Part 27 (2/2)

Her robe had not been made to serve as a winter coat and she had no gloves. Under her headscarf her hair was wet. When in darkness they came upon a plateau of stone that was oddly hot and dry, its edges running with streams of melted snow water and smoke rising from cracks in the ground, Fire didn't question it. She only slid from the horse's back and found a warm flat place to lie. Sleep Sleep, she told the horse. It's time to sleep It's time to sleep.

The horse folded itself to the ground and nestled its back against her. Warmth, Fire thought. We'll live through this night.

It was the worst night she'd ever known, skimming hour after hour between wakefulness and sleep, jerking from dream after dream of Archer alive to remember that he was dead.

DAY FINALLY BROKE.

She understood, with dull resentment, that her body and the horse's body needed food. She didn't know what to do about it. She sat staring at her own hands.

She was too far beyond surprise and feeling to be startled when children appeared moments later climbing from a crevice in the ground, three of them, paler than Pikkians, black-haired, blurry at the edges from the glow of the rising sun. They were carrying things: a bowl of water, a sack, a small package wrapped in cloth. One bore the sack to the horse, dropped it near the animal, and folded the top down. The horse, which had s.h.i.+ed away with frantic noises, now approached cautiously. It sank its nose into the sack and began to chew.

The other two carried the package and bowl to Fire, setting them before her wordlessly, staring at her with amber eyes wide. They are like fish, Fire thought. Strange and colourless and staring, on the bottom of the ocean.

The package contained bread, cheese, and salted meat. At the scent of food her stomach threatened to heave. She wished the staring children would go away so that she could have her battle with breakfast alone.

They turned and went, disappearing into the crevice from which they'd come.

Fire broke a piece of bread and forced herself to eat it. When her stomach seemed to decide it was willing to accept this, she cupped her hands into the water and took a few sips. It was warm. She watched the horse, chomping on the feed in the sack, poking its nose softly into the corners. Smoke seeped from a crack in the ground behind the animal, glowing yellow in the morning sun. Smoke? Or was it steam? This place had a strange smell to it, like wood smoke but also something else. She put her hand to the warm rock floor on which she sat and understood that there were people beneath it. Her floor was someone else's ceiling.

She was feeling the beginnings of a l.u.s.treless sort of curiosity when her stomach decided it did not want her crumbs of bread after all.

After the horse had finished its breakfast and drunk the rest of the water it came to where Fire was lying in a ball on the ground. It nudged her, and knelt. Fire uncurled herself, like a turtle ripping itself from its sh.e.l.l, and climbed onto the horse's back.

THE HORSE SEEMED to move randomly west and south across the snow. It shuffled through streams that crunched with ice, and crossed wide crevices in the rock that made Fire uneasy because she could not see to the bottoms of them.

In the early morning she felt a person on horseback approaching from behind. She didn't much care at first. But then she recognised the feel of the person and was dragged against her will into caring. It was the boy.

He was also riding saddleless, awkwardly so, and he kicked his poor frustrated horse until it brought him within shouting range. He called out angrily. 'Where are you going? And what are you doing, sending your every thought and feeling over these rocks? This is not Cutter's fortress. There are monsters out here, and wild, unfriendly people. You're going to get yourself killed.'

Fire didn't hear him, for at the sight of his mismatched eyes she found herself dropping from her horse and running at him, a knife in her hand, though she hadn't realised until that moment that she was in possession of one.

His horse chose that instant to throw the boy from its back, toward her. He fell in a bundle on the ground, clambered to his feet, and ran to escape her. There was a blundering chase across the crevices, and then an ugly scuffle that she couldn't sustain because she grew exhausted too quickly. The knife slipped from her fingers and slid into a wide crack in the earth. He pushed himself away, scrambled to his feet, choking over his words.

'You've lost your mind,' he said, touching his hand to a cut on his neck, staring incredulously at the blood that came off on his fingers. 'Take hold of yourself! I didn't come after you all this way to fight you. I'm trying to rescue you!'

'Your lies don't work on me,' she cried, her throat coa.r.s.e and painful from smoke and dehydration. 'You killed Archer.'

'Jod killed Archer.'

'Jod is your tool!'

'Oh, be reasonable,' he said, his voice rising with impatience. 'You of all people should understand it. Archer was too strong-minded. It's quite a kingdom for the strong-minded you've got here, isn't it, the very toddlers taught to guard their minds against monsters?'

'You're not a monster.'

'It amounts to the same thing. You know perfectly well how many people I've had to kill.'

'I don't,' she said. 'I don't. I'm not like you.'

'Perhaps you're not, but you do understand it. Your father was like me.'

Fire stared at this boy, his sooty face, his thatch of filthy hair, his torn and bloodstained coat, oversized, as if he'd taken it from one of his own victims, from a body he'd found unburned on Cutter's grounds. The feeling of his mind b.u.mped against hers, simmering with strangeness, taunting her with its unreachability.

Whatever he was, he was not a monster. But it amounted to the same thing. Was this what she had killed Cansrel for, so that a creature like this could rise to power in his place?

'What are you?' she whispered.

He smiled. Even in his dirty face it was a disarming smile, the delighted smile of a little boy who is proud of himself.

'I'm what is known as a Graceling,' he said. 'My name used to be Immiker. Now it is Leck. I come from a kingdom you've not heard of. There are no monsters there, but there are people with eyes of two colours who have powers, all different kinds of powers, everything you could think of, weaving, dancing, swordplay, and mental powers too. And none of the Gracelings are as powerful as I.'

'Your lies don't work on me,' Fire said automatically, feeling around for her horse, who appeared at her side for her to lean against.

'I'm not making it up,' he said. 'This kingdom does exist. Seven kingdoms, actually, and not a single monster to trouble the people. Which, of course, means that few of them have learned to strengthen their minds as people must here in the Dells. Dellians are far more strong-minded as a people, and far more vexing.'

'If Dellians vex you,' she whispered, 'go back where you came from.'

He shrugged, smiling. 'I don't know how to go back. There are tunnels, but I've never found them. And even if I did, I don't want to. There's so much potential here - so many advances in medicine, and engineering, and art. And so much gorgeousness - the monsters, the plants - do you appreciate how unusual the plants are here, how marvellous the medicines? My place is here in the Dells. And,' he said with a touch of contempt, 'don't imagine it contents me to control Cutter's vulgar smuggling operation here at the kingdom's edges. It's King's City I want, with its gla.s.s ceilings and its hospitals and its beautiful bridges all lit up at night. It's the king I want, whoever that may be at the other side of the war.'

'Are you working with Mydogg? Whose side are you on?'

He waved a dismissive hand. 'I don't care which one wins. Why should I get involved when they're doing me a favour by destroying each other? But you, don't you see the place I've made for you in my plans? You must know it was my idea to capture you - I controlled all the spies and masterminded the kidnapping, and I was never going to allow Cutter to sell you, or breed you. I want to be your partner, not your master.'

How weary Fire was of everyone, every person in this world who wanted to use her.

'Not use use you, you, work work with you to control the king,' the boy said, causing her to p.r.i.c.kle with confusion, for she had not thought he could read mind's. 'And I'm not in your mind,' he said impatiently. 'I told you before, you're sending your every thought and feeling out to be felt. You're revealing things I doubt you mean to reveal, and you're also hurting my head. Pull yourself together. Come back with me, you've destroyed all my rugs and my hangings, but I'll forgive you for that. There's a corner of the house still left standing. I'll tell you my plans, and you can tell me all about yourself. Like who cut your neck, for starters. Was it your father?' with you to control the king,' the boy said, causing her to p.r.i.c.kle with confusion, for she had not thought he could read mind's. 'And I'm not in your mind,' he said impatiently. 'I told you before, you're sending your every thought and feeling out to be felt. You're revealing things I doubt you mean to reveal, and you're also hurting my head. Pull yourself together. Come back with me, you've destroyed all my rugs and my hangings, but I'll forgive you for that. There's a corner of the house still left standing. I'll tell you my plans, and you can tell me all about yourself. Like who cut your neck, for starters. Was it your father?'

'You're not normal,' Fire whispered.

'I'll send my men away,' he continued, 'I promise. Cutter and Jod are dead, anyway - I killed them. It'll just be the two of us. No more fighting. We'll be friends.'

It was heartbreaking, the realisation that Archer had wasted himself protecting her from such a stupid, mad thing. Heartbreaking beyond endurance. Fire closed her eyes and leaned her face against the steady leg of her horse. 'These seven kingdoms,' she whispered. 'Where are they?'

'I don't know. I fell through the mountains and found myself here.'

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