Rolan and Tantris would move up first, and break the crust of ice and the hard snow beneath by rearing to their full heights and crashing down on it with their forelegs, or backing up to it and kicking as hard as they could. They would move back, and Talia and Kris would then take their places; picking up the chunks that had broken off and heaving them to either side of the trail they were cutting. The chirras would use their powerful foreclaws on what remained until they were halted by snow too packed for them to dig or crust too slippery to get a grip on. Then the Heralds would move the chunks they"d dislodged, scoop up the loose snow, and let the Companions take over again.
They would work without a break until the sun reached its zenith, then take begrudged time for a hasty lunch. On their return, they would work until darkness. Each day the trips to and from the Station got longer; sometimes it was only that which kept Talia working. There were times, too many times, when their progress was limited to a few feet for a whole day of back-breaking labor; and she knew the Station itself was furlongs from the road. It was when their measured progress amounted to little more than a dozen paces that the temptation to give up was the strongest.
When darkness fell, Kris would tend the Companions while Talia groomed the chirras, checking them thoroughly for any sign of injury or muscle strain during the process of grooming them. Rolan and Tantris, of course, could be relied upon to tell their Chosen if they"d been hurt, but the chirras were another story. And if one of the chirras had to drop out of the work, their progress would be halved.
Finally Kris or Talia*usually Talia*would ensure that everyone was well supplied with food and water and blanketed against the night chill before they wolfed down their own dinners and sought their bed.
It was the hardest physical labor either of them had ever performed. The constant cold seeped into their very bones, and their muscles never stopped aching. It wore them down, a little more each day. They had strictly rationed their own supplies, and the food they were taking in was not equaling the energy they were expending. They were getting thinner, both of them, and tougher, physically. It was a change Talia hardly noticed, because it was so gradual, but once in a while she would think vaguely that her friends would have been surprised to the point of shock by the way she looked.
Kris continued to hammer at her through the first week of digging out, until centering and grounding had become reflexive. After that, he left her in peace, only offering an occasional bit of weary advice. Talia"s control over Empathic projection came and went, at unpredictable intervals. although Kris evidently never noticed her projecting involuntarily. If he had, he would have pounced on her, of that she was certain. Her shielding was returning now that she had something to form a firm base for it, but it was the thinnest of veils, hardly even enough to know that it was there. She worked at control with nearly the same single-minded obsession she was giving the physical labor of digging out.
The only pauses in their routine were the two occasions when they again ran out of clean clothing. Those two days were given over to a repeat of their washday, and to brave attempts to revive one another"s faltering spirits. As tired as Talia was, it was easy to become depressed. Kris wasn"t quite so much the p.a.w.n of his emotions, but there were times Talia found herself having to pull him out of despair. The endless cold did not help matters any, nor did the fact that they had, indeed, needed to cut green wood to use in their fire. The green wood, even when mixed with seasoned, gave off much less heat. Talia felt as if she"d never be warm again.
But one afternoon, nearly a month from the time they"d first reached the Station, she looked up from their task in sudden bewilderment to realize that they"d finally reached the road.
And the road was as drift-covered as the path out had been.
"Now what?" Talia asked dully.
"Oh, G.o.ds." Kris sat down on a chunk of snow with none of his usual grace. This was a scenario he"d never contemplated; he"d always a.s.sumed that once they broke out, the main road would be cleared as well. He stared at the icy wilderness in front of them and tried to think.
"The storm*it must have spread farther than I thought," he said at last. "The road crews should have been within sensing distance by now, otherwise."
He felt utterly bewildered and profoundly shaken*for once at a total loss for a course of action. He just gazed numbly at the unbroken expanse of snow covering the road, unable to even think clearly.
Talia tried to clear her mind*to stay calm*but the uncanny silence echoed in her ears. And that feeling of someone watching was back.
She glanced apprehensively at Kris, wondering if he was sensing the same thing she was*and in the next breath, certain it was all originating in her mind.
The feeling of being watched was, if anything, more intense than it had been before. And ever-so-slightly ominous. It was very much akin to the uneasy queasiness she used to have whenever Keldar would stand over her at some ch.o.r.e, waiting and watching for her to make the tiniest mistake. Something out there was unsure of her*mistrusted her*and was waiting for her to slip, somehow. And when she did*Panic rose in her, and choked off the words she had intended to say.
Kris stared at the unbroken ice crust as if entranced, unable to muster enough energy to say anything more. Gradually, though, he became aware of a feeling of uneasiness*exactly as if someone were watching him from under cover of the brush beneath the snow-laden trees. He tried to dismiss the feeling, but it continued to grow, until it was only by sheer force of will that he was able to keep from whipping around to see who was staring at the back of his neck*
It wasn"t entirely an unfriendly regard ... but it was a wary one. As if whatever it was that was watching him wasn"t quite sure of him.
He tried to shield, to clear his mind of the strange sensations, only to have them intensify when he invoked shielding.
And now he was seeing and hearing things as well*slight forms that could only be caught out of the corner of his eye, and slipped into invisibility when he tried to look at them directly. And there seemed to be sibilant whisperings just on the edges of his hearing*
All of which could well be from a single source. Talia had told him once already that she thought she was hallucinating; she could well be drawing him into an irrational little nightmare-world of her making.
"Talia!" he snapped angrily, more than a little frightened. "Lock it down!"
And he whipped around to glare at her, enraged, and just about ready to strike out at her for her lack of control.
Talia forgot the strange watcher; forgot everything except Kris" angry*and untrue*accusation. She flushed, then paled*then reacted.
"It"s not me!" she snapped. Then, when he continued to stare at her with utter disbelief, she lost the control she had been holding to with her psychic teeth and toenails.
This time, at least, the Companions were prepared, and shielded themselves quickly. Kris, however, got the full brunt of her fear of the situation and her anger at him. He rose involuntarily to his feet and staggered back five or six paces, to trip and fall backward into the hard snow, his face as white as hers, and unable to do more than raise his arms in front of his face in a futile gesture of warding.
And the watcher stirred*
Talia froze; the feeling that some power was uncoiling and contemplating striking her down was so powerful that she was unable even to breathe. Somehow she cut off the emotion-storm*and simultaneous with her resumption of control, Rolan paced forward slowly, to stand beside her. He. faced, not her, but the watching forest, his whole posture a silent challenge.
There was a feeling of vague surprise*and the sensation of being watched vanished.
Talia felt released from her paralysis and wanted to die of shame for what she"d nearly done to Kris. As he blinked in surprise, she turned blindly away from him, leaned against a tree-trunk and wept, her face buried in her arms.
Kris stumbled to his feet, and put both arms around her. "Talia, little bird, please don*t*" he begged. "I"m sorry; I didn"t mean*I lost my temper. It"ll be all right. It"s got to be all right*I"m sorry. I"m sorry*"
But dreary days of grinding labor and nights of too little rest had taken their toll of his spirit as well. It was only when the tears started to freeze on both their faces that they were able to stop sobbing in dejection and despair.
"It*that thing watching*"
She shook with more than cold. "I*don"t want to talk about it," she said, looking uneasily over her shoulder. "Not here*not now."
"It wasn"t you*"
"No. I swear on my life."
He believed her. "All right, let"s handle what we"ve got; the storm was worse than we thought," he said, getting control of himself again. "This is the very northernmost end of the road. They can"t be more than a few days away, and we aren"t running short of food yet. We"ll be all right*especially if we start rationing ourselves."
"We won"t need as much food if we rest," Talia said, drying her eyes on the gauze she"d used to protect them from sunglare.
"And we can plant a signal so that they know we"re here. I can get the crust to hold me a good distance, and you"re lighter than I am; about an hour"s scramble will do. Wait here."
He mounted Tantris and the two of them headed back to the Station, vanishing from sight down the narrow little valley they"d cut. Talia waited for their return, occasionally looking warily over her shoulder. Whatever had been watching her had been within a hair of striking her; why she was certain of this, she had no idea, but she could not rid herself of the thought. She had no idea what had deterred it, but she did not want it to catch her unaware. She clung to Rolan"s neck, and waited, exerting every bit of control she had. For it seemed to her that the watcher had only acted when it appeared that she was attacking Kris. If that was the case, she had no intention of inadvertently invoking it agin.
It was at least a candlemark*and far too long for her peace of mind*before she saw Kris and Tantris trotting back. He carried four white arrows, two long branches, and some bright blue rags.
"These will show up at a distance. Here, pattern these, will you?" He dismounted and handed her two of the arrows, and began working on his two. "We tie the arrows to the stick, and plant the stick out in the middle of where the road is. When the crews find them, they"ll know we"re here, and still alive. They"ll even know for certain it"s us if they happen to have a Herald with them*surely anyone with them will have been given our patterns."
"Why are we doing this?"
"If we don"t, they might not clear the road this far. This is just the northernmost loop; it isn"t strictly needed to get between Waymeet and Berrybay. It takes longer to go around than to cut through Sorrows, but n.o.body travels much in the winter except Heralds. And n.o.body knows where we"ve been *lost." "
He handed her one of his arrows in exchange for hers. Both of them tied the arrows to one of the branches, and made them as conspicuous as possible with fluttering rags.
"You go toward Waymeet, I"ll go toward Berrybay," he said, preparing to climb up on the snow crust. "Plant yours at the first crossroads you come to. I"ll do the same. Hopefully the road crews will find one of them before they give up."
"Kris*what if it snows again?"
"Talia, for the love of the G.o.ddess, don"t even think that. Walk as far as you can, but be back here by dusk."
Talia had never felt so lonely. There was scarcely a sound from the white woods on either side. She could hear the creaking sounds of Kris carefully making his way across the snow crust behind her, sliding his feet so as not to break it. Even so, she heard the crunch that meant he"d fallen through at least once before he got too far away for the sounds to carry to her. It was a measure of his own dejection that he didn"t even have the spirit to swear.
She set out herself, often having to detour around high drifts that she didn"t dare try and climb. Her eyes ached from tears and snowglare, and she was as tired as she"d ever been in her life. She was grateful that she was lighter than Kris; the snow crust was holding beneath her without any such mishaps as he had had.
The silence was eerie*frightening. As frightening in its way as the howl of the storm had been. Talia was shivering long before she reached her turnaround point, and not just from cold. There were no sounds of birds or animals, no indication that anything else lived and moved here besides herself. That horrible feeling of something watching might be gone, but there was still something uncanny about the Forest of Sorrows, something touched with the chill of death and the ice of despair. Whatever power held sway here, it was unsleeping and brooding; she knew it beyond doubt, and somehow knew she was feeling only the barest touch of its power*and she didn"t really want to trust to the supposed protection of her Whites by venturing too far alone. She was more than relieved to find a half-buried crossroads sign; that meant she could plant her gaudy staff in the snowcrust at the peak of a drift and retrace her steps.
She was never so glad to see another human being as she was to see Kris, picking his way across the snow, coming toward her.
Back in the Station, Talia surveyed what was left of their supplies. "They"d better come soon," she said, trying to keep doubt out of her voice. "Even if we"re careful, we don"t have much. It"ll probably last for a week, but not much more."
"If they"re as worried as I think*as I hope*they"ll be working around the clock, even by torchlight," Kris said, sheer exhaustion making his voice toneless. "It just can"t be too much longer."
"They may not recognize us as Heralds at all," she replied, trying to joke a little. "I doubt they"ve ever seen Heralds looking so shabby. I"ve had to practically rub holes in my things to get them white again. Our appearance is hardly going to enhance the Heraldic image."
She screwed her face up in imitation of an old man"s grimace, and croaked; "Heralds? Yer be not Heralds! Yer be imposters, for certain sure! Gypsies! Scalawags! And where got ye them whitewashed nags, eh? Eh?"
Kris just stared at her for a long moment, then suddenly began to laugh as helplessly as he"d wept earlier. Perhaps it was their weariness that made them as p.r.o.ne to near-hysterical hilarity as to tears. Talia began to giggle herself, then crow with laughter. They collapsed into their bed-nest together, legs too weak to stand up, and for a long time could hardly stop laughing long enough to breathe. No sooner would one of them get himself under control, and the other start to follow suit, when one look would set them both off again.
"Enough*please*" Kris gasped at last.
"Then don"t keep looking at me," Talia replied, resolutely staring at a stain on her boots until she got her breath back.
"Berrybay has a Resupply Station," Kris said, doing his best to maintain a serious subject. "We can get new uniforms there, and we can get our leathers bleached and re-treated. I"ll warn you, though, the sizes will only be approximate."
"Just so that the Whites are white and not gray, or full of holes."
"I don"t suppose you know enough sewing to alter what we get?" Kris asked wistfully. She could tell by his expression that his fastidious nature was mildly disturbed by the notion that he would be looking, considerably less than immaculate in outsize uniforms.
Talia raised an eyebrow in his direction. "My dear Herald, I"ll have you know that by my third year at the Collegium I was making Whites. I may very well have made some of your wardrobe."
"Strange thought." He pulled off his boots, slowly. "It*it wasn"t you playing tricks on my mind?"
"No," she replied. "Not until you shouted at me."
"G.o.ds*I think I must be going mad."
She was rubbing her white, cold feet, trying to restore circulation. "Don*t*please*it"s the isolation, the worry," she responded, with a clutching of fear in her chest. "Not enough rest, not enough food*"
"Are making me see things? Are you seeing things?"
"No," she admitted, "But*it seems like the forest is*watching. Almost all the time."
Kris started. Talia saw him jump, and bit her lip.
"It"s nothing," he said. "Just*Tantris says you"re right. He says the forest is watching us. Dammit*I thought it was you, doing things to me. Sorry."
"Kris*I lost it again*" Tears stung her eyes.
"Hey, not as bad as last time*and you got control back by yourself. Right?"
"Sort of. Whatever it was*when I turned on you, it suddenly felt like it was going to do something to me if I touched you. That was when I got scared back into sense."
"And you got control back. However it happened, you got control back. Don"t give up on me, little bird. And don"t give up on yourself, either."
"I"ll try," she said, a faint tremor in her voice. "I"ll try."
Leaden silence hung between them, until he took it upon himself to break it. "Jadus left you his harp, so I a.s.sume that you know how to play it, but I"ve never once heard you do so. Would you?"
"I"m nowhere near as good as you are," she protested.
"Humor me," he insisted.
"All right, but you may be sorry," she curled into the blankets to try and keep a little warmth in her legs and back and took the harp from him when he brought it from its corner.
This was the first time she"d played in front of anyone but Jadus. The way the firelight caught the golden grain of the wood brought back those days with a poignant sadness. She rested her hands on the strings for a moment, then began playing the first thing that came to memory.
The song was "Sun and Shadow," and Kris was very much aware from the first few notes that she performed it quite differently than he did. Where he and Dirk emphasized the optimistic foreshadowing of the ultimate solution to the lovers" trials, and made the piece almost hopeful in spite of its somber quality, she wandered the lonely paths of the song"s "present," where their respective curses seemed to be dooming the pair to live forever just out of one another"s reach. She was correct in insisting that she wasn"t as technically adept a player as Kris, but she played as she sang*with feeling, feeling that she made you hear. In her hands "Sun and Shadow" could tear your heart.
The last notes hung in the air between them for long moments before he could clear his throat enough to say something.
"I keep telling you," he managed at last, "that you underestimate yourself."
"You"re a remarkably uncritical audience," she replied. "Would you like her back, or shall I murder something else?"
"I"d like you to play more, if you would."
She shrugged, but secretly was rather pleased that he hadn"t reclaimed My Lady. Her mood was melancholy, and it was possible to find solitude by losing herself in the music*solitude that it wasn"t possible to create when he was playing or she was singing. She continued, closing her eyes and letting her hands wander through whatever came to mind, sometimes singing, sometimes not. Kris listened quietly, without comment. The few times she looked up, his face was so shadowed that she couldn"t read his expression. Eventually she ran out of music fitting her mood, and her hands fell from the harpstrings.
"That"s all I know," she said into the silence that followed.
"Then that," he replied, taking the harp from her, "is enough for one night. I think it is more than time enough for bed."
She had doubted she"d be able to sleep, but the moment she relaxed, she was lost to slumber.
Three days later the Station seemed to have shrunk around them and felt very confining, especially to Talia, who had always had a touch of claustrophobia. Her temper was shortened to near nonexistence ... and she feared losing it. Greatly feared it.
"Kris*" she said, when his pacing became too much for her to bear. "Will you go out? Will you please go somewhere?"
He stopped in midstep, and turned to eye her with speculation. "Am I driving you out of patience?"
"It"s more than that. It*s*"
"That feeling of being watched. Is it back?"
She sagged with relief. "You feel it, too?"
"Not now. I did a little while back."
"Am*I sending both of us mad?" She clenched her hands so hard that her nails left marks in her palms.
He sat on the floor at her feet, took her hands in his, and made her relax them. "I don"t think so. If you"ll remember, Tantris told me that the forest was watching us."
"What is it?"