A Play of Shadow (54 page)

Nor did kruar enjoy riders. In his experience, they enjoyed being given direction by those riders even less. Bannan had never fooled himself Scourge obeyed without question. The great beast gauged every situation by his own standards and either agreed with his rider.

Or didn’t.

These kruar were eager to complete their duty and be done with riders altogether. The Verge passed by in a blur of unexpected shapes and unnamed colors as they wove their way around obstacles that loomed in front.

Or under. Or over. He couldn’t tell if the idiot beasts were deliberately choosing the most complicated path or if they couldn’t abandon their instinct to go unseen. They moved in uncanny silence as well. Not that he’d argue.

What a kruar chose to avoid, Bannan did not want to meet.

Within a few mad swerves, he lost sight of Jenn and her kruar. After another, he couldn’t be sure if they traveled uphill or down. The kruar hit a stretch where it could lengthen its stride; Bannan had to bend over the saddle to catch a breath. “Hang on, Jenn,” he muttered.

~Our elder sister wants me to tell you that she is hanging on and hopes you are too.~

The toad. Bannan yelled into his sleeve, “You can hear her?”

~There’s no need to shout, truthseer.~ With some offense. ~Of course I can hear our elder sister. I can hear you, can I not?~

Save him from toads. “Apologies, little cousin.” Hopefully, this meant Jenn wasn’t far ahead. “Does she see the crossing yet?”

A darker voice, amused. ~We are there.~

Bannan’s kruar jolted to a stop and he barely saved himself from lurching forward onto its perilous crest.

Then the truthseer hung onto the saddle as perspective screamed and common sense failed. Look
deeper
, he told himself desperately, and tried, but not even his gift could grasp where they stood.

Unless it was possible, in the Verge, to be within a single drop of rain.

“Thank you,” Jenn told her mount, knowing full well it hadn’t been her skill—or tight grip—keeping her in the saddle through the violent ride.

It turned its head to regard her with one red-rimmed eye. ~I do my duty.~ But not as gruffly as it might. ~This is the crossing.~

She could feel it. Goose bumps rose on her skin, a reassuring reminder of what she was at the moment. In the Verge, it was too easy to forget. There was, however, one small problem.

They were, quite plainly, inside a drop of mimrol. While Jenn was relieved not to be drowning—which was another, not-so-small a problem to consider—she couldn’t see how, or why, they were where they apparently were.

“We’re in a drop.”

The head swung back, the kruar unimpressed. ~Will you cross, turn-born?~

Not without Bannan. As if the denial had been a summons, the truthseer, still astride his kruar, appeared in the drop with her.

He let out a cry and pressed the heels of both hands into his eyes.

“Bannan!” She kicked her kruar as she would Wainn’s Old Pony and, for a wonder, it stepped close enough to the truthseer’s that she could lean over and put her hand on his arm.

An arm so tense it shook beneath her fingers.

It was being here that upset him.

So Jenn Nalynn wished them . . . there.

They were in a drop.

That fell,

fell,

fell . . .

Bannan put his hand over Jenn’s on his arm, and prayed, “Hearts of my Ancestors, I’d be Behold—”

Not to die, not to smash into the ground, not to stay small enough to fit inside a silver drop, not to drown—

When none of those things happened, when what he felt next was rain on his own face, he opened his eyes one at a time.

He still rode, but what had been kruar appeared now as a chestnut horse with a shock of black mane. Jenn, on a bay with black points, was beside him. Their “horses” stood knee-deep in a small round lake banked with stone, more stone forming a walkway bounded by stone walls whose tops disappeared into masses of shadowed leaves.

The only opening in the walls was ahead, where the outflow from the lake, edged by narrowing walkways, slipped beneath an arched stone bridge. Huge lamps, like golden sentries, hung from the walls at intervals and their light caught in puddles and dark water.

For it rained.

Bannan held out his cupped hand, shocked when it filled with molten silver. Mimrol. Here?

“Is this Channen?” Jenn asked, sounding as unsure as he felt.

“It must be.” If for no other reason than he no longer used his deeper sight, an almost painful easing of effort. Bannan gave himself an inner shake. They had to move.

Though where they stood deserved a second and third look.

The lake was more a fountain, filled with submerged wide irregular platforms stacked one upon the other. The kruar were on a middle one. To Bannan’s left another two rose higher, but not out of the—was it water, or pure mimrol? A blend, he guessed, seeing how the pure silver drops that fell as rain slipped below the surface to gather, ever-so-slowly, on the platforms. Had the Naalish built them for this purpose?

Or did the mimrol settle out thus, over time?

He tipped his hand, watching the mimrol pour into the lake. Ripples spread from that point, but the silver stayed together, dulling slightly as it sank.

“Bannan. Someone’s here.”

Tir’d box his ears, Bannan knew, for letting himself be distracted by drops. Sure enough, a figure stood on the bank, hooded and cloaked, one hand holding a lantern on a staff. He—or she—appeared unsurprised to have horses and riders appear in the lake.

The turn-borns’ arrangement.

“Greetings,” Bannan said in Naalish, touching two fingers of his right hand to his left shoulder. The last he’d heard, it was still the salutation between persons intent on amicable business.

The figure did the same. “All is ready for you, Keepers.” A man, and not a young one, by the voice. The Naalish turned and began to walk away.

Jenn’s kruar lifted his head. “Do we follow, turn-born?” A breeze in Bannan’s ear, with a hint of puzzlement.

“If this is the trusted person,” now his, the mare interested in Scourge, with a decided snap. “We were to follow only the trusted person. Is it?”

That the kruar, on this side of the edge, were willing to speak in breezes—their other speech something he couldn’t detect outside the Verge—was a relief.

That they were just as new to Channen?

Wasn’t.

Jenn drew another deep breath. The Verge had an array of smells, none of which her nose would have predicted and several she’d seemed to “smell” with her eyes.

Here? She might have stepped barefoot into the river, midsummer; somewhere in the reeds, where rot bubbled beneath her toes and everything was rich and dark, like a well-made pudding. There were kitchen smells, too, though faint, enough to make her stomach rumble in interest. She’d not eaten much, in the Verge. Hadn’t wanted to, there, but here?

Here she was hungry.

And rode a horse, or the seeming of one, which made her feel a great deal more comfortable than riding a fierce and armored kruar—which she still did, of course, but the camouflage was perfect down to the feel of warm hide.

Ears flattened and Jenn stopped the inadvertent petting she’d begun. Not a horse.

“We can’t stay here,” Bannan said quietly, but didn’t move, as if waiting for her to decide.

The man in the cloak seemed harmless enough. After all, he’d expected them.

No, she thought abruptly. He expected turn-born.

This wasn’t like Marrowdell, where the turn-born could cross unseen, then pretend to come by an ordinary road and be ordinary. This was the heart of a city. Here, Mistress Sand and the rest arrived as what they were, relying upon this man and his kind to keep their secret.

Insisting on it.

This wasn’t the turn-born coming in friendship, and working together at the harvest, nor dancing till dawn to celebrate. What they did here was something very different and Jenn found herself more than uneasy and unsure.

She found herself afraid. How could she act that way? What should she do?

“We’ve been met, as promised,” Bannan reminded her, his voice calm and composed, his face a mask, and he couldn’t say what might be on his mind, she understood, for someone listened to them.

A stranger.

Worse and worse. Goodness. What would Aunt Sybb say?

That standing still was for statues, not people with work to do.

Jenn took a deep breath and steadied herself. She’d be herself, for weren’t the turn-born individuals? As for Bannan, who could be anyone he chose, why, anyone waiting here would surely assume he was turn-born. Who else could appear out of thin air and rain?

Which was good and safe and important. Those who knew of the turn-born must believe Bannan one as well. If they didn’t—if they discovered a man could cross into the Verge and survive—

With a wish, with a thought, she could make everyone believe. This was the edge, her domain, with no one here to deny her.

Except herself. She’d vowed not to wish at people again. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair. Besides, they’d only just arrived.

And she was hungry.

OH, and didn’t she have a host of new questions for Mistress Sand, concerning the edge in other domains and how turn-born behaved in each and how people treated them?

Bannan waited. At Jenn’s nod, he set his not-horse in motion with a louder, “We’re coming.” Hers followed.

They were on some sort of platform submerged in the little lake, for their mounts climbed down with care. One step, then two. At that level, water as warm as a bath lapped at Jenn’s toes and she stretched out a foot to enjoy more.

“Do not.” From her not-horse. From the way Bannan promptly brought up his feet, he’d received the same warning.

Why? Jenn looked down. The water was almost black, either because it was a bit boggy or because the sky above them was obscured by low hanging cloud. Or both.

The surface dimpled, as if something had floated near the top, watching them, then dove out of sight. A fish? Wen spoke to the fish in Marrowdell’s river, but Jenn hadn’t found them interested in talking to her. Just as well. She was very fond of pan-fried trout.

Her curiosity about the water faded as they approached the bank, replaced by a real concern how they were to get out of the lake, the stonework rising over her head. As if to remind her what they rode, Bannan’s kruar bunched its hindquarters and sprang over that barrier like an ungainly rabbit, to land on the path beyond.

Jenn held tight as hers did the same.

Seeing Bannan dismount, she slipped her leg over and jumped down. “Thank you,” she told her not-horse, with a determined and respectful pat on his shoulder.

The shoulder shuddered as if her touch was a biting fly, but the beast came with her like a mannerly horse as she joined Bannan.