She snapped it open and pulled out Brother Amadai’s journal.
“Mistress Slate!Is that…?”
He snatched the book from her so quickly that he didn’t even seem to care that their fingers touched. His bowels were clearly not nearly so important as the journal.
A few minutes later, they were all gathered around. Slate leaned over Learned Edmund’s shoulder, which he hardly noticed, and Caliban had sheathed his sword and come to investigate.
Brenner, virtually illiterate and not particularly bothered by that fact, was consulting the map that the second group had left behind.
“This is it,” said Learned Edmund. “This is the journal. This is his.”
“What are the odds?” asked Slate.
Caliban frowned down at her. “Not dreadful,” he rasped. “Not as bad as they could be. I suspect the rune demon was drawing in any travelers she suspected of having something to do with the Clockwork Boys.”
“Crazy rune,” muttered Grimehug.
“That would account for both us and this group, and even Grimehug as well.” He nodded to the gnole. “She was speaking about demons in her territory. If you accept that she thought the Clockwork Boys are demons and that columns of them had gone through the Vagrant Hills before us…” He spread his hands.
“It makes sense,” said Slate slowly. “A kind of sense. But how would she know we had anything to do with the Clockwork Boys?”
“She could read minds,” said Caliban.
Slate stared up at him.“Really.”
“Yes. She…ah…plucked a memory from me, when we were speaking.” It was hard to tell with his voice so wrecked, but she thought he sounded embarrassed. “And tried to convince me to work with her. I doubt she could have such a great influence on minds at a distance, but if we entered her territory with thoughts of the Clockwork Boys uppermost in our minds…” He trailed off, coughing. Slate tossed him a waterskin.
“But what did shewant?” said Slate, frustrated.
Unexpectedly, it was Brenner who spoke up. “Isn’t it obvious, darlin’? The same thing the Captain wanted, and all the rest of us. She wanted to get the Clockwork Boys out of her territory, and she didn’t know a damn thing about them. She’s probably been pullin’ people in ever since they started stomping through the Vagrant Hills, tryin’ to find somebody who knew what they were and where they came from.”
It made sense. It made a lot of sense. Slate exhaled slowly.
Learned Edmund finally looked up.
“There is no doubt,” he said. “This is the journal. And it is in Brother Amadai’s hand, and with his codes.”
Slate raised an eyebrow. “Can you read it?”
“Nothere,” said Learned Edmund, gesturing to the wonder engine and the valley and the woods. “I need to work out a key and for that I need paper and ink—more than I have with me—and time and a surface that isn’t a mule or a flat rock!”
“Fair,” said Slate. She thought about trying to forge a document while sitting in the middle of the wonder-engine’s valley and shook her head. “Yes, that’s completely fair. Well. I suppose we’ll need to leave the Vagrant Hills for that.”
“Believe me, darlin’,” said Brenner, with great feeling, “it can’t be soon enough.”
Slate had two private encounters before they left the valley, both of which were either damned odd or inevitable, she wasn’t sure which.
The first was Caliban, who caught up with her when she was off changing the bandages, which, out of a sense of mercy, she was doing out of sight of Edmund.
She was sitting at the rear of the wonder-engine on what looked like a giant ivory hip bone. She’d spread rags and a water-skin over the hip bone and was trying to re-bandage her raw shoulder wound one-handed. It wasn’t going well.
Who knew it was so hard to patch your own arm? Possibly if I hold this end in my teeth…
Sword-callused hands reached in and held the square of cloth flat. She got it wrapped and he tied off the end, then sat down on the hip bone next to her.
“Thanks,” she said, wondering what he wanted.You better not be thinking of lecturing me about last night’s rescue, buddy…“How’s your leg?”
“Fine,” he said, in that creaking whisper. “It only grazed me. My throat’s in worse shape, but Learned Edmund thinks I’ll get my voice back in a day or two.”
