The Skeleth

Chapter 22

On top of all else, on top of the cold, the weariness and the desperate fear, Tom was lost. He peered out from the rushes by the banks of yet another stream. A boat glided past, long and low, turning with slow grace in the current. It dragged ropes and fishing lines in a tangle from the stern. Tom leaned out to call for help, but found the boat empty. It bumped and spun around the bend of the stream, and was gone.

Tom turned south, following the banks through rushes and rocks. It seemed as though every time he went around one little lake, he found another. He had fallen in amongst a maze of brooks and rivulets sometime before dawn, and there seemed no pattern to the narrow wooden bridges he had found in his wanderings. The farms he passed along the way looked thoroughly odd to him, stretched along the strips of land between the waters, islands of cottage and field bound by trees, dotted with docks where more boats bobbed in the stream.

The draft horse had a bad gait for riding. Like Tom, he had spent his life plowing fields, and just like Tom, he did not quite know how to move as a team of horse and rider. Tom could not seem to match the graceless rhythm of the horse's steps, and as the day had worn by, he had felt an ache creeping up his back from the effort of staying astride. Worse yet, there was no saddle—and worse yet still, Tom could not use his hands to grip the horse's mane.

Jumble lay senseless, cradled in Tom's arms. He had hardly even stirred when Tom dug out the crossbow bolt from his side, but he breathed, slow and shallow. Tom had made a cold poultice from pieces of his shirt, water from a stream and some strifemallow he had found by luck along the banks. He had cupped a little water into Jumble's mouth, wrapped him up in his cloak and held him close, hoping for the warmth of his body to stand in for the campfire he could not afford the time to build. The wound had begun to heal—that was not the worry. The worry was that it had started to fester before Tom could tend to it, and that the cold shivers running through Jumble's body were a sign of something worse to come.

The pale autumn sun sparkled on the water, casting up reflected twins of hanging branches spreading leaves of red and gold, of rock-bounded gardens and little cottages on islands. It seemed like a place where bad things could not happen, but Tom knew that there were no such places.

The wind shot cold beneath his collar. Jumble shuddered, then fell limp again. Every time it happened, Tom curled down to check on him, fearing the very worst, but every time he saw the furry walls of Jumble's chest still rising and falling. He had spent most of the day cursing himself for not turning back and bringing Jumble to the castle, but it was too late.

"I'm here. Jumble, I'm here. You're safe, you're with me." Tom hoped for even the faintest woof, but did not get so much as the flutter of an eyelid.

The height and girth of the trees surprised him, as well as their broad claims upon what dry land he saw. Most of the cottages retained a guard of them thick enough to obscure his view—he had to pass through a few joined islands before he learned that the place was more densely settled than he had guessed at first, and yet there was no one to be seen, not in garden, boat or field. There was no hint of decay or disuse, no holes in roofs or crops gone to seed. It was as though everyone around had just gone off for a walk, all at once, the moment before Tom arrived.

The banks rose before him, up to a bridge that crossed his view over a rushing, rocky run of stream. Over the scents of tree and foaming water came the powerful tang of fish. Tom got off the horse to let him drink. He looked out from the verge and got his bearings from the curve of the grand Girth mountains to his west. He turned east, looking across the bridge and down the road, and felt his hopes rise again. The sight before him looked just as Tristan had described it, the tall stone chapterhouse in the dell beside the spring, surrounded by paddocks for livestock and gardens gleaned and turned down with care for the winter. He was not lost, after all. There were even distant figures moving about the place, through the vineyard and in between the barns and cattle byres.

Tom led the horse across the bridge, the reins in one hand and Jumble in his arms. The road seemed to drop into trees on either side, back into the land of twisting lake and stream. The figures at the farm moved all in a clump along the rows of orchard trees and disappeared from view behind a roll of land.

"Hello?" Tom moved down the road as quickly as he could without jarring Jumble. "My dog is hurt. He needs help." The trees drew in along one side of the road, by a culvert over a hedge where stood a hut used for drying and smoking fish, from the look and the smell of it. He hurried past the door, only for it to burst open beside him. Hands reached out to seize him and drag him inside.

"Ow!" Tom tumbled down onto the hard dirt floor, banging his elbows in an attempt to brace Jumble's fall. He squinted about him in the sudden, smoky dark and saw a dozen folk crouched in hiding amongst the piles of coiled nets and rows of gutted fish dangling from the rafters.

"Quiet." A fat young man holding a fish-boning knife pressed a finger to his lips. "Keep your voice low, now. No shouts."

Tom stared about him, his mind a-spin. He let his hand trail through Jumble's fur. "Please. I need help and I bring a warning. I'm looking for the Revered Elder of the Ahidhan."

An old woman spoke from behind a hanging fall of fishnet. "Is that a stranger?"

"I've never seen him, not in all my days," said a young woman with a mallet for her only weapon. Tom slid a closer look at her. Under her tattered overcloak, she wore a kind of loose, heavy robe, dark blue edged with silvered white.

"I've just come from Harthingdale." Tom glanced around the hut. It seemed wrong to hold back any longer. "I am very sorry to say it, but I think you are all in the most terrible danger."

The man with the knife cracked a bitter smile. "I'm afraid your warning comes too late." He pushed the door open and pointed outward. "Have a look."

Tom followed the man's gesture east toward the farm. He caught sight of the figures again, in vineyard and field. At less of a distance than before, even the late afternoon sun could not hide the glow they gave off, and the work they were doing around the great stone chapterhouse was the work of methodical destruction.

Tom felt the grip of fright. "I've got to go back to my horse. There's something on the saddle that I need, and I then must find the Elder as quickly as I can. Please, if you know, tell me where she is."

The old woman nodded to Jumble. "Your dog is not well."

"He's been shot," said Tom. "The wound's going bad."

The old woman leaned upon her walking stick. She groaned and grabbed at her hip as she gained her feet. "Let's have a look at him, then."

Tom brought Jumble over to the old woman. His eyes opened to the dark inside the hut—and he froze, his heart in his mouth. For an awful instant he thought he stood before the wizard woman he had seen at the gates of Tristan's castle, but then he came to understand that the old woman merely resembled her: the same silver hair, though in a messier style; a similar frame of body, though somewhat heavier; a similar face, though soft and round. The woman before him looked older than the one who he had heard chanting in wild fury at the castle, stooped into the last of her years.

The old woman touched her wizened fingers through Jumble's sweaty fur. "This is a very fine dog." Under the rags she wore blue and white, like the young woman with the mallet, but also a strange buckle, a disc of beaten brass edged with silver. Letters ringed the rim—Tom could not read them but knew just by looking that the disc stood for the sun.

Jumble opened his eyes. He looked at the old woman. His ragged tail twitched, then dangled down again.

"What a sweet one." The old woman scratched between Jumble's off-colored ears. "Yes. Yes, you are."

She sat down with a creaky groan and opened a leather sack at her side. "Put him in my care. I will do all that I can for him." She stretched forth her arms. "What is your name?"

"Tom." He handed Jumble across to her. "Lord Tristan sent me."

"I am Thulina Drake, Elder of the Ahidhan." She nodded around her. "These folk you see around you are the last of my students. We are running for our lives. Would you like to come with us?"