one of Death’s fits gone too far? Where could his lord have gone? “Lord, might I entreat you to take me back to the Hollow? I could aid in the search.”

Issimil tilted his head slightly. “No. Again, your dismissal was Death’s affair, and it would be impolitic of me to interfere.” Zyran’s utter despair must have showed in the Song, because Issimil lowered his head. “It is an unfortunate situation. Bide your time here as well as you can. I will request that Death contact you when we find her.”

And then the Lord of the Song was gone in a swirl of cold fire.

For a few moments there was dead silence in the grove, interrupted only by the crackling of the log fire that paled in comparison to Issimil’s flames.

“Well,” Illy said. “Never mind, then.” Her eyes were wide. The hand that held the axe had white knuckles. The other was trembling. She got to her feet, returned to her hide, sat down on it, and wrapped herself in her blanket. She stared into the fire, apparently at a loss for words.

Sull sat on his bedroll. He was shakier than his sister, and seemed unable to speak.

“So you no longer intend to kill me?” Zyran asked tentatively.

They ignored him.

After a few minutes, Illy looked up at her brother, sitting across the fire from her. “That was a god,” she said.

Sull opened his mouth several times, but no sound came out.

“It wasn’t Addos.”

“No,” he croaked.

“The god wants the pilgrim to live.”

“Apparently…”

“I say we take it north.”

Sull’s head snapped up to look at her. “What?”

“You’re always talking about going north anyway. The pilgrim wants to go that way, and it’s going to need help, it’s pitiful. It works for all of us.”

There was silence for a moment. Then Sull said thoughtfully, “There’s an idea.”

“We’ll do it, then. At least we’ll get to eat something besides rakka.” She glanced at Zyran, then curled up on her sleeping hide and fell asleep easily. Sull followed suit, leaving Zyran sitting alone.

He pulled the sackcloth back onto his head, wrapped his cloak around him again, and settled himself against Mossal, who had returned to him. The fire and the night sounds around him proved oddly soothing.

Zyran woke the next morning in pain, both from his legs and from Mossal’s inconveniently sharp elbow, which was jabbing him in the ribs. The beast was snoring gently behind him. It wasn’t a very comfortable pillow, but it was warm.

The night had been cold. Zyran had never been really cold before. He was unsurprised to discover that it, like more or less everything in the mortal world, hurt—a deep ache in his bones. He rubbed his arms, trying to warm them up a little, and saw that the human animals were already awake, moving by the light of a pale gray dawn. The man was pouring water on the log, which had burned down to almost nothing. The woman was packing her knapsack.

Sull glanced at Zyran. “Morning, pilgrim.”

Mossal snorted awake at the sound, then yawned widely and put its head back down. Zyran shook its shoulder. “Move,” he said quietly. Mossal’s only response was to shift to a more comfortable position, so Zyran shook it again. After repeating the process again, Mossal finally situated itself so that Zyran could pull himself onto its back.

“What’s wrong with your legs?” Illy asked.

“The gerra,” Zyran said. “It damaged them.”

She gave him a long look. Then she finished packing before coming over to him and examining his legs without bothering to ask permission. She rolled up the legs of his pants and winced at the sight of mangled flesh. “Stay there,” she said.

She removed her axe from its hanger on her pack and used it to lop a few straight branches off of a young tree with rounded leaves. Then she came back to him and helped him stretch out his right leg, the one that had been stabbed. She cut two of the branches to be slightly shorter than his leg, and tied them tightly—far too tightly, Zyran thought; the rope dug into his skin even through his pants—to his leg with a length of rope. “I’ll want this back,” she cautioned, as she repeated the process for his other leg. Then she grabbed Zyran’s hands and pulled him off of Mossal and onto his feet.

Zyran nearly fell. His legs were on fire, screaming at him to stop whatever he was doing. They wobbled beneath him. Illy grabbed him and held him steady. “Easy, pilgrim. Go on, walk a step, you can do it.” She supported much of his weight, allowing him to take two clumsy, stiff-legged, agonizing steps, before she sat him back down on the iveri, which gave a long-suffering sigh.

Sull, who was watching, nodded in approval. “Illy’s good with her hands. She always made the braces for injured animals back on the farm.”

“Farm?” Zyran said blankly, taking in the armed siblings, who did not mesh at all with his idea of agricultural workers.

Illy grinned and hefted her pack. “Yeah. We grew up on a farm. I’m the oldest, so I was set to inherit it. But Sull and I decided that we weren’t really the farming type, so we left. Make our fortune and all that.”

They began walking out of the grove. Zyran got Mossal to its feet and followed them.

“Since then we’ve been all through the south of Eldden, into Rakken, even,” Sull said. “We rob most of the people we meet. Steal from farms, sometimes. It’s not a bad life. Better than farming, anyway.”

“What happened to your farm?” Zyran asked as they reached the road and turned north.

“Oh, it’s fine,” Illy said, her voice suddenly cold. “Our parents are still running it for now, and our little sister Shalla is there to take it over when they’re too old. We tried to get her to come with us, but she wouldn’t. After we taught her to use a bow and everything.”

“She likes farming,” Sull said. “Was always a bit odd. Hardly talks at all, and when she does, it’s about plants and animals. Poor dumb peasant.”

“Said the poor talkative peasant,” Illy said wryly. “Anyway, I don’t think she’s as dumb as she looks. She took to the bow like a duck to water, along with plenty of other things.”

Sull snorted. “No, believe me, anyone who spends her free time sitting in a field watching the rakka grow is short in the head.”

“Oh well,” Illy said with a shrug. “At least she’ll be a happy farmer. Anyway, pilgrim, are there really gerra, then?”

“I don’t know,” Zyran said slowly. “The creatures from your religion may not be the same as the creature I encountered.”

“The same basic principle, though?” Sull asked.

“If you know it as a green-skinned creature with many teeth, about the size of a child, with a long tail, it may be so.”

“Have you ever heard of a god called Addos?”

“No. But powerful spirits often tell mortals that they are gods. There are too many for me to know all of them.”

“Oh.” Sull was quiet for a moment. “But it’s definitely possible that He exists, then?”

Zyran couldn’t understand why it mattered. Animals weren’t religious. “Yes, I suppose so.” He glanced at Sull’s ears and was disquieted to find that they were round, the way the cultists’ had been, the way the farmers’ had been. “Do all of your species look like you?”

Sull blinked. “What do you mean, like me?”

“With round ears, and short faces. Like mine.”

Illy turned her head to look at him. “That’s how people are.”

“No,” Zyran said firmly. “People do not look like you.”

“I’m not following,” Sull said.

“People have pointed ears and long faces. They are taller.”

Comprehension dawned on Illy’s face. “You’re talking about the forest people. The Fey.”

“Yes, exactly,” Zyran said, relieved that they understood. “People.”

“You know we’re people too, right, pilgrim?” Sull said.

“Of course you’re not.”

Sull and Illy both stopped and turned to face him. They moved similarly, Zyran saw. A familial resemblance.

“So what would you call us, then?” Illy asked.

“You are animals,” Zyran explained, realizing that they were confused. “You have very little Song about you, just enough to ensure that you are alive. You do not truly feel.”

The siblings looked at each other. After a long pause, Sull spoke. “Um, pilgrim, what’s your experience with people?”

That was awkward. Zyran had only left the Hollow a few times. “I’ve killed them. A lot of them, over the course of several centuries.”

“How the fuck are you going to know anything about them, then?” Illy said loudly.

“I was educated by a god.”

“By Death, if I remember correctly,” Sull said.

“Look, pilgrim,” Illy said. “That iveri’s an animal. Sull and I are people. It’s a pretty clear distinction.”

“No, it isn’t,” Zyran said in amusement. “You both have the same amount of Song.”

“Magic makes you less of a person, not more,” Sull said. “Addos tells us this. But humans can talk. Iveri can’t.”

“The iveri communicate in their own way. Humans do use more vocal speech than the rest of the animals I have encountered, but that is hardly a basis to call you people. Song ability determines whether you are truly people.” He remembered that he had lost his own ability to use the Song, but that was temporary.

“If you want help, you’d better change your definition,” Illy said. “We’re not animals.”

“All right,” Zyran said irritably. “You are not animals.”

The rest of the day passed largely uneventfully. As they traveled further north, the road winding through rolling pastures, groves, and rakka fields, they began to catch glimpses of a dark green mass from the tops of hills. By late afternoon, it had coalesced into a forest.

“The Midwood,” Illy said, not slowing her pace. “We’ll reach it before midmorning tomorrow. The east fork of the Elmwyves runs through it. I doubt the bridge guards will let us cross, so we’ll have to think of another way to get past it.”

“There’s no ford for miles in either direction,” Sull grumbled. He was dragging his feet; he did not appear to be coping as well with the long walk as his sister. “We’ll need to bribe them, kill them, or steal a boat.”

Illy glanced to her right. “And it’s going to rain.”

Zyran followed her gaze and saw large clouds in the distance, illuminated by the setting sun. They looked innocent enough, but he assumed that Illy knew what she was talking about, as a native animal—they were animals, whatever they claimed—and rain sounded oddly appealing.

It did rain, beginning while they were setting up camp that evening in an abandoned barn, and it had not lessened at all by the time they entered the Midwood the following day. Illy and Sull pulled fur hoods over their heads, and Zyran followed suit with his makeshift black cloak, but he found that the fabric had several notable holes in it, and he quickly became wet and cold. The sakiru took shelter in his bag.

The Midwood was composed of large, gnarled old deciduous broadleaved trees. Bushy undergrowth filled the spaces between trees. “It’s just thorns now, but it’s all berries in the summer,” Sull told him. “We used to come through here with our parents to sell goods in Caiross.” The narrow dirt road continued through the trees, but it became considerably more convoluted. The humans, who had spent much of the previous day talking to each other, if not frequently to Zyran, were mostly quiet, but the rain thundered down around them, and true thunder boomed occasionally. A mild wind rattled the leaves of the forest and whipped the rain into Zyran’s face.

Between that and the cloak, which hampered his hearing by itself, Zyran was quite surprised when they rounded a bend and found themselves standing at the head of a stone bridge that crossed a wide, fast river, swollen with rain. It was a beautiful river, really. It caught what light there was as it splashed up on the banks and on the bridge’s pilings.

A small building sat over the bridge on each side, supported by great stone pillars with sturdy wood gates between them. Lights gleamed in each building’s single window, and rain flowed off of their peaked wooden roofs in torrents, gushing into the river. The toll building on their side leaned dangerously.

As they stood there, the door of the building opened and someone came trundling down a rotting wooden stair to the muddy ground. The short figure stopped in front of them and flipped up the visor of its modest helm, revealing a ruddy bearded face. “You lot looking to cross?”

“That we are,” Sull said, pushing his hood back a little. “What’s the price?”

The toll collector looked them up and down. “Six copper for each of you, and twelve for the iveri.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Illy said. “It was two copper a group last time we come through!”

“Then you ain’t come through in years,” the toll collector said flatly. “Toll ain’t been that low since Theryn’s coup.”

“We’re not that old,” Sull said. “We came through here about ten years ago.”

“Aye, before Urstald started pressing Eldden’s borders. Needed more guards, didn’t we? And it went up again a few months ago to pay for old King Theryn’s funeral.”

“Look, we haven’t quite got that much money,” Sull said.

“Not my problem,” the toll collector said. “What do you want coming this way, anyway? You and your friend?” He gestured at Zyran.

“We’re pilgrims,” Illy said. “Can’t you tell?”

The toll collector laughed. “Armed pilgrims, aye. What are you lot, robbers? Murderers?” He squinted and became suddenly serious. “You’re not mages, are you?”

“’Course not,” Sull said. “No, we’re looking for work in Caiross. Farming’s sort of lost its appeal.”

“Join the guard,” the toll collector said. “They’ll pay you. There’s an outpost over in Lakespill that’ll sign you up.”

“Go on, just let us cross,” Illy said impatiently. “You can’t get paid enough to bother with every single person that comes through here.”

“I get paid fairly well, actually. Look, you can’t cross if you haven’t got the thirty copper. It’s very simple.”

“Sorry, then,” Illy said, reaching for her axe. Sull did the same.

The toll collector had a sword leveled at Illy before she could get the weapon out of her belt. “Don’t bother. Mathi!” he called loudly.

The door to the near toll building swung open and a bulky, armored figure came down the steps, a very large battleaxe hefted casually in one hand. “Problem?” a woman’s voice said.

“None whatsoever,” Sull said brightly, who had frozen the instant the sword had emerged. “We’ve remembered some urgent business.”

Mathi tossed the battleaxe from one hand to the other and back again. “It’ll have to wait. Can’t have you threatening people and getting away with it, son. You’re going to be spending some time in Caiross’s dungeon.”

Illy laughed. “So you’ll take us across the bridge for not paying our toll?”

“And further. Eldden doesn’t take threats to civilians lightly, especially when they come from known bandits.”

Illy and Sull both froze. The toll collector looked back and forth between them and Mathi.

“That’s right. Illanda and Sull, parents Garen and Mirae, sister Shalla, out of a farm in the south. You’re wanted by Queen Tieryn. Thought you could rob at least eighteen people and get away with it?”

“Yes?” Sull hazarded.

Mathi laughed, a short, harsh bark. “And perhaps you could’ve, if you hadn’t tried to cross a bridge, you bloody idiots. Go on, even I know old Prem a mile downriver would ferry you across if you showed him an axe. You two really aren’t much good at this.”

“Can’t we all just pretend this didn’t happened?” Sull said desperately.

Illy laughed. When Sull looked at her, she shrugged. “We’re caught. And even I know that the punishment for prolific bandits isn’t prison. Tell you what, Mathi, let this pilgrim go, and Sull and I will turn right back round and go home.”

“An armed pilgrim, traveling with criminals,” Mathi said. “Don’t think so.”

“Well, worth a try,” Illy said with a sigh. Then she was lunging at Mathi with her axe. They exchanged a few blows, while Zyran, Sull, and the toll collector all stared in dumb surprise, before Mathi landed a strike that lopped off Illy’s arm. Mossal yelped, and Sull cried out.

“Yield,” Mathi said.

Illy came in swinging with the arm she had left, her teeth bared in a grimace, her stump bleeding heavily, and Mathi planted one blade of the battleaxe in the bandit’s chest with a sound like a melon splitting. She pulled it loose and a torrent of blood gushed forth as the woman crumpled to the ground.

Sull gave a wild yell. It filled with more emotion than Zyran had ever heard, and it stunned him to the core, but he had no time to consider it, because Sull was leaping at Mathi without drawing his axe. She smacked his head with the butt of the battleaxe, and he dropped like a stone next to his sister.

“Well, he’ll make it to his execution, anyway,” Mathi said. “What about you, accomplice? You going to get to Caiross in one piece?”

“I actually am a pilgrim,” Zyran said.

“Oh, aye? Take the mask off.”

“Um,” Zyran said, eyeing Mathi’s blood-spattered armor. “I really think it would be significantly better if I did not.”

“That’s nice. I don’t agree.” She adjusted her grip on the battleaxe.

Mossal was shifting nervously. Zyran pulled down the hood of his cloak and unwrapped his head.

“Kinn’s fucking blood,” the toll collector said.

Mathi advanced on him slowly, picking up Illy’s axe as she approached so that she had a weapon in each hand. She was as tall as Zyran, and the armor made her appear larger. “I don’t know what you are, but you’re going to get off that iveri right now, do you understand me?”

“I cannot stand very well.”

“Now!”

“Down, Mossal,” Zyran said. The iveri knelt hesitantly in the mud, and Zyran took a deep breath before swinging both his legs to one side and forcing himself to his feet with his staff. Pain stabbed through his legs, and he teetered, then collapsed and fell face first in the mud.

A gauntleted hand gripped his arm painfully and yanked him to his feet, ignoring his shaking. “You’re coming to Caiross with this scum. Tan, I’m going to borrow Fuller. I don’t want this thing to go unwatched for an instant.”

“Yes, Captain,” the toll collector said. “I can run both ends of the bridge.”

“Good,” Mathi said. “Bring my equipment down, would you?”

“Yes, Captain.” Tan bowed a little and headed up into the tollhouse.

A few minutes later, Mathi was sitting on a large iveri at the far end of the bridge. Sull was draped across Mossal’s back, bound and unconscious, and Mossal was tied to Mathi’s iveri. Zyran was tethered to Mossal by a rope around his wrists. His legs were agony. He could hardly stand. His breath came quick, shallow, and unsteady. A rangy man in a faded padded jack stood behind him, a quiver at his belt and a bow slung across his back.

“Thanks, Tan,” Mathi said. “Make sure you hang up that bandit where people can see her. More and more farmers turning to robbery lately. Dissuade them.”

“I will, Captain,” Tan said, opening the heavy gates for them with a loud creaking of hinges. “Have a safe journey. See you, Fuller.”

Mathi and Fuller waved, and then they were moving, and Zyran wanted to scream. Every awkward stiff-legged step hurt more than the last. But they didn’t stop, and whenever he slowed, the rope around his wrists pulled him forward again. He fell several times, granting his legs blissful relief for a few moments, but Fuller always yanked him to his feet before he could be dragged. Each step seemed to last forever.

After a while he fell into a sort of stupor. He put one foot in front of the other, over and over. Occasionally he slipped in the mud of the dirt road, or one leg or the other would simply give out. Fuller would pull him up, and he would keep moving. A haze of pain clouded everything.

One foot in front of the other. Again. And again. And again.

When Mossal stopped in front of him, he collapsed. He was vaguely surprised to discover that he had landed on grass. He lay still, hoping no one would move him. No one did.

He was vaguely aware of a fire crackling somewhere behind him, but he remained cold and wet. Then he was aware of nothing.

Something shook his shoulder. “Up.”

Zyran woke up slowly. Everything hurt.

“Up!” A gloved hand grabbed him and stood him upright easily. He made an undignified noise as his legs struggled to support him. A second hand shoved his staff into his grasp. “Your friend’s awake, so you get the iveri today.”

Zyran tried to examine his surroundings, but they seemed blurry and wavy. He could hear a lot of rain. That was nice. The first thing that he could focus on was a familiar animal on the ground next to him, waiting for him to get on. He half-sat, half-fell onto Mossal’s wet back. The iveri groaned irritably. Zyran felt himself slipping off and barely managed to right himself in time.

“Hey, is it all right?”

A gauntlet gripped his jaw and turned his head this way and that. “I’m not sure. Hey! Can you hear me?”

“Why isn’t it answering?”

“Fuller, I’m not a bloody healer. Hey, scum, do you know what’s wrong with it?”

“How should I know? I’ve only known it for two days.”

“You know it better than we do.”

The voices trailed off. Zyran blinked a few times, but he couldn’t seem to see any better. Actually, things were getting darker.

“I think it’s waking up.”

“Just in time. We’ll be at the city in a couple of hours. Make sure it’s secure, would you?”

Zyran felt someone do something with his wrists. There was roughness there. Why was he bouncing? He moved his head, which hurt much more than he expected it too—a deep, pounding sensation. His legs hurt, as ever, but he wasn’t wet, which…disappointed him, somehow. It was an odd feeling.

He had been slung over Mossal’s back, much like Sull had been. They were riding through trees. As he watched, they emerged out into sunlight and golden fields that shimmered in the cold breeze.

“Do you need food or something? You’ve been out for six days.” It was Sull. He was walking alongside the iveri, his wrists tied. He looked significantly the worse for wear, splattered with mud, the fur parts of his clothing still wet, and the leather parts badly spotted. His face was haggard, with a dull listlessness about it.

“No,” Zyran said. It was difficult to talk, which was extremely odd. “I do not require food.”

“Well, water, then?”

Zyran intended to say no, but something within him jumped at the word. Water. He considered. It might make sense, actually. He seemed to sweat now, which was also extremely odd, but that meant that he was losing water. It followed that he needed to replenish his source. The question was, how? “I would like water.”

“Can you even drink any?”

Zyran had to confess that he did not know.

“Well, we can try it. Uh, Captain? Can we try it?”

The captain sighed. “Why not? It’ll be entertaining, anyway.”

The iveri stopped, and Mathi swung Zyran down off of Mossal so that the aged iveri would not have to kneel. Fuller took a waterskin from his belt and handed it to Sull. “Here. You can do it.”

Sull hesitated, then uncorked the skin and poured some water on Zyran’s face where humans had a mouth. “…It’s just kind of sitting there.”

Zyran reached up with his bound hands to touch his face, but was interrupted by Sull. “No, wait, it’s gone!” This was followed by the single strangest sensation that Zyran had ever felt.

Firstly, it was inside of him, and that was disturbing. He had known, or at least believed, that he had some kind of oral cavity, but to have something actually within his body with no apparent means of removing it was…odd. And then there was the feeling itself, which was both like and not like cold water on his skin. It felt good. And then it faded, and he wanted more.

He took the waterskin from Sull and put the spout to his Veil. Then he tilted his head back so that the water sloshed against his face. Some of it trickled down his neck, but then it stopped.

“Oh. Oh. Oh, that’s…”

“Does it always move like that?”

Zyran ignored them. He had never felt anything so wholly good. The water was passing through the Veil, and he was drinking it, somehow. Or his body was; he wasn’t doing anything but letting the water flow. There was an entire new way of feeling involved here. It felt like a scent, which made sense. He knew what taste was—a means of distinguishing the composition of matter, connected with the olfactory system—but it was completely different to experience it, something he had never expected to do. He could taste the leather and metal of the waterskin, but mostly he was tasting water, and it was astounding, cool and incredibly refreshing, and he felt that he could drink forever.

Then the waterskin was empty, and when he tried to pull the spout away, he was surprised to discover that it was difficult. He tugged harder, and the spout came away with a wet pop. He touched his Veil curiously and found a ring of raised tissue that was quickly melting away into its usual smoothness. He held the waterskin out to Sull, who took it gingerly, touching as little of it as possible.

“Here,” Sull said, tossing it to Fuller, who caught it with a queasy expression.

“Right,” Mathi said. “Well, now that none of us plan to eat again, let’s move it. I want to get you two gone as quickly as possible.” She picked Zyran up without waiting for a reply and swung him up onto Mossal’s bony back. “We’ve made it this far without either of you doing anything stupid, and I’d like it to stay that way.”

Two hours later, Zyran was limping as quickly as he could through a cramped alley, leaning heavily on Sull and Mossal, wondering whether it would have been easier to be locked up in a dungeon for a while.

“So maybe this was a little stupid,” Sull panted.