Chapter Twenty
Theo was no stranger to lonely campsites. He always made his quiru early, and built a substantial fire for company. On this night, he couldn’t help thinking of the warm atmosphere of Conservatory. His first night in the mountains stretched long and empty before him. He tried to pass some time before sleeping by whistling a tune he had heard one of the students play, putting it to his filla, thinking up words for it. But when he lay down in his bedfurs under the starred splendor of the mountain night, his solitude seemed more intense than ever. He closed his eyes with deliberation. It was past time he accepted being an outsider.
The season was beginning its shift into the deep cold of the year, when less snow would fall and the bite of the cold would grow sharper and sharper. Theo carried extra furs, purchased from the abattoir at Conservatory with the last bits of metal he owned. He would need more work soon to keep himself supplied. He smiled, remembering one of Isbel’s fables, in which metal bits flew from the feet of the Six Hruss of the Spirit. Unfortunately, itinerant Singers had to work hard for those bits.
In the morning, he pulled on an extra layer of furs. He made an early start rather than have to renew the quiru just before leaving it. He saddled his hruss, and set out into the immense quiet of the mountains, his furs pulled close around him.
At midday his progress was interrupted. An inexplicable impulse came over him, urging him to leave the road, to turn up a lightly wooded slope to his left. He stopped the hruss and thought for a while, trying without success to identify his feeling. It was no more than a hunch, but at length, telling himself never to ignore the Gift, he reined his hruss around to climb the hill.
At the top he found a clear, flat place that had been a campsite fairly recently. There were the snowy ashes of a softwood fire and the rounded depression typically made by bedfurs. There was also an ominously shaped mound under an ironwood tree.
Theo’s heart sank as he stared at the mound. Reluctantly, he slid down from his saddle and knelt beside it. The furs and leathers on the body were still visible, despite the evident care that had been taken to bury it under the snow. Bracing himself, Theo brushed away the snow. A hood was tied over the face. He hesitated for a long moment, not sure he wanted to know, knowing he must discover who was buried here. He undid the ties of the hood and pulled it back.
His heart pounded with relief. An elderly man, creased and weathered, with wispy graying hair, had been laid to his final rest here in the snow. It was not a face he recognized. Theo had no wish to disturb the body, but he had to learn as much as possible about anyone who died out here in the mountains.
Gently, he explored the furs and clothing, shaking his head sadly when he discovered a filla, still wrapped in soft leather, tucked inside the old man’s tunic. He also found that one of the legs was badly broken, and inexpertly splinted. Crouching there, Theo wondered who this old Singer had been, and how he came to this isolated and inadequate grave. Where was the person who had laid him here? If the Singer had a traveler with him, there might well be another body in the vicinity.
Theo scanned the area carefully. Snow had filled in any footprints, but a second body should not be hard to see. He forced himself to search hard for that which he devoutly hoped not to find. At last, having made no more sad discoveries after a reasonable amount of time, Theo mounted and rode away from the campsite, whispering a quick prayer for the dead. He hoped he wouldn’t need to say another one soon. He was all but certain this had been Sira’s traveling companion. And now she was alone for a second time in the Marik Mountains.
Sira hadn’t realized the season was changing until she felt the sting of the deeper cold through her furred gloves. The wet snowfall high in the mountains had confused her. She had ridden alone for one full day, heading due east, dreading the early dark and the long night alone.
The emptiness of the mountains was a tangible presence, every sound magnified, causing a thrill across her nerves. She made her camp at the first sign of dusk, raising a strong yellow quiru as the evening light shaded swiftly from violet to purple. Her filla sounded small and desolate under the looming peaks.
She struggled with the flint, but could get no spark to leap onto her little pile of softwood. The thought of a fireless campsite and cold food for the days ahead disheartened her, and she slumped onto her bedroll in despair. How have I reached this state once again? she asked herself. Why do I insist on having things exactly my way, and at such cost?
She looked around at her little campsite. Only her quiru looked right. She longed for the faint comfort of a cup of hot tea. She decided she was not stacking the softwood properly. Sighing, she took it apart and put it together again, and took out the flint.
Before she struck it, a sound fell upon her sensitive ears. She lifted her head, listening. A chill ran across her scalp as she grew certain that something, or someone, was approaching. It was not yet dark enough for a tkir to be hunting, but she wished with all her might she had gotten the fire going. Apprehensive, she stood and faced the direction of the sound.
She could see nothing, but she heard hoofbeats . . . a hruss’s hoofbeats, softened by the snowpack. She closed her eyes and reached out with her mind, seeking the identity of the approaching rider.
Theo had pushed his hruss hard all day, but the canopy of cloudless sky was tinged with violet now, and if he didn’t stop soon he would be risking the cold. Alone with his thoughts for many hours, his fears for Sira intensified. How would she know in what direction to travel? he fretted. How would she find the road that led into the Pass? He feared finding her body somewhere along the way, thrown from her hruss, injured by some wild animal, any of a hundred things. Even more he feared not finding her. Half-relieved, half-fearful, he pressed on.
The glow of a quiru up ahead, a slender finger of light shining like a beacon about a half hour’s ride away, came as a surprise in the empty landscape. Theo hurried his hruss even faster, hope making his heart speed under his thick furs. The beast obediently stretched its long stride, its wide hooves making soft thuds on the snowpack. Theo patted its rough coat in appreciation.
Her campsite was tucked between two shallow folds of snowy ground. Theo saw her outlined in the light of the quiru as he approached, and he grinned broadly, celebrating his good fortune. He rode into her camp beaming, and was surprised and alarmed to see Sira, always so self-possessed, standing in a fireless quiru with tears running down her face, looking out into the dark. Waiting for him.
“Cantrix Sira!” he exclaimed. He swung one leg over the horn of his saddle and jumped down. “It’s me. It’s Theo!”
“I know,” she said. She began to sob aloud, her face crumpling like a child’s. “I could hear you.” She meant, of course, his mind. He strode forward, and stood inches away from her. Every instinct told him to hold out his arms, comfort her, but this was a full Cantrix. Weeping.
“What is it?” he asked helplessly.
She shook her head, unable to speak. All at once he understood, with a flash of intuition almost as clear in his mind as her call for help many weeks before. She had rebelled against everything she knew to set out on this journey. She had watched a man die and she had buried him. She was alone in the dark for the second time in her short life. His arrival, at her lowest point, cut through her icy control. The long weeks of struggle demanded their price, and she had broken down completely.
He looked at the sobbing girl, so young to have seen so much, now lost and alone. With a wordless exclamation he offered to bridge the distance between them. He held out his arms.
Sira took the one step that was needed, moving into his embrace to weep against his shoulder for a very long time.
When she had finally cried herself out, all her fear and loneliness and disillusionment streaming out in waves, Sira was embarrassed at having displayed her feelings in such a way. But Theo, drying her face, settling her on her bedfurs, beginning preparations for a meal with pragmatic efficiency, commenced his usual flow of talk as if comforting crying girls was an everyday occurrence with him. Indeed, she thought, perhaps it was. She watched him start her fire with an easy flick of his wrist over the flint, and scoop snow into the pot for tea.
“I’m glad to have company out here,” he said. “Two days alone is enough to think all your thoughts and be ready to talk about them. Now, some conversation, some keftet, some tea—that’s the civilized way to spend an evening.”
He looked up at her swollen eyes, the scarred eyebrow, and her tear-marked cheeks. “You’re a wonderful sight for a lonely traveler,” he said without irony.
Sira watched him where he squatted easily by the fire, slicing caeru strips into a second pot. Despite his size, he was light and quick in the cramped space of the campsite. She was afraid to try to speak with lips that felt puffy and shaky, so she sent to him, Theo, I am glad to see you, too.
His head snapped up. “I heard that!” He paused for a moment, then said, “Can you teach me to do it?”
“Perhaps,” she said aloud, her voice still thick with tears. “If you receive easily” —she had to clear her throat before continuing— “you can probably send as well.” She took the cup of tea he passed her, cupping her palms around its warmth. She shuddered with the last spasm of her bout of weeping, then sat quietly, waiting for her composure to return.
“You know, Theo,” she told him. “We all heard minds spontaneously as children. I will try to think how to teach you.”
Theo stirred the keftet, looking into the pot. She could see he was concentrating. His forehead gathered in deep lines.
“Do not force it,” Sira said. “It simply feels like sending your thought away from you.”
Theo tried again, though his eyes still narrowed with effort.
“Ready? I heard ‘ready.’”
His lopsided grin was rueful. “It’s a beginning, I guess. I was trying to tell you our meal is ready.”
Good, she sent. I am hungry.
He winked at her, and his eyes were bright in the firelight. “Me, too,” he said.