He seemed to enjoy the images he conjured a little too much.
"That's still better than some. Those what they take back their camps. If they're really hungry, they'll just eat you. A little bit at a time. That might last weeks."
"Don't worry about us. We have business to conduct with the Fen Folk." Sera's eyes seemed to glow the slightest bit unnaturally as she spoke.
The pinched-faced man backed away, muttering about witches. The taller man smirked. "They won't fall for your tricks as simply as Grutch here did. Watch yourselves. We won't be there to help you when it all goes wrong."
Cassian felt a bit uneasy as they rode on into the marsh. Fen Folk tended to stay away from groups of travelers, they wanted to keep to themselves. At least that's what the books all said. But it was getting dark, and the road that wound through the pools and the rushes and the low willow trees was getting harder to see. The edges of the road tended to fall off into water or mud or worse.
"We need to stop soon. I can't see where we're going," he said.
"We will. We're almost there."
"Almost where?"
"One of the bowers. There are safe places to sleep here."
Cassian blinked. Of course she knew the fens. He'd even bought fen plants from her himself. He felt much better about their odds for surviving the night.
About fifteen minutes later, just as the sun was sinking below the far horizon, Sera led them down a very narrow path off the main road. He would have missed it himself, it looked like a small break in the reeds. They were on the path for a hundred yards or so when Cassian found himself looking at what seemed to be a rounded mound of willow branches, just about as tall as his horse.
Sera dismounted and led her horse around the side of the mound, coming to a small area with a high fence of willows and stone, the mound forming one side of the enclosure. She tugged open a gate and led the horse inside. Once Cassian's horse was in, she shut the gate behind them.
"They'll be safe here. The fen cats won't climb these walls. Some of these branches woven into the fence are from the jubal tree, and the cats don't like the smell. And perhaps there are other wards as well, I've never known enough to check."
She opened a door in the side of the mound that Cassian hadn't even seen, leading inside to an area big enough to contain a dozen people or more. Lifting her packs from her horse, she motioned Cassian to do the same and follow her inside.
Cassian was nervous about using torchlight inside what was essentially a large pile of wood, but he found a pair of small torches was enough to illuminate the entire area, and the smoke drifted out through a series of cleverly twisted holes in the roof. The wood itself seemed to remain wet, which was at least partially from the fog that was settling in for the night, but also seemed to be resulting from a mild enchantment that covered the entire bower. Sera even started a small cooking fire in a pit dug for just such a use. All in all, this would be a surprisingly comfortable place to spend the night.
Sera began to tie up a hammock between two poles inside the bower, and nodded to Cassisan to take one from her packs to tie up for himself. She had planned to stay here all along and had come prepared. "The ground in here can crawl a little in the dark. Best to be up off of it by a couple of feet while we sleep."
They ate well that night. Sera was as talented cooking with rare plants as she was at harvesting them, and when she combined them with dried pork and goat cheese, the spicy meal made for a refreshing end to a long eventful day. Cassian was feeling much better about their prospects after filling his belly, and Sera's mood seemed to also improve.
She looked at the black feather again in the flickering torchlight. Even in low light, the blackness of the feather stood out in sharp contrast to the background. It almost seemed to absorb light.
"I never believed the legends were literally true," Cassian said. "I thought they were stories in books."
"The phoenix is real, and that old Rambler has seen it."
"Maybe he found the feather. Or stole it from someone."
Sera glared at him. They both knew better. The old man had not come by this feather second-hand.
"And now he's searching for the bird again. Why? And why if he is so anxious to find it did he give me a part of it that he had found?"
The Rambler had confidence he'd find the bird again, that was why. Or he had more feathers. Or...
"He was looking for the bird for someone else's benefit, and he thinks that someone is us." Sera stated it as a fact.
Cassian opened his mouth to argue, but said nothing. It was possible that's exactly what John The Rambler had thought.
"The feather has a power, Cassian, I can feel it. I can feel it around me, and it makes me feel safer. But that I need to feel safer makes me feel less safe."
"I understand," he said, and he rose to give her a hug.
She smiled at him. "Thank you."
Cassian felt warm as he climbed into his hammock, despite the chill of the fog and the cool air of the fen.
He lay there, listening to Sera breathe, and after her breathing slowed into sleep, he listened to the calls of the frogs and the chirp of the crickets out in the reeds.
His eyes grew heavy, and he slipped into sleep, thinking of Sera and of the black feather.
He awoke some hours later, aware something was wrong but his head was not yet clear enough to understand what it was. Then he realized it was silent. No animal sounds. No birds. No bugs. The fens were never quiet, he knew, not unless there was a predator about.
He started to move his hand to reach for his dagger, which he'd placed atop his pack next to his hammock. When something grabbed his wrist and held it in place, he jerked, nearly turning himself out of the hammock and to the ground.
"Be still boy. We don't want to hurt you."
He saw there was more than one of them in the bower. Four. Maybe five. Fen Folk by the accent and by the smells. And by the long poles tipped with sharp forks. The Fen Folk were known for the weapon. They used it to spear fish and frogs in the multitude of small shallow ponds within the fens. And to spear intruders.
"Relax Cassian, I know these men. And I should have known they'd come tonight."
Sera was standing among them, seemingly calm, though Cassian thought he detected a slight edge in her voice.
"It is good to see you again, harvester. We knew you were in the fens, with a...friend this time. You're always welcome to use our bowers, you know that."
"I didn't expect to see you in this bower in the middle of the night, Lurm."
"We would have waited to see if you came to trade, but..." The largest of the Fen Folk trailed off here. He was a big man. Muscles, but almost fat on top of it. The sprawling unkempt beard common to his people completed the look. "But you have more with you this time. We had to find out what your purpose is, bringing that here."
Cassian knew they weren't talking about him. Somehow they knew about the feather. Or probably they just knew there was something unusual here. The Fen Folk were highly attuned to magic, according to what he'd read. Some said it came from talking to the willow whisps that trawled the fens for the unwary. For all Cassian knew, that might even be true. In any case, the feather was powerful, and people who used nature magic the way the Fen Folk did would have to be aware of it. Sera's abilities with nature probably intensified the feeling. In fact, maybe they noticed its effect on her.
She sighed, as if she had known this moment would be inevitable. She pulled the black feather out and showed it to them. They eyed it warily.
The leader, apparently named Lurm, narrowed his eyes as he looked up to Sera's face.
"Where did you get it? Did you find the bird? Where was she?"
"No, I have not yet seen her." Sera put the feather away. "It was an old man named John the Rambler who gave it to me."
At this all four of the Fen Folk looked directly into Sera's eyes.
"John the Rambler? Hisself? Why that's harder to believe than finding the bird! Your takin us for a ride down the crick!"
Cassian wasn't sure what a crick was, but he got the feeling it wasn't something these fellows wanted to ride down. But why were they reacting so strongly to the old man's name? Did they know who he was? Had he visited their camps? It was hard to imagine that huge vardo winding its way through the reeds and ponds here.
Sera seemed a little confused as well. That was good, she hadn't known the Rambler and held that information from Cassian.
"That was what he called himself. He was an old man in a Rambler wagon. He said he was seeking the bird. He had many small birds working for him, flying through the wood and telling him what they found."
"Har! That was John the Rambler alright. He's the King Of All Birds! They all do what he wants. Except the one bird. The phoenix. She answers to no one."
The men shuffled their feet, lost in thought. "But if he's looking for her, he must have a reason. And he gave you the feather." Everyone had the same thoughts, it seemed.
"He said it would protect me."
"Protect you? Aye, it will do that alright. You need not fear fire while you wear that feather. Not even the fires of hell itself!"
"I am not planning to venture to hell."
At that the men laughed. "No one ever does, Fela. No one ever does."
Cassian made note of the name they called her. Or was it a title?
"John the Rambler is not the only man seeking rare birds. The king's army has been plodding through our reeds and our ponds