Into the Stone Land (13 page)

The road out of the city was wide, packed earth. If it rained in this area as it rained to the south, the road showed little of it. Tall's thoughts spun. The image of Deanna looking up at him as he passed stuck in his mind. Her smirk said it all. She had acted purposefully. His reaction to her selflessness had been jealousy. What did this say about him? Did it say that one could be named a man and yet not really be a man? Or that a man was as subject to whimsy as a child?

Perhaps not truly being a man was why he must continue his journey. Perhaps to truly be a man he must find Ray and return with him to the village. But finding Ray and returning would not be easy. The world beyond his beloved Inland was so much bigger than he'd ever imaged. It truly was, and the endless dusty expanse of mostly barren land all around him proved this. In truth, he had no idea how to find Ray, but he knew one thing and it was this: he hated the stone land. It was an unnatural place. It was an ugly place. Nothing but stunted trees and blighted grasses.

He was so busy seething he forgot to be thankful and there was a lot to be thankful for. He was safely out of the city. He was reunited with Lucky. He was back on the path to finding Ray. But where was he, exactly? What little he knew of the world beyond Adalayia came from Deanna. She had told him of the places beyond, if only he could remember.

Tall guided Lucky to a stand of trees before dismounting. He hugged the horse's neck. “I missed you fiercely,” he said. “I couldn't feel you. I was so alone, only Deanna for company. Where are the others, I wonder. I miss them too. Seems so long since I've felt them.”

But even as he said this, he knew the error of his words. He did feel the others. They were north. They were there even if the connections were the barest and thinnest they could possibly be and still exist. He reached out to them with the yearning. As he did so, he realized something else. Something in the city had kept him from feeling the connections and that same something had been working to undo the connections. It was a frightening thought because a complete unnatural breaking of the connections also might have undone him.

Then it struck him—the wizard's hand was in this. There could be no doubt. Only the wizard had such power. This realization brought more questions than answers. But one question rose above all the others. Had the wizard turned him west when he should have gone north? And if so, was any of it real? Deanna being forced to do something against her will might explain all the tears. It might explain a lot of things.

He was walking to the tree to retrieve his pack when he felt the thing in his pocket. He reached in, unsure what he would find, felt the cold, round stone. He withdrew it, knowing at once it was the healing orb Deanna had taken from Healer Holt. But there was something else in his pocket: a folded paper. It had the same strange symbols as the signs in the city.

Chapter 12: Into the Unknown

At the edge of the city, Tall turned to survey the land. It was early in the day, but the travelers and patrols he expected were nowhere to be seen. The north road out of the city continued straight and true into the distance. He saw no roads or paths leading from it.

He continued running, moving alongside Lucky as the horse trotted. With each bounding step it felt as if his feet rooted in the earth before springing out, and it allowed him to move with speed he was unaccustomed to. He found he had to work at times to slow himself to a steady pace.

Lucky easily handled the weight of his pack and staff. For the next few hours he alternated between a jog and a run. He could go a long time. He knew that from his days roving his beloved Inland. Still, he didn't want to tire himself out, and he would need water soon. It would be a long day. He wanted to be as far away from the city as possible before nightfall.

The land began to change and the stunted trees and blighted grasses gave way to patches of bushy, green trees. Some of the trees had red or green orbs that seemed similar to Deanna's apples. Tall slowed to a walk, looked for signs that what he saw was edible. At one point, he heard a noise and retrieved his staff, thinking he might have to defend himself.

Deanna's apples had been good and juicy, though sweet. These were juicy too, he knew, having halved and sniffed one as he looked for animal sign. Since animals ate these, they likely were safe. It was true in the Inland, and it must hold true in the Outland.

His tongue disliked the fruit at first, but the tangy juice satisfied his thirst. He gathered some for his pack and shared others with Lucky as he waited out the heat of the day. He had a tidy pile by the time he opened his pack and discovered the foodstuffs from Deanna. His first thought was she'd replaced his roots; it made him so angry he upended his pack onto the ground. That was when he saw she'd cleaned and bundled the roots almost as well as his mother would have done for winter storage.

“It's time,” Tall told Lucky. He slipped a half pod, full of seeds, into his mouth as the two started out at a jog. His brood was closer. He felt them, but there was something strange about how distant they remained. It was as if they were separated from him by unseen voids.

The ground sloped up. He didn't like this. He wanted to be low, like in his lowland home, where his enemies couldn't see him from a distance. He had no choice but to keep going.

Trekking through the hills made him think of the wizard's mountain. In his paintings he'd always drawn Ray and the wizard battling on the mountain, but now he saw himself added to those frozen moments. It was almost as if he'd drawn himself into the scenes—and perhaps he had by living when he should have died.

It was late afternoon by the time his angular path intersected with the north road. Adalayia was a dot in the distance behind him. In the shadow of a thicket, he paused, panting as he looked to Lucky. His pack and staff weren't that heavy, but carrying them all day must have been tiring because Lucky looked tired and his leg muscles glistened with sweat. The day was proving to be a hot one. He fed Lucky fruit and roots. He ate the same, added pod seeds, while he surveyed the road.

The road was deserted, as it had been since morning. Something wasn't right about that. Deanna said guards fought over north gate postings. That it was prestigious. But what prestige was there in watching a deserted road?

He crossed the road with Lucky, headed directly east for a time. There was a dip ahead that he thought might hide a water flow.

His fingers scraped at his ribs. The pain was gone, mostly. The healing orb, from his pocket, turned in his hand as he studied it. He wondered about Deanna. Had Healer Holt discovered what she'd done? Had Lady Hravic given her another reminding?

All of a sudden, he was overwhelmed by the thought that Deanna had received more than a reminding, that she'd been beaten to death. Her death, in his mind, became real. He saw her white, being put into a wooden box. No longer here. He tried hard to remember her alive, but he couldn't. All he could see was her death.

Maybe it was better if she were gone. They'd have to find someone else to give their reminding to, then. People like that always did, he knew. Old Rud had been like that, until the council drove him out of the village and left him where he could never hurt anyone again.

No, not her, Tall told himself. He forced himself to think of her as living. He painted over the canvas of her death in his mind, inserted a picture of her very much alive, breathing and laughing and playfully dancing. No doubt it was the seed taking over, but he couldn't help it, no more than he could now separate the real from the unreal.

As he ran faster and faster, he had an awful thought. The void ahead. The one he thought must hide a water flow. What if it was dry? That would almost guarantee his own death. He had never been so long without water. The juice of the fruit helped, but what his dry throat needed was water. He didn't doubt that Lucky needed water as well.

Twilight was closing in. He was glad for the concealment the growing darkness offered. He wasn't headed uphill anymore so much as he was trekking across hillsides. The void was there, he knew, but he couldn't always see it. He was hungry, too, but he knew how to go without and did, pressing on.

In another hour, it was clear he wasn't going to reach the void that day. He had to find a place to camp. Night creatures were coming out. He heard their strange howls and hoots and wondered if the stinging would protect him. Certainly it would mask his scent, but would it be enough if they came for him?

Soon after, he discovered the stone land had a kind of buzzer. They were tiny, miniscule, but their bite stung well enough. He found a hollow in a fold of trees, hoped he'd traveled far enough away from the city and the road. He didn't see sign that it was occupied.

Before settling in, he spread a circle of stinging. He arranged his pack so it would be behind his head, shared and ate some of the goods from Deanna. Beans with green pods and thin orange roots that were tasty but chewy. These were better than the fruits he and Lucky had finished off earlier. As a precaution, he laid his staff beside him and then held it in both hands before leaning back. Lucky was behind him, grazing now, but within the fold of trees.

Night arrived. His thoughts swirled. Through the branches he could see the stars, and they looked the same as those at home. He knew he must try to rest. It seemed sleep was all he had been doing lately, but it also was all he could think about. Slowly, he let his muscles relax. His eyes closed. His last thought was that he hoped Lucky would be okay.

Sudden movement awoke him. He couldn't have been asleep for more than an hour or two. The hollow helped him feel the vibrations of the otherwise still land. The back and forth turning motions were unmistakable. Something large made its way nearer. His instinct wasn't to flee but to stand and fight. Then he wondered whether the hollow was the creature's home.

Bulls and slithers would defend their homes to the death. This creature might as well. Pack in one hand, staff in the other, Tall scrambled up and out of the hollow. Lucky nickered, clearly as a warning, but it also helped Tall locate the horse. He stroked the horse's mane. With a gentle, soft voice, he said, “North now. We'll head toward the dip at first light.”

As soon as he said it, he knew it was a mistake. The thing that had been coming on was just beyond the edge of the tree line. It was some sort of contraption. Not much like a pushcart really, although it had wheels like one. Something was powering the cart, for it surely wasn't moving on its own, but he couldn't see what.

He stood rock still, afraid to breathe. Were the cart's owners looking for him? It seemed they were; he heard footsteps. One of them circled around the cart to the other as the other walked toward Tall's hiding place. Tall closed his eyes, became a shadow within the shadows. He saw with his ears what his eyes couldn't have seen if they'd've wanted to.

“Far enough?” one asked. The other answered, “I think so.” The voices were those of adults, but not elders. The first speaker was a man. The second, a woman. The man said, “Good. We've little enough.”

Tall heard the man stalking closer. He was picking up something, fallen branches by the sound of it. The woman was busy clanging and banging things.

A thump followed by the patter of feet surprised Tall. These were the soft sounds of a third person. Light or fairly small, and not at all like the rather large woman or the heavy man. Tall's heart beat so fast in his ears he wondered that the strangers couldn't hear it.

“No sign all day,” the man said. “Dead, likely.”

“Happens easily enough out here, but not to this one,” the woman said from behind the cart. From her commanding tone, Tall knew she was in charge. “Isn't that right, dearest?”

This was addressed to the newcomer, Tall knew, and the response was: “No, not to this one.” The voice was surprisingly close, and Tall almost fell over. The voice was Deanna's. He risked showing the white's of his eyes to confirm it.

“I don't understand why north and not west,” the woman protested. “You warned clear enough about the Wizard's Guard.”

“He's north and not west because he doesn't fear the Wizard or the Guard,” Deanna said.

The man spat something he'd been chewing. Being close enough to smell the stink of it unnerved Tall. Then the man said, “The fool should be terrified.” Tall was.

Something was glowing. The pulse of it was almost hypnotic. At first Tall thought the woman had started a fire, but then he saw the faint glow was coming from his pocket and not from the clearing. It was the orb. The orb was blinking and he cupped it in his hands to block the light. What was more, Tall saw a similar glow through the trees. Only this glow was in Deanna's outstretched hand. How serene her expression as it was reflected in the unnerving, intermittent pulsing.

“What of my sister?” Deanna asked. Tall could have sworn that Deanna was looking straight at him when she said those words. He saw the blue of her eyes clear enough, but it was likely she didn't see him, as his dark complexion helped ensure he was but a shadow within the shadows to the untrained eye. Still, he dared not move until she turned away.