Naamah's Blessing - By Jacqueline Carey Page 0,122

felt awful for the men laboring in their armor, but it was beautiful, too. We travelled along narrow footpaths through the thick greenery. Here, we began to see the flowers of surpassing beauty that Denis had mentioned so long ago—an incredible array of orchids that sprouted from the trunks of living trees or rose defiantly from the decay of fallen trunks, ladders of delicate blossoms nodding on long, slender stems, impossibly lovely.

Iridescent emerald hummingbirds darted here and there amidst the blossoms, their wings a buzzing blur. Monkeys chattered at us from the trees, and birds with dazzling plumage took flight with raucous cries.

“It reminds me of Bhaktipur,” Bao said to me.

I smiled wistfully. “It does, doesn’t it?”

But all too soon, as Eyahue had predicted, the jungle turned to swamp. Firm trails turned into a quagmire, with as much as half a foot of standing water underfoot. Everything smelled of vegetal rot. The thick muck sucked at our feet, making every plodding step an effort. I did not know who fared worse, the men in armor struggling to make progress, or our poor pack-horses, who sank knee-and hock-deep in the mire at times, plunging free with difficulty.

I did my best to encourage the former and soothe the latter, but stone and sea! It was hard going.

“How far, Eyahue?” I gasped on the first day.

The old pochteca grunted. “Tomorrow or the next day. You are lucky to have me,” he added again. “I know the best paths.”

I daresay it was true.

Thanks to Eyahue’s guidance, we were able to make camp the first night in the swamp on land that, while not precisely dry, was merely muddy. After gnawing on stale flatbread, men rolled themselves into their cloaks and dropped into an exhausted sleep. While well watered, our pack-horses went hungry for the night.

The second day was worse; and the second night worst of all. There was no solid land, dry or muddy, to be found. We slogged through the swamp until the light failed us, and dozed as best we could, soaked and miserable, wedging ourselves in the crooks of the hardy trees that sank their roots deep into the mire.

On the third day, we won clear of the swamp. Bit by bit, the ground grew more solid, the trees sparser, until a vast savannah of grasslands stretched before us.

Balthasar Shahrizai whooped in approval, flinging his arms into the air. “Blessed Elua be praised!”

“We’ve not reached Tawantinsuyo yet,” Eyahue said in a testy manner. “There’s a long way to go.”

“But you said that was the worst of it?” I asked him.

He pursed his wrinkled lips. “The worst until we reach the river passage.”

Although there were hours of light left, everyone was exhausted and the horses were famished. We unloaded them and turned them loose to graze, then set about building a roaring bonfire despite the heat, propping our sodden clothing on stakes to dry, the men tending to their gear. Septimus Rousse made a hearty porridge of sweet potatoes and maize from our stores, and all of us felt better for having a warm meal in our bellies.

“It really does feel like a whole new world,” Denis said in a contemplative tone, gazing across the sea of waving grass. “And to imagine that for thousands of years, no one knew it was here.”

“Except for the millions of people who lived here,” Bao pointed out.

Denis waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, you know what I mean! I’ve never been to Ch’in, but I knew it was there, as surely as you knew Terre d’Ange existed before you set foot on it.”

Bao stifled a yawn. “I never thought about it. I would not have left Ch’in were it not for Master Lo.” He gave me a tired smile. “And I would not have left it a second time were it not for Moirin.”

“Denis, why did Thierry want to come here so badly?” I asked him. “I know he did, but I never fully understood why.”

“Glory,” Balthasar murmured when Denis did not reply right away. “Adventure. All his life, Thierry felt overshadowed by the deeds of his ancestors in the past, and stifled by the tragedies that befell House Courcel in his father’s lifetime. He wanted to live life to its utmost, to walk the knife’s edge between terror and exhilaration. He wanted to pit himself against the greatest challenge he could imagine. In our lifetime, that’s the exploration of Terra Nova.”

There was a little silence.

“What the Circle of Shalomon attempted didn’t help,” Denis said quietly.