CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Druadaen awoke with a start. The shadows were half as long as the objects casting them. Aleasha, apparently awakened by his sudden movement, rose, stretched, and glanced in his general direction. “Before sun, you had bad dream.”
Druadaen suppressed the urge to deflect the inquiry. No doubt Aleasha’s intent was simple solicitousness. But if this world had even stronger reactions against those who were rejected by the gods and dreamed the chaotic dreams of the Wildscape, his time here might not merely become difficult, but fatal. “Dream not bad. I make loud?” Both statements were technically true, but avoided touching on his exclusion from the creedlands of the gods.
Aleasha looked at him quizzically. “No worry. I hear worse.”
So… are Wildscape dreamers more common here? “Many worse?”
She shrugged. “Yes.” Considered, tapped her chest. “Me.”
So does she, too, wander the Wildscape when she sleeps? “You dream worse?”
“Some times. Not many.” She considered him. “You are, eh, surprise? At bad dreams?”
Druadaen really didn’t know how to answer, in part because he needed to be careful what he revealed, but also because he’d run into the limits of their shared vocabulary. He shook his head. “No have good words to talk dreams.”
She nodded, the gesture conveying both understanding and agreement. “Then, we learn more words, yes?” she asked, settling into a relaxed cross-legged posture that Druadaen had noticed among many peoples whose lives made chairs and other furniture largely unnecessary.
The trees’ shadows were longer than they were tall when they arrived at a point where they not only understood each other, but were even able to trade simple quips. Druadaen was not sure what language they were actually speaking; it was as if they had made their own.
“So, now we talk on dreams,” Aleasha said, a hand on either knee.
Druadaen had hoped she might forget. “Yes.”
“You seem worried to share words on dreams.”
“Such words are not shared, where I from.”
“Why?”
Druadaen glanced at her animal entourage. “You dream of, eh, wild place?”
She frowned. “Your words not clear.”
“Do you dream of a god place, or place where mountains and fields and trees go, eh, forever?”
She stared at him and laughed. “I dream many things, but I do not dream of talking with gods, if your words mean that. Who would want that?”
He frowned, asked in a cautious tone, “None your people dream of lands kept by gods?”
Her answering frown was deeper than his. “What are these words? Not even priests dream of gods much. But you do?”
“No. I do not.”
She heard his emphasis on “I.” “But people in your home dream of gods?”
“And their lands. Every night.”
Aleasha did not simply sit back; it was more as if she recoiled from the idea. “Then you have big luck, not having those dreams!”
Druadaen shook his head. “My people think I sick.”
“You are sick because you do not dream of gods?” She snorted out a derisive laugh. “I think people who do are sick! Or those dreams make them sick.” She frowned. “Your people like the god dreams?”
Druadaen nodded. “Yes. They are good dreams. In ‘creedlands,’ no fears. Sometimes they see family who is dead.”
Her eyes opened wide. “I have never heard this.” She shook her head. “Here, no one dreams of god land.” She reflected. “Maybe mad priests. I do not know.”
Even though Aleasha’s comments had prepared Druadaen to expect her denial of the gods and their creedlands, her frank, unabashed statement of it still felt like a physical blow. For a moment he could not think—and then he was awash in more questions and speculations than he could sort through. But rising above them all were two realizations:
Creedlands are not known in this world… because Arrdanc’s gods are not here.
He did not anticipate his reaction or the feeling it sent coursing through him: freedom, absolute and complete. Whatever else the people here might think of him, his dreams would not make him a pariah. But on the other hand, this revelation begged several questions about the temples and priests Aleasha had alluded to. Why would either be in this place, if the gods themselves were not? What was the basis of their power, their authority?
Fragments of his conversation with the Lady of the Mirror rose up, suddenly seemed part of a greater whole, all converging upon the central question—and quandary—she’d put to him: “And what if it is your path to pass through the Shimmer?”
His throat was dry. He may have blinked. He didn’t know. His world had shrunk to one question: So, did she suspect… or did she know… that my questions cannot be answered on Arrdanc, but only on a world where its gods are absent?
He blinked again, discovered that Aleasha was staring at him. “You are well, yes?”
He nodded. “I am. But it is strange, to be in a world without gods. Or the god-houses we name ‘temples.’”
She frowned. “There are no gods here. But there are many who build temples. Too many.” She looked ready to spit.
He was ready to match her disdain with his own, but an unbidden memory leavened that impulse. Padrajisse, a sacrist who had traveled with his group until slain by an assassin, had been adamant that his exclusion from the creedlands was not a sign of the gods’ rejection. So perhaps the Lady was right: that by turning him away at the last moment, Amarseker had not been tormenting him, but foresightedly helping him. Not only because it had ultimately saved him from being labeled a heretic, but because it had freed him to turn everything he knew on its head. Because if the Wildscape was the normal state of human dreams, then why had the gods created the creedlands? And why did those deities—or at least their hieroxi—claim to be omnipresent when they were not even known on this world?
Druadaen shielded his eyes with his hand and leaned back—mentally as well as physically—to keep from plunging headlong into the further questions rising up out of the abyss of what his world had taught him.
Aleasha had leaned back, watching him carefully. When his silence persisted, she gamely tossed out a question to change the topic, perhaps rescue him from it. “I am be curious. Your clothes and war-tools are much strange, much confusing.”
Druadaen shook his head, as if recovering from a blow. “In what way?”
Her gaze played across the odd amalgam of garments, armor, and equipment that he had gathered from the pyramid. “I wonder: are you a noble in beggar clothes, or a beggar who found a noble-sword?” Her eyes went to the velene. “And whether you are noble or beggar, you do have intra… um, intesring… eh, strange friends.”
“Strange and interesting,” Druadaen replied, providing the word she could not recall.
She nodded gratefully. “Interesting. Yes, that word.” She leaned closer, almost near enough to touch the velene. “It is alive, even though it is metal.”
Druadaen shrugged obligingly. “Well, it moves like an animal. But it is not.”
She shook her head. “How it moves is not why I say it lives. It thinks before it moves. Like you and me.” She shrugged. “Not creatures such as us, but I would, er, promise my best bowstring that it is alive, not a… eh, wyrdcraft. It is itself.”
Druadaen had thought no less on many occasions. “Wyrdcraft,” he repeated. “Is that your word for a thing made from mantic power?”
She nodded. “What some call magic.” She nodded toward the velene. “Does it protect you from wyrding?”
“I think so. At least a little.”
She leaned away, met his eyes. “Just before I walked out from bushes, I tried to—eh, reach your thinkings.” She shrugged. “But there were none.”
Druadaen smiled. “Some of my teachers said the same.”
She chortled. “That is the first lie you tell.” She became serious again. “When I sat with you, I tried again, but with, with… ” She frowned, not finding a word. “I did not try from here”—she tapped her forehead—“but from here,” she finished tapping her heart.
Druadaen nodded. “I think my home’s mantics call that ‘affining.’ But when you try, you found empty.”
Aleasha shook her head hesitantly. “No. That is not the feel. And it did not feel like a wall.” She thought. “It was like sounds wolves hear, but I do not. Something is there, but I cannot reach it.”
Druadaen leaned forward. “So, you work magic?”
She shook her head, perplexed at his question. “Not magic.” She gestured at the animals around them. “I am a wyldwyrd. Do you not have them in your home?”
Druadaen thought that over for a moment. “I think we name them naturalists. Or gritches—green witches,” he expanded, seeing her perplexity at the first term.
She shrugged. “Same thing, different name.” She frowned. “We need more names, and words, if we want speak more clearly. Let us learn while walk, yes?”
Druadaen nodded and rose. “Where should we start?”
Several hours later, Aleasha sent two of the wolves ahead. “We near a crossroad, the last before a big town.” She hesitated. “I do not want to meet anyone else.” A more awkward pause. “This is where we part. But we shall share another meal, and there is a good, hidden place for you to make camp three, four miles up the north road.”
Druadaen simply nodded. There were several unspoken assumptions—or suggestions—in her words, but her halting speech told him that it was better not to inquire after them. Either she’d unfold them in her own time or not.
They walked half a mile before she confirmed his instincts. “You are patient. Most people from towns and even farms are quick to ask questions when they meet a new person. And are quick to tell about themselves, even when not asked.” She glanced at him, uncertain.
He smiled, hearing the request she refused to utter. “You are free to ask anything you wish.”
She returned his smile but her brow was furrowed, as if asking personal questions was unfamiliar or even unpleasant. “I cannot decide whether you are from a town or not. At first I saw your dress, your weapons, the way you walk. I thought, ‘surely, from a town.’”
Druadaen heard the hanging tone. “And then?”
Aleasha shrugged. “And then I see that you do not walk on the road; you follow it at a distance. I thought, ‘ah, he has been a soldier moving through dangerous lands.’ But then you made camp. You moved from rock to rock. You threw food-waste as far as you could. You slept beneath the chin of the rock. And without a fire.” She shook her head. “Not even farmers do that. And not all shepherds.”
He shrugged. “I have spent enough time in the wild to know that fire attracts attention from far away. And it cannot always be used to chase off what it attracts.”
“Huh,” she answered. Her tone was reminiscent of a teacher discovering that an unwashed and presumably untutored youngster could actually count, add, and subtract.
“But even without a fire, sometimes you are still found,” he added with a rueful grin at the animals flanking her.
She smiled sharply. “This is true. But then, we”—she gestured to her companions—“knew where to find you.” Seeing the surprise he failed to keep off his face, she added, “We saw and watched you from middle of the day.”
He nodded. “But why follow?”
“You look different. And not many people come from that way.” She gestured eastward. “Mostly wanderers come from Trawn or Pecthin.” She studied his gear more closely. “Much of that is Trawnish. Most of it has seen more years than you have. Did you get it in Trawn? Or do you have relatives there?”
Even if he hadn’t heard the leading tone—the bait to see if he would lie—he would have given the same answer: “No. I do not know Trawn.”
She smiled. “I did not think so.” She tilted her head slightly, looking at his mouth.
He raised an eyebrow. “What are you—?”
“I am trying to see where you come from.” She leaned back. “And I still do not know. Your teeth say the country; they have not been rotted by soft breads and rich food. But your hair and skin says a city, or at least much time under a roof. You do not act like a princeling, lost without retainers. But your speech is that of books. Many books.” Her eyes wandered back to his clothes and kit. “But more strange is what you wear and carry. None of it matches. Most does not fit.”
He nodded. “I have not had it long. It is still unfamiliar.”
“Hmmmm… except for that sword and that ‘bracer.’”
He smiled. “Yes, except for them.”
“So: Trawnish and Pecthini gear, but not from there. From much farther away, from a place where people visit the lands of their god in their dreams. Much, much further away than Trawn.”
Druadaen simply smiled and waited.
“You could talk a little more!” she exclaimed, frustrated. And what he heard behind it was, “Must I ask you directly? Really?” When he still did not speak, she crossed her arms and muttered crossly, “You’re from the Fickle.”
When Druadaen frowned at the odd word, she seemed ready to clap her hands in delight at his perplexity. “What is the Fickle?”
Her smile lessened as she nodded, gestured back along the road. “It is a very old Haze. Those few who know it call it the Sometimes Door. Of old, it was called a Shimmer. Most folk just think it a cursed place.” She recrossed her arms in triumph. “You are from there.”
“I am,” he admitted. “But why do you call it the Fickle?”
“Because it is not always there… so it is a Sometimes Door. It is said that those who come out of it are not always from this world. Or at least, they do not seem to be.” Speaking of it, her voice had become solemn. Her eyes fell away from his. “Let us eat.”
Druadaen wondered what was troubling her as she silently produced several unleavened disks of bread and gave each of them two. Next came a small corked pot that contained a piquant mash of apples, citrus, and very hot peppers. She gestured and they ate.
She finished one of the breads, looked at the other, pushed it away, and sat so that she could wrap her arms around her knees. When he stopped eating, she murmured, “You know you cannot return, through the Sometimes Door, yes?”
He nodded.
She frowned. “So you tried to return and could not?”
Druadaen realized why it was considered cursed. “No. I knew, before I came, that I could not go back through it. I was also told that those who tried might be sent to dangerous places. Maybe scattered in space like the stars. No one knows.”
“They told you that… and still you came? You are very strange. Or you are very mad. Or maybe both.”
“Probably the last,” said Druadaen with a rueful smile.
She answered with a surprised grin, but persisted. “I would know what made a person start a journey from which they cannot return.”
“Well, that is not what I was told. I was warned I cannot return the way I came. But it likely there are other ways to do so.”
“That is a slim thread on which to place the weight of so great a step.”
Druadaen sighed. “I agree, but I cannot quickly explain why I took it.”
“For such a tale, I will make more time.” She quirked a smile from one side of her mouth. “It is amusing when sane people try to explain their mad plans.”
They had long finished the rest of their meal when Aleasha finally leaned back and stared at him. “So, you came to this world to ask questions about your own.”
“Yes. But now, I must determine if others from my world have done anything to harm this one.”
She frowned. “But how will you learn where they are, what they’ve done, or even if they are here at all?”
He shrugged. “I must start by traveling to a large city.” Seeing her frown deepen, he added, “They hear more news, and faster.”
“And will you find such cities, and hear this news?”
“By following the road”—he gestured over his shoulder—“I presumed I would come to a town where I might learn of the nearest city. Once there, I hoped to find news of those who came through the Fickle before me… as soon as I learned how to understand what I heard, that is.” He smiled. “Which I can do now. Thanks to you, Aleasha.”
His smile seemed to further deepen her frown. She did not appear to be disappointed or angry at him, but rather, that she was having an argument with herself. Finally, she said, “I do not like cities. Too much filth. Filth in streets. Filth in water. Filth in hearts.” She sighed. “But I agree: a city is where you must go. So I shall show you a road to one. Walk three days and you will be there.”
“A city is so close?”
“A small one. But it has ships that go to the greatest city of Sarma; that is the nation which claims these lands. That is where you should go to listen for news. But be careful when you talk. Bigger cities mean smaller hearts. And keep walking beside, but not on, the road as you travel to the first city. I do no less. And it has saved me much trouble.”
Druadaen scanned her furred followers, whose numbers had swelled. They now included one brown bear, one black bear, a weasel, seven wolves, two owls, a hawk, and—impossibly, given all those predators—a stag and an indeterminate number of doves. Obviously, she did not consider the local wildlife dangerous. So logically, that meant—“Bandits are common along the road?”
She nodded. “Bandits… and worse.”
“Worse?”
“Servants of a power to the east.”
“A rival of Sarma?”
Aleasha seemed about to reply in the negative, but then shrugged. “Only in the nature of greed and ambition. It is not a nation. It is a… a cult.”
“Of priests?”
“So they claim. In the past, they remained hidden. Now, they range farther and are bolder. Some think they work miracles.”
Druadaen frowned at the word “miracles.” “Are you sure there is not some deity conferring bestowals in response to their entreaties?”
“I have told you, there are no gods here.”
“Yes. But, while these cultists were hidden, could they have discovered a god?” Or could it be that they were discovered by a god? “I have seen the works of deities in my world. Perhaps they were once here, too, but slumbered. Or were forgotten.” Or recently arrived?
“I have seen these ‘priests.’” Aleasha’s reply was both grumpy and sardonic. “Their powers are much like mine. But they tell simple folk that those are miracles from the god they worship. That is how they spread fear. And attract followers who want power like theirs.” She shook her head. “So many people kneel to mute gods. They pray for a safe life. They long for an end of fear. And others pray for the power to cause it.” She shook her head. “I do not understand this.”
“What is this cult called?”
She glanced up at him sharply. “They go by many names, but who knows if there is a true one or what it might be?” She rose. “Let us go to the crossroads where we shall part.”