a thick dark forest of some stout evergreen neither of them could name. The riverbed widened then narrowed again, and continued westward. There was a tremendous noise of rushing water from the south, over the hills, but the gorge continued dry. The sun set early the first day, and the moon was swollen as if it were crashing to earth. The next night, it seemed the sun would never set at all—though it seemed, even while the sky was still hot and blue, that the stars were crowding impatiently at the edge of vision.
The General did not speak all day, despite Liv’s efforts. She read to him from the Child’s History, she questioned him regarding his system of Virtues and his theories of politics, she criticized his tactics, she talked gently of nothing in particular—he didn’t respond.
They had no idea of time. Liv’s golden watch was still not working; Creedmoor was used to telling the time by the sun, which was proving itself unreliable. So they stopped when they had to—that is, whenever the General could take no more. It usually fell to Liv to remind Creedmoor of the old man’s frailty. Creedmoor grumbled but deferred to her expertise.
Water came and went, according to no rhyme or reason that Liv could discern. Some days the valley walls glittered with a bright web of spring-water rivulets and there were clear pools at their feet. Some days the valley was dry as old bones, the parched earth hard as paving stones. Sometimes days went by waterless, and Liv could share just a few rationed sips of stale water each day with the General, who sickened. . . . Creedmoor’s devil pact sustained him, it seemed, and he went without water with no obvious ill effects save, after the third day, a reddening and contraction of the pupils and a darkening of the skin toward the shade of old blood. But if they pressed on, the water would return, and there would be enough and more than enough, and plant matter to eat, and sometimes a rabbit or thing sufficiently like a rabbit. Water’s secret currents pulsed and gathered in the earth, sometimes receding, sometimes surging with life. It came to seem as if time, too, surged and receded—the moon overhead sometimes full and ocean blue, sometimes a narrow slit of ice—as if sometimes the riverbed valley remembered its youth, and sometimes it sank into bitter old age. Some days it was a friend and some days an enemy. There was nothing to be done about it but to press on and hope for the best.
“Interesting,” Creedmoor observed.
Light spilled down the valley from a red sun in the west, risen early and hung defiantly low. Long mountain shadows lunged out to meet them. The dry riverbed burned like brass in the sun; the cracks in the mud were a stark lacework of shadow. Even Creedmoor, who could, in normal circumstances, stare into the sun till the damn thing set, had to cover his eyes to look down the valley ahead. “Interesting,” he repeated.
Liv, eyes screwed half-closed and downcast, did not respond. Creedmoor appeared somewhat annoyed, and went silent.
It was another hour’s trek before Liv could see them. First as four long black lines of shadow running down the valley floor toward them. Then as four bleached-white sticks poking up out of the mud in the middle of the valley. Lastly, when they were almost on top of them, as five rough wooden grave-markers.
The markers were wrist-thick branches, cut and stripped white. Three still stood straight. One tilted. One had fallen and was half-buried by dust. Beneath the markers were five shallow mounds of mud and clay.
Three were draped with medals, most of which had fallen on the ground when their ribbons rotted through. On one the words MOTHER and WIFE and DAUGHTER and TEACHER were carved; there was a silver necklace wound round it, held in place by rusting wire. An old yellow book, flayed almost to chalk or dust by time, lay beneath a fourth grave.
“These are not Hillfolk graves.”
“No, Liv. We’ll make a frontierswoman of you yet. In fact, the Folk do not exactly bury their dead as we do, but take them deep into their warrens under the rock; I do not know what happens next; I’ve had dealings with them, but no outsider sees the Rebirth.” He lifted a medal off one of the sticks and tossed it up and caught it. “These are the graves of men and