Fool’s Quest

I turned my face away. She reached out and took me by the chin to turn my face back to hers, but I put my gaze on her mouth. She could not force me to meet her eyes. “Shaysim.” She made the name a gentle rebuke. “Look at me now. Is this woman significant? Is she essential?”

I knew what she meant. I’d glimpsed it, when the beggar had touched me in the marketplace. There were people who precipitated changes. All people made changes, but some were rocks in the current, diverting the waters of time into a different channel.

I did not know if I lied or told the truth when I said, “She is essential. She is significant to me.” Or if it was inspiration or deception that prompted me to add, “Without her, I die before I am ten.”

The plump woman gave a small gasp of dismay. “Take her up!” she cried to her followers. “Treat her gently. She must be healed of every hurt, comforted of every wrong she has felt today. Be cautious, luriks. This one must live, at all costs. We must keep her out of Hogen’s hands, for thwarted as he is now, he will want her more than ever. He will be most determined. So we must be even more determined, and we must search the scrolls to know what we must do to hold him at bay. Kardef and Reppin, your task tonight will be to confer with the memorizers and see if they can tease out any wisdom for us. For I fear nothing comes to mind.”

“May I speak, Dwalia?” A youngster in gray bowed deeply and held that posture.

“Speak, Kardef.”

Kardef straightened. “The shaysim has called her Shun. In his language, it is a word that means ‘to avoid’ or ‘to beware a danger.’ There are many dream-scrolls that caution us, over and over, to avoid casting significant things into the flames. If translated into his language, could not the dreams have been telling us not ‘shun the flames,’ but ‘Shun not into the flames’?”

“Kardef, you are reaching. That way lies corruption of the prophecies. Beware and beware again of twisting the ancient words, especially when you do it so blatantly to make yourself look more learned than your partner, Reppin.”

“Lingstra Dwalia, I . . .”

“Do I look as if I have time to stand in the snow and argue with you? We should have been away from here before the night fell. With every moment that we linger, the greater the chance that someone may see the flames from a distance and come to see what has happened here. And then must Vindeliar spread his talents even wider, and his control grows more tenuous with each passing moment. Obey me now. Convey the shaysim and the woman to the sleigh. Mount your horses, and two of you assist Vindeliar to the sleigh as well. He is nearly spent. We must away right now.”

Her orders issued, she turned and looked down at me where I crouched by Shun. “Well, little shaysim, I think you have what you wished. Let’s get you onto the sleigh and be on our way.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“And yet you will. We all know you will, just as clearly as you do. For, from this point in time, only two possible outcomes have been documented. You go with us. Or you die here.” She spoke with calm assurance, as if pointing out that rain could not fall on a cloudless day. I heard her absolute belief in her own words.

Once, my foster-brother Hap had amused me for almost an hour by showing me how, long after he had plucked a string, the wood of his harp still vibrated to its song. I felt it then, how the woman’s words woke a harmony inside me. She was right. I knew it was true, and that was why I had threatened them with my death. Tonight, I would either leave my home with them or die here. All the circumstances that might lead to another outcome from this moment were too remote, too fantastic to hope for. And I knew that. Perhaps I had known it since I woke up this morning. I blinked and a shiver ran down my back. Was this happening now, or was it the remembrance of a dream?

Strong arms were plucking me out of the snow, and voices exclaimed in dismay at the frost coating my wet socks. The one who carried me spoke comforting words I did not understand. I lifted my head and saw that four of them were carrying Shun. It was not that she was heavy, but that she struggled in a disconnected way as if her legs and arms were all different creatures.

The woman they called Dwalia had proceeded to the sleigh. She was already in the back, making a fresh nest in the furs and blankets. I was handed up to her, and she set me between her legs, facing away from her, with my back warmed by her front and her arms around me. I did not like being so close to her, but I was wedged there. Shun they loaded like freight, and then heaped blankets over her. Once they let go of her she ceased struggling and lay like dead meat under the mounded wraps. Part of her skirt had snagged on the edge of the sleigh. The flap of red was like a mocking tongue.