moment, my lord,” Willowspear promised. He scrambled up to the crest. “Now, Smith behold the—”
Smith climbed up beside him and stood, gazing down at the wide valley below the mountain. He frowned. Regular lines of green, stretching to the near horizon…
“Those are tents,” he pointed out.
“But that was—” began Willowspear, and his eyes widened in horror as he saw the piled mounds of cut trees far below, that which had been the bowers of Rethkast, fast yellowing.
Smith was distracted by a slight sting in his foot. He shifted his weight in annoyance, thinking to kick the wasp away. How had he been stung through his boot? He looked down and saw the tuft of green feathers sticking in his foot, and father down the mountain the Yendri who had shot him, clinging to a precarious handhold. There were others below him, like a line of ants scaling a wall.
He had a rock in his hand before he knew what he was doing, and had hurled it down into the Yendri’s glaring face. There was some sort of horrific and spectacular chain reaction then, but he didn’t have time to notice it much, because yanking the dart out of his boot took all his concentration. Then Willowspear pulled him away from the edge, and they were staggering back the way they’d come. Lord Ermenwyr was at his elbow suddenly, dragging him into the cave.
There was a dark passage running into the heart of the mountain, but not far, because they came at once to a sealed door. Lord Ermenwyr was pounding on it, yammering curses or prayers. Smith could hear Willowspear weeping behind him.
There was a calm voice in Smith’s head saying: Some of the poison may have stayed in the leather of your boot, and after all you survived a much stronger dose, once before, and there is always the possibility you’ve built up some immunity. On the other hand…
But he was still conscious. He was still on his feet, though events had begun to take on a certain dreamlike quality. For example: When the door opened at last, he beheld the biggest woman he’d ever seen in his life.
She looked like a slightly disheveled goddess, beautiful in a heroic kind of way, gorgeously robed in purple and scarlet. A bracelet like a golden serpent coiled up one graceful biceps. Smith thought she ought to be standing on a pedestal in a temple courtyard, with a cornucopia of fruit under her arm…
“Did you bring him?” she inquired.
An instinct Smith hadn’t used in years took over, and he found himself turning and running back the way he’d come, without quite knowing why. At least, he was trying to run. In actuality he got about three steps before collapsing into Willowspear’s arms, and the last thing he saw was the young man’s tear-streaked face.
Smith was walking along a road. It was winter, somewhere high among mountains, and the hoarfrost on the road and the snow on the peaks above him were eerily green as turquoise, because it was early morning and a lot of light was streaking in under the clouds. There were mists rising. There were shifting vapors and fogs.
He was following his father. He could see the figure Walking ahead, appearing and reappearing as the mist obscured him. He only glimpsed the wide-brimmed hat, the sweep of cloak; but clearly and without interruption he heard the regular ring of the iron-shod staff on stone.
He tried to call out, to get his father to turn and stop. Somehow, the striding figure never heard him. Smith ran, slipping on the patches of black ice, determined to catch his father, to ask him why he’d never….never…
He was lost in a cloud. The gloom enveloped him, and all he could see was a sullen red glow—
He was holding a staff. It rang, struck sparks from the rock as he swung it. He could not stop, he could not even slow down, for he was following True Fire though he could not see her, and she would not wait for him.
You bear my name.
I do? No, I don’t, it’s an alias. How could you be my father? I never knew my father. My aunt always said he might have been a sailor. This is a dream.
You walk in my footsteps.
You don’t leave footsteps! You never leave a trace. Not one shred of proof. Damn you anyway for never being there.
You kill like a passing shadow, just as I had to kill.
Never liked it. Never wanted