From the froth of the river
Did smoke, a-spinning
The stair to the sky ascend.”
Huh,thought Fern, and shared a look of comic startlement with Zyll, of all people.She’s actually pretty good.
Fern dreamed of Viv, again.
Even in the dream, she had the presence of mind to think,Oh. Another one of these, then?
She stood on the doorstep of Legends & Lattes once more, candleglow visible through the leaded glass, and a shadow passing through the light.
Her mind wasn’t swimming with brandy. Her heart beat slow and regular. Her paw didn’t shake as she knocked.
“It’s late,” said Viv, surprised as she cracked the door, her hair rimmed with gold. “Everything okay?”
“It is, and it isn’t,” said Fern. Her voice didn’t quaver even a little. “Can I come in?”
A blur of time then, a smearing of the mundanities into an impression of talk and motion and the spaces they occupied.
When it resolved, they sat at the long table, which seemed less imposingly large now. In the curious way of dreams, her toes touched the floor, even as Viv fit perfectly well opposite her.
Without apparent effort or regret, dream-Fern reached out a paw to touch Viv’s hand on the table and said, “This isn’t working. It isn’t what I need.”
And here, Fern twinned so she was standing beside dream-Fern and Viv at the table, watching incredulously as this other-her calmly withdrew a silver knife from her cloak and brandished it. Dream-Fern pointed toward the door with Breadlee, who seemed to grow huge in her hand. “I’ve got to go. But you’ll be all right. I found a better reason.”
Now, Viv was Astryx, staring across the table with those ghostlight eyes. “No rocks at the bottom,” the elf whispered.
As Fern left the bench and turned to the door, she saw that it was half open already, and Quillin stood just outside, peeking into the shop. Then he was crowded aside by Zyll, grinning her shark-grin. The hazferou was atop her head again, snaggle-fanged and savage.
“We goes when is time to be somewhere else,” said the goblin, and then everything swirled into dreamlessness.
32
They traveled for three days through the evergreen forest, the terrain more frequently erupting with massive slabs of granite, hoary with lichen. Deer were plentiful, and many times they saw a doe leading a pair or trio of fawns deeper into the woods, away from the road. Once a young buck stood transfixed on the path until they were within a few strides of him before he bolted.
Four times, an eerie call echoed mournfully between the tree trunks and Astryx stopped abruptly to listen, erect and alert. To Fern, it sounded like a loon, but it trailed off into a peculiar chuckling cough, like stones dropped into still water, one after another.
Each time, the call was followed by silence, and they continued onward. Fern noticed that Astryx tossed extra wood onto the fire at night, however, and sat up later than usual, although the elf did not make any comment.
The way appeared little-used, with tall grasses crowding old cart tracks. Branches grew low enough that Astryx had to push them away from their faces, and they scrabbled at the sides of Staysha’s wagon. The dwarf groused loudly about the damage to the paint.
Staysha entertained them in the evenings. Her range was pretty good, from twisty short stories that Fern had never encountered before, to nostalgic ballads, or the occasional dirty joke, expertly delivered. Fern had to grudgingly admit to both the woman’s talent, and the fact that she didn’t mind having Staysha along all that much. The Silver Sparrow seemed less and less pushy from one day to the next, and they settled into a comfortable rhythm of travel.
They never explained Zyll’s presence to the dwarf, despite several gently probing questions.
“We share a destination,” was all Astryx offered.
Zyll, of course, did not elaborate.
The particulars of the goblin’s supposed imprisonment were murky, anyway.
Fern marveled at the familiarity of returning to life on the road, as though she’d been journeying with Astryx for years, instead of weeks. The days before the monastery had blended into a “before” that occupied more space than it had any right to.
She continued her retelling ofTen Links in the Chainto Astryx in fits and starts, but the hush of the place demanded quiet for long stretches. Their passage was peaceful, shadowed by barrow-fir and surrounded by the secretive murmurings of the woods.
Until the fourth day.
