And that’s when it dawns on me.
“What is it?” he says, as if I’ve mumbled something.
“I… ah.”
Taking off my pack, I pull out the compass in its satchel. As I reveal the golden instrument, I can feel Merc staring over at me, and I’m glad he makes no comment.
Even though I have no idea why this would work, I picture water, clean, cool, fresh water that’s safe to drink. When the image is so clear in my mind that I can smell the bracing scent, and see the shimmer on its surface, I flick the top open and hold my breath.
There’s no reason to think this could help our situation. But I just manipulated fire, for fate’s sake. Asking this old instrument for directions like it’s a native to the territory and can communicate, can’t be any more unreasonable—
After the map pops free of the face, the center arrow begins to spin, faster and faster, and the direction markers likewise start to move, in the opposite way. A vibration registers in my hand and travels up my arm, tingling mywound on its way to the center of my chest. From there, the energy is sent out in all directions, through my body—
All goes still.
I have to blink my vision clear: The arrow has oriented itself forward and to the right, and the directional markings show theNto be at the base of the instrument and a little to the left.
I point forward and toward the cliffs. “We go that way. For water.”
As I put the compass back in the satchel, return it to the pack, and swing the weight onto my shoulders once again, Merc just keeps staring at me.
“What is that thing,” he says in a remote voice.
Gathering the reins, I meet him in the eye. “Would you believe me if I told you I don’t know?”
There’s a long silence. “Yes, I think I would. But what I do know is that these animals just ran too hard for too long, and if we don’t locate a water source and some shelter before dark, we could find ourselves in another… situation.”
As I focus on the direction I was given, I feel an echo of the vibration reenter my palm and my arm.
And then I utter hoarsely something I never imagined I would: “It was left to me by my mother. It is very, very old.”
My mother. The words feel as strange on my tongue as they do entering my ear.
“Is it magic, then.”
All I can do is shrug. “I don’t really have to answer that, do I.”
Merc releases a slow exhale. “No, you don’t.”
When he glances back at where we came from, his eyes narrow and I wonder how much he noticed about our escape from the ogres. Nearby, there’s a fire flare, and I glare at the flames as if they’re a child I’m telling to pipe down. I don’t understand what I did any more than I can explain the compass—
“Okay, we go that way,” he announces gruffly. “And maybe we find some water.”
I’m nodding in agreement as he urges his horse forward, and Lavante follows without any heel from me, though he tosses his head and stamps his feet because he hates not leading the way. He will go too fast for the gelding, though, so the weaker horse has to be first.
More red trees. More fires that spontaneously appear out of holes in the red dirt. We avoid the latter with a big margin, but at least the horses are no longer reacting to the blasts of heat and light, either because they’re used to them or they’re just tired. Actually, it’s more like Lavante is no longer threatened, and Merc’s steed is too exhausted to care.
I continue to scan the landscape, and Merc does as well, as the cliffs wewere chased out of get closer and closer. We’re as yet too far away for me to spot any ogres blending into the rock faces, and I worry that we’re being tracked and just don’t know it.
“The soil is changing,” he remarks.
Sure enough, the red color is dimming because it’s being diluted, its replacement the normal brown of the ground I’m used to—and soon, I catch little sprigs of green. The trees change as well, new varieties coming in and choking out the ugly, knarred red ones, the leaves becoming green. And no more fires, either, as we presently enter a forest—
Merc draws in a great breath through his nose. “I can smell it.”
“What?”
“The water.”
