Barnaby the Wanderer

Chapter 30: Songs Wrestling like Snakes in the Head

Two days later, the Benefactors returned to the dull and dusty work of traveling by setting one foot before another, then another and then another. Behind, the sounds and smells of the mining town faded, the last house vanishing with a turn of the road. Before them now ran a wheel-rutted way of flattened dirt, flattened rock. Upon each side rose stone hills; rising to mountain cliffs.

"And so farewell to St. Hefestia," declared Val. "Welcome to the Saintless Land."

"In truth," corrected Cedric, "it were better to consider it the land of all saints. For here no saint rules; but neither is any absent."

"You don't believe in the saints, Master Cleric."

"True; but I faithfully affirm the conceptualization you call a 'saint'. The wind blows, the grass grows, the sun shines. And so a child's mind ascribes these acts to Saint Borealis, Holy Mother Demetia, and Blessed Helios. But the adult mind deduces deeper causes. All the more powerful, even the more holy, for that those causes are not truly persons, but laws. They act; but know themselves not."

"I see now why the Questioners wished to roast you," replied Val. "I'm thinking of casting a cantrip of flame right now."

Cedric laughed, undeterred.

"Oh, spare me. Every bard is a heretic. You change the saints to fit your tales; alter their divine testaments to please your rhymes. You are the very folk who give face and name to wind and sun, my fellow member of the Society of St. Benefact."

To which Val replied with something sharp and clever; but Barnaby lost the thread of discussion. His attention upon the mountains ahead. No longer a mere teasing line of blue. Now they were great stone monsters, near impossible for a miller's mind to accept. How could anything be so big? Some stood closer, some farther. Some rose high, others crouched lower. A few peaks held touches of white upon their tops. Snow, Barnaby thought. Ice and eagles, crags and cliffs and caves with Dwarrow kingdoms of jewels ashine in lamplight, and Gobelin halls where the wild-eyed creatures twirled and whirled in circles like mad children about the solstice bale fire.

And ever and again, his eye sought a tower atop a thousand black steps. Not in sight yet. But he felt it, just behind the next rise, just beyond the next turn of the path.

"Will we reach the tower today?" he asked.

"Hmm, no," said Cedric. "This road winds north another day. Then splits. The main route heading towards Psamathe, the city of Sphinx. The second choice leads to mining settlements with quite a mixed population. Gobelin, Dwarrow, and less likely sorts. The third path will take us into the mountains where the tower wait patiently for us. That trail is not traveled much, save by wandering sorts and the occasional pilgrim."

"Or bandits," added Val.

"They are hereabouts," agreed Cedric. "Or so I was warned. But one can assume they watch the caravan road to Psamathe. They'll have no interest in those on a lonely mountain trail to owl-haunted ruins."

"Well, but for now it's the same path," observed Matilda.

"True," said Val. "Cedric, what orisons have you of use against multiple attackers?"

"A blinding light worked well in the crypt. Less effective in open daylight. I do know Demetia's Protection from the Unlawful. But how such prayers work in the Saintless Mountains, is impossible to predict."

"Then we'd best test. Prepare that orison. What about you, Miss Jewel?"

Jewel did not answer at once. She pushed hair from face, turned gaze up to the sky, studying the day.