The Unfinished Land Read online

  “There was a candle on the trail,” Reynard said.

  Kaiholo and Kern looked at him doubtfully. “We saw nothing,” Kaiholo said. Kern agreed.

  “Troy might have left a message for the boy alone,” Widsith said. “Or . . . it was a wish, a fancy. There was nothing more?”

  Reynard shook his head.

  “Troy out here is far from his piles of bones and wood,” Widsith mused. “We are a sad lot if we rely on his help alone.”

  “I did not see Dana and her blunters after we parted ways,” Anutha said. “But as we fled, hiding all the way, we passed thousands of troops from Annwyn arriving from three directions—south around the coast in ships, west along the radiant ridge on th’other side of the Ravine, and from the north around the great icy plain.”

  “Who can survive there?” Kern asked.

  Anutha shook her head. “Still, hundreds made that journey. Zodiako’s defenses, already weak, were routed. Our town is done, for now.”

  “Why target the town?” Kern asked.

  “Anger. Ambition,” Anutha said. “The Queens have both in abundance. Long have they felt abandoned on the other side of this isle whilst we are favored by the Travelers and protected by them and, we thought, by the Crafters who value our Pilgrims and their stories.”

  “The Queens do not send out explorers or fishermen?” Reynard asked.

  “Not ever, to my knowledge,” Kaiholo said.

  “Whence came their new army?” Kern asked.

  “The Sister Queens made treaty with the Spaniard,” Anutha said. “Cardoza leads many of their troops now.” She lifted a vial and clinked the sack and said, through gritted teeth, “We will dispense these vials to those who can use them best. In a few days, there will be plenty of new drakes to avenge our town. As well, the mountains and forests are now haunted. Forces flee the krater lands. I doubt the Sister Queens will succeed pushing through the island’s center.”

  “What sort of forces?” Kern asked.

  “The southwest coast could not have held them all,” Calybo said. Valdis, in the shadows, made a small sound.

  “Primal,” Anutha said, “I could not see them, merely feel their passage through me. The Forces that shape nature and the beasts of the field. The Forces that make the weather and winds and roil the seas.”

  “The fingers and muscles of the Crafters,” Kern said. “I have felt them on occasion as well. If they desert the Tir Na Nog, then the Crafters truly are finished.”

  “Annwyn and the Queens can frighten such powers?” Reynard asked.

  “Something hath frightened them,” Anutha said. “That is all I can speak to.”

  “All within the krater lands appears upended,” Widsith said.

  “And yet that is where we are going!” Kaiholo said.

  Valdis drew up her cloak. “Travelers are close,” she said, looking upward.

  “Watch,” Widsith told Reynard, and pointed. The path ahead grew like an uncoiling snake and pushed aside bushes and trees as if they were stitches on a cloth.

  “From the coast?” Reynard asked.

  Both men shook their heads. Anutha said, “I think they serve their kind in the krater lands.”

  “Are they the ones who collect your tales?” Kern asked Widsith, and the Pilgrim nodded. “I know some of them,” the giant said. “There is one called Nikolias, and a woman called Yuchil ​—”

  “Shhh,” the tattooed man warned. “Trods are temperamental.” Kaiholo lowered his chin as if staring into the bright sun, then raised his arm, and a line of tall men dressed in dark brown and purple appeared at the far end of the road, leading and surrounding the great wagon Reynard and Widsith had seen earlier.

  The wagon and its company slowly closed the distance, a mile or more through the divided woods. The party they could see consisted of three men on horseback, wearing voluminous black pants and high leather boots, purple or red shirts, and wide, sun-shielding hats. One small girl broke into a dance, her long red hair swirling like a banner. Strange arcs of light seemed to intersect them all.

  The procession stopped, and a tall, thin man in a checkered robe, with a reddish-purple Scythian hat draped on his long head, climbed down from the wagon. A silver-haired woman with young features peered through a rug-like cover behind the driver’s bench.

  “I am Nikolias,” the tall Traveler said. He was almost a match for Kern—half a head shorter and no less. “We are here to escort you to the krater lands. She who rules the wagons is Yuchil.” The silver-haired woman nodded and looked off to the far end of their road. “These she treats as her grandchildren.” The girl growled like a cat and swished a claw-hand. “But for Calafi,” he added with a wry smile, “who admits to no parentage.” This seemed a sort of joke among the Travelers. Nikolias waved a staff. From no clear distance behind arrived two additional wagons, each magnificent. Reynard could not see that they had either drivers or occupants.

  The trod rippled along its distance, and the trees rustled in no wind whatsoever—but two more wagons rolled up behind the last.

  “I hear a familiar voice,” Nikolias said.

  Widsith rode forward and touched his forehead. The young armed men stood glowering between him and Yuchil. They all cast uncertain glances at Valdis and especially at Calybo.

  “How often have we conveyed thy tales to the servants in the krater lands?” the tall man asked, smiling.

  “Beyond count,” Widsith said.

  “The time before may have been our last,” Nikolias said. “All the Islands of the Blessed are in turmoil. But we can only try to perform our duty.”

  “I am grateful for thy company,” Widsith said.

  Nikolias’s troop gathered around him. He introduced the young warriors. “This is Andalo, with two swords and three knives. He believeth in being prepared!”

  Andalo gave them the merest nod, then positioned his horse between Calybo and the wagons.

  “In training are Sany and Bela. They protect our trods.”

  “You brought many soldiers to Zodiako,” Sany said.

  “Indeed. You did not arrive alone,” Bela said.

  “There were Spanish soldiers on the ship,” Widsith agreed. “Many died on the beach, in the lively woods, and in Zodiako. I know not where the survivors have fled, though we hear that they have gone over to the Sister Queens.”

  “We hear that also,” Nikolias said. “Causing much trouble, though not the only cause.”

  “But this lad . . . I found him and brought him as well.”

  “And his name is?”

  “Fox,” Widsith said.

  “Reynard!” the boy corrected.

  “Reynard it is. Welcome to all of you.”

  Calafi kept her eyes on Reynard, no longer smiling.

  “Rest now, and food,” Yuchil proclaimed. “We shall all need our strength.” Anutha came forward, supported by Kaiholo. “Your scout needs our attention as well.”

  “I can travel,” Anutha insisted.

  “Mayhaps, but let me look at thee in the wagon.”

  Kaiholo helped Anutha climb up into the back of the first wagon, and Bela guided her behind a curtain.

  “We begin in the morning,” Nikolias said. “Calybo, Valdis, ye art welcome to travel with us.”

  “That we will,” the high Eater said. “For as long as we can.”

  First Night on the Cross-Trod

  * * *

  THE TRAVELERS brought out loaves of black bread and cut them with their sharp knives, then handed them around to all. Jugs of water were handed down from the third wagon, and all drank their fill. Reynard wondered how many Travelers the wagons held. Not all seemed willing to appear—or, he thought, maybe they were not all present yet.

  Yuchil climbed down from the first wagon and laid out sturdy brown woolen blankets for those who had none.

  “The scout is in a bad way,” she told Widsith. “She hath taken poorly in one of her wounds.” Yuchil pointed to Valdis, who kept away from them all, staying of
f the trod. “This young Eater hath been told certain things, and given certain instructions . . . That may be why the scout is not offered succor. She is very ill, well past what we can do for her.” Yuchil climbed back into the first wagon.

  Reynard finished his bread and water and laid himself out on the blanket under the thin branches and the scattered stars of a clouded night sky, and slept as best he could.

  Widsith woke him just before dawn. “You were moaning,” he said. “Nikolias insists you come with him.”

  No word on the Pilgrim’s emotions at joining up again with his fellows. The last few days had somehow added to his years and depleted his returned youth.

  From the shadows to either side came Valdis and Calybo, and then Kaiholo. No others appeared, and Reynard felt strangely alone, as if still lost in sleep.

  The small group did not ride and did not walk far. Reynard wondered at the circumstance of the Eaters on the path, but felt only the weight of his own ignorance.

  “Take off thy shoes,” Nikolias instructed Reynard.

  “Why are we out here?” Reynard asked.

  “Thou shalt walk decalced on the trod,” Nikolias said.

  Reynard did not know that word.

  “Barefoot,” Widsith explained.

  Reynard still did not understand, but he pushed off his slippers with his toes and handed them to Widsith, then studied the others for some clue as to what they expected.

  “The trod will judge,” Nikolias said.

  “Judge what?” Reynard asked.

  “Thou shalt not feel the same to the trod,” Nikolias replied.

  “The same as who?”

  “Stop asking questions,” Kaiholo advised, his tone soft. The morning was getting brighter, and a few dozen yards back they could hear the Travelers preparing for the day’s journey.

  Kaiholo, Valdis, Calybo, and Nikolias walked down the path about fifty feet and turned to beckon Reynard join them. “Now walk,” Nikolias said. Reynard kept his eyes on Valdis, what he could see of her, for once again the Eaters resembled smoke or fog shaped into human forms. Her eyes glinted. Calybo seemed to have no eyes, only dark caves in his face.

  “Walk,” Nikolias said again.

  Reynard stepped out between the groups. Kaiholo waved him forward. The trod felt hard underfoot, but there were no sharp stones or thorns.

  “Do your feet tingle?” Nikolias asked.

  Reynard shook his head. “No.”

  Kaiholo reached out to him. He almost touched the boy’s fingers . . . and then he felt the ground differently.

  “The boy is not the usual sort of Traveler,” Nikolias said.

  Yuchil had walked up silently to join the group. “His heritage is clear in his face and in his blood,” she said. “What he doth remember, and what his grandmother hath taught him!” The silver-haired woman seemed puzzled and disappointed. Reynard for his part did not remember telling her anything about his lineage.

  “The trod knoweth Travelers, but the boy is not truly one of our clan,” Nikolias insisted.

  “What is he, then? A master magician like Troy?”

  “Hush!” said Yuchil. She knelt and touched the trod with outstretched fingers. Then she raised her hand to her nose and sniffed the fingertips. With a quizzical frown, she beckoned Nikolias to do likewise. He did, and they put their fingers together and rose.

  Valdis and Calybo watched. With the least gesture of her hand, Valdis might have signaled to Reynard . . . but no one else saw it. Then he saw Calafi on the path, walking slowly toward them . . . surrounded by childers!

  Nikolias doffed his hat and crouched before her on the path. She whispered to him, and the childers vanished one by one, as they had in the stable, like soap bubbles.

  The silver-haired woman came to Reynard. “Calafi senses something different, and once again, she is our guide. The boy is a new kind of carrier, and a new kind of messenger,” Yuchil proclaimed. “The words he doth carry are new. This boy must go to the krater lands, and soon!”

  Gifts Good and Bad

  * * *

  “I AM CONFUSED,” Reynard said as he and Widsith carried jugs to bring water back from a stream for Yuchil’s cooking. Kaiholo and the towering Kern trailed behind through the dense dry woods, and then caught up with them at the narrow run of water. Kaiholo squinted out over the flow with a yearning disappointment, as if he missed the sea. The four stood on the banks while Reynard filled one of Yuchil’s jugs and then did the same with theirs.

  “Why confused?” Widsith asked over the water’s steady bubbling, sliding sound.

  “Why must the trod judge me? And how doth it judge, and speak its opinion?”

  “Nikolias knows more than any of us,” Widsith said.

  “It hath judged,” Kaiholo said, “but the judgment is mixed and puzzling.”

  “Childers are never easy to explain,” Kern said.

  Kaiholo added, “Nikolias and Yuchil do not know what the trod is saying—and perhaps the trod doth not know, either! But Yuchil wants you to proceed, even so. That is a kind of faith.”

  “Or she is simply rolling the die,” Widsith said.

  “That sweepeth not my confusion,” Reynard said.

  “Many are the languages Travelers have shared,” Kaiholo said. “The words Travelers brought the Crafters became flesh and growing green things and the fish and ropes and slimes of the sea. Words raised mountains and islands, roused storms, and lay over them calms. Words were brought that passed into age and never again made their play. Ancient words we still carry in our blood, and new words we speak through our blood and with our tongues. Our very shapes and dreams are strung out with words. So many words the Crafters have wielded since Queen Hel allowed them, some say chose them. Or did she?” He focused a sharp look on Reynard, shook his head, and walked off with his jug. Kern joined him, with a backward glance.

  “What did I do?” Reynard asked, following the giant’s form up the bank and over to the trod.

  “ ’Tis not thee, fox-boy,” Widsith said. “What fates the Crafters decree have been especially hard on those who ply the deeps.”

  Kaiholo acknowledged this.

  “May I speak, knowing also the sea, and having sailed often with those far islanders?” Widsith asked.

  “Of course,” Kaiholo said.

  “They knew the stars early on. They have gained and lost islands, in fire and storm, and along with them entire peoples, some they were, some they served. They know the sea as a spiteful wife. Did thine uncle share that opinion?”

  “We knew many who died,” Reynard said.

  Widsith cocked his head. “Languages divide and give us new reasons to hate—like the tower of Babel. Knowest thou that tale?”

  “Of course!”

  “That tower might as well have been built by Travelers, and they have carried a strange curse ever since—a curse that maketh them strong, until, some say, the day they are not, and then they will be harried and persecuted across the Earth. Perhaps that will be because they gave the Crafters power.”

  “But I still do not understand! What be Crafters, and how can they do this?”

  “I know some from Guldreth, and some from Troy,” Widsith said. “When Crafters first came down from the sky, invited, some say, by Hel, and until they had words, their minds were like the dark between the stars—shapeless. They brought to Earth, to the Tir Na Nog, and some say to the moon, the power to shift fates and change time and space—but they knew not how to record their tales or make others act out their plays—until Hel invited the Travelers to meet them.”

  “How did they live, seeing such?” Reynard asked.

  “That I do not know. Lacking language, the Crafters could do nothing and know nothing. Now they shape all of our history—and perhaps fill in the dark between the stars as well.”

  “Guldreth collected the early drafts of many histories,” Kaiholo said. “You saw them. It was her passion.”

  Kern returned through the woods and sat beside them,
watching this discourse with quick eyes—especially focused on Reynard as the boy absorbed the tale wrapping round all tales.

  Reynard squatted by the river, picked up a pebble, and threw it into the flow. “How can words give such power? We tell stories, but we cannot make such things,” he said.

  “We are not Crafters,” Widsith said. He smiled ruefully and filled his own jug. “When they came here, Guldreth told me they fled from some force or malignity worse than themselves—but now, with the Travelers’ foolish gift, they fear no such malignity.”

  “A lover’s bed is ripe for secrets,” Kaiholo said.

  Reynard studied the Pilgrim’s changing expressions—amusement, disdain, and back to a defensive kind of amusement. “Crafters have neither human shape nor sympathy. They exercise their powers to make history without regard for how we feel, and so we are in their thrall. But they have no far-seeing eyes, no crystal ball, and so they send such as I out to discover and report—that they may celebrate their achievement! They wonder about what they have done . . . How doth it make the world different?” The Pilgrim poured his water back into the river. Then he bent and scooped again. “And why should not this island remain contented, and at the center of creation? I would it were so.”

  “Because the Eaters supply you with time,” Kaiholo said. “The Sister Queens believe that what the Eaters and Travelers did was evil and all should be punished. The result is, this island is now broken.”

  “Are the Queens correct?” Reynard asked.

  “To bed,” Widsith advised, “before we speak more heresy.”

  * * *

  As he lay in his blanket, Reynard had a strange sensation of being back in England, falling slowly and lazily asleep in the tumbledown, net-festooned shack of his uncle—and thought that he had ever wished for knowledge and marvel, but would now exchange all he had learned, all he had seen, for this simple bed and a life of blacksmithing and fishing, a life where he might meet a young woman and bring up a family, subject to all the weaknesses and failures of his father, but nevertheless human.