The Unfinished Land Read online

“Not until day,” Nikolias insisted. “Who knows what mood ruleth spirits here?”

  The others marked themselves and inclined their heads. Calafi climbed up onto the wagon, and Yuchil suddenly reached out and hugged her.

  “How can Crafters die?” Yuchil cried. “They were our whole world!”

  * * *

  Reynard snuck away from the fires around the wagon, sticking to the shadows cast by broken trees and low rocks, as if he were himself an Eater.

  Nikolias and his three warriors had joined Widsith and Kaiholo and Kern in passing around two great wicker-wrapped jugs of unwatered wine, hidden in the wagon along with everything else, and controlled by Yuchil . . . But the day had been so disheartening that Nikolias felt a little imbibing was in order, and Yuchil did not disagree.

  They spoke very little.

  But Reynard did not drink, and made his way quietly toward the outer fence.

  The stockade had pillars of rounded boulders caulked with straw-mud and spaced with long lines of interwoven sticks and stalks not unlike the core of a field barricade in England, the sort meant to discourage bulls. The stockade had been broken through in several places, likely by soldiers. There were many marks of feet and hooves, but no sign of battle.

  He stepped over a tangle of branches and through a gap and approached the rock foundation that rooted one great rib as it rose above the fields, above this part of the stony flats, to join with side arches that supported many floors, interconnected by thick rigging, ladders, and bridges, their lines and backstays hanging in sad tatters from curved masts, like a stricken ship rising out of a stony sea. He looked at the floor, paved with small pebbles, and saw a thick carpet of what might have once been leaves, now black with mold—as if the city had once been part of a great tree.

  Reynard touched the base of the rib, and his hand found a long crack, then, around the circumference, another. The huge rib had been shivered several times along its lower length. How long would it hold? Had it always had such cracks, as sometimes showed in great masts?

  He turned. The darkness was so deep it seemed bootless to venture farther. But then he caught a gleam behind him. The darkness was slowly being broken by what seemed at first to be fireflies, but which he soon made out as tiny flowers sprouting from vines that laced around the ropes and supports—flowers that glowed in the night. He approached one such vine and saw for a moment what he thought was a childer—

  But it vanished.

  The pale, dim light from the flowers showed him that just beyond a broken gate a narrow staircase lifted into the heights in a corkscrew, like an inside stair in a large ship. He could not see what waited at the top. Going higher might be invading the privacy of those Travelers who once served Crafters—and who survived being near them! What powers could those dead exert? What resentment, leading to what revenge? What magic had the Crafters passed to their servants? Not enough perhaps to keep them alive, or fend off the Sister Queens’ armies.

  Still, he wondered if it would be the better part of valor to just stop here and return to the wagon and the fires, the wine and the bread . . .

  But then he saw a candle glowing about a third of the way up the steps, a tall candle that had not been there before and seemed to have been placed to guide him—even when no hand could have set it there.

  He crossed the threshold of the broken gate and slowly, carefully climbed the steps to the candle, hand on the curved railing. He stood looking down at the flame, burning steady and putting out a tendril of smoke. Then a slight breeze flickered the flame and played with his hair.

  “Are you here somewhere, magician?” Reynard whispered.

  Came no answer.

  But this would be a good place to gather sticks, if not beef and sheep bones. That is, should a magician wish to assemble swevens or topplers or other helpers.

  Bone-wives.

  He turned at a scuff.

  Widsith came up behind him, followed by Calafi.

  “She told me you had gone into the city.” The Pilgrim did not seem angry. The tangle-haired girl favored Reynard with a guileless smile, then studied the flowers.

  Now three more childers appeared and hovered around them—around the girl, actually. Their translucent faces smiled beatifically upon her. She held up her hands as if to caress them, but they all disappeared, again like soap bubbles.

  “I saw a candle,” Reynard said, pointing. “I see one now.”

  Both looked to where he pointed. “I see nothing,” Widsith said, and Calafi shook her head. “I always thought the magician far too old to travel. He hath for centuries been a fire burning low, and Eaters cannot replenish him. Do you sense his presence?”

  Reynard shook his head. “But I saw another candle, far back, and now this one. Why show candles to me alone?”

  The candle burned low in its holder, and the flame flickered as if about to go out.

  They looked to the Pilgrim as if he might have an answer, having known the magician for so many years. “As guide for you,” Widsith said.

  Calafi said, “Maybe he is dead.”

  “Then how could he place candles?” Reynard asked.

  Widsith did not seem to find the notion incredible. “His bone-wives, mayhaps. After death, he could make puppets to carry out his final wishes. Each puppet would last the length of a candle. Before the candle went out, the puppet would need to make another like itself . . . A jagged existence, but it hath a seeming of Troy. If he be dead.”

  “But why show only me?” Reynard asked.

  “Let us climb higher,” Calafi said. “The magician may have found something to show us all.”

  They resumed their climb up the stairs and entered a twisting shaft of rising columns wound through with vines and the tiny pale flowers. The overall silence in the city was broken by distant snaps and cracks, and a continuous rustling, as of branches in a wind-tossed tree.

  For a time, Reynard wondered if the cracked ribs would all split and sag at once, and the entire city would fall in on itself . . .

  Then they came to a round arched doorway accessing a curved corridor, leading to many other round doors on both sides. In the middle of the corridor, a single childer floated, softly imbued with its own light, its own distant existence, paying them no attention. Then it seemed to startle, turned, regarded them with translucent eyes—and floated swiftly into a doorway.

  “Do we go there?” Reynard asked.

  The girl nodded. “Only look,” she said. “The city still doth contain many spirits. We do not touch or move anything!”

  They passed into the next room, and saw it was wide and high-ceilinged but maintained the woven, rigged, and airy design of the rest of the city. The wicker floor was marred by signs of struggle—the marks of axes and sword blades, scraps of cloth, a robe tossed aside—but no blood, no bodies from any combatant or inhabitant.

  Reynard was alarmed by this lack. “Where are they all, those who lived here?” he asked.

  “Many have likely been taken as slaves,” Widsith said. “But how none who fell remain . . . I do not know.”

  “Few fell, and many were taken,” said a voice behind them, and Nikolias passed through the round door to join them. He carried a lantern and lifted it to reveal the room’s deeper contents. “I have never been this far and seen so much. But I do know that the servants lived in their own kind of luxury, and perhaps valued life too much.”

  There were panels, like unto those that appeared in Zodiako over the corridor leading to the hall, but much larger, covered with arts and conceptions half sculpture, half paint, with much gilding to show sun and day.

  Nikolias shined the lantern light along the closest panel and said, “Observe a plan, or a dream, or a fancy. All are the same to the servants of Crafters. Here was a Crafter design, being sketched and considered by masters of all arts and artifice . . . But here, our own people provided the details.” His expression showed both sorrow and pride.

  The panel revealed a great palace sitting on a pr
ecipice overlooking extraordinary snow-covered mountains that seemed to march back, rank upon rank, to a radiant dawn. Another panel, half as large, showed another kind of palace, a great gray thing—and Reynard saw that it was not a palace, as such, but a ship floating on the water, buildings rising high from its hull, overseeing several ranks and levels of what might have been cannon, but arranged three to an emplacement, and far larger and longer than any cannon they knew . . .

  Calafi pointed to the sky over the palace. Very small, as if far away, a strange bird flew, its wings doubled, one above the other, supporting a long body tailed by a kind of box kite, not feathers. No feathers at all.

  Most definitely not a drake, however.

  A mechanical thing, flying.

  “This was never delivered and executed,” Nikolias said, wiping his eyes. “This pictured a time, a place, a history! And now it may never be. The Sister Queens have killed it!”

  A sharp noise came from the winding hall beyond the door. Nikolias looked around them warily. “We must leave,” he said. “We attract attention.”

  “From whom?” Widsith asked with a rasp of anger, sweeping out his arms at the emptiness.

  The chief of the Travelers led them out of the room, but stopped, looking back—and gestured for Widsith to join him. They were facing a strange figure in carnival garb, backed by shadow, barely paying them heed, even when Nikolias spoke to it. It moved one arm, and a stick fell from the sleeve, along with other scraps.

  Beside this figure, half-hidden in the entrance to another room, was a small pile of more sticks.

  “Troy was here,” Widsith said. “This was his work. Its time is coming to an end—the length of a candle.”

  The robe the figure wore faded and turned to tatters, and the rest of its body collapsed into coal and dust. When its dissolution was finished, Widsith—but none of the others—approached the remnants.

  “This puppet is spent,” he said. He nudged the small pile of sticks beside the crumbled mass, and picked up a bone, gray and dry. “But Troy may yet have a few tricks to play.”

  A Return

  * * *

  NEXT MORNING, a steady, hollow sound of hooves echoed from the pass behind the wagon, and Valdis reappeared on foot, leading her horse, head down and feet plodding. She walked by the warriors and the strong-armed Sophia to the wagon, where Yuchil poked out her head, as if expecting her, and handed her down a bundle of dark green branches tied with red ribbon.

  Valdis laid the bundle before her horse, which acknowledged it with a shake of the head and a stamp of one foot, and then set to eating. Reynard could barely look into her face, she seemed so different now . . .

  “What didst thou see?” Nikolias asked her, putting blanket and saddle on his own horse, as if they all must ride soon.

  “The Eaters are convened at the next working quarry of souls,” she replied. “Not for this krater, which is dead, but the next.”

  “All the Eaters? Pacted and unpacted?”

  “All,” Valdis affirmed.

  “They have not departed?”

  “No,” Valdis said. “They tried, but it is now clear—we have no existence beyond the islands. Calybo says we have difficult duties before we retire to dust and shadows.”

  “Duties to whom?” Widsith asked.

  “I know not. But the Sister Queens have combined to drive a great horde and move on the last of the krater cities. Travelers resist, but mostly, they die.”

  Nikolias stalked off and waved his arm for the wagon to prepare.

  “Other news that is bad,” Valdis said. “The Spanish general has instructed the armies of the Sister Queens how to construct snares that trap and kill drakes. Many have died. I do not know if any of them were yours to command.”

  This struck home. Reynard fingered the vial that Anutha had given to him, now empty.

  Calafi had bent to observe the Eater horse’s meal. “Snakebane!” she said. “Such would kill our animals.”

  “That is why I do not feed them snakebane,” Yuchil said. “But one must accommodate guests and their needs.”

  “Even if they bring unwelcome tales,” Andalo said.

  “We will stay another night,” Nikolias said, “and make sure none of our people are late in arriving.”

  “Foolish hope!” Yuchil said.

  Bela came up to her, held out a sloshing skin bag, and told her the scouts had found a spring. “Then there will be tea,” Yuchil said. She instructed him to pass it to the rear of the wagon and bring more, then sat back on the wagon seat and lit up a cobb pipe with a reed stem, not unlike the smoking flute Reynard had seen being sucked on by the unfortunate keeper of the fold. She puffed, blew smoke, passed it to Nikolias, and looked away, toward the great basket city and the fields and ruins below.

  In its descent, the sun cut around the northern ridge, illuminating the land in a soft golden light that made it look even more desolate, yet strangely beautiful. A steady dusk wind blew grit from the fields. The upper reaches of the city, they all observed, were now crowding with birds—gulls, cormorants, puffins, and even a few hawks and sea eagles, who seemed to cause no stir amongst the others. All were silent.

  “They have finally returned,” Yuchil said, as she and Sophia handed the warriors and guests steaming bowls of gruel. “And no one to listen!”

  Reynard looked to Widsith for an explanation.

  “Humans are not the only ones who report the ways of this world,” Widsith said, bowing his head over the gruel.

  “This city always welcomed birds,” Yuchil said. “Others, inland, took tales and histories from insects, and still others . . .” Her words trailed off, as if even she did not understand what else might carry reports to the Crafters.

  “Was that why Troy came here?” Widsith mused.

  Yuchil said, “He of all I know might understand the songs of birds.”

  Their bowls empty, Kaiholo scrubbed them with sand and carried them to the wagon. The young warriors and Sophia gathered wood and dried vines from the margins of the ruined village and made two bonfires to drive back the dark that would soon arrive. The Travelers gathered around the fires and stretched out their hands.

  Yuchil said, “This be the same fire that warmed Hel when she arrived from the outer spheres and first thought of us. It attracted her to our world—the warmth and the light. And so she unveiled the stars, and then the sun, and life grew.”

  Nikolias said, “I have heard that Hel kindled these first fires to drive away the formless dream.”

  “I have heard that as well,” Yuchil said. “The fire that burneth inside a woman, and warmeth a man.”

  The others laughed, and Nikolias afforded her a wry grin.

  Calafi spun slowly before the flames and faced Reynard, eyes turned up to show their whites. All the Travelers sighed a deep sigh.

  “Calafi hath snared a tenebrion,” Sophia said.

  “Is it a spirit of one of the dead around here?” Bela asked, and Yuchil hushed him.

  “Ignore the girl. She will speak truth when it is time. Until then, she merely dreameth.”

  Calafi rotated two more times, and then stopped. She touched her arm with one spread hand, and shaped letters on her pale skin with splayed and folded fingers. Reynard tried to figure what words she might be signing. Then he saw that they were some of the age-old questions that gave poetic cues to tinkers and Rom who understood. His grandmother had once conversed with his mother in this way.

  The girl’s questions, he saw, were addressed to him, and she made that clear by looking straight into his face.

  Who are we, you and I?

  Are we larks that sweep the sky?

  Seek we nests crisp and dry?

  Are we doves that feather bed?

  Who are we when we are dead?

  Speak we words from those long fled

  Whose spirits pace the land around

  And dress for sleep on bloody ground?

  Turn our signs into sound!

  Who a
re you?

  Who am I?

  She settled beside him, knees drawn up, and used her stick to draw birds and snakes in the dirt. “I have died four times,” she said. “Yet I am not an Eater. Who are they, and who am I?”

  “A child,” Reynard said, having no other answer.

  “In this fire, I see Hel plain as day,” she said. “She is not done with us, nor with thee.”

  “Good to know,” Reynard said, and cringed as he bit the inside of a cheek. “Maybe that is my reason.”

  “Oh, no,” Calafi said. “It be not so simple, methinks.”

  He tongued the brief flow of blood, then said, words a little mushy, “Is Hel another name for Mary, mother of God?” His stomach churned even to ask the question.

  “Hel is Hel,” the girl said. “When thou diest, thou wilt see. I hope to be there, to watch thy waking.”

  Reynard shook his head. “I’ll be honored,” he said sarcastically.

  “Yes, that thou wilt.”

  He saw the boldness in the dancing girl, but also the fragility. “What visions have you now?” he asked.

  “Oh, many. Some more dim than others. Clear enough, armies approach from the other side of the waste, the other kraters. The Queens are greedy. Very dim: they might kill us but save thee, I know not why. Then thou canst ask them who will replace the dead, and who will stare at the rocky walls, and find us in their designs.”

  “What doth that mean?” Reynard asked.

  “These, mine own Travelers, value life,” the girl said, ignoring his question. “We are brave enough to stay and defend, but none knoweth what is expected of us. Still, I am ready. I have died often enough.”

  “You see your past lives?” Reynard asked. His grandmother had spoken of such things, upsetting the churchgoers around her, in her weaving and threshing circles.

  “Many, many,” Calafi said. “The old ones in the quarries keep seeing me in their stone and sending me back. It is my eyes, I think.” She blinked and brought parted fingers to her face, framing one eye.

  Reynard shook his head, not understanding anything she said. “I, too, value life,” he insisted.