"No, in fact. It"s a two-day hard ride to Lumpton from here, but we"ve no need to ride hard.
We can make an easy start tomorrow, take it in gentle stages." Or even later, the seductive thought occurred.
"I was wondering if I ought to give my room back to the hotel. Since I"m not really a patroller and all."
"What? No! That room is yours for as long as you want it, Spark!" Dag said indignantly.
"Um, well, that"s sort of the point, I thought." She bit her lip, but her eyes, he realized, were sparkling. "I was wondering if I could sleep in with you? For... frugality."
"Of course, frugality! Yes, that"s the thing. You are a thoughtful girl, Spark."
She cast him a merry smirk. She flashed an entrancing dimple when she smirked, which made his heart melt like a block of b.u.t.ter left in the summer sun. She said, "I"ll go move my things."
He followed, feeling as utterly scatter-witted as Mari had accused him of being. He could not, could not not run up and down the streets of Gla.s.sforge, leaping and shouting to the blue sky and the entire population, run up and down the streets of Gla.s.sforge, leaping and shouting to the blue sky and the entire population, She says I make her eyes happy She says I make her eyes happy!
He really wanted to, though.
They did not leave the next day, for it was raining. Nor the next either, for rain threatened then, too. On the following morning, Dag declared Fawn too sore from the previous night"s successfully concluded bed experiments to ride comfortably, although by midafternoon she was hopping around as happily as a flea and he he was limping as the pulled muscle in his back seized up. Which provided the next day"s excuse for lingering, as well. He pictured the conversation with Fairbolt, was limping as the pulled muscle in his back seized up. Which provided the next day"s excuse for lingering, as well. He pictured the conversation with Fairbolt, Why are you late, Dag? Sorry, sir, I crippled myself making Why are you late, Dag? Sorry, sir, I crippled myself making pa.s.sionate love to a farmer girl pa.s.sionate love to a farmer girl. Yeah, that"d go over well.
Watching Fawn discover the delights that her own body could provide her was an enchantment to Dag as endlessly beguiling as water lilies. He had to cast his mind far back for comparisons, as he"d made those discoveries at a much younger age. He could indeed remember being a little crazed with it all for a while. He found he really didn"t need to rack his brains to provide variety in his lovemaking, for she was still overwhelmed by the marvel of repeatability. So he probably hadn"t created anything he couldn"t handle, quite.
Dag also discovered in himself a previously unsuspected weakness for foot rubs. If ever Fawn wanted to fix him in one place, she didn"t need to hog-tie him with ropes; when her small firm hands worked their way down past his ankles, he slumped like a man poleaxed and just lay there paralyzed, trying not to drool too unattractively into his pillow. In those moments, never getting out of bed again for the rest of his life seemed the very definition of paradise. As long as Spark was in the bed with him.
The short summer nights filled themselves, but Dag was unsettled by how swiftly the long days also slipped by. A gentle ride out for Fawn to try her new mare and riding trousers, with a picnic by the river, turned into an afternoon under a curtaining willow tree that lasted till sundown. Sa.s.sa the Horseford kinsman popped up again, and Dag found in Fawn an apparently bottomless appet.i.te for tours of Gla.s.sforge crafters. Her endless curiosity and pa.s.sion for questions was by no means limited to patrollers and s.e.x, flattering as that had been, but seemed to extend to the whole wide world. Sa.s.sa"s willing, nay, proud escort and array of family connections guided them through the complex back premises of a brick burner, a silversmith, a saddler, three kinds of mills, a potter-Fawn cast a simple pot under the woman"s enthusiastic tutelage, becoming cheerfully muddied-and a repeat of the visit to Sa.s.sa"s own gla.s.sworks, because Dag had missed it before on account of being up to his waist in swamp.
Dag at first mustered a mere polite interest-he seldom paid close attention anymore to the details of anything he wasn"t being asked to track and slay-but found himself drawn in along the trail of Fawn"s fascination. With studied and sweating intensity, the gla.s.s workers brought together sand and fire and meticulous timing to effect transformations of the very ground of their materials into fragile, frozen brilliance. This is farmer magic, and they don"t This is farmer magic, and they don"t even realize it even realize it, Dag thought, completely taken by their system of blowing gla.s.s into molds to make rapid, reliable replicas. Sa.s.sa gave to Fawn a bowl that she had seen being made the other day, now annealed, and she determined to take it home to her mother. Dag was doubtful about getting it to West Blue intact in a saddlebag, but Sa.s.sa provided a slat box padded with straw and hope. Which was going to be bulky and awkward; Dag steeled himself to deal with it.
Later, Fawn unpacked the bowl to set on the table beside their bed to catch the evening light.
Dag sat on the bed and stared with nearly equal interest at the way the patterns pressed into it made wavering rainbows.
"All things have grounds, except where a malice has drained them," he commented. "The grounds of living things are always moving and changing, but even rocks have a sort of low, steady hum. When Sa.s.sa made that batch of gla.s.s and cast it, it was almost as if its ground came alive, it transformed so. Now it"s become still again, but changed. It"s like it"-his hand reached out as if grasping for the right word-"sings a brighter tune."
Fawn stood back with her hands on her hips and gave him a slightly frustrated look; as if, for all her questions, he walked in a place she could not follow.
"So," she said slowly, "if things move their grounds, can pushing on grounds move things?"
Dag blinked in faint shock. Was it chance or keen logic that brought her question so close to the heart of Lakewalker secrets? He hesitated. "That"s the theory," he said at last. "But would you like to see how a Lakewalker would move the ground in that bowl from one side of the table to the other?"
Her eyes widened. "Show me!"
Gravely, he leaned over, reached out with his hand, and shoved the bowl about six inches.
"Dag!" Fawn wailed in exasperation. "I thought you were going to show me magic."
He grinned briefly, although mostly because he could scarcely look at her and not not smile. smile.
"Trying to move anything through its ground is like pushing on the short end of a long lever.
It"s always easier to do it by hand. Although it"s said..." He hesitated again. "It"s said the old sorcerer-lords linked together in groups to do their greater magics. Like matching grounds for healing, or a lovers" groundlock, only with some lost difference."
"Don"t you do that now?"
"No. We are too reduced-maybe our bloodlines were adulterated in the dark times, no one knows. Anyway, it"s forbidden."
"I mean for your pattern walking."
"That"s just simple perception. Like the difference between feeling with your hand and pushing with your hand, perhaps."
"Why is pushing forbidden? Or was that linking up in bunches to push that"s not allowed?"
He should have known that the last remark would elicit more questions. Throwing one fact to Fawn was like throwing one piece of meat to a pack of starving dogs; it just caused a riot.
"Bad experiences," he replied in a quelling tone. All right, by the pursing of her lips and wrinkling of her brow, quelling wasn"t going to work; try for distraction. "Let me tell you, though, not a patroller up Luthlia way survives the lake country without learning how to bounce mosquitoes through their grounds. Ferocious little pests-they"ll drain you dry, they will."
"You use magic to repel mosquitoes mosquitoes!" she said, sounding as though she couldn"t decide whether to be impressed or offended. "We just have recipes for horrible stuff to rub on our skins. Once you know what"s in them, you"d almost rather be bit."
He snickered, then sighed. "They say we are a fallen folk, and I for one believe it. The ancient lords built great cities, ships, and roads, transformed their bodies, sought longevity, and brought the whole world crashing down at the last. Though I suspect it was a really good run for a while, till then. Me-I bounce mosquitoes. Oh, and I can summon and dismiss my horse, once I get him trained up to it. And help settle another"s hurting body, if I"m lucky.
And see the world double, down to the ground. That"s about it for Dag magic, I"m afraid."
Her eyes lifted to his face. "And kill malices," she said slowly.
"Aye. That mainly."
He reached for her, swallowing her next question with a kiss.
It took the better part of a week for Dag"s boat anchor of a conscience to drag him out of the clouds and back onto the road. He wished he could just jettison the blighted deadweight. But one morning he turned back from shaving to find Fawn, half-dressed and with her bedroll open on the bed, frowning down at the sharing knife that lay there.
He came and wrapped her in his arms, her bare back to his bare torso.
"It"s time, I guess," she said.
"I guess so, too." He sighed. "Not that you couldn"t count my unused camp-time by years, but Mari gave me leave to solve the mystery of that thing, not to linger here in this brick-and-clapboard paradise. The hirelings have been giving me squinty looks for days."
"They"ve been real nice to me me," she observed accurately.
"You"re good at finding friends." In fact, everyone from the cooks, scullions, chambermaids, and horse boys up to the owner and his wife had grown downright defensive of Fawn, farmer heroine as she was. To the point where Dag suspected that if she demanded, Throw this lanky Throw this lanky fellow into the street fellow into the street! he"d shortly find himself sitting in the dust clutching his saddlebags.
The Gla.s.sforgers who worked here were used to patrollers and their odd ways with each other, but it was clear enough to Dag that they just barely tolerated this mismatch, and that only for the sake of Fawn"s obvious delight. Other patrons now drifting in, drovers and drivers and traveling families and boatmen up from the river to secure cargoes, looked askance at the odd pair, and even more askance after collecting whatever garbled gossip was circulating about them.
Dag wondered how askance he would be looked at in West Blue. Fawn had gradually grown reconciled to the planned stop at her home, partly from guilt at his word picture of her parents" probable anxiety, and partly by his pledge not to abandon her there. It was the only promise she"d ever asked him to repeat.
He dropped a kiss on the top of her head, letting his finger snake around and drift over the healing wounds on her left cheek. "Your bruises are fading now. I figure if I bring you back to your family claiming to be your protector, it"ll be more convincing if you don"t look like you just lost a drunken brawl."
Her lips twitched up as she caught his hand and kissed it, but then her fingers drifted to the malice marks on her neck. "Except for these."
"Don"t pick."
"They itch. Are they ever going to drop off? The other scabs did already."
"Soon enough, I judge. It"ll leave these deep bitter-red dents underneath for a time, but they"ll fade almost like other scars. They"ll turn silvery when they"re old."
"Oh-that long shiny groove on your leg that starts behind your knee and goes around up your thigh-was that a malice-clawing, then?" She had mapped every mark upon him as a.s.siduously as a pattern-grid surveyor, these past days and nights, and demanded annotations for most of them, too.
"Just a touch. I got away, and my linker put his knife in a moment later."
She turned to hug him around the waist. "I"m glad it didn"t grab any higher," she said seriously.
Dag choked a laugh. "Me too, Spark!"
They were on the straight road north by noon.
They rode slowly, in part for their dual disinclination for their destinations, but mostly because of the dog-breath humidity that had set in after the last rain. The horses plodded beneath a bra.s.sy sun. Their riders talked or fell silent with, it seemed to Dag, equal ease.
They spent the next afternoon-rainy again-in the loft of the barn at the well-house where they"d first glimpsed each other, picnicking on farm fare and listening to the soothing sounds of the drops on the roof and the horses champing hay below, didn"t notice when the storm stopped, and lingered there overnight.
The next day was brighter and clearer, the hot white haze blown away east, and they reluctantly rode on. On the fifth night of the two-day ride they stopped a short leg from Lumpton Market to camp one last time. Fawn had figured an early start from Lumpton would bring them to West Blue before dark. It was hard for Dag to guess what would happen then, though her slowly unfolding tales of her family had at least given him a better sense of who he would encounter.
They found a campsite by a winding creek, out of view of the road, beneath a scattered stand of leatherpod trees. Later in the fall, the seed-pods would hang down beneath the big spade-shaped leaves like hundreds of leather straps, but now the trees were in full bloom. Spikes stood up from crowns of leaves with dozens of linen-white blossoms the size of egg cups cl.u.s.tered on them, breathing sweet perfume into the evening air. As the moonless night fell, fireflies rose up along the creek and from the meadow beyond it, twinkling in the mist.
Beneath the leatherpod tree, the shadows grew black.
"Wish I could see you better," Fawn murmured, as they lay down across their combined blankets and commenced a desultory fiddling with each other"s b.u.t.tons. No one wanted a blanket atop, in this heat.
"Hm." Dag sat up on one elbow and smiled in the dark. "Give me a minute, Spark, and I might be able to do something about that."
"No, don"t put more wood on the fire. "S too hot now."
"Wasn"t going to. Just wait and see. In fact, close your eyes."
He extended his groundsense to its full range and found no menace for a mile, just the small nesting life of the gra.s.s: mice and shrews and rabbits and sleepy meadowlarks; above, a few fluttering bats, and the silent ghostly pa.s.sage of an owl. He drew his net finer still, filling it with tinier life. Not a bounce, but a persuasion... yes. This still worked. The tree began to throng with his invited visitors, more and more. Beside him, Fawn"s face slowly emerged from the gloom as though rising from deep water.
"Can I open them yet?" she asked, her eyes dutifully scrunched up.
"Just a moment more... yes. Now."
He kept his eyes on her face as she looked up, so as not to miss the best wonder of all. Her eyes opened, then shot wide; her lips parted in a gasp.
Above them, the leatherpod tree was filled with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of-in Dag"s wide-open perception, slightly bewildered-fireflies, so dense the lighter branches bent with their load. Many of them crawled inside the white blossoms, and when they lit, the cl.u.s.ters of petal cups glowed like pale lanterns. The cool, shadowless radiance bathed them both. Her breath drew in. "Oh," she said, rising on one elbow and staring upward. "Oh..."
"Wait. I can do more." He concentrated, and drew down a lambent swirl of insects to spiral around and land in her dark hair, lighting it like a coronet of candles.
"Dag... !" She gave a wild laugh, half delight, half indignation, her hands rising to gently prod her curls. "You put bugs in my hair!"
"I happen to know you like bugs."
"I do," she admitted fairly. "Some kinds, anyhow. But how... ? Did you learn to do this up in the woods of Luthlia, too?"
"No, actually. I learned it in camp, back when my groundsense first came in-I was about twelve, I guess. The children learn it from each other; no adult ever teaches it, but I think most everyone knows how to catch fireflies this way. We just forget. Grow up and get busy and all. Though I admit, I never collected more than a handful at one time before."
She was smiling helplessly. "It"s a bit eerie. But I like it. Not sure about the hair-eh! Dag, they"re tickling my ears!"
"Lucky bugs." He leaned in and blew off the wanderers from the curve of her ear, kissing the tickle away. "You should be crowned with light like the rising moon."
"Well," she said, in a gruff little voice, and sniffed. Her gaze traced the bending lantern-flowers above, and returned to his face. "What do you want to go and do a thing like that for anyhow? I"m already as full of joy for you as my body can hold, and there you go and put more more in. Downright wasteful, I say. It"s just going to spill over..." The light shimmered in her swimming eyes. in. Downright wasteful, I say. It"s just going to spill over..." The light shimmered in her swimming eyes.
He pulled her up and across him, and let the warm drops spatter across his chest like summer rain. "Spill on me," he whispered.
He released her twinkling tiara and let the tiny creatures fly up into the tree again. In the scintillant glow, they made slow love till midnight brought silence and sleep.
Lumpton Market was a smaller town than Gla.s.sforge, but lively nonetheless. It lay at the confluence of two rocky rivers, which flanked a long shale-and-limestone ridge running northward. Two old straight roads crossed there, and it had surely been the site of a hinterland city when the lords ruled. As it was, much of the new town was made of ancient building blocks mined out of the encroaching woods, and dry-stone walls of both ordinary fieldstone and much less identifiable rubble abounded around both outlying fields and house yards.
Now that Dag"s eye was alerted to it, however, he noticed a few newer, finer houses on the outskirts built of brick. The bridges were timber, recent, and wide and st.u.r.dy enough for big wagons.
The hostelry familiar and friendly to patrollers for which Dag was aiming lay on the north side of Lumpton, so he and Fawn found themselves in early afternoon riding through the town square, where the day market was in full swing. Fawn turned in her saddle, looking over the booths and carts and tarps as they pa.s.sed around the edge of the busy scene.
"I have that gla.s.s bowl for Mama," she said. "I wish I had something to bring Aunt Nattie.
She hardly ever gets taken along when my parents come down here." A yearly ritual, Dag had been given to understand.
Aunt Nattie was Fawn"s mother"s much older sister, blind since a childhood infection had stolen her sight at age ten. She had come along with Fawn"s mother when she"d married years ago, in some sort of dowry deal. Semi-invalid but not idle, she did all the spinning and weaving for the farm, with extra to sell for cash money sometimes. And was the only member of her family Fawn spoke of without hidden strain in her voice and ground.
Obligingly, now that he understood her purpose, Dag followed Fawn"s gaze. One would not, presumably, carry food to a farm. The cloth and clothing for sale, new and used, likewise would seem foolish. His eye ran over the more permanent shops lining the square. "Tools?
Scissors, needles? Something for her weaving or sewing?"
"She has a lot of those." Fawn sighed.
"Something that gets used up, then. Dyes?" His voice faded in doubt. "Ah. Likely not."
"Mama did most of the coloring, though I do it nowadays. Wish I could get her something just for her." Her gaze narrowed. "Furs... ?"
"Well, let"s look." They dismounted, and Fawn looked over the tarp where a farmwoman offered some, in Dag"s expert view, rather inferior pelts; all common local beasts, racc.o.o.n and possum and deerhide.
"I can get her something much better, later," Dag murmured, and with a grimace of agreement Fawn gave over poking through the sad piles. They strolled onward side by side, leading their horses.
Fawn stopped and wheeled, lips pursing, as they pa.s.sed a narrow medicine shop tucked between a shoemaker and a barber-toothdrawer-scribe-it was unclear if the latter was all one man. The medicine shop had a broad window, with small square gla.s.s panes set in a bowed-out wooden frame to make a larger view. "I wonder if they sell scent water like what your patroller girls found in Gla.s.sforge?"
Or oil, Dag could not help wondering. They could stand to restock for future use, although the likelihood of immediate future use at the Bluefield homestead seemed remote. Whatever grat.i.tude her family might feel for his bringing their only daughter back alive was unlikely to extend to letting them sleep together there. In any case, they tied their horses to one of the hitching rails conveniently lining the cobblestone sidewalk and went inside.
The shop had four kinds of scent water but only plain oil, which made Dag"s selection immediate. He occupied himself looking over the shop"s actually impressive stock of herbals, several of which he recognized as of high quality and coming from Lakewalker sources, while Fawn made herself redolent with happy indecision. Her choice finally made, they waited while their small purchases were wrapped. Or not so small in proportion to Fawn"s thin purse, Dag noted as she braced herself to trade out some of her few coins for the little luxury.
Outside, Dag tucked the packets away in his saddlebags and turned to give Fawn a leg up on the bay mare. She was standing staring at her saddle in dismay.
"My bedroll"s gone!" Her hand went to the dangling rawhide strings behind her cantle. "Did it drop on the road? I know I tied it on better than..."
His hand followed hers, and his voice tightened. "These are cut. See, the knots are still tied.