High Raven had promised to tell Brenna and Anton their fates before the day was out, and he was true to his word… but only in part.
Their immediate fate, at least, was not to become “food for scavengers,” which Brenna supposed was the most important thing. But beyond that, High Raven was not forthcoming. “You will live,” he said. “What more do you need to know? Tonight, and perhaps for one or two more, you will be our guests. Then you will move on.”
“Move on where?” Brenna asked, but High Raven would not say.
The next two days were the strangest Brenna had ever spent. She had resigned herself to spending the evening sitting around the fire, chewing in silence on whatever gristly game the Minik had managed to scavenge from the Wilderness. Instead, she ate sumptuously: caribou and lake trout, pickled mushrooms, sweet cattail pollen cakes and more, washed down with a powerful drink that smelled and tasted of honey. And when the food had finally quit coming-only because she couldn’t eat anymore, not because there was any shortage of it-the music and storytelling and dancing began, and went on far into the night.
The music was strange, and wild, the whistling of high flutes and the singing of a strange single-stringed… fiddle, she guessed you call it… twining around each other above a constant but complex drumbeat. It made her feel… different. Wild.
Free.
Free of Lord Falk. Free of the MageLords. Free of Mother Northwind. Free of all the restrictions she had lived under so long, restrictions that seemed all the more smothering now she had escaped them, having literally flown away like a bird fleeing a cage through a suddenly opened door.
Free…
She began to eye Anton speculatively as she drank more of the mead, listened to the throbbing drums, watched the Minik dance, men and women stripped down to nothing more than loincloths, bodies glistening with sweat… Anton wasn’t watching her, though, he was watching some bare-breasted girl even younger than she was, eyes wide, lips slightly parted, and she felt a pang of jealousy, and suddenly she was up and dancing, too, and then Anton joined in, and for a few moments they were dancing together, though not the kind of dancing she’d thought so exciting at the Moon Ball. This was wild, primeval, sensual…
Free.
But then, suddenly, it ended. The drums stopped, the flutes sighed their last high notes, the fiddle vibrated into silence. Brenna and Anton suddenly found themselves alone in the space around the fire, as the Minik began gathering their clothes, retrieving plates and vessels they had brought in for the communal meal, and streaming out into the cold air to return to their own huts.
Brenna and Anton were still breathing heavily. Brenna was excruciatingly aware of how close he was. She wanted to get closer. She wanted him to touch her. She wanted…
She started toward him, but was suddenly jerked back by a strong hand on her arm. The old woman who tended the fire was staring at her. Her look was not unsympathetic, but she shook her head and pointed behind her, where, Brenna saw, a bed of pine boughs had been made on the floor, two red woven blankets spread on top. And then she stepped between Brenna and Anton and pointed at a second bed on the far side of the fire. Anton licked his lips, but nodded and, with a last glance at Brenna, made his way to his own bed…
… as Brenna did to hers, frustrated and a little angry. Free, she though. Free of everything except chaperones!
In the morning, though, without the mead adding fuel to the fire in her blood, without the beat of the music and the half-naked bodies weaving in and out on the dance floor, she was more grateful than not. She found it hard to even look at Anton that morning, and the reluctance seemed mutual. The old woman smiled to herself and put more wood on the fire.
Maybe not a chaperone, she thought. Maybe just wise with age.
High Raven came to fetch them an hour later, taking them to the large sled which had brought the airship ashore. Anton almost leaped at it, insisting the envelope be stretched out fully, running his hands over every rope, inspecting the burner. “Undamaged, as far as I can see,” he said. “Except for some of the wicker.” He pointed to a hole that had worn in one corner of the gondola during the slide across the ice. High Raven, who had been watching silently, came closer to examine it. He grunted.
“We can fix that,” he said.
While Anton had been examining the airship, he had collected a crowd of Minik, mostly children who laughed and whispered and pointed, but also a few men and one or two women, though in general, Brenna had noticed, the women seemed to be the ones doing all the work around the camp. The men had been very good at drinking and dancing the night before, but she wondered what they did during the day. Hunt, she supposed, though she saw little evidence of it.
Her impression that women did all the work was strengthened when High Raven sent a little boy running off somewhere. He returned with a woman, tall and sturdy, her hair, in a braid reaching almost to her waist, just beginning to gray. “My wife, Sweetwater,” he said. Then, in rapid-fire, lilting Minik, he pointed out the hole in the gondola.
His wife replied briefly and, even Brenna could tell, in the affirmative, and went away again.
“She will fix it,” High Raven said. He turned to go.
“What should we do?” Brenna called after him.
“Whatever you like,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “You are our guests. But do not leave the camp.”
“Why not?” Brenna said, out of some perverse impulse.
“Guests do not leave unexpectedly,” High Raven said. “If they do, they are no longer guests.” He walked away. The other men followed. The children remained close but not too close, pointing and giggling.
“A very polite way of saying that if we leave, we will be brought back-and no longer treated as guests,” Anton noted.
“In other words, we’re still prisoners,” Brenna said. Her thoughts of freedom the night before came back to mock her.
“But alive. And not in Falk’s hands. That’s something, right?” Anton made a face at a little girl in a long buckskin coat decorated with colorful but rather clumsy beadwork; it had the look of something she had made herself. She screeched, then ran behind a bigger boy-her brother?-and hid, giggling, peeking out again as if to show she wasn’t really frightened.
Brenna again remembered calling the Minik savages, and felt renewed shame. She hid her eyes with her hands then drew her hands back again. “Peek-a-boo!” she said.
The little girl laughed and copied her. “Peek-a-boo! Peek-a-boo!” she shouted, and soon all the children were shouting it, running around and around Brenna and Anton, alternately hiding and showing their eyes and shrieking at the top of their lungs.
A group of passing women gave the children an indulgent glance and Brenna and Anton warm smiles, and she suddenly felt better again about their circumstances. So they weren’t allowed to leave the camp; well, so what? It wasn’t like they could go anywhere. She wouldn’t last a day in the northern wilderness, even with Anton’s help-and he, though she was certain he must have far better survival skills than she, wouldn’t fare much better with no supplies.
Could you still be called a prisoner when your prison walls were saving you from certain death?
Her improved feeling lasted throughout the day, as they played with the children, sharing their noon meal of fish and bannock, and watched High Raven’s wife expertly weave new wicker into the hole in the gondola. That night there was more music and dancing, but of a more sedate kind, and no mead. The previous night, Anton explained to her as they sat watching the women perform a slow, shuffling dance around and around the fire, had been a feast to welcome new guests. Tonight was just an ordinary night.
That night, Brenna went to sleep almost content, not even worrying about what the morrow would bring…
… which was why what it did bring came as a horrible shock.
Anton saw them first. He had gone down to the airship once again, as though to reassure himself that it still was all right and hadn’t been “eaten by wolves or something in the night,” as Brenna teased him. She stayed behind in the longhouse, where the old woman seemed to have taken a liking to her and was showing her how to string beads together, then sew them onto a piece of buckskin.
Anton didn’t mind the teasing. He found he didn’t mind much of anything where Brenna was concerned. He’d found it very hard… he winced; bad choice of words… difficult to go to sleep after that first night’s feast, his blood, like hers, he suspected… hoped?. .. inflamed by the mead and the music and the bare, glistening flesh in the firelight…
He sighed and tried to put the image out of his mind. He took another look at the envelope. He’d asked that it be rolled up and tied in a round bundle, and the Minik had done a neat job of it, much neater than the job they’d done when they’d first transported it to the shore from the ice. That was why he’d examined it so carefully than first time. It was one thing to mend wicker, quite another to mend the thin silk of the envelope without sewing machines or… magic.
He shook his head. Here, with magic no more in evidence among these Minik than those he knew on the Outside, it was hard to believe that he had truly seen the things he had seen back in Lord Falk’s estate. But he had seen them, and the fact they had successfully flown across the lake at all was proof of it. Those mageservants…
And then his thoughts were interrupted as two sleds came roaring up the trail from the lake, both pulled by panting dogs whose breath sent huge clouds of steam into the air. The one in front he recognized as the one that they’d ridden in from the crash site. The one in back
…
He straightened.
It was larger than any of the Minik sleds; larger, and with a very different look. The dogs were different, too, larger but somehow not as tough-looking as the Minik dogs. There were more of them, though.
The sled had a kind of flagpole attached to it from which hung a bright blue banner, very nearly the same color as the airship. And on it were… Minik-na.
There were four men, wearing coats that looked both bulkier and not as warm as the furs of the Minik, and hats with large earflaps that were almost comical… not that Anton felt like smiling. He could think of only one reason the Minik would suddenly allow Minik-na into the camp, and he didn’t like it.
High Raven was talking to the men; he turned suddenly and came walking toward Anton. “Where is Brenna?” he said.
“In the longhouse,” Anton said. “I’ll get her.”
“Stay where you are,” said High Raven. “I will get her.”
He went into the longhouse and emerged a moment later with Brenna, who was tugging her coat on as she came. She reached Anton and stopped. Her eyes widened as she took in the new arrivals.
“Your time as our guests has ended,” High Raven said. “You will go with these men.”
“Who are they?” Anton said.
“They are servants of North Wind,” Raven said.
Brenna gasped. “You can’t mean… you’re not sending us back to that… that witch!”
“That ‘witch,’ ” said High Raven softly, “lived with this clan for ten years. That ‘witch’ saved the life of my wife and the life of my firstborn son, turned the wrong way in the womb. That ‘witch’ avenged the massacre of Minik by the MageLord Starkind, securing the honor of this clan and her place in it. That ‘witch’ is, and always will be, a friend of the Minik, a friend of this clan, and a friend of High Raven. She tells me she has need of you. I will send you to her.”
Anton knew there was nothing they could say against such an argument from a Minik clan leader, but Brenna tried anyway. “But I told you what she wanted to do!” she cried. “She reached into Anton’s mind, stole his thoughts… she will twist his mind until he is no longer himself, but a mere puppet of Falk’s. If you give us to her, you are giving us back to him. You are giving us back to the MageLords you claim to hate!”
Most of Brenna’s words seemed to roll off the implacable Minik like water from a smooth stone, but her last outburst caused his eyes to narrow. “I am giving you to North Wind,” he said. “If you think that is the same as giving you to the MageLords, then you know nothing about North Wind.” He made a chopping gesture with his hand, as if it were a knife severing a rope-severing the thread of conversation, Anton guessed. “It is done. They will take the airship, and they will take you, to where North Wind wants you to be. The Minik are done with you. You are no longer guests. You are no longer welcome in our camp. Do not come here again.” And then he walked away without looking back.
A soft sob escaped Brenna. Anton, feeling drained and helpless, reached out and took her gloved hand. Then he led her toward the waiting sled.
Karl woke on his third day as a captive of the Common Cause to the sound of arguing.
He rolled over and sat up. Gray light seeped through the curtained window; midmorning, then.
He could make out Vinthor’s voice, and Beth’s, but the loudest voice… was that Jopps’?
Intrigued, he rolled out of bed, pulled on the warm dressing gown Goodwife Beth had provided, slipped his feet into the slippers she had given him, went out, and descended the stairs.
He had rather hoped to do so silently, but he was defeated by the slippers, which flapped against the bottom of his feet like the warning tail slaps of a beaver in a pond. Rather than creep down unobserved, he found himself being stared at by Vinthor, Goodwife Beth, and Jopps as he entered the kitchen. There was no sign of Denson.
“Your Highness,” Vinthor said.
“What’s all the noise?” Karl asked.
“None of your concern,” Jopps said gruffly.
But Goodwife Beth seemed to have no qualms about telling him. “Oh, it’s a terrible thing, duckling,” she said. He found the comic-character act a little creepy, having seen what lay behind the jovial mask, but she hadn’t shown the hidden steel since. “Lord Falk has been blowing up buildings in New Cabora, he wants you back so bad. First City Hall, then the Grand Theater and the Courthouse. He must love you a whole bunch, sweetie.”
Karl gave her a hard look, but she returned it blandly.
“Yeah, he loves you so much he’s left my parents homeless,” Jopps snarled. “When the Courthouse came down, it took a street of apartments with it.” Jopps turned to Vinthor again, voice pleading. “Sir, I have to go to them. They need my help. You don’t need me here
…”
“What if Falk finds us and attacks?” Vinthor countered. “I’ll need every man.”
“If he attacks, you’ll slip out the back door and escape while he’s knocking down the front,” Jopps said. “Whether I’m here or not won’t change that.”
“It’s a matter of duty,” Vinthor said. “You swore an oath…”
“Oh, let him go, there’s a good cell leader,” Goodwife Beth said. “One man won’t make a difference. And you’re the only man here with any family, aren’t you, poor dear?” she said to Jopps.
He nodded. “Denson’s got no one. None of the others, either.”
Vinthor frowned, but Goodwife Beth’s gaze had become… penetrating. “All right,” he said at last, almost explosively. “All right,” he repeated, and this time he just sounded resigned. “Permission granted. Look after your parents. And then come back here.”
“Yes, sir, thank you, sir!” Jopps said, and almost ran from the room.
“You did the right think, cupcake,” Goodwife Beth said warmly to Vinthor, and then she looked up at Karl, who still stood on the stairs. “I’m afraid you’re not the most popular person in New Cabora right now, Your Highness, love,” she said. “Old Falk is making sure of that.”
“I would stop him if I could,” Karl said. “If you returned me to the Palace-”
Vinthor let out a laugh that sounded more like a snort, and Goodwife Beth smiled hugely. “I’m afraid we can’t do that, precious. Patron’s orders.” She cocked her head to one side. “Come here and let me see how that dressing gown fits, there’s a lamb.”
Wishing he’d never come down, Karl flip-flopped over to her.
“Turn around, chickadee,” she said. He did. “Come closer.” He took a step in. “Let’s just check the size,” she said, and before he could react, had opened the dressing gown wide. “Oh, my,” she said, “I guess I should have given you some pajamas, too!” And then she flicked the dressing gown closed again. “Looks like everything is sized just fine, ducky!” she said cheerfully. “Toddle off now and get yourself dressed, if you’re up for all day.”
Cheeks burning with shame, Karl turned and headed toward the stair, exchanging a look with Vinthor, who wouldn’t meet his eyes.
From his bedroom window, Karl watched Jopps mount up and ride out of the farmyard, heading back to New Cabora.
What else has Falk done, trying to find me? he thought sickly. What other atrocities have I brought down on the Commoners’ heads by my stupid, childish behavior?
None of this would have happened if he hadn’t decided to follow the two men he had seen out his Palace window. City Hall would still stand. The Grand Theater. The Courthouse would still be there, and the apartments behind it.
And Falk wouldn’t stop. He would keep up the pressure on the Commoners, pushing harder and harder until someone broke and told him where Karl was hidden.
And then what? An armed assault against Goodwife Beth’s farmhouse?
If that happened, magic-wielding guards against Commoners armed with swords and crossbows-sticks and stones, for all the good they would do without magic-then how many more would die? How many more would die because of Prince Karl, the man who had promised to the Commoner in the Council Chamber that he would be a better king than his father, that he would bridge the gap between Commoners and Mageborn?
It would be better for everyone if the assassin had killed me, he thought darkly. Better if I had never been born.
Jopps disappeared in a cloud of snow down the road leading out of the little valley, and Karl flicked the curtain closed and turned, pointlessly, to getting dressed.
The cloaked man on horseback watched from a hillside as, out on the ice of the lake, two dogsleds hurried south. He had been very careful to position himself below the hill’s crest, to avoid silhouetting himself against the bright morning sky.
There was little chance he would be noticed now, with the light behind him turning the hill into a giant lump of shadow, while illuminating the two dog sleds-and especially the bundle of bright blue that seemed to form a large part of the second sled’s cargo.
Like all members of the King’s Mounted Rangers, Constable Orlam was Mageborn, and though his own magic was slight, it was sufficient for his needs. All of the “Mounties” were trained in the construction and operation of certain enchanted objects to help them in their duties. Orlam took one of them now, a magniseer he had crafted himself, from a case hung on his saddle. Though the air was already frigid, sparkling with ice crystals in the westering sunlight, the magniseer frosted over… and to Orlam, it appeared the dogsleds on the lake leaped a dozen times nearer.
Of course, Orlam had never seen an airship, as the orders from the Palace telling him what to look for had termed the object of his search. He didn’t really believe the rumors flying through the ranks of the Rangers that this airship was a kind of flying carriage from beyond the Great Barrier. But there was no doubt that the thing on the second sled, one of the big sixteen-dog freight sleds that carried cargo to communities all along the shoreline in winter, matched the description. The dogs were pulling it well enough, but Orlam could tell it was a heavy load. Two men rode with it, one driving, the other resting.
The smaller eight-dog sled in front carried supplies wrapped in hides and tied down with ropes, and four people. Bundled against the cold as they were, it was difficult to tell much about them, but it looked to Orlam very much as though one of them was smaller and more slender than the others… and the coat she wore matched another part of the description he had been given.
He lowered the magniseer and tucked it away again. It was pure happenstance that he had come close enough to the lake to see them down there, running that close to the shore. Normally at this stage in his patrol he would have been miles away to the east; but he had been summoned in his capacity as a dispenser of the King’s Justice to rule in a land dispute near Birchwood that had grown heated enough to come to violence, and from Birchwood it had made more sense to reverse his usual patrol pattern.
Which had put him here and now.
Praise to the SkyMage, Orlam thought, and felt a thrill of pride that he had been the one chosen to discover the girl that Lord Falk said was so important to Unbinding the Mageborn at last, freeing them from the prison of the Barriers.
Careful never to crest the top of the hill, he moved out of sight of the lake, and then opened a magelink to the Palace.