A Play of Shadow (76 page)

Jenn put down the toad, it being easier to do than meet the other woman’s eyes. “Werfol,” she guessed as she straightened.

“He’s lost in a dream. A nightmare.” The effort to keep those words calm and steady showed in Lila’s face. “Unless I go to him, he’ll stay trapped there. He’ll die. I must go. Take me with you.” The last spoken with all of a mother’s terrible need. “Bannan’s told me. Only you can do it.”

~Elder sister, is this wise?~

In no way. Jenn didn’t dare look at Bannan. “I will not,” she said, knowing he’d see the truth of it.

Lila’s face hardened. “I accept the risk—”

“Because you don’t know what it is,” Jenn replied, relieved to see a flicker of doubt. “Can’t Bannan help Werfol?”

“Our gifts aren’t the same. I can see what my son dreams. I can share that dream, once we touch, and show him how to free himself. I can save him, Jenn! You must help me.”

Tears burned, spilled cold over her cheeks, as Jenn fought to say what she must. “If you entered the Verge, you would share madness and death with your son.”

Lila might have been stone. “Without me, that will be his fate.”

For the first time, Jenn wavered. Bannan had endured. Might his sister, despite her different gift?

The toad waited. The kruar had arrived, ready to leave this world and be themselves again.

Be themselves. “How long does he have?” Jenn asked abruptly. “Werfol.”

Lila frowned. “He suffers now.”

“He’s a healthy lad,” Bannan declared, stepping forward. “And brave. Covie will care for him.” He stood near his sister, their faces like reflections. “Lila, he’s yours. You know him best. How much time do we have?”

“If Werfol stays in the dream,” she said after a dreadful moment, “the damage will be to his mind first. I can’t—Heart’s Blood.” A quick breath. “A couple of days, if the Ancestors care at all. After that—” Lila pressed a fist to her mouth.

Bannan put a protective arm around his sister. “Why?” he asked Jenn angrily, as if she’d been needlessly cruel.

Instead of answering, Jenn turned to the kruar. They lifted their heads, snorting with suspicion as she walked up to them, for that was their nature. But they didn’t back away.

Being brave. That too.

She let herself be glass and tears and light, light that caught in their wild, red-rimmed eyes.

And asked a question.

Two cloaked figures led their horses under the arch of a bridge to where the canal widened into a small lake. Disks of dark silver lay beneath the surface, like platters or wide steps, and the day’s last light gilded the mist above but didn’t break it. Beside the lake stood not one but three observers, in cloaks of the same shape and style. No others were allowed here. No others would dare.

The turn was coming.

The figures mounted, sending their horses down a step into what seemed water but stirred with movement and glinted silver and wasn’t, quite. Boots were raised as the horses waded, belly-deep, then lowered as first one, then the second climbed on what lay below. Steps then.

Built by rain.

Those watching knew more was imminent, for it rained every sunset, as if the dimming of light woke the clouds. Those swimming knew as well, growing ever more hungry.

Once in place, the horses stood with unhorse-like patience, their riders silent and hooded.

As if holding a breath.

Then the rain came, and the light changed, and all became a swirl of color and possibility. Those who watched saw the horses leap upward, to disappear within the clouds.

And were content.

The turn came, and Jenn Nalynn stepped from stone to what wasn’t.

~Myturn.~Don’tpush~Higher~MORE~Holdon~Holdfast!~

Nyim scampered and clawed on top of each other, their true color revealed by the light of the Verge. Patterns and whorls. Bright flashes by eyes more red than yellow. Beautiful, in their way.

If prone to bite. She stepped with care, but quickly.

~Higher~MORE~HIGHER~ Now she could stand, for the mass of them rose beneath her as more and more shoved their way into the pile. Hundreds, perhaps thousands. Ignoring the rain in their determination.

High enough. She’d have thanked the small creatures, but she found herself inside a drop and quite unable to speak.

For it was time. The turn came. With a thought, with a wish, Jenn Nalynn crossed into the Verge.

Warm and bright and mad with color and she . . .

Blinked.

The toad squirmed from her pack. ~Where are we, elder sister?~

“I’ve no idea,” she admitted.

. . . staring out over purple-kissed hills that rolled themselves into the sky and curled back down like sleeping dragons.

No idea at all.

The turn came.

And kruar landed, soft as feathers, on the cloud-wreathed rooftop above the small lake. Pigeons scattered.

No outcry from below. Heart’s Blood. They’d done it.

“What of Jenn?” Bannan demanded.

His kruar bent her neck to regard him. The breeze in his ear was reassuringly confident. “The turn-born crossed into the Verge.”

“They can talk!?” Lila asked, her eyes wide. Then mouthed, “Scourge?”

He nodded, pleased the beast included his sister, less pleased by what lay ahead. “You must stay near me,” he cautioned the kruar yet again. Heart’s Blood. “Beyond the edge, you won’t be able to speak. You won’t remember who you are. I will remember for you.”

“Truthseer.” Acknowledgment.

Lila’s threw up his head. “Soon, we will have names to remember!” A different breeze, hot and eager.

“Names!” from his.

Ancestors Witness, they were like recruits before their first battle.

“Bannan,” his sister cautioned, hearing that as well.

These were kruar and fire was in their blood, he reminded himself. Jenn had challenged them, had shown them a path to glory.

Had crossed alone into the Verge, to give Werfol this chance.

Bannan leaned forward. Seeing him, Lila did the same. “To Marrowdell!” he cried, uncaring who heard, and dug in his heels.

For the turn-born had asked the kruar one question.

Can you outrun death?

Time they proved it.

Where were they?

Goodness, this was a pickle. Jenn decided to sit and think a moment. It didn’t help matters that she felt more than a little light-headed.

And alone, she sighed. Though she had her guardian, and the yling, presently in her hair. Much as she prized both, it wasn’t at all the same as having Bannan with her.

Which she didn’t and wouldn’t. There was, as Aunt Sybb would surely say, nothing to be gained by sighing about what wasn’t right with the world. She’d usually add that extra chores were the best cure, having an infallible list of those at the ready.

“We’ve a chore of our own,” Jenn told the toad. “Finding the way home.” She might have guessed a crossing contained in a drop might be blown or move or simply not be where it should; another question for Mistress Sand.

Still, she’d expected—for no good reason, it seemed now—to simply “know” the way, much like a spring duck.

She got to her feet. Feet covered by new boots. Boots she couldn’t wait to show Peggs, bringing on an entire wave of longing. “Yes, home it is.” But which way?

She looked down at the toad. “Which way looks best to you, little cousin?”

It shrank into a distressed and pale ball, eyes bulging.

Oh. “Sorry. Well . . .” Jenn popped a finger in her mouth, then held it out to detect any breezes.

None.

About to decide based on where she could see the most blue, it seeming a trustworthy color, she felt a patpatpat. “What is it? Do you know?”

Out flew the yling, to hover before her eyes and his six hands waved with distinct urgency. Alas, no two in the same direction.

“What’s it saying?” she asked the toad, disappointed.

~To run, elder sister!~

The bloody beasts. You could love them, Bannan decided in a rare moment of clarity, but it’d be the same fondness you felt for the lightning that struck your enemy’s camp and missed yours. There but for chance was my death.

These kruar must have ambled through the Verge. Scourge at his wickedest, heart-stopping best must have trotted, likely bored.

This?

They’d leapt through Channen on rooftops. Leapt across the Straight, bouncing from barge to barge too quickly for any to do more than glance up and wonder.

Beyond the city, once their hooves touched soil, it was as if the kruar moved the world.

Forget passing other riders on a road. He’d glimpse flashes of light and guess those to be towns and villages, lamps lit against the dark.

Dark mattered nothing to the kruar. That he’d already known.

Did their riders? Ancestors Witness, if the saddle hadn’t held him tight, he’d have been left, on his rump, in Channen. The grip of his hands, his arms’ strength had failed long since. He’d tried to gain his mount’s attention, worried for Lila, afraid, frankly, for himself. As easily talk to the wind.

Manic, this race, and magic. That too.

For Werfol, he told himself, and buried his face against a hot neck.