He stepped through the ice as if it were glass, shaping and moulding against his skin, slumping and reshaping, squeezing him as his fire expanded to push it back.
He could not look away from the Wild.
Now people joined hand in hand, skirts and long hair flaring as they danced. Now the horse again. Now the fire. Now the winged serpent. Now the leaping fish, great gleaming arcs of motion.
Now the horse again, and he stepped out of the blue ice into a blue morning.
The Wild dissolved into sunbeams. Terec stared mutely at where it had been, the slanting light, the dancing dust motes.
The air was cool and clear and airy, full of the scent of green things.
He breathed deeply. It seemed a long time since he had last smelled such green and vibrant life. There were herbs here, stabbing him with the memory of his mother’s garden.
He shied away from that memory of Before and shivered in a cold, stony wind before he remembered to call up the fire to warm him.
He was awake, he reminded himself. He did not think he could even find the surface to sleep beneath, though his thoughts were still rusty and slow, as creaking and unyielding as the ice around him.
The ice no longer around him. He blinked. There was blue sky, a more purplish colour than the secret pool had been. There was stone, grey and golden in the sunlight. There was grass, the green a colour he had not seen since Before--perhaps had never seen before. It was as pure and satisfying as the secret pool.
There was silver, in a strange, alien bar of … metal?
He blinked, and blinked again, and the brown mass in front of him became an animal. Not an animal. A human being. Terec frowned at him, drawing the conclusions with agonizing effort. There was a man. He held a sword. He was staring at Terec in astonishment.
When he saw Terec was looking at him, he moved his face in a strange way.
“The unicorn led you here, so I shall presume I can trust you, but I must apologize for abbreviated greetings as there is an army about to reach us. Are you here to help me?”
Terec stared at him. The sounds beat against his ears. He was sure he knew them. They were words. They didn’t have quite the same sound as he thought they should, but they were words. He knew them. He did.
He had no idea what the man meant.
“Do you not understand Shaian?” The man added a few words in a language Terec definitely did not understand. He stared even more blankly, and the man returned to comprehensible speech—Shaian? Yes—Shaian—he remembered now—with a few sharp obscenities. Terec didn’t understand them either but he heard the frustration and fear in the man’s voice and bearing.
“An extra hand to throw rocks on their heads would be of some assistance, at least,” he muttered, switching the sword to his other hand and going three steps to a pile of smooth round stones. He picked up one and strode back to Terec, who hadn’t moved.
“Here,” the man said, offering him the stone.
Terec took it gravely. It felt good in his hand. It was too big for hunting small game, but it would be a reasonable weapon against a larger animal. The images swam into his mind, bear and wolf and those great hunting cats. He rolled his shoulders, loosening them.
It was tempting to sink below the surface. He was not sure he did not want to.
“This side,” the man said, moving as if to touch his arm.
Terec skittered back. The man swore again, words, words, words. Terec knew he should understand, but he didn’t. Couldn’t. There was something in his throat. He did not know what to name it, either.
“This side,” the man said, pointing with his sword to Terec’s right.
Terec turned, the stone in his hand, and took in his new surroundings.
There was no sign of the ice, though there was ice on the mountains around him. There were high peaks, airy, the sort that would be crowned with starlight and snow, when there was starlight. It was daytime now, a bright clear day: the sun was over the shoulders of the mountains, casting deep purple shadows across the green, green grass.
He and the man stood in a small stone place, a building Terec’s memory supplied, with two doors not quite opposite each other. The man was pointing at one.
Terec walked across the space to stand beside him.
Here was the green grass, the purple shadows, a river of silver and brown climbing like a great snake up the steep, steep slope towards them.
He stared down.
“The Lowessy,” the man said, his voice low and growling. Terec felt his own hackles rise, his heart speed, the fire surge, in answer to his tone. “They are invading the Empire. Astandalas. I must stop them as long as I can.”
The words fell into Terec’s ears. Part of his mind seemed to understand, for he felt his hand grip the stone, clench and release his muscles, in readiness.
The light was reflecting off metal, he saw, tilting his head to make sense of the strange, unfamiliar shapes. Was it trees climbing the hill? Some sort of monster with long upright tusks?
“They’re getting close,” the man beside him said, and then, wryly: “I cannot say it has been a pleasure to know you, but you have granted me a moment of hope, and I thank you for that, sir. It will be an honour to die beside you.”
Terec turned his head to look at the man. He moved his face in that strange way; and this time Terec realized it was a smile.
Thought rushed into his mind, though not to his tongue, and he looked down at the army, that was an army, and this man was speaking Shaian to him and was defending the Empire and was holding this pass as long as I can and he had just announced they were about to die.
Terec dropped his rock, straight out of the doorway. It plunged down, gathering speed, past the lead soldiers but they were so close packed on their dogleg path that it knocked against one, two, three rows further down before disappearing out of his sight.
“And thus it begins,” the man said, as the army convulsed and shouted and all their focus narrowed in on the two of them at the top of the wall of grass and stone.
Grass. Stone. No wood, but their own spears.
He was aware of the man throwing rock after rock from his pile, slinging them with smooth, strong gestures at the soldiers below. Terec did not throw any more, but he sank down to his knees, bowed his head, and placed his hands flat on the lip of stone at the topmost stair of the path.
His magic was loud in his veins. He called it, called the Wild that had led him here, called the fire.
Burn the grass, he whispered. Burn the wood. Burn the stone. Burn. Be free.
The magic that simmered in his veins, that had forced him from Astandalas, that had led him here, rose up.
He stared at his brown fingers, the scuffed and dirty nails, the nicks and scratches, the strong shape of sinew and knuckle. First they shimmered, like the heat waves on a summer’s day over the great stone-paved highway. Then they itched, but he kept his hands pressed to the stone, even as the itching made his spine crawl with the need to move.
He held his hands against the stone, and he held the fire in him, image of the Wild, the salamander that had swum through the water to meet him, back in that place on the other side of Before. He could see the salamander, fire in water.
He had followed the fire in the sky, in the ice.
Now for the fire in stone.
He was aware of the man shouting something, stone whistling overhead, arrows arching towards them. His fire touched the wood, catching it alight and into harmless ashes before the arrows could reach them.
Burn the grass. Burn the wood. Burn the stone. Burn. Burn. Burn.
The wood of spears and arrows burned.
The grass burned.
The stone took longer, but he held his hands to the mountain until his fire caught.
* * *
He did not remember the fire sweeping down the wall of the mountain.
He did not remember the army breaking ranks, fleeing, throwing themselves down in flames, rolling down the slopes in a frantic attempt to escape, a rout down an impossibly narrow and steep trail.
He did not remember the mountain groaning under the heat and pressure of the fire, until it calved off the scorched stone like a glacier meeting the sea.
He did not remember lifting his hands when the fire went out and staring at the perfect outline of pale, powdery, ash on the topmost stair.
He did not remember the other man sheathing his sword and grabbing Terec under the arm, pulling him upright ad then tugging him away from the collapsing stone to the steep, tight doglegs of the path leading down the other side.
He did not remember the great clap of thunder in the clear sky, and the reverberating gong that made the mountains cry out in echoed agony, and the man beside him stopping, and then moving more slowly, in great exhaustion, with a softly muttered, “And that’s the Border closing. At least they made it.”
* * *
He was far below the surface.
He could see it, far above him, with shadows of meaning like the shadows of a boat crossing over a drowning man.
He watched the boat, the shadow of consciousness, the promise of his own mind, but he floated comfortably in the dark embrace of the deep waters. His body and his magic knew how to keep him, he thought.
The fire was low, tired. He was tired. He had followed the Wild, and to what?
He let himself drift deeper.
* * *
He did not wake to a meal, for they did not stop for a meal.
The other man kept going, one foot in front of another. Terec nearly surfaced with the urge of his hunger, his thirst, but then they stopped by a stream and he plunged his face in to drink while the man stood with his eyes scanning their surroundings warily, his hand on his sword.
Then Terec stood, the fire starting to grow again under his skin as the shadows thickened and the night came on, and watched as the man cupped his hands into the stream and drank his own fill.
When the man stood, he wiped his mouth with his hand. Terec was struck by how very pink his lips were, and stumbled into himself.
He stepped back from the man as he felt his body stir with a desire he could not name. He stared as the man licked his lips, and felt his heart thundering in his throat.
The man looked at him, and smiled, but shook his head. “I’m a married man,” he said. “And you can’t possibly be in your right mind. It’s a common reaction after a battle.”
Terec blinked at him, and felt a hotness rising up against his skin. The words were starting to make more sense, especially when they matched the man’s posture. He was not receptive. That was clear.
He felt no disappointment bar the purely physical. He was hungry, and aroused, and there was no food and no … lover, that was the word.
No Conju.
He blinked, but he could not run from that word, that name, the elegant, handsome face, the sly smile and the soft lips and the gentle hands and the light voice—
Oh, he didn’t even want to. He wanted to stay awake, to stay in his own mind, to stop being able to turn his head into the wind and know that there was human habitation that way—
He looked away from the man, who was still watching him, and started upstream, splashing once or twice into the water, following the bank.
“Where are you going?” the man said. “We’re in enemy territory, you know. Not that there are many of the enemy left after that, and no one else is coming over that pass, that’s certain.”
Terec grunted, unable to form a word, but striking both himself and the man by responding at all.
The stream wound through boulders and into a woodland, which Terec barely regarded, his skin reading the wind and knowing there were no animals in the woods beyond them. Not even a rabbit, and the birds were too high in the trees to catch, he noted mournfully.
Ahead of them was a human thing.
The other man followed him, moving as silently as Terec did once he’d stopped splashing in the stream. His bare feet on the moss and stones were soft. The man was wearing coverings on his feet, and yet he too moved with barely a whisper.
Terec had no sense of time. The shadows were thicker, almost dark, when the woods opened up on a tiny clearing and they found there a small square thing. Building.
Shack.
It was dark and cold, no feeling of life, no warmth, but Terec waited when the other man hissed at him to stay there and made a silent and invisible investigation of the clearing. Terec leaned against a tree, his head dizzy with his thoughts, trying to name all the things he could see.
He had shack, bucket, step, tree, stone, chimney, and was proud of himself for remembering the last, when the man came back.
“It’s empty,” he said, looking at Terec, but Terec could not read his face. “Looks like they left a few days ago. A shelter for the night, anyway. And there might be food.”
Terec grunted again, and pushed off the tree.
He did not remember how to use the door at first, but the other man unlatched it for him and pushed it open. Inside Terec could name table, bench, stool, bed, hearth.
There was wood beside the hearth. He moved to it immediately, touching the wood and calling the fire, easily as breathing, as feeling the desire for warmth. He piled wood until the fire was burning strongly on its own, and then he sat back on his heels and felt nearly anchored in the room.
Anchored enough to feel the enclosure of the walls and the door.
The man was watching him. “I suppose there’s enough smoke in the air not to worry,” he muttered.
Terec could feel the Wild pressing against him, against three sides of the sky; the fourth side was the Wall. There were no people nearby, he could feel the carefree dance of the Wild when there was no one to see but the wild things.
The man moved around, opening more doors, exclaiming softly when he found things. He set them on the table: plates and cups and bottle and … bread.
Terec stared at the bread with his mouth salivating. The fire was behind him, anchoring him. He remembered he should not snatch the bread off the table and gnaw it. It belonged to the other man.
The man came back with a bucket of water, sweet and cool in Terec’s nose. He looked at Terec, who was still squatting beside the fire, and after a moment the man sighed heavily, unbelted his sword, and sat heavily on the bench.
“There’s wine,” he said. “If you want to try a glass. And cheese.”
Terec hesitated, but the man opened the bottle and used a metal thing—a knife—to cut the bread and the other thing, which was the cheese, and the scents of the unfamiliar foods reached Terec’s nose and made his stomach growl and his mind fizz uncertainly.
He was drawn to the table. He watched the man, who was chewing bread and cheese, his eyes watching Terec but his body calm, relaxed. Terec stepped up onto the stool and squatted there, then remembered that it was not meant for that, and slid down to sit in imitation of the man.
Moving very slowly, the man cut into the bread and the cheese and pushed over the slabs to him. Terec took them and sniffed deeply. The aroma went deep into the back of his mind, rousing images of friendly faces, of sunlit afternoons, of some place of flowers, of laughter, of pretty pale colours.
He set down the bread and cheese. His eyes were hot. He did not understand.
The man poured another stream of rich red liquid into the wooden cup. Not blood, but the scent was as strong, as rich, as evocative.
Images of candlelight on silver, on gold, on snowy white; of more laughter, of voices in conversation; of a cozy seat, his arm around someone who leaned against him, their lips touching, tasting of wine.
Terec needed both hands to hold the cup. They were so clumsy holding it, lifting it to his lips.
He drank, not deeply, because he could feel the wine catching the fire in his blood and sending it all rushing to his heart and his mind, burning through the silence on his tongue even as it undid the seal on his memory.
He set the cup down with a rattle next to the food, and stared at the man across from him, taking in his features for the first time.
“You’re a soldier of Astandalas,” Terec said, his voice starting out a savage thick growl but clearing, until it sounded almost like his own by the end of the sentence. “I can see you now.”