That had happened a few years ago, when the inn where Vivian was staying had caught fire. She decided she’d exhausted all the arguments she was obliged to put forward, so just thought her thanks again.
Ulamir was right about the stone being closer. Huge purple and blue rocks, worn smooth by age, stuck out of the ground without any apparent pattern. Even when Vivian couldn’t see stone directly, the soil looked thinner and the trees smaller.
The wind picked up, passing her face in a flensing rush that made her eyes water. Vivian left her hood down anyhow, knowing that it wouldn’t have stayed on in that blast unless she’d laced it so tightly that it impeded her hearing.
It was breaking up the clouds, that wind, but the sky it revealed was a washed-out sort of blue, as though the rain had drained all the life out of it. The land was wide and bare, the trees stunted compared to the ones Vivian and Olvir had recently passed through. They stood lonely or in isolated little groves, casting long shadows on the dark earth.
Vivian couldn’t deny that the walk was easier, despite growing more and more uphill, that her field of vision was better, or that nothing was dripping on her head. But the place was bleak. Even the birds sounded harsh and far away. The small animals, with too much ground to cover and not much shelter, flicked nervously from tree to rock to den, rarely visible.
Nomads had lived there once, until Thyran’s first war. The land might have been more cheerful when it had been full of tents and horses.
All its former inhabitants had vanished, traceless. Bloodlines survived from those who’d been visiting other lands or in descendants of those who’d been on friendly terms with travelers. So did some of the stories, a few of the traditions, maybe a scrap or two of what those customs had meant.
Most of the rest had died or joined Thyran, as humans from other countries had done when he’d been gathering his armies. Many of those who’d chosen alliance might still be with Thyran in some form. A very few might have had a choice in their shape—rumor had it that the lords of the twistedmen, Thyran’s lieutenants, got to pick Gizath’s effects on their flesh.
Everything else was gone. After a hundred years, the land didn’t even hold on to bones.
Time devours all,said Ulamir.Thyran only helped.
* * *
Noon was a pale wash of light above them. Olvir doffed his cloak, and his clothes slowly dried. He spotted flowers clustered near the roots of trees and the bases of rocks but recognized none of the bright-blue and yellow blossoms as edible.
The animals might have been, but there’d be no time to cook them. They moved too fast to hunt anyhow, almost too fast to see. Olvir glimpsed hares, small anteaters, and a squirrel with a scaled, barbed tail, but they were all on the run, dashing into cover almost as soon as he noticed them. Once, a silver-furred marmot bolted up from a patch of grass when Olvir got too close, then stood on its hind legs to stare at him and chitter loudly.
Once Olvir recovered from the shock, he started laughing silently, partly with relief at being a little more certain, on a gut level, that he was alive. He doubted marmots had much to say to ghosts or echoes at least.
“It’s probably good that Emeth isn’t here,” Vivian said from behind him, snickering. “I doubt that you want to find out what he’s saying.”
“My deepest apologies for disturbing you, sir,” said Olvir. He bowed to the marmot, as elaborate and courtly as he could make the gesture while on the road. “I’m sure you’re right about everything.”
He heard Vivian laugh again. That was another line thrown out, stronger than the marmot: Olvir was truly present, truly alive, connected to the rest of existence. He was shaping the world, not only echoing it.
“I think we can talk now,” he said, surveying the rocky, bare land. “Our steps will carry as loudly as our voices on this earth, and we’ll be able to hear anybody approaching. Or so I assume.”
“Thank the gods, Ulamir agrees with you. He says he’ll take tonight’s watch too.”
“That’s generous of him.”
“It is,” said Vivian, “and he’s extremely doubtful about my skills out here when I haven’t slept. Or he thinks that nature’s trying my patience as it is. He’d be right in both cases.”
“I heard you were all at home in the wilderness.”
“Oh, we’re all trained in the basics. I can manage when I have to. But when I could, I took the kind of missions I was on with you, the sort where I could clear out the undead in a haunted castle or lure ice-apes away from a village. Darya and Emeth are better at places where people don’t live.”
“And when there’s no mission, you prefer to stay indoors?”
“Horseback, if I can help it, or with a dog pack, or out in a garden. A walk in the woods on a nice day. Outside is wonderful; it’s just the wild that I don’t enjoy. It’s too…wild.”
“But Poram gave you his blessing?”
“He’s also Sitha’s love. The gods seem reasonably complicated.”
“Or they understand that we are,” said Olvir, recalling the vigil at his initiation.
Vivian gave him a split second of careful regard and then asked, “Have you ever been in contact with yours—with Tinival? That kind of communion isn’t generally one of our gifts. They reshape our bodies, but they mostly leave our spirits alone.”
“When I took my final vows.” Olvir said. “I couldn’t put it into words, really, but I felt Him. I realized that nothing I’d ever do would measure up to…” He lifted his hands and dropped them, trying to express that sense of perfect balance, exact knowledge of the best path—not the one that would benefit him most but the one kindest to most people—and calm perspective. “But I knew that He knew I was trying my hardest. I knew that it mattered to Him.”
