Two paths led away, if she ignored the one she had arrived through. One felt freshly used, and led to a world of life and water. The arrival place was a deep ravine. On all sides was a thick abundance of moss of every colour, except where thin waterfalls cut through it. As Rielle arrived, the roar of the water filled her ears.
A movement caught her eye, but when she turned she saw nothing. Pushing back into the place between worlds, she felt a shadow receding.
Qall?
Propelling herself after the shadow, she drew close enough to know it. Her eyes registered him as a tiny, distant figure. He looked back, saw her gaining on him, and quickly turned away. The figure began to shrink.
“Qall!” she called. He looked back and, to her surprise, stopped.
Aware that he could be suffocating as he waited for her—unless he had taught himself pattern shifting—oh, don’t let that be the case yet!—she hurried to catch up. Another world formed around her. Black rock appeared all around, twisted in shapes as though it had been a molten, boiling sea that had suddenly frozen in place. An arrival place had been carved from it, with a road leading away. People had been here. The path was relatively fresh. It was most likely safe to arrive.
Qall’s face was tight with annoyance as she caught up with him. She took his arm and moved towards the world. Before the frozen rocks could resolve around them, a resistance pulled at her, dragging her to a halt. She looked back. His eyes gleamed with satisfaction.
“Do you want to suffocate here?” she asked.
The gleam died. He stopped resisting, and she pulled him on into the world. Sure enough, as cold air touched her skin he drew in a deep shuddering breath and had to brace his hands on his knees as he gasped for air. She let go of his arm, as he was not going anywhere like this.
“What were you thinking?” she asked. “You know it can be fatal to travel between worlds before you know all the dangers.”
“I … know … them,” he told her.
“How?”
“From … you.” He straightened. “I’ve been … watching you … doing it since … we left our first … new home.”
Her heart squeezed a warning, an instinctive fear rising. She ignored it. “You’ve been reading my mind.”
He nodded. She held his gaze, and though he tried to meet it, his own soon slid away.
“Why?”
“Because you hide things from me.”
“For your protection.”
He shook his head. “I have to find my family.”
“Why?”
“You know why. They are in danger because of me.” His gaze rose to meet hers, blazing with anger. “You’ve known since you tracked down Dahli’s hunter, but you didn’t tell me. He’s going to kill them if I don’t return.”
“No, he isn’t. For a start, that would be stupid,” she told him. “And Dahli is not stupid.”
He opened his mouth to object, then closed it and shook his head. “What do you mean?”
“If you kill a hostage, you lose your bargaining power. A threat is only effective when you know the target has heard and understood the threat.”
“But I have.”
“He doesn’t know that.”
Qall’s shoulders dropped and his brows knit together. He thrust his hands into his coat. The knuckles of his right hand pressed against the cloth, as if he had taken hold of something.
“What is that?” she asked, nodding to his hand. “What do you have there that worries you so much?”
He quickly removed his hand. “Nothing.”
“Liar,” she accused. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me, Qall.”
His face remained closed, but then his eyes narrowed slightly.
“If I tell you, will you help me?” he asked.
“If I can, of course.”
He looked down, then reached into his coat and drew out a plaited length of coloured thread. Rielle let out an “ah.” The last time she’d seen one of these, Baluka had been knotting it about her wrist, making official their engagement.
“So that’s what the girl gave you.”
His gaze was penetrating. “You saw her give it to me,” he stated, reading her mind.
“I saw her give you something, but not what it was.” She looked up, watching his face closely. “Do you love her?”
She did not expect the rapid shifts in his face. Doubt. Guilt. Confusion.
“I … don’t know,” he confessed. The honesty of the admission caught and squeezed her heart, both in sympathy and in that he trusted her with the truth. “Before she gave this to me, I’d have said ‘no.’”
“But you did say yes afterwards?”
“No. But … I do like her. Everyone said I would have to marry outside the family, so I never thought about any of the girls in that way.”
“And now?”
“Since I’ve been gone I … I miss her. All of them. I don’t want them to suffer because of me.”
Rielle nodded. “I understand. I felt the same once. It was one of the reasons I left them.” She sighed. “If you go back, Qall, you will put them in more danger than if you stay with me. Surely you see that?”
He scowled, but the anger in his face as quickly dissolved away. “Yes.”
“I love them too, Qall. The only thing stopping me from rushing back to help them is the certainty that it would make their situation—and yours—worse.”
His eyes became dark and intense with anguish. “How can we know if we can or can’t help them if we do not know what is happening to them?”
She sighed. “We can’t.”
“You can,” he said. “You could go back and see if they are alive and well.”
“Your enemies might try to blackmail me, if they learned I’d come back. They might try to follow me here.”
“You can travel fast, and you know how to hide your path. Only one other can do that, and he’s your friend.”
“But—”
“If nothing else—” He took her hand and pressed the braided strand into it. “—take this back to Givari and tell her I cannot accept.” He sighed. “I will never know if we could have been together if things were different, but at least she won’t be waiting for me to come back.”
Rielle could not speak. Her mouth tried to form the sensible reply, to tell him that life was full of unanswered questions and the girl would have known that her hopes were misplaced when the Travellers told her who he really was. But as she looked at the braid, she found herself nodding. She could not deny his request. She dared not lose his trust now.
So she considered how she would make it happen. Finding her way back to the Travellers would be harder than travelling away from them. It meant moving towards a point, rather than simply fleeing from one. She had written down a description of their journey whenever they had stopped to rest, but they had travelled through hundreds of worlds and there were gaps where she couldn’t quite remember where she had gone.
But since she had come to this area of worlds through a sequence of worlds hemmed in by dead worlds, heading back in that direction would mean she would be funnelled back through that route. From there, she could not backtrack exactly, because she had to give the world where they’d settled before a wide berth. But from there she could reverse her objective, looking for worlds where the Raen was known rather than where he was not. Eventually she would find worlds she recognised.
Without two mortals needing to breathe she could travel faster, too. However, she had no store of gems and precious metals to barter for practicalities. That would make finding food harder, and she’d have to camp outdoors whenever she stopped to rest.
What would Timane and Qall do while she was gone? Timane would be fine. The girl’s employer was a good person. Qall would have to sit and wait, but he could not stray if he wanted to hear news of his foster family when she returned.
“You must look after Timane,” she told him.
“I will,” he promised.
“No travell
ing between worlds while I’m gone.”
He grimaced. “Very well.”
“I’ll be gone a long time. Maybe a quarter cycle. Are you sure you want to delay your training that long?”
“Yes.”
She placed a hand on his arm. “Then we’d best get back and let Timane know. I’m going to need my pack and plenty of supplies.” And she would have to tell the theatre manager she couldn’t start the painting job when she’d promised to. She suppressed a sigh. Things had been going so well. But then, as far as setbacks went, this wasn’t a bad one. She might even get a chance to see Tarran and Tyen again, even if only to give them a proper farewell.
CHAPTER 10
When Rielle emerged from the ground into the familiar courtyard of Tarran’s home, and air surrounded her again, she staggered a little from dizziness. She told herself it was from relief that the long journey was over, but she had begun to wonder how many times her body could heal away weariness, hunger and the effects of spending so much time in the place between. She had grown thinner, bones hard under her skin.
A shadow moved within one of the windows, then the door opened. Tarran stared at her for a moment, then grinned. “Rielle!” He strode out, smiling broadly. “You cut your hair and curled it. Ooh! And your eyes are different.” He looked her over. “But I’d know you anywhere.”
“Hmm,” she muttered, dismayed. “Then Dahli would too.”
He nodded. “Perhaps. I got your message. It sounded as though I wouldn’t see you again for a long time, but here you are!”
“Sounded like? I thought I was clear about that.”
He chuckled. “Yes, you were.” He peered at her, and frowned. “You look a bit pale. Are you ill?”
She shook her head. “I’ve been travelling with scant rest for nearly an eighth of a cycle. Does this help?” Taking off the long coat she’d made the night before leaving Qall and Timane, she turned it inside out so that the tattered, patched side became the lining and the more refined fabric was on the outside. It allowed her two ways to blend into a crowd when she didn’t want to be noticed.
“No,” Tarran said as she put it on again. “You look like you’ve not been getting enough to eat. Am I right?”
She grimaced. “It’s hard to keep track.”
“I don’t know much about pattern shifting, but I do know you can’t make something out of nothing. If you don’t give your body fuel it can’t repair itself, or has to rob from itself to keep alive.”
“I have no valuables left to trade with,” she told him. “I foraged, mostly. I couldn’t bring myself to steal from people.”
“You could have looked for rich people who won’t suffer if you sneak into their kitchen and take some of their food. But never mind. You are here. I still have the stash of precious objects you left with me, but in the meantime, come inside and I’ll have a meal brought.”
“I can’t stay long.”
“You can stay long enough to eat.” He ushered her inside, spoke to a servant, then led the way to the dining room. “Now, if you’ve travelled so far to visit, you must have a good reason.”
“Of course.”
“Can I help?”
“Do you know where I can find some Travellers?”
He glanced back at her, his eyebrows high. “Not far from here. You may want to approach them with caution.”
She frowned. “Why shouldn’t I approach the Travellers?”
“They are being watched.”
“All of them?” Fortunately he was still walking ahead of her, so she didn’t have to feign surprise. The less he knew about her reasons for leaving the better.
“Yes.”
“Who by?”
“The Raen’s old friends.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I heard this from an old friend at Liftre, and not directly. It may be an exaggeration.”
Rielle’s stomach sank. The best way to find a particular Traveller family was to seek the nearest one and ask. By watching all families, Dahli would be warned of Rielle or Qall’s approach sooner. She would have to find Lejihk’s family without other Travellers’ help.
They reached the dining room. Entering, Tarran ushered her to a chair on one side of the large table, then dropped into one opposite. She frowned at him as she realised that the Travellers were the only people Dahli might keep an eye on. If he or one of his students had revealed to anyone at Liftre that she occasionally visited, and Dahli had spies at the school …
“Are you being watched?”
“I don’t think so.” He shrugged. “Which means either I’m not, or whoever is watching is clever at concealing it.” He drummed fingers on the table as he considered the question more seriously. “My servants and students know only that you are a former student. However, there is one visitor who knows better.”
“Tyen.” Rielle’s heart skipped a beat. “Have you heard from him?”
“I have. He has visited only once, I’m sad to say.”
“Did he succeed in learning to pattern-shift?”
Tarran nodded once.
“Did he say why he left the desert world?”
Tarran nodded again. “A former rebel arrived to take magic. They had been doing so for a while. Not as much as Tyen can, of course, but they detected what he was doing and came to investigate. They recognised him and slipped away to report his location. The first he knew about it was when sorcerers turned up to attack him. That he found time to leave any message was remarkable.”
“He escaped them, or he wouldn’t have been talking to you.”
“Yes.”
“So why didn’t he come and tell us?”
“He didn’t want to risk leading them to you, me or Doum. He sent other messages, but none reached me.”
“Did he say where he went then, to learn pattern shifting?”
“No. I did ask.” Tarran shrugged. “He only said it was an uninhabited world, but no less uncomfortable.”
At that moment, two servants entered and laid out several simple dishes, including cold meat sliced thinly, a range of condiments, bread, vegetables and fruit. A bottle of wine was tucked under one servant’s arm, and he presented and opened it with practised ease. Rielle waited until they had left before speaking again.
“Uncomfortable?” She frowned as she heaped food on her plate. “I suppose it would be for most people. Hot. No water. Not a good place to be stranded, if he accidentally used all the magic. Rather like my home, actually. Had he been to Doum?”
“No. I told him what happened there. He … he left in a bleak state of mind.”
“I’m not surprised. He wanted to live there permanently.”
“And he was disappointed that you had left,” Tarran added.
She winced. “At least I left a message. A proper explanation.”
“But that wasn’t all that was bothering him,” Tarran continued. “He said the ongoing wars were partly his fault—though not the one between Murai and Doum—because he’d taught people how to make machines and they’d turned them into weapons. He said he was going to try and fix that.”
“Machines like the creature he made?” she asked. “Like Beetle?”
“Yes. Other inventors have created ones designed to kill, and made armies of them. They are not a great threat to sorcerers, but can be devastating to ordinary peoples.”
A memory surfaced of Valhan handing her the insectoid, saying it was “the future.” She shuddered as she imagined a great swarm of them, stinging and biting. What could Tyen do to stop people making them? How could he prevent them passing on that knowledge? It seemed an impossible task, but she admired him for tackling it, and taking responsibility for it. A pang of longing shot through her.
“I wish I could help,” she said. “But I must leave again and nobody can know where I’ve gone.”
Tarran nodded, and as she tucked into the food he grazed lightly, mostly drinking the wine. Rielle considered what she should do next. She couldn’t risk asking
for directions to Lejihk’s family from other Travellers. The only way she could find them was to begin in the world they had settled in and track them—which might be as dangerous. Dahli would have watchers in every place the family had visited, anticipating that Rielle or Qall might seek them this way.
That turned her mind to another problem she had been wrestling with all the way from Deeme. Once Givari, the girl who had given Qall the braid, received Qall’s message, a watcher was bound to read about it from her mind. Dahli would guess that Rielle or Qall were close by. He might harm one of the family in the hope that she or Qall would try to save them.
When she realised this, she nearly abandoned the task. Only the knowledge that Qall would read her mind as soon as she returned, even if she forbade it, kept her travelling. She would, in his situation. It was vital that she keep him from trying to return until he was mature enough to learn how to pattern-shift. He would stay put for nothing less than knowing the girl understood what his intentions were.
A few solutions had come to her during her infrequent rests. She could arrange for someone else to deliver the braid then report back to her, though that held the danger they would lead Dahli back to her. Or she could leave it somewhere the Travellers would visit in future, disguised somehow so watchers wouldn’t know it was a message for Givari and intercept it. The advantage of the first method was that Qall would have proof it had reached Givari. The advantage of the latter was that she would be long gone before the girl received it and Dahli learned she had returned briefly from hiding.
To do either meant locating Lejihk’s family, and perhaps where they would be visiting in future. Lejihk hadn’t decided what his new circuit of trading worlds would be when she’d left him. Judging by the path he’d recommended to her, he’d explored an impressively long way from their settlement. He wouldn’t have sent her along the same route he was going to take, or he would have diminished her lead over any pursuit. But that left hundreds of worlds to search. Better she start from the world the family had settled in and track them from there.