The Unfinished Land Read online

  “Others judged you. Maeve and Maggie—and Dana. Anutha even saved thee a drake. She said that thou hadst a fate, a place in the great map of this island . . . In its last days.”

  “Where did you hear this?” Reynard asked.

  “From Yuchil, who tended her.”

  Calafi danced closer. “I have a fate as well,” she said.

  “Do you know what it is?” Reynard asked, his voice cracking.

  Calafi turned to him with a sad glower. “No. But I know why thou art called fox-boy.”

  “Why?” Reynard asked.

  “Perhaps thou wast once a fox! Thou barkest like one.”

  Then she laughed and ran off.

  Something whirred in the air. Kaiholo and Kern hunched their shoulders and looked up. Calafi, close to Nikolias, cried out and fell to her hands and knees.

  Nikolias crouched, and they all saw in the dawn light shadows flitting high west to east across the rugged land.

  “They are here!” Kern shouted, his voice like a great horn.

  Kaiholo said, “I do not feel them!”

  “Nor I,” Widsith said.

  Neither did Reynard.

  The eastern brightness above the waste, many miles off, was broken by dozens of wide, winged shapes, swooping and diving: more drakes than Reynard had ever seen, even during the first battle of Zodiako.

  “They are not ours! They are death,” Calafi wailed. “They bring death! My head hurts!” She wrapped her arms around her chest, and Nikolias clasped her and folded her in his cloak.

  Valdis studied the sky in all directions. “They are not ours,” she agreed. “They seek vengeance against those who killed their masters.”

  “That must mean the armies of the Sister Queens are near,” Nikolias said. “Just beyond the waste, or nearer still.”

  “And being chivvied and reduced day by day,” Kern said.

  The Second Krater City

  * * *

  WITHOUT HORSES or the wagon, they crossed over the uneven and dusty boundary of the chafing waste. Kern and Kaiholo soon lost sight of the wheeling drakes, but knew how to maintain a course, and so they led the way, followed by Widsith and the rest, and trailed, as usual, by Valdis, who did not seem at all comfortable in the daylight glare.

  “We cannot tarry,” Nikolias said. “Nothing lives here long.” He explained there was no water on the waste, neither wells nor rivulets, despite occasional bursts of rain. The strange and powdery soil sucked up all moisture and would leave them with only what they caught in their caps or sucked from their capes and clothes. “We must cross within a day,” he concluded.

  “There are prints everywhere,” Kern said.

  “The Queens’ armies hoped to cross the waste with slaves?” Kaiholo asked.

  “The Sister Queens never conversed with Travelers, except to kill them. They have never been here before, and know not the land,” Nikolias said.

  “And what do we know?”

  “Almost as little.”

  Now they came upon many killed in the panic when the troops were attacked by drakes the day before. Bodies both of captors and captives appeared, first scattered, then in groups: elders, then women, amid signs of desperate struggle. Those soldiers, men of youth and strength, killed by the drakes, were obvious. But many more had died as well.

  Widsith and Kern walked from corpse to corpse, joined by Kaiholo and then Valdis, who paused on the edge of a hecatomb of hundreds of dead, some still clutching the swords they had apparently wrested from their captors. Among them were soldiers in unfamiliar livery and armor, four or five of the city’s occupants to each soldier—all dead.

  “The army tried to kill their captives as they fled,” Widsith said. “The servants stood their ground.”

  “They had no choice,” Nikolias said.

  Reynard felt a dreadful sadness. He thought again of England under Spanish threat, town streets filled with murder and fire.

  From here on, they spoke very little, but within a few hours, as the dusk was falling again—the island’s time being always uneven and unpredictable—Kern observed that they were only crossing part of the waste, a chord across the circle, as it were, and he predicted that meant they would soon come upon another krater—and likely another krater city.

  Clearly discouraged by their surroundings and prospects, Widsith asked, “How do we know that city is not also empty, or that it hath anything from which we can learn?”

  “The waste hath ever been a changing feature,” Nikolias said. “Perhaps more so now. Its masters dead or injured, it trieth to delude any who cross.”

  Look as hard as they could, they saw nothing rising above the indistinct horizon.

  * * *

  The group, enveloped in starlit night, relied on Kaiholo’s sense of direction and ignored the vague shapes of the many bodies, except for Widsith, who was searching for Spaniards. Reynard lost sight of Valdis but stumbled on regardless, following the Sea Traveler, and for some reason trusting him.

  Within an hour, a new, sallow green light as faint as marsh glow appeared on the horizon, and as morning arrived, through a low silvery fog, another city came into view—a ring of towers, very different from the caged seed structure. The green glow came from within the ring.

  Kern said, “Decay. Vast decay, and not of human bodies.”

  “An Eater hath died,” Valdis said, taking shape beside them.

  The glow grew brighter as they closed the distance, until they had crossed the chord and were once again in the vicinity of a great krater and the city that, at least in the past, had served its occupant.

  “Every city had pride in its Crafter,” Nikolias said, “and built itself unique.”

  The city now before them consisted of a circle of seven great erections, like cathedral towers, but where the towers in England rose straight, these faced inward and leaned toward an empty center, arching over the krater as if about to fall.

  Between two of the towers, the group stood on the rim of a sere field covered with burned stubble. Kern stooped to feel the dry grass. The earth beneath the stubble felt warm. The air felt warm, with little sun to warm it. “Nothing hath been grown here in years,” the giant said. He rose and walked over to a lone and crumpled man’s body. “And yet there was reason to make war.”

  Cautiously, they advanced. On the rim of the krater—not very different from the first they had seen, and source of a twisted pillar of cloud—lay many more dead, Travelers of the krater city and soldiers from the armies of the Sister Queens. The latter had died both in pitched battle and under the claws and jaws of drakes—and four of the vengeful drakes remained as well, two stuck by bolts from crossbows, and two more dead but without apparent wounds.

  Kaiholo knelt to study the closest, holding his nose against the smell. It was missing several of its limbs. Its carapace and head were wrinkled and yellow, and the edges of its wings were badly worn. Valdis joined him. “Their vengeance done, their season is over,” she said, and lifted the wing’s chipped edge.

  “Not good for a cloak,” Kaiholo said. The stench of death both human and insect was thick in the air.

  “A day, maybe two, since the battle,” Widsith said.

  Valdis rose and turned to the south. A hundred yards off, five figures emerged from the gate of the nearest tower. The rippling heat of the land beneath the sere grass distorted and camouflaged them, but Reynard saw they were all dressed in dirty brown, carrying swords, bows, and pouches slung over their shoulders.

  Widsith cried out in surprise as they came near enough to see faces. “You were the ones on the waste!”

  “And we are not alone,” said Maggie. Despite her years, and her limp, she seemed as strong as her yew bow, and wore the outfits they all wore—the leather of blunters. Nearly all the blunters from their first meeting on the beach of Zodiako were here. “My daughter is in that leaning tower.” She pointed over her shoulder at the edifice from which they had emerged. “Dana hath questions that need to be answered. S
he will find us soon.”

  The youngest, Nem, short for Nehemiah, gaunt and careworn, stood beside Gareth, with his bushy red hair and outsized chest and shoulders. On the other side of Maggie, shifting on weary legs, was tall, flat-nosed Sondheim, his flaxen hair now tangled and greasy, and MacClain, hazel eyes still darting and sharp, hair still dark brown, but also dirty with travel and worse . . . and desperately unkempt.

  Calafi kept close to Reynard, suspicious of these newcomers, until he introduced them and told her of their time blunting drakes. Then she smiled and stood up on her toes like a fine lady, holding out her hands and dancing around Maggie.

  “We have been following Troy,” Maggie said, also slowly turning, arms out, looking down on the girl. Gareth opened his slung pouch with a wry grin, revealing to Calafi and then the rest dozens of yellow tallow candles. “The magician is dead, but lives on in bone-wives. They have guided us from the western shore to these cities. Have you seen them?”

  “We have seen evidence he is not yet done with us,” Widsith said, and gave Maggie a great hug, which she winced to receive, but then smiled and patted his arm.

  “I have not the benefit of Calybo’s ministrations,” she said. “Travel is hard for me. There have been no Eaters in Zodiako since you left, and none just beneath the sky. Maeve is gone . . . That you have heard? She passed before the final assault.”

  Widsith’s eyes grew misty, and he nodded.

  Another figure came out of the gate and approached them at a run, and Dana stood with them, holding Reynard’s hands in hers, and then Widsith’s. Kern stood aside, as did Valdis, but Calafi hugged them all.

  “You know Nikolias,” the Pilgrim said. “He hath served Zodiako as guide and go-between many decades.”

  “I am better acquainted with Yuchil,” Maggie said. “But it is a pleasure to meet the man who serveth her!”

  Nikolias could not look away from the krater, or the thin mist that rose from its center and twined upward like a vine made of clouds. “What happened here? Have the armies of the Sister Queens killed them all?”

  “No,” Maggie said. “There is worse news than that, we fear.”

  “Let us build a fire,” Gareth said, “and cook the last of our food, even in this heat. Whatever our appetite, we have need of our strength, for we have cold tales to tell.”

  The End of the Tir Na Nog

  * * *

  GARETH SET A fire just big enough to heat their soup of dried fish and seaweed. He then took a candle out of his bag and carried the flame to its wick with a taper. Calafi squatted and stared steadily at the flame. It wavered as if breathed upon.

  “Troy’s bone-wives have fared wide,” Maggie said, “and acted, like us, as scouts.”

  “How many could he raise?” Reynard asked.

  “As a dead man, many more than when he was alive,” Maggie said. “He had caches of bones and sticks across the island, around the chafing waste and near the krater cities. He sometimes sent his figures out to spy . . . and now those stores are all in motion.”

  Nikolias crossed himself. Reynard had seen enough Traveler magic to wonder at the old man’s gesture, but decided that Troy’s wonders might have origins earlier even than Travelers’.

  “Still, I take comfort in his aid and presence,” Widsith said.

  “Oh, of a certes . . . he is not present,” Maggie said. “He only work-eth his way like a man winding his clocks.”

  “At any rate, we keep our promise to him,” Gareth said. The candles made a small rumble in his bag.

  Maggie turned to where Valdis had settled, under a dark cloak, caring nothing for the heat. “I have heard Eaters could not share time with Troy,” she said. “Why not?”

  “The magician made his vows with others,” Valdis said. “And Eaters have another role to play.”

  “When will we see our drakes?” Calafi asked Dana sharply.

  “Later,” Dana said. “The company of drakes intent on vengeance doth disturb and unsettle those still partnered.”

  “How much later?” Calafi persisted. “I am a small thing, and need protection.”

  “And who gave you that benison?” Sondheim asked.

  “Anutha chose around the wagon and gave them to both Travelers and to us, and also to Kern,” Widsith said. “She seemed to know what she was doing.”

  “But at least one Eater hath the benison,” Sondheim said darkly, “yet did not share time with her!”

  Widsith intervened. “Ropes of destiny we cannot see rig this ship,” he said.

  The sun rose along the edge of a tower and hung there, halfway up, as if it enjoyed this vantage and would never leave, and they sweated, all but Valdis, with the heat from the sun and from the ground below.

  Maggie unfolded and lay on her side. Her face showed relief; she seemed to find the heat rising through the soil soothing for her aches, like the warm waters in Bath, perhaps—which Reynard had heard of but never experienced.

  She continued. “The hard news is that the Crafters are not being killed by the Sister Queens’ armies. Rather, for many years now, they have been dying of their own kind of age. One by one, their time is ending, and all who serve them have been set free to find their own protection. And that makes the Sister Queens angry, for they hate the Crafters and their servants, but had hoped to kill monsters in their lair—and mostly they find only dead monsters, and weak and dismayed human beings.”

  “Have the Sister Queens sent their wise ones to look upon the dead Crafters?” Nikolias wondered.

  Nobody knew.

  “All that can be said this day,” Dana said, “is that our time and purpose on this island must be coming to a close. And that seemeth to include the time of the Sister Queens.”

  All looked to Valdis. “And what about thy people?” Maggie asked, rolling over and rising on her elbow.

  “Eaters have no place to go,” she said. “Nothing lies beyond the islands. I seek mine end, whatever it may mean.”

  A Dead Crafter, and How to See It

  * * *

  AS THE DAY seemed to wind down so slowly, they sought shade in the shadow of a tower, and decided to avoid travel in the ground’s rising heat. Nikolias built Calafi a bed out of broken brush and dried leaves, above the warmth of the ground, and arranged his long coat as shade, and she lay on it, seeming to sleep at midday.

  An end was coming, Reynard thought—he hoped.

  In Aldeburgh and the small towns around Southwold, he had sought books and learning, had been spurned by the local, so-called teachers and wise men, but now could understand their disdain. Possibly it was not so much disdain as alarm, fear, as if a demon lad had knocked on their doors . . .

  But he remembered the truth of all those encounters, even after he had met the man with the white shadow. And within him, there had been no fear, no wish to inspire fear. Were he dangerous, he had not yet been fused, nor the fuse lit.

  Was the fuse burning now?

  Was he living out the length of a candle?

  The sun slowly descended beyond the clouds in the southwest, and the sky settled down as clear as he had ever seen it either in England, on the sea, or in Zodiako, free of both dust and cloud, blazing with stars and with something else he had heard of but rarely seen: great vague sheets of crackling light. Green and brown and pink ribbons rippled over the mountains and perhaps the entire north, illuminating the land around them bright as twilight, but coldly. Away and above this world, coldly, coldly.

  Still, the heat in the ground remained, enough to raise a sweat, but Widsith and Nikolias and Kern approached and asked if Reynard still wished to see the krater. Suddenly, that seemed important to them all.

  “I do,” he answered.

  Nikolias gathered them and asked Kern to fetch the blunters who seemed brave or foolhardy enough to do this.

  A few minutes later, warily watching the sheets of light rippling like the curtains in God’s window, Gareth and Dana and Maggie joined them on a path that led from the tower where they
had done some exploration, down to the krater, which none had yet seen and Maggie said, shaking her head, that she did not wish to see.

  “But I will not let my charges and companions do something and refuse it myself.”

  “There is someone else out there,” Kaiholo said, staring out over the rise that defined the nearest rim of the krater. Reynard and the others saw nothing even in the brightness of the aurorae and dusting of stars.

  “In the krater?” Maggie asked him, and looked to Gareth and Sondheim.

  “Something just over the edge. A man, I think—an old man. He popped up and looked at us, then dropped and vanished. Perhaps he is one of Troy’s.”

  “I’ll go look,” Widsith said, rising and walking toward the rim. Reynard noticed the Pilgrim was hunching his shoulders. He got up to follow, but Valdis took hold of his hand, her grip cold and peppery—as if sparking. He had not realized she was within reach of him.

  “Let the Pilgrim explore,” she said. “You will have other tasks.”

  “Do you fear the Crafters?” Reynard asked, angry at being restrained.

  “I do not fear Crafters,” she said, “but I do fear that no Crafters remain.”

  Kaiholo looked at them both, then went after Widsith.

  * * *

  Widsith quickly regretted his boldness, and regretted it none the less when Kaiholo moved up beside him. They walked in step through the ruined buildings and the strange gardens that surrounded the krater. The half-burned shrubs and patches of flowers rustled under the high, cold twilight of the sky.

  “What knowest thou of these gardens?” Kaiholo asked.

  “We saw garden ruins around the first city,” Widsith said.

  “And how do you know every city and every krater hath a garden?” Kaiholo asked.

  “Guldreth so told me,” Widsith said.