Chapter Twenty Four
Susan had no wish to join the others in the houses where the food had been prepared. Her thoughts were whirling with the enormity of the thing to which she had committed herself, and the prospect of trying to explain any of it to anybody else overwhelmed her. Instead she waited whilst Evander brought plates full of soft bread rolls with salty, nutty-flavoured golden cheese, crumbled into the butter, and goblets of something bright green which tasted like a sparkling fruit juice, and they found a quiet hollow beneath a broad old tree in which they could eat undisturbed.
Susan ate in silence, thinking hard. She had expected to have little appetite, but found herself so preoccupied that she realised when she glanced down that she had emptied her plate.
She licked her finger and dabbed at the crumbs.
"I suppose you know that I haven't got the first idea what I can say to him," she said, eventually. "I suppose the only thing I can do is to try and persuade him not to go any further, to bring the rings and come back with me. I can hardly try and force him. He's a lot stronger than I am."
Evander nodded.
"There's no point in trying to plan it," he said, easily. "You can't plan things like that. They just go wrong anyway when you get to the moment. I think you just have to wait and see what happens. It might go better than you think. I don't think Vanir would have let you go if he didn't think there was a chance. Do you want anything more to eat? Then let's go and see if my father has started to load the barge."
He led her along a wide pathway through the trees, leading away from the lake through the heavily wooded land on the opposite side of the valley. After a few minutes it eventually joined another to become a road broad enough for several reem to travel side by side, and indeed, several were, for the road was busy. People were travelling along it in both directions, some mounted upon reem, some on foot. Susan recognised some of the faces from the meeting, and they seemed to recognise her, because they smiled and inclined their heads politely towards her as they passed.
At first Susan thought that they were heading directly into the wall of the valley, and would soon have to climb, for they were approaching the great rock face of golden stone. She peered up at it through the canopy of tree branches. It towered hundreds of feet above their heads and was laced with a pattern of narrow pathways and the entrances to more caves. As they approached it she realised she had been mistaken. The trees had been concealing a tall gateway, hewn out of the stone, and behind it was the entrance to a dark passageway, sloping gently downwards and leading away from the valley.
The gates were open, and a handful of the tall men were loitering beneath them, talking animatedly to one another. They looked up as Evander and Susan approached, and nodded respectfully. One of them bowed.
Susan felt a little uncomfortable, not knowing whether she ought to bow back. She smiled up at them politely, feeling rather like a child in a room full of grown-ups, and hurried past a little breathlessly, because she was having to trot to keep up with Evander's much longer strides.
The tunnel was cool, and dark after the warm splendour of the valley. Susan blinked, although she could see a bright spot of daylight a few hundred yards ahead of them, and several glowing lamps hung from the roof.
There were doorways set into the wall at intervals, some along the side of the tunnel, some hidden a little further back, along what seemed to be intersecting passageways, and Susan glanced at them curiously, although she hardly had time to do more than glimpse them before she hurried past, trying not to lose Evander.
After a few moments he glanced over his shoulder, and realised that she had fallen several yards behind him. He paused, and waited for her to catch up, smiling apologetically.
"I'm so sorry," he said. "I was thinking so hard I forgot you can't walk so fast. I could carry you if you liked, but it isn't very dignified."
"I'd rather walk," Susan said, catching up with him and stopping to draw breath. "Is it very far?"
"We're almost at the river bank," Evander said. "It's just at the other end of the tunnel, really not very long now. I'll slow down a bit. We don't have to hurry."
After that the journey became a little easier, and a few minutes later they were outside in the warmth of the evening sunshine.
A few minutes later they had reached the far end of the tunnel Susan blinked in the bright light, clearer and sharper than the gentle liquid glow of the valley, even as the sun dipped towards the horizon, and she put her hand up to shade her eyes.
Sunlight sparkled on the surface of the enormous river, dancing and flickering on its blue-grey ripples. There was no gradual sandy shore, as there had been at the far end of the island where Susan had first arrived, but a spread of enormous stone-built docks and jetties stretching as far as she could see on either side of them, and a host of boats of different kinds and sizes bobbed at anchor. There were tall masted ships that Susan, uncertain about boats, thought perhaps might be schooners. There were sail boats and rowing boats and a little way further off, three or four great sailing ships rested in wide berths, tied by ropes as thick as Susan's arm
Susan paused for a moment to take it all in. The noise was startling after the silent calm of the valley. Here the world was alive with men's voices, calling to one another, and the cry of birds, and the endless, rumbling sound of the river.
There were people everywhere, all busied with some occupation. A little way further along the dockside several stout cranes, operated by a dozen of the huge men hauling on ropes, were lowering great canvas bundles on to one of the ships, and hoisting heavily-laden fishing nets off her, attracting flocks of noisily interested birds, diving and squabbling above their heads.
She realised that her feet felt cold, for the first time since she had arrived, and when she looked down she saw that the ground had been paved with heavy red-gold slabs, wet with the spray from the river water. Evander put his hand on her shoulder.
"We're a little further along," he said. "My father's barge is in his boathouse. Come on, let's go."
"Just let me look for a minute," Susan said, and they paused whilst she gazed at the activity all around them.
The people hurrying past with bags and boxes and carts were all so very tall that she had to remind herself that she had not, in some unimaginable way, slipped back into her childhood. She shivered and glanced behind her, half-expecting to see her brother running up. She moved closer to Evander, and resisted the impulse to take his hand, as if he were a tall older brother, and she a little girl, nervous in a strange place.
"Where are they all going to?" she asked.
"Everywhere," Evander said. "The river goes on for hundreds of miles. Not the way we're going. Nobody goes towards the mountains. Mostly they go downstream and around the edges of the Foot of Yggdrasil. There's good fishing there. And we trade with the towns out to the east. They grow the raw cottons we use for making fabric. We make our own dyes - good ones too - and sell those. All sorts of things."
Susan felt dizzied.
"I hadn't realised there were so - so many of you," she said. "I suppose I had thought this island was all there was."
"It's the bit that matters most," Evander said. "It's where we meet with Vanir. I mean, I suppose he goes to the other places as well - it's all his realm. But this is the heart of things, the bit where we came first. That's my father's boathouse over there. It looks as though they're already loading."
The boathouse was perhaps no bigger than a small cattle byre might be in our world, although it was very much taller. Two heavy wooden doors, each one at least six feet across, stood open at one end, and three tall men were busy unloading a cart. A patient-looking creature that Susan thought looked very much like an enormous donkey, stood waiting between the shafts, its jaws slowly circling as it chewed on something.
She peered in between the doors. A narrow stone footway ran along the walls on either side of the water, and the barge bobbed serenely between them, protected on either side by great sandbags, lashed to the sides of the dock to prevent her being pushed against the stone.
She was a wide, flat boat, built of wood, and painted in colours of blue and gold, with a cabin built into her prow end, and a wooden awning stretching out to shelter the deck behind it. The deck was a little below the level of the walkways, and was already piled with barrels and trunks and bundles.
One of the men saw Evander, and he smiled, broadly.
"There's enough food here to keep you and that reem for a month, sir," he said. "I think your father was expecting you to be bringing a dozen friends with you. We're almost done loading, if you want a hand to stow it all. Your father said you wanted to be off at sunset. He said to raise the mast, you won't be taking oarsmen. He'll be coming down himself to see it done and to speed you on your way. Come on board, have a look for yourself."
Susan hesitated at the jump down on to the deck. Evander reached up to lift her, but she avoided his hand and swung herself down, landing squarely on the bobbing deck.
"It's very kind of your father," she said. "It's a much bigger boat than I'd imagined."
"We'll be on board her for at least two nights, there and back," Evander said. "That's too long to be in a rowing boat. And there's the reem. She could hardly stand in one. She'll be comfortable in here, and so will you. You don't want to be exhausted before you even get there. You're going to need to sleep, and eat well. We can even cook in here if the river's calm."
He opened the door to the little cabin, and Susan looked inside curiously. One side was level with the deck, and bore a black iron box which she realised was a stove. Several cooking pots dangled from the roof above it.
The other side was a step lower, and she saw that things could easily be stored underneath the floor of the little kitchen. Four bunk beds lined the walls, each with a wide lip to prevent its occupant from falling out of bed.
"Mostly we sleep on the deck," Evander said, "but it's good to have this if people are making a noise out there. Father's quite musical. He plays the psaltery, and when Mother was alive she used to sing. When we were small we used to try and stay awake to listen, but we never could."
"I didn't know your mother died," Susan said, surprised. "I'm sorry."
Evander grimaced.
"It was a long time ago. We miss her, but it doesn't hurt the way it used to. I don't think you'll be able to lift any of those boxes, you're far too small. Sit over there on that trunk whilst we get them stowed away."
Susan sat down obediently and watched as Evander and the men loaded the boat, fastening boxes at even, regularly spaced intervals along the sides and filling the space under the cabin floor.
Chapter Twenty Five
Eventually there was a small commotion out on the quay, and she looked up to see the broad figures of Lord Castor and a fidgeting, excited-looking reem, silhouetted in the entrance to the boat house.
Evander straightened up.
"Thank you for this, sir," he said. "There's everything we could possibly need here."
His father shrugged.
"I keep it all ready. Never know when we might like a fishing trip."
He turned to the reem. They looked at one another for a moment, and then he lowered himself carefully downward on to the boat's deck.
The reem watched with some interest.
"Got the ramp there, have you?" he called. "Evander, spread some straw in the aft corner here. It's there - just on the quayside.
Evander jumped on to the quay in search of the straw whilst two of the men squeezed past the reem and laid a wide board in front of her and across the side of the boat. Susan noticed that it rested against a ridge on the deck.
The reem looked at it cautiously. She looked up at Lord Castor for a moment, and then hesitatingly set her front hooves upon it, looking mildly alarmed at the swaying sensation.
"Don't dawdle halfway, not a good place to be," Lord Castor said. "One or the other. Make your way down, or stay at home."
The mare turned her head sideways to inspect the ramp again, rather the way a robin might when confronted with an unfamiliar beetle, and then seemed to gather her courage. She stepped forward, and slid and wobbled down the ramp to an uncertain halt against Lord Castor's chest.
He petted her admiringly.
"Well done," he said.
She stood and stared about herself for a minute. Susan could see her trying to comprehend the slight swaying, unsteady feeling of the deck. She lifted her head to watch Evander clambering over the side of the boat, his arms loaded with straw, and begin to spread it, thickly, across one side.
She balanced herself carefully and took a few hesitant steps towards it. Then she fixed her eyes on Lord Castor and folded her legs underneath herself, sinking downwards to land in what looked like a comfortable lying position.
"Very sensible," said Lord Castor, approvingly. "You'll travel easily like that. Stow the ramp, Evander, you'll need it at the other end."
He turned his attention to Susan and indicated that she should join him.
"I hope we will have managed to supply everything you might need, lady," he began, as she crossed the swaying deck. "We filled a box for your own personal use - for your travels once you have crossed the river. Pack things into these bags. They can be buckled on to the reem's shoulders with the straps. Evander will show you how. She's agreed to carry them."
Susan glanced at the reem, who was watching them with interest.
Lord Castor opened the trunk.
"The clothes aren't new. They belonged to Evander and Alwen, when they were young lads. Not too worn, I don't think. I'm afraid we've nothing else that might fit a lady of your size. There's a warm cloak, and some shoes. You'll have seen our people don't wear shoes. We don't need them in these lands, where the sun's good and warm and the ground's easy for walking, but once you reach the far banks of the river, we don't know what to expect and it might be different. You may be glad of them."
He lifted a slender pair of what looked rather like soft leather mittens out of the box and handed them to Susan. She turned them over curiously.
"Try them," he suggested.
She slid her feet inside them. They were very light, lined with a warm fleece of some kind, covering her foot to the ankle where a lace was threaded through to hold them in place. She flexed her foot. They were warm, and seamless, and comfortable.
"They'll protect your feet," Lord Castor said. "If your people cover their feet you'll be unused to stony ground, I should think. These will help you."
He reached into the box again.
"There's a couple of water skins. None of us know if those lands are thirsty for water. Fill them whenever you can. And you should have a knife. It'll be of no use against the kvalara, of course, but there might well be some pretty nasty creatures roaming in those lands. You need to be able to protect yourself if things get tough. Here. To our people it's hardly more than a hunting knife, but it might prove useful to somebody your size. It has a sheath which can be fastened to your belt - look, like this. Wear it on your travels, in case of need."
He did not specify what the need might be, and Susan did not wish to ask. She took it silently and felt its weight. It was a little shorter than a small sword, the sort that might once have been used by a soldier with a shield,
"Thank you," she said, gravely, replacing it in the box.
There were several other small things that Susan could see might be useful, a length of rope and a handful of metal stakes - for climbing, Lord Castor said, although Susan hoped she would not need to do very much of that. There was a flint and steel and a small box of tinder, and a couple of sticks bandaged in leather which he said were torches.
For Evander there were two long fishing poles and a great hug. Then Lord Castor gestured to the men, and between them they opened the wide gates for the barge to slip out into the open river.
It took a great deal of heavy lifting and hauling on ropes before the tall mast was finally in place, but in the end it was set, and the wide yardarm in place.
"Lord Vanir meant it when he spoke of a fair wind," Lord Castor called, cheerfully. "You'll need the oars to get you out from the dock, but after that it should carry you all the way. Look, there are veorldura waiting for you."
Susan and Evander glanced across the water to where the light flickered and danced above the waves.
"They'll keep you straight," Lord Castor said. "Trust Vanir. He'll keep his word. May the Great One go with you my son, my lady. We'll remember you to him until you're safely back."
Evander bent his back to the great oars, and the barge slid, surprisingly easily, out and away from the dock. Then at what seemed to Susan an impossibly light touch on the ropes, the great sail tumbled downwards with a mighty crack.
Evander caught the ropes and threw one to Susan whilst he scrambled to make the other secure. Susan felt the sail tugging almost out of her grasp, and clung on with all her strength until Evander relieved her and anchored the rope to the cleats on the deck. The barge seemed to hesitate for a minute, to waver. Then it turned a little, and was off, racing across the surface of the river at what seemed to Susan a dizzying speed.
Evander stood for a moment, his head bowed, mirroring his father's stance on the dock. Then he lifted his head and waved encouragingly to his father, before turning to beam at Susan.
"We won't need to do much sailing," he said. "They'll look after us. We could probably sleep all the way there if we wanted, not that we would, obviously. But you should be rested before you start, so you should sleep whilst you have the chance."
Susan looked at him.
"Evander," she said, "when we were at the lake you said you could see a way to make it work, only you didn't want your father to know. What did you mean? I want you to know that I couldn't consider anything - anything your father might find shameful or wrong."
"It isn't wrong," he promised. "I wouldn't do anything - anything I shouldn't. But I can't bear to think of you going alone. We don't know what you might find in those countries. There could be all sorts of horrors. If the kvalara have had the place to themselves for all this time, well, they might have done anything. And there's Lefay. He's hurt you once. He'll try it again, I'm sure. Please, Susan, don't think of it. I couldn't bear it if anything happened to you."
Susan sighed, and stared out over the prow of the boat. The wind had filled the sail now, and the barge was racing upriver as if in defiance of the current, the boat house and the figures on the dock already tiny behind them.
"You can't come with me, Evander," she said. "You know you can't. Even if it wasn't forbidden, you promised your father, and Vanir. Please, don't ask me. I'd love to have you with me, you know that, but you can't. I have to go, and I have to go on my own."
Evander shook his head vigorously.
"You don't," he said, stubbornly. "And I don't mean that. I know I can't actually come with you. I wouldn't suggest it. I wouldn't do that to my father, or Vanir - or to you, for that matter, it might bring disaster if we weren't even doing the right things when we started off. That isn't what I'm talking about. Look, come and sit down here. Let's sit with the reem, so she can hear as well. She's part of this just as much as we are."
A little reluctantly, Susan allowed herself to be led to the back of the barge, where the reem still lay. She was gazing curiously over the side of the barge, watching the river bank slipping away behind them. She snorted as they approached, and shifted a little to allow them to sit beside her.
Evander leaned against her wide shoulders and scratched her neck. Susan watched him curiously, and waited for him to speak.
He was silent for a little while, frowning as if the words were eluding him. Once he looked up, as if he were about to speak, and then thought better of it and relapsed into silence again.
Eventually Susan leaned across and took his hand.
"Just tell me," she said. "What is it that you want to do?"
Evander sighed.
"There isn't really an easy way of saying it. The thing is, it's such a huge thing to ask. I don't know if you'll want to do it. I don't know if I would if I were in your place. I don't even know if it's fair of me to ask. But it's the only thing I can see that might help."
He paused. Then he spoke in a rush, the words tumbling over themselves in their haste to escape.
"I could come with you the way I lived with the cat," he explained. "Inside your mind. I could leave my body here and - well, slip into your thoughts. That way I could be with you whilst you're there. I could see what you're seeing and - well - maybe help. We could think about things together then. I might be able to advise you. And you wouldn't be alone. I'd be there. Right with you. All the time."
Susan stared at him.
"Wouldn't that be - wouldn't it be narn?" she asked.
"I don't see why it would," Evander said, clutching her hand eagerly. "We aren't allowed to set foot on the land. Well my feet would still be here in the barge with all the rest of me. I wouldn't be there in anything more than thought. I'd be inside your thought. It has to be all right. If the kvalara get into a person's head then they can leave the mountains. They can get out in that way. Well, if they can get out then I can get in. It has to be all right."
Susan stared at the deck for a moment.
"But your father," she objected. "He wouldn't like it. And Vanir. What would he say?"
"Vanir knows," Evander interrupted her. "He saw it in my thought before we left. I know he did. And - well, he didn't try and stop me. He must think it's all right. As for my father, I don't know. He'd be worried for me. He'd want to come with us and - I don't know, wait on the barge for us, or something. He'd want to help, and he can't. He's too old. And Vanir thinks so too, or he'd have told him himself."
Susan looked at him. He met her gaze earnestly.
"The thing is," he said, slowly, "the thing is that it's a horrible intrusive thing to do to somebody. It would mean - well - you wouldn't have any privacy left. I'd be inside your head. Inside your thoughts. Able to see all of them. Everything."
Susan could not think of a reply. She felt herself growing scarlet. Her breath seemed to have quickened and become shallow, and she tightened her grip on his huge fingers.
When he spoke again his tone was gentle.
"I'd understand if you didn't want it," he said. "It would mean sharing everything, there wouldn't be anything I couldn't see, even little things, side thoughts. With the cat I saw it all, when he wanted to mate and when he was angry, and - well, everything. I couldn't even try not to look. It was right there. I mean, you're not a cat, but I don't think it would be any different. Look, you don't have to do it. Say no if you like and I'll understand. I'll just wait here on the barge, and you can go by yourself. But I hate to think of you - there - surrounded by them - and defenceless."
"I'm not defenceless," Susan said, half amused. "Your father gave me the knife, and I would use it if I had to. And I won't be alone. There's the reem."
"There's the reem," Evander agreed.
They were silent for a moment.
"Does it work both ways?" Susan asked, suddenly. "Will I be able to see your thoughts as well?"
"Yes," Evander admitted.
Susan squeezed his hand.
"So it might be hard for both of us," she suggested gently.
"It might," he agreed.
They sat in silence, feeling the gentle swaying of the barge as it skimmed the surface of the river. Three or four birds had settled on the yardarm, and were enjoying the ride, their faces turned into the wind. The land was almost invisible now, a mere uneven shape on the horizon in the fading light, and all around them, Susan realised, the air shimmered and flashed with the presence of the veorldura.
She turned back to Evander.
"We'd have to trust one another," she said, "Do you trust me?"
Evander looked down at her.
"I don't know," he admitted. "I think so. That is, I hope so. Can you trust me?"
"I don't know either," Susan said. "All right, then. I suppose we'll just have to try."
Evander let out his breath in a rush.
"Thank goodness," he said. "Whatever there is out there to be faced, we can face it together. And Lefay. Whatever nasty mind-tricks he might have up his sleeve, he won't be able to play them on the both of us. We'll have as good a chance of anybody of getting the rings and getting out of there alive."
"With Mr. Lefay," Susan said. "We need to bring him as well. If he will come. If we can get him to see what he's about to do and - I don't know, change his mind if we can. I can't leave him."
"Of course," Evander agreed. "We'll do it."
Chapter Twenty Six
They slept on the deck beside the reem that night. Evander had burrowed in the boxes until he had found two rough wooden plates and some plain goblets made of something Susan thought could be pewter. He had filled their plates with bread, rather harder and more solid than anything she had eaten so far, and slices of a dense, orange-coloured cheese wrapped in thin slices of what seemed to be smoked fish, and parcelled into peppery green leaves.
"It's better hot," he admitted, as he handed her the plate, "only at this speed I don't want to risk lighting a fire. The river isn't choppy here, but it might be when we get a bit further. It's best to be careful."
He filled their goblets with so much wine that Susan needed both hands to hold hers, and she set it down on the swaying deck with some anxiety, but the base of the goblet was wide and heavy, perhaps designed to be used on a ship, and it did not tip.
"That might be better hot as well," he said. "Father used to stir his with the poker at home. He said it gave it flavour, but I just thought it tasted of soot."
Susan laughed.
"He's been very kind," she said.
Evander shrugged.
"He always is," he said. "And it isn't just for us. He'd always do anything for Vanir. They're friends. Sometimes he goes off to swim - so they can be together, you know - and he's gone for days and days."
"Goodness," Susan was surprised. "What on earth do they talk about?"
"I don't know," Evander admitted. "I never felt I ought to ask, somehow. He's always very quiet when he gets back. Self contained. As if he's full of his own thoughts and doesn't need anything else. Happy."
"Did your mother go with him?" Susan asked. "I mean, when she was alive."
Evander shook his head.
"I don't think so. I don't think she'd have wanted to. She had her own things to do. Dogs and children and books and music. Mostly music. She used to sing."
Susan sighed.
"I don't remember what my mother used to do," she said. "They were bad times. A war. I suppose she was frightened. I only really remember her being angry."
"Fear does that," Evander said, equably. "It's easier to be kind when we're happy."
Neither of them wanted to go into the little cabin to sleep, so Evander brought blankets and they leaned against the smooth flanks of the peaceably snoring reem. She shifted comfortably in her sleep, content to have them there, and Susan stroked the coppery neck gratefully, soothed by the creature's warmth and the gentle swaying of the barge. The night was cool, although not cold, and the sky was clear. There was no moon, but a great number of very bright stars, and she stared up at them, trying to see patterns in their spread.
She turned to Evander to ask if the constellations had names, but realised that he had fallen asleep almost instantly, his mouth half-open and his blond hair flopping over his forehead. She smiled, resisting the impulse to push it tidily back, and closed her eyes.
She did not know what startled her into sudden wakefulness some time later. The last of the evening light had faded, and the world was black apart from the fiercely burning pinpricks of the stars. She sat up and looked around her, suddenly chilled despite the blanket and the warm pressure of the reem.
Ahead of them the starlight glinted on the white-tipped surface of the river, freckling it with shimmering specks. Susan stared at it, trying to see if the distant horizon might reveal an uneven mass of land ahead of them, but she could see nothing.
She glanced around her, feeling suddenly uneasy. She could not see Evander beside her, but she could feel the warmth of his body, and hear the soft, rhythmic rasp of his breathing. She controlled the impulse to reach for him, to wake him, and looked around her, trying to make out the shapes of the cabin and the prow beyond the sail.
At first she could see nothing, then as her eyes became accustomed to the faint gleam of the starlight, she became aware of the billowing sail above them, and the shadow of the prow beyond. She glanced down at her hands, white against the grey blankets, and then caught her breath.
An oily mist had begun to seep upwards from the deck.
It was black, and rising, coiling slowly through the cracks between the planks, slithering greasily towards them.
Susan stifled a cry.
There was a sudden chill, and a foul smell, as if the air had become soiled. She thought for a moment she might retch, but as she turned her head away in disgust, there was a sound, a little like a sigh, and the air became ice cold. Susan gasped with the sudden shock of it, and almost involuntarily began to lift her hand to her mouth, before realising that she could not.
Something was holding her wrist. She shook her hand, trying to twist it free, and realised that the filthy mist had coiled around it, snaking about her wrist in an ugly garland. It hissed as it swirled, and as she fought, she realised that the sound was her own name, whispered over and over.
Her hand had become suddenly numb with the cold, her fingers leaden and frozen. She tried to tug herself free, but it was as if her wrist had been clenched in a vice.
She would not scream.
"Listen to me," the voice breathed into the darkness. "Listen, Susan, listen, listen"
Susan tried to twist her hand free, but it was like trying to shake off the wind.
"Let go of me," she whispered, "Leave me alone. I don't want to listen to you."
"I think you do," whispered the familiar oily voice, and she thought she detected a sour chuckle. "Even though I can't tell you anything that you don't already know really. You're getting so very pleased with yourself, aren't you? Bravely going off on your quest, putting everybody to all this trouble, all for your benefit so you can play at being heroic. Susan the gentle. Susan the blessed. So brave. So brave and noble. Still playing the tragic heroine, aren't we? Going to set ourself against the naughty kvalara, noble Susan? Of course we are, because we never quite grew out of it, did we? All our stories and imaginings and playground games. Good Susan. Gentle Susan. Susan the Virtuous. Oh, what a good little girl we were."
There was a rasping sound, perhaps a laugh, she thought.
"Let go of me," she said, and her voice sounded high-pitched and afraid. "You have no business here."
"Oh, but I think I do," the voice disagreed, and the grip on her wrist tightened. "We're just getting to know one another. I couldn't leave you now. Not now that you're about to spill your secrets to that giant and dash off on your horse to save everybody from the horrid scary creatures lurking in the mountains. Somebody has to talk sense to you. To remind you that the world isn't saved by people like you. You're just enjoying the drama. Susan the Drama Queen. How important and clever you'd like to think yourself. What do you think he'll think when he sees your thoughts? He's going to know how beautiful and desirable you've always thought yourself. He'll be surprised, won't he? to find such conceit behind such a plain face."
Susan felt herself growing scarlet. Behind her eyes she felt the awful burning feeling that is always the beginning of tears. She shook her head violently and tried to put her hands over her ears.
"Go away," she said, shakily. "Stop it. I won't listen."
"But you are listening," said the voice, with another little laugh. "You are listening, because you know that it's true. It isn't noble Susan really, is it? It's vain, arrogant Susan. It's all you've ever been. And now the colossal self-importance of believing you can rush off and save everybody from the naughty kvalara. Well, you're going to be sorry soon. Pride comes before a fall, you know that, and you've become so puffed up with your pride I'm surprised you haven't burst. Susan the noble. Going off to save the poor gardener from his terrible fate."
"Stop it!" Susan shouted, and beside her she felt Evander stirring. Then suddenly something shifted.
She felt a warm breath on her shoulder, and smelled fresh hay. She glanced around to see the reem, gazing at her through bright eyes, and nudging against her shoulder.
A bright picture flooded into her mind. It was herself, seen from some distance away. She was standing in front of Vanir, and despite the distance, it was easy to see that she looked timid and anxious and fearful. The picture was flooded with a warm sympathy, with encouragement and kindness, and she felt a rush of gentleness towards the forlorn little figure she had been only a very few hours earlier.
She looked up.
"I didn't choose this," she said, and her voice was suddenly calm. "I have to try if I want to go home. How I feel about it doesn't make any difference. Now go away. You are not welcome here. Leave before I ask the veorldura who pilot this ship to make you leave."
There was no reply. Then she felt her fingers begin to tingle as the blood began to rush back into them.
The icy cold, and the dreadful smell, had gone, as if they had simply evaporated away into the darkness. The night was still cool, but pleasantly so, like a fresh breeze on a summer evening.
She leaned back against the reem's large, warm body, and sighed. The reem turned her head a little, and nibbled at Susan's hair. Susan stroked the velvety nose.
"Thank you," she said. "I couldn't have done that without you. Thank you very much."
The mare made a low rumbling sound in her chest, and after a moment, Susan realised she was laughing. She hesitated for a moment, rubbing her chilled fingers, and then she laughed as well.
The mare closed her eyes and lowered her head, already drowsy again. Susan stroked her neck and then turned on her side, glad of Evander's warm bulk beside her.
He stirred as she moved, and turned in his sleep. He blinked at her sleepily, and then put his large hand on her shoulder, pulling her close against his huge body. He sighed a small, contented sigh, and was still. For a moment she stiffened, and then she relaxed, soothed as his warmth began to penetrate her chilled limbs. She rested her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes, listening to the gentle thud of his heartbeat until she fell asleep.
When she awoke the sun was already above the horizon, the planks of the deck already beginning to warm under its bright glow.
Evander was not there.
Susan sat up and blinked. She was still rubbing her eyes as he emerged from the low-roofed cabin at the end of the deck.
"I lit the fire," he called, cheerfully. "I made us a hot breakfast. We're going to need it. There's land ahead."
Susan stared ahead of them across the bright water, where indeed, a dark, purple mass could be seen beyond the rippling surface of the river.
"How long will it take us to get there?" she asked.
Evander was carrying two steaming plates.
"A couple of hours at most," he said. "Not long. We're going to need to be ready. We've slept for ages. It's almost noon. You must have been exhausted."
Susan accepted the plate and inspected its contents.
"Do your people only eat fish?" she asked. "I don't mean I don't like it, of course I do. It isn't quite like fish in our world, but it's very good."
"Mostly," Evander said, spearing a piece of fish with his two-pronged fork. "This is a watery place. We do hunt occasionally. And there are birds a bit like some I saw in your world. Heavy birds, they swim and fly. We eat those."
"Ducks or geese," Susan said.
"Probably," Evander agreed. "The cat liked the stuff you fed him. He could hardly believe it was happening. He was really starting to trust you. Look, we're going to be there soon. Are you sure you want to go ahead with this? Me inside your mind, that is."
"Can we try it now? Susan asked. "I'd like to know what it's going to feel like. If it's not going to work we should know now."
"When we've eaten," Evander agreed. "That's probably a good idea. Only once we've done it it'll be too late to back out. We'll have seen each other from the inside then. We'll know one another."
"That's all right," Susan said, sounding rather more certain than she felt. "I just want to know if we can really do it. I've never done anything like that before."
"Neither have I, really," Evander said. "Except with the cat. And Alwen, when we were boys. That's how I knew I could do it. It took years before I realised not everybody could. I couldn't understand why Alwen never did it with me."
"Nobody else?" Susan asked, surprised.
Evander shook his head.
"You're the first," he said.
They were silent for a moment. Susan tried to swallow the fish, which smelled fresh and slightly lemony, but her appetite seemed to have vanished, and her throat felt tight. She pushed her plate away.
"It's lovely," she said truthfully, "only I can't seem to eat it. I'm not hungry."
"Eat as much as you can," Evander said. "We'll pack food for you, but the reem will have to carry it, so you can't take too much. With any luck we'll find food on the way. Otherwise you won't get very far."
"Mr. Lefay will have to eat as well," Susan reminded him. "He hasn't taken anything with him. If he hasn't found food, he's going to be starving by now."
"I don't suppose his kvalara will care," Evander said. "He only has to live long enough to get them out. You can go for quite a while without food."
"Not if you're travelling fast," Susan said. "He'll be weak by now if he hasn't eaten. When we pack, let's try and make sure there's food we can share."
Evander rolled his eyes.
"We'll take what we can," he said.
Chapter Twenty Seven
When they had eaten, and the plates rinsed and stowed away, Evander led her back to the reem.
"We'll sit here to try it. I want her to know what we're doing. It isn't fair to surprise her." He ran a hand across the reem's wide shoulders and held his other hand out to Susan.
"I'll lean against her. I'm going to be horribly cramped when I wake up if I'm lying on the deck."
He settled himself comfortably. The reem gazed at him, bright-eyed and curious, and he ran his fingers through her mane.
"It's all right," he assured her. "We're just trying something out. It'll help."
He turned back to Susan.
"Are you sure? All right then. Look, I'm going to go slowly. It can be a bit - I don't know, a bit overwhelming. I'm going to be really careful, and you have to stop me if it gets too much. Just say so, and I'll back away."
"What do you mean?" Susan asked, feeling a little anxious at his words.
He sighed.
"I mean I don't know what it's going to be like. For you, for either of us. It's a huge thing, the first meeting of two minds, bigger than I can explain. You have to get caught up, one with another. You either crash together, like two waves meeting over a rock, and smash one another to pieces, or you - you meet. You blend into one another. Eventually, if you do it for long enough, you can't tell which is which any more. When I used to do it with Alwen, at first we just - sort of fused together. Then as we got older he wouldn't. We became more separate, I suppose. Then he went away. To the Last Garden. He learned how to shield against me. He didn't want that sort of togetherness any more. But this is different. Promise me, if you hate it, if it hurts, even if you just don't like it, tell me and I'll stop straight away. I wouldn't do that to you if you didn't want me."
Susan nodded, uncertainly.
"I promise," she agreed. "Is it really that bad?"
"Alwen got so he couldn't bear it," Evander said, a touch grimly. "It might be pretty awful."
"What will we do if it is?" Susan said, a little shakily. "I suppose I'll just have to go to the mountains on my own."
"I don't know," Evander admitted, looking guilty for a moment. "I've been trying to think, but I can't."
"Look, there's no sense in worrying about - about things we don't know about," Susan said, suddenly brisk and determined. "We have to try. Let's just get on with it."
Evander glanced at her.
"All right," he said. "I'll be as slow and careful as I can."
He closed his eyes. There was a second's pause, and then his body slumped. His great limbs seemed to have become limp, and the colour drained from his face.
Susan gasped. For a horrible moment he seemed so lifeless that she felt sure that he must be dead. She had just covered her mouth to stop the involuntary cry escaping her lips, when she was brought up short.
"It's all right, it's all right," she heard herself say. "It's me. Evander. I'm here. I'm sorry. I didn't know how awful it looked from the outside."
She paused and looked around herself.
"Evander?" she asked, and then heard her own voice answering her.
"Yes, it's me. Look, I'm putting the words into your head, but you don't have to say them."
"It feels as though I do," she said, with a shaky laugh. "It feels as if I want to tell somebody something."
"You do," her own voice answered her. "Or rather, I do. I'm trying to tell you that it's all right. You don't need to speak my words. Just hear them. Feel them. Let it happen."
Susan clenched her jaw.
"You're trying too hard," her own voice said, sounding amused. "Let go. Breathe slowly and feel it. Like any other thought. Maybe I'm trying too hard to show you…Here. Close your eyes and imagine you're dreaming."
Obediently Susan closed her eyes and leaned back against the reem. She sighed a little, and felt a sudden heat washing over her, like sliding into a warm bath. She felt the tension slipping away from her limbs, as if she was suddenly allowing herself to rest after a difficult day.
"That's it," she felt Evander's voice murmuring. "I'm here. Can you feel me?"
Susan cast her mind about uncertainly.
"I don't know," she said aloud. "I mean, I know you're there, because it's like - I can't describe it - like hearing your voice in my head. Not words, not quite. It's different. But I can't feel you."
"You're still trying too hard," the voice whispered. "It's blinding you. You're trying to create the feeling of me in your head. You're trying to see what you expect to see. It isn't like that on the inside of people. You don't see the surface things. Try and make yourself very still and quiet, and just wait for my thought."
There was a moment's silence, and then Susan caught her breath.
"I hadn't expected…you feel different." She paused. "It's you, of course it is. But it isn't what I'd thought, You don't feel - the same. I mean, you're - "
"Not so brave?" he finished the thought, and she felt an edge to his thought, sharp and wounding. "Not as strong and clever? Not so wonderful on the inside?"
"Not like that." Then, recollecting he could see her thoughts, "I mean, yes. All of those things. But it's - it's better somehow. It's really you. Without any pretending."
"That's right," he said, and she felt how brittle he was, how easily he could be broken. "Nowhere to hide."
"It's like seeing you clearly for the first time," Susan said, wonderingly. "As if I'd been looking at you through a thick fog until this minute. There's so much I hadn't seen. I'm sorry. Please, please don't talk for a minute. Let me just look. I want to see you."
The voice fell silent. Susan breathed deeply.
The sense of his presence among her own thoughts was so intense as to be almost unbearable. For a moment her eyes flickered open and she shook her head, as if to try and escape it, staring disbelievingly at the ordinariness of the wooden deck, and the straw spread around them, so unchanged, so solid and familiar. It felt almost impossible that the world could be at once so unmoved, and yet so unspeakably, so utterly and forever different.
"It changes everything," she breathed. "You're so - so kind. So safe. So - I don't know. As if I've known you for ever."
She saw his thought, felt it sliding hesitantly against her own, filling her with a gentle encouragement. She felt herself flushing hotly.
"You're so - so exquisite," he said, simply. "All at once you're elegant and fragile and delicate. I almost can't bear to touch you, can't bear to go further. As if I might break you just with my thought. You - you funny little creature. You're trying so hard to do the things you should, you're so careful, and all the time there's all this worry bubbling away behind it, spilling into everything, making you afraid. It's all right. Everything is all right."
Susan pressed her lips together.
Neither of them spoke.
Susan reached out with her thought, groping, tentative, and felt his thought twine protectively around her own, close and somehow familiar, There she rested for a moment, and then, to her surprise, felt a laugh beginning to bubble up inside her.
He hesitated for a moment, and then joined in. The laughter seemed to cleanse something, to rinse away some troubling stain. It was wholesome and fresh and hopeful.
She wanted to smile at him, and felt her smile returned almost before she had thought how she might direct it.
"It wasn't like that with Alwen," he said. "I didn't know...I hadn't expected. I never knew it could be - like that."
"How could it be like anything else?" she asked, and felt herself smile this time, warm and sure and strong. "We've become a part of one another. This is what it's supposed to be like. "
She felt his thought, warm and gentle, entwined with her own.
"I think dying must be like this," he said. "How can we ever stop?"
"Don't think of it," she said. "That's for another time. This is now. We have to do what we must. We'll reach land in an hour. We're going to have to make ourselves ready. We haven't even thought of what we're going to do, how we're going to find Mr. Lefay. We need to make some plans."
"We can't," he said, equably. "We don't know where we're going or what the country's like or what's waiting there."
"You're excited," Susan said, almost reproving. She felt him shift against her, happily.
"Yes," he said, simply. "How could I not be? All my life I've heard tales of these mountains, and now we're going to be there. I'm going to see for myself. It's going to be an adventure, even if it's a scary one. You're excited as well, if you let yourself be. Let it go. Enjoy the feeling."
Susan felt herself smiling.
"Yes, I am," she agreed. "Maybe a little. It can't be too bad. We're together."
He shifted his thought a little. She felt it leaving her, directed elsewhere, towards the reem, and the promise of the river banks, and she fought down the fearful longing to call him back.
He felt it, of course he knew, and he laughed.
"We have to be separate," he said, and she felt his regret mirroring her own, reassuring her. "We need to pack. I need to fill the bags for the reem. You need to eat and make yourself ready. You're hungry. I can feel that you are, it's just your worries making you forget. Let me go now. You can explain it to the reem if you like. She's seen it all going on and she's really interested."
Susan felt her own thoughts close in as he slipped away from her. She shut her eyes again, exploring the place where he had been, as one might explore the aching hole left behind once a tooth has been pulled, and then jumped at a light touch on her shoulder.
It was Evander. The deathly figure beside her had vanished, and in its place Evander was beaming at her.
"Isn't it difficult, becoming separate again?" he said, cheerfully. "It wasn't easy even when I left the cat, but leaving you is a hard thing."
Faced with him, looking at his bright, happy face, Susan felt herself growing scarlet.
She bit her lip.
"Are you all right?" she asked. "I mean - was that - did I imagine -"
Evander squeezed her hand.
"It doesn't seem real, does it?" he said, kindly. "Whenever I've been - out of myself - it always felt a bit dreamlike afterwards. As though it was a game I'd been playing. Something I'd made up. If it hadn't been for Alwen being so sure about it I'd have thought I was going mad when I was a boy. It's though part of you simply can't accept it, can't allow yourself to believe what just happened. But it did, and it will happen again, as soon as we've anchored. Look, we're almost there."
He helped her to her feet, and together they gazed past the great billowing sail to the land mass, now huge in front of them.
"It's an enormous place," Susan breathed, trying to take it in, and so it was.
Far in the distance, great jagged mountains, their tops white with snow, were barely visible behind dense, swirling black clouds, shockingly dark on that sunny morning. Their lower slopes were green with trees, which climbed a little way upwards and then halted, in a smooth, unbroken line, beyond which there was nothing but steep, rocky slope, climbing sharply upwards. She shaded her eyes to see better.
"It's a wall," Evander said. "They're on the other side of it. The kvalara."
"I can't tell if those are clouds or smoke," Susan said, peering into the distance.
"It could be both," Evander said. They don't seem to be going anywhere. There aren't any outside the wall, look, but they're really moving pretty fast, which says that either they're boiling out from somewhere or there's a powerful wind racing around those peaks. It might be the kvalara. Maybe that's what they do."
Susan shivered.
As they approached closer to the shore, the barge seemed to alter course a little, following the river banks around the land rather than heading directly towards it.
Susan had expected that the lowlands would be bare and bleak, devoid of any life at all, but as they drew nearer she was able to see that this was not so. The land stretching towards the great mountains was not quite flat, but its incline was gentle, brownish-green in colour, with copses of trees here and there. As the land grew steeper, the trees increased in density, until the last miles before the mountains seemed to be almost a thicket, impenetrable and forbidding.
"How will we get through there?" she asked, trying to keep her despair from sounding in her voice. "Through that - that forest? It must be completely overgrown by now. Vanir seemed to think it was at least a couple of hundred years since anyone had been here."
"I don't know," Evander said, "but there must be a way, otherwise those things wouldn't be dragging Lefay here. They must think he can get through. In any case, maybe we won't have to. We might get to him before he gets that far."
"Look, there are birds," Susan said, suddenly, pointing. Evander followed her gaze to see two winged shapes, far away from them, wings outstretched, lazily circling above the trees.
"Big ones," he said, with interest. "They look enormous. Things do live here, then. I suppose that's a hopeful sign. They must be eating something. We might be able to hunt for dinner if we get desperate."
Chapter Twenty Eight
Packing the bags took quite some time. The barge had slowed now. The wind had dropped and it seemed almost to be moving by itself. It glided steadily along the bank of the great river as they emptied the chests and Evander packed food into the bags and Susan filled the water skins from the clear river water.
He looked up as Susan shouted suddenly. She was standing on the deck, staring out towards the land.
"Look! Look" she cried. "There, on the shore. There's a boat."
Evander scrambled to join her before they had slipped past it.
"That's got to be Lefay," he said, squinting and shading his eyes against the sunlight. "That's one of Findal's boats, I'd know them anywhere. He must have taken it. So he's here, then."
"I suppose he'll have headed straight for the mountains," Susan said, doubtfully, trying to see if there might be any obvious trail leading inland. Evander nodded.
"Probably. I should think that great dark peak there - can you see. When the clouds move. There. That's got to be it. It almost looks as though the clouds are coming from there. That has to be the place. If we keep going along the bank like Vanir said, we'll catch up quite a bit of ground, I should think. He's got to walk a long way from here. We'll probably moor a good few miles closer."
They stood and gazed at the inhospitable-looking shore as the barge slid past it. Then Evander let out a cry.
"Look, what's that?" he said, pointing. Susan squinted, but nothing unusual caught her attention. Evander pointed again, shading his eyes from the sunshine and staring hard.
"Over there. Below the biggest peak. Running through the woods. Can you see it? That line. It looks almost like a road."
"It can't be," Susan said, in amazement. "Nobody's been there for years and years. Even if there was one all that time ago, it would be completely overgrown by now. It couldn't possibly be a road. Where are you looking?"
As she spoke, she saw what he had seen.
Stretching through the trees, from the lowest slopes of the mountain, running straight up to the edge of the walled-in bare slopes, there was a pale, narrow line. Susan gazed at it in astonishment.
"It couldn't be," she said. "So what on earth is it?"
"It might be a way through the woods," Evander said, hopefully. "There could be creatures there that still use it, or - or - I don't know. But I can't think of anything else it can be, can you?"
Susan shook her head slowly.
"If it is, then I should think that's the way Mr. Lefay must have gone," she said, "if he's seen it as well, or even knows it's there. It looks like the easiest way to get to the mountains."
"It starts at the edge of the woods," Evander said thoughtfully. "Maybe once it came down all the way to the shore, and in the days before the lands were flooded you could walk to the mountains all the way from Eyja. You'd just have to keep going in a straight line for long enough. We have to hope that's what it is. It means we've got a chance of finding him."
"Vanir said to go further on, otherwise I would think we should moor here and try and get to the road," Susan said, a little reluctantly. "I suppose we ought to do what he said, but it does look as though it might be the easiest way."
"It's quite a lot further," Evander observed. Then suddenly he pointed again. "Look. Look there. Just ahead. It's a river."
Susan had to stand on tiptoes to see to see what he was looking at, until the barge rounded a curve in the shoreline, and it became obvious.
A wide river, bright and sparkling in the sunshine, was threading its way across the great plain down to the open water, where it met the great river with a roar. Evander had to shout to be heard as they passed it.
"That's good," he said, with some satisfaction. "Look - I should think that's flowing straight down from the mountains. In fact I expect that's where it starts, right over there, just on this side of that wall, look. High up, can you see it? That means he's going to have to cross it. He won't be able to get anywhere near any mountains until he does. That should slow him down."
"How on earth will we find him?" said Susan, bleakly. "Unless that really is a road, and we all get there at the same time, it's going to be like hunting for a mouse in a hayfield."
"I don't believe Vanir would have let us go if he believed there was no chance," Evander said, stoutly. "It has to be possible. Look, I should think he's just taken a straight line from the boat. That means, if he's hoping to follow the road - if it is a road - he's heading due west." He pointed. "We'll be landing quite a long way north. If we head south we should be able to cut him off. Probably before he gets as far as the forest. I shouldn't think he's even across the river yet. Do you think he can swim?"
Susan grimaced.
"If there's a road, there's probably a bridge," she said, firmly.
It took another twenty minutes before the barge finally glided to a halt beside the sandy riverbank and Evander was able to pay out the heavy anchor chain.
"Vanir was right," he said, sounding pleased. "We couldn't possibly have moored any closer. We can run the ramp across here, and it's hardly any distance at all, even the reem won't have any problem getting off. This must have been a cliff edge once. The water must be fathoms deep."
"There are veorldura everywhere," Susan breathed, glancing around, as the air filled with the faint ringing sound that indicated their presence.
"They've been steering us since we set off," Evander agreed.
Straightening up, he smoothed his hair and spoke to them.
"Thank you for this," he said. "We couldn't have reached this place without you, and we're grateful. If we can manage to bring the rings back we would be glad of your help to get home again."
"So the Lord Vanir has said," a faint, almost amused voice whispered.
It was so close to Susan's ear that she jumped, and indeed, could not be exactly sure whether she had actually heard it, or whether it had been inside her head. She looked around her, although other than a faint sparkle in the air, there was nothing to see.
"We will return at your call," the voice continued. "There are veorldura on the island, although they are not of our kind, and answer not to my lord Vanir. Still they know of your trouble, and may even offer you aid at need, for it is their task always to hold fast the boundaries of the mountain. Do not pass beyond the wall, for once there there can be no return for you. Do not take that chance."
Evander nodded gravely, and glanced at Susan.
"We won't," she promised. "That is, I won't."
"You have not kept secrets from my master," the veorldur said, drily. "He has told us of your plans. Still, we know nothing of this land, and we cannot warn you of any dangers it might contain. Be on your guard at all times. Your foe is two days ahead of you, if you make good speed you may yet catch him. Do not delay. We will remember you to the Great One always. Fare well, and may his wisdom guide all your choices and your footsteps."
There was a sudden silence, save for the sound of the wind, and Susan realised with a small shock that the sound of the veorldura had been with them, unobserved, since they had sailed, and she had simply grown so accustomed to their presence that she had not thought of it.
The ramp was too large and heavy for her to lift, so she stood beside the reem, who had now scrambled shakily to her feet, and who was standing, uncertainly watching as Evander dragged it into place and tied it firmly into place.
"I think we'll leave it like this," he said. "It'll be ready for us when we leave then. We might have to get back to the boat in a hurry."
He buckled the bags across the reem's shoulders, and she turned her nose to sniff them, proudly. Susan could feel her pleasure in being asked to do something so important.
She slipped the leather shoes on to her feet and tied them tightly at her ankles. Then she fastened the long knife at her waist.
"It's very sharp," she said, looking at the blade anxiously. "I don't think I'd be very good at using it. "
"Probably you won't need to," Evander said cheerfully, " Even if there are wild beasts there, not many things can outrun a reem once they get going. Look, I think that's everything. Do you want to go onshore with the reem? Once you're safely off then I can follow you."
"What are you going to do?" Susan asked.
"I'm going to put myself to bed in the cabin," he said. "That should be comfortable enough for me not to get too cramped, and dry if it rains. I'll make sure you've managed the ramp all right, and then you can wait for me on the shore."
Susan nodded, and turned to the ramp. The reem set off first, her cloven hooves clattering on the timber as she swayed unsteadily up the ramp.
The gap between the side of the boat and the rocky ground could not have been more than a couple of feet, but the reem gathered herself with such determination that her leap took her several yards on to the grassy bank, and Susan laughed, pleased to see the creature's relief at once again being on steady ground. She jumped across easily, and rubbed the reem's glossy shoulder.
"I don't think I'm tall enough to climb on to your back from here," she said. "Look, there's a rock over there, can you stand beside it so that I can manage to get up?"
Even with the rock, mounting the reem's broad back turned out to be a bit of a scramble, and Susan was scarcely settled before she felt Evander's cautious touch in her thoughts, calm and easy, and she felt herself sigh with relieved satisfaction to feel the gentle heat of his closeness again.
"You're frightened," he said.
"Not really," Susan said aloud. "I mean, of course you're right, I am, but it's just - just the hugeness of the thing. We're here. It's all happened so fast. And we might - we might not come back. What will happen to you, if you're in my mind and I'm - if something happens to me?"
"I don't know," he said, cheerfully. "But probably we won't find out. Let's just get on with it. We aren't heading directly to the mountains. Lefay will be taking that route. We need to be heading south, to try and cut him off before he gets there. And we ought to - I don't know, introduce ourselves. To the veorldura here."
"Won't they know who we are?" Susan queried, surprised.
"I expect so. But it's good manners. We're strangers here. It's their country."
"I don't think there are any," Susan said, doubtfully glancing about her. "I can't see them, and it doesn't feel like it. It feels as empty as - as my own country."
"Your country isn't empty," Evander said. "But the veorldura there are different. More reserved. You don't hear them laughing, or singing. They're stern and grim and a bit frightening. You wouldn't want to upset them, but they're just the sort you'd want on your side in a tight spot. They aren't merry and - and lighthearted like Vanir's veorldura, but they're steadfast. I expect the ones here are the same kind. They're doing the same job."
Susan looked around.
"It feels a bit like my country," she confessed. "At any rate, it feels the way my country might if there were no people, if everybody had left a long time ago. It's very quiet."
"There are birds somewhere, we can hear them," Evander said. "And quiet is probably a good thing."
Susan bowed their greetings to the unseen veorldura with a few murmured words, and then the reem, unbidden, turned inland and set off at a fast trot, which quickly became a gallop as she became accustomed to the dry, hard turf under her cloven hooves.
They were crossing grassland, uneven and rocky, and dotted here and there with clusters of gnarled-looking trees, too small to be quite woodlands, yet too big to be mere copses. These had become interwoven with thorny thickets of something which looked very like brambles, making them impenetrable, and putting Susan in mind of Sleeping Beauty's castle, as they changed direction again and again to circumnavigate them, making the journey slow.
Whatever she had expected from the journey, it was not the dull, rhythmic monotony of an uneventful ride. Once she had found her balance, and forced herself not to grip the reem's mane, an action which was always accompanied by a wash of contemptuous mockery from the reem, there was little to do other than gaze at the unremarkable landscape, and listen to Evander's bubbling excitement.
Evander had been right about there being other animals there, and several times furry creatures, rather like very large rabbits, darted across their path, surprising the reem the first time, and once they saw an enormous lizard, stretched sleepily on a sunny rock. It soon became plain that there were very many birds, The huge birds that they had glimpsed from the barge were to be seen again, very much larger now they were closer, spiralling on thermal currents above the slopes of the mountains, shrieking unearthly-sounding cries to one another as they soared. Once or twice great flocks of much smaller birds passed overhead, so many that the sky was fractionally darkened. Their calls were harsh and unmelodic, filling the silence so uncomfortably that Susan was relieved when they passed and their rasping voices faded.
As they travelled, the strips of grassland became narrower and the trees more frequent, until eventually it seemed that they were travelling along the very edge of a dense woodland, splashing through the little streams that twisted through clefts in the rocky ground and picking their way between patches of half-grown trees, avoiding the bramble thickets that were already beginning to thread their way amongst them. Susan found it difficult to judge the distance they were covering, travelling at the unfamiliar pace of a reem, but guessed that they might have come as far as thirty miles by the time the sun had fallen low in the sky and the reem's pace slowed. Evander said that she was tiring.
"We have to reach that road soon," Evander guessed. "It looked as though it ran right down to the shore, and I don't suppose we could have crossed it without realising. In any case, we're going to have to stop soon. The reem needs water and it's going to be dark in an hour."
A few minutes later, the the reem slowed to a halt. Susan rubbed her neck and slid down, glancing around her. They had stopped in a dry, grassy place, halfway up a gentle slope rising to one of the tree-filled thickets, and surrounded by a cluster of boulders.
"It's as good a place as any to camp," Evander observed. "Those rocks will give some shelter. There's grass for the reem, and we crossed a stream only a minute ago. We've got water, but she must be thirsty."
Susan unfastened the bags and rubbed the mare's broad shoulders.
"Thank you so much," she said, massaging the imprints left by the straps. "I don't know what I'd have done without you."
The mare shot her what might have been a withering glance, but was clearly pleased to be relieved of her burdens, and after snatching a mouthful or two of grass, ambled away.
Susan stretched her wobbly legs and shivered.
"It's getting cold," she said, aloud. "I suppose it wouldn't be a good idea to light a fire."
"I don't see why not," Evander returned, "We aren't trying to hide. In fact if we're lucky Lefay'll see it and come looking for us. We're trying to find him. If he's cold and tired he might like the idea of coming to get warm."
Thus encouraged, Susan fought her way through the thorns to the edge of the thicket and soon returned with several armfuls of dead wood. She hunted in the bags for the flint and steel that Lord Castor had sent for her, and although she fumbled very badly trying to get the tinder to light, in the end a spark caught, and she blew on it gently until it flared into life.
The reem reappeared as she was carefully piling the driest sticks over it, and after eyeing it with interest, lowered her head again and began to graze on the brownish tufts of grass that struggled between the rocks. Susan unearthed the cloak from the bag and tugged it about her shoulders. It was dark grey and heavy, made of something which was very like sealskin, thickly furred on the inside and smooth and leathery outside. It fastened at the front with an arrangement of large, toggle-shaped buttons. There were two slits through which she could stretch her hands and a large hood, also fur-lined, and she wrapped it around herself gratefully.
Darkness came quickly, bringing an icy chill with it. Susan had eaten her fill of the bread and soft cheese with which Evander had filled her bags, and she leaned back against the rocks to gaze at the skies, clear and black, and speckled with thousands of unfamiliar stars.
"What are they called?" she asked Evander, but he could name only a few of the constellations.
"That's Alwen's interest," he told her. "He knows them all. Part of his learning, I think, before he disappeared into the Last Garden, although why they should need to know that I don't know. He says that you can read important things in the stars if you know how to look, but either he's never seen any or he's never told me about them."
Susan laughed and added a few sticks to the fire. They caught quickly, crackling and spitting.
"You can probably see the smoke for miles," she said. "If Mr. Lefay's here, and he's looking around him at all, he'll know there's somebody else here now."
"He must have taken the road," Evander said. "I haven't seen a single place where he could possibly hope to get through these trees."
"If it was a road," Susan said. "Maybe it wasn't. Maybe the prison's really strong and there just isn't any way in or out. Maybe he can't get in either."
"I'd like to hope so," Evander said. Then he added, as she smothered a yawn: "You're so tired. Riding all day's hard work. You need to sleep."
"Shouldn't I stay awake and try and watch?" Susan asked, doubtfully. "What if - if Lefay comes whilst I'm asleep?"
"The reem would hear him," Evander said, easily. "She's out there somewhere, and she'd wake you soon enough. You need sleep more than anything. We'd better be fresh for tomorrow."
Susan agreed. She piled the fire as high as she could with the dry sticks and pulled the cloak close about her and over her head, settling down as comfortably as she could on the hard ground.
She did not sleep for a long while. She lay very quietly, watching the firelight, and trying to accustom herself to the still-unfamiliar sensation of being alone and yet not alone. Now that she was no longer concentrating on the day's physical tasks, she was acutely aware of Evander's presence. His warmth felt as real as if he had been physically curled next to her, and she felt herself luxuriating in its glow.
She felt him smiling.
"Go to sleep," he whispered. "We're in the hands of the Great One. It will all be all right."
Susan slept.
The fire had burned low when she opened her eyes. She was cramped and stiff, but not cold. Sleepily, she kneeled up to blow on it and to pile some dry kindling sticks on top of the embers, when suddenly she shivered. She looked up from the fire, blinking as she tried to peer into the gloom beyond it. She felt Evander's startled exclamation and then put her hand to her mouth to smother her own cry.
In the dark shadows just beyond the fire's faint glow, there was somebody watching her.