The Unfinished Land Read online

  Reynard shook his head. “Maybe he is dead.”

  “Oh, no,” Widsith said. “He hath not the mark, and the Eaters did not finish him—merely dined. Someone about the waste, in the krater cities that serve Crafters, wished him preserved for other uses.”

  “What be these kraters?”

  “They surround the chafing waste at the island’s heart,” Widsith said. “A wide circle of great cups or depressions, served by cities and staffs of special Travelers. These Travelers go there to carry my tales, and not just mine—but the tales of any who arrive. I have never seen them. I have not been invited.”

  Reynard looked through the trees. Left on his own he could never have found his way through the tangles of trunks and branches and roots. What presented a path to Widsith seemed but a puzzle to Reynard.

  “What about the Spanish horses?” the boy asked. “Other than Cardoza’s. Did the drakes kill them as well?”

  “I doubt it,” Widsith said. “The drakes know better, are guided better, if they were blunted by Dana’s people.”

  “What about the Eater who looked at me?” Reynard asked. “The glassy girl.”

  Widsith made a face. “No longer a girl,” he said. “Five or more centuries old.”

  “Like the Eater who gave you years? He sounded awful, doing that to you.”

  “Calybo. It did not feel pleasant to me, either. But necessary.”

  “Is he an Eater?”

  “Yes. A high Eater. The Afrique hath been here for much longer than I have been alive.”

  “Who giveth him orders?”

  “Guldreth,” Widsith said, looking askance.

  “She it was we almost met on the island?”

  This irritated Widsith. “Enough!” he said. “It is Maeve I report to when I return. But Maeve avoids me, thus far.” He lifted his brows and sighed. “None of the island’s women will have me, it seems.”

  “You call Guldreth a woman?”

  Another sharp look, very like his uncle’s displeasure at a question too clever by half. “Not in simple parlance, lad. Nor is the glassy one who studied you a woman now. No sane man expects favor from such, beyond the pact.”

  “And what about other high ones, the Vanir? Are they truly in command of this island?”

  “Not alone. It is Crafters who mold and command all around us . . . and inside, methinks.”

  Reynard thought of the dark figure with the white shadow, and wondered whether Crafters controlled him, as well. Or the man with the feathered cap. Or the Queen of Hell, whoever she might be. He resumed his silence until they passed the field of dead Spanish, now almost empty, cleared by some group or some force, leaving only scattered items of clothing and a few rusty weapons no one thought worth collecting.

  “I am truly to blame for this,” Widsith said quietly. “Always before, I returned alone, or with simple fisherfolk. Now the outside world makes that impossible. Our land is under siege. I should be among these dead. I should be a ghost!”

  Reynard considered this and found it somewhat insincere. “God’s truth?”

  Widsith gritted his teeth and gave Reynard a stern glance. “I have lived centuries by this strange grace. I do not wish it to end now, truly. Nor do I wish to lose Maeve and my reason for returning.”

  “So long as the powers you know supply you with more years,” Reynard said.

  “Foolishness doth make thee no more pleasant,” Widsith said.

  “What did you witness, out there during the great sea battle with my people? What was that battle like for you? Did you feel protected?”

  “I was in as much danger as any Spaniard—any Englishman. Many died around me.”

  “And after, what made you lift me from the sea? Why would these people value me, or thank you for my life?”

  Again, Widsith looked aside, as if thinking of matters still best left unsaid. “I thought I saw something in thee that could bring me favor, when the Spanish would not. Here, those of us just above the mud always seek advantage and favor from those just below the stars.”

  “And have I brought you favor?”

  “Thou dost promise great change. The Spanish promise change, but also destruction. Since I could not arrive here alone, by bringing thee I hoped for a balance. The King of Troy seemeth to agree.”

  “But I have no signs. I have no power, and nothing to tell!”

  “I confess to possibly making a bad decision.” The Pilgrim stretched out his arms. “One of many. We shall see.”

  Reynard flushed at this. “I would flee now and take my chances with the ocean!”

  Widsith shrugged this off as well. “What chances do either of us have, or this town, or any humans on this island? Cardoza hath suffered a defeat, but it is apparent someone here favoreth his presence, even without most of his soldiers, and not just for his few horses.” He stopped and rubbed his chin. “And what about me, boy? Dost thou sense great currents aswirl?”

  “The Eaters favor you,” Reynard said. “I have nought else to say of your measure.”

  “Eaters favor me because of the ancient pact.”

  “With Guldreth?”

  “With the Travelers and the Crafters, I presume, but I have never had it explained. If the Travelers show no interest in thee, on behalf of the Crafters, I fear the island will be finished with all this coast and Zodiako . . . Except for Cardoza. And that I do not comprehend.”

  They had found their way back to the outskirts of Zodiako, where quiet and shadows ruled as dusk fell, and arrays of candles gleamed on posts and rails at the crossings.

  “Who hath command o’ the ghosts?” Reynard asked.

  “Spanish ghosts seem of no interest to those just beneath the sky—and so they are free to leave, if they can find their way. I mislike such thoughts. I equally mislike condolement. Let us see if Maeve will have me now.”

  * * *

  Dana and Maggie invited them into the blunters’ sanctuary, which, while intact, still smelled of smoke. Of burned flesh.

  “Maeve is in the temple,” Maggie said. “We will ask questions, then takest thee to her.”

  The two women walked around Reynard. Maggie touched his hair. Reynard jerked back, not liking to be treated like a child. “The fold-keeper, the old man outside the barn, keeper of goats and sheep, gave us his judgment after meeting thee. He seeth things clear.”

  “He doth burn tobacco and breathe it,” Reynard said with a pinched face.

  “A foul habit,” Dana said. “He proclaimeth thou art followed by a gray wisedom, an old woman with ancient ways. Who might she be, boy?”

  “Troy saith not,” Widsith told them. “His line is clean.”

  The women ignored this and waited for the boy’s answer.

  “Perhaps my grandmother,” Reynard muttered. “If she be here, she will prove a comfort.” He hoped her spirit would not find a trap.

  “The fold-keeper told me thou sleep’st in peace,” Maggie said. Dana stepped back and let her mother take charge. “Around the fold, seest childers?”

  “The spirit babes? Aye.”

  “Aloof, or friendly?”

  “They smiled and played and vanished.”

  “Friendly, then,” Maggie said.

  “What are they?” Reynard asked.

  “Nobody knoweth, boy,” Maggie said. “But they do like to flit in the dusk and play, if their larks be play. Thou’lt know if they be not friendly. We put thee in the fold for the judgment of the old man, but also the childers. Doubtless Widsith relied upon that old faker.” She pulled up a cane chair and sat between Reynard and Widsith, then leaned forward, face in hands. “We lost thirty-seven townsfolk, five blunters, and one drake,” she said.

  Sad silence.

  “Maeve taketh it hard,” Maggie said. “We are all like sons and daughters to her.” She stood from the chair and walked toward the door. “Creatures and tenebria are disturbed. Visitors we have not seen in a thousand years come from the center of the island, and the Travelers seem not to know
what to do with them! And now Widsith’s return bringeth thee.” She studied them critically. “What news could charge the krater lands, and our lives, after so long calm breath and gentle winds?”

  Reynard wondered if he should tell them of the man with the white shadow, or the man with the tall feather. He decided he would hold such in reserve for when he felt more trusted, more a part of this group—if that could ever happen.

  “We are done here,” Maggie said, grim expression showing her dissatisfaction with this conversation. “Do what thou must.”

  “Maeve hath condoled with mourners at the temple,” Dana said. “She tells us to send thee there.”

  Maeve

  * * *

  THROUGH DRIFTING SMOKE, on the way to the temple, they passed under the walkway’s painted boards, each displaying a scene from the town’s long history. Reynard wished there was more time to study them.

  The next to last board was freshly painted with a vivid landscape of lava and burning forest.

  “No doubt Travelers will again seek thee out, in their own time,” Widsith said. “As for Maeve—appear of some use, for my sake.”

  They paused at the end of the walkway. The last board, beyond the flames and lava, was sanded to a blankness. Widsith reached up and touched it. “The Crafters’ tale rolls on. Watch and learn, young fisherboy.”

  To Reynard, however, the blank board seemed to point to something less conclusive.

  Across a flagstone path, the nave and transept of the temple were embraced by more than twenty enormous, twisted oaks.

  “Canst thou feel it?” Widsith asked softly. “I have been gone too long. I know not what more I can do for her.” He pushed open the central doors. Inside, the transept to either side seemed dark and empty. Down the aisle that defined the nave, floored with packed dirt and stomped-down rushes, the pews were also empty. At the far end, near the altar, a single candle outlined a lone dark figure kneeling on a pillow. Even from here, Reynard could tell the figure was spectrally thin, and Widsith seemed both saddened and frightened by what they were approaching.

  Reynard counted sixty pews, and looking up, estimated that the arched roof was a hundred feet above them. Even in England this would have been an impressive structure. But there were no stained-glass windows, no sculptures, very little ornamentation.

  The end of each pew supported a stand on which a single book was placed. All the books looked as if they might have been Bibles and were very old. Some stands closer to the altar carried not books but scrolls, brown and fragile and even older.

  They came to the end of the pews and the space before the altar.

  “I am here,” Widsith said.

  The spectral figure got up from her knees. A dry, whispery voice said, “And welcome, to be sure.”

  The figure turned and Reynard saw a woman so old the fat of her face and neck had melted away and parchment flesh stretched tight on her cheeks and chisel nose. A thin aura of white hair stuck up from her age-spotted crown. She might have been a corpse in a reliquary, not that he had ever visited such. Her eyes were bright enough, but looked more like tiny stones than human eyes. She held up a skeletal hand heavy with five great gold rings, and crooked her pointing finger to invite them forward. Her knuckles made soft little snaps, as old knuckles do.

  Reynard held back, but Widsith did as she bid, and embraced her with extraordinary delicacy.

  “Who be this . . . young creature? ” Maeve asked.

  “He is called Fox,” Widsith said.

  “Reynard,” the boy corrected.

  “Greetings, Fox—Reynard. Sorry to meet thee in such sad times.” She stepped away from the pillow where she had knelt and walked around Reynard with a fluid grace he would have thought impossible. “Hast shown him to Guldreth?” she asked, her voice like leaves blowing along a road.

  “She was asleep,” Widsith said. “Her man did not seem interested in waking her.”

  “Ah, would that be Kaiholo, the one with tattoos all over?”

  “Aye. I will take the boy to the Travelers soon, whether she seeth him or no.” This seemed to contradict what Widsith had said earlier, and the fact that a band of Travelers had already passed them by, but Reynard merely glanced at him, then focused his attention on Maeve.

  “Wilt thou?” she asked, with some amusement. She gave Reynard a sad, knowing look. “Fox, didst thou recently see Travelers, or didst they come to see thee?”

  “I do not know who they wished to see,” Reynard said. “I did see them.”

  “Be not disappointed. They may have been distracted by unexpected visitors from the krater lands—outmoded beasts, likely fugitives from failed histories . . . But I would not know.”

  “Such creatures have come here?” Widsith asked.

  “None in Zodiako have seen their like. They keep to the Ravine and the ridges, but some were seen by our scouts. True giants, I am told. Cyclops and men who run on four legs like wolves, with human heads and hands. To those who travel regular outside Zodiako, like Anutha, and Kaiholo, the island seems upturned and all the beasts riled and poked.” Maeve looked at Widsith with an unreadable expression, so bony and wrinkled. “Thou wert away too long,” she said.

  “There were so many wars and journeys, islands and lands . . .”

  “And wives? I trust curiosity led thee on.”

  This stung the Pilgrim. “And duty! No need for thee to forget me and join the others in age. Thou didst know I would return.”

  “I did not forget thee. Nor did I think thou wouldst lead the Spanish to our town!”

  Widsith fumed. “I volunteered for their ships, to return here, and had no control of the circumstance.”

  “Thou couldst have diverted them,” Maeve said softly.

  “I would have died. I had to return . . . to thee. To make my report. And I found the boy.”

  “But who asked thee to bring him here? Was it Guldreth? And what did this one so lovely, and so near to the sky, say before thou last departed our isle, that thou wouldst guess this boy was needed, or special . . . or mayhaps a sign?”

  “Before I left ​—”

  “Forty years ago!” Maeve said, her parchment skin pinking with what might have been anger. Delicate veins showed through her pale flesh.

  The Pilgrim seemed to collapse a little. A tear fell from his left eye. “Thou hast always seen deep. Yes. Guldreth told me that I should look for a special sort of Gitano out there, young and unlearned, except in secret signs.”

  Reynard looked between these two like a chicken wondering who would wring him and pluck him first.

  “He would have black hair, she said, but the sea would turn it red, and thereafter it would become black again—in the company of those who knew his quality.”

  Maeve lifted a lock of the boy’s reddish hair. Again, Reynard drew back and raised his arm as if in defense.

  “Is he innocent?”

  “On the edge of manhood.”

  “A dangerous time for a boy, prodigy or no. Hath he had love from woman or man?”

  “I know not.” Again, a strangeness to his tone.

  “That is an important bit of knowledge. Perhaps thou shouldst ask him before meeting with Guldreth.”

  Widsith agreed with a sidewise nod. “Most strange, why did the Spanish get through the gyre?”

  “Obvious, because they carried thee and the boy,” Maeve said.

  “And why hath she allowed thee to grow old? She knoweth I favor thee.”

  “ ’Twas my decision. It hath been hard watching this island grow in perversity greater even than its mystery. The Travelers, the chafing waste . . . all ring with unwanted change.”

  “When I deliver the boy, I will command Guldreth to bring thee more time!”

  “Command her? Thou findest such high favor in one just beneath the sky?”

  Widsith looked aside once more.

  “I am become mortal again and see now, in thy long absence, that mine is the right choice. Besides, as thy wife, k
nowing what I now know, I would never ask for her help,” Maeve said. “My bottle is sealed. I will soon give the Eaters the last of my time, but can no longer receive.”

  “I must correct thy thoughts!” Widsith said, in agony now.

  “Never. We had a good year, right in the middle of some of this island’s best years, when queens and kings reasoned together and Travelers moved freely and unafraid, and Crafters seemed content. The Eater who tended to me honored my request to take months from mine end, when there seemed little hope thou wouldst spend another such time with me. Hadst thee more timely returned.” She smiled with such sweet longing as she stroked Widsith’s face with thin fingers, that Reynard thought he could see the girl beneath the parchment flesh, the youth beneath the age. “I had hoped thou mightst be gone no more than a decade, or less, and that thou wouldst get Guldreth to instruct Calybo to make thee near mine age, no younger, and we could both love as mature man and woman and enjoy a fine twilight. But when that decade passed, I knew we could never match, and I gave thee up to the island, and prayed Calybo would only make thee younger, as always, but not for me—only to send thee on thy way again to serve. My life seemed not so important.”

  “I will go to the Ravine now and beg,” Widsith said. “Guldreth is indebted to me! The Travelers as well! I spent two thirds of a long life out there!”

  “And I spent that same time here, I did not marry again. Didst thou?” She stood her ground, but her face softened. “Stay, and tell me some of what thou sawest—before thou tellest Guldreth or the Travelers, and before they tell the Crafters. That will be reward enough! Long have I desired to hear about the finished lands, and thou hast seen them! I am ready to hear, and then to die. Mine end will be swift. The Eaters have always borrowed from these last times, and left behind such glorious memories of others mine own age, or older, who have gone before. Some of the eldest of our islanders fill my dreams. The Eaters have been generous beyond their nature.”

  Widsith’s voice cracked, and he wiped his eyes. “I shall not accept this! I still have need, and influence, especially now . . .” He looked to Reynard. “We will go to the Ravine and persuade the Eaters they must make Maeve young again, if nothing else, as reward to me! That we can share many summers again.”