Chapter 13
There was a coliseum in Athrom, a great oval chamber where thousands could sit and look up at the open sky. But little could be seen in the sky but grey clouds. The skies of Italya were bright blue when the world was right, and sometimes crossed with cotton-wisps of white, but the world now was wrong—so wrong—under the leaden sky.
The people in the coliseum were listless in their dusty, ragged clothing: shawls, skirts, scarves, and vests that had been bright and gay once, but now were only shrouds. The people who wore them looked little better: hollow-eyed, gaunt-cheeked, and thin, they sat by their fires and stared, or else they wandered—paced and hopped like crippled birds.
The Empire kept the Gypsies alive. Every day an armed contingent of soldiers came into the coliseum, walking straight forward like superstitious children walking into a graveyard, whose only hope of escape is to deny that the ghosts are there. They came armed, as though the weakened people of the Wandering Race were a threat to them, and they served something hot and sludgy, sometimes green but usually grey, from an iron pot they brought with them. Some days they gave out bread. Usually they brought water.
Every day Marja tried to collect two bowls of sludge, and every day they only gave her one. Sometimes they hit or shoved her so that her one bowl spilled out onto the sand. On those days, both she and Nicolas went hungry. When the soup wasn’t spilled, only Marja did. She would carry the soup carefully to the place where Nicolas lay on a pile of burlap sacks under a bench up one side of the coliseum, and she would tell him that she had eaten hers already because she couldn’t carry two bowls at once. He believed her and ate the soup, and it was good—because if he hadn’t, he might not have recovered from the beating the High Police had given him before sending their captives to the great theatre with all the others.
Marja didn’t starve, because an old Gypsy woman saw what she was doing and saved a little for her every day.
The Gypsies of the Seventh World were a people of song, but there were no songs—or stories, or even laughter—around the fires in the coliseum. So Nicolas grew stronger and Marja grew weaker, and the Wandering Race died by degrees under the leaden sky.
* * *
The Ploughman stood before his people in the great cavern he called the Hold. A ladder, fashioned in the Darkworld, leaned against one wall. The Ploughman climbed it so that he could be seen and heard by all. He looked down on the sea of faces, turned up to him in waiting. They were lined faces, grey and pale in the flickering torchlight, yet there was hope in their eyes.
Many of these men had stood with the Ploughman since his boyhood. They were his tenants, farmers from his land. He had long ago sworn to be a brother to them and not a lord. For that, they loved him. Some were old, some young. Women stood at the far end of the cavern, listening anxiously. Gypsies stood in family clusters, flashes of colour in the darkness. On the left, pale, large-eyed faces looked up: the faces of the Darkworlders. The Majesty’s seventeen sons were there, and the priest Divad, and others. And at the foot of the ladder, Libuse stood.
The Ploughman’s voice caught as he looked out at his people. He looked down to Libuse for strength. She smiled up at him. The torchlight brought out the gold in her light brown hair. The Ploughman took a deep breath and looked over the Hold again.
“My people,” he said. His voice faltered. He forced it back to compliance. “Over a season ago, many of you faced a threat to your families and to your lives. You stood with me, and together we overcame that threat. We determined to build a life for ourselves, and so you have done. You have carved life out of rock. None but you could have done it so well. Now there is a new threat. Once again I must ask you to fight with me. Once again we must take the battle to the enemy.”
He looked to the far end of the cavern. His eyes found Virginia’s. She stood in a dark doorway. Her eyes did not see him, though her face was turned to the sound of his voice.
“Have the High Police come?” a farmer asked. “We’ll beat them again. We’ll drive them out of the city.”
“My friend,” the Ploughman said, “I only wish it were that easy.” He heard himself continue. “In the battle above us, many of you saw creatures that were not of this world. Many of you lost brothers and fathers to their power. That Blackness is coming here once more, unless we cut them off before they can enter our world. To do that we must go to the place where the breach will be made and stop it. We must go to Athrom.”
There was silence for the space of a minute, and then voices clamored. The Ploughman held up his hands, but before they quieted, another voice rang out above them all. The lean form of Asa stepped out from the crowd.
“Tell the truth!” he said. His face was dark with storm clouds. The Ploughman met his eyes with difficulty. Something frightening burned in Asa’s amber eyes—something almost inhuman.
“Tell the truth,” he demanded again. “This isn’t about our colony. You have no proof any creature of Blackness will come here—only one woman’s word. This is about Gypsies.” Asa turned and faced the people in the Hold. “Word has come that the Gypsies are imprisoned in Athrom,” he said. “So the Ploughman will have us leave everything, leave our loved ones, just to save them.”
The Major stepped forward dangerously. “I wasn’t aware that you had loved ones, Asa. Sometimes I doubt if you even have friends.” The Gypsy leader raised his voice. “It is not merely that an entire race has been imprisoned. They are to be slaughtered. Can you leave them to that fate?”
“One woman tells you they will die,” Asa snapped back. “You are quick to believe her—a freak of nature who hardly believes herself. We cannot fight the High Police in Athrom. The Gypsies may not die if we leave them—we will certainly die if we don’t!” He faced the Hold and called out to the people, “What are the Gypsies to us? Why should we die to save them?”
Farmers and Darkworlders took up the call, shouting the questions like a battle cry. Gypsies in the crowd yelled back. The two groups seemed about to converge.
“Enough!” the Ploughman shouted. “Enough. Is it not enough that they are a people? That they are women and children and men, that they are hopes and dreams, that they are a generation descended from countless generations? If we let them pass from this world, then it is we who are less than human. Can we call ourselves men if we allow such a thing without even trying to stop it? I will not force any one of you to join the march on Athrom. It is a choice I leave to you. But I am going, if I have to go alone.”
In the momentary quiet created by his words, the Ploughman spoke again. “We have begun to build a new world here. Moments like these determine what sort of world we are building. Is this a place where mercy and brotherhood will rule? Or do we create for ourselves another Empire?”
The Darkworlders had pushed their way to the fore. Harutek spoke. “What proof have you that the Blackness will come here?”
The Ploughman looked down at the prince. “The word of a prophet,” he said. “And the testimony of my own heart. That is all.”
“We have long believed in prophets.” Divad, high priest of the Darkworld, stepped forward. “Such a threat is greater than your colony. If the Blackness comes here, they will destroy us as well. We have long waited for the day the Great War would begin again, for we wished to be on the right side. This would seem to be our chance to declare allegiance.”
“You have waited for the King,” the Ploughman said quietly. No one could hear him but those who stood close by—the Darkworld leaders and the Ploughman’s few friends. “But I fear he is not coming. At least not now.”
“It does not matter,” Caasi, Seventeenth Son of the Majesty, said. His face was impassioned. “We will fight with you.”
“Caasi, hold your peace,” Harutek answered. “Our father…”
“Must agree,” Caasi said. He turned back to the Ploughman. “Ride into Athrom, Sunworld leader. I will go with you, and an army of Darkworlders behind me.”
“No!”
Caasi turned to see Asa coming toward him. The dark man’s face held more than anger now. Fear was etched across it. “No,” Asa repeated. “The Blackness is great and powerful. You will be destroyed. If you cannot stop them…”
“Asa, my friend,” Caasi said. “When we sat in my father’s chambers you spoke of great and noble things. Why this change?”
“Indeed, Asa,” the Ploughman said. He descended the ladder and stood before the men. “You have never opposed me before—not openly. You have worked alongside us. And I have even heard you say that we are cowardly to remain here without acting. Do your opinions always change so quickly?”
Asa cowered before the rebel leader. Before he had always been tall; now he seemed to shrink into the ground. “You do not know,” he said. Even his voice was changing. He sounded unlike the man they had known—unlike any man at all. “You do not know what the Blackness is.”
The Ploughman took a step closer. “Do you?”
Asa made no answer. The Ploughman stretched out his hand. “Take my hand, Asa, and pledge faith to me. I will not force you to fight, but what I see in your face disturbs me. Proclaim allegiance, and I will trust you. If you do not, I cannot allow you to live freely here.”
“My lord, that is harsh,” Caasi said. “He may be a coward, but to imprison him…”
“No one forced him to come here,” the Ploughman said.
They were interrupted as the crowd parted. Virginia approached on Maggie’s arm. The seer’s green eyes were fixed on Asa. She walked forward slowly, fingers outstretched. The strange man towered above Virginia, yet he shrank from her. For a moment it seemed that he would bolt, but his feet stayed where they were. She reached him and touched his face with her sensitive fingers.
“He feels like a man,” she said to herself. “What is your name, you who have questioned my sight with so much fear?”
Asa crumpled to his knees. His voice was quiet and craven. “Undred the Undecided,” he said.
“You must choose,” Virginia said. “Creature of light or creature of darkness. Take allegiance, Undred. Your time has come.”
For a long time Asa remained frozen on the ground, staring up at Virginia with eyes full of conflict. Her fingers were still on his face. He stretched out one hand toward her and held it in the air, shaking.
“My friend?” Caasi asked.
Asa’s eyes shifted to the Darkworld prince and back to Virginia. Virginia let her hand drop to her side. Asa turned to face the Ploughman. He shook his head. “You don’t know,” he said, his voice a rasping half-whisper. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
The Ploughman spoke quietly, but his voice carried to his men. “Take him away,” he said. “Lock him up.”
Two ex-farmers stepped forward and took Asa by the arms. He hissed, a strange sound that echoed in the cavern and caused the lines of concern on the Ploughman’s face to deepen. The leader held up his hand as the men began to take Asa away. “Treat him kindly,” he said.
Caasi turned to the Ploughman, about to speak. Harutek stopped his brother with a hand on his shoulder. “Later,” the prince told his younger brother.
The Ploughman turned back to his people. “As long as the Empire has existed, the Gypsies have been free. They are imprisoned now in Athrom, and the Emperor will kill them if he can. We have been warned that such an evil will destroy us also, and I believe it is true. But even if it is not—I fear that, if we do not go, our hearts will be destroyed.”
Silence answered him. Libuse’s eyes were filled with tears, but she made no move to go to him. The Ploughman scanned the crowd, the faces that he loved and admired. Faces that looked to him to lead them.
“I go to Athrom,” he said. “Make no decision now. If you will come with me, make yourself known by tomorrow.”
He turned away, bowing his head so that no man could catch his eye. His stride was as strong as ever—stronger, perhaps, than it had been of late. As he left the cavern, he stopped to take Virginia’s hand.
“I have heeded your warning,” he said.
That night, the Ploughman brooded in his alcove, alone with his thoughts and his lady. She sat in silence, watching him, simply being the strength he needed. She shared his worry, his deep concern for his people, yet as she watched him, she smiled to herself. His strength had returned. It seemed she could almost see the old golden power hovering in the air around him.
So many things to worry about. The people—the decision they would make. The future of the colony seemed to lay in that decision. And then, if they did what was right and chose to go with their leader, the very real possibility of dying in Athrom.
A righteous death, Libuse thought. Golden. One her ancestors would be proud of.
The Ploughman said nothing, yet she could almost read his thoughts. He thought of the Darkworld, of the Majesty; he wondered what that aged ruler thought of his sons and their hasty allegiance. He wondered if Caasi’s promises were empty, or if he had become the catalyst the Majesty feared. If the Darkworld went to Athrom, it would truly change them forever. He worried about Asa—Undred the Undecided, locked away as the first prisoner of Pravik.
Outside of the alcove, a man cleared his throat. The Ploughman looked up, firelight glowing on his face. Libuse stood and moved to the door, drawing aside the curtain that separated them from the rest of the colony. A burly man, more pale and thin that he had been above ground, but still like an oak in his stature and manner, bowed slightly.
“My lady,” he said, his voice deep and quiet. “Will you give this to the Ploughman?” He held out a piece of paper, rolled tightly and bound with string.
“Of course,” Libuse said.
The man bowed again. “Thank you, my lady.”
She let the curtain fall, handing the paper to the Ploughman without a word. He took it and unrolled it in the light of the fire. His eyes scanned the parchment quickly, then returned to the top to read it again. He smiled. When he looked up at her, she could read relief in his eyes.
“They will go with me,” he said. “All.”
Libuse felt her heart leap, but she only smiled. “Thank the King,” she said.
* * *
Moll and Seamus stood on either side of the bed where Archer lay. Master Skraetock held out his bony hand. Archer took it. With Skraetock’s help he stood and took three steps through the train car. The children grinned at him with delight. He smiled back, and the smile tugged at the deep scratches on his face.
“Easy now,” Master Skraetock said. “Don’t overdo it. The infection may come back again.”
Archer nodded and looked around him. The slight smile on his face faded. “Where is Kieran?”
The children’s expressions changed in an instant. Moll started to answer, but Master Skraetock did first.
“He is gone, Archer.”
Archer looked around vainly, scanning the faces that looked at him, searching the shadowed nooks of the car.
“Gone?” he asked.
“He disappeared,” Seamus whispered. “The same day you got hurt.”
Archer pulled his hand away from Skraetock and wheeled on the Master. “Bring him back,” he said.
“I can’t,” Master Skraetock said. “I don’t know where he is.” But Archer heard the undercurrent in the Master’s voice—the unspoken meaning. They understood each other, the Master and Archer O’Roarke. They knew the truth.
The Nameless One had done it.
“What has he done?” Archer said, a sob welling in his chest.
“Children,” Master Skraetock said, “go now. Leave us alone for the moment.”
The two children who remained turned and left the car. Moll was crying, and Seamus held her hand as they left. When they were gone, Skraetock shut the door behind them and looked sadly at Archer.
“There was nothing I could do,” he said.
“Why?” Archer asked. “What would he want with Kieran?”
“I am not sure what you mean,” Master Skraetock said, in that veiled way that meant he knew exactly—that he knew the Nameless One was behind it all; that he had—had killed Kieran.
“I will take revenge,” Archer said.
Skraetock had his hand on the door; his back turned to Archer. “You are a child,” he said. “What can a child do?”
Archer closed his eyes, fists knotted. A tear slipped out. He remembered Kieran’s words.
Maybe if we learn and become powerful, we’ll be strong enough to get away. We won’t be children anymore. We’ll be older. And strong.
The voice in his mind changed. It hummed the anthem Archer had heard every night since it was first spoken. Join us. You must join us.
“If… the fire…” Archer whispered.
Master Skraetock turned slowly. “What did you say, boy?”
“I want to be a man,” Archer said. “Like Michael and Kris of the Mountains. I don’t want to be a child anymore. Can the fire make me a man?”
In an instant the room was aflame. The fire was blue. It licked up the car all around Archer, but it did not burn. He shrank from it and heard Master Skraetock say, “The fire will make you anything you want to be.”
Inside of himself, Archer felt another fire rising to meet the one that blazed around him. It was not quite strong enough to reach the surface.
But that, he knew, could be changed.
* * *
The iron serpent roared over the tracks. In the engine room, amidst the coal and the heat, Michael, Stocky, and the others knew only sweat and heat, glare and backache, but they shoveled coal, and the engine screamed with power. Andrew’s lip split in the heat; Patrick’s face turned brown. Their eyes shone with determination.
Around them, the forests of Galce gave way to the open fields of Italya. The roads were quiet, yet a dark spirit seemed to hover over them—a spirit of sorrow and loss. In the heat of the engine room, Michael suddenly shivered.
“Are you cold, Michael?” Stocky asked incredulously. “Go sit down, man.”
In answer, Michael picked up a shovelful of coal and threw it into the fire. “We have to find them,” he said.
* * *
The day came that Nicolas could walk, if he limped a little; and his voice was strong enough to do what he wanted it to.
“Is there no one in this entire place who can perform a wedding?” he demanded of a greying old leader.
“No one who will,” returned the Gypsy. He looked on Nicolas and Marja, who was propping Nicolas up, with scorn. “To marry now is to mock us all. We’re dying, can’t you see that?”
“I can see that you’ve chosen to roll over like dogs in the dirt and give up on life,” Nicolas said. “You are your own murderers.”
“We are trapped here!” said the man.
“Your bodies are trapped here!” Nicolas said. “But you kill your own spirits.”
“Now there, boy, calm yourself,” said another voice. Nicolas spun around. He found himself looking into the smiling eyes of a small, middle-aged Gypsy on crutches. The Gypsy’s green stocking cap was perched oddly on his head, and he looked up with a crooked smile. “I’ll marry the two of you,” he said.
“You can perform a wedding?” Nicolas asked.
“You’ve never heard of Caspin the Cripple, have you?” the Gypsy said. “I am the pride and fame of my Gypsy band—most of which is here, scattered around the fires.”
“I have not heard of you,” Nicolas said. “But I think perhaps I’ve missed out.”
“Indeed,” the cripple said, laughing to himself. “But if you want a wedding, boy, there’ll be a wedding.”
Nicolas smiled, and relief washed over him. He felt suddenly dizzy and nearly fell, but Marja’s arm under him held him up. “I’m much obliged,” he said.
* * *
The summons came unexpectedly, born by two guards in gleaming fish-scale armour: the Ploughman was called before the Majesty. He went at once, descending into the strange world below with a sense that he was passing through time. He took only a small entourage with him; some of his oldest farmer friends. The guards took him straight to the throne room.
He entered to find the Majesty seated at a long table spread with maps. Harutek, Caasi, and four of the Majesty’s other sons were arrayed on either side of him. They all looked up, and the Majesty raised a regal hand in greeting. His eyes were accusing as he said, “Welcome, Sunworlder, beloved of my sons.”
The Ploughman bowed. “I thank you, Majesty.”
To his surprise, the Majesty withdrew, seating himself on his throne. The priests were silently seated in their usual places, and they looked to their king as he sat amongst them. He waved a hand. “My sons will speak with you now.”
The Ploughman looked to Harutek and Caasi. “Word has reached us that your men will go with you,” Caasi said. “They show courage and spirit. May it never be said that the Darkworlders were not equal to their guests.”
The Ploughman tilted his head.
“Yes,” Caasi said. “My brother and I will lead a contingent into battle alongside you.”
“Now,” Harutek said. “What do you plan to do?”
The Ploughman cleared his throat. “We will leave the city in small bands, under cover of night,” he said. “The High Police are arrayed around the city, but we know paths they do not. We will reconvene once we are beyond their reach and march to the city, entering it secretly if we can. We mean to find the coliseum and find a way to get the Gypsies out.”
“Without the Emperor noticing?” Caasi asked.
“We are not eager for a battle,” the Ploughman said. “This is a matter of rescue, not of aggression.”
“Indeed,” Harutek said. “But your plans will not work. You cannot take a large enough force into Athrom without being noticed, nor can you spirit the Gypsies out.”
“We have to try,” the Ploughman said.
“Undoubtedly,” Harutek answered. He tapped his pale finger on the map before him. “If the maps we have are accurate, you will never reach Athrom on foot before your enemies come to you, in greater force than you can withstand. Even if you manage to get past the troops outside of Pravik, you will be discovered and slaughtered before you reach Italya.”
“What do you suggest?” the Ploughman asked.
Harutek looked down suddenly, and Caasi spoke. “Go underland,” he said. “Take the rivers. You and your people will sail to Athrom. You will come up in the middle of the city like a volcanic fire, unlooked for and great in force.”
The Ploughman looked to the Majesty, seeking some confirmation from the king of the Darkworld. But it was Divad, the high priest, who spoke.
“It must be as the princes say,” he said. “The Darkworlders will lead you. We know our way in the darkest of places. You can bring the Gypsies back the same way, into the hidden paths you have prepared for them.”
“And if the Emperor sends his men after us?” the Ploughman asked. “Will not the rivers lead them to your doorstep?”
Here the Majesty smiled. “You underestimate us, Sunworlder,” he said. “Do not assume we are so easy to find. Without my sons to guide you, you would never find your way to Athrom. Nor would you ever come back.”
The Ploughman turned back to the princes, aware suddenly of the enormity of the trust he was being asked to place in them. He found that he could give it. In Harutek was wisdom and knowledge; in Caasi a fire that burned as truly as any in the Ploughman himself.
* * *
Virginia Ramsey passed through the corridors of underground Pravik, listening to the sounds of men preparing for battle. She could hear water lapping against boats, the clink of swords and armour, the calls of men who worked together to ready themselves. A sense of urgency filled the sounds. There was no time to waste.
She wandered alone, the sounds growing more distant and bouncing off the corridors in disorienting echoes. Alone, but not without purpose. She smiled as she heard the voices of the two she was seeking. The young voice of Caasi, seventeenth son of the Majesty, Darkworld prince. And the eerie, disinterested voice of Undred the Undecided.
She stopped, hidden in the shadows, and listened as they spoke to one another. Caasi pleaded with the man he called “friend,” seeking out some understanding. But Asa would give no explanation. His voice was human again, but Virginia knew its tones were deceptive.
“Let me out,” Asa said suddenly.
Silence answered him. Then, “Are you mad? Asa, if you would prove your allegiance, I would let you out in a heartbeat. But I am no traitor.”
“You don’t know,” Asa said. “You don’t know what lies under Athrom. I do.”
“What are you talking about?” Caasi’s voice held a growing edge of frustration. “Tell me, man.”
“Take me with you,” Asa said.
Boots scraped against rock as Caasi stood. “You will not be moved? Has nothing I have said changed your mind?”
“I am no fool,” Asa answered. “The Ploughman is not strong enough. You are not strong enough.”
“We have the right on our side,” Caasi said. “The King’s right. That is strength enough.”
Asa only laughed bitterly. Virginia listened as Caasi’s footsteps moved away in the darkness. She stayed where she was, unmoving, until Asa called out, “Who is there?”
Still she did not move. “What lies under Athrom, Undred?” she asked.
He chuckled, a desperate, empty laugh. “Death.”
“And why are you so eager to face it?” she asked.
“I do not die,” Asa said. “I am only set free.”
Virginia nodded. She took a deep breath, stepped forward, and pulled out a key from her sleeve. Without a word, she unlocked the door. She felt him move past her with a sensation of hot wind brushing by. He hissed his thanks.
She said nothing.
* * *
The Emperor Lucien Morel, Lord of the Seventh World, bid the newcomers enter. The Grand Master of the Order of the Spider bowed before the Emperor, and the Emperor inclined his head in return. Adhemar Skraetock presented a boy before him. The Emperor laid his hand on the boy’s head and blessed him, though inwardly he disdained anything so marred—the boy’s face was slashed with white scars.
Lucien Morel nodded his head to the man Christopher Ens, and to the un-man, the Nameless One. The Emperor watched them leave his throne room. His eyes fixed on the back of the Nameless One, and his little finger twitched.
Just before the doors of the throne room closed, the Nameless One turned his head. His eyes met the Emperor’s, and he smiled.
The Emperor’s finger jerked. Why did the Nameless One’s smile make him think of voices, of hauntings in the night? The rushing water of a nearby fountain made him suddenly nervous.
Adhemar Skraetock and his party slipped unseen through the city of Athrom. In late afternoon they stopped to drink from a clear spring, and a bird flew down and landed on a branch in front of Archer.
The boy looked at the bird and studied its feathers and its dark eyes. The bird lifted its wings, and Archer’s heart leaped. So small, so frail, the bird—and yet so free. No traps held the tiny creature. It had no power and no fear.
Archer felt other eyes on him. He turned his head and saw Master Skraetock watching him. The Master lifted a hand and moved his fingers. The bird fell dead into the stream.
* * *
Dusk fell as the Gypsies gathered and formed circles within circles. Nicolas stood in the center and looked up. He smiled, because for the first time since he had come to the coliseum, stars were shining.
And the women began to sing, a soft, lilting song; sung for hundreds of years by the Wandering Race whenever two of their people made the ancient promise of fidelity—that they would wander together, not apart, forever until the end.
* * *
Black water lapped black rock under flickering torchlight, and the men of two worlds bowed their heads as Divad raised his hands and spoke.
“Blessed be the King of the World, who teacheth our hands to war,” he intoned. “Blessed be those who lay down their lives for the right.”
The Ploughman listened with his eyes fixed on the cavern ceiling, searching beyond the rock for a glimmer of light. Golden light. He was not alone. He knew that now.
In a boat behind him, a tall man sat with his limbs pulled in, his face shadowed by the hood of his cloak. His eyes were fixed on the leader of Pravik, the one who had tried to force him to choose allegiance. Asa had chosen his allegiance, though no other knew it. He listened to the words of the high priest with distaste, feeling only the slightest of pangs as he remembered what it felt like to believe in something greater than himself.
* * *
The lilting song ended and the circle parted. Marja entered. An old woman held her left hand and another old woman held her right, and a tiny child stepped solemnly before them. Nicolas lifted his own hands and stretched them out to her.
The old women let go and stepped back, and Marja put her hands in Nicolas’s.
* * *
“Blessed be those who hope for the King’s return,” Divad said.
“May he come soon,” said his five attendant priests. “And may he look kindly on us.”
“May he forget our betrayals and remember this day,” Divad said. “May he look kindly on the warriors of the Darkworld who go forth to join his army.”
* * *
Marja spoke with all the warmth of her race in her voice, her eyes lately marked by suffering but alive despite it all. “This promise I make to thee, Nicolas Fisher, that where you wander I will go; that where you fly I will follow.”
He spoke with the same warmth back to her, aware that every word was his choice. His choice to love. His choice to run no longer. “And this promise I return to you, Marja of the Sky, that where I wander I will shelter you, and where I fly I will soar with you.”
* * *
“The journey is nearly over,” Kris of the Mountains said.
“We failed to catch them,” Michael said. “They are already in Athrom.”
“Have you thought what we will do when we reach them?” Kris asked.
“We will get our children back,” Michael answered.
“And we will make the spider tremble!” Gwyrion said, and his eyes flashed like the lightning in a wolf’s eyes.
* * *
“In the sight of these many witnesses are these hands joined,” said Caspin the Cripple. His voice dropped as the ceremony ended, and he smiled. “Hope lives!” he shouted. “There is yet a future for the Wandering Race! Do not stand there in silence, cousins. Rejoice!”
* * *
“Go forth with courage, my sons,” said the Majesty. “My people. Let the Sunworld know the valour of those who have lived hidden lives.”
“And my people,” said the Ploughman, standing in his boat. “You who have fought well and hard with me. I see you now, and I am grateful to be one of you.”
All but Asa’s eyes looked back to the Ploughman with a quiet solidarity that took their leader’s breath away. Pravik had chosen—to follow him. To do right.
The water stirred as the long river boats pushed away toward the south, and the current caught them and swept them forward.
* * *
The Gypsies joined hands and danced in circles within circles. They sang, and the crippled hearts took flight once more.
Archer closed his eyes and concentrated on the burning inside him, and the iron serpent journeyed ever farther south.
The darkness rushed past a hundred river boats in the deepness of the earth.
The Nameless One smiled over his own secrets.
A full moon rose, and Gwyrion threw back his head and howled.
* * *